MacBreak Weekly 1048 Transcript
Please be advised that this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word-for-word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-free version of the show.
Jason Snell [00:00:00]:
Hey everybody, MacBreak Weekly time. Jason Snell sitting in once again for Leo Laporte. We've got 2 amazing special guests, and I'm glad we invited them this week because there's so much to talk about. The iPhone Duo is here, the reviews are out, we've got a couple iPhone Duos, so we're gonna break that down. And that's not all, because Apple won't stop. New iMac, new MacBook Pro, new iPad Mini, and shortly a new touchscreen MacBook Pro on top of that. Well, they won't stop, so we won't stop. It's all coming up next on MacBreak Weekly.
Jason Snell [00:00:49]:
This is MacBreak Weekly, episode 1048, recorded October 27th, 2026: The Cupertino Coffin. It's MacBreak Weekly. I am Jason Snell sitting in once again for Leo Laporte. You know, he's traveling the world, he's doing stuff. I don't know where he is. He's on assignment. That's what he's doing.
Jason Snell [00:01:09]:
He's working hard right now, probably, or hardly working, one of those. We have— what a panel today. We have 2 special guests and a special regular panelist. Let's start with our special regular. It's Andy Inatko from the library, as always. Hi, Andy. Hi.
Andy Ihnatko [00:01:25]:
Hello, Jason. I'm feeling special, as I do every Tuesday at 2:00 PM Eastern time, 11:00 PM Pacific, because I'm anticipating a lovely and in-depth conversation about the latest in Vision Pro news.
Jason Snell [00:01:38]:
Oh no. Oh, what a plot twist at the end of that statement. Shocking. Yes, well, I grew up with Mr. Rogers, so I think everybody is special in their own way. And, but we do have special guests today because Christina is out as well as Leo. First, off. Not too long ago she was with us and somehow she decided it was okay to come back.
Jason Snell [00:02:00]:
It's Shelley Brisbane. Hello, Shelley.
Shelly Brisbin [00:02:03]:
Hello. So the place I usually am at Tuesday at 1 PM Central Time, they are saying right now that I'm on assignment. And so here I am to join
Jason Snell [00:02:10]:
you. Oh yeah, we are the assignment now. That's right. Whoa. My mind is blown. I can't believe it.
Andy Ihnatko [00:02:17]:
Did we send you like a tiny reel-to-reel tape recorder that then blew up as soon as Leah said the gig?
Shelly Brisbin [00:02:22]:
I wish you had. I mean, come on. That would have been a great—
Andy Ihnatko [00:02:25]:
That would have been classic. We'll make a note for next time.
Jason Snell [00:02:27]:
This podcast will expire in 3 hours.
Shelly Brisbin [00:02:30]:
Maybe one of those tiny little Mac things. We could pull that up. I don't know.
Jason Snell [00:02:33]:
Maybe so. And joining us is my good friend Stephen Hackett from Memphis, Tennessee, from 512 Pixels. Hi, Stephen.
Stephen Hackett [00:02:41]:
No one knows that I'm here. I'm not— I'm just here.
Jason Snell [00:02:44]:
You just go into your office and close the door and whatever, basically?
Stephen Hackett [00:02:48]:
Pretty much.
Jason Snell [00:02:49]:
Yeah. Yeah, that's good.
Stephen Hackett [00:02:50]:
Got to keep the cat out. You don't want the cat on the podcast, so the door's locked.
Jason Snell [00:02:53]:
Oh, I've had the cat— I've had cats jump in my lap during MacBreak Weekly.
Shelly Brisbin [00:02:57]:
I have 2 cats I have now eat cables, so they can't come in the office.
Jason Snell [00:03:01]:
Oh, interesting. Oh yeah. That is bad. The electromagnetic sensitive cats.
Shelly Brisbin [00:03:05]:
Yes.
Jason Snell [00:03:05]:
They like to eat cable.
Stephen Hackett [00:03:08]:
The C in USB-C stands for cat. Stands for cat.
Shelly Brisbin [00:03:11]:
Well, I just thought, since my cat's not going to be, I've reminded myself of a good pick that is relevant to the cat conversation.
Jason Snell [00:03:18]:
Nice. That's nice. Yeah. Usually bitten by cats is the new name. Uh, one of those, wait, that's UBC. So it's usually sometimes—
Shelly Brisbin [00:03:27]:
By cats.
Jason Snell [00:03:28]:
By cats. I don't know. The iPhone Duo came out, everybody. I got one right here. Uh, I think, I think, uh, Steven's got one. Uh, it's like an iPhone, but then you open it up and it's like a bigger iPhone. Uh, so that happened on Friday. I got mine Thursday.
Jason Snell [00:03:42]:
People, uh, who happened to be lucky enough to be in the first wave to order online or lucky enough to go to an Apple Store where there turned out there was— we said last time that there, you probably shouldn't do this. And I think I said at the very end of the show, just watch, there will be a little bit of supply. I heard from a friend who works at an Apple Store who said they had 30 of them on launch day that were gone. The people in the line before the store opened already were more people than they had units. Um, and then they got another 30 later in the day that were also gone almost immediately. But I think since we're talking about the act of acquiring an iPhone Duo, first off, I need to start with Steven. Steven, you walked into a store today and got an iPhone Duo, did you not?
Stephen Hackett [00:04:29]:
Well, I jumped another guy who had bought an iPhone Duo. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, so I just, I was already out and about this morning, stopped by my Apple Store. I was the first one in line, which felt weird. I don't wanna be the first person in line for anything. And like 8 or 9 people lined up behind me. And my store in Memphis, they had 3 iPhone Duos today. And, um, so I was fortunate enough to snag one because my preorder got— I missed the preorder window for reasons and mine isn't due till like December.
Stephen Hackett [00:04:59]:
So, uh, felt very fortunate I was able to do that. And, um, and now I've got one and we can, we can talk about it because it's, it's weird, man. It's a weird phone.
Jason Snell [00:05:08]:
It's a, it is a weird phone. That is, that there's a word I keep coming back to. It's just a very, very strange iPhone. Um, so all the reviews dropped last Wednesday. That's why, as a second-tier reviewer, that's why I got mine Thursday. That's how I know when the reviews are coming is like the, the, the reviews come out before you get yours. That's just how it works. Um, really interesting.
Jason Snell [00:05:31]:
I would say in large part, I'm not sure how they struck all of you. I would love to hear. It sounds to me like if you take them as a whole, there's a lot of enthusiasm for the fact that this is interesting in a way that I think a lot of Apple product releases aren't because Apple is often very careful and conservative and iterative over long stretches of time. And when you do a folding phone, you can't do that. You just got to kind of take your shot. And as a result, it's very interesting. And a lot of tech reviewers are tech enthusiasts who love having interesting, weird new tech. And it certainly is that.
Jason Snell [00:06:09]:
Uh, but also I think everybody has at least a tinge of the, I'm not sure this makes sense. I'm not sure this works. John Gruber, I think, said, that he thought the interior display was amazing and the amazing, an amazing product. And the, when it's folded, it's the worst iPhone ever made. And there were, that was a little extreme, but there were various degrees of that. And I just, I don't know. It, I, I didn't find, even though everybody's got a different opinion, I didn't find that was like full of dramatic outliers. It's more like, I think if you read 5 reviews, you probably got a pretty good idea of what's interesting about this product.
Jason Snell [00:06:47]:
And it's a lot. Yeah. and what's not quite right about this product. And that's a lot. I, I don't know. I just, I thought it was interesting.
Andy Ihnatko [00:06:55]:
Go ahead. I, I think that there's a reality check that's coming because Apple can— one of the really cool things about Apple is that they can really, really get us excited about an upcoming product. And the thing is though, we've had 2 different phones of exactly this form factor that have a lot of the same— we're not going to go into build issues, but let's, let's stick with like the, the UI, the stuff that's working. The thing is, I think that a lot of longtime Apple users were expecting this is just going to be the most awesome iPhone ever. It's going to be like the iPhone 18 Pro, but also awesomer. As opposed to, well, this is a brand new form factor. This is the reason why this is not the iPhone 18 Pro. This is why this is an entirely different product because you're gonna trade off a few things, including the experience of having those quick access things of having a conventional-sized, conventionally form-factored phone.
Andy Ihnatko [00:07:47]:
Phone screen when you don't have it unfolded. Uh, there's a lot— the thing that surprised me was that there was still so much unpolished in Apple's own software that they still need to address. Um, again, I've— I have had exactly 90 minutes worth of hands-on experience with it at this point at a couple of different Apple Stores, so that— so take that for what it's worth. But from what I've been reading of— like everyone else, I've been reading all the other stuff and like, wow, the, the— is it true the Apple Store app is not optimized for Really? And wow. And the Safari doesn't really adjust very, very well to— okay, that seems like something that you would have fixed like 3 months ago as opposed to— but maybe this is going to be a fine-tuning, a process of fine-tuning. We've been talking, we've been comparing it a little bit like to the Apple Watch for the past few weeks, saying that it wasn't hot, uh, it was— it wasn't, uh, pure Tabasco when it was first released, and it took Apple a few months to figure out all the fine-tuning they needed to do once it got out of Cupertino and was in the hands of a million people.
Stephen Hackett [00:08:47]:
One thing I really noticed in those reviews was a lot of people harping on the third-party app situation, which part of me thinks is just like an own goal by Apple. Like, I understand they're not going to seed like secret phones to developers. That would not work. But the truth of it is developers got the tools for this pretty late in the game and they really weren't fully mature. They're still not really fully mature in some ways. And that, you know, that's going to get better. But just reviewer after reviewer mentioned that. And several— I think Joanna Stern said this on the talk show— that, you know, she had to reshoot that part of her review several times because like as she's doing it, apps are getting updated.
Stephen Hackett [00:09:29]:
Mm-hmm. So there is a bit of a curve there, but it's a curve. I suspect over time that's going to become much better. But it certainly was interesting to me how, how many reviewers spent so much time talking about something that's not really about the phone itself. It's more about sort of how Apple, Apple had developers, how much time those developers had.
Shelly Brisbin [00:09:50]:
I feel like the, what I saw about the hardware was interesting and not unexpected because we knew the camera was not going to be the A number one camera. Uh, we had seen the display in the demonstration and it seemed to live up to what people expected of it, but there was still this sort of sadness among the early reviewers that it wasn't the perfect phone, probably because most of— some of them, not the early reviewers, but some of them ended up paying $2,000 for their phone at least. And so there's a little bit of sadness that it is not the best phone they've ever had. But this is very typical for Apple that you have those rough edges, but that we all as tech enthusiasts want to get our hands on it and want to say words about it as soon as we possibly can. And there are a lot of things about how well this phone behaves as a phone that you're not going to know. And I know Jason knows this because of the— not because he's a second-tier reviewer, but because he tends to do his reviews a little further down the road. And, and no, seriously, because—
Andy Ihnatko [00:10:48]:
No, I'm sorry, go ahead. I'm only laughing because I'm picturing Jason. If you don't have like a, a custom set of business cards made up for special situations, like Jason Snell, second-tier reviewer.
Jason Snell [00:10:58]:
Yeah, it's a badge of
Andy Ihnatko [00:10:59]:
honor.
Shelly Brisbin [00:10:59]:
Well, well, I, I, I, I also have one that says Shelley Brisbin, second-tier accessibility reporter. I did not give myself that title. I'll tell you later.
Andy Ihnatko [00:11:07]:
Oh dear, I'm sorry.
Shelly Brisbin [00:11:09]:
John Gruber gave me that title. Anyway, uh, so I— that's— what was I gonna say? Now you threw me off. No, I, I think, I think things like how the phone fits in your purse or pocket, how it handles in your hands, how it— whether it feels good, all the things that are gonna determine for you whether it's actually a phone that you're going to like and enjoy regardless of the money that you spent to acquire it, really do take a while, especially with this product, more so even than the iPhone Air. I think it's comparable to something like the Vision Pro, where it's new and it's brand new enough and nobody's had a thing like that on their head or in their hand, that it's, it's kind of dumb to have to rely on first-week reviews except to say the apps are half-baked right now. And Steven's point is absolutely right. The third-party app story and even the internal, uh, first-party app story is weird. Uh, but as far as the phone experience, I— this is the kind of product That because, because I didn't have $2,000 lying around, because I just am not inclined to do that. I am not a pre-order person.
Shelly Brisbin [00:12:12]:
This is an absolutely kind of a product that I would not pre-order on the first day unless I really needed it for my work, because it's just the kind of thing that it'll settle both in terms of the experience and in terms of the updates that Apple is going to make later on to the software or even to the hardware. I think generation 2 of this product has the potential to be incredibly awesome because they're going to use some of the things, not only feedback they got, but some of the issues that we're gonna talk about later about defects. And version 2 is gonna be the sweet spot and maybe it's gonna be more expensive, but that's the product I want, not this one.
Jason Snell [00:12:46]:
Yeah, it's just gonna take time. I mean, it's gonna take time for it all to shake out. The App Store, I mean, as Steven pointed out, the App Store, it is definitely progressing as we go. But I mean, like there are new updates all the time. Although I got one update, I was like, oh, this is exciting. They updated it and it was literally an update that didn't update Update to the iPhone Duo, and what are you even doing? The iPhone Duo is out, and your updates are still back on the old SDK. But I think, Stephen, I wanted to jump on your point of it being an own goal. Like there are so many choices Apple could have made with this product to make the software story better.
Jason Snell [00:13:19]:
They chose, and this I'm sure they had good reasons, right? They always have good reasons. But they chose, for example, to say if you have an iPad version of your app, it doesn't matter. You have to do special stuff for the iPhone Duo. And the fact is, I know it's an iPhone. I mean, in fact, top line of my review is probably going to be people are saying that when you open it, it's an iPad. It's not. It's just Apple made a choice. It's not even close to an iPad.
Jason Snell [00:13:46]:
It is a big iPhone when you open it up with some other niceties, but they could have made affordances where if you did the work on an iPad, they're like, can we do something so that if an app doesn't do what we want them to do, it'll at least be— Like, Like my RSS reader works great on the iPad. And when I opened it on the Duo, it just doesn't work. It's in the shame rectangle in the center of the, of the screen. Um, because Apple, and that's a decision Apple made, right? Again, maybe for good reason, but they had all of this, you know, decade-plus investment in, in iPad apps. And they decided they weren't actually going to leverage that out of the box to make the apps on the iPhone Duo better. That's their choice. Giving the developers less time to develop for it, that was their choice. And maybe their thought was it's a lot of work for the first 2 months of a product that's going to have limited availability.
Jason Snell [00:14:39]:
And this is a long-term plan. We don't have to worry about it, but still it's a decision they made. It's not, it's not on the developers for certain. It really is Apple for, for making it a lot harder to make iPhone Duo apps than it needed to be. And so these, this is the result.
Shelly Brisbin [00:14:56]:
It's reminding me that it was a really long time before iPad apps settled down. And now you don't even really think about it. And because of all the windowing and the multitasking and the things that iPad apps can do, both because the developers have had time to develop them and because of Apple's updates to iPadOS. But it was a very, very long time before I stopped downloading an iPhone app and holding my breath and waiting to figure out whether it was iPad compatible. That's just not okay. It wasn't okay then, and it's especially not okay now. I think the patience people have for the iPhone Duo is going to be a lot less than they might have had with even the iPad.
Andy Ihnatko [00:15:33]:
Yeah. I'm wondering how sophisticated Apple's thinking might have been. They are as capable of making big mistakes as any other company 1/10 its size. The next item that we're probably going to be talking about will illustrate that. But is it possible that there are some of them, in some way they're thinking, you know what, we are not going to be able to manufacture as many of— even if there is the demand as high as the iPhone 18, and there is not going to be, we can't manufacture them that fast. If it's a choice between making our launch window and delaying it until all of our developer game is on point, our own internal software game is on point, more user interface and user experience stuff is on point, we're willing to make that sacrifice. It's, it's so glaring, right, to us, I think, because, uh, the Android side of things and the Windows side of things tends to be more of, look, at some point we have to ship, we're just going to ship now and improve it later. Whereas we have come to expect, correctly or incorrectly, an amazing experience out of the box with an Apple product.
Andy Ihnatko [00:16:39]:
And the— I— it looks like the iPhone Duo is just not capable of doing that right now. come back and by the time people, their January or February pre-orders come in, I think they're going to have a much, much better first-time experience than the people who are opening their boxes this week. But it is, I mean, it's a bummer. It makes me really, really wonder what was going on if there was no Apple Pencil support out of the box that had to wait for a software update. There has to be a story behind that. If you're gonna— Right. As opposed to Apple saying, you know what, Apple support is coming in a future update. We wanna get that dialed down.
Andy Ihnatko [00:17:14]:
As no, they said that no, Apple support is, is, is, is a core, like fundamental feature, but you're going to have to download an update to get it. That is, there's a story behind that that I would love to know about.
Jason Snell [00:17:24]:
I think you're, I think you're setting, you say that we've come to expect for Apple. I think if you look in the last few years, I'm not sure we do expect that from Apple anymore. Remember, it was just 2 weeks ago that the HomeView was announced. And as far as we can tell, the HomeView hardware has been sitting in a warehouse for more than a year because Apple couldn't get its software game together on that one. We've seen a lot lately of, Apple didn't really say— I mean, I just, I'm just saying Apple has been doing a lot more of the, we're shipping it now, but there are other features that we've talked about that we promised, but you're not gonna get them until the end of the year or sometime next year. Okay. That's true about the audio intelligence features on the Watch. Like there's a bunch of stuff like that.
Jason Snell [00:18:00]:
And I, I agree with you completely. If you look at the iPhone Duo support and the app support and some of the weird bugs and quirks, like this is an incred— once again, like with the Vision Pro, like a lot of stories, Incredible piece of hardware. Incredible piece of hardware. And you can see the software is struggling to keep up with it. And that like, it's just, they're still, you can see them sweating because there are kind of visual bugs everywhere. Even in the 0.2 release that just came out, it's still kind of a mess in, in, in certain corners.
Andy Ihnatko [00:18:30]:
Yeah. But that, that's, that, I think that those, those are all good points. I think that, I think there was some leftover halo effect that we're sticking, we're clinging to, even though it might not be as appropriate as it might've been a few years ago. But I, but I do think it also underscores one thing again, After 90— after whirlwind 90 minutes of experience with it, at least confirms to me the same thing when I held the first iPhone, when I tried the first Apple Watch. As an object, this is a hell of a thing. It is like a— it is like a Cartier. I, I compare some stuff, some stuff to a Cartier cigarette case from the '30s or '40s, where if this is something that you're going to be interacting with every single day, several times a day, it is just a pleasant thing to hold. The, the, the, the closing, the opening of it, very, very pleasant.
Andy Ihnatko [00:19:11]:
I, I, I think that one of the hallmarks of Apple is that they do figure out that we cannot, we cannot fix hardware issues with a software update. However, we can fix software issues with a software update. So, so long as the— so long as we've built a, a vessel for the software that's as good as we can possibly make it, everything else can solve itself. Or we'll both have to solve it, but, but, but it's not a— it's not a crisis moment. I think that'll be really—
Stephen Hackett [00:19:39]:
I think that'll be really interesting to watch. I mean, I think this has been the case for a while now with Apple. But now the old hardware boss is the CEO and there's been lots of shuffling and there will continue to be lots of shuffling as, you know, things change at Apple. But this is a story that we've talked about for a while that the software holds the hardware back. I mean, think how many times they've reworked iPadOS multitasking. Like the, the device had the capability of doing it. The software let it down. And I would actually argue that the multitasking on the inside of the Duo is better than a lot of the stuff on iPadOS.
Stephen Hackett [00:20:15]:
But if I were Greg Federighi running the software organization, um, I would, I would maybe be doing some soul searching of why this, this keeps happening. And I know that he's taken over like Siri AI and some other things that have made good advancements. So I'm not saying it's all negative. Apple still makes the best operating systems in the world, in my opinion. But, uh, this is, you know, It's been a pattern, and if you don't want it to become chronic, then something's gotta, gotta shift in this company.
Jason Snell [00:20:48]:
Yeah, the, the hardware people have been let down a lot lately by the software people, and now the hardware guy is in charge. So yeah, I agree, I would be a little concerned about it. Then again, I also think that there's a, a philosophy change that maybe is a good thing in the long run, which is saying we're going to ship the product. But what we're not going to do, which they did, I think, for a little while, is ship the product with the software not ready. And now they sort of ship the product and some features they're like, we're not going to ship that yet. And that is a discipline that I'm glad that they've gotten to, because remember, there were some releases in there where they would just ship stuff that wasn't ready and it was broken and buggy, and then you just had to suffer. And now they say that's coming later, which it's a good lesson to learn that it can't all come now. Don't ship it if it's not ready.
Jason Snell [00:21:35]:
But it's still, we notice that it's not ready and that it's not available. And, and what are they doing about that? I would say overall, before we move on, overall, I've been using it, you know, basically as my only device since Thursday. And I like it, but it's weird. I mean, weird is a great word to use for it. The external screen is It's actually very nice, but it is wide and squat in a way that is unusual. I think a lot of people, the ergonomics are going to determine how you feel about it. I think that's true with every handheld device is about the ergonomics to a certain degree. Everybody's ergonomics are different.
Jason Snell [00:22:18]:
Everybody's hands are different. Their eyes are different. Their clothes are different. Where they put their mobile device when they're not holding it is different. So all of these things are going to vary on an individual level. There's no way to say right or wrong. It's just very different. But this device, so much of it is about the ergonomics.
Jason Snell [00:22:37]:
It is about where do you hold your phone? Like, I realize I'm right-handed, but I hold my phone in my left hand, but I don't do a lot of one-handed operation. I do a lot of sort of like holding in my left and tapping with my right. And it's actually pretty good at that. But when I do occasionally want to just flip something with my thumb, that's a really wide phone. I can't reach the far right side of the screen. There is a, There is an affordance, by the way, if you didn't know, it's been there for a while, to have the, uh, the keyboard just kind of like actually be kind of mostly leaning to the left. And that is actually a really good feature for this phone because it is hard to get all the way to the right. I had an app, I was trying to tap something on the dock and I just couldn't do it with one hand because the dock's all the way on the right.
Jason Snell [00:23:21]:
So it, it's nice in context, but there are also moments where you think this isn't it. I, I think there are moments where I look at the the small display and think what this is, is the display you use when you aren't sure if you need to open it up and use the big display almost. So it's more than like a status display. It's for quick checks and stuff. But like, I think the way that this phone is meant to be used essentially is if you're getting into something on that little display, it's basically saying, open it. Just, just, just open it.
Andy Ihnatko [00:23:57]:
I'll make it just painful enough for you that you'll want to open it. Yeah.
Jason Snell [00:24:00]:
Because unlike any other iPhone, Like I had an iPhone mini for a long time and like on the iPhone mini, if you need a bigger screen, too bad, go find an iPad or something. Right. But on this, literally it's there. You just need to do the work. You just need to open it up and then you get the bigger screen. So, but it's going to hit everybody differently. And the big screen is really nice, but I also use a huge, uh, largest size iPad mini and iPad Pro. And compared to that, it's so tiny, but it's doable.
Jason Snell [00:24:27]:
And I think that if the software situation settles down, It's going to be more than, than, than doable. I think it's going to be extremely usable. And the idea that I have a screen this big when I'm out anywhere, because it's in my pocket, even though it's a very large screen for an iPhone, that's pretty great too. So like, it's, it's just like we live in a world where everybody wants to do a hot take. Everybody wants to get as much engagement farming as they can possibly get. And, and, and nuance is kind of dead. But like, this is a product that requires enormous amounts of nuance, which to the credit of all the early reviewers, I think they all brought to the table. Even somebody like Jon Gruber, who was really like very extreme, he was at both extremes with the product, right? It is complicated and weird and depends on who you are as a person, um, how you hold your phone, how you— what apps, what specific apps you use and how you use them all factors into it.
Jason Snell [00:25:23]:
And I, for one, I mentioned this in, in, uh, in a story I posted on Six Colors where I referred to it as like, you know, that old joke about like a SeaWorld— don't sit in the first 10 rows of the, of the, of the show because they get— tend to get a little wet. You're in the splash zone. Apple doesn't want anyone in the splash zone for its products, ever.
Andy Ihnatko [00:25:42]:
Hmm.
Jason Snell [00:25:43]:
Ever. It, it— what— it's like they may be paddling like that proverbial duck beneath the surface, but on top, like, they don't want you you to see any emotion. They don't want to let you see them sweating or, or questioning or unsure about everything. Apple just wants to be perfect. And this is a product— you decide to make a folding phone and we're all in the splash zone because it's gonna be a mess. It just has to be. And I find that delightful because you can really start to see how Apple's trying to solve problems and struggling with it. But like, Again, if you're not the kind of person who's into that sort of thing, into the, I want to buy a weird product and learn about how weird it is, then don't buy this product because that's what it is.
Andy Ihnatko [00:26:25]:
But buy the ticket, take the ride. And the thing, the thing, something I really want to ask you, because especially after reading Gruber's review, so I want to ask someone who's been using this for, for like 4, 4 days now, if and when Apple decides to come out with an iPhone Duo Max, that is more along the lines of the Samsung Galaxy Fold Ultra, where when you have it folded, it is more of a conventionally sized form factor, uh, display, uh, a phone. And when you open it, it's not just a little bit larger, it is a lot larger. Do you think that that will change or improve the, the, the, the way that you relate to it?
Jason Snell [00:27:02]:
I, I, I think it's possible. I mean, Apple has invested so much into having these tall phones If you, I, my podcast pal Mike Hurley said this on Upgrade on Monday. He said, have you, have you held a normal iPhone since you've been using the iPhone Duo? And he said, it's like, it's like using a clown phone. You're like, why, why are you so tall? Are you on stilts? What's going on there? But like, we're all used to phones in that shape, iPhones in that shape. And so I wonder if, yeah, if you had, if you had a folding phone that was more like that shape, if people would be more comfortable in using it. And I'm sure this is the argument they had at Apple. It's like, well, that might be a little ungainly and it might make the aspect ratio of the inside screen weird. And I think that whoever won the argument this time was the person making an argument similar to what I made, which is, look, if you want a bigger screen, you just open it up.
Jason Snell [00:27:51]:
It's not meant to be your only screen that you use. But yeah, I, that's part of the beauty of this, Andy, is I don't think anybody really knows. I mean, Samsung's been iterating for a while. Apple has totally been iterating on the inside. and choosing to stay on the sidelines until now. But like, I think we all can probably agree that like people like bigger phone screens. That's the end goal here is, and, but you can't fit a giant iPad in your pocket probably unless you have very large pockets. So where, where do we go from here? I think even Apple is, I think Apple honestly with this product reached the point where they're like, we have to ship it and see what happens.
Jason Snell [00:28:26]:
Like actually have to see what people do with this.
Shelly Brisbin [00:28:29]:
I think reviewers should be required to give the measurements of their hands before they do a review. Because I believe small-handed reviewers need to be heard. And I am only going to listen to them because people who talk about wanting this phone as a max-sized phone clearly have bigger hands than I do. And even in this form factor, I'm worried that it just will be too heavy for my hand. And I don't know whether that's right or not. And that doesn't mean that they made it incorrectly. It just means that it requires very careful analysis before you plunk down the money on that. Yeah.
Shelly Brisbin [00:29:03]:
Focusing more on whether the reviewer can actually hold this thing for an extended period of time and use it as it's meant to be used. Oh, and by the way, when we get pencil support, how's that gonna work out for you?
Jason Snell [00:29:13]:
Right. That's, that's the ergonomic context, right? Which is totally, I mean, like I said earlier, it matters with every handheld device, every mobile device there. And we don't talk about it as much as we probably should. And with this, it just exposes it. It's so much about what your hands are, how big they are, you know, what apps you use. It's—
Shelly Brisbin [00:29:32]:
And like what you were saying, Jason, you hold your phone phone with your left hand and you tap with your right. I do the same. If I'm a right— if I'm holding it with my right and tapping with my left, I'm kind of out of luck because they haven't— and they can do this in software and they certainly will— but they haven't made it so that the dock is over on the left side for me yet. Reachability hasn't come to the Duo yet. It will. Yeah. I have confidence it will, but it hasn't yet. And so that, that is the limitation for the early adopter who is that person.
Shelly Brisbin [00:29:59]:
But the message to give out there is you may not be able thing to do anything about how heavy it is, but Apple can absolutely do something about the reachability and where the dock's located for you.
Jason Snell [00:30:08]:
It's true. And before we move on to new business, um, I wanted one last little bit of old business, which is, Steven, you've had your 3 hours or whatever with iPhone Duo. Do you have any first impressions to share as a part of this before we move on? Get your money's worth.
Stephen Hackett [00:30:24]:
Yeah. Yeah. The, so I carried an iPhone Air. before this, which was not a popular phone, let me tell you. And, you know, back then, a year ago, the iPhone Air came out. We all thought, well, the iPhone Air, the Duo, the Fold is just going to be 2 iPhone Airs like stapled together and turned into a book. And while the, the form factor is different than that because of the aspect ratios, this very clearly feels to me like the son of iPhone Air in a lot of great ways. Oh yeah.
Stephen Hackett [00:30:55]:
I don't think I have anything that's unique at this point. It is heavier than I expected. Um, it, but it feels— Andy, I liked what you said earlier about like, like nice objects. It feels premium in a way that is, that is really quite nice. I think because of the weight, because of the way that the hinge snaps and the magnets and all those things. And so it's extremely well built. And from the software, it's so weird. I don't, I don't know what I think yet, but, um, but from the, from the hardware perspective, like we were speaking earlier.
Stephen Hackett [00:31:25]:
It is absolutely, uh, absolutely incredible.
Jason Snell [00:31:30]:
Yeah, I agree. It's got, it's got strong Air vibes, that, uh, the titanium ring around it. Like it, it, you could see, I mean, when they first announced or when they first rumored, when Mark, okay, who, who am I kidding? When Mark Gurman first reported about the folding phone and about the iPhone Air, um, I remember the moment. I think it was actually on a podcast where I was like, oh, I see. First, you make a really thin phone to try out the principles of what you're going to then apply to your foldable, because the foldable needs to be thin because when it's folded, it's twice as thick. And that all made sense logically. But Steven, it's absolutely true. The first time I touched an iPhone Duo, I was like, oh yeah, it's an— it's like, it's like the Air.
Jason Snell [00:32:16]:
It like is so like the, like the Air in that way. And it feels great. I mean, this is the thing is When I say Apple's at the top of its game when it comes to hardware, I mean, I mean it. It is an amazing piece of hardware, amazing piece of hardware design. And I mean, this goes for like the Vision Pro. We can talk about the Vision Pro about that there's no market for it and very few people are using it and all of that. And I share that. It's hard to— I love the hardware though.
Jason Snell [00:32:45]:
The hardware is an incredible thing. It may have been amiss in terms of so many aspects of it, but you can't deny that it's kind of an incredible piece of hardware. And this product is like that too. Like from, from the hinge and everything else, it feels incredible, which is my segue to something else we need to talk about because everybody loves a gate. And we have Crackgate this time. This is, uh, reports that come out on the internet of people who discovered that they got an iPhone Duo, and not too long after they got it, they, they did a little fold and unfold of it and a, a screen cracked and a line went across it, which means that that screen is busted. Um, and there are multiple reports of this. It's not just one person.
Jason Snell [00:33:39]:
And, uh, when iFixit did its teardown, it said, we think we may know where it is. And ultimately what happened is that Apple came out with a statement about it. So taking it from the realm of, is this just a weird thing on the internet or is there something here? And Apple said, yes, there is an issue impacting the inner display on a small number of iPhone Duo units. And if that happens to you, You contact AppleCare for a replacement. And by the way, that doesn't mean if you need AppleCare Plus, literally your, your device is under a warranty. One of the things that a warranty, new device warranty gives you is if it's a manufacturing defect, they will just replace it. So they're trying to cap. And because this is a little insider-y, because this is a brand new product that just came out less than a week ago, they aren't just going to give you a new one.
Jason Snell [00:34:30]:
They're going to capture that old one and send it somewhere to find out what went wrong. Yeah.
Andy Ihnatko [00:34:34]:
The Cupertino coffin, the black coffin that you get. You sometimes will see them put them in this special black coffin-like case because it's going straight back to the labs in Cupertino. They have a— I'm sorry, I'm sorry to interrupt, but that's been a long-standing thing where almost every store will have like a hunting license saying we want to see 3 cases of broken glass, we want to see 3 cases of like dented cases, we want to see 3 cases where the battery doesn't work anymore. And it's like, just give them a new one, no questions asked. Even if they dropped it, sometimes it is literally, we kind of want to see what happens when people drop this. So if you want to extend a we're awesome policy towards someone who is very, very honest and didn't say, oh, the, the screen just spontaneously imploded in my hand, like that, that's why it's always great advice. And no matter what happened to it, even if you accidentally took it into the tub with you, perhaps Apple will say, oh, actually they want to see what happens to Mr. Bubble infiltration.
Andy Ihnatko [00:35:28]:
So yes, we can swap you out a new one.
Shelly Brisbin [00:35:31]:
And Apple did not say you're holding it wrong.
Andy Ihnatko [00:35:33]:
You're holding it wrong. Yeah,
Jason Snell [00:35:34]:
you're folding it wrong.
Shelly Brisbin [00:35:36]:
Totally wrong.
Andy Ihnatko [00:35:37]:
Yeah,
Jason Snell [00:35:37]:
yeah,
Shelly Brisbin [00:35:37]:
bring them back, we'll give you a new one. And it's, it's not— it'd make— it absolutely makes sense that they would do that. It's the, the most cost-effective thing for them to do because Xandy says they're going to find out why that happens so it doesn't happen anymore. And it's inconvenient if you've just configured your phone and all of a sudden you're the one that has it cracked, but they're going to fix you. You're in a better position to be fixed up that it happens now than it happens 6 months from now.
Andy Ihnatko [00:36:01]:
Yeah, and that's, and that's the big question though. It's like, I, I hope that Apple gets— is really, really forthright and open about this, not saying, oh yeah, a few screens got some cracks. If you— if that happens to you, bring it in, we'll swap it out. This is the— this is, this is the core fear of everybody who's buying a foldable phone, no matter who makes it. Like, how durable is it? I think that what I would love to see— what, what I really want to see is that, oh, we actually investigated, we found the reason why this was happening. It was actually a manufacturing issue for serial numbers X through Y that a machine was, was miscalibrated. So if you have a device between these, these serial numbers, we will swap it out, no questions asked. If you don't have one within these serial numbers, don't worry, your phone is good.
Andy Ihnatko [00:36:44]:
Like, Shelley, just like you're saying, it's like, how long is my app— how long is my warranty? And what if this happens 2 days after warranty? Because it's not like a random thing. It's like, no, it's a vertical crack along the crease and then a horizontal crack lined up with a certain component that's inside the hinge. So it's basically— this is— you'd hate to think that I got, I got got by the gotcha, and now I wish that I had at least turned— at least I'd returned my first-generation phone and waited for some sort of a revision B to come out at the very least, because that's a lot of worry about a $2,000 device.
Jason Snell [00:37:19]:
Yeah, I get the, I get the fear of it, although the way— given the way Apple tests these products in advance, and also given And the way that this seems to be going as this story kind of unfolds, like, first off, I mean, there's always a gate because any product made at volume that has a failure rate of even like 0.01%, there's going to be dozens, if not hundreds of failures. And now they all get posted to Reddit and then, and then they go to TikTok and then they're everywhere. And then you've got a gate. The question is, is it 0.01% or 0.1% or 1% or 10%? Right? Yeah. That's part of the question here. It sounds like, Andy, you said it. It sounds like something on some of the hinges apart was out of configuration. And in that, it puts too much pressure on the screen.
Jason Snell [00:38:09]:
And that's why it's in, as Apple said, a small percentage of these things. But yeah, I mean, disclosure is good. Resolution is good. But the problem is that we do live in a world where, first off, a small number, we can still be magnified, right? I mean, Mark Gurman reported in Bloomberg that he talked to more than half a dozen people affected by this issue. And I thought, well, that's 7. Um, and like 7 out of millions is a very small failure rate. And like lemons do happen. The question is, how bad is the issue? What's being done? Um, and, and it, you're right, it does amp it up because this is a folding phone.
Jason Snell [00:38:45]:
They're felt to be fragile. Is this a sign about fragility, there were several. Obviously, um, iFixit took it apart and, uh, JerryRigEverything destroyed it. Uh, and, and we can look at that. And I think the answer is it's a folding phone, right? So it is more fragile than your average iPhone. It's not necessarily super fragile, but— and iFixit actually, they went— iFixit, because they want engagement too, they want the lead with the Crackgate, but they actually said for a folding phone, it's pretty repairable, which is not that it's repairable, but that it's pretty repairable.
Shelly Brisbin [00:39:18]:
It's the most repairable foldable phone. phone, which is a lot of caveats right there. Yeah. Also, I mean, this is Apple. Come on. If my bread maker came with a cracked screen, I would want to go to the manufacturer about it. And I might even post on Mastodon, hey, I bought this X brand bread maker, blah, blah, blah. But I'm probably not going to go and find the Mark Gurman of bread makers or whoever that is, or Jason Snell of bread makers.
Shelly Brisbin [00:39:43]:
And I'm not going to say, hey, I'm one of those people who had a cracked bread maker. and post it on all the social media. But you have an Apple folding phone that's very expensive, that's a very high-profile product that you just got, and you're going to want to make a stink about it, whether you're angry or whether you're just about getting clicks for yourself as a person.
Andy Ihnatko [00:40:01]:
Well, I do have to say as a sidebar that every time there's a new version of whatever phone, it's pretty easy to tell the difference between, okay, a bunch of people just had bad luck. It's not bad engineering, they just had bad luck. They happened to get one of those devices that is One of the percentages that just is just bad out of the gate. Okay, that's too bad. Uh, I— this really didn't feel like that sort of thing because right out the gate, the date that— the very day that lots of people were getting these, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Not people who are trying to get clicks, but saying, hey, I literally just opened my— opened the device and it cracked. Uh, and also the fact that it is breaking the exact same way means this— all of this— and, uh, yeah, there's, there's some—
Shelly Brisbin [00:40:43]:
there's definitely some defect. And as you say, They're going to explore it.
Andy Ihnatko [00:40:47]:
Exactly. So basically, but this is a bigger thing than simply a certain percentage are not going to work. That means that there is something that did not go right either. Again, at the good end of the spectrum, and I'm speculating here, at the good end of the spectrum is like, okay, again, some machine in the factory on some production day was not doing things in tolerance, or the QC was off, was not within tolerance, We figured, we figured out which ones that were affected, but our, our process, our engineering and the processes of the manufacturing, the QC, is, is fundamentally good, and they just screwed up. That's all. We do— I do think it behooves Apple to really indicate that here is the source of the problem, we've identified it, so you can be confident that if you buy one of these iPhones, you— again, people are not necessarily afraid of Apple not honoring a warranty within a year. People are afraid of a $2,000 phone that a year and a week after that, the thing that is no to happen actually happened. Uh, and so that's, that's why we, we, we have to just acknowledge that there is a problem of some kind that Apple would very— do very, very well to make sure that they address directly and confidently, as opposed to saying, oh yeah, well, you know, a few of them are going to go bad.
Andy Ihnatko [00:42:01]:
It's like, no, no, we want to make sure that if you give us $2,000 for a phone, or even $500 for a phone, that there is no defect that we could have, we could have addressed that we just let you take your chances with.
Jason Snell [00:42:13]:
Communication is always going to be important. I will say that this is, uh, for those who are wondering, it does sound like this is an issue that happens almost immediately. And, and, uh, and that, that, that suggests that it is exactly what Andy says. Something was miscalibrated somewhere, and there are theories about that now in a certain number of these. But communication is always a good idea. Also, I mean, when you say this is, this is different from a few don't work. I would argue maybe it isn't. I think that when a few lemons happen, there are lots of reasons, but they usually are traced back to some production problem that happened and that it failed, it failed, or it failed to be found.
Jason Snell [00:42:53]:
It failed to fail its quality test. And this is a high-profile product with a high, a very visible issue. Although if you've got a weird green cast on your screen or whatever, I mean, that's a pretty visible issue too. We've had GreenGate. Steven is the creator of HissGate and a fan of GreenGate. So, you know, Steven, you know about all the gates.
Stephen Hackett [00:43:14]:
And
Jason Snell [00:43:14]:
there's an internet dynamic to it too. But, you know, in the end, communicating clearly, the manufacturer communicating clearly what went on solves a lot of that, cures a lot of ills.
Stephen Hackett [00:43:24]:
Yeah. I mean, it's amazing. I watched the iFixit teardown. No matter what the product is, I will watch their videos because I just love how this stuff is built. And of course it's built very similarly to the Samsung, uh, the shorty Samsung boy, because they use the same screen mostly. But the amount of engineering that goes into this, this was not something they overlooked. I mean, I think it will come out that it was some sort of manufacturing issue that, you know, Andy, I liked what you said that maybe, oh, something's like slightly off. I mean, the tolerances in here in this thing are just, it's mind-blowing.
Stephen Hackett [00:43:58]:
Yeah. I mean, people who design hardware like this, you could design anything. Is it a phone?
Stephen Hackett [00:44:02]:
Is it a— you can build 2 weeks ago? Like, why aren't you building rockets? You know what I mean? And so, um, I do suspect that they will get to the bottom of it. I am sure there are people who, you know, you know that famous story of Tim Cook of like, you know, go to China, why are you still here kind of thing? I bet there are people who got on planes to figure this out. And, uh, it's, it's definitely awful if this happens to you, especially if you can't get a replacement from Apple super quickly. Uh, although Andy, what you said is totally right. And it was my experience as a Mac genius 100 years ago that we would capture devices under certain circumstances. And Apple has sort of a, sort of a sidebar of devices to replace those with. Like, oh, we don't have any phones. We have these secret phones just for you.
Stephen Hackett [00:44:46]:
Um, and yeah, that stinks, but they'll get it sorted out. And I'm sure that they are working around the clock to do so. Even if it— this is one of the things I really like about Apple. Even if it is just 7 people, right? And of course it's more than that. Um,
Jason Snell [00:45:01]:
yeah, those are just the ones Mark Gurman knows.
Stephen Hackett [00:45:02]:
Those are the ones that, yeah, that, you know, responded to his DM or whatever. But they're gonna get to the bottom of it.
Andy Ihnatko [00:45:08]:
He did quote one venture capitalist. Okay, he was not exactly polling them all in, in Dedham, Massachusetts. So
Stephen Hackett [00:45:16]:
yeah. I became a venture capitalist when I bought this phone. I don't know, I don't know how that happened, but They don't want this to happen to any of their customers, and that's what's going to drive them to figure this out.
Andy Ihnatko [00:45:26]:
Yeah, and the other thing that has to be said is that I think that if you're buying a folding phone and you are an informed user, you'd have no reason to accept that it broke almost immediately when you folded and unfolded it, because that's something that— that the singular, the, the marquee feature of the iPhone Fold over the iPhone 18 is that you can fold it more than once. You can fold the screen without it breaking. That's what they put on the side of the bus in the big ad. So they have to deliver on that. However, you can't— if you're— you really can't expect a foldable phone to be as durable as a conventional phone because of the very nature of the beast. It's doing something miraculous. It is a display that folds, which means that it's got to— it has to fold. Also, you have a hinge that, as good as the engineering is to try to prevent dust and grit and stuff from getting in there, Over years, over the years, dust and grit is going to get in there.
Andy Ihnatko [00:46:19]:
And whereas on pretty much every phone in every pocket of the people on our panel and listening today, a conventional phone, we're now at the point where if we just happen to drop it off a table and it hits the floor, we pick it up expecting that there's going to be nothing wrong with it. Okay. Whereas with a foldable, you really have to expect that maybe, maybe I should not have kept it on. Maybe I should not be standing, having conversation with somebody and balancing this on my knee while I'm having a drink. Because a foldable phone, when you drop it, might definitely be damaged. And that's not a design defect. That is simply the difference between a spacecraft and an airliner. An airliner, you trust that it's never going to crash.
Andy Ihnatko [00:46:59]:
A spacecraft, it's like, maybe. Yeah. It's worth going into space for all these risks, but this is an experiment, still a very much untested, unproven experimental thing in which millions of things can go wrong. wrong. This is not like, again, taking a 720— 737 to Dallas-Fort Worth. Yeah,
Jason Snell [00:47:16]:
this is true. Um, okay, we are going to take another break and then we are going to talk more about the iPhone Duo and also some other products that were announced this week and also what's going to happen later this week. There's so much yet to come. Remember those good old days when the iPhone App Store first came out and all the hit apps were things like It's a fart app, or it uses the accelerometer so you can pretend that you are drinking a beer. Novelty apps. Well, guess what? Novelty apps are back. And it's the iPhone Duo that is driving it. I, I was lamenting on a podcast last week that I've been just pelted with iPhone Duo novelty app pitches, most of which are coming from AI.
Jason Snell [00:48:06]:
pitch things, not people, just they're all, I mean, they all sound the same and they're trying to pitch things. And I mentioned as a ludicrous example, and I feel kind of bad about it now because I got it and I was like, really, we've reached the end of the line. And yet, I don't know, now I kind of am impressed at how ludicrous this app is now that I've tried it. So So my so-far award winner for the best novelty app is Toasty, the grilled cheese game in which your iPhone Duo becomes a sandwich press. But it's not just like the, oh, you tilt it and the beer empties and that's it. Toasty, you actually, uh, like, uh, you have to, you have to take the ingredients and you're given an order. It's a game. And, and then you have to lay the ingredients on in the right order, and then you close the Duo, and that's the sandwich press.
Jason Snell [00:49:02]:
And it tells you how long it needs to be closed to make it properly, and that's part of it. You got to time it. And then, and then while it's closed, you're just looking at the top of the sandwich press, and then you open it, and now the sandwich is cooked, and you get judged, and you unlock other challenges of other sandwiches. Is it ridiculous? Yes. Yes. Is it made— I mean, it even uses the Taptic Engine, like, is it to make it sound like it's like cooking and bubbling in there? Is it made with an incredible attention to detail, also yes. Yes. And so like, I wanna, I wanna say I, I don't need more novelty apps in my life, but I have to admire the novelty apps that are impressive, like Toasty, like the one that turned Duo Man, which turns your Duo into a Walkman.
Jason Snell [00:49:52]:
Uh, I mean, there are all of these kind of like ridiculous apps, but they're— but it's fun, right? I like, I like developers having fun.
Andy Ihnatko [00:50:01]:
Yes, exactly. This is— God, all these different— if you're, if you develop one of these apps and you're listening to me, you made me so happy this week and so proud to be like an Apple-affiliated like fanboy, because this is exactly the type of like pointless and stupid gestures that only we can do. And just, I love these stupid things done at a very, very high level of commitment. Well, you know what? Yes, that would be a funny idea if we— you close it and toast, so you open up as toasted. But I, I'm gonna peel the onion here. I'm gonna do this the way that, uh, the way that would make it absolutely brilliant. It puts us— and yeah, it was— things got out of hand with the first iPhone apps that Apple said, okay, no, no, no more fart. Don't, don't bother making a fart app.
Andy Ihnatko [00:50:43]:
We will not approve. Don't bother making a beer pouring app. We will not approve it. We, we see these as low-value apps and we will not be approving them anymore. But it's like, whimsy is a thing, okay? Joy is a thing. And if I— again, if I were a new owner of a brand new type of device, I would be hoping to see something silly and fun. I mean, over time I'm gonna figure out ways that, oh my God, I'm bursting through new plateaus and new ceilings of productivity and creativity. But on the first weekend, I want an accordion app, okay? I want an app that will basically turn this into an iBook G3.
Andy Ihnatko [00:51:23]:
Okay, with the green glass on the side of it and emulate stuff. I want an emulator for Nintendo DS, all that sort of stuff. And again, the great stuff will happen soon enough, but that's the stuff that I would love to find in the App Store on the first weekend. And damn, did the Apple community deliver.
Shelly Brisbin [00:51:39]:
While you're waiting for your productivity app to become Duo aware, you can play with it.
Andy Ihnatko [00:51:44]:
Yes, yes.
Jason Snell [00:51:45]:
Steven, did you see Tiny Computers?
Stephen Hackett [00:51:48]:
I did. I've been on the beta of that. So cool.
Andy Ihnatko [00:51:52]:
It's not an emulator, is it?
Jason Snell [00:51:54]:
That's the thing. It's not an emulator. It's like an homage to computers, but it's kind of fake. And that's the thing that made me kind of angry about it, honestly, is it's such a beautiful app where you kind of can fold the Duo and it's like you're using a laptop version of a classic Mac or a PC or a Commodore 64 or whatever. And it's just, it's so beautiful. But then what I want it to be is an actual emulator. Yeah. And it's not, it's kind of a, like it doesn't show an Apple logo for the Mac because it's not really the Mac and they don't have the rights to the Apple logo.
Jason Snell [00:52:31]:
So they don't do that. And it was bittersweet for me because it's so adorable as an app. I know that Delta, the emulator is out and looks great on the Duo and that's a real emulator, but Yeah, it's, uh, I just, it's that, that, that give and take. The App Store gives and the App Store takes where I want tiny, tiny computers is so awesome. I want to run real computers on it though.
Andy Ihnatko [00:52:54]:
Yeah. And this, uh, we, the one we left off is like, I don't think, I don't know if it's shipped, shipped, if it has shipped yet. Uh, it's, uh, I think it's in TestFlight, but there's someone developing something called, they're calling RadPad, which is an emulation of an '80s, 1980s, 1990s Trapper Keeper notebook. And they're trying again, just like with Toasty, they're trying to get every detail of the Trapper Keeper junior high school.
Shelly Brisbin [00:53:21]:
You need pencil support for that to be the most fun.
Jason Snell [00:53:23]:
Yeah, the, the social media update for it where it says on day 2, we've got it. We were releasing an update with a more realistic flap.
Andy Ihnatko [00:53:31]:
Details matter.
Jason Snell [00:53:34]:
Yeah, you gotta— if you're a good developer, you sweat the details.
Andy Ihnatko [00:53:37]:
At the, at the highest level of execution. I have so— I'm not being sarcastic when I say that I have enough, as much respect for that, for the most serious engineering accomplishments made, because it's still creativity expressed through software and why software is an important part of, of this, this tent we call the arts.
Jason Snell [00:53:56]:
Yeah, it's a— it's, again, I, I, I had that reflexive like, oh, it's more beer pouring out. And, and the thing is, in a few weeks I will be back in that eye-rolling phase. But I do have to admit, I mean, like when I opened Toasty, I was like, all right, okay, this is a, this is such a dumb idea, but you did it so well. And that, I think that maybe crystallizes my thoughts here is like, if you're gonna, you can do a dumb idea. If you do it well, I will admire it. I don't care that it's a dumb idea. Yes. If you, if you commit to the bit and you execute and, and Toasty really does it.
Jason Snell [00:54:30]:
I haven't tried the Walkman app, but it, it, it's from a really good developer and I imagine that it's, it's pretty much on point. Um, I, I also wanted to mention, so John Voorhees and a bunch of other people I know, John Voorhees from MacStories went to New York for an iPhone Duo event and talked to a lot of developers. Apple actually did an event where not only could reviewers kind of get their hands on the iPhone Duo, but they could talk to some developers who were building for it, which is nice to actually, I think, I think they're trying to spin the iPhone Duo app story in a positive way, which it's PR, good for them. That's the game they should be playing. But what I, what struck me about John's story on MacStories especially is that he talked to the, the Netflix developer. And, um, again, it's just one of those things where it's like, hey, Netflix and Apple have a fraught relationship in a lot of ways, but in the iPhone Duo, Netflix like really got into it. Like they made a version that you can put in that laptop configuration and have the controls down below and have it up above. And I don't know whether that says anything specific about the Apple-Netflix relationship changing or whether it says that Netflix appreciates the iPhone as a platform.
Jason Snell [00:55:39]:
But regardless, I thought it was interesting. And I like that because, you know, the indie developers are going to make grilled cheese apps and stuff like it. They're going to do that. Bless them. We love them for that. The question is always, yeah, but is Netflix going to do anything for this thing? Or are they just going to pass it by like they did? did the Vision Pro. And, um, and so to see some major developers also being on board with this, uh, is— that's fun and, and interesting in a way.
Andy Ihnatko [00:56:07]:
Well, the good, the good news is that we forget that the peop— the people who are responsible for developing all of the Netflix, Netflix apps and everybody at Google who's responsible for making the YouTube app across, they are also probably going to be iPhone Duo owners and they want to have a good experience just for themselves and their friends. Oftentimes a lot of the work doesn't come from a mandate from management or, or the C-suite, but because, you know what, I have some time today, how hard could it be to make this into a much better experience than it is right now? And oftentimes that is the, that is the, the vector, uh, of, of really good improvements. It is, it is heartbreaking. Again, the square of shame is a real thing. I don't, I don't even think it's a, it's an accident that Apple said, you know what, we You could slide this over to one side or the other so there isn't a ditch running right through your app, but we're gonna put a ditch running right through your app so that you can— so every time you use your own app, you will think hard about what you're not doing to support Apple.
Jason Snell [00:57:03]:
Yeah, it is. Yeah, the shame is strongly implied, right? The shame is strongly implied. I don't know. It's— I like this. Thank you, Andy. You put in a lot of links for this one of hilarious labels. uh, weird Duo novelty apps. But I think, I think it's, uh, I'd like to see it.
Jason Snell [00:57:23]:
I'd like to see it. Yep. That's good. Um, let's see what else we should talk about. New stuff, new stuff. So the newest new stuff, uh, announced this week by Apple, um, Monday the iPad Mini got its update. OLED at last. Um, not as expensive as I thought.
Jason Snell [00:57:49]:
It's up to $699, right?
Andy Ihnatko [00:57:52]:
128 gigs though. That's—
Jason Snell [00:57:54]:
But here's the— well, this is, this is, um, Mike and I were talking about this yesterday on Upgrade. It's $699 unless you look at it funny, because if you try to upgrade anything else about it, it, it leaps in price. Like there's a nanotexture option, which I think is amazing. So it's, It's got a different audio technology in it that's using like aspects of the screen to do the, instead of having speakers, which allows them to, it to be the first iPad that has got a water and dust resistance rating, which is awesome because a lot of people use this as a reader. Yeah, yeah. And it's got a nanotexture option on top of that, right? Which is also awesome, especially if you use this as a reader. But if you want the nanotexture option, you can't just get the base model and add the $100 nanotexture option because it's not available on the base model. So you have to pay at least $200 to get a nanotexture option.
Jason Snell [00:58:41]:
Texture one above the base, and then the configuration options go up from there rapidly. So it's $699 to start, but, uh, not for long, and then it's something else. But still, always good to see this product get some love because it's definitely not on Apple's high priority for updates. And these are— they look nice.
Stephen Hackett [00:59:00]:
Yeah, the iPad Mini has really become a niche product. I mean, when it first came out, you know, it was for a long time, it was basically the same as the big iPad, then called the iPad Air. And over time, it's kind of become more specialized. The updates have slowed down. There's definitely a group of people who this is the iPad for them. And Apple always wants to show like pilots going into action with it strapped on their leg. But like lots of people use it as readers, right? Um, lots of people use it for the, the kid iPad because it's, it's small and maybe you get a used one somewhere. But, uh, it is good.
Stephen Hackett [00:59:35]:
I don't understand that it doesn't fold. I thought all Screens are supposed to fold. Interesting.
Andy Ihnatko [00:59:39]:
You can fold it once.
Stephen Hackett [00:59:40]:
You fold it once. That's right. You can fold it one time.
Andy Ihnatko [00:59:44]:
Very stiff hinge.
Stephen Hackett [00:59:45]:
It's always good. And it does bring the mini in line with some other things in the lineup where the camera's now on the long side. It'll support the Apple Pencil Pro or the USB-C pencil. So you have some options there, which is nice. But I do think the big story here is that dust and water resistance. I mean, I mean, no iPad has had that. And, you know, if you look at the pictures of it, it's weird because there's not speaker grills. It's like they forgot to render something.
Jason Snell [01:00:13]:
Oops, no speakers.
Stephen Hackett [01:00:15]:
But it is one of those things that I think, I hope finds its way onto other iPads if this does really sound as good as I hope it does. And it's sort of similar to some stuff they're doing with the Home View, right? The, the screen is the speaker. TVs have done this for a while. Um, so curious to see how it sounds, but I would love for iPads in general to become more dust and water resistant.
Andy Ihnatko [01:00:40]:
Yeah. I mean, this, this is one hell of an upgrade. I mean, this is not like, like, like I said, Steven, this was, this used to be, oh, well, this is exactly like the standard, like budget iPad, but we just made it smaller. This is really taking it into line with a device that Apple's very, very proud of. Including, they finally added external display support to it. So if you want to connect it to an external— just like with an iPad, you can have your fun with it as this compact computing device, as a reader and note-taker. But then when you get home, you can plug it into an actual display and actually use it in a multi-windowed, if I'm reading this right, environment. Smaller, thinner, though the screen is, I think, larger in some fashion.
Andy Ihnatko [01:01:24]:
It's— yeah, it's— I often— I think we talked about— I talked about this a week ago or the week before that, but I really think that for, for most people, the fantasy of owning a folding iPhone— if your, if your original idea was that I want an iPad that folds into half and becomes an iPhone, maybe you should get an iPad Mini instead, even though you won't be able to put it in a pocket unless, number one, you're a man, and number two, it's fall or winter and you've got like jackets and the big pants that have the big pockets in them. It's as a transitional, like, middle of the productivity band device where I need something that's more hefty than a phone, but I don't wanna take my laptop with me, I really think that the iPad Mini is in the sweet spot. Too bad that there isn't, they weren't able to get the price down to $500 for the minimum buy-in. Like, that would be one hell of a product if it was, okay, it's only 128 gigs of storage, But Apple intelligence, very, very big device, healthy device. And of course, if you want something a little bit meatier, yes, spend $700, $800, $900. At $599 for 128 gigs, that kind of hurts a little bit, especially since that— Yeah. There are a lot of compact, there are, now there is, now it's not like there's no competition for the iPad Mini out there. There are some Android tablets that are really, really well made, very, very, very, very good productive budget things if you're not looking for something that you're gonna be spending all day in.
Andy Ihnatko [01:02:54]:
So a pity, but I'm still— yeah, I might be buying one at some point because this is where you conduct the— you end the job interview by saying, you are very much aligned with our interests and what we're looking for for this role. Can you hang out in the lobby while we have a conversation with some management? That sort of thing.
Shelly Brisbin [01:03:17]:
Sadly, the price says it's very similar to a MacBook Neo. And I realize we're just talking about a tablet versus a phone and not even comparing it to a computer. But that's what I think when I see that price. I think, well, God, should I just buy— because if I'm going to buy a Mac, an iPad Mini, I'm going to get a case, not water resistance notwithstanding, because you're far more likely to use a case on an iPad Mini than on a phone. Although I'm going to put a case on both, that's just how I roll. But, uh, you're going to get a case, so the chances are you're going to get some kind of a keyboard. And then you're like, well, wait, for the same price, does the small size and the nice OLED display Is that enough reason for me to choose this device? Is it better for— do I want a reader instead of a small Mac? Or do you know, and that may— that for some people that is absolutely going to be yes, it's going to be the answer to that question. For other people, it's going to be a harder decision.
Shelly Brisbin [01:04:09]:
And you know, the kid— does the kid get a MacBook Neo or does the kid get an iPad Mini? That's a question. And how many niche uses are there for this thing given that it has the water and dust resistance? Because I do feel like there are some, but I feel like those are more things that make great ads than things that are going to bring people into an Apple Store and go, oh, I really, really, really need one of those.
Jason Snell [01:04:31]:
So
Andy Ihnatko [01:04:32]:
I'm sorry, I just have to quickly correct myself. I said the starting price was $599. It's actually $699.
Jason Snell [01:04:36]:
It's $699.
Andy Ihnatko [01:04:37]:
It used to start at $599.
Jason Snell [01:04:38]:
Yeah, that's right. That's the— and then don't look at it funny or it'll be more than $699. Yeah, I think so. Last week I gave a hot take on here that I turned into a Six Colors piece, which is that I think the iPad Mini in some ways is the best iPad in the sense that it's the most true to itself and that people love it so much because it fits very particular niches, uh, really well. I'm going to do another iPad hot take now that I'll probably turn into an article at some point, which is with these price increases, $699 to start for the iPad Mini, it's a lot. And I know there's the base iPad, but what strikes me about this iPad Mini and really the base iPad too, but certainly the iPad Mini and the iPad Air is they're so functional. Like Apple talks a lot in their PR around this product about how it can do like AI workflows and creative workflows and all of these other things because it's powered by this incredibly powerful phone chip, which fair enough, it is. All of those things are true.
Jason Snell [01:05:33]:
But I start to think, okay, you've got a nice small tablet that makes a good reader, but you have to price it at $699 because it's so capable. Yeah. It's incredible. It will, 'cause these things will, it'll literally do pretty much anything an iPad will do. I've edited uh, podcasts on an iPad Mini before. Uh, not a problem. I mean, I'm sure very high-end video, like, you'll run into problems and need an iPad Pro, but like, they're so capable. And it actually makes me think, are they too capable? Like, is there, is there room in the world for an iPad Neo that is less capable but pretty great anyway? Um, because like, I, I just wonder if Apple is speccing itself out of parts of this market.
Jason Snell [01:06:17]:
And I know there are people who will take— buy an iPad Mini and use it to its fullest. But I do wonder if they're pricing out people who just want a little tablet as a reader and they don't want to buy a Kindle. But like Kindles don't cost $699, right? Yeah. Like not even close. Uh, and so it just, it makes me wonder if that all of these prices going up, the Neo got there first before the prices even went up. But like, I wonder if there's more room at Apple for reflection about the fact that as all these products go up in price, Are there other ways they could slide some other products in underneath?
Shelly Brisbin [01:06:52]:
That was the question with the iPad Air versus the iPad Pro, because the latest generation of iPad Airs, of which I have one, they're so good. Like, I don't need an iPad. Yeah. And, and you, you can find the features that improve on the iPad Air, but especially even before the price increases that we talk about now, the iPad Pro was a lot more than the iPad Air. And for me, that's the sweet spot, is the Air because the screen is bigger. Mac Mini screen is— iPad Mini screen is small enough that the fonts are not, not great. I would never recommend it for somebody with low vision because even with Zoom, it's a small screen. But the iPad Air is so good now, and I love it when Apple— and they, they've always done this in some regard— the middle products in Apple's lineups have always been really great choices for most people.
Shelly Brisbin [01:07:36]:
And that's the way I feel about the iPad Air. And so I sort of wonder I wonder what the love is gonna be, what the iPad line is going to be like when you have 4 unique instances now, but sort of weird price points. And this, this really seems high for an iPad Mini, except to capture those people that just have an emotional attachment to it and have a very specific love for the form factor. By the way, I owned an iPad Mini once, and I did at the time have a purse in which it could fit, but it is rare. Yeah. Even for an iPad Mini to fit in one.
Andy Ihnatko [01:08:06]:
And Jason, I did— I really liked what you said about this. This is something that's been on my mind sometimes about does Apple— okay, wow, it really is the most, most efficient, most best, best-looking screen, best, best processor, AI capable for whatever. But did it have to be all those things? Like, they've— Apple, Apple knows what is— what its customers want and how to sell stuff to them. So the answer is not necessarily to make a budget, budget-type tablet, but I hope that when Apple makes these decisions, they are sufficiently aware that there are a lot of people that are like, I would love to have an iPad. There's no way in hell I can afford an iPad. I certainly can't afford to buy my child their own dedicated device, certainly not when there are alternatives that are less than $300 that are not garbage. Again, the next time anybody's in Walmart, go to the electronics section and check out the On-n-n-n-n brand tablets that they have. The 2026 models are As I meant, are as good as anything that Apple made in terms of the impression they give you of a well-made object.
Andy Ihnatko [01:09:13]:
As good as Apple, as an iPad would have made like 5 years ago. And they're affordable. People can come in and walk out and feel as though, okay, you know what, I can, I can handle this. It's not— I'm not gonna have to justify $699 for what I intend to use this thing for, given that I want to use it mostly as a, as a reader device and to watch movies on, but also maybe also do messaging. And if I can do a little bit of productivity, that's good too. It's just, I'm the sort of person who thinks that, God, I wish Apple could— I wish everybody could have an experience that's as good as the typical, like, Apple hardware software experience. And it gets me a little bit disappointed that Apple sometimes gets distracted by, well, but we really don't want to try to make a $300 tablet or $200 tablet. We, when we have our, what we have in mind is something that can't cost any less than $700 because that's where our mind is right now as to what these tablets are supposed to be used for.
Stephen Hackett [01:10:10]:
Oh, I think part of that is, is our current moment. I mean, the current iPad, no adjective, uh, started life at $349. It was for, uh, 128 gigabytes, but that's the base across this, the mini, and the Air. But, you know, $349 is better, and some of these shoppers may find it at Costco or Amazon or someplace like that even marked down a little bit. So, so part of this is the current everything is more expensive because of Ramageddon. Um, and I think Apple's answer is if you want a cheap iPad, it's not the mini. It used to be back in the day, to our point earlier, but now it's just the, the plain, no-adjective iPad. And you know what, But it's not bad.
Stephen Hackett [01:10:55]:
Like, it's got the current design. You can get it in some fun colors.
Andy Ihnatko [01:10:58]:
Agreed.
Stephen Hackett [01:10:59]:
You can get it with a janky keyboard case. Apple's keyboard case for that thing is wild. Um, and so the mini, I don't think, is, is going after that market. I think Apple would say, hey, go get the regular one. And, you know, I see those things in the world, right? If someone comes to me and they want to buy an iPad, unless they have something really specific, they just want a Netflix machine, And like look at some email, which is what a lot of people do on iPads. Like the base iPad is fantastic. You know, save your money. You don't need an Air.
Stephen Hackett [01:11:27]:
You definitely don't need a Pro. Very few people need a Pro. And, um, it is, it is this interesting gradient of products, but I think to our point, maybe that gradient isn't as wide, um, as we would like it to be.
Jason Snell [01:11:39]:
I just wonder, and this is a knock-on with their chip strategy, right, is they're making high-end premium phone chips, and then they put them in other products because they, they don't have another— they're not making a HomePod chip, right? They're not making an iPad Mini chip. And that's great for their efficiency, but I do think sometimes it leads to them making products that are really over-specced for what they need to be. And
Andy Ihnatko [01:12:11]:
Apple TV.
Jason Snell [01:12:12]:
Yeah. Well, I mean, yes, Apple TV is a great example of that. And so that I just, the Neo is a fascinating example because the Neo happened before Ramageddon, but the Neo feels to me like that's the first example of saying, you know, we used to always say the MacBook Air was the, you know, the sweet spot where like below here, we don't want to play because we don't think that laptop is good enough to have our brand on it. We can't make a laptop for less than $999, $1,099, whatever that price was on the Air. And so that's what we're gonna do. And that's the end of it. And then Neo was Apple realizing that with the progression of Apple Silicon, there was space under it. And I just, I keep thinking, and, and I think that the iPad is a great example of this.
Jason Snell [01:12:58]:
You're right. The base iPad is, is great. But like, I just keep wondering, maybe Apple should like think about that a little bit more. Are there some— Has, has Apple Silicon progressed and has Apple's product line progressed and have the prices progressed to the point where maybe a product that they would never have made before is now viable. And that gets them a product that gets people in the door to the ecosystem. I don't know. You're right. It's probably not the iPad mini.
Jason Snell [01:13:25]:
I mean, the iPad mini, talk about overspecced. I mean, most normal people, like they'll appreciate an OLED display, but they're not gonna like shell out lots of money for a fancy OLED display iPad mini. They're gonna get the base iPad. I just, but I keep thinking about the Neo. And I just keep thinking maybe Apple's products are so capable now, like the mini, that, um, there's a product that doesn't exist that would be perfectly capable, that would not— that would cost $300 less. I don't know. I don't know. Uh, let's take a break and then there is more new stuff.
Jason Snell [01:13:58]:
I mean, it doesn't— people are very, very— It is relentless. Someone send help. Here we go. Okay, more new stuff today. Apple, as we're recording this, it's Tuesday. Apple introduced more new stuff. Um, and I, I've seen some confusion out there. Everybody's waiting for Wednesday for what they assume, we all assume, is going to be the big OLED touchscreen MacBook Pro announcement.
Jason Snell [01:14:29]:
A lot of questions about that, lots of speculation about Then they look today and they're like, well, wait a second, Apple announced a new MacBook Pro today. So is this it? And the answer is no, it's not it. This is the base model that they sell because some people won't buy a MacBook Air because it's not Pro. And, and I mean, the MacBook Pro base model has a good display and it's got cooling and stuff like that, but this is the base model M5 MacBook Pro 14-inch that is now an M6. So that happened today. I have a hard time getting excited about this product, but they have an M6 chip. Why wouldn't you put it in this product? Right?
Andy Ihnatko [01:15:07]:
Yeah, it's a— and I've already heard from people saying, oh God, Andy, you just bought like an M5 MacBook Pro like in June. Don't you feel like— no, I did, I did feel my elan was slightly dampened when I saw the announcement just pass by my feed. I did not think that they were gonna be coming up with a new base model. But after reading the specs, it's better, but it's not that better. Not much. I mean, uh, it's— as a matter of fact, there's— so I, I would, I would have gotten better radios. That would be nice. Better performance on the M6, but not amazingly better performance than the, than the M5.
Andy Ihnatko [01:15:43]:
Uh, battery life better, but again, also not amazingly better. I'm much happier that I got 3 months of extra usage, uh, above my M1. Although it was— there was— I, I had to like actually cite and quote it because the— if you look in the, uh, in the Apple Newsroom piece for it, it's almost as if they don't think they've got anything terribly good here. Because when they talk about the battery life, like you're used to, like, oh, and gosh, you see the battery, you'll get— you'll see like 90 minutes more battery life than, uh, than on your M5, than on the previous model. No, they are saying, uh, up to— I've got a quote here up to 14 additional hours of battery for people upgrading from Intel and up to 4 more hours for people who are upgrading from an M1 MacBook. I'm like, what the hell? It's like, I've never seen them make that kind of— if you have, if you have a Mac portable running lead-acid batteries, oh my God, are you in for a treat regarding the battery life and the weight of this thing. It's like, okay, what an odd boast to make.
Shelly Brisbin [01:16:45]:
So this is the computer that were it my turn at my day job, I would be getting. Because in the corporate world I work, it's actually a university, but in the university world I work in, we were getting computers every 4 years like clockwork, whether we needed them or not. Now it's every 5 because there needed to be some budget cutbacks. So I'm not due for one this year. I have an M2 MacBook Pro 13-inch. So I'm almost sure that this M6 would be the one I was getting. And But considering that the university, as many corporate entities are, encouraging people to use AI on their machines, whether it's models or whether it's just using ChatGPT, those M2s, which are still great, are getting a little more noticeably slow than they have been in the past 6 months. I've just sort of started to notice a few more beach balls, a few more situations when I feel like if I just had a little more performance, I could do some of those local AI things that my bosses seem to think it's really important that I do.
Shelly Brisbin [01:17:42]:
I mean, I enjoy them too, but I would— I usually do most of my real fun AI stuff on my M4 Mac Mini Pro at home. And by home, I mean I punch the KVM switch and I'm on the other computer. But, uh, you know, it's a nice upgrade, but it's what I would call a corporate upgrade. It's, it's nice for somebody who's got an M2. Most of the people in my office won't even notice. Maybe they'll get a silver one instead of a black one. when, when the computer turns around, they'll have the same number of ports. So from their point of view, the experience will be very similar.
Shelly Brisbin [01:18:09]:
But, but for me, I, I would love to have it because I would enjoy not having quite so many beach balls, and maybe I would do some more fun things with, with Claude code that I'm doing at work right now.
Jason Snell [01:18:20]:
Yeah, it's a— it's incremental. And I mean, that's what Apple does. It's incremental. And this is the base model, so it's not— I, I imagine this model actually sells really well. Yeah, because It's, it's $1,999, and that's why they sell it, right? I, I— this is, this is what used to be what we called the MacBook Escape. There's always been— in the last few years, Apple realized there was a gap between the MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air, and this is what fills it. It is— look, look, if you are a, a Kremlinologist like many of us are regarding Apple, I guess that would be technically a Cupertino-ologist. Uh, this product is not a MacBook Pro.
Jason Snell [01:18:56]:
It's something else. It's in between. Now it's more MacBook Pro than it used to be because now it's got the screen. For a while, it didn't have the screen. It didn't even look like— it looked like the old generation, not the new generation. And this is foreshadowing because they're going to do a new generation here. And this thing is not going to get those features for a very long time because the primary goal of this product is for it to be now $1,999. A lot cheaper than those higher-end MacBook Pros, but a little nicer than a MacBook Air.
Jason Snell [01:19:27]:
And for a corporate buyer, a lot of those corporate buyers just, they're like, I'm not buying a MacBook Air. That's a consumer laptop. I want a pro machine. It's like, okay, we'll give you a pro machine, but it's a different beast. And you really feel that it's a different beast on a day like today where it gets an update all by itself to a chip that the other MacBook Pros are not going to get. Yeah,
Andy Ihnatko [01:19:48]:
I will, I will make one point. It's, uh, it's definitely not a Pro in the sense of the, the processing power you get with like all the better chips. However, just going from my own like buying decision, it was worth getting a Pro for me instead of an Air because I have so many more Thunderbolt ports. I can have 2 external displays. So there's a lot of— and there's, there's like, there's an SD card slot, which I can't— I still can't— I was retroactively angered once again that my M1 MacBook Pro did not Was it— was the old, the old, the last Jony Ive design said, no, you don't need a slot. Look, it makes the side of it ugly. So we weren't— we're not going to give you an SD card slot. So, so they're, they're pro.
Andy Ihnatko [01:20:22]:
It's pro-ish in every— it's pro in every regard as a— instead of the top-tier processing and the top-tier memory.
Shelly Brisbin [01:20:29]:
And for performance, like, we're corporate, but we're also making audio. So we benefit a lot by getting a nice bump in RAM and a nice bump in hard drive. So would it be nicer to have a faster processor? For me, sure it would. For the rest of my team that does audio stuff, sure it would. But we're also gonna get an awful lot of benefit from the 24 or 32 gigs of RAM plus the 1 terabyte drive. We now get 1 terabyte drives. We used to not. So—
Jason Snell [01:20:52]:
And this is why this product exists is because Apple got feedback from all of its buyers who were like, you gotta make a MacBook Pro that is not in the stratosphere in terms of price. And they're like, we can do that. We can make an affordable MacBook Pro. And that, and that's why this product is important. And, and you're right, Andy, it is at a phase right now, and this is probably the last day where we could say this, or maybe, maybe the last day we could say this, where it's caught up with its more expensive brothers. And now it, like, it has the really great screen that it didn't have for until a couple years ago.
Andy Ihnatko [01:21:25]:
Everyone,
Jason Snell [01:21:25]:
it put it like— We'll see how they, how we're all feeling tomorrow, but like, it's a really good machine. at a price that is much more reasonable for a lot of people who don't have the priorities of like, I want to, I want to, you know, the— I want a Max chip and all of that.
Shelly Brisbin [01:21:40]:
Like to buy 30 of them, please. A nice round $2,000.
Jason Snell [01:21:43]:
Yeah.
Andy Ihnatko [01:21:44]:
And, and speaking of, speaking of price, at least they held the price. It does reflect the price increases of the summer, but it's still like, it's no more expensive than a similarly configured M5 MacBook Pro would have been 2 days ago.
Jason Snell [01:21:55]:
Exactly.
Andy Ihnatko [01:21:55]:
Good.
Jason Snell [01:21:56]:
It's, it's funny that you mentioned You mentioned the dark times of Apple laptops. Steven, that was 10 years ago today, wasn't
Stephen Hackett [01:22:07]:
it? It was. I had that realization earlier in the month. I was like, oh, if Apple's gonna do new MacBook Pros this month, oh wow, that's a decade since the bad ones. And, you know, so I spent some time on 512 Pixels looking back at that. Those machines were flawed. I mean, basically all the way through. And it's in hindsight sort of unbelievable how long it took Apple to fix it. You know, we're talking earlier about the iPhone Duo and the screen, like people going to China, the MacBook Pro, they're like, I don't know, put some gaskets in there and try to keep crumbs out of them.
Stephen Hackett [01:22:41]:
Like I had keys fall off a keyboard on a MacBook Pro that I was like, was my work machine. It was not, it was not good. It was such a dark period. And I think it sort of coincided with— Oh my God. Maybe the iPad is, is the, the new thing and maybe the Mac is going to go into maintenance mode. But, you know, the MacBook Air is their most popular machine. The MacBook Pro is the second, right? And it's the machine that their important customers use, right? Creatives like Shelley and her team and developers and all these folks who really, really do pay their bills on these computers. And it was just, it was wild to go back and visit.
Stephen Hackett [01:23:21]:
I was like, was there anything good about these? And I mean, they were thin and light, but I don't really care about that in a MacBook Pro.
Andy Ihnatko [01:23:29]:
Yeah.
Stephen Hackett [01:23:29]:
But the contrast, so I sort of closed it, the contrast of those, the Touch Bar, USB-C only butterfly keyboard disasters. And then when they redesigned the MacBook Pro with the M1 Pro and M1 Max, you know, Andy, you mentioned like that old design with the Touch Bar kind of hung around for a minute. it, it did eventually get a, get a good keyboard, but the current MacBook Pro, right? The one that I'm looking at right now.
Jason Snell [01:23:56]:
Yeah.
Stephen Hackett [01:23:56]:
It is, it is so good. And I've had a couple of them and they've been fantastic. My M4 Max is the best computer I've ever owned by a mile. And I really hope that whatever happens tomorrow, that they remember what they learned 10 years ago and that they, they don't try to squeeze the MacBook Pro into a MacBook Air sort of shaped void. And like, no, let the Pro be different. Like, let the Pro have ports. Let the Pro be a little thicker and heavier because it serves a different set of needs and a different set of customers. And you have that in-betweeny 14-inch that kind of spans the middle.
Stephen Hackett [01:24:33]:
But there are people who absolutely want and need and can afford the most Mac that you can get in a laptop. And that's what the MacBook Pro should be. It should not be sort of like a MacBook Air cut down, you know, limited ports, bad thermals. Uh, God forbid the Touch Bar come back.
Jason Snell [01:24:53]:
But,
Stephen Hackett [01:24:54]:
um,
Jason Snell [01:24:54]:
you're gonna be talking about something else tomorrow.
Andy Ihnatko [01:24:57]:
I, I honest to God, I still remember like the, the lead paragraph in my review for the Sun-Times. I rewrote it 10 times before I had to go back to the first one because I believed it. It was like, this could be the worst laptop Apple has ever made. And if this is the future of MacBooks, MacBook, then my next laptop will be a Windows device. And I'm not kidding, the keyboard— just the keyboard was so bad, it was not fit for purpose. I could not type on it. And I'm not joking here, I had picked out which ThinkPad I would buy if I had— if my current MacBook had gotten stolen or if I spilled something on it or whatever. There is no way in hell I could have bought the current MacBook because again, it was not fit for purpose.
Andy Ihnatko [01:25:38]:
And then the bad thing about making one bad device is that it gets people like me to look at alternatives when they were living in a world where there's no reason why I would ever switch. And that's when you realize that, my God, this ThinkPad Carbon, the keyboard is 10 times better than even like my current MacBook. Oh my God, it has so many ports on it. It's just as light and it's just as wonderful. Its only problem is that it runs Windows. But I, again, if this is fit for purpose and the MacBook is not. Goodness, what is— what dark times we, we put behind us. I think— I hope, I hope Apple's absolutely learned from this.
Andy Ihnatko [01:26:11]:
It was the everything that great— that everything great that, that Jony Ive's design team did, so many great things. It's not as— but it wasn't a perfect record. And to me, whenever I think of the excesses of that period of Apple design, this is it incorporated into one device. Yeah. was so much thinner than the old model was that, my God, I could carry one more comic book in my laptop bag with all the extra space. This is so thin.
Stephen Hackett [01:26:38]:
Isn't that worth not being able to type on your computer, Andy? What do you want?
Andy Ihnatko [01:26:41]:
Depends on the comic.
Jason Snell [01:26:43]:
The keyboard on a laptop doesn't matter. Does Jack Kirby?
Andy Ihnatko [01:26:45]:
Absolutely.
Shelly Brisbin [01:26:46]:
So when I started my job at Texas Standard in 2017, I was handed a 2015 MacBook Pro and was very happy with it. Somebody, somebody had left and they'd left their MacBook Pro. And so I got to keep it. for a couple of years, I think it was. And then they gave me a 2018. So it was right in that terrible, you know, sort of butterfly keyboard era. And it was like, it was like, what, do you not like me anymore? What? I was fine. I'm doing good.
Shelly Brisbin [01:27:12]:
I've made so many stories for you anyway. And then finally that went away and the M2 showed up and I knew that they cared about me again.
Jason Snell [01:27:20]:
Yeah, it is. So, so tomorrow, uh, in LA, Apple is doing what they're calling an experience and there will presumably be a product announcement, whether it drops at 6:00 AM Pacific, like these others have, or whether they hold it because they're doing an event on the West Coast. And I can tell you this, I will reveal exclusively here, they're not having us show up at the venue at 6:00 AM. So we'll see.
Shelly Brisbin [01:27:42]:
Good news for you.
Jason Snell [01:27:43]:
I will be there and it should be interesting. I imagine I'm gonna get my hands on all the stuff that they announce. But the big thing that everybody's expecting is a new MacBook Pro, which, I mean, there are a lot of questions here. It sounds according to Mark Gurman now, like these are gonna be, like when they went Retina on the MacBook Pro, these are going to be priced above the existing MacBook Pro models, which will remain in the lineup, which is interesting. But again, it goes back to they're gonna cost a fortune.
Stephen Hackett [01:28:13]:
Yeah.
Jason Snell [01:28:13]:
And they wanna have more affordable MacBook Pros. Also, I'll point out, according to Mark Gurman, there's no M6 Pro, there's no M6 Max chip. So these are just gonna be, while they're gonna be new laptops, they're not gonna have new chips in them. They're gonna have the existing chips that are in the existing models. So that would be be, um, makes it a little less awkward, I guess, to have additional models on top. But it will have a touchscreen OLED display. It will be lighter. It will be a little bit thinner.
Jason Snell [01:28:38]:
Um, and, uh, Steven, um, you know, you gotta love this. Our friend Mike predicted that they're gonna tell a story about the hinge. And it's like, oh, are we doing more hinges?
Stephen Hackett [01:28:51]:
Very Microsoft.
Jason Snell [01:28:52]:
But he had a really good point, which is if you're reaching out and pushing your finger on your MacBook screen, it can't do what a current MacBook screen does, wobbles, because it'll get all wiggly and that's no good for touching. So, uh, it sounds according to Mark Gurman, it sounds like, yeah, that is actually going to be part of the story is like Apple, Apple has gotten that old-time hinge religion, uh, and shipping all the products with new hinges. I guess
Shelly Brisbin [01:29:17]:
they're a vice president for hinges that we don't know about.
Jason Snell [01:29:20]:
Oh man, SVP now. I think they elevated him to SVP of hinges. Um, but, uh, he's good at sit-ups. He does a lot of sit-ups. That's what— that's what he's into.
Stephen Hackett [01:29:30]:
It'll be interesting. I mean, the hardware surely will be, will be interesting. But to me, the biggest question is what happens with macOS to make it more touch-friendly? And again, going to our friend Gurman, he had a report a long time ago about maybe you're going to touch it and like some things show up around your finger, kind of like the Microsoft Surface Dial back in the day. If the 2 people out there who remember that.
Andy Ihnatko [01:29:54]:
Good idea. I liked it.
Stephen Hackett [01:29:55]:
And so yeah, we will see, you know, how they manage that, but it's gonna be a secondary input, right? And it's just the way it is on a lot of PC notebooks where you reach up and you scroll, you pan and zoom. And sure, if you have a PC with touchscreen that like flips around into a tablet mode, maybe that's a little bit different, but I don't think it's gonna radically change how people interact with their Macs.
Jason Snell [01:30:20]:
No.
Andy Ihnatko [01:30:20]:
Yeah, it's too bad because that's That's, that's the only thing that, uh, the, the both Android and Windows pulled off a really neat trick in that when they did a whole top-to-bottom redesign of their UI, they figured out a way to make a desktop UI that actually also works without really much modification as a touch UI, uh, whereas Apple never did that kind of convergence. That, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Um, I would love to see an optimized touch experience for iPads and iPhones And an optimized keyboard and trackpad experience for macOS. But yeah, given— you would imagine that they would have seeded developers a long time ago if they're saying, hey, we're making radical changes to the UI to support a radically different device, so get ready to— get ready to not see your family for Halloween, Thanksgiving, or possibly Christmas because we're going to drop a lot of shame, a lot of new shame updates on you that you're going to have to comply with. So good luck with that.
Jason Snell [01:31:17]:
Yeah, I, I have used Sidecar. Perhaps you have too, Steven. Um, Sidecar in macOS GoldenGate supports touch fully, which is— this is the— you can use an iPad as an external display and it seems normal. I mean, my, my standard line about it is, you know, it works. Like it's not dramatic. It doesn't do anything. So I guess if there is drama, we will get it tomorrow. Like, oh no, actually we rethought But a lot of things, but as I don't think as a secondary input, you need to do a lot of rethinking.
Jason Snell [01:31:46]:
And this is why there'll be a lot of people tomorrow. I'm going to warn everybody now. There will be a lot of people tomorrow who are going to make a lot of toaster fridge jokes. They're going to make a lot of zombie arms jokes. But the thing is, the argument, it's, it's just like the people who make, uh, if you see a stylus, they blew it jokes about the Apple Pencil. It's all about the context. The idea is, is it a primary interface or is it a secondary interface? And there's no way that a touchscreen MacBook is going to have touch be the primary interface because you know what? Your keyboard and trackpad are right in front of you. But it is, as somebody who's used these touchscreen laptops, including my iPad with Magic Keyboard on it, look, we're all so trained now.
Jason Snell [01:32:27]:
You reach out and touch a screen and do that. It just happens. And so to have that be available and nice and good is fine. I don't, I actually don't want Apple to do too much with this because Then they're almost like pretending that it could be more than a secondary input. And I just don't see how it could be because then you, then you really are like, no, hold your hand up to the screen and, and like, and then do a thing. And like, I don't know, that feels like too much to me. Maybe if, maybe if this is a step to something that's a convertible that you can fold backward or you can pivot around and then use an Apple Pencil and you're kind of like in a mixture of macOS and iPadOS on a laptop. Like, that sounds like something you'd need to do this with, but all reports that we've gotten about this product suggest that this is just gonna be a laptop.
Jason Snell [01:33:19]:
And what that hinge, that amazing hinge we're gonna hear about tomorrow, is not gonna do is flip the screen around and let you fold it down, right? Like, that's not gonna happen. And that's when you need to really up your software game, I feel like.
Andy Ihnatko [01:33:32]:
It almost made me think I do think that, again, the, the lack of drama about this, uh, this update made me, uh, made me wonder, like, okay, did they, like, have their usual, like, set of meetings with their display suppliers and they quoted them the price and the yields? So yeah, actually, you know what, for oddly enough, we could actually make these panels cheaper for you if you let us just keep the, the, the encode— the, the, the touch encoder on the top of it, because we actually have, like, a production line for it. Oh, really? Okay, yeah, why not? We'll throw in— yeah, fine, we're cool with that. But of course, as, as you said, like, it's going to need a better, just a better hinge to, to support that kind of thing. Again, it's, it's weird that something so dramatic is being unveiled with so little drama, but then again, they're, they're doing it in LA, so that probably means something.
Jason Snell [01:34:16]:
Well, I mean, it's, it's a pro laptop, and so they're gonna, they're gonna do a lot of selling of how great these products— the MacBook Pro is for the creative experience, right? I can tell you I'm gonna be spending a lot of time tomorrow sitting in rooms being told how amazing it is for music and for video and for artists and other things like that. Because Apple is all— is about nothing if it's not about the storytelling of how their products are used. So that's absolutely gonna happen.
Shelly Brisbin [01:34:43]:
Well, that was what I was gonna say is because it feels like if there's not going to be either a killer app or some sort of touch experience that's transcendent, that's the story they have to tell, right? Here's the app. And it's a good one. Here's the application. for which this is appropriate or is beneficial. Creativity, whether it's audio or video editing, maybe, I guess, I don't know. I mean, I know people edit on iPads and the like with or without pencils, but I don't know if that's an experience people want on the touchscreen laptop, but we'll see. All right. But it does seem like that application-focused story as opposed to we invented this brand new class of drawing app or whatever it might be.
Shelly Brisbin [01:35:25]:
That doesn't feel like that's going to happen. And it does feel like, you know, Apple created this product after a lot of other touchscreen products were out there. And it was one of those things where, you know, they kind of had to, just the way they kind of had to do AI and they kind of had to do a folding phone. And that doesn't mean they don't want to do it or that they don't want to do it well, but it does sort of feel like it wouldn't necessarily have happened if there hadn't been that kind of market pressure. And given that, it makes the most sense to go to your verticals that are most likely to not only buy your products, but buy the more expensive versions of the products that are already available.
Stephen Hackett [01:36:01]:
And if they, if they really were to dive into that sort of touch that swings around, it's a whole new software experience for editors, that sort of thing. Then you've created a big rift between the MacBook Pro and all of your other machines, right? The MacBook Air, the most popular machine you sell, is not going to have this feature. and probably not for a while, uh, that's to forget the desktop machines, right? And so anything they do here, because Apple has to worry about the MacBook Pro in its place among the family, it can't be too far afield, I think, from what they're doing. And so, Shelley, I think you're absolutely right. It's going to be, look how it crunches this audio and video. Um, yeah, if you want to reach up and touch it and like move your timeline around like that, it makes, you know, a lot of creators that's native for them. A lot of kids are out there making stuff on their phones, right? And doing great work with just their phones. And so this is about attracting those users, keeping them on the Mac.
Stephen Hackett [01:36:58]:
I don't think it's about reinventing what the Macintosh is by any stretch. And look, I think if you buy one of these and you never touch the screen, then you're like, it's totally fine. Like you're not, I don't think you're gonna be missing anything.
Shelly Brisbin [01:37:11]:
That would be a waste of money now, wouldn't it?
Stephen Hackett [01:37:13]:
Well, there is, you know, there, well, I mean, And again, I think Jason's right. I think they're going to follow the Retina MacBook Pro sort of playbook. Back in 2012 when they announced this, I remember the slide. It was like, we have all these laptops. And at the very end of the slide, the expensive one is that 2012 Retina MacBook Pro. And eventually, you know, all machines became that machine, right? Everything trickles down. But I do think, yeah, if you buy this and you end up not touching it, you have spent money you shouldn't have spent. But I also don't think my point is you're not going to miss out on, I don't think, some sort of like brand new paradigm of using a MacBook Pro.
Stephen Hackett [01:37:54]:
This is all going to be additive, I think, not subtractive of how we've all used these things forever.
Jason Snell [01:37:59]:
Yeah, I will tell you, if, if they really go to town with some of these fancy features that I said I didn't want, it's going to start making me suspicious that they are experimenting with the idea of having their laptops maybe be more convertible in ways that we haven't seen. But I just don't know whether this will, will actually do that or not. Because that's the— I mean, Apple settled on a, on a laptop design, you know, 15-plus years ago where they're like, yeah, we pretty much nailed it. We're just going to do laptops like this from now on. And that's fine. They are by far the most popular. But I just, I do wonder, and John Ternus is the CEO now, do they start to toy with the idea of, of doing something a little bit different? And, you know, we've been talking about the collision between the iPad and the And and the Mac for ages now. Well, Macs can run iPad apps now, and now there's going to be touchscreen Macs.
Jason Snell [01:38:49]:
And I do have this thought of like at some point could you make a Mac that feels more like a touch device when you wanted to? And what does that look like? And I don't know. Would they experiment with that to find new markets, or are they just satisfied? And that's that's the big question. I think Apple sometimes is reluctant to make new products in new categories because they. kind of grinding on what they're grinding on. But today's Apple seems to be more into making weird products. We've been talking about them all day. So, maybe.
Andy Ihnatko [01:39:22]:
Maybe. And despite being now a $5 trillion company, they did beat Nvidia once again. They keep changing the 1 and 2 position this week, but they did nose ahead of Nvidia this week. By their nature, they don't like to have an immense product map. They like to have the few things that they can focus on. And so if there— I imagine there's always going to be some natural, uh, systemic cultural resistance to putting an entirely new line of MacBooks on the market. I would— believe me, if I could buy a, a, a, an iPad, that iPad-type device that could run Mac software, I would be all over it. That would be the— that might be the thing that would get me to spend more than $600 or $700 on an iPad again.
Andy Ihnatko [01:40:11]:
And, but, but excuse me, on a tab— on an Apple tablet again, let's say. There's no way I'm spending $1,000 on an iPad Pro ever again.
Jason Snell [01:40:19]:
Or, or something we don't call an iPad, it's a MacBook Pro, but what it actually is is kind of an iPad-Mac hybrid something.
Andy Ihnatko [01:40:27]:
Yeah, exactly. Because having, again, one of my favorite laptops of all time was the Pixel Chromebook that had, it was just a beautiful ultra-thin design The number of times where I would be folding that screen back to, again, to use it as a tablet, either as a reader device or just as a tablet, or using it as a tented stand so I could be at my diner like eating a lovely breakfast, but then watching a video like while I'm eating breakfast. It is such a great compelling form factor. And when you can do it where it feels like a slim tablet as opposed to a laptop with a party trick, it is a super compelling device. I continue to use that device. for years past its sell-by date because I just simply like that form factor enough. And that's why I'm so eager to see Apple maybe give me something like that that can run all of my Mac apps.
Jason Snell [01:41:21]:
Oh well, we will, we will get maybe clues, maybe not. All the tea leaf readers, all the Cupertino-ologists out there, maybe we'll do that next time. All right, we have been talking. There's so much to talk about. There's so much in our show doc that, um, that that we're not going to even get to. I will— I'm going to do a plug here. Andy at innotco.com publishes a big list of links every week that's a great reading list for people who are interested in the stuff we talk about. And we— it started life as the MacBreak links, and we see it, and it's very helpful.
Jason Snell [01:41:55]:
And this is the kind of week where I feel bad because, like, we've got, like, 50 links we're not going to even get to because Apple won't be stopped. They can't stop. They won't stop. Somebody stop them, please. But until then, we're gonna just have to, uh, move on and, uh, and do our picks of the week. Now let's do our picks of the week. Of course, I'm gonna do a little side note here. mbwpicks.com is where you can go to get a searchable list of all the picks of the week.
Jason Snell [01:42:22]:
It's great. He makes some money on the Amazon affiliates, and good for him because I love having a place I can go to compile them, and I'm not going to compile them. So I'm glad that our friend at mbwpicks.com— does it. Andy, what is your pick of the week?
Andy Ihnatko [01:42:35]:
Yeah, you know what, what I got— I had an idea for something that would require the use of like the classic Mac Chicago font that became like part of the identity of the entire Mac. And so I wonder if I could find like a font that's kind of like that. Well, somebody made a font that's exactly like that. It's called Chicago FLF, and it is a 100%— it is a modern— I don't know if it's OpenType or TrueType type, but it's a modern version of this font that scales beautifully. It's not just bitmaps that scale up and down, and it is public domain. So it's not just like an open source license in which if you can do yada yada. Nope. If you want to embed it in your website, you can do that.
Andy Ihnatko [01:43:13]:
If you want to use it on a brand of Mac-themed cola, if you want that as your logo or trade dress, also perfectly fine because again, it is public domain. Apple might have something to say about that, but nonetheless, the font is free. You've got that cleared up. Uh, it is, it is like so many fonts I have installed just because I'll come across it and I will think, I am not going to use this font frequently, but there are going to be times in the next month, year, or 10 years in which I don't need something similar to this, I want something exactly this. And if you want this, Stan, look at the classic Chicago font. This is exactly what you're looking for.
Jason Snell [01:43:52]:
Andy, I kid you not, Yesterday I was looking for a Chicago font. Yesterday I was like, I really should set this in Chicago for the retro Mac goodness. And I was like, ah, I don't have one. Where do you get one? Is there a web page you can go to generate something that looks like it came from the original Mac or the iPod? Uh, so that is awesome. That is amazing. I have waited one day.
Andy Ihnatko [01:44:18]:
I had this idea of something that I wanted to add to the site because sometimes I want to put something in the header saying, oh, Oh, by the way, just an alert, just a note that I bought— when I'm reviewing this, I bought this, I didn't get it on loan. Or, oh, actually, I'm only giving some— be warned, I've only had 90 minutes with this device, and just take that in mind. I thought, wouldn't it be great to have just basically the classic, like, System 1.02, like, alert bitmap? Say, yeah, but damn, but that'd be impossible because I would need, like, the actual font. Oh, someone made the actual font. Thank you very much, Robin Cassidy. God bless you and all the work that you've
Jason Snell [01:44:53]:
Done. All right, let's move on to our next pick. How about Stephen?
Stephen Hackett [01:45:00]:
I'm gonna do a little swimming in the self-promotion waters, if that's okay.
Jason Snell [01:45:04]:
All right, dive in.
Stephen Hackett [01:45:05]:
Uh,
Andy Ihnatko [01:45:06]:
free self-promo.
Stephen Hackett [01:45:07]:
See how far we can take this analogy, you know. Um, so I've been— I do some work with David Smith on his family of apps, including Widgetsmith, and we just launched— actually, I should relaunched, uh, an iPhone weather app called Check the Weather. This was an app that he worked on. It's been discontinued like 11 years or something. Like it was, you can find old screenshots. In fact, I reviewed it in like 2013 or something. It's, uh, it's very much of its time, like the iOS, you know, 4 or 5, 6 days. Uh, but it's back now and it's really radar driven.
Stephen Hackett [01:45:39]:
And the reason we revisited it was, uh, the iPhone Duo, like the idea of like opening up the Duo. And having this really nice, well-done, beautiful radar and map, and you can see your weather stuff there as well. So it's in the App Store, and we had a lot of fun making it. We have a lot of plans for it. So if you check it out, let us know what you think. But it's been my weather app for a couple, probably 6 weeks now as we've been working on it. I've been, I've been really happy with it.
Jason Snell [01:46:08]:
Very radar-forward, which I live on the edge of the Pacific Ocean where the radar— there's not a lot of radar out there in the ocean, so it's less useful for me. But I, I know that every weather app has a different emphasis, which I think is great to be opinionated. And, and, uh, and, and being radar forward is going to really work for some people.
Stephen Hackett [01:46:25]:
Us, us beautiful time zones, me and Shelley, we know what's up.
Jason Snell [01:46:29]:
Yeah, Central Time gets the radar. Uh, and, and, uh, your designer, uh, over there that you and Dave work with, uh, yeah, did some great work on that. It's a beautiful—
Stephen Hackett [01:46:40]:
it's beautiful.
Jason Snell [01:46:41]:
Yeah. Good. We can do self-promotion here. That's, that's your, that's your payment for being on MacBreak Weekly and working so hard is you get to promote your app. I love it.
Stephen Hackett [01:46:48]:
Perfect.
Jason Snell [01:46:49]:
Shelly, what do you have?
Shelly Brisbin [01:46:51]:
Well, I should have promoted myself apparently.
Jason Snell [01:46:53]:
You can do that too.
Shelly Brisbin [01:46:55]:
Yeah, well, we were talking before the show about animals and technology. I'm here at my home office today and the door is closed not only because I'm on a podcast, but because if the cats came in here, They would immediately start chewing cables. I won't even tell you the number of devices with integrated cables I lost when these cats were kittens. And all the stories about what you can do— you can cover with plastic tubing, you can spray oils on the cables if you're just willing to do that every few days— I'm not. So I decided to look around for some animal-proof cables, and Amazon did not let me down. This is from a company— this is a USB-C cable. cable. It's from a company called Magnitto, M-A-G-N-I-T-T-O, and it has the pleasing sound of metal because this is a metal-covered USB-C cable.
Shelly Brisbin [01:47:44]:
Not very expensive, I thought it might be, uh, but if you need cables that would withstand the chewing of cats, uh, and, and I have found that it does. And, and for those of you who might be wondering, these cats seem specifically to enjoy USB cables, not, uh, electrified cables. Nobody's harmed themselves, but USB-C seems to be this cat's favorite standard. These chew-free— these chew-proof cables are my solution.
Jason Snell [01:48:12]:
I love it. This is good. We did— we were talking beforehand about whether that you had to keep the cats out or not. My cats don't chew cables. I'm very glad. I tried to come up with a, uh, a phrase for what USB-C means, uh, and it was sort of like usually sometimes bitten cats, but, but I, I didn't get there. I didn't get there. All right, this has been This has been a fantastic couple of hours talking about— I love it.
Jason Snell [01:48:33]:
I feel bad for Leo, right? I feel bad for Leo a little bit because we go through weeks where nothing is happening and he's grinding through 2, 2 and a half, 3 hours of MacBreak Weekly. And then I sit in the chair and it's raining products. Hallelujah. So—
Shelly Brisbin [01:48:49]:
Well, even next week—
Andy Ihnatko [01:48:50]:
this is like, this is, this is like when you come back to the office after 2 weeks away and you open up like the break room fridge and you see, and you see, oh, there was like remnants of like 2 cakes and like a remembrance of old— say, oh, because we had like 3 birthday parties and a big celebration. And also a client came in.
Jason Snell [01:49:07]:
Everybody had a good time.
Andy Ihnatko [01:49:07]:
Bagels and bacon. Where were you? Everybody like, oh, okay. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Shelly Brisbin [01:49:12]:
How do you feel? How do you think I feel when I read the Slack food share? Oh yeah, the tacos.
Jason Snell [01:49:18]:
Yeah, come on. So, uh, but that, that's, uh, that's all we got time for this time. But you know, we're all the recriminations of whatever is gonna happen on Wednesday, we'll be here to talk about next Tuesday, which will be great. But let me thank my guests one last time and let them do some self-promotion if they want. Andy Ihnatko, thank you as always. Ihnatko.com, the place you go for a confluence and confabulation of links, including the ones that you saw here and many, many, many that we skipped. Ihnatko.com, ask for it by name. I have have no actual technical knockout.com.
Andy Ihnatko [01:49:55]:
That was— I'm glad I had— that's why I had to close it down to an acronym. That's not even actually my name, but that's— it was too much for people to type out. You couldn't pronounce it.
Jason Snell [01:50:03]:
It's great having you here as always. And as special, Stephen Hackett, tell people where they can find you and what you're up to. Plug away.
Stephen Hackett [01:50:12]:
You can, you can find my writing over at 512pixels.net. And I co-host Connected, a podcast about Apple and related subjects over on Relay every Thursday. So go catch us there.
Jason Snell [01:50:27]:
Yeah, very nice. relay.fm/connected. It's a fun podcast.
Stephen Hackett [01:50:31]:
It is.
Jason Snell [01:50:31]:
With, with many— I mean, there's, there's an American, an Italian, and a Brit. So you got like world perspective. You guys bring the global perspective together.
Stephen Hackett [01:50:40]:
That's right. And you can tell us apart if you're just listening, which is sometimes hard.
Jason Snell [01:50:46]:
Sometimes people do have trouble differentiating voices, and you never— if you, if you have trouble differentiating those 3 voices, I am worried about you.
Stephen Hackett [01:50:53]:
Uh,
Jason Snell [01:50:54]:
Shelley Brisbane, uh, tell people what you're up to. If you've got anything to plug, now is, now is the time.
Shelly Brisbin [01:50:59]:
Let's see. So I did a series recently at my, uh, sometimes very sadly ignored blog, brisbane.net/blog, about my adventures in what I call the low contrast life. where in my life as a low vision person using dark mode, I often find things that do not behave well with dark mode and how I cope. And there are many examples from a week's worth of posting. I also host a podcast on The Incomparable about classic films called Lions, Towers, and Shields. And you can find that at theincomparable.com/lds. We just began our fall season and this week's episode will be episode 150.
Andy Ihnatko [01:51:36]:
Nice.
Jason Snell [01:51:37]:
I love it. That's cross-promotion. I love it when you're promoting a thing that also I get to participate in.
Shelly Brisbin [01:51:41]:
Right?
Jason Snell [01:51:41]:
Because it's at The Incomparable. That's really great. That's a great, Uh, podcast. I was just saying to a friend of mine that I have, uh, I have multiple friends from across my life who appear now together on podcasts without me even being there. Uh, friends from college, friends from my first job, and then you all are talking about movies that I haven't seen because they are from the— they're in black and white. And I don't understand.
Shelly Brisbin [01:52:03]:
Sometimes I get people that I work with on my day job and I invite them on my show, and so I just poach my own guests and I'm gonna steal them and put them on my radio.
Jason Snell [01:52:11]:
I love it. Podcasts are so amazing. It brings together all sorts of interesting people like this podcast today. Thank you, Shelley. Thank you, Steven. Thank you, Andy. Thank you everybody out there for listening and/or watching to this episode of MacBreak Weekly. There is so much going on.
Jason Snell [01:52:28]:
Apple can't stop. Like I said, they won't stop. Why won't they stop? But they won't. So we're just gonna have to keep covering it here next week. But sadly, now you have to get back to work because break time is over. Bye, everybody. Bye.
