MacBreak Weekly 963: The Blue and the Gray

Summary

MacBreak Weekly 963: The Blue and the Gray – Detailed Summary

Released on March 12, 2025

In Episode 963 of MacBreak Weekly, hosted by Leo Laporte alongside returning co-host Jason Snell, along with Alex Lindsay and Andy Inako, the team delves deep into the latest Apple hardware releases, discusses Apple's ongoing challenges with artificial intelligence integration, and explores forthcoming design overhauls expected at the upcoming WWDC. The episode is aptly titled "The Blue and the Gray," reflecting discussions around new MacBook colors and the nuanced differences between Apple's product lines.

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1. Welcome and Personal Updates

The episode kicks off with casual banter as Jason Snell shares his recent vacation in Kauai, Hawaii, celebrating his 30th wedding anniversary. Alex Lindsay recounts attending a concert with his daughter at the Fox Theater, highlighting experiences with local music groups like Flip Turn and The Illegals.

2. New MacBook Air with M4 Chip

Overview: Jason Snell provides an in-depth look at the newly released MacBook Air featuring Apple's latest M4 chip.

Key Points:

• Color and Design:

  • The MacBook Air introduces a subtle sky blue color option alongside traditional silver, gold, and black (midnight).
  • Snell notes the understated nature of the new color, emphasizing that it maintains Apple's philosophy of restrained laptop colors to suit various environments.

  Jason Snell [04:16]: "So here's the deal. When Apple told me that they're doing this in our briefings that we had while I was poolside, they said, have sky blue. And I'm like, oh, okay..."

• Pricing and Specifications:

  • Starting Price: $999 for the base model, which includes 16GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD—a significant improvement over previous models that offered only 8GB RAM at the same price point.

  Jason Snell [10:43]: "And the 16 gigs RAM is huge. And that's at $999."

• Performance:

  • The M4 chip is touted as potentially the fastest Mac ever, with substantial upgrades in single-core performance as evidenced by recent Geekbench scores.
  • Enhanced thermal management allows for sustained performance without overheating.

3. Mac Studio with M3 Chip

Overview: The discussion shifts to the Mac Studio equipped with the M3 chip, positioning it as a powerhouse for AI and professional workloads.

Key Points:

• AI Capabilities:

  • The Mac Studio with M3 is marketed as the best AI machine Apple sells, capable of handling complex AI models locally.
  • Ben Thompson from Stratechery commends it as "the best consumer grade AI computer ever."

  Jason Snell [11:32]: "Anyway, this is the story. This is the story."

• Memory and GPU:

  • Offers configurations up to 512GB of unified memory and includes advanced GPU capabilities, making it suitable for tasks like AI model training and high-resolution video rendering.

  Andy Inako [13:04]: "And the 16 gigs RAM is huge. And that's at $999."

• Product Line Clarity:

  • Apple has streamlined its Mac lineup by clearly differentiating between the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models, simplifying consumer choice.
  • The MacBook Pro remains distinct with more ports and higher GPU cores, catering to professional users needing additional connectivity and performance.

4. Pricing Strategy and Product Positioning

Overview: The team examines Apple's strategic pricing decisions and how they've redefined their product lineup to enhance clarity and accessibility.

Key Points:

• Affordable Entry Point:

  • The return to a $999 starting price for the MacBook Air democratizes access to high-performance computing, making it the default recommendation for most consumers.

  Jason Snell [11:32]: "It is the easy default Mac to recommend to almost everybody."

• Impact on Product Recommendations:

  • With the base model now offering superior specs, there's less confusion when advising consumers on which Mac to purchase. The M4 MacBook Air emerges as the go-to option unless specific high-end features are required.

  Jason Snell [16:47]: "And that's the easy default Mac to recommend to almost everybody."

• Clarity in MacBook Pro vs. Air:

  • The differentiation between the MacBook Pro and Air is now more pronounced, with the Pro offering additional ports and GPU cores, justifying its higher price point and catering to users with professional needs.

  Alex Lindsay [13:55]: "But that was very clear, like, and like, I can see that. I know what the difference is because I have a pro need."

5. Apple Intelligence and AI Integration Challenges

Overview: A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to Apple's ambitious yet troubled foray into artificial intelligence, particularly with their Apple Intelligence initiative aimed at enhancing Siri and other on-device AI capabilities.

Key Points:

• Overpromising and Underperforming:

  • Apple initially committed to integrating advanced AI features into Siri, promising enhanced contextual understanding and app integrations.
  • However, the implementation has faltered, leading to delays and public setbacks.

  Alex Lindsay [17:35]: "And that's part of it too."

• Security Concerns:

  • Integrating AI deeply into the OS raises significant security challenges, such as prompt injection attacks, where malicious inputs could exploit Siri's access to various apps and data on the device.

  Andy Inako [17:47]: "They have corporate alignment on Apple Intelligence as a feature that they want to promote almost everywhere."

• Development Roadblocks:

  • Reports indicate that despite Apple's investment in AI hardware, the software side—particularly the integration of AI features—has been more complex and problematic than anticipated.

  Jason Snell [37:12]: "And so that's the the other part is working through the software. And this is a big reason why there's a lot of delays around AI because their software is struggling..."

• Impact on Company Morale and Strategy:

  • Internal dynamics suggest possible frustration among C-suite executives due to unmet AI promises, potentially leading to organizational shifts or reevaluations of their AI strategy.

  Andy Inako [40:30]: "They had a good timeframe. The thing is, is they guessed so completely wrong that it's not just delayed."

• Industry Perception:

  • Apple's stumble in AI integration has affected stock perceptions and raised concerns about falling behind competitors in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.

  Andy Inako [40:45]: "I'll go back to my taxes."

6. Design Overhaul and Operating System Updates

Overview: Looking ahead to Apple's upcoming design changes, the hosts discuss reported overhauls to macOS, iOS, and iPadOS, aiming for a more unified and modern aesthetic inspired by Vision Pro.

Key Points:

• Major Design Changes:

  • Apple is reportedly undertaking one of the most dramatic design overhauls in its history, affecting icons, menus, apps, windows, and system buttons to create a more consistent look across all platforms.

  Alex Lindsay [82:53]: "There are OS updates for all of the Apple devices all of a sudden, so there's still so much to talk about."

• Vision Pro Influence:

  • The design is loosely based on Vision Pro's software, suggesting a more immersive and spatially aware user interface.

  Andy Inako [85:57]: "Yeah, absolutely. That was a standalone article."

• Developer and User Impact:

  • Such extensive changes may lead to temporary confusion among users, reminiscent of the iOS 7 transition, but with the benefit of improved design principles aimed at functionality and aesthetics.

  Jason Snell [93:23]: "It's got a, it's got a bunch of different platforms, you've got vision Pro and iOS and all these things."

• Security Enhancements:

  • Apple’s Exclaves initiative is introduced as a hybrid between monolithic and microkernels, enhancing both performance and security by isolating sensitive resources.

  Andy Inako [108:02]: "Yeah, it's going to take us longer than we thought to deliver on these features."

7. Security Updates and Kernel Improvements

Overview: The hosts touch upon recent security updates, emphasizing Apple's continuous efforts to bolster device security through architectural changes in their operating systems.

Key Points:

• Secure Kernel (Exclaves):

  • Apple has implemented the Secure Kernel, an evolution of their microkernel architecture, aiming to isolate sensitive operations and minimize potential attack vectors.

  Andy Inako [108:02]: "Yeah, it's going to take us longer than we thought to deliver on these features."

• Zero-Day Vulnerability in WebKit:

  • A critical zero-day vulnerability in WebKit has prompted immediate OS updates across all Apple devices to prevent malicious web content from escaping the sandbox.

  Leo Laporte [104:39]: "Maliciously crafted web content may be able to break out of web content sandbox."

• Impact of Security Enhancements:

  • The introduction of Exclaves represents a significant investment in defense-in-depth strategies, aiming to secure Apple’s devices against increasingly sophisticated threat actors.

  Alex Lindsay [110:44]: "It's like putting a whole bunch of compartments out there with all their individual compartments."

8. Upcoming Hardware and Software Innovations

Overview: Looking forward, the discussion touches on anticipated updates, including potential folding iPhones and continuous enhancements to Apple's hardware ecosystem.

Key Points:

• Folding iPhone Rumors:

  • Ming-Chi Kuo’s insights suggest Apple is working on folding iPhones targeting a super-premium price point of $2,000-$2,500, featuring a 7.8-inch main display that unfolds into a larger tablet-like interface.

  Andy Inako [122:21]: "He thinks that it's going to be like a book full like it's going to unfold into a 7.8 inch screen."

• BlackMagic Cameras and Immersive Video:

  • Alex Lindsay showcases the Voyage Mic, an ambisonic microphone system designed for immersive audio recording, which pairs with BlackMagic's studios for high-fidelity spatial audio capture.

  Alex Lindsay [137:07]: "So my son and I are taking this out to the near Nicasio out in the redwoods this weekend to record some scenery."

• Integration with Vision Pro:

  • The team discusses the synergy between hardware like the Vision Pro and software enhancements, underscoring Apple's commitment to creating a cohesive ecosystem tailored for both augmented and virtual realities.

9. Community and User Engagement

Overview: Towards the end of the episode, Leo Laporte invites listeners to participate in Apple's upcoming 20th-anniversary celebrations by sharing personal stories and memories related to the show.

Key Points:

• 20th Anniversary Celebration:

  • Listeners are encouraged to submit videos or social media posts recounting their first encounters with MacBreak Weekly, with selected entries to be featured in the special anniversary episode on April 13th.

  Leo Laporte [129:02]: "I want to invite anybody who watches our shows to send us a video or put it on your socials."

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Notable Quotes

• Jason Snell [07:00]: "Three shades of silver."
• Andy Inako [08:26]: "This was a really, really big deal."
• Jason Snell [16:47]: "It is the easy default Mac to recommend to almost everybody."
• Jason Snell [37:12]: "Well, they'll reap all the rewards of huge margins and all the up spec."
• Alex Lindsay [110:44]: "It's like putting a whole bunch of compartments out there with all their individual compartments."
• Andy Inako [143:27]: "If you're taking a live view, we're all going to see how they're handling this."

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Conclusion and Looking Forward

Episode 963 of MacBreak Weekly offers a comprehensive exploration of Apple's latest hardware innovations, strategic pricing, and the company's ambitious yet challenging integration of AI technologies. The hosts provide both enthusiastic support and critical analysis, balancing the excitement over new products like the MacBook Air with the sobering reality of Apple's hurdles in the AI domain. As Apple prepares for significant design overhauls and security enhancements ahead of WWDC, the team anticipates further developments that will shape the future of Apple's ecosystem.

Listeners are encouraged to stay tuned for more updates, especially regarding Apple's upcoming software redesigns and hardware releases, which promise to redefine user experiences across all Apple devices.

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Note: This summary intentionally omits segments related to advertisements, sponsor messages, and non-content discussions to focus solely on the informative aspects of the podcast episode.

Transcript

[Leo Laporte]

It's time for Mac Break Weekly. Andy, Alex and Jason are here. Jason's back from his vacation, and guess what? He did get an Apple briefing. All the deets on the new MacBook Air with the M4 in it and the Mac Studio with the M3 in it. Why? It might be the fastest Mac ever and the best AI machine anybody sells. That and a whole lot more. Coming up next on Mac Break Weekly. Podcasts you love from people you Trust. This is TWiT. This is Mac Break Weekly. Episode 963, recorded Tuesday, March 11, 2025. The Blue and the Gray. It's time for Mac Break Weekly, the show. We cover the latest Apple news. There is news to be had, and thank goodness it's the return of Jason Snell, who did, in fact, get an Apple breathing. But he was also on vacation.

[Jason Snell]

I was poolside writing about New Max. How about that? And I'm back here wearing my sky blue T shirt and committing to the bit.

[Leo Laporte]

Where did you go?

[Jason Snell]

Hawaii.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, I'm so jealous. Where in Hawaii?

[Jason Snell]

Kauai area. Beautiful. Just, you know, 82 degrees and breezy and beautiful. And I had a. People are like, how was your trip? And I'm like, perfect. Great. We had a great time. It was my wife's and my 30th wedding anniversary, and it was our first trip there without children since we had children.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, even better.

[Jason Snell]

So it was nice.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, Nice. Welcome back. We missed you.

[Jason Snell]

Thank you, Alex.

[Leo Laporte]

Lindsay's also here. Office hours global and 090 media. Where did you go?

[Alex Lindsay]

I went to see. I went to a concert with my daughter.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, fun.

[Alex Lindsay]

You have a shot asap.

[Leo Laporte]

Rocky, who did you see?

[Alex Lindsay]

I saw Flip Turn at the Fox Theater, which I have never been in. Have you been to the Fox Theater?

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, it's beautiful.

[Alex Lindsay]

Unbelievable. Unbelievable theater. Yeah, just an old theater.

[Leo Laporte]

Classic, old time. Such an odd movie theater geometry.

[Alex Lindsay]

Like, it was like. I was like, I don't understand what I'm looking at here. But I love it, you know, like these different layers and everything else. And so this band called Flip Turn that my daughter knows and I barely know, but I'm learning to love them. They're pretty good. And so. So Crooked Kings and Flip, that was. And then. And then I'm going to see Mike the Electrician on Friday, so I'm The Illegals. The Illegals are back.

[Leo Laporte]

Joey, we're going to see the Illegals.

[Alex Lindsay]

Are you going?

[Leo Laporte]

We might be at the same show.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, Malachi and I are coming. We're going to take some low Light.

[Leo Laporte]

Cameras look for you.

[Alex Lindsay]

I was talking to Joey about it. So that's going to be at Rancho Nicasio. So.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Nicosta is a fun place to see because it's open air and fun.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, it's good.

[Leo Laporte]

Although last time we were there, we were in the front row for.

[Alex Lindsay]

Is it open air? I thought it was just.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, there's inside, too. It depends. There's a big open air area. And we were there in the front row for, I think, the Wonder Bread 5, which are really kind of a dance band. Right. We started dancing and they said, no dancing. Sit down.

[Alex Lindsay]

They're very gruff.

[Leo Laporte]

We're never coming here again. Sorry. Maybe for a chamber music orchestra. I don't know.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, I used to live a mile from. Less than a mile. Half a mile from Rancho Nicostia. I've never been in the concert area, so I've never seen. So I'm looking forward to it this weekend.

[Leo Laporte]

Fun.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah. My. Yeah, I'm gonna.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

I called the guy and he's there. I was like, he's so gruff. Like, I don't.

[Leo Laporte]

They are a little gruff.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Because they have a great spot.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, exactly.

[Leo Laporte]

Anyway, nice to see you.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

And of course, Andy Inaco, who is bringing his receipts today so he can do a little tax prep.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah. I just have a premonition that for the first 43 minutes of this, it's going to be like you talking to Jason and me and Alex going. Occasionally remembering to lean in the. Oh. Huh. Oh. And then.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, let's start. Jason is wearing sky blue.

[Jason Snell]

Sky blue, Sure.

[Leo Laporte]

I think you wrote that. Well, I have to see in person because it's probably just silver. And is it.

[Jason Snell]

I mean, you tell me.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, that's silver with a little bit of blue. Doesn't match your shirt.

[Jason Snell]

So here's the. It does not match my shirt because my shirt has color in it. Okay, so here's the deal. When. When Apple told me that they're doing this in our briefings that we had while I was poolside, they said, have.

[Leo Laporte]

To go to the briefing.

[Jason Snell]

Sky blue. And I'm like, oh, okay, all right. Sky blue. And I thought to myself, it's going to be what they do, which is it's going to be silver with a hint of blue like everything else. And then I got it and I opened the box and I thought to myself, I can't believe that they do this sky blue product and they send me a silver MacBook. And so I went back to the manifest from the Apple editorial reviews group, which Lists all the specs of the model that they're shipping to you. And it says Sky. And I thought, okay. And so I pulled out a silver MacBook and like my silver Apple TV remote and I put it all together and you know, it's not the same as silver, right? And at certain angles. And I mean, Apple's art that they supplied people, that they posted when they did the press release, like, they usually are on a, like a neutral kind of off white background. All their photography is not quite white, which bugs me because my website's background is white. And so you get a little off white box around it that sometimes I remove in Photoshop because it makes me so mad. Anyway, this time it was like off white, blue. It was like trying to push your brain toward the blue. The truth is. Yeah, I mean, in certain light, in certain angles, you can see that there's blue. But the way I would really describe it is there's silver, and then for starlight, there's a kind of yellow gold undertone that comes out a little bit. And then, you know, so that's over here in the middle of silver. And on the other stretch now we have sky blue, which is that same silver, but with a little blue undertone to it. It is incredibly subtle. And as a, as somebody who would really like Apple to take a shot at making a MacBook Air in a bright color, just to see what that would be like, they're not going to do that. And I think they just philosophically believe that that laptop colors should be restrained because you never know where you're going to be using a laptop. I understand the argument. Right. It's like you don't know what context it's going to be in. If you want to take it into a business meeting and it's bright orange, you're going to be making waves. If you do a Starbucks, everybody's gonna be like, check out that guy with a green laptop. Whatever it is. I get it. I wish they would try it though, because it would be more fun. And it's a MacBook Air. It's a consumer laptop. Why not let people, they do it with the imac, for Pete's sake. Why not try it with a laptop? Anyway, they didn't do that. Instead it is sky blue, which is basically bluey silver instead of silver or goldy silver.

[Leo Laporte]

Three shades of silver.

[Jason Snell]

And, well, even the midnight is. Which is the fourth option because they got rid of space gray.

[Leo Laporte]

I have a midnight.

[Jason Snell]

The midnight. I have a midnight too. And it's beautiful, but it's basically a black LAPT that if you look at it at a certain angle, sort of seems blue. So it's like the inverse of these, but also kind of the same philosophy.

[Leo Laporte]

Show me again. Show me. Let me. Let's see it so we can really. Yeah, I see a little blue.

[Jason Snell]

Did you.

[Leo Laporte]

When you took it out, did you say, funny, you don't look bluish?

[Jason Snell]

I literally thought they sent me a silver laptop, okay. And I thought to myself, I bet they didn't. I bet this is what sky blue is. And out of. Because that's the truth of it is out of context. It just seems like a silver laptop. And I think that's what they were going for. I think they want. I think they want it to be subtle because they. I. I think Apple believes the standard laptop look for Apple is a silver laptop, and that they should all sort of be like, space gray is really just out of context. You might think space gray was silver because it's also just silver a little darker. So I think that Apple really philosophically thinks their laptop should be more or less silver or black. Maybe we're getting some of those dark gray now and that. That's it. And. And, like, I don't agree, but I at least understand. They clearly got bitten culturally by the G3 iBook back in the day with a tangerine and the blueberry and all of that. And they have not made a colorful laptop since. So, I mean, I wish they would try.

[Leo Laporte]

It's too bad.

[Jason Snell]

But they didn't try this time.

[Andy Inako]

So that's really too bad, too, because unlike a phone, you don't complain about a phone because, hey, you're just going to slap it into a case anyway. But now, like, the thermals on modern notebooks are so bad that you really can't put a plastic case over it unless you want to shoot the damn thing.

[Leo Laporte]

But a translucent case, which I like to do, or transparent case, those.

[Andy Inako]

Those stickers from dbrand and what are kind of cool, but it's like, yeah, you want more customization.

[Jason Snell]

If you want to personalize your MacBook Air, you should put stickers on it. I mean, that's basically. Look at my daughter's laptop. It's covered in stickers. And it's like, okay, you could do that. That's great. But it's. Anyway, it's. It's the most exciting thing. Leo, to change the subject slightly is.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, I just want. I know what you're gonna say, and I just want to say this. The color is the least interesting thing it is the thing we led with.

[Jason Snell]

But it's one of the few things that changed in this. There are only a couple of changes.

[Leo Laporte]

There's a model, there's a big change, which is the price.

[Jason Snell]

Yes, that is so.

[Leo Laporte]

So the story, this is the story.

[Jason Snell]

I agree. What happens is when you use new hardware, it's more expensive to make and then over time it becomes less expensive to make. And this is always true, right you, but you build something first and all the parts add up to costing, you know, $1,000 and then in a year they all cost $980 and in two years they cost 950. Just over time the price comes down, your margins can go up. And so Apple believes firmly that the Air should start at 999. That that is a really. They want a sub thousand dollar laptop and when they went to the M2, they couldn't do it. The M2 Air started at, I want to say 1299. It was not cheap, it might have been 11, but it was not 999. They kept the M1 around and then when the M3 came out, they moved the M2 Air down to 900 and 99 because it was a year old, it was an old model, but the new MacBook Air still couldn't cost. It was, it was I think 1199, 1099. It was not there with the M4. They finally gotten back to it. So it took them two and a half years, almost three years. But they, they are back to the fact that for 999 you can get a base model and now it's got 16 gigs of RAM instead of 8. It's 256 storage, which you know, for people who watch Mac break weekly is probably not enough. But for a lot of people starting point is fine if you're doing mostly stuff in the cloud anyway.

[Leo Laporte]

And 16 gigs RAM, right?

[Jason Snell]

And the 16 gigs RAM is huge. And that's at 999. And what it does for me, I'm curious, I'm going to work in the boys here. I'm curious what Andy and Alex and Leo think about this.

[Leo Laporte]

Busy on his tax.

[Jason Snell]

I'm trying, I'm trying to work him into the conversation but for me this eliminates a whole raft of things where it used to be, what Mac should I buy? And I'd be like, well, well, because the M1 Air, it was clear was the M1, but in the M2 M3 era it's like, well, that M2 Air is a year old but it's A pretty good deal at 999. It's all wiped away and they stopped selling those models except in certain countries. But basically they're gone off of apple.com the answer is just get the 999 M4 Air. It is the. It is the easy default Mac to recommend to almost everybody. And that's. That is the most impressive thing about the new app.

[Andy Inako]

100%. I've always thought that it's really important for Apple to have a sub $600 Mac mini better sub $500 but I'll take sub $600. But it's also really really important for them to have a sub thousand dollar MacBook even if they have to cut some of the features of it. Even if they have to cut some of the storage of it. The entry price should not break $1,000 because there are people that consider themselves lucky to be able to get the base model MacBook Air. So this was a really really big deal. And the second effect of that is that one of the things that sort of perplexed me for the past couple of years has been when you send somebody into an Apple Store, how do you sell them the difference between a MacBook Pro and a MacBook Air if they're not getting the base model if they are willing to spend 131400 dollars by the time you if when the price when the base model Air was a couple hundred dollars more it's like here are two nearly identical MacBooks. One has a fan, one does not. A little bit thicker. But it's only a big deal if you wish you had room for one extra paper comic book in your laptop bag than not. This puts extra distance between the two and makes it really really clear. It's still here's the one that is maybe your second here's you have a Windows machine at home or you have an imac at home but you have a portable Mac to go. This is the one to go for even if you're not necessarily using it as your primary Mac. So this adds clarity to the product line.

[Alex Lindsay]

I agree. I think that it is a. I think what's interesting there is that it, the price makes a difference. Also it's very clear between the Mac Pro. I just got a Mac Pro a couple weeks ago for the Michael Krasny show that we're doing and the, the we got the Mac Pro because of the usb. I just need more USB inputs. But that's a pro request, right? That's a pro request. It makes sense to be a pro.

[Jason Snell]

You mean the MacBook. MacBook Pro, right?

[Alex Lindsay]

MacBook Pro, yeah. So I got the MacBook Pro because I wanted four inputs. You know, I didn't want the two that the Air comes with that. And so, but that, but it was very clear, like. And it was like, oh, I can see that. I know what the difference is because I have a pro need. If I wasn't recording things, if I didn't need to plug in mics and other things to it, I would absolutely have gotten the air. Especially at 999.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah. The price differential. So even if you go to the 15 model, which is 1199, like the M4 base MacBook Pro 14 inch is 1599. It's the same chip. Chip, right. But it's got the, it's got that really nice screen and it's got more ports and it's got like, it's got a bunch of stuff. So there's a very clear. Which there. Andy is absolutely right. There was not before. There is a very clear reason why the M4 Pro exists. M4 MacBook Pro exists and why the M4 MacBook Air exists. There are different products. There's a big price difference between them. You understand why you choose one or another. And you know, again, I, for people like us, we get asked all the time, what Mac should I buy? My, my kids going to college, what should I buy? Like, it happens all the time. And there have been periods where it's been zero clarity about what to do. You gotta, you gotta do a whole questionnaire and you're like, well, do I need whatever? And I love a moment like this where it's like, no, you can get the best chip. The current model 999 to start. If you want to add a little more storage, go ahead. 1199. If you want to get the 15 inch model, like, it's just, it's, it's already was a great computer. And in an era where we have inflation and a lot of prices are going up, Apple has pushed that thing back down to 999 to start. Now if you want to spec it up, Apple will reap all the rewards of huge margins and all the up spec. But the fact is 999 for an M4 Air with 16 gigs of RAM and a 256 SSD, still pretty great. And if you want to update that student machine, right, it is.

[Leo Laporte]

That's the machine you should get a student.

[Jason Snell]

This is all. This would be my standard. If my kids going to college, what do I get them? The 999 M4 Mac.

[Leo Laporte]

Especially since nowadays they store most of their stuff in the cloud anyway. You don't need more than 256 I think.

[Jason Snell]

I think so. I mean unless you're stuff. Unless you're working on gravity. I mean like the people who need more will know but like it.

[Alex Lindsay]

And even then you get, you get an external drive. You're better off keeping your media on an external drive anyway.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Jason Snell]

So yeah, yeah, it's a great deal. It is. You know we, it's funny because we, we do a lot of parsing of like well what's Apple doing here and who's this for and all that. It's kind of refreshing to be just like, yeah, this is it. Like this is the almost I. Because almost everybody buys a laptop. It is the best selling Mac. I looked it up. We don't know how many laptops Apple sells out of versus desktops because they don't report that anymore. The last year they reported that with I think fiscal 12. And I looked up that number. I did, I did my, I did my research. 75% of the Macs they sold in 2012 were laptops. And it's not less.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Jason Snell]

And so, and then this is by far their most successful laptop. You know, they make a lot of profit on the MacBook Pros, but they sell and if you talk to somebody in an Apple Store they'll tell you that, you know, a Mac, an Imac or a Mac Mini might go out the door every so often but the MacBook Air is just fly off the shelves because that's the, it is the definitive Mac right now.

[Leo Laporte]

And anybody who wants a computer, that's the, probably the computer to get pretty.

[Jason Snell]

Fuss free concept of 999. You get, you get an M4Mac and you'll be able to use it. That's the other thing. Apple keeps comparing these things to Intel. You're going to use this thing, you use this thing for you know, seven, eight years, no problem.

[Leo Laporte]

Honestly.

[Andy Inako]

And one of the nicest, one of the things that kind of made me is making me wonder, gee, I know my M1 MacBook is still running fine. I have no complaints about it. But maybe I could, maybe I should buy a MacBook Air. Just the simple fact that now you can actually have two external displays plus the internal display at the same time. Because for me the difference between a real desktop replacement is having two actual like external displays at the same time. That's pretty big. That's a, that's a really nice bonus.

[Leo Laporte]

I gotta say. It's a little annoying though that Apple still or now puts Apple Intelligence in this specs everywhere. Like that's something.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah, it's a.

[Leo Laporte]

We'll get to that in a bit.

[Jason Snell]

They have corporate alignment on Apple Intelligence as a feature that they want to promote almost everywhere.

[Leo Laporte]

If you want to do AI locally, you wouldn't buy one of these. Doesn't have enough storage, doesn't have enough ram. But most people are not going to do local AI, so.

[Andy Inako]

Right, right.

[Jason Snell]

Well, it'll do whatever the Apple Intelligence model is Intelligence.

[Leo Laporte]

I'm not saying that. Right. But it's not AI. That's exactly silliness.

[Andy Inako]

Well, and you have the, you have the Mac Studio for that too.

[Leo Laporte]

So that's if. Yeah, well, we'll get to. Yeah, might as well get to that. So this is a great, this is a well done Apple. Right. I mean in every respect except the max memory is 24 gigs. Right. It doesn't go higher than that.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, but it's a MacBook Air. I mean that's, that's the argument is like if you, if you need to go above what the Air delivers, you should get a Mac Pro. And they start at a lower price than they ever have because they have that M4 model, which is a lot less of a sad second citizen than it was back then, I should say. This is also the thing where they, they after, I think the studio display came out and everybody kind of gave them stick for the camera, the Center Stage camera they put in there with the iMac and MacBook Pro. Last fall they started putting 12 megapixel ultra wides in there as their webcams and they followed that up here. They're not all exactly the same. Like the Imac camera doesn't look like the MacBook Pro camera. Exactly. And the MacBook Pro camera doesn't look like the MacBook Air camera. Exactly. But they're all a cut above what was there before. And because it's an ultra wide that does Center Stage, even if you don't want to use Center Stage, it means you can use the little interface now to kind of zoom it around and pan it and get the exact shot you want in the webcam. So an upgraded webcam like everybody uses, everybody's on a zoom call. Everybody's on something like that.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

You don't need more than 1080p for any of that.

[Jason Snell]

Right. You don't, you don't need. So they've got this 12 megapixel thing that then they can slice and dice and it does look better, especially in, you know, in low light where the old camera didn't do as well. This one does a little bit better. All of them look good in good lighting, but in bad lighting, which is where most video actually that happen. Yeah, it's better. So that's, that's the other major thing other than just bumping the chip from M3 to M4. The major thing that happened here that I think people might care about other than that one little color option and the price is that the webcam is better and it is. So that's good.

[Alex Lindsay]

How's the mic? I keep on asking about the mic.

[Leo Laporte]

You care more about mics than anybody I know.

[Jason Snell]

Alex, I promised you that I would do some a B testing of the mics in the M4 Pro and the M4 Air and I will, but I haven't yet because.

[Alex Lindsay]

The reason I'm so.

[Leo Laporte]

Air with just the.

[Jason Snell]

The rare array, studio quality mics or whatever.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

The reason I'm. That I keep on coming back to it is because we keep on sending mics out to people and we end up with sending people and they can't figure out how to make them work with their PC or they can't figure and I'm just like, can I just send a laptop to somebody?

[Leo Laporte]

And that would be ideal.

[Alex Lindsay]

Open it up, Open it up. And I'm going to run splash top or something like that.

[Leo Laporte]

999 laptop. That's all you need to send them.

[Alex Lindsay]

And then, and then have them. You know, they're always going to have them send it back. But. But I'm just going to. But the point is that you don't even know anything. Just open it, put power on, open it up, let it connect to WI Fi and you're done.

[Jason Snell]

We'll try it out. We'll try it out and I'll give you some samples and you can see what I think.

[Leo Laporte]

3 mic array with directional beam forming, baby.

[Alex Lindsay]

It's all about beamforming.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, you gotta form those.

[Leo Laporte]

You don't wanna unform beams for people in this. The market for a MacBook Air. Probably you're right that most of the advanced usage will be on zoom calls.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

You know, to go into class or talking to friends or whatever they're doing. So that's fairly important.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, the mics didn't change and the mics are not up to the spec of the Pro where they're doing, you know, studio quality is their claim on the. It's not their claim on the air. I know they've Been talking about studio. The quality of those mics is better than it used to be. They should not have called that. Whatever it was. That last generation Intel MacBook Pro, they said it had studio quality mics. And I tried it and I don't know what studio they went exactly.

[Leo Laporte]

I guess I could change to my laptop mic on here.

[Jason Snell]

Producers are going to claim it. Yeah. I don't.

[Leo Laporte]

You don't think I should do this?

[Alex Lindsay]

You can. Yeah. John, please don't cry.

[Leo Laporte]

Please don't.

[Jason Snell]

Please don't. I mean, I can't stop you, per se. He's doing it. Oh, he froze because he was trying to. He was trying to change. He's gone. Amazing. Listen to your producer. Always listen to your producer.

[Leo Laporte]

It crashed. Zoom.

[Alex Lindsay]

A voice sound like a video. You don't sound like a studio anymore.

[Leo Laporte]

So now I'm on the studio. I'm on the, on the microphone for. This is for the M3 MacBook Pro. Don't sound like a studio. How about if I get really close to it, does it sound better?

[Alex Lindsay]

Hello?

[Jason Snell]

Not really roomy.

[Alex Lindsay]

It's just not able to overcome your.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay.

[Alex Lindsay]

Your room.

[Leo Laporte]

I'm gonna switch back and this is gonna. Sorry, John. This is gonna crash it again. Probably. I don't know what happened. It froze. Every. Everything frozen. It's back.

[Jason Snell]

You did it.

[Leo Laporte]

I don't know why it crashed. Sorry. No more experiments.

[Alex Lindsay]

Turns out physics, it's hard to beat.

[Leo Laporte]

It's hard to beat. It's a little teensy weensy. Microphone six feet away. It's not good. All right, enough of that. Let me take a break. And then we come back, what you really want to hear about, which is the M3 Ultra, the new studio which Ben Thompson says is the best AI desktop out there for local models. Better than anything on the PC side. That's an interesting claim we'll. We'll talk about in just a bit. You're watching Mac Break Weekly with the sky blue. Jason Snell. If, if when we come back, your shirt is silver, I'm gonna let you.

[Andy Inako]

Know, is it blue or is it silver? The latest Internet sensation, that's Andy Inocco.

[Leo Laporte]

WGBH in Boston, and of course, Mr. Alex Lindsay from Office Hours Global. Our show today, brought to you by Deleteme. This is a company I, I, we use and I can really get behind now. I don't use it because I got no privacy and I just gave up a long time ago. But you know who should be using this? People who care a. Care about their privacy. People who run companies that's why we use it. I think in any business. All your managers should be using delete me. Families should be using delete me. And, and the proof that you need it is very simple. Just go to Google or whatever your search engine of choice is and search for your name. Actually, I don't recommend this, but if you, if you don't believe me me, you probably do. But if you don't believe me, try that and see how much of your personal information is available. And then you'll notice a bunch of sites that say, and for a buck 50 more, we could give you their prison record. We could give you the house value. This is a privacy. Until we get some sort of comprehensive privacy bill, which will be never is really an issue. And the reason is simple two words. Data brokers. These are companies, there are hundreds of them now that collect buy all of your data from your Internet service provider, from your mobile carrier, from the websites and apps you use, and collate into a dossier that is amazingly complete and then sell it to anybody who wants it, whether it's a marketing company or a government. So this becomes really important. Or a hacker. So the reason we started using it is our CEO Lisa. Well, she never sent these texts, but texts came to her direct reports saying, hey, this is Lisa. Came from her phone number to their phone number to their name, saying, I'm in a meeting right now. I need Amazon gift cards, please go buy a bunch of them and send them to this address. And fortunately, John Ashley's no fool. Right, John, did you get that text message? He didn't fall for it, I don't think.

[Jason Snell]

No, I think I got two of them.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, because there was another one. So. But what happened was that was an eye opener for us because we realized there are bad guys who know not only Lucy's name and phone number, who are direct reports are their phone numbers and know enough about the company to. To write a very effective spear phishing technique. We immediately went out and got Delete me. You might want to get it for yourself. You might want to get it for your family. They have plans for individuals, families and businesses. You can insure with the family plan that everybody in your family feels safe online. Delete me reduces the risk from identity theft, from cybersecurity threats like those spear phishing attacks, from harassment. It really works. And I'll tell you how I know. When the national public database breach happened with hundreds of millions of Social Security numbers, Steve Gibson and I both searched and found our Social Security numbers in the data breach. There they were for anybody to see. Then I thought, you know, Lisa's been using Delete me. I wonder. She wasn't there. There was no entry for her. This works. Delete me. Experts go out, they find your information and they remove it from hundreds of data brokers. Now you're doing it for the family or the business. You can, and you're the manager, the account manager. You can assign a unique data sheet to each person, tailored to their particular needs. And with easy to use controls, you can manage privacy settings for the whole group. Delete me will go out, they will scan and remove your information and then they continue to do so. And this is important because new data brokers emerge every day. And unfortunately, even after you remove it, which they're legally bound to do, these data brokers, they all have a removal page. If you knew them all, I guess you could do it yourself. But then they just start building it up again, right? Oh, she has a middle initial. Let's start building. And this is everything. Addresses, photos, emails, relatives, phones, social media, your property value, and a whole lot more. Protect yourself. Reclaim your privacy. Visit. Do what we did. Visit joindeleteme.com TWiT if you use the offer code TWiT, we've got you 20% off. Figure out which one is right for you. Joindeleteme.com twit Then use the offer code TWiT and you'll get 20% off. It really works. Joinedeleteme.com twit we thank them so much, not only for their support on MacBreak weekly, but for helping us keep our company safe. That was a scary moment. I mean, fortunately, our staff knows better than to do that. But especially when you're remote like we are, it's not like they can just go down the hall and say, hey, Lisa, did you send this text? They can't, you know, she's at home. All right, now, let me go to Stratecheri, because Ben Thompson, who runs this very, I think, Prestigious analyst site StrateCherry.com said Apple is now making. This is right above the story that says Apple's bad week. But I won't talk about that one, but we'll get to that. But Apple is making one of the best AI computers out there, which is true. I think we've said this before because it has. Because of unified memory it has access to. For the price, you might say, well, that studio is three or $4,000, but that's still less than a single Nvidia card. With all that memory, these are AI machines did you. Do you have Jason, you lucky dog. M3 Ultra.

[Jason Snell]

I do not. I am one of the people that they sent an M3 Max to and not an M3. Also, the Verge has the Ultra. They sent me the Ultra last time, but I guess I'm not Ultra enough for them this time. But Ben's point is, I mean, it's good because the idea is the Apple silicone architecture has shared memory, and that means that, you know, that enormous amount of memory that the M3 Ultra can drive is. Is all accessible to its many, many GPUs. And so Ben's argument there is if you, if you build a giant Mac studio with M3 Ultra and all the RAM and all the GPUs, you will to run some full AI models, like big AI models on it, because you have that power. And that's a cool angle. Right? Like, most people aren't going to do that. But he's pointing to it, I think, for people who wanted to do it. Now, I had that thought that some of those AI researchers in China who have various export restrictions, I wonder if they will go out and buy Mac Studios because they're like, oh, this is going to be. Because it's expensive, but it could be a bargain compared to the other hardware. And it also says something about maybe the future where Apple Silicon has an advantage because they can task their ram for their GPUs when they need to, which is something that you can't do if you're not doing pooled memory.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andy Inako]

There were a lot of people around as soon as it hit the store, specking up like, what is the most expensive Mac studio configuration? And $14,100. And that's with 512 gigs of memory and 16 terabytes of storage. And it's worthy of comment, but go price.

[Leo Laporte]

An Nvidia GPU with 512 gigs of memory.

[Andy Inako]

Right, right. That's exactly. But the real point is that, yeah, it would be nice if you had something where you could really build from the ground up your own custom AI computer with all the specs that you actually want, with all the slots you could fill with as many GPUs as you want. But at the very least, Mac Studio gives you enough configuration options that 512gigs of memory, that's usually what most people want. Again, additional GPUs is a big deal, but the. It's not as though the M3 Ultra is any slouch in the GPU department either. So it tamps down a lot of the complaints, historical complaints about the lack of a real Mac Pro, the way that most people, a lot of people define a Mac Pro.

[Leo Laporte]

So let's talk Jason, about this M3 Ultra. They're shipping an M3 when the M4 is now in the iPad. The MacBook Air, presumably a Mac Pro.

[Jason Snell]

M3 is out of almost everything now.

[Leo Laporte]

This is the last M3 product.

[Jason Snell]

Well, no, because they introduced the iPad Air also running on an M3.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Jason Snell]

And the iPad mini I think is also. Or no, it's running on an A Series Pro. So yeah, it is that most of those original 3 nanometer processed TSMC chips are out, but. But a few of them are in. And there's a question about, like, are they binned and hanging around or are the processes still going? And I don't know enough about chip manufacturing to speculate about that. But. But this process, it is weird, right? Because it's an M4 Max or an M3 Ultra. And you know what that means is that it's single core performance. The M4 is faster. But you don't buy an Ultra for single core performance. You buy it because it's got twice as many cores and twice as many GPU cores and huge memory bandwidth.

[Leo Laporte]

80 up to 80 GPU cores.

[Jason Snell]

Correct. Because it's double the number of cores that are in the M3 max.

[Leo Laporte]

Mind boggling.

[Jason Snell]

The other thing is a lot of.

[Leo Laporte]

People, you only have 40. You poor fella.

[Jason Snell]

Y A lot of people view the view the Ultra as being just two chips stuck together of the previous generation. There is an aspect to that where that's true. But this is not just two M3 Max chips stuck together. And you can see it in the specs. The M3 doesn't support Thunderbolt 5. The M3 Ultra supports Thunderbolt 5. They. It's almost like. And they're not ever going to do this because it's Apple, right? They're very simplified when it comes to a lot of their branding. But I would tell you this is not an M3, it's like an M3 and a half. It's probably on the same process as the M3, but like it's the same node, it's a different chip. Like they engineered new stuff into.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, the bandwidth is 800 gigabytes per second.

[Jason Snell]

And again in the past Ultras, their max RAM has been double the max RAM of the Max.

[Leo Laporte]

This is more than double. This is quadruple 512 gigs.

[Jason Snell]

It's quadrupled. So they've increased the memory bandwidth and the memory Max.

[Leo Laporte]

It's almost as if they said, how could we build the ultimate local AI machine? Right? Because those are the things you care about.

[Alex Lindsay]

It's the ultimate in a lot of things.

[Jason Snell]

A lot of things.

[Alex Lindsay]

There's a lot at 512 with 80 cores, you know.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, what do you need 512 gigs for? In anything besides AI, what do you need 512 gigs?

[Alex Lindsay]

There's all kinds of scientific calculations.

[Leo Laporte]

Scientific.

[Alex Lindsay]

But there's also like things like that I work on in photogrammetry. There's a variety of things that you need to pull a lot of things into ram.

[Leo Laporte]

But RAM is important. Okay.

[Alex Lindsay]

RAM is extremely important to work with.

[Leo Laporte]

The image in ram. Yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

So it's, and it can be a mixture of it. It doesn't have to work in ram. It's just that what happens is, is that like I have some projects that I can't open in less than 64 gigs. Like it won't, it literally just won't open. And so that's the, you know, that's really the challenge. And so, you know, so the, so 512 is at a whole nother level. And then it also speeds up a lot of those processes. If it can hold it all in in unified memory, as opposed to going in and out of the unified memory, you want to keep it as much in there as opposed to going back out to storage. And so it's pretty incredible.

[Leo Laporte]

Let me re. You just posted it in our Discord chat, Jason. So I will read the actual quote from Ben Thompson's Stratecherie. What that means in practical terms is Apple shipped the best consumer grade AI computer ever. Now, by the way, really important to make the distinction that we're talking about running it locally. Most of the time when you use Chat, you know, you're using Chat GPT or deepseek or any of the ami you know, Claude you're almost certainly using on their servers with their RAM and their processors and all that. And that's kind of the normal usage. But what if you wanted to run it locally? What if you wanted to run Llama or deepseek locally? You can, because those, because those are open waves AI models. You can download the model and put it on your machine. That's what we're talking about here. He says a Mac studio with an M3 Ultra chip and 512 gigs of RAM. So that's how much $13,000 can run.

[Jason Snell]

How much storage you want.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh yeah, okay. Can run a 4 bit, a 4 bit quantized version of DeepSeq R1, which is a state of the art open source reasoning model. I don't use the word open source. Ben does. I prefer open weights. You're not seeing the source code right on your desktop. It's not perfect. Quantization reduces precision and the memory bandwidth is a bottleneck that limits performance. 800 gigabytes a second, really. But this is something you simply cannot do. And this is important with a standalone Nvidia chip Pro or consumer. The former can of course be interconnected and you see people doing that building these giant multiprocessor multi GPU boxes for great expense. But that costs, he says, hundreds of thousands of dollars all in. The only real alternative for home use would be a server CPU and gobs of ram. But even that's slower and you have to put it together yourself.

[Alex Lindsay]

And to put it in perspective, I mean, when he's talking about slow memory, the Nvidia H200 is 4.8 terabytes per second.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, okay, so 800 gigabytes isn't that fast.

[Alex Lindsay]

I mean that's hundreds of. Those are the hundreds of thousands of $100 you're talking about. But the a100 is 2 terabytes per. So a lot of these, that's part of what Nvidia's secret sauce is that.

[Leo Laporte]

And Cuda, right? Yeah, CUDA is the secret sauce. But I guess people are able to run these local models like Llama and Deepseek without Cuda. He says you can make a strong case. Apple is the best consumer hardware company in AI. I think that's really interesting, especially since Apple intelligence is such a flop from.

[Jason Snell]

A certain point of view. I mean that is, it is an interesting way to look at this. And this is the funny thing talking about Apple and AI, right? Is that, is that we've got another story to talk about about Apple kind of belly flopping when it comes to its estimation of how many AI features it was going to ship.

[Leo Laporte]

Ben's article has two subheads. Apple's bad week and Apple's great week.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, and so, and this is, this is the conundrum is that Apple's killing it on the hardware side. It really is. And a lot of the investment, investments and choices that Apple made in its platform actually fit really well with a world that's dominated by AI, the shared memory, the neural engine that they've been working on for seven or eight years now. Right. Like they made some good decisions, but in the specific case of LLMs, they just didn't believe they were going to be A thing and are spending a huge amount of time and money trying to catch up on that side. So it's interesting, I mean, I would argue that in the long run, in the long run, if Apple can weather this, they're in a good position because their hardware is so good. But they have to get through some tough times where they are trying to bootstrap and also change their kind of software development philosophy in order to get where they need to be.

[Andy Inako]

That last point is the big one. It's kind of remarkable. I mean, I think everybody expected that. For all of the whistling through the graveyard, even Apple acknowledges that. Okay, yeah, we bet on two bad horses at times when we should have been investing in AI, but we're starting it now and we'll get there eventually. And that's. Nobody disputes that. However, the big surprise is that they said, hey, here is our roadmap. Here is when we're going to be delivering certain things. They were smart enough not to say, we've promised by X date we will have Siri with advanced Apple intelligence. But they had a good timeframe. The thing is, is they guessed so completely wrong that it's not just delayed. Now there are rumors that people, people in the C suites are angry with how badly the things are performing and there's rumors that they're going to have to stop everything and start all over again. That's not something we're used to hearing from Apple that they had some confidence that, hey, we'll get, we can't be specific about dates, but we know the timeframe in which we will start to be able to roll things out and to be that wrong in saying, okay, we are pulling this building to the ground. We are throwing salt into the ground.

[Leo Laporte]

You didn't really want to get to this story yet, Andy, but okay, I have another. Andy, stop advancing the calendar before I'm through with the first thing.

[Jason Snell]

I thought, that's right, Andy, it's a three hour show.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, I just, I mean, I want to finish the Ultra first. I want to finish the Mac studio first. We will get to this. So let's start with Apple's great week and then we'll get to Apple's bad week.

[Andy Inako]

I'll go back to my taxes.

[Leo Laporte]

Sorry, go back and do your taxes, would you?

[Jason Snell]

All right, so the Ultra, I mean the. So the other thing here is that part of this is Apple said to people in briefings, including me, that, look, we're not necessarily going to do an Ultra chip with every chip generation and there's reports that the M4, that's what's interesting, doesn't have the interconnect on it, which is funny because there were reports the M3 had the interconnect on it either, which, I mean I would take all of these reports very lightly because we don't know. We don't know. And they, they re engineered this, right? So it's possible the M4 M3 chip we saw didn't have it because they didn't put them on there, but they did put it on this 3.5 or whatever version that they were building. Also Apple, I mean, I'm not going to say Apple lies. I'm going to say Apple PR does what it does, which is they will tell you everything you need to know that they want you to know and nothing more. And so when Apple says well, we won't necessarily do it, that doesn't mean they won't do it. And also here's my conspiracy theory which is they could have updated the Mac Pro last week too. They could have, they could have put like they did the last time the same chips in the Mac Pro that were in the Mac Studio and call it a day. And they didn't. Why didn't they? And I mean, maybe it's because the Mac Pro is dumb and they don't like it and they want it to sit in the corner and wear a dunce cap. Maybe. But it's also possible that there's another chip out there.

[Leo Laporte]

You think there'll be an M4 Ultra in the Mac Pro or, or, or.

[Jason Snell]

Something that's not an Ultra. Maybe it's an M4 chip that's built for the Mac Mac Pro that has even more processors in it and is super expensive and will run in a Mac Pro and that they will go to like a TikTok where, where they will do the Ultra every other generation and an Extreme or something every other generation. So I wouldn't, I mean I know Mac Pro is very much in the X Files kind of, I want to believe, phase of its life now, but I think it's possible that the reason that it's just as possible that the Mac Pro is being ignored by Apple as it is that it's actually being prepped for something even greater that differentiates it from the high end Mac Studio. So I just, I think it's interesting to see where, where that might lead.

[Alex Lindsay]

Which I think would be a bummer because I think that it, you know, I think that what's great about the Mac Studio and Mac Pro differentiation right now is that the big differentiation is hey, you can buy the same computer and if you just want need more connectivity, you can buy it here. You know, it's kind of like it doesn't create a whole bunch of a fomo.

[Leo Laporte]

Don't you want though? Some a real distinction between the Pro and the Studio.

[Alex Lindsay]

I think there is a distinction. There is a distinction. If you need more lanes, if you need more USB C, if you get enough cards, you add it, you buy a Pro. If you want the exact same computer without all those things, you buy a Studio. And I feel like that makes, I.

[Jason Snell]

Don'T know, it could be though that if this thing really is like four Macs all put together, max chips, that the thermal environment of the Studio is not built for that. And that's why you go to the Mac Pro.

[Alex Lindsay]

I think you just need to make sure that it feels much like there was no other way to do it other than to put it into this larger enclosure. And not that they're just too well.

[Leo Laporte]

And Apple has to be looking at people like Ben Thompson and the AI, local AI world saying you know what would be really great? A billion gigabytes per second it would be. Or a trillion it would be. It would make sense that Apple might see a market for a Pro as an AI machine. So Jason, you're saying there's a conspiracy theory afoot?

[Jason Snell]

Well, I mean it's just, it's my wild theory because I have nothing to base it on other than the fact that they have not updated the Mac Pro when they could have. They've not talked about what they're doing with the M4 generation. They said this thing about not necessarily doing an Ultra chip with any generation which does not say that there might not be a different non ultra high end chip that they might be working on. And I put those things again, I get out my red yarn, I get the board out, I start connecting the dots and I think it's not impossible and I think there's been little if anything reporting on this from people like Mark Gurman either. It's just I'm suspicious that the reason the Mac Pro didn't get an update and the reason that it's an M3 Ultra and there's no M4 Ultra potentially is that they have another plan for the Mac Pro. I know that Gurman has reported that in the past they were planning on doing a quad chip and it got canned. I wonder if that might be coming back. Maybe not. Maybe the answer is a wwdc. They say, oh yeah, that Mac Pro has also been updated with the M3 Ultra. Enjoy. And they walk away. But I don't know, I wonder because I think Apple hates the fact that they have a Mac Pro that's undifferentiated from the Mac Studio. Because the Mac Pro doesn't make any sense. It's what it offers that's different from the Studio now is so small that like you wouldn't make a product just to be that different. And the way the story goes is that what happened is they thought they were going to get that quad core for the M2 or whatever, that quad chip processor and. And then it got canceled and the Mac Pro team was like, but we built a Mac Pro. And they're like, well we'll just ship it with the, with the Studio stuff in it and that'll be it. I don't know, maybe they're in that same boat. But it would make sense to me if they really want to explore these high end areas that maybe that's the way they do it is and that this M3 Ultra is like the tip of the iceberg. That's my conspiracy theory, but I'm just confabulating now.

[Andy Inako]

The red string thing, just quickly is that like we have to keep reminding ourselves that Apple knows very well who's buying what hardware and why. And oftentimes it's just they know who's buying this stuff, they know why they're buying it and they know. I believe that they just think that they can sell more Mac Studios to those people than Mac Pros. And also given the restrictions on how you configure those things, a Mac Pro is a lot more profitable configured as an AI machine than a Mac Pro would be.

[Leo Laporte]

So I just priced out a studio, not maxing out the storage because that's really where it gets expensive. If you want 16 terabytes of storage, it's $5,000.

[Jason Snell]

Just hang off.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, if I'm gonna. It's got Thunderbolt 5, so I just put a terabyte internal. It's under 10 grand. For everything else, Max, the processor and the RAM. That's a compelling price for people who are working in AI or need whatever it is, all that horsepower, it just doesn't have the connectivity. Is what you're saying, Alex, that you want the extra connectivity? I think it makes sense to make more of a differentiation between the studio and the product.

[Alex Lindsay]

And there are things that are going, I mean, I'm talking to folks that are processing really high resolution, let's say spherical work, you know, for App Vision Pro.

[Leo Laporte]

They want all the hardware.

[Alex Lindsay]

They talk about processing times in weeks at high frame rates and really high resolution. They're talking about like, oh, that 20 minute piece might take two or three weeks to render. So something that comes out that's super.

[Leo Laporte]

10 grand is not a big deal.

[Alex Lindsay]

No, especially you can, you know, for the handful of people that need that, you can literally just open up a service and say, we'll just send us your files and we'll render them and send them back to you.

[Leo Laporte]

But I do like Jason's theory that you need more cooling for a quad core chip. I think that that's a very interesting point. And the Studio probably just can't dissipate that much heat. I don't know why I'm looking over here. I don't have one over there.

[Jason Snell]

I mean, yeah, they probably built it for knowing where the, where the Ultra was going and not necessarily wear something. I mean, because we know.

[Leo Laporte]

Tell me about this M4 max that you have because that's not a puny machine.

[Jason Snell]

No, it's great. It is not any. I mean, the story of Apple Silicon is the chips are the chips. Right? The chips are always the chips. So this is not offering any different performance really than on a MacBook Pro other than.

[Leo Laporte]

Or a Mac Mini. Right?

[Jason Snell]

Well, no, Mac Mini will only go up to an M4.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, they don't have checks.

[Jason Snell]

Okay. And so that's the space between the Mac Mini Mini and the Mac Studio is all about the chips. It's the base and second level chips in the Mini and the third and fourth level chips are in the Studio. So that's the difference. But performance wise, it's basically like a MacBook Pro with the same, with the same chip in it. It's very impressive. It is not when you go from Pro to Max. So the question is like, do I get a Mac Mini or do I get a Mac Studio? Because they're not that far apart in price. The answer is do you care about GPUs? Because the Mac, the M4 Pro chip has the same number of CPU cores essentially as the M4 Max chip. But the M4 Max chip has twice as many GPU cores.

[Leo Laporte]

So.

[Jason Snell]

So if you are doing a lot of jobs that contain gpu and it's not just, you know, it's games, it's rendering, it's AI stuff. My. I use a version of Whisper, the transcription engine, the speech to text engine from OpenAI that you can download and run standalone. And there's a version of the A guy Named Greg Garanoff, built in C.

[Leo Laporte]

I use that one after you recommended it. It's great.

[Jason Snell]

I have a shortcut that runs it. I can literally just right click on a file on my desktop and say, transcribe this.

[Leo Laporte]

It's really nice to have that kind of speedy transcription.

[Jason Snell]

And that now uses gpu. And I transcribed my upgrade podcast yesterday and it transcribed at 27x. That's why you get a max 27 times. Real time is real time. I did a two and a half, half hour podcast in five minutes. OMG, that's so. So, you know now like the max is. Do you care about gpu? If. If you don't so much and you get. I mean, you got good GPUs, there's just not twice as many of them. You can save money. You can get a Pro, you can get that Mac Mini Pro, which is such a great deal. But if you really, really care, that's what the Studio gets you, is a whole bunch of extra IO and a whole bunch of extra GPU cores. And like, I think it's a very rational product line. The Mini and the Studio now kind of just sweep you up through the entire M4/M3 Ultra chip lineup. So that would be the reason. And that's the big differentiation.

[Leo Laporte]

Which OpenAI model do you use in your whisper?

[Jason Snell]

I'm using V3 Turbo.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay. It's fast.

[Jason Snell]

It's fast and it's pretty good. It's pretty accurate. And it's very.

[Leo Laporte]

The highest quality is large V2, they say, right?

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, large V3 is actually bad, but large V2 is pretty good. But I found V3 Turbo to be excellent and also fast. And that's part of the point, is you don't want to sit there waiting for a transcript for an hour and.

[Leo Laporte]

Tell me again which, which Whisper. Because there's a bunch of Whisper versions.

[Jason Snell]

Using whisper CPP that's on GitHub from a guy.

[Leo Laporte]

Ah, you don't. You didn't get it in the App Store.

[Jason Snell]

Okay, no, I'm using. I'm using you download it and you build it in terminal. Sorry, nerd. But it's. It works great. And all the Whisper apps are following that, right? And they're compiling it and they're integrating it into their apps too. But I. I love having that. Anyway, so. So that got updated to use GPU at some point last year. Instead of cpu, you can do it on Neural Engine. But really, if you've got a. A Mac, a modern Mac with lots of GPU cores, you want to use the gpu. And it's very impressive. So that's why you would, for example, you would opt for a Max chip instead of a Pro chip is you've got a lot of jobs like that that really hammer the gpu. But it's pretty, like I said, it's pretty rational and. And again, regular people don't even need the Pro chip. But even if you're like a power user, a Mac Mini with a Pro chip or a MacBook Pro with a Pro chip is probably fine. And you know, if you're killing the GPU that you want to go up to max, this is.

[Leo Laporte]

We'll put this in the show notes the GitHub to Whiskey for CPP.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, he's got step by step instructions on how to compile it. You've got to download the Xcode tools, but that's free from Apple. And then you just compile with a couple command line commands and then you can run it from Terminal or you can script it or build a shortcut like I did.

[Leo Laporte]

I don't know why he has an iPhone plugged into this, but.

[Jason Snell]

Okay, I think he's trying to do real time transcription as an example because the things that it offers.

[Leo Laporte]

IPhones playing it back. Wow, that's pretty cool. Okay, okay. Look at that.

[Jason Snell]

But obviously you don't. Real time transcription is 1x and it works at 26.

[Leo Laporte]

It's in real time because people don't speak faster than they speak.

[Jason Snell]

They don't. But boy, it does help when you're doing YouTube captions for a three hour video.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, that is awesome. And you use it on all your podcasts.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, because the YouTube auto captions are terrible.

[Leo Laporte]

Not so hard. Hot. Yeah, so.

[Jason Snell]

And. And yeah, I do that for. For some podcast where there's like a secret version I. So that I can offer a transcript. Yeah, exactly.

[Leo Laporte]

Very cool. All right, let's take a break and then, Andy, you'll get to talk about Apple's very bad.

[Andy Inako]

Sorry, I sensed a pivot. Sometimes when I sense a pivot.

[Leo Laporte]

No, I don't blaming you at all. I'm just trying to kind of keep it in the. I mean, I just trying to keep in our lane here because in my own mind I have a hard time. My stack, they're all connected. You have a better stack than I do. You can pop stuff and push.

[Jason Snell]

Lots of parentheses going on.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, really good. I'm all parens. Yeah, all the time. This episode of Mac Break Weekly featuring Andy Inako, Jason Snell and the wonderful Alex Lindsay brought To you by a name. I know you know One pass. But this is a product you may not know from One Password. Let me ask a rhetorical question here, because I already know the answer. Do your end users, they're such good end users, they always work only on the provided company owned devices, right? They stick with the company phone, this company laptop. They only use apps that it has vetted and approved, right?

[Alex Lindsay]

Right.

[Leo Laporte]

No, no, of course not. We live in a BYOD world. People are bringing in their laptops, they're bringing in their phones, they're running who knows what plex on your company device. So how do you keep your company's data safe when it's sitting on all those unmanaged devices or running all Those unmanaged apps? 1Password has come up with a really good answer and this is what you'd expect from this company. They're really, they're so smart. Oh look, they're sponsoring the Red Bull now. Very, very nice. See that? Really, the tiny little writing on the fairing there. 1Password. Extended Access Management kids. This is brand new from 1Password. It helps you secure every sign in for every app on every device, even, even the shadow IT stuff, even the BYOD stuff. It solves problems traditional IAM and MDM just can't touch. Look at that. There it is, right on the steering wheel. Look at that. 1Password. Imagine your company security. Let me see if I could paraphrase this because we've been talking about a college campus. Maybe I could talk about a Formula One Track. You know, this beautifully paved surface with the fences all around it and the cars going around in circles and everything's great. But you know what, every Formula one track has that little grassy area off to the side, the little muddy area where people are walking around the real pads that people really use. So the nice paved track is the company owned devices, the IT approved apps, the managed employee identities, the little muddy side paths. The actual paths people use are the unmanaged devices, the shadow IT apps, the non employee identities on your network. Like contractors. Of course, most of the security tools just work on those happy brick paths. But many of those security problems happen on little muddy pads. 1 pass Extended Access Management is the first security solution that brings all these unmanaged devices, all these shadow IT apps, all these identities under your control and ensures every credential, every user credential is strong and protected. I mean really, 1Password is famous for that, right? But they also make sure that every device is known and healthy and every app is visible. It's Kind of a miracle circle. 1Password is ISO 27001 certified. They have regular third party audits. It exceeds the standards set by all the various authorities. 1Password is a leader in security. I think you know that. And one Password. Extended Access Management. That's security for the way we work today. Generally available now to companies that use Okta or Microsoft's Entra. And it's in beta for Google Workspace customers. This is so cool. Secure every app, every device, every identity, even the unmanaged [e-mail] MacBreak. That's all lowercase. The number one P A S S W-O-R-D.com lowercase M A C, B R E A K1Password. It's awesome. They're Extended Access Management. Thank you. 1Password. Okay, Andy, actually, Jon Gruber got the scoop on this one, I think. Did Apple call you, Jason?

[Jason Snell]

No, I think it was Gruber and like Reuters and somebody else. Like it was two or three people.

[Leo Laporte]

Not bad. Gruber and Reuters. The big two. Apple had a little, how would you phrase it? Caveat. Apologies.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah, it's going to take us longer than we thought to deliver on these features and we anticipate rolling them out in the coming year.

[Leo Laporte]

The coming year, by the way, as Gruber is quick to point out, is not the calendar year. It's the year that begins in June with wwdc. It's Apple's fiscal year.

[Andy Inako]

And some others also noticed that they've pulled all like the YouTube ads and stuff that mention Apple intelligence coming in with Siri in any type of timeframe. So they are clearly falling back and retrenching.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, I can't in living memory. I cannot remember Apple ever doing this again.

[Alex Lindsay]

I think this gets into Apple getting out of their pr, getting ahead of their development in that they, I think for stock reasons more than anything else, decided they have to talk about Apple intelligence all the time. So we started talking about it last fall or whatever and they're pounding Apple intelligence and it just wasn't part of the pipeline. It wasn't part of like this is not how they plan to roll this out. And so now there's this, hey, we can do it. I think that there was a little bit of the marketing driving, which is very unusual for Apple. Apple is, you know, very slow to bring anything out. And then once it comes out, it's just kind of like a big tank that just keeps moving forward. And I think that. But that's because there's a lot of discussion and a lot of Kind of adulting that goes on at Apple. And I feel like this is an exception to that, you know, And Apple felt like, I think that again, they felt like there was this panicked moment that they have to talk about AI. I don't think they did. I don't think they needed to talk about it. I don't think anyone really care. My wife, as I said before, doesn't even know that it exists. The only thing that people notice is the camera. Like, you know, they could have gone on. They could have. Eventually people would get it. But I sit there and talk to chat GPT while I'm driving the entire time. I don't, I'm not like waiting for Siri to catch up. Like, it doesn't, it doesn't. I don't have any assumptions that it's going to catch up anytime soon. So I think that I feel like a lot of Apple users don't need it to happen as fast. It's not like we're going to go get an Android phone anytime soon. Like, it's not like at some point.

[Leo Laporte]

It'S a little bit different interpretation. I kind of agree with Mark Gurman. I don't think it's a PR getting ahead of the game. I think it was actually, it turned out harder than Apple thought. Not just pr, but everybody.

[Alex Lindsay]

No, no, I think it's harder than Apple thought and I think that's why.

[Leo Laporte]

They brought Kim Vorhath in, because it wasn't working. And I think this puts John Giandrea's job on the line. I think Apple's intelligence division is on the line because it was. And this is the same problem Amazon's having with Alexa. When you have a device that does timers and plays music and you're trying to make it into an intelligent AI chatbot, it's so different. To merge the two is so difficult. And Amazon has had to put off for more than a year doing that with Echo. I think that the same thing happened to Apple. I don't think they expected it. I don't think PR got ahead of the game. They just, they thought they'd have it by now and it turns out to be much harder than they thought.

[Alex Lindsay]

But I think someone at PR asked someone in hardware and software like, can you do this? And they were like, yeah, you can do that. And software, I agree with that. And then they went and talked about it. And the thing is that you shouldn't do that until it's working. Working like, you know, like you don't talk about things until they Work. And Apple's so good at that of not talking about things until they're working except for that magsafe, whatever the thing that they, they put out and you know, yeah, like, yeah, that was the.

[Leo Laporte]

Airpower was the, and Gruber points this out, was the one thing Apple didn't release and never sent out a release to announce it.

[Jason Snell]

They thought it worked though. Yeah, it is, it is very curious. I heard from somebody who used to work at Apple who said, you know, when we used to do in person live events, you had to give a live demo demo. And now that everything is canned, maybe that is a mental block that has been lifted where. Because there are some beautifully animated, like fake examples of these features that are in their video presentation, but it clearly didn't work and, and they didn't have it running. But I would say, you know, obviously the scales were tipping toward, well, let's over promise, let's, let's promise for AI because they were really worried about pressure to do so, being perceived as being behind. And I think that's an important point here is it's not necessarily that like Apple's users were going to immediately abandon the platform. I think some of it was perception in the industry that they were going to be behind and then maybe it would end up hurting iPhone sales because there would be a perception that you should wait and see about Apple because it may have missed the boat. Even, even if consumer demand isn't actually there yet, they were still like worried about it. And so I think they got to the point with this feature where people inside Apple felt like they could do it, but like maybe in another world they would have said, well, let's not promise that feature. But in this case they're like, yeah, I know that you're giving me a 50% chance or a 60% chance. I don't think they, I think they thought it would happen. Right. I don't think they promised it not knowing whether they could do it or not. And I think something must have come, come up since then that that was a roadblock. But I do think that in other circumstances where they felt less desperate, they wouldn't have tried to promise something that was that far out.

[Alex Lindsay]

Well, I think some of it has to do with talent, talent retention in the sense that it's less about the consumer buying less of anything or more of anything. It really is about. You've got a bunch of AI researchers there. If the analysts scare them or scare enough investors that they're now their stocks, that they're getting every quarter is worth less than it was before because, because analysts are making up stuff that they don't even know anything about anyway. But then the, on the other side of that, it's like, oh, I'm not working at the coolest company doing AI right now. Maybe I should be, you know, dusting off my resume and thinking about where else I can go that's going to let, let me stretch my legs as an AI researcher. And I think that that's the, I think those, those are the things Apple has to say, hey guys, we're still, we're still all doing it, you know, like we're all making this work. And I think that it's more about keeping those, everyone in the in the corral than it is about even a consumer playing.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah, we're talking, we're talking about a road that goes 10 years into the past. And Apple was a very different company back then. One of the stumbling blocks of being an AI researcher at Apple was not only the lack of a priority on AI outside of the photo stream, but also they really didn't let you publish, they didn't let you. Whatever you're working on was such a secret that you couldn't publish what you're doing. You couldn't really be part of the community. And that wasn't a big draw. But it's really surprising what happened. As you heard in that part, in the early part of the show that got edited out because I shouldn't have been talking about this at that time. But remember that in 2018, as part of Google's huge push into AI, they basically had two hugely successful AI teams. And DeepMind CEO became like their head of AI, which means that Google's Google Research's head of AI had had to hit the bricks and Apple snapped John Giandrea right up. So it's not as though they were sort of fumbling in the dark. They had one of the top people at, in AI working at the company that wrote the white paper that kind of set off all of this tinderbox for LLMs. So it's really, really surprising that as I, as I said before, that they could be this wrong about how much trouble they were going to have doing what they wanted to do. And I think that part of it was you have to rewind back to June of 2024 where Apple, Apple stock has been in a slide for, since 2022. A lot of reasons for it, and I'm not a financial analyst, so I'm not going to comment on that. But the stock has been on a real, on a bad slide. Part one. Number two, they've been facing a lot of pressure to demonstrate how come Apple, how come iPhone sales are sliding, how come they're having so much trouble selling in China, how come third party other manufacturers are making such inroads against the iPhone. Step three, in June of 2024, they had just come off of a hugely embarrassing write off of, okay, we spent a billion dollars a year chasing after an electric car that we now are just going to cancel and write off as though we didn't do it. Meanwhile, other companies were spending a billion dollars a year and more investing in AI, which is where all the heat is right now. So In June of 2024, Apple needed to really sell the idea that, no, we didn't, we, we missed the first bus, but we're at the bus stop with our, with our bus pass in hand and we're going to be, we have a plan for AI. We are not going to be left behind. We understand how important this is and so we are very much an AI forward company. So I think that in that environment, the argument that, hey look, we can't just simply say, oh yes, we're doing stuff with AI, hey look, here's an image generator and we'll be doing more stuff in the future. The people who are arguing, no, we need to really give a roadmap, make people imagine what the world is going to be like, what iPhones are going to be like in 2024, and that it's going to have all those cool AI features that other phones have started to put into actual practice and actual purpose. So I think that's why they overstated things again. But it is still absolutely remarkable that when you look at the Bloomberg report, Gurman talking about again, C Suite executives who have been using this on their home phones basically saying, this isn't working. This is just not even like in development. This is just, just this is terrible. And thoughts of we have to scrap everything and start all over again. That is such a big surprise. And as, as we said before, the idea of Apple coming up with a statement, it's that, yeah, this is, this is, this is more difficult than we thought. This is going to take longer than we thought. That's pretty remarkable. It is. Short of them putting something on the website like an open letter saying, yeah, we didn't do, where we're basically a more open letter from Tim Cook on the state of the situation, but still rather remarkable that they didn't just simply say, oh yes, again, it's just simply pairing it off the way that they could with pretty much anything else.

[Leo Laporte]

Is it possible Apple isn't looking? I mean, I agree with you, Alex, that people don't buy the iPhone for AI. They buy the iPhone for a camera and all those other things. But is it possible Apple's mostly worried about the post iPhone world where maybe it isn't an iPhone, maybe it's a pair of, you know, maybe it's these meta Ray Ban eyeglasses or maybe it's the Orion glasses from meta, or it.

[Alex Lindsay]

Is, but I don't know if that means that they have to start talking about AI before they're ready to talk.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, they shouldn't have talked about it, but I do think that they felt pressure to say, well, we do have a play here. But. But the reason that they, the reason that they have to do this is not to sell iPhones is my point is I agree they have to do it because of whatever comes after the.

[Jason Snell]

Well, it's also a hedge, right? Like, I mean, and Andy's made this point before that it's possible that there will be consumer pickup of a feature that's enabled by AI that becomes a must have feature on a phone and Android has it and Apple doesn't. And Apple doesn't want that to happen. So you hedge a lot of Apple's behavior, including that car project, including the Vision Pro. A lot of it is defensive. It's really like if something is going to supplant the iPhone, we must be there or we are in big trouble. And I think I one of the potential threats for them, even if realistically, you know, that consumer demand isn't there today. And Annie was mentioning the stock, the stock really hasn't been down, but it did go. It was in the doldrums, like kind of flat. And then they made that announcement and it went up like. And that's why they did it is because there was some downward pressure on the stock because there was a perception that Apple was behind. And that's why I feel like even when they're getting beat up this week about this, I look, Apple executives didn't want this to happen happen. But I think if you ask them if it was worth it to go out on a limb last June, even if they knew they might, there was a chance they'd get beat up in March, they would do it because they benefited so massively from their rollout of Apple intelligence from a perception standpoint, which is not the same as the product. Now, yes, in hindsight they shouldn't. They could have gotten this without promising those two features that were very clearly a heavy, heavy lift. Even last June. We all could look at that and say, wow, that's very impressive if they can pull it off. And guess what? They, they couldn't.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah. And again, I think that, I think Obviously hindsight is 20 20, but even when we, when it came out, some of us were saying, I don't know why they're talking about this, like no one cares, like, and, and they could have just put out a piece, the pieces that they know that they can do. Well, they just got over their skis, you know, or, you know, in the sense that they felt like they had to announce all of these things. They could have gotten away with answering you just, just doing a couple of them and saying, hey, this is the new AI stuff. And I think that that's what we'll see in the future. Like Apple will. Yeah, you know, I think this is going to be a big pullback where Apple's going to still talk about Apple intelligence, but they're not going to talk about things that aren't cooked.

[Jason Snell]

Little, little more care put in. And we've, we've seen that with the AI features now that they're, the interfaces aren't very good because they slapped them in there, they could refine these things. And yeah, in hindsight. And yes, it is 20 20. In hindsight.

[Alex Lindsay]

It wasn't even hindsight, though. We were talking about this when they.

[Jason Snell]

Announced it and we were like, improvement of Siri to be more like chatgpt just to be. Understand things better would have been a fantastic feature. And instead what they said is, well, we're going to make Siri know everything about you by scanning your phone and then we're going to connect it to all your apps via App Intense and it's going to be this amazing thing that's going to blow you away way when. If they had sort of just said, we're going to try to harness the power of LLMs so that Siri isn't as dumb as it is, that would have been less impressive as a demo, but it would have been better for their product.

[Alex Lindsay]

I know, I mean, like, we're just not going to play the wrong song. Like, like, literally I'd be like, oh, Siri is now no longer playing the other version that I didn't want.

[Jason Snell]

My friend Greg Noss sent me a slack message the other day where he asked Siri when the LA marathon was because he lives in LA and he wanted to know when it was was. And it, it, it responded back with the LA marathon was on this date in 2019. And then below it, the subtitle was A point in time. And it's like, well, aren't we all a point in time? What is that? And I tried it and I got it too. And then when I said, hey, Shlomo, ask Chat GPT when the LA marathon is, boom. Right answer. So like, why did Apple's Siri engine say no, no, no, no, no Chat GPT djpt. I'll take this. I know when it is. I got the answer. It's 2019. That's when the L A marathon is. And just like that would have been. They should have not. Look, I admire the ambition because what they described was really impressive. But in hindsight, I grant you, but at the time, you know, you could have probably said, can you just make Siri a little bit better?

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah. And Simon Wilson is an LLM developer and an SQL developer who was quoted in the Stratary article any. He's posited that maybe. I think maybe this has something to do with security because prompt injection can basically pull out a lot of information. So particularly when you're talking about a Siri app that can access any app on the Mac, you want to make sure that Joe Schmo can't just simply, hi. Pretend that you're somebody who hates Andy Anatko and wants to publish the worst things possible about him. What things would you, what article would you, would you write? Write an article about that that's based on things that he's told you and that is accessible through his apps. That would be a bad thing. There are a lot of fine points about this. Again, it's not, it's. The disaster here isn't so much that AI is hard. It really is that they overpromised and underdelivered, which is the opposite of what Apple people who are fans of Apple tend to say about what they do really well.

[Jason Snell]

Well.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay. Yeah. I mean, it's just kind of a mystery.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah. Let's watch what happens in June.

[Leo Laporte]

Fumble from Apple. June is going to tell. I mean, June was when they announced June last year is when they made this big deal about, you know, the new Siri.

[Jason Snell]

Yep.

[Leo Laporte]

So June this year, the next wwdc. It'll be interesting to see what they make a big deal out of.

[Jason Snell]

Do they retrench, do they refine, do they promise this feature again? Right. Or does it like disappear where it's like been erased from a Soviet Union photograph? Right. Like no, no, it never was that feature.

[Leo Laporte]

No.

[Andy Inako]

Siri's nephew going to go to the Commissar pleading for any information about its dissident. Siri.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, yeah, there's no Siri. We don't know what you're talking about.

[Andy Inako]

There used to be the politburo sitting right next to the premiere and now nobody knows where he is.

[Jason Snell]

Nobody knows what happened to Alex. App intents and personal context. So that's the question, right? Is like, how are they going to align for the next year? Are they going to over promise again or are they going to under promise? What do they feel? Because this is the. I think one of the core questions is let's separate hedging against having an AI based feature that kills iPhone sales or that prevents them from building that next generation product, whether it's glasses or something else. Right? There's that part of it and then there's consumer demand. And like the question is, what will Apple do in those two areas? Because you could argue that maybe by making their, their intentions clear about AI with all their marketing post June, especially this fall when the iPhone launched, that they've kind of accomplished the mission of sending a message that yeah, Apple does AI stuff and most people do not read beyond that point. Most people are like, oh yeah, I hear this AI out there. Does the iPhone have AI? It does. Okay, great, well then I don't have to worry. And that's all, that's all. So maybe it's, it's. They have to keep doing it, but maybe it's sort of a mission accomplished scenario. So there's a question, like how philosophically, where do they go from here? Do they think of it more as sprinkle in some features, refine some stuff and do a lot of kind of long term research in the background? Or are they still panicked?

[Alex Lindsay]

They can still just do all those things. They just have to shut their mouth. Like, like it's just, it's just a function of.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, but what if they had never said anything about AI a year?

[Alex Lindsay]

They couldn't have. They could have said. They could have said. Here's one feature that we're releasing on AI. We're really excited. AI. You're going to see a lot more over the next two or three years. Here's a, here's the Gen Moji.

[Leo Laporte]

There would have been this drum beat of people saying, but Apple, when are you, what are you doing? Are you going to do something?

[Jason Snell]

I think creating Apple intelligence as a brand and adding like Genmoji and the writing tools and the chat. GPT integration. Yeah. Which I assume in June we're going to see them integrating with Gemini and maybe. Maybe clawed and it'll be kind of wide open. I think that would have probably been enough. And honestly, that's where, if you look back, you say that's where they panicked. That's where they were like, let's stuff everything in here because we really need to make the case. And. And yet they probably didn't need to go as far. And, and this thing is them reaping.

[Alex Lindsay]

And it can, it can be, it can literally. And I have no idea whether this is the case or not, but it can be one or two people in the company that are all revved up. I mean, there was a, you know, when, when Google saw Facebook taking. Turning into a black hole for their search, you know, they, they started Google plus and, and it became like this mantra of, well, we have to give it all the power to Google plus and Google plus, Google plus, Google plus. And at some point they decided four years into it and they're like, okay, it's not working.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, but this is Google, right. And Google has a terrible reputation now as a result.

[Alex Lindsay]

But it was literally one or two people who were just really like, oh, yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

It turned out the one person was like a vp important person who was no longer at the Google.

[Alex Lindsay]

Well, yeah, and so, but, but. And it all ended real quickly, you know, because he left. Yeah, yeah. And so the, so the. But the point is, is that it can be a person that just has the, you know, has the ear of the right people and says the things and keeps it moving forward. And I just feel like somebody spun them up and I just don't think, you know, that they needed to be quite so smart. Spun up. Like, I just don't think that people are making those decisions again because they're making the hardware that all this AI is already sitting on. And I, and I don't. I mean, I expect Siri to know how to tell me when the sunrise is going to be, but that's the extent of my expectations from.

[Leo Laporte]

Can it do that? That's pretty good.

[Alex Lindsay]

Can it can if I ask. Oftentimes I'm like, when is the sunrise going to be? When is it going to.

[Leo Laporte]

Because you're up at that hour.

[Alex Lindsay]

I'm usually weirdly trying to figure out what. When do I get to sit out and have tea and look at the.

[Leo Laporte]

Sun changed the clocks on Sunday and that changed everything.

[Alex Lindsay]

It's really thrilling.

[Leo Laporte]

How did Siri do with that? Was she able to understand the weirdness that is called daylight saving time.

[Alex Lindsay]

Oh, my gosh, talk about dumb ideas. Changing the clock.

[Leo Laporte]

You know what, we talked about this on Sunday on Twitter. And the real problem is nobody can agree we should we stay with daylight saving time or should we stay with standard time? It's 50 50. And until people agree on one or the other, I agree that. And with you, I'm sure, just stop changing it.

[Alex Lindsay]

I mean, it's just, it's just the craziest thing to think you can cut a piece of cloth off of one end and sew it onto the other and make it longer. Everything's, you know, like, it's just, you know. And again, as someone who gets up before the sun gets up every day, it doesn't matter to me. Like, it just, you know, like, it's just like. And I go into a studio with no, no windows.

[Leo Laporte]

So that's why the farmers don't care because you got to milk the cow. Doesn't matter what the clock says.

[Alex Lindsay]

The chickens know what time it is.

[Leo Laporte]

Chickens know what time it is.

[Alex Lindsay]

Exactly.

[Leo Laporte]

Yep. All right, we're gonna take another break. Andy's teeing up the next story. I could feel it. German. You know, normally we do the power on newsletter summary every Tuesday. After all the things German dumped on Sunday. Well, he just dumped something yesterday. That is a bigger plus. There are OS updates for all of the Apple devices all of a sudden, so there's still so much to talk about. Stay tuned. Andy Inoco will introduce the next subject. Plus Jason Snell and Alex Lindsay, and I'm just along for the ride. I'm Leo laporte. Now let's take a break for our sponsor, Stash saving and investing. Investing can feel impossible, but with Stash, it's not just a reality, it's easy. Stash isn't just an investing app. It's a registered investment advisor that combines automated investing with dependable financial strategies to help you reach your goals faster. They'll provide you with personalized advice on what to invest in based on your goals. Or if you want to just sit back and watch your money go to work, you can opt into their award winning expert managed portfolio that picks stocks for you. Stash has helped millions of Americans reach their financial goals and starts at just $3 per month. Don't let your savings sit around. Make it work harder for you. Go to get.stash.com macbreak to see how you can receive $25 toward your first stock purchase and to view important disclosures. That's get.stash.com MacBreak paid non client endorsement, not representative of all clients and not a guarantee. Investment advisory services offered by Stash Investments LLC, an SEC registered investment advisor. Investing involves risk offers subject to TNCs. Andy, which do you want to talk about? The new os? No, the updates, they're out and I don't know what they do, but I guess there's some security. But I think the story from Mark yesterday he tweeted it is really interesting. Apple Ready's dramatic Software overhaul for iPhone, iPad and Mac this is not Mark's guess. I think this is from his sources One of the most dramatic overhauls in company history. It will do later this year will fundamentally change the look look of the operating systems and make Apple's various software platforms more consistent. Here it is, according to people familiar with the effort. That includes updating the style of icons, menus, apps, Windows and system buttons as part of the push. The company is working to simplify the way users navigate and control the devices. The design and this is what really scared me is loosely based on the Vision Pro's software.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah, this really does smell like it's going to be something big. Like Renee Richie, late of Mac break now of YouTube, pointed out so importantly that there are times when Mark puts something in the newsletter which can be very speculative and there are times when he publishes something as a standalone article. The standalone article have a lot more weight. This is a standalone article. They're citing people who are familiar with the matter that this is a real like visual overhaul that affects absolutely everything. And it's not. It actually clicks in with some things that we've seen before. People who are looking at the camera app, for instance, and some of the small changes in iOS 18.3, 18.4 have noticed that, hey, wow, this box seems like it's been rebuilt to look a lot more like the sort of floating translucency of Vision os, even though this is an iPhone app. And that's sort of what this article is kind of talking about to make everything feel as though it works together. But now we're not just talking about making sure that the iPhone experience is similar to the Mac experience and the iPad experience, but also roping in Vision Pro there. He was also very careful to say that this is not about the iPad and the Mac OS and iOS like forging and becoming the same thing. It's like iOS 7 where we had the same sort of consistent look and feel for many, many, many generations of the os. And this is the time where they said look we're not going to just do one or two things here. We're going to basically update this, update its looks for 20, 25 and beyond. As you you might recall, iOS7 was controversial because the whole aesthetic was whatever it is on the screen, get rid of it and make it as minimalist as possible. And for me, I still remember how confused I was with the iPhone for the first few weeks at least because looking for a feature, I wouldn't find it. I'm supposed to infer it based on placement or based on gesture. So I don't know. The article doesn't go into a lot of detail about it except for that it's going to be unveiled at wwdc. If it works like previous overhauls, I'm sure that most developers will get this new UI for free. But if they decide to overhaul their apps, they're going to get like better placement in the app store. It's going to look better and work better, but a lot of people are going to be upset about it. I mean Apple, Apple just made some changes to the Photos app and people are still like trying to find unbroken windows that have been. Alex Lindsay, I'm not going to say anything. So essentially make sure you have canned goods, make sure you have toilet paper, make sure you have bottled water, go into full prepper mode like in September and October when iOS 16, excuse me, 19 and the new macOS come up because it's going to be a whoop to do, I think so.

[Leo Laporte]

Jason, have you heard anything this, this came out of the blue, I think like this.

[Jason Snell]

No, there have been some other reports, right. Like front page tech did a video where they said like they did a mock up of camera app that they said was being redesigned and that that suggested there was a whole redesign in the mix. I think we've seen a couple other suggestions that there was going to be sort of a vision OS inspired, inspired whatever UI overhaul. I, you know. So it sounds like there's something going on here. Now whether they again they just got burned on this, this thing, like do they think it's ready and do they think it's worth the cycles given everything else that's going on. Wouldn't shock me if they did it. Wouldn't shock me if they put it off because they said, oh, you know, you know, it depends philosophically it might be we have too much to do. This is the last time we want to overhaul this. They yes, let's put it out there. You could also say, you know what, we're struggling in all These functional areas. So let's dazzle them with design instead and they can go that direction too. I don't know, it'll be interesting to see where, where their head is at. But like on one hand, I understand the motivation to make your platform feel unified because so many people use the iPhone and then a lot of those people do end up buying a Mac Mac and that you want it to feel somewhat familiar. That's why this, you know, system preferences became settings. I get it. On the other hand, as a Mac user, I'm not sure that making my Mac look more like my iPhone makes my Mac better. Right. And so that's the push and pull there is like, I get it. There are so many people who, you know, Apple wants there to be a resemblance between their products. Right. Like they, because those people might buy a Mac and then be like, well, wait a second, this is only my iPhone at all. I get that. But I also am hesitant that are they going to do some stupid stuff that makes the Mac worse because they need it to look like the iPhone for some reason?

[Alex Lindsay]

I think it'll be a bit of both. Like, it'll be. There'll be some things that are improvements and a bunch of things that you're like, oh, like really?

[Jason Snell]

Why?

[Alex Lindsay]

And I do think that there, I think that there's an attempt to. You've got a bunch of different platforms, you've got vision Pro and iOS and all these things. And at some point they're trying to pull them, I think all to. Into one thing that feels like it's the same all the way through. And at some point you kind of have to just stop and from the ground up. And they probably decided this a year or two ago. It's probably not something they decided today that yeah, maybe we're going to just, just feel, put it all together in a way that has it all feel like it's one operating system. And I think you can only cobble your way there to some degree until you have to kind of break everything down and put it back together together.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah. And I'm more optimistic now. I've. Whether this was true or not, I had the perception a while ago that Apple had become very dogmatic when it comes to design, both hardware and software that, oh well, if we put more things, if we put fewer things on the screen that will make things better. Whether that actually turns out to be the case or not. I think that they're a lot more mature now or they've. Their, their design philosophy seems to have pivoted a little bit towards my liking, where, hey, yeah, it has to look good, has to look fresh and modern, but it also has to be very, very practical. And so this is not, despite what we might have said earlier, this is not like, hey, we have to make everything look like Vision Pro. It's the case of the people who are designing Vision Pro basically had nearly free rein to say, well, we're not just simply cut, copy and pasting iOS or iPados. We can basically do what makes sense for this. And a lot of this is not going to be things that are required for VR os. A lot of this is, gee, I wonder why we're still rendering a window this way when we have so much GPU power on every single device that we make that we can easily make the transition from A to B a lot more clear to the user if we simply add this effect. So I'm keen to see it. I'm sure that it will. We've seen this sort of thing before where they will show something off at wwdc and then five months later we infer what made the cut, what did not make the cut, both in internal arguments and people having throwing a nutty like on Reddit and in various discords all across this great world of ours.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, Gurman doesn't have his usual disclaimer that this is, you know, internal and it could change, everything could change, it could all be different. But I think that that's of course true. He says the code name for iOS 19 and iPados 19 is, is luck and mass. Mac OS 16 is cheer. The most significant upgrade to Mac since Big Sur for the phone. Biggest revamp since iOS7 and we'll get to see it. This makes WWDC even more interesting. We'll get to see it at wwdc, the developers conference in June. And he adds one last little shot to the elbow could help distract from the company's tumultuous push into artificial intelligence. Just a little shot there, you guys. Alex and Jason use Vision Pro. Like Vision Pro, is that a good metaphor for OSS going forward? Round icons?

[Jason Snell]

Sure.

[Alex Lindsay]

I mean, like, I don't, I don't know. I mean, it's, it's. I think it's fine. It's hard to tell what it's going to look like on the screen. I just don't want them to change. I think that the problem that I really have is that so far I just feel like Apple just has a hard time saying no to things like just there's so much complexity being added so quickly to a lot of these things and I just, I don't feel like it's improving the quality of the, of the experience. Like I think that's, that's the issue.

[Leo Laporte]

Sir, cake in our YouTube says I hope they revamp system preferences. Anyway.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, good luck with that.

[Alex Lindsay]

I think we're done with that.

[Jason Snell]

I think this isn't about Vision Pro. I think the design team said we're going to need to do a new design language and we have to build a design language for Vision OS because it's a brand new os. So let's build some of the concepts and, and then build them for Vision os and once we've refined them there, we can see how do those concepts also work on iOS, iPadOS, Mac OS, et cetera. So my just having been through a bunch of like magazine and website redesigns in my career, that's what it feels like to me. It's, is that they have a design group that's thinking about Apple platform level design and they needed a design for Vision os. So they were like, okay, let's what, what do we want to change globally about our OS design? What, what are the tenants? What are the, you know, what are the philosophies? They start to put that together. They build a book, they build a rule system, they do all of that. The first iteration of it is Vision os. But it's not like, hey, we made Vision os. Isn't it awesome? Let's put it everywhere. Because Vision OS is important. I don't think that's it. It's more like it was first, it was a good place for them to experiment and then they're going to try to apply some of that same style guide, but obviously different because it's different stuff. It's 2D. You know, a phone in your hand is different than a Mac with a big screen and then kind of roll it out across their whole design system. So that's, that's my read on it is that there probably has been a project to do a global design refresh and, and Vision Pro was first because it was new and not mission critical, but that eventually it'll go everywhere.

[Andy Inako]

Good point. Also, it always makes me nervous when.

[Leo Laporte]

They think about redesigning macrosos because I feel like the pressure, it comes from below or it's above, I guess from the iPhone to make everything more like the iPhone. That's not what I want want, but that's just me. So.

[Jason Snell]

Right. Like I understand the idea of it being a product line and you want similarity, but yeah, as A Mac user, you're also like, let's not get too.

[Leo Laporte]

Similar, but for a reason.

[Jason Snell]

Everything is. It is a different product. And like good design. Good design makes them similar when they need to be, but also fit the. The object. Right? That's the idea. And so that's the challenge. Right? Because it's hard. That's a hard job to say, how do I make a Mac work like a Mac, but also feel of a kind with the iPhone, like the cousin of the iPhone. Can you do that? Can you pull that off? That's what they have to do.

[Leo Laporte]

It just feels like it's changed for Apple is that in the old days, the designers Susan Karen, Andy Hertzfeld and Bill Atkinson made the Mac look like what they wanted it to look like. Now you have a centralized design team that Alan Dye & Co. 300 people who are responsible for the look and feel of not just hardware, but software too. And that's a big shift. I also worry because designers. Sometimes I feel like designers change things just because they. It's, you know, it's the new season, it's the fall season and so everybody, the hemlines are going down, down. And I feel like that that's not in the computing world, a good reason to change things.

[Jason Snell]

That's why Steve Jobs and Jony. I've worked well together and I think this is why there's a huge misread about Apple post Steve Jobs where like, Steve had good taste. Steve was the person who could say no to Johnny. I've. And they work well together. But that was a push and a pull. And I think when Steve died and Johnny was given more responsibility because Apple was afraid that they were going to be seen as rudderless after Steve Jobs for a while there they invested all this power in Johnny and there was nobody there to really tell him no. And, and that's when, I mean, look, I love. I've worked with many designers and they are great, great designers are awesome.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, I have huge respect for designers.

[Jason Snell]

Designers need pushback. Designers are going to do the design thing and take it as far as they want. And there needs to be somebody there to say not that we don't want to go in that direction. And that's how you end up with great products, is that you've got that push and pull. And so for something like this, it's the same thing. It's like, yeah, the designers are going to say, yeah, let's refresh. Let's give it a new clean, clean look. Because clean is a great word to use it doesn't mean anything. It just means different. Let's give it a new clean look. That'll be. And then, and then what you need is somebody who's a product person who says, actually, no, let's. This is too much. This breaks this. This doesn't do that. And if you get that dynamic right, you can make some great stuff. And that is what Steve and Johnny did. So I hope, I mean, what I see in a lot of stories, including that Gurman piece, is grousing from designers. That man, they don't respect designers anymore. There's all these people in charge who are like product people and engineers and they just don't let us do what we want anymore. And I look at that and I shake my head because it's like, it's very clear that Mark Gurman sources are designers and like, that's fine. But like, you do not. Designers do not make the product. Designers are part of a process that makes a product. And some of Apple's biggest missteps in the 2000 and tens were because there was a runaway design process and nobody to tell them no.

[Leo Laporte]

I like the butterfly.

[Jason Snell]

Butterfly keyboard. Let's do fewer ports.

[Leo Laporte]

Keyboard ever made people want from a.

[Jason Snell]

Keyboard is thinness, not type ability right on travel. Not any of those.

[Leo Laporte]

By the way, I'm, I'm a guy. I use. This is my user, my favorite user interface. I'm a kind of, of a can there. There we go. I'm a kind of a basic guy when it comes to using computers.

[Andy Inako]

That's fair.

[Jason Snell]

That's fair.

[Leo Laporte]

And I don't, I don't need design. I need a nice font on my terminal profile.

[Jason Snell]

You do need good design, right? Good design is for everyone. But, but design, like just dressing it up and putting colors on it and, and putting animations on it is not design. Design is how it works, right? Design is the whole package and that is a complex, complex. Like making a product is not just design. It is engineering. It is marketing. It is understanding who your user is. There are so many parts to making a good product. And so when I see stories that seem to be sourced from design people, I, I gotta admit, I roll my eyes a little bit because they're great. But like, they don't decide. They need opposition. They. Not every idea they have is going to make a good product and somebody needs to be able to tell them absolutely true.

[Leo Laporte]

And I will, and I, and I will say that an iPhone and an iPad are things that should look pretty and nice, you know, but just don't Screw with and work, but don't screw with my Mac. I'm just saying, all right, leave the Macintosh alone. But they're gonna mess with it and, you know, I'll just have to live with it, I guess.

[Andy Inako]

But. But the. Just the one other quick thing, though, is that almost everybody who has been like a long, long time part of. Of Jony I've's design team has since moved on and retired. So we really are looking at a fresh set of eyes and a fresh set of imperatives. So hopefully this won't be as. Hopefully this won't be as bad as iOS7. That sounds like damning with faint, but it's interesting. It's scary. There are people who are. It's going to be tough for everybody just because it's different. We just have to hope that it's. It will do things like it will make the interface more customizable, like in the ways that are kind of important that help you to make your iPhone make more sense to you and look better to you, and that some things that have been cluttering the interface for the past 10 years no longer make sense and have been updated again. No matter what happens, it's going to be upsetting for a couple of weeks. Hopefully it's the sort of thing where after a couple of weeks we forget that we were upset about anything.

[Jason Snell]

Also remember, so iOS7 changed a lot of people's minds who are iPhone users and made them fear software updates. And I think that it's still out there in the water that people, people's iPhones completely changed underneath them and they got very upset. One of the things that Apple has changed since then is their software update mechanism, where for the first few months that iOS is out, if you don't ask for the software update, you don't get it right? Like, they let it lie for a while. And it'll be interesting to see how they approach a major change like this, how they communicate it, how they give people the option of not updating yet, how all of that works. Because that was one of the worst things about iOS7 is it was such a huge update that it made people say, I don't want to do an update anymore. And I have members of my family that it's like that. It's like, no, there's security updates. You need to run them. They're like, no, but it might change something and break something, and I don't want to do it anymore. So I hope that if Apple's going to do this, they also are really careful about how they push it out, how they communicate it and they don't sort of make people feel like Apple has forced them into a phone that they didn't want.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, well, and I think in overall there's a lot of us that would like Apple to just get the stuff that they've done working. I mean, I still haven't upgraded to the latest operating system on my main computers because I have people who just upgrade. Upgraded a month ago and all their audio, audio broke like, you know, like it's still. And it's, it's a core audio problem and it's just a, you know, the, that Apple needs to tie all that stuff back together. And I just, you know when they say they're going to redo the entire look and feel, you know, they're just going to break a lot of things really quickly and you're just like, oh man, I just need them to fix the things that they have. You know, like I just, if they do this big update, I'm just hoping they spend two or three years then like pushing everything back in together and making all the subsystems work. Because that's what it really feels like is that a lot of these subsystems aren't, aren't working as well as they should.

[Andy Inako]

That's such a timely and common complaint. Like just a few weeks ago there was a very, very simple blog post that someone posted about how someone saying, oh God, like the Apple software quality has gone down like for the past three years. And I used to be able to trust that Apple stuff would actually work and now I kind of cringe at just thinking about making a change or doing things like that with a very simple example of oh my God, why is this working? The, why is this not working the way that it's should be working? And as often happens, it was getting hundreds and hundreds of me too comments saying, oh my God, let's talk about this. I do think that Apple has an increasing perception problem that they put most of their passion into the hardware and the people inside Apple who are fighting for the greatest quality software are not necessarily invited to all the right meetings because they don't get the chance to write software that's as bulletproof as they would like it to be.

[Leo Laporte]

But all of this goes to the fact that whenever WWDC is, it'll be in June. We're about paying close attention. There's going to be a lot for Apple to talk about. Yeah. And they've cleared the decks for hardware releases. Right. I don't, yeah. Think we'll see.

[Jason Snell]

Anything. Something we didn't mention is there's that rumor of that little home screen thing that you're going to be also putting off.

[Leo Laporte]

Right.

[Jason Snell]

And apparently because according to Mark Gurman, app intents is a big part of its whole thing. And that's one of the things that got pushed off. And that means that product has probably gotten pushed off. Which I would say proves the point that Apple really did think these features were going to be ready, not that they were lying fabricating and that they were going to push them off because you don't build hardware around a software feature if you think it's a fake. They really thought it was going to be ready and it's not. So we'll harder than they thought, just.

[Leo Laporte]

As it's harder than Amazon thought it is. So there's hard stuff.

[Jason Snell]

There's probably not a lot in terms of hardware announcements for Apple until the fall when they've got a new chip generation other than like, again, put on your tinfoil hat, some Mac Pro announcement at some point. But otherwise, yeah, I think it's going to be quiet and it's all going to be about that June software update.

[Leo Laporte]

And we should say the M4 is kind of the upgrade we were hoping the M3 would be. It really is a big leap in performance, it looks like. According to geekbench, the single core performance is notably improved.

[Jason Snell]

The single core is better and there are more cores. So I mean, in the end, yeah, it's a, it's a nice update all around.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. All right. Timed update. Speaking of Which. Safari to 1831, iOS to 1832, iPad OS to 1832, Sequoia to 1532 and Vision OS to 232. Why? Because there's a nasty zero day in WebKit. Oh man. Again, again, again. CVE 2020 5424201. Fix it because it's, it's out there, right? And. And you need to fix it. So this isn't one of those, oh, I don't really need the latest version of Genmoji. This is. You probably want to update this sucker.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Maliciously crafted web content may be able to break out of web content sandbox. This is, by the way, the same thing they fixed in iOS 17.2. Apple is aware of a report this issue may have been exploited in an extremely sophisticated attack against specific targeted evangels on versions of iOS before 17.2. So it is a fix to the fix. An out of bounds right issue was addressed with improved checks to prevent Unauthorized action. It's not clear whether the zero day remains. It sounds like they'd fixed it in 17 2, but now they want to just tighten the bolts a little bit. Just a little bit. So get that update. Anything else to say about that Apple tv? Do you have to update that? No, they're still at 18. 3.1. But everything else. I guess there's no Safari in Apple TV or something, right? I really liked this article. Speaking of OS updates, it's a little geeky, but I think you guys are pretty geeky. And you might want to read this from Random Augustine, his Medium post a couple of weeks ago on Apple Exclaves. So he talks about the fact we've always said. I've always thought that Apple was using the monolithic or, sorry, the modular kernel system, the microkernel called Mach. But I didn't realize that Apple had kind of made it more like a monolithic kernel in a lot of ways. And this raises the same security issues that a monolithic kernel raises. So a microkernel. Very little can run in the system space. Almost everything above the microkernel is user space, but user space is dangerous. That's when you get things like WebKit for overflows and so forth. So Apple. But it's also less performant if you do a microkernel because everything's running out of user. It's not as fast as a monolithic kernel. Windows is a monolithic kernel. So Apple created something called exclaves that is kind of splitting the baby. It gives you the performance of a monolithic kernel, but still lets you run kind of as a microkernel. And I thought this was a really interesting article. And Apple introduced a new kernel called the Secure Kernel, or sk, which is what we're using today. And that's all I have to say about it. But it is kind of what Samsung does with Knox. These enclaves are kind of like. These exclaves are kind of like the enclaves in other operating systems. And Intel's trying to do it with their CPUs. So it is all an attempt to make things performant and secure. Anything else to say? You have anything to add to that or is that just me bloviating?

[Andy Inako]

I. I read that article and I understood about 38% of it.

[Leo Laporte]

So I think it's what I see. I like this kind of stuff because it really. It reminds me how much stuff that we don't even see behind the scenes is going on with Apple trying to make a secure OS that is also performant and solving problems that other OSes have not solved. So I think that's very, very interesting.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah, absolutely. That must be an interesting community inside Apple or almost any company but especially at Apple where like people, they have.

[Leo Laporte]

Good security people, they have the best.

[Andy Inako]

Absolutely. You know, say what you will about nearly every large tech company company, the people who work in security are the most focused, intense and humanist persons, excuse me, humanistic people like on the staff because they understand the importance of what they're doing. They are absolutely committed to it like it's a religion. Again, even if you, no matter what you say about Google for instance about oh well, they don't care about privacy. Oh well, they're in the business of like collecting information. But the people who are at Google who is responsibility to keep that information secure and private are the people who are like again, they will have beers with their counterparts at Apple any day of the week because they're cut from the same cloth and they are the same quality human.

[Leo Laporte]

And I should also. I'll read the final paragraph, the conclusive paragraph from Random Augustine. I don't know if that's his real name. I doubt it. In the face of continued, continued exploitation by advanced threat actors, Apple's implementation of X claves represents a large investment to add extra defense in depth to their operating systems. By isolating sensitive resources, Apple is shrinking their potential attack service and reducing the impact of any single kernel compromise. Defending monolithic kernels is a Sisyphean task. Exclaves represent one method of dealing with a challenge. He says it's a defensive effort on a larger scale than any other end user device manufacturer is currently attempting.

[Alex Lindsay]

So I think that one of the things that as Apple does that and then continues to kind of knock the keys off of what it's doing so that it doesn't have access to it without the hardware. It makes everything, it does make everything much more secure. It makes it. As they continue to do this and then continue to reduce their ability to actually get to it, when government organizations as well as hackers try to get get to it, there's nothing they can do. They're like I don't have a key. Like I don't have a key to that. It's like putting a whole bunch of compartments out there with all their individual compartments. You can get into one but you can't get into the rest of them. So it's interesting.

[Leo Laporte]

Are you excited that you will finally be able to play roller coaster tycoon in Apple Arcade?

[Alex Lindsay]

Yay.

[Andy Inako]

Am I.

[Alex Lindsay]

Occasionally. I found an Apple Arcade Game that I thought was fun there was like cricket through the ages or whatever was kind of a fun thing for a little while that we played. But overall I just, I haven't found any of the games to be something that I would like. I fiddle with them a little bit. Oh I got a couple new ones I'm going to play with them a little bit. But they last not pretty very long. It's, that's the problem.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah, but that's, but that's fine. That's like they're, yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

You're not paying for them, so why not?

[Andy Inako]

Yeah. Oh God, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

[Alex Lindsay]

No, no, I, I, and, and I just feel like maybe I'm not a game per. I mean I, I, maybe I'm not the right game person for it because I just don't like to play lots and lots of different games. I think, I think that's the, you.

[Leo Laporte]

Know, I've stuck with the same Tower defense game for 20 years.

[Alex Lindsay]

I'm stuck with the same. No, not 20, you know, you know desktop Tower defense was the first one that was 20 years ago and then, then that went to field runners but they went out of business.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

Now in Kingdom Rush is where.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

And, but not the new Kingdom Rush. I'm still on the original.

[Leo Laporte]

Wow. There release new ones.

[Alex Lindsay]

It's too complicated. The new ones are too complicated. Like I just, and not only. Here's the worst part is not only do I play only one game, I only play one level on one game. Like literally I play the same level. What time?

[Leo Laporte]

Why?

[Alex Lindsay]

Because it's just it, it, because it does, it's not pattern oriented, soothing.

[Jason Snell]

It's.

[Alex Lindsay]

Well no, it's constantly changing. So it is isn't like it's never the same level. Like it's a level but it's the, the challenges are different every single time. So I don't need to change levels. I've already played all the other levels by the way. But so I, oh I've gotten to this. So I've already.

[Leo Laporte]

Because you have to found this one level that really.

[Alex Lindsay]

It's the master level. I mean you can see it. It's like separated from everything else and it's, and it doesn't have, it never stops. Like so you just, you just go until you die.

[Leo Laporte]

Right.

[Alex Lindsay]

And so just keeps on getting harder until you, until you, you can't go any further. But, but I like, I mean I, I love Robo Recall. I love like first person shooters. I love like that type of thing and I, so it's not like I don't like other kinds of games than desktop tower defense, but I don't find. I find myself a little bit. I. I have a hard time. Like, I look at some of these ones and they just. And I talk to people about. I'm like, is anyone. I don't know anybody that's playing these games. Like, that's the thing. It's not just me. It's just like when I talk to people, I like kids. My kids have access to them and they're like, no, no, that's a stupid game.

[Leo Laporte]

Stupid game. Well, it's not available yet. I was just checking the arcade and I don't see it yet, but it's coming, Coming soon. You can buy it, but don't buy it because it's coming. Okay. I have this new game I've been playing. It's really wild. There's black and white keys. It's a little expensive to get into. And there. Yeah, they're in app purchases of sheet music. But I'm learning to play the piano. Piano. And I figure in about 10 years, I'll be really good at this. It'd be like you, Alex. I'll just play the same Bach piece over and over and over again.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yes, that's my goal exactly.

[Leo Laporte]

I often thought, you know, I'm playing guitar here. I was thinking, you know, if I put this many hours into actually learning a real guitar.

[Alex Lindsay]

Someone show some videos that. That someone.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, there's this new guy who broke the record, right?

[Alex Lindsay]

They. They were showing that they're like some guitar. You know, in some cases, some of the gameplay players are, you know, they've built up so dexterity that they can actually learn how to play something.

[Leo Laporte]

No, they can't play anything.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, I don't know.

[Leo Laporte]

There's a guy who just finished the impossible level. Was it on Guitar Hero?

[Andy Inako]

Guitar Hero Fury, if you're thinking of the same thing, the guy who played the Fury and the Flames at double speed. 100%.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Andy Inako]

And I'm. And I'm like, I had a mixture of being really, really impressed at a physical feat that is legitimately amazing. And also taken back at how much time did you have to spend and on this thing where you're not learning anything that will be applicable to anything other than playing this one song in this one game and how.

[Leo Laporte]

I'm glad.

[Andy Inako]

I'm glad he's doing it. I'm glad he's having fun. He's entertaining a lot of people with it. I'm sure he's making A lot of money on his channel. But it's like, oh, wow. That. That's. I mean, that's the reason why I stopped playing, like, these long, long, immersive games. Because it's like, I like these short games where you get a quick blast. This is why I like Apple Arcade. This is why I like my. My panic play date. Because I like to dip in and have some fun and distractions and dip out again. The last time I played a long game, I feel, oh, wow. Hey, it's been five weeks, like my life. What could I been doing in five. In five. And I know. I know you're having.

[Leo Laporte]

It's.

[Andy Inako]

It's. I'm not judging anybody who does. Who does. It's. It's entertainment.

[Alex Lindsay]

It's.

[Andy Inako]

It's pleasure. And that's always going to be, like, subjective. But for me, it's like, I don't want to spend. I want to spend 5.5weeks either applying myself and being focused and learning a skill or having an experience that will pay off, that will enhance my life in the future, or five weeks doing something that is absolutely not taxing me in any way that I can just allow my brain to sort of purge itself of all the crud that builds up 12 hours a day of working. I don't want to have to work for my entertainment again. That's. But his reaction at the very end is amazing.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, he does.

[Andy Inako]

It is the joy of.

[Leo Laporte]

Nobody's ever done this before at 200%, I guess, but look how fast.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

I feel like maybe he could play a real guitar, but maybe not.

[Andy Inako]

I mean, he has not. But. But I will say he has the finger dexterity if he. If he learns keyboard orchid.

[Leo Laporte]

That's true.

[Andy Inako]

Because a lot of it is like, there's the reason why. One of the reasons why, like, they have you play scales interminably when you start learning keyboard is.

[Leo Laporte]

That's right.

[Andy Inako]

You have to build strength and dexterity doing that.

[Leo Laporte]

And my hand in exercises. And my teacher has me doing this all day. And just because. Yeah, because you don't. Your fingers don't know how to do that yet. My biggest problem is this finger, this fourth finger, the ring finger.

[Alex Lindsay]

That's.

[Leo Laporte]

That's tough. Anyway. Yes. All right. Ready for the Vision Pro segment.

[Andy Inako]

It's.

[Leo Laporte]

There's only one item, but let's do it. What do you see? What do you know? It's time to talk to Vision Proo. First look from south by Southwest at the Black Magic Ursa Cine. Immersive. I'm sure You've watched this already, Alex? I mean, yes, Right? I mean, we all have.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

Anybody. Anybody like shooting that's getting ready to shoot with this camera? We're all like, okay, when do I get one?

[Leo Laporte]

How did she get one? How did she get this? I don't know.

[Alex Lindsay]

Well, this is the blackmagic booth.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, this is them.

[Alex Lindsay]

Oh, yeah. This is at their booth. Yeah. So you see.

[Leo Laporte]

So they go to South By. That's kind of cool. Yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

With all the cool kids.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, all the cool kids go to South By. I don't know where it was this year because they lost the convention center there. It's torn down in Austin. So they must have found somewhere. You'll see this, though, at NAB. When's that?

[Alex Lindsay]

NAB is in a couple of weeks. It's April 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th.

[Leo Laporte]

And you said that Black Magic has almost a whole hall devoted to them.

[Alex Lindsay]

They take over. It's like the front quarter of the south hall. Like, remember where your booth used to be?

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

Studio used to be in South Hall.

[Leo Laporte]

Right above the butt thumbs jumper. Yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

You look over and it's like Black Magic. It's just, you know, it's just.

[Leo Laporte]

They used to be a small little area there now.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, it's massive. It just keeps getting bigger every single time. And so, yeah. So anyway, yeah, they're. Hugh Howe is. He's the guy, like, ever, like, on YouTube. He does all the videos about how different. He covers all kinds of different cameras.

[Leo Laporte]

It's his channel. Okay.

[Alex Lindsay]

But this is his. This is his groove. And so we all. We all watch his videos.

[Leo Laporte]

Nice. So.

[Alex Lindsay]

So, so he's. He' I mean, I think, again, a lot of us are excited to see.

[Leo Laporte]

You know, did you see anything that you didn't know? Anything? Did you learn anything?

[Alex Lindsay]

No, I thought that there were more. So one of the things I thought is that some earlier designs showed more Ethernet going out of the back. It only has one. So also, you know, I. We weren't sure whether the 8 terabyte memory module was going to be able to pull out, but they pulled it out and we were seeing what it looks like. So those are. Those are some of the newer, newer things that we looked at there, you know, So I think that it's being able to completely control the camera through the Ethernet connection is useful because we're going to want to put it in places that we don't want to necessarily go out and deal with. Ahead 180 degrees. It's hard to sneak up with the camera. I mean, you can go from back, but you, you know, it limits what you do. Like for instance, they showed this tripod and you have to. With a 180 lens, you have to kind of tuck the camera out in front of the tripod so you don't see any of the legs.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, yeah. You'll see the tripod, won't you? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

So it's interesting.

[Leo Laporte]

I don't know what he shot this with, but this is a 3D video or 100.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, I think, I think he shot it with a insta 360. I think he, he does a lot of stuff with insta360.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Alex Lindsay]

So I think that's probably what he's. What he's doing.

[Leo Laporte]

And that's your. That's about. Unless. Wait a minute. Didn't something. Didn't a new immersive video come out? I think a couple.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, I mean, they came out with the water. Did you watch the water climbing thing, Jason?

[Jason Snell]

Water climbing thing?

[Leo Laporte]

Well, I climbed the wall above the ocean.

[Jason Snell]

No, no. I mean, I was on vacation. Vacation. So I just. They keep pushing new beta updates.

[Leo Laporte]

So did you bring your Vision Pro on vacation?

[Jason Snell]

Did not bring my Vision Pro on vacation.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, that's because you were in Kauai.

[Jason Snell]

I was reading books.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, you didn't need a Vision Pro. Everything was there already around you.

[Jason Snell]

I was using the Vision Pro this morning and I went into the Bora Bora environment and I was like, oh, yeah, I was here, basically. Right. Like just a beach and palm trees.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Vision Pro is not for bringing to Kauai. It's for when you can't get to Kauai.

[Jason Snell]

Exactly. What you do is you turn up the heat a lot, put in a humidifier, get the fan going, going at a gentle breeze level, and then you dial in Bora Bora and imagine.

[Leo Laporte]

And that's the Vision Pro segment. A couple more things. Let's see. Dropbox now supports live photos.

[Andy Inako]

Good for Dropbox.

[Leo Laporte]

I think that's it. Andy, you put in a lot of stories. Did I get to everything that you wanted to talk about? I'm just going through here.

[Andy Inako]

A lot of little stuff. There's. Oh, SpaceX. Okay. If you want to talk a little bit about. I thought things kind of interesting. Like, so remember how Apple made a billion dollar investment in Global Star for satellite services, for iPhone. So guess what? For absolutely no reason that has to do with conflict of interest. Perish the thought. Elon Musk has said that, asked the fcc, hey, maybe you should basically stop Global Star from launching more satellites and continuous installation. Not. Not until we get a little bit of. A little bit of we find out what's going on, what that spectrum spectrum should be like.

[Leo Laporte]

This would be the SpaceX writes the fairest and most expeditious route to determine the appropriate regulatory regime to govern operations in a band that has not been examined for nearly 20 years. You know, I think Elon probably made a call. I don't think this SpaceX letter is the most important thing. I think Doge said it would be a shame if the FCC were to ban you entirely from the space. Yeah, that's ridiculous anti competitive bs.

[Andy Inako]

The only other thing that I thought was really cool is Ming Chi Kuo published on his Medium blog basically a summary of everything he thinks he knows about the folding iPhone which some of the stuff was kind of new that there he thinks that Apple's targeting like a super premium price point like 2000 $2500 which would be in line with what Samsung and others are charging for their big phones. Also that he thinks that it's going to be like a book full like it's going to unfold into a 7.8 inch screen with a 5 point something inch screen for the outer screen. So it's going to be an iPhone that unfolds into sort of like a tablet, not an iPhone that folds into a smaller package. And he thinks that mass production in fourth quarter of 2020 projecting 3 to 5 million units. So a lot of specifics here. Some of the stuff that we'd heard rumored before partly from Ming Chi Kuo himself but it definitely seems like with this and other rumors that we're getting about folding iPads and folding notebooks foldables does seem to there's the correct velocity of rumors and supply chain information that would make you think that no, this is not something they're simply dabbling with and making prototypes to just sort of test out concept that they do have this on as part of their like 3 year roadmap.

[Leo Laporte]

I do wish I'd gone to south by just to see Ben Stiller and Eddie Q talking in conversation about you.

[Jason Snell]

Can just watch it on YouTube.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh there you go. Saves me a trip to Austin, doesn't it?

[Andy Inako]

Do they do due dualing Cold steel Blue Steel, yes. Blue Steel, yes.

[Leo Laporte]

Steel, yes. Eddie. Eddie Q. His hair is a little. He said it looks a little different for some reason to me. I don't know what's maybe he's just aging. I don't know. So does Ben Stiller. It's all teeth. It's all teeth nowadays. All right, let's take one more break and then gentlemen, prepare your picks of the week as we wrap up this week's fine Mac Blake Weekly, our show today, brought to you, and I mean literally by Cash fly. For over 20 years, Cash Fly has held the track record for high performing, ultra reliable content delivery that there are CDN content delivery networks serving over 5,000 companies in over 80 countries. We've been using CashFly for almost 20 years, almost since the beginning and thank goodness, I don't think we'd be able to deliver these shows as easily, as effectively to a vast audience without them. Cashfly delivers petabytes of data to our audience for us and we are very grateful. It's the only CDN built for throughput. I mean I'm talking ultra low latency video, less than 1 second latency delivering to over a million concurrent users. Also, it's great for gaming because downloads are faster, you get zero lag, glitches or outages. It's great if you have images on your site because mobile content optimization from Cash Fly offers automatic and simple image optimization, which means your site loads faster on any size screen. Now we liked Cashfly because at the beginning we didn't really understand what our traffic pattern was. It's very spiky with our shows. You know, everybody downloads Mac break weekly in the first 24 hours and then it trickles off. And so we really, we didn't know how much bandwidth we should get. But fortunately Cash Fly offers very flexible month to month billing for as long as you need to figure out what your needs are. And then once you do, you can get fixed terms and get big discounts. We're really happy you, the point was you design your contract when you sign with Cash Fly. I'm very, very happy. Cash Fly has some exciting new updates to announce, including Manage Objects storage. For people who use Cachefly as a replacement for S3, they have a new object storage solution designed to increase speed and reliability to industry leading levels. And how do they do it? By basing all the drives entirely on NVMe, which is particularly useful for users who have a large number of small objects. Which is pretty typical, right? Completely S3 compatible. It'll easily integrate into your CashFly MOS, S3 or any other tool set you've designed. There are, and this, I love this. There are no egress or ingress costs, you just pay for the storage, a flat volume fee. They just opened their new point of presence in Australia's capital City Vienna, which is great for us all. Our Central European listeners and viewers will see significant improvements in latency and average transfer speed. Also, if you're a reseller, a lot of people I didn't know this. Are resellers of Cash Fly. They've added some new features to your portal. You can now be classified as a reseller. Have numerous full accounts under your reseller account, but each of them can operate independently, but the billing remains centralized cash. So everybody's happy, right? Cashfly delivers rich media content up to 158% faster than other major CDNs and allows you to shield your site content in their cloud, ensuring a 100% cache hit ratio. We've been doing that for many years now, and I have to say, it's really great. There are no more cash misses, right? Everything comes in very fast with no pausing. By the way, I should mention Cash Fly's incredible support. Their elite managed packages give you the VIP treatment. You'll get a dedicated account manager who will be with you from day one, ensuring a smooth implementation and reliable 24. 7 Support when you need it. Learn how you can get your first month [e-mail]. you've been hearing me say it for years. Bandwidth for Mac Break Weekly is provided by cachefly@ cache flashly.com TWIT thank you, Cash Fly. Matt Levine, the founder and the guy who called me way back when it was 2008, when we were struggling with our bandwidth, interviewed me for his podcast, which should be out very soon now, so I'll let you know when that comes out. We had a great conversation. Matt's a great, great guy. Do you ever go to one of Matt Levine's famous steak dinners at ces? Alex or anybody?

[Alex Lindsay]

Oh, yeah, really fun. Really fun.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, he's a great.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, really. It was. It was the best dinners I've ever been to. Yeah, not. I mean, the food was really good, but the. Who he invited, I know, was always just the right people and it was always. It's. It's always been fun. Yeah. 100.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. All right, let's get our picks of the week. You start, Alex.

[Alex Lindsay]

Give me one second because I want to make sure.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay, you don't start, Alex. Let's start, Jason.

[Jason Snell]

All right, I'm going to recommend a weather app. I know there are so many weather apps, but I have a reason for this. This is Mercury Weather. It's available on the App Store. And here's why I like Mercury Weather is it has a feature that lets you put in travel, so you can say from like for the week I'm in Kauai, I'm going to be in Kauai and you know, if I'm going to Portland for the weekend, I'm going to put that in and then in the app and most importantly for me on the widget that's you can put on your home screen it will show you the temps in the places you're going to be. So if you've got a multi city trip that you're taking or you're, you know, you're going to a, you know, across the ocean somewhere to a far off land and you're going to be in this city on these dates and then you're going to this city on these dates, you put all that in Mercury Weather and then your widget will show you the next seven days or whatever of highs, lows and, and, and weather forecast in the places you're going to be. Which, which I can't believe that there aren't more apps that do this, but there aren't more apps that do this. So Mercury Weather is the one I found that does this. You can name them, you can apply little icons to the different locations. So it's very clear to say to see when you're in this location and then when you're in that location. I wish I'd had this app when I went to New Zealand because we were going all over the place and I built a shortcut that showed me the weather for the various cities. But Mercury Weather will just do it. So it's a subscription and you got to make sure it's worth it for you. You can play it monthly or annually or whatever. It's a nice weather app. There are lots of nice weather apps out there. But the feature that I love about Mercury that I have not found anywhere else in a full featured weather app is travel forecasts. So that you know again because again, I don't care what the weather is going to be here if I'm going to be there. So I want to see that. And yes, that does mean that my last couple of days in Hawaii I was seeing how much colder it was going to be at home. But that's part of it too.

[Leo Laporte]

Now that's, you know what, I do that every time I have to look up the weather on every place we're going to go and it's very frustrating. I'm definitely downloading this. We're going to go in the September, we're going to go on a riverboat cruise up the Mississippi and we're hitting like a lot of locations and the weather will definitely be different in New Orleans than It is in St. Paul.

[Jason Snell]

So you pre program that in there and then your weather widget will know.

[Leo Laporte]

That's great. It's really good Mercury weather. And how much is it?

[Jason Snell]

It's a sub. I think it's like $4 a month or it's $14 a year or something. I mean, it's just. It's just a subscription.

[Leo Laporte]

They all are, aren't they? They all. You have to. They probably get their data because they're.

[Jason Snell]

Paying for their weather data. Yeah, exactly.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Won't be from NOAA for much longer, but. Okay.

[Jason Snell]

Use it while it lasts.

[Leo Laporte]

You'll have to get it from the Weather Channel, I guess. All right, Andy and Akko, your turn, my friend.

[Andy Inako]

Well, it's very, very relevant that Jason picked a weather app because I'm looking at weather under ground and noticing that to my disappointment, that there's going to be a 66% cloud cover at midnight on Thursday night going all the way up to 92% by 2am which means that I will probably not be able to see the blood worm. Total lunar eclipse that's happening in the United States overnight on Thursday night. If you're in the. On the west coast, it'll start going around 11. Around, around. If you're on the east coast, it will wrap up around 2am it's time for the syzygy.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, my God.

[Andy Inako]

Don't you, don't you love a word with no, no, like, no vowels? That's just like. That's just like, makes you happy as a Scrabble player. But yeah, it's gonna look really super cool and it's gonna be the first, the only one in the. In the only total lunar eclipse, I think even, maybe even longer. So, yeah, if you're.

[Leo Laporte]

Look at the totality, I mean, we are, are everywhere in the U.S. except, I mean, Newfoundland's gonna miss it. But that's it. It's amazing. And a little bit of Alaska.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah, exactly. And these things are, they, they photograph really, really nicely. It's a good reason to just go out now. It's a little bit warmer now that you can get to stay up a little bit later. That's pretty cool.

[Leo Laporte]

And people are gonna say that Newfoundland is not in the U.S. but it is in our 51st state. And so I'm gonna say in the U.S. u.S.

[Andy Inako]

Thank you. Thank you, Newfoundland, for all of us.

[Leo Laporte]

And the entire Gulf of America will also be in the totality as well, Mount McKinley. All right. Yeah. Okay. Very cool. Very cool. That's not your only pick though.

[Andy Inako]

Yeah, I have another. I have another pick. So if you go to the Apple TV plus channel on YouTube, they have posted an eight hour like ASMR video entitled an exclusive Odessa set designed for eight hours of focus. Perfect for your innies work workday Severance music to refine to. So it is eight hours of just in the workplace and background music and.

[Leo Laporte]

I should just play this. I should have been playing it the whole podcast.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah.

[Andy Inako]

And I will say if you. If it actually is very pleasant because it's nice music that like is like. Especially if you're in a work environment where like there's noise from the outside that's kind of like affecting calms your focus. It's better than noise canceling headphones because it replaces it to some nice music that doesn't distract your focus. And I will also say that as someone who is self employed and works around a home office, there's something about having eight hours of video of workers and a cubicle office complex that makes you think, ooh, I should probably at least look busy.

[Leo Laporte]

It's the next best thing to be working at Lumen at Lumen Industries. Somebody I saw did a breakdown of the music and it's actually quite interesting. There's any. And there's Audi parts and stuff. It's really interesting. Very nice. This is severance music to refine by featuring Odessa who is od? Is it Sza with an ode? What is Odessa?

[Andy Inako]

I could be wrong.

[Leo Laporte]

Odessa. Odessivarance odessifference. I hope I don't get taken down with playing bet 30 seconds of it because it really is great. And when you hear. But you have to hear it to remember it. Like what? What is it? Oh, yeah, that. Yeah. Oh, what a great show. I have not been watching it because I want to wait till it's completed so I can binge the hell out of it.

[Jason Snell]

Yep.

[Andy Inako]

I'm renewing my Apple TV plus subscription. Like @ a time when I have time to just sit and that's going to be my life for watching the entire series at once.

[Leo Laporte]

Can't wait. And Stephen Drabelle says the 51st state comment is not funny to Canadians. Please stop it.

[Andy Inako]

And not funny to us either. We're sorry.

[Leo Laporte]

It's not funny to us either. I guess it's the answer. I only mention it in passing because it's so unfunny. Alex, Lindsay, what do you got for us? Have you had time to set it all up.

[Alex Lindsay]

I just want to make sure I hadn't recommended before. I've had it for a couple weeks and I was just. So I've been testing. A friend of mine sent me this to test and I'm taking you along my, my surround sound journey. So we've talked about the Ambeo mic, we've talked about The F. The H3 mic. This is the voyage mic. Ooh, look at that. This is eight mics. Actually this is a second order Ambisonic. So now what's kind of cool about it is it just connects to your iPhone. So there's an iPhone app. And so basically you can see me walk, you know, you can see as I kind of go around it. It's so all your. These are all eight mics and you just plug this mic into this phone and hit record and it's going to record all of those channels, in this case Ambisonic a format. And then I can go and take them into a variety of different pieces of software to turn them into some version of surround. Basically it's using these mics to build a sphere of audio around that you can then work with. And so as I do more and more spatial video and immersive. Getting ready to do some more immersive video, you know, capturing the space, I found watching other people's work is really important. So this by the way is the smaller version of what Apple shows on their. They have a Dante version of this that they show on some of the behind the scenes of what they're doing. But this is the USB version. It's a lot less expensive and it just connects to the phone. So this is, you can see that. That's the one with the cap on it. I took the cap off so you can see what the mics actually look like.

[Andy Inako]

It looks like Everlasting Gobstopper without the cap on.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, let's see if I can get it to go. Focus here. Yeah, it's, it's, you know, like this is, this is the typical YouTuber thing. Cover your eyes but you can see the kind of the. It's really cool. So my, my son and I are taking this out to the. Out near Nicasio out in the redwoods this weekend to record some, some, some scenery. So it should be a lot of fun. But we've already done some testing and it's turned out really well.

[Leo Laporte]

$999.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, it's going to keep getting more expensive. I started off on the small ones. I have another one that I'm Already testing. That's even. We'll see how it goes. I haven't tested it yet, so I'm not going to talk about it. But this one I've tested.

[Leo Laporte]

It's too bad we don't shoot this in 360, because I would be fun to have everybody in different positions. Exactly.

[Alex Lindsay]

What's interesting is that what I'm playing with really is how do I take instrumentation that's in front of me and mix that in, then be able to capture what it sounds like in the space? That's what I've noticed is that when I watch someone record, do a recording, and it was only the recording, I feel like there's something about it. Now I'm in spatial or immersive, and I feel like I'm missing something. And usually it's how it interacts with the environment. So I'm trying to figure out ways to. To capture that environment and then bring it back into the experience. And I find that when we do a little bit of that, it makes a pretty big difference.

[Leo Laporte]

Very cool. This is an ambisonic mic with eight different capsules from Voyage Audio. A mere $1,000, but if you need it, you know, there you go. I mean, obviously, if you're shooting with the Ursa, it's not another thousand bucks for audio. Big, big deal.

[Alex Lindsay]

Well, you know, again, for some people. And again, the H3 is a great little 250 version of this. And that's probably the least that. That's the entry level. And what we're. One of the things I'm working on right now is I took out. I took this out with the H3 from Zoom, and I'm recording them side by side, and I'm taking another. Interesting. And what I'm working towards now is having the Ambeo, this mic, the H3, and this other mic that I'm testing right now, take them all out in the same place this weekend and record all, you know. Well, just record all of them and see what they all like.

[Leo Laporte]

Right. Different noise.

[Alex Lindsay]

The noise.

[Leo Laporte]

Would you like if I put this in the middle of a symphony orchestra? I might not need to mix it at all. Right. Because it would just give me.

[Alex Lindsay]

It would give you an experience. I mean, some people will tell you that it's not like. One of the problems with it is that it's a point of reference. It's not your ears. It's not.

[Leo Laporte]

So they just say binaural.

[Alex Lindsay]

You can fold it down to binaural. Yeah. So what you do is you take all These. And you say, okay, well, I've got the sphere that I recorded.

[Leo Laporte]

I only have two ears.

[Alex Lindsay]

Make it sound like it. Well, it means that I can deliver it to you in stereo. So if I give you binaural, I could send you a stereo feed and it would still sound like it was. It was around you. The next step is you start moving the mics away from each other. So when they're doing, you know, orchestras, they start doing what's called Deca Trees, where they're moving the mics apart from each other so that you get more. A greater spatial feel. So those are all. But that's what.

[Leo Laporte]

It's not merely directional, it's also spatial. You want both?

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, yeah. And the problem is that one requires a lot more setup, this one. What's nice about this is that I can pull it out. It's got a little quarter 20 on the back. Throw it up and record something that is kind of cool. So, anyway, just playing with it.

[Leo Laporte]

Thank you, Alex. I'm sorry, we've run out of time. We won't have time to go over His Majesty King Charles III's music musical playlist.

[Andy Inako]

Props for putting Grace Jones on the list. I will give him that. I would wish for Slave to the Rhythm instead of La Vie on Rose, but still.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay, well, you know, you get. When you're in the palace, you don't want to play anything with too much of a beat, you know, you just. Because that just. The whole thing is crumbly. Andy and Iko, GBH is calling. But when?

[Andy Inako]

A week from Thursday at 12:30 Eastern Time. Go to WGBH news.org to listen to it live or later or listen to what I did like 10 days ago.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay, thank you, sir. Did you get your taxes done?

[Andy Inako]

Unfortunately, yes. This might be my last show. I might be broadcasting from a series of places.

[Leo Laporte]

I hold in my hands the paperwork. My taxes are done, but I'm very sad about it. Let's put it that. Let's put it that way. That's. There's going to be a large check involved to both the state and federal government. But I'm hoping if they just fire the entire IRS that no one will ever look at this. So maybe I could just forget to sign the check. I don't know.

[Andy Inako]

In America, taxes pay you.

[Leo Laporte]

Thank you, Andy. Jason snell [e-mail] Jason Indeed. Great pieces, even though written poolside about the new Macs.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah, you can. Yeah. Check out my MacBook Air review, which posted this morning, which I wrote here. In the cold of California instead of poolside. But yeah, there's lots to talk about right now. I'm glad we did. And yeah if you want to read more 6colors.com I'll also plug I had Jon Gruber filling in early yesterday. Short show, two and a half hours.

[Leo Laporte]

You know I saw a short show and I thought really? Now I see what you mean.

[Jason Snell]

Shorter than I think. What I said is not much happened this week. So it's a short show that was a good merging of a big week and a really great guest. We had a good time. We had a good time. People should check it out.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

You talked about other things too, I see.

[Jason Snell]

Yeah. I mean yeah, but those new Max AI and we talked a little bit about there's I don't know if you covered it last week or not but there was a story about how a judge and Brazil basically pointed at the DMA and said we want that here sideloading. Make it happen in the next three months. And like it's going to happen. Like once you break out of nobody having outside the App Store, it's very easy to just have everybody else say you already did it for them so do it for us now.

[Leo Laporte]

So we're going to Mar a lago for Mr. Cook.

[Jason Snell]

Really interesting chat. So yeah yeah if you. If you want another two and a half hour long podcast in your life about Apple after this one is over, fear not. Upgrade will fulfill your very long podcast needs.

[Leo Laporte]

You'll find it at Jason's website, sixcolors.com Jason yes or on Relay Billy FM upgrade will do. That'll work as well. I just want to get ready to.

[Alex Lindsay]

Go to six Colors.

[Jason Snell]

Check it out. Then they can see all my many podcasts.

[Leo Laporte]

All your many podcasts. Alex Lindsay Officehours Global every single day Q and A. Anything coming up you want to talk about? You're going to cover NAB with your Omnisonic mic. I'm sure we are.

[Alex Lindsay]

We're going to take a live view. We're going to attempt a 4K 60 HDR 5.1 walkthrough of the Expo floor on Sunday. So Wow. So it's we. We've got all the all the pieces should be here by Thursday and we may go to GDC next week. So stay tuned. We may go for like an afternoon. It's really the for test testing for nab. So that's a good idea and take the. Because the kit is complicated. So we're.

[Leo Laporte]

Sounds awesome.

[Alex Lindsay]

It works. Yeah. I'm pretty excited about it.

[Leo Laporte]

Sounds awesome. Can't wait. Can you believe it was 20 years ago that HD video practically killed you.

[Alex Lindsay]

Oh my gosh. Like Leo sending me emails. When are we putting out the first show? You know, we recorded this a long time ago. I'm like, I'm going as fast you.

[Andy Inako]

Don'T switching floppies as fast as I can. It's just a lot of data, sir.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, exactly.

[Leo Laporte]

We actually going to do our 20th anniversary twit on April 13. Our 20th anniversary is coming up and I want to invite anybody who watches our shows to send us a video or put it on your socials. Just add it to the socials. A video of how you watch how you first found us. Maybe the first time you watched an HD video from Mac Break Weekly, stuttering along at one frame per second. Second. Any of those memories? It's going to be fun. We're going to play as many of those as we can on April 13th on our 20th anniversary show. We've been together for a long time, Alex.

[Alex Lindsay]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Long enough so that you've started to look like my favorite Chia Pet. It's an Alex. Lindsay.

[Jason Snell]

Alex.

[Leo Laporte]

Lindsay.

[Jason Snell]

Chia.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, exactly. Just water him and he grows. Thank you, Alex. Thank you, Andy. Thank you, Jason Snell. Thanks to all of you for joining us. And of course, course thanks especially to our Club Twit members. They get ad free versions of all of our shows for $7 a month. They also get access to the Club Twit Discord, and they make possible the eight different live feeds we do every Tuesday at 11am Pacific, 2pm Eastern, 1800 UTC. Live to Discord for our club members. YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, X.com, facebook, LinkedIn, and Kick Everywhere. If you want to watch, watch this live, you can. But of course, most people watch after the fact. You can download versions of the show, audio or video at TWiT TV MBW. There's also a YouTube channel you can use to share clips. And of course, we encourage you to subscribe to the podcast. That way you'll get it automatically again, audio or video, and you can listen to it whenever. You know it works in your busy life. We're just. We're just glad to have you. Thanks for joining us, everybody, and I'll see you next week. I hope we'll see you next week. Meanwhile, though, it is my sad and solemn duty to tell you, get back to work. Break time is over. Bye.