Welcome to In the News for March 6, 2026.

I am Brett Burney from AppsinLaw.com.

And this is Jeff Richardson from iPhoneJD.

Hey, Brett.

Jeff, what a week.

Oh, my goodness.

My head is still spinning a little bit.

What a week.

What a week.

What a week.

We knew this was going to be quite a week because Apple had not just one product to announce,

not two, not three.

Seven products got announced.

I think in the space of three days, right?

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this past week.

You, of course, have done a very good job of covering some of this.

We'll walk down the seven products in kind of reverse order, if that's okay.

Because I think the last one, number seven, is probably the more exciting one

or kind of like the newish kind of exciting one.

And then we'll go through sort of the other announcements that were made.

So we're going to start off with the MacBook Neo, a brand new Mac laptop.

Then there was a new studio display.

We'll get into that just a little bit.

The MacBook Pro, just minor updates on that.

And the MacBook Air, again, just minor updates, mostly just like a processor bump.

The new iPad Air, you did a good job covering that this week.

And on Monday, just as you suspected, if I'm not mistaken, last Friday, you said there was going to be a new iPhone 17e.

And indeed, that is what happened.

Let's start with a MacBook Neo.

N-E-O.

What a neato name for a new MacBook.

I've got thoughts on this, but let's walk it down.

What are your thoughts on the MacBook Neo, the brand new MacBook Neo?

I have not used myself a Mac laptop since I had an iBook in around the year 2000 or something like that.

So I'm just not, I haven't, I don't use Mac laptops.

And the reason for that is number one, my firm uses PCs.

And so I have a good, a boring Dell PC.

And number two, ever since 2010, I've been such a big iPad user that for my portable computing needs, I'm totally an iPad person.

Having said that, I know that laptop computers, the MacBook lines, are Apple's most popular computers.

And this is an incredibly important line, and I'm always interested in it.

So that's one thought I have coming into that announcement.

The second background I have coming into this announcement is that, you know, every year when the iPhone comes out with a new, you know, the new version of the iPhone in the fall.

And I always think to myself, gosh, these processors that Apple is making are just so impressive that like, I know it's a phone, but like this could, this could almost be a computer processor, right?

You know, because they do so much.

And so now for the first time ever, it's not just this 3A reticle, wow, this is so processor.

This is so powerful to process a computer.

It's like, yeah, that's actually what's going on.

So this product, the MacBook Neo, I mean, the key thing of it is the price.

That is what it is all about.

And I love the analysis by Jason Snell, and I didn't link to it, but John Gruber during

Powerball had a similar analysis, which was years and years and years ago.

Steve Jobs was talking about, why don't you compete?

At the time, it was like the netbook market.

And, you know, nowadays, sometimes people talk about Chromebooks or these cheap Windows laptops.

Like, why doesn't Apple compete at that level?

And Steve Jobs, who's, you know, obviously always had the great answer to things.

He's like, you know, we don't ship junk.

We just don't ship junk.

And we can't make a computer at that price point that's not a piece of junk.

And I'm sure he was right because, I mean, if Apple could, they would.

But now they figured out how to do it.

And the reason they figured out how to do it is, first of all, because they have been making their processors.

you know the a series the m series for so many years in house that they can make those things

you know they're just really good at it um and second of all apple is just so good at their

hardware that they know how to make things how to make them efficiently that you put all that

together and they're taking so what they're using is the processor that was used it's not like so

this year's you know the phone that i have and that you have and all the people that have the orange

um iphone pros stuff like that we have the um we have what the a19 pro but a year ago you know so

they end from 2024 to 2025 and many people are still using these obviously because many people

hold onto their phones for a couple of years it was the a18 pro processor which is still a super

fast processor and so apple has these they know how to make them they've been making them long

enough that they can obviously get some economies of scale and you know the efficiencies that come

along with that. And it is a seriously decent processor for a computer. The thing that jumps

out to me is people talk, and I'm not an expert on processors, but Apple, you've got single-core

processing and multi-core processing. So for some tasks, it's just the one main processor doing

things sequentially, one after another. And for some tasks, you can divide them out and have

different things happening at the same time in parallel, and then they come together at the end.

And if you're doing things like, you know, rendering videos and some AI and stuff like that, that multiprocessor stuff can be really helpful and really important.

But for most of the things that a lot of us is just regular, you know, Joe Schmo users do like reading web pages, which is like using JavaScript and pages like that.

And, you know, working on documents and, you know, just using your email and stuff like that.

It's actually just the single core processor.

That's the most important.

You're not really using multicore for that.

And as a single core processor, this A18 Pro is great.

It's really good.

I mean, this is a really nice processor.

This is the reason why when the iPhone came out a year ago and they did the same thing this year,

people compared it to use these things like Geekbench to compare it against processors used in Macs.

And they're like, wow, this thing is like a really good processor.

So Apple has got what is a really good processor for 95% of the tasks that people that use a less expensive laptop computer are going to want.

And you sell it for this price of $599 or, I mean, this is going to be a huge thing for the education market for students and stuff like that.

You know, if you're just going to college and you just want to, you know, take your notes in class and do your work and stuff like that, you can even get it for $499.

I mean, come on, 500 bucks, not for an old computer, not for a hand-me-down, not for a refurbish, but for a brand new computer.

That is just really, really impressive.

And you can pay an extra 100 bucks, which gets you more storage, 512 versus 256, because 256 gigs is limiting.

Don't get me wrong.

Having said that, my kids have had computers with 256 gigs internal drives for a long time.

Everything's in the cloud.

It's been fine.

Everything's in the cloud, so it's fine.

But if you want more with 512 and if you pay $100 more, you also get a model that on the keyboard at the top right, you have the little thumbprint sensor to log in.

Touch ID.

Which, you know, touch ID, we always know that that's nice.

Instead of typing in your password, you can do it.

Having said that, in the education market, like when schools buy a whole bunch of these and they just hand them out to students, they actually don't even want that feature because you've got different people log in at a different time.

So it's actually better for a school environment not to have it.

But even aside from schools, just regular Joe consumers, this is a seriously nice computer.

It's only got eight gigs of RAM, which, you know, it's going to be fine for now.

It's going to be good enough.

But, you know, you're going to feel it if you're doing some really impressive, intensive tasks.

But again, I think the target market of these things are just the people that just want a regular computer for regular stuff.

I think I mentioned maybe in my post this week.

Email, web surfing, that kind of thing.

We got my, my wife needed a new computer this past fall.

And so we ended up getting her like the other extreme, the MacBook Pro, though not, not

the new ones today.

But she, the only reason she got a MacBook Pro over a MacBook Air is she really liked

having a USB port on both sides just for ease of, I mean, it's a, it's a total silly thing.

And I'm like, you know what?

You use your computer for so long.

I think she had her last one for like 10 years.

It's like, let's get something that you want.

That's, that's going to be good.

But it's way overpowered.

She doesn't need all that power.

And frankly, a MacBook Neo's power would really be fine for the stuff that she and so many other people are doing.

So let me, I will finish up by saying, I think this thing is going to be the best-selling Mac laptop.

I think it's going to sell like hotcakes.

Because don't get me wrong, a lot of people listening to this podcast will prefer some of the additional power and features that you get with the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro.

I understand that.

But for most of the general populace who could care less about listening to a technology-focused podcast or reading The Verge or any of those sorts of things, the MacBook Neo is going to be perfect.

The price point is going to be attractive.

And I think there's going to be all these people out there that they're either replacing an old Mac computer and the price is so attractive.

Or you know what, Brett?

A lot of people out there that are like, they don't even know.

It's like, I'm looking at these Windows computers.

They're like $500.

But these Windows computers are crappy.

I mean, the quality of the casing, they sort of creak and the touch pads don't work.

You got to touch one part of it, not the other.

And it's got the cruft of windows and everything else.

This is a sleek, nice computer.

If you already have an iPhone, it's going to work seamlessly with that.

I think this is going to be an amazing bestseller for Apple.

And so I'll finish up by saying that, although I personally don't use laptops from Apple,

But considering how close this, you know, the iPhone, which is so near and dear to my heart, this is just taking an iPhone and turning it into a computer.

I'm like, this is fascinating and good on you, Apple.

I'm so I think they're going to be so happy with themselves for doing this.

I think you pointed out as well that it's $5.99 starting price.

But if you're a student, you can get it for $4.99.

Am I correct in that?

With the education discount.

I mean, okay, that even is a little bit more mind-blowing.

When I first saw this, one of the first things I thought about was the 12-inch MacBook.

Do you remember that?

Do you remember the little 12-inch?

It was so cute.

I think I had one for a little while just because it was – I couldn't help myself.

It was just so neat.

A lot of people loved that just because it was so small and compact.

But I think that that was – I mean, it wasn't a MacBook Pro, and I think that was Intel processors, right, at the time.

There was no M chip or anything.

certainly no i don't know if there was even in the a chips at that time maybe there were in the iphone

but not in a laptop second thing i thought of chrome books you know the google chrome books i

mean we don't hear about those as very much but when you talk about that education bent the chrome

books were supposed to be what everybody was going to go with because everything was in the cloud

they're all you know all the schools use chrome or they use you know uh google workspaces or the

educational workspaces or all the documents are stored there even my daughter in college that's

what they use to collaborate on everything. The third thing I thought of is, wow, this,

there's almost negligible difference now between a MacBook Neo and using an iPad as your full on

computer. That's what my wife does. She doesn't even have a laptop, Jeff. She has been using an

iPad as basically her computer, but you know, there are still some of those, I would call them

limitations because maybe one time out of the month, one time out of a month, she'd say,

Brett, can I use your laptop? I need to log into this website. And for whatever reason,

it's not letting me because it's an iPad or, you know, the app doesn't let me do this. And I've

got to go in through a web browser that's on a laptop for whatever reason, or something like that,

right? There's some software that has to be run. But now you basically got, I think what is an iPad

because it's running an A18 chip with a keyboard,

and it's just in the form of a MacBook.

Like this just is blowing my mind

that there's so little difference now,

like what you were just starting off with,

between a portable laptop, quote unquote,

and even frankly, an iPhone slash iPad now.

It's just the biggest difference there to me

is it comes down to the operating system

that's running on it.

Yeah, you mentioned the old MacBook that was 12 inch,

which I know people love that because it was so cute.

But for a lot of people, it was actually a little, I mean, it was cute because you could

carry it around so easily and stuff.

But it was also, that's a very small screen.

That was a limiting screen for a lot of things.

That's right.

You know, Apple has not, what they have not done with this MacBook is just like make it

like a sort of tiny laptop computer.

They haven't done that.

They could have made it a 12-inch screen.

They didn't.

They made a regular 13-inch screen, which is what most people like to use.

They could have made it like so, especially with the A18 processor, you know, and iPhones

are so small.

They could have made it like a super, super thin, like the thinnest MacBook ever or something like that.

But they didn't do that.

Don't get me wrong.

This thing is not beefy.

I mean, compared to Windows computers, it's going to seem very svelte.

But it's not the smallest MacBook.

It's just a normal size MacBook.

And I think Apple did that for two reasons.

First, because, you know, at a certain point, to make things even smaller and thinner is more expensive.

And they were – they did – you know, they were so – you know, their North Star was that price.

They wanted this thing $599.

Which to be clear, you know, as recently as last week on this podcast, we were reading all the speculations about what this thing may cost.

So many people, Brett, thought this was going to be an $800 computer and they were going to be thrilled with that.

Right.

So to have it be a $600 computer, you know, Apple had to do things to, you know, keep it, you know, they want to make as many as possible.

They want to, you know, cut all the things that add any little thing to the price.

And so it's not this super, super thin computer that would have been more expensive to make.

It's not a smaller screen.

It's the popular screen.

Although there are two different models of it, you know, really it's just the internal storage, which is just something you swap out as you're making it right.

And then it's the, you know, which keyboard do you stick in it with the little part for it for the touch ID.

So it's basically the same computer.

Now, there are different colors, and we should mention that in a second too.

But like this is just – you can imagine like, you know, the Model T on the production line.

You know, these are going to be as easy to produce because they're so similar.

And yet they're going to be, you know, really durable.

They're going to be the perfect thing that everything they need.

I mean, just to mention the colors, I don't even talk about colors a lot because so much of what I use is just black.

But if you want something with fun colors, you know, I've heard people say that the pink is really good.

And the one that you're showing right there, which is the citrus color, which is sort of like citrus, lemony, limey sort of color.

Somebody said they call it citrus, but it's yellow.

It's it's a distinctive color that would not be for me.

But, hey, if you're trying to make a standout in the crowd, which some people want to have a standout like this person in the picture right here, it's definitely distinctive.

And they've got the other colors too.

They've got the one is like a bluer one and, of course, the silver if you don't want anything fancy.

But I think people are going to love this computer.

I think they're going to love using it.

They're going to love carrying it around.

It's going to do great.

And it's going to be great for the Apple ecosystem because it's the sort of thing that like you already have an iPhone.

Now, maybe instead of getting a Windows computer, you have a Mac computer.

Maybe that's all you have in your ecosystem.

I mean, I love the fact that you can get, we'll talk about in a second, but you can get the cheap new iPhone and the MacBook Neo together for the price of a normal laptop.

But this is going to bring so many people, especially younger people, into the ecosystem.

And you don't have to be young.

I mean, this could be for you if you don't need anything fancy for your laptop.

People are going to actually consider spaying, you know what, for $600, I may need a second laptop.

that I, you know, I've got my beefy one that I don't want to carry around because it's a little

big. And this is going to be the one that's smaller and lighter. They're just going to sell

on so many markets. We can't overlook the colors. I mean, you and I are boring, you know,

space gray nerds when it comes to this. But these colors, Jeff, I mean, they call this blush,

which is pink, basically. Yeah, this is citrus, which is yellow, or kind of a, like you said,

maybe a little bit more on the lime spectrum.

And then you have indigo, which is basically like a deep blue.

These colors, I think, are going to be so appealing.

Like you said, it's going to be the best-selling MacBook.

And I think these colors, because my kids, they see something like this.

Of course you want something cute like this, right?

You want to make a statement that's different than the silver,

the line of silver laptops that you see all the time.

Now, you can get it in silver, but who's going to do that?

That's so boring.

coming back to the price quickly you know you mentioned you can get a new iphone and the

macbook neo for 1200 which is basically the starting price of like a macbook air or a macbook pro

but here's the other way i think about it this macbook neo starts at 599 the new iphone 17e that

we're going to talk about in a moment 599 the m4 ipad air that was just announced 599 so

It's almost like you can get a $599 MacBook that's running an A18 chip.

You can get a $599 iPhone 17e that's running an A19 chip, right?

I think they put the 19 in that one.

Or you can pay $599 and get the M4 iPad Air.

Now, of course, you get the iPad Air, you got to get a keyboard along with it if you want it to be more of a laptop-esque type of a deal.

But that is an interesting take from me is to see that all of these price points there, because then now you're thinking, well, which platform is going to make the most sense for what I need to do?

Now, that's something new. But at that price point, then you're kind of making looking at those different decisions.

And Apple historically has been, you know, a premium, nice product that you're going to pay more.

Right. That's what it has a reputation for. And they've been very proud about that.

And Apple has continued that in the monitor, which we're going to get to in a few minutes.

But but at least here for the things that matter that matter the most, you know, now computers, phones, you know, even the iPads.

Like you say, you can get nice products.

And don't get me wrong.

You're missing features by getting the entry level products.

And, you know, many people are going to want to move up for all sorts of different things that you get.

Yeah, that's a nice difference.

I mean, don't get me wrong.

The 13 inch, you know, is still a fantastic computer.

We'll talk about the new processors in a second.

But just for so many people, this is going to be, you know, this is sufficient.

This is what I need.

The price is right.

This is what I want.

It's a brand new computer.

It's a Mac.

It's quality.

It's great.

It's great.

We're referencing the list put together by Stephen Hackett at 512 pixels that people have referenced.

Of all of the, well, he calls them the technical differences between the MacBook Neo and the MacBook Air.

I call them the limitations of the MacBook Neo.

But at the end, I think you mentioned this too.

he even admits these are probably things that most people buy in the neo are not going to care about

too much right not um they're not going to care about the magsafe because you mentioned the usbc

ports that are on here only one of them is i mean first of all they're not even thunderbolt which

again you and i care about right but most people may not care about one of them is limited in

speeds yeah exactly like they may i don't even know if people would be plugging in an additional

But one of them doesn't support one type of monitor or something like that. So no Thunderbolt support there. Just 16 hours of battery life. Now, to me, that is a plus, right? They say there's 18 hours for the 13 inch. And I think that's just a matter of size, but 16 hours, it's probably plenty for the things, the type of things that people are going to be doing on the Neo, which is going to be mostly email, working on documents, surfing the web. You're not going to probably be editing a lot of videos and stuff, which is what you would be doing on the MacBook. Maybe the Air, definitely the Pro.

The screen isn't quite as good.

There is a 1080p webcam.

But let's just say on the screen, it's still way better than the Windows computer.

Oh, yes.

It's not even the same thing.

So, yes, it's not a premium screen, but it is.

People are not going to notice the difference.

So many people are going to be perfect.

They're going to think this is a great screen because you're going to look at it next to an HP, and you're going to be like, oh, wow, this looks great.

1080p webcam.

I'm thrilled that they put that in.

I would have bet money for 720, but this webcam doesn't support center stage, which I got to tell you.

I don't care.

In fact, I get annoyed with people when they have center stage on.

The camera starts moving around all the time.

There is good speakers on here.

They're on the side.

Dual mic system.

Here's one of the things I think to Stephen's point.

The 3.5 millimeter headphone jack does not have support for high impedance headphones.

If you have a MacBook Neo, do you even have high impedance headphones?

I don't know.

Maybe.

Anyway, it's just things like that.

This is a good list from Stephen Hackett.

If you wanted to know what you're not getting.

But again, it's almost like, do you care about any of these things?

No fast charging.

And the Apple on the lid isn't as shiny on the Neo.

But that's okay.

It's fine.

Yeah.

One of the things you mentioned from this list is the USB-C ports.

I mean, I think this is actually sort of interesting as a technical standpoint.

The iPhone, which is what this processor was made for, only has that one USB-C port at the bottom, right?

So when Apple designed this 18 Pro processor, they only had to support one USB-C port.

And so they did.

But having only a single USB-C port on a computer is limiting because you're going to use one

of them for your power, right?

And what if you want to plug in a peripheral?

So Apple was smartly realized, you know, we really need to have two USB-C ports on this

because there's no MagSafe port for charging.

But they, from a technical standpoint, because this processor was never made to support it,

they couldn't use, they couldn't do two USB-C ports that support the 3.0 standard.

And so, which is, you know, faster for data transfer, not as fast as Thunderbolt, but faster.

And so what they did and in the conversations that they had with the press this week,

they said it was a real technological challenge to even figure out a way to get a second one in there in the first place.

But they had to make that second one only 2.0, which is like the old version of USB.

So it's a very slow, relatively slow transfer speed.

But you know what, Brett?

I mean, for most people, if you're just doing power, if you're just like you plug it in a printer so you can print something out.

I mean, nobody cares when you print out your document.

It doesn't matter if it's 2.0 or 3.0.

It's going to print the same speed.

For most people, I mean, that's the sort of thing that it's, you know, power users are going to want to have super fast ports.

They're going to want the Thunderbolt ports, not just 3.0 or 2.0.

But for, you know, they managed to overcome the technical limitations of this cheaper but still incredibly powerful processor and yet come up with the two ports.

So, impressive.

Yeah, that's really good.

What else?

Oh, I was just going to point out one of the, I guess it was more of a rumor, but it was

a hopeful rumor that if Apple was going to announce a brand new Mac or MacBook, that there

was going to be a touchscreen involved.

That did not happen.

I haven't seen a lot of people talk about this, but.

Makes no sense on an entry-level budget product like this.

I mean, that would be a high-end feature first, I'm sure.

Right, right.

Right. So that would have been something like a MacBook Pro. Anyway, I would just I saw some people speculating about that a few weeks ago. And I was just like, well, that would be interesting to see. Because a lot of people, in fact, it's funny, because when my wife does that scenario that I was talking about before that she just needs to use my laptop once a month, you know, for something specific. What do you think she does when she opens up my MacBook?

She starts touching the screen because she interacts with her iPad.

And it's like, if you could give something, in fact, I was at a conference a couple of weeks ago.

And sure enough, somebody had, I think there was an HP laptop that they had, a Windows laptop.

And they were both using the trackpad and the keyboard and they were touching the screen.

Like it is out there, right?

That is something that is out there and people will use it in that way.

But that's not something that Apple wanted to announce this time.

One last thing before we move on from this topic is I just think it's worth spending just 30 seconds talking about the name.

Before this week, I thought, because there was the rumors that there was going to be an entry-level product, right?

I assumed that they would just call it MacBook, period.

Right.

But instead, they came up with a new name, which is Neo, which, you know, everybody has the picture of the character Neo from the Matrix.

But I think, you know, this is just marketing, but I actually give them a thumbs up on this.

And the reason for that is by using a new name and by using the name Neo, which sort of sounds like new or neon or those sorts of things, it gives the impression that, hey, pay attention.

This is something different.

And I think it's deserved.

I think because of the incredible price point, because of what they've done in this thing, because of the processor, I do think that this is a different type.

I think it deserves a new name.

And I think from a marketing standpoint, it's going to attract people because they're like, this is something new.

So I think, I mean, this is why Apple is a marketing company and I am just a lowly attorney.

And I don't, you know, I think whoever made that decision of let's come up with a new name and let's choose this one.

I think Neo is a great one.

I think that that's going to actually help.

I think it's going to help sales.

I think it's going to help people's perception of the product.

I just think it's a good idea.

So, you know, you don't want to be willy nilly and come up with new names every time you turn around.

But this one deserved it.

And I say, thumbs up, Apple.

Good job.

One last thing quickly I want to return to, because I just thought about this.

You barely mentioned this, and I know that they feature it on here.

And in the video for the MacBook Neo, they featured it.

Most people that are doing this, for example, even my kids, they have iPhones.

And if you want a less expensive laptop to go with that, typically you've been going towards a window computer.

But that means you don't get to enjoy the continuity features with an iPhone and a Mac.

And I got to tell you, I use that every single day.

And I know in the video for the MacBook Neo, Jeff, they had to where people would copy something just like I'm showing on the screen right here on the iPhone.

You hit you copy a picture, you copy some text.

And immediately that is available now to paste into a document on your MacBook Neo.

So from a school perspective that I mean, the fact that Apple featured that is excellent.

The fact that I use it all the time because I have a MacBook Pro, and when I see somebody with a Windows computer and an iPhone, you don't get any of that, right?

And the fact that you could be utilizing that component and that it works together, I predict that that's going to be a bigger thing.

And some people have been talking about it, but just having that capability to access the continuity features is huge too.

I wish I had that just yesterday.

I mean, literally yesterday afternoon, I was working, typing something on my computer.

I'm looking at my iPad screen where I had like a contract.

I was copying a clause from a contract.

I wanted to paste it into a Word document computer.

And I'm like, I can't just copy and paste.

I had to like copy it, email it to myself.

How backwards is that?

Wait for the email to show up in my same account

and then copy it from the email.

I'm like, this would be so much easier with the Mac.

I could just copy it and paste it.

So I agree.

Okay, one last, last thing, I promise.

Because this MacBook Neo was announced at a live event, right?

most of the people that we know, the journalists that we follow in the U.S. were in New York.

And I think even maybe it was M.G.

Siegler here or or John Gruber was talking about like there was a few hundred journalists

or a couple of hundred people that were in the room.

Right.

And at the end of this article from M.G.

Siegler, he pointed something out that it wasn't Tim Cook on the stage in this live

presentation.

It was John Ternus.

And he just has this last little paragraph where M.G.

is talking about is this sort of you know maybe the beginning of the switch you and i've talked

about this several times yeah that john turnus could be in the wings right for the next leader

of apple sounds like that like he was out there presenting a brand new product for apple and john

turnus and tim cook was nowhere i mean i don't think he was even in new york i don't know he

definitely wasn't on stage just thought that that was an interesting uh perspective there too

let's move on i know we talked i knew we were going to spend a lot of time on the neo we won't

spend a lot of time on these others um new studio displays now you have a studio display correct

jeff you've had it for a couple years because you paired it with your mac mini so how interested

were you in seeing these new studio displays from apple i am so impressed that apple had so many

engineers figuring out how to make this MacBook Neo so inexpensive. And all of those price

conscious employees had nothing to do with the studio display. Because this thing is, I am surprised

at this product to say the least. I like my studio display. It is a beautiful display. It looks very

nice. I'm very happy with it. Even at the time that I bought it for $1,600, I knew that I could

a cheaper display from other companies, but it wouldn't have been as nice. It would have had some

compromises. And I'm like, you know what? I'm going to pay a couple hundred dollars more. I'm

going to enjoy this one forever. And I'm going to love my studio display. And I do love my

studio display. Don't get me wrong. It's a beautiful thing. But when I have my computer

next to my Mac, I'm sorry, when my computer next to my iPad Pro, I cannot help but notice that when

I'm looking at, for example, a picture that I took with my iPhone, that picture looks beautiful

full on my iPad Pro because of all of the nits. It's such a bright screen because of the HDR,

because, you know, it looks so rich and lifelike. It's fantastic. And when I look at that same

picture on my studio display screen, it looks really good, but it doesn't look as good.

But not as good. Wow.

Yeah, yeah. Because the studio display only goes under 600 nits. It, you know, it doesn't have that

same, you know, HDR, you know, type of brightness. It's just not quite as good. It doesn't have the

refresh rate for video, you know, when moving around, it's 60 Hertz versus 120 Hertz. Whereas

my iPad's pro screen is so smooth with 120 Hertz. Um, once you've used 120 Hertz, when you go back

to 60 Hertz, it's like, Oh wow, I can really notice this. Um, I got months ago when I was

talking to you because I was using that iPad mini for so long. Yes. The iPad mini screen was small,

but like going back to that, that, that 60 Hertz screen, I'm like, it just hurts my eyes a little

bit. So, um, the studio is not the bad, but again, don't get me wrong. I love my studio display. I'm

that for people that are brand new people, if like today's the day I'm going to buy my first

Mac mini and I need to have a good monitor with it. I just assumed that the new version of the

studio display would, first of all, I assumed that it would have 120 Hertz or it would have more

minutes or, and one of those sorts of things. No, it's all exactly the same as what I have.

And my second assumption would have been, okay, well, that's fine. If you're going to keep all

those things the same, well, then how about instead of selling it for 1600 bucks, you become more

price competitive and sell it for a thousand dollars or twelve hundred dollars something like

that and apple said nope nope we're happy to keep on charging the same price for it now it's not like

they made no changes they did make some very minor changes they um i mean the biggest one is the

webcam because the webcam on the studio display has always been just sort of whatever um whenever

i need to use my mac to do a video conference i just use an external camera because it's so much

better and and you can buy those for so cheap so i don't even use the built-in one unless i have

in a pinch, but like, I just get better quality with an external camera. And so now it's got a

better camera. So if that matters to you, I guess that's nice. And then it's, it's got some updates

to the port, you know, Thunderbolt five and some things in the ports, and it's got a slightly

better speaker system. I really don't use, I mean, I do listen to things, but I don't, it's not like

I watch movies on my studio display or something like that. So, I mean, don't get me wrong. Those

are all nice little upgrades. And so if you're on the market, it's better today than it was yesterday,

which is great. But I certainly have no, I mean, I probably wouldn't have upgraded anyway,

but I certainly have no desire to upgrade. I'm just surprised. I really thought that the screen

would be nicer or the screen would be the same and they would make it cheaper and they didn't do that.

So, you know, whatever, this is, this is more of the Apple, like we were just talking about a few

minutes ago that people assume it's a nice product. It's a premium product, but you're paying more

than you would pay for something from another manufacturer, just because it's going to be nicer,

Even though if you just compare technical specs, you're like, well, why am I paying an extra $400 or $500 for this?

So I will say that about it.

But, you know, whatever, it is what it is.

There's a better screen option that you can get now.

So what Apple used to do is many, many years ago, they had their XDR display, which was, you know, which was 32 inches instead of 27 inches.

And it was like the very best of the best in terms of HDR and everything else.

So Apple is no longer selling that.

In fact, they're no longer selling a 32-inch monitor at all.

What they did is they took that XDR name and they now have a new product called the Studio Display XDR, which is 27 inches.

So it's the same size as the Studio Display that I have.

It just has some of this technology that I thought that we would get, like the 120 hertz and the HDR.

This is the beautiful screen that is a corollary to my beautiful iPad Pro screen.

Okay.

So I could get that beautiful iPad scroll screen on a 27-inch screen, but it would cost me $3,300.

And $3,300 is a lot of money.

But it used to cost you $5,000.

Yeah, but it used to be a bigger screen for $5,000.

I would argue too big.

I mean, a 32-inch screen for me, that's just crazy pants.

That's to me.

You'd have to like – how many times do you have to move your hand to get your cursor from one end of the screen to the other?

But if you wanted the big screen, if you were like a movie producer, maybe you do want that big screen.

Right.

So, I mean, I do think that this is, you know, again, this is the typical Apple thing.

If you ignore the price, oh my God, this is the best monitor ever, right?

This is so nice.

In fact, it's so good that scroll down a little bit what you were just showing in that screen

before, Brett.

One of the things that this screen is so good for a little bit more until you get to those

images that this is actually certified that if you are, what is it?

Like certain types of doctors that need to have, I'm looking at radiologists, radiologists

that you have to have like a incredibly super high quality display so that you can interpret

the results of the radiology and stuff like that.

Right.

Typically they will spend 10 to $20,000 or five to $10,000 in those displays.

And Apple is saying, you know what, this actually, this XDR is actually good enough for that.

So if I'm a radiologist and I have my own radiologist practice, instead of spending

$10,000, I can now spend $3,300.

So that is the one person in the world for whom this is a bargain.

But for everybody else, this is just, it's the nicest display.

I mean, this thing is beautiful.

And you know, Hey, if you find some extra money under your couch cushions and you like,

you know what, I'm going to have this display for the next 10 years.

And I want something that, because I'm going to probably have multiple computers with it,

you know, and if you can splurge and get it, I say good for you, because this display is

going to be beautiful.

This is the display that I lust after.

Don't get me wrong.

It would be wonderful to have it at home, but do I need it?

Do the pictures of my kids from their birthday party need to be that good on a huge screen?

I mean, whatever.

But I mean, this is a beautiful display.

And if you can afford to pay for it, it's just like capacity.

If you can get a new Mac Mini and you can pay the ridiculous price for like eight terabytes of storage in the internal SSD, you're going to love it.

But you're going to pay through the nose for it.

And so if you can stomach the price, the Studio Display XDR is amazing, but it's a pretty penny at $3,300.

Walking down the products, we did the MacBook Neo.

We've got the updated Studio Display, the new Studio Display XDR.

We're going to skip now and go to the iPad, but we're going to talk about there were two others.

Number four and three were the MacBook Pro with an M5 and the MacBook Air with an M5.

So those were just some minor bumps, I think, on the processor side.

I don't know.

Was there anything else new in those?

No, but I will say this.

I mean, we had the M5 processor in the past.

Now we have the M5 Pro and the M5 Max.

They are, I mean, like you say, they're speed bumps.

That's right.

But they're actually really good speed bumps because sometimes when Apple does those,

when Apple moves from processor family to the next generation processor family,

some improvements are more impressive than others.

And from the initial tests,

and these are just getting people's hands.

So don't get me wrong.

We're going to have a lot more testing coming out

in the next week or two,

but the initial tests are like,

this one's actually like a really good bump.

Like this is a, this is an impressive.

So if you're the type of person,

and again, I really think you have to be

like a video professional

or someone that's doing AI with a computer.

But like if, if, if having the best on the,

you know, the newest processor really matters to you,

these are very impressive.

And I'm not going to do it justice to describe it,

but I've read enough to know that there's a reason it's better.

It's not just that it's newer.

So the new thing is always better,

but like Apple is like,

they're fusing together different chips to take advantage,

to perform, you know,

they're getting like next level performance so much so that they had to come

up with a new marketing name.

And it used to be that they would say that their chips have an efficiency

core and a performance core.

Now they're saying they have a performance core.

And I think it's called a super core or something like that.

So it's even new names, which I know names are just marketing,

but it's this,

If you really need that incredibly powerful MacBook Pro, you're going to be really happy

because the M5 Pro and especially the M5 Max, they're going to be super impressive.

Now, again, if you just want to do the single, you know, not the multi-core processing, but

the single core processing, well, then, you know, they're still going to be nicer, but

it's not as impressive.

But for some people, this is right.

So again, you're right.

It is just a speed bump.

But I will say that the people that care about speed bumps, they're happier this year than

our typical year.

can i also point out that in doing this i think you correct me if i'm wrong apple raised the price

just a little bit for the macbook pro and the macbook air i want to say the arrow was like

i think the air is a hundred dollars more yeah and then i think the macbook pro starts at maybe

four hundred dollars more i actually think it might stay the same but anyway i think the macbook pro

stays okay the macbook air is more expensive but i just pointed out like maybe the price point for

the Neo is a little bit more attractive because they raised the price a little bit for the MacBook

Air, the MacBook Pro. I mean, now to be fair, those prices, I don't think have really changed

very much over the last several, when I've been purchasing my laptops, when I would have to say

it's been pretty fair. So to me, just having a little bit of an extra bump isn't that bad,

isn't that bad of news. And in fact, since we're talking about prices, we should talk about the

elephant in the room. The market has been talking about for the last, you know, how many months

that memory prices are so much more expensive. The price of RAM has gone up substantially.

And so many people going into this week were saying that because memory is more expensive,

Apple is going to have to raise prices across the board because memory is more expensive.

And when you, you know how you configure a Mac and you say, I want to go from like 16 to 32 gigs,

and stuff like that. People assumed that those upgrades in memory would become more expensive

this year than they were last year because of the memory prices. And you know what? They're not.

They're not. And how did Apple do something that nobody else in the industry can do?

And the answer to that is, number one, Apple enters into these very, very long-term contracts.

They go into the people that make memory and they say, we're going to buy all your memory

for the next two years.

And this is what we're going to pay.

And last year, for many years now,

Apple memory has been a little bit more expensive

than you could get on the open market.

But because of that, I feel like Apple has the buffer

that this year, when everybody else is paying more for memory,

Apple can continue at the same price.

So it's sort of like people that use these things

for utility service.

You're going to pay the energy company

a more steady price month to month.

And even though some months you use more energy

and some months you use less, it's a similar thing.

there are some years that Apple memory seems expensive compared to its competitors.

But this year it's like, oh, wow, they're not changing their prices,

even though everybody else is charging more. That's impressive. So.

Let's move to the iPad Air. So the iPad Air, which has been around for a while, got a bump for the M4 processor.

And as you, I think, point out nicely in the review that you wrote this week, the iPad Air fits nicely.

right in the middle of what people would probably,

well, specifically you're writing about

why lawyers will love the new iPad Air,

but I think your rundown here

can apply to just about anybody.

Yeah, here's the thing.

Just in terms of year-to-year changes,

I do think it's fair to say this is just a speed bump, right?

They went from the M3 to the M4.

The M4 is gonna be a little bit better

on a whole bunch of tasks, blah, blah, blah.

The point of my review,

the point of my interpretation of this

is let's not necessarily focus on the year-to-year change

because most people are getting an iPad.

The most people that I talk to are not getting an iPad

because, hey, there's something new out

and I want the latest and greatest.

I'm one of those people, right?

I think most people are just like,

I've had an iPad for a long time and it's getting old

and now I need to upgrade, right?

Or I've never had an iPad and I want to start.

And so where do I go?

And so this is sort of where they come from.

And I just want to use this as an opportunity

to sing the praises of number one, the iPad in general,

And number two, the iPad Air, because you talked about before when we were talking about the MacBook Neo, that you said that your wife uses an iPad as her computer, basically.

But there are some things that you need a computer for.

And I do agree with that.

There are some small tasks that it's easier to get them done on a computer.

I do that all the time.

But I actually feel that the iPad as a product, which has been around for, you know, almost 16 years now, is just so fantastic.

Let's not use that.

If you want a really nice screen just to hold in your hands and watch a movie, the iPad

is fantastic.

That's true.

If you want a screen that you can interact with, but that you can touch, the iPad is

fantastic.

If you want to attach an external keyboard and use it like type messages and type documents

that could use your computer, the iPad is fantastic.

If you want no keyboard at all, but you just want something to sit there and read your documents

and use an Apple Pencil and I can annotate my briefs and highlight cases I download and things

like that, it's fantastic. If I want to work with pictures and I want to edit them, I was doing some

of this earlier this week. I had some old pictures that I scanned and I want to sort of, you know,

you get scans, you got little dust and scratch and stuff like that. I don't want to do that in

my computer with a mouse. I want to do it with my finger or with my stylus and I want to hold it in

my hand. It's fantastic. The iPad is that jack of all trades that is in my mind so much more

versatile than a laptop computer. Yes, there are some specific things that a computer is better

for, but the computer can't do any of those things that I just told you about, whereas the iPad can

do all of them. So the iPad is so wonderful. And again, for most attorneys and other professionals,

you know, it's not like you're just using an iPad. You're going to have your laptop,

whether it's a Windows laptop like I have or a Mac laptop. But the iPad is that that that thing

that goes with it that is just so fantastic and so useful. And so I just can't help but saying the

praises. And so if you, if you, if you agree with me and you're like, yes, you're right, Jeff,

I need to buy my first iPad or I need to upgrade my old iPad. Then you get to, well, what should I

get? They have the low end iPad, which Apple doesn't update this, this, this week. And I,

and I rarely recommend it anyway. Cause it's got a lot of limitations to it. Although it's perfect

for, you know, little kids, stuff like that. And, and, you know, your grandmother, but, um,

and then there's the iPad pro, which I love and you love, which is so fantastic because it's the

best possible. And because I'm such an iPad user, I want that premium product. You know, I don't

paying more for, you know, the Lexus, the BMW, use whatever car analogies you want.

But then there's that happy middle and the iPad Air just sits right there in the middle.

It is, it is everything that you really need.

Yes, the screen's going to be better on the pro, but it's still perfectly fine screen.

It's nice.

And, and, you know, we, when we were talking about that MacBook Neo, we're like, you know,

for a lot of people, that's going to be enough.

And yet it's still a low end product, but the iPad Air, it's not that low end product.

It's, it's right there in the happy middle.

It's, it's, it's the three little bears.

It's not too hot.

It's not too cold.

It's the just right porridge.

This is that fantastic product.

And so I love the iPad Air.

It's the one that I consistently recommend to attorneys.

You know, frankly, any attorney that's going to come to me and ask for advice and they do it all the time.

I'm going to tell them iPad Air, because if you were enough of a power user to know that you needed an iPad Pro, you wouldn't be asking me because you wouldn't become a doctor.

Yeah, you would already know that that's what you want.

But by definition, if you don't know what you want, you want the iPad Air.

And you have choices now, right?

I mean, this has been true for a couple of years now.

You can get the 11 inch, which is the additional size, or you can get the 13 inch, which I like

better because it's for looking at documents and screens and stuff like that.

But whichever, but it's also bigger.

So whichever one you like more, I just love.

So this is my solidically to the iPad Air.

I love it.

I'm glad that Apple updates it.

I hope they continue to update it every single year.

So it's a little bit better than it was before.

But this is a great iPad and it gets you into that iPad world that is so wonderful that you

You can do so many versatile things, whether you're using it as a screen, as a touchscreen, as something that you type with, as something that you write with it, for all of the millions of things as an external monitor for your computer.

You know, it's so nice for that.

You can have your computer here, but you don't have a second display.

But I'm going to use my iPad right next to my computer as a second display and move things back and forth.

There are so many things it can do.

I love it.

Yeah.

So, as you said, like I've put up the Apple page here for iPad.

So, the iPad Pro sits at the top.

starts at $999. Although I think I bumped mine up to probably started about 1200 with the iPad Pro

with the M5. And then there's the iPad Air starts at $599. Just like we said, with the new M4,

that's going to be in there. You can pre-order that now. And then just, just to wrap that up,

the iPad, nothing, or just the iPad alone starts at $349. That is not what you would probably

recommend for a professional right that's more educational from yeah okay and i thought apple

was going to update that this week they actually didn't touch it this week so maybe they'll do so

in the next couple of months but it's an even less attractive product now since the ipad air just got

a bump and the ipad did not yeah yeah yeah okay and then there is the ipad mini still we won't talk

too much about that but that did just get a slight uh bump which surprisingly to me uh not too long

ago but interesting that's a good segue though to the announcement that started it all off this week

on Monday the iPhone 17e was announced now I thought you did a very good job of predicting

this last Friday Jeff and I think pretty much everything you said came true you wrote about it

a little bit at the bottom of this post on the new iPad Air and a lot of other people wrote about it

as well. It's good entry level, basic model 17E, which I think got Mac safe and a couple of other

things too, which is nice. My favorite analysis of the iPhone 17E was there's a podcast I listened

to. I know you sometimes listen to as well called Mac break weekly. And one of their panelists is

Andy and not co Andy and not co, you know, we always sort of wonder like, what does the,

what does the E stand for? What does the S you know, what is letter? He says in my mind,

Andy says the iPhone 17 E stands for enough, you know, and that, I think that's, that's,

that sums it up perfectly. This is the iPhone that has enough. It's got enough, you know?

Yes. It's not everything else. It's, it's, it's very similar to what we said on the,

on the MacBook Neo, but you know, this has enough and enough doesn't mean crappy because the iPhone

17, you know, it's just the same processor as iPhone 17 and 17 E it is, this is a brand new

ipad and a brand new iphone it's it's got a lot of the bells and whistles it doesn't have all the

bells and whistles so it doesn't have you know the multiple cameras and stuff like that but like one

of the things that people didn't like about the 16e is that it lacked that magsafe support which

you and i love so much because you can stick there on your i'm looking at mine right now we talked

about this when we record i can see my phone it's charging i can see the time i can see the temperature

i can see the date you know it's so nice to have that standby mode um and and if you're charging

You're going to go.

Mac safe is nice.

It used to be that you didn't have that in the entry level 16E.

Now you have it.

Okay.

So now you have it.

In fact, Chance Miller, as you're showing here, says that was that solves the iPhone 16E's

biggest problem.

This is, you know, it's not quite as bright as a screening as the other ones.

Like I said, it's only got the one camera on it.

So, you know, it's not going to be the best.

It doesn't have the best selfies.

One of the features that the new iPhones have, you know, is I can hold my camera like this

in portrait mode, but it can actually take a landscape picture. So if my friends come in with

me, I don't take a lot of selfie pictures, but when I do take a selfie picture, the new selfie

features on the, on the new 17, 17 pro, all that 17 air are all really nice. You don't get that on

the 17 eight. It's just the old style. You know, if, if you want landscape, you got to turn your

hand and things like that. But, but again, it is, it is enough. And if you just want that basic

enough phone. It's now the cheapest one that you can buy. It's really great. It basically comes in

what, black and white. It's got that one color, which is a pink. In fact, if you love pink items,

you can get a pink MacBook Pro Neo. I'm sorry, a pink MacBook Neo for $600.

Blush. That would be blush. That would be blush. And you can get the pink 17E,

and they're going to look very nice together, and you're going to be very pretty in pink,

and it's going to be fantastic, and they're going to work together.

And you have paid – you've got two products for the price of one.

So it's nice that they have the 17E.

This is – again, last year, 16E was a nice entry-level phone.

This year, pound for pound, the 17E is actually a better – not just better year over year

because, of course, they're always better year over year, but it's a better value this year,

and it's a nice phone.

You're not going to get all the extra features, but if you just want something basic

or if a friend comes to you and say,

I'm using an iPhone 10 or an iPhone 12,

or I'm using something really old.

It doesn't work.

The battery life's horrible.

Great upgrade.

I need to get something new,

but I don't need anything fancy.

I'm not taking tons of crazy pictures

or anything like that.

I just need a decent iPhone.

Get the 17D.

I'll be perfectly happy.

It's enough.

Honestly, it's enough.

Like when you're talking, it's enough.

I'm thinking maybe a kid going out of grade school,

maybe just going into junior high or something.

I mean, that is a great base level, fully operational setup there with an iPhone 17e and a MacBook Neo match the pretty in pink colors.

I mean, that will be that's a powerful combination.

They're really, really good stuff there.

Yeah.

How about all the other news?

OK, we'll go through this pretty quick, but there are a few other things we wanted to just mention, either because they are helpful, such as this update or fun.

Apple releases iOS 26.3.1.

We just talked about 26.3, I feel like, but a 0.1 update was released.

Again, it goes very quick.

I just did my phone this morning here.

I think with just a couple of new features, I think we talked about this with that transfer

feature there, right?

You can transfer from an iPhone to an Android system.

Again, it blows my mind that Apple would kind of make that a little bit easier because they're

people switching to them, but I am happy that Apple at least puts that in. There's a couple of other

small bug fixes and improvements too. Yeah. Those were all improvements to 26.3,

which itself was not a lot. And 26.3.1, it's just some minor bug fixes, some compatibility for some

of these new products they announced today, like the new displays and stuff like that. So it's just

a minor upgrade, you know, but you know, it's all, I'm sure it's got some security stuff in there.

So get around to it when you can, you know, don't, don't put it off forever. Cause we always say

you should keep your iPhone updated, but this is just a minor little update, but worth mentioning

that folks might see it. So don't, don't be looking for anything major here. It's just a

tiny little update. If you plan to fly United airlines, make sure you've got your headphones

with you. I've been seeing a bunch of headlines about this and I just want to hug the United

airlines executives, Jeff, this is fantastic. They've actually put this requirement now into

there i think it's like the flight carriage rules you know nobody that nobody reads but you basically

sign on to them every time that you buy a ticket united airlines policy now says if you are going

to listen to something in the plane you must use headphones or they could kick you off the plane

i mean what can you i mean this is such just simple you know beautiful polite politeness and

stuff like that i mean it's it's a shame for general society but i i do like it that now

when someone's being obnoxious on a plane

and if a flight attendant goes and talks to them,

they can actually say,

you're actually violating the rules for us

and you need to check that

because let's not be obnoxious people around you.

I mean, I wish we had that new,

I wish United was also running the elevators in my building

because sometimes in the elevator,

someone walks in there.

I mean, I'm here on the 46th floor,

so I got a little bit of a ride, right?

And there'll be somebody in the elevator

and they're continuing to watch their YouTube video

like with the speaker on.

I'm like, seriously?

Like, seriously, there's other people in here.

I mean, you're so much more important than the rest of us

that we all have to listen to your video.

I think it needs to go to the bathrooms as well, Jeff.

How many times have we walked into a men's room

and somebody's sitting in the stall?

I know this is TMI, but goodness gracious, people, okay?

Like, I'm at the point now where if I hear that

or somebody's even talking on the phone on a speakerphone,

I just go over and stand next to me like,

hey, what are we watching?

Or I start to get into the conversation

because it is just so rude.

So the other thing quickly I wanted to point out here

is I think one of the reasons United is doing this,

other than just for basic societal happiness here,

is they have been rolling out Starlink on their planes.

And I've flown United for a couple of flights

that have had access to that Starlink, Jeff.

And I got to tell you, it's fantastic.

It truly is fantastic.

I've been looking forward to this,

and it's not on every flight.

So on the plane, I always check before I jump on.

Because once you get on, I log in with you.

You have to log in with your, in this case,

it's the Mileage Plus account.

You got to have an account.

But it's free and it's completely extreme stuff.

I've been watching YouTube on there.

It's great.

You know, I don't do any Zoom calls, but it really has been working out fantastic.

And that is one of the reasons because because you can stream YouTube.

You know, the other side of this is kids, right?

To keep the kids happy on the plane.

A lot of times, you know, the parents just give them an iPhone or an iPad and they're watching, you know, Bluey or whatever that they're that they're watching.

And it's out loud.

But have the kids use a headphones.

It's like, we don't all need to listen to that.

And it's just great that they're going to push that.

Okay.

So you can tell I'm pretty happy about this, this aspect.

Speaking of listening to things, my goodness, I got to dig out my own iPods because they

might be worth something these days, Jeff.

I feel like I could have predicted that at some point the iPods, the iPods, not iPhones,

the iPods could come back around to be a popular again.

I mean, you know, it's just like my kids are like, hey, mom and dad, do you have any of those old clothes you used to wear in the 90s that, you know, were so cool?

They're coming back around again, right?

And so the idea that this story I found in the New York Times and I found another story today, I think on Dirt, where the kids today are going and buying iPods and listening to music there for several reasons.

Number one, because they can disconnect.

And number two, what I've run into, sometimes a streaming service like Spotify or Apple Music, they'll have an album and then they take it away.

And you can't listen to it anymore unless you have the old CD that you've ripped and put on your iPod.

It's just so funny reading this article about the kids saying things like, oh, it's so cool.

Like you rip an album and you put the album on the iPad.

I'm like, yeah, that's how we used to do it.

We've been there.

We know that.

We've been there, done that.

But it is fun.

I mean, there's something to it.

mean, it's just a music device. And so it's not going to be distracted by your, by your, it's not

being interrupted by your text messages and beeping every time you get a Snapchat or whatever else

that the kids are doing today. But, um, so I mean, it's, it's funny that, that, you know,

everything old is new again. And the iPod is now once again, having a bit of a resurgence.

I personally haven't seen one in real life, but that's probably because I am not hanging out in

the areas where these teenagers that are interviewed in this New York times article

are hanging out and, um, and they're happy. Um, you know, I remember years ago, I, I was,

I pulled out my old iPod with the video screen because I was connecting it to a Bluetooth device and it ended up dying.

And even though I never used it anymore, I was sort of sad because it's like that was my iPod.

I really loved it for so long.

But I had the one that had like, you know, the hard drive and stuff like that.

If you've got the ones, I'm forgetting the names, the nanos and stuff like that.

Solid state drives, you know, that those things are probably, I mean, it's interesting that something that was done, what, 20, 25 years ago is still working today and people are still loving it.

So it's fun.

I remember that skit on Saturday Night Live a long time ago.

Somebody was impersonating Steve Jobs.

You know what I'm talking about, right?

It's like they had the nano and then he's like the pequeno and I forget the micro.

And he pulled out and he held it up to the camera like that.

Like you can't even see it and it holds a thousand songs.

It's great.

You know, the other thing quickly, I love this in this New York Times story.

There's a picture of one of these young ladies, students with a stack of CDs because she's ripping them.

And I noticed down here, just because I'm a nerd about this, she's got an Apple Watch on.

So I just, I hope somebody tells you like, you can't connect that Apple Watch to your iPod.

It doesn't work because, you know, when I'm out walking, even if I have my iPhone with me, I will control my music from my Apple Watch.

Like I love that both in the Apple Music or Spotify, I can control the music on my Apple Watch.

And I just hope that, you know, she understands, hey, these can't connect.

There's no Bluetooth in an iPod.

It ain't going to work on that.

A few months ago, my father unfortunately passed away, which was very sad.

But when we had the funeral service, we wanted to play a song that he wanted to have played at the service.

And the funeral director said, well, okay, well, you can bring it to me on a CD.

And I'm like, okay, a CD.

Interesting.

And so I had to go purchase the song for like a dollar from the iTunes music store, whatever it's called nowadays.

And then I had to burn that song on a CD.

And I have much like in this picture here, this person's holding a stack of empty CDs.

I still have some some empty CDRs in my house.

The last time I've burned a CD, I mean, I don't even want to know what the Nixon administration.

It's been a long time. Right. And so like I had to like, how do I do this?

And I had to find my old CD burner to pull it out and stuff.

And I mean, I did it. It was fine. I burned the CD and I gave it to her and the funeral director was able to play it.

But it's like and so it had been a very long time since I burned a CD.

And I suspect it will be a very long time again before I have to burn one again.

Okay, so now I have to ask because you did this on your Mac Mini, right?

I did this on my Mac Mini.

The iTunes software isn't on the Mac anymore.

It's all built into the Finder.

Yeah, I say that.

I mean, whatever.

You can still buy music.

I guess it's still through the Apple Music app.

But you can purchase a song.

But that's important because, you know, in Apple, I mean, I subscribe to Apple Music.

But you can't burn songs that you have a subscription to your Apple Music.

You have to, quote, unquote, own the songs.

And that's true for a number of things. I mean, there have been times where I have made like a video and Apple will say, like, if you want to be able to to to render this video so that you can share with friends and family, you can't embed music from Apple Music or Spotify.

You have to embed something that you own. And that's been fine because you can buy songs for about a dollar, sometimes a dollar twenty nine.

And so I'll say, like, that's fine. I mean, I'm happy to spend a dollar to get like what I think is the great soundtrack for this. And I purchase it. And then once I own it, then I can use it as the backdrop to my video and stuff like that. So, you know, I do purchase songs very occasionally. Do I do I purchase more than one one a calendar year? Probably not. Maybe it's one every two years, but I do do it occasionally. So purchasing songs was something that I knew you could still do. But reminding myself how to burn a CD that I had to think about that one. That was interesting.

But it still works.

I mean, you know, once you plug in an external CD burner drive, you find one.

Right. It still works.

The Mac still knows how to do that.

The last thing quickly, I just realized in this story, I made the comment that iPods don't have Bluetooth, which means they're not going to work with your AirPods.

Like every picture in here.

Yes.

Yeah.

Unless you plug in one of those Airfly.

Yeah, that's true.

But otherwise, you're right.

But I mean, I think 99% of the teens that are using these are just plugging in the old school devices.

And there might be something they probably think it's cool to have like the white earbuds coming out, you know, the white.

Absolutely. This is old school now.

Because it's like, you know, those profiles, right?

Like that, that amazing, you know, advertising campaign that Apple had with like the profiles.

But they all had wires, right? Going to the ears.

Oh, man. Everything old is new again.

In the know, since we're talking about music, I wanted to provide an Apple music tip.

And something that now I probably remember, we may have mentioned this when it came out,

because I think it's been out for a few years now.

But it was amazing to go back and find Music Haptics.

And I love this little video here.

This is a rapper by the name of Kiddo K, I think, who apparently is hard of hearing.

And so he has this little video where he explains this music haptics feature, which basically means, as you all know, the iPhone can vibrate.

Like if you get a phone call, you can have it vibrate in addition to a ringtone, right?

Or maybe just do the vibration so that you feel that somebody's doing it.

Or if you get a notification, the iPhone can have a haptic and, you know, give you a little bit notification.

I did not know that they built in music haptics that you can turn on on the iPhone.

It's an accessibility feature in your settings.

And then as you play certain pieces of music, certain songs, not every song will do this,

but there are certain songs in Apple Music that come with haptics.

And you can either elect to put a full mix haptic on so that it's not just the vocals,

but it's the rhythm and the beat.

And the iPhone will vibrate along with that rhythm and the beat.

You can also turn on, there's a vocals only so that you can play haptics just for the vocals or vocal-like melodies, which is a little weird and odd.

Thankfully, I'm not hard of hearing.

I don't have any issues there.

So I don't think I fully understand how powerful that this can be for somebody that can just hold an iPhone.

Maybe they hear some of the music or some frequencies of a music, but then they can hear the rhythm and the beat or they can feel it as well as hear whatever they did they can hear.

That's just amazing.

And it's a feature that's hidden.

Again, you have to go into your settings,

go to accessibility,

and you have to turn on music haptics.

And they even now have an option

so where you can do light intensity,

medium, or strong haptic feedback.

And it's pretty amazing to listen to a song that I know

and have almost like a tactile feedback

along with the actual sounds.

So if you've never looked at this, it's just something kind of interesting and fun to do.

There's a little extra button that comes in when you're playing the song in Apple Music that has the haptics feedback.

And you can pause the haptics and then you can, you know, elect to turn it back on again.

But again, it's not available for all the songs you have to go in.

But here's a link.

I'll make sure it's in the show notes here that if you go here, Apple Music has put together some playlists with songs that actually have the haptics involved.

And so if you wanted to test this out, this would be the best place to go.

I didn't know about the playlist.

I have to check because I've never I knew this feature is available and I never tried it.

But if they've got some specific playlists that are well designed to show it off, I have to check that out.

That'd be something fun to do.

Thanks.

Worth doing.

Very cool.

OK, so I have another Apple Music tip and it has to do with transitions between songs.

So, you know how sometimes, you know, you might be, you know, listening to the radio back in the day.

You'd have a song sort of transition from one song to another.

one would fade out and the other one would fade in. Or sometimes if you're in a venue,

they may actually have a real DJ right there in the room that is transitioning between songs.

And so for a long time, the iPhone has had the ability in Apple Music to do a crossfade between

one song and another. So instead of a song ending and then sort of having a pause and then the new

song begins, which sometimes is what you want, but other times it's sort of nice to go from song to

song to song to song. And so crossfade is this thing that's a very simple song translation for

a set duration. I forget what it is, like a second or two before the end of the song. One song goes

down, the other song goes up. But the problem is, is that simple crossfade, which is just based upon

a number of like seconds or portions of seconds, that might not always be the perfect place to

transition a song. And if you're like a skilled DJ that knows the music really well, will actually

know how to transition from one song to another so that it sort of seems seamless and so that it

but that requires a lot of expertise and knowledge, or at least it used to.

What Apple has come up with, and this is a feature they came up with,

I think it's an iOS 26 that came out last fall.

It is, yeah.

They have some very smart engineers that have come up with this thing called AutoMix.

And the way that AutoMix works is they use machine learning.

It's not generative AI, but it's like the original version of AI.

They use machine learning to analyze every song, every song in Apple Music.

And based on that analysis, they know in the song where the beats are.

They know where, you know, they understand the phrases of songs, the verses versus the

refrains, and they understand the mechanics of music.

And what can you do once you have that understanding of music?

What are some of the cool things that you can do?

Well, one of the cool things that you can do is you can make a more intelligent decision

on when one song should fade out at the very end and the next song should fade in so that

it just seems more seamless. And it's the sort of thing that you may not pay attention to unless

you're really listening for it. It's more likely to be that if you just use the regular old crossfade,

you'll hear a transition between songs and it's like, ah, that wasn't the best transition.

Whereas with auto mix, you're much more likely to just, you know, I guess you're more likely to not

notice it, I guess is what I'm really saying. But the reason that you're not noticing it is because

it's done so well. And so it's just a really impressive use of the technology to have auto

mix and don't get me wrong sometimes you don't want to have a crossfade or an auto mix sometimes

you just want to hear a song till the very end have a pause and go to the next song right but

then there are other times just depending upon the mood that you're in you actually might want

that crossfade um you know just the other day i was i was doing some work and i was down in my

in my living room and um i'm reading um i'm listening to some audio books right now it's

the harry bosch series you know which are sort of famous the harry bosch books oh yeah and um

in in the latest book good show by the way i haven't watched the show yet i've just been

Oh, you're going to love that.

The Harry Bosch, the character, talks about how he likes listening to this old jazz guy from the 60s.

It's Art Pepper.

And I had never heard of Art Pepper before.

So I'm like, OK, so like, you know, I want you to just play some Art Pepper.

But, you know, it's sort of like, you know, beep boppy and just sort of, you know, it's good.

He's a saxophone player.

But I'm like, you know, saxophone player is like, I just go from song to song.

I basically want to just be, I want to have nonstop good jazz saxophone music as I'm sitting here reading my briefs and annotating it.

Right.

and i don't want to have songs and again i just want to and so i just you know just this is what

i want i want automix i want you know not just a crossfade from song to song but an automix so

there are times or maybe you're listening to some pop music and you just this is why djs do it in

like a club is they want to keep the beat going and keep people going so they do the transitions

from one to another and they they even do fancy things like change the speed of music and stuff

but um you know there are times where it's just it's just nicer and this is one of those examples

of the fit and finish whether you're talking about apple hardware or apple software that um automix

is an example of that. And so if that interests you, you can either turn it on in the settings app

of, you know, the app, or what you can do is if you go to that second page that I, the second link

that I showed you, Brett, there's actually a little picture of it there. It's a little icon.

I'll try to describe it that there's the two, scroll down a little bit. There's the two different

pictures that you can use. There's one little icon for crossfade, which has like an arrow sort

of going down and another arrow sort of coming up. And then the second icon, which sort of looks like

two circles with one of them has a dot in the middle and one's open. That is the auto mix.

And so, you know, do you want auto mix on or off? Auto mix and cross fade is an either or,

but of course you could have both of them off if you don't want either one of them at all.

And so you can decide if you want to have auto mix turned on. So I encourage you to check it out.

And although this is beyond my tip today, I will just mention that the same technology that went

behind analyzing every single song so that Apple knows the structure of the song and they can do

auto mix in intelligent ways. Apple is actually doing some very interesting other things with that.

And just to sort of preview this, I took from Mardi Gras, like I took a bunch of videos of Mardi

Gras when I had friends and family in town. Right. And, you know, oftentimes they were just little

30 second, 40, you know, 40 second video clips. I took, I don't know, 20 of them. Right. And so

I thought it might be fun to sort of put those together into a little montage. And so I used

Final Cut Pro on my iPad and I, you know, used a feature they have to sort of put together a

montage. And then I swapped out some of the clips, stuff like that. But there's a feature in there

where you can actually, once you put an underlying song, I put like one of like a Mardi Gras Mambo,

which is a famous local song from Mardi Gras Music. I put the Mardi Gras Mambo underneath it,

but you know how, when you transition from like one scene to another, you really want that to

happen on the beat of the song because that just feels better. And the iPad can do that automatically

in Final Cut Pro. And the reason it does it is because it actually knows where the beats are,

like where the measures, if you ever do like, you know, song music, you know, you have, and it

actually knows where the beats are. And there's a new feature in there. I forget the name of it,

that you can turn on that. It actually shows little dots that show you where the beat is.

And so like, if I'm swapping out a clip or I'm making something shorter or longer,

I can actually adjust the clip so that this clip ends.

I don't have to even be listening to it.

Just visually, I can see from the dot that is where the beat is.

And so that's where I want to transition from one clip to another clip.

And the end result is you can work a lot faster.

Yeah, there you go.

Edit to the beat.

You're showing it right now.

It's called the beat detection.

Beat detection.

Yeah.

It's the same underlying technology that allows them to do auto mix.

It also allows this to work.

And it's really cool.

And, you know, if you've never tried to make a, whether it's slides or video, putting together

into a montage that you have like a video, you know, speaking of funerals, you might want to

have this as like a day in a life type thing for a funeral or anytime you want to put stuff together,

you know, it just, it's, it's jarring when you transition from picture to picture or from video

to video at, and it's the offbeat, but it's pleasant when they transition right there on the

beat. And with this feature, because of Apple using its machine language to understand songs,

It's just nicer.

It's just more pleasant.

So, you know, this is really cool technology.

And I'm sure there's going to be other things that Apple is going to enable with this same underlying technology.

But like once they do the hard work of figuring out how to underline songs, they can bring us cool features like heat detection, like auto mix.

And it's just it's one of those things that just puts Apple above the rest.

It's like they're really they're doing really cool and nice stuff.

That is amazing.

You know, you say you can go into the into the Apple Music app and make these changes.

but I got to tell you why you were talking. I went into the settings.

You go to either way, you go to music,

but there's a lot of interesting settings that you can customize with some of

that there, including obviously the auto mix and the crossfade.

And so I just invite anybody to go into that music,

those music settings and look at,

look at some of the other things that you can do. And, and, you know,

I was saying like, I can make this a little bit more of a customized,

you know, environment for myself, whether, you know,

the kind of music that I want to listen to or anyway,

just some good stuff there on this.

Good.

Some nice Apple music tips.

Well,

I think we did justice to all of the seven announcements that was this

week.

I knew this was going to be a while because it took a while for Apple to

get everything else.

I think we're done for a while though.

Right.

Do you think we're done now until probably summer for WWDC,

right?

That would probably be the next time.

Yeah.

Then we'll see some announcements there,

but we don't have to wait that long.

We'll talk with you next week, Jeff.

As always, this was great.

Thanks.

Thanks, Brett.

Bye-bye, everybody.