Upgrade - 483: The 2023 October Event Draft

Episode Date: October 27, 2023

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 483 for october 27th 2023 my name is mike hurley and i'm joined by jason snell hi jason snell hi mike hurley hello for this unusual episode yes of upgrade alert alert here we are draft episode i have a snow talk question for you jason are you surprised that we're here today because there's an apple event on monday i'm less surprised about the monday and more surprised about the 8 p.m eastern yep oh do you mean midnight gmt yes i i do 5 p.m pacific yes i am surprised by that um took us by surprise for sure um just to be clear up front we'll mention this at the end this is a special mini episode that is uh the emergency bonus draft episode uh because mike did manage to get state of

the apps out for cortex so we had a little bit of time for this. That was a hold off. There was a lot of stuff going on there. We will be back on Tuesday with a new episode. We're not going to record after an event at midnight GMT. That's not going to happen. So we will

be just fresh and ready to go or not on Tuesday morning. i know this is a draft episode jason but i have a quick rumor roundup interlude for you yeah i think you need to do this yes yes so before we recorded today so in the morning i got a text from my friend matt who said mike do not go on mastodon mark german has published a report about what's going to be happening and he was very good to tell me this because then i messaged jason and said there is a report out there before i even awakened so then i woke up and i saw that message

and i got to my rss reader and there indeed was a headline that was literally here is everything apple is going to do at their event and i said not today satan and so we are achieving something that jason has wanted from the draft for a long time i think where we are on like we are like detached from the rumors from from the current rumors, right? I think we're babes in the woods only in the sense of like we were in the woods yesterday. I mean, we know everything in the run-up that was sort of

perplexing and unclear about exactly what was going on, and we have not looked at what Mark Gurman has written, because he's generally very accurate. And we don't want to know, because then why are we even here? So we're going to make our picks. Then at the end of the episode we're going to have a quick scan through that report

and then talk about how we feel about what Mark Gurman has predicted for the event. But for the sake of the draft, Jason and I we're working on our own brains. Yeah, little bonus today. For the sake of the draft, Jason and I, we're working on our own brains. Yeah. Little bonus today.

Stakes are low, by the way. It will determine who gets to put the champion and challenger pennant up. But you won the first two drafts this year. So there's nothing I can do to come back against that. But it's okay. Hey, but it will dictate who will probably hold it for a few more months to come, which is always important. I'm on a bit of a losing streak. So I'd like to get back on the right side but of course let's talk about that so these are the rules let's talk about results of the draft so today's draft will be split into five rounds 10 overall picks split into two categories mac picks and

other picks we're doing four mac picks one other pick the winner of the previous draft gets the first pick which is me items are chosen from a predetermined list of choices which we have agreed upon beforehand and that they could be verifiable on screen and not ridiculously obvious it must be clearly announced on stage or on a slide during the presentation for an item to count steven hackett will act as adjudicator in case of a scoring stalemate. No partial points were awarded. The points on the episode

as awarded are final and are finalized during the scoring segment. We have a tiebreaker question in the case of tie. Loser Loser gets pick of tiebreaker question. I'm losing it. i'm the loser the winner becomes the draft champion and displays the champion pennant loser becomes draft challenger and displays the challenger pennant there will be an interactive scorecard at upgrade.cards courtesy

a friend of the show and keeper of the cards zach knox and you can always at any time buy your own draft tee at upgradeyourwardrobe.com because you never know when we're going to declare that it's draft tee day at 8pm on the following Monday and then you'll need to get that shirt out I'm wearing mine today I have won

both drafts for 2023 so far in history there have been three October drafts Jason you've won uh in history there have been three october drafts jason you won two of those and i won one of them all right should we move to the tiebreaker why not so you get to pick right is that how it works i think i think not i think you have to set the over under and then i get to pick i can't believe what this happens every time every time i think you have to set the over-under, and then I get to pick. I can't believe this happens every time. Every time I think I have set it correctly in the rules, but then I never remember. I'll set it the over-under. I'll set the over-under if you want, although I didn't think about it.

I'm going to set it at... 27 minutes. Over. Okay. I think over 27 minutes. Interesting that you went for that. I didn't think you'd go so short. I think this is a half hour event, honestly.

Okay. Well, then you also believe over. Yeah, I guess so. I don't know. I think it might be, honestly. I think it might be. Honestly, I think it might be a 20 or 25 minute event that's slightly padded. But, you know, we'll see. We'll see.

Maybe we'll find out in like 20 minutes if what we think about the length of the event. Mark Gurman said, oh, by the way, the runtime is 35 minutes. Oh, thanks. Can you imagine? Can you? No, but look, it's not impossible that someone could know tim cook will be pictured wearing a costume at apple park in front of the rainbow stage thanks mark it is not impossible that someone could know the length of the event though right because it's already

been right the video is done recorded it's done it presumably yeah all right this episode because it is a we're able to do episodes like this as a surprise and are able to produce this show in part because of our members. And so thank you so much if you support us as a member. But you're actually not hearing this because if you go to getupgradeplus.com, you will get longer ad-free episodes of the show

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All right, we'll start out with the Mac Picks. Okay. Now we're down to it. This is game face, Mike. Oh, I've had that thing where I've made my short list, right? I have my short list of eight items. I want to be clear here. I offered you a deal yesterday.

You did. Which is that we record, we not record a bonus episode of Upgrade, but instead record a little tiny clip a couple minutes long that we would just put in our next episode. And the entire proposition of the draft was going to be m3 or not yep and you're like and here we are we're doing a whole i so but that's the big question of the day i mean if we're gonna if we're gonna peer behind the curtain basically i i felt a duty to the listeners to produce a draft so that was why i ended up leaning on no if we're going to do anything let's do a draft okay and i'm gonna go with pick one m3 processor announced oh look at you look at you this is a thing that i'm not sure i believe as of right now like with no information

but this is the thing i can't reconcile how it makes sense right now for what they're going to do with a new chip and what machines it's going to go in but realistically i can't imagine why you'd have a whole event just to put m2 chips in another computer and so right it feels like it has to be something more than that. And so I'm just going to say yes, they're going to do the M3. Okay. I offered you to take M2 yesterday and you're like, no, maybe we should do a draft instead. Because I didn't want to take it. Because I agree with you.

It's not outside of the realm of possibility that Apple will call an event and do, like they're going to do some press stuff. I think that's been out there. I've seen some reports of that. Garmin even reported that they're, Garmin posted that they're doing like a screening of the video in New York City with influencers or something.

Like there's stuff going on. And I just, I don't know if you do that to just say we're putting our our chip that's on its last legs the m2 in an imac and again the macbook pros have disappeared from stock i'm like what would you do with them like why are they disappearing because they're already on the m3 so why why so it doesn't make sense to me. Not that they couldn't do it because history does have several instances where Apple has tried real hard on something that didn't require that level of trying.

But I have a hard time seeing it too, which is why with my pick, I am not going to pick M2. I'm going to pick new iMacs. Yeah. New 24-inch imac models introduced this feels to me like i do feel like no matter what they do this is a mac that gets something i agree it's either an m2 or it's an m3 yeah and we can talk about the details with other pics possibly but it does feel like um i if

i'm sure well i'm not sure of, but if I'm fairly confident in something, it's that the iMac is going to get updated because it has to. It's the last to go. It's got to do it. It's time. It's beyond time. My second pick is something that I am

wholly confident is going to happen. But when? No, and I think will happen on Monday. monday at 8 p.m eastern but will they talk about it it's 11 59 p.m gmt did you notice that very smart because otherwise it gets too confusing because it's like do you but when you said midnight do you mean tuesday you mean monday exactly tuesday tuesday night but it was already on my calendar is 11 55 pm for this exact reason oh excellent excellent yeah my my second pick is that the peripherals will be updated for usbc yeah i think that's that's got to happen but the thing is will they talk about

that during the presentation like that could just be a thing that happens right and then i wouldn't get a point for it but i just think it's going to happen and i want it to happen true i it would be it would go a long way for you to not at least mention in passing that we've updated all the peripherals for usbc right well i mean i do hope that the peripherals get updated in general to do some things that i want them to do sure right sure like touch id on a magic trackpad oh man i i would love that so much i don't think it's going to happen because apple has decided that touch id only exists on its keyboards which i hate put face id on a keyboard yeah right um but i so if i i've been saying this for a couple of years now i think at least which is

the peripherals will get updated when the imac gets updated and if we're at the point where the imac is going to get updated i cannot see them shipping lightning peripherals because the thing is when these peripherals are out there they're out there forever yeah they're out there forever like in a decade i think we've had two revisions of the trackpad yeah yeah i mean the one that we the one that came with the iMac is like magic trackpad 3 i guess although it's basically just the two but with a slot with different colors yeah no it's it's basically i mean the magic trackpad hasn't changed that much um they had the one with batteries and they have the one with rechargeables. And that's it.

And that's been a long time, right? That mouse that we all joke about has been that way for a very long time and they haven't redesigned it at all. So, yeah, I feel like that's what's going to happen. I am going to go with oh let's see i'm going to go with new macbook pro models introduced okay 14 and 16 okay i was i was thinking about this i was thinking about it because i was a little bit hesitant about the idea of this and say it was on my list when it's super high because you know we were talking about on the show earlier this week that the macbook pro had just been revised but what i was wondering was that off schedule the january revision because they were introduced in october of 21 yeah yeah

were they delayed maybe and so this is getting them back on their actual expected schedule? I think it's very weird, and I wouldn't pick this other than the fact that there are those supply chain reports and retail reports. I guess it's not really supply chain. It's the channel reports is what they call it, that they're running low. So something is happening there, and I don't know what it is, but this is me kind of doubling down. Unlike the iMac, this is me saying M3, right? There's got to be something. Although I didn't say M3 in my pick.

It's like new. For some reason, they're going to be new models. Now, this is going against my other theory, which is that what they're really going to rev is the 13. But, you know, which would make more sense. now i'm feeling a little bit of regret but i actually think the 14 and the 16 being um revised based on the channel argument seems stronger to me than the 13 well why don't you let me slip in my round three pick now which is that there is a new 13 inch macbook pro model all right finally your shower thought has infected my brain i i noticed that. I'm connected.

It came out and connected too. I just think this is a very smart... For all of the reasons we talk about it on the show earlier this week, I just think this is a smart pick that they actually go ahead and do something interesting with this. And revise it in some way.

We'll see. But I think even if they don't do that, if the MacBook Pros are going to get revised, this will just get revised along with them. It would be nice. What gave me pause and why I didn't pick it is mostly that I don't understand what Apple's motivations are for this product.

And while it would be very tidy for them to introduce a new model and have it be more modern, they may not be playing that game. thus far they haven't been but you'd think that at some point they've got to do a revision of it that at least even if they don't change the visual design to make it more like the other laptops at least put magsafe on it get rid of the touch bar right like there's got to be something that they do but is this when they do it? Realistically, if this is the M3 event, they'll just put M3 in that even if they don't do anything fun to it. I would be surprised if they just left this on the M2 train and just left it there.

If they're going to be bringing the other Macs to M3. But we'll see. I agree. And I'm just going to roll in and say it's not going to have the touch bar in MagSafe, and that's my pick. It's not going to have the touch bar, it will have MagSafe. That's my pick. I'm just going to go in with you on that one.

Because I think if you're right, I'm right. Alright, for my fourth and final pick, gotta lean in. iMacs have the same colors. iMacs have the same colors. iMacs have the same colors. I think supply chain rules all.

They're not going to do anything new. They're just going to be like all those great colors. Our customers told us they love the colors of the new iMac. And so they're going to keep those colors exactly the same. Interesting.

I hope they do because it's their most fun product that exists, I think, the iMac. This is where I get buoyed by my desire. And then I also am sort of like sad about figuring, like I always figure that Apple's going to ruin our fun. Right. And so we have some other choices on here that are real buzz kills um although you could pick new colors i could that's too far you're gonna do that i'm not wild you know no i think that i think that may be a little bit much um i i i kind of want to pick imax have reduced color options but, but I don't think I am. I don't.

I genuinely don't think they're going to do that. Remember how they only had two colors that were only available, like not in retail, and you had to order them, like the purple and the orange or whatever? Yeah. I fear for the purple and the orange, right? That they're like, yeah, we're just not going to do those anymore. That's my concern. concern but i'm actually gonna go uh with a different uh more positive choice for my fourth mac pic which is apple mouse redesigned to not charge on the bottom okay i mean they should do this right like if they're gonna touch the peripherals this one should be done i mean passion just because the passion.

People ridicule it so much, right? That like, if for any reason, that's a reason to do it. You know what they should do, Jason? You know what they should do? What should they do? They should put MagSafe in there. No. Why? Oh, because you can't use it when it's plugged in still, right?

You could, but then it's just going to pop right off. Oh, i meant like iphone mac safe oh interesting oh so you just put it on a like a little charging yeah just let it charge and then take it off and you're ready to roll again but okay you can't use it when it's charging then still right so they're the mac pics yeah there they are i mean whatever okay hey this is what happens when we don't know what's coming you know we just gotta we just gotta follow our heart see where it takes us dead wrong in public i love it all right so we have one pick in the other category so this

encompasses all other potential products plus stageCraft, plus anything else. Yep. My pick and the other picks, I'm leaning back into the Mac again with this, I think. And it's Game Demo. Game Demo. I think Apple is really trying to make gaming on the Mac happen. And I feel like if they have a chip

that has more power, if this is a chip with increased graphics capabilities, I think they're going to want to lean on that more. And that will include, hey, look how great this, look how great our favorite

Resident Evil game runs on this new Mac. i think this is a great choice thank you it's a classic for iphone releases but scary fast is the name of this event and they're they have been really leaning into games and especially if it's m3 where they can talk about ray tracing and all those other things. And before we went into the cone of silence, there was also that speculation that one of the reasons for the weird timing is that Apple's got a partner. And it's a Japanese game publishing partner. And that this time coincides with them. I don't know if I believe that theory or not.

But it doesn't matter. Game demo is a great pick at any draft, honestly. Game demo. Yeah, I heard that too. I was listening to Dithering today. I don't know about that. That seems odd to me. I don't get it because it's many jumps.

And I think to myself, well, wait a second. What about every other time they do this? Why would it be another time? This person has to be awake. It's not live unless there's some regulatory whatever it doesn't matter um i think game devo is just a good thing maybe they're announcing that they've bought sony you know what i mean and so like they have to do i mean yeah sure yeah that'd be that'd be something uh i'm gonna choose a creative

professional testifies about the power of a new product. Some DJ, some artist, some musician is going to be like, oh, wow. So powerful. I can render my 3D objects so much faster. Or

yeah, that's what I'll say. Yeah. So that's the draft. We all set i will now head over to bloomberg.com oh no do you have a link for that let's uh well it's asking me first i need to log in as it always wants me to do because it always yes i'm a subscriber and it decides i don't care that you're a subscriber so it's going to be a rush now for who gets to log in first i have now i'm using touch id on my iMac right now to log back into oh i have to identify some motorcycles so i'm doing that i i am logged in this is now i'm identifying some bicycles so i'm doing that. I verified. Oh, and now I need to find crosswalks.

First M3 processors expected to be a significant improvement. I don't know. This is one of his recap stories where he's recapping his previous choices. Right, but he's laying the claim, right? But he is.

High-end MacBook Pros look nearly identical to current models. Multiple versions of the M3 Pro processor. Multiple versions of the M3 Max in testing. Updated configurations for memory. Unclear which ones will ultimately ship. Updated iMac for the first time in 900 days. Don't expect a new design.

Will look nearly identical to current versions. 24- inch iMac has internal design changes and a revamped stand uh has tested the machine in similar colors as the current models but could still change the options at the unveiling um Apple has developed it with the M3 chip uh doesn't necessarily mean they'll ship it, but he says they developed it with the M3 chip. Likely roll out updated versions of accessories that ditch the old lightning ports. That's it.

So it's not so bad, actually. I mean, but it has touched on what we were talking about, right? Yeah, for sure. Sure. So in some ways, we were sort of... Oh, Jason. A room around... while the company has been working on a low-end macbook pro with a base version of the m3 chip that machine likely won't

appear on monday new 13 and 15 inch macbook airs of m3 chips are in development but not going to happen no ipads and no airpods there you. The draft has been impacted. Would have been impacted, I think. Interesting. You know what this is going to come down to? It's going to come down to iMac colors, the placement of the port on the mouse, the game demo,

and the Creative Pro enthusing about the product. That's draft, baby. That's how it works. That is the draft. That's how it goes. That's how it works, you know. That's how it works. That's the draft. That's how it goes. That is how it works. So we will be recording

as we mentioned earlier next week on Tuesday. So we'll be recording live on Tuesday. That is going to be at a different time to usual. So it's going to be 8 Pacific, 10 Central, 11 Eastern, 3pm.m. GMT.

We'll be recording on Tuesday. The episode will be released as soon as we can after that, and we'll be recapping what we think and obviously one of the differences from the way that we usually do the event. It won't be straight after, so we'll have a little bit more time to ruminate on what's been announced.

So that will be happening on tuesday uh we hope that you have enjoyed this extra special draft episode of the show uh thank you for tuning in we'll be back next week on tuesday as we mentioned in the meantime i'm sure there's going to be a lot of writing over at sixcolors.com that jason oh yeah sing along with Dan and others. I think once you're done watching the video, just click on over to Six Colors and you're going to get it all. You're going to get it all right into your eyes. You can hear Jason's shows over

on theincomparable.com and here on RelayFM. You can hear my podcast here on RelayFM. Check out my work at cortexbrand.com. Jason is at jsnell on zeppelin.flightslights which is on Mastodon and I am at imike on mike.social the show is upgrade at relayfm.social

you can find video clips of this show on Mastodon but in the video platforms where they are best consumed, TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, we are at upgrade relay I am at imike I-M-Y-K-E. Jason is at jsnell, J-S-N-E-L-L

on threads. Thank you to our members, the supporters of Upgrade Plus who made this episode possible. Go to getupgradeplus.com to find out more. If you want to send us in your questions as well, if we want to do Ask Upgrade about whatever Apple is announcing on Monday,

please go to upgradefeedback.com after the event and send us your questions. Thank you so much for listening to this emergency draft episode of the Upgrade program. Until next time, until Tuesday, say goodbye, Jason Snell. Goodbye, Mike Early. Thank you.