The Mac Pro Is Dead & WWDC26 Is Official So What Does Apple Need To Do ? (Apple Bitz XL, Ep. 372)

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The Mac Pro is dead.

That's right, it's official rest and peace to the Mac Pro.

I've got a special guest this week to talk all about it.

The Mac book new is doing well and is more than alive.

See WDC26, officially announced, and AirPods Max 2?

You know what time it is?

Let's get to the show!

What's up everybody?

Welcome to the show.

It's the Apple Bits XL, Brandton here, your host, doing the most for everything good and

bad inside the world of Apple.

Welcome everybody, it is episode 372.

We keep on creeping to 400 thanks to all of you.

We got a special guest on this show, Gizmodo's Ray Wong, we're going to talk about the big

news this weekend.

Actually some interesting news, because the Mac Pro, yes, the Mac Pro.

The Mac Pro is finally done.

It's done.

Apple officially confirmed it will no longer be making the Mac Pro.

We're going to reminisce a little bit, but also talk about what it means and how we've

really seen this coming for a while, but it actually happened.

The future of Apple's products, the MacBook Neo is doing very well, and what does WDC26

need to do to actually impress us?

Enough of me talking, let's jump right into it.

Alright, everybody, big things to talk about this week, so I had to bring the big guns,

friend of the show, Gizmodo's own Ray Wong, what's up, Ray?

It's up, be TZ.

Okay, so we have you on the show a lot, but I do want you to remind people where they

can follow and find your awesome work, and you've been contributing in a buddy of mine

for years, so let the people know.

Yeah, I mean, I'm seeing you're at a further consumer tech section at Gizmodo, so go to

gizmodo.com, click on all of our reviews, and also just find spicy takes on x.com.

It's Ray Wong, R-E-Y-W-O-N-G-Y.

Come on, Brian, I know you're spicy over there too.

I know, I was going to say, I've been getting spicy too.

We both have been getting spicy lately.

We've been getting spicier lately.

Yeah.

Okay.

It's fine.

So it has changed you.

No, no, no.

So let's talk, we're going to jump right into it, news that, I mean, I guess you could

say it's kind of big news in the Apple world, but we'll talk more about it.

The Mac Pro is officially dead, R-I-P to the Mac Pro, pour some liquor out to the Mac

Pro, what had happened, it was discovered that it was a waste of liquor, bro.

Oh, yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, it was the last time I used one.

It was removed from the store on Apple.com.

Then questions came and Apple responded, I believe to 9 to 5 Mac and told them that, yes,

it is officially being discontinued.

It will no longer be produced.

The last time we saw an update for the Mac Pro was 2023 when they had an M2 Ultra in

it.

So I asked you, Ray Wong, is this news significant to you or how do you feel?

Inc-significant.

The news dropped on a Thursday, March 26, right?

And so, I mean, I think it's actually interesting the way they announced news.

So earlier in the day, the Apple actually had another separate piece of news about how

they're working with more American component makers or their devices.

And the Mac Pro is, you know, famously one of their only products that is like, you

know, lightly assembled, partially assembled in a factory in Texas, I think, right?

So they could like say that it was like made in America, you know, that Mac Pro was like

kind of like a token to, you know, our, the, the president.

I'm not saying our president, the president.

So, you know, I don't think anybody is really pouring one out for the Mac Pro.

It was like, you know, ever since the Mac studio had come out, you know, we kind of knew

that the Mac Pro was a job block.

Up ever since Apple Silicon came out, there was really no path forward for the Mac Pro,

you know, the expansion base, you know, didn't really expand much there to be honest.

So it's like, I don't know, like most people get their work done on a Mac studio and it's

way more powerful.

Is it what is on now M3 Ultra for Mac studio?

So like, you know, yeah, you're, you miss out on like, you know, being a speck it out

to like what, 198, some 92 gigs of RAM or something like that.

But like who has $12,000 to fork over for a computer to edit video when you can do a

better job on a computer that costs like, you know, half that.

Well, you know, when you talk about spicy tweets, I was, I did feel it to the core of my

soul when you mentioned that, what are you going to do with your $700 Mac Pro wheels?

I don't know.

We don't get your wheels.

I don't know if people remember that, right?

There's always, there's always been some quirky things with some of Apple's high and stuff.

But yeah, if you wanted to be able to roll it around in an office, it was $700 to buy

those smooth, smooth, smooth gliding wheels, just amazing.

Now, those, those are over engineered for, for one.

And also this is really the last of the Johnny I've era.

If you don't, like, if you guys don't remember, like, this was 2019 in the announced Mac

Pro after two years of the iMac Pro and then, you know, I think like a year, a few years

prior to that, they were like, Oh, you know, we need to do something.

We needed a stopgap solution, right?

And so this came out of like, you know, a way to appease the pro market that felt neglected.

And I remember being there in the, I think it was still the Moscone Center at that time.

Yep, keep going on.

And Johnny I was there, Tim Cook was there.

They were both like, kind of like, I think they were like fake chatting to each other.

I feel like they, I don't think they were actually talking about anything, you know, or

maybe it was the first time Tim Cook had actually ever seen the Mac Pro and the pro display

XDR.

Oh, come on.

Uh, since he apparently doesn't visit the, uh, the, the design studio.

So like, he was explaining, Johnny I was explaining something to Tim Cook under his breath.

I tried really hard to like just stand right next to him and listen, uh, but like he was

explaining, I think something about pointing at the, the kind of like cheese grater like

front facade and the handles and then he was like lifting it up and was like, look at

these beautiful, like, you know, this beautiful frame inside and like, you know, it's all modular

and stuff.

And, you know, I don't think he ever wanted to go back to that old, like, you know, tower

Mac Pro design.

He's already done that.

He made that with the old Mac Pro and the old like power Mac G5 and G4, whatever it was.

So I, I think it was like a concession where he was like, damn it.

He had to revisit like some old ideas and modernize it.

He just didn't want to do it, I think.

And so here it was, you know, well, you know, here, although funny enough, how insignificant

is you sure have a lot to say about it and you still do.

I'm just, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a reporter, you know, like I think a lot of the, uh, people

reminiscing or like talking about it on social after announcement that it was dead.

It's like, we're owned of Mac Pro.

I never owned a Mac Pro.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna, so this is why, this is why we have me and you on this to talk about

it because all this is the first thing I say, people are like, oh my gosh, they discontinued

the Mac Pro.

And then my question to them is, when was the last time you bought or used the Mac Pro?

And it's like, exactly, crickets, crickets, but, but, you know, there's a few, you know,

a few things that you mentioned that I want to bring it up just kind of because there's

a little bit of history of the Mac Pro and for the record, I did buy multiple Mac desktops

over the course of my design slash video editing life cycle.

There was the funny thing that you talk about though of Johnny, I'm not wanting to revisit

this.

Remember Apple made the Mac trash can, right?

It was the professional.

It was the precursor to the studio, really cool-looking design, a one-of-one type of, this

is the only type of thing that Apple could do, but the performance actually was pretty bad.

The ability to expand on it was next to nothing.

And at the time, this was a transition where Apple had been sitting on like a 27-inch

iMac for years and people like, when are you gonna update the desktop?

When you get up to the desktop, they come out with the Pro trash can design.

It does not appease the pros.

They're actually pretty frustrating upset about it.

And then the Mac Pro cheese grater comes out after, right?

So this is that timeline showed how they wanted to move things forward.

I remember vividly in the keynote, there was a point where Phil Schiller, who you might

argue that the Mac Pro was one of his babies during the time of his time at Apple.

Oh, I think I know what you're gonna say right now.

Can't innovate my ass.

Can't innovate my ass.

This was an iconic line.

He's so sassy, Kella.

Though super set.

He talked about spicy take.

That was before Twitter.

That was Phil Schiller again, spicy.

So along the way, I mean, I used a Mac Pro, there was a design called the wind tunnel design.

I had the one that looked really clean and it was great for the time.

But again, I never, I look, I've never even had to touch a Mac Pro because a MacBook Pro

is freaking incredible and does everything to do.

I mean, I'm looking right behind you right now and I can see a computer back there.

Look at what is behind you, Brian.

You tell the audience what is behind you.

Do you know what that is or do you do you know?

Of course I do.

Yeah, it's the G4Q.

It's a G4Q.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And that is, I think, the computer that Johnny, that was the born factor, Johnny, I've always

wanted the desktop computer to take on other than like the all in one.

So that G4Q obviously had its own like design flaws, right?

But the intake, the way it lifted off the desk, the surface, the intake, the fan was always

like, you know, the vents would push the air up, the heat up.

And then look at the trash can, it pushed the heat up.

And then now you have the Mac studio, which because of Apple Silicon fulfills that without

having to have that kind of like upward intake.

And I think like, this is the realization of like Johnny Ives, like, you know, small form

factor desktop computer.

So there's no need for a Mac power, like Stuart Towers style desktop anymore, unless they

really want to take things to another level and like really just like, I don't know, like

Mashed together like eight, you know, Mac chips together into some ultra transformer,

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The other thing is back in the day, people would buy maybe dedicated video cards to do

X, Y and Z, even dedicated audio cards.

You just don't really need to do that as much of the actual, you know, even from an expansion

standpoint and just from a pure raw power standpoint, you just don't need those much

and now you can buy like a Thunderbolt 5 breakout box to do some of these things.

So to your point, I mean, I remember the G4Q vividly and I always felt it was way ahead

of its time and it now more than ever it shows how ahead of its time is because it just

took technology to catch up with the design and what they were trying to do.

But you know, the Mac Pro officially dead, go to eBay, maybe some resellers if you really

want that iconic cheese greater design that I don't think it was, it was never lasted

long enough to truly be iconic, but it was a fun one and I'll pour out a little soda,

not a liquor for it, but pour out a little soda, a little soda pop for the Mac.

But what I will miss is the Pro Display XDR that you, most professionals paired that

appear with.

I think you have a Pro Display XDR and you know, I know that there's a new studio display

XDR out, but that's a 27 inch.

I have the original studio displayed on like, you know, glass texture and all that stuff.

And it's fine, but like, it's not a 32 inch, 6K like modern, there's a massive difference

in size and resolution and how much you, how many windows you can fit on screen.

And so like, I am just always constantly now looking at on eBay to see if they're like,

that's funny.

You say that.

I have a lot of that.

I've got a lot of 120 hertz display or those like types of black levels.

I need, I want a giant screen that looks great, but I also know it's like a big heavy

behemoth of a, of a, it is modern.

The only, the only reason we're going to jump to the other topics, but the only reason

why I got the Pro Display XDR at the time, remember, it was $4,999.

It was $999 to add the tilt and lean adjustable stand.

My friend, do you have, do you have the screen?

I mean, do you have the stand?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So my friend got, my friend got me the 25% off employee discount.

That's the only reason why I bought it.

Nice.

Nice.

Like, that's worth it to me over the long time.

Yeah.

And I didn't, you know, the new Pro display, sorry, the new studio display XDR that you

talk about, although yes, the image quality is slightly better.

It's not enough for me to even feel remotely like itchy about upgrading.

Like, this display is great and 60 hertz is all you need when you're editing video.

Yep.

You don't, you know, I don't miss the pro motion on my fluid animation email opening up.

Like, I'm good, y'all.

I'm going to say, so yeah, I missed that more than the Mac Pro.

That's fun.

Yeah.

I mean, it was, it was also a sign of kind of the, without us, 100% knowing a little bit

of a sign of the end of the Mac Pro, the Pro Display XDR kind of goes away.

They lean to this new studio display.

They don't call it Pro anymore, right?

There's nothing really associated with those displays back to the Mac Pro.

But it's done.

It's over.

But as we move on, because there's always new stuff to talk about, you know, the Mac book

Neo is the new, new, it was like, hello, Neo, goodbye pro.

And we had, this was really interesting because Tim Cook obviously put out a tweet talking

about, you know, how the state of the Mac, and you know what, the funny thing about it

is I didn't include that tweet in here.

Essentially, he said like, this is the best Mac for first time owners that has ever sold.

Of course, Apple will not reveal the numbers because they don't, but first time Mac owners.

And Apple, we know historically, Apple doesn't hype up stuff or say anything like that.

If it's actually not meaningful, for example, we never heard them say all time sales for

the Apple Vision Pro.

That was like, they like, we're like, hey, we're doing it.

But they never, they've never actually come out and bragged about Vision Pro.

Tim Cook throwing that little nugget out tells me this is doing very well.

He could have, he could have technically spun that to first time buyers of a Vision Pro

because it was the only Vision Pro I went technically would have been correct.

Okay.

You're right.

And we were all first time buyers and we would have all just be like, roll their eyes.

Yes, just for people that are curious about how well the MacBook Neo is doing.

If you go on Apple's online store, I checked, any configuration is basically a two to three

week weight, which is, yeah, which is actually another good sign.

So, you know, I throw this out.

We say goodbye to the Mac Pro, but the state of the Mac, you and I have an exchange

somewhere of thoughts on the MacBook Neo.

People have seen my review, but I want to hear your thoughts first.

Yeah, I mean, I didn't personally review it.

My reporter Kyle Barr reviewed it, but, you know, I did play around with it.

And, you know, for a few days.

And I think it's a fantastic computer.

Like the build quality is terrific.

Like there are some like tradeoffs, you know, slower USB-C ports.

They're not thunderbolts.

The trackpad is the, what is it called?

Haptic.

It's not a multi-touch trackpad.

Multi-touch trackpad.

Multi-touch trackpad.

So it's not haptic anymore.

So you don't get that pressure sensitive layer where you can press into it.

And like, you know, pull up like a definition or something like that.

And, yeah, you don't, I guess like the screen is a little thicker than MacBook Air,

but like other than you get like eight gigs of unified memory instead of like, you know,

16 gigs on the MacBook Air.

But like, I think people have done their testing and realized that like,

it's not a one-to-one comparison.

And I've been saying this since like 2020 when the first M1 MacBook Air came out and Apple

didn't send us a review in it to test.

And so like we, at the time I was working at input and we bought a base MacBook Air

with M1 chip and eight gigs of RAM.

And so I used that for like, you know, several weeks and then wrote my reviews.

And so I knew firsthand, like I, you can go back to my review and I did just to see what it wrote.

I did all these like Final Cut export tests and I did all these like things.

And I was like, this is like still somehow still picking so much as it's crushing a comparable like,

you know, priced Windows machine.

At that time, like, it just felt like Apple had done the impossible in credible battery life.

Performance was top notch compatibility.

And just like, it seemed almost too good to be true.

And like, that's what I think a lot of people felt the MacBook Neo would be.

Especially at $600 like starting price point.

That it would be impossible for them to do something like this.

But they have economies of scale and they have like, you know,

a, they have the chipsets, right?

Because they've been fabricating all these like, you know, A18 pro chips like for iPhones for

so many years. And so like they have the expertise and experience to kind of like,

take one chip and transplant it into another device.

And so they were able to tune this thing really well.

And like, I think the reception has been overwhelmingly positive.

And like, Windows is scared shit.

They're like, that's what I said in my review because I put it head to head with a comparable

Windows machine, same price with with better technical specs.

And again, we, you and I have talked about this before.

Eight gigs of unified memory and the way the architecture sucks in that memory is different

than how a PC handles and manages it. So everyone, everyone I think is who looks at eight,

just instantly thinks, oh, but eight on a PC is so low, blah, blah, blah.

And the way the memory is fed to the system. But no, it's, it is different.

And this machine before I would say, hey, anyone who's looking at a laptop before,

I would say look at the MacBook Air before you look at anything else.

And now in my opinion, whatever people use cases, you got to look at the Neo first.

And then if you want a little better performance and maybe a different type of screen technology

or larger screen, that's when you move up. But if not, I think the Neo now is that computer that

I'm going to say, look at that first and then make your decision. Whereas before I did, you know,

there was not, it was always the air. And the air is still an incredible, incredible machine.

This for 699 or 599 starting is an incredible machine at that price.

It really, I used it. It feels like a MacBook experience. We, me, you and I are used to

certain, you know, accoutrements and certain things with our laptops. But through its core and we,

you know, the performance tests bear out. It's a damn, damn fine machine. And yeah, we're going to

see how this plays out by the end of the year. But it's not, it's not any stretch of state that

not Windows is in trouble, but Windows machines, laptops at that price. I don't see how they compete

once people really start figuring this out. Yeah, I think there's, if there's anything to

kind of like dispel, it's that like, this is not just a computer for like a light editing.

It's not a Chromebook at all. Like I don't, I don't know where people are getting this idea. I

guess because they think it's like $600, right? It's just affordable that it must only be able to do

like some light browsing, some like, you know, document editing. I'm like, not at all. This

maybe we can use Final Cut or like your reels, your 4K videos. And most people at, you know,

are generally editing reels or a short 4K vlogs or videos. They're not editing like, you know,

fucking like movie. And so, and so like, this thing is very capable. It can run all your apps,

all your, your creative apps just fine. You know, it will definitely be a little bit slower

when it comes to exporting and, you know, um, um, writing some of these background tests. It's

not going to run all your like, little, uh, AI apps, right? Like your, I don't know, whatever it is,

your vibe coding apps, like you'll feel some sluggishness. But like, that's where the tears come

right now. There's a good, better, best kind of clear divide between apples laptops. And like,

the people who used to buy MacBook Airs, that the MacBook Air M5 with M5 is now kind of equivalent

to like an older MacBook Pro, you know, yes, like it has that kind of performance. So like,

anybody who says a MacBook Air is not sufficient enough for editing videos, also like,

they have no idea what they're talking about, you know, yeah, yeah. And the MacBook Pro is now

like clearly positioned as a very, very high end pro machine for pro tasks. And if you don't

know what any of that stuff means, like somebody's like, okay, here's a bunch of AI local parameters

and billion models and like all this stuff. And like, you know, if you don't know what any of that

means, it means that you don't need a MacBook Pro. The MacBook Air is good enough for you. Yeah.

Yeah. Absolutely. So, um, I'm, I'm just really curious to see how this affects their earnings from

a Mac perspective. Like, will we see a bump? Will because it's, you know, a lower price point,

will it maybe make it a little bit, you know, I'm just kind of curious how the dynamics play on this.

And this goes beyond even just now, I think three to five years, is there now a generation of

users who instead of getting a Chromebook and they were maybe in elementary school or junior high,

they got a MacBook Neo and now they're in the ecosystem because they already have an iPhone.

Most of these young people already have an iPhone and now they can afford a more than capable

laptop that's in a cool color. And that's just going to like, so this is kind of, you know,

it sounds silly, but this is more of a digital type product. This is about locking in the youth,

the younger generation at an early start, you know, building that brand loyalty. When you can buy a

Mac Neo for 600 bucks, iPhone SE 17, sorry, for 600 bucks, that's $1,200. I mean, like, you can

even buy like a entry level iPad, all this stuff, mostly for less than a MacBook Pro. Yeah, right.

And they throw in AirPods, right? Airpods, right? iPhone 17, you can now, you can now affordably

get into the ecosystem at a much lower total cost than you could before, you know.

And so like, it's really like, cementing that, you know, if you, if the Gen V or Gen Alpha does not

have any kind of like loyalty to a specific brand yet, oh, now they do, you know, like now they,

they're going to feel it, I think. And that's what Apple wants to do. They want to win the next

generation, you know, it's, it's, they really want us. All right. So we're talking about keeping

them, keeping in the next generation. Let's talk about iPhone, trying to keep in their own

employees because there were reports about iPhone designers getting large significant bonuses in

stock. That would vest over a few years, but roughly around 400 K to 500 K to keep them on the

team because we had heard about this talent drain where people are just pulling Apple talent,

specifically open AI and others, but opening that comes up a lot. Paying them large like $1

million invested type bonuses and things like that to jump ship. And a lot of people have and

have left Apple. What do you think is going on at Apple? We're on the outside. We have some

information, but, you know, I've seen a lot of people not, not even designers, but I'm

talking about from a marketing and PR perspective, leaving the brands like significant brands and going

over to AI companies like Anthropic and like, you know, surprisingly, they've been in consumer

hardware products for a while. And they're going where the money is and why not, right? And they're

fully capable. I mean, this is definitely affecting Apple. And I'm curious how, how it plays out.

I mean, it's hard to kind of turn down a company if they're offering you like two times or

three times your salary or compensation, right? But there's also like this idea that, and belief

that maybe like Apple is like done innovating, right? They're like kind of just like, I guess like

refreshing and modernizing their existing hardware and kind of spreading it across the

price spectrum. And then, you know, open AI is working very closely or owns Johnny Ives, you

know, IO company, his AI come startup. And they have hired pretty much a lot of the original,

like, you know, his original like industrial design team to work on whatever AI hardware,

they're working on, you know, reportedly wireless earbuds and a pendant or some other

gadget robotics or something like that. And so like the opportunity to work with those veterans,

you know, and build something that is maybe could be the next iPhone is like very appealing as

well, right? Like do you want to make the iPhone 20 or do you want to make like the thing that

changed the world again, right? And so like, it's a combination of like more compensation and also

being able to do that. And you know, there's a Apple has a retention problem right now, right?

Their leadership is getting older and people are either retiring or they're, you know, looking for

other opportunities, they want more challenges. And if they're just building the millionth

MacBook, the millionth iPhone, the millions like AirPods, it's like, it's kind of boring,

you know, from a day to day perspective. You mentioned like marketing and stuff. I don't really know

what's what's that what that's about. It might just be an image kind of thing, you know,

Tim Cook is reportedly like planning his retirement. And so like maybe they're they're not liking

what's happening internally about the successors like vision or like, you know, where they want to

take Apple or they don't have any confidence in where a guy like, you know, John Ternis who is rumored

to be the next CEO might take things. Well, you know, what's also interesting about this and it's

I'm glad you touched upon it because I wanted to touch upon it. You talk about excitement. You talk

about innovation. Like you and I have talked about this. Look, Apple is still innovative, but they

are not the, you know, the underdog getting more under the free spirit. They're like, hey, let's try

this. Let's just make this cool stuff there. It's huge boat. This cargo ship that takes time to move

the momentum and change and that there's benefits of that and there's disadvantages to that, right?

So that's spirit. So think, look, look at how about this. We just talked about the MacBook Neo

amazing product. Guess what? That's probably the best business decision Apple has made in the

past decade or so. That's not an innovative decision, right? You're using what the Apple will say,

oh, we there's innovation on the supply chain and how we constructed the new aluminum body enclosure

for the MacBook Neo to make it this affordable. Okay. Yes. But that's that's more on the supply

chain side, right? We're not talking about actual technical like changing and you can't have game

changes all the time. So the MacBook Neo, most buzzworthy product is more of the one of the best

business decisions that Apple's finally made and willing to do. The Vision Pro was innovative,

but we knew it wasn't a terrible, terrible business, not a terrible business, right? Not attainable.

The rest of the lineup is what we've seen before, right? iPhones, different styles,

a foldable, which is arguably coming this year and is not anything new or fresh because we've

seen it and there will be people that buy it without a doubt. I mean, I'm intrigued by it,

but this is not we're not breaking new ground in any way shape or form with Apple and that. I know

for a fact, like people like, you know, what's the general, I'll ask what's the general mood inside

and this is from like people that are working kind of more on the low level and you know, they're

they're not juiced and I think open AI gives people an opportunity to get paid more but also be

juiced about doing something new and different and that's what they don't have, right? That's one

of those things and there are successful business, the multi-billion dollar trillion dollar business

that's fine, but they don't have the juice right now. That's what I would say.

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all Johnny Ive and like, okay, I'd come up with is just like a pair of ear buds, you know, like

that have like chat GPT built into it. It's going to be like, which I mean, it's going to just be

like, that's it. That's the best you guys to come up with or like, you know, or another like

humane AI pin minus the like projector. Like, everyone wants to make a new type of product

category, but like, those are very rare. They come once in like a couple of decades, you know,

and there's I don't think anything is going to supplant like the smartphone as we know it right

now, you know, there might be like some side quests, you know, like foldable versions or whatnot.

But if you look at the laptop, you know, like the clamshell laptop, it's largely stayed the same.

You have some transformers and two and ones and whatnot, but like, it's largely a screen

with a keyboard attached to it at the base, right? And it holds up and that's it, you know.

There's not much innovation there. In fact, like Apple even brought back some of the things

that it removed, right? And so like, is that actually innovation if you're kind of going backwards?

That's just utility, right? That's function over form. And that's pretty pretty much

a good summation, I think, of Apple. It's they're skating towards more function, which is

everyone's now seemingly very happy about. It's like, finally, you know, like stop cutting all

the things out, you know, like stop nickel and diamond and like, you know, give us the value.

And they are offering a ton of value. I've said this to other, like, you know, journalists and

other analysts. Apple has become like you said, this behemoth where they, there's only so many

people left to sell their own existing privacy. So the only place that they can go is either down

stream, which is to the market that hasn't like, you know, welcomed them or way upstream. And

that's going to be even harder because that's even more niche. That's the Mac Pro region, right?

And that's where Apple is reportedly planning to kind of move towards this year. You know, you

already started with the Macbook, you know, that's downstream. And then later in this year,

reportedly is supposed to be like MacBook Pros with OLED displays and touch screens. And that's like

a super niche, right? Ultra, the Ultra niche. As this man, I'm going to say, just as we were talking

about the studio and kind of replacing the programming, I was like, what if it's called the Macbook

Pro studio? Macbook Pro Ultra Super Turbo Championship Edition.

Pro Max Super Saiyan Pro Max Pro Max Turbo Turbo. But I can see I can see this the studio

replacing. Yeah, yeah, you're not, you're not, you're not wrong. You're not wrong. So, you know,

well, it's just a kind of interesting, interesting thing to see how they're facing a lot of

different challenges. We talk about what's coming down the line with Apple. They did officially

announced WWDC. I'm sure you and I will most, most likely be there. We're making assumptions, but

we're planned to be there. Yeah, right. We plan to be there. Typically, second week of June,

Apple officially announced it'll be June 8th through June 12th, where we'll see software

announcing. So we know you and I have just completely pooped on and for good reason on Apple

intelligence. And do we, do we sell this? Not do we still care how much do we care on a scale of

one to 10, right? What, what does Apple need to show us for us to be impressed, not even a scale

with 10? What does Apple actually have to show us to be impressed at WWDC 26? I mean, they have to

show a functioning working version of the rebooted series, right? They can't just pretend it doesn't,

like, it doesn't exist, you know, that they never made the whole show about

Siri being like, read your contextually aware, like, you know, or be contextually aware,

which it's like, so they need to show that. And I think they will, because they've now

reportedly, you know, leveraged Gemini to help with that, you know, triaging your, your on

on device, you know, data. And then there's another report that just came out yesterday,

as of this recording, you know, about how Siri is going to lug into more AI services. So like,

you know, start with Chatchee BT, and they're going to allow inthropping and Claude and like all

these other, um, AI's to basically run, run through it as a wrapper, you know? So like, you'll,

you'll ask, you'll interface users will interface with Siri, but they'll be to choose the models that

they want to kind of get the output from, which is basically how like, perplexity works and a lot

of other like AI services. So it's like, I think it's actually a smart move because they don't have to

invest in the infrastructure of all this AI. They'll let all third parties do it. They're basically

obsessively extensions, right? And then, uh, they can also kind of like, uh, skirt responsibility

if anything goes wrong. So like hallucinations or like, you know, any issues or problems with the AI,

that's not their responsibility. It's on the user now. That's a good point. That's a really

interesting point, right? Because like, there are the ones choosing which model to get their

information from. So if you get some misinformation from say, Chatchee BT, that's a disclaimer right

there. It's not Siri's fault. It's Chatchee BT's fault, you know, it's cloud's fault. So like,

they removed themselves from kind of like, that risk and responsibility, I think. So it's a win,

win situation for them. And I think that even if they deliver a little bit of the kind of like,

contextually aware Siri stuff, which I have no doubt they will because like, the Pixel 10 already

has like a magnitude feature, which basically does all the stuff that Siri Applied Promise with

the new series. So so they just have to like, kind of customize that a little bit to function with

Siri. So like, yeah, but whether anyone will care, I don't know. I think this like, I don't think

people are ready for agentate computing just yet. It's going to be a steep learning curve.

And the way we interact with our phones, like, we have a fear on certain phones. But like,

like Pixel, I have carried Pixel 10, bro, pretty frequently, like a few times a week. And I don't

even use any of the magic you ignore all that stuff. You know, it's not because like, I don't want

those features. It's because like, that's just not how I'm used to using my phone. I'm used to

being having more agency over my phone, like being able to tap through my stuff and like,

as opposed to like, I'm not trying to be more efficient on my phone. You know, it's just going

to make me like, give me more time to doom scroll. You know, that's funny. I mean, what's what,

what you touch about and what we've talked about before and I've talked about is like,

this whole idea of agentate computing or your phone, basically being a true assistant for you.

And I think that's where it can really be interesting from a standpoint. It will be a

learned behavior to a certain point. But we saw what Google Gemini has done. And we saw what the

Samsung S26 Ultra launch, which is leveraging Google Gemini. And they're testing, they're testing

out at least rolling out things like, you know, asking without opening a single app. Just saying,

get me an Uber here to go to say, I'll, to go to tablespoon. Like, being able to do little

having the apps work in the background and just basically do a request by audio. And work on

a few of them first that people are really comfortable with something like getting groceries. Like,

I want fresh organic strawberries and raspberries and blueberries and get me a stick of butter. And

because you have different, whether it's Instagram or other apps and it goes to it and just does it

for you, that's, that's where I think you could, I would actually generally use it once in a while

and would actually make my life easier, right? Even something as simple, they don't have it plugged

in yet. But I've been talking about it. You know, you and I, we order things, we get things from

Amazon all the time. If I could say, Hey, return, return that, uh, that liquid, that drain

O that I bought and it just instantly creates a QR code, then you go to an app off point and show

it like, that's where I think we can get this stuff to be more interesting, actually useful on a

day to day to consumers. And we're starting to get there. But like you said, magic Q is actually

cool. But my brain doesn't work that way to instantly be like, Oh, I'm going to do it. I could

see, you know, a dinner reservation pop up and I'm just talking about someone. Oh, yeah, maybe I

inserted it in or not, but it may show up when we're not even really talking about it yet. And we

don't necessarily, we might just be talking about it, but we don't need to show them the address

in the, the reservation, right? Right. So we'll see how it evolves. Uh, Gemini is going to be the

secret sauce for Apple to do anything interesting, quite honestly, um, from an AI standpoint. And more

than anything, I want them to show us something that's capable that allows us to see their next

generation of reported smart home products and what that actually looks like from Apple. Um, you

know, they're obviously way late to the game from from really investing in the smart home and

building a smart home ecosystem. You talk about where can Apple go, right? From in this first

specific category, it's going to go for the high end market, can they go to the low end market?

A market they are still not really explored enough is the smart home market. And so for me,

let's see what they show, but let's get to how it actually can elevate what they might be doing

in the smart home. And then that that becomes a little more interesting. I'm not going to be blown

away by anything, but it becomes at least interesting. I'm like, okay, all right, you're on to something.

I like this. I'm willing to now give your smart home ecosystem a true try. We'll see.

I mean, what's rumored is that they have some kind of like, you know, hub, you know, like some kind

of iPad looking hub. Um, maybe there's a burden that moves around on a robotic arm or whatever.

But like, it's not really doing anything different than say a Google Nest hub, you know,

it is a command center that will basically be an air traffic controller. You know, maybe you'll

be able to talk to it and like it'll control your third party devices like security cameras,

and doorbells, and like, you know, router or whatever, you know, but it's not going to do anything

fundamentally like, you know, quote unquote, innovative as we talked about earlier. It's still

building on an interesting idea. What's already existing now and like out there. And so like,

I don't think that's going to necessarily move the needle a lot. In fact, like, I think when

Apple does announce this like, you know, Apple intelligence, there's Apple intelligence powered

Siri, you know, um, I don't think there's going to be like a big like,

celebration about it to be honest. Um, I think it's going to be such a slow transition if it ever

gets there. It was the same way with like the original Siri that they overpromised with the

original Siri. And it just never got there. Maybe the technology is just wasn't there, right?

The same thing with Alexa too. And the Google Assistant, they overpromised that it'd be to do

all these things. It turns out that people don't actually want to do those things, um, have those

third party, um, you know, um, extensions. All they wanted to do was play music, get the weather

and like, you know, some alarm and alert alert alarm. Exactly. Right. Play music as well, right? So like,

just because the this, they make the technology doesn't mean that that's how users will actually

interact with it. You know, um, you can't force interaction on, on to, on to users. So we'll see

what happens. Yeah. What I find interesting about the smart home too is that I've gotten so used to

not having Apple be a priority for the smart home. Like I have Google products. I have Amazon

products. And even something as simple as my Sony TV, because it's on a Google TV platform now,

when someone rings the doorbell camera, that's a Google Nest doorbell camera, it shows up on my

Sony TV. So like, like in the corner, like, that's cool. And I'm so used to, I'm like, why do I

need anything else? Right? Like, right. What, why am I going to change out my doorbell camera?

That's no longer going to work with my TV anymore. Depending on what's going, right? Like, why am I,

why am I, why am I this idea? I like this idea of having a whole ecosystem purely like, you know,

from one platform that's like, you know, totally controlled and like, you know, um, optimized, um,

and polished. But I think that's also like, kind of like boring and scary and just like, kind of like,

like, I liked having other options, you know, I liked the idea of that. So like, a singular brand

owning my whole life, like, or control with my whole life is like, kind of like dystopian, you know?

Even if it does come with more convenience, you know? Yeah. Yeah. That's that is, that is interesting.

Okay. Um, last thing as before we wrap up, I could have probably thrown this earlier. But

we might as well on the, the fact of the matter that it's the last thing we're talking about might

speak volumes about it. Apple announced the air. Apple announced the AirPods Max 2 this week,

which felt like an announcement that should have happened two freaking years ago. Last week, last

week, last week. Oh, sorry. Was it last week? It's time for all of that. Yeah. Oh, you're right.

Yes. You know, when you have a kid, when you have a kid now, it's a blur, baby. It is a blur.

But yeah, they announced AirPods Max 2. What do you, what do you think about that announcement?

I mean, surprise announcement, right? No, no, no, there were no rumors about this thing.

All right. No, even, even quick thing. As reviewers, sometimes we get a heads up that we're

going to have a call, right? Yeah. We don't know what it's about for the record. Just the call.

Maybe we, maybe we can figure out who it might be for because of the person we talked to from all

these brands, all right? There was no call. There was, there was nothing. There was nothing.

This is a complete shock drop. And just like I was unprepared. Me and my team were completely

unprepared. They're scrambling to write the news up. And

but there wasn't much news to write about. I mean, there are quite a bit of quite a few upgrades.

You know, they has a new H2 chip. It has all the new AirPods Pro 3 features, live translation,

and all that good stuff. Better ads. See, I think it's like 1.5 X. And, you know,

but otherwise, same exact design as 2020, same weight, same materials, same colors. Same colors

from the USB-C update. Yep. And that's it. It's, bro, it's what's

done. What's quite a while to me is like same price to $550. Yep, same exact price. $50

less than a MacBook Neo for those that are obscure. I know they're trying, I know I'm not saying,

you know, value is value, but I'm just saying, hey, you know, it depends on what you're looking at.

But, you know, the H2 has been in the AirPods Pro 2. Okay, we're on AirPods Pro 3 now.

And it is allowed Apple to do a lot of really great upgrades from the AirPods Pro perspective,

over time, like actual useful legitimate software upgrades that on feature upgrades that I'm

like, damn, this, these AirPods Max 2 should have come out in 2024. Like, I remember when they

announced the USB-C version, all they did was add USB-C and new colors. Like, that's all.

That was it. And the H2 had already been out for at least a year or two by then in 2024.

So it's just, I don't know, this AirPods Max 2, I will review it. I think they know that it's

more of a fashion lifestyle kind of thing and product and less of like a tech product, you know.

I mean, that's fine, but they're still slow as hell to like, I mean, this is this literally,

oh, actually, I forgot this feature, this is a new feature, right? The digital crown,

if you're using the camera app, you can press it to capture video or, okay, you know,

if you wanted to audio podcast with video with the AirPods Max 2, I just want to let you know.

All right, yes. I mean, you could do that with AirPods Pro 3.

That was a nice feature in AirPods Pro 3, but sure, I mean, like I said, this is just really

adding the AirPods Pro 3 features into AirPods Max. Like, it was looking really long in a tooth,

outdated, and they just need, they do the bare minimum.

Hey, you know, when we were talking about people getting bored, Apple, like, what do you,

yeah, this is, this is honestly an example of that. It's like, really guys,

imagine, imagine like you work on that team and you're like, you're like, you, I'm just making

the scenario. I don't know actually know how that team operates. You're on that team, like, you know,

you're like, you know, the keeper and you're like, okay, what should we do today? You

propose all these ideas and I'm like, yeah, we're just going to take the chip from, you know,

AirPods Pro 2 and 3 and put it in there and like call it a day. And then imagine if you were

like on that team, when they add the USB-C update, and they're telling, we're just going to put

a USB-C update. Like, don't you want to update the chip this year so that it matches the AirPods

Pro 2? No, I know. It's next time. I mean, I know, I have new colors. Yeah, we only want to

throw in a new color. Like, that's two years later. Come on, new colors at least. You know what,

they should have matched them with the NEO. They should have matched the colors with the NEO.

That would have been nice. Even if it's a pro, like just literally show us, you're kind of doing

something, right? That's all I'm saying. That's something that's like. That would have been great.

Yeah. And I mean, it speaks to what we've talked about, like, you know, tech is so mature and in

general, so good as like colors actually kind of move us. Whether we buy something or not,

we're like, ooh, I love that color, right? It's kind of interesting that we are at a point where

colors make us feel a certain way about a product now more than they used to before.

I mean, the iPhone 70 Pro is like a best seller, especially in Asian markets because of

cosmic orange. I read reports saying like, you know, the like Chinese market, like Chinese,

especially like in it to like the Hermes orange color. So they're like, oh, it's not quite the exact

same like shade, but you know, they feel that there's some kind of premiumness to that. They associate

that orange to high end luxury. And so the same way, I guess like gold was in in Vogue a couple of

years ago, you know, 10 years ago, whatever. So like color is really important, I think, especially

now that technology has become so mainstream and like mature and like, there's only so much you can do,

you know, and that's I think that is basically where Apple is. There's only so much they can invent.

Maybe they might even be a little bit more conservative now with, especially with the failure of

like vision pro, you know, it's very hard for them to convince consumers to strap a computer

I don't even think even if they sold it for like $1,000, they could convince a lot of people to

wear that thing. Even if the technology is amazing, it's it's there's a stigma to it, right?

It's isolation. And so I think they're definitely being less risky and risk takers. They're

watching to see what everyone else is doing. And that's where everyone's like, oh yeah, Apple is

like kind of like stagnative plateaued. They're just the status quo. They'd become Samsung. Samsung

used to and still does watch to see what Apple does. And then it does exact same thing almost,

you know, like they even like had a copycat AirPods or Galaxy Buds, three. And everyone's like,

these look just like AirPods. And I even I said that to the designer. I was like, these look just

like AirPods. They're like, well, it's a good design. And the mics, you know, are closer to your

mouth. And I'm like, well, you did go like many generations with your own little like

stimulus like design. So like wide change all of a sudden. It's like, you know,

that's what people want. You know, they've kind of like given up on design all a bit. And I think

that Apple is also placing a similar challenge. Springfest means more sun, more fun, and more free

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Yeah. So, you know, we'll we'll see how what new things, you know, hey, we might get another

shock drop from Apple in the next two months before WWDC.

I have a lot on their plate. They have a lot on their plate to release this year quite on it.

There are things, there are few things that still maybe updated HomePod mini.

I heard stock is running low HomePod as well to Apple TV.

So yeah, I mean, like don't be surprising to see updates to those and just like doing

the boringest updates. I know because you know what's so funny.

I don't know if you see this from readers. Maybe it's in my videos at least.

I get there's always someone asking when the new Apple TV is coming out, right? There's some,

so I before we wrap up, there's this I feel like there's this weird obsession specifically

with the Apple TV. Like because it hasn't innovated much in many years that all of a sudden this

new version is going to be significantly better. And I'm like, the reality is that it's not

probably going to have any type of camera system or it doesn't need any extra horsepower.

We don't need an 8K Apple TV. It's just going to be an Apple TV that might just work with

Apple intelligence. And that's what you're going to get. And I just think there's some,

for whatever reason, it seems to be the current product that everyone's focused on when

they're going to release a new one. And it's going to be like, here's your new Apple TV 4K with

a slightly faster chip. Dude, I use an Apple TV 4K, yeah, every day, like just for Netflix and

Prime and like, ooh, and I'm just like, I do not, I've never thought of upgrading this thing

until it gets so unusable. It's not slow at all. So it's like, I'm like, I forgot, I literally

forget that it needs to be updated, refresh. I don't think every product needs to be refreshed all

of time. But yeah, they're in the business of selling new versions of old things, so they got to do it.

We'll see if it's enough for you to upgrade this Apple TV 4K with Apple intelligence.

Well, that's what you're most looking for, too.

I know, I'm not, I'm not. That's, I see a lot of people on it for whatever reason, for whatever

reason. So, all right, Ray, thank you so much, my man, for hanging out. Always fun to talk. This

is what we actually do when we normally hang out a lot of times. We're just, yeah, we're just,

we're just shooting it. So really appreciate it. Let people know, I know you talked about your

Twitter and you get his motto, but maybe where else other social ways that you can play,

that you're playing around with, where else can they find you? Yeah, you can find me on Instagram

as sour lemons. It's not sweet, it's sour, and it can be spicy, too. It can be very spicy.

So I don't know who owns spicy lemons. That might be something completely different.

Yeah, you might be right. Yeah, today, yeah, you're right. You're actually, I'm not going to

even look it up. I'm not even going to try it. Don't look it up. Don't look it up. We just

gave it a shout out. All right, Ray, fun to talk to you. We'll talk to you soon and we'll see you

at the next event, buddy. All right. Yes, sir. All right, see you. All right, everybody. So that

is going to do it for this week's episode, just a lot of fun stuff to talk about in. Hopefully,

sometimes there's like this lull during the season around this April, May. Now, I know we know

that Apple has so many more things to release. So we'll see if things get shaken up, but there's

a lot of events and new product launches also come in outside the world of Apple. So we'll see how

that all comes together. But really, WWDC 26 is when we expect at least something significant to

happen. And maybe it gives us an idea of what Apple and what that roadmap looks like with their

products and what we can expect for the rest of the year in and beyond in 2027. So until next

time, everybody, we got to give a shout out to our platinum apples who support the show at the

$100 level brand and led for the Gil Cabrera, Wesley Frater, Jared Lewis, Michael Gigliotti,

Atari Conegsek, and Gregory Ford. Thank you. Thank you so much for your support. Thank you to

all of you who continue to support this podcast and all my work at patreon.com slash Brian Tongue.

And you can support me there as well. But until next time, we'll catch the same bad time, same bad

channel. It's the Apple Bits XL, baby. Peace.

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