0:00:00[music]
0:00:07-From Relay, this is Upgrade, episode 534 for October 21st, 2024.
0:00:14Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace, Fitbot, and Vitaly,
0:00:18and we are facing off in a draft today.
0:00:22My name is Mike Hurley and I'm joined by my competitor and co-host, Jason Snow.
0:00:28Hi, Jason.
0:00:29-Hi, Mike. Let's play a clean game, leave it all out on the field.
0:00:33Good luck, gentlemen.
0:00:36-Yeah, this is a weird one because we're just doing a little draft later on in the episode,
0:00:39because we'll get to it.
0:00:41There's less to draft now than there was when we spoke last Monday.
0:00:45-Yes, there's less to draft, it's true.
0:00:47-Taken off the table.
0:00:48-But we still think something is going to be announced, and so we're going to predict it.
0:00:54-We will start off with a Snell Talk question.
0:00:56It comes from James from the +44 who asks,
0:00:59"I was a huge fan of Jason's TV Talk Machine podcast with the one and only Tim Goodman,
0:01:05and it helped me discover lots of great shows.
0:01:07I would like to know where does Jason get TV recommendations and reviews from these days?
0:01:12I still have a TV Talk Machine shaped hole in my life. Love to your mothers."
0:01:15-I mean, this is very nice.
0:01:17That was a fun show.
0:01:21When Tim stopped being forcibly required by his job to review TV shows, we stopped the podcast.
0:01:28He went off and wrote he had a development deal with FX for a little while, and now he's back,
0:01:34and he's got a substack that you can subscribe to, and so I do read that.
0:01:40I read some, like Alan Sepinwall is a good source.
0:01:44He writes at Rolling Stone and has a substack of his own that's free.
0:01:49I read various, I don't know, I just kind of look around and I hear what people are talking about,
0:01:54and I get recommendations from friends and stuff, but yes, I have missed.
0:01:57It was really nice to talk every week to somebody who was forced by their job to watch as many TV
0:02:02shows as possible, because Tim was really good at saying, "Oh, this was really good.
0:02:06You should watch this," or even the "Don't bother with this one" thing.
0:02:10But also, I have so many shows already that I don't feel the need quite so much,
0:02:16but it is really nice to hear from a trusted source that this thing or this other thing is
0:02:21worth a shot, and I will follow this up by just saying, my recommendation of the moment that we
0:02:32just discussed last week, it is entirely there, the entire season is available on Apple TV Plus,
0:02:39is Vince Vaughn in Bad Monkey, which is spectacularly good, it is so good.
0:02:50It has that Florida noir vibe where it's funny, but also there's a mystery and everything is a
0:03:00little bit shabby and shady, and there's scenery, and there's, again, jokes, and I don't know,
0:03:09I loved it. Plus, it's a Bill Lawrence show, so it's also got that vibe that's a little bit like
0:03:16the hangout vibe that you get on something like Shrinking, which came back, which high
0:03:21recommendation for that too. I watched the first episode of the second season, and it's just as
0:03:26good, so I'm very happy about that. That show's so good. This show is so well written. So well
0:03:31written, that show. I agree completely. So anyway, I'll throw Bad Monkey on the list. If you're like,
0:03:37I don't know, some show about a monkey, well, there's a monkey in it, but it's not about the
0:03:42monkey at all, really, at this point. I mean, I have only seen half of it. Probably it becomes
0:03:46very monkey-centric later. No, I'm sure it doesn't. But look, it's just part of the vibe, right?
0:03:52There's a guy with a monkey, and there's a lady who does curses, and there's a shady land developer,
0:03:58and there's a severed body part that is found, and, you know, it's a thing. It's great. It's
0:04:06very fun and funny. So Bad Monkey high recommendation for me. But yeah, it's hard
0:04:11without having... It was really nice. What I'm saying is, it's really nice to know a TV critic,
0:04:15because then you can just say, "Hey, what are we watching?" But I don't have that anymore.
0:04:21Well, for me, that is you, which is funny. You're my person. I will also make a couple
0:04:27of recommendations. I think we may have spoken about it, but for me at least, I watched it all
0:04:32ages ago, because I do have early access to it, which I'm very happy about. Slow Horses,
0:04:35the season is superb. Superbly good. Really, really good. Do you know they just greenlit season six,
0:04:44so that five is done, and they're doing yet another one? I'm like, yes, do it forever,
0:04:48you know? Just keep doing it. Do it forever. Love it. So good. The characters are fantastic.
0:04:53The guy who plays the main, like the lead, not Gary Oldman, like the second lead.
0:04:58Yeah, River.
0:04:58River.
0:04:59Jack Louden is his name.
0:05:00He's married to Shari... Oh, man. Shari's Ronan? S-A-O-I-R.
0:05:09Saoirse.
0:05:10Saoirse Ronan. Thank you.
0:05:11It's Irish.
0:05:12Anyway, she suggested, which I love, that he should be the next James Bond, which I 100% agree with.
0:05:18I would like him to be James Bond. I think he would be a good James Bond. I don't think
0:05:21it will be him, but I think it should be. A little mini Apple TV+ news here, by the way.
0:05:25Shrinking got picked up for season three. Wonderful.
0:05:29So they're going ahead with that, which is great. And this is like a little asterisk on the whole,
0:05:34like, Apple adding TV+ as a channel on Prime Video. Like, this is why I think it's a great move,
0:05:42is their catalog is really good now. They started with nothing and have built a catalog. And at this
0:05:48point, like, even if you, you know, if you just never paid any attention, I mean, even for one
0:05:53month, you could get, you could watch your fill for $10 for one month with Prime Video buying it
0:06:01as a channel. So I hope these shows find other audiences because they're doing some great work
0:06:05over there. And Silo's coming back, which is also great.
0:06:08It was actually on that note, too, I saw a promotion for shrinking season two from the
0:06:15Amazon Prime Video account on Instagram. Right, because now they get to be in the
0:06:21marketing machine for Amazon, which is a big deal for them. So thank you, James. And I guess,
0:06:26in addition to being the world's foremost Kindle podcast, maybe we'll occasionally recommend a TV
0:06:30show for you here. But that's it. Sorry. Oh, I did. I want to make one final recommendation
0:06:35for, because I think people have started to stay away from these shows, but Agatha All Along on
0:06:40Disney+ is excellent. It's really good. It's excellent. It's really good. Because the cast is
0:06:44brilliant and it's weird and fun and it's spooky. It is not a Marvel, it is not a Marvel show in,
0:06:50I would say, any appreciable way, even though it is, well, yeah, I know, but it is not, it's going
0:06:56to have tie-ins because it does have tie-ins. It is in some ways sort of a direct sequel to
0:07:00WandaVision, which, by the way, is the first and still maybe the best of all Marvel TV shows in
0:07:07this run that's been done by Marvel Studios. And it's the same showrunner as WandaVision,
0:07:13which I think is super important. And it is, yeah, it's really good. It's not what you expect. It is
0:07:20kind of a character drama with action and it's using witchcraft tropes, so magic stuff.
0:07:27So it's a different vibe than you're going to get from your more superhero-y kind of Marvel show.
0:07:33Yeah, I agree. High recommendation. Really, really good. Really good. Yeah, the first episode is
0:07:39just superb. Like, it's just, like, superb. They did a great job with that show. I've enjoyed it
0:07:43a lot. And Kathryn Hahn is just, like, incredible. Good supporting cast in that one, too. Aubrey Plaza,
0:07:49I mean, are you kidding me? Like, it's just great. It's really, really good. Did you see what Aubrey
0:07:53Plaza, the bit that Aubrey Plaza did the other day? She was at the finals of the WNBA in New York.
0:07:59Not Game 5, which they just had, where the New York Liberty won. We were excited by that, because
0:08:05one of their players is Sabrina Yanescu, who went to Oregon and is from the Bay Area. So
0:08:09we had a rooting interest in the WNBA. And Sabrina did the three-point shootout thing
0:08:17with Steph Curry at the NBA All-Star Game, which I watched a clip of because there was a Vision Pro
0:08:22Immersive NBA All-Star Game thing that dropped last Friday. Spectacular, by the way. Like the
0:08:30Super Bowl one, they took their time a little bit. I wish it had been three times as long,
0:08:35because I would have liked to watch, like, more of it. It was more like, and this happened,
0:08:40spectacular visuals, and now we move on to this thing that happened, spectacular visuals.
0:08:44I wish I would have loved to watch the whole three-point contest and the whole Steph versus
0:08:49Sabrina showdown in Immersive. It was great. Also, a little sad moment, they're showing
0:08:53these amazing shots of the slam dunk contest and you're courtside. And I was really sad,
0:08:58because you're courtside next to Bill Walton, the great basketball player who died about three
0:09:03months after the NBA All-Star Game. But he was there, and he was cheering and all, and that was
0:09:09pretty awesome. So anyway, Aubrey Plaza, they showed her on the big screen at the basketball
0:09:16game, and what was she doing? She had a book, and she was reading a book. So she was at the finals
0:09:21last night, because I saw a clip of her today. They went to her, she just double flipping the
0:09:26bird to everyone. Yeah, she's incredible. Amazing, amazing. Anyway, thank you to James from The
0:09:34Plus 4/4 for the Snell Talk question. If you'd like to send in a question of your own, just go
0:09:38to upgradefeedback.com and send us a Snell Talk. I have a couple of follow-up items, Jason Snell.
0:09:44First comes from Sam, who says, off of the listening to the discussion of Submerged,
0:09:49do you think there is a future for filmmakers using the immersive recording during feature-length
0:09:54movies, but only in certain scenes, similar to how Christopher Nolan uses IMAX for specific scenes
0:09:59and then drops back to standard shots? The bulk of the movie could be viewed in a standard way,
0:10:03but then for specific scenes, it could benefit from being in an immersive view and could
0:10:08transition in and then back out again. I mean, it's possible. It would be a gimmick, but Nolan
0:10:16flipping you into IMAX is also a gimmick. I saw one of the Batman movies that Nolan directed
0:10:21in, I think, Dark Knight in IMAX, and suddenly it's like, "Oh, now we're in IMAX. Oh,
0:10:26now we're not anymore." So you could do it that way. That would be interesting. I still think
0:10:33that a standalone, an immersive view of something that happens in the movie from
0:10:41a different vantage point in immersive might be a more fun kind of extra. Obviously, to do this,
0:10:47Apple's going to have to spend a lot of money because the audience on Vision Pro is so small
0:10:52that there would be no financial reason for a studio to do it. But if a director like,
0:10:57what is it, John M. Chu is super into the Vision Pro, he loves it, and it wouldn't surprise me if
0:11:03he's like, "Apple, what can we do with my next movie? What can we do with this?" So, I mean,
0:11:07I think people will still experiment, whether it's an alternate scene that gets, when you watch it on
0:11:13Vision Pro, it gets spliced in or just an alternate scene in immersive that you can watch as a
0:11:17standalone or something. I definitely think there are going to be some filmmakers who are really
0:11:23into this and looked at Submerged and said, like we did, like, "Huh, he had an interesting
0:11:30approach to that." And my favorite thing about Submerged, and I liked it, but my favorite thing
0:11:34about it is watching, really, you can watch a very intelligent, talented director trying to
0:11:40figure out the best approach to use artistically in a different version of a medium that he knows
0:11:48pretty well. I would love to see other people do it. And I'm sure some directors were out there
0:11:54who were like, "Oh man, I want to do this too." So I hope we see more of this. But, you know,
0:11:59maybe if there's a director with clout who has a good relationship with Apple and they're making
0:12:04a movie and they say, "Look, you know, we want to do this immersive thing attached to this movie in
0:12:09some way." I'm sure it could happen, but we'll just have to see that's a real confluence of events
0:12:15there. And it depends on how much Apple wants to make it happen. Yeah, it feels like something that
0:12:19they could do for one of their movies, you know, like an Apple TV movie and maybe you could do it
0:12:26as a separate thing. They also have a really good relationship with Disney, right? So, you know,
0:12:31if they were willing to take a Disney or Marvel or, you know, or Star Wars movie and put money
0:12:40into a Vision Pro immersive add-on to it, but they got to put the money in it. I mean,
0:12:45that's the bottom line is they got to put the money in if they want it to happen.
0:12:48An anonymous listener wrote in and said, "I wanted to respond to your conversation
0:12:54about meta showing Orion from a place of weakness and that Apple hasn't done this for a long time.
0:12:59I think Apple Intelligence was Apple showing AI features while they're not ready yet. It's
0:13:04a good example of how Apple is showing its panic a weakness in this area. If they were
0:13:08doing it from strength, they would have introduced it whenever they are almost ready."
0:13:12Yeah, 100% true. And we also talked about that last week, right? We talked about the fact that
0:13:18Apple very much is selling the iPhone using features that don't exist yet and that you
0:13:22shouldn't buy an iPhone because of features that don't exist yet. But, you know, the conversation
0:13:27last week was really about pre-announcing hardware. And I would say the other difference
0:13:32is that Apple actually, I think, intends to ship Apple Intelligence between now and next June
0:13:37and everything they showed in June at WWDC is something that they intend to ship.
0:13:42And the contrast there is that meta, you know, doesn't plan on shipping Orion at all.
0:13:47They specifically said they will not ship it, right? Like this, what we have seen,
0:13:51that will never ship.
0:13:53They showed hardware that will never go to customers and anything like it won't ship for,
0:13:58they said, years. They were vague, but it's years. And so for me, that seems like a very
0:14:04different thing than, I mean, like Apple Showvision Pro and Apple Watch months before they shipped,
0:14:10but they did ship exactly in that form and it was months. This is a product that nobody's
0:14:13ever going to get. And I think that that is, that was my point is a lot of tech companies like to
0:14:19show off tech demos of things that don't exist. Like they're not, you will never be able to buy
0:14:24this thing. It happens at CES all the time, but you see it with major companies too.
0:14:26Look at Tesla, like last week, right?
0:14:28Oh, man. Right. So, so let's anyway, the, I don't have enough time to tell you all the things that
0:14:37are, that are wrong with the strategic direction of that company right now. The, so the thing about
0:14:45this is I was pointing out that like, when was the last time that Apple showed hardware that they
0:14:50didn't intend to ship and just, and just did it to show off their technical prowess and where they
0:14:56were going with their research lab. And that in that context, like I can't remember, like you
0:15:01pointed out, I think the last time they really talked about hardware that didn't exist, that they
0:15:06were promising on shipping was that Mac Pro thing, which is legendary. We talk about it to this day,
0:15:10the round table, where they brought in a bunch of journalists and said, we love the Mac Pro. We're
0:15:15going to make a new one eventually, no more information. And then it was years before it
0:15:20happened. It's a meme now, but AirPower too, right? Like here's the saying.
0:15:24Yeah. Although that, I think Apple, I don't think Apple showed that out of weakness. I think Apple
0:15:29showed that out of confidence that it was going to ship. So I think it's a different issue. They
0:15:32just screwed it up. That was not, that was not a, like, Oh, we feel the pressure to put out an
0:15:37AirPower. So we get better get out there now. I'm just saying I'm coming from this, from the
0:15:41perspective of somebody who in the nineties, the magazine I worked for published a whole feature
0:15:46article of prototypes of Macs that never existed. Some of them sort of parts of them got into other
0:15:54products. Like there was a bunch of things that looked sort of like the 20th anniversary Macintosh,
0:15:58but like Apple was just like, we're spending all this money on R and D and we're not doing
0:16:03anything with it. What do we do? And the answer is show the world that we're spending the money.
0:16:07And that, that was the vibe I got from Metta. I don't think that is troubled. Like Apple of the
0:16:12nineties was troubled by far. Cause no, that bad. That was bad. That was a bad era. But I, again,
0:16:21they're trying, they're showing something that doesn't ever gonna, isn't going to ship to
0:16:24customers because they want to send a message that they're on it. And that's because they felt like
0:16:30they were being misjudged. So that was the point. It is absolutely true. So I stand by my point,
0:16:35which is Apple. I can't remember the last time Apple carted out a piece of hardware
0:16:40that was like, this will never ship, but we'll see in three years for the argument of like,
0:16:46why don't they show their own AR project right now? And but yes, as we said last episode,
0:16:53the Apple intelligence announcement is 100% from a position of weakness. That is Apple
0:16:58getting out ahead and shipping and promoting features that don't even exist yet because they
0:17:04haven't shipped like on top of the stuff that's about to come out, they're advertising features
0:17:08that will not arrive until the end of the year or maybe early next year. And they're doing that
0:17:12because they're behind in AI. That is a hundred percent true. And may not be good even when they
0:17:17do ship. And may not be good in the further out they are, which is a point we made last week,
0:17:22the further out they are, the more risk you take that the demo that you saw back in June,
0:17:26that it does this by the time it ships, it's like, well, it doesn't quite do that cause we
0:17:30couldn't get that to work. So it does something sort of like that, but not as good. And that is
0:17:34always a danger. And I was, I still think some of the features that we saw will not make it
0:17:38until 19. I don't know what, but I think this is such a long period of time, like they're
0:17:46potentially going to be shipping this stuff. Something is not going to go exactly the way
0:17:51they want. And they would like a little bit more time on it, sort of just put it into 19.
0:17:54If I had to guess my, I'd say the mo more likely is that it's a, it's an aspect of it,
0:18:00right? So they're like, Oh, well, you're going to be able to do a Siri control of apps,
0:18:05but they're only Apple apps using app intense. And then it's going to be like, it's really only
0:18:10these two apps, right? Like something like that where they're like, Oh, I thought it was all the
0:18:13Apple apps. And I was like, no, it's just, it's just calendar. That's the only one we could do.
0:18:18Right. And you're like, okay, fine. Right. Whatever. So I think that's, I think that's
0:18:22going to happen. So it's really interesting times though. I just, and I don't want to,
0:18:26I don't want to ding too meta too much for it because we both agreed that it was a good move
0:18:31on their part. It's just like for Apple to get over that. I think, I think Apple, Apple doesn't
0:18:37need to prove that it's interested in this. Although something that struck me, which I don't
0:18:42think we're going to talk about, but, uh, there was a wall street journal. It was like a little
0:18:45profile of Tim Cook. There's not a whole lot in it other than the tidbit. I haven't read it yet.
0:18:50Honestly, what struck me about that article is that's the kind of venue that you use an interview
0:18:56with Tim Cook on good morning America or in the wall street journal or something like that,
0:19:00where obviously prompted by Apple PR to do this. But you, that is a great environment for Tim Cook
0:19:07to do a little disclosure that I think might solve some of this, which is you asked Tim Cook about
0:19:12medicine announcement and Tim Cook says something like we've had stuff like that in our labs for a
0:19:18couple of years too. And we agree with meta it's not ready yet. And at Apple, we don't ship stuff
0:19:24until it's ready to ship. So, you know, I'm glad that they believe in this. We believe in it too.
0:19:30We're here to compete, but we're not going to talk about products that aren't ready to ship.
0:19:36And that would be a way for the CEO's voice to basically say, we got that too, but we're not
0:19:42going to show it to you in a way in a, in a, in a interview or something where it's just like
0:19:47almost tossed off, but it's absolutely strategic for them to just say,
0:19:51look, we, we know we got it too. We're working like they are, but we're not going to show it to you.
0:19:59And I think that that it struck me that that's the kind of thing you could do
0:20:02if you want to counter them, the meta argument is you could just acknowledge that like, great,
0:20:11we we've got prototypes too. We'll, you know, see on the playing field in a few years. And,
0:20:17and that would be a way that you could handle it by the way, the tidbit and the Tim Cook article
0:20:21that was the best is the interviewer asks him what he's named some of his iMessage chat groups.
0:20:28And he said, he said, Oh, I've never done that. Maybe I should try that. And then in a subsequent
0:20:32chat with a writer, he said, Oh, I did what you suggested. I, uh, I, I renamed my chat with my
0:20:39roommates from college and what's it called roommates. I love him so much. You know, like
0:20:46that is such great energy. I saw another one, which is this is, this is, this is Tim energy
0:20:51right there. I think I saw another where he said his favorite drink was diet Mountain Dew, but he
0:20:56doesn't get to drink it too much because they don't stock it in Apple. And it's like, okay,
0:21:00you're the CEO. Okay. So, so I've got a couple. So first off, yes, I like Tim Cook. My favorite soda
0:21:08is also diet Mountain Dew. So look at that. We got that Tim, but you're the CEO. So one,
0:21:15you could have them stock it too. You could just have a person buy diet Mountain Dew and put it in
0:21:21the, you know, your receptionist outer office for your office and have it available to you. You
0:21:27could do it that way. Uh, but like, I mean, surely cafe max could, unless they've got some sort of
0:21:31weird, like, did they sign a, a distribution deal with Coke? And so their Pepsi products are not
0:21:37allowed. I don't know what's going on there, but I'll just, here's a tip for Tim Cook. You can get
0:21:42diet Mountain Dew, uh, soda stream bottles and just get a little soda stream and make your own
0:21:48diet Mountain Dew. I can do that now. I actually do that now. So, uh, lots of options out there
0:21:54for Tim to, uh, and, and my condolences to Tim on how bad the Auburn Tigers are playing this year.
0:22:00I will just say, I just went to, and they did pick out two things that are, I guess,
0:22:05pertinent to the conversation where, uh, in regards to the vision pro saying that at $3,500,
0:22:10it's not a mass market product right now. It's an early adopter product. People who want to have
0:22:15tomorrow's technology today. It's like, yep, that's a great answer. And then also talking
0:22:20about his innovation saying we're perfectly fine with not being first. Uh, it takes a long,
0:22:25it takes a while to do it really great. It takes a lot of iteration, you know, so like he, he's
0:22:29winking, right? Like we'd rather come out with the kind of product and the kind of contribution
0:22:34of people versus running to get something out first. If we can do both, that's fantastic,
0:22:38but if we can do one, there's no doubt around here. Right, right. So that, and that, that's
0:22:43my point is if they feel like there's some advantage to be gained from saying, yeah,
0:22:47we've got prototype glasses too, and they aren't. And just as meta found out, they're not good
0:22:53enough for people to buy now. And it'll probably be a few years. He could say that in an analyst
0:22:58call. He could say that in a media interview and that's all they need to do, right? Like the people
0:23:05are like, Oh, maybe Apple should show off. It's like all, literally all that Tim Cook needs to
0:23:09do is say, yeah, it's great. And you know, we, we're working on it too. We'll see you in a few
0:23:14years and that's it. So that's fine. Uh, couple more pieces of follow up. Uh, one is that,
0:23:21according to Mark Gorman at Bloomberg, Apple's chief people officer, Carol surface is leaving
0:23:25the company after just two years. Deidre O'Brien is taking the responsibility of people back into
0:23:31her role. Again, this is follow up because last week when talking about Dan Riccio, you mentioned
0:23:36about Apple's issues of hiring externally. Yeah. Yeah. That a lot of those people, not all of them.
0:23:42And there are, there are examples of people who've stuck, but, um, actually, um, Gorman mentioned
0:23:47this, uh, Luca Maestri was an external hire and he worked pretty well. And their legal counsel was an
0:23:51external hire and by all accounts, she's doing great too. Their chief counsel. Um, but, but there
0:23:57are a lot of high profile, especially in the customer facing parts where there are high profile
0:24:04hires that don't go well. And this is essentially, you know, just like losing two retail chiefs. Now
0:24:10we've lost the people officer was brought in to replace the person who was moving over to just
0:24:15do retail chief. So, uh, and, and Gorman also pointed out, Deidre O'Brien is going to retire
0:24:21here probably pretty soon. And then what are they going to do? And it's like, she's gonna,
0:24:26she's gonna be worn down at some point. I mean, I heard from somebody, um, this week after we
0:24:32had that conversation who basically said, yes, Apple knows this Apple makes every effort to
0:24:39develop their own people on the inside because they know that this is the case. And of course
0:24:43they do. That's, that's why we talked about Dan Riccio is like, that felt very much like part
0:24:48of a concerted strategy to keep the brain trust around longer than they would otherwise be around
0:24:54and bring on the new person and give them more of a role. Just as, uh, Greg Joswiak is now worldwide
0:25:01marketing head, but Phil Schiller is still there, right? Because that gives Jaws his opportunity.
0:25:06And presumably he is now having the people step up behind him. Oh, um, he mentioned the,
0:25:11they brought in external, uh, PR person and they lasted like less than two years. And now
0:25:17Kristen Huget, who's been there forever and who I used to work with when she was just a PR,
0:25:21you know, person on a product basis is now running their PR. So she's been at Apple a long time. Like
0:25:26there are so many stories of this. So Apple's not a impossible fit for an outside hire, but it's
0:25:31very difficult for a high level outside hire to fit in there. So they're doing the right thing,
0:25:37according to the people that I've heard from, which is they know it and they are trying very
0:25:41hard to develop their new talent from their existing employee base, which one is great
0:25:47because if you're an employee there, what you want to believe is that there's a ladder for you
0:25:51to climb instead of them just bringing in a high profile person from the outside. And two, because
0:25:56they got to do it that way. Cause there's nobody coming in from the outside. The ladder is the only
0:26:01source of the next executive set. So, uh, yeah, really interesting to write on the follow of that
0:26:06for this to break. Cause I was like, we just talked about that on an upgrade. Perfect timing.
0:26:10Yep. Um, and as discovered by Sigmund Judge of the Magic Rays of Light podcast, we mentioned
0:26:15about him. He had pointed something out about Ted Lasso season four shooting in London. Well,
0:26:22the British Film and Television Alliance is now published at Ted Lasso season four is in production
0:26:27with filming to occur above London and the USA. There you go. It's, it's not been announced yet.
0:26:33Confirmed by anybody at Apple or Warner Brothers. And I would say, I would say I still,
0:26:42one of the reports that we haven't gotten to is, is it Ted Lasso season four in terms of how they
0:26:48market it or is it going to be like a follow on that's got a different name and maybe they
0:26:55are spending so much money that they're just going to call it Ted Lasso season four. But I'll,
0:26:59I was watching the last part of the last, I was trying to think of like, where did they leave it?
0:27:04And one of the last shots, it's very telling of Ted Lasso season three is Ted's note on the
0:27:11manuscript by Trent Crim. That's called the Lasso way. And his only note is my name. It
0:27:20shouldn't be named after me. It's not about, it's not about me. It never was something like that.
0:27:24And I thought at the time, this is how you hand off to a successor show is say it doesn't,
0:27:31it shouldn't be called Ted Lasso. That said, if it's easier to market it as Ted Lasso season
0:27:37four and they can get Jason Sudeikis to be in it a teeny tiny bit, then they'll probably do that.
0:27:42It is the, it is Apple's only like widely known name.
0:27:46Breakthrough hit. Yeah. Actually great. It's thought occurs to me, great time to be on Prime
0:27:52Video when they, if they get Ted Lasso back for a season four, right? To drive subs in a new place
0:27:59for people who are like, oh yeah, I've heard about that Ted Lasso show. And you can literally,
0:28:02you know, sign up and watch the first three seasons and then season four is also there.
0:28:06So interesting.
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0:30:31So last week, in a press release in the Apple newsroom, Apple unveiled a new iPad Mini.
0:30:38It features a bunch of small improvements, but the biggest feature and actually the way that
0:30:44Apple is referring to this product on their website is the iPad Mini with A17 Pro. It's
0:30:50really weird like when you go to compare them. It's like iPad Mini 6th generation and then
0:30:54it's been replaced by iPad Mini A17 Pro. That's okay. The next one will be 8th generation and
0:31:00we'll all just start calling it the 7th generation and no people care. Also, Mini, Mini, Mini, Mini,
0:31:06who has all the Mini? Anyway, just get that in everybody's heads again. Thank you. That's coming
0:31:12up, right? It is next Halloween. Halloween is Apple results, so I guess in a couple of weeks,
0:31:18we're going to have to break out the jingle. We have to break it out. I feel like that's the
0:31:22breakout hit. We're going to break that is the hit of the jingle episode. So we'll bring it back.
0:31:27So yeah, this is A17 Pro. It's, you know, the chip is really anything to talk about. I think
0:31:34there's a lot of little details. I'll put a link in the show notes to your post. You know, there's
0:31:39a host of small things they added to this product, removed, i.e. all of the saturation from the
0:31:46colors, but they put this chip in and this chip is weird. We've spoken about it a few times on
0:31:53the show before because the A17 Pro was on a three nanometer processor TSMC that was a dead end,
0:32:00but Apple kind of committed with them to produce it because they needed the chip for the iPhone,
0:32:05so they did it. And that was also the, I think the M3 too, right? It is this, but they skipped
0:32:10a bunch of devices on the M3 to go probably straight to M4 and it seems like... That's why
0:32:14M4 happens so fast is that M4 is a new chip design on the new process. That is the process TSMC is
0:32:22using going forward instead of being this dead end that is this first generation three nanometer
0:32:29process. And so Apple has been clearing out the M3 and like, they're going to get it off of all
0:32:34the Macs and they're going to get them all on M4. And then here's a new product that is using the
0:32:39old process. And it seems weird, right? But what is it? Why? Well, first off, this entire product
0:32:44exists for Apple intelligence. It feels very much... They made some other changes to it,
0:32:49but they're so minor. As you said, they desaturated the color, but they're so minor.
0:32:56Really what's going on here is this is not what everybody who's an iPad mini fan wanted,
0:33:02which is a new iPad mini that's been kind of rethought and upgraded in a lot of ways.
0:33:06It's literally the old iPad mini, but compatible with Apple intelligence because that was the
0:33:13priority was we need to get all of our devices on Apple intelligence. Now, it is weird that
0:33:19this is a chip that we basically figure they have stopped making or are going to stop making. I have
0:33:25a lot of theories about it. My best guess is that they've... Because it's got one fewer GPU than the
0:33:34one in the iPhone last year, last year's iPhone Pro. So they've been saving up binned chips that
0:33:42didn't pass the test for the iPhone because a GPU core didn't work. And maybe they've got excess
0:33:48that they didn't end up needing for the 15 Pro. And so they've... My question is, one,
0:33:55is there literally a big bin of 15 Pro chips somewhere that Apple has and how many are in
0:34:02there? And is that the total number that Apple thinks that they're going to sell of the iPad
0:34:07mini and the product's entire life cycle? Or is it possible that they're still making them
0:34:13because they haven't shut down that production line yet and Apple has some sort of contractual
0:34:16deal and it's going to make some more? But my guess is Apple is going to get a certain number
0:34:22of these chips that Apple says, "This is enough for the iPad mini's lifetime." And then they're
0:34:26going to turn off that production line. Which means... I mean, look, the future's promised to
0:34:33know one and nothing lasts forever. So the iPad mini that just got announced will one day be
0:34:40replaced, as all products are. But what's interesting is the ticking clock might be like,
0:34:47really ticking. Like, literally, we know exactly how many of these we can possibly make before we
0:34:53have to introduce a new model that uses a different chip. So I don't know how big the bin is and I
0:34:59don't know whether they're planning to go three more years for the next iPad mini. My gut feeling
0:35:04is they probably won't go three years. My gut feeling is this is probably a midstream thing
0:35:08that they did for Apple intelligence and that there's probably a better iPad mini in the works
0:35:14a couple years down the line, maybe. But it's possible that they got three years worth of chips
0:35:19in a bin and they're gonna just grind them out. But it is wild to think that they put this product
0:35:27on a chip that is basically done. But they are. - Yeah, it's a very peculiar thing to do. Very
0:35:35peculiar. Like, the A18 is just sitting right there. Which, realistically, the A18, non-pro,
0:35:46makes more sense for this product. - So here's what I've heard. Several people pointed this out
0:35:52after I posted my story last week, which is if they were to use the A18, they would actually
0:35:58have to do a feature regression on the iPad mini because the sixth generation iPad mini supports
0:36:03USB 3 and the A16 on the iPhone does not. It only supports USB 2. - Okay. - And if that is the case,
0:36:12that is their choice, is do they want to do a feature regression. But I will also say,
0:36:17is it possible? Because the other story that we've heard about these 3nm chips is that they're
0:36:22expensive. They're expensive to make and they're expensive because they have a lot of failure on
0:36:26them. So there are ones that Apple rejects. And I think their deal with TSMC, I forget whether this
0:36:30was one where they had the ability to reject them at no cost to them and TSMC. Like, look,
0:36:36it's bad business for Apple and TSMC to be on this line anymore. So I think it must have been
0:36:44a little expediency thing, which is like, we're going to take all of the leftovers from this
0:36:50failed project and use them somewhere. And this is a perfect place to use them because it allows
0:36:55them to do it without spending the money and effort to upgrade lots of internals in order to
0:37:03put an M chip in it, right? Because we heard from an anonymous source, a good anonymous source who
0:37:07pointed out like, put an M chip in an iPad mini. There's a lot more that goes into it than an A chip
0:37:14and it would have been a much more substantial upgrade. They're like, they don't want to do that.
0:37:17So it has to be an A chip. And I don't know whether it was something that they came to and
0:37:22they're like, aha, I've got the answer for the iPad mini and Apple intelligence or what. Or if
0:37:27somebody was like made the vice president of A17 Pro bins, it was like, what do I do with these
0:37:34things? And they found this, but whatever the reason, like it's very Tim Cook too, just almost
0:37:41as Tim Cook as naming your texting thread with your roommates, roommates is taking a part that
0:37:48you bought that isn't very good in terms of your flagship product in the future. I mean, I'm not,
0:37:55it's not a bad chip, right? But it's like, it's, it's a, it's a broken process that you're turning
0:37:59off, but you've got extra, extra parts and you're like, let's reuse them. It saves money. It saves
0:38:07efficiency and it's probably better for the environment rather than just like, well, why
0:38:11would you throw them away? They're perfectly functional. So, but you've got to find a place
0:38:15to put them and here it is, right? You take a risk, right? Where like in theory, there is a
0:38:20maximum amount of this product that can be sold unless they are continuing to produce for TSMC.
0:38:26As you mentioned, you raised in your article, which would also be really weird, but I would
0:38:31expect to at some level of degree, Apple do get to ask of TMS TSMC to do things that they would
0:38:37otherwise not like to do, you know? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Also, I mean, I have a list in my article,
0:38:44you can read it. Somebody, Dave Shop mentioned in our chat that another reason is they need to
0:38:50the ACE, the 18 for iPhone 16, right? I mean, they, I don't know how much volume they've got
0:38:56at that, but like if you're ramping up production of iPhones, the last thing you want to do is
0:38:58divert production of iPhones for iPad minis. I'm sorry, fans of the iPad mini, but you, even you
0:39:03must see that if you're, if you're Apple and it's summer and you're building iPhones for your big
0:39:08fall splash, diverting the number of iPhone 16s you can sell because of the iPad mini is a bad idea.
0:39:13It's a really bad idea. So here we are. It is, you're right. It is. It's not that the, like I
0:39:20said, all products will be replaced. It's the ticking clock aspect of it, which is they know
0:39:25exactly how many they need to make. But my guess is they also know how many they're going to sell.
0:39:29And if it's a runaway hit, well, you know, they'll move up the introduction of the,
0:39:34the next iPad mini. But my guess is that they probably got, they're good for a couple of years.
0:39:41That's my guess. Yep. Uh, so one of the issues of the 6th gen iPad mini was what was called
0:39:47jelly scrolling. So I've mentioned this before in portrait, when you would scroll with the iPad mini,
0:39:53it would sometimes look that like one half of the screen would move at a different speed
0:39:59than the other. It was a small thing, but, but noticeable. Uh, well, well MacRumors is reporting
0:40:06on a conversation from the 6th color secret podcast where cohost Jason Snell told Dan Morin
0:40:11that it was his understanding that this had been addressed in the new iPad mini.
0:40:14Yeah. Very funny to have, I mean, shout out to Julie Clover at MacRumors who either
0:40:20listens to the podcast. Thanks. I should look up if who at MacRumors is a subscriber
0:40:26or whether there was a tip. Was there a hot tip? Or maybe, you know, you, you go to that feed and
0:40:31you find out there's like six people listening to it and everyone at MacRumors. Anyway, look,
0:40:34we have briefings that are, that are on background. And so, you know, I can't say Apple says, and I
0:40:40can't quote anybody. I mean, I can't wait for the new story about this to break this conversation
0:40:44here, but, uh, you know, my understanding is just totally separate from that. My understanding is
0:40:49that they did make some changes to the display circuitry. And what's unclear is whether they
0:40:54address this problem or not. But what I would say is if Apple knew that jelly scrolling was a thing,
0:40:59but hadn't acknowledged it, the last thing they would do is acknowledge that they had a flaw
0:41:04in an, in, in, in, in saying that they fixed it, they would do it in this way, which is to,
0:41:09to be asked directly about jelly scrolling and reply by saying, well, we did make some
0:41:13changes to the display circuitry. And then you're just left hanging of like, but did it
0:41:18solve this? Was it meant to address this? But what they won't say is we fixed that horrible jelly
0:41:25scrolling problem that we had, that we've never talked about and never admitted to because then
0:41:29they're going to get sued and all these things. So they just said, oh, we changed the display
0:41:32controller is probably what they might've said. That's my understanding. Anyway, I don't know.
0:41:36Apple says here, it's probably my understanding. Anyway. Anyway, I would imagine that later this
0:41:42week there will be embargo drops and there will be reviews and stuff, and we'll have a better idea
0:41:47of whether jelly scrolling is still a thing, but they changed something. So maybe jelly scrolling
0:41:52is not a thing anymore, but that's really all we know right now. And again, thank you for Mac to
0:41:56Macrumors for reminding me that even in my members only podcast, which is an excellent secret podcast,
0:42:04right? Like I think technically it's just the six colors podcast. I don't think it's secret anymore.
0:42:10We don't swear anybody to secrecy. I don't think we do it anymore. I think when we started,
0:42:14it was internalized. We realized that if we want to sell memberships, we should not keep it a
0:42:20secret because people do like listening to that podcast. It's a very nice podcast. People can join
0:42:24six colors and listen to it. And if you join at the higher levels, you get more of it because we do
0:42:30more in a big Q and A every month and all this stuff. Anyway, I'll sell my other podcast here.
0:42:35But now I need to just remind myself that if there's something that I don't want turned into
0:42:40a story on Macrumors, I should probably not mention it even on a members only podcast. Just a lesson
0:42:46for me and other podcasters that just because it's behind a paywall doesn't mean somebody won't go
0:42:51find it and report on it. Sort of like what we do with Mark Gurman's Bloomberg stories, which are
0:42:56behind a paywall, but we just talk about them. But I pay for it. I do pay for it too. That's true.
0:43:02I'm sure somebody paid for whatever Julie Clover reported. Maybe Julie Clover herself. I don't know.
0:43:07There are new Kindles led by my favorite Panos Panay, who was previously at Microsoft running
0:43:16Surface, and he left and went to Amazon and now runs hardware at Amazon. And this was the first
0:43:22Panos kind of product unveiling. And you can see the difference in that they decided to actually
0:43:28have an event and they unveiled an entire range of Kindles, which is not usually how they do things.
0:43:32They usually like do one here or there, but they're like, no, here is a lot of new Kindles.
0:43:38Put a link in the show notes to the most recent episode of the Vergecast where they had Panos on.
0:43:44And this is a great interviewer. I actually got to interview him once and it was a great time.
0:43:48He's a very, very thoughtful person who really cares. He's a good salesman too, but you could
0:43:56tell that he... I don't know. I like the guy. He's got a lot of heart. Anyway, so they have a bunch of
0:44:02products. I'm going to just talk about them real quick and then you can touch on the things that
0:44:05you care about because you're the guy. So we've got the Kindle Color Soft, which is the first
0:44:09color ink Kindle. The new Kindle scribes that have redesigned it a little bit visually and
0:44:16made some changes. They've put some new software features in there. So you can take your notes with
0:44:21your Kindle scribes, like a pen on an ink screen, and they can give you some AI summaries of your
0:44:25handwritten notes. And they've put some new ways to put notes on books. So you can write your
0:44:31notes on a book and it will flow the text around your notes. That's really cool. They have a new
0:44:37Kindle Paperwhite, which has faster page turns on a larger screen, and then a new entry-level Kindle.
0:44:42And some of these Kindles have color options on the cases too. So the big Kindles. Yay! This is
0:44:52the foremost e-reader podcast. So first thing is they also discontinued their 2018 Kindle Oasis is
0:45:01finally officially dead, which was the last Kindle that had page turn buttons on it. And every time
0:45:06this comes up, people say, well, I don't need buttons to turn. I just tap the screen. It's fine.
0:45:10I'll just say, obviously, for most people, that is the case. I hate it because it makes the ergonomics
0:45:17of holding it for me awkward and I have to shift my finger. So if I get a good grip, it doesn't
0:45:22matter because when I need to turn the page, I need to either use the other hand or I need to
0:45:25shift a finger or whatever to tap or swipe in order to move to the next page. Whereas I can rest my
0:45:30hand, holding my e-reader with my thumb on the page turn button, and then just kind of sit there
0:45:36and go click, click, click, click without moving my hand. So I prefer page turn buttons. I think
0:45:40that they should be an option. Amazon first thought that they should only be on the very high end.
0:45:45And then now they think that they shouldn't exist at all. So I'm disappointed by that. If you like
0:45:50page turn buttons, I think the answer is you should probably buy the Kobo Sage or you could
0:45:57get the Kobo Libra color, but it's not as good a screen as the old Libra 2 was or find a Kobo
0:46:04Libra 2 on eBay or something and just get that. That's what I still use day to day is the last
0:46:09generation. I even bought, Mike, I bought a Kobo Libra 2 case, which I already have one, but it's
0:46:15kind of beat up over the years. And they were putting them on clearance at Kobo.com and I just
0:46:19went and bought another one because I have basically, I'm like, okay, this is the one,
0:46:24this is my e-reader I'm going to keep using for the most part is the Kobo Libra 2. So I might as
0:46:32well, because I noticed on my last trip, it was really beat up and I was like, it's a shame that
0:46:37they don't make this anymore, but it turns out they still had some cases left in the warehouse.
0:46:40So I bought one. Anyway, so I'm a little despondent about the state of e-readers in the
0:46:45sense that I think page turn buttons are important, but a couple of things. I'm really encouraged that
0:46:51Panos Panay is involved in Kindles because it felt like for the longest time, Amazon wasn't really
0:46:55paying attention to Kindles at all and that they didn't have a strategy and they would do stuff in
0:47:00the background. They did a big software update that I think dramatically improved the usability
0:47:04of a Kindle. I'm generally disappointed in the trend in e-readers. I'm not offended by the idea
0:47:12that people who are reading text on a e-reader is a niche market, that a lot of people just think
0:47:18phones are fine or iPads are fine, which I don't, but a lot of people do. So it's a very niche
0:47:23product already. So I'm not offended by the idea that they're trying to find other ways to push
0:47:28this technology, but it seems to be the thing that they found is using pens and taking notes.
0:47:34And the problem I have with it is that's not a use case for me. So it's great for others
0:47:38and all that. I had somebody ask me, are you going to review the Kindle scribe? And my answer is what
0:47:41it always is, which is it's too big. It has a pen. That's sort of what it's about. I'm just not
0:47:46interested in that category. It's just not a thing. Above a certain point for people who need to mark
0:47:52up PDFs and stuff, I think it's kind of a brilliant idea, although you could also use an iPad, but I've
0:47:56heard positive things about marking up documents on a Kindle. So I'm not interested in the scribe
0:48:01at all, which leaves us with the Colorsoft and the Paperwhite really. Colorsoft isn't out yet.
0:48:06It's coming out in a week, I think. It is their first color Kindle. They resisted this for a long
0:48:14time. E Ink has been making color screens because E Ink is a company. E Ink has been making color
0:48:21screens for a while. And like I said, Kobo just did a turnaround into the color screens. The
0:48:25problem is... And the remarkable color one, too. I know it's not an e-reader, but like...
0:48:31Right. But they're out there, right? And there are issues with them where the DPI is, I think,
0:48:36half the points per inch is half of what it is for the black and white. So your black and white text
0:48:41is crisp, but your color is not that crisp. But still, interesting. The problem is that it also
0:48:47puts a gray cast on the back of the screen that actually reduces readability of text because now
0:48:53it's black on, kind of, speckly gray instead of black on very light gray to white. Amazon made
0:49:00some sort of claim about how they've got, like, their color is different, and they've got different
0:49:05lighting, and they... It sounds like what they're implying is that they have somehow overcome some
0:49:11of the limitations of the color screen. I'll believe it when I see it. But I think that's
0:49:17interesting because Kobo just came out with these color versions and discontinued some of their
0:49:23black and white readers. Like, it doesn't matter. It's okay. And I'm not sure I believe them.
0:49:28So we'll see if that color is better than the color on these other devices, if Amazon is
0:49:36beaten back somehow. I assume they're still using e-ink's technology, but if they've done some
0:49:43things to modify it, like, we'll see. I will throw out there, though, that this is a seven-inch,
0:49:48I think, reader. It's not huge because a lot of people are like, "Oh, you read comics on it."
0:49:53It's like, I've tried to read comics on readers this size. I mean, also, the way I read comics
0:49:58is not available, right? Like Marvel Unlimited is not on Kindle. That's true. That's true. You've
0:50:02got to buy comics on Kindle. If you did Kindle Unlimited, I think you'd get some comics. Anyway,
0:50:07it's not ideal. However, here's the thing, and I don't know the answer to this question,
0:50:13so I'm just going to put it out there, and we'll find out the answer probably in a week, which is
0:50:17Kindle is also Comixology. They sell comics. They merged it all into the Kindle store. You can buy
0:50:23individual issues of comics. You can buy trade paperbacks. They use the Comixology technology.
0:50:28It's in the Kindle app on the iPad and on the iPhone. It's called Guided View. I don't read
0:50:33comics this way because I read on a big iPad, but the idea was that Comixology built this thing
0:50:39to make comics readable on iPhones. You double tap, and it will take you. It's built into the
0:50:44metadata of the comic. It'll take you page by page or panel by panel through a comic, which means you
0:50:52don't have to see the whole comic. It will lead you through the individual panels, which are then
0:50:56much larger, which makes it more readable without you having to pan and zoom, which is really bad on
0:51:02an e-ink screen that doesn't have a high refresh rate. As far as I can tell, they didn't say
0:51:07anything about it. My question is, does the Kindle ColorSoft do Guided View for comics? Because if it
0:51:12does, it could be a decent comic reader. And if it doesn't, why doesn't it, right? Because it's
0:51:19literally their technology. So either, either it's going to be better for comics than any e-reader
0:51:28has ever been, or I don't know what Amazon is even thinking. - Or a missed opportunity, like a
0:51:34severe missed opportunity. They specifically call out comics and graphic novels as a thing for this,
0:51:47and the image that they show, it looks good. They have a panel from Ms. Marvel. - Sure, but am I
0:51:54getting there through Guided View? Because I read an issue of Saga on the Kobo, and it's just panning
0:52:01and zooming. Oh, it's so bad. So we'll see. We'll see. Jury's still out. I ordered one. I will review
0:52:07it, but it's not here yet. I have the Paperwhite. It's reminded me of all the reasons why I like
0:52:14physical page turn buttons, but it's good. It looks good. It frustrates me. It also doesn't have
0:52:19a light sensor. So when I'm reading in the daytime, I have to swipe down and crank up the
0:52:24brightness. And when I'm reading at nighttime, I turn it on. It's super bright, and I have to swipe
0:52:28down and crank down the brightness. How expensive is that light sensor part? It's in older Kindles
0:52:35that are, I guess, higher end. I don't know why they left that out. It's a real degradation of the
0:52:41quality of the product, and Paperwhite is not the entry-level Kindle, so I don't know why it does
0:52:47that. But it looks good. The software is good. I'll write a review of it. The use cases for people
0:52:53who -- it used to be that Kindle was way worse for people who use libraries than Kobo, especially
0:52:59since Kobo at one point was the same company that did OverDrive, which is libraries. However,
0:53:06if you have more than one library that you're a member of, Kindle's way better because it uses
0:53:12Amazon's infrastructure to fulfill the books, whereas Kobo, you log into your library and it
0:53:17only lets you log into one. So that's kind of interesting, too. So my gut feeling now is,
0:53:25despite all my frustrations, I think the best -- e-readers last forever. You don't need to
0:53:30upgrade them very often. However, the best general-purpose e-reader right now is probably
0:53:37this new Paperwhite. I will, you know, write my review and see. I also want to throw out one
0:53:42suggestion to our dear friend Panos Panay, who is obviously listening to the world's greatest
0:53:48e-reader podcast. You heard Mike say nice things about you. If we're not going to do page-turn
0:53:54buttons, which, again, I think they're really good, how about alternate ways of turning a page
0:54:01that don't require you to move your fingers? How about something like, at one point, they had a
0:54:07pressure-sensitive side, where if you gave it a squeeze over a certain area, it advanced? Or how
0:54:14about an accelerometer? You already have one, at least an accelerometer, because you can do portrait
0:54:21to landscape. But like, the other way I was thinking you could do it is if you get it kind
0:54:27of like in your hand and you've got a grip, what if you use a finger to like tap the back, like do
0:54:31a double tap or something, and it advances the page? You could do that, maybe. And that wouldn't
0:54:35require a moving part and a button that you have to protect against water ingress and all that.
0:54:39Just please find something that isn't moving my finger and putting it on the screen, because I
0:54:44would really like that. But anyway, so that is, I'll have more follow-up, Mike, as we go down this
0:54:49path with the new Kindles. Very exciting. Who knows, maybe one of these days we'll bring back
0:54:54Scott McNulty and we'll just do an e-reader blowout. No promises. I know we did that, though.
0:55:00In a very early episode of Upgrade, we just did a whole thing with Scott where we talked about
0:55:03Kindles and Mike got to make a sandwich. So there we are. Hey, I was there. I had a good time. I was
0:55:08just listening, you know? Yeah, just listening to me and Scott talking about Kindles, as you do.
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0:57:40If you sign up for that annual plan, that's an incredible saving. Thanks to Fitbod for their
0:57:44support of this show and Relay. Oh, I have one last Kindle point. Okay. Thank you to ZMK in the
0:57:52chat for pointing this out. There is a Kindle Paperweight Signature Edition. For $40 more,
0:57:57you do get the light sensor. Why? Why? And it's got more storage that you don't really need and
0:58:03support for wireless charging. So I guess if you want to pay $200, you can get the one with the
0:58:09auto. Twice as much as the cheap Kindle. $40 more than the Paperweight Standard. They have the
0:58:16Signature Edition and the Signature, apparently, is a little cheap light sensor. So there you go.
0:58:20Anyway, review to come. Whatever. Amazon, come on. Panos, get in there. Work it out. He's doing it.
0:58:28He's making you pay $40 more for your light. Yeah, I guess so. For a light sensor. That's what he's
0:58:32doing. Great. Yeah. Great. It's time for a draft. All right. These are the rules and the rules are
0:58:39slightly different. So if you don't usually pay attention to the rules, these are the rules. Yeah.
0:58:43We don't have a whole like rules process. We just kind of talk about it and plan it and then. But
0:58:48these are our rules. Yes. Five rounds. No, I've already said it wrong. It was originally going to
0:58:53be five. It's more. Seven rounds. Seven rounds. We changed it today. Seven rounds, 14 overall picks.
0:58:59The winner of the previous draft gets to pick first. That is me as I am current draft champion.
0:59:06Our items are chosen from a predetermined list of choices, which we have agreed could be verifiable
0:59:11and not ridiculously obvious. For an item to count, it must either be clearly announced on
0:59:17stage or on a slide during a presentation or viewable on Apple's website if announced
0:59:23via a press release. That is the difference for this draft because we have no idea what's going
0:59:27to happen if they don't have a pre pre announced live stream. We switch into press release mode.
0:59:35Yeah. Or if they don't just publish a video. Right. Which is like an event video. I guess
0:59:39it could be either or I suppose we've seen in the past, but that's rare that they would is
0:59:43incredibly unlikely that they would do that. But right. Nevertheless,
0:59:48Stephen Hackett will adjudicate in case of a scoring stalemate between the two of us.
0:59:53But he's currently on leave. So let's say Stephen Hackett will adjudicate.
0:59:58If Stephen is away, who should be our adjudicator? Zach, let's put Zach in it. We're gonna put Zach
1:00:03in it. I don't know if Zach wants this, but Zach Knox, who makes our scorecards will adjudicate in
1:00:08case of Stephen's unavailability of adjudication. No partial points are awarded. The points awarded
1:00:16on the episode are final and they are finalized during the scoring segment. In the case of a tie,
1:00:22there is a tiebreaker question. The loser gets pick of the tiebreaker question. The winner
1:00:28becomes draft champion and displays the champion pennant. Loser becomes draft challenger and
1:00:33displays the challenger pennant. I am currently displaying my champion pennant as champion.
1:00:38I am currently displaying the challenger pennant as challenger. You watch our YouTube video to see
1:00:45me displaying it right now. I'm holding it. Indeed. There will be an interactive scorecard,
1:00:50upgrade.cards, which are maintained and managed by Zach Knox. You can buy a t-shirt at any time
1:00:57at the draft, upgradeyourwardrobe.com if you want that. There's always, there is some t-shirts
1:01:01available. There's a fun room around up t-shirt there too. A couple of upgrade logo t-shirts and
1:01:05also a draft t-shirt, which you can buy whenever you want. If you would like to celebrate the draft,
1:01:12you can go to our cotton bureau store and do that. There have been five previous drafts held
1:01:18in October. Jason has won three of these. I have won two of them. And so far this year,
1:01:26I am winning at two drafts to one. So you have the opportunity to tie up for the year because
1:01:33I doubt there will be another draft. So yeah, of course, like, so the reason we made the tweak this
1:01:38time is we wanted to do the draft because it's fun to draft and we expect there to be some Mac stuff
1:01:43and we thought it was going to be Mac and iPad, but then obviously Apple just released the iPad
1:01:48mini as a press release. So we're still drafting anyway because we wanted to, and we said we would,
1:01:53so we're doing it. But for this one instance, and maybe if we ever do this specific kind of
1:01:59thing before where we draft without an announcement, we'll see how this goes to try and judge it by the
1:02:05newsroom post, which I think the newsroom post on whatever's on Apple's website by the time that we
1:02:10get there. Which I honestly, realistically, provided that we pick, and so what we've done
1:02:15today is like we've been very particular in the picks that we are making, and we spoke about this
1:02:19in Upgrade Plus last week, the picks that we are making, they are product. They are not stagecraft,
1:02:24like we are specifically doing product stuff. And so yeah, it has to be on Apple's website.
1:02:30So I'll just point out, I thought about it maybe like a day too late. I thought about us doing this
1:02:37last week, but a little too late for us to prep for it, which would have been great because we would
1:02:43know some of the answers, but not all of them. And we would have to wait on judging. No, you know
1:02:48what, I think it's better this way because that would have made it really complicated, because
1:02:52it's like do we score the whole draft now? I don't like that. That's in the rules, no partial points.
1:02:59So we have to score the entire draft. It would have been a nightmare. So I'm happy that it's
1:03:05actually gone this way. We dodged a bullet there. All right, so we have seven rounds. I'm gonna go
1:03:12first. The first pick that I'm gonna make is that the new Mac Mini has a new industrial design.
1:03:24That's gonna be my first pick. Okay, that's good. Now we had before, just to let you in on it,
1:03:32everybody, one of the things that we debated beforehand was are these too obvious?
1:03:40And we decided, you know what, part of the draft is actually talking about what's going to happen
1:03:46and then what did happen. And so we just expanded our picks a couple so that we can make some picks
1:03:52that are not guaranteed, not guaranteed. I think nothing here is a hundred percent, right? They
1:03:58could throw us a curve ball, but we wanted to not just sort of like ignore the basic, like we're not
1:04:04picking a new Mac Mini as announced. That's what I've decided is a hundred percent, but this is at
1:04:10least a little detail. We've heard that it's smaller. What if it's not? What if it doesn't
1:04:14have a new design? Then you get the pick wrong, but I'm just gonna like counter you here with my
1:04:20pick, which is the new Mac Mini is smaller than ever. So here's why I think it's actually worthwhile.
1:04:26So the Mac Mini has been around for, oh, how long? Let me Google this real quick. A very long time.
1:04:322005? Okay. So 20 years, essentially. Something like that. There have been two industrial designs
1:04:39for the Mac Mini in its entire 20-year history. And I know this because Steven stacked them up
1:04:44and showed me them while I was in Memphis. He was like, look, this has not changed. There's the tall
1:04:49one and then there's the flatter one, which as Steven pointed out, I have conflated with
1:04:55getting rid of the optical drive, but it's not true. The flatter one had an optical drive option
1:04:59for a little while, which means that that enclosure that we've been using all of this
1:05:04time was built to fit an optical drive, which is bananas. So it doesn't need to be that big.
1:05:11So the way I think of it, not even just the tall one, it's the one with the plastic top and then
1:05:15one that was all aluminum. And so I do actually think that a new industrial design for the Mac
1:05:22Mini, while we expect it to happen, could have happened many times in the past. We have probably
1:05:29picked it many times. I know I've written many articles about they should make a smaller Mac Mini
1:05:33and I think the answer is they finally, you're like, why make it smaller? We've heard that from
1:05:37people, which is like, but why make it smaller? What's the point? It's a little desktop. Why
1:05:41does it need to be smaller? I think the answer is they decided to refresh the enclosure. First off,
1:05:45they're going to save money on like aluminum and stuff. They don't need it to be that big.
1:05:50It's not just we need to make it smaller. So let's engineer it to be smaller. If you look at what's
1:05:54inside a Mac Mini, it doesn't need to be that big. It's mostly air in there. So do you know what I
1:06:01say? Have some fun in your life. You know, if you want a big desktop, a decade more, the Mac studio
1:06:09exists. Get that. I want the exact opposite of the Mac studio. I want the Mac Mini to be as small as
1:06:16they can make it because why not? I want to stick it to the back of a monitor with velcro. Like,
1:06:21let me do it. You know, make a tiny little computer. I think it'd be amazing. Let's do it.
1:06:26I'm excited about this, by the way. I think we'll talk about it, but like this is, I have my mind on
1:06:32this computer being my next computer and I'm excited about this Mac Mini. It's great. Cool.
1:06:37My second round pick is that the new Mac Mini comes with both an M4 and M4 Pro configuration.
1:06:46Yeah, it currently does, right? It currently has a standard and a Pro. So I think that's a reasonable
1:06:53pick and I think that's, I think it's great, right? Again,
1:06:56imagine the power in such a little tiny device. Tiny little computer and it has an M4 Pro chip
1:07:04in it. That'd be so great. I'd be really excited about that. The risks here are it doesn't happen
1:07:10this time because they changed the configuration. They changed the enclosure and they can't fit the
1:07:14Pro in there. Or they just don't have an M4 version. Like they could, they could get rid of it.
1:07:19Or the Pro version could still be in the old size. That's the other possibility. There are some,
1:07:25there are, again, we're going from like a hundred down to like 98% to 95%, but still.
1:07:31All right. Very excited about that, but I'm going to pick new MacBook Pros. Okay. I think
1:07:40there will be new MacBook Pros. I think that is also up there. Again, not necessarily the case,
1:07:47right? I think that we have all, you know, I think Mac Mini feels the most certain, MacBook Pro feels
1:07:52the next most certain to me. And so I'm going to pick it. I'm excited about it. You know, they are,
1:07:58this is not a prediction, but like, I don't think they're going to be very different. We,
1:08:01I know we've got the Russian leak out there. Like they, they already redesigned these things.
1:08:07All they're doing is bumping the processors up from M3 to M4. Nobody get too excited about it.
1:08:12They, they, they will highlight Apple intelligence, but of course the old ones will,
1:08:16all Apple Silicon Macs have Apple intelligence. They will talk about something that is very
1:08:21specific to M4. That was not there in M3. That might be something we haven't heard of
1:08:25involving the Mac that, that the iPad didn't, the iPad Pro remember because M4 already exists,
1:08:31but iPad Pro, they didn't talk about Mac features. And also we don't know about the M4 Pro and the
1:08:37M4 Max, which presumably will also be introduced and available in MacBook Pros. So there will be
1:08:45some details there that will probably be little chip details that they'll be able to boast on.
1:08:49That will be an improvement from the M3 versions of these, but otherwise they're going to be just,
1:08:55you know, people buy MacBook Pros and we put our latest chip in it. The end.
1:09:00But that latest chip is, you know, they did it last time too, right? Like it was an important,
1:09:04it's an important enough thing for them that they want to talk about it.
1:09:07Absolutely. And boast about it. Boast on their,
1:09:10boast on their Silicon prowess. And again, the M4 came out, first off, they didn't get to talk
1:09:15about it in the context of Macs. They only talked about it in the context of the iPads. And second,
1:09:19they didn't get to boast about Pro and Max configurations, which presumably are coming
1:09:23because why would you launch the MacBook Pro without them? And that's where they can boast
1:09:27about like all the stuff they poured into that higher end model of chip. And we learned last
1:09:32time, last October, when they did this, we expected it to be boring and just like the M2.
1:09:38And what we saw was that the Pro and the Max were diverging from each other and from the
1:09:43the base model. That M4 Pro was turning into like, it was, I think, continuing on to being kind of
1:09:51like M4 or M3 in that case, but more. But the Max was like, not just like M Pro bigger. It was like,
1:10:02no, no, no, it's like high end, much higher end than the Pro. So that may happen again.
1:10:09We may be surprised by what they're doing there. So there's some surprise to come,
1:10:13they'll boast on it for sure. All right, my third round pick,
1:10:17I'm going to diverge away from hardware and assume an Apple intelligence demonstration.
1:10:23For me, I feel like if we're thinking about the potential, what could this event be? It would
1:10:31either be a portion of Apple intelligence demonstration in the video or part of the
1:10:36newsroom post to specifically show features. So like, not the product pages, because that's
1:10:42too easy, I think. But the newsroom post announcing this product to have like, here is the section
1:10:47about Apple intelligence. Here's why I think this is risky. I think it's risky only in that
1:10:54it is a new piece of Mac hardware and every Mac product supports Apple intelligence. However,
1:11:01the reason I think this is a good pick is, and again, I'm not trying to tell
1:11:07tales out of school here, but Apple gives reviewers materials to refer to about the tech
1:11:13specs and all of that. And I will tell you that ever since Apple intelligence got announced,
1:11:18every product that Apple has shipped has had a lengthy section in it about Apple intelligence.
1:11:23Even if it's like, yeah, this is just in the operating system, it's like, nope,
1:11:29we're pushing Apple intelligence, we're going to talk about it again. So I think you've got
1:11:33a pretty good chance here. There's a huge chunk of the press release for the iPad mini that is
1:11:39talking about Apple intelligence, including a bunch of things that aren't even in 18.1.
1:11:43So like, I actually feel no matter what they ship, there's a part of me that I'm most confident
1:11:50that the thing that they will do is show Apple intelligence. I think it is for them key right
1:11:56now. Why I think this could actually be a video is just another opportunity to show these features.
1:12:06And potentially, if it's an event, to announce when Apple intelligence is shipping.
1:12:13Yes. Because we've heard it's shipping. That is indeed something somebody could pick in this draft.
1:12:18The 28th. So they could potentially do that as a part of that conversation.
1:12:25All right, I am going to bring in the other product that is rumored to be announced here
1:12:29and say new iMac. Okay. So yes, so they went from M1 to M3. So it's like, well, why would they go to
1:12:36M4 when they just went from M1 to M3? And the answer is they don't want to make the M3 chips
1:12:40anymore because they're on that process, that old three nanometer process that's expensive and TSMC
1:12:44and Apple don't want to use it anymore. So I think the rumors point to this and I think it makes
1:12:50sense. Mark Gurman has said they want to get all the Macs onto M4. So he says the iMac is coming,
1:12:56I'm going to take him at his word and pick new iMac. Even though I think of the three products
1:13:01rumored to be in this event or release, it feels to me like the least essential of the three.
1:13:09I would not have picked this this early for that reason. I think I could imagine a scenario
1:13:18where we got MacBook Pros and Mac Minis now and like the iMac next year. I see your point,
1:13:25but I feel like the iMac to me is a product that I don't understand anymore. I can't fully see
1:13:34where it sits for Apple anymore. So to use draft parlance, you think this is a reach whereas I
1:13:41actually had it second on my board and I think it's a value at three because I think it's very
1:13:47likely to happen, but we'll see. I believe it is very likely to happen. I'm not sure it is likely
1:13:53to happen this month, but I don't know. It's possible. I don't know. We'll see. It's possible.
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1:15:06All right, so we're into round four of the draft.
1:15:14I'm at the point where I have my list and the list is ranked and I'm moving things around on
1:15:20the list, you know, like it's that, so like earlier today I felt so confident about my ordering and
1:15:25now I'm moving it. And we want to be behind the scenes for a moment. I have three documents open
1:15:31here at the same time. I have our master list, which I am strikethroughing as picks get picked.
1:15:39I copy, then strikethrough, and then I paste it in our show document, which is also open. And then
1:15:44I have a little text document off to the right in BBEdit that has my ranked groups of priority.
1:15:51So I have my, I have a list of, I had a list of 18 picks that I had pulled out as most
1:15:58like him and ranked them. And I have those in an Apple note. And then as you take them away from
1:16:03me, I remove them from my list. I'm going to go now. Ah, yeah. Okay. So my issue at the moment
1:16:12is I have, I have significantly, uh, I have seeded the Mac mini picks more than anything else. And
1:16:20like your concern with that kind of thing is if the product is announced, I think I feel confident
1:16:30in getting the items correct, but what if they don't do it, you know, and then, then you're,
1:16:35you're ruined, but I'm going to do it anyway. Okay. And I'm going to say that the new Mac
1:16:41mini removes all USB ports. All right. I think this is a good pick. It could be weird. They're,
1:16:50they're cheap to put back there, but I think they've run out of space for them. Yes. And I
1:16:55just think it's over a time has to come and like they're gone from the laptops and have been for a
1:17:02long time. Right. If they're going to, again, like they're, they're, they're redesigning the Mac mini
1:17:10for the next 10 years or whatever, but it's time. The USB ports are not going to be there on over
1:17:16that long, the long period of time. And I do think for the vast majority of Mac mini customers,
1:17:23they will be perfectly fine without a USB port, I believe. Yeah. No, I think, I think you're right.
1:17:29I think for me, first off it's cheap to put USB on because they don't take up a whole stream. Like
1:17:36you can put like two on and it's like, it's really cheap for them to do it, but it adds complexity
1:17:41anyway. And it adds size and you're, you're going to a tiny size. There's not room for USB A and you
1:17:49wouldn't design it. As you said, you wouldn't design an enclosure with the size of a USB port
1:17:55as a constraint. That would be like designing it for an optical drive, right? Like, Hmm. You don't
1:18:00want to do that if it's going to go in the long haul. So I agree. I think it's time. I think maybe,
1:18:05maybe, or maybe not. They stick around as a couple of extra ports on the back of a Mac studio,
1:18:10but not on the Mac mini. It feels like it's over. I agree. I think that's a good pick. I also have
1:18:18that same thought, which is I'm a little concerned that I've got a couple of iMac picks that I like,
1:18:25but if I pick them and the iMac doesn't ship, that's bad for me. Right. So I'm going to pick,
1:18:36Oh boy. Yeah. Everything's riskier. Now we're in the risky section now, basically. Yeah.
1:18:43Um, I'm going to say, wow. Yeah. They all, they're, they're all tough. I'm going to say
1:18:56Mac mini starting price remains unchanged. This was the pick that I decided to move
1:19:09for this because it's like, I do believe this, but like that price was set a while ago.
1:19:19I don't know. I don't know. I think recently Apple have shown, I mean, I notice there's a
1:19:25lot of conversation amongst the analysts about the iPhone that there was surprise that Apple
1:19:31did not increase the starting price because of inflation. Yes. I think Apple are in a position
1:19:38where just like, I think they just shouldn't care about inflation in the same way, just because of
1:19:42how much money they make and like that there is a benefit on not improving the prices. Yes.
1:19:47This is my rationale, which is, and I went to starting price here. We were originally,
1:19:55it said prices remain the same. I don't think that's necessarily true. Apple has shown an
1:20:00interest in keeping their base price the same. Now upgrade prices can be big. Also, Apple has
1:20:05big margins. The higher end models might be more expensive. It's possible or the bill to order
1:20:13options will be more expensive, but the starting price, it's a good low starting price. I would
1:20:18imagine that even though there's some initial cost in doing a case redesign and all of that,
1:20:23that in the long run, this is probably going to be a cheaper product to make than the old one,
1:20:26because it's smaller. They don't have to use as much aluminum, all those things about it. I feel
1:20:33like in the end, they want that starting price for the low end model to be good and be the same
1:20:39price that it is now, but maybe the other prices even go up, but that seems to be their strategy
1:20:47is either keep them all the same or keep the base the same and raise the other ones. If you want a
1:20:52fancy one, maybe you pay more, but the base one, you don't pay more. Also, I should say this is
1:20:57unchanged. They could also be really aggressive and take it down, but I think they won't do that.
1:21:04I think that in a world without as much inflation as we had in the last couple of years, maybe they
1:21:09would consider something like that, but I think not. Cross my fingers, but I'm going to just say
1:21:15status quo for the starting price of the Mac Mini. All right, round five. I'm going to request
1:21:23something to the judge here. We have a pick that says release date given for iOS 18.1.
1:21:32Could we maybe just change this for release date given for first Apple intelligence features or
1:21:380.1 or something? Because they might not specifically talk about 0.1 and that would be an
1:21:45experience. And they're not going to talk about iOS, right? I have no idea. They might say along with iOS 18.1,
1:21:53but I think that that might not be necessary. Apparently, the release candidate just came out,
1:21:59Zach is telling us. So release date given for first Apple intelligence features, 0.1, but we know
1:22:06what we mean here. And again, all sportsmen like release date given for first Apple intelligence
1:22:12features. Yes, that can be your pick. You just think it's going to happen? They can't help
1:22:18themselves. They're going to talk about Apple intelligence and they're going to talk about when
1:22:21you're going to first be able to see that. So apparently, they have been said it's coming next
1:22:26week, but I'm expecting a date. Like, I think that there will be like, yes, it's coming January 28th,
1:22:34but I think they're going to say coming out tomorrow, coming out today. Okay, because I think
1:22:39this event is happening next week. Yes. So, so if they, I think you get it. If they give a date, if
1:22:45it's, if it's a specific date or it's tomorrow or it's Thursday or whatever, or it, it, even if they
1:22:53say it came out today. Yeah. Like they must, they must reference a day in which Apple intelligence
1:23:00first starts shipping in 0.1. All right. That would be interesting. Because if it's Tuesday
1:23:04and it ships on Monday, they have to say it came out yesterday. Yeah, sure. We'll go with that.
1:23:11Okay. Okay. Interesting. Interesting choice. All right. Um, wow. Wow. Um,
1:23:21that may have been a bad pick from me, but I'm sticking with it anyway.
1:23:30I'm going to pick, I wrote this wrong in the doc. Okay. Uh, so I'm slightly revising it,
1:23:38but, uh, basically I think what I'm going to pick is that some M4 Pro or Max models,
1:23:47and it could be the MacBook Pro, it could be the Mac Mini, but some of the Pro or Max models will
1:23:56ship later. We'll have later ship dates than the M4 models, which is not really a rumor,
1:24:03but it's a thing that happens sometimes. And we, we definitely have heard like the M4, they've got
1:24:07them, but they got to have the Pro and Max chips. And sometimes they'll say these will be available
1:24:11Friday. And the ones with that max will be available in, you know, later, later next month
1:24:16or something like that. It builds on the Russian MacBook Pro scenario, right? Where that was what
1:24:22we were talking about of like, oh, is the M4 just ready to go? And the other ones aren't. We don't,
1:24:30that's the way that it could potentially be, but we don't know. We don't know.
1:24:35All right. So what are we at, round six now? Yeah.
1:24:40See, this is why I wanted us to do more rounds is that it puts a little more variability into
1:24:47it than we were so certain with the first one. I'm so excited about the Mac Mini. I'm just
1:24:52going to continue. So like I'm now, I'm now in the phase at the draft where I don't feel confident
1:24:58anymore. So what I'm, what I'm deciding to do is to just continue talking about the computer
1:25:05that I really want. All right. I'm going to continue talking about the Mac Mini and I'm
1:25:11going to say a Mac Mini has some ports on the front. I love it. I love it. I hope this happens.
1:25:19Yeah. It's phrased the way it is because it's possible that the pro Mac Mini will have ports
1:25:26on the front and the regular Mac Mini won't. It's also possible that they'll both have ports on the
1:25:31front. It's also possible that Apple will say, no, only the Mac studio is allowed to have ports
1:25:36on the front. Although I hope they've gotten over it. So we'll see, like, I think where do all the
1:25:42ports go? If you're making a tiny puck of a computer, maybe they can't all go on the back.
1:25:48So I think I'm putting them on the side. That seems unlikely. On the front seems like a good
1:25:53place for it. And this is like considering that potentially a difference between the M4 and the
1:25:59M4 Pro could be the amount of ports that it has. I mean, Apple has shown that, right? That they will,
1:26:05they will mix that stuff up. We see it with the MacBook Pro, for example, right? The MacBook Pro,
1:26:09the, the Pro and Max models have more ports than the, than the regular M3 and same with the M2 and
1:26:16I think the M1, so. Nice. Um, okay. So I'm, I'm going to pick, boy, it's amazing how the, uh, the
1:26:31Russian leak has, has gotten in our heads. I think yours more, but if you're about to pick what I
1:26:38think you're going to pick. Um, yeah, I know. This is like, this, is this, I can't believe I'm going
1:26:46to do this right now, but I'm leaning into it. Is this like Russian interference in the draft?
1:26:50Is that what's happening here? Oh, somebody's going to have to launch a special committee on this.
1:26:55I know, right? No, no, no collusion. Come on. What are you talking about?
1:27:02Um, oh boy. Yeah, then this is tough, but the, um, so currently the MacBook Pro models. Okay,
1:27:12let's start there. Let's start there. Currently the MacBook Pro models come with a space gray
1:27:21or a silver for the 14 inch in the M3, but the Pro or Max have space black, which always seemed
1:27:30weird. Like we've got some extra space gray enclosures that we got to move because it's
1:27:35just, it's literally like, it's a little darker if you get the other version, unless you get the
1:27:40silver. So yeah, the, the Russian leak suggests that the base models will get space black instead
1:27:46of space gray or in addition to, or who knows. So that's what I'm going to pick is space black
1:27:52comes to the base model MacBook Pro. Yep. That's it. Oh buddy. Oh boy. Oh boy. All right. We're in
1:28:01the final pick now. And it's rough. It's rough over here. It is. I was going to make that pick
1:28:11by the way. Cause it's like, Oh, okay. You're, you're talking it down and you were totally
1:28:14going to make it. All right. Yeah. Um, we'll call it the Putin pick. No, it's not. No, it's not do
1:28:25that. Uh, there's just some that are just like, they're just not exciting or they're not good,
1:28:34you know? And I, and I need to just choose between those.
1:28:44I know it's hard. I'm going to go boring. I've only got a couple here that I like. So yeah. Okay,
1:28:50go for it. Go boring. At least one Mac mini doesn't have ethernet. Whoa. I don't think that's
1:28:57boring at all. I think that's one of the great mysteries. I think that's one of the great
1:29:02mysteries of this is are they going to do an Apple TV thing and just leave the ethernet off of like
1:29:07the cheap one. I think they will. Yeah. And the iMac is like that too, right? The iMac, the base model,
1:29:14they don't even have the brick with the, with the ethernet port in it. They just have a standard
1:29:18brick with no port. So there's, I feel like there's a lot of evidence that suggests they
1:29:24would do this, but I don't think we know genuinely like the pick that is there that I don't want to
1:29:29pick, but I think they will do is they will put ethernet on the power adapter. Like they have to
1:29:36do it, right? Like they did all this engineering. It can't have just been for the iMac. Like I can't
1:29:42bring myself to believe. No, because it's not going to have a brick. It's going to have an
1:29:44internal power supply. Well, you know, but I don't know. Okay. I mean, I think they did this with the
1:29:52Apple TV, right? So that's the precedent here is, and that's why I put it on the list is they did
1:29:57this with the Apple TV. The base model doesn't have ethernet. And I go, okay, I don't, I don't
1:30:02want that one. That's what I genuinely, I think you put ethernet on the pro model because look,
1:30:08we need to be realistic here. All right. Now listen to me, listeners. We're all a bunch of nerds.
1:30:13All right. And we want our ethernet, but come on now the cheapest Mac, right? Which would be the
1:30:20Mac mini people are using wifi. Like that's what they're doing, right? Like we need to be realistic
1:30:27here. We don't need ethernet on the base Mac mini. We don't need that. Like it doesn't need to be
1:30:34there. Like it really doesn't today. So the way it works on the iMac is the base model and it's
1:30:43different because it's on the power brick, right? So that's a quick swap, but the base model doesn't
1:30:47have it. And then you can upgrade the base model to get it or the higher end models get it. So the
1:30:54argument here is what you're saying, which is you can save some money and not offering ethernet and
1:31:01space, but, but you know, the ones, some of them have to have it, but you're, you're saving some
1:31:05money and differentiating your low end, save a little bit of money and you price it a little bit
1:31:10lower. I'm not sure ethernet itself costs so much that it allows you to differentiate from like
1:31:17nerds. It's the opposite. It's like, Hey, you want ethernet in your Mac mini, give us $100 more.
1:31:23Yeah. Right. Right. Which is so, so the nerds, so basically you're, you're saving costs for
1:31:28the people who are not going to care because they don't use ethernet. Yeah. And you're making all
1:31:33the nerds pay more. Like 95% of computer users in the world. And you know what, like we're all using
1:31:38laptops. You plug it into your non-existent ethernet port on your laptop, you know, like
1:31:43we realistic here. I don't know who I'm arguing with. I think all the discord, I think at the
1:31:49moment is arguing with and potentially our entire listener base. I use ethernet, ethernet plugged
1:31:56into my Cal digit dock that my Mac book pro is plugged into. Cause I, I want the fastest internet
1:32:01when I'm working, but at home when I'm using my Mac book air, I'm just kind of to my internet,
1:32:06like my wifi and I'm doing a great, I'm having a great time. And so yeah, I love it. Wi-Fi is
1:32:12amazing. All right. I am going to pick something that is another iMac pick. So I am making a risk
1:32:18here and it's a, it's a bummer pick, but I feel like I have to, I feel like I have to because
1:32:25one of the things that I remember from when they finally updated the iMac from M1 to M3
1:32:32was that they changed nothing else about it. And I'm not going to pick that they changed nothing
1:32:37about it other than the chip. Although I feel that that's probably the most likely scenario.
1:32:42I would love for them to do a pro version. I would love for them to upgrade the webcam,
1:32:45which is really substandard. I would love them to have an adjustable base as an option.
1:32:49I would love for it to come in a different size as an option. There's lots of things I would like,
1:32:53but here's what I'm going to pick Mike. I'm sorry to end this draft on a down note,
1:32:57but here it is. The new iMac comes in the same colors as before.
1:33:01I don't want to get my hopes up. I just don't think they're going to do it. I think they've
1:33:09got like... Actually, no, it's not a bummer pick. I'm booing, but no, those colors are good.
1:33:15I like those colors. You're right. I like those colors. I do. I do. I just think...
1:33:19Because Apple released the new iPad mini. No, you're right. You're right. The risk here is
1:33:23that they're all desaturated and boring. The iPad mini, they had a purple one. They have a new
1:33:27purple one and it's worse. No. And it's... No. Okay. So the risk here is they're like,
1:33:32we have all the same colors. I'm a little worried about this because especially if they change the
1:33:37input devices, they might say, yeah, we're color matching them to the new boring colors now,
1:33:42or they're only available in silver or whatever. So I don't know, but I'm going to just go with
1:33:46momentum here, which is that they don't want to change the case. They make these cases. They're
1:33:51just going to leave the case the way it was and upgrade the internals because it's the iMac. They
1:33:55don't want to upgrade the iMac with every chip generation. They have to do it this time. They're
1:34:00just going to kick the can down the road. Let's leave it all the same. So I'm going to say same,
1:34:04same for the colors. I like the colors. It's true. But also it says something when they're
1:34:09like, yeah, they're the same. It's we don't know. We're not going to bother. So yeah.
1:34:14We're going to end today with a tiebreaker, which is not the way that we usually do things,
1:34:19but I think makes sense for this one. So you get to pick the tiebreaker question. Would you
1:34:24like to let me know what it is? Oh, well, we, we, we agreed to this. The tiebreaker question is,
1:34:30is it going to be an event or not? Is it going to be an event or a newsroom post? It's that simple,
1:34:35which is like, literally, are they going to do a thing where there's either, you know, they will
1:34:40give you a week's warning and say, come and watch our event at 9 AM Pacific or whatever. Or do they
1:34:46do a thing where they just put a press releases? So I think that's what I want to pick is, and,
1:34:53and you said, you said like, if they just drop it, but it's a big video that feels like an event,
1:34:59that would probably count too, because that's a, that's basically what you were talking about
1:35:04earlier with the Apple intelligence demo pick. So I'm going to pick that I'm going to pick that
1:35:10there will be an event or a substantial video presentation, and it won't just be done by
1:35:14newsroom. Now I think this is risky because I think they could vary. You're setting the question
1:35:18and picking it. Yeah. Okay. To pick it. I thought we agreed it was a vendor newsroom, the way it
1:35:24usually works, which is just fine. You could do this. It's not a problem. We're, we're all off
1:35:27the wall this time. The loser, which is you gets to pick at a tiebreaker question, which you then
1:35:31ask me. So you should do it. And then I would say like event runtime over or under, and then I would
1:35:37say over or under, but I'm fine with this. This is no problem for me. Okay. All right. I think it's
1:35:42an event. Okay. Yes, I do too. So, uh, okay. So I'm going to take that one. So you get to pick first
1:35:50and I get to pick the tiebreaker. So that's what I pick is it's going to be an event. I think it's
1:35:54risky. I do think it's risky because I can absolutely see a scenario where on next Monday
1:36:01or Tuesday morning, there's just a raft of press releases about the new Macs and the new chips and
1:36:07they don't even bother. But I don't know. They bothered last year. They, they brought everybody
1:36:12to New York for a Halloween thing. This is more of a reason this year, like I think than last year.
1:36:17New chips. I think MacBook Pro is important. A new Mac mini design is important and boasting on the
1:36:24new chip performance is important and flogging Apple intelligence is important. Like as a
1:36:28marketing person on the inside, I would strongly advocate to advocate to do this because you have
1:36:35so many points to hit and you get to hit Apple intelligence again the day or the week that it's
1:36:42launching. So do it. Right. So that's my, that's my, my take. Yep. I completely agree. My expectation,
1:36:52uh, is that this happens tomorrow. I almost made Will Jason be in New York next week,
1:36:57but I changed it from that. My expectation is tomorrow. So Tuesday, uh, is when they'll send
1:37:04out the thing and it will either be Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. I reckon as well,
1:37:07it's what will end up happening, but we'll see. We will see. I'm excited. Yeah. Draft.
1:37:13No last upgrade this week because we're running long. Uh, but I'll be back next week. You can
1:37:18send us in your questions@upgradefeedback.com. You can also send us in your feedback and your
1:37:22follow-up there too. If you want to find Jason's work, go to sixcolors.com and you can hear him
1:37:28here on relay and at the incomparable.com. You can listen to my podcast here on relay too,
1:37:33and check out my work@cortexbrand.com. Jason is at Jason L J S N E double L I am @imike,
1:37:39I M Y K E. You can find video of this show on Tik TOK, Instagram, and YouTube. We are @upgraderelay.
1:37:45Thank you to our members who support us with Upgrade Plus. We're going to talk this week
1:37:49about some of the things we did not pick in the draft from our short lists and others.
1:37:52You can go to getupgradeplus.com. You can sign up and get longer ad-free versions of the show
1:37:57every week. Thank you to our sponsors this week, which was Vitaly, Fitbod, and Squarespace. Thank
1:38:03you for listening. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snow. Goodbye, Mike Hurley.
1:38:19[Music]