147: Showing Off 🪩 with Tandem OLEDS, Central Ribs, and Space-Black Braided Cables!

(upbeat music) - Welcome to In the News for May 17th, 2024.

We can almost call this a welcome to in the iPad today.

Because we get an iPad to talk about.

I'm Brett Burney from appsinlaw.com. - And this is Jeff Richardson from iPhone JD.

I see Brett that you're coming to us today from the home office in Omaha, Nebraska.

You do so much travel Brett.

With all the travel you do, have you ever thought that maybe it would be nice if you had a lighter iPad? - I'll tell you what.

I don't have the new one yet.

And every time I pick this up now, I think to myself, I bet Jeff Richardson is picking up his brand new iPad Pro 13 inch and he is just floating on air.

And I have to weigh myself down with this thing.

How has it been?

You've had it for what?

Three days, four days almost now Jeff?

The brand new iPad Pro M4 13 inch.

How is it going so far? - It's been great.

So it went on sale on Wednesday.

I got mine on Wednesday delivered by my friend. - Yeah. - The GPS person.

And I've been using it ever since.

So what I have is the iPad Pro 13 inch.

So the big model, which is what I've been using ever since the original iPad Pro came out nine years ago.

I love the big one.

And then I have the Apple Pencil Pro.

And then I have the Folio, what is called Smart Folio case.

So it's not the one with the keyboard inside of it.

That's called the Magic Keyboard case for iPad Pro.

This is just the Smart Folio that just sort of folds up over it.

And so I think that's all.

Yeah, those are the three things that I got.

So I've been using them ever since.

And I have better opinions about some of the items than others.

But the happy news is the iPad Pro itself is really, really nice.

You know, as I started off my review, it's the first time that you can just truly, because you can get the 13 inch, even in the iPad Air model, you can now say the only reason to get the iPad Pro is if you want something premium.

Because we're gonna talk about the iPad Air in a second.

Right.

And the iPad Air is fantastic.

But everything about the iPad Pro is it's just that it's a little bit nicer.

And that's a good, I mean, I don't mean that to belabor it, you know, I mean, to put it down, excuse me.

It's that if you don't care about those things, then don't get the iPad Pro.

But if you use an iPad extensively and you want to get something that's a little bit nicer, then it's great that you can pay just a few hundred dollars more and get something nicer.

I mean, the most notable new thing is the weight as we were teasing before.

It is so thin.

I mean, people have seen them online and stuff like that.

It is just, you know, major, so, so, so thin.

It amazes me that, you know, when people say it's the thinnest product that Apple has ever made, it's less than an iPad Nano.

It is, there is just nothing to it.

That's amazing.

It's so thin that when you look at the USB-C port on the side, I literally do not think they could have made it any thinner because if they made it any thinner, you wouldn't be able to have the USB-C port on it. - Right, right. - So, I mean, I think, I mean, unless they're going to break the laws of physics, I think this is as thin as an iPad could ever go. - We're going to go wireless charging at some point because that's the only other way. - Right, unless you went to wireless charging.

And you know, you think about it, in the European Union, they made that silly law a couple of years ago that said that products have to have USB-C and they were trying to do it to make it uniform so that everybody didn't have their own standard.

But now as a result, I mean, unless Apple, like you said, had wireless charging, you know, Apple can't even come up with the next version of USB-C2 that's even thinner to work for it because, you know, because of the European Union.

So I think this is as thin, and to be honest, this is as thin as it probably ever needs to go.

I mean, this thing is just so, it is so thin in your hands, it's noticeable.

But the thinness is more of just sort of a, it's almost like a trick, you know, it's thin.

Isn't that interesting that it feels thin?

Where it really makes a difference is that it is lighter.

And I always wonder when something is going to be lighter, you know, is it just lighter on paper, but you don't really notice it.

But no, this is the one that you, as soon as you pick it up, you really notice it.

And I know that over, you know, a couple of weeks from now, I'll probably get so used to it that I don't think about it anymore.

But for now, every single time I pick up my iPad, you have that feeling of you're like, oh, wow.

Is that, you know, that is nice. - You're not gonna think about it until some point you have to move your old 12.9 inch iPad Pro.

You say it here, you say it here in your review that it just suddenly feels dramatically heavier when you pick that up. - I just picked it up again.

My old one's still sitting here 'cause I haven't sent it back to Apple yet.

And I'm picking it up and I'm feeling like, ouch, this is hurting my shoulder.

Which is ridiculous to say it hurts my shoulder 'cause I've been picking this thing up for years.

And yet, now when I pick it up.

And so that's the thing, you know, if you use your iPad every single day, would it be nice for it to be lighter every single time you pick it up?

Yeah, that is nice.

And if I'm sitting here in my chair and I'm leaning back and I'm reading a brief from annotating something or just looking at a website or reading an article, you know, when it doesn't weigh as much, you know, you go even longer before it gets to the point where it feels sort of heavy in your hand.

Another thing that I've noticed, and I think I heard Jason Stell mention this on a podcast as well, Apple has done a really nice job with, I don't know if it's like the physics of it, the balancing of it, the center of gravity and stuff like that.

It feels good.

I mean, the weight is very well distributed.

And I know that that doesn't happen automatically because if I was designing this thing, you know, I'd probably stick all the battery on the left or something like, you know, I wouldn't be smart enough to do this.

But Apple has done whatever they've done to sort of distribute things within this super thin space.

It feels uniformly nice from all sides, which again, that contributes to, it's not just that it's lighter, but it feels lighter in a really good way.

And so, you know, weight is only one factor, and I'm not gonna tell you it's the most important factor in the world. - It's a big factor. - But it's something that you do notice. - Right. - Something you do notice.

So that's the weight.

So I guess the next thing to go on to would probably be the screen. - How about that screen? - It is incredible.

I mean, it's a new technology that's never been used before.

Apparently there's been some videos and stuff.

I think Quinn Nelson did one talking about that in the industry, you know, OLED screens have been out for a while.

People have had OLED TVs for a while now, and they're known for having really good brightness, but also very black blacks.

So way back when- - Rich blacks, yeah. - Exactly, rich blacks.

Years and years ago, you used to have to have a plasma TV, which they don't make anymore to get those rich blacks.

And then the LCD TVs came out, and the blacks weren't quite as black.

It was almost like a dark gray.

But you know, OLED screens can give you that beautiful black, but then can also go to the other extreme and give you really bright and vibrant colors.

And so that's why OLED is the material of choice for really nice home television.

And of course it's on the iPhone as well.

They have a really nice OLED screen for the iPad Pro, the higher end models.

But to have it on the iPad Air is nice.

And what Apple has done is in order to get it super bright is they've put two OLED screens on top of each other, which- - Not just one, but two.

Tandem OLEDs is what they're called. - But that's not an Apple call.

That's not what Apple's calling it.

It apparently is something that has existed in the world.

Like people have- - Oh, okay, okay. - For years now, engineers have said you can use a tandem OLED.

It's just that nobody's actually used it in a big commercial product before, but Apple was the first one to take that idea and actually produce it.

And so what it means is that- - Yeah, I can't remember what they called it.

They had some marketing name. - Well, yeah, they've got their name for the whole screen. - You go ahead. - You look for it.

But it means that you can get just as bright as the iPhone can get, which is 1,000 nits for normal use, and then up to 1,600 nits for some parts of the screen.

But those are all the technical specs.

What does it mean just from a regular person?

What it means is that things look really beautiful and lifelike.

And I can't emphasize this enough.

If you have something that is really well shot, like some things that I've taken with my own iPhone 15 Pro that have a nice HD, or maybe it was like outside, or maybe it was near the end of the day when you have some bright neon lights, but then also some dark things, they look beautiful, beautiful.

They look beautiful on my iPhone too, but my iPhone is so small that it limits how much, it limits the dramatic effect.

But when you have the iPad, especially the 13 inch, it's like, wow, this is beautiful.

Or if you go and you see something that has been professionally filmed, like I have a link to one of these.

If you just go into YouTube and you type 4K HDR, you'll see a million of these nature videos and these demo reels that were made for like television showrooms that just have like random objects.

And I mean, they're really trying to push the effects of it with incredibly high end cameras.

And when you look at that stuff, like the one I went to had like a parrot that was just beautifully, beautifully photographed.

And as I look at the parrot on my iPad screen, it is so realistic in the colors that you literally feel like you can put your hand through the screen and start to pet the parrot.

It's just, it's really- - That's what you said in here.

And I caught that.

And I'm like, okay, I know you, Jeff.

And it's like, I know you have seen some really nice screens in your television and everything.

And the fact that you put that in your review, just slapped me across the face.

'Cause I'm like, okay, it's gotta be really good if Jeff is going on about it that much.

You said, I feel like I should be able to reach through the screen and touch the feathers of a colorful bird.

That's amazing. - What makes it different from a TV is like, for most people for a TV, you're not gonna have your face right next to the TV.

You're gonna be sitting on a couch, at least, I don't know, five feet back. - Right, right. - So, I mean, and it still looks beautiful.

Don't get me wrong.

But because the iPad is just right there in your hand. - In your hand, right. - So, again, it's eye candy.

Don't get me wrong.

This is pure eye candy.

When I'm using my iPad to get work done, when I'm looking at a Microsoft Word document, I mean, who cares that the blacks are darker and that the whites are, whatever.

It's just a document.

I'm just reading it.

It's not a big deal.

My highlighting on my annotations have never looked better.

Who cares about that stuff? - They've never been more yellow. - Exactly. - More than this.

This is a really good yellow here. - The highlights have never been more yellow. (laughing) - So, although it is a very nice yellow.

But anyway, but no, no, seriously.

None of this matters for the everyday use that I do for the iPad.

But for the times that I'm using my iPad. - Makes it better though. - Yeah, it's just for myself, just looking at pictures, looking at videos.

You know, I have some movies that I have downloaded over the years that have HD, ultra HD, 4K, all that sort of stuff.

And they looked really nice.

Now, again, if I put my new iPad next to my previous iPad, it's very easy.

Very easy to see the difference.

On the other hand. - Really?

Okay, interesting. - If you're just looking at the old iPad without looking at the new pad, the old iPad looks good too.

And this sort of gets to what we're gonna get to in a second. - That's it, it's only when you compare them. - It's much nicer, but it's not necessary.

So, what else?

We got the screen. - So, yeah, so Apple says a groundbreaking tandem OLED technology.

Their name for it, Jeff, is Ultra Retina XDR.

I'm trying to remember what they call the old iPad now.

It was something like that, like Retina Plus or something.

I can't remember. - Yeah, and all of those things actually mean something.

Like the word retina means something for Apple.

The word XDR, I think, has to do with the high dynamic range.

Like each of the, that's not just marketing gobbledygook.

It is a certain degree.

But those, at least Apple, they put those words together for a certain reason. - How about, okay, so we talked about the screen and almost I'm getting a little bit of a vibe.

You keep going back, like from the everyday use that you typically would have, that it's gorgeous, but maybe not applicable.

What about the M4 processor, Jeff?

I mean, is that kind of in that same area?

I mean, it's obviously gotta be snappier, speedier.

You did a good job of just talking about, like when you get into Log Me In, and then you did an update here of something that is very processor intensive.

You were syncing a video with text in an app that we like very much called TranscriptPad.

But it sounds like that you do see a difference when you need that extra processor power.

It's there and you're happy that it's there.

But for the vast majority of things you do, it's probably not making much difference.

Is that accurate to say? - Yeah, I think that that's pretty accurate.

You know, the people that have done the speed tests using these things like Geekbench and stuff like that, what they have basically found is that if you compare the M4 processor to like an M3 or even an M2, it's about 50% faster.

And if you go back to the M1 processor, which you and I both were using in our prior iPads, it's like, you know, 1.75 faster.

And of course, if you go back even further to the older processors, you're gonna have more of a speed difference.

But for me, I mean, the one that I was using and you were using, I think a lot of people that were previous iPad Pro users probably had something similar to the old M1 processor.

And so going from that M1 processor from three years ago to this one today, you know, things are about, I mean, literally a task that you were just describing on transcript pad, where I was trying to sync up video to the text.

It took like one minute and 45 seconds on my old iPad and one minute on the new iPad.

So it's not quite twice as fast. - It's pretty good. - It's close enough that you could almost finish it to be twice as fast.

And so, but the thing is, most iPad tasks that I do are not sit there and wait for the iPad.

You know, it happens when I do something like that, syncing, it really has to involve video.

Now that I think about it, syncing video, if I put together a movie in Final Cut Pro on my iPad, and then I go to export it, well, then I'm just gonna let it sit there for five minutes, whatever, and sync it.

And you know, goodness knows that those times that you need to sit there and let the iPad do its work, especially because the iPad is not the best multitasker in the world, unlike a computer, you do want to go faster.

I mean, if you're just sitting there watching a little progress bar, you're like, gosh, I wish I didn't have to sit here for five minutes. - Come on, come on. - I wish I could sit here for three minutes.

Wouldn't that be nicer?

And so that is nice.

It's just that in day in, day out use, I don't use my iPad for that.

You know, if you're a big video professional with an iPad, well, maybe this is every single day for you.

And that transcript pad example is interesting because like I've been there before, like if you're getting ready for trial and you're getting your trial video things ready, and you've got like a dozen witnesses to get ready and stuff, you know, being able to shave, you know, make those go about half, about almost twice as fast, that actually could be pretty useful, right? - Yeah, right. - So there's definitely situations where it makes a big difference.

But for day in, day out use, it's just every time, you know, it's the same thing that whenever you get a brand new iPad or iPhone after updating from a couple of generations, everything just sort of feels a little bit snappier.

It's just like you tap something, you're like, oh, okay, we're there already.

You know, it's just, it's that sort of, you know, simple little niceness, but it's definitely nice.

And you mentioned before that Log Me In app that I use, which I guess is more resource intensive than I had realized.

I was surprised to see, I was like, oh wow, that actually is really nicer. - It's snappier. - This is nice, the M4 processor is nice.

But to be honest, Brett, this is, it's very similar to something that you and every other person has seen in the past when you update to a new iPad or a new iPhone after a couple of years.

It just seems a little bit snappier.

And then after you get used to it, you don't think about it more. - More responsive. - What is particularly nice though, is that Apple, for its processors, it's not just speed.

It's also capabilities.

And this is something that Apple can do because Apple designs its own processors.

Of course, it's going to make them faster.

You know, the M4 at some point we'll have an M5 and an M6 and M7, and of course they will be faster.

But Apple designs the processors for specific needs.

So for example, one thing that Apple did many years ago is they knew that for things like biometrics, like face ID and touch ID, that they wanted to have what they called a neural engine, which is basically just an artificial intelligence machine.

They said, you know, this is going to be so important.

And this is so resource intensive that we want to actually design our chip to do this as part of the chip.

Or another example is the rendering video.

Apple knew that rendering video can be slow.

And so years ago, it built in things like the M1 and the M2.

When you're rendering video, that specific task will happen super fast 'cause it's built into the processor.

And that's something that on the Intel side, you don't see as much because, you know, Intel will just make the general processor and the computer manufacturers will do what they can. - Exactly. - They'll take advantage of overall improvements, but not specific.

And so this one, for example, this new iPad has this tandem OLED screen in part because it's the nicest screen that you could have.

But also you literally could not run that unless you had the extra oomph that comes from having a dedicated processor with the M4 that runs the tandem.

So Apple knew years ago, we're going to want to use this new screen technology.

We need, you know, you can't do it without something that's really customized for it using today's technology.

And so they made that part of the M4.

So that's a long way of saying that, yes, one of the reasons the M4 processor is nice is because it's faster overall.

But another reason is it enables specific technologies.

And the reason I get into all of this is it's not because of the OLED, but because I believe/hope that there are things in this M4 that are going to be better for artificial intelligence.

We're not going to know for sure for at least a couple of weeks because Apple's going to have the WWDC.

But everything that Apple has been doing this calendar year points towards, they know AI is important.

And because we also believe that they're going to do a lot of AI on chip, I personally believe the M4 is going to be even better.

And so this is just a little bit of blind faith in my part.

But when I was making the decision to get this iPad Pro, I mean, yes, the nicer screen was nice.

Yes, the lighter iPad was nice.

But because I thought the M4 might really make a difference for AI, that was a factor that actually played a part in my buying rationale. - Oh, interesting. - I thought that the M4, it's the fastest processor that Apple makes for anything, although eventually this will come to the computers.

But I'm thinking that later on this year, we are going to see some AI-enabled features that are just going to be more pleasant to use on the M4 processor.

So both because of its overall speed and because of the special sauce that Apple puts in there.

So anyway, that's my take on the M4 processor. - Yeah.

It's almost like there's some AI capabilities locked up in the processor.

And it's like, we have to, I feel like we have to go through a boss fight, you know, at WWDC to unlock the chamber to see what it's going to do.

But we just don't know.

And, you know, anyway, it's just interesting on the speculation on that.

Okay, so now I would like to know maybe some on the accessories.

Can we move there real quick?

Because I've seen this from a lot, in fact, I think one of the articles that you linked to, I thought just said it really great, is that, you know, the iPad is one thing on its own, but really when you're getting an iPad today and you're looking at it from the holistic aspect, it's really the accessories, right?

That bring a lot more to it now.

You said earlier, you got the Apple Pencil Pro, which I'm very excited to hear that.

Although I don't know how long you said in your review, you hadn't had a whole lot of time to play with it.

But then the Apple Folio case that you got there as well.

Let's start with the pencil.

Let's go with the pencil, 'cause I wanna hear, you've been able to use that just a little bit more.

I know that you obviously are not doing a lot of artistic aspects on there, but you're doing a lot of handwriting.

I know you use GoodNotes app, for example, and you've been able to test out some of those things.

I like one of the things I think you said in here, just when you did the double tap on the pencil that I know you and I have talked about, you now get that little bit of a haptic feedback on that, right? - Mm-hmm. - Which that alone to me is fantastic, because sometimes I double tap and I don't know, did it switch to my eraser or not?

And then I start writing and it didn't switch, 'cause I didn't tap it just right or something like that.

And I'm like, oh man, I gotta tap again.

I got more to erase.

I know it's not that big of a deal, but having that taptic, when I read that you mentioned that, like that little tiny bit of a feedback on there, I'm like, yes, thank you.

That's really cool. - Yeah, so the new Apple Pencil Pro, it looks, I've got, for those of you watching the video right now, I've got both of them held up. - Oh, you got them both there. - And they are identical.

I mean, the only, if, and you have to-- - I can't even tell 'em. - The only way you can tell which one is which-- - Don't get those mixed up, Jeff. - Yeah, is that one of them says pencil, Apple Pencil, and one of them says Apple Pencil Pro.

But otherwise, I mean, they look exactly the same.

I noticed, by the way, just in case, because you could confuse them, I took my Apple Pencil Pro and I tried to put it on the top of my old iPad.

And you know how sometimes a magnet will line up, but if you don't have a magnet the right way, you know how it sort of repels?

That's what happens too.

My old iPad, you can't-- - Oh, seriously? - It's pushing away.

It is literally, it's rejecting.

It is pushing away the Apple Pencil Pro because of the way the magnets line up differently.

So if you're used to using an Apple Pencil, switching to an Apple Pencil Pro, it's a no-brainer 'cause it looks, I mean, it's the same.

It is the same.

But what you get are the extra features.

And the most noticeable one is the one that you just mentioned, the haptics.

I really like the haptics.

It makes so much sense to feel a tiny bit of feedback in the pencil.

I mean, if the only change was the haptics, I would say great change.

Maybe that wouldn't justify using the word Pro on it, but it would be nice enough change for a new generation.

So that is really nice.

The squeeze though is really interesting because as I look at it, it's a hard object, right?

I know that as I'm squeezing it, it's not literally pushing in, but because of the haptics, my brain is confused.

It's the same thing with AirPods.

You know how when you push in on AirPods Pro.

Okay, okay, that's a good analogy.

That's good.

Yeah, you know that feeling.

It's like, gosh, I know I'm not literally moving the stem of the AirPod Pro, but because the haptics, my brain is being confused.

I feel like I'm actually squeezing it.

And it's the same thing here.

So the squeeze gesture is a very natural gesture as you're holding it.

Okay, good, good.

What it does is as you're drawing on the screen, if I'll be taking notes and I'm writing something in black ink, and if I wanna change to blue ink or something like that, using like an app like GoodNotes or whatever, what I've been doing for years is you stop writing, you go to the top of the screen, you change your pen, maybe you change your pen ink, and then you come back down.

I mean, it doesn't take that long.

It's just, that's what you do and you don't think about it.

But now as I'm writing, I can, without even moving my pencil, I just squeeze and this little palette opens up like sort of a half circle.

And on that half circle, I can switch to a different tool.

I can switch to the shape tool.

I can switch to the different pen color.

I can switch the pen ink and then go right back to writing.

And because I'm not having to move quite as far, it just saves a tiny bit of time.

I mean, it's not substantial.

It saves a second or so, but it's a nice little thing.

I do like it.

Now I will also say, so that's the good news.

The bad news is that as I'm getting used to it, I will sometimes find as I'm taking notes or writing that I'm squeezing the pencil without realizing it.

I mean, I realize it 'cause I feel the optic feedback, but suddenly I'm writing and then the little, right, and then the little thing comes up and I'm like, oh, well, no, I didn't mean to come up.

The toolbar, but it's not a problem because I can just continue writing.

It's just that the toolbar shows up for a second.

And then as I continue writing, it goes away. - Yeah. - But so I sometimes find that just as I'm adjusting it or just as I'm holding it, I squeeze it by mistake.

Not a big deal, but it just sort of surprises you a little bit.

And so that's one cool.

Another cool thing is the fine my in it, which is interesting.

So my son told me last night, he was looking at the size of the pencil and he's like, wow, how did they squeeze an air tag into a pencil? - Right. - But that's actually not what they did.

It's not a true air tag because, and I wanna look deeper into this and I'll get into this when I write my full review. - Sure. - My understanding is that unlike an air tag, which has that chip with, it's got an Apple processor that begins with the letter U, I believe, or something like that.

But it's, it's, it's, - Oh, it's like ultra wide band or, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Whatever it is, exactly.

That's what I'm talking about.

I don't think the pencil has that.

I think it is just purely using the strength of the Bluetooth signal.

And so it, it's, when you do a search for it, you know how if you're searching for an air tag using an iPhone, eventually you'll get to the point of where it'll tell you how far away it is, but then they'll actually have an arrow that points to it and stuff like that.

You don't have the arrow that points to, if you're searching for a lost pencil, what you would simply get is these concentric circles and I'm gonna show it in my review when I write it.

But you know, it's sort of like a hotter, colder, hotter, colder.

And it's just sensing, you yourself have to move around and sort of figure out where it's getting hotter and you know, where it's getting colder, but it does work.

And so, you know, I did a test where I left it in my back room and then I was in the front room and it could tell that it was somewhere in the house, but I just had to walk from room to room.

And when I finally started to get closer to it, then it gave me an indication of, oh, there it is.

I thought it might like beep or something like that to help me find it.

It doesn't do that, which would be useful if it was like stuck between couch curtains.

So you have to do a lot more, - Right, right. - of working.

But the flip side of it is, it's better than nothing and you literally had nothing before.

So, you know, before, if I had left my old Apple Pencil in my back room, I would have no way to know whether it was in the back room or whether it was upstairs or whether it was on my office miles away.

I mean, there's no way I would know. - Right, right. - Whereas this, you can know.

What I don't think it has though, and I want to double check this, you know how if you lose your, well, like an air tag, for example.

If you have an air tag and it's somewhere in the middle of nowhere and somebody else happens to walk by it with their iPhone, you know how it gets the location from that. - Yeah, right. - Without that other person even knowing that their iPhone was being used to help you find the air tag.

I don't think, I don't think the Apple Pencil Pro works the same way.

So, I have to look into that.

So again, it's not as powerful as an air tag.

No, they did not squeeze an air tag into a pencil, but they did something pretty close.

In fact, I think it's actually similar in some ways with what Apple has done with the Apple TV and the remote.

Like if you lose your, if you have a new remote, you can try to find it just using the Bluetooth signal.

I think it's like that.

So, it's a cool feature.

It's something that I'm glad that we have.

I'm trying to think, is there anything else with the new Pencil Pro?

It's the haptic feedback. - Well, you're going to cover it in your review.

That's what's good.

I'm excited.

'Cause I haven't seen a whole lot of people talk about that.

So, I'm excited to see your review and along with some other people maybe talking through some of those issues. - Yeah.

I'll tell you one last thing I'll mention is it has got this barrel roll thing, which so far I haven't found useful for what I do, but it's got other cool features.

So, but it's a nice, we've been waiting for a new Pencil with new features.

Now we have it.

Very cool.

Very cool.

So, that is my review of that. - That's the Apple Pencil Pro.

Okay, so the other accessory that you got, you did not get the magic keyboard 'cause I've always given you a hard time on that 'cause I think it's great.

And I'm excited to try that, but you don't need it on your iPad.

You get that smart folio cover, I guess.

I was going to say keyboard, but it's not a keyboard.

It's only the cover on there.

And it sounds like you like it.

I know you've always liked the smart folio, but this one, maybe you're not as happy with, it sounds like from your review here. - So here's my deal.

With the old iPad Pro, with the old smart folio, which I have here, it only holds it in one position.

You fold, you know, you need to fold it up.

People know how this works.

It folds up in a triangle. - Right, you fold it around. - And it holds it up.

And that's one position.

And it's pretty sturdy in that position.

Like when it's on my desk, it's going to hold in that one position.

And if I go to touch the screen or even write on the screen with my pencil and put some pressure on it, it's fine.

It doesn't move over.

It stays in that one position.

So with the new one, they've tried to be cute with it.

They've, what they've done is you can have the triangle all the way down.

And when you have it all the way down, the iPad is almost 90 degrees.

It's this very awkward angle.

It doesn't make sense. - Oh, it's like standing up. - Yeah, it doesn't make sense at your desk if you're looking down on it.

Maybe if you had it sitting on a shelf somewhere, then it would make sense to have it at that angle.

So that's one extreme.

And then the other extreme is to go all the way up and to have it leaning back a lot more than my old Folio could ever lean back.

And I have to admit, that's actually a nice sort of gesture.

It's sort of more lean back.

I'm getting used to it.

It's a new way to look at the screen, more lean back.

And I like it when it's sitting here at my desk.

So those two extremes work pretty well.

In between there, what Apple has done is they have two rails of magnets.

And because it's just long rails, it means that you can take it and there's basically infinite positions.

I can go anywhere between those two positions and I can set it to any position and set it down. - And it just slides. - Which is nice. - Up and down, okay. - If I was just going to watch a movie or a YouTube video or just look at something, it's perfectly fine.

You can use all these different positions, infinitely usable, I like that.

But the problem is, is when it's in these in between positions, it's not quite as strong.

And so if I'm just going to touch it lightly, totally fine.

But if I'm going to start to apply more pressure, like write on it with a pencil or something, it's sort of, because these in between picture positions don't hold quite as sturdily as when you were in one of the two extremes. - Does it move? - It moves, exactly.

And so then it'll slide down and that's annoying.

And then another thing I don't like is when it's in the position that's all the way down, which is a little bit more further down than I was used to, but I can get used to it.

It almost wants to roll a little bit like this, which is really annoying.

I don't want my thing, I don't want like, you and your kids, you know, Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down.

I don't want my iPad Pro to be a Weeble.

I want it to be sturdy, in position.

And when it's in this all the way down mode, as I go to touch it, it wobbles.

It has to do with the way that it is at the bottom.

So I don't know, right now, I prefer the old Folio. - Interesting. - Even though it doesn't, it only has one position, but it's a rock solid position.

This new one, - Yeah, it stays there. - I understand on paper how this sounds good, like in a board meeting, hey, wouldn't it be great if you could have a Folio with more positions?

(laughing) Yeah, but the way that they've executed it. - Interesting, you're not a, - I'm gonna continue to use it.

Maybe I'll get used to it, but I don't know.

I don't know. - I don't know if you saw this, I saw that Marques Brindley posted, it was a TikTok originally, but he's done this before.

He has this little slice of what he calls a magnet paper.

And so he puts it over on top of the iPads.

And it was really interesting to see, basically you can see how many magnets, which is an extraordinary number of magnets. - Oh yeah, oh yeah. - These iPads here.

But I don't know if you saw this, he goes and just showing exactly what you're talking about here.

And I found this fascinating, that it's a whole rail of magnets, just like you're saying. - There it is, yeah. - You see that there, look at that.

And it like goes up and down on both sides.

And when I saw that, I don't have one yet.

So I was thinking, huh, I mean, just like you said, in the boardroom, that may sound, like on the drawing board, that may sound really cute and inventive.

And I see what they were doing there.

Maybe it's more just for like viewing angles.

Like you said, if you're watching a movie or something, it's good that you can go up and down a little bit like that.

But I mean, for folks that don't want it to move, you know, they just want it to stay in one place, just like what you're talking about, Jeff. - Yeah, not good.

Anyway, I'll include this link to Marquette, just a short little video.

But he compares, he uses this magnet paper, by the way, on the old iPad Pro 12.9 inch.

And then he shows how many magnets are on the brand new one.

And there's not a huge difference in those.

It's not that I'm saying that anything is crazy about it.

But I just don't, we don't think about it.

You know, I love the magnets in mine, just like I know yours.

Like when I pop it into my magic keyboard, it's like, pow, it like stops right there.

And they are very sturdy.

But this is interesting when you've got that little sliding aspect on there.

Yeah, so like you said, maybe use it a little bit more.

We'll see, see if you can get used to it.

I don't think you're going to, to be honest with you.

But I guess we'll see what could ultimately do.

So just real quick, you had some other links that we can cover real quick.

I love this review from Ars Technica, where I thought this was a perfect encapsulation of some of the things you've even already said, Jeff.

The M4 iPad Pro review, well, now you're just showing off.

And I think it's a Samuel accident.

His main point is just some of the things you've said.

The screen, amazing.

M4 processor, amazing.

Are we going to use all of that?

Maybe not.

But it's there.

It's like, you're just got to show it off on like what you could actually do.

But you know, buy for one, I like it.

That Apple continues to kind of push that forward.

And there are some people that will absolutely, you know, ping this as far as it can go.

But most normal kind of folks like us that are typical users, like I said, I think you did a good job of kind of navigating that, Jeff.

And like, it's great.

It's good that you have it.

But it's probably a lot more than what a lot of people need.

Which might be, by the way, why the iPad Airs.

Before we get to the iPad Air, real quick, I just want to say a couple of other things that you linked to, which I thought was great.

Harry McCracken did a fantastic job, I thought, of interviewing, it was at least John Ternes, and who was the other gentleman here?

Oh, Jaws, okay, Jaws, of course.

I thought this was great.

And really, just the thing, we've said this phrase before, they view it, I'm glad to see they confirmed that they view the iPad, Apple views the iPad as this magical sheet of glass.

'Cause I would like to one day have a flexible sheet of glass, but okay, we'll get there one day.

We're getting there, right?

We're thinner, thinner.

Maybe we can get rid of that USB-C cord, we'll see.

Anyway, I just thought this was really some good insight on there.

Anything that, any of your takeaways here from this Harry McCracken interview? - Yeah, I mean, it just sort of confirms what Apple views this as being.

They also talk about what the iPad is for, and the difference between the iPad and the computers and stuff.

But you know, this, it is clear, some of this is marketing, but at the same time, I think some of this is legitimate, and the iPad, this brand new iPad Pro M4 is the perfect embodiment of what Apple is hoping for for the iPad.

And it doesn't mean in the future, they're gonna of course find ways to make it even better, but you know, every once in a while, you get to the point where it's just a really good version of a product.

You know, it's the MacBook Air we all remember, it's the MacBook, it's the PowerBook that we all remember.

You know, I do think that for future to future, this is going to be an iPad Pro that we all remember, because it really does achieve all of those goals that Apple wants for the iPad.

And you can still criticize it for not having better software and stuff, but it is just a great premium iPad. - Apparently, John Ternes and Jaws were doing a round of interviews.

I thought this was a little neat little video from Mr.

Who's the Beast, talking about something that I was interested, so there's two more things I wanna ask you about, and this video covers this a little bit, which I found fascinating.

When we started talking about how thin this was gonna be, Jeff, one of my first concerns immediately was, oh my goodness, I don't want, I'm gonna be afraid to set anything on top of it.

You know, if I put it in a case or something like that, or put it in my briefcase, what if I drop my briefcase, is this gonna bend?

It's so thin.

Wow, they thought about this, right?

I mean, I thought this was gonna be another bend gate from what was that, the iPhone 6 or whatever it was that really went down.

But John Ternes here was talking about how, to your point that you made a little bit earlier, they balanced this.

Apparently there's batteries on both sides, and then there is, what did he call it?

A central rib that runs up the middle back of this, or the middle of this device, that really provides some of that sturdiness.

How say you, my friend, like what have you felt like when you've been using some of this?

Do you feel nervous about it at all? - Not at all.

I mean, holding it in my hand, I can try to bend it from the ends, and it is not moving at all.

It is rock solid. - Really? - I had the same thought.

I was thinking something that's going to be this thin, and yet is so big, by definition, it's gonna wanna bend a little bit.

But no, I find it to be just as strong as any prior iPad.

And I think it's because of that rib that you talked about, whichever.

I get the sense that maybe Apple originally put it in there for heat dissipation, and I'm sure it does that as well.

But maybe as a side effect, or maybe this was by design from the beginning, it gives it a real sturdiness.

And so, I'm glad that this is not, like you said, bend gate or one of those silly little things that are in the news.

I'm glad that it's perfectly fine.

That was something I was a little concerned about, but now that I have it in my hands, it's not a problem. - Apparently also John Ternus and Greg Joswiak are, I didn't know there was an Apple uniform.

I think they're wearing the exact same shoes here.

The exact same pants.

That's funny.

Okay, so if you did wanna see how far you had to go to bend the iPad, the brand new iPad, Jeff has very nicely provided some links for you to go and watch the YouTube video, because we knew this was gonna happen.

There are fairly some folks on YouTube that bought some iPad Pros just to make sure that they could see how far it would bend.

So if you really wanna see some of that catastrophe, you're welcome to, I'll put the link in the show notes and you can go and look at that.

Okay, last thing quickly, I wanna ask you on this.

I had no idea that if you ordered a space black iPad, you would also get apparently a space black USB-C cable.

How is that Jeff?

I am so excited about this and it's so silly. - It is a silly thing, but I tell you what, it was nice.

And it was a surprise when I opened up the box and I see, oh, look at this, I've never seen a Apple.

So it's a braided cable, which is the thing that Apple is doing with its cables nowadays. - I love those. - Which makes it, it adds sturdiness and also it just feels more professional.

And then, but then it's black.

You're so used to the Apple cables being white, but I mean, I haven't even taken this one out of its little casing yet. - I see that. - So it's like a nice little one meter cable.

So I'm putting it in my bag with my USB-C cables, but I like it because first of all, it's fun that it matches the space black iPad that I got.

But also it's nice because as I'm looking through my bag, you know, if I look at my cables, I have like, - You know immediately. - Yeah, one cable has USB-C on one side and lightning on the other side and it's white.

And then I have another one that has USB-C on both sides and it's white.

And I look at the two of them and I can't tell which one is which, 'cause it looks exactly the same.

So now whenever I look at this one in my bag, I'm gonna, okay, now this, I know exactly which cable this is.

So it's a nice little feature.

It's a nice little extra, but I'm glad that Apple put it in there.

That's cool. - I wonder, has Apple ever sold non-white cables?

Maybe they have at some point, but I know they had, I think, okay.

They had color matched cables for the iMacs, right?

I'm pretty sure. - Oh yes. - And so you can get yellow and orange and green, but it's not something that they do very often, which is why whenever it happens. - No, this is so unique. - Now the power, the thing that plugs into your wall outlet is still white.

So that does not match. - Come on, Apple. - And you can see that on the screen right here. - Wait, do they include one of those?

Is one of those included in the box now?

Okay, wait, it's in the box.

So they sent you a black cable, but a white wall brick. - Exactly. - Oh, come on.

That's ridiculous.

I can see the picture here, here from Brian Christoffel on a nine to five Mac that you link to.

That's ridiculous.

That just looks janky to me.

Come on, Apple.

If you had time to make a space black USB-C cable, you could have upgraded the brick on there as well.

Come on. - There you go. - All right.

Okay, thank you, Jeff, for indulging me and all of us in talking about the new iPad.

Yeah, I know I'm gonna have to get one 'cause it's just, I've seen so many other people talking about a lot of the same kind of things.

It's just a really fantastic upgrade.

But for those of you that do not wanna upgrade to an iPad Pro, let's not leave out the iPad Air because that also got some amazing upgrades.

And you link to a couple of really nice articles today, Jeff, and one of them, who is this?

This is Ngadget, right?

He says even the iPad Air is the iPad to get.

For the vast majority of people that either are never gonna need Tandem OLEDs or an import processor, and maybe frankly, they don't need to spend the amount of money you're gonna have to spend that extra few hundred dollars to get the iPad Pro, the iPad Air, in both sizes now, is really, I think, he says it's the best sweet spot.

And I think I'm agreeing with him.

I gotta go the Pro, but I think for the vast majority of people that you and I know, Jeff, the iPad Air, it's really amazing that they've upgraded this now to an M2 processor too. - Yeah, so the iPad Air is a little bit more powerful than the iPad that you and I had been using before because we were using M1s. - That's crazy. - And so it's already better than what we had before.

And it's got a lot of the features that originally came with the Pro, like the form factor.

It's got the exact same screen that we had been using before.

So it is, as these Pro features trickle down to the mid-range iPad Air, what you end up with is a really powerful device.

And when I think of, I mean, when I think most of the attorneys in my office, or I think of my wife, who's somebody who uses technology to get things done, but doesn't really care about all the nonsense of it.

You know, it's like, do you want that slightly better screen so that the pictures just look that much more vivid?

I can see a lot of people saying, whatever.

I mean, I'm just gonna look at pictures quickly.

It's not a big deal.

Do you need to wait one minute versus 140?

Like, whatever, they're not doing those types of tasks.

You know, are you gonna notice the slight snappiness?

No, are you gonna, you know, the thinness, the difference in size?

Well, you're gonna get used to what you have, whatever you have.

And so I really do think that for most people, they're not going to really care about these extra features.

They just want an iPad that's powerful enough to do what they need to do, and then they can move on.

And for them, I say save, you know, why not save a couple hundred dollars?

Heck, with that savings, it completely would pay for like an external keyboard, which a lot of people really like.

Or it would help, it would more than pay for the Apple Pencil.

By the way, the Apple Pencil Pro does work with the iPad Air. - Oh, they've confirmed that.

Oh, that's great.

Okay. - So even if you want the latest pencil, that's still...

So I really do think, you know, I'm sitting here so excited about the Pro because I love these premium features.

But at the same time, you know, when my workday is over and I go to drive home today, I am not driving a Mercedes.

I am not driving a Lexus.

I drive just a simple Honda because I'm not a driver.

I don't care less about driving.

I just wanna go home.

I do not need something fancy.

And so, whereas other people say, gosh, I wanna put my money into getting a nice car 'cause I enjoy having that premium experience.

For people like me, whatever.

I'm just driving for A to B.

I don't care about that stuff.

If it has CarPlay, that's all I need, you know?

And so for so many people, the iPad Air is, it is all that you need.

And so don't, just because I'm sitting here gushing over the iPad Pro, that's because I'm a really intense iPad user and I use it so much and I appreciate those details 'cause I'm such a tech head.

But for most people, and again, it's wonderful.

I mean, this is a good thing.

The fact that the iPad Air is in its current generation, 2024, with this M2 processor, has so many fantastic features.

I mean, this is why the entire iPad lineup is as good as it has ever been.

It is fantastic.

We have the really cheap iPad.

If you want something for your kids or something for a grandparent that just uses for basic YouTube videos and doing email, that's totally fine.

And if you want something with a little more power that supports the Apple Pencil Pro and has the nicer bezels and everything else, the iPad Air is fantastic.

Fantastic.

It's only if you really wanna pay more because you appreciate the premium features.

That's where you wanna put your money.

You don't mind getting the front row seats for twice as much money as getting the mid row seats at a concert.

That's what the iPad Pro is for.

So yeah, so it's a great iPad. - Just like your wife, my wife's the same way, Jeff.

She just needs something that's gonna get the work done and the iPad Air, which is now the old generation, has been working out great for her.

One of the things that Nathan here in the Engadget Review says, the iPad Air does not have Face ID.

And some people might think of that, oh my goodness, I gotta have Face ID.

I don't think that you do.

You have the Touch ID, which you pointed out last time, does require, it's the, depending on the orientation that you're holding the iPad, it's the on/off button, right?

So if you're holding it in sort of portrait mode, usually it's the right hand that you have to put up there.

But my wife always uses it in a Magic Keyboard.

And so she uses her left finger to touch the on/off.

So the only thing there is like, when she has it in portrait mode, which is not very often, she has to like reach all the way over on top, 'cause you're holding, anyway, it's just getting used to that but the Touch ID works fantastically.

I don't wanna gloss over that.

I mean, they put Touch ID in this little tiny sliver of a button there and it works dramatically well for what she's doing all the time on some of that, as opposed to, I like the Face ID, I've just gotten used to that all the time, but she does the Touch ID on there. - Just to play up on that for one second, Brett. - Yeah, go ahead. - The Face ID, I mean, when I use my iPad, I am very frequently using things like 1Password that I unlock using Face ID. - Right, same, same. - And it's actually, it's really nice to just be able to look at it and have it happen.

To actually have to reach up and take your finger and put it on the button.

I mean, again, it's not the end of the world, but it does require that extra level of work that it's a reason why the Pro is premium and the iPad Air doesn't have that feature.

On the other hand, this iPad Air does have the brand new camera at the very top where it should be when you're in landscape.

So like some of those features did get carried over and that's fantastic. - Okay, so by the way, you've noticed that already, that the camera being on the landscape mode on your iPad Pro, it's worked out better. - Oh, I haven't done a call yet.

I've just done it for tests, but all you have to do is try it once and that's where it always should have been.

I'm so glad they made this change.

You know, sometimes I'm away from home and I need a particular, you know, my office uses Microsoft Teams.

And so when I need to do like a Teams call or something like that, I can just sort of set it up. - It makes a difference. - And I don't have to sort of, you know, manually try to focus on the edge on the left so that I don't look like I'm being off camera.

You know, it's, I'm, this is such a needed change. - I'm just gonna be glad.

Sometimes I'm holding the iPad with both hands or usually I'm holding my left hand, right, Jeff?

Well, guess what I'm doing?

I'm covering up the camera.

It has that like arrow that points there.

Like you're covering the camera, you're covering the camera.

So I'm excited to try that as well.

Okay, just a few more things that you covered today, 'cause I know we've been talking about the iPads a lot.

There's something you didn't get though, the new Magic Keyboard, but you linked to an excellent review here and nine to five Mac from Ryan Christoffel again, which he says it's just an amazing upgrade on there.

And he even says, as you were talking with the lightness of the iPad Pro now, you know, the new one that apparently they've even made the Magic Keyboard a little lighter because again, that's where I do feel the heaviness to me with the old iPad Pro, you know, 12.9 inch and my Magic Keyboard.

Yeah, it's probably about the same weight as my MacBook Pro.

I mean, it's getting very, very close to that.

Probably a little bit different, but I'm just excited that I'm gonna be able to tell the difference in some of that.

But this was a good article here about the keyboard too. - Yeah, in fact, let's talk real quickly about three things that I did not get.

One thing I did not get was this keyboard, but I have, and I've thought about it in the past, believe me, I have read about it.

People say it's a wonderful keyboard.

You tell me it's a wonderful keyboard.

And this new version seems to be nicer than ever because it's got this aluminum finish.

So it really does look a lot more like a MacBook Air.

And the track pad is supposed to be a little bit bigger and it's got better use of haptics in it.

And so, you know, people say that if you're gonna do extensive typing with an iPad Pro, this thing's really nice.

Now, if you get the iPad 11, the 11-inch version, the keyboard's gonna be a little bit smaller, so it's a little bit more cramped. - A little squished, yeah. - But if you get the 13-inch version, then you basically have a laptop for all intents and purposes for, you know, riding on the road.

And if it wasn't for the fact that, I've described many times before, that I have other keyboards that I use, and so it's fine.

But if there was ever a time that I have seriously thought about it, it's right now.

I mean, I'm looking at this keyboard, I'm looking at these great reviews, you know, I don't know if I'm gonna cross over 'cause I get the, I think the version for the 13-inch is $350.

Am I gonna get 350? - I'm gonna bring you over, Jeff. - Yeah, am I gonna get 350 value?

I don't know, I'm thinking about it though.

So that's one thing I did not get, but I thought very seriously about.

Another thing I did not get is that if you, the iPad Pro has eight gigs of RAM, but if you get the one terabyte version, so that's the 256 and the 512 version.

But if you get the really big storage models, the one terabyte and the two terabyte, instead of getting eight gigs of RAM, you get 16 gigs of RAM.

And there's, you know, does that matter?

I haven't yet seen a review that really compares it.

But my sense is that it would probably make a difference for, well, first of all, for the AI stuff that we expect to come out soon, 'cause AI eats up RAM.

Second of all, if you're the sort of person that has a ton of tabs open in Safari, having extra RAM can be good because it keeps-- - Guilty. - Yeah, it keeps the tabs open so that when you switch from one tab to another, it's less likely to have to reload the content 'cause it's still got enough memory to keep it there.

And so you know who you are.

I thought about it a little bit.

You know, it's a couple of hundred dollars more to make that jump from 512 to one terabyte.

And I don't know if I made the right choice or not.

We'll see.

I think I'm gonna be happy with the 512 version, but that's one that-- - It's the FOMO, Jeff.

It's the FOMO.

It's like, I think I would go with the 512 'cause that's what I've been using.

And I know I'm not using anywhere close to that space on there, but it's like, I know there would be a point in time and I'm like, something slows down and I'm like, could that extra RAM have made a difference?

It's like, I fear missing out on something like that. - It's not the first time though.

Apple in the past has made their highest end iPad Pros with the extra storage, have had extra RAM and have had a little more processor oomph, which is another change too.

You get one extra core in the M4, which is just a very, very minor difference.

But, and so, and so there have been prior iPads that have this distinction.

And I, you know, I read all the news on iPads and I have never seen someone write a review that really does the test and say, you know, there's a real noticeable difference in having that extra RAM and having that extra power.

So my assumption is the same is gonna be here too.

And it's probably not a reason by itself to get one terabyte but it's close.

I mean, if you find yourself thinking that 512 might not be enough for you, one terabyte might be a little too much.

It might be something to crossover.

So that's another thing I didn't get, but I thought about.

And then the last thing that I didn't get that we should just mention is that if you do get the one terabyte or higher iPad Pro, you have the option of getting the display that is, what is it, the nano texture. - Nano texture, yeah. - So that it doesn't have the, it doesn't have the glosses as well.

I've read all the reviews that I could find on it.

I found one review, one reviewer that really enjoyed it and said, it's so nice.

And I found a ton of viewers that say that it's actually probably not for most people because it reduces, it's not that it's blurry but it just reduces some of the vividness and the sharpness of the colors for everyday use.

So like, unless you really, really know that you're using your iPad outside a lot or something like that, then it's probably not worth having.

So I'm very happy with the decision, yeah, that decision. - Oh yeah, yeah, you made the right decision.

I feel like I want to say to people that ask me, I'm like, have you ever heard the words nano texture before a week ago?

If no, then you don't need it.

Like, don't worry about it.

You're going to be fine on that.

Another story in Six Colors that you linked to was something I guess I wasn't even aware of is the Global Accessibility Awareness Day.

So now I am aware of it and I'm happy to be aware of it.

We've talked so many times about how Apple is so supportive from the accessibility features, certainly for the iPhone more than anything else.

But now this is a great little story here on Six Colors that even some accessibility features come into CarPlay and Vision Pro, love to see this, Jeff. - Yeah, I mean, World Accessibility Day was not something I had ever heard of before Apple started "celebrating" it.

But I want to say two or three years ago, they started to take their accessibility improvements.

And instead of waiting for WWDC, they would announce them a few weeks earlier, which is once again, they've done it this year.

And I think it's nice because it allows us to appreciate and think about these changes separate and apart from the other changes to the operating system.

Of course, this happens to be a busy week with the new iPad coming out, so it happens to be a busy time.

But otherwise, they are nice changes.

I mean, one of them, for example, is that if people have, you know, your pattern of speech is such that maybe you, you know, something about your speech is just a little special for you because of your needs. - Yeah, they call it atypical speech is what they say. - Okay, atypical speech, I'm sure I used the right word.

Atypical speech, you might have trouble saying, "Hey, S-I-R-I," and then giving it a command, but you can find some other word that's easy for you to say or easier for you to say. - Right. - And then you can have the iPhone or the iPad associate that specific word with some task.

So I thought that was a cool little feature to do it.

The thing in CarPlay that you were referring to is interesting.

If you drive and you are hard of hearing, you might not know that somebody is honking at you or that somebody, that there's like a fire engine behind you or something like that.

And so, but your iPhone can hear that sound.

And so Apple has taken technology that they already have in the home.

Like right now, if you have a HomePod or HomePod mini and it hears a smoke detector go off, it will actually, optionally, it can send alerts to your phone and your watch, et cetera. - Oh, interesting. - So that if you're hard of hearing, you will get like a physical or like a flash alert. - Like a notification, yeah. - Like a notification.

Or you can also set it up that if it hears like a baby crying, it will do.

So those are cool things in the home that Apple did last year. - Yes, I remember that, yeah. - And so now they've taken that same idea and brought it to the car so that if the phone thinks it senses an ambulance siren or a fire truck, it will display that and flash it on the CarPlay screen when this comes out later this year.

So it's a cool little idea that I had never thought about before and I'm like, yeah, you know, bravo. - Yeah, that's great. - It also had improvements to the way that it can read signs and the magnifier.

You know, there's all these little bitty things.

And we say this every year, right?

These are really cool if you have special accessibility needs and you need them, but you know what?

Even if you don't have special needs, these accessibility improvements often-- - I use them all the time, right? - Are useful for everybody.

And so the way we started off about the command, if you have that one thing that you wanna make it super fast and easy for your iPhone or your iPad to do, you might want to use the command that if I just say this one word, do X, you know, that might be perfect for you even if you don't have any atypical speech patterns.

So these are great changes for the people that need them and it's great changes for those of us who might just be able to take advantage of them. - I just continue to appreciate so much that Apple obviously puts so many resources into this and we just continue to see amazing improvements on there on this and I just, I think that's great.

Okay, speaking of flying under the radar, because I think the iPad has really just taken all the headlines, I didn't even know, Jeff, that iOS 17.5 was released this past week.

I just upgraded my phone.

You linked to Gadget Hacks, which I always think does a good job of doing a full rundown of all the little features.

Now you said there wasn't anything major in here.

I haven't even had time to look through, but what are a couple of things here that you found that were interesting in 17.5? - We had learned a while back that Apple and Google had gotten together to come up with a uniform standard that those two companies and others as well could use for trackers, things like the AirTag, because what you don't want is you don't want an ex-spouse or a former boyfriend or girlfriend that's now being abusive, you don't want them to slip an AirTag into your car and then track you. - Right, right. - And so Apple has this technology that if you are an iPhone user, and if someone uses an AirTag, and the AirTag has been following you and it's not your AirTag, it will alert you, hey, there's an AirTag following you.

But what if they don't use an AirTag?

What if they use a product from a different company?

Well, then you're not gonna get the same alert.

So what Google and Apple, jointly with Android and iPhone being pretty much the entire market, they've come up with this new cross-platform tracking standard, and a bunch of companies like Chipotle, it's not Chipotle, that's the, you know, whatever, companies that make these third-party tracking devices, UV and people like that. - Oh, Tile, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, Tile, they've signed on to the standard.

And so in the future, if you purchase a tracking device from any company and you try to use it improperly, it will give alerts whether you have an Android user or an iPhone user.

So it's, Chipolo is the company I was trying to think of. - Yeah, Chipolo, that's close to Chipotle. - But it's almost the same thing.

If someone sticks a Chipotle sandwich in your car, you'll just smell it after a while, I guess. - Yeah, right, right, right. - So, you know, this is great.

Now, of course, it's not a perfect solution because you can still go to an Amazon and you can buy from no-name Chinese companies tracking devices that don't work with any of these standards.

So if you're truly gonna be nefarious, you can get around this.

But at least it gives a little bit more protection, and I think that's nice.

So that was one of the changes that I thought was interesting.

There's all sorts of other little bitty changes in here, changes to the news program, the News+ service. - Yeah, several News+ changes here.

That's great. - So let's say you're about to get on a plane and you wanna catch up on the news.

While you're on, well, of course, nowadays, planes have Wi-Fi, but if for some reason your plane wasn't gonna have Wi-Fi, you can actually put it in an offline mode that you can download stories, you can read them later. - Oh, that's cool, that's cool. - You know, very minor, minor changes like that.

But, you know, 17.5, when you have that .5 number, because it's halfway between, it sounds like it's a big update.

This one, however, is not really a huge update. - This one wasn't.

And obviously, we're all anticipating that we'll get some notifications about 18.

Now, that usually is a little bit later in the fall, right? - Yeah, we'll learn about that in a few weeks. - Yeah, so there might be, I would suspect, there might be a 17.5.1 or so, or two, you know, maybe before it comes out.

But we'll be talking about that as we go.

But thanks for those links.

In the know, okay, I'm gonna cheat this week, Jeff.

I wanna hear, first of all, I would love to hear, like, what is your favorite tip, your favorite takeaway from the iPad?

I know you've talked about so many things, but just real quick, what's your favorite thing so far?

You've been using it for two and a half days. (laughing) Maybe a little bit more, maybe three days.

What's your favorite tip on the new iPad Pro? - I think if I had to pick one thing right now, although I'm tempted to pick the lightness, because you feel that every single time you pick it up, I have to admit, and I'm almost embarrassed to admit this, Brad, it is that OLED screen, because I know it's just not handy. - Really, okay. - When I look at certain pictures and videos that I take, they look so amazing.

And I almost feel silly picking this, because it has nothing to do with, I'm all about iPad productivity, and this has nothing to do with that.

This is just purely, it looks so beautiful.

And I mentioned in my review that when you're looking at a TV that has OLED, the TV's far apart from you.

But because, I mean, sometimes my iPad is just, it's six inches from my face, and to have it so beautiful and so crisp and colorful and bright, it's-- - It makes a difference. - It's still awe-inspiring.

I guess I'll get used to it over time, but, 'cause I've sort of gotten used to it on my iPhone, but right now, whenever I see one of those things on my screen after just a couple of days, I can't help but say, wow, that looks incredible. - Okay, okay. - So for now, at least-- - I think it's great. - That's the one, too. - That's nice, nice.

Okay, anything else in the know, 'cause I cheated and punted this week, but anything else? - I'm gonna mention, so here's my tip for the day.

Although I said that the new operating system of 17.5 doesn't have that much that's new, here's one thing that I added to the news app.

If you are a person who likes word puzzles, I've always been a fan of word puzzles.

I've been doing puzzles my entire life, and I love it that a couple years ago, Wordle became the phenomenon of the day, and as a result, suddenly everybody was talking about word puzzles again, which I love, because I'm not the sort of person that plays big, shoot 'em up games, you gotta be super fast, everything like that.

My son loves those things, but for me, something that I can take my time, do a word puzzle, that's really much more my aim.

And so, obviously, the New York Times bought Wordle, and they have vastly improved their game section as a result, and Apple wants to try to do the same thing with its News+, and so it has a crossword, which is not as good as the New York Times crossword, we talked about that, but I'm sure that somebody at high up at News+ said, "Find us the next Wordle."

So they've been looking. - Okay, okay. - So here's what they've come up with.

They have a new game that came out this week, so if you have News+, either because you subscribe to it, or it's part of your Apple One bundle, you can go into News+, if you're on the iPad, there's a separate section for puzzles.

If you're on the iPhone, you look in the thing called Top News, and you scroll down, and you'll eventually see it.

And the new game is called Quartiles.

And so what it is, is-- - Quartiles, okay. - Quartiles, it is a grid of four across by five down, and the grid is composed of parts of words.

And so if you think of a word like, you know, like the word quartile, it might have Q-U-A, and then it might have, you know, R-T, and then I-L-E-S.

And so you break words into these sections, and the ultimate goal of the game is to take all 20 of these tiles and figure out the four tile words, which are the quartiles.

So for example, I could just take two things, like A-R-T and I-S-T.

And if I put those together, A-R-T, I-S-T, artist, right? - Interesting. - And I can tap those two.

I can tap art, I can tap ist, and I can tap submit, and it will give me a few points for having the word artist.

But that is only two tiles.

If I put artistic, if I see at the end of it, that would be three tiles. - That's three. - A little more points.

But the ultimate quartile for this one is artistically, which is four tiles. - Artistically. - And as you figure out what the quartile word is, those four tiles go to the bottom of the screen.

You can still use them if you want to use them for shorter words.

But the idea is that you come up with your first set, it goes to the bottom, and then the second set, and it goes to the bottom.

And so over time, as you have fewer left, you would hope that it becomes easier to figure out.

So for example, today, on today's puzzle, what is today, May 17th, I have done three of them.

And so I don't want to give up too away, for people that are still about to do the puzzle, I'll give out one of them.

One of them for today.

The first one that I got was, there was an HYP.

So I'm like, HYP, hyper.

And so I instantly said hyper, and sure enough, there was an ER.

So I'm like, okay, hyper.

And then I found hyper.

What's a word that would normally come after hyper?

If I say hyper, you might say what, Brett?

What anything you can come up to? - Hyper tense, hyper drive. - What I was thinking was hyperactive.

And sure enough, there was an ACT and there were IV.

So that was the first one that I got for today, was hyperactive. - That's four tiles.

You got four tiles. - That's hyperactive.

So I got that one.

And then I got two more sets.

And so now at the very top of my screen, I have eight tiles left.

And those eight tiles are gonna make two four tile words.

And it's only eight tiles.

So I mean, it should not be that hard, right?

Because I mean, I should just be able to look at it and say, you know, there's only eight of them before we go together.

And I stared and stared at them before we started recording today.

And I'm not seeing it.

So later on today, I'll come back to it and I'll look at it again.

But eventually you wanna get all of them and hopefully you do.

So I think it's a cute little game.

What I like about it is that you can't die, so to speak.

Unlike the New York Times has some games like Whirl, for example, you only get a certain number of guesses.

Right? - Right, and you're done. - Connections is a fun game, but if you don't get it with, after getting four mistakes, you lose.

This is more like a crossword puzzle.

And that I can just work on it throughout the day and you can get a certain number of points, but you know, your ultimate goal is to find those five different quartiles.

And if you guess incorrectly, you just, you guess it says, no, that's not a word.

And so I like the fact that it's a very casual game.

It's not gonna punish me for not being fast enough.

Now again, the jury's still out on this one 'cause it's only been out since Wednesday.

I've just been playing it a few days.

I don't think it's as fun as Whirl, but it's pretty good.

And so for Apple trying to come up with their version of a casual daily word game, I think they might have a winner on their hands here.

So I'm cautiously optimistic about this being a good, fun puzzle game that I'm gonna play into the future. - So to be clear, you have to, this is only an Apple News Plus.

So you have to have a subscription to Apple News Plus, but am I right that it's only after you upgrade to 17.5, I guess because they re-arranged, they did so many improvements or, you know, some upgrades into the Apple News Plus app. - Part of the new version of the app. - And so, okay, okay, okay.

So you have to have those two things.

You have to have a subscription to Apple News Plus, which I do, I recommend, I think it's great.

I have the Apple One subscription.

And you have to upgrade to iOS 17.5, which again, I just upgraded right before we started on my phone and everything worked out great.

It was, it's not, it doesn't take a whole long time and I'm glad that I solved that and I upgraded.

Now I'm gonna go try playing quartiles.

See what I could do.

Can I compete with you?

Is this one you really compete or is it just on your own?

Do you know? - That's an excellent question.

I don't know.

I don't see that built into it, but that would be a fun idea. - Well, I do, so some, yeah, some of my family does the crosswords in the Apple News Plus, Jeff, and there's not like a competition thing, but it will tell you how quickly that you solved the puzzle. - Oh, I did not know that. - And so we send that back and forth to each other.

'Cause I was like, I did it in like, you know, 53 seconds.

I mean the short one, not the big long one. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - I'm not that good.

But anyway, so it just, you know, interesting sometimes they have that gamification on there for, you know, playing with other people or competing with other people.

Great stuff, Jeff, thanks for sharing all of your information about the iPad Pro and answering all of my questions about it.

And yeah, I've got to go find one today. (laughing) - There you go. - 'Cause now I'm convinced more than anything else.

Great, Jeff, thanks again.

We'll talk with you next week.