Upgrade - 348: The 2021 April Event Draft

Episode Date: April 16, 2021

Emergency draft! In this bonus episode, Jason and Myke predict what will happen at Tuesday’s Apple media event. Will there be new iPad Pro models, and if so, will new accessories accompany them? Will we finally see a new iMac design? What other unexpected announcements might await us?

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 348 and today's show is brought to you by squarespace and pdf pen Smile. My name is Mike Hurley and I'm joined by Jason Snell. Oh, I love that band music. That can only mean one thing, Mike. Draft time. Draft time is here. There is an Apple event happening next week, April 20th, or this week, depending on when you're listening to it so i'll say april 20th 10 a.m pacific time as always the event is called spring loaded yeah wind up your springs get them loaded get ready as obviously expected all virtual and apple park sure previously recorded well yeah we'd assume previously recorded right if they follow the the suit that they have so far there's no reason to suggest that they wouldn't let me read the rules for the draft we are going to be doing three rounds of picks

going to be broken into three categories we're doing ipad picks mac picks and other picks which is going to be 10 picks total per person the winner of the previous draft gets first pick that was jason hello For an item to count as scorable in our draft, it must either be clearly announced on stage or on a slide during the presentation. Items will only be counted if they occur within the presentation

video itself from start to end. This is a keynote draft, not an event that occur on April 20th. Or what can you find out on the webpage afterwards. Exactly. Stephen Hackett will adjudicate that occur on April 20th. Or what can you find out on the web page afterwards. Exactly. It doesn't work like that. Stephen Hackett will adjudicate for us in the case of a scoring stalemate between the two of us. We prefer to score ourselves,

and we have been very good at this for a long time. But if we cannot come to a decision, Stephen will be the tiebreaker. There will be no half points awarded. You get the full thing, or you get nothing. We are, as always, choosing our picks from an agreed pre-approved list that doesn't contain any obvious items. We do not allow for the most obvious of obvious. Like, for example, you couldn't say, for example, Tim Cook will be in the presentation.

Seems pretty locked. A new product will be announced. Those don't make it. And again, we just sort of build our document of things that we want. And we all agree on them. The points that are awarded on the episode itself are final. And we also have a tiebreaker question in case we come down to a complete tie in the scoring. Right.

It's not scored per se. It's literally only used if there is a tie. There is an interactive scorecard which is created by a wonderful friend of the show, Zach Knox. You can find a link to that in the show notes.

We don't recommend that you open it until after you've heard all the picks because otherwise there'll be spoilers. But you can come back to this later on and you can score along with us as the event unfolds next week. So the results of 2020, pretty easy. There were four drafts, and Jason won all of them

in an, I think, unprecedented, complete sweep of the year. I have made it a personal goal to win at least one draft this year that's kind of where i'm coming from um i just want to pick up one win that is uh important to me for this year just all right one that sounds good i hope you i hope you get there thank you i hope you do it i'm rooting for you sort of i know that you also kind of are it this is like that weird thing where jason sounds both serious and sarcastic at the same time, but I believe in the seriousness of it. Well, it's not fun if I win every time. I want to win every time, right?

In the moment, in each one, I want to win. But it's also not fun for anyone, for the listeners, for you, and really for me, if it's just one-sided that's no good so it was a run of bad luck i think it was because i've had lots of wins in the past you're the annual chairman of the rickies over on the connected podcast that was a you you won that one but and you've won this several times clearly my picks are better just completely like blind because we pick our annual picks, we pick in January, things that could happen at any point over a 12-month span. And, like, the more kind of close picks, maybe I'm not so good at.

Although I also, on Connected, I had a good run of keynote wins before we had the Twitter account. As soon as we had the Twitter account, I never won another one. I can't win the keynotes but we'll see so uh we've kind of i think instituted a pretty standard tiebreaker now because it's easy uh which is event runtime so how long will the event run uh basically i get to pick the uh over under because uh jason won last two i will set the over under and then you get to choose and so the idea here is that i need to pick a runtime that i think is you know it's cut the cut the cake in

half and then your your sibling gets to choose which piece they want so you want to make it as fair as possible so you want to make it a hard decision and i'm not going to pick 60 minutes because i feel like there's enough rumor to be here that they might run a little bit over so i think i'm going to pick 75 minutes as the over under okay do i think this event will run over 75 minutes long because if i picked 60 it would be easy, right? Yeah. I think. Yeah. I do not. I'm going to say under 75 minutes. Okay. The only thing that I could imagine that would push this event over 75 minutes

would be something like the Mixed Reality headset, honestly. Something you don't believe will happen. Yeah, and I don't. I mean, maybe I'm tipping my handful later on in the draft, but I do not think that Apple is going to use this to show that off. I think even if, you know, the

typical product rumors we have here is something in iPad, something in Mac, and maybe some other little bits and bobs. I don't think, considering some of the events that Apple had in the last year, that this would be the one that pushes them over 75. Because I think they even stuck close to an hour for the iPhone event. No, I think they were over on the iPhone.

I think that's the thing. Apple has, what the push and pull here is, you don't want to overstay your welcome, but Apple also sort of has this idea of the ideal two-hour media event. And the last two were an hour, but the last two were also, the feeling was it was sort of one event that was cut in two. I'm not sure if that's the case this time. One hour and 11 minutes for the October event. For the October event. So I think there's a chance that they will run long um i didn't feel comfortable with 60 because i thought with 60 i would pick the over yeah i would have gone oh i almost did

70 but i'm gonna set it at 75 so there it is yep so i'm gonna say under 75 minutes come on long bloviating person on i mean honestly for us to get to needing to care about the tiebreaker, lots of things have gone wrong. All completely 100% right at that point. Can you imagine if we both 100%ed a draft? Can you imagine? That almost happened one time. That would be incredible though, right?

Yeah. We'd look so smart. That would also be kind of boring. I don't know. We would look good. If it happened one time, it would be exciting, just for it having happened having happened one time if it then happened a second time it would be boring true all right we're gonna get into our first round of pics which is ipad pics but first let me thank our first sponsor of this week's episode and that is smile and i want to talk to you about pdf pen

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whether it's OCRing a PDF that somebody sends me so I can copy and paste some texts to somewhere else or make them searchable, which is awesome. But one of the main things for me is just quite simply scanning or signing a PDF. I do a lot of signing of PDFs. And I love that I can use my iPhone or my iPad as well as my Mac to do all of this with PDF pen. It's super awesome. You can keep everything in sync because PDF pen and PDF pen pro also work with PDF pen for iPad and iPhone.

And you can do seamless editing across devices with the support of cloud services like iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive and others others. Really just a full-featured, really awesome application that I couldn't do my work without. You can learn more about PDFPen and PDFPen Pro at pdfpen.com slash podcast. That's pdfpen.com slash podcast. Our thanks to PDFPen from Smile for their support of this show and RelayFM. So our first four picks, we're going to be doing this in 4-3-3 is how these are being stacked up. Because when we were writing out

our kind of pre-predictions of things to pick from, we have way more in the iPad column. So we're going with four picks for the iPad. Jason, you're up first. What is your first pick? All right. G, G, G g you getting it yet g oh okay this is a real long joke yeah that was 5g nice on the ipad pro five of them because there'll be 5g yes this a good one. This is very high up in my potential picks too.

It feels, honestly, I think of all the potential things that they might or might not add, this seems like the closest to a lock for the iPad for me. You know, we could argue about like, do they need all that? It's like, it's an iPad Pro. I might be able to make the argument that given the speeds of 5G in the certain areas where

they have it, it's like what you really want to be doing is not just checking your phone there. You want to be on a more productive device where you can take advantage of the super high speed. iPad fits the bill. So I think how would you not put a 5G in your Pro iPad? Just seems to make sense to me. Yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense, I think. In my opinion, they can't have a brand new device like that, especially a pro device, having spent so much time talking about 5G for the iPhone and then not bring it to this product line. You know, it just it would make no sense, right, to do that, especially when many thought,

including me, that 5G would come to the iPad before it came to the iPhone. That it would have been something they would have released earlier on in the year, but they just didn't update the iPad Pro until now. My pick is the other kind of, I think, probably main feature, especially hardware feature. At least one iPad Pro gets a mini LED screen. All right, this is the... you've been all over the place picking this. feature. At least one iPad Pro gets a mini LED screen. Alright, this is the... You've been all over the place picking this this week, but I think it's a good...

This is the rumor all along is that there is new display technology that Apple's been working on for the iPad Pro. Unless we've been misled and it's not there because it didn't work out this time. I think the current prevailing rumor is that the larger one will get it and the work out this time. I think the current prevailing rumor is that the larger one will get it

and the smaller one won't. But when one of those iPad Pros gets a mini LED screen, do they have to say mini LED? Well, this is what I was about to ask you. I think that we'll know it when we see it, right? It's a new screen technology, and I think Apple will talk about that.

Jason is currently changing it in the document to just say at least one ipad pro uses a new screen technology i think that's a good way to clarify this because i do think that there's a possibility that apple does not say mini led because what's the point right they'll give it a dumb name yeah right like it'll be the ultra pro xdrx plus it's like we use minuscule leds to make this new technology it's called clear light right like all right fine clear light you call it whatever you like i don't care we know what it is right yeah and if it's if it's well there's some new backlighting on it but it's not like it's not what we know to be mini led then you're not going to get this but like we know we know what this is new screen technology yeah it's like look we're going to know what it is if apple spends a bunch of the time talking about it right

they focus on it and that's what we're expecting a big portion of the presentation for the ipad pro we'll be talking about this beautiful new screen technology and what it allows you to do yeah fair enough what's your second pick oh boy um i am going to lay it down even though i think it could go either way i'm going to lay it down that the chip driving the ipad pro will be a variant of the a14 they it will be the a14x or something like that and not an m1 it may be be likened to an M1, but in terms of how they brand this chip that's powering it, I think they will use the A terminology, A14 terminology, not the M terminology. Yeah, I wouldn't bet on them saying they put a Mac chip in an iPad because that's just going to lead to all kinds of complications. I could make the argument to do it.

It's like it's Mac power in an iPad, but I don't think they will. If I had to choose, I think they're going to keep it with the way they've done it, which is that this is a 14, A14X, and it's pushing the A14 technology in the iphone even further and they'll just you know and say yes this is very similar to what's in the m1 maybe or it's got the same kind of performance we saw in the m1 but that's not you know even if even if it's literally the m1 i don't think they'll call it the m1 because look i think apple do not want to lead people to even think about or focus on the fact that macs are powered by the same chips that iphones and ipads are powered by just like i think why muddy the waters yeah i don't think that that's the thing that they want to do so i don't think they would do it in the reverse either because then you only have to reverse it back

to realize what the real situation is and i think that they you know because apple have to my knowledge apple have never said that the m1 is based on the a14 they talk about how they learn so much from the a series chips to allow them to make these m1 chips and these apple silicon chips for mac but they don't talk about the fact that they have like one architecture and it has like these branches off to create these different types of chips. So I don't imagine them doing it

in the other way around. Because plus as well, if you say we've got to put an M1 chip in this iPad Pro, say fine, put Mac OS on it now. You cowards, right? Like you don't have to, you don't want to go down that line

so i i did suggest unconnected and i want to get your thoughts on this what if they give a new name to the ipad pro chip do you think that there's a possibility of that that they may stop calling it the same one as it's in the iphone i think it's always, yes, it's always a possibility. I would say, I think it's more likely that they just call it the M1 than that they would give it a new name. I think that you risk having too many chips. And I think the goal of the iPad naming all along has been chip naming, has been to accrue some value to the iPad from the iPhone and the prowess that they show with their chip making on the iPhone. And also to indicate that the iPad pro, you know, is taking advantage of, of a more powerful version of that chip that came out in the fall. Now it's the spring and there's a more

powerful version with more cores because you want to do more and there's more battery in the iPad pro. So I feel like the most logical thing is to keep doing what they're doing rather than have like i don't know like new labels for all their chips that are all the same chip really i wouldn't put it past them ipad os right like they've already differentiated the os i just think it's the least likely of the scenarios but it's not a zero percent chance because it's all marketing. So my second pick is the only thing that makes me think that they might want to change it up a little bit, which is that USB 4 slash Thunderbolt on the iPad Pro. This is something that Mark Gurman spoke about a while ago.

It is something that would make, I think, a lot of sense for the iPad Pro, especially if we believe that they're going to double down on external displays at some point in the near future for the ipad pro especially if we believe that they're going to double down on external displays at some point in the near future for the ipad pro this would be an interesting addition for it because it would allow for different features more complexity being able to drive more screens and being able to daisy chain stuff together and really kind of beef up what you can do from an expandability standpoint with the iPad, that would suggest, right, so like the underlying suggestion of that is if they have USB 4 and the iPad Pro,

that's the M1, right? Like it's closer to the M1 then, because that's what's going on there, right? Like the M1 has USB 4 and it has the ability to do all of that stuff. And that kind of differentiates that line more from the iPhone. And it kind of then would put the iPad closer into the camp of the Mac than it would the iPhone. So that's the only way that I could imagine them, I think, using that as a bouncing off point to changing the name from the a14 to something else but i don't really i'm not going to stake any money on that particular thing but my thing is i think that we're going to see however they call it whether it's usb4 thunderbolt whatever the naming is confusing but i think we're going to see that port find its way to the ipad pro i want this

to be true just like i was so happy when they put USB-C on the iPad Pro because it sends a message that this is more like a computer and less like a phone, and this would do that too. I also like the idea that Apple is standardizing on its things, at least other than the iPhone, that the iPad Pro is essentially using the chip and the ports that are also on the mac and i i would imagine that also has some technical advantages to apple there are some questions about what this means the reports on this are a little bit vague right it's like well when they were testing it it was usb4 thunderbolt but will the final one ship with that or not or will it just

be standard usbc um i had this a little lower down because i'm not i'm not entirely convinced that this is really going to happen um i would love for it to happen i think the thing to watch for on tuesday is if they do this how do they justify it because presumably they won't just say and it's got usb4 with thunderbolt for the first time on an ip. Hey, moving on. I mean, they could do that, but they like to tell stories. They like to have that, why is this important? Why is this a reason to buy an iPad Pro?

And that's the question, right? Like if they don't have a new OS version that has external monitor support that is beyond sort of what's there now that lets you do this, okay? If they don't have that what do they have is it a you know is it a soft some other software thing is it peripheral support um it you know it's also possible that they'll do something that is waving their hands at it

because all the stuff that will really enable this is going to come in the next version of of ipad os yeah uh but i feel like it's something to watch for because i i love you know it's like okay well they totally can put usb4 and thunderbolts on an ipad why and like i can think of ideas but i want to know what apple uses as justification for that if anything so i could honestly imagine this going a couple of different ways. They could do some whiz-bang new set of software features coming in 14.5 that this takes advantage of. Or they could say it also has USB 4 for extra speed and transfer. Or it could just be on a slide. extra speed and transfer or it could just be on a slide yeah right because that whatever they want to do with thunderbolt or usb4 on this device might need wwdc for it yeah it's it's not like

the humidity sensor in the in the home pod mini where it's not working at all but it's more like it's there but we're not really talking about it because we're not really taking advantage of it yet and then there'll be an announcement maybe at dub dub that says oh uh oh the new ipad pro can do all of this now you're like oh okay all right um yeah i think it's my turn pick it is your turn i okay one of the things that we've learned in the last few years about the iPad Pro launch is that it's not just about the iPad Pro. It's about the accessories, right? Like, and I don't mean that in a demeaning way. I really do mean it that the iPad Pro, the beauty of the iPad Pro is that it is just a touch tablet, but that you can add things to it to change the context in which you use it. So fundamentally, it's a touch tablet. But if you want a keyboard, or a keyboard and a track

pad, or a pencil, or a combination thereof, whatever it is, you can use it that way. And so the accessories kind of do, they're part of the product. I know that they're not the product and yet they are kind of the product. The Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro makes the iPad Pro better. Even though that iPad Pro we got last year was not really any different from the previous one, the Magic Keyboard changed it. So I feel like accessories, when you roll out a new iPad Pro, you kind of want accessories to be part of the story.

The question is, what accessories? Is there a new accessory? Are there updates to existing accessories? I am going to say new... Oh, which one do I want to say? I'm going to say... I'm so torn here. I'm going to go the other way. I'm going to say new Magic Keyboard. I was going to say Apple Pencil, because I think that's also possible. But I'm going to say new Magic Keyboard. I was going to say Apple Pencil because I think that's also possible, but I'm going to say new Magic Keyboard because now we just had a Magic Keyboard last year. Why would they do a new one? I have a couple of thoughts about that. One is maybe it's a new Magic Keyboard for a slightly changed iPad Pro that doesn't, like the old one still remains, but then there's a new one for the new models. And my rationale here is also, remember last year's Magic Keyboard, it did work with the previous iPad Pro, all the way back to the 2018 iPad Pro, those work and the

2020 iPad Pro. So even though it's a one-year-old product, it covers two generations of iPad Pro. So could they do a new magic keyboard a little bit different ergonomics maybe backlighting maybe uh uh the the charging port also does data i don't know um i feel like maybe they will so i'm gonna i'm gonna get out on a limb and i'm gonna say new version of the magic keyboard man i'm pleased you made that decision because i mean i really don't think that's going to happen um because i wanted new apple pencil you got it we'll just trade we'll trade uh accessories here so i'll tell you then i would like them to do something more with the

magic keyboard but i don't know if it's the second year of well yeah it's it's only been a year and it's been what three years since the apple pencil so sure and i i don't really know what they would do with the apple pencil in all honesty um well i i think that they might change the ergonomics a little bit right like the the i don't use the double tap gesture on it because i can't I don't use the double tap gesture on it because I can't fire it off very well. I wonder if they might do a new approach to having an alternate. And I also keep thinking that they could put a sensor on the back so that you could flip the pencil over to erase. That's something people have always wanted to be. And I think that would be better.

The first one had the cap, so you couldn't do it. But the current one doesn't and could totally do it. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good one. Just adding a different kind of tip or sensor at the back of it would be super cool and would make people really happy, I think. Yeah. Because I agree. The idea of the double tap thing was a good idea.

But in practice, it's hard to do reliably. Like, I can make it work, but it's not reliable. For me, it doesn't work with how I hold the pencil. So it's hard for me to do it reliably. And if I leave an important function turned on on that, I will trigger it accidentally. Yeah. So I just turn it off.

Yeah, yeah. And some people in the Discord are saying, what about a black version of it? Yeah, sure. Like a non-white version are saying, what about a black version of it? Yeah, sure. Like a non-white version would be nice. It's more pro that way. All right, so that's the peripherals round. New Magic Keyboard, new Apple Pencil.

I guess so. Well, we'll see. Watch, they'll do a completely new accessory. Yeah, that actually is in the list, and I do have it on my potential list to pick. It's getting harder, as you might expect, down here at the end. Because do have it on my potential list to pick it's getting harder as you might expect down here at the end because we have a lot of things that we could potentially pick from and this is your final option right okay i'm gonna lean into the thunderbolt thing and this is i

alluded to this earlier but i'm gonna pick it now which is what do they do when they say we got thunderbolt on this thing let's assume that you're right. And they do. I think that would be a great opportunity to explain why these are pro systems. Plus we talk about the power of the chip, which is going to be like M1 level chip. If there was ever a time for Apple to announce a pro app, not currently on the iPad from Apple, this might be the time. So that's going to be my pick is

Apple announces a new Apple pro app for iPad, uh, for the first time on the iPad. Is it final cut? Is it logic? I don't know, but I'm going to throw it in there. Cause maybe this, maybe this time, maybe this time, you know, my, my, my thought process here was really what do you do with thunderbolt if you don't have display um display uh windowing done because that's going to be a ios 15 feature what do you do and i thought well you could do a demo of video editing with fast storage coming across the line that'd'd be cool. And maybe even using your secret sauce, have your video editing app actually be functional on a large monitor, even though most apps can't do that yet.

Right? Like you could, you could maybe do that. Um, cause you can put up like a, a preview on an external display, but it's not quite the same as having the UI up there. So that was what led me down this path is like, I wonder if, you know, because I thought for a

while now, the only way we're getting pro apps from Apple, they have these iPad pros for so long now, and yet their pro apps aren't on them. The only way we're going to get them is in, in, you know, coupled with hardware, because they're obviously the most proud of the hardware and not the software. So that's, I'm just going to, do I think this is going to happen? I don't know. I'm taking a gamble here,

but I want it to be true. I want to believe. So I'm going to throw it in there. That one, that feels like, honestly, the pick that we've been burned on too many times. I know, I know, but that's why I'm picking, see, I'm doubling back around though. And many times i know i know but that's why i'm

picking see i'm doubling back around though and i'm like ah but that's how they get you now is the time and maybe it isn't but i'm gonna pick it feels like just reading the tea leaves this might actually be a good time to do it because of the power of this new chip because of the potential that there'll be faster io on the device, because we're talking about the idea of driving larger displays, you know, you throw all that together and I'm like, well, this would be a good time to do say Final Cut Pro or Logic on the iPad Pro.

But I don't know. They've, they've, they haven't done it yet. So thus, thus far, it is an infinite number of days that that product has not existed so it's you know well we'll see all right my last pick in the ipad round we've been very focused on

the ipad pro yes new ipad mini okay it is the oldest ipad in the line. This is one of those products that they either have to kill or update. Update. And I think they're going to update it. You think it's going to be like in the style of the Air

and the Pro where it's got the sides and all that, but you don't need to pick that. But you think that that's what they're going to do right it's going to be a modern ipad mini and then this one will sit there for another four years in the product line with like an a14 processor in it here's what i want and here's what i think what i want is the modern design right and even a little ipad air yeah like a little ipad air right colors everything and they either make it screen bigger or all physically smaller right i think my my personally i would prefer them to just shrink the bezels in and keep the screen exactly the same that's what i would

like them to do because you know it's worth remembering the iPad Mini is still available with an A12 in it. So it's getting a little long in the tooth, that thing. What I think they will do is modernize the design a bit, but keep the home button. That's what I think they're going to do. Interesting. And put a new processor in it. I would predict that they would modernize the look and give it the Touch ID button that's on the iPad Air. I hope.

What I'm saying, I don't want to get my hopes up. Right. Because what I really want is that. The iPad Air is the way to go here, right? 100% that's the way to go. Yeah. But I don't want to assume that they're going to do that. I want it to be a truly modern iPad Mini.

That's what I want. I just wouldn't want to... I don't want to speak that too much into the world in case I get upset. I would love it. Oh my god, I would love it. It would be great. Don't tempt fate. That would be just a really

really excellent product. So I believe Apple will do this at some point. I just don't know if this is the time, but I think that we're going to get a new iPad mini. Because it is worth noting, they updated, did they update the regular? Yeah, they updated the regular iPad last year, right? And it still has the home button and everything on it.

So yeah, that's true. It would launch the mini ahead of the regular ipad but i feel like the ipad air is leading the way right and that the other these other products if they're going to continue existing are going to follow that yeah that approach they're going to they're going to look like that they're going to have that feature they're not going to pick up face id or something but they'll they'll pick up pencil to support and they'll pick up touch id on a button and but you're right it may not be the case they may say no no no for the cheap ones we're just going to keep it the way it is all right so that was our first set of picks picks one to four so now picks five to seven the next three picks are mac based would you like to kick

us off? Yeah, I'm going to go with the one that's teed up for me, which is Apple Silicon-based iMac announced. Pretty simple. There's going to be a new iMac, Mike, finally. This show has talked about the possibility of there being a new iMac with some new stuff for a while now. And it hasn't happened.

It keeps like the pro apps on the iPad pro. It's like, surely this time. Nope. Surely this time. No. So I'm going to do it again. I think,

I think it's time. I think it's time. A couple of times they've tricked us, right? Like there's a new iMac, but it's not what you were expecting. This one has a nanotexture display. It's like,

Oh, hang on a minute. What are you doing? What are you waiting for? And the answer is Apple Silicon was what we were waiting for. I hope. I really hope. The thing that I'm a little concerned about is there hasn't been a lot of rumors

about an iMac or any mac news of this event if i was putting money on it i would say it's going to happen but i am a little bit skittish of it i mean you've always got that thing of ios stuff always leaks first right well that is one of the interesting factors about the way we've structured these drafts where we've we're forcing ourselves to make mac pics because i feel like there were probably another couple of ipad ipad pics in us easy yeah otherwise but we limited ourselves to four each and are now forcing ourselves so the the downside of that is if one of us believes an imax going to happen and the other one doesn't um what are you doing with these three picks you

still got to make mac pics now we've had some rumors i think john prosser reported that they were doing the colors right um and and people said that it's coming but it just has there hasn't been as much noise and there very rarely is but it seems to have gotten a little bit quiet on that front but i i really do hope it's going to happen. And I am obviously going to lean into it myself for my pick, that the new iMac has dramatically smaller bezels. Nice. We did have an option here.

Some of the options I put into our list of things that you can pick are the sad, angry options, because sometimes things make you sad or angry. And so one of them was, new iMac looks just like old iMac. Can you imagine? Hey, everybody, it's a new iMac. It's a 21.5 inch iMac,

but it's got an M1 in it now. I did feel a little sad when I saw that when you put it in the document. I was like, don't put that on me. You gotta bet that we're all gonna be disappointed, but I like it better that we're gonna bet for positive things like dramatically smaller bezels. And what does dramatically mean? Again, this isn't the Ricky's, we know it when we see it, right? If it's like, well, it's really just the 21.5 inch iMac, but the bezels are a few millimeters smaller. It's like, well, that's not really is it's it's you'll know it when you see it you're like whoa those bezels they're gone where'd they go i hope so mike i hope so i hope so

that was going to be my pick next so you you i endorse your your selection although i am worried about them making a regular imac that looks too good just for myself you know know? Because I want to wait for a Pro machine, which I mean, we can talk about it, maybe, but I don't think we're going to see what would replace my, what I would want to replace my iMac with, but. Right. No, we're not there. What's your second pick? I am going

to go with color. Because I like life to be colorful, and the iMac started out as a colorful product. Apple has experimented with color in other places, but not on the Mac. And there was that rumor about it as well. I like the idea that there will be colors beyond what we have had up to now, which is silver and space gray on iMacs for quite a while now. Really just silver, right?

But the iMac Pro is space gray. Yeah, you can't choose as such. You have to buy a different product. Yeah, right? So, I mean, literally, if it's not silver or space gray, if there's something else, that's all I'm saying. Is it gold? Is it blue?

Is it green? I don't care as long as it's not silver or space gray it will be a new color for the iMac you know Jason I don't know about this one I don't know either Mike but this is the one that I thought of all of our Mac picks after the first two we did I actually thought this was the most likely

believe it or not right yeah it's an interesting collection yeah yeah and a lot of it maybe feels a little bit too new i am going to be a little bit boring and double down for my second pick and say that the new imac features an ipad pro slash pro display style design oh okay so that's the look that it's going to have is it's going to have the flat edges. What we mean by that is like the flat edges. It's boxy. Instead of the curvy edges.

Again, we'll know it when we see it, but something that's much more like a flat back and flat edges, lots of flat stuff. Yeah. Instead of what the current iMac has, which is a little tiny flat edge, but mostly it's a big curvy back. I mean, we're not expecting it to have all those holes in the back like the Pro Display, right? I mean, I don't think they're going to do that but what we are looking more to here is that we're thinking that it's going to be uh flat on the sides flat on the back that kind of thing and if we disagree we'll have steven say is this ipad pro pro display style design i really don't think that that's something we're going to need to disagree on.

I think we will know it when we see it. Well, the fact is, and I just relocated one of our picks to the other round because it's actually an other pick. So I'm going to move that down. The fact is, I don't love any of the options we've got here. They're all a little risky although that's not bad it's not bad to be risky um and even though i said i don't think it's going to happen i'm going to pick it for my last mac pick which is new apple silicon chip variant announced so this pick is this pick is actually the Macs we're going to introduce today

have the M1X and they've got a few more cores or a few more GPU cores or processor cores. And that is how they differentiate from the first wave. So I'm not saying there's going to be an M2 but I'm saying, and I don't really believe this but I'm going to pick it, which is there's a slight variant it's the m1x processor it's got more cores whatever something for them to use i don't think this is actually going to

happen but i don't like any of the other items on our board here so i'm going to pick it if they do that do you expect more than one size maybe maybe but it may also be that the idea is that they want to do a here's the scenario is there's an m1x it's got better gpu and better cpu they put it in the imac and then maybe at wwdc they put it in the macbook pro 16 inch and they say you know basically, basically, it's better. And then that is it until, and maybe they put it in the Mac Mini, I don't know. But then that's it until fall when there's an M2. And then they turn things over.

I don't think this is going to happen. Again, I don't think it's going to happen. And because I think you could get away with the M1 in the small iMac, and you can just wait for the MacBook Pro and the big iMac for a processor that's got more power. But that would be the scenario, is that they decided to do a little step up. Not changing the chip itself, but just giving it some more cores, just as they do with the ipad for the desktop computer and maybe some other computers whether you know whether now or in june or later on but like i said i'm picking it i don't think it's going to happen but i i think it's enough of a possibility that i i need a third pick so that's what it's going to be my only pause on the m1 in the imac period is if they are restricted to the amount of io they can put on those sure machines sure that that's the real question is is the ports on the back and is it

enough for an imac to do that because keeping in mind i think it might not be enough because you can only do one external monitor and right like so the mac mini for just as a refresher has two usb a ports and two usb 4 thunderbolt ports yes the current imac has four usb a and two thunderbolt 3 usbc and there are limitations to the amount of ports they can put on the m1 chips i'm off the top of my head i don't remember the exact limitations but i think if they could only put two usba to usbc ports on an iMac i don't think that's enough even on the small one and there's ethernet back there and there's and and keep in mind it's driving its own display which means that um the laptops can only drive a single external display oh so two but one of them via hdmi right so like there's lots of limitations

which i think is again this is the scenario why they need an m1x and this could be when they do it interesting because be i think some of the prevailing thinking is they would do just an m1 in the small one, right? We spoke about that. It's going to be an upgrade for what's there, right? Plus the new design. That's probably all they need to do, even if they take away ports. Because again, it's the low-end iMac, right?

The low-end iMac doesn't necessarily need a whole lot of peripheral connectivity, right? It's the low-end one. They're going to do a high-end one. This is just taking the 21.5. They could do that for a year. And then next year, they'd be like, oh, well, now we've got the new chip and it's got more ports and isn't so much better. But they could get away with it for a year. They totally could. And could you imagine them having different IO on the different iMacs? So the small iMac has this many ports and the big iMac has this many ports.

Okay. Yeah, I can see it again. Maybe not in the long term, but in the short term, like if I'm Apple, do I hold up shipping a new iMac because it's not going to have as much ports as the bigger, more expensive iMac that I'm planning on shipping later with a different chip? I'm not going to hold it up for that. Like it's. It's going to be an upgrade. And the people who've got the other iMacs, if they don't like it, they can just keep their old iMac for a little while longer. And then they'll get something down the road. So I think even though I'm picking this, I'm a big believer in Apple's ability to just stuff the M1 in some more computers and they'll be fine. Because we're maybe a little more jaded now, but the M1 is and putting it in a new design it would be amazing that's enough in an iMac right like it oh yeah an m1 iMac yeah with with that with a new display style and all of

that like that's a hit product they don't they don't actually need to do more with it than that like the question just being is that the m1 wouldn't work in the larger one if the larger one is supposed to be this one of big power. It's supposed to replace the current large iMac, which is a really powerful machine. It's an iMac Pro power machine. And they need a little bit more for that one. So that would be why they would maybe do

and will do a variant eventually. I'm going to join you in this. I feel like you've swung here. Yep, come on in. Apple announces a GPU of their own design. What? Yeah. Okay, so separate from the graphics cores that are on the M1, this is an Apple GPU.

They're like, oh, well, the iMac, we need to have more ability or some other product. But let's just say the iMac. We need a little more graphics power. We need to drive multiple displays. So this has the new X1, the G1, the whatever, a discrete sort of branding for an apple gpu so we'll talk about in upgrade plus today we're going to talk about the things that we didn't pick but really for me that everything else is its own brand of unlikely yeah in our mac picks and so when you know you're saying of the apple silicon chip i if they have a variant of the Apple Silicon chip,

I could imagine them also having a GPU as well, because then we might be talking about, oh, they've surprised us and they actually want to do a much more powerful iMac than what we were necessarily expecting. And if and when they do that, they may want to have their own GPU. It is very likely that they will have their own GPU at some point,

or at least an option for that in some machine. Yeah. Maybe this is the one. Maybe. All right. So iPad picks, Mac picks are down. We just have our other round left. Other.

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Our thanks to Squarespace for their continued support of Upgrade and RelayFM. It is time for our other picks round now, Jason. So this is pick number eight overall in this draft. What have you got? Well, we've seen some trends at Apple about podcasts, some Apple original podcasts that have been announced. It's making me a little queasy, Mike, making me a little worried. Something's going on. And so not to get too insidery here, but we're a podcast.

I have my ears to the ground of the podcast world. I'm just saying a podcast related announcement will be made. That's it. Is it a service? Podcast Plus? Is it a new initiative? Is it new original podcast? I don't know, but I'm gonna say they're gonna say something about podcasts.

Probably not gonna put Connected's show art up on the screen, but maybe. Maybe. But they'll say something say something about podcasts this was high up on my list too i just got a feeling i got a vibe yep the services revenue continues to be a thing and or services in general um apple is continuing to make their own content. And there have been some changes in the beta process for the podcast app. They've been adding features, like little things, little quality of life features in some cases, which are intriguing. You've got the follow button, stuff like that,

that they're adding instead of subscribe. I do think that there's something going on, but we'll find out. We'll find out. I didn't take my top pick away. My top pick for the other round is that there will be a discussion on app tracking transparency. Oh.

I don't think that Apple is going to let a public relations event go by at the moment without talking about this. So is this in the context of maybe releasing the new version of iOS and saying, one of the great features in this new version that we're releasing today is app tracking transparency? Yeah.

And or when they talk about all of their products, they would talk about security now, right? And they could be like, one of the other ways that we're ensuring your security is by you know making sure that apps won't track you across the web as part of ios 14.5 you know that kind of thing i do think that this is something they will want to focus on and so i think that we're going to see a mention of it here I believe that they will touch on it here you may be right

I wasn't going to pick this because I think that Apple is really good at staying on brand and that bringing attention to this kind of controversial topic is maybe not what they want to do during a product event. But I can go the other way

and say it's an iOS release. They can trumpet. This is an opportunity when people are paying attention to toot their own horn about this feature and explain to an audience that's watching for product information

why they're right and everyone else who's against it is wrong. And they may do that. I'm voting the the other way which is that maybe they will say it's not relevant to this let's keep it out of the product event but i could i could totally see it happening i just i wasn't going to pick it but i i think you may get that for sure but i see your point too though right that it might be like we can just keep having tim appearing on tv and talk about this instead right rather than needing but but i do i could just imagine it being like you know they know they have a lot of people watching them during these things sure they are able to talk to

their audience about it it feels like it might be more of a wwdc thing but it is hot right now and this os version is coming out. This is the one where it actually takes effect. Well, in the sense of it's enforced. You have to say that this is a thing that you're doing if you're an app that tracks people. Okay.

What's yours next? Pick nine. Oh. I've seen it going in the document already and I'm just excited about it this is this is the pick that we moved out of the mac section yes and i'm gonna pick it now all right then again not because of a huge degree of confidence but because it's the one that i think i like the most of what we've got left and another thing that could be part of the story of the ipad pro maybe and the imac maybe i don't know see i'm not confident in it now but uh i'm not confident in any of them so i'm just gonna say

it new apple display i'm putting it down new apple display there it is i said it new apple display oh boy there it is like it or not take it or leave it, new Apple Display. No, people would like it and they would take it. Right. I am picking all the greatest hits today. Here's the thing. If the iPad Pro has really good external display support and they bring out a new iMac,

I could imagine them also saying, by the way, we have this new display. It's everything you love about this iMac display. I just think it's too soon. I don't, personally, don't... I don't think

we're going to get a new display until we get another machine that... I don't know, Jason that i don't know jason i don't know i'm talking myself around on it maybe maybe i don't know yeah i don't know either and there's probably a better time to do it probably with laptop announcements um also does it steal the thunder of a larger imac down the road i I don't know. Again, it's got to happen sometime, and if it happens this time I get a point for it. So there it is.

Air tags announced. Oh, Mike! That's what I'm going for. Wow. I mean, look, we've been saying for a long time that they're going to do this. I'm going to pick the Loch Ness Monster in the next round. We'll just throw that in, too.

Surely. We'll be able to display in the air tags. If this product exists, now is the time to do it, right? One of the reasons they haven't released this product, I believe, is because everyone was indoors. Bad time to release a product like this. But the world's opening up again. They have the Find My Network.

That exists. They felt it was necessary to launch it now. I think that they decided to launch it now so they didn't have to talk about this during the event because all they will want to do is focus on the product that they're making, which is the AirTags.

I think it's happening next Tuesday. I mean, maybe. I picked all sorts of things that are mythical and wouldn't it be amazing if. And so welcome. Welcome to this side. You're right. It would seem like a good time for air

tags to be introduced i just you know yeah great it feels like there's been a lot of times right i know i can't muster up enthusiasm i guess i've come around on some of these others and i'm like no now is their time now is their time, now is their time. And then I get to AirTags, and I'm like, boy. Like, oh, I'm not there with the enthusiasm. I do think that it's probably a time where it could happen, but I, yeah, I don't know. It's weird that we have been anticipating a product

for so long that we also kind of don't care about. And are sick of it. Yeah. But it could be very cool. It could be. If they do it well. And it's priced well. I do think it could be a great product.

And you know. It might only be one of those products. That you realize is so great. Until you actually really need it. You buy one. And you put it on your bag. And then one day you lose your bag. And then you find your bag.

Because of the air tags but it it's going to be an interesting sell this one i would be intrigued to see how how exactly they sell it if they do show it final pick jason final pick all right i am gonna go because i don't like the chances of a lot of these things that we've got in our document, I'm going to go with a little bit of a weird one. All right. Which is Apple Fitness Plus will be mentioned. Oh, I don't. Okay. All right.

Hang on. What are we talking about as a mention here? It'll be mentioned on stage. It's in the document, first off. You let it go in the document. But it's in the document first off you let it go in the document but um yeah it's uh it mentioned like some something about like it's great part of our apple fitness product or you could use the ipad people are loving that or people are loving these airpods on apple with with a new apple fitness i just want to i think that they're this is a good like

it's not a given but i feel like they're gonna pump it up so i throw it in there did you see that they just added a bunch of new fitness types i did not see that yeah like three days ago they added a bunch of new fitness types including um like for new workouts new trainers workouts for uh people who are pregnant so that kind of thing the real question is how do they like can they shoehorn a plug of something like that into this event or is it too focused on these products for them to do it and i think that you know they have been fairly disciplined in some of these other video events with not going off in that direction at the same time it is a relatively new service it gets them a time if they can kind of way to work it in to one of the product segments,

do they do that? It's worth putting a coin down on Apple Fitness Plus mentions. So there it is. These new workouts come out on the 19th. They come out on Monday. So I actually think that works against you. I don't know. Or do they want to mention it and say,

oh, we got all these great workouts that we just put out? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe. Maybe not. I'm not feeling good about this last one. But, again, we don't have a lot of

sound options here. We just have a bunch of esoteric things or unlikely things. I know. Well, you see now why I did Apple Fitness Plus mentioned new Apple TV oh alright it could happen it's been rumored I don't think it's going to be exciting we're not going to get any of these products that we were talking about last week I did have one of those

unhappy picks in the document, which you probably saw, which is you could pick Apple TV gets a lower price. You could also pick Apple TV doesn't get a lower price. Yeah, that was my favorite. So this isn't my pick, but I think it's going to be the same Apple TV you know and tolerate

with some internal design changes and for a different price i think lower yeah yeah it could be but not not the completely you know i've blown away it's it's not like the apple tv i know at all it's like no it's going to be pretty much just like some a new version of that with a new processor and maybe some new functionality but basically the same old thing maybe it'll have a new remote maybe it won't and it'll be a little bit cheaper and they're probably designed to be made cheaper so that they can maintain their margins at a lower price yes like i could imagine them getting rid of the storage choice right because that's bananas nobody needs that uh anymore so all right that is it that's the draft

this one's gonna be i think it could be a bit of a bloodbath honestly i'm feeling good yeah oh thank you thank you we'll see uh as we said before there is a scorecard in the show notes, which are over at relay.fm, slash upgrades, slash 348, or in your podcast app of choice. So you can come back to that and grab it before the keynote begins on Tuesday so you can score along with us. We will be back on Tuesday recording after the event, obviously.

It would be silly to record before because we wouldn't know what was happening. So we'll be recording on Tuesday. If you do listen live, we'll be announcing on Twitter at some point when we'll be live. We reckon it will probably be not too long after the event ends,

but I guess that depends on the over-under of it all. So we'll see. We'll let you know when that's going to be, but we will be streaming live on Tuesday after the event. We will also be releasing our episode on Tuesday as well. If you would like to find out about the things we didn't pick,

we're going to be talking about those on Upgrade Plus. On Upgrade Plus, you will get additional content every single episode with no ads. You can go to getupgradeplus.com and sign up. Thank you so much if you have. We really appreciate that support. Thank you to Squarespace and Smile for supporting this episode. Jason, are you going to be doing any live coverage of the event next week?

I will probably do some live tweeting and all that, but we'll just be watching with everybody else. And then very soon after it's over, we'll live with upgrade you bet excited excited i'm happy i feel like we've been waiting for this event forever i'm happy that it's happening i'm also kind of pleased that it is happening in april because kind of late april into early may we usually have nothing to talk about because WWDC is too close. Until the WWDC rumors start, which the information doesn't tend to get out

until in May time. I'm pleased that we're doing this now because we're going to have new products coming out. We're going to have weeks of stuff to talk about as we lead up to WWDC, which is only seven weeks away, I think. Not very far. Thank you very much for listening to this draft,

this emergency draft episode of Upgrade. If you want to find Jason online, go to sixcolors.com. That's where you'll find everything that he'll have to say after the event. And he's at jsnl on Twitter, J-S-N-E-L-L. I am at imyke, I-M-Y-K-E. Thank you so much for listening

and we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell. See you next week, everybody. Again.