Upgrade - 336: Cool Report, Though

Episode Date: January 25, 2021

Is Apple really going to release a high-end VR headset, and if so, why? Is the MacBook Air getting smaller again? Are you ready for Dolly Parton to tell you a story while you take a walk? And we discuss why movies and sports are becoming ever more important to streaming-media outlets.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 336 today's show is brought to you by fitbod and air buddy my name is mike hurley and i'm joined by jason snell hello jason snell hello mike hurley how are you i'm fine my friend how are you uh doing great and uh i could tell you about the weather but instead how about a snell talk question molly's asks how do you clean your monitor jason oh how often do you clean it and how but how often in the hell um well i have no idea. That's how little, how I don't. Like, how do I clean it? I mean, barring the taking, like, the sleeve of my hoodie and, like, rubbing it on the screen a little bit, almost never. Yeah.

I never think about cleaning my monitor unless something has happened. Right. I mean, if somebody tells a joke while you're drinking something and you go, and spit take all over your monitor, you should clean your monitor then. But otherwise, no. And my window is to my left.

So I don't have glare on my monitor. And so I don't... Glare is where you're really going to see stuff on your monitor. And so I don't. So it happens occasionally. going to see stuff on your monitor and so I don't it happens occasionally I will be like oh I should probably I'll see it in an angle when it's turned off

and I'll be like oh I should clean my monitor but that happens very rarely only certain times of year I suppose when the sun is in the right position to reflect off of the monitor if you would like to send in a question to help us open an episode of the show, just send out a tweet with the hashtag SnowTalk.

I use question mark SnowTalk in the RelayFM members Discord, and you can help us with any question you like. I have a follow-up, a programming note. Upgradians may want to be aware that Apple's Q1 2020 results are coming this Wednesday, so we'll be talking about it next week. are definitely going to talk about this one because this is the the expectation from analysts i was reading this over the weekend um is that apple are expected to pass a hundred billion dollars in revenue for the quarter for the first time, which would obviously be their biggest quarter of all time.

And we all know the many reasons why that would happen, but it's going to be, I reckon, pretty fascinating regardless. Like the last quarter results were too, right? Like there were a lot of weird surprises in it because of the changing ways of people working. I'm really intrigued to see kind of like what happens to the mac line yeah well after that after that record-breaking quarter and what is what is the holiday in the

middle of the pandemic what does the holiday quarter look like and yes i think upgradians should be interested in knowing that the results are coming this wednesday also thank you mike i didn't have this on my calendar. So there was a thank you for telling me that there were results that I put this in the show is to make sure that you were aware that it was happening. You know, it's funny. I usually think of it about a month before and look up the date and put it in there. And I and I think perhaps because I've been so busy with other things literally never occurred to me. So I guess I'll be making some charts on Wednesday. Because it wasn't until I saw this MacRumors report

about the expectations from analysts that I knew that it was this week either. So, you know, just passing it on. Every three months, like clockwork, and yet it manages to surprise me. All right, let's talk about some of the news in streaming media and platforms and services in our regularly recurring segment upstream apple have named

warner brothers pictures executive jp richards as head of film marketing strategy um clearly apple is continuing to move their push into movies the same way they're pushing into tv richards was part of warner brothers like up until very recently i think he's still there but like he's in their shake-up he's leaving he's leaving but you know having been a somewhere they're modern he's worked on a bunch of you know really popular movies for them like wonder woman and joker and the star is born and stuff like that yeah and it's just an example about um the importance we focus a lot on um streaming services as places to go for tv series but they are i was going to say increasingly but we're already there they are also a place for film

release and not just the sort of uh oscar bait film release stuff, but as a strategy. Some audiences don't want to binge necessarily as many TV shows, but they do want to have a movie to watch, sit down and watch a good film. And that's why another item we have in Upstream that we should probably mention in this context, which is Netflix strategy is so film focused in so many ways. And they made a statement that they're going to release just a huge number of films. It's more than a movie a week. It's 70 films in 2021. So more than an original release a week.

These are just the films that they know they have. Right. There could be more. the films that they know they have right there could be more these are all the films that are done or will be done and have release dates on netflix in 2021 and they have like you know name your favorite hollywood actor they're probably on netflix like they have everybody it's like a super smash brothers commercial it's unbelievable uh and i'm sure netflix are trying to and will do whatever they can to pick up any movie that they can that is not going to be in theaters this year um and so movies continue to be i think movies are the next

part for the streaming services like it was tvs right tv shows series first they ate the tv world and now they're going to eat the movie yeah world and don't get it wrong like this is not pandemic related like they haven't got all these movies because they're not going to be in the cinemas these were always going to be netflix movies by and large there's some acceleration there yeah but it was going to happen anyway and And I was thinking about it. I have watched movies recently. Movies on HBO Max, Netflix, Hulu, Apple TV+. I can go through them. I have watched movies, new release movies on all of these services.

Prime Video. Good, real real real movies um and and so i get the appeal i i get the appeal of it that that you know the movies just keep rolling onto these services and and yeah people there are different audiences for for these different things some people want to sit down and binge uh you know 10 episodes of something and some people want to have like that big release movie that's two hours of super concentrated entertainment and and the streaming services see that as an opportunity so i think it's interesting when you look at netflix and then you see that apple is staffing up even more on its film side and we've had lots of reports

about apple making deals for movies and then doing development of movies and funding movies themselves that like this is another trend so whether you're looking at Apple TV plus, or you're looking at any of its competition, um, this is, I think it's going to be an interesting question. We talked about the effects of the pandemic on the movie industry in five years, what kind of movies are released on streaming and what kind of movies are released in theaters? And what does that look like? Because that's an interesting question of like, what does a streaming movie look like? Because that's an interesting question of like, what does a streaming movie look like?

Because I think if you asked any of the streaming services, they would say, we're not making lesser movies. These aren't like, you know, what we used to call TV movies that were like movies, but really it's just like low budget. And it's really like a one episode TV show. They want them to feel, you know, completely cinematic and real. And at the same time, traditional movie theaters had kind of crowded out almost everything

that wasn't either a prestige Oscar bait kind of movie or a blockbuster. So there's plenty of room for all kinds of movies maybe on streaming that wouldn't be there in movie theaters so you know i think it would be a mistake to say that that streaming isn't going to transform um the if you know watching a movie uh in all of its ways just as it's transformed watching tv you see james bond got the late again of course it did. October now. Everything's, the shuffling continues. The shuffling,

that's very much a vaccine-motivated move, right? Which is like, oh, I think by October, surely by October, we're in the bargaining stage,

right? Surely by October, theaters will be back open. And maybe they will, but I'm going to share with everybody out there something that I've kind of come up with

in my own life and I've talked to my family about, which is, I have yet to share with everybody out there something that I've kind of come up with in my own life and I've talked to my family about, which is I have yet to see someone bet. If you have to bet about the coronavirus impact on something, bet the over is what I'm saying. Bet the over. It'll be worse than that. No one yet has made a bet on COVID-19 that's been like, oh, it was better than I thought that hasn't. It may happen. It may happen. I hope it happens. Hasn't happened yet. So this is, you know, MGM is like, come on, October for James Bond. Maybe it'll be October. Maybe it will be. But, you know, we've gone through a series of like, it'll be later in 2020. It'll be early in 21. And the one that makes me laugh, I was watching a football playoff game yesterday.

And they have movie sponsors. And so the announcers will come back and say, oh, the AFC Championship game is brought to you by this movie in theaters March 24th or whatever. And it was, it was the AFC Championship game is brought to you by this movie, 2021. I thought, wow. Just sometime, it'll come out sometime. Somewhere. Exactly.

Watch it somewhere in the future. In a theater? Maybe. On your TV? Could be. We don't know. Only in Australia? Possibly. 2021, that's all we're saying. baby on your TV could be, we don't know only in Australia, possibly 2021. That's all we're saying. I saw somebody say on Twitter that Daniel Craig will be two years older when this movie came out than when it's,

when he finished filming it. Yeah. Well, you know, new mutants came out, um, last year after sitting on the shelf at Fox and then disney for a long time and that had a bunch of kid you know young actors in it who are like it had um anya anya from game of thrones

anyway maisie williams um was in it and like anybody who watched game of thrones like she's way younger in the new munich than she was in game of thrones it's like okay that's amazing no or was it uh the other one the one who played uh i can't even remember the names of the kids in Game of Thrones. It's like, okay, that's amazing. Or was it the other one, the one who played... I can't even remember the names of the kids in Game of Thrones. Anyway, there are people who are way, way, way younger than they were when you saw them last year on TV, and that's because

it sat on the shelf. So, fortunately, Daniel Craig doesn't visibly age, so it'll be okay. NBC Universal is going to be shutting down NBCSN, which is their sports network, at the end of 2021. They're going to be moving some of their highest profile content to the USA cable network instead.

The rest of it will probably go to Peacock. What do you think about this? This is, by the way, a real-time follow-up. Yes, Maisie Williams is who it was, who is in The Numians. So, because her, another X-Men movie with the other young woman from Game of Thrones. So confusing. So many X-Men movies. This story about NBC Sports Network, just like this is NBC's attempt

to do ESPN essentially. And Fox had one and CBS has one. And there was a trend last decade to be like, well, we need a sports only channel too. And we're going to buy sports rights and we're going to plow it in to that channel. And people are going to have to demand it

on their cable company and we'll make money from cable companies. And the reason I put this story in our notes is because I feel like this is actually kind of a huge story because this is what this decade is going to be. This decade is going to be turning off cable channels, moving the content to streaming or to cable or broadcast channels

that have much larger audiences and just sort of simplifying the approach. So the idea here is that NBCUniversal is literally tearing down their sports channel on cable. The lights are going to go out this year, and they're going to move some of that stuff to USA Network, which has a much broader penetration into households in the US. They might put some stuff on broadcast TV, on more stuff on NBC broadcast. And they've got Peacock, so they know they can put literally everything else

can just go on Peacock. And it will. And this is their strategy. And so is it super notable as a story unto itself? Maybe not, but I feel like we're going to see this same story happen again and again until you know what we think of as the cable bundle is a lot more simplified because a lot of that stuff is just not going to make financial sense anymore and streaming becomes something that makes more

financial sense so um i'm not surprised this is what this is the home of the Premier League. This is where Ted Lasso got its start was the ads for the Premier League on NBCSN. And they're shutting it down because at some point somebody said, why are we spending all the money on having our own sports network when we can just put the high profile stuff on USA and everything else on Peacock and be done with it? And that's what they're going to do. USA and everything else on Peacock and be done with it. And that's what they're going to do. Following on from this, NBC's Peacock and the WWE have entered an agreement to make Peacock the only place for the WWE network streaming service to be available in the U S we go now to upgrades, special wrestling correspondent, Mike Hurley deal.

This is a massive deal. So the WWE has 1.5 million, i believe paying subscribers in the u.s which now becomes a base for peacock as well yep they all get peacock peacock premium i think which is the one that it's got ads but it's the one you have to pay for and that's where all that content goes and all those subscribers get just moved over into into peacock which means they get access to all the all the peacock stuff too yeah it's interesting because you could either keep paying the same amount that you were paying and get premium with no ads or you can cut it down by half get ads on peacock stuff and then you also still get all the wwe content as well um the wall street journal says this deal is worth over a billion dollars for the wwe

it's super interesting i now expect to see uh the wwe enter into these agreements with other companies around the globe now um the wwe network is worldwide because they own all the content so they don't really have issues because this is the way that it works they're kind of clever about it in a way their tv shows were never on the wwe network um right they play them later but they have arrangements so like one of their shows is on the usa network already which is part of nbc and then they have different agreements around the world but they have additional content and what used to be their pay-per-views have always shown on the wwe network right this is this is a transformation from the idea of we're going to do a pay-per-view of the royal rumble or whatever to we're going to just put it on our streaming

service and go from an all cart model to a subscription streaming service model which we anybody listens to upstream will nod and say okay that's interesting because they've they threw out their kind of old old model and went to this new model and now they're they're just wrapping it inside of of peacock they're wrapping it inside of an existing you know this is essentially nbc universal not buying the wwe but buying the you know buying or licensing the wwe's streaming content all of it because well they make a lot of original stuff a lot of documentaries and the documentaries tell the actual true stories right of what's happening in these people's lives and it's customer customer acquisition because

they're getting all of those subscribers who presumably you know they can then say look at all these extra peacock subscribers we've got um you know that we can sell ads to which because that is part of their business i wonder and i don't know enough about this but i do look at this and think i wonder if in the long run they might buy the wwe but they might not need to and and right now their ambition is yeah right now their ambition is not uh worldwide necessarily for nbc universal but but right this is essentially nbc universal is going to make this a tile like how disney plus has star wars and marvel and disney and pixar right they have uh they have this disney plus another thing i watch movies on um they they have wrestling now right that's like part of peacock

they've got premier league and they've got wrestling like right that's like part of peacock they've got premier league and they've got wrestling like they're starting to put together uh and the office that's basically what's on peacock now but to be honest for all the people it's probably enough right it's look this is all you know they're adding people are like well why would i get peacock and it's like well we've got two good new reasons you know we we moved most of our premier league stuff to peacock and now we've moved we've moved the wwe to peacock and like okay well and we're gonna move even more of our sports there because we're shutting down our sports channel and this is this is how the game is going to be played from now on they're they're it's fascinating to see them being this aggressive with this but i i think all this

stuff is smart i think it's smart and it's this the transition from the wwe network to peacock is going to happen in march so to get it done before wrestlemania because that's when you want to do this before wrestlemania because wrestlemania is where the casual people like casual viewers will come right and so they might be able to every year i expect that the wwe picks up new subscribers around that time who stick around for the year. And once the mania subsides, people will have Peacock. They'll wake up from the mania and they'll be like, whoa, what's this Peacock? And they could be calmed by Michael Scott, I guess. Everyone calm down now.

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That's good. So Apple today announced a feature that has been rumored. It was actually a feature that we spoke about a couple of weeks ago. We did. Apple should add this to Fitness Plus. It's called Time to Walk. It is an inspiring audio walking experience.

This is an Apple Watch and AirPods feature, which is interesting to me. The only way you can listen to this content is by using an Apple Watch with connected Bluetooth headphones. There will be weekly original content featuring influential and inspiring people. The first four episodes of this fitness content feature Dolly Parton, Draymond Green, Shawn Mendes, and Uzo Aduba.

They show, and what I like as well that basically they're talking to you about something. They have a story for you. It's all different stuff. Everybody's got their own story. And while they're telling you the stories, they show images on the Apple Watch as you're listening, which are relevant to the story that they're telling. And then once the story's over,

there's a short playlist of Apple Music tracks that accompany the story. So as you can imagine, Sean Mendes' one features three Shawn Mendes songs. That's how that goes. These stories will automatically download to your Apple Watch, but I think that's on the next version of WatchOS currently, because without an update they're available now, and you have to download them from the Fitness app. So they're in the Fitness app today. It's just service-like content stuff.

I really like as well that this feature is available for wheelchair users as well, and it's called Time to Push if you're a wheelchair user. And so I just think that's just a nice way of doing it, but that's available there. I've seen a lot of people say that these are podcasts. I don't understand why people keep saying that. They're not. I don't know why people are like,

hey, it's Apple's original podcast strategy. This is not Apple's original podcast strategy. We've already seen it. We spoke about it. They have actual podcasts that they make. One's called Apple News Today. We spoke about this. You know, I think it's that they're saying it's going to be released weekly.

And so at a glance, you could say could say it's original audio content released weekly. But it is tied into Fitness Plus and only available on the Apple Watch. It's not quite the same. But I get the release schedule being a feeling like spoken word on a release schedule feels podcast-y. Sure. a release schedule feels podcasty sure they're like i understand that but it does they just don't feel i just don't understand it's like it's like we say spotify's podcasts aren't podcasts right but they're more like podcasts than this well oh well if spotify's podcasts aren't podcasts these are these are definitely not podcasts if is a podcast, then these are podcasts. If audiobooks are a podcast, then this is a podcast. By the way, this can be our new podcast or not.

Oh, gosh. Is the Dance the Robot a podcast? um i we mentioned i mentioned this in the context of of running yeah because i felt like that they don't have any running content because you know you run outside and i said i said it would be nice if they did some audio only content and walking is good because the idea there is also you're getting you're getting somebody uh active like get off your couch get off out of your chair go for a walk and listen to an interesting story from Draymond Green. Great. I'm intrigued by that. I want to hear what Draymond Green has to say. He plays for the Warriors. He's a basketball player. I do wonder about runs. That would be an interesting idea, like a guided run. And

it comes back to some of the other complaints slash room for improvement in fitness plus that I mentioned the last time, which is, could you use the sensors to, um, to build an experience that's a little more interactive? So like, could you do a run thing where the voices drop in and there's also music and it kind of comes back and forth, or would it be just more of a linear thing of like somebody, uh, you know, somebody having you run and then telling you a story. And then I don't know, but I'm intrigued by the idea. I would love to try out, um, some audio content for runs because I do them and it would be, I listen to podcasts now, which is fine, but I, I would, I would give it a shot. Um, and then I've also heard people say that this might be a nice way to do kind of meditation or relaxation or other stuff like that where um again you don't need uh to be watching a tv screen you get your eyes closed but you could use it as a kind of gentle guidance sort of like how that there are um there are those

meditation apps that let you do this and they're they're expensive subscription apps too right so they could get into that as well of like a calm down a mindful relaxation kind of thing i think there's opportunity for fitness plus to go in that direction uh as well and then um our friend shelly brisbane i think pointed out in one of our slacks that it also is potentially a nice accessibility thing right because um having audio only content is uh is good for people who uh don't consume video content yeah so uh i'm encouraged by this i love that they are already rolling out other features of fitness plus i think that's good yeah and it's a good it's a good one to have because it's also like if you have fitness plus but you're not like

a big high intensity workout training type person this is like another thing that you can add that like is of a value to you right and so i'm going to do one of these tomorrow um so i'm gonna go out for a walk tomorrow and i'll listen to one of these things um i i don't know why this has to be Apple Watch only for the audio component. Well, it doesn't, obviously. Right. But. Yeah.

So Fitness Plus currently, at least, is Apple Watch required. Yeah. So I think it's that and maybe they've got a maybe they've got kind of a gimmick going to about like i don't know if you stop walking if you just listen to these on your couch does it um does it stop playing and make you walk more or something like it could use the walk as a metaphor and we really know we really want you to walk right uh during this and and the they're using the apple watch as the sensor to do all of that stuff even though you could do that on the phone as well

they're all you know it's all tied in i do wonder if some of it is just a did you know that you can pair headphones with your apple watch and just walk with your apple watch but uh but you're right this could very easily be something you could do with just your iPhone. Mark Gurman has more reports. We have a couple more Mark Gurman reports. He wasn't done. He wasn't done. He wasn't done on that Friday afternoon. He wasn't done. First one is about Apple's upcoming VR headset.

I feel like this whole segment of upgrade is us being right. Yeah. Do you feel that us being right. Yeah. Feel that way to you. Yeah. This report I felt like was very close to what we talked about. And it was one of my theories for how Apple could possibly do a headset in 2020. Yep. Was I said it was kind of like a VR developer kit that could fake AR, but that would be

really more of a high price developer demo and something that would be for mass use. But it would allow them to get the hardware out there and that they had the hardware for this so they could put it out there. And, you know, please tell them about Mark's report. But I'll just say, as I read it, I was like, is this a product for people? Or is it kind of a tech demo for developers? And could it be sold that way? I nodded while I read this report, is what I'm saying. Well, this is the thing, though, right?

Wouldn't it be nice if it were both? So it's apparently being designed as a high-end niche product with expectations that it's not going to be a product that sells exceedingly well in its first iteration but it's believed this is a first step towards more compelling products in the future there was actually like the sales expectations are very slim um i think they said something like they would assume they would sell as many as one per day in retail stores which is similar to the kind of volumes they have for the mac pro from an expectation perspective

yeah and and you know high-end niche product we've said endlessly here that apple makes products to sell in volume so this report is weird unless you think of it as essentially something that's pitched as a tech a tech demo product yeah that it's a developer product yeah and like like a mac pro it's a developer product and it's not for the masses and it's not going to be marketed for the masses but it'll be available you're not going to be maybe you don't have to be a developer to buy it, but that's essentially how they pitch it, is that it's a glimpse at the future and for people who are developing the next generation stuff for AR. and I think that that, I mean, as we were talking about when, when we spoke about this last time,

I think the benefit that you have there is that you, you don't have to have the Apple watch problem, right? Of like, Hey, we have this thing. It does everything. See what it,

see, see how it works. Right. And it was very scattershot. If Apple do a thing like this, a product like this, it's purely to understand on a larger scale

their future of this type of device. Like, this is not the device. This is the first version of, honestly, not even the thing they're going to make, right? This is a VR-focused device. It will display a 3D environment for gaming, video viewing, and communicating with others,

currently set to debut as soon as 2022. This is not the product. The product is AR glasses. This is not AR glasses. But if you get this kind of thing out into the world, you'll see how developers like it. You'll see what customers like and what they don't like. And it's dipping your toe into this other market rather than just throwing all your cards down on the table and hoping that it works. Apple got to do that with the iPhone.

You can't keep doing like that's not a thing you can just do every time, right? I mean, I know the iPhone was not perfect, but it was a very... For its time, very fully realized. It had everything you would want and more. They have not succeeded in doing that with the iPad. They have not succeeded in doing that with the Apple Watch. They all took time to understand how these products would be used by people

and what they were good for, for them to really take off. Right. But they were full, fully featured products. I think the problem that I have with this rumor is that this is like you said, this is not the product. No,

this is the pre, this is version zero of a product. And Apple traditionally does this is version zero of a product and apple traditionally does not release version zero of a product which is why i'm kind of fascinated that this report is that they're actually going to release this that's why i speculated that it would be released as developer hardware as a way to basically say this isn't for people and maybe they could brand it as something that was essentially developer or technical review or whatever and then and then get it out there but it seems weird that they would even treat it as a regular product even if you could buy it from like why even put it in apple retail why not just have it be at just

online and it's expensive and nobody is going to buy it unless they're really helps developer to demo this stuff physically so they would put it in retail for that. If you wanted to understand what it was like to use, you could go there and use it. But do you want to... I mean, unless they're using it as kind of marketing for the future of air, but it's not a product people should buy.

If it's not a product people should buy, this is the core of my confusion about this, is Apple releases products people should buy. And Mark Gurman's report is sort of like, this isn't a product people should buy. And Mark Gurman's report is sort of like, this isn't a product people should buy. It's not, and it's not going to sell well, and it's going to be expensive and it's a niche product, but they're going to do it. And it's going to be VR, not AR. And, you know, and it's everything that we described, which is you could take an iPhone and iPhone games and all those things and put them in a headset and have something like an Oculus Quest 2.

You could do it. And Mark Gurman's report is they are going to do it. That's what they're going to do. And that's fine. I could see a report that said Apple thinks that it can make a better Oculus Quest 2 than Facebook can. And it's going to do it. And will it sell a billion of them? Well, no, but it gives them a beachhead with VR games and stuff,

and then their AR product will follow. But that's not what the report says. The report says, no, it's not a product people are going to want, and they're not going to try hard to market it, and they're not going to sell any, and it's going to be very expensive. That's the part that baffles me because either you make a product that's like the Oculus Quest and you make it, you know, popular within a certain circle or you make a very expensive high end product that is essentially a tech demo for developers. a tech demo for developers for apple to release like both of those are things that i understand apple doing i don't understand kind of something that's both at once so i'm a little bit baffled by that so i i appreciate samsung as a company because they release

products just so they can get better at making the future version of that product. Sure. But Apple doesn't do that. Not typically, no. Even the Apple Watch didn't feel like a

throw-it-against-the-wall kind of product. Even though its messaging was very much throw-it-against-the-wall. It didn't feel like a throw-it-against-the-wall kind of product, even though its messaging was very much throw-it-against-the-wall. It did feel like a focused Apple product, just a first-generation product. When they showed it off, I keep bringing up the Apple Watch in relation, when they showed it off, it seemed like, wow, this thing can do anything. But when we received it, we realized it kind of can't. Like, it's not great for all of the stuff that we were shown. It's better at these certain things.

Similarly, for the most recent Apple TV, right? Like TVOS was shown to us as being like, oh, it can do everything. But really, it does these things very well. My thinking on this, the reason I like this is that even though it is not the typical Apple move, I think it is the right move if they want to make the best version of the AR glasses that they can possibly make, is by taking these small steps that, at the time that they happen, just in a vacuum, seem really weird, right? Like, this is going to be an over one thousand dollar right like two to three times more expensive than the competition headset with none of the games you

want because facebook keeps buying all the studios that make the best games right like and you know so um but i i i think it's so they can try and make this other thing later on it i know this is a bold strategy cotton like i don't know if it's gonna work out for them but yeah it's something to try i i agree to a point like we've we've been saying all along that apple's focus on ar is very clearly in ipads and iphones is very clearly just laying groundwork because they want to do ar on your face but they haven't gotten there yet and that part i kind of accept apple does a lot of testing of new tech in existing tech and then rolls it all together um i what where and again maybe mark german doesn't have this part clear i don't know but

it's the it's it's the this is not going to be a product that sells exceedingly well in its first iteration and that it's a niche high-end product i that would be a real change in strategy for apple to release a product a big new first generation in a new class product for apple that apple basically says you're not going to want. Now, that doesn't stop them. The counter argument would be they're not going to do it like that. They're going to make it that this is, Apple's finally making a VR thing for games and stuff

and it's revolutionary. And yeah, it costs $1,200. If you want it, go buy it. And everybody will scream about the price and Apple behind the scenes is like, that's fine, we don't want you to actually buy this one. But they're going to be like, no, but it's best in class. And look at how beautiful.

Like, according to the German report, the screen quality is way better, which is, you know, VR goggles. It's grainy, right? We're used to high resolution displays. And they aren't capable of that. So maybe this one is. And it's truly HD. And they're going to have really good cameras. They'll have iPhone cameras on it. So when you're in mixed reality mode and you can see the world around you,

it actually looks pretty good. It's high resolution, it's color. Um, and, and because like the quest two is it's low resolution and black and white, and it still blows me away when I'm in that mixed reality mode. I'm like, Whoa, I can see the world around me while I'm wearing these things. It's great, right? So if Apple could do that and do it really well, I can see all of that. It's just fascinating because it would be a change for them.

And I guess we'll see. I think they could probably release something like this and hide it away more in a developer context, which is why I suggested that. Because then it's sort of like at a developer conference, Apple announced VR goggles that cost $1,200 or whatever, a large amount of money. Nobody is interested in them. But it almost takes the pressure off of them. It makes everybody speculate about Apple's long-term plans.

But it takes the pressure off of Apple in one sense, because they don't have to be that product. Product is, has like a disclaimer on it, right? It's like, this isn't a product. It's like, it's like, we're not going to reviews of the, of the Apple Silicon Mac mini developer test kit that was running on the A14Z or A12Z. It's like, we don't care. Like it's not a real product. So Apple could do that if it wanted to and say, this is a real product look away avert your eyes if they choose not to do that i'm not saying that they won't and i'm not saying that's a bad idea but i am saying that's really interesting because uh apple is heavily scrutinized it's not something that i feel like they've really done before it has a potential to really backfire on them.

You worry about the stink of it stinking up what you do next. And maybe they're so confident that they're not worried about that. But I guess what I'm saying is in the past, they've just hidden this stuff. And if they choose not to hide it, that's going to be really interesting because I think it's a move that they haven't made before. But, you know, make no mistake, I totally see what this product could be. And it could be really great, even if it's a move that they haven't made before um but you know make no mistake i totally see what this product could be and it could be really great even if it's very expensive it could be actually kind of great but it's a weird thought to say that apple's going to release something as a consumer product essentially they're going to call it that and release it like that and put it in apple stores when all they're really doing is laying the groundwork for the glasses that are to come in 22 or 23.

So from Mark Gummer's report, Mark says that the plan is that the product will build a foundation of their AR ambitions to come and will also provide developers with some hardware to build apps and experiences on. And this is the thing. We can see the logic in that, but it's certainly an a peculiar thing to do though right like hey this thing costs twelve hundred dollars we're going to show you all

the features that it does just don't buy it right that right and if they truly feel that way it's a developed product call it that but i do wonder if they're like, well, you know, our fans, some of them will buy this, even if it's really expensive. Like, there are people who have no business buying a Pro Display XDR who buy that because we make it. Hi, Marco. Hi, John. Hi, Stephen. Hi, 90% of the people who bought the pro display xdr you like don't need the features but it is it is a beautiful apple product i'm and i'm not i'm not

really making fun of you i'm saying there is a part of apple's market that wants the newest apple stuff and it doesn't really matter they're not gonna be a make it a best seller but they will buy it if they're allowed to like a lot of people people would have bought that A12Z Mac Mini if they were allowed to, even though it's just for developers. There are enough Apple podcasters in the world. Yeah. So that's the argument, right? That's the argument is buy it if you want, but don't buy it.

But if you want, I guess I look at it and I think you're opening yourself up if you're Apple to a lot of backlash because Apple releasing a product to the consumer market, to everybody, putting it in Apple stores, it is Apple putting a stamp on it saying, this is ready to go. This is ready for primetime. This is ready to be judged. This is ready to be analyzed because Apple doesn't have a tradition of throwing the spaghetti against the wall. Apple doesn't release 15 phones and see what happens and 13 of them are discontinued and are never seen again. It doesn't do that.

So it is opening itself up to a level of criticism and scrutiny that it could avoid if it wants to i am fascinated uh i will be like if they if they welcome it and say no we're gonna yeah it's a high end vr set and uh obviously it's a first crack and this is going to go in a lot of places and most people probably aren't going to want this but uh those who do are going to have the best in class vr experience that's ever been done, right? They'll say that. That's what Apple says. And maybe they will. That would be a real gutsy move for them. And that's why I'm fascinated most by it is that I feel like what that says about Apple changing its strategy. I have no doubt it'll be good. I have no doubt it would be good

because they've got all the pieces to make it good. It just will be super expensive, but I have no doubt it would be best in they've got all the pieces to make it good. It just would be like super expensive, but I have no doubt it would be best in class among at least among the standalone and maybe among all of the VR goggle type things that are out there. Headsets. During testing, Apple struggled with the size and weight of the device. So they removed the space in the hardware to accommodate for eyeglasses. hardware to accommodate for eyeglasses so they so basically a lot of these devices they have like a lens adjustment thing so if you have eyeglasses you can kind of adjust the lens so it's clear to you in the units that apple will be working on they've removed that and they will offer the

ability for people to order prescription lenses instead i mentioned uh with the quest that i bought that they have this uh the virtue clear lens insert yeah i think we were talking about that in upgrade plus okay all right well it's yeah that's right that's right well so oculus has a partner they work actually with frames direct and they have these 80 inserts that go on the goggles on the inside and you order them you know it's not a prescription in the sense of like you need to go to your doctor but you do need to sort of know what your adjustment is and you order i have some uh that i bought on amazon some swim goggles that are adjusted that are corrected so that i can kind of see out of them and they're not perfect by any means but it means i don't have to wear my glasses

in the ocean and have them swept off my face and And then I can't see for until I go home. Right. Uh, that almost happened. So, um, that's what it would be. It's like,

you'd be, you, you might even be able to go into the Apple store and say, all right, well, I need a minus five here. And that's like minus three on this eye. And then they,

they, it would probably not be, you know, the lens crafters creating custom prescription things for your it's probably more like do you have your prescription you can look on it or bring it in and we'll say oh you need this one and this one and then we hand them to you or we ship them to you if you know it like and that's that's pretty easy to do because i've done that for the for my swim goggles if their future is making ar glasses

they need to be able to accommodate for complex prescriptions it's true so they got to figure it out again it's like these are baby steps um the headset is planned to be a standalone device i remember this from a from a report that mark german did a while ago that there were initial ideas to have it whilst to communicate to some kind of processing unit but johnny ive right no way and johnny i've made it the right move because that is a no-way scenario yeah that's no having i mean wireless would be better than wired but you lose a lot if you do a wireless and wired is better but then you've got a cable and you can't take this is the right thing to do anywhere no no this is the right thing to do and obviously obviously apple are considering an app store for the device of course they are of

course everything needs an app store so i don't know about this i'm intrigued i am intrigued you can call me intrigued because i am a vr believer um so i'm intrigued what apple will do with it i kind of feel like some kind of 2022 timeframe is not necessarily the best. I can imagine if Apple were able to get this out during pandemic time, they could actually market it much nicer, much better, I think. I think it's got a more interesting marketing story if people are at home more. And, I mean, I know we spoke they always bet on the over right but uh yeah the hope would be that in 2020 lockdowns might not be as prevalent as they are now you know

because i could imagine you know even just like a hey vr facetime great right yeah um yeah i i will say for my own for myself i'm more interested in a vr product than an ar product because apple's ar glasses will be intended to be a thing i wear all the time and i still don't know how comfortable i am with that as a notion where with vr i'm like, I'm in for a while and then I'm out. Right. And it's not part of my life. So, but cool report though. Yeah. All right. This episode is brought to you by FitBod, the fitness app that provides a personalized

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membership our thanks to fitbod for their support of upgrade and relay fm so we have another mac report from mark german as well he doesn't stop no he just keeps on going and i like it this time it's primarily about the macbook air with some additional details just scattered in, which is, you know, I love the way that Mark Gumm and writes, you know, we said this before and we've had him on the show before as well. But I really like when he writes a report about one thing

and then hides some details about other products in that report. I just think it's really fun because it makes it more exciting to read. I'm like, okay, MacBook Air, MacBook Air. Wait, you said what about the macbook pro i like that about the way that he writes so um apple is apparently working on a new thinner and lighter version of the macbook air and to achieve this they'll be shrinking the bezels and retaining the 13-inch screen. Right off the bat, this is like the MacBook, right? Like, that's kind of...

This is the Air, right? This is like the MacBook. We always said at the time the 12-inch MacBook was really the MacBook Air because it was thinner and lighter than the MacBook Air. And then it's always funny that the MacBook Air now is not that much thinner or lighter than the MacBook Pro

the MacBook Air was always supposed to be the thinnest lightest product sure and I guess this is the recommitment to the MacBook Air again like they've recommitted to everything else like actually going back and making this the product it is meant to be

yeah this looks to me like I wrote a Macworld piece about how I thought they should just take the 12-inch MacBook and bring it back. And Mark's report here makes me think that Apple perhaps has decided

that 12 inches is just too small a screen going forward as they space out the Mac OS with Big Sur and that what they want is a 13-inch screen but that they can still

make it thinner and lighter. And if you think of it that way, and you think about how we got here with the MacBook Air, right? They killed it. Basically, they put it on life support. It just sort of sat out there with no retina screen. They tried to sell us a MacBook. They tried to sell us the low-end MacBook Pro Escape. People just kept buying the MacBook Air.

And they finally said, all right, you're right. You want the MacBook Air, here it is. And they, they release a product that is, you know, it's a MacBook Air. Like if you use the old MacBook Air and then you picked up the Retina MacBook Air in any form, you're like, oh yeah, this is the same computer. This report suggests to me that behind that there's a redesign that they they came out with an air that was they put together a retina macbook air that looked more or less like the old macbook air but that this is the new area macbook air right like that this is this is one that doesn't necessarily look exactly like the old classic model but is going to do a lot of the same things that the 12-inch MacBook tried

to do in terms of being thinner and lighter. And maybe the 12-inch MacBook design just didn't work with the new keyboard that they've settled on or some other aspect of Apple Silicon. I don't know. There are MagSafe plans, lots of things it could be, but the need for an airier MacBook Air remained. And so this is fascinating that they apparently are working on this idea of how do we take the existing air, which is very thin and light. But as my Macworld article pointed out, it's still like eight-tenths of a pound heavier than the 12-inch MacBook. Like there's room to make a smaller MacBook Air.

There really is a smaller and lighter MacBook Air. And I guess they're going there. However, Mark Gurman also says that they thought about making a 15 inch model, but that's not happening right now. And that made me laugh because I'm like, remember the big iBook that was the same number of pixels as the small iBook? It was just the 14 inch iBook. It was just like the large print edition of the other ibook i i chuckled when i thought that when i saw this but at the same time consider it just like we had the 11 and the 13 of the macbook air like there's no reason that somebody who wants a bigger screen should have to buy a pro macbook if they don't want it right that it doesn't have to be connected to price. Having a bigger screen. It doesn't have to be.

So I laughed at this because a larger MacBook Air is not the thing I want in the world. But I also kind of understand how they might want to go there or consider going there at some point. Just because not everybody wants a little laptop with a little screen. And they don't necessarily need to buy a MacBook Pro to get those features. And if they're trying to differentiate, which I think is an important thing for Apple to do, to differentiate between the Air and the Pro, because right now there's very little space between them, then this is a way to do that too. I really like that thought of like, the current MacBook Air is another version of a product called MacBook Air but it isn't true to

what the MacBook Air was supposed to be or it's or events have surpassed it right like the MacBook Pro has gotten so much smaller and lighter that now they're uncomfortably close together yeah because what it is now

what the MacBook Air, the current MacBook Air is, is just Apple's cheapest laptop. Right. Well, and it is thinner and lighter than the MacBook Pro, but like we saw the 12-inch MacBook and we're like that.

Exactly. Now that, like you said, that was the Air. That was the true thin and light laptop. And that's what I mean when I say having looked at the specs of the 11-inch MacBook Air and the 13-inch MacBook Air and then the new Retina MacBook Air, there's room. There's room

for it to be thinner and smaller and lighter. There is definitely room for Apple to push in that direction. And it seems like they're going to, which is great. The new MacBook Air will also feature MagSafe along with a pair of USB 4 ports. And this is as a reminder, USB 4 is the Thunderbolt. Yeah. And USB-C all in one little package. So it's like it's those things all together. This version is expected to be a higher end model with the current m1 macbook air sticking around in the lineup all right so all right everybody hold everything some of our speculation on this show

has been about what's apple's chip strategy and what's apple's mac strategy in terms of bringing out new stuff and this is such a juicy little tidbit, right? Because what this is saying is, guess what? We're going to bring a new MacBook Air in that's thinner and lighter and maybe even has a more powerful processor. I don't know. Mark does say that. Mark says that. The next generation processor.

Next generation of Apple Silicon chips. And they're going to leave the old M1 there, right? It's like, I'm okay with that. I think it's fascinating though right because that that's them saying all right that 999 or maybe even less that that m1 is going to stick around but spend a little more money you get the thinner lighter faster version that's not something they've done a lot of on the mac side although it's definitely an ample move but it's not necessarily so much of a mac move, but that's, that's interesting. And, and I think not entirely unexpected,

the idea that the M1 computers would stick around because they're plenty fast and they form the low end of the, of the, you know, Apple Silicon line. And then Apple starts building on top of them with a new generation of processors rather than just iterating. And that seems to be at least, this is a first indication that that's Apple's plan is come out with a new MacBook Air with a next generation processor and leave the old one in the price list. Because honestly, even if it stays at $999, such a great deal at $999. On ATP last week, Marco went off for a while about how great the MacBook Air is. And all I can say is, cosine, I agree completely. Even at $999, it's such a great deal.

So Apple has latitude to just let it sit there and build newer products higher up in the product line. Or push it down in price a little bit and slide in a new MacBook Air 2. Like, they've got the room to do it so i think that's what they're doing according to mark german and um that's fascinating this is their strategy we've wondered like what will happen this is a strategy it isn't that all the macs will get updated with all the new chips all the time like there's going to be honestly kind of like the ios devices you can still buy last year's and we'll make it a little bit cheaper and it will have that those set of features and that will stay as it is.

And here's the M2 versions. Here's the M3 versions. Here's the M4 versions and so on. This is kind of making me feel like I think they're going to have a bunch of different letter chips. Yeah, M1X. No, more like M1 might be the lower-end ones, and then it might be a different set for the middle ones,

to kind of differentiate them from each other. Because it feels like, to me, there's going to be a lot of processors flying around here. Yeah. And I wonder how they're going to name it. Because, yeah, maybe they will be like M1, M1X, M1T. And then M2, M2X, M2T, right? So they can kind of...

You've got the low-end chips, the mid-range chips, the high-end chips. And then they will iterate every year. I'm not sure. Anyway, talking about those little details oh by the way this is due to be released in the second half of this year or early 2022 so we're going to get basically a year out of the current right macbook air before they iterate right i read that as a as a you know maybe fall or maybe it'll slide into into next year yeah again all of these rumors from Mark suggest

it's second half of the year with a next generation Apple Silicon chip, which to me reads that if we get any new Macs in the first half of this year, they're probably M1s. Provided that some of the things have been fixed. I don't know. I don't know.

I'm not entirely convinced that there will be any new Macs in the first half of this year if Mark's reports are accurate, right? Because he's talked a lot about next generation chips. And the implication there is that the next Macs will have next generation chips. But there's also sort of a strong implication that it's sort of a June WWDC thing, maybe. I don't know that it is it would be interesting if those honestly the m1 max made such a big splash that if there was ever a year where apple could afford to just not update anything until june or july it's this year but i still would love something sooner than that so the next line of macbook pros that we spoke about last week will gain an sd card slot as one of their io expans Pros that we spoke about last week will gain an SD card slot

as one of their IO expansions so we spoke about having more ports SD card, one of those ports make a lot of people happy I think also this is one of those things where it makes more people happy than people that use it sure, people love having the freedom the ability the possibility of an upgrade or of a of using a particular kind of port and then they they don't

necessarily but they like to know that they could in a pinch and i've been in that situation where i've had an sd card and i'm like what do i anybody have an adapter because i just don't have an adapter around and the laptops don't have it. And I do you, for the record, I use the SD card reader on the back of my iMac every week. Apple has also apparently been developing the underlying support for cellular Macs, but it's unknown when this will become an option. I love this report because I think what it suggests is that cellular macs are going to happen um my my feeling all along has been that cellular macs aren't going to happen now that they bought intel five you know cellular radio business they're going to make 5g chips integrated perhaps

even integrated in apple silicon but they're going to make their own apple 5g chips and at that point they're going to say well we should put this in the mac and so they're laying the groundwork here this feels very much like a report where like the os group is now working on cellular control stuff because there are lots of issues where ideally you want to be able to do what you do on ios where you can say don't allow cellular or do allow cellular or be able to control when data gets transferred because unless you've got an unlimited plan. And even if you have an unlimited plan, if you've got a narrow pipe and you want certain kinds of data to go through, there's nothing worse than being somewhere and being like, why can't I do this? And the answer is, well, because you're uploading photos in the background. It's like, I don't want to do that now on the

cellular network, even if you have unlimited to do that now on the cellular network, even if you have unlimited data, because it slows down your network, right? So they got to build some software, ideally, software infrastructure for that. And it sounds like that's happening. But his source is basically like, well, we're doing this. Well, when is that going to happen? And there's no hardware source to say, well, the plan is we're going to put that hardware in on X date. But it is encouraging that they're actually working on it, right? Because you can't put cellular modems in Macs without laying that groundwork. So I'm very excited that they're laying the groundwork.

I completely agree with you that we won't get these until whenever it is Apple does make their own modems, which we know they're doing. It's one of those things. It's not even a rumor. They bought Intel's business like you wouldn't do that right like oh we just feel sorry for these people no they're doing it uh because as well uh they don't get on very well of qualcomm that's right so uh yeah i they this will happen when that happens, and it's not going to happen before, I don't think. Apple has apparently also been doing work for Face ID on their new Macs and was hoping for this to ship in the iMac redesign,

but is apparently now unlikely to happen this time around. So that's disappointing. Very. It's, you know, this is that one two one step forward one step back kind of thing from mark german where it's like they are working on face id for the mac but um not now you're not going to get it now because the new imac with a new redesigned imac you know hardware would be the perfect time to put in uh all the sensors for face id um and it sounds like he's basically saying well they're working on it but it's not not ready for for now and that's that's

that's too bad because if there's ever a product that that could use face id it's uh it's the imac more than anything like all right because they can't put a touch id sensor no you know it doesn't have a it doesn't have a a keyboard attached you have to add a keyboard wired or wireless and and so they it's a much more complicated thing than just putting a camera on that on the top of that thing so that's disappointing so that's what we have for now so yeah mark Mark Gurman provides, he provides excitement and he also crushes dreams. These are things that happen. But, uh, but yeah, his, his track record is very good. So, um, you know, as always, when we talk about these, these reports, you know, I believe

that Mark Gurman sources are very good. That said, they're, they don't know everything. They only see little portions of it. And things change. So just because right now, as we're talking, some people at Apple say that this is going to happen, doesn't necessarily mean it will. Decisions get made all the time. Stuff gets pulled out. Things get reversed.

So we'll see. Remember, once Apple wasn't making any new displays, they were out of the display business and then they made the Pro Display XDR and are apparently making another display too. So things do change. There isn't huge news as such, but seeing that like the LG displays

are like out of stock in most places in Europe on Apple Store. Yeah, and LG stock has gone in and out because they keep doing sort of stealth updates to some of their monitors right on atp marco talked about that that they're like three or four different versions of one of their displays like they unclear whether that that means anything um i think that mark german's report was that that external display was i there was in one of the slacks or discords that i'm in somebody somebody was like, oh, I'm holding out for that. Every day I wake up and I'm hoping

that that display gets announced. And like, he made it sound like they're starting work on it. So I wouldn't expect it before, until like the end of the year, if then. So please do not, you know, go to bed every night hoping you'll wake up with news of an Apple display. I think it's going to be a while. Upgradians, if you no longer want to hear ads

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in this show which we thoroughly appreciate. That is getupgradeplus.com. Thank you so much. Get it. Let's do some hashtag AskUpgrade questions to finish out today's show. First comes from Eli.

Do you think that Apple may be releasing new designs of peripherals along with the new designs of Macs this year? The Magic Mouse launched with the first unibody iMac in 2009. But even if we did, how much change could we really see? Well, I hadn't thought of it. This is a really good question. I feel like it is a good question

to ask. Will Apple modify the peripherals? It's a good time for them to do it. Magic Trackpad 2 is pretty good. I'm not quite sure what they could do there, although they could... I've been thinking about how they have all of their 3D Touch, Force Touch stuff. And I find it funny that in all the conversations people have had about how these rumors about new laptops with MagSafe and with more ports and having a new Apple display and all these things,

it feels very much like what all the computer nerds wanted is going to be given to them. And Apple's reverting a bunch of things that we hated about their computers for a while. Nobody has talked about Force Touch 3D Touch, which is an example where Apple rolled that out like the touch bar. And we're like, oh, this is really going to be big. And then it just sort of was met with no enthusiasm. And they've started backing away from it. Anyway, the Magic Trackpad 2 has support for that,

and I wonder if they could just save some money by throwing that out. And making it a real click again? Well, they could. I actually don't mind the fake click. It feels real to me. I did think, though, that you could also, you know, there's some wacky things you could do there.

You could put Apple Pencil on it. I don't know. There's things that they could do there. You could put Apple Pencil on it. I don't know. There's things that they could do there. But the mouse is a really great example where people have been making hay about that charger on the bottom of it for so long now that a redesigned mouse that didn't charge on the bottom would probably be worth doing. The people who've been working, it's not as if the people who work on input devices at Apple are not busy because they are like they just did the magic keyboard for iPad and they did the magic keyboard for the laptops. Those are those are big. Those are actually pretty big jobs that they did. But is there something coming after that?

It would be a good time for Apple to refresh its input devices, Eli. Um, so maybe I would use a wired Apple keyboard that had touch ID on it. Sure. That would be great. If they could do something like that, that would be, yeah. A magic, magic keyboard with touch ID. Sure. And cause wired keyboards, I use them all the time now. it's not much of a problem it really isn't um no i've i'm my keyboard is wired because i basically i'm sitting at my desk and i can wire it so why not then i don't have to charge it it's fine my trackpad is also wired it doesn't have to be but i don't have to charge it if it's always plugged in. So, yeah, it's easier. Similar question. Actually, a follow-on question from Ryan who asks, could you imagine a future Apple mouse with MagSafe charging?

I don't know how that would work, but maybe? What they should do is, like, there's a couple of companies that do this, Qi or some kind of wireless charging mouse mat. Constant power to the mouse. interesting interesting what do you think you know this rumor about magsafe on the laptops being the more like the little pill size if they do that do you think that they might spread that elsewhere do you think that that might pop up on peripherals maybe you think that that might be they wouldn't they wouldn't put two mag safes on the iphone would they one on the bottom and one on the back for that for that portless iphone i would like that because

then i could still use my pop socket i hadn't thought of that until now and it's not induction right it's the the mag safe? The MagSafe as described, which is like the MagSafe that we used to have, is not an induction charge. It's a direct connect guided by magnets. And so it's a much more efficient, fast charge. I would love that, honestly, because then I wouldn't have to use

the MagSafe puck- puck style charging i could imagine you know you could put that on a trackpad and a mouse really easily as well and then that you know for talking about peripherals that could be how you charge your peripherals the reason i mean i just the thought just occurred to me that one way you could get rid of lightning is with MagSafe. If you built a new MagSafe that was, you know, unlike people who remember the old MagSafe, it was like hardwired into the brick. And I think everybody's hoping that a new MagSafe Apple does is just USB-C on one end and the MagSafe connector, and you can buy different lengths and different kinds of MagSafe connectors ideally.

And it could even be a licensed product that they could they could work with licensees on um but if you could you also then drop lightning away from a lot of these products that charge via lightning and instead use magsafe to make that connection and then just everybody everything becomes magsafe which is apple proprietary i I get it, but so is lightning. And if you're not going to go to USB-C, maybe that would be a nice thing to do. I don't know. Could they do data?

They could if they wanted to, right? They could put all, in fact, some of these MagSafe adapters. Like I have the one that John in Syracuse has. Those do data. Those do power and data through the little thing that you pop. You pop the thing in the USB-C port

and then you have a little thing that snaps on, but you can do data through those. And I guess it's not a lot, but the Magic Trackpad, sorry, the Magic Keyboard with Trackpad for iPad Pro, it does keyboard input. I know you can't do any data through the USB-C port that they have on there there but there's some data transfer going on there yeah that's using smart

connector yeah but you know that's magnetic right like it's it's you know it's sure it's i mean it's got that going on so a new magsafe could very definitely be data and in fact i would be surprised if it isn't i would be surprised if it isn't essentially a USB-C port, because that allows Apple to do things like make a MagSafe connector for a monitor and data passes through it. It allows them to sell MagSafe. Like I said, if they do a licensed program for MagSafe, like they do with lightning, they could have hubs that have, you know, you can attach to through that Magsafe port it basically makes the magsafe port another port on the on the laptop which could be really interesting so i don't know maybe uh maybe not but uh it's exciting to think about it i have another two

part question from jack okay do you use your echo show as a digital photo frame uh yes because i set up the new Echo Show and part of the setup was, would you like to put pictures on it that rotate? You can have up to, I don't know what, five, 10, something like that. And the app actually said, let me pick photos from my photo library

and upload them. So I picked those photos and those photos just update. I've never gone back to update them although i suppose i will at some point i'll get tired of looking at them but that's what i do there's no the you know he asks if there's a good way to automate this and my understanding is no and if there is i haven't even bothered to look it's not that important honestly um so i don't have an answer here i just i anticipate that every every every so often i'll

do it i'll set up is different i don't know how you set it up um but my echo show is connected to my amazon photos account and we have hundreds of images that we've put into our amazon photos account and then the echo Show just cycles through those. Yeah, I don't have that. I don't have that. And I didn't want them to cycle through a large number of like random photos I've taken. So I picked like, I actually went to my favorites in my photos library and picked five photos or something

and put them in there. And that's what I do. So you can do either one. You don't have to be, they seem to have made it that you don't have to be an Amazon Photos ecosystem household in order to get pictures on your echo show which i appreciate because i'm not yeah i mean i mean we're not uh but i have amazon prime so i have amazon photos yeah i just i do too i just downloaded the photos app picked a bunch of images from my phone and uploaded them i guess i could chuck all my favorites on amazon photos

and then it would use those maybe i'll do that sometime i don't know maybe there's a way to automate it if you know you can send it in we could put it in follow up it's just the yeah this is the you've reached the level of how much effort i was willing to put into this is that i was willing to follow the setup instructions to pick some photos and then i haven't done a single thing with it since it's nice having those photos there though, I have to say. I do enjoy looking at the Echo and seeing pictures of my family. That's fun. And finally, Tom asks, on last week's episode 335, you were talking about how the iMac Pro could have been in

20 max of 2020 if it was further in the future. Well, I guess it was 30 max of 2030, it was further in the future if 20 max was 20 well i guess it was 30 max of 2030 right uh you made the analogy to the hall of fame having a waiting period right so you if you're going to put something in a hall of fame you have to get a bit of distance from it so you can see its impact have you considered inducting the 20 max list into a six colors max of fame where you could then potentially induct another mac every year well this is a great idea um i will say that many of the six the 20 max for 2020 are infamous and not famous um it's i i have considered at some point writing more of those um in some form

what form it takes i have not. I thought maybe that would be a thing that I could do five more five years from now or something like that. The idea of inducting a new one every year, writing a new essay every year, I could do that. I worry that it's going to not have a whole lot of impact if it's just once a year an essay appears instead of it being like a thing, a project where there's a rollout. But it's not a bad idea. If I'm still writing about Max five, 10 years from now, which I anticipate that I will be if everything works out okay, then I anticipate revisiting and telling some other stories about other Max along the way. but I don't have any plans beyond that. And this is an interesting idea. It's probably not one I would go for, but I do like the idea of just inducting things into the Hall of Fame or shame, depending.

I'm looking at UMAC Portable. The whole, would it be like the, I'm trying to think of like notoriety, like some kind of like phrase, like the waiting room of notoriety or like yeah it's the the uh yeah the the notable hallway the greenhouse of notoriety uh thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of upgrade if you have a hashtag ask upgrade question you would like to hear answered on the show just send out a tweet with the hashtag ask upgrade or use question mark ask upgrade in the relay fm members discord which you have access to if you subscribe to upgrade plus go to get upgrade plus.com to sign up and learn more thank you to air buddy and fit bod for their support of this week's episode if you want to find jason

online go to sixcolors.com make sure you subscribe to the RSS feed because you're going to find out all of that hot information about quarterly earnings reports. Jason does the best reporting about the quarterly earnings reports that you're going to find. Charts, charts, charts. And luckily he was reminded that it was happening

with a couple of days notice so he can prepare the charts as they say. Jason is also at jsnl on Twitter jsnll Jason hosts many shows here at RelayFM and at The Incomparable as well I am imyke

on Twitter and I also host many shows here over at RelayFM go to relay.fm slash shows and you can maybe find a new podcast to add to your library to listen to. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Justin Snow. Goodbye, Michael Hurley.