Episode 970: iPhone 17e, M5 MacBook Pros, and more coming soon

unscripted unfiltered unafraid welcome to the mac world podcast my name is michael simon and i am joined as always by my colleague jason cross good morning and our producer roman loyola oh hi there this is episode number 970 and we still haven't gotten new macbooks i think i've This has been like a month and a half now that we've been talking about new MacBooks. So this show, all right, so we already did our 2026 preview like a month ago. But this is going to be like the next six weeks preview because there was a report earlier this week that kind of gave us like a timeline or like a roadmap for February and March. So we're going to talk about what we expect over like the next like month-ish, what's coming. what's the software hardware and what Apple is planning for, um, like the pre spring releases. Um, then we'll have a room in reality check segment this week in Apple history, which is going to be, um, fun because I was reading up on it and, um, I, I, it's going to be a fun one. So stick around for that. And we will close with our comment corner. Speaking of comments, you can contact us through blue sky, Facebook or threads, search for Mac world, Look for the Blue Mouse logo. Send an email to podcast at macworld.com. Send an email to one of us. Comment under a post or a video. Just get your comment to us. We'll collect them all, and we'll talk about them on a future show. Okay. So, Roman, give me like two minutes and 45 seconds. We're going to try to keep the show a little bit. All right, so we're going to try to get the show tighter over the next several weeks, I guess, because it's been creeping into like the hour 15 range, and we want to try to get it under an hour. Some readers, some listeners have said like it's too long, which I don't disagree. I listen back to sometimes, and I'm like I talk too much. So we're going to try to keep it under an hour. So, Roman, that's your job to just kind of tell me to shut up every now and again. Like spending two minutes to say we're going to keep it shorter is probably not a great way to start. All right. So there's a new – before we start the 2026 stuff, there's a new Ferrari car coming out called the Ferrari Luce, which is a very Ferrari name. And normally we wouldn't care about this. But the interior, at least, we haven't seen the outside of the car yet, but the interior is designed by Johnny Ive and Mark Newsom's company. What's that? It's called Love From. I hate that thing. Yeah. So it's first all electric car. Right. It's right. It's the first all electric car, which is, you know, if you know Ferrari, like they're very much into their combustible engines. So this is a big deal. um but what makes this interesting from an apple standpoint is that apple's former superstar designer johnny ive like designed the inside of this car and um i don't know it's fine it's a it's a dashboard it's a dashboard uh it's the interesting thing to me is i mean they they made a big deal about how they went away from this whole like oh it's just a big screen and everything's done on the screen and there's a lot of tactile stuff and that's fine the interesting thing to me is how they use just a lot of sort of non-rectangular screens yeah with like special covers there's little like sort of magnifying lenses that all the dials are actually screens but with like a lenticular lens over it so you have like a little parallax effect and it kind of looks like a dial there's a clock that has a whole it's a screen with a hole punched in it But it has hands, real physical hands that came up through it, and then the background can change to things like a compass or whatever, and then the hands will move for that. So I think some of those things are kind of clever. You couldn't do this in regular, like for scale cars. This works because it's Ferrari, and it can cost a gajillion dollars. Yeah, it's going to cost like 500 grand or something. Yeah, but if you're trying to manufacture a few million of these things, none of this is going to work. Right, right. There'll be a couple thousand made. It'll be, like I said, like $500,000 is probably the low end. It might be more than that. Yeah, I don't know. Ferraris are expensive. They are. And I have no idea where this is going to fall in this sort of Ferrari price lineup. I mean, electric cars are generally more expensive to begin with. Yeah. So we'll see. than a Ferrari. I don't know what a Ferrari's motor costs, but it's a lot. It's like 600 grand, I think. But this is the kind of car they make a few thousand a year, maybe even 10,000 if it's a huge hit. This is not the kind of car that they're going to try and make a million a year of. Right. It's not a Honda Civic. It doesn't have to be made for scale or anything. So they can do all this custom weird stuff. there's a lot of just sort of i don't want to call them apple touches but things you see in apple there's a lot of circles there's a lot of like the square the circled off rectangles with the the curve is pretty extreme rounded like for a rectangle very rounded rectangles and stuff like that so there's a lot of that kind of stuff yeah and there was a video of like someone like i i think it was an official ferrari video because i don't think anyone's seen this thing yet but like they were like touching the buttons and like click click click click like all the sounds are very precise yes it's a it's a johnny it's very much a johnny ive on steroids thing like if you remember back in the day when apple would have their live events he i don't think he's ever been on stage maybe not ever but certainly not as long as i can remember i don't remember if he was on stage in the video yeah he would narrate the videos and we'd hear him say aluminum right right It would always be very over the top. We meticulously crafted. This is very much that. I'm sure he loved doing this. This is his dream project. You have all the money in the world to design a dashboard. Go do it. Part of the reason people are interested in this is because they think – I mean he almost certainly did a lot of work on the Apple car before the project was scrapped. and they think maybe a lot of that came into here. I don't necessarily think that that's true. I think a Ferrari is a very different market than what the Apple car was going to be. And they have a lot of different cost considerations and stuff. So, yeah, I'm not sure. You might see little things like the way they put lenses over things to sort of magnify. But other than that, I don't imagine an Apple car would have had most of these dials and switches. I wonder how many like Johnny Ive prototypes were like, we can't possibly build this for a consumer. Like it's going to be like a $20,000 thing. Like there's no way. Like he has very exquisite exacting taste, Johnny Ive. Yes. All right. We've been talking probably more than three minutes. So in the interest of moving the show along, thank you, Roman. Let's talk about 2026. Okay. So it's February. We're recording this on February 10th. We thought the new MacBook M5 Pro Max models were going to come out originally January 28th. Then we thought maybe last week. I would think maybe not this week. I think it's possible they could come out tomorrow. That's Wednesday, February 11th. But it's looking more like later in the month and maybe even March. so uh mark herman um the bloomberg reporter who has um impeccable sources are you know pretty good the best sources of of any of these types of leakers at apple yeah says that like like like there's definitely something coming or he says there's definitely something coming march 2nd and then there's a there's like a slew of like little things that are gonna arrive between now and like mid-March. So we'll start with the obvious one, which is iOS 26.3, which is almost certainly going to be out by the time you're listening to this. Roman, it's not out. Is it out? Or Jason, whoever's looking at the web. I didn't see it arrive today. It has in the past not arrived at 10 o'clock, but it's usually by 10 o'clock. If it's out, it's out, and then it's the next day. But we had the release candidate last week, So it's going to come this week. Right. And as for those new MacBook Pros, you know, the original rumor for that was it's going to come in the 26.3 window. 26.3 will be out, but 26.4 will not be out yet. And I think a lot of people took that to mean it's going to come out right when 26.3 comes out. Right, like the same week, same day. It could, but the rumor now that we're hearing is, no, it's going to be more like three weeks from now. Right. Right. Right. So it could be March. March 2nd is – is that a Tuesday? I probably should have written that down before I started this show. March 2nd is a Tuesday – Monday, actually. It's a Monday. So, yeah, that's a possible date. But as we've been saying for a couple of weeks, they could come out like any time because by all accounts, they're ready. Stock of the current M4 Pro Max are dwindling. You can still get them, but some configurations are you can't get their Apple and some you can't get the Apple store. So it's definitely ready. We don't have any news about that. Like we know what it is. It's the M4. It's the M5 Pro, M5 Max. It's probably nothing new design-wise. We talked a lot in the last few shows about what to expect from those. And the new iOS and macOS 26.3 and stuff, there's not much in those. They do add the official support for those MacBooks. People have found that in the code. But other than that, there's not a lot there. There's the new – the main thing is on iOS, there's the new switching setup thing. If you have switching from an Android phone, there's a new – Switching to an Android phone. Either way, going in either direction. Right, right. But like – If you're switching from an Android phone. Get from an Android to an iPhone. Like this kind of – like we understand Apple wants to get people to iPhone. You could with an app. But this also lets you – yeah. This is not an app. This is in the setup process. There's like a whole thing and it transfers over a whole bunch more stuff. They collaborated with Google and it goes the other way as well. They will both have things in the phone setup process that lets you transfer over a lot more stuff from the other operating system and get things set up and everything. This was all forced on them by regulators a couple years ago. It's a good thing though. Yeah, yeah. Things like this, like, you know, we grumble a lot about EU regulation stuff, but I'm all for this one. Yep. So, I mean, there's that. There's some – at least in the EU, there's some, like, changes. I think this might be global. So notification forwarding for third-party devices, so, like, watches that aren't Apple Watch and stuff, can show your notifications. I think that's still EU, but there's rumors that it might come to the U.S. Yeah. Down the line, maybe. And C and I don't have – a lot of people have a third-party notification device that can take notifications. And then that device needs to be updated. Like if you have a Pebble or something, that would need an update too. But it's stuff like that where there's the new Pebble. I know. It's cool. I had one of the original Pebbles. It was like one of the first somewhat affordable smartwatches. It was cool. It was great. Oh, no. I think the new Pebble is awesome. so there's stuff like that but you know mainly it's going to be bug fixes we're just excited for it to come out because that means the 26.4 datas come out and then that's when the new series is supposed to arrive right 26.4 let's we'll stick with software before we jump into hardware 26.4 is the update we literally waiting like a year and a half for we're making two years actually this is so ios um 18 yeah 18 right 18 18 was last yes when was apple that's 17 the original apple intelligence no 18 18 yeah i'm supposed to make the show shorter and i'm saying the word 18 12 times i think it was i was 18.4 is what i'm thinking of right Yes, that's when this was supposed to come out. But this was announced in the summer of 2024 when they were announcing the iOS 18 stuff that would come out at the end of 2024. And they ran ads and everything showing these features. For the iPhone 16, right? Yeah. So it was supposed to come out in the spring of 2025, which was 18.4, and it didn't. and then it didn't arrive in 26 and then it's going to arrive now supposedly right and it's a big it's a big deal um you know the main thing is that it's going to in some way i'm not i'm not 100 sure jason maybe you can explain it better in some way it's based on google gemini but it won't be google gemini it'll be siri yeah uh the way these llms and stuff work is they have a foundation model that is the way that the whole transformer network works and all the data that is trained on and stuff like that. But that doesn't mean that's not all the weightings and safeguards and the way the voice works and all that. All that stuff's customizable. And it will be for Apple customizable. And this was apparently made to run on Apple's private cloud compute servers. So they say. So it's not as advanced as the current version of Gemini 3 Pro. It's not as big and fancy a model as that. But it's a real LLM that will understand what you're asking it and be able to give you real answers that hopefully make sense. And it's not going to be one of those things where you ask it a question and then it starts playing some song you didn't ask for or whatever, you know, hopefully that stuff will go away. So when people upgrade, when we get that, yeah, it be a noticeable obvious difference How do you think Apple is going to handle it in this process I mean I think we going to get a little card that pops up and says welcome to the new Siri or whatever. It's going to sound like Siri. It's going to work like Siri. That's the thing. This is not going to be a conversational back and forth talking to it thing. It's not going to be like a chat bot that gives you an ongoing text back and forth and generates text and stuff for you. It's going to work like Siri. You're going to tell your phone to do something or ask it a question, and it'll give you a response and do the thing. But there will be the new capabilities that they were talking about before that really don't have anything to do with Gemini per se. The old things they discussed, like it will understand what's on your screen and use that for context. It'll build a big context about you, from your contacts, from your messages, from all that stuff. So it understands you and where you are and what you do and who you know and stuff like that so that when you tell it things, it understands what you're talking about. And then it'll have all these app intents where it can perform actions within apps. And apps will need to be updated for this. So all those things plus a new brain, should all help it be a Siri that works good and is useful. Yeah. And so we'll work backwards with the hardware since we're on 26.4 now. That update is allegedly going to bring a couple new products, a smart home hub, maybe some accessories to go with that, which will probably be – we won't talk about them now because we'll have a whole other show about that. But that's probably going to be, I don't know, April-ish around, you know, like some kind of a spring event. If it happens in the spring, it'll be something like that. Before we get to 26.3, there's a bunch of products, not just the MacBooks, that are tied to that update. Most notably the iPhone 17e, which is a follow-up to the 16e, which was the first of its kind. The first e-phone, right? The first e-phone, yeah. Rumors about that, Jason? What do we expect? You know, yeah, it is, for better or for worse, we were kind of hoping we'd get Dynamic Island and some other things, but for better or for worse, the latest rumors say expect an update to the A19, expect faster wireless charging, the whole 25-watt MagSafe thing. Yeah, well, what MagSafe in general? It didn't have MagSafe. It doesn't have MagSafe, rather. so it'll it'll get magsafe it'll get it doesn't have wireless charging it just yeah instead of just chi wireless charging up to 15 watts or whatever it'll get the full 25 watt magsafe newer magsafe uh stuff um and that's kind of it like it's still going to be in the notch not the dynamic island it's not gonna it's still gonna be one camera it's not gonna have some crazy new camera things. I don't think it's not supposed to get the new front camera, the new square sensor front camera that all the iPhone 17s got. Right. Because it still has the old notch, the whole true depth module. So it's not going to get the new front camera. That's kind of the bummer. The new front camera is really good. It's a big step up. Yeah, right. That's the one where you can hold it vertically and still shoot in landscape selfies amongst other things. Right, yeah. Yeah, you can shoot landscape or vertical. Either way you hold it, it does image stabilization stuff. But also, it's just a better camera. It's more light sensitive. It takes clearer, better color photos. It's a big improvement, and I don't think that's coming in it because they don't have – we'd have Dynamic Island. It'd be the whole new TrueDepth module. Right, right. It's kind of a waste for them to put it in the notch if they're not going to just change the whole thing. Right. C1 modem, there's a chance it's the C1X. Probably C1X, yeah. But, you know, nothing new there. So, yeah, kind of unfortunate. It's kind of the least update they could do. Yeah, I mean, that's been the case with these SE phones. They'll come out with one, and then the second one will be like a new chip and maybe a color. and yeah well they would put speak they would have these multi-year gaps between them so i think if they're going to start doing them every year we can't take we're not going to expect them to be a big upgrade every year we were just kind of really hoping that you'd at least get dynamic island and that new front camera and it looks like that's not the case uh probably the same price probably the same price yeah yeah we don't know colors really yet i don't think yeah there are really isn't it just black and white oh no yeah yeah the same it's 16 isn't it just it's just it's just like i thought they had all color i don't think they do i think it's just black and white so i'll color would be nice i'm gonna look real quick because uh you could be right roman's roman's shaking his head no it's just black and white yeah it's just black and saying no yeah it's black um yeah so maybe they'll have a color or or something like that yeah we We haven't heard one way or the other, so my guess would be black and white. The biggest update is MagSafe, which is nice, I guess, but it should have been on the original one. We were never quite sure why Apple didn't include it in the 60D. The processor's faster, but it's not a – Yeah, who cares? Oh, I couldn't – yeah, nobody cares. No one's going to notice. My question about the 70D is, and we've got to get moving because I'm talking too much about one product, But will they still have the 16e and cut the price of it? Will it be $4.99 for the 16e? Yeah, I doubt it. Like they do with the iPhone 16. Right. It's still on sale for a little bit cheaper. I understand. We haven't heard, but I doubt it. You don't think so? Yeah, that's usually not how they operate. And I don't think they want to kind of try and push into that price territory. But also the last thing they want to do is have the 16e on the market when it's not any different. Like, why would you buy the 17e? Right. And pay more. Yeah, no, that's true. It would be $100 less and kind of a no-brainer because the chip doesn't matter and MagSafe is, you know, it's fine. The Qi was fine. Yeah, it was fine. For that price, for that market, yeah. We need to have like a 16E, 17E, 18E show once it comes out because I have thoughts on like next year and what they're going to do and all that stuff. Oh, yeah. Let's move on. All right. Also coming in the 26.3 cycle, allegedly, is updates to the iPad Air and the entry-level standard iPad. Right. Yeah. Also not all that exciting. No. Yeah. And these are chip and ship updates, right? Chips, yeah. They're not getting new displays or anything, you know. Right. No features. The iPad, so the iPad last year got the M3, and that was it. It even has the same colors with the M2. So this year it's supposed to get the M4 and that's it. So that would be like two generations of nothing for the iPad Air. I mean, that's fine, I guess. It's pretty good. It's certainly a good 599 tablet. But at some point, they're going to have to figure out what they're going to do with the Air because it's just there. like it's it's the it's like the ipad pro gets the oled screen and you know it gets the the the dinner design like they keep upgrading that but the ipad air is just kind of there it hasn't really changed much since the m1 really at all they added the 13 inch model a couple years ago but otherwise it's it's it's the same i mean ipad in general is kind of like that like most of the iPads don't go through very much change every year. They don't have to. There's no market pressure. Nobody's forcing Apple to do anything. We just had a recent article about how it's over. The iPad won. And so, yeah, we don't see a lot of, I guess, innovation in the iPad space in general. year to year. The folding phone will be the biggest tablet-type change in the Apple time. If that's a tablet-y thing. We'll see. The entry-level iPad is a new chip, but it's a pretty decent upgrade because it will get, almost certainly will get Apple intelligence support this time around. It's the only ipad os it's the only like real device other than the apple watch apple cells that doesn't support apple intelligence so this will be the it'll bring the ipads all up to speed um iphones already support it and that's good for the new siri that's coming out in a couple of months or a couple weeks yeah it is um so the entry level ipad won't miss out on that which is which is good otherwise it'll probably be the same um there's that kind of specter looming of will Apple raise prices on these things because of all the component issues and all the RAM issues. I doubt it. I don't think we're going to see $349 is a good price. I think if you raise it even at $399, it'll cut into sales too much. So I think if we see increases, it'll be on the upper end like the iPad Pro maybe and the higher end storage. But I think it'll still start at $349. Yeah. And they just had their financials and they just made more money than ever. and more profit, just like the profits through the roof and the profit as a percentage of their revenue is really, really high. They're okay right now. They're going to have to deal with this at some point. At some point, yeah. Tim Cook talked about that. They asked about it. They're like, yeah, our chief operating officer is really working on this and we're really going to have to deal with this. But yeah, I don't think any of the products coming up this spring, I don't expect price hikes. Right. Yeah. Yeah, because these are attractive because of their prices. If you raise them by even $50, say the iPad Air starts at $649, that's a big difference in $599. Psychologically, I think prices need to stay where they are for these products. Certainly the iPhone. A $649 iPhone 17e is just not worth it when the $799 iPhone 17 is so much. Especially in the markets where those things are all kind of subsidized and paid through carriers and stuff like that, where you get them free when you sign up with a new line and all this other BS, like the things they do in a lot of North America markets. Yeah, I don't know. A lot of those products are really made for emerging markets. That's where they hope to make the sell a whole lot in India and stuff like that. So we'll see what they do. Yep. um so yeah those will probably be like website releases maybe in successive days or something like some week you'll you'll get the iphone 17 in any air than the ipad um same thing with the um the macbook air is also due for an m5 um just like the other ones probably just the chip i mean the MacBook Pro M5 didn't really bring anything other than the chip. So you can kind of look to that. I think it is literally just going to be the M5 processor in the same chassis, same port, same camera, same screen. I think the MacBook Air does need a new display, but I don't think they can do that yet, or nobody would buy the lower-priced MacBook Pros. Like, I really think, you know. But at its price compared to sort of contemporary laptops from competitors and stuff like that, it really does need it. It's time to update that display. You mean to like ProMotion? ProMotion, HDR, stuff like that. It really needs its time. Yeah, I mean, I don't disagree. I also think people who are buying the MacBook Air would rather pay $9.99 for an LED than $1,199 for a ProMotion display. No, it needs to be $9.99 and have a better display is what I'm saying. They're out of whack with the rest of the industry pretty bad. But if they do that, then you would get a slightly upgraded MacBook Air instead of the entry-level MacBook Pros, right? Yeah. I mean, there's $600 between them. Yeah. And Apple doesn't want to give anybody an excuse to pay less yet. So until the MacBook Pros kind of get something, their OLED version or something else, then I don't think you're going to see that update to the Air. Or unless there's something cheaper to differentiate it from again, which brings us back around to that cheap MacBook. Hey, that was my next thing on the list, Jason. Yeah, I was trying to tee that up for you. Yeah, so that's the main thing. So we just went through five or so products that no one really will notice. They're chip and chip updates, and they're fine, yeah. But so this low-cost MacBook, which Mark Herman did mention in his report as something that is still planned for the first half of the year or first quarter of the year, maybe. He said first half, I think. Okay. On that one. Yeah. that's first quarter would be huge that would be by the end yeah yeah that would be like and it might be that is still in the first half we don't know right that's the thing so i think something like this needs like an event but maybe it doesn't it's still a mac it's still a macbook it's not like it's gonna it's gonna reinvent the wheel so much but this will be if the rumors are correct a MacBook powered by an iPhone chip with a slightly smaller screen than a MacBook Air and a significantly lower price than the entry-level Air that we just said starts at $999. Yeah, like an A18 Pro or A19, something like that. And we don't know what significantly lower prices, but not $899, right? Like not just a higher MacBook Air. It's like $950. Right. So not something like that, something significantly less expensive than a MacBook Air. A lot of people are thinking maybe $699, but if it's $599, if it's $600, these things fly off the shelves forever. Like there's no, and here's my theory about this. Apple has been hinting that they gonna do something for their 50th anniversary As we all know know Apple started on the first products went on sale April Fool Day April 1st And a lot of what they're planning is a celebration stuff, and we're going to see special stuff in the App Store and all this other kind of whatever. We're going to see those things. But it would not shock me if this new MacBook was sort of a 50th anniversary celebratory product. Like a Mac for everyone, right? That's a good thought. So April 1st is a Wednesday. Maybe. Yeah. I'm on board with Jason's theory. I actually haven't connected those dots when I feel kind of foolish now that I haven't. The original Apple and the Apple II, which was the first thing to really sell in stores and not be like, you know, just out of a garage. The whole point of those was that it's the first home computer, right? The first computer for people to buy in their home and not for your business to buy for your desk, right? I mean, IBMs were made for your office in a desk, and you weren't really meant to have one at home unless you were a hoity-toity rich guy. So this was like the – it was a computer for everyone. And a lot of their old ads are like that. They're like the personal computer for everyone, right? And they were cheaper, a lot cheaper than the IBMs of the time and stuff. But they were also just kind of the software side and the design. They were made for your home and for tinkerers to mess around with and stuff like that. That kind of has gone away. But it would not surprise me if that's the whole marketing thing for this new MacBook is that like, yeah, Now everyone can get it back. You know? Yeah, I'm excited. I'm going to put it on my calendar. This thing I invented that doesn't exist. That's a really good idea. Yeah. So, yeah, that's my pitch is that it's going to be a 50th anniversary thing. Yeah, yeah. If not on April 1st, then during that week or something, you know? Yep. I mean, that makes perfect sense. And I wonder if there'll be an event, but maybe that doesn't need to be. If so, if they hype up the website stuff, which they do, Tim Cook sends out a tweet or whatever, people will pay attention. It's like video, all that stuff. It's not like they have to. The event is just a prerecorded video anyway, so they could just pop it up on their website if people are watching Apple for something to come out. I dig it. Yeah, so the low-cost MacBook, as Jason said, if it's like 600 bucks, it'll be by far the cheapest MacBook that they ever sold. and we'll just fly off shelves. I would buy one as a secondary. I have a M3 Max MacBook Pro. If this is like a 12.5-inch MacBook for $600, I'd buy one just to screw around with. I'm not working. So you could have a left-handed and a right-hand MacBook. I love the MacBook Air. That's the perfect sweet spot for me. I have an M2 MacBook Air right now, which this thing would be you have the third to use the 13 not the 15 yes did they have a 15 m2 i think so actually i can be wrong jay uh roman is that true maybe it came out the m3 when they came out with the 15 or did it was at the m2 was them he's saying yeah he's not so you have the you still have the wedge that's the wedge one no no the wedge was just the m1 and then they were gone oh okay yeah this is the first non-wedge so the 15 inch with the m3 okay 13 inch with the m2 right gotcha is what i have uh and and the iphone chip that should be powering this thing should be faster than this m2 right and uh and i i never do anything with it where i feel like i'm not it's not fast enough right like i mean granted i'm not sitting there doing like music production or editing video with it much or anything i just you know maybe trim a video and photos to take the ends off of it or something but no it's great um i'm looking forward to like the m5 macbook air as an update i think the 13 inch size and this form factor and the battery life and all that stuff is pretty much perfect for me but yeah i can see them selling so especially if it's god if it's 599 or even $649 maybe, but $599, that is where every laptop sells in Best Buy and all that other stuff. Right. It's not like a super dirt cheap $399, but you don't really want those anyway because they've got to break in a year. You want between $500 and $700. And if you can get a Mac that's good for four to five years with Apple's design and whatever, or everything everybody wants with that. It's fantastic. All right, so just rounding out what we expect over the next couple of weeks, maybe a new Mac Studio with an M5, maybe an M5 Ultra. We've heard some rumblings about the Ultra. In the 26.3 code, people spotted references to the M5 Ultra chip. They skipped the M4 Ultra, notably. yeah um so the macbook the mac pro amazingly still has an m2 ultra i can't imagine anybody buys that and the the current mac studio has an m3 ultra so um m5 ultra would presumably be significantly faster than certainly faster than the m2 and the mac pro but but faster way faster than the m3 ultra and maybe finally a uh an update to the studio display that came out four years ago am i right about that roman 2022 i want to say yeah i think it was four years ago i mean that is another one years ago that uh is supposed to be coming first half of the year but yeah but maybe not one of those ones that we expected the next four or six weeks like maybe but like probably not it's it's not yeah he mentioned it in his roundup but it's it's The timing is a little bit big. Things still coming early this year, yeah. Right, so that's probably the same size, probably the same look. Faster processor, better camera. Maybe promotion. Maybe like half promotion like this. Some rumors are maybe 90 hertz. Right, yeah. The latest rumors say a 90 hertz limit promotion, which would be weird. Like what panel are they getting made for them? Just put the 120 on it. Who cares? But still, that's better than 60. And not just the refresh rate, but the fact that it's variable refresh rate. That's the key thing that helps. And HDR. All the things that they really do need on. Yeah. I mean, if it costs $1,600, it should have all that stuff. Yeah. And that's it. That's what we're expecting. That's a lot. We've been saying in the weeks that it's a busy 2026. Yeah, the next couple weeks could be real busy. We got, so far this year, the AirTag 2. or the second gen air tech and that's it. So, um, you know, strap in. Cause we got a culturally like, like four to six weeks of like, of like, you know, fun stuff. All right. All right, Roman. That was good. I'm 38 minutes in, right? Um, all right. Uh, so let's do Jason. So last Friday, we published an article by, um, by you that was about the folding phone. So yes, so far all the rumors about the folding phone have been hardware obviously what it's going to look like what the form factor is going to be how many cameras does it have what chip does it use does it have face id you know we've been running yeah where are the buttons right all that stuff your article kind of just said all right you know like backup like yeah all this stuff is cool but what really matters is the software yes uh especially since everything that they we've heard about the folding iphone just well gosh that sure sounds like a folding iphone all right like they're not we're not going to hear anything about the hardware that's going to be some sort of oh my god nobody has that right nobody's ever done that before it's not going to be there's there are enough folding phones on the market where there are there's enough what we're getting yeah there's enough that everyone has a roundup of the best folding phones right like that's that's where we are we're at that point and they fold there's vertical flips book style flips there's a samsung's got a tri-fold phone coming out like we're there we're we're you know um we're even beyond the point where you could say like oh it's the first one without a awful crease That problem was solved a couple years ago. So in order for Apple to sell this thing, I mean, it's the first-folding iPhone. They're going to sell something no matter what they do. But it's going to be expensive. And for this to be an ongoing thing that people want to buy and spend more money on, spend twice as much money on as a pro iPhone. Pretty much, yeah. And continue to buy. For this not to be another Vision Pro that is hot for six weeks and then everybody's moved on, it's going to need to do something other than just be like an iPhone that you unfold it. And it's a bigger iPhone. It's going to have to do something your regular iPhone can't do. That was my main pitch. We already know from the sort of leaks that it's got a little different form factor than some of the folding iPhones. It's wider. they call it passport size so if you think of the size of a passport and then you open a passport it's wider when it's closed most of the folding phones aren't like that that already sort of makes you feel like when it's open it's going to be just the right size and shape for watching video it's going to be practically like a 16x9 video watching machine but you don't want to spend $2,000 on a phone so that you can open it up and use two hands to watch a video. Especially since phone style video is increasingly becoming vertical, short form, flip through TikTok stuff. I'm not going to bust this open to watch a two hour movie, even though that experience would be superior. Plus you can buy an iPad mini for like 500 bucks. So you can get an iPhone and iPad mini and get the same experience. So that's not a selling point. Yeah. So like my thought was like maybe – I mean iOS and iPadOS are really the same operating system still. And maybe that's the thing is that it kind of runs a version of iPadOS. It's its own thing, but it's – when you unfold it, maybe it operates the way an iPad operates. It has all the things that they add in iPadOS 26, all the real multitasking. Yeah. And you can already use a Bluetooth keyboard and stuff with an iPhone. But when you hook up a Bluetooth keyboard and a trackpad or something like that, you get an actual pointer. That would be something. I could see it maybe having Apple Pencil support on the inside screens. So a different way of operating. something interesting other than just yeah it's an iphone and then but when i want to watch something big or see a bigger web page i open it up and that's what i what i see you know right it needs to take it to a different level than just even just like a split screen thing like there's got to be more yep like more of a reason to go out and by one like a lot of the folding phones like with the pixel fun and the samsung like that they do multitasking of course but it's like one window here, one window here, one window here. I hope you're right and that Apple is thinking about these things and does have a different concept in mind because even if it's 2000, let's say it's 1999, which is at the low end of expectations. You're asking people to basically buy an iPhone and an iPad or rather like an iPad Pro and like an iPhone Pro. It's like that much money. That much money, yeah. Yeah. And it doesn't even have the software capabilities of the iPad. That's what I'm saying. Right. So you should at least have that or do something else unique and special. Because if it's iPhone and you open it up and it's big iPhone, this thing is another Vision Pro. Everyone's going to talk about it for six weeks and all the YouTubers are going to have one and stuff. And then the sales are going to fall through the floor because nobody wants to spend that kind of money. Yeah, I mean, we've seen that already with folding phones. People buy them, but they don't buy them like iPhones. They're not selling them. You don't even buy them like they do Galaxy phones. They're a very niche market. And Apple doesn't really work in niche markets. It's going to want to sell, I don't know, 10 million of them a year, whatever it is, whatever the number is. Yeah, and it's going to want a new folding phone next year and the year after that or whatever. It's going to have to be something. So, yeah, that's just – I mean, it was my wishful thinking, but it was also just saying like, you know, just long-term overall, Apple has to have a software plan for the folding iPhone. That is something a little more than – well, when you open it up, you can have like two iPhone screens inside, like side by side. I mean, the biggest takeaway I got from reading your article is that like hardware appeal wears off very quickly. Like you'll take it out of the box and be like, wow, this is so cool. You'll open it up like, wow. And then like the next day, like, all right, what am I really doing with this thing? And that's what Apple has to address. In a year, you're going to still be using your folding iPhone going like, my next iPhone is definitely going to be the folding one. because it does A, B, and C that the regular iPhone doesn't do, you know, especially since it's expected to have fewer cameras than, say, the iPhone Pro and so on. It will have other limitations. Right. All right. So we're about seven months away from that. So, Jason, you got at least four more columns in you before that. Yeah, I know. You're going to hear so much about the folding iPhone. Yeah, you're going to be sick of it before it even arrives. All right, Roman, this week in Apple history, we actually have two separate events that we're going to combine into one because I don't know. It's a slow week. Yeah. So this week in Apple history is related to everybody's favorite Apple. I guess I could call him a character because he is kind of a character Yeah Yeah Is Woz So in February Steve Wozniak the co of Apple back in February 7th 1981 so 25 years ago, Woz was in a plane crash. He survived. And then four years later, almost to the day, February 6, 1985, Waz decided to leave Apple. It's kind of a funny, crazy story. So Waz did an Ask Me Anything on Reddit like 10 years ago. And he provided some insight on what happened. So he was in this – he never talks about the plane crash. now whether that's because he feels bad about it or if it's traumatic or because he doesn't remember it because after the plane crash he was in a coma for a few days and had amnesia for a while and says he doesn't have any memory of it yeah he had like anti-retrograde amnesia or something which means you know you couldn't like develop short-term memories for a bit yeah and yeah the the rumor, I guess, I bet it's true. It's not a rumor, but he doesn't remember it. It should be noted that he was flying the plane. Yeah, this was a small craft plane crash. Not a big... He wasn't on a 747 that crashed. He was flying like a Cessna or something. Right, right. He was flying the plane. I was trying to... I found a link to the NTSB report, but it didn't work. It didn't work. You got it? Yeah, I found it. They basically said it was total pilot error. There was no mechanical issues. And it's also come out like he was completely unexperienced, inexperienced rather, and unqualified to fly this particular aircraft. And it crashed very quickly after takeoff, which is probably why he survived because it wasn't super high in the air. but i mean there's a lot of reports of of more so wasniac but also jobs being like you know just kind of wild and uh they pulled pranks on people and they right yeah but like it appears as though he crashed a plane and there were no like legal repercussions at all right there were several people on board including some of his friends and he just kind of got away with it Or not away with it, but he just kind of like moved on with his life. And I didn't even realize – like I had – I think somewhere in my life I knew this happened, but I was fascinated when I was going back and researching for this. It was like he could have killed like three people. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And it kind of got away scot-free. Yeah, it seems as though. Which has kind of been his story throughout his life. The funny thing – I don't mean to go off on this tangent, but the funny thing about Waz is that you hear about his pranks and stuff, and if they were anyone else, people would be very, very angry and calling for legal repercussions and stuff. But because it's Waz, everyone thinks it's funny and charming and stuff. So take that for what it's worth. so apparently after he gets out of this coma he decides he wants to go back to college to finish his degree right kind of like this weird thing just out of the blue he calls it in the in the ask me anything he calls it the first time he left apple i don't know if he officially he doesn't sound like he officially left apple it was you know he just decided to make it a secondary thing or whatever and focus on school. So he finally got his degree from Berkeley, came back to Apple as an engineer, and then he decided to quit because he wanted to do startups, right? According to his Ask Me Anything. Right, because Apple was so big at that time. People think of Steve Jobs as being a hippie and stuff, but Wozniak was way flighty. I guess is for lack of a better word. He was very much responsible for Apple's beginnings. I doubt the Apple one would have been built without him. Like he was a genius. Yeah, he was a really good tinkerer. And he was very much responsible for figuring out, well, how can we make a personal computer cheaply? Right. Right. You know, with with the parts that we can get stuff like that. Yeah. I was going to say, like, wasn't he responsible, Roman, for like the first like character being typed on like a like a computer screen or something with that, like homebrew stuff back in the day? like i like he was very much into figuring out how to get this technology that was in a very small clusters of of you know enthusiasts and bring it to the masses in a simple easy way and then steve jobs came along and you know they were perfect for each other because steve jobs was a salesman right was the hack was a was a brilliant engineer yeah and more of a Businessmen knew how to turn it into a company, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah, so that's what happened approximately 25, 20 years, 21 years ago with Wozniak. He had nothing to do with the Mac, right? Wozniak, that was all jobs. In fact, I think he hated the Mac. I think he may have left before. Well, he – okay, so according to the AMA, he was at Apple, and then he was trying to figure out what to do, and he saw – he talked to the Mac team. He thought they were doing fine and didn't need him. And then that's when he decided to go back to school and get his degree. Yeah, so the way the timing of that works out, there was a Mac team, and there was the Lisa team. and they were still doing the Apple 2 line so it was the 2E and then they were working on the 2GS at that time and he was I think on the Apple 2 side still yeah in fact I think there's an Apple there's a old cover of some computer magazines and stuff like that when the 2GS came out that's got like Waz on the front with the 2GS talking about how great this is and all the color and all that stuff. So yeah, I don't think he was on team, literally, when I say it wasn't on Team Mac, I mean Apple was actually organized with competing teams of the same products at that time. But yeah, we have links in our show notes in the show description to the AMA and to other WAZ-related articles on our websites if you're interested in reading more about WAZ. Yeah, we'll do a whole show on him at some point when we have a slow week because he's a pretty fascinating guy. Maybe we can get him on. He might. He does respond to people and stuff. Yeah, he does that. I'd like to talk to him about his Segway polo career. Yeah, yeah, that too. Yeah, Roman, send out an email to Steve Wozniak. Tell him not to listen to this segment. Let's reach out. All right. This week on Apple History, we're close. We're going to be a little over an hour, but we're close. Unless you can – oh, no, we did have to. What's next? Comment code. Oh, no, maybe we will finish it. Comment code. We got one segment left. We'll make this quick. Let's go. So comment code, we got two emails, one from Joe V. He said, I am amazed at how all of you at Macworld are so hung up on badmouthing the iPhone 16e for not having MagSafe. people like myself have an implantable cardioverter defibrillator in their chest and carry their phone in a shirt pocket mags say though apple denied it at first puts out enough emi to disrupt an icd or pacemaker in close close proximity sure but that's not why i didn't do it right i mean literally every other phone that with a g wireless charger you're gonna have to stop carrying your phone in your shirt pocket But this is all going – any phone for the rest of your life is going to have magnets. Yeah, you have to start new habits. So I don't have an ICD, but I do sometimes – like if I'm wearing a sports jacket and then the pants that go along with it often don't have deep enough pockets. Right. So I'll put my phone in my jacket pocket, which I don't like because it's a giant phone. Can you put a picture in the show notes of me wearing a sports coat? And pants with tight pants with no pockets. Yeah. I totally get what Joe V is saying. We ran articles at the time about the magnets and stuff. Yeah, it's a thing. I wouldn't say we were hung up on it, though. David's written a couple of stories about it. Like some of us are. And it was a notable omission for technology that's been out since the iPhone 12. It's not like it's new. But the biggest issue is that it was clearly done for cost-cutting measures, and the phone cost $600. It's not like a $200 phone. So what are we talking about, $0.18 a phone or $1.80? It's not like this is going to destroy their profit margins. and the next one's going to have it. So what are you going to do, Joe? You can't update because, you know, like Apple didn't do that because it cares about your health. And just most other sort of like phones in that price range from if you get a Samsung Galaxy or something like that, they've all got like some sort of magnetic wireless charging hookup thing. Like I don't think you're going to be able to use almost any modern phone of that price range in your shirt pocket. Like, hold it there. That's the thing. I haven't worn a shirt with a pocket on it in, like, 30 years. But I can't imagine that would be comfortable. But maybe it is. I don't know. Our last email will make this quick. Caesar D via email said, Can you guys please discuss the N1 chip? Specifically, will some build of the new Macs? Will the new Macs include them? Well, he'll be upgrading his Mac Mini this year. I would love to get Wi-Fi 7 to take advantage of his new TP-Link Wi-Fi 7 router to be E550. We don't know. There hasn't been a rumor that's gone as deep as saying, yeah, they're going to have the N1 chip. But I would expect most of Apple's products that are fairly newly designed to have the N1 because that's – their whole point is to have these things where they control the chips and they're – it's a cost thing for them. It's like better cost. So as we go further on in time, they're going to have an N1 or maybe an N1X or N2. You know, that's – I think it – Does the MacBook Pro, the M5 MacBook Pro, does that have the N1? It has the N1, right? I know the iPhone does. I don't think it does. I didn't think it does. Because, like, the iPhone Pro does not have it, correct? No, it does. It doesn't? I thought for some... So you're talking about the modem. Oh, I'm talking about the modem. Not the modem. The N1, the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip. Yeah. I think... The iPhone Air has the C1X modem and the other iPhones don't have the C1 or C1X. But the N1 chip, I think, is on the new MacBook. No, that still is only Wi-Fi 6E. Yeah, it's not. It's still the old Broncom chip and stuff. So it's when they update the platform, like they're not updating all the motherboard and all the accessory chips and stuff like that. When these things get like an internal redesign they're going to go to N1 so specifically this person's question when is the Mac Mini and stuff going to get that is the next one going to get the N1 it really comes down to that's really a coin toss about whether or not they're redesigning that much of the internals of the thing or if it's just like dropping the new chip so the iPad Pro got it that didn't have a redesign yeah i guess maybe the internals were somewhat maybe i wonder if the the m5 pro and max would that would make sense you would yeah to get wi-fi 7 um hey kudos to that guy for having a wi-fi 7 router those things aren't cheap yeah i know they are yeah so that does it for comment corner. 12 seconds over, but I think we started a couple seconds late, so I think we made it. So that's good. We weren't even really trying to trim stuff, so I think we can keep this under an hour regularly. And that does it for this episode of the Macro Podcast, episode number 970. Thank you, Jason. Thank you. Thank you, Roman. Thank you, sir. And thank you listeners for tuning in. You can subscribe to the Macworld Podcast in the podcast app on Spotify, on YouTube at the Macworld Podcast channel, or through any other podcast app. If you have any comments or questions, send us an email at podcast.macworld.com. Contact us through Blue Sky Facebook or Threads. Comment under a video or a post or something, or send us a personal email, whatever. Just get in touch with us. You can join us in the next episode of the Macworld Podcast where we talk about So close. I wasn't going to say anything. I thought you had it. You started thinking about it. You can tell. I was really good until then. Join us in the next episode of the Macworld Podcast as we talk about the latest in the world of Apple. See you next time. Thank you.