Upgrade - 449: Dynamic Submarine

Episode Date: March 6, 2023

Kia ora! Jason's back from vacation to discuss Apple's continued quest to optimize its iPhone product revenue and the reason why M3 Macs might be closer (and more interesting) than we thought.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 449 today's show is brought to you by squarespace and fitbod my name is mike hurley and i'm very excited because i get to welcome back to the show my friend and yours mr jason snellnell. Hi, Jason. Hi, Mike. Where's Casey? Isn't Casey doing the show now? I fired him. Okay. He's no Jason Snell.

He's a good Casey Lewis, but he's no Jason Snell. You know what I mean? Nobody is. Yes, it was extremely weird to see you recording and posting and new episodes of Upgrade appearing in my feed. It was extremely weird. I felt a pressure, so I'm happy that you're back you know it's just it's complicated right to for it to do to do a show that's meant to it's really just the two of us it's always the two of us always you right up

until it is well i mean this is what i have to do when i'm i feel the same thing right when i get guest hosts for you is it's a different dynamic because then then in in in that case not only am i leading the conversation which you take the lead here but uh it's that same thing of like i want to be a good host like as you said last week to casey a good uh like house host type host of like clean up all the mess and here's the show document and i'm gonna make sure i don't mess it up and all of those things it's a totally different dynamic i have a snell talk question for you that comes from me and i would like to know did you have a nice break yeah now uh i let that sit there because um casey was giving me a hard time about adding tangents to

snell talk questions instead of directly answering them last week. And I just wanted to point out and it's fresh because I listened to it on the plane. I just want to point out that's what happens if I don't do tangents to these questions. I end up saying just like, yep. And then we move on. And I thank everybody for sending in their questions and we move into follow-up.

Yeah, it's just, that would be a heck of a move to have a yes or no question open every episode of Upgrade. Oh, I can't wait to see if it's yes or no. Maybe that's the a heck of a move to have a yes or no question open every episode of Upgrade. Oh, I can't wait to see if it's yes or no. Maybe that's the summer of fun. Or like a one word answer. What's your favorite color? Blue.

Yeah, summer of fun is just yes or no answers for the whole season. Yeah, so sometimes you gotta weave, what I'm saying, Casey, is you gotta weave a story and you gotta try to make it a thing because otherwise, I mean, and it does occasionally happen that you put a snowcock question in there and I'm like, Mike, I have no, I have nothing for this. I'll just be like, no, Jason, have you ever done this?

No. All right, great. Moving on. So yes, I had a nice break. We had a great time. It has been since your wedding that we took two weeks away from home. And it has been since 2004, since my wife and i have been on a two-week vacation together without our children without any children we didn't even have well i mean technically in 2004 we did have one of our children with us but he was being carried on the inside it's been a long time so it was great if you would like to send in a snow talk question preferably with an open it's like an open question not so much right or suggestion for what tangents we could go on during it that would be great like in

parentheses or something go to upgradefeedback.com and you can now select snow talk question from the drop down but you don't have to do that i you can send in whatever you want and i can decide where it will go but it is nice for me uh because on the back end now, I have a way of just selecting each little segment and getting the things that I need. Now, Jason, I know you weren't here the last couple of weeks, but I do have a little bit of follow-up. Some of it is directly related to our last episodes,

but actually most of it is related to things from the pre-vacation time. Okay, great. So the most important one is a good correction that comes from shintan who's wrote in to remind me because we were talking about tim cook and charity and we were talking about one me and casey were wondering if tim cook had done like the billionaire pledge thing where like i'm gonna give all my money away i know that actually has a different name than that but i can't remember what it is. The Bill Gates thing, right? Like that pledge that you give all your money when you die.

Well, in 2015, Tim Cook pledged that he would give his wealth to charity after paying for the schooling of his relatives. So I think it was his nephews. He was going to pay for their school and like which was interesting to me that like just he said he will but so this comes from cnn money cook who is close to becoming a billionaire 2015 says he will pay for his nephew's college education then donate the rest of his wealth to philanthropic projects, according to Fortune. So I remember this. Now I remember this, I haven't read it.

And I remember feeling now the same thing I felt then, which was to be Tim Cook's nephew, kind of great that he's paying for your college, but you'd like maybe just like a little more, you know, like, come on, Uncle Tim.

Rich Uncle Tim. Can't you at least buy me a house you know what i mean but hey well i mean maybe he that's maybe like also by this has to live in this mansion to live in while you're going to school and then it's yours and it's called the giving pledge by the way although the billionaire pledge to give away all your money is a great name i like that too i might start that i'm gonna compete compete with Bill Gates and set up the billionaire pledge to give away all of your money. But so there you go.

That's a good correction. That's an important thing. It's just interesting. All the way back in 2015, I did not remember that at all. It was nearly 10 years ago now. Yeah, I don't think it's surprising given his... I mean, he is somebody who has

very publicly discussed lots of social issues. I'm not surprised at all that he would. And of course, he instated all of Apple's charity matching and stuff that Steve Jobs didn't do. And so I'm not surprised at all to be reminded that Tim is

already there. He's already going to give it away. Except for the nephew stuff. Nephews, we're going to take care of you. It's soccer time. We're going to take care of you. Jason Snow. Soccer time. In a major way.

In a major league American way. For the rest of the world, it's sort of been soccer time since the fall. But for a major league soccer way, it is soccer time. The MLS season has begun. I actually watched some of an Apple TV live MLS game while we were doing our laundry in our hotel room in Christchurch, New Zealand. Yeah, I tuned it in.

The reason I know it's MLS time is because the TV app really wants me to sign up. It does it though. Multiple times. tv app really wants me oh yeah to sign up it doesn't though multiple times like what i'll say is i don't mind for apple to to bug me about this stuff once but like i had it happen to me on at least two occasions on my iphone right like i open my iphone on multiple occasions it's like would you like american soccer on your iphone and it's just like you know come on like I don't mind you giving me one of these but let's not keep doing it but nevertheless I poked around in the interface

that is inside of the TV app kind of like hidden inside of the TV app because it's really they're treating it like a channel right like one of the Apple TV channels like they call them where you can subscribe to like Showtime or things like that like I don't know if that's

one of them but it probably is and you can you know you can you can pay for other services and be inside of the tv app and i thought it looked pretty interesting like they've they've laid everything out pretty well there's a good schedule in there there's like additional content that you can browse kind of related to uh games and teams. So yeah, what was your experience of watching one of these games? Did it succeed in places where the Friday Night Baseball failed, like from a graphics perspective, from a coverage perspective, or what was your experience like? Well, I didn't watch enough, I think, to make any judgments. I've definitely it seems fine i've heard from

people who are um american soccer fans and mls fans who said that it seems pretty good um given that all the reports suggest that this all kind of came together last minute they had to build an entire production team and set up like ever literally everything for the entire league over the off season and uh so it sounds like it's a work in progress and there are a whole bunch of parts of it that are missing. I heard from somebody who said, I just want to watch the highlights and all they'll let me do is watch, or no, I just want to watch the replay, a replay of the game. And all they'll let me do is watch highlights and I want to watch the whole game. And what I said back to that person is when they started doing baseball, you couldn't pause it or back up. And they fixed that eventually, right?

So I suspect that a lot of stuff is kind of being bolted onto the side of this thing as it goes. But it looked good and sounded good, although the game that I watched had only the local radio commentary as well as the main thing. And I don't know whether there's a separate Spanish language

like video to watch where you see the announcers. Maybe that's the case. I was under the assumption that it was going to be like just you choose a game and then you can choose if you want Spanish or English or whatever. But maybe it's a little bit different. Anyway, they look, you know, I thought it looked pretty good and certainly respectable.

And in watching the coverage of it, it sounds like everybody involved more or less is relieved that this is a perfectly, you know, well done, competent broadcast. There didn't seem to be any big disasters. And it's a good start for this relationship. But I'm sure there's way more to do that they just haven't gotten to be any big disasters and it's a and it's a good start for this relationship but there's i'm sure there's way more to do that they just haven't gotten to yet so speaking of uh soccer according to the new york post apple has been rumored to be in the running to acquire the streaming rights to pac-12 college football so actually that's football not soccer so ignore what i said but speaking of football that's that's this, not soccer. So ignore what I said. But speaking of football. This is football, football.

As a Cal fan, this is my conference. Oh, it is. Yes, I've been watching this closely. The primary rumor is ESPN and Amazon, but Apple is also in the mix for this. This conference is interesting because most of the conferences are now sort of in contract.

And in fact, the Big 12 conference renewed their contract. They were originally going to go last and they renewed their contract in advance. So that leaves the Pac-12 out there. And there's sort of speculation about will the Pac-12 be able to match or beat the Big 12 in terms of the rights? They're smaller deals than the two huge conferences,

the Big 10 and the SEC. Apple's involvement here, it's complicated, but like Pac-12, what's interesting about it is that they own their own network that's on cable and also streaming with their own production facility. And so part of this deal, and one of the reasons why it might be complex, is that I would imagine that they may actually be selling the networks and the production facilities as a part of the deal. It's not necessarily the case, but if you were going to be producing a lot of college sports, having your partner say, also, we built a machine that produces college sports, and would you like to buy it or buy half of it or something? That's an interesting proposition.

So Ben Thompson wrote about this last week on Stratechery and a really good post about, and Julia and I talk about it on downstream a lot in our sports corner part of that podcast, what's going on with regional sports networks in the US, these local kind of cable networks that are machines to generate money for local sports teams. And they're all falling apart because of cord cutting. And so the money is dropping off. So there's a lot of weird things happening, but one of the important things is to be visible to non-diehard fans, right?

That's the reason that the MLS stuff that Apple is doing, that some of it's available for free and some of it's going to be actually broadcast on linear TV, simulcast. That's to get people who are more casual viewers. With the Pac-12, they could lock up Amazon or Apple, possibly for all of it. It's much more likely that they have ESPN as a partner

because ESPN is going to want to put some, you know, Friday night college football games on ESPN proper. And the Pac-12 is going to want the exposure of being on ESPN instead of off on a streaming service somewhere. But it'll become, that deal will be combined with a deal for everything else that'll go to Amazon or Apple. So it's possible. Very much more people talking about it being Amazon than Apple here, but they're actually both West Coast companies. And this is a West Coast sports league conference. So whether it's Seattle or Cupertino that wins the day here, it's worth watching. It's an interesting idea because I don't think any of these conferences has made a a deal uh with a streaming service as the primary partner before and it may happen with the pac-12

i wonder if a sticking point for apple might be trying to lock up the international like we're just the place where you get it you know like the way that they've done with major league soccer which i think is great where it's like it doesn't matter where you are in the world if you want to watch this sport you can just go to apple and watch it um and you know i wouldn't be surprised if that was one of the many things that was the issue with the nfl sunday tickets it was just never going to be simple for people to watch it. And so I would expect Apple maybe to at least be starting with things like Major League Soccer, where they can have a bit more of a dictatorial relationship to where these things are going to be shown and where they're not when it comes to the negotiations. And college sports is a good example of that, where there's no big international market for this college sports stuff.

They would probably get, I should say also, I don't think this is the streaming rights to Pac-12 college football. I should say college football is the thing that drives streaming rights. And there's some really good writers on the web if you want to talk about sports rights and specifically what's been going on with the Pac-12. A guy named John Casano, who worked for the newspaper in Portland for years, has a sub stack. And there's a guy named John Wilner who writes for the San Jose Mercury News who writes about this a lot.

The Pac-12 is not just college football, even though that drives so much of the money. It's also, there are a lot of college basketball games there. And then there's all sorts of other college sports like volleyball and baseball and softball. And there's like the swim meets and there's like there there's soccer there there's a a huge cat if you look at what's on the pac-12 networks it's actually an enormous catalog of content and that one of the things that's valuable in uh in sports streaming is having a library to say look at all the look at

all the games we've got. So it'll be interesting to see if that pops over into Amazon or Apple. Amazon is reportedly working on a sports app for Prime Video. And so they definitely seem to be feeling the kind of like, we want to fill our sports app with a catalog. Apple, with its international focus, like there's that rumor. Apple with its international focus like there's that rumor I don't I haven't heard any updates about it that they were bidding for the rights to the first league soccer league in the Netherlands but I could also see an Apple strategy where they want to kind of progress since soccer is such an international sport that they want to keep kind of like buying out different leagues around the

world and putting them inside Apple TV so that instead of just getting MLS, you get the MLS and you get the first league in the Netherlands and they could keep going there. But it'll be interesting to see what deals Apple makes and what they don't make. And in some cases, it's going to be like Sunday Ticket, I think, not just that they don't necessarily want to pay, but that it doesn't make sense for them. It's not part of their strategy. Referencing streaming rights and all that kind of stuff. I wanted to mention, because I forgot to last week, that as part of covering for Jason, I also guest hosted an episode of Downstream with Julia Alexander, where we talk

about a bunch of newsy stuff like we talk about marvel marvel fatigue and all that kind of fun stuff uh but also i got to quiz julia about why international streaming rights are so messy for example why can't i get hbo max so if you want to go check that out it's episode 38 of downstream downstream is one of my favorite podcasts jason and julia do a fantastic job of it um so i recommend people go check it out thank you for being in there i mean we you and i kind of hatched the idea for it but um in the end uh i was i had an opening for a new show and you didn't so i'm glad you finally got to make a little of a little almost like a homecoming because downstream started with her guest episode of upgrade

essentially so it's fun to do that way but as i said to julia i will happily be on the show or fill in any time because i had an absolute blast it was so good we had a great time and we've been threatening that i think since episode one i've been like mike hurley's gonna have to come on and it just hasn't happened yet so i'm so glad that worked out this episode is brought to you in part by our friends at squarespace the all-in-one platform for building your brand and growing your business online with squarespace you can stand out from the crowd of a beautiful website. You can engage directly with your audience and then sell anything. Products, services, physical, digital goods, the content you create, Squarespace has got you covered.

And oh boy, do they. It's so easy to get started. You just go and sign up. For example, you go to squarespace.com slash upgrade. You can sign up for a free trial there with no credit card required. And you are given the ability to choose from a beautiful gallery of templates. It's so easy to get started with their best-in-class website templates at Squarespace. You can just browse through their categories of the type of website you want to make or the type of business that you have to find that perfect starting place. They even give you the ability to just create a page structure from these templates.

So for example, when me and Idina got married, we used Squarespace for our wedding website. And we chose from one of their wedding templates. And they had suggestions for all the types of pages you might want on the wedding website. And it was very good because there were things I would not have realized to put on the site. But Squarespace had it all there. But you can choose to use those or not. You can choose any template and customize it however you want, from fonts and colors to the layout, everything, all in just a few clicks in your web browser, in their apps. It's so easy to customize it so it feels like your own. And then you've got tons of tools at your disposal. Maybe if you want to set up a blog, they have all of the tools that you want to share your stories, photos, videos, and ideas.

You can categorize them, share them, and schedule your posts to make your content work for you. And then you can also set up an online store so easily. Physical or digital products, Squarespace have all the tools you need and all the integrations you want to start selling online. all the tools you need and all the integrations you want to start selling online. I've been using Squarespace for probably close to 15 years now for various projects over that time. They are the place that I go when I want to set up a website. So go to squarespace.com upgrade and you can sign up for a free trial with no credit card required. Then when you're ready to launch, just use the code upgrade at checkout and you will get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That is squarespace.com slash upgrade.

And when you decide to sign up, use the offer code UPGRADE. You'll get 10% off your first purchase and show your support for the show. Our thanks to Squarespace for the continued support of this show and all of RelayFM. Saddle up, Jason Snow. It's rumor roundup time. Ye ha. You mentioned in the past whoa hang on the lasers have gotten out i i i was that was the word like uh that was like a laser ye ha i was throwing however actually that isn't necessarily the worst past worst place to put lasers in the room around up because you mentioned a while ago how long will it be?

I don't know if we said this in the show or me and you were talking about it, but like, how long could it be until we have our own rumor in rumor around up? Oh yeah. Well an anonymous listener wrote in at upgradefeedback.com. What? To say. Sorry, I would have done a spit take there. I could hear

there was a near spit take there. They wrote in to was a near spit take there. They wrote in to say that they are working with Apple's financing team in Europe and that the Apple Card will be launching in the UK and Germany in 2023. You heard it here first. You heard it here first. I read this and was like, oh, yeah. I remember when I really wanted that. It feels like it was so long ago.

Now, I have a question for you that i don't know if anybody can answer but how how it works in america is it only individuals that can sign up for the apple card can businesses sign up for apple card i don't i think it's just individuals i don't think businesses can sign up okay that's interesting because basically the way i'm thinking about it the reason i would want apple card is for buying Apple products. Because you get a large cashback on it, right? It's like the largest cashback. Absolutely. So I figure, like, you know, for the products that I buy every year, it would be silly not to do that, right?

Exactly. So I will look into this, but I am keen. I think this has taken way longer than it should have, I think, for them to start rolling the Apple card out internationally. So I really do hope that this is a thing that will actually be coming here and then spreading further out. This has got to be part of their overall finance plans. They've got to get this before they can get anything else.

You can't just keep launching new things and never roll them out outside of America. And the reason it surprises me is Apple Pay did not take very long for them to get that one going um and you know i've got to imagine there are so many financial institutions that are well very willing to work with apple on this who have the necessary licenses in the same way that it's goldman sachs right in america to underpin the card. There's got to be companies internationally that would be willing to do this. I'm surprised it's taken as long as it has.

Moving on, according to Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple has, yes, restarted development on an iPhone SE 4. So it was just two months ago that Ming-Chi Kuo said that Apple had abandoned the project after continued struggles with chip design and a kind of, I don't want to use the word confusion, but like an uncertainty maybe of what their iPhone sales across the product line. You know, we've been talking about this a lot, right? Like the MIDI didn't sell well, and then the Plus didn't sell well, and they weren't sure what they

were doing. So one of the reasons they cancelled the project. Well, it's back on the table now, apparently, and this device would have a 6.1-inch OLED display and an Apple-designed 5G chip. The device would be expected to be similar to the iPhone 14 in its size with thicker bezels. Ross Young corroborated these reports, stating that the display

would come from Chinese manufacturer BOE. So all of this together seems interesting to me, because it would suggest I think two things. Like, one, maybe that the corner is turned on Apple's own 5G modems, right? Because if that was one of the reasons

they stopped doing it, then unless they would have changed their mind doing it, then unless they would have changed their mind on it, then... Of course they changed their mind on it. Maybe now it's working again, so they put the product back on the table. This also seems like maybe a way to use a different manufacturer. Right? So they're using Chinese manufacturer

BOE, and you'd say, but Mike, this isn't the diversifying from China that we've been talking about. No, this is to appease manufacturers in China. I've been reading more and more about this kind of stuff recently, about products that they've been trying to make in China because of contracts that they've got in China about the Chinese economy.

So this is a way to do that maybe on their most important products. But overall, i am asking myself if this is an iphone 14 sized iphone se with an oled display i'm not really sure who this device is for anymore well so two things one is the obvious sort of like it's it's a it's a device to hold down the bottom of the line so it's cheap and they're making it you know you design it to be cheap that that's what's going on here so maybe that display is cheap cheaper than the displays they're using not necessarily worse but maybe worse but cheap and um let's not forget too, we're not comparing this to the iPhone

14, right? It'll be compared to the iPhone 15. So we're probably on the precipice of some iPhone redesign. So to have this be kind of like, you know, sort of like the old phone design, but they're moving on to new designs. I think that that is potentially part of this too. Just the idea that this is, you know, it will essentially be the one that looks kind of like the iPhone 12, 13, 14, but isn't because it's cheaper. But I think like if the dynamic Island is coming to the iPhone 15, right? This wouldn't have that. This isn't going to have that, right?

It's going to have notch, presumably, or, you know. Probably a notch. And I would say it'll have a worse camera, it'll have a notch, it'll have, like, again, it will be, like,

going back in time. Even though right now we look at it and think, isn't this an iphone 14 it's like it actually maybe is kind of like an iphone 14 but cheaper and then they keep that one around forever that's my guess about what this would be and that it firmly places the iphone se in the um cheaper iphone category and not the alternate ergonomics and cheaper category

that it's sometimes been in. So the iPhone SE currently starts at $429. This device won't start at $429 with these specs. I just don't see it. So that's kind of what I'm wondering. It's not smaller anymore

and it might be cheaper, but it's going to be more expensive, I would expect, than a device that it probably replaces. So it's just an interesting thing to do. I'm not convinced that this... Me personally, I'm not convinced that this product actually fulfills the needs that the iPhone SE currently fulfills. It's like, this is just on paper, this is puzzling to me. As a, like for consumers, I'm not sure that it's really going to do either of the things that the iPhone

SE has historically done. I think if you're Apple, you're looking at the iPhone... There are people within Apple who don't look at the iPhone as a product. They look at it as a collection of circles or shapes overlaid on the phone buying market. They're marketers. That's the whole idea. And so something

that you're like, oh, are phone buyers demanding a new iphone se almost certainly not right but and these people by the way are the people who got it wrong with the mini and the plus apparently um but they're they're trying you can see we've been seeing over the years apple is trying to figure out like the most optimal way to carve up the phone buying market yeah so that they can maximize their profits. And they already are the best in the world at this, but they want to stay nimble and they also want to always be optimizing. So I look at this and say, maybe what they're trying to do here is saying,

okay, next year we're going to do the iPhone 15. We're going to keep the iPhone 14 around. We're going to move the iPhone 13 down and we're going to kick out the iPhone 12. And somebody looks at that and the costs of manufacturing all that and said, maybe we should kick out the iPhone 12 and 13 and the old SE and replace them all with a new SE so we can simplify. There's some reason why we really want to kick the 12 and the 13 out. And the reason we haven't killed, or the 13 and the 14 at that point, that low, the the several years ago phone that's still for sale right uh and it's for sale for cheapness right so it's like well

let's do this let's pull that previous model that's got some premium uh specs in it maybe it's stuff that's still more expensive than we would like and let's let's create a cheap version of it and and you know so that would be one scenario is just to say, well, next year they're going to sell the 15 Pro and the 15, and maybe the 14 will still be for sale. Maybe not, but maybe. And then we're going to dump the 13. They will have already dumped the 12, right? They will dump the 13 and the SE and we'll have a new SE. And then that'll sit there for two or three years. Like in the end,

is that something that makes sense as an iPhone buyer? No, I think it makes sense if you're somebody who's at Apple and sees all the numbers up on a board, especially in other, you know, in regions where people tend to buy the cheaper phones and you're like, well, how do we crack India? Or like, how do we do india or like how do we do this

um and we we you know maybe they're even reaching a difficult situation where they're looking at the the expensive components they use in some of these iphones that they need to in order to sell them to richer parts of the world and they're like you know this is never going to be cheap enough for us so we're let's let's make a new phone that is fundamentally cheaper. And if it doesn't sell that well in US and Europe, but it sells really well in India and Brazil and a bunch of other places like that, then great, we've solved it, right?

They're thinking big picture. They're thinking about filling in that grid of potential phone buyers. And that's what this feels to me. I mean, the SE in some ways has always felt like this to me. But this report suggests that maybe they're willing to go even further in terms of sort of like the SE being purpose-built to fill kind of like some gaps and maybe free them from continuing to manufacture some other products that they want to pull off the product list. I agree with you. All that makes perfect sense,

especially the idea of this Venn diagram that is being made. But I'm just not convinced with the way this is described that they can hit the price point that I think this product needs. But I'm very willing to be wrong. It does feel like a stretch, doesn't it? Yeah, it doesn't seem realistic. mean i mean it will be right at some point maybe it's when this product comes out but like at some point it will be cost efficient to have an oled display 6.1 inch oled display and a device that costs less than 500 from apple of course it is very

possible for many companies to do this but i'm talking about iphone specifically right if you want to continue getting a 30 to 40 margin on a product right like i'm i'm not which is what apple wants i'm not convinced that they can do that right now with this like bill of materials but at some point it will be realistic but i i'm just not sure if next year right or whenever would be that time i think it's worth being skeptical i don't know enough about the dynamics of things like the display market but when i see like the display is going to be made from chinese manufacturer boe i don't know anything about them maybe they're great and they they're amazing but i also look at that and think maybe they make a display of acceptable quality that is way cheaper than the displays apple is putting in its higher end iphones and whether they're good or not they're not choosing this company for the iphone

pro are they so that they're obviously apple doesn't consider them of the highest quality available or even the iphone right this is just for the iphone se so that's that's what i wonder is if they they have you know identified a whole bunch of expensive components and also let's not forget the apple design 5g chip if this is a way for them to like first off they're going to test it this is something that we've been talking about for a while now test in a product that doesn't have a lot of volume rather than in the in the crown jewels uh and see how it goes and see what the issues are but um across the board there may be other component things going on in here that are like,

you know, it's a cheaper component and that's just how it is in order to make this product. But yes, the dance between Apple wanting to make a cheaper product, wanting to maximize their profit margin and also kind of keep their promise of not making a bad product.

That's why those people get paid a lot of money, right? Because that's what they're trying to do is like, we want a premium product that people are going to buy and be like, yeah, that's why I bought the app product. But we also want to make it not too expensive because we're going to have to add our margin in. And if we make this product for this target market, but it misses the market by $100 or $200, we failed, right?

Even if the product's good, we failed. And if we make it cheaper, but the product's not200, we failed. Even if the product's good, we failed. And if we make it cheaper, but the product's not good, we failed. You've got to get them all in that little triangle. So, that's tricky. Jason, I have some important real-time follow-up. Ming-Chi Kuo

in January, talking about BOE. Yeah. Writing in his Medium blog, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, this comes from Macromasuo says BOE has beaten Samsung for orders for the upcoming iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus and that by 2024 BOE will start mass shipments of high-end OTPO

displays for the iPhone making it the largest display supplier. BOE has had unsuccessful attempts in the past to become a more prominent player in apple supply chain after reportedly failing product product validation tests so let's take i take back everything i said about boe except for the fact that if they've got a larger deal with apple it may be that this is the you know these are the these are the screens that don't um meet up match

up with the needs of the high-end displays, but still. It still could fulfill the same thing we're talking about, is that BOE may be able to produce a cheaper screen of acceptable quality than Samsung or LG. Exactly. At the lowest level, that is divorced from the fact of whether BOE is actually going to be producing these displays

for the upcoming iPhone 15s. Right, or another way to view it is the BOE's larger deal with Apple may also suggest that, unlike Samsung or LG, BOE is willing to cut Apple a deal on certain displays as part of the larger deal, which allows Apple to get to this price point for this display in this phone. But we could file all of this under, it's our same discussions about the mini and about the plus. The SE is in there too, which is there's like the hero iPhones. And now we've got sort of the bifurcated hero iPhones.

So you've got the 14 and the 14 Pro. And there may be an ultra at some point or something like that. But you've also got Apple kind of like tinkering around the margins elsewhere elsewhere in the iphone line this is all part of the same thing which is like it's fascinating remember when they only did one iphone this is apple really trying to maximize their their profit across the whole market and and how do they do that it's this is the this is the um product development side of the same thing remember we talked a few years ago about how there was that that holiday season where

all of a sudden apple was like um hey angela errantz it's great that you're creating a community in apple stores but we need to move products right like we actually need to sell the iphone now well this is the other part of that which is instead of just sort of putting out a couple of iPhones and saying, like, it's cool. They sell a lot. It's great. They're, like, aggressively exploring different corners of the market and trying to figure out the magic formula that will give them, you know, as many customers and as much profit as possible. And the SE is just one tool for them to do that. Over the last couple of episodes,

I've been talking with my illustrious guests about details from CAD models that 9to5Mac have been publishing. This week, we're going to look at changes to the mute button on the iPhone 15 Pro. So 9to5Mac have heard from a source that the next iPhone will move away from the physical mute switch,

similarly to how they are moving to haptic buttons for the volume and the wake button. They have called it a, quote, pressing type button, which is an incredibly weird way of saying things. I feel like I know why they published this. Somebody told them, or it was translated to, this is a pressing type button. And so they've just published what they were told. Well, my guess is it's a toggle button, right? Where it's a, you know, let's say round button.

And you push it, like a caps lock key or something. You push it in and it stays in. And then you push it and it pops back out. Oh, no, I don't think this is it. I think this is... You think it's just a straight up toggle straight up talk well if they do that they could do it with fake they can fake it with haptics but then they just they have to have it be like a heavy haptic when you press it the first time and a light haptic when you don't or whatever that's exactly what i think they're gonna do i hope they're gonna do but they'll be modeling a toggle switch right modeling the idea that you press it, right?

A switch that you would press in and it would stay in and you press it out and it pops back out. And maybe that's not a moving part. The other thing is only the button is the moving part in that scenario, I think. So they could do it, but whether it's a virtual, like a fake version of it or the real version of it, it's just very different

because with the current ring silent that has been there since the very beginning, the whole idea there is that it's a lot harder to accidentally you know that switch and it's a lot easier if it's in your pocket for you to press down on something when you're trying to match the volume button and instead you mash the mute button which is you can also physically feel that it's muted right like it's it's not complicated like you you kind of can just i can put my hand in my pocket and know that my phone is muted without needing to change anything my hope here is is they do what

you've said that it will be a they will have like different haptic feedback for mute and unmute so maybe like you press it once to unmute it or like you press it and it like hits you once or like vibrates once and i don't know how they're going to do it but i just i feel like they have to come up with something that it can be done without needing to look at the phone like that's what i want because everybody's been used to and people will be mad including me right but i i don't think this will be a a a moving thing at all you think they're going to all virtual all touch based controls pressure, pressure-sensitive controls? All of the other things have been talking about how everything is going to be solid-state buttons. And if they're going to change the mute switch, and every other button is going to a solid-state button, then I feel like this is going to be the same.

I know that right now, as I'm pointing out to the chat, if you flick the switch, it gives you a vibration. I know that right now as i'm pointing out to the chat right like if you flick the switch it gives you a vibration i know that right but that doesn't tell me if i'm muting or i'm muting the physical movement of the switch does that so like if it just buzzes at me the same time for muting and unmuting then i'm getting nothing right like i i need something to tell me what i press it make a loud noise you know what that would do it wouldn't you you are muted yes thank you that's the i was watching a tv show the other day and it was uh it's a star trek show and uh there's a somebody's firing like a big laser gun and in a firefight with these monsters that are trying to kill her and and it runs out of uh or whatever. And the gun says, ding, out of ammunition.

And I thought, you know what? You don't want your enemy to be told you're out of ammunition. Who programmed that in there? What are they doing? I wanted to mention something about the physical button thing, because I know that people are like,

some people like it, some people don't like it. They can't just be based on touch. They have to be based on pressure because you put them in other things or in your pocket or whatever. So they have to be pressure sensitive. They can't be touch sensitive.

They also can't be touch sensitive because you can touch a button. Touching a button isn't pushing a button, right? We learned that with that iPod that was terrible that had the four buttons across the front that were touch sensitive and if you tried to use it by feel, you would just touch the buttons and they do things that you didn't. It's awful, right? But I wanted to say, just as a little anecdote point here, I've been using the iPhone 14 Pro. I took it with me on my trip because it's got the great camera. But the primary reason is because of the dynamic island,

because my beloved mini doesn't have that. So I want to use the dynamic camera. But the primary reason is because of the Dynamic Island because my beloved Mini doesn't have that. So I want to use the Dynamic Island. So I've been using this Apple-owned iPhone and a funny thing has happened, which is I have had multiple stuck buttons.

My button's stuck. Yeah, where one of the volume buttons has got something under it and you can sort of squeeze it and it kind of works. My sleep- sleep wake button's gone weird in the last couple of weeks yeah smushy in a not good way yeah yeah yeah and there's not i mean i think there's just some grit or something in there but it so now i've got one that goes up and down the volume down i think and the volume up is like this super smushy not very good and And I had that moment where I thought, oh, well, this is why they're building these new buttons. It's because this kind of stuff is happening and it's not any good. This is planned obsolescence, Jason. I've never had this problem before, but now they're

getting rid of it from the iPhone 15 Pro. So on the iPhone 14 Pro, they included a piece of grit under every button, you know? So we're going to be looking forward to when they take them away. That's how they get you. Yeah, I guess. I mean, do we applaud them? Do we applaud them for like, you know, yes, I know you shot the president yesterday, but today you didn't shoot the president. So good job, right?

Like, well done. It's like, I mean, iPhone buttons should not do this. There's actually a button on my iPad that's a little like that too. It's a little squishy. And I don't know, it's not like I'm rolling around in sand with my iPad or my iPhone. It's not like I'm like,

wee, here I am in a big fine powder or whatever or dirt. And yet something got in there and it's not great. So yeah, I wouldn't mind. So for the buttons, I wouldn't mind, especially if, like got in there, and it's not great. So yeah, I wouldn't mind. So for the buttons, I wouldn't mind, especially if you're right. If they require a finger as well as the pressure, that will also be good, because it will be less likely that the volume will get changed when my phone's in my pocket,

which does happen sometimes. I'm listening to a podcast, and the volume goes up. So that might be nice for that. But the mute... Considering how long they kept the physical switch, I feel confident they will do something that if they change the switch to a solid-state button kind of thing, they will do some kind of affordance

for letting you know if it's muted or unmuted without shouting the phone is unmuted. Although, if they did have that as an option i feel like i would i would have to enable that just for fun jason why are we just talking about the iphone 15 when we could also be talking about the iphone 16 that's great let's do all the iphones let's start making let's start breaking news about if you know anything about the iphone 17 upgrade let us know please let us know new reports from the elect are suggesting that the 2024 iphone will have an under display face id sensor with an under display selfie

camera to come in 2026 which would be what the iphone 18 so here was my question yeah there we go iphone 18 rumor here it is we've we skipped haven't got the 17 no we're still hoping for 17 rumors so my question to you was in reading this i mean this does seem natural right like get rid of all of the cutouts right like that's the obvious thing to do in the future all screen 100 yeah but if they do that does the dynamic island go away or does it like change what do you think that let's imagine the situation where they get rid of the face id thing if they do that, does the dynamic island go away? Or does it like change? What do you think that, let's imagine the situation where they get rid of the face ID thing, right?

So it's just in like next year. Yeah, the end of next year. And so we just have the selfie camera cut out. What do you think the dynamic island looks like then? One of two things. I think the most likely scenario is the dynamic island will continue because it's a very interesting way to show all the things we talked about.

Show status of things that are happening on your device that are not the thing that is in the foreground right now. And that the Mac has had that forever, right? But like, how do you do that on especially an iPhone? I would argue maybe the iPad could use that too. but like, especially on an iPhone, having a floating status window, it's like the equivalent of menu bar items, I guess, or the dock or like a bunch of different things that the Mac does for that. I like it. I think it's a good idea. Every time I take a trip, like I just did, like having flighty information in the dynamic Island while I'm sitting there before my flight and it's ticking down when, you know, and it tells me where to go and all those things. It's like, it's great. I love it. So if Apple feels that the dynamic island is successful

and is an asset to the iPhone and to iOS, then they'll just keep having it. And it'll, it'll just be something that disappears entirely when you're not using it. And if you swipe it away, it goes away. It just won't be, won't be hiding, masking a little circle. It'll just, I think, go away and then reappear. And that'll be what it is. The alternative is the touch bar scenario, a dark timeline, the touch bar scenario, which is that we get to this point and Apple's like, you know, we don't really like the dynamic island and it'll just die. But I think if they like it, they'll keep keep it surely that would have meant they would have already had to have made that decision no i guess if it's just software they wouldn't have to would they

no no i think it would be if if the dynamic island is a loser they'll keep it on the ones with the punch outs yeah and it'll never be anywhere else and that'll be the and then we'll never speak of the dynamic island ever again uh but you know i But my inclination right now is I feel fairly positive about the Dynamic Island. It's not super revolutionary, but it is a really nice addition to iOS that I would keep it around. Again, I don't want a little black pill on my screen when nothing's going on. I mean, that's what it does now, and we all know why it's doing that. But it could just disappear entirely. I mean, that's what it does now. And it's just like, we, we all know why it's doing that, but,

um, it could just disappear entirely. I mean, it's got all those animations, right? There's nothing stopping it from kind of bloop coming down from the top of the screen and, and enabling.

And like, I think it's really nice and clever and subtle and fun. And, uh, so I hope it sticks around, but I think those are the two scenarios is, you know, they'll,

they'll keep it around because it's good. Um, it was invented because of the whole punch thing, but that doesn't mean that if they think it's good they'll just keep it and i think it's good in the scenario where it would not be a big cut out anymore but it would just appear and go away i would like to coin the term dynamic submarine because it would just like disappear and then come back out again you know okay submerges and re-emerges dynamic submarine you heard it here first but that could be well okay two two pieces of feedback for this idea we're just brainstorming here one is um the dynamic island what makes it dynamic could be indeed that it appears and disappears so that would be it would be a still be a dynamic island.

And second, most submarines are dynamic. Yeah. And this would just be another one. I just, you know, island, I don't know, like an island going underwater and coming back up again. Sure.

That's not so great. Like the tides. Or have you ever seen Lost? It's like that. Okay. So like what we're saying then is that in this scenario. It's a magical island.

Well, the screen is dynamic because it's covering the island in the the well the screen is dynamic because it's covering the island in water and the water is the pixels or the photos of your family yeah and there's a submarine down there makes perfect sense to me sure it's good to be back this episode is brought to you by fit bud getting fitter is one of those things that often has knock-on effects in other areas of your life that you might not have expected, like having more energy, sleeping better, that kind of stuff. And maybe this is something you want to do in your life, but it's hard to know where to start. And that's why I'm pleased to let you know that FitBod is an easy

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called engineering validation testing. EVT, yeah. As everybody knows it. Mark is saying that this will have the same 24-inch screen. It will come in the same colors. It will likely ship in the second half of this year at the earliest and will most likely feature an M3 chip. Three.

We got a question from Justin who wrote in to say, what do you want from the next 24-inch iMac in addition to an updated M chip? Well, first off, it's great that Mark Gurman's got some detail about the iMac because it's been out there as a mystery for a while now. And what he's been saying all along is that they're basically holding it for M3

and we're not going to get an M2 iMac. What's interesting is this report is also Mark's report basically saying the M3 is coming, which is funny, right? Because didn't the M2 just arrive with the last WWDC with the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro? But here it is again. But I think, and he said in his report, he said something about how Apple wants to get the M series on an annual cycle. I'm not sure I entirely believe

that. Maybe he's got some information that that's their ultimate goal, that they want to march in lockstep with the iPhone. But it certainly feels, and we've been talking for a while now, that the M2 was sort of a half step of like refresh the chip but it doesn't have all the stuff and that the m3 will be maybe a more substantial leap that it may be based on uh on a later generation of the a cores instead of like the existing generation maybe not if it's in june we'll see but like they could there's nothing stopping them from unveiling those cores before the iphone i know people are like but it's always been the iphone it's like June, we'll see. But like they could, there's nothing stopping them from unveiling those cores before the iPhone. I know people are like, but it's always been the iPhone.

It's like, well, yeah, except for that one year where it was the iPad. But it's true. But they could, you know, the Mac matters too. They could unveil those cores in an M3 and people are not going to scream when the iPhone comes out because the iPhone doesn't use the M3. It uses an A chip and it's fine. Like we can split this, we can split these hairs way too fine and we don't necessarily need to. But the idea of M3 being here, really interesting. There's another report from Mark that we'll get to in a minute that I think makes a lot of sense too. I feel like the iMac, they just made it. And so I would not be surprised if this iMac, when I was reading like same colors, same 24 inch,

I'm like, yeah, I think it's just going to be the iMac with an M3 in it. And maybe they'll do some other tweaks because they've had a couple of years and they've had time. This is obviously one of the first Apple Silicon Macs. So to revisit it a little bit later and tweak it a little bit. So the things on the list,

right, are, is there a variant of it that uses the Pro chip maybe, like the Mac Mini, to give it a little more speed if you want to pay more, or are they not capable of cooling that? There's a question of like, could they do something with a display that's nicer? Although the idea, again, it's an iMac. You put ProMotion on an iMac, a 24-inch iMac. I'm not sure you do. And then the Marks report says that they've changed the way that the stand attaches. And I'm not quite sure whether that's just an internal manufacturing thing or if the stand is going to be different. You have an iMacMac though I'm actually more curious about as a somebody with an M1 iMac where you think that they could improve this I mean the obvious answer is a bigger one but I feel like that's kind of cheating but like I would like a

bigger one I think that like the Mac mini I would like to see more chip options like an M3 Pro in the iMac I don't think would be a wild thing to ask for I feel like for me really as a machine it was the only place where I felt like it was lacking ultimately from a usability perspective the M1 is obviously great but when I was comparing it to my m1 pro i think i

have a max macbook pro very different in a way that i don't feel that difference so heavily when i go from m2 to m1 pro so just if they had an m3 and an m3 pro configuration i just think that would be really good for that machine i think it would then more easily fit into different work spots like places work if they're not going to make a quote-unquote pro version of the machine right right exactly um again another more realistic request would be a better webcam right what i'll just ask of all of them but especially the imac you've got space you have space right like you know if if the biggest issue with the laptops is there's not a lot of webcam right what i'll just ask of all of them but especially the iMac you've got space you have space right like you know if if the biggest issue with the laptops is there's not a lot of space in the lid you've got like depth that you could put a better camera into this display if you wanted to

hard not to believe that they won't exist at the very least um do what they do what they did with the studio display right and offer center stage now it would be interesting if they did that but the experience was better or the camera was better because that would suggest that they've you know iterated there and said back to the drawing board for that camera um but if i had to put money down my guess would be it'll have a center stage camera yeah and i do want to better stand or at least stand options like the studio displays options right because it just it just has just the foot right yeah that's it or you can i think you can get a visa but like yeah but you can't do an adjustable stand or anything like that that would be awfully nice if they if they had the same stand

options as the studio display and you could have an adjustable stand and i know it'd be complicated because then they would need to make like another six colors of it or whatever that the the you know we spoke about it at the time and i spoke about it many times since like the the height that those machines get off the desk is just not high enough to really be comfortable and i would like to see that yeah yeah it's just it, it's a little low. Adjustable stand would be, that's one of those areas where Apple will say, oh,

well we did our ergonomic blah, blah, blah. But I think the truth is they did their ergonomic blah, blah, blah. And maybe they found like a height that was the best common height. I'm skeptical because it's still pretty low, but maybe,

but the problem is that you're just taking the top of the bell curve there like i think that i think that you you your monitor should be adjustable and the imac is a monitor yeah yeah the idea i think i said in my review at the time that it's a beautiful computer and then you have to put it on a book or something right like an encyclopedia in order to get it to the right height and it's stupid like you should be able to adjust it so whether they could you know make you make an adjustable version or they could build it with the adjustable stand built in um that would be awfully nice david in our discord pointed out something that i think was on our list back in the day when we talked about the m1 when it first came out which was the possibility that they could make that power plug uh block that's got the ethernet port in it uh a more useful like usb dock where you could because the whole idea there is oh you don't want a

networking cord on your desk so you can put it on the floor and plug it into the power block and it's like yes okay i would like some other things to plug into that what about literally every other cord right yeah why just this one What's so bad about Ethernet? And it's an upsell because that Ethernet cord is only on higher end models or you have to buy it extra on the lower end model. But so do that, like make it, we also have this amazing new iMac dock,

especially if the computer's not changing, right? What do you highlight as Apple, as you're marketing the new version of it? Like M3 chip sure okay great same great colors well okay that's the same um but you could say like we got this awesome new look at this awesome thing we built we built this whole new uh power block thing that is uh a usb you know hub a usbc hub a thunderbolt hub whatever they want to say and how many people do we talk to uh in our audience who are like one of the constant things people talk about is like Thunderbolt hubs and

this doesn't work right with this or USB-C hubs. And this doesn't work right in this connection and all that. And like, I'm not saying that Apple would, Apple would just add complexity to that, obviously, but it would be the Apple official, like apple has done it and integrated it and here it is it's built into your iMac um and and yeah it takes that cord uh clutter argument further like you could even plug in some devices over here and and not worry about them i would love to see that so that's a good suggestion from david in the discord and, this is unrealistic, I think, to ask for this machine, but again, eventually it will come to everything, but a ProMotion display,

or just a higher quality display. I agree. I think it's inevitable everywhere, but this iMac is essentially the only iMac, but I was going to say it's the old low-end iMac slot a little bit. And value is important, right? They want to keep the price down.

I think that ProMotion is a great feature to have in products with the word Pro in them, and that means not the iMac. It feels unlikely to get ProMotion in an iMac before a studio display, right? Yes, 100%. But I would still like it. Mark Garman also confirmed that there are three new macs expected between spring and summer so it is the 15 inch macbook air that we've been hearing about or at least a 15 inch laptop to philly space right because we don't know marketing marketing

wise they could choose to call it macbook or macbook air or macbook studio or anything uh an update to the 13 inch macbook air and also the apple silicon mac pro so an update to the 13 inch macbook air is fascinating right because that just came out last june so if it's a physical update like it's a new model i don't i mean it would have to be an m3. His story is like, yeah, it's unclear if it's an M2 or an M3. It's like, well, one of two things is true. Like, cause they're not going to like, say here's a new MacBook Air. It's just like the old one, right? Like, well, no, that's not new. It's the old one. You just set it. So either it's got a new chip in it or they're doing something else with it. Like my guess would be at that point, it's like new new chip in it or they're doing something else with it.

Like my guess would be at that point, it's like new colors or something. Right. But if this is truly a new, and I'm not sure his report would rise to the level if all they were doing was changing the colors. So it feels to me like what this is, is they're going to do maybe a WWDC again or a little bit thereafter. They're going to just say here's the new MacBook Air with M3 and it's the M2 MacBook Air except with M3 and that's the difference to it and maybe they'll add colors anyway because please please please Apple color laptop this this makes me think that they are going to call that 15-inch laptop a MacBook Air,

because I could imagine them saying, here is this new 15-inch MacBook Air. It has this and this and this, and it features an M3. And today we're also putting the M3 in the 13-inch MacBook Air and moving on. The only thing that gives me pause there is that that 15-inch MacBook Air is rumored to be soon. And I'm not sure, is the M3 going to be ready or is it going to be the last sort of consumer M2 and then they'll do the M3 in three to six months? No idea. No idea. So I think there's definitely a scenario here where if that MacBook Air is being made now, it's an M2 and it'll come out as an M2. And then in June or July

or August, they'll announce the macbook air it with the m3 and that'll be the launch of the m3 which is that core macbook air i think that's the most likely scenario it just doesn't make sense to me to update the m2 one year later with an m3 i don't get i don't not sure i can get that i think it may just be production that that like they're gonna bump this out there and um right because yes you ideally you would release them in lockstep right new 13 and 15 but they may not have the ability to do that right now and so they'll put out the 15 and then they'll put out the m3 air and then six months later you know they'll put out the m3 version of the 15 and then they'll sync up the next year or something maybe maybe i

mean that's this is the question though right like also we don't know when they were intended right like that macbook air may be intended for late summer and that mac the 15 inch whatever it is might have been intended even for earlier right and it sort of slid and it's and we think they're so close together why don't they both release at the same time uh and they think no no no you're not seeing um not to have a another tangent but um you know how the marvel uh fans will talk about like mcu phase four and oh now it's phase five and all that but like it's kind of invisible and and and people who aren't hardcore fans don't pay attention to that stuff right well this is a little like that where it's like inside Apple, we may be watching the end of the M2 collection of products and the beginning of the

M3 collection of products. And these two, you know, this one product is sort of slid to the end. And then here's this next one. And Mark talks about them together. But from the inside, it may be like, no, no, no, no, no. This is an M2 and that's an M3 because it's part of the different cycle. But they've slid close enough together that we're like why can't they all be m3s uh i don't know i mean that's part of standing on the outside looking inside the black box uh it certainly everybody's really hyped about the 15 inch macbook air what might be a little sad if it's an m2 knowing that there's an m3 chip coming in a few months at the same time the m2 is so capable especially for something that's the class of the MacBook Air,

that I would really not worry about it. I mean, like preview of my review of a product that has not been announced. If there's a 15-inch MacBook Air with M2, the fact that it doesn't have an M3 in it is not going to be a big deal. It's going to be, it's fine. It's just fine.

Because the M2 MacBook Air right now is awesome. And M2 is more than enough for almost everybody. Let me read a couple of lines here from Mark's report. The M2 chip was always designed as a stopgap ahead of the M3, which will mark the first time Apple is moving from a five nanometer chip to a three nanometer design. The shift will bring a major boost to performance and power efficiency. Having the new MacBook Air support the M3 would also make sense from a timing perspective. Apple has been

clear it wants to put Mac-grade processors on an annual upgrade cycle. Last year, Apple introduced the M2 chip at WWDC. If Apple were to stick to the last year's schedule, an M3 alongside a new MacBook Air would make sense. The company could then follow up

with the M3 later in the year and the M3 Pro and M3 Max based Pros in 2024. So one quibble with that, which he says Apple has always been clear that they want the M series on an annual cycle. No. No. Maybe they said it somewhere.

Maybe he's got sources, but has it been clear? No. I'm assuming he means it been clear no i'm assuming in fact it's been very unclear to him i suppose like because no i don't know they've never said that i don't know he phrases that in a way that i don't agree with at all i don't think they've been clear about that maybe and it's so so now it's unclear ironically that uh it might be we don't know if it's mark's source or if it's something else but what he says is a three

nanometer process, though. This is what we've been talking about for a while now, which is, feels like the M3. So the M1 is based on the A14. The M2 is based on the A15. The iPhone Pro is currently using the A16. based on the a15 the iphone pro is currently using the a16 now normally you would think the m3 would be used would use the a16 cores a16 is not a three nanometer process right it's their enhanced five nanometer process is that right i believe so i don't think they're on any three nanometer is all at the moment right they have it's that enhanced whatever what it is um uh enhanced five nanometer and 4p

process yeah uh yeah so they call the four mark says three here so if we take mark at his word i think it fits that idea that the a16 itself is sort of like also a stop gap and that and and the next m series chip is not going to be based on that 816 that we saw last fall on the iphone pro it's going to be based on uh a new it might be the same cores on the new process who knows but like it's going to be different it's not going to be oh this is the the a16 again except max sized it's going to either be a new bunch of cores that are like the a17 or it's going to be the a16 but at cores that are like the A17, or it's going to be the A16, but at a new process size with a bunch of Mac stuff in it, it's going to be different.

And that's exciting, right? Because it's not, it breaks the mold of every time that the Mac updates its hardware, it just inherits the stuff from the last iPhone chip. It makes it a little bit different. And if they truly are trying to get to a one-year cycle with the M series, which makes sense, right? Because they're on the one-year cycle with the iPhone. Being 18 months with the Mac means that you probably do have to skip a phone chip generation every so often.

So if they truly want to get there, they need to push it ahead. But I do believe very strongly that there's nothing stopping from Apple to showing off next generation cores, CPU or GPU or other stuff in the Mac, because M1 and M2, and he's calling it a stopgap. I mean, yeah, that's exactly right. M1 and M2, it's like for Apple to raise this whole Apple Silicon thing up and get it running, they have done this sort of like, well, we're spinning off of our iPhone work. But it's entirely possible that Apple is going to get to a point, and maybe it running they have done this sort of like well we're spinning off of our iphone work but it's entirely possible that apple is going to get to a point and maybe it's the m3

where apple's like you know it's not that simple maybe we'll have our our boys back on our chip our chip pals uh tom and tim uh maybe they can tell us this but um the uh the idea is it's not that simple. I could hear Tim saying this, actually, Tim Malay. It's not that simple. We might introduce new cores here, and then they come to the iPhone later. There's nothing stopping Apple from saying, our new core generation starts on the Mac, and then we'll use those cores in the iPhone. Or our new CPU cores, or maybe our new GPU cores start on the Mac and then they come to the iPhone later. Like they can do that. It's not, you know, the system does not permanently have to be structured as we take an

iPhone chip and we photocopy it and then we expand it. And now we've got a Mac chip. It could very easily be a much more complicated structure. Like that was good, I think, as a way to do it to start Apple Silicon. But like now that they're rolling with it and the Mac has all these kind of particular needs and there's particular timing involved. Like, like I said earlier, the A series, like there will be a new A17 chip, right? There'll be an A17 chip. There'll be an A17 chip. And nobody is going to, if the M3 has next generation cores that the A16 doesn't have, when the A17 comes out, people aren't going to be like, oh, it's such an old, oh, it was already in the MacBook Air.

Because it's not. It's not the M3. It's the A17. Even if all of the nerds are like, it's the M3, right? Like, it doesn't matter. So this will be something to watch. even if all of the nerds are like, it's the M3, right? Like it doesn't matter. So, uh, this will be something to watch. And I know I'm,

I'm gleaning a lot from him saying, Hey, there's going to be a new MacBook air, but it from us trying to figure out how Apple Silicon works over and will work over the years. I think the idea that there might be a year after the M2, there might be an M3 air. Uh,

I think that's really exciting beyond that and possibly colors i don't think it will change at all because they just did the design and it's great so it'll just stay maybe there'll be some color variations and a new chip and that's it and finally mark dropped into this report that he has heard that an ipad pro with an m3 chip an oled display is due in the first half of 2024 and that the first MacBooks with OLED screens and touch input are currently on track for 2025. Okay.

I want that. Give me that. Interesting. Yeah. What are they? What do they look like? How do they work? I guess we'll have to wait for another rumor roundup to find out. We sure will. Hey, if you enjoy this show and you would like to get longer episodes

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Oh no, the lasers got replaced by sheep this is quite concerning it's new zealand man i'm telling you so what you're saying is in new zealand lasers are sheep no i i think the sheep have just covered the lasers and their wool absorbs the laser energy well hopefully by next wait oh, oh no, that's upsetting. So if the lasers... If the sheep are covering lasers and we heard lasers in the rumor roundup, did the sheep get blown up, Jason? Is that what you're saying?

No, the rumor roundup's in the Old West. But they have lasers in the Old West? Is this like a Back to the Future kind of thing? Like Back to the Future 3 when they come... Look, those weren't actually lasers. They were just a six gun going pew, pew, pew, pew. Oh, interesting. They weren't lasers at all.

It was like bang, bang, yeah, whatever. I don't know. I just made a sheep noise. That's the New Zealand flavor. I did it. Not as many sheep. Well, I won't get into it. We'll talk about that in Upgrade Plus.

All right. All right. John wants to know, when you use two-factor authentication, do you use an authenticator app or SMS? One password is what I'm using. So authenticator app. I'm always sad when they want to send me a text message because I don't want a text message. I want to use my authenticator app.

Yeah. When I started setting up two-factor stuff i use text messages and i'm like transitioning that away just because not for the and then please what i'm saying is not for the security reasons right it's just like i understand the idea that somebody could intercept my text messages but i feel like if somebody's trying to intercept my text messages again i've got some problems right like there are some problems in my life if someone's trying to intercept my text messages again i've got some problems right like there are some problems in my life if someone's trying to target me like that uh i for me it's about convenience and especially these days with the um the extension support on ios as well as on mac os

the ability to just have the little one password thing, just fill all this stuff automatically for me is amazing. Like I love it. So I use one password for that too. It's easy enough to set up. The key, if you think to yourself, because this took me a while to get my head around, if you're like, wait, how are they using one password for authentication

or like the two factor? In one password, they're called one time passwords or otp yeah that's the part that you're setting up it's in every um like entry you can like add a one-time password and you have to put in like a code or scan a qr code and then it will generate the two-factor code so if you've ever been confused that's what you want but yeah i agree way easier to just do it in an app than to deal with text messages. These days with the new Safari extensions

for the password managers too, and also Apple's own password manager will do one-time passwords too. So you don't even need to use a third party. But it all auto, like I say, here's my password pop-up, pop up from the password manager and its extension in the browser. And it, in some cases, it auto fills, you know, the first screen, presses the button,

goes to the next screen, puts in the one-time code and presses the button and I'm in. And I haven't had to do anything that's great. Sometimes you have to like just tap in the text field and then it's like pasting it in or something yeah it's super clever and it's it's super easy you know it is great when i love when apple added that like text message like thing where like it could work out the codes from the text and just drop them in for you it's like a great feature um but i to be honest like just getting the text messages annoy me because it just fills up my iMessage. It's just like a bunch of crap that I don't want.

You go back to messages and you're like, your 2FA code is, and you're like, shut up. I don't want that. I wished that it would delete those messages for me.

Yeah. I mean, there's a feature. Actually, that would be amazing. This is a feature for Ricky Mondello if they're listening

who is one of the people who implements this stuff at Apple. I'll tweet to Ricky or I'll mastodon post to ricky after the show but um that would be amazing if apple could actually classify those things that were text messages that it knows are text messages that you're acting on for two-factor uh maybe if you if you use the if you use the auto include insert it like puts it optionally, puts it away somewhere. Puts it in a two-factor folder or something. Because it already does the thing where it marks it as read.

It makes a change to the message. So yeah, if you could just get rid of it somehow, that'd be great. That would be nice. I love it. I love that idea. I will say, everybody's going to get more SMS messages in the future because even though we have this authentication technology, you know what SMS messages do? They tie your login to a device. And while we're all like, oh, I don't need to tie my login to a device, you're thinking, well, who cares about that? The answer is Netflix and everybody else who is worried about password sharing. By tying authentication to an SMS, they tie it to you personally. And so then if your friend is trying to log in and every so often,

they're like, hey, haven't seen you in a while or haven't tested you in a while, Netflix user. Give me, we just sent you a code. Why don't you give me that code? And then your friend who's sharing your password, your roommate from two years ago who's sharing your password, has to call you or text you and say, like, what's the code? You just got sent a code. What's the code? You just got sent a code. And it also means the people are less likely to share codes because they're going to start getting authenticator messages for other people logging into their shared account.

And then they're going to have to do something about it. And it's not like email. You could forward and two-factor codes. You can share, but text messages, you can't. And so I predict that we're actually going to get way more text messages in the future um because as as these services start cracking down on password sharing because it is a method of preventing password sharing as annoying as that is do you think that pass keys could be used for this? I don't know.

I'm wondering, do they tie you to the device more closely? No, I think you can share pass keys. Okay. I think you can share pass keys. And anything that you can share easily that's digital is not what Netflix wants, right? Because I have some, what was it? I had some service that did

that um some streaming service and and my daughter will occasionally be like can i have the two factor code yeah uh here it is but um but you know it's going to happen more because it is it is a real passive aggressive way of getting both sides of the password sharing to realize this is a pain. I have a service that does it via email, and there are a few that do it that way. And that, here's a little tip, that is great because you can set up email rules

to just forward it to all the people you share the password with. But text messages, you can't really do that, and that's how they get you. That's how they get you. Sam asks, would you rather pay less for an Apple device if it meant you had to pay for Apple apps, such as Maps, Notes, Calendar, the Home app, for example?

This is a weird question. It is interesting to me, though. I mean, I am in the Apple Plus bundle, right? Apple One bundle. So I'm already there. I would be paying for it anyway, and I am already paying full price for an Apple device. So I think it's an interesting idea. I think Apple will never offer anything like this unless they're mandated by a government.

They're mandated by a government because Apple feels like their software is part of the product. And it's part of the equation is you get all that stuff with your device. And I worry about any Apple that would sell a decontented device and then say, you got to sign up for iCloud in order to get the contents on it. Otherwise, too bad. I don't like that as an approach. And honestly, I don't think it would allow them to charge significantly less either. No, I don't think even if this was a thing they had to do and if they charged less, it wouldn't be much less.

It wouldn't be much less. This question was just intriguing to me because it's like we're just entering a very interesting regulatory period i think for tech companies now maybe more than it's ever been before uh and i when looking at this question was just wondering like what it would be like for apple to have to split this stuff from the system more. Not necessarily in charging, but the ability to have third parties tie into all of this and how complicated that could make a lot of the ways that these devices work. I just wonder if we're going to end up in a situation like that again

because none of these companies are willing to make concessions unless they're direct through court to do it. Yeah. situation like that again because none of these companies are willing to make concessions unless they're direct through court to do it yeah tom asks in traffic speed bumps are used to slow down cars yep why is it that with computers a speed bump has the exact opposite meaning implying an increase in speed. Okay. First off, I want a little sidebar here. In the UK, these are speed humps, aren't they?

Is that what they are? Are they humps? Maybe. Some people could call them that, but equally people could call them speed bumps. I don't really hear anyone saying speed humps anymore. Okay. I mean, I thought there't hear anyone saying speed humps anymore okay i i saw i mean i saw there was a sign about about speed humps i remember when we were there five years ago also i i was told that they're often referred to colloquially as sleeping policemen yes that that one less so much uh now but i think a sleeping policeman is also the ones that are painted black and white primarily but yes sleeping policeman is a phrase I'm familiar with.

That's hilarious, right? Because then you go over one and you're like, oh, we had a sleeping policeman. Oh, it's so good. The concept of a speed bump is coming to the etymology of it is it's a bump up in features. And it's generally a bump up in the speed of the processor and so when we say it's a speed bump what they mean is the company is bumping up the speed of the internals of it

and and it's become shorthand in the tech world for a change that is very minor that is just some internal spec changes and so it ends up being called a speed bump there have been other you know other phrases for that over time but that's that's the one that i end up using yeah but that's that's the story is so it's it's not a a a speed bump it's a speed bump if that like the etymologies are totally different even though they end up at the same place so that's and and it's funny, right? Like you have that moment where you're like, oh, they just bumped up the speed. It's a speed bump, like a speed bump, but not like it.

And so we end up coalescing on the same phrase for both. That's the, that's the story there. I wish I could remember. We used to call these things something else and I can't remember it now. It's like when I went to, when I went to a Mac world for Mac user At Macuser, all of our screenshots were called screen dumps. And so you'd be like, get the dumps. Did you turn in the dumps? I need the dumps.

And then I went to Macworld and they looked at me like I was a crazy person. Because here it's screenshots. We don't use those unrefined terms. It's a screenshot, which is what everybody calls them now so that's fine anyway speed bump fisher kai and discord says we should start calling them sleeping policemen i love it i love it let's try to remember that the next time there is one chips got a real good sleeping policeman sleeping policeman yeah this is basically a sleeping policeman update it was just funny to me that like i have never i've said this so many times right both things speed bump i've said them both so many times and i'd never tied it together in my brain that i'm

saying the same phrase and it means the exact opposite in those two scenarios one increases the speed, one decreases the speed. I thought this was a very funny question, and I'm sure is one of the many weird quirks in the English language that we could just say these

in context. You should understand them both ways. If you would like to send in a question for us to answer in a future episode of the show just go to upgradefeedback.com and you can send in your ask upgrade questions there thank you to everybody that does it was so great to have you back jason it's good to be back you can check out jason's writing at sixcolors.com. You can hear his podcast at theincomparable.com and here on RelayFM.

You can listen to my shows, of course, here on RelayFM as well and check out my work at cortexbrand.com. We're both on Mastodon. You can find Jason on zeppelin.flights as at jsnl and you can find me on mike.social as at imike. You can send your feedback and questions to upgradefeedback.com.

Thank you to our members who support us with Upgrade Plus and thank you to FitBud and Squarespace for their support of this week's episode. But most of all, thank you for listening and we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye Jason Snell. Bye everybody.