Upgrade - 484: Space Grayer

Episode Date: October 31, 2023

on relay fm this is upgrade episode 484 for october 31st halloween the spookiest episode of the year this episode is brought to you by Ladder. Delete me Notion. And vitally, I am the man previously known as Mike Hurley, and I am joined by the spookiest co-host of all, Jason Snell. 484! Ha ha ha ha ha!

Ha ha ha ha ha! Because it's spooky for no reason! As we have learned over the last 24 hours that there's absolutely zero point for it. But we'll get to that shortly. This is your regularly scheduled program. I have a Snell Talk question for you, Jason Snell,

that comes from Jimmy, who wants to know, Jason, did you write the Six Colors articles about the Apple event last night from your cold garage or from Studio B. And also, what tea were you drinking to be so caffeinated to write so much? Well, Jimmy, I got news for you. Neither. I wrote my article about the Apple event last night, yesterday, at a hotel room in new york city yes and while waiting for my flight at the newark airport and at the newark airport i was drinking a diet mountain dew and then i flew

home and the event happened while i was on an airplane. Yep. True story revealed here. So you had the opportunity to go to a place in New York and have some conversations and take a look at some products. Apple type people. The event that we're talking about. We had a selection of people ask questions along this line. And it is also very important to worth note because people ask this all happened after draft stuff there was no information known before the draft yes exactly there you go so we will be so when we talk about this stuff today understand that jason has a bit more information than your average because he's seen it he's actually been there and you've seen you've actually seen

touched some aspect used i've actually tried to get my fingerprints on the thing that has the reduced fingerprints so you essentially had like a hands-on area kind of kind of vibey thing right is the probably the best way to put it uh well it was a i would say it's a briefing i had a product briefing yeah where we we were we were shown the products and allowed to get our hands on them and talk to apple representatives um in a couple of different locations uh in the venue and uh and got the got the details got to ask some questions got to you know sometimes get some answers that were sometimes i i got i asked some questions i got

very satisfying answers from and others that you know they're not going to talk about and i knew they were not going to talk about it but you know sometimes you got to ask so yeah so this was actually uh pretty big news oh by the way if you'd like to send in a snow talk question of your own it's very simple just go to upgradefeedback.com and you can send one in to help us start a future episode thank you jimmy for your question jimmy you you're set up, Jimmy. You were set up there by Mike. So I was going to say, it's been actually a pretty big news week, and

I just wanted to make a little programming note. So next week's episode, we'll be talking about Apple's quarterly results. And my plan is that hopefully we'll be able to talk about all of the stuff that came out in the 17.2 beta, because there was actually quite a lot of stuff, including the journaling app and tapbacks, and I want to talk about all of the stuff that came out in the 17.2 beta because there was actually quite a lot of stuff including the journaling app and tap backs and i want to talk about all of that but obviously we don't have the space for that today but that will hopefully form

part of next week's episode would be my hope we do have to talk about the draft results though that that's pretty important we do we did badly um you won on a tie break i was talking to adina about this last night because she she wanted to know uh how i'd done in the draft and basically the way that i look at what happened in this draft is essentially the result of the ideal, right? Like the ideal draft scenario is kind of what happened, which is that we were operating on our own knowledge,

our own guesses, and rumors that have been occurring for a while. And if we would have read Mark Gurman's report, half of the things that we picked would not have been in the draft and i would say the um there was still some mystery but i would say if we had done um uh eight picks instead of four it we would have gotten a winner

right because we would have been forced to pick more esoteric things and some of those would have hit and missed but it was a mini draft and so we didn't and then the big moment and i actually thought about it about a minute after I made my selection is you picked a 13 inch MacBook Pro thing. And I thought to myself, oh, geez, I think there will be a 13. And so I picked also a 13 inch MacBook Pro thing. We, in fact, got somebody on Mastodon who was like, that doesn't seem fair to Jason. It's like, look, I did it to myself, but I decided that I was going to try to block you and that if you got a point for the 13-inch MacBook Pro, I was going to too. And a minute later, I'm like, why did I do that? I'm not sure there's going to be a 13-inch MacBook Pro, but it was too late. And that was a fatal error. Yeah. My bathroom, my shower thoughts. Yeah. Yeah. Things you think of in the shower. Well, I thought the next day in the shower that was a bad idea. We'll talk about it,

but I actually think you were on the right lines, but just in a way that seemed unrealistic. Yes. Yeah, they were more bold than I expected. Draft results were as follows.

Jason scored two points for the 24-inch iMac introduced and 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pro models introduced. There was no 13-inch MacBook Pro, so it no longer has touch bar MagS introduced. There was no 13 inch MacBook Pro, so no longer has touch bar MagSafe. There is no product anymore. There is an element of a way

that pic could have been written that could have been correct, right? If you had just been like the entry level MacBook Pro. A low end MacBook Pro. Now we're getting into Ricky's territory. It's ridiculous, yeah. An Apple mouse redesigned

to not charge on the bottom. That did not happen. I scored for the thing I was least confident about, which was M3 processor announced, which in hindsight is very funny. I really wish you had taken my offer of you get no M3 and I get M3, but you were too afraid to do that.

Oh, because I wouldn't have taken the no, even though I wasn't sure about it. Yeah, I know. I did not score for peripherals updated of usbc i did not score for a new 13 inch macbook pro i did score for the imax have the same colors i was frantically checking that while the video was occurring yeah last night neither of us scored picks for our game demo or creative professional testimonials um there were like elements of these things but not in the ways in which we had picked for them they showed games

but they didn't have like a person from a game studio and they had like an ad where people were showing like using these things but they were actors i think in a lot of instances that's not that doesn't count and so we ended up tied yeah and the tiebreaker was i set it a little too low i the event was just just a few seconds i believe over 30 minutes long uh so if i had said it at 30 which was my initial thought uh you still would have gotten it but i said it even lower than that so i would have had to set it at 31 for you to and you still would have gotten it, but I set it even lower than that. So I would have had to set it at 31 for you to, and you still would have taken me over and I would have won, but it's fine. A lot of our draft results, if you look back, have been ties, an awful lot of them. That's why we have the tiebreaker.

That's why we have to have the tiebreaker. Anyway, congratulations again. This year is a sweep, full sweep continues for Mike. Yeah. So this has been the year of Mike over here when it comes to the draft. Yeah, it turns out that was your annual theme. Mm-hmm. The year of the draft. Who could have known? Mm-hmm.

I wanted to do some kind of bigger thoughts about the event itself. I kind of alluded to it a little bit in my weird opening. I kind of alluded to it a little bit in my weird opening. Yeah. I feel like the result of the question of why are they doing this in the evening was not answered, which I think was the most likely thing. There was no reason, it seemed like. Halloween. But even then, they didn't need to do the Halloween theme because they kind of didn't really lean into it enough in my opinion like it was at night there were bats and johnny serugi said welcome to my lab like outside of that it i feel like if you're gonna do this do it and i don't really feel like

they did i know that like when tim was walking there was a werewolf sound i was like oh excellent and then it was just tim cook and he was just excited to say good evening which he also didn't do in a voice you know it's just like if you're gonna do it do it otherwise don't ruin everybody's schedules you know i don't know i don't know i i have i had thought that maybe we would understand it all in the cold light of day today. It didn't happen. No, it didn't happen. I think the answer is that somebody sold them on Halloween theme and they said, okay. And then they put it into their regular content engine and all the Halloween-iness got, almost all of it got ironed back out.

Yes, that there were presenters, like every presenter had a costume, you know, and then they're like, I'm not wearing this. And then by the end of it, all we ended up with was it happens at night and like the idea like you know some people are saying the discord pro stuff happens at night but they do this for the iphone too like they just turn all the lights off right and they have greg jazwiak stand outside at night um it doesn't need to be at night and so i just he's on the night shift i don't want that to happen again but you know that's my theory about jaws is jaws just works the night shift someone has like you know tim tim signs out and jaws signs in and they meet in the in the lobby of cafe max and and uh and tim says even in jaws and just says

even in tim and then they pass, and then Jaws is in charge at night for the night workers. So while I don't agree with the evening event, I do agree with this being an event. I was seeing a lot of people on Mastodon, especially being like, oh, what was the point of it?

Like this felt like something to me, the whole thing, we're going to talk about all of it, obviously, worthy of there being a video i i don't understand people sometimes mike i mean i i think the truth is that people have unreasonable expectations and they and they they complain that things aren't events they complain that things are events they complain that events are too long and boring and padding padded they complain that events are too short and too packed with information and not

long enough. People don't know what they want. I'll tell you this. Apple introduced its entire M three chip architecture. That's not a press release. That's it. That's all you need to know. They,

and if you're thinking about like the products, okay, MacBook pro super important product in certain product categories. But if you don't want to think about that and the iMac is nice, sure. Think of it this way. Those products are the vessels used to launch M3, M3 Pro, M3 Max. And that's what this event was about. And that's super important to Apple. It sets the stage for the next year plus of the Mac, which is also very important let's brag let's boast about their three nanometer process there's a lot of stuff going on here that's why this event exists

um it's not it's not a hard one at all like i did i did at one point i think i did i put this in my story uh at one point uh the phrase came out that was uh it's the m3 pro with macbook pro yeah that was in your conclusion like the you kind of mentioned that it's not it's not quite right but yet it is kind of what this is right it's like this is actually it's the chips with a computer attached because that's again in the end they're launching products but what they're really doing is launching their whole mac uh chip line and that's worth a that's worth an event bottom line there was i'm just absolutely going to double back on something i meant to mention a second ago um which in regards to the gaming when we're talking about the draft this is just a complete aside um i was very surprised and kind of pleased with the fact that the game that

they did choose to feature was Baldur's Gate 3 which is one of the like game of the year contenders this year and it's just super surprising and maybe this is a sign of the times that a current game of the year contender is running on a Mac like I've been playing it on my MacBook Air now it's nowhere near as good as when I play it on my gaming PC, but it runs. And it would run even better on these new M3 machines, obviously, especially on the bigger ones with the bigger graphics chips.

And I genuinely hope that this is the start of that. And also, as James is pointing out, it's not in the app store. This is on Steam. So the way you get Baldur's Gate 3 is you need to get Steam first. And so I just thought that that was... I'm always looking for these signs that Apple is paying attention to gaming. And the fact that they chose Baldur's Gate 3 and not Resident Evil again, especially because Resident Evil came out yesterday on the iPhone, right?

So, like, the fact that they chose to show Baldur's Gate, that is a good sign for me of like they're paying attention. So just a random aside on gaming that I wanted to mention now because we don't come up with it again. All right. But I agree with you.

People, I think that the issue with this stuff is like the people that are complaining are probably not the same people a lot of times. You just got each camp complaining. But I just think this was the right way to do it. They spent time talking about it.

Press release wouldn't have given it the justice. Just go for it. Last thing I wanted to mention, I spotted this at the end and then didn't really think much of it and then saw a lot of people talking about it. The event was shot on an iPhone and edited on a Mac. And I found a couple of posts on threads, one from Tyler Stallman and then a couple from Halide,

where I'm assuming that Apple PR gave these creators and developers imagery that shows how they produced the event. And it is awesome and hilarious to look at the size of the equipment that these iPhones were put into, like these huge camera arms and rigs and all this lighting and stuff.

It's very funny. But I think that this is kind of incredible that they did it, even though they did it with all of the help that they had. The fact that they could shoot that event on an iPhone and you would not have noticed it's pretty cool yeah i think that's great though and the point is look the point is not hey everybody uh you can just hold an iphone like of course they're using professional everything

and of course there's a lot of cgi going on here too but the point is that they're using the image capturing itself is on the iphone and that is good enough to generate that output that's the point and uh yeah good for them also one of the shots from the halide uh thing which everybody sent to me in the discord apparently there was a video that now has disappeared where this stuff came from which is really weird and interesting like it was on apple's youtube channel but not anymore i don't know why they did that but there's a shot of like from behind tim cook showing the crew there is so many people so many people there there must be like 50 people 60 people maybe more that you can kind of make out in the in like the i don't know what you'd call it like watching tim

cook do the thing like i guess this is from people from all over the place kind of fascinating yeah well i don't know if you've seen it because it's a it's a in sports in america but there's the uh apple ad with the um olivia rodrigo video okay that is shot on iphone 15 um and it's the same thing with the same kind of rigs and it's like it's i i believe it's her real video but the version of it that's in the apple ad also shows them shooting it using these similar kind of rigs in an iphone 15 and this is clearly part of their marketing message is you know the iphone 15 again yeah you can use it to shoot a music video or an Apple thing, but the point is that even this level of professional video, you can't tell that it was shot on an iPhone because the iPhone video is that good at this point. That's the point. I hope that this little behind-the-scenes video pops up again because I would like to see more about it. I just think it's kind of cool that they did that. This episode is brought to you by Ladder. Let's be real. We all have a tendency to put things off until the last minute, whether that's going to the DMV, arranging a dental

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family of chips. Apple will use the word family a lot in the press releases and stuff like that, so I think that's like a good way to talk about them sure the majority of the family introduced at once i guess all that is left would be the ultra chip right which is probably just two maxes connected so fundamentally not really a new chip just a new i don't know collection of a pair of chips but it's too it's going to

be two existing m3 maxes almost certainly uh do you have any kind of feeling about why you think they chose to do it this way here's the whole thing here's all the m3 it's a good question i think that from a from a marketing standpoint i think it's actually stronger to go out with your whole line than to go out with your weakest product, right? Like we've reached the point now where you can impress, like the M1 impressed us, but you know, the Pro and the Max are where you really see them at their best. And at this point you come out with the M3 and we're all going to be like, okay, what's the Pro and max. But I think that, so I think there's a marketing argument here,

but I think the truth is they were already at the same time. I think the truth is they were all going into production on this new three nanometer process and are all available now. And so they're going to launch them now. I, I do think it comes down to that, that they're ready now. And so they're going to launch them now.

And, and seriously, like I'm sure that they're deciding what products they go in based on the volumes that they can manage i think that the reason that it's a it's an imac and a low-end macbook pro and not a macbook air is that the macbook air sells a lot of volume although the low-end macbook pro maybe too but the way they've done it and we'll get to that may we'll move the volume around and won't be like the old 13-inch mac Pro, which was their second best-selling computer. So I think they chose these vessels carefully, in a way.

Like the iMac, it had gone a long time since an update, so why not? And then on the MacBook Pro side, clearly their strategy is to use all three. This is the first time that Apple has sold what we will call one computer that comes in different configurations using all three of the Apple Silicon chips. No computer has had that before. Interesting. But to do that and have that strategy, you kind of need to have all of them come out at once. you kind of need to have all of them come out at once. So I think it worked out this way, and it probably has something to do with chip production,

that they were all available now, rather than them sort of like, finally we got the M3 off the assembly line, we can get to the M3 Pro. I don't think that was how it worked this time. Yeah. I will say I personally, I like this strategy of doing it in one go rather than the way they've done it previously

where it's like, here's the M3 and it's going to go in this. And then, you know, just from like our perspective of like just working out what the ramifications are for any of these product releases. I think it is, and it will be more helpful and interesting to see reviews and benchmarks of all of them at the same time, rather than like, we get the M3 and then we have to try and extrapolate what we think that might mean for the M3 Pro a little later on down the

line. I'm happy that we will see the entire line all in one go. I also just think from a product release standpoint, I think that there is just, it makes sense to do this this to have multiple products at once that are receiving these these chips i also really do like the idea that and there's i hope that we'll see more of this in the future way more flexibility for what chip can go inside of a machine right like that 14 inch macbook Pro is very versatile. It's the most versatile machine that Apple has shipped under Apple Silicon.

It can house all three, which when it comes down to it, are vastly different from each other from a power perspective. And this one machine has been designed and built to be able to fit from the lowest to the nearly highest end. I would love one day for there to be a laptop that will take all four. That would be cool. They do a MacBook Pro that could take an Ultra, but I don't know if they would ever do that. That would just be kind of fun. Do you think that this is likely to occur again in the future, that they would do it this way? I mean, I do hope so, but do you think it's possible?

Yeah, I think it's going to come down to production and details of production, but I think that this is the way I think they would prefer to do it, is do an unveiling of the new chip family. And we'll just have to see how that goes. It tells a better story, I think, from their perspective. It does, but again, if you're in a situation where you have the M4 and the M4 Pro and the M4 Macs are not going to be ready,

I think they're not going to stop and not introduce an M4 Mac, right? I think that they will still do it, but this feels like a better approach because it lets them tell the whole story at once. So these are three nanometer chips. There was a lot of question. We were getting quite a lot of follow up and people writing in to us because we were assuming

it was going to be three nanometers where they were saying, oh, but it'll be based on the previous, the A16 chip, not the A17 chip. Well, haha, it was three nanometers. Yeah. Here's what you need to know is the a series is on an annual cycle and the m series is on an 18 month cycle and we're in number three so your choice is either to go back a year or or you have now synced up again to the fourth chip and so i think that's exactly what we've gotten is m1 was m a14 m2 was a15, M3 is A17, A16, forget about it.

To me, it just seemed pretty simple. The fact that they said the words 3 nanometer when they introduced the iPhone, to me just said that was what it was going to be for the Mac. Yeah. It wasn't necessary to talk about 3 nanometers with the iPhone. Like, it kind of just wasn't. And I feel like you wouldn't, I wouldn't, if I was them,

want to talk about that so specifically and then can't put it in my computers. It's also just boasting. I mean, and it's bragging, right? They said we're the first three nanometer chip in a phone and now it's we're first three nanometer chip in a computer. They get to brag about that because they've got their deal with TSMC and they feel like they are out on the cutting edge of chip design for these devices. And you know, you got to brag about that. That's good. That's good marketing. So the three nanometer process allows for them to get more speed increases. I'm really intrigued about how this continues over time because they keep making these chips faster, but like,

is that something you can keep doing forever? I wonder when they're going to start to hit some walls of that, but they haven't this time. So I'm going to give you some info here. Apple is saying that the efficiency cores on the M3 family of chips is 50% faster than the M1 and 30% faster than the M2.

The performance cores are 30% faster than the M1 and 15% faster than the M2. The performance cores are 30% faster than the M1 and 15% faster than the M2. And the neural engine is 60% faster than the M1 and 15% faster than the M2. And as you put in your article, the proof will come in the testing, not the press releases. Those are stats from the press release. But but basically that doesn't really tell you too much about what it's going to do for your workload or your use case just to say that like the capability is there in these machines to be faster right i think a 15 increment over generation is pretty reasonable and that seems to be what they've gone here this is um and they're comparing it to m1 which adds some confusion but at the same time

because it's like right as somebody chronicling sort of like what change in the apple chips you want to detail it based on um like the last generation but the truth is that in terms of upgrades people are coming more likely coming from m1 and intel. And so you want to do those comparisons, but it also makes bigger numbers, which makes Apple feel better. Whereas we are all kind of focused on M2 just because that tells a different, not for the purpose of upgraders of products, but for the purpose of kind of telling the story of how this chip family progresses over the previous one. So we'll, we'll have to see,

remember, these are all up to whatever percent faster. And what is that, you know, up to means it's from what zero or slower to faster, like it, and it will entirely depend on seeing these in, in,

you know, real context and not in apples. The apples, I've said this before, I'll say it again. Apple's performance marketing is based on real numbers. In fact, the performance marketing is people I know who used to work in Macworld. They're in that group. They're real numbers, but it is marketing. And so they're going to pick the good numbers, but they're not fake numbers. They're real numbers.

It's just that you're taking their word for it and they're selling you something. So you can't take their word for it. We have to check. something so you can't take their word for it we have to check and so we will as a community of testing people will get the numbers i think from a presentation perspective i agree that it is best for apple to talk about the m1 and intel like i don't think it is that helpful for them when marketing the product is to compare it to last year for the mac because yeah, I'd say when you're talking about chips, I care more about last year. Of course, we do. Right. Well, yeah, but I'm saying regular consumers don't care about chips, right? When you're marketing the product, your product claims compared to older

models is a stronger argument. But when you're just talking about the chips, I don't accept the argument that, well, regular people, because when you're just talking about the chips i i don't accept the argument that like well regular people because regular people don't care about the chips no and it's good that we get if they give us information we get the information but i i think that from a marketing perspective it would be confusing if they gave two different sets of speed increases during the same presentation right like if they want to compare the macbook pro to the m1 macbook pro that's going to be one set of statistics and if they compare the m Pro to the M1 MacBook Pro, that's going to be one set of statistics. And if they compare the M3 to the M2, it's another set of statistics.

And I think it's a little bit much. But they give us the information for as much as they're going to give it, right? Like we have the numbers, but now it's about actually putting them to the test. And what they've chosen to do with the chips is put them in the context of M1 and M2. So it's the March of Apple Silicon progression. In the individual product areas, they talk about Intel. Yeah. Because there you've got a bunch of upgraders coming from Intel.

And so the Intel numbers are relevant there. They didn't do that in the chip area because that's not the story they're telling. They're really just telling about the Apple Silicon chips getting faster. They leave the Intel comparisons to the individual product categories. So the GPU also got a bunch of time. They've put more features into Apple's graphics processing pipeline. So they now have hardware accelerated mesh and ray tracing. So mesh shading and ray tracing. Both of which are in the iPhone Pro chip.

So we expected it here this is like an expectation that they were going to do this but they also introduced something called dynamic caching my simplified way of explaining this is it's all about how memory is being allocated to the gpu from the system yeah you're simplifying something that i simplified from somebody who's very smart who told me about this that i'm not supposed to talk about because it's all on background but somebody very smart who told me about this that I'm not supposed to talk about because it's all on background. But somebody very smart who might work at Apple explained to me a little bit more about this. Anyway, so let me try to explain it again. Please.

come up with to try and get explain why they're getting more gpu bandwidth uh than just what you'd expect from the the the chip speed improvements themselves uh how do you get a a real improvement in gpu performance and efficiency um and um you know you have to be really motivated since this is something that no you know according to apple anyway i mean no chip designers have done this before like this is a this is they they they came up with this approach because they're really trying to wring as much performance out of their gpus as possible so the way it was explained to me is so, and again, it's simplifying, but there are threads that are being used by the GPU to do tasks. And there are a few ways that you can set up how much memory essentially you want to

use for a particular thread of a task. And there are a couple approaches you can take. So think about it that way. Think about you're doing a game or whatever, but you've got lots and lots and lots and lots of threads and you're pumping them into a GPU. The way traditionally it's done is generally you either look at what the peak amount that you're going to need of memory that you're going to need for this thread is, and you allocate that much memory to it because you don't want to run out of memory. Or alternately, you're it, you're like careful about

the memory you use, and you set it to a specific amount, but you know that if you use it all, it is going to create a bottleneck where you've used it all. And so everything's going to sort of like back up and slow down because you can't allocate more memory to that thread. The thread has to wait. That's the general idea. And if you think about it that way, and they did their little graphic with the peak, there's inefficiency. On one side, on the kind of bottleneck side, you get a bottleneck. That's not great. But on the other side, you have memory reserved for this one thread all the time that's only used at the peak moment and then it goes down from there and that memory is sort of sitting there allocated but unused and if you think about a gpu and about

the whole pool of memory that the that the system has on a mac and you're doing a really intensive task one way you could be more efficient is to reclaim that space that's not being used by that thread when it's not at peak and similarly if you've got a thread that's bottlenecked one way to make it move better would be to give it more memory but it's bottlenecked so what they do is this thing which they're calling dynamic caching where essentially the system is looking at the threads and is dynamically adjusting how much memory is allocated to them so that in a bottleneck situation, the bottleneck can be opened and that in a situation where memory is being allocated for peak, when it's not at peak, they can take that memory back and give it to something else. And so if you can imagine a bunch of threads

hitting the GPU and, you know, they're all jostling, they all need memory and you've run out of memory. Well, if a lot of them aren't at peak right now, you actually do have memory. If you can dynamically reassign that memory to a different thread, that is the super simplified, reassign that memory to a different thread. That is the super simplified, don't ask me any questions version of what this is. So it's an idea where Apple's chip designers have worked really hard to squeeze out this extra memory performance

in order to make the GPU performance greater. And they're real proud of it. And again, the impression I got is you wouldn't do this unless you were extremely motivated to increase the efficiency of your GPU. And Apple is extremely motivated to do so. So it's an interesting idea. So with all of that, the base chip still just supports one monitor. I don't know if these things are related, but it is i know something that a lot of people no i mean they're not related at all let me let me close the loop on the gpu thing and just say

that the um the the the big point here is that this is not an api this is all like at the system level uh developers of software don't change anything it just happens so it's transparent which is great uh which is why in the end it's going going to come out as being GPU speed or efficiency, right? That's how you're going to see it. You're not going to see it as like, ha-ha, we did this thing. It's going to be like, oh, it is faster. It is more frames per second, things like that. Okay.

M3. So you said it. One external monitor only, just like the M1 and the M2. And this is a story that now goes beyond the M3 base model. Apple is, with this line, doing some really clear product differentiation. Like the M3, the M3 Pro, and the M3 Max are all getting even more distinct from one another. I think it's most interesting in the M3 Pro. distinct from one another i think it's most interesting in the m3 pro but the m3 um so intel has given everybody the idea that low-end systems should support multiple external monitors

because intel built their chips that way now intel built their chips that way probably because they wanted them to be sold to as many different companies for building into products as possible and so they wanted the flexibility there apple has decided and it is a decision apple has decided that their low-end chips don't in order to save basically on the on money but also to differentiate them from the other chips that it's going to have limited capabilities for video and it's essentially only going it's going to have limited capabilities for video, and it's essentially only going to be able to do two streams of video, which means that on a Mac Mini, you can run two displays,

but on an iMac and presumably a MacBook Air, you can only run one external display because they've got an internal display that is wired in. It's a decision that they made. I definitely... So here's the hard thing. I think they should support two external displays on an M3.

I think they should, but they don't. I think they should, at the very least, they should engineer it so that if you're on a laptop in lid closed, it can run two external displays, right?

Like I get not three, right? Not the idea that you have your laptop display and two external displays. But when the laptop screen is off or the lid is closed, it sure would be nice if they had built that in. And they didn't, again. So if you want a MacBook Air, but you want to run two external displays, you can't do it. And I feel for you, but at the same time, I understand what Apple is doing here. Apple is doing market segmentation. Apple is saying if you are a sophisticated enough user to require two external displays attached to your laptop, you should buy a pro chip.

Yep. That's it. That's what they're saying. Like, we're not going to make it easy for you to buy a thousand dollar laptop and have two external displays because you are a sophisticated enough user that you should be giving us more money that's what they're saying i again i don't i don't hate that i understand it that's business what i hate is that they've made it so that even if the laptop is closed it can't drive two that seems silly um and it's even sillier on the new which we'll get to in a little bit the new 14 14-inch MacBook Pro base model, which still has like an HDMI port on it, but can still only drive one external display, not two. It's a little bit silly. I wish they had done this maybe next time, but I wouldn't hold out too much hope because I feel like what Apple's doing here is, and we can say artificially, but like it's business.

This is it. Apple has decided to segment their products in this way. And I know that Intel is doing something different. But until Apple feels like, oh no, we're losing MacBook Air sales to Intel or Qualcomm based laptops because so many people want to do two external displays. That's never going to happen. I think they'll just keep doing it. I mean, this is one of the things where I think it would be nice if they did it for the people that want it,

but I do agree with, like, I feel like this is pretty niche for people that want this particular computer. Like, if you do want to do this that badly, there are many computers that you can buy or can be provided that will do it. And if it's that important for your work and your work is not providing it, then they need to change what they're providing you. You know what? Like, I feel like, why can't a MacBook Pro drive 15 displays?

Like, why not, right? I feel for somebody who just wants a MacBook Air but also has, you know, wants to run three displays. right i feel for somebody who just wants a macbook air but also has you know wants to run three displays but like david in our chat just said it's a serious choice of apples at this point three displays is pro feature and then a a smiley that's not smiling and i think the implication that david is making there is come on apple i would say if you're running three displays you're a pro user yes three displays is an uncommon a pro feature very very very uncommon use case yes and i know it's your use case so 100 of you personally are using it that way not want to buy the pro machine but this is kind of just the way it rolls but look if if

apple knew that macbook airs were not being sold because everybody wants to hook them up to two external displays. They would have changed it. But it's just not true. It's just not true. And it is like saying, well, I want more ports. I want the newest Thunderbolt. I want the – they're artificially withholding the HDR, that XDR screen from the MacBook Air.

It's like they're not artificially withholding it. It costs a lot of money. That MacBook Air has a very specific price point. And if you want the nicer thing, you've got to pay more money for it. That's business. So there's a business decision going on here. I think it's amplified by the fact that Intel made everybody believe that that was a table stakes feature. And so it was in Apple's laptops when they were on Intel.

Apple clearly doesn't think it is and is saving. I will also say this. Apple is saving money in the design of the low end chip by not having it be capable of more external displays. It's saving money. It is cutting corners there because that is, and I know it's not fun to hear this, the budget chip. That's what it is. It's a budget chip. I know it's Apple, so budget is bigger than it would be for other computer makers, but still, it is their low-end model, and it's differentiated in that way.

Like I said, I still think they should at the very least support two displays in lid closed mode. I don't think that's too weird, but I understand it. I think in lid closed mode, for sure. I agree with that i think that that just makes logical sense to me that because it's like complicated because people in the discord now are saying like oh i think this chip does this issue with that no it's actually very complicated like m3 supports one external display that means two total displays m3 pro

is two external displays in some resolutions and one external display in other resolutions, but that can mean a total of three total displays. The M3 Max can support four external displays. And then again, a bunch of different caveats for if different resolutions would be different amounts, but that means the M3 Max can support a total of five displays

because you include the internal display because you can have the laptop open. Very confusing, but would be better if that M3 could do two always. Right, they always could be open or closed, all of them, right? And that either grants you

the ability to use it open or to use it closed and have a display take its place. That would be good if they did that. So I get people saying, well, but I wish that the thing that I bought for less did more. I get it. And I totally do get it. But the fact is that also I have to say,

this is Apple segmenting their market. And there's talk in our Discord now about like, oh, in corporate life, two mediocre displays is a very common thing. And it's like, okay, two mediocre displays hooked up to a Mac is a very common thing. Well, if that's true, I think in corporate life, I think what Apple would probably say is, hey, corporation, if that's your setup, you need to give us more money. If that's the way you're doing it, give us more money, right? Because in the end, that's what they're saying is, what people are saying is, I wish they made this thing more capable than it is. And I get your wish, but I'm also trying to understand what Apple's doing here, which is saying, no, pay us, right? Look, we about like rounding up and then going up higher

with apple stuff like apple makes a lot of money and it has huge profit margins and this is one of the reasons why is they are not gonna they're gonna differentiate their products and the cheapest product is not going to be the most capable it's just not i want to run through some stats, some statistics for you, if you don't mind, about the different chips. All right, so the M3 still has an 8-core CPU, which is the same as the M2. It has 4 performance, 4 efficiency. This is the same.

Maximum of 10 GPU cores and a maximum of 24 gigabytes of RAM. The M3 Pro still has a 12-core CPU, but it is now 6 performance, 6 efficiency, shifting from 8 and 4 in the M2. Right. Has a maximum of 18 GPU cores, which is down 1. 1, yeah. And a maximum of 36 gigabytes of RAM RAM up from 32 gigabytes of RAM.

And I've been seeing a lot of people very upset about that number 36. It doesn't make sense to them, which is interesting. The M3 Max has a 16 core CPU. That is 12 performance for efficiency up from eight and four. The maximum GPU spec is 40 cores, up from 38. The maximum RAM is 128 gigabytes, up from 96 gigabytes. It's just a bunch of numbers.

Thank you for the numbers. No problem. It's more effective in a chart, but this is a podcast, and so you get a verbal chart. It's a verbal chart. You've got to draw it in your brain. it is um so here's what's going on so m3 low end didn't change it right it's like on the new architecture but pretty much the same idea for performance for efficiency now we should we should note and apple has talked about this it's true apple's efficiency cores are pretty

fast right like the idea here is that is that you're doing your day-to-day life you may never even need the performance cores until you really tax your computer. And the efficiency cores are super power efficient. So they're the ones that give you the great battery life. But it's a very familiar setup. It's pretty much the M2, like we talked about the displays and all of that, right? Like, they made the decision to really not do a lot to the base model, they're kind of keeping it where it is just on this new, you know, three nanometer process. And it's the new cores and it's the new neural engine. And it's faster in all those ways, right?

According to Apple. But it's not a rethink of what an M3 should be. It is what we know. The Max is, to jump up to the Max, the Max is really interesting because they are putting their, I would say, foot to the floor on the high end. They're like, no, no, no, here we go. Eight efficiency, eight performance cores. How about 12? That's what they did. The same number of efficiencies, four, but they went from eight to 12. So huge CPU boost there. This is why it's going to be so much faster than an M1 Max,

right? Like it is my poor little M1 Max in my Mac studio. They increased the GPU cores a little bit, they increased the max RAM, which is going to make a lot of people happy to go 128. They did a bunch of stuff. And as we know, the GPU cores are also they should all be a lot faster. And so that's going to be a big boost. Now also keep in mind, that's the maximum of the max chip. You have to pay a lot of money to get up there. There are going to be other configurations with fewer cores on GPU and CPU. And of course, you have to pay a lot of money for that much RAM. That's Apple.

But the edges of high performance are there, and they're further out than they used to be. Especially those 12 performance cores. That's going to be, especially those 12 performance scores. That's going to be like a CPU monster. Okay. This leaves us with the Pro Chip. And I think, and I knew, we've learned a little bit more since my briefing. Because my briefing, you know, I get what Apple gives me, but I don't get anything else. I don't have the website.

I'm not digging through all the details. I have the press release and I have what they told me. else i have the website i'm not digging through all the details i have the press release and i have what they told me um but even with that i started to have an inkling while i was talking to them that something's going on with the m3 pro like the m3 pro used to feel like a baby like a baby brother of the m3 or the m2 pro and the m1 pro felt like they were like lesser Maxes, right? And this feels like it is detached entirely from the Max and is drifting toward the M3 in the sense that I think Apple is doing some more, they're more confident with Apple Silicon, they're doing more chip differentiation.

And the M3 Max and the way they position it in their marketing and you if you pay attention to that event you saw it it's like the m3 max is for the highest most demanding professional user and they they're coming up with like new ways of describing the kind of work that goes into it medical imaging and all this stuff and they're like when when you speak here apple speak in the context of the M3 Max, they are talking about the most demanding users. I think they're doing that for a reason, which is that they have put their foot to the floor in terms of performance, but that's going to be a really expensive chip. And they anticipate that most people are going to use the pro chip or the base chip. But like,

those are the ones that are going to get used is the or or the base chip but like those are the ones that are going to get used is the pro and the and the base chip not the max and so what have they done with the pro it feels to me like what they've done with the pro is make it more affordable or more profitable or some combination thereof it feels feels like it's not, you know, the foot is not on the floor with the pro. The pro is sort of like, it's not even hanging where it was. It's sort of like drifting back a little bit away from the max toward the M3. And the best example of this is it only has six performance cores instead of eight, which means that although I'm sure it will be faster than the M2 Pro, going down to trading two performance cores for two efficiency cores, all else being equal, it would be a slower chip i'm sure it's gonna not be because of it because it's m3 but like that's a move that they made and that that is a move to make it more efficient and less performative bottom line than an m you know than a theoretical m3 pro that had eight and four um the gpu core is a weird one right 1918 whatever 19, 18, whatever. Max RAM is up. That's good.

The memory bandwidth is down, which is really interesting. Also, by the way, the max 36 gigs of RAM is divisible by three. Apparently there are three RAM banks instead of two. So it's 12, 12, 12. And we're used to having two, but now it's three. So your math changes. Anyway, I am fascinated by the M3 Pro because it feels to me like what Apple is doing is like trying to position it in a way where they've got a powerful chip that's going to appeal to most pros, except those on the highest end. And in doing so, they've like changed the mixture a little bit to make it more, so it can hit a price point and and you can say is that

to make it cheaper or is that to make apple have a bigger profit margin my guess is it's a little of both which is why i would say to hit a price point that they think this is also probably uh this one is going to ship in way more volume than the max and so it's uh there's probably something about that too that like this is a thing they can make in volume maybe than the max. And so it's, uh, there's probably something about that too, that like, this is a thing they can make in volume maybe in the max is a little more special and specialized and, and, and expensive. So I just think it's fascinating. I don't think it's necessarily fundamentally good or bad, but you know, now before I, I used to think of that Apple had a low end chip and some different flavors of highend chip. And now I think Apple has a low chip,

a mid-range chip, and a high-end chip. And that is because the pro chip is not, to me, it doesn't feel like it did before. And I wonder if this goes back to what we were talking about a minute ago with the external displays, which is like, we can cast our eye on these things as much as we like and try and

understand what they are what they're who they're meant for what they do what the decisions are apple does have way more data and information than we could ever yes imagine yes they know this may be that like we want to create the chip that most people buying this product maybe right are going to buy and we think that it should be more balanced that like they're like most people buying this product maybe right are going to buy and we think that it should be more balanced that like they're like most people are doing most of their work on the macbook pro which i reckon is the case on the pro chips right like you're saying they are using the efficiency cores for like 90 of their work so let's have more of those to more evenly balance the load. I would come at this as also as a different level,

which is they know what people are buying. Yeah. And they look at this and they think, okay, think of it this way. Let's say, and I'm just making this up, but let's say that the M2 pro chip costs,

um, 10 quad lose. And the M2 max chip costs 15 quad loos to manufacture. And they look at, and they say, Oh my God, everybody buys the M2 pro chip, but we have these customers who desperately want maximum performance and we have to have a high end chip for them. And it's the basis of the ultra, which is in our Mac Pro. And we have to have the high-end chip for them. So we can't skimp on our high-end chip. But most people don't want the high-end chip. They want this Pro. And then you end up with a decision that looks like

is what they made here, which is, okay, here's what we're going to do. The M3 Max is going to cost 20 quad loos. And the M3 Pro, we're going to keep it 10, or we're going to make it 8 or 7. And then we're going to keep our prices the same, and we're going to make more money on those. But whatever it is, sorry, it's quad loos. It's a Star Trek thing. Anyway.

I will say, you know how we were kind of poking fun at me earlier for the amount of numbers that I said? Yeah. You made that so much more complicated for me by not using, by instead of just saying dollars. Well, but it doesn't cost $10. numbers that i said yeah you made that so much more complicated for me i just didn't buy instead of just saying dollars well but it doesn't ten dollars it doesn't cost yeah but it also isn't ten dollars jason i can confirm it is you don't know the quad looted dollar exchange rate mike fight yeah but okay so this is my this is my point is apple's in a position where i think

they analyze the sales of the of their products in the in the early in these days of apple silicon and say uh this is what we need to do we need to take the max chip and make it continue to make it super awesome and it's going to be expensive but the people who want it are going to pay for it yeah but this pro chip right like it's very popular but they don't really need all the stuff that's in the max so we gotta let's back it off a little bit because that will allow us to either hold the prices the same or, you know, or whatever, maintain our margins, make more of them, whatever it is. And that seems to be what's going on here. I just think it's really interesting because like I said, my impression of the first couple of generations was more that the pro was just sort of a lesser max. And that is not what's happening now. Like the pro is, is, is a mid range chip that I think is powerful enough for most pros to be very happy with it. And the max is becoming, um, like you gotta be the most, like they said, the most demanding users will pay up and get the max. And then you're buying, then you're not buying a $2,000 laptop, right? Then you're buying a $4,000 laptop. And that's the difference. It's we, we say that these they're all the same. But the truth is, the $2,000 laptop is a pro chip. When you get to the

max chip, you are now a $3,000 or $4,000 laptop. It's a very different proposition that the people for whom it's worth spending that extra money, they'll do it. But a lot of people, most people, will be like, you know, that Pro Chip is just fine. And in a laptop, like you said, more efficiency cores, very powerful, but also perhaps will not burn through the battery as much. Some real-time follow-up. Apple has now made public, again,

the behind-the-scenes shot on iPhone video. So that will be in the show notes. I will also now just note, if you are one of the helpful listeners who have sent this to us between the beginning and this part of the episode, I would like to say thank you.

And now you know why I didn't say thank you to you when you sent it to me. Ah. Because I'm just convinced that people will be sending it to us having heard the first part of the show, right?

And then we get to this part, but now they know that we know. And I've got it in my Watch Later queue on YouTube now. I'm looking forward to watching it later on. This episode is brought to you by Delete Me. Everyone wants to keep their personal information private, right? It's actually personal private information. You want to keep it that way. That's why it can be uncomfortable to think about the fact that data brokers who make their

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be removed from it was like an online database that was public that i wanted to stay in and i just spoke to one of the team at delete me. Like, yep, no problem. We can reverse that. Very great, very simple experience. And I'm sure going to make a huge difference in my online privacy and also how I feel about that. You can get 20% off your Delete Me plan when you go to joindeleteme.com slash upgrade20 and use the code upgrade20.

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that go inside them. I know now that we've done the chips, we can now do, this is very Apple, right? It's like, hey, chips, chips, chips. We structure it this way. Same as them. It makes sense.

So we did get the same year revision of the 14 and 16 inch macbook pro right they were revised to the m2 in january and then in october here's the m3 versions so they're late i mean more and more now it's very clear because we thought that at the time that they were late they were supposed to be in the fall and they didn't come until january january an unusual time for apple to release products by the way uh well here we are they they seem to be on an annual schedule yeah the m1s were in october right like we spoke about this in last on i think on the draft or maybe in last week's episode like the original m1 were in october and then this was january and then we're back to october again which would suggest that ideally next october will be the next time hey maybe they'll do it in january jason you know well

it's if they have got an m4 but in this case they didn't get that i think clearly the m2 pro chip wasn't ready until january and now here we are with the m3 pro chip so that that generation got laggy at the very least so here we are they in the same calendar year, and they are largely the same, right? Like there are some changes with the one particular thing that we're going to talk about, about the low-end model. But they are basically, they already redesigned them, that display, the curved edges, the whole thing. They are what you think they are with a new chip in them and as apple said they have a new color for pros that is unmistakably pro and they're starting to show it off and i'm like oh it'll be like the titanium color right because that's what makes

it like unmistakably pro because we just did all of this right with the iphone no it's space black space black space black a quote from jason snell six colors.com a new color that features a new anodization seal process designed to reduce the visibility of fingerprints i got my greasy monkey paws on a space black laptop and can report the apples as good as its word in the sense that it seems generally more resistant to fingerprints than other smudges. But I don't want to exaggerate this feature. You can still see fingerprints.

They just aren't as prominent. This is a progressive improvement over something like a Midnight M2 MacBook Air, but it's not a cure-all. And space black is not actually as black as space. It's dark gray. Yeah, so a lot of asterisks here. I'll point out, by the way,

it wasn't just my greasy monkey puzzle, just a little behind the scenes thing. Uh, I was with Joanna Stern from the wall street journal and she and I both podded as much as we could. And it's, you know, I'd love to say, oh, I pod that thing. And you couldn't see the fingerprints. You could see fingerprints on it. They were less visible and it was harder to leave them. My understanding is that they've done something chemical in the sealing process of the anodization that is creating something that is more repellent to liquids, including oil. And the idea there is it's harder for things to stick, which means it's probably also easier for you to wipe it off. But do not, again, I just have to say it. And Apple's not claiming that it doesn't do fingerprints. Apple is claiming it is more resistant to fingerprints.

It's a little bit like how Apple gradually made iPhone and iPad screens more glare resistant over time, right? It's not like you can hold it with the sun behind you and not have a glare. There's still a glare there. It's just less than it was. That is what is going on here. It's less fingerprinty. I love that they're trying this, and I think it will be less fingerprinty, but it's still, just don't get your hopes up.

What I'm really saying is when they come out next week and there's that story that's like, gasp, I can see fingerprints. Of course you can see fingerprints. That's not the point. The point is they tried to make some chemical changes to the anodization process to reduce fingerprints. And I think they have reduced it, but they're still there. And then as for the color, and I know it's upgrade, we love talking about color here. I saw so many people excited last night when this event came out saying, oh, black MacBook, black book. Yeah, it's very exciting. I love it.

We're going to get it. And you know what? You do you. But as somebody who has seen it in person, let me tell you, it's just dark gray. It's not black. It's not like the Midnight MacBook Air is the closest thing to a black laptop Apple has made in years. This is not that close. has made in years.

This is not that close. It is darker than space gray on the last generation or the low-end laptops. It's darker than that one, but it's still just dark metallic gray. It's not black. I feel like, I genuinely feel like looking at the images

on Apple's website, it doesn't look black anyway. So you can tell me if it looks like this, but I feel like if you just look, you can see it's dark gray like it's it seems pretty obvious to me yeah i just you know again space black sends the message that it's black and i think people got a little too excited about it and i just want to put that warning out there if you're expecting this to be a black laptop it's not it is just a darker space gray, essentially. It is space grayer.

And that's okay, especially if you like your laptop the darker, the better. And what could be more pro than darker gray? I guess that says it all about Apple and color. But here we are. So just be aware. Be aware. And if you want the darkest laptop possible, buy the MacBook Air in midnight, because it's still the darkest laptop possible buy the macbook air uh in midnight because it's still the darkest laptop apple makes but it more fingerprinty though for sure for sure i would just like to take this brief a brief aside here to just ask can we just put a moratorium on black book can we just stop that stop it can everyone just stop that just stop it that's all i want to say i don't like the way it sounds it's weird uh just stop it just stop it it's a black macbook that's what it is we don't

we don't need to do that that's my brief aside that's that we have a new 14 inch macbook pro that replaces the 13 inch macbook Pro. So the Touch Bar is gone by replacing that laptop completely. I wish I had one of those, you know, the New Year's like... to celebrate the death of the 13-inch with Touch Bar.

Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. You notice that that wasn't in the press release. I had to ask. I said, is the 13-inch gone? And they're like, yeah, it's gone it's gone it's gone gone so this now means that there is a 300 more expensive starting point yes for the macbook pro so yes this puts further distance between it and the macbook air and i do feel like there is a warrant in its price increase because it has everything that a 14-inch MacBook Pro has, right?

Well, let me just... It's like everything in quotes, right? It has the ports, it has the design, and it has... Alright, go on then. If you're going to keep doing that, just tell me why I'm wrong. Sorry. Well, yesterday I thought that it had everything

it doesn't have everything but it does have the most important feature of the macbook pro which is the screen yeah liquid rec not xdr pro motion display is amazing it's the best screen apple makes and you can get it for not two thousand dollars now for sixteen hundred dollars um it doesn't have all the ports because it's got an m3 chip and so it's missing a usb port um okay on the dan safer from the verge noticed this today on the other side so it only has the one side so it's eight gigs of ram which is not great but again you're just it is the cheapest they've made this thing with the great screen and all of that.

And because it's an M three only supports the one external display and it doesn't have that extra port on the left side. Right. So it, it, because, and this is same reason, right?

Which is the M three chip, like the M two and the M one have a limited number of lanes for Thunderbolt and USB and for display. And that's why it doesn't do the external displays. And it's why it's limited in the number of ports that it can have, just like the M1 and the M2. As a result, while it's still a 14-inch MacBook Pro, it is a big asterisk because it doesn't even have the same port configuration.

It's slightly different. That all said... I wouldn't call that a big asterisk. Okay, it's slightly different that all said i wouldn't call that a big asterisk like okay it's a little asterisk i mean but it's not one usbc port less when the ports change it's it's a little bit different but like again i just want to i want to disclaim all of that but i want to say i agree with you it is is a real MacBook Pro because it's got the most important stuff. Yes. Especially the screen. Because that would have been...

And MagSafe. And MagSafe. Yes, and MagSafe. Which that 13-inch MacBook Pro also didn't have. And not a touch bar, which is a very important feature, I think, for a lot of people. Because if you would have told me that they were going to do this, I would have assumed they would have changed the screen. Right? That it would not have had the

pro motion liquid retina that was our that was our shower thought right was that it would be a 13 inch with a with a cheap screen but it would look more like the 14 inch and they look very clearly uh first off the 14 inch macbook pro has been out for a couple of years now um for three years now so um it's come down in terms of the price that Apple, the cost of manufacture has come down. So that lets Apple lower the price a little bit. And then they put the cheaper chip in it. And like they made the decision

that they could bring it down to $1599, but what they weren't going to do is pull out the screen. And I think that's the right decision. So it doesn't have a lot of RAM. It's missing a port. It's got the lesser chip in it. But you know what?

It's a MacBook Pro with an M3 chip, which will still be pretty fast for a lot of people at a much lower starting price. And it has that screen that is amazing. And I love this move on their part. Because first off, it's access to the modern MacBook Pro for under $2,000. So it's $1599 you can get into a modern MacBook Pro. Up to now, it's been $2,000 to get into that. So that's great. You mentioned it's $300 more expensive than that 13-inch that they took off the line.

If I had to theorize about this, and I do, I have a podcast. That's what we do. I think Apple doesn't expect all of those 13-inch MacBook Pro buyers or doesn't want all those 13-inch MacBook Pro buyers to buy the 14-inch. I think they would like as many of them as possible to buy the 14 inch, right? Because I think that that's the, that's a more expensive product. More money goes to Apple. It's great. But I, if I, I had to guess, I would say they expect to maybe have that. Keep in mind, second best selling Apple laptop after the 13 inch MacBook Air.

Where do all those people go? I think a bunch of them go to the 14 inch at $1599, which while it is lesser in so many ways that we've detailed, is such a better computer than that 13-inch was. Plus it's $300 in Apple's pocket. And the rest of them, I think they hope they go to the 15 and the 13-inch Airs, especially that 15. And if they can sell some people on like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you just get the MacBook Air. I think they would be very happy with that because I think the truth is that most of the people who are buying that 13-inch MacBook Pro would have been much better off with a MacBook Air. But we'll see because sometimes Apple makes these decisions and it turns out that they don't know the market and the market really resists them and they might still have a problem here.

But they must feel like going up to 2000 was was a bridge too far which is why they had that cheaper macbook pro they must feel like 1599 is not too far and if they lose some people they've now got not just the 13 but that 15 inch air which i think is a very appealing computer And it's got a pretty good price too. So there's lots of choices now. You can get the 15 Air, you can get the 14 Pro, you can get the 13 Air.

There's a lot of stuff going on there for people to choose, but they're all good. And we'll just see, we'll have to see how it works. So even though this is very limited, and I think there are a lot of nerds who are like MacBook Pro snobs

who are going to be like, this is not, it's like, yeah are a lot of nerds who are like MacBook Pro snobs who are going to be like, this is not. It's like, yeah, I know. I know it's not a MacBook Pro in certain ways, but the old one wasn't either. This one's MacBook Pro in way more ways than the old one was while still being under $2,000. So I think it's a great move on their part, even though it does mean that there's basically a decontented 14-inch MacBook Pro that's available. Don't worry, MacBook Pro snobs. They still make all of your computers, too.

They're all still available up for $2,000 and more. And obviously, tech podcasters, we love nothing more than an apple tech podcast especially we learn nothing more than like what we consider to be a product lineup that makes sense clean oh yes the aesthetics of a product lineup i don't believe in the four quadrant idea like i think that that idea has long since passed was good for them but not for now i just like there to be i can look at a product page and i can see all the products and they make sense to me and when i look at the like all macbook all mac like compare all max page or whatever right and i see all the laptops like yeah this makes sense to me that we have a 13 inch mac MacBook Air and we have a 15-inch MacBook Air

and we have a 14-inch MacBook Pro and we have a 16-inch MacBook Pro and you can configure them within themselves. But those four laptops, it makes sense. And the old MacBook Pro just made no sense. Made no sense. It was from another era. Yes.

One other note that I wanted to mention is color, because the low-end MacBook Pro 14, the M3 MacBook Pro 14, doesn't come in space black. Gasp! It comes in silver and the old space gray. I guess they had some old space gray laying around. And if you want a pro, the most pro color, you gotta, you gotta spend two grand.

So basically it's like you're a fake pro, right? It's the, yeah, it's the mark of shame. Yeah. You're a fake pro. You just get it in silver because then,

then nobody needs to know you're a fake pro. But if you get in space gray, you're letting your, your, your talent on yourself, I guess, or something. I don't know.

Also that 14 inch MacBook pro as pointed out by friend of the show, Dan Seafoot, I saw this on Mastodon, it starts at $1,600. It comes with eight gigabytes of RAM. That is bad. That is bad. That is just bad. I think the iMac is the same.

Like, stop doing that. I, you know, I would love to see more. At the same time, I think there's an argument to be made that it's, well, okay, it's two things going on. There's an argument to be made that we all overvalue RAM for a lot of regular normal people who don't care and it's fine. It's just a lot of money to spend on a computer with those specs. I agree. specs i agree i think that the what i would say is this is a case where apple we apple's having us talk about 1600 and the truth is 1599 whatever um they know that

you know i i think the argument is let me see if i can phrase this right the people who are just buying the base model probably don't care about the eight gigs of ram and the people who are just buying the base model probably don't care about the 8 gigs of RAM. And the people who do care will give Apple more money. I think Apple likes the way that works, right? Which is like, ah, this price gets them in the door. Oh, MacBook Pro for $1599. Tell me more. And they say, oh, it's 8 gigs of RAM.

And some percentage of buyers will be like, great, whatever. And they'll buy it. And they'll probably be fine with it, honestly, because somebody who says great, whatever, probably doesn't really need more RAM. Honestly, do you really need more RAM? Some people do, but lots of people don't. And the people who do care will give Apple more money at a great profit margin for Apple to upgrade the RAM.

And now they're not buying a $1,600 computer anymore. Like the goal of that base is to just make that price as low as they as they feel like they can and that's why it's a sad amount of ram but i i do think that computer nerds over estimate regular people's use of their computers so but i feel for all the corporate uh people who will get the 1599 macbook pro given to them and they'll and they'll struggle with the eight gigs of ram and they'll be sad i i do feel for them yeah yeah i know up to 22 hours of battery life which is that's the same as the six same as the 16 but uh now it's also in the 14 that's the key 14 now too yeah because when i saw that stat and

the keynote it didn't surprise me but then when i looked it up afterwards was surprised that the base 14 of m3 also gets 22 hours of battery life which i think is like the perfect feature for that laptop because what they're saying is it's like on video and this is like going back to like who bought who buys that laptop and i think it's like a lot of people that they want to buy the pro laptop so they get the cheapest pro laptop and they're just using it for their like life right they're not using it to make videos and they're not using it to make music they're like it's their laptop so they're watching their tv shows on it and

they're doing their web browsing which is like a perfectly acceptable use of this computer. And now you get 22 hours of battery life to do it. You can use it for longer than you can stay awake, which is just kind of awesome. The stat, oh, first of all, also the M3 chip has support for that, was it the EV1? The video codec that's on like, it's the NOT H.264.

That makes a difference in battery life because they do a lot of battery life it's like video streaming av1 thank you joe steel uh in the it right like one of the reasons that they can have long battery life for a lot of stuff is that the chips are like not you're not using software the hardware is doing the decoding of video formats and that was a video format that they had to software decode and now they don't and so if if you've got like netflix movies and stuff uh those all hardware decode now so you're going to actually get more battery life for stuff like that that's how you can end up with those long battery life things i always like it when apple decides to do something that actually benefits what people are doing rather than trying to get everybody to do the thing that they want them to

do you know right right i mean it's not their codec and they don't love it but they realize that people are streaming it so they built it into their chip so now that it benefits them the one of my favorite little bit of marketing in this whole thing is when they said that the battery life on the MacBook Pro compared, or let me say, the MacBook Pro compared to the last Intel MacBook Pro. Yeah. Okay? Yeah. They said it's got 11 hours more battery life and it's 11 times faster. And that made me laugh.

I thought that was pretty good. It's only 11. Also, life and it's 11 times faster and that made me laugh i thought that was 11 also i'll use this moment to say i know that there are a lot of people out there who are like come on why are they gonna compare it to intel i roll my eyes out a little bit too i i had the thought of like at some point you got to stop comparing it to intel but i will say, I get the impression that Apple is well aware that some of their products have very long buying cycles. And I know somebody who is only now going to upgrade to Apple Silicon from an Intel MacBook, MacBook Pro, right? Like I know somebody who's a friend of mine who's like that. I know people who have old Intel iMacs. Those buying cycles are often five years, six years, seven years. And so Apple, yes, it makes a big difference to compare it to an old Intel mac but i understand why they're doing it is they feel like there still is a big audience out there that they can speak to that says hey

you can really get a better computer if you upgrade and maybe now is the time hey it's 11 times faster with 11 hours more battery life maybe it's finally time to let go of that late model intel macbook there is a just an obscene amount of people in the discord right now talking about the intel macbook pros that they use so so there you go yeah improving oh my god i have multiple friends who have an intel everybody everybody's using intel macbook so this is this is my point is and this is like a a sub note to the whole idea of what do you compare it to and comparing like a review. Like I did my iPhone review and I wrote about how it was different from the 14 and the 13 and the 12, right?

Like, and the 11, not just from the 14 because regular people don't go in cycles like that. So while it is very beneficial to Apple to compare to old Intel processors. Jason, this isn't even regular people. This is listeners of this show. I know. All right. All right. But let's also keep in mind that listeners of this show are in an elite category compared

to the rest of the world. So it benefits Apple because they're comparing it to an old Intel processor, not a current Intel processor. But what they're speaking to is their install base and saying, please, you know, make the move to Apple Silicon. You need to get off of Intel. Get off of it now. And it's just, it's very easy for us to poo-poo it and be like,

Intel, come on, old news, comparing it to a computer from 2019. But that's what they're doing, is saying, we know we still have a lot of people using computers from the 2010s and they don't all switch every two years or three years. Sometimes it's four or five or six or seven. My family, we had an iMac for like seven years before we updated it. And it was like a 2011, 2010 iMac. And we had it for seven years right like that's all like again just perspective I guess like that's one of the reasons Apple's doing it

yes the numbers look great but there's also a message to be sent there saying hey if you're still hanging on to an Intel MacBook Pro you should know that the best one we ever made this is 11 times faster with essentially double the battery life. And that's why they do that. They're not just doing that to boast. They're doing that because they're trying to reach people who are at toward the end of the life of their Intel Mac, trying to induce them to make the move now.

And I wonder how many more versions of macOS will be made for intel i i still think it's going to happen for a few years i mean there's a lot there's a lot of them out there and they want to keep them on security and all of that i you know i i i think so but i think the new features will be very limited to you yep yeah uh one last thing on the mac pro that i thought was pretty cool is that they have increased the brightness of the display so a standard definition it matches that of the studio display and i just think that is at standard at standard dynamic range that's what it goes up to 600 nits now

it's in 480p i don't know if you call that jason But it's bright. It's bright. That's all that matters, Mike. So yeah, the idea here is you can't say that the screen is brighter because it's not brighter. Because it's this XDR display and it does high dynamic range and it peak brightness. It blows your eyes out and it's all great. But what they did do is most of the time you're not looking at HDR content. You're looking at standard dynamic range content and that can now get brighter by 30%. So it's actually, if you think about like you living life in standard dynamic range, these have brighter screens. Even though it's not technically true with HDR, most of us do not work in HDR. We work in SDR. And occasionally you open a photo and you're like,

whoa, or a movie. You're like, ah, it's so bright. Oh no. But most of the time not. So it's brighter and it matches the studio display's max brightness. So that's good. It's a good thing. Yeah, it's pretty cool.

I like that. I like that feature. It's just like a nice little detail. The iMac got an update. Yes, it's pretty cool. I like that. I like that feature. It's just like a nice little detail. The iMac got an update. Yes, the iMac. It did. Nothing really changed. It's the same iMac. Same everything. It's the same colors. Same colors.

Same stand. So those late rumors that we saw of some kind of stand change, that didn't happen. What it's done is moved to an m3 just the m3 yes just the m3 no other options no and in doing this it just gains a bunch of additional features so the maximum ram you can put in the machine has now been increased to 24 gigabytes it gets wi-fi 6e and bluetooth 5.3 these are just things that come along with the chipset, but the previous version didn't

have that. It is exactly what you might expect, which is it's the M1 iMac, but now it's an M3, which means, by the way, that all of Apple's comparisons to the M1 make sense on the iMac because there wasn't an M2 iMac. So they can just say it's twice as fast. mac so they can just say it's twice as fast plus they can say it's two and a half times as fast as the fastest 27 inch intel my mac and four times faster than the 21.5 fastest intel iMac so um and the same price and same everything else so again this is i think those intel iMac mentions like i said before, are good because there

are a lot of Intel iMacs still in use, right? And so they just want to make it clear these are way faster. And the M1 iMac was still good, right? Because the M1, we keep saying this, it's a good chip. It's a real good chip for regular people. It's really good. But it did need a refresh. It was time for the iMac to get some love and I'm glad

I got it but it already got its big redesign so there's nothing new here at all they didn't even they unless something comes out as we get them it seems like they didn't even tweak it like at all other than making the chip changes but that's fine it's basically nothing my feeling on the on the iMac I think skipping a chip cycle cycle is a good kind of product revision cycle for this product. It's fine. I think it's fine. My only disappointment here, you mentioned same stand. There were those rumors about a different stand attachment.

And I don't think this is true, and it's too bad. I had another shower thought, Mike. Good, good. It was not a shower thought. It was actually a jog. It was a running thought. I was running. And I had this thought, and I texted Good, good. It was not a shower thought. It was actually a jog. It was a running thought. I was running. Yeah.

And I had this thought, and I texted it to you while I was running. You sent me a very funny iMessage, which was talking about iMacs, I-M-A-X. I-M-A-X, right, because Apple doesn't recognize its own product name. Yeah. But I wanted to get it to you. And my thought was, the one change I wanted on the iMac that they didn't do was why don't they make the iMac like the studio display and sell it with the base foot stand or a VESA mount option or an adjustable stand like the studio display. And they didn't do that. And I think it's too bad because although

they would probably charge way too much for that adjustable stand wouldn't it be nice if the iMac at least could be sold with an adjustable stand like the pro display that would or shooter display that would be nice yeah but they didn't do it so much for that jogging thought running thought but I just think that this is a product that like kind of it kind of fits this I think it's yeah it's done it's i mean the truth is they they just redesigned it it's great that design is going to last a long time and they're going to just keep updating the chip every couple of years a couple three years it's fine it's good good computer if you need an all-in-one the best world's best selling all-in-one i don't know how many all-in-ones there are out

there but this is one and it's the best one. So, you know, and, and I saw somebody complaining like, well, Halloween, but there was not even an orange Mac. I'm like, yes, there was orange iMac. It's still there.

It's good looking. I'll get it. Uh, but what it didn't bring was USB-C accessories. We still, you get in the box, you get your lightning cable, your braided lightning cable for your lightning accessories.

Color matched for your color match lightning accessories. That is right now. Okay. They need to update them at some point there's no doubt about it they clearly didn't bother this time maybe they weren't ready maybe they're on a longer track maybe they got a bunch of them in the factory and they they need to sell them out before they replace them uh lots of answers here maybe they so complicated the the um the supply chain with all the color matched items for the iMac that they can't change the color of the iMac because they've got all these keyboards and mice and they got to keep moving them out until they run out of them I don't know um I'm gonna say this is another one of those

areas where uh tech podcastersters and people who listen to tech podcasts are more concerned with the neatness of Apple's product lineup than Apple is because Apple is not just concerned with aesthetics. Apple is concerned with money. I get the argument that we're getting rid of lightning everywhere. Why is it not not gone here i would like them to revise these products change where the mouse charges put usbc on them that all said these are not travel products that you take with you when you go on a trip and need to charge these are sitting on a table table somewhere products and so for me the you know the need for them to be updated off of lightning is it just feels so much less it's just it's like yeah they need to do it do i think they need to do it right now do i think it's embarrassing that they haven't done it yet i don't i mean like they need to do it they will do it at some point um i would have loved for them to do it now but again it does it kill me every day that i use a

trackpad that's attached by a lightning or charged by a lightning it does not it's fine right it's fine i would like the keyboard to get uh redesigned to have the inverted T, but they had a chance the last time and they didn't do it. So they may not care about that. You know, I would love a Touch ID trackpad. I don't think they're going to make one, but if they do, it's not now. And I would love them to change the charger on the mouse. But, you know, it's clearly not a priority for them. And I understand why is what I'm saying. In the end, they know they need to do it eventually, but I don't think that every day that goes by that there are lightning keyboards in iMac boxes, that it's an embarrassment to Apple or that it makes people's lives worse. I just don't. I think it's more that we all know that it's inevitable,

but Apple is, again, for complex reasons about the ability to redesign their accessories. We just got the late pencil, right? Like Apple is obviously having some issues with its accessory design. Having a pencil that works with your iPad and presumably having accessories that work with new iPads next year, probably a higher priority than the thing you use to charge a keyboard that needs charging once a month. Right. So I'm okay with it. A little disappointed, but like, I think we can, I think we could overreact to the existence of a lightning keyboard or trackpad. I think, I think it's going to, it's fine. The world has not shifted. It's fine. They will fix it eventually.

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with questions. So the answer is questions. And we have a lot of OSC upgrade today to get through about these products. The first question comes from Jeff.

Jeff says, it seems like there's a lot more configurations for the new MacBook Pros. Many different CPU and GPU configurations, a variety of memory options exclusive to each configuration. Do you think this is just a downside of how Apple is binning their chips, or is there a strategic approach or user need that you think they're trying to solve? It's very complicated. Like if you go,

so I'm on the page right now, right? To customize a 14-inch MacBook Pro, right? So I brought up that page. And I can do the M3 Pro with 12 CPU, 18 GPU, or I can do 14 and 30, or 16 and 40, right? So, but at the moment, the top one is selected 12 core CPU, 18 core GPU. So then I look down to memory, and there are six options for RAM,

but only two of them are available to me, right? And there are four options for storage, but only three of them are available to me. And as I change the different CPU options, it then changes the amount of RAM that I'm able to choose and the storage I'm able to choose. Like it is complicated now, way more than ever before, I think. Yeah, yeah. So the reason is twofold. It's in part that they are differentiating right the max and the pro so those configs are

going to be real different and then you know the other part of it i think is that apple like the ram is part of the chip right it's not a it's not a bTO where they pop a different SIM module in. It's on the chip. So I think they're making certain configs with certain RAM, I think is what they're doing. Yeah. It is more complex. It'll be interesting to see how they do it over time. I don't know where the binning fits in and whether they are binning. If it's just binning that's going on or if they're literally building different configurations and tying them to different amounts. Also, again, the difference between Pro and Max is that Pro has the three memory banks instead of two on the Max.

And so the numbers are just, the math is different if you go from Pro to Macs. So it's more complex and we'll have to learn what it is. But I think that there are, I think that probably there's binning going on here and there are some choices

that they're making about how they're manufacturing these. And we don't know the whole backstory here, but this is that brand new three nanometer process from TSMC. So who knows like under the covers what kind of weird complexities are going on in order for these things to ship that's going to be interesting maybe some of that will leak or people will get these and tear them

apart and we'll start to get a better idea yeah this is super weird like i'm clicking around now right and then as you click to certain configurations, the minimum RAM changes. And then there are also, so if I choose the 14 CPU, 30-core GPU, I now have two RAM options, but it's 36 and 96, like the ones in the middle I can't choose. And I can also feel the meeting

that went into a line, which is on this page that says select m3 max with 30 core gpu to add 96 gigabytes of memory select m3 max with 40 core gpu to add 48 64 or 128 like that's a little note underneath the chip section where like someone was like guys this is too confusing we need to add a note here. People won't understand. And it is really weird, right? Then you choose the main one, sorry, the biggest one, the 16-core CPU, 40-core GPU. Then I can choose 48, 64, or 128.

I can't get 96. It is odd when you start clicking through this. And for me, if I was designing this page i would not have the grayed out ram visible on this page well so it makes me it makes me think that maybe apple isn't binning here and is actually just making some different configs it feels like that right right that they are making a 40 core gpu max that has those RAM configurations, and then they're making a 13-core one that has the different RAM configurations. And that's just how they've decided to do it. I hadn't clicked around on this page, and it's much more daunting, I think, than I thought before.

A little whack-a-mole game, right? Yes, it want this one no no it moved it changed now the now the memory is different why is it different don't be silly 48 gigabytes feels like such a high starting point but i guess you're already in you know when you go into the m3 max you're buying you bought the max max right yeah what do you want the max max at that point yeah so you should get it max yeah it's already max max it out they're helping you out they're helping you well it's not even maxed out but it helps you max it a little bit i mean at that point it's 36.99 to start like it's yeah we've got about right five or six variations of the following question a Alex says, with the M3's big focus on graphical performance, it seems like the perfect

fit for the Vision Pro with all the graphical computing that it has to do. Do you think Apple might say, just kidding, the Vision Pro is coming with the M3 chip rather than the M2 chip? I don't think so. I think they designed it like a year ago. I think that it's...

I don't think it needs it. I designed it like a year ago. I think that it's... I don't think it needs it. It is. I've seen a lot of people, and again, the questions and people online talking about it, like, oh, surely it's going to be the M3. How could they release it and say it has an M2? I just don't... They didn't build it for the M3. Also, do you know what?

The Vision Pro has the R1 chip. Other computers don't have that, right? It's true. Vision Pro has the R1 chip. Other computers don't have that, right? Like there's two chips in this product that's powering it is what we know, right? And I just feel like there's no need to desire a different chip in it than the one that it has. Like they have made it with that in mind.

And so- And with the power envelope in mind and the heat envelope in mind and all of those things about it, that's what it's for. Plus, you're right, it's got the R1 chip in there. And again, when the Vision Pro comes out,

I doubt that people are going to be like, but M2, they're going to be like, oh, Vision Pro, right? Like that's, you know, that's what it's going to be. But it's like, they also didn't put the M2 Max in there, did they?

You know, like, right? They had more power available to them if they wanted it but they decided to settle and build around a certain configuration about the m2 look they might do it i doubt it they might but i doubt it i just think that it's not i don't think it's worth worrying about right like no if for example if they'd never told you that it had an m2 in it and you wouldn't be worried right if they said like it has an r1 and an f2 in it or whatever you just be like oh whether the vision pro chips like you just wouldn't think about it i don't have an m2 in my airpods you know it's like the the products have what they have and they design them for that.

I wouldn't worry too much about it being where it is. Because as well, when the Vision Pro comes out, there's still going to be a lot of computers that still have an M2 in them, including the Mac Pro. So that's going to stick around for a while, I expect. Jordan says, For the M3 series, why do you think apple emphasized the power savings and

efficiency when seemingly the same process received no power saving mention in the a17 pro chip for the iphone could it be the efficiency gains are only apparent when scaled up to mac performance level perhaps it could be meaningful for the iPad? I think Apple is focused on comparing itself to PC laptops, and especially PC laptops, but also past Apple laptops, and showing off the fact that they, this is the game, right?

Like they may not, some laptops may be able to beat them in GPU overall, but not at the power level. And that's the thing that they're trying to say. It's for battery life and running it with not plugged in and being able to do it. And I think it's just a key part of how they do Mac marketing is to do it that way. I think they're less concerned about it for the iPhone than they are for the Mac. So I do think it's that simple it is you know i've heard people say i think it is interesting that the m3 process in

the a17 pro did not seem to change the efficiency of the iphone like battery life did not improve but then also you know ben thompson's been talking about this a lot. It's stuff that I don't completely understand, but that this M3, sorry, this 3 nanometer chip in the Mac is not the same 3 nanometer process that the iPhone chip was made from. We don't know, but it sounds like it's possible that this is this new TSMC process that is going to ship in the fall, which is now. It's possible that this is a different TSMC process that is going to ship in the fall, which is now. It's possible that this is a different process than the A17 Pro chip. We don't know, but it is possible

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like that's not the case existing products can continue to be sold it's new products that they want to have usbc um so it doesn't they can keep these for as long as they want i i think there's something to carter's question here which is apple seems to want to only update these when they are motivated to and if you're going to go through a cycle, especially since we know when you redesign a keyboard trackpad or mouse on for Apple, it's for like a decade. They don't update them very often at all. Um, I think there have essentially only been two generations of magic trackpad, right? And that goes back like 15 years. Um, so maybe even longer, Um, so maybe even longer, uh, 20 years, I, it, they last forever. So when you do it, it should matter. Now they did update the magic keyboard because they wanted to do touch ID. And so they did that. So I guess that's the question is if Apple's going to make a new mouse, are they going to just put the USB-C hole in where the lightning hole is? Are they going to be like, no, no, no, no, no, no. New mouse.

Let's make this. What do we know about people using Macs today who have a mouse? And what can we do there? And trackpad the same way. Like, what about the magic trackpad that's current could be better? Is it the Bluetooth in it? Is it the touch sensor? Is there something to be done there? Could there be an under glass touch ID?

All of these things are possible. I'm sure they have those conversations. And yeah, I think there's something to that idea, Carter, that you don't need to change them. And when you do change them, you very rarely get the opportunity. So if you're going to do it, make it last and have it be a real update. Otherwise, why are you even doing it? But I think that that could be the answer is that if all they were going to do was slap USB-C ports onto the existing ones, they maybe could have done that. But at that point, you're opening

the box and you're changing the equipment inside and and you should probably do a more substantive update than that and plays touch id you know touch id trackpad maybe that's why we can we can dream you know i mean that's my dream is is that all these rumors about apple trying to get touch id to be under a surface we're not for the iphone but they're, but they're going to use that. They're going to deploy it in the one place where it really should be,

which is on the external trackpad. They're not going to do it, but dream, dare to dream. Wouldn't that be nice? Jeff asks, we didn't see a bigger iMac nor bigger iPad this year. Which do you think

could be released first? Which do you think could be more appealing to customers? And which would be more appealing to you? Big bigger iMac bigger iPad so we'll say iMac pro bigger iPad pro I am a user of a big iPad pro I am intrigued by the idea of a bigger iPad pro although I don't think I would get it and iMac i have bought big imax in the past at this point i'm pretty much in the studio display with a mac studio lifestyle or studio display with a macbook air lifestyle so i i think a bigger ipad is likely to happen sooner because

you know mark german wrote about like bigger ipad is something that they're thinking about and bigger imac is something that they've sort of set aside and they might think about doing it but it's not going to be for a couple of years at least i've heard through the grapevine that like they ran the numbers and they're like it doesn't make sense to make this product and they've set it aside but german says they're still sort of thinking about it but it's more like a 2025 thing. Um, so I think maybe bigger iPad is going to happen sooner. Uh, I think more appealing to most consumers is going to be a bigger iPad because I think that a giant, I mean, is a big iMac because I think a giant iPad is a

very specific use case. I think it could be cool for artists, uh, and, and, you know, other people who want that giant canvas. But for most people, I think a big iMac sold well in the past and could sell well again in the future. Neither of them is particularly appealing to me at this point. More appealing to me is a bigger iMac. That's a product that I would consider buying, like an iMac Pro, basically, right? Yeah.

I think Apple's sooner to release a bigger iPad than a bigger iMac. And I think they would sell more big iPads than they would sell big iMacs today. Interesting. Okay. I just think, in general, they sell more. They just sell more iPads than Macs. And I think that

when it comes to Macs, people want laptops now. Right? Primarily. more than anything else. And I think a big iPad could maybe be something that people would be excited about. And it might be one of those things that, I don't know,

sells well at the beginning, but probably wouldn't over time. Maybe it would taper off. Swifty says, Do you think we are finally starting to see hints of a regular update schedule for Max and M series chips? One can hope. No.

One can hope. I think it all comes down to the chip generations, right? So we had our, you know, the chip generations seem to be going in 18 months ish intervals i yeah i don't know if if everything is almost everything on an 18 month schedule or not like not the imac but everything else maybe maybe but uh i i think that the the macbook pro coming out now less than a year is different and the pro chips coming out now and max chips instead of in the spring is different we have more data but i don't know if if we can sift through the noise to find out what apple's ideal is um apple's ideal is probably every 18 months for the mac and laptops on that 18 month cycle and desktops on either an 18 month

cycle or a 36 month cycle is my guess um but i i'm still not sure like i'm still not sure i thought the mac studio wasn't going to get updated in M2. And in fact, they did. And they did the Mac Pro. So is there an M3 Pro and Ultra or Macs and Ultra, Mac Studio and Mac Pro? I think I'm the kind of person actually who believes that now that Apple has its own chips, Apple actually does want to update all its computers with its new chips. I actually do believe that's the case. I think Apple wants, if it's an 18-month cycle,

Apple does want a new Mac Pro every 18 months and does want a new Mac Studio every 18 months. I think that that's the ideal. And that when something like the iMac goes a generation, I think it's because of timing reasons or because it's a lower priority and something else came in front of it. And the stuff that matters most to them which is the macbook air and macbook pro those are going to be in every

single cycle so we're starting to see it but there's still some noise in this so uh but but but to answer uh swifty's question hints i mean we've seen hints of it but like i'm not positive but it feels like apple wants this chip cycle to be 18 months and once all its major products updated within each cycle i hope because i just like it but and yeah and i and i'm confident that they would like it too but it doesn't seem like it's been smooth sailing. But the difference is when it isn't, they have more levers they can pull than when it was with Intel, right? Like when Intel wasn't smooth sailing, everything just came to a grinding halt for a long time. And at least Apple is able to do whatever they are able to do and maybe have more leverage than they did in the Intel relationship to make it work the way they want. entire relationship to make it work the way they want but i think they'd be more than happy to just put their new chip in in every product in their line and every generation i think that that is

at least so far i think that's the goal that seems to be the goal and it may not always work out but i think that's the goal right it's hard not to look at the all the accolades that they have thrown out there for the m3 max and not imagine that next year there will be an m3 max studio and an m3 max mac pro like it's it's or an m3 ultra mac pro it's just very hard to imagine that that that they would be like no no no no we'll just wait for the m4 like i just i don't think that's what they want to do unless there's a problem right something that comes up and i think that's what they want to do unless there's a problem, right? Something that comes up. And I think that's what happened with the iMac where they're like, we just, you know,

missed it. And now it's the first of the next generation instead, because that's where we are now. And finally, Tim wants to know what we think the default laptop's going to be now for most people. Is it going to be this M3 MacBook Pro or is it going to be the M2 MacBook Air? I think the default laptop is the macbook air because the price i think it should be like this is i've been banging this drum for ages that i think the m2 macbook air is like the best computer ever and people should just use that i just don't know if corporate is going to change maybe the price will make them change right but but here's the thing it's default laptop like the macbook air sells sold better than the 13 inch macbook pro did yeah the macbook air is the default laptop i think there's nothing here in introducing a more expensive macbook pro base

model that will rest any uh you know championship belt away from from the macbook air it's still going to be the champion in fact i think it's going to be more so the champion because some percentage of people who would have bought a 1399 or 12 or 1299 macbook pro with a touch bar some percentage of them are not going to buy that $1599 MacBook Pro 14-inch. They're going to go to the MacBook Air. And you've got $1299 for the 15-inch. So there's your $1299 price point, right? It's the 15-inch Air. And then there's the 13-inch Air at $1099. And I realize there're going to be some buyers, people and corporations who don't want to buy a MacBook Air, and they're going to probably

bite the bullet and go for that 1599 Pro. But like, I think it's Apple's hope. And I share this hope that some of those buyers look at that 15 inch air specifically, because I think that there's, it's not just a bias against the Pro versus Air name. I think it's a bias against small screens. So it's an Air but it's a 15 inch Air. I think Apple's hoping that they will make some inroads into corporate sales with that product too. Yeah that'd be funny right if this is how they sell the 15 inch air is by introducing a more expensive macbook pro yeah yeah i would love to know the percentage of potential uh macbook pro buyers at the low end who go to the more expensive pro versus go to the 15 inch air versus go to the 13 inch air i wonder what that will be but I do think that those buyers will get scattered across

those. I think that the Air is still the default and will, in fact, yes, be a higher percentage of Apple's total laptop sales than before because some of those MacBook Pro buyers will fall out going from $1299 to $1599. they will fall out and at theincomparable.com. You also find me here on RelayFM and check out my work at cortexbrand.com. You can find us on Mastodon. Jason is at jsnell on zeppelin.flights and I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E on mike.social. The show is on Mastodon as upgrade at relayfm.social. You can watch video clips of the show on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. We are at Upgrade Relay

and on our YouTube channel at the moment for video episodes, if that's your bag. We're on threads. I am iMike. Jason is at jsnell. Thank you to our members who support us with Upgrade Plus. You can get longer ad-free versions of the show

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and Ladder. We'll be back next week for some money, money, money, money talk because it's earnings time. Thank you for listening to this episode of Upgrade. We'll be back next week for some money, money, money, money talk because it's earnings time. Money, money, money. Chug, chug, chug. Thank you for listening to this episode of Upgrade. We'll be back next time.

Until then, say a spooky goodbye, Jason Snow. Goodbye. Goodbye. Ah!