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In this week's episode:
- OLED MacBook Pro reignites controversy over touchscreen laptops
- iMac and 14” MacBook Pro get M6 chip-and-ship upgrades
- But where are the M6 Pro, Max and Ultra?
- And does the iPhone Duo have a crack problem?
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What is Cult of Mac?
The official podcast of the long-running Cult of Mac blog.
Every week, you’ll get the biggest news stories with our expert analysis and commentary. We’ll also give you a how-to that’ll help you use and understand your devices better. We’ll share and pick apart the most interesting Mac setups. You can send us any weird or technical questions you have. You’ll get our hands-on reviews of the interesting products, accessories and gadgets we try.
Our goal is to inform, educate, but most of all, entertain.
Coming up, OLED MacBook Pro reignites controversy over touchscreen laptops. IMac and 14 inch MacBook Pro get m six chip and chip upgrades, but where are the m six Pro, m six Max, and m six Ultra? And does the iPhone duo have a crack problem? Good one, Graham. Okay.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Cult of Mac podcast. I'm your host, Neddy Kahney. Joining me today are Lewis Wallace and Graham Bower. Hey, guys. Hello.
Speaker 2:Hello there.
Speaker 1:Alright. Let's jump right into it. So the LED MacBook Pro, it reignites the controversy over touchscreen laptops. Touch comes to the Mac at last. Apple has invaded its first touchscreen MacBook Pro, reversing Steve Jobs' famous opposition to vertical touchscreens.
Speaker 1:But touch is an optional way to interact, not a replacement for the keyboard and trackpad. Apple Pencil isn't supported. It has a stunning new tandem OLED display. The 14 inches and 16 inches models feature Apple's ProLED XDR display featuring offering 10,000,000 to one contrast and up to 2,000 nits brightness and 120 hertz ProMotion. A dynamic island replaces the notch.
Speaker 1:It's got a lighter design. The redesigned MacBook Pros are thinner and significantly lighter with 14 inch model weighing just three pounds and the 16 inch model just four pounds. Yeah. That's light. The iconic glowing Apple logo also makes a comeback.
Speaker 1:It all comes with an eye warding price. Powered by the m five Pro and m five Max chips, prices start at 2,899 for the 14 inch and 3,399 for the 16 inch. Preorders open on, opened October 28 with availability November 6. So, yeah, I think this is a weird product. I think it's a it's a weird rollout.
Speaker 1:It's a weird, weird, weird product. And I don't think Apple made a use case for it at all for the touchscreen. In fact, that they downplayed it. It was not like, you know, the press releases are like, look at this amazing screen. Oh, by the way, it's such.
Speaker 1:You know? Did you get that impression?
Speaker 3:Totally. I think it it... It's... They introduce... It...
Speaker 3:To me, it was like the touchscreen was on the down low. They they just wanted to they wanted to slide this one pass with... Without anyone really focusing on it at all, which is really, really interesting.
Speaker 1:But that makes no sense, doesn't it? Because, I mean, like, why add a touchscreen if, you know, you're gonna downplay it? Isn't that surely the... I thought that was gonna be front and center. Here's a new interaction model, right, which is kinda basically exactly what it is.
Speaker 1:And yet, you know, they downplayed it to the point where... And the and the use cases they showed at the demo, you know, like someone played piano on the... On this wobbly screen. It was just made no sense at all.
Speaker 3:Well, I think the the use cases were nonsensical, for sure. Like, I I think I said on the show a couple of weeks ago that to me, a touch MacBook is ideally suited to the Neo. It... To me, it's something which is a jammy fingers and a family laptop. You know?
Speaker 3:Like, kids like to interact with touch. I think Right. You know, I could see it as a really fun thing having touch on a Neo, but, obviously, that's not the way these features work. They trickle down from the the high end ones. So we got this ridiculous, in my view, post rationalization of touch on the pro to say this is a feature that pro users have been demanding.
Speaker 3:And I just don't think that's true. I mean, I guess, in Apple terms, I'm a pro user myself because I do graphic design and software development. The only thing I could really see where it's genuinely useful is in Xcode when you're using the simulators if you're developing for iOS. You can actually, in the simulator, touch... Use the touch interface.
Speaker 3:So it it... It's it's for sure useful there. But beyond that, I I don't think there's anything particularly useful for pros here. I... The...
Speaker 3:Best guess of what's going on here is the whole of their comm strategy this past week or month has been building up to just sliding this this one out on the down low. And I think the reason is I think the reason is, yes, they've redesigned the the MacBook screen with an OLED display. And they thought, you know, if we're going to add touch to the Mac at some point, we might as well add it now. But it... We don't see this as being something which is remotely transformative for the Mac platform.
Speaker 3:It's a secondary interaction mode, and we've put it in there kind of as a why not. And so we don't want people to in... Over interpret what we're doing with this. So we need to find some way to slide this out. And the way that I look at it is for for a couple of years, I used a twelve twelve inch I...
Speaker 3:IPad Pro with the Magic Keyboard, almost as if it was a laptop. And I found that I was always using the trackpad and very rarely tapping the screen, but I did sometimes tap the screen, particularly, you know, clicking on a link on a website. Just the the odd occasional thing where it was useful to reach up and tap the screen. So I totally get the idea that as a secondary mode of interaction, it's kind of, well, why not? You know?
Speaker 3:And... But one of the things they said, and I watched the... That they've published some videos for developers, on supporting touch on your Mac application. So I watched those to... Because I...
Speaker 3:Because they've given us so little information about how they're thinking about this. And so the only place you can really find it is in these these kind of esoteric places. And Yeah. What they said was it... It's such a secondary mode of interaction for the Mac that in introducing support for it, they didn't want the Mac UI to look different in any way.
Speaker 3:So you wouldn't know the difference between a Mac with touch and without, and that's the extent to which this thing is on the down low. And I think it... It's like the reason they... They've done that is every laptop on the planet now, really, apart from Apple laptops, supports touch. And it hasn't been a huge problem for Apple that they don't support touch because, you know, sales of MacBooks are pretty strong.
Speaker 3:But it is a little bit weird now that only Apple doesn't do it. And although it's not very useful, it's a bit useful. And so I I think they probably thought, well, I think we should get in line and just add this. It's not a big deal for people that want it. We should have it.
Speaker 3:I I suspect it's a marginal cost decision for them if they're reengineering their display with new l... OLED displays to have the the touch layer in there. So we might as well stick it in, but we don't wanna make a big thing about it, and we don't want to be asked all these questions about what does this mean of iPads and MacBooks merging and converging. We don't want to answer any of that because it... It's it's just not that deep.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I mean, it... That's exactly how it looks. I mean, this is what it appears to be, but this upends Apple's product development process. This makes it sound like Samsung.
Speaker 1:You know? Okay. We can do this. This is like antithe... This is exactly what Steve Jobs always warned about.
Speaker 1:Right? Which is like, adding a new technology for technology's sake without sort of figuring out how it works. Previously, like in the industrial design lab, they would spend years working out what this product was useful, how it should work. And every single time they come across some kind of huge problem, they find out that something didn't work the way they wanted it to or it wasn't working. And they, you know, they go back to the drawing board and come up with something amazing.
Speaker 1:And, like, almost all the major products went through these these these development cycles, didn't they? Because they they did a lot of work behind the scenes. They did all the work behind the scenes. They never ever put out a technology for the sake of it and say, okay. You know, let the market figure it out.
Speaker 1:But that definitely still seems to be going on here.
Speaker 3:I I... You could argue it hard. Like, you could argue it the other way and say that the touch bar, they were kind of overthinking the problem. And this, what they've done here, is more of a a kiss approach. Keep it simple, stupid.
Speaker 3:It's like some people want touch. We can just stick it in there. It doesn't matter. So what? You know, it's not that great an experience, but it's not like you'll be using it all the time.
Speaker 3:If you do reach out and touch the screen, which people sometimes do, that should work. We don't want that to not work. I I Well, I Well, I think it was Jason Snell said today that, he saw this as being like when Apple introduced video to the iPod, the the iPod video. And the the year prior to that, Steve Jobs had said, do you remember he put that thing on screen and saying, oh, they're digging in the wrong place? I think it was a...
Speaker 3:Was it a Goonies reference or something? And
Speaker 1:no. Raiders of Lost Ark.
Speaker 3:Raiders of the Lost Ark. That's it. They're digging in the wrong place because, Apple's competitors were putting video on their m p three players, and iPod didn't do that. And I think the reason they didn't was because it was a bit stupid. I I think Steve Jobs thought, well, no one really wants to watch movies on a tiny little four by three iPod screen.
Speaker 3:I mean, if you remember those screens, they were quite good, but they were not like even the original iPhone screen was widescreen and bigger than those tiny little square things. And so the idea that you should watch movies on it was it was a pointless thing, and so Ctrip said we shouldn't do that. Then a year goes by, and they introduced it. And so I think Jason Snell brought it up to say that's an example where Steve Jobs says, oh, this doesn't work. It's pointless.
Speaker 3:We're not gonna do it. And then the next year, everything's different. It's that Steve Jobs quality of strong opinions lightly held. Right? But I thought that then there's there's another parallel here, which is they did introduce it, and it was pointless.
Speaker 3:I don't really... I really... I mean, the the iPods back then, I loved them, but I I wonder if anyone ever watched a whole movie on one of those iPods. I bet they didn't. You know, it was theoretically possible.
Speaker 3:And it... But to me, it was just a marketing check mark on a list of features. You could also look at your photos on this iPod in color. And who would sit there and look at a slideshow of their photos on a tiny little four by three iPod screen? I think no one.
Speaker 3:And with Nanos as well in the end. And, so I think they just did it because they had a color screen, and they could. You know? The the hardware could support video decompression. So they did it.
Speaker 3:And that to me is exactly what this is like. They could. It doesn't add any weight to it. It doesn't really add any cost to it. So are we really just not gonna put it in on a point of principle when sometimes people tap the screen and then they're surprised it doesn't work?
Speaker 3:I don't know.
Speaker 1:You know, the cost must be significant. You know? Like, in terms of, like, you know, they've had to, there's gonna be some hardware cost. There's gonna be production cost. There's gonna be, you know, the the the time, the engineering time in rejiggering Mac OS so that it works with this.
Speaker 1:And maybe there's some, you know, future use case that hasn't been revealed yet. I mean, on the other hand, I'm also kind of persuaded by the argument that everyone expects screens these days to be interactive. And it does look kind of weird, know, like I think with... Especially in a mobile product. This is a mobile product.
Speaker 1:Right? They're not adding it to the iMac. They're not adding it to the XDR display. This isn't, you know, something they've done on the desktop. This is like...
Speaker 1:So it kind of makes sense in a way. And of course, you know, we've had this in a way for years with the iPad Pro with a keyboard, with a magic keyboard. Yeah. And I mean, I don't know a lot of people who use the iPad Pro as their main machine except Ed Hardy, one of our writers. And I I read Viticci, you know, Frederico Viticci, his take on it.
Speaker 1:He was saying that, well, to him, it made perfect sense because he has been using an iPad Pro forever with a magic keyboard, and it's quite natural for him to go up and touch the screen when he wants to do something and and drag and drop stuff and, know, with his fingers. And he was saying that this is the Mac for the iPad generation, like for the kids who've grown up with interactive screens. And you can see it with little kids, with toddlers, right? They go up to they try to touch the television these days and try to interact with the TV. And so, you know, I'm kind of persuaded a little bit by that that that, you know, you kind of expect that that interaction with the screen these days and and that maybe they're looking at...
Speaker 1:You know, the the Mac has to keep up with the times.
Speaker 3:I think that's it. This is obviously on their top tier devices, but I'm sure it's a feature that will slowly trickle down to the the whole MacBook line. That was... That would be the way that I would see it, which would mean... And that with Apple takes a long time.
Speaker 3:So I think we're talking about ten years from now, you know, the MacBook Air will probably have a touchscreen too. And at that point, you know, you're gonna have people who are, like, 10 years old today that are working professionally and reaching up and touching screens the whole time. And it's just a bad experience if you touch the screen and that doesn't work. And I I think we live in this Apple bubble. I certainly do.
Speaker 3:I very rarely look at Windows machine. But I think you have to bear in mind that every single non Apple brand laptop has a touchscreen at this point, and Apple absolutely wants to attract switches. You know, that's the whole point of the Nano story, I think, is is getting people to switch to Mac. And so it needs to be comparative, and it isn't comparative without this. And that's why I think they they put it on the down low.
Speaker 3:It's like, it's something we begrudgingly have to add to the road map. We kind of called this one wrong, and so we're just gonna slide out there in a busy news week.
Speaker 1:What did you make out of it, Lewis?
Speaker 2:Well, like you, I was shocked that they, you know, released the first Mac with a touchscreen and and barely mentioned it. Few weeks ago, we're talking about... I I was I was... I... I'm absolutely shocked that they didn't have, like, a full demo, you know, that explained why it's there.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And then in the, you know, the influencer hands on things that I've watched online, I mean, almost every instance seemed kind of terrible. You know? It it looked like it didn't work well. The screen does in fact wobble in spite of the...
Speaker 2:You know, they they engineered a great
Speaker 1:new
Speaker 2:hinge. But I I... There are a couple things that does look good for, and and I absolutely think that it it makes sense for. And that's when you have to grab a tiny, tiny little target and move it a long way with a mouse or a trackpad, it could be very annoying. You know, like in, for instance, editing a timeline and video, using something in GarageBand or Logic, you know, trying to turn a knob in GarageBand with a mouse.
Speaker 2:It's like trying to, I don't know, open a can with a sledgehammer. It just... Or or more like open a can with a a a freaking pair of tweezers. I mean, it's just... It's hard.
Speaker 2:It it doesn't... It... It's not a natural feeling to to, you know, click on a mouse and slowly drag something in a certain direction. I mean, it's... I find that actually kinda painful sometimes.
Speaker 2:You know? It's like you get the the death grip on the mouse.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's an RSO light.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And and certain things that that they did show, you know, some of the influence, you know, like just reaching up and swiping from one screen to the next or something. That's completely natural movement and something that's, I'm sure, faster and easier than taking your mouse, moving it all the way to the corner of your screen, and, you know, trying to click the exact little tiny button. That that... That's one of the things that I have actually had a problem with the Mac over the years.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of the targets are so tiny. It... Moving from a Windows machine a decade ago or whatever, I found it a little bit, like, fussy and and kind of hard to to get, you know, like, certain certain things, the touch targets or or the mouse targets, whatever, are are so small. It's a little bit
Speaker 3:I don't know. It's just not
Speaker 2:as easy as as it is with a bigger one. You know? And sometimes reaching out and touching your screen to do something, it, you know, it it just forces your body... Not forces. It allows your body to do something different.
Speaker 2:It allows your arm to not be frozen solid for the next fifteen minutes. You actually move something. I mean, I'm not saying it's an exercise routine. And, Graham, don't add this to, reps and sets. But it...
Speaker 2:I I do think that there are definitely ways that this can work, and some of the things I saw looked really good. You know, playing a piano on it seems like the most ridiculous thing ever. Although, you know, then you can think about it. Well, okay. Maybe maybe if you just need to replace, like, two notes and something, maybe it's easier to do that on a screen than it is to sit there with your mouse and click a, you know, virtual keyboard.
Speaker 2:Maybe it's easier... Maybe see the the the copying a note and transposing it digitally. It it looked weird. I mean, the the picture that they had of of that actually looked like something out of a horror movie. You know?
Speaker 2:The the hand looked just all... Oh my god. It looked terrible. Looked like he was casting a spell or possessed or something. It was very odd.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, I I... I'm I'm absolutely stunned that they didn't explain why we need it very well or at all. I think that it's gonna be a nice thing to have. Like, basically, I agree with you, Graham. It's a nice thing to have, and it it probably cost them, you know, a a dollar per per laptop or something.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, why not do it? You know? And that that point about having it for the, you know, the generation of of people who have grown up with, you know, every screen everywhere you can touch. Yeah. That...
Speaker 2:That's a good point I never even thought of because I'm, yeah, not part of that generation. But
Speaker 1:Well, I don't know. You know? Like, you know, it does seem that, the screens on interactive do seem hopelessly outdated, don't they? I mean, I have a bi computer, but you have to use these horrible buttons, and, like, I I hate the thing. I I hate hate the the thing.
Speaker 1:Thing. Even though I... I've been... You know, I I I previously had decades of experience with such a device. You know?
Speaker 1:And I know how to use it. Like, it's an old Garmin by computer, and you have to use the buttons here or there to to to to interact things. And, like, I just can't... I hate the thing now, and it cost me hundreds of dollars. You know?
Speaker 1:So, anyway, let's talk about the the glowing logo. Like, that really seemed to get people's juices flowing. You know, that I've never... That... That's so triumphant.
Speaker 1:Almost all of the social media posts are about the the return of the glowing logo. Like, people absolutely love that.
Speaker 3:I I I used to love the glowing logo, but one of the things I used to love about it was it was very clever because it was a kind of a use of wasted light because the LED display had to have a backlight. And since an OLED display doesn't have a backlight, they must have put some light in just to light up their logo. And something about that, when I started thinking about it, I just thought, well, I don't know because you're actually using some of my battery power for your marketing, and I can't even see the thing. And I I... One of the things that I was curious about is, I don't know.
Speaker 3:I've been an Apple fan for thirty years now, and I... More, actually, now that I can think about it. More than... More years than I want to admit. And there was a time when there was an absolute pride to, like, flying an Apple logo all over the place because it made you different, and you were part of the Cult of Mac.
Speaker 3:Right? That's how your book and website got its name, Leander. But I'm not sure there is a Cult of Mac in quite the same way anymore because now it's like one of the largest corporates on the planet. And so the logo means something a bit different now. Before, it was a countercultural icon.
Speaker 3:Now it's it's like a megacorp icon. And do I really want to use my battery power to illuminate their logo in my environment?
Speaker 1:Covered with an anarchist sticker. This... It's a flex, I think, is what it's about. I think it's, like, it's it's a clever... It's a way for people to tell everybody else that they've got the latest, greatest MacBook.
Speaker 1:And I think without it, you know, like, it's gonna suffer a little. Like, people have definitely talked about this with the iPhones, haven't they? You know? Like, the latest iPhone, the coloring is a... A big part of that is to show everybody else, you know, that you've got the nicest, newest iPhone.
Speaker 1:And I think that's exactly what this is about. It's a flex. It's a way to show everybody else that, you know, you've you've you've invested $15,000 in a in a... You know, the world's nicest computer.
Speaker 3:But I mean, if you're writing the next American classic novel in Starbucks on your ProLED MacBook Pro with your glowing Apple logo. Just don't go to the washroom is all I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Right. Yeah. We... I went to the the Apple store last weekend with my mom. You know?
Speaker 1:She's eighty eighty three, and she... She's, you know, technically... She's she's obsessed with her iPhone, and her her iPad and and interacts with tech all day. She's bought it the the the MacBook Neo. They had a green one there, and, she almost bought it on the spot just because of the color.
Speaker 1:And I was really, you know, kind of a bit surprised about that. You know, like, no. She didn't look at the specs.
Speaker 2:She looked... I bet she looked at the price tag.
Speaker 1:Well, she It is almost an impulse buy. Yeah. She asked me how much it cost. And, of course, now, it used to be $4.99, and then it went up to $5.99, and now it's $6.50, isn't it? I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think it's Yeah.
Speaker 2:Wasn't it $5.99, but $4.99 for education or something? But, anyway, yeah, it's it's so much cheaper than other stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, you know, Graham, I never thought about the waste in the battery thing, you know, but, I think this is a great opportunity for Apple. They they turn the keyboard into, like, a regenerative energy thing. So, like, their typing powers up a tiny little battery that that that fires that logo.
Speaker 3:I mean, I I... I'm sure it's not a big deal, the amount of electricity that it's using, but it is electricity for something that arguably provides you no benefit. And they could actually put it in system settings to to turn that off. And then I was thinking if
Speaker 1:it It's linked to the brightness of the screen. So if you change the screen brightness, it changes the logo's brightness. The only way to turn it off is turn the screen black.
Speaker 2:I I remember when the thing went away, and it was just like... It seemed like such a cool thing to have go away. I mean, it... I thought it's... I was glad to see it come back.
Speaker 2:It's like, yeah. You know, it just feels nostalgic and cool. We're back, baby.
Speaker 3:You might be right there. I might be just being a bit of a a Grinch about that. I just... And, like, when you say that, Leander, I mean, is it a separate panel, or is it that they've had to put in for this, or is it in some way connected to the OLED display? Do you know?
Speaker 3:Has any... I guess no one's had a chance.
Speaker 1:They must they must have a a a... It it must have its own dedicated, light source because, like you said, it it can't use the LED backlight anymore. It's an OLED panel. And each pixel is... Has its own little, you know
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Thing. So they they must have a little panel back there that... That's that's... That they're using to illuminate it.
Speaker 3:Wonder if they could have a setting to let you change the color of the logo.
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 3:You know, I think that would be pretty cool.
Speaker 1:What about the price? Like, there's a lot of people complaining about the price. Obviously, it's not cheap. But I was thinking... Well, you know, like the RAM pricing is crazy.
Speaker 1:Like, if you if you if you order two fifty six gigabytes worth of RAM, I I wish I I don't have the numbers to me, but I I I think it's it's $10,000 if you double it to 512 gigabytes. And and it's you know, it's literally a double take. It's like you cannot be serious. If you max it out, it's it's the cost of a of a of a use... Of a new car, actually.
Speaker 1:I mean, there's someone I you could buy a Chevy truck for the same price you could buy a maxed out MacBook Pro. But I was also thinking, like, you know, if you look at in terms of... If you look at it historically, which I think no one ever is gonna be doing. But, you know, when the first Mac came out, if you max that out, that was a... You know, in today's dollars, somewhere near $20,000 or something crazy like that.
Speaker 1:And, you know, technology has obviously plummeted in price a lot, hasn't it? So I think we got used to the the fact that you could get it sort of relatively affordably. But this is definitely up there with the kind of, like, know, you gotta take a mortgage out to get one of these things.
Speaker 3:I think that the issue there... Prices are not great, but they're sort of in line with what we might expect with how much these things cost at the moment. So I I I don't find the prices particularly shocking, but I I think, again, to me, it's it's indicative of the fact that they're introducing touch to the the wrong Mac first because it means that people who wouldn't normally be in the market for a high end pro MacBook, thinking, oh, I would like that, and then they look at the price and think, you've got to be kidding me. It it, like, it... It's just a real shame that this couldn't be, on a MacBook Air, because I think they're I think it would be a smash hit.
Speaker 3:I think it's just it's just a fun thing, and the the OLED display will look amazing. And the other stuff, which to me is, like, much more consumer focused as well, is the... We haven't talked about it yet, but the dynamic island and live activities. And that stuff, I I think, is not really particularly useful for pros because it... To me, the dynamic island and live activity is more of a lifestyle thing, isn't it?
Speaker 3:It's like, It's not something which is useful for Chrome workflows.
Speaker 1:It kind of cuts across everything, right? Don't you think it's like it's a very useful UI? And they found out that they turned a lemon into lemonade. Every Android phone now emulates that, right? They copy this on Android?
Speaker 1:And and it's useful. People love it, don't they? They just Oh, I think it's brilliant. Activities. So Yeah.
Speaker 1:But I
Speaker 3:makes kind
Speaker 1:of sense to bring it to the computer too.
Speaker 3:I... And, I mean, I included it in in my my app reps and sets as well, and I quite like it. Or I find it a novelty if I'm, working out. I have, like, weights in in my studio, and if I'm working out with the weights and I glance on my Mac screen and the live activity is is showing up in the in the toolbar because it even does, you know, the the the small live activity can appear in in the toolbar on a Mac if it's connected to an iPhone. And I I think that's really neat, but it's not remotely useful.
Speaker 3:I think most live activities are like you've ordered a pizza or you've ordered an Uber or, you you know, it's stuff like that. It's not things which are particularly useful when you're working as a designer or a developer. It's not something which is used in professional creative or developer workflows. So it... It's like...
Speaker 3:Again, it's like would be great on a MacBook Air, and it's not particularly relevant to creative professionals.
Speaker 1:I think the one thing everyone wanted to see was face ID.
Speaker 3:Right. Does it have face ID? Nope. No. I completely missed People
Speaker 2:are really complaining about it, on social media about, oh, man. They they got the Dynamic Island, but it didn't come with face ID.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. But, I mean, then the reason is just the screen is so thin. Right? It just is way thinner than a iPad Pro or an iPhone, so they just can't get the sensor array in there.
Speaker 3:I think that's
Speaker 1:probably right. Isn't it?
Speaker 3:But then they they don't have it on the iMac either, so it seems like a a platform decision, like, that they've decided that the Mac doesn't have face ID. I don't I don't I didn't think about that.
Speaker 2:Why would they not have it in the iMac?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I I... The other platform decision which is interesting here is the fact that this new MacBook doesn't have cellular a modem. Like, you would think Right. Like, it it...
Speaker 3:It's got the bit which maybe the Mac didn't need to take from the iPad Pro, which is touch, but it it didn't get the thing which would be really useful, which is a cellular modem. And at this point, I'm really curious about why Apple didn't do that again. I feel like if they didn't do it this time, maybe they're never going to do it. You know? And and I'm really curious as to why.
Speaker 3:I don't know if it's because... I mean, Macs are very greedy with data, and maybe they just don't I was wondering. Want don't want to do what's not... But they do have a kind of low data mode for when you're... When you've tethered it to your iPhone, don't they?
Speaker 3:So why couldn't it just go into low data mode when you... I don't know. I I I find it very, very curious.
Speaker 1:The only thing I could think of is that maybe it gives you a disappointing experience. You know, you're at the coffee shop. You wanna, like, know, download some gigabytes... Massive file to... Video file to work on, and it it it it's just awful.
Speaker 1:You know? So why make a horrible experience when, you know, off of... Why make it horrible? And better just to leave it out. But that's the only thing I can think of.
Speaker 1:I mean, they have the chip. You know, Apple's whatever it is, c whatever two chip is. Oh, n chip. Is it the n two or whatever? I can't remember now.
Speaker 1:But, I mean, that that... You know, they could use their own chips, surely. Right? Their own Bluetooth and Wi Fi chips in this and and get cellular with it. Does it come
Speaker 3:back normal? They for sure could. And and this is a new it's a new hardware design, although it looks very similar to the old one. But it is a new hardware design. So this...
Speaker 3:If they needed to put in new antennas or something, this would have been an opportunity to do that, and they didn't, which is what makes me think it's never gonna happen. But on the subject of the the new case, am I right in thinking that the the top left and right corners of the display are more rounded than before? It it looked What? It it... I think it looks a little bit more like a a neo in terms of its shape.
Speaker 3:It's a little bit more rounded than the previous Pro, or am I imagining that?
Speaker 1:No. I saw something on social. So so someone was complaining that the bottom, I think, the bottom corners were were were not, square anymore.
Speaker 3:But I
Speaker 1:I kinda skipped over it. I was like, who cares? Was like, it
Speaker 3:doesn't matter. Get into such a rage about rounded corners, don't they?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, you know, squircles. Right? As Steve Charles pointed out, they're everywhere. Let's talk about, I mean, one of the things that people are talking about are the chips, you know, because this skips the m six generation and you can only get the m five the m, the m five pros.
Speaker 1:Right? The m five pro and the m five max, which that's... People losing their minds about that. Lewis, there were some chip and chip upgrades to the m six.
Speaker 2:That's right. Only They only what?
Speaker 1:Came to the entry level max.
Speaker 2:Sorry. I'm so excited about these computers that are exactly the same as last year's, but just have a better chip. Let's see. Let's see. The 24 inch iMac and entry level 14 inch MacBook Pro both came out this week with m six chips.
Speaker 2:No design changes. IMac jumps from m four to m six while MacBook Pro moves from m five to m six, both added Wi Fi seven and Bluetooth six. Okay. Great. Biggest surprise about these things?
Speaker 2:Better performance, but the same price. Both of them came in at exactly the same prices as before, $14.99 and $19.99. The performance, of course, is better. You know, hard to believe, but new chip is better. IMac, 40% faster CPU than...
Speaker 2:And twice the graphics compared to the m four model and the MacBook Pro up to 30% faster graphics than the m five model. These are both available for preorder, I believe, and ship on November 6. There's... As you point out though that... Well, you didn't point this out, but there's no m six Pro, Max, or Ultra releases to you at this point.
Speaker 2:Somebody named Mark Gurman over at Bloomberg has... Says Apple has scrapped off three of the high end m six variants, and that supposedly explains why the expensive new OLED touchscreen MacBook Pros still have m five Pro and m five Max chips even as a cheaper MacBook Pro gets. The m six? Okay. Supposedly, Apple's skipping ahead to m seven for AI.
Speaker 2:It's just everything is about AI these days, isn't it? Gurman reports that Apple's accelerated development of m seven family to deliver major improvements in AI processing rather than completing the m six lineup. So it is completely weird. I mean, why did they do it? I don't understand how they develop these things in the first place.
Speaker 2:So it's... It... It's just mind blowing to me how much better they are every year. And and I don't understand really why they're skipping to head to the m seven for AI unless it's just, oh, we need more time to make it even better. I mean, I I don't I don't I don't get it.
Speaker 2:I don't understand why they do it on a yearly basis. I don't understand why they'd skip it on a yearly basis. I I just... I wish I knew more
Speaker 1:about It does have a bunch of AI advances, doesn't it? It has two neural engines now. Right? So... But I I don't...
Speaker 1:You know, you have to have some insight into the planning process. And and and definitely, the the whole ramageddon has gotta be a factor in this.
Speaker 2:So Right. They they might let it be other
Speaker 1:of design and production capacity. And I think probably more towards production capacity. I'll bet it's they they can't get the, you know, they can't get the the the the cap... The the the the time at the TSMC to make these changes.
Speaker 3:I think I think you're right. I think it... It's the resources they can get from suppliers because they used to be the the big buyer in town. Like, no one bought more than Apple, and now, like, yeah, these AI companies are spending more. So Apple has less sway with TSMC than it used to.
Speaker 3:And I think also that because the new chips, the m six is a a new process, isn't it? It's a two nanometer process. And so what normally happens when they when they move to a new process is the yields are initially quite low, and it takes time for the yields to ramp up. And I I think that's probably even more of an issue if you've got kind of constrained resources with your suppliers because if you've got less time with TSMC, that gives you less time to kinda work through the the ramp up of a new process. So I I wonder if that's something to do with this as well.
Speaker 3:I think it's a a nice way of putting it to say, oh, let... We're we're kind of going to go straight to the m seven because it's so much better. But I suspect the truth is more like we weren't able to get sufficient volumes of the Pro and the Max and the m six. And so a cold blooded decision to pull the plug on that and put what resources we have into ramping up the m seven. I I suspect that's what it is.
Speaker 3:And I think... I I mean, I I don't understand semiconductors, but I do read the stuff with interest and try to understand. Like, I'm like the the dog behind the keyboard that's tapping away at the the keyboard and saying I have no idea what I'm doing, and I'm like that with semiconductors. But there's all there's all the doggy enthusiasm to try to understand. But what I I have seen is this happens.
Speaker 3:When you move to a new process, it can be a bit flaky at first, and it takes a while for production to ramp up. And so if they had problems with the m six, they may be banking on the fact that some of those problems are resolved with the m seven. And, it it doesn't surprise me that the more complex pro and max chips and ultra chips are the ones that they just they just can't get to work in sufficient volume. So, yeah, maybe with the m seven, they're they're gonna solve some of those problems.
Speaker 1:I actually see that many complaints about the the new MacBook Pro coming with the older chips. You know? Like, there was a little bit of bleeding, but it wasn't like, oh my god, you know, the the sky has fallen. I'm never gonna touch this. Because they are so powerful.
Speaker 1:I mean, are crazy, crazy powerful chips. And the m six is is is a crazy powerful chip too. I saw a graph of the, you know, the the difference. And and Lewis and I were still on m ones. I'm on an m one machine right now.
Speaker 1:This thing is no slouch. But compared to the m six, it's, you know, it's almost like a steam powered chip.
Speaker 3:I I I think that's thing. Apple Apple is so ahead with its its chip series now that they can afford, a a minor wobble. It... It's not really an issue because even if they're skipping the m six, there's a good chance things will be back to normal next year with the m seven. And even if...
Speaker 3:So they might not even be behind, really. If if if the m seven comes out as expected next year, then they haven't really lost any of their lead. But even if they do lose a year in lead, they're still well ahead of the competition. So it it... I I think that's one of the reasons why it would be a bit churlish to, to say Apple's doomed with its semiconductor strategy when it it has the best chips in the business.
Speaker 1:But funny enough, you know, some of the other chips are starting to catch up, aren't they? Like the Qualcomm chips now and the AMD chips. I mean, they're starting to approach the the the the the, I'm sorry, the Apple's Apple Silicon. I
Speaker 3:think that's right. They are they are... Yeah. They... I think that's right.
Speaker 3:They are catching up, and I think it... But I think it's also true that Apple still has the significant edge. So, yeah, I'm sure, like, their competitors are hoping this is a stumble. And if the... I think if the m seven also has problems next year, then I think we should...
Speaker 3:You know, that that would be more cause for concern.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I like the the the 14 inch MacBook, Pro. The the 16 inch is kind of a bit of a, you know, beefy fellow. It's it's a kind of heavy... And, of course, you get a...
Speaker 1:And and and I'm not sure that the the difference in the screen size... I don't know. You know, if I was gonna buy a MacBook Pro, I would go for the 14 inch because it's I think it's, like, great... It's it's portable enough to make it, you know, make sense as a MacBook, whereas a 16 inch is kind of like... It's a bit of a workout to carry that thing around.
Speaker 1:Do you guys have any opinion about that?
Speaker 3:I always get the bigger one. Did you get that bigger one too, Lewis?
Speaker 2:No. No. Never had... I've never, never used a 16 inch one.
Speaker 3:No. I I always... Because I I guess I do video editing and, I don't know, lots of page layout stuff, and you really need a big screen for doing that. Yeah.
Speaker 1:The iMac, I I I've always loved the iMac, and I've always had iMacs for years and years. I bought original iMac. I had a blueberry iMac. And then I had you know, the... All the variations of the 32 inch Intel ones.
Speaker 1:They were super heavy. I mean, those things weighed about 80 pounds or something crazy. And the new 24 inch iMac, I bought an m one, and and and that's the thing. It's still going strong. Always had, like, a lot of love for that machine.
Speaker 1:But I looked up some numbers, and Apple doesn't break it out, the number of Macs they sell. And I always knew that MacBooks were more popular than than the desktop Macs these days. But I was really shocked to find... To to see the estimates of how many iMacs they sell. Would...
Speaker 1:Do you wanna hazard a guess about how many... What what percentage of Mac sales they are every year?
Speaker 2:15.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna go with 10.
Speaker 1:Okay. Neither of you are anywhere close. Oh. Unfortunately, 1%. No way.
Speaker 2:Which one's 1%?
Speaker 1:The iMac. And the Mac and the the Mac mini. Yeah. It's crazy. It's 88...
Speaker 1:80 to 85% of MacBooks, and the breakdown there is almost like half MacBook Pros and half MacBook Airs. I can see Lewis googling this now because he doesn't believe me.
Speaker 2:I'm just... I I swear to god.
Speaker 1:Didn't you
Speaker 2:just talk about this yesterday in a newsletter? I I Yeah. Or two days ago.
Speaker 3:Fact checking.
Speaker 2:I've I've... I've just... I I can't believe my memory is a shot.
Speaker 1:Well, I was really I was really shocked because this, of course, is the iconic Mac, isn't it? This, think, is... Like, if you ask, like, old, you know, heads like us, oh, jeez. You know, what is your iconic Mac? It's...
Speaker 1:You'd you'd say it was the the the iMac. But... So I was really surprised that it's so low. And, know, like, it's... Is it almost worth bothering with anymore?
Speaker 1:You gotta be... If you're thinking of, like, John Turners, you know, it... It's it's like, this is so this is so... Such a small amount of our sales. Is it is it worth paying any attention to anymore?
Speaker 1:But, you know, I don't know. Anyway, I've always had a soft spot for it, and I I I... I'm glad to sort of see it getting an update. Would love to get one.
Speaker 2:Yesterday in Cult of Mac today, I read only 10% to 14% of Mac sales are desktops led by
Speaker 1:the iMac. But that includes the iMac, the
Speaker 3:And the Mac Studio. The
Speaker 2:Mac Studio. But that doesn't mean 1%. Doesn't mean 1%.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It was... This is the numbers I looked up.
Speaker 2:The Mac...
Speaker 1:This is this is break up.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It says Mac mini and Mac Studio represent about 1% of Mac. So that would make the iMac nine to 13%.
Speaker 1:What?
Speaker 2:I'm just... I I... This is written by somebody named Leander Kahney. Bro.
Speaker 3:You're fact checking Leander with himself.
Speaker 1:And I've been caught out to be a complete b answer.
Speaker 2:It's not 1%.
Speaker 1:What the heck? I thought it was.
Speaker 2:Like I said, the the the mini and the studio, 1%. But iMac makes up the, like
Speaker 1:The other 10... The other 9%.
Speaker 2:Nine to 13.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I wonder how much the Pro used to sell. I mean, that obviously didn't sell.
Speaker 2:Zero zero zero one.
Speaker 3:So that had to be killed. I don't know if... I mean, if if the iMac is... Has, like, really low sales, then I wonder if it's... You know, in the in The UK, we have this idea of that that the Tower Of London will fall if the ravens ever leave.
Speaker 3:And so it's just one of those stupid traditions that there are these ravens that live and have lived for hundreds of years in the Tower Of London, and they can never leave because if the ravens ever left... So the the beef eaters who are the gods of, to the Tower Of London, they keep some of the ravens in a cage just to make sure that the Tower Of London can never fall. And I think that the iMac is kind of like a raven product for Apple, that it's they will they will carry on selling it even if no one is buying it just because, you know, if Apple if Apple doesn't sell an iMac, then Cupertino will fall. I think it's it's that kind of idea.
Speaker 1:I I guess, can it Sorry. Yeah. Go go ahead. No. I I
Speaker 2:was just kinda surprised that they're... They don't sell more of them. I mean, it seems like the perfect thing for, you know, front desk at a store, anything. You know? Although, I guess, maybe iPad eats into that these days.
Speaker 2:But
Speaker 1:Not easily. Remember when the first colored IMAX came out? They were in every dentist office and every opticians and every reception had some color that I
Speaker 2:They're make up so much better looking than the garbage Dells. And you just, like, wow. That looks cool.
Speaker 3:You still see them every time you go to, like, a fancy skyscraper or something in the lobby. The reception desk always has an iMac, doesn't it? Mhmm. Like, always. You never see a Dell or an HP there or, you know, a Lenovo.
Speaker 3:It's it's always an iMac. But maybe that is all that they sell them to now is, like, property developers for their front desks.
Speaker 2:I guess I guess if I was a student, I would go for a laptop. So maybe it's not so hard to imagine.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I mean, it it makes a lot of sense to buy a to buy a MacBook over a over a desktop. Although I just bought the the the the Mac Mini, the m six Mac Mini, because, I don't know, probably, you know, I sit at a desk. I work at a desk. Let's look So the on top of it.
Speaker 1:Let's look at the iPhone Duo. And, Graham, you came up with a really clever headline for this section.
Speaker 3:Does the iPhone Duo have a crack problem? I was particularly pleased with that one. So cracked screens on launch day. Photos and video from China, Australia, and elsewhere show iPhone Duo inner displays cracking after minimal use, sometimes after fewer than 20 folds, as several devices exhibit an almost identical t shaped pattern of damage along the crease. The hinge is the prime suspect.
Speaker 3:Some owners report hearing a crunch or a pop when they unfold their phones. Imagine the feeling if you heard that. God. IFixit suggests a complex hinge mechanism may be concentrating stress on a particular point beneath the flexible display, although that cause remains unconfirmed. Durability tests raise further concerns.
Speaker 3:PhoneBuff's drop test revealed that impacts directly onto the hinge can damage the inner display, and meanwhile, JerryRigEverywhere reproduce the distinctive screen damage by bending the phone backwards. However, other tests have demonstrated that hinge can survive tens of thousands of normal folds as we discussed last week. Apple has acknowledged the problem. Apple has confirmed that a small number of iPhone Duo units are affected by a defect that causes their displays to fail fail early. It says affected customers can obtain warranty replacements, and there's no indication yet that the problem is widespread.
Speaker 3:I did have one thought about this actually, which is... Have you seen when they arrive in boxes? I think I'm right in saying that they arrive open. If the... In the box, they're open.
Speaker 3:And so it just made me think if the if the issue is if it gets, like, bent backwards too much, I wonder if this is... You know, if you get your duo delivered and the box gets bent in the wrong direction, then you... You've you've... It's it's already wrecked before you even unboxed it.
Speaker 1:So the same.
Speaker 3:In my theory, I just made that up.
Speaker 2:I have
Speaker 3:no evidence to support that.
Speaker 2:I'm guessing Apple's packaging is more than sufficient to protect it. But, you know, I I wonder if people are... You know, like, how do you fold it? Right? Do they give you instructions on how to fold it?
Speaker 2:I mean, I... I've seen people online, a you lot of people whipping them open, a lot of people slapping them shut, a lot of people holding with their two hands and, like, kind of pressing in the middle as they fold it for some reason. You know? Like like, it's just weird. Like, the way people interact with it, I don't think...
Speaker 2:I mean, I haven't heard anybody say that that's what's the cause of this, but, there's also been a lot of... Like, I mean, we talked about this before. Right? This hinge has a 100 parts to it, and it... It's incredibly complex.
Speaker 2:And as it bends, you know, parts inside turn. And if you look at the teardowns, there's there's this one piece that that iFix and other people have have pointed out. This appears to be the exact place, and it's like there's three segments of the hinge in the bottom and two segments on the top. And, like, the the third one from the bottom is the is the exact place where all these screens, it it first shows up. And, you you know, it's like, well, is it is it that that little piece is slightly out of tolerance?
Speaker 2:Because, of course, like, with everything Apple does, you know, tolerance is so insanely, you know, small. Don't... Is that the word? Small. It's tight in there.
Speaker 2:And is it... So is is that thing, you know, moving slightly so that it it hits the screen? Is is the thing actually breaking? I think we were talking about some of these things are... At least some of these parts are, like, liquid metal, maybe even three d printed.
Speaker 2:I don't I don't know. Is it the same thing? But, know, like, what is the problem with that one little piece? You know? And and is it one batch?
Speaker 2:It doesn't seem like it could possibly be one batch at this point because... I mean, when this first came out... Because this this is, like, the day of the launch. People, you know, the the... Who first got their hands on it before we were even awake in The United States, we're seeing...
Speaker 2:You know, we're posting images of these things on... And a lot of them. I mean, not not just one or two, dozens, I would say. But then as the weekend went on, you start seeing Americans with the same problem. You know?
Speaker 2:Like, hey. I I I got this phone. I've I've opened it, like, a dozen times. And then the... This most recent time as I opened it, I heard this cracking noise.
Speaker 2:And I don't know if you see... There's some videos. Some people have it that show the crack, and it's like, oh, sounds like a, you know, a a knuckle breaking or something. And and and there it is. Boom.
Speaker 2:Crack image of of a, like, a line down the center and some kind of line to the right, usually at the, like, the exact same spot.
Speaker 1:There's quite a funny funny screen... People using Dragon Ball z as a as a a as a Screensaver. Paper. Screensaver. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, right. Wallpaper.
Speaker 1:The crack looks like part of the design or glitch across the screen. And it's funny how this is broken through to the mainstream. Like, my brother, who doesn't follow tech news at all, asked me about it yesterday, and my mom asked me about it. And they've heard, you know, stuff on the BBC and other mainstream outlets. Crack gauge, you know, it's it's funny.
Speaker 1:And and and... But it's it does seem like it's a really small number. You know? And it's gotta be a manufacturing problem, not a design problem. Right?
Speaker 1:It's... This has gotta be, something gone wrong in the factory. I I I would hazard a guess. I saw an interesting post by Steven Sunofsky. He's an old Microsoft executive, and he shipped a lot of Surface devices and and Xbox.
Speaker 1:And I think he was a a hardware guy for for for decades. And he said that he... His, cracked, and he took it to the Apple store, and I think it's in Washington, and cut along... He... It was a really long pause, and I...
Speaker 1:I've gotta be honest. I didn't read the whole thing. The important part, I think, though, was that he went back a couple of days later to check on his repair, and they had an engineer there, an Apple engineer. They brought in somebody, and he didn't... He he said he didn't ask the guy's name or his title, but it's it's got to be, you know, like, one of their PDs, the the production designers, like, who is involved in manufacturing.
Speaker 1:And he was really curious about this, and, like, he really wanted to dig into it. And, you know, obviously, Apple's trying to get to the bottom. What... What's going on here? They don't want this to be going on any longer, especially when they're shipping so few of them.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3:But did they not... So this guy, did they not just replace it? They they were trying to repair his screen. I thought they would just give you a new one.
Speaker 1:Yeah. They did. But they they said that, and I think that's, like, in fact what happened. And... But they they were worried about him having to go through the whole setup process again.
Speaker 1:They don't want him to go through the trouble of, of setting the thing... Of setting up a new phone.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:They get... Really nice. Know, it was like full refund, a replacement, or a screen repair. And I think he was opting for the screen repair. He was curious about that.
Speaker 1:Being a former professional himself, I think he's retired now, but he wanted to know how they were handling the whole thing. So I think there was a little bit of a professional curiosity there, you know, in him sort of seeing how the thing played out and and, and wanting to be involved in in in his own repair process, you know? Like... Yeah. Anyway, like I said, I didn't read the whole thing, so I don't really know how it turned out.
Speaker 3:I mean, I think you're right. It's probably a manufacturing thing because, I mean, whilst there are a lot of people who've had this issue, then there are even more people that haven't had any issue. So it it... It's widespread but isolated, I guess. But it could be a bit of both, couldn't it?
Speaker 3:It could be that the... In the manufacturing, some of them, something goes wrong, but the manufacturing is difficult because of the design. So it could be
Speaker 1:a For sure.
Speaker 3:Could be a little bit of both.
Speaker 1:Well, in his post, he was saying that, I you can't remember what product it was, but there was a dab of glue that wasn't quite applied in the factory. They weren't putting in quite enough glue. They weren't letting it cure long enough. It was like something really, really tiny like that, you know, that would cause these huge downstream problems for the product later on.
Speaker 3:Sounds about right. That that that those accounts of, like, someone folding their phone and then suddenly hearing this snap and knowing that they were doomed. And it reminds me of, like... This has happened to me a couple of times when I'm training. Like, last, at the beginning of this year, I was doing a a pull up or as a chin up, actually.
Speaker 3:And just as I was getting to the top of it, I felt and heard this, like, snap in my shoulder. Okay.
Speaker 1:That's enough.
Speaker 2:I don't wanna
Speaker 1:hear anymore.
Speaker 3:And I knew I was screwed at that moment, and it took me, I don't know, six months to to get back to the strength and I don't know. You know? So it sounded like, it sounds like these things, you know, they've got they've got joints now like people, and now they're getting injuries like people as well is what I thought.
Speaker 2:The Hey, Sam.
Speaker 1:Go on.
Speaker 2:I should say one of the things that I saw, you know, I I was looking at this a lot online, reading everything I could find about it, and, you know, people were saying, well, you remember how Apple, you know, a little while back, we were hearing, oh, well, they're having, you know, production problems with this. They're not producing as many of these units as they would like. They're, you know, sending back... I can't remember what the percentage was. There's...
Speaker 2:I I see there's something crazy, like 40% of the the devices are, like, not up to snuff. And somebody... This is, you know, complete, you know, anonymous. Somebody on the Internet said this. Right?
Speaker 2:But they're saying, well, Apple relaxed their, you know, requirements. They they relaxed that just a smidgen because they didn't have enough of these things at all. And that's... That was this person's theory about why why that you're seeing some of these slip through. I mean, it it is...
Speaker 2:It's really weird to think about. You know? I mean, it's like, I I don't know who produced these hinges, and I don't know. I mean, I'm sure the hinge comes in from somewhere and gets put in... You know, put together somewhere else.
Speaker 2:And, I I mean, it's it's such a small little part of the thing, and it's got so many moving pieces, and and I'm sure it's just tight as could be in there. And it it just seems inevitable that some of them would would would break. I mean, just things happen. But
Speaker 3:And I I think never buy
Speaker 1:a first generation product. You...
Speaker 3:You've got a hundred hundred components means you've got almost, like, 100 things that could go wrong. Go wrong. And I think just like a car or something, you could have... If if one thing fails, then... And the engine's still running, that can have a knock on effect and damage a whole lot of other things as well.
Speaker 3:And I I suspect that this is very much the same sort of thing of, like, if one glued bit comes unstuck as you're folding or unfolding, that could then put the wrong stress on the screen, and the next thing you know, you've got that T shaped crack.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And and, you know, like like, who knows how many people actually dropped theirs before this happened? I mean Yeah. Anything you see on the Internet. Right?
Speaker 2:I mean, oh, it just... I only opened it six times. Yeah. Okay. Well, I dropped it on the way out of the store.
Speaker 2:Who knows? I mean, it... It's it's really kind of impossible to know at this point. Still too early to know. But,
Speaker 3:you know, people can't get wrong. Things in your... Because you wrote this story for Cult of Mac, didn't you, Lewis, about the about the crack crack gate? And you had, I think, Jerry rig everything. He was...
Speaker 3:Oh, no. It was phone buff that was doing the drop tests, and you... He was saying that it it it... The... Just dropping it once by, you know, not very high distance, and that actually damages the hinge a little bit.
Speaker 3:And so, I mean, that is interesting. It could be a a combination of things of, you know, if you drop it, it'd be easy to imagine some of the components become ever so slightly misaligned. And if you're unlucky, then that could result in when you open or close it, something worse happening.
Speaker 1:Well, people were worried about it... Getting stuff folded inside the screen. So when you close it, if you have something in there, that's gonna puncture the screen. And I think that would have been a... That that was a common problem with Android foldables that, you know, they close it up onto something and and end up damaging it, the the inner screen when they closed it.
Speaker 1:I've got say that at the Apple Store last weekend, and I... It's a sturdy little device. I mean, it it's strong. It's not flimsy at all, and it it opens and
Speaker 3:closes very a product for fastidious people, though, isn't it? I I if you're a messy person, you should not be buying an iPhone Duo. That's... And if you're the kind of person that drops your phone, you should not be buying an iPhone Duo because any case you get for it, I I just don't think it's gonna be good enough. You know?
Speaker 3:Like, I think you... If you have a regular iPhone, you can get cases now that will really let you drop them from quite height, and it will be fine. But I'm not sure that any of the cases for a duo are like that. So if you're clumsy, if you're messy, if you have pockets full of lint, this is just not the phone for you, really.
Speaker 2:Right. Yeah. There's a lot of
Speaker 1:We had we had a stack of laptops in our basement that were destroyed by a certain member of our household who I won't pay. The hinges, you know, mostly, the screen and stuff like that, wouldn't close the screen. The thing would always be getting dropped off the couch or wherever. You know? And I'm not kidding.
Speaker 1:There was literally a stack of them. Heartbreaking.
Speaker 2:A lot of the on this thing where people, like, put sand in it, you know, to try to mess it up. I mean, yeah, you definitely don't wanna take this thing to the beach. You don't want to... You got to be careful with it. It's a delicate device.
Speaker 2:Right? Mean
Speaker 1:And there's a gap, isn't there, when it's kind of half unfolded at the top and the bottom of the hinge. There's a gap. And I think iFixit actually did that. Got some very fine sort of sand like powder that was covered or some... Something that something that would show up in an x-ray.
Speaker 1:And it showed
Speaker 2:that it
Speaker 1:was all over the place.
Speaker 2:But it... They also said that it was better than other, you know, similar Android devices, like less ingress.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I I think this is... Yeah. I I agree with what you said, Leander. This is a really tough product, but it's, like, within reason.
Speaker 3:It it... It's tough for what it is, but it's a product which, in its nature is is more delicate than a regular phone.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. For sure. For sure. Just just when iPhones were getting almost in...
Speaker 1:Not indestructible, but much, much tougher. Yeah. I try to buy one. I... I've been...
Speaker 1:Lewis set up a shortcut that checks local availability. And, And, of course, I've been looking at all these... There's like a little micro economy now of these inventory trackers. There's there's at least four or five pretty sophisticated sites that will... You can sign up for, like, $10 a month, $5 a month, and they'll send you an alert the minute one of them shows up in local inventory.
Speaker 1:And one of them has been doing a really good job on Twitter and social media of talking about when the drops happen, when the local stores get more inventory, because they're getting all this data. They're checking every second, and they're saying, like, all these stores across The US, they got a bunch of inventory on Monday. They got more inventory on Tuesday. Wednesday was slightly down. It's kind of fascinating to watch, you know, what these these, these inventory trackers are putting out.
Speaker 1:But I I got... I was, I I got a a notification. I I checked just out of curiosity to see if there were any available locally. And one showed up in Pleasanton, which is about 40 miles away, said, yeah. There's one available, in Pleasanton.
Speaker 1:And I I I I thought for a second, you know, you know, should I shouldn't I? Maybe I can drive out later this afternoon. The traffic's gonna be horrible. This is gonna take four hours, but, you know, okay. What the heck?
Speaker 1:You know, I need it. I need it for my job, and I can cancel my preorder. I'll just go pick this one up. So I thought, okay. Let's do it.
Speaker 1:And then I went like that. And by the time I had it in, ready to hit buy, it was gone. Literally, like, seconds. You know? Like...
Speaker 1:And this is what they're saying. Like, these inventory trackers say that they they will appear for two seconds, one or two seconds, and usually they're... And they're gone. Because I guess people have got alerts and bots set up to snack. Leander, you It's crazy.
Speaker 3:You should fly to Spain because we have no shortage here.
Speaker 1:That's what you're saying.
Speaker 3:At least last time I checked, you could pick it up next day. And a friend of mine in the South Of France, he... I think he went to the nice Apple store and picked one up next day. He he had... He had...
Speaker 3:His online preorder was backlogged to January, so he just canceled that and went and picked one up at his local Apple store, which... And I was, like, so stunned that that happened. And he said, well, check your store. So I checked the the Barcelona store, and, yeah, they're available for pickup next day.
Speaker 2:Seems really bizarre.
Speaker 1:Alright. Should we wrap it up?
Speaker 3:I think we should.
Speaker 1:I think. Okay. That's a wrap. Alright, guys. So thanks so much.
Speaker 1:Please give us a five star rating or six or seven or 10 if you can, on Apple Podcasts or anywhere else. And more important, please share the show with anyone who you think would like to, to listen to this. So thanks, everyone, for listening, and thanks for watching. And we'll see you all next time. Have a great weekend, everybody.
Speaker 1:Bye. Bye.
Speaker 2:See you.