Upgrade - 396: The 2022 March Event Draft

Episode Date: February 28, 2022

Our most speculative draft yet! Jason and Myke refuse to wait for Apple. Instead, they predict what will happen at Apple's next product launch--whenever it might happen. Will the M2 make its debut? Will there be an iPhone SE, and will it look any different? Are there other Mac and iPad offerings in the works? And most importantly, what fresh colors will be on offer for spring? We do our job--and now it's time for Apple to do its.

from relay fm thisgrade, episode 396. Today's show is brought to you by TextExpander, Ooni Pizza Ovens, ZocDoc, and Memberful. My name is Mike Hurley, and I am joined by the one and only Jason Snell. Hi, Jason Snell. Hi, Mike Hurley. Was that draft music I heard? That was indeed.

That can't be. That can't be. Jason, it can be. Here's the deal, all right? We're going rogue today. We are. We are assuming there will be an Apple event next week. So the assumption has been for a while there will be one in March.

The sheriff of Ruertown, Mark Gurman, has been suggesting for multiple weeks that it is going to be March 8th. Here's the thing. I am traveling later this week, going to Memphis. The concern we have right now, or the concern I had, that if there is an event announced

sometime in the next 24 hours, which is what we would expect if it's going to be on march 8th right we would struggle to find a time to record a draft episode so we're going to draft today i've been pushing this for a little while with these week uh warning events and us doing the double episodes with the draft as an emergency episode to say, if we feel pretty good that an event is going to happen, even if it's not exactly when we think, I'm not sure I see the harm in doing the draft. And if the draft has to remain in kind of hovering above us for an extra week or two, that's okay. In fact, it might be good because it might mean that more stuff will leak out

and it will be too bad for us because we will have already picked. And I think the draft is better when there's more uncertainty. Yes, for sure. If we draft when we know everything, then what is it that we're even doing here? So I've been thinking maybe we should try this and then events have led us to this point now. So kind of here's where we are. We're going to make our draft today.

And if there's an event next week, great. If there isn't an event, as Jason said, if there's an event in two weeks, also fine. If the event ends up being in April, we're going to kind of play it as it goes like one thing that i had potentially thought that we could do is maybe like the week before we get to change one pick you know we'll we'll see that that would be a maybe a fun game we could do if it comes to that but we i think uh although although mark Although Mark Gurman, who is definitely leading cattle out onto the Ponderosa in Rumor Roundup, I think he keeps saying probably, but he doesn't know. Probably March 8th, but he doesn't know.

So maybe not. And maybe he can't know. We're definitely seeing the limits of Mark Gurman's information. So we're going to go under the assumption that there's going to be an Apple announcement coming pretty soon. And this is our draft for that. Now, of course, one of the things that could stop maybe an event that was planned going ahead is the current war going on in Ukraine, which of course, you know, we'll just take a quick pause to say that everybody here at Upgrade throws their wholehearted support behind the people of Ukraine for the situation that they're going through right now.

And it's an atrocious situation that they have found themselves in. And we continue to support them. A lot of Mac developers, actually. Yes, a lot of wonderful Mac developers. Developers we know, including Reddle and Macpaw. Yeah. Um, among others that are actually, uh, from Ukraine.

So, uh, we send all of our positive thoughts to the people of, of Ukraine, especially the people we know. I have a hashtag Snell talk question for you. Comes from Wotsi, who wants to know.

So this is me just, I'm, I'm just like straight up assuming that this is the normal episode. Jason, do you make any chances to your regular morning routine in preparation for remote Apple event days? Or do you treat it the same as any other day? I treat it, this is what a terrible answer this is. I treat it the same as any other day, really.

It's not the case for in-person Apple events, but for remote Apple events, I can just treat it like any other day because the events are at 10 a.m. Pacific. Which is great for you, isn't it? I'm up at 9 a.m. Pacific doing Upgrade, right? So it's just kind of luxurious because I have to get up early and drive far to go to an Apple event in Cupertino. and drive far to go to an Apple event in Cupertino. But when it's happening in my living room on my TV, I don't have to vary my morning routine at all, which is delightful.

That said, I kind of miss the in-person events. But after having done them for so long, it's a luxury to just continue doing my own thing in my house. I also really want there to be an Apple event next week because then me and Stephen will be able to watch it together. Which will be fun. And it will be in the morning, which is just never a thing I experience. And I'm kind of assuming that I could just break this news right here, breaking news, upgrade 397 to have special guest co-host Stephen Hackett appearing.

Yeah. Yeah, because I probably will record it in his studio it would be really mean of us to like to get out hack it out out no upgrade for you or you can sit in the corner and just listen to me you have to imagine the other half of the conversation silence so yeah no matter what the episode is next week, Stephen will be joining. Yeah. And of course, if there is an event, we will be recording after the event. Right, of course.

Of course. So if an event is announced this week, then you can listen to Upgrade on Tuesday. We'll record it right after the event. If you would like to send in a question of your own to help us open a show, just send out a tweet with the hashtag SnowTalk. Use question mark SnowTalk in the RelayFM members

Discord. Now I have the rules of the draft. Okay. A little bit bigger this time than usual. Ten rounds. I don't know. I think our rules are fairly simple compared to other rules that could be invented. Simple rules, but they have grown a little bit this time for good reason.

10 rounds, 20 overall picks with an additional bonus round. The draft will be split into four categories. There will be four iPhone and iPad picks, four Mac picks, two other picks, and the return of the draft of the color czar this will be a bonus round and we will explain the overly complicated rules of the draft of the colors are a little later on in today's episode in short it's worth a point the winner gets a point yeah but it's not as simple as it seems the winner of the previous draft gets the first pick and that is jason snell items are chosen from a predetermined list of choices,

which we have agreed must be verifiable on screen. There we go. I got it. Third time's a charm. And not ridiculously obvious. For an item to count, it must be either clearly announced on stage or on a slide during the presentation, verifiable from the keynote itself. Stephen Hackett will adjudicate in case of a scoring stalemate between Jason and Mike. There are no partial points awarded.

The points awarded on the episode are final and are finalized during the scoring segment. This will make me smile every time I read that forever. In the case of a tie, there is a tiebreaker question. The loser gets the pick of the tiebreaker kind of over under. The winner of the previous draft gets to choose the time duration because we will be tiebreaking on event runtime. And a new addition is the winner becomes draft champion

and displays the champion pennant in the champion configuration. Loser becomes draft champion and displays the champion pennant in the champion configuration loser becomes draft challenger and displays the upgrade draft challenger dependent in the challenger position it's very important we now have physical we're going to move some atoms people we're actually going to move a physical object based on who wins or who loses the draft results of last year was jason was the 2021 champion and I have some historic statistics for you now there have been two March events in draft history Jason has won

both of these in 2018 and 2019 there has only ever been one other pre WWDC event and that was in April 2021 which Mike won isn't that well it was a wild statistic to me that in. Mm-hmm. Nice. Isn't that wild? It was a wild statistic to me

that in the five, six years that we've been doing this, I think it's six years, actually, there have only been three pre-WWDC events. Yeah, we were taking a walk with our dog yesterday, and Lauren said, is this one of those things where they do it every year? And I said, no, this is not. It's not something you can map out like that. Sometimes they do a spring event, i said no this is one of the this is not it's not something you can

you can map out like that sometimes they do a spring event and sometimes they don't so um if if if there is indeed an event it will be uh you know one of a handful in the last few years it is possible there may not be an event at all i don't know what we do if that's the case like if they just release a bunch of things by a all. I don't know what we do if that's the case. Like if they just release a bunch of things by press release, I don't know what we do. I guess there's just no draft. This draft is entirely invalidated. That's definitely not going to happen.

This is totally worth your time to listen to this draft, everybody. I mean, this is worth it no matter what, because this is it. Look, you know what it's been out. This is our predictions episode. Wherever they have an event a lot, there are still things to predict. Tiebreaker will be based on the event runtime.

Jason, what is the amount of minutes that i get to pick the over under on that's a tough one so we got some rumors got some strong it's all a little murky some strong iphone rumors some strong ipad rumors some shaky mac rumors some strong mac rumors uh good a good thing from Zach in the Discord here. Zach, by the way, who is the creator of Upgrade.cards, which is where you can go to get your interactive scorecard so you can score along during any event that we have here on the Upgrade program. Zach said that the April event of last year was 61 minutes long.

Interesting. That's an interesting data point. And I was going to point at that and say, I think they have shorter events and that this will be one. And that is why I am going to just follow the last year's event and say, Mike, is it longer or shorter than last year's 61 minutes? Under 61 minutes. Okay. Honestly, Jason, my feeling is i was going to say under basically whatever you chose yeah because i just can't imagine this

being a long event i well i don't know i almost picked 48 and then i would have i maybe wouldn't have answered so quickly yeah maybe maybe not but we'll see. I mean, they can... Apple has surprised me sometimes. I would love them to be efficient and be under an hour. But we'll see. If... Maybe my picks will bear out my feelings on this. We'll find

out. If they have announced what I think they're going to announce, I do not think that this will run over an hour. Well, that's the trick, isn't it? I'll just have to beat you straight up. We'll see. That's what I have to do. That's all you have to do. Can't count on the tie to save me like I did last time.

This episode of Upgrade is brought to you by our friends at TextExpander. Keep everything consistent and accurate with TextExpander because in our fast-paced world, things change constantly. Errors in messaging can have significant consequences. For me, the biggest thing, one of the biggest reasons that I use TextExpander is so I get things that are frequently incorrect corrected for me.

I have a lot of common spelling mistakes that I make in TextExpander. I have a lot of capitalization stuff. So I heard Stephen mention this recently when he was reading the ad on Connected and it's true, we do this, we have a bunch of our sponsor names including TextExpander in TextExpander so we get the capitalization right and the way that it's spelled right there isn't a space between text and expander

and the T and the E, they are both capitalized it's camel case, I think is how it's called so we have that done for us so we don't have to get it wrong and don't look silly. TextExpander lets you make approved messaging available to every single team member instantly. We share all of these around RelayFM, which is great because we have an account that we have as a team. And you can just with a few keystrokes activate them so your team stays consistent, current, and accurate. With TextExpander,

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slash podcast. Our thanks to TexExpander for their support of this show and RelayFM. We're going to move into the first set of picks now, rounds one to four, which are the iPhone and iPad picks. Jason, you're up first. which are the iPhone and iPad picks. Jason, you're up first. All right. With the first pick in the draft, I am going to take it easy and pick that Apple announces a new iPhone SE.

Just going to lay it there. Easy pick one. This was my pick one. This is just like... It's just laying there. It's honestly the only thing for me that I feel is a certain of this event. Yeah.

This is, in fact, if you follow all the reports, the reason for this season. This is the thing that everyone's like, oh, Apple's going to announce a new iPhone SE, and they may find other products to announce with it. So, yeah, I'm just going to lay that down. Let's get it started with the most obvious thing that's on our list. The iPhone SE. There's going to be a new one, everybody. Woo! I know that this is an important phone to Apple and many users.

I'm sorry. I just need to say it now. I really struggle to get excited about the iPhone SE. What do you mean? I said woo, Mike. Come on. I can't get excited about it. Developers, developers developers developers developers unless they do something that's like really unexpected which i

don't expect i i'm sorry like i just can't get excited about a phone a new iphone that has a touch id home button on it you know which is what i expect it will probably be which is why my first pick is going to be that the iphone se keeps the current iphone se design oh interesting now this is one of those ones that again it might be like we're gonna have to call it as we see it there might be some tweaks but i think you know if this thing has bezels and a home button and all that kind of stuff, like that's the iPhone SE design. We'll see, right? Like, I don't know what you think about this, but, you know, there's stuff that they might

do to the design of this phone, but it's still, by and large, looks like the iPhone SE. I think that would be really boring. And you look at it and it's got like all the big bezels at the top and the bottom and button, home button with touch id oh but i think honestly one of the reasons that they keep this phone is for this design because there are some people that they know as well that do not want face id and i cannot imagine apple designing and if they keep the Touch ID home button, which I do think they will keep, I do not imagine them making a phone

with a new design for that. I'm going to leave that out there as a potential future pick for me. But I'll tell you something, the new iPhone SE is going to have, Mike. 5G! 5G, 5G, 5G, 5G. Because as Tim Cook has told us, we're just at the very beginnings of the global 5G rolloutG, 5G, 5G, 5G. Because as Tim Cook has told us,

we're just at the very beginnings of the global 5G rollout, and a lot of people are motivated to upgrade their phone or motivated by their carrier to upgrade their phone to get 5G support. So let's throw it in there. Everything gets 5G. You get 5G, and you get 5G, and you, iPhone SE, wake up, wake up.

Come on, snap to it. You get 5G. Do you know what else is going to get 5G, you get 5G, and you get 5G, and you, iPhone SE, wake up. Wake up. Come on. Snap to it. You get 5G. Do you know what else is going to get 5G? Oh, yes. I mean, we're going straight to the lowest of the low-hanging fruit now, aren't we? This was not going to be my second pick, but you mentioning it has made it there for me. The iPad Air.

Yeah, sure. iPad Air. You too. Get up here. There there's gonna be a new ipad air apparently according to mike's pick here and it'll have 5g i think this is probably the next most likely product in general is an ipad air refresh the ipad air due for a refresh it's now behind the other ipads even the the regular iPad and a bunch of features that we'll probably get here. And you've got to expect that the iPad Air is a pretty good seller for Apple.

It looks like an iPad Pro, but isn't priced like an iPad Pro. And I think it's going to get 5G. That's good. I'm going to make, sorry to make a boring pick, but it's on our list and I just want to stake out the ground here. iPad Air, like you say for the iPhone SE, iPad Air keeps the same design. boring pick but it's on our list and i just want to stake out the ground here ipad air like like

you say for the iphone se ipad air keeps the same design they just changed it it's got the flat sides it looks it's the modern design it was the first one to go why would they change it same design now here's the thing jason there is a pick that we did not have on our list because we pre-approved these picks together one of of these things was Apple announces an iPad Air. If we agree that I can pick that, then the first three rounds they are exact mirror of each other. Well, you can't pick it. But your pick already implies

it because you said it gets 5G support. Yeah, I know, but we also have Apple announces a new iPhone SE as a pick, right? Yeah, but why didn't we do that for the iPad Air? I don't know. We just didn't put it in there. But all right, if you're not going to let me add it, that's totally fine by me.

Because my next pick will be... I mean, you could add it. It would be really boring if you added it. But if you want to add it in, that's fine. No, I'm going to go in another direction. And I'm going to say that... Well, then I'll pick it next round. I won't pick it next round. play dirty the ipad air gets center stage

yeah there we go why didn't it already have it well that feature hadn't been introduced yet and this one feels to me like honestly even more certain than 5G because every iPad has it now, I think, if I'm remembering correctly. Yeah, even the iPad mini has center stage. So this is definitely a product that Apple won in the iPad line. We have had many conversations about wanting it in other products,

but right now it just exists in the iPad. I feel like if they touch the iPad Air, they put Center Stage in it. Yep, I agree, 100%. I think that it's even more likely than 5G, and I think 5G is very, very, very likely. But Center Stage, it has to be. It's in every other iPad.

Why would it not be? All right, Mike. Well, remember when you said that the iPhone SE was going to keep the current design? I think it's not. Tell me about this. That's my next pick. keep the current design? I think it's not. Tell me about this. That's my next pick. What do you think?

I think it's not. I think we have reached the point now where Apple is going to say goodbye to that design and come up with something that maybe has Face ID, but I think maybe has button touch ID, like on the iPad. Whatever is cheaper. Can I just jump in right now and just say that my final pick is that the iPhone SE has touch ID? Okay, all right. Let's do it.

And we can talk more about that. Let's double this up. This is where if for me, I imagine if they do change the design, right let's do it and we can talk more about that let's double this up this is where if for me i imagine if they do change the design they keep touch id but put it in the side button in the in the button i think that's possible i i so look it your pick that the iphone the current iphone se remains is banking on Tim Cook grinding more margin out of a very old iPhone design.

And, you know, it's hard to bet against that. But I look at the current iPhone SE and think it's so old now and so out of line with the existing iPhone line that I think there's a chance that Apple is going to make an iPhone SE that looks a little like the rest of the iPhone line. that they can call it edge to edge and put a notch in it, but maybe it doesn't have the Face ID system. Just simplify their product line a little bit. And I realize I'm just kind of grasping here because the easy thing is, it's just, again, it's just the same one with a little bit of an upgrade.

But I don't know. I feel like there's enough water under the bridge now that maybe they're going to revise it and use some of the stuff they've used in other phones while keeping it cheap and allow them to have something that feels a little more like a modern iPhone. And the big one is get that home button off the front of the iPhone. And since we've seen the Touch ID in the sleep wake button on the iPad, I feel like maybe that's the direction they want to go if they want to keep face ID as a premium feature. So that's my just kind of out of the blue, picking a little bit from what they did with the iPad Air and thinking that the big black stripe at the top, big black stripe with a

home button at the bottom feels really old, that maybe they want to finally kind of put that one in the ground. So I have a bunch of thoughts on this right one is um hey maybe the iphone mini becomes the iphone se but i don't think that would be now but i could imagine that right like in the future maybe in a year or two because when i think about that it's like okay they're not i don't believe they're going to put Face ID on the iPhone SE for a while because it is apparently very expensive to do so

and so if they were not going to do that or even if they were going to change the iPhone SE's design at all and let's imagine that they go edge to edge right or they go towards the bezels my thinking on this is it might have to give away potential designs of next iPhones more

based on like how they do like a camera in the display kind of thing, like a hole punch. Yeah. And so like all of this stuff suggests to me, I think that they will change this design, but I could imagine it's one more round of the current one. And then after that, they can start doing some new stuff.

I think clearly, I mean, we'll see how the rest of this draft goes, but the draft may be won or lost simply on whether Apple lets it ride for another round with the SE or does something a little bit different. And I just I think you're probably right about Touch ID, but there is part

of me that says Apple has been doing Face ID for so long now. instead of continuing to make these parts that are like only in the se at this point they're actually able to make a cheaper device by using parts that they're using in other iphones but then there's the touch id button tech too even in that they would put the touch id button i think like i genuinely believe that part of the iphone se's current existence is to have an iPhone that is not Face ID. Yeah. In fact, the strongest argument for the iPhone SE to not have Face ID, I think, is the iPad Air, because that's a mid-level iPad. And Apple is like, you don't get Face ID. Sorry, that's a pro kind of feature. And it's a different market because both of the iPhone lines, the regular and the pro, do have Face ID, but the SE is the thing that's down there below it. So pulling it out and saying, no, no, we're not going to do that, I think is really reasonable. what motivates me most of all is that home button it's like the home button oh it's so dated now right it's and people like it it's fine but i'm just trying to get into apple's mind and

thinking about all the products that they've got in their product line and like it's so dated and we know that it's been a problem like in terms of uh breaking it and things like that like i wonder if uh getting it out of there and getting something that looks a little more modern but still has Touch ID like in the button, if that might be their answer. But, you know, I think your thought is also reasonable because it's hard to bet against Tim Cook

continuing to grind with old parts at a low price, high margin iPhone SE. So that's, is this the year? I say maybe, you say no, we'll see. I mean, when did that last iPad come out? Like I know it was last year, right? I don't remember exactly when, but that has a home button on it.

That's true. You know, so they haven't gotten rid of it from everywhere yet. It's true. Not yet, not yet. Not yet. And yet. Not yet. And they love it on the Macs, right? This is what it looks like on the Mac.

It's just that little circle. Speaking of the Mac, this is where it starts to get interesting. I'm sorry, iPhone and iPad, you're not for us right now. It might be the fastest draft round of all time for four picks. We're going to move into our Mac picks now. There are another four. I would just note, I make my own personal list, right? I have like six or seven things on my iPhone and iPad list. I have 15 that I have made for my Mac picks here, even though we're only going for four each. What is your first? I only have seven, so you're more confident than I am.

I'm going to start with a product, the Mac, that I do think is going to be announced for sure at this event, which is a new 13-inch MacBook Pro of some sort. Okay. That's my first Mac pick, new 13-inch MacBook Pro. we don't want to get into that too much because there are many more picks on the table for this macbook pro in particular mine is going to be that a new mac mini is announced right for my money i think we're more likely to see a mac mini than a new macbook pro i went back and forth on this and new mac mini is announced was also on my list it was next up so i i went back and forth on this and new Mac mini is announced was also on my list. It was next up. So I went back and forth with them.

I think I could go either way, right? I think the new Mac mini seems logical because they held the Intel Mac mini around, even though they did a, an M one Mac mini last fall or I guess fall of 20. So it's not even last fall, you know,

a year and a half ago. And yet I feel like of 20. So, oh, God, it's not even last fall, you know, a year and a half ago. And yet I feel like this, even though the rumors conflict, there's so much heat around the idea that they're going to revise that 13-inch MacBook Pro that I feel like that gave me a little bit more of an edge, whereas the Mac Mini, I'm like, well, they could announce it.

I don't doubt it's coming. They could not announce it it and i wouldn't be shocked i guess what i'll say is that rumors of a new mac mini have been around for a lot longer oh yeah oh yeah no my my i don't doubt it exists i think my question is uh is it is it now and maybe it is now i think that like i said it was my second choice. So that's reasonable. And I'll just state, just like for the record, both of these products, like new, if Apple has something to show off, it's new, right? It doesn't matter if they've just changed a part here or there.

It's new. Yep. Okay, going to go out on a limb here. I know there have been conflicting reports. I'm just going to lay it down. Bye-bye, Touch Bar. Gone. Touch bar gone. Gone. New MacBook Pro doesn't have a touch bar. Okay. Yeah. That's it.

Look, if they come out with, if they update the MacBook Pro in the smallest ways possible and it still has the touch bar, like, what are you doing? Like, I get that last time when you were doing the first round of M1s that the goal was kind of stability and you just put the new chip in the old computer. But last year you revised everything. And this thing is still laying out there. It's like, come on, it's over. So there are a few things that were added to the MacBook Pro line in have any of those things. So I'm going to go out on a limb and I know there's some reports that say it stays and some reports that say it goes.

I like the home button. I'm going to put some money down on the touch bar. It's gone. It's gone. Just some buttons up there. Just some regular old function keys. Goodbye, touch bar. Jason, I'm all about the drama today i'm like okay big drama draft boy big drama energy from you yeah way later in my list but i'm gonna put it up there now

the new macbook pro keeps the touch bar okay all right now here's all right i i am the picks of optimism and you are the picks of pessimism, and we'll see who wins. It's not about pessimism. I think I'm going for realism. Now, this MacBook Pro will only exist to maintain a price point. That is why this thing exists. This MacBook Pro only continues to exist because they cannot get the 14-inch cheaper. I agree with you there.

Now, let me throw something at you. What do you think is cheaper, function keys or a touch bar with an OLED display and a touch sensor? Here's what I'll say on that. They already did the Apple Silicon revision for the MacBook Pro with a touch bar. I would expect it is cheaper to drop new chips in that MacBook Pro than going back to

the MacBook Pro that had the function keys and bringing that to the point where it's now ready for Apple Silicon. I expect that if they within an 18 month period thought that they were going to be both A, removing the touch bar from future designs and B, knowing they were going to keep the MacBook Pro around, they never would have revised the MacBook Pro with a touch bar for Apple Silicon

in the first place. A couple of things. First off, I don't think that it works where they go back to the MacBook Escape and then bring it forward. I don't think that's how they would do it. But secondly, I view it a very different way, which is that they did a first round of Apple Silicon M1 Mac designs

basically to get the first ones out the door so they could move on and actually do the redesigns and that it was a placeholder and it wasn't well if we're going to do that if we're going to keep this around let's redesign it now it was like we it's not important for us to redesign it because it's the least important macbook pro so let's wait and keep its redesign for later and now it's later so that's that's the way that I approach it. And I do think that it's cheaper to not have an OLED touch surface and that replacing that with function keys is probably something that will make a cheaper product. So we'll see. We're head to head.

They may have a big stock part of touch bars somewhere. for people who are not listening live, I just want to give you a little sense of one of the great things about being a real AFM member and listening live while being in our discord is that the discord is kind of losing it. I have seen Mike is doomed and Jason is throwing it both in the chat. So I like it. I like it. Everybody's opposed.

Everybody has a, has an opinion, the drama. Thank you, Mike, for cultivating the drama today this is draft drama that's what i'm all about draft drama i i just think that there's like for me there's a bunch of reasons to keep the touch bar um i think it's the speed thing

i think that there is a continuation of needing to separate the devices right like at that point if it's why is it different to a macbook air it's just bigger like i i think that there's just like a bunch of reasons they're going to keep the touch bar even though i don't think they should all right with my next pick i'm going back to the mac i'm going to the mac mini that you say is going to be announced and i'm going to say it will have options for both the m1 pro and m1 max chip okay this was my next pick this was going to be what I went with. I think that for me, I feel like this Mac Mini is a replacement for both Mac Minis, right? And that they may have the ability to have a Mac Mini that can be specced across the M1. would be the ideal right is that you could get an m1 or m2 when it comes along and then uh an m1 pro and m1 max and you're really just sort of picking it it depends on the marketing they may say right but it's all we it's what we've said about the um about the iMac also is true of the Mac mini is

they could market the Mac mini and a Mac mini pro and have it be uh different names and this one's silver and this one's space gray. But ultimately, I think it's going to be good, better, best kind of thing, right? Where it's like you can get an M1 or an M1 Pro or an M1 Max and it's all Mac mini. And I think that that's where they're headed. I feel like I'm bringing more drama right now, Jason. Bring it in.

The new MacBook Pro gets an M2 chip. Whoa, interesting, interesting. Jason. Bring it in. The new MacBook Pro gets an M2 chip. Whoa. Interesting. Interesting. M2. So, a lot of rumors that M2 is coming. A lot of rumors about the M2 appearing first in a MacBook Air that keeps getting delayed till maybe even this

summer. But you're saying it's going to debut whenever this event happens here's the thing I don't think personally that they would put an M1 Pro or M1 Max chip in this MacBook Pro

to me that doesn't make sense what is this MacBook Pro if it can have so much power at that point things start to get confusing for me It's like, what is this MacBook Pro if it can have so much power at that point? Things start to get confusing for me. They have to start M2 at some point.

Like, some point it needs to begin. To me, it would make sense that they would put it in what is at this point, I think, the oldest or one of the oldest computers that has an M1 in it. Uh-huh. oldest computers that has an M1 in it. So it makes sense to me that they would start with M2 sooner rather than later, because otherwise it could potentially be, unless the Mac Mini gets it, it'll be going all the way to the end of the year before M2 comes out, if the MacBook Air isn't going to come anytime soon. So I think that the MacBook Pro will get an M2 chip.

Very interesting. Feel like it's premature but who knows premature though really i mean yeah didn't it start in like the end of 2020 with the m1 yeah oh yeah i just i don't know i i've read enough reports that suggest that the MacBook Air is sort of when the M2 debuts that I've kind of been thinking that the M2 debut is going to happen later, but it could happen now. It will be interesting if it does happen to see how Apple spins comparing M2 to M1 Pro and M1 Max, right? Because like M2 sounds newer, but it's not going to be nearly as fast as an M2 or an M1 Pro or M1 Max. Yep.

So they're going to have to trick that one out. So here's a funny thing, Mike. We're in our last round now and neither of us has picked anything about rumored MacBook Air and larger iMac models.

Well, I think there's a pretty good reason for that. I think the challenge is that while I want there to be a larger iMac, and Mark Gurman seems to not have a view into it in his reports, I have not seen any reports that really suggest, despite how much I want it to exist, that it actually is going to exist. Which is funny to me because when i opened so i started off our list that we keep with the pics that we can choose from and i sent it to you and when i reopened it again you had added more more items to the new larger imac category than anywhere else there's so many great mysteries about a new larger iMac.

And I know you care about it the most. Yeah. And it's very hard for me to choose about whether it will exist or not. So my question is basically, do I want to throw a pick at something in order to make it exist? Because I have that kind of magical power. What is that? It's like-

Wish casting. Yeah, sure. Oh, yeah, sure. Or do I want to just go with something that's safe and boring and I really don't want to flip the pennant over, so I'm going to go with a Mac Mini keeps the same design. Okay. Darn it.

Is that on your list? Yeah. I mean, I would love a new design for the Mac Mini that's smaller and just all tiny and awesome and all, but they've worn me down to the point now that the M1 Mac Mini has so much open space in it that I actually think it's an advantage because if you want to put a cooling system in there for the M1 Pro and M1 Max, then you actually want to have a mini that's that size. And, you know, Apple releasing new versions of the Mac mini is great. Expecting Apple to change the shape of the Mac mini, I feel like is unrealistic. So I'm going to give up and just say, yeah, it's going to look the same, but it's going to be awesome on the inside. I'm trying to work out right now if I go for drama,

go for something exciting, or I just go for a boring final pick here. I almost offered a deal with you, which was for our last picks in this round to not be about the Mac Mini and the MacBook Pro. But then I decided I wouldn't. More than anything, Jason, I think the Upgradians have learned that you love to win.

I want to win the draft. Yeah, I do. I know you want to win the draft. Alright, I'm just going to go boring. Okay. The Mac Mini gets more ports than the M1 Mac Mini. More ports than the M1 Mac Mini. I like this one. I enjoyed picking this because I think it's kind of diabolical, right?

It's like more ports. Yeah. They could be different, but if it's the same number, it's not more ports. I was actually, I had my next on my list that I didn't go with was, Mac Mini has one or more USB-A ports on it, because I think that's

a hilarious question too. And I don't know the answer. I think probably it would, because the current Mac Mini did, but who knows what Apple's opinion of various ports are at any given time. You would think, based on the MacBook Pro, that a powerful Mac Mini would have lots of ports on the back. That has traditionally been the case, that the Mac Mini has had a lot of ports on the back. It just wasn't true with the M1 because the M1 Mac Mini was an M1 and didn't have the ability to really have very many ports but this one's

going to have more capable chips so it should have one way or another i expect that if we get a mac mini it has the capability for more either the m i reckon m2 will do it or m1 pro max will do it yeah and it'll probably be something simple like it'll still have those the the usb a ports on it but it'll have an extra thunderbolt on it something like that or like they're all thunderbolt but there's more than there was before or who know you know what i mean something like that something like that my the pick that i wanted to go with then is that i do actually think the mac mini will get a new design? I think there's a chance. And I'll be delightfully surprised and happy to lose that point

if it comes to that. Because I think my hope, also fear, is that they're going to do a redesign, and one of the things they're going to do is they're going to put the power supply outbound like they did on the outboard power supply like they did on the uh an outboard power supply like they've done the iMac yeah that'd be nice uh well it's bad in some ways it's bad because you have to manage that that block and and people don't like that but at the same time

it gets it off the desk and they it might even use the same connector as on the iMac and that that allows them to take the power supply out of it, which means that it can be even smaller. And they may yet do that, but I don't know. Again, they've ground me down with the Mac Mini. I wrote articles imagining a new design for the Mac Mini like five years ago, and it still looks exactly the same. So I give up. same so i give up my feeling on this is i do genuinely believe that there will be no mac untouched design wise after the end of the apple silicon transition i i see where you're coming from and yet again they ground me down with the mac mini so much that like that m1 mac

mini oh my god right it's literally like a couple of tiny things rattling around inside a giant aluminum enclosure because they didn't want to change it but maybe now's the time i mean that's my you're making my argument for the 13 inch um macbook pro right which is it wasn't important enough to change when they were getting the m1s out the door, but now is the time to refresh. And you could make the same argument for both of those. And the Air, which we all expect is going to be changed. But yeah, it could be time for the Mac Mini and the 13-inch MacBook Pro to look different. Of course, there was a ton of stuff we did not pick.

We did not pick anything iMac related related did not pick anything MacBook Air related uh we're going to go over some of the things we didn't pick in Upgrade Plus today so if you sign up you go to getupgradeplus.com you can sign up five dollars a month or fifty dollars a year you get longer ad-free versions of Upgrade and this time we're going to be talking about some of the stuff did not make it into the draft list this time around honestly i don't really know how i'm feeling about the draft for me so far i have not picked anything that was not on my list i just maybe moved some stuff around a little bit more um but i i feel like you know people may disagree with me i'm sure people do uh i'm seeing people that do but i do

think that all of these things are going to happen for me it's just a case of does it happen this time or does it happen next time oh yeah yeah I would agree with that but one of the challenges with the draft is that we're trying to gauge you know part of it too

is just trying to restrict your enthusiasm and I've done some things here that are like letting a little bit of my enthusiasm out but like i didn't pick an iMac even though i want it badly because i think i think i'm over indexing how likely it is that it'll happen based on my enthusiasm for it so i'm trying to kind of tamp that down i I do think it'll happen. But again, like with doing a new Mac mini enclosure, I'm like, yeah, I've been burned enough. Let's not.

I would question an Apple event where we get an iPhone, an iPad, a Mac mini and a MacBook Pro, and they basically all remain the same visually. And I know that we've got some different picks between the two of us across this spectrum, but that's why I think at least something's got to change somewhere, right?

Then I don't know what it is. I don't know how funny that would be, though. If the iPhone SE got updated with new internals, the iPad Air got updated with new internals, the MacBook Pro got updated with new internals, so does the Mac Mini. Goodbye, everyone. Bye, everybody got updated with new internals. So does the Mac Mini. Goodbye, everyone. Bye, everybody.

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Okay, we move into other picks now this is a range of products that we haven't mentioned that don't fall into the previous categories stagecraft picks software hardware all of that fun stuff we are picking two things each from this round jason what's your first? I am going to pick... I'm just going in on March 8th. Going in on March 8th. The event takes place March 8th. Very nice.

Interesting. Okay. I didn't end up picking this one. Felt like tempting fate to me. Yeah, I didn't find a lot in our others list that I was really super excited about. And I think that when I look back at what I thought the probabilities were for all the items in our miscellaneous list, I decided that the event taking place on March 8th was actually stronger than I initially thought. So I'm just going to lay it down and we'll see whether Mark Gurman's vague pronouncements about March 8th are right or not. And if we do decide that this goes on long enough that we each get to swap out a pick, guess which one I'm swapping out? My first pick is that Tim Cook presents from outside Apple Park. What makes you think that? Because he does that every single time except for the iphone

i mean sometimes he's in the cafe and sometimes he's he's in the theater but he's always he's always walking around that tim cook he's walking around yeah and i do feel like spring event you remember when he was standing amongst all the reeds last time yeah okay so i think a little nature will be presented for tim apple park obviously this does not count for the entire presentation it's not one i'm picking and this says it could be multiple reads on this tim cook presents from outside apple park he will okay and i'm gonna go with a classic we see the rainbow stage oh i had this i had this taste the rainbow see the rainbow they love that rainbow stage they love it and all you have to do is see remember there was that one event where it was dark and it was like the saddest darkest rainbow of all but it was there midnight rainbow they like they like it that could be one

of the colors in the color draft. Just stay tuned for that. John Ternus presents the segment. Okay. What made you pick him? If there's a Mac, Ternus will present it. Okay. Because he has presented every Mac that they've announced in the last little while. Yep. I do still assume that he is considered you know, considered for great things at Apple.

We've mentioned this before. And apparently John Ternus is seen as a potential future CEO of the company. So I think they're just going to continue to give him space. I mean, he has a more important role at Apple now than he has in previous years. I think that he will get his name. Plus, he's just a really good presenter. I really like parts where John Turner presents, and I think they're going to continue doing that,

especially if they have anything new chip-based. And I know that he doesn't do all of it, but he very frequently starts that part and then throws over to someone in the chip lab. Totally. So we now move into the draft of the color czar. Yes. So this is a Jason Snell creation

and a Jason Snell adaptation. Would you like to explain what this is? I think it would be fun for us to draft colors. Apple's doing a lot of stuff with color. They're putting color, there's colors in the iPad Air, there's colors on the iMac. There may be colors coming to the big iMac. There's colors in iPhones. And so we did this last time, we are going to pick colors that are unveiled in a new product during the event.

For this one, I'm going to say that if the color isn't said out loud, but it shows up in the product description afterward, it's good enough because it's really, this is like a little adjunct to the main draft. But the idea here is we're trying to guess what colors apple puts on its products by the way if a color is used on more than one product i would say it's worth a point for each product it's on and most total points gets a bonus draft point yes so this is going to be a like a slight change to the way that we usually do things

because we are going to have to and we've agreed on this in advance yes we'll do it for this we will be going into apple's product pages and confirming the color names and their frequencies it may be possible honestly that we might be able to just get all of this information from the keynote that's yeah you know they show videos and we could see all the colors there but we will be wanting to go in and triple check this one right but of course we have to be able to confirm it before the draft segment result segment ends that still stands now in the original Czar draft, we got very competitive and we got caught up in picking things that were boring and we tied. And so there was no bonus point.

So in this Color Czar draft, we each have to make three picks. We have to make a boring pick. We have to make a color pick. And then we have to make up a color name that we think Apple will use that has not yet been used on an Apple product. Those are our three selections. All right. So just to give a little bit more information on this, boring colors are names of colors that are pre-existing in Apple products.

Colors are just colors, right? Like any color you could pick it, new or old, I guess you could pick it. right like any color you could pick it new or old i guess you could pick it but like the boring colors is like your space grays your space blacks of the world you know that kind of stuff yeah space gray silver starlight midnight by the way starlight did you know the coke there's now a coke flavor called starlight what does that mean i wonder if it tastes like a like a like a macbook coke i guess it would taste like an iphone yeah starlight the takeout.com says coca-cola starlight tastes like one big marketing ploy yeah well sounds about right anyway so the boring colors are not very colorful is the point silver space gray starlight midnight

space black rose i'm putting rose gold in there it's kind of boring it's been around a long time colors are like green and orange and pink and purple and yellow and blue. Also, the iPad Air currently comes in sky blue, so you could say sky blue if you wanted to, and that's a color. Sky blue. Can I ask a question? Yes. And if you wanted to do Midnight Lemon or Pacific Blue or whatever, you could do that too, and that's a color.

Starlight and Midnight, right? We couldn't really understand what these colors were. Right. Now, when it comes to colors, the colors category of the colors I draft, do they have to be named this? I would say yes. I would say if you pick blue and the blue that they use is sky blue and not blue, it's not. Or if it's called azure, right? Yeah. What I don't want to do is get like, so pink, pink is a color.

And you can say, well, but really the pink iMacs, it's kind of red. No, it's called pink. Cool. This is what I want to check. It's just it met the name. We are matching the names. It is the name, right?

Apple gets to name it. We just have to guess what they're going to name it. Yeah, this is what I wanted to check because I don't want to be like color like you know i don't want to start getting out color we're going to argue whether something is whether the new aqua imac is green or blue right we don't want to be in that situation that way lies more madness than we already have so no and then in the inventor color round is we need to pick a marketing name for a color exactly you got it amazing that's my favorite one all right okay what is your boring color

silver the most boring color of all is silver i choose silver Choose silver. Silver was my first choice. It is the most, like, is Apple not going to offer it in silver? Of course it is. Of course it is. So I'm not asking for you here, but I'm just going to speak this aloud, all right? All right. My next two are starlight and space gray. Starlight is a newer one, right?

and space gray starlight is a newer one right i'm worried about this because because it sure looks like starlight and midnight are the new silver and space gray yes but they haven't brought them to a bunch of products that are are you know they are they're not yet it's not yet clear that they're going to be everywhere oh i've made my are they going to make a starlight macbook pro you've helped me make my decision which is i'm going with space gray because okay i am expecting that space great some products that they announce will not get new colors they will just be in the old colors uh-huh yeah space gray is the old colors right yeah now we get complaints in the in the chat now that that you shouldn't be able to pick silver and the answer is this is the boring color

people this is what it's all about the good news is we don't want silver to be a color that apple offers anymore but they do so what do you want from us exactly exactly can you imagine all the people who are going to be angry if they replace silver with starlight and they're like no it's slightly different like yeah i guess i had a starlight review unit and i looked at it and i was like is this different and you had to literally had to hold it next to a silver one and then you'd be like sort of a little bit not Not a lot. All right. It's color time. I got to pick a color. We've got MacBooks and Mac minis and an iPad Air. And an iPhone SE.

And an iPhone SE. And I will also just note for the record, one of the picks that we did not pick, but I would mention it here. Apple announces a new color to the iPhone 13 line, which they did do last time yeah right right so that might that might be part of it too easter iphone um i'm gonna go with um oh this is a tough one um let's just uh we're gonna go with

uh green I'm gonna take green thought about product red there for a minute but I went with green you just put an idea in my brain but it's not on the list though we didn't put it on you can pick product

red if you want i'm gonna i'm sorry i'm i'm picking red product red okay my actual colors that i had that i was going to pick is purple blue and orange they were the three purple i was going to abandon even though it was my top one because then when thinking about it i don't think they're going to do a purple iphone two times in a row right right um and orange i was was high up there for me because orange is like a good color for apple these days i've been doing a lot of good orange stuff. But no, if I'm going to go with a safe pick, they bring... If they're going to do colors in anything,

it feels like they're always going to do the red. But we'll see. Maybe I could be wrong, but I'm going with red. So now the moment you've all been waiting for where Jason and I myself try to create a color an apple product name color of our own now here's the thing is this is this is the what we're going to go with

here right there's two options on the table do you either a put an adjective in front of a standard color? You'll say Pacific blue of the world. Or do you go starlight and just pick a random word? Ah, yes, that's right. Any color can be assigned to, you know. Supernova. Like rhinoceros or something, you know. I choose deep blue sea. All right, interesting. That's a completely

new convention where the color name is in the middle. Sure. I'm breaking new ground here. Why not? Sea Blue, Jason. Why Deep Blue Sea? Alright, so... Well, they got Sky Blue, and it's like the devil in the Deep Blue Sea. It's the Deep Blue Sea.

I've just decided Sea Blue is probably better, but it's too the devil in the deep blue sea. It's the deep blue sea. Deep blue sea is, I've just decided. Sea blue is probably better, but it's too late. Too late! I have three. I'm trying to pick which one. I'll tell you the one I think that I had that I don't think it will be. Cosmic Black.

That was one of them. But I'm just going to give it off. Uh-huh. But I'm going to go with Spring Yellow. Oh. okay. Safari green was my other one. But safari green, that feels very pro.

So my safari green is my iMac Pro color. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Spring yellow is what I'm going to go with. I'm betting spring yellow on a potential iphone color that's where i'm going with it okay here's a question for you yeah are we gonna are we gonna count cases in this no no this is just hardware like computers phones that kind of stuff right

exactly cool just want to double check because obviously that opens us up a lot, right? And could take us quite a while to check through all this stuff. Yes. We'll see. Maybe that's a thing. Maybe in future, right? We could start including.

We'll see how the draft of the color czar goes. I fear that the end result here is going to be either a boring tie or a win because of more silver things or more gray things. But we're still fine tuning the colors our draft who knows i was gonna go festivities yeah who knows so that's it that draft is complete the episode is not over i had a few more things i want to get to today but the

draft is now done i have no idea about this one i don't feel, but I don't feel like you've taken it. So, you know, I'm just like, we're just going to see how this one plays out. Maybe there won't even be an event. I, um, the one pick here of yours that I raise my eyebrows at the most is the M2 chip. Oh, yeah, definitely. we'll see yeah we'll see

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Our thanks to ZocDoc for their support of this show and RelayFM. Howdy, partner. Hey there, partner. It's time for the Rumor Roundup. So I thought I still wanted to go through some of this stuff, some things that may be of an effect to the event itself, but I wanted to obviously talk about them after we've made our picks

so as not to sway our opinions. The sheriff of Rumerville, Mark Gurman, expects Apple to release seven new Macs in 2022. This includes a new Mac mini with an M1 Pro chip, a 13-inch MacBook Pro with an M2 chip. See if I would have read this. And then a Mac mini with an M2 chip. Come on, Mark. You got my back. A 24-inch iMac with an M2 chip. See if I would have read this. And then a Mac mini with an M2 chip. Come on, Mark.

You got my back. A 24-inch iMac with an M2 chip. A redesigned MacBook Air with an M2 chip. A larger iMac Pro with M1 Pro and M1 Max chip options. And a half-sized Mac Pro, the first of Apple Silicon, with the equivalent of either two or four M1 Max chips. Now, we have heard about all of these things i feel like over the last year or so but the idea just laying it out there seven new

max in 2022 oh boy yeah yeah including the big imac and the mac pro and the first wave of m2 max as well. That's pretty sweet. Pretty sweet. It's going to be a big, big important year. Now, Mark's guess for March, the March event, is MacBook Pro and Mac Mini. Like, Mark feels pretty confident about that. And he goes on to mention more releases expected in the May-June timeframe could be the Mac Pro, unsure of the window of the iMac Pro, but between now and June seeming the most likely.

Yeah. I still don't think we're going to see a release of a Mac Pro in June. Yeah, I still think that the most likely scenario is that the Mac Pro gets teased and then releases later. But who knows? I mean, they've got the M1 Pro and Macs chips out there now. If they've got them, then obviously they've got all the parts and they just need to put it together. So who knows?

That's part of the excitement of having Apple not be constrained by Intel product releases. We don't really know what Apple's full array of Apple Silicon Max is going to be. And then we don't know what their update schedule is going to be. And this is going to be our first data point to really, you know, because you got to connect two events to start making extrapolations. And we haven't had two events of any Apple Silicon product. We've only had introductions.

So we're going to really get a sense. And the M2, I think the M2 is really interesting. Is this next event the M2 rollout? And you go into the chip lab, it could be. And you talk about, we're doing this next generation M2, and the first place it's going is the MacBook Pro. And that's what differentiates it, at least momentarily, from the MacBook Air is that it's got the better chip in it, which then the macbook air will get later so i don't know maybe maybe could be that would be i think it would not be unreasonable for this event to be uh putting the m1 pro and an iMac and then putting the M2 in a new lower end piece of

hardware like the 13-inch MacBook Pro maybe maybe I could see that John Prosser has shared a leaked schematic of the iPhone 14 which shows both a holeunch camera and a pill-shaped Face ID sensor with no more notch. Now, this had been rumored before, but this schematic seems to show some of the sizing, the sizing being much larger than people expected. It's expected that this kind of like jewel hole-punch cutout screen will find its way to all of the iPhone 14 line later on this year.

I don't think we've spoken about this at all. I kind of wanted to get your thoughts on this overall design. So losing the notch and having kind of some holes be cut into the screen, but having the screen flow around them. What is your take on this? Well, you know, Apple can define areas that are not, you know, that are not safe. The notch is one version of it. This might be a different one. I think Apple has shown that they know how to hide this stuff when necessary and keep the software in line. So this would just be a way to reduce the visibility of the notch a little bit. It's fine.

I think we all expected that they were going to continue to slim things down as much as possible until they can get to the point where it's all invisible. You know, I don't know. I think it'll be interesting to see what it actually looks like in use and how Apple handles the software. looks like in use and how Apple handles the software. I imagine that for most cases, it will be up in the display bar area or just below it. And Apple will try to discourage the use of the space around it for general purpose. And I don't know. I mean, I'm fine with it. I have come to not care about the notch at all. Every now and then a tweet makes its way into my timeline where somebody makes a notch joke. And I think, really?

Like, okay. I'm over it. And even on the MacBook Pro, I think the notch is fine because they've done a good job of basically making it irrelevant. So it doesn't really bother me. and I doubt this would bother me either. I think we'll all get used to it. And I think Apple's goal is ultimately to reduce that space as much as possible. Yeah, I don't think about the notches on any of my devices because it doesn't impede me in any way.

And for this, it's like it would only be better because I don't imagine people are going to start putting content behind there but like you know like most applications and websites or whatever now they just have like a blank color up at the top and this way the color would just flow around more neatly you know i think it would feel more integrated as part of the overall design i would be totally fine with this and it is with the idea that like, this is the next step, or maybe in another three or four years time, that entire hardware is hidden behind the display. I mean, that's clearly the route that is the natural evolution, right? And

technology already exists to do this stuff. It's not ready, I think, for mass adoption, it's definitely not ready to go in an iPhone just from a quality perspective. But this is how this stuff begins. And I think that this makes a lot of sense for them to go in this direction. Plus, it will make another iPhone visibly different. And we all know what happens when iPhones are visibly different.

They sell a lot of them. I mean, I think external hardware shape stuff is more powerful, but I agree. Yeah, for sure. Change is good and that we all agree that, you know, the ultimate goal here is to have the sensors be invisible. But they can't do that yet. So here we are. DigiTimes is reporting that Apple's headset hardware has passed some important hardware tests, indicating that it could actually be indeed ready for a late 2022 release. Well, congratulations, headset, on passing your exams.

A star, I heard. Nice, nice. It's an S tier now. This has just been a timeline that feels pretty elastic right now i feel like every couple of weeks there's something about like is it this year is it next year is it this year is it next year the beauty of having an unannounced product that doesn't replace any other product is it's ready when it's ready and they're not they didn't promise anything they literally haven't announced they haven't so it's it's this sounds to me not they didn't promise anything they literally haven't announced they haven't so it's it's this sounds to me like they're gearing up to release a product right and it's just a matter of when and that is to be determined but it sounds like they are you know

they're going through all the steps so it's clear that there's going to be a product the question is just you know what the details are and when does it happen? When does it announce and when does it ship? And this, it puts the potential back on the table for SDKs at WWDC. If all rumors indicate that this is not a 2022 product, then the likelihood of them talking about it at WWDC slims down and it may then do what I think they will do anyway, but have its own dedicated software announcement event along with the hardware tease, right? But if, you know, I think if there is still the rumors pointing to, oh, no, it actually is going to come out at the

end of this year, then we could be in the situation where they could actually talk about it at WWDC, even though I still think they won't. I think WWDC and the iPhone release are the best times to talk about it. And just remember the Apple Watch was at an iPhone event because it's the most watched event. So in some ways it's the best place to make a strategic announcement if you're Apple.

And they could do either of those or have a standalone event. I think if they're not shipping it soon a standalone event makes less if they're not shipping it soon a standalone event makes less sense but um but they've got they've got room to play like i think i think wwdc would be great but who are we kidding if they announce a new platform in september um and say it's going to ship by the end of the year the developers will still be paying attention. Especially when I think any developer that is somewhat serious

thinks they might have an application that could work for this and or thinks they might have an idea. I mean, ARKit exists. You can start doing base level work for understanding what AR is. You know, it's not like this is the Apple Watch. It's like, well, what can I do?

I can't do anything. But with this, it's obviously not the same exactly, but you can start getting ahead on yourself by understanding how an AR kit works. And they've been doing that for years now, so a lot of them are already on top of it. And Sports Business journal is reporting as many others have before but with a little bit more information potentially that apple is still

in talks with the nfl to acquire the streaming rights to sunday ticket amazon amazon and apple are apparently the front runners for this deal which would start in 2023 yeah amazon has been aggressive on sports stuff they got the thursday night football franchise from the nfl um this is sunday ticket is a premium service that's been on direct tv for a very long time where you can watch any game and not just the games that are airing in your local area because nfl games all almost all run on Sundays and two time slots. And if you're a fan of a team from a far off city, you can't watch it unless you pay for NFL Sunday ticket, which has been limited to people using satellite service, direct TV. So Apple and Amazon are both interested in it, which I think is interesting. We know Apple's interested in live sports, but they haven't done a lot. This would be a very

interesting question too about, I imagine this would be a premium on top of or separate from Apple TV Plus, which would be also fascinating, right? A different subscription service potentially. I used to be a Sunday ticket subscriber. It's a fun service that actually gets better with more interactive features and like being able to put everything up in a box and flip between games or have it auto flip between games. And there's also the Red Zone channel, which is a channel you can tune in that basically has an announcer who switches you between games when interesting things are happening. A lot of stuff that they could do there. And then there are also some rumors about Apple being involved in, in a major league baseball conversation. Some possibilities there include, I saw a report that said that it,

it could be a kind of a whip around service like the NFL Red Zone, which doesn't really exist right now, where you basically have a channel that you can tune in that is taking you between different baseball games as they're going on. And that might be a fun kind of product as well. So Apple has not done any of this yet, but is definitely in the running for a bunch of live sports stuff. Do you think that there is any possibility of them doing something like NFL Sunday Ticket included in Apple TV Plus as it currently is, like as a way to bring more people in?

It's going to cost them a fortune to buy the thing, but that's the question, right? Is you could build a whole separate business on it or you could roll it into Apple TV Plus and use it as an inducement. It would be, let me just say, way cheaper than NFL Sunday Ticket currently goes for, but they could do it.

It was noted from that article that Disney is also in the running, but is offering significantly less money than Amazon and Apple, according to Sports Business Channel, for the Sunday ticket. All right, saddle up. That's the end of the rumor roundup.

All right, we're out of here. We're going to ride off into the sunset. We're going to mosey away now. And we're going to thank our friends at Memberful for their support of this week's episode. Memberful is the easiest way to sell memberships to your audience and it is used by the biggest creators on the web to help generate sustainable recurring income while diversifying your revenue stream. The RelayFM membership program is powered by Memberful. That includes Upgrade Plus. One of the reasons we do this is because

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with some hashtag askupgrade questions. I wondered if there was going to be any kind of like, would the lasers turn into like gunfire or something? I wondered what it was going to be. How did that horse get in here? The laser horse.

Did you just shoot at the horse jason oh my god oh wait i see the horse got away the horse laser horses don't don't worry the horse got away claude asks what do you use to uninstall non-app store mac apps and why doesn't apple have a built-in uninstall utility for applications? Do you remember AppZapper, Jason? Do you remember AppZapper? Yeah. I was thinking about this recently. What a wonderful piece of software. So here's the idea. The idea is that an app keeps everything in its app package.

So you just delete the app package and it's deleted. So that's what I do is if I install an app, what I do is you delete it. Now, I get it that sometimes there are things that are more complex. Ideally, an app with more complex like files running in various places, you can, you know, it should provide like an uninstaller or something like that. But most apps are not that complicated, even if they're not in the Mac App Store. Most apps live in their little bundle. And yeah, they may have like a cache file somewhere or preferences file somewhere. Honestly, I would say given the size of storage these days, don't worry about it. And also it means that if you delete that app and want it back later, your preferences will still be there. And so it'll all still work when you redownload it. So I don't,

honestly, I don't sweat it. But that's why Apple doesn't have a built-in uninstall utility. It does, actually. It's the trash. You drag the app into the trash. And that's it. I'm getting some suggestions from the Discord. Justin Hamilton suggests Hazel is an application that when, like, is an application

that when you delete something, it'll say, hey, here's some stuff that you could also delete, which is cool. And Emma uses an application called App Cleaner for these reasons. Because sometimes it just isn't that simple. I understand what you're saying, Jason, but sometimes there are apps that you do want to get rid of. It's not, I don't feel like I need this. I do what you do. I just drag it out. Yeah. The challenge challenge is are the cleaner apps really getting everything and mostly what this is an issue for is something that's like it's an it's asked you for your

password to install something down somewhere in the system where it's running a thing uh in the background when you start up or something like that and ideally that would have an uh an uninstaller. If these apps can help with that, that's great. You could also use a utility like Lingon which looks at your whole automatic task set

on your Mac and you can remove all those start at startup things or uncheck them. What is this? L-I-N-G-O-N, like Lingonberries. Okay. LingonX. It's by Peter Borg. And that's actually what I use

because you can also use it to schedule stuff. It's like Cronjobs and Systemjobs and all of that. But it's the same thing. So anyway, there are ways. And I it, it, there are ways I, I, and I don't doubt that there are apps where you want to do a little more work,

but again, I will just say the size of our hard drives and really the power of our computers. I think you can get way too obsessed with cleanup on your computer when it's not really necessary. And then in most cases, if you delete the app, you've uninstalled it.

Mork wants to know, don't do it again, Jason. Do you think... Shadospot! Oh, he did it. Do you think the touch bar would still be with us? It kind of is, but you know.

If it was something closer to the stream deck deck a row of dynamic physical keys that adapted to the context of what you were doing yeah so yes two things here one is yes the biggest condemnation of the stream deck is not from the people on the outside who said the stream deck is dumb it's from inside apple because apple never made any attempt to make the touch bar better they never did they never did stream deck the software is not that great right but stream deck lets you assign tasks to the keys and uh and from that you can run scripts and stuff like that and you can kind of get out into the wider world. And although you could modify the touch bar to do that with something like Better Touch Tool, Apple never made, beyond adding some finder services shortcuts that you could put in the touch bar,

Apple never made any attempt to make the touch bar a general purpose set of assignable macros. They like, instead they said, oh, every app is going to do it, but the user isn't going to be involved. I think it was a huge mistake. They misconceived it and they never corrected it. So yes, if you could have done something like what we can do with the stream deck

to have a user completely program the touch bar and had it be part of mac os or had it be open to third parties in an in an actual usable legal way which better touch tool was kind of a hack and it's amazing what it could do but it was super hacky and not as nice as it should have been. Not their fault. It's the fault of Apple for forcing them to do it that way. But like, yeah, Stream Deck shows that something like Touch Bar could have been better. And then what Mark also says here is a row of physical keys that adapted to the context of what you're doing. That's the other problem with Touch Bar was you couldn't feel for it because it was a flat surface and stream deck those are

buttons you can feel them you can you can use them you can navigate by feel you can find the bottom left corner and then count over two buttons and press the button like you can do all of that and you had to look at the touch bar so i think that would have made the touch bar more useful i'm not entirely other than the fact that Apple's been burned, like I would love to see Apple experiment with the idea of something where it was more like a dynamic function key, where it was a function key with a little screen beneath it and it could change and it would actually change the look of the key. I don't think they're going to do that because I think that they've been burned and they've stopped trying to innovate on the keyboard. And maybe we should all just be relieved that they have.

But yes, absolutely. If something like the Stream Deck can get people excited with the software that is really not that great, but it enables a lot. Imagine what would have happened if Apple had allowed either built it themselves or allowed third parties to really get in there and play with the touch bar. But they didn't. And now it's gone's gone almost i don't think forever though because i do think that idea the idea was a good one and even if they do end up doing what you've suggested or like this rumor that we might talk about in a future episode of just like it's all screen baby the whole thing you know like at some point i think the idea of this is a area of the keyboard which is dynamic and gives you what you need it was a good idea just not very well executed for various reasons yeah i would be a big fan of replacing the F keys with keys that could be programmable.

Because the great thing about the stream deck is you have keys and the labels will change based on your context. And I think if Apple did something like that, and what's funny about it is that Apple already sort of has taken a step in this direction, right? Because Apple has stolen the F keys and instead made them hardware control keys. And then you have to press the globe or the function key in order to get back to the traditional F keys. And then they've started to label them. And like one of the nice things about a programmable set of F keys is that you could show this is volume up, this is volume down, and yet in a different context, it could show something different. That would be really interesting. But again, it would require Apple to try and reinvent the function row again.

And I wonder if they're going to leave that for a while because they had this whole touch bar thing and it was a flop and so are they going to go back there and take another run at it or not i don't know not hg asks in which tab in photos do you usually view your photos are you in the library are you in the album or is it for you is another one right is that yeah for me i've stuck to like what i know what it used to be like what it always was albums recents that's where i like to view my images because sometimes if i look in the other tabs it can sort things chronologically which isn't always necessarily the way that i want it right like as in like actual date chronologically like

imagine that i've saved something from some like someone sent me right then it might actually if i go in the other tab it wouldn't be my most recent image it could actually be three weeks ago or whatever so i like albums recents that that's where i view all my images is what i'm used to is what i like it's perfectly reasonable i just use the library your your way is probably better but that's not what i do i generally i just use library it's not about better it's just what i'm used to i don't think it's better necessarily you know no i think it might be i i think it for what the reasons you said of of not having something that sorts further up and it's it's you you just want to get the thing you just added and it's like why is it not right here and the answer is well it's a little

higher up i don't know i i just use the library straight up i will give you a bit of long-term follow-up that all of the problems i had with the um images sharing thing remain like i still have images go back months and months and months that adina's sent me when she was at home and i was at the studio like like i have images here i'm looking at like pictures that were sent to me back from June 2020 that I haven't saved to my library and they've still got that speech bubble on them. Like that feature just never really worked for me and I've left it on,

but I still don't think it's what I want. And lastly, Franken asks, on the Mac, what quick settings take up real estate in your menu bar and which ones do you keep in control center? So as a refresher in control center, you can drag things out of control center and put them in the menu bar. For me, focus and the sound, I dragged them out and left them out. Everything else I've kept in there. Like I experimented a while, like I put

like Bluetooth up there or whatever, but ultimately control center was perfectly fine uh what about you are any that have found their way out of control center on my imac nothing okay on my macbook air wi-fi and battery are both up there. Oh, yeah, battery. Battery, yeah. I've moved that out on my laptop. I'm looking on my iMac right now, so obviously I don't have battery.

Yeah, I had to pull the... I actually do because I have a UPS. Oh, and that shows in the control center for battery? Yeah. Oh, that's cool. There's a little USB thing that comes out of most UPSs and you plug them in and it allows it to communicate with the Mac and tell it? Yeah, there's a little USB thing that comes out of most UPSs and you plug them in and it allows it to communicate with the Mac and tell it,

it can tell it how much battery it's got and the Mac can use that setting. If you haven't done this, if you have a UPS and a desktop Mac, it will show up if you attach its little USB thing and it allows the Mac to do things like when the power is out,

when does the Mac shut down? And so you can say like, keep running until the UPS battery is down at 10% or whatever, and then auto shut down. So it'll actually work with the UPS, be aware of how much power is still left in the UPS battery. So if I click on control center right now on my iMac, I have a little battery indicator that says a hundred percent.

Yeah, it's kind of fun. But anyway, I don't have any of those. I've got a lot of menu bar items up there, but they're the ones that I've chosen to be there, and they're not the standard Apple ones. But on my Mac Quick Air, it makes sense to have quick access to Wi-Fi and battery. If you would like to send in a question of your own,

you can just send out a tweet with the hashtag AskUpgrade. There you go. It's not Snell Talk. It's you can just send out a tweet with the hashtag AskUpgrade. There you go. It's not Snell Talk. It's AskUpgrade. Or you can use question mark AskUpgrade in the RelayFM members Discord. We'll be back next week. Who knows what day?

Maybe by the time you're hearing this, you'll know. I mean, honestly, if you're listening to this episode, like late Tuesday or Wednesday, and they have not announced an event right then it's you know we'll be back on monday yes otherwise a lot of listeners of upgrade will have gotten to this point and they'll either not think this is an unusual draft at all or they'll be very they'll be laughing at us so be it so be it but the draft is locked in as they say yeah nobody says that but they could say oh there was more apparently lasers lock the draft as well yes sometimes and the draft is now solidified until you know it's cast and it's been concrete has been poured on it die is cast

and the concrete has been poured on it until we smash it open. And who knows? We could smash it open next week or it might be smashed open in three weeks or just, I don't know, sent out to sea. I don't know what this metaphor is that I'm building right now. I don't know what things are cast and then put in concrete and then sent out to sea, but I don't know. You know? This is the stuff that

I'm talking about. If you would like to find us online, you can go to sixcolors.com for Jason. You can go to sixcolors.com for Jason. You can go to at Jason L, J-S-N-E-L-L. That's also Jason. I'm at imyke, I-M-Y-K-E. I would like to thank our sponsors of this week's episode. That is Memberful, ZocDoc, Ooni, and Smile.

I would like to thank you all for listening and especially to our Upgrade Plus supporters who get longer ad-free episodes. So thank you for supporting the show. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell. Goodbye, Mark Hurley.