iPhone Fold, MacBook Neo, and iPhones in Space, on the AppleInsider Podcast

Hello. Welcome to the Apple Insider podcast. I'm William Gallagher. I sponsor this week is Claude by Anthropic. What about that in a while? And I'm joined by Wesley Hilliard as everyone. Of course, you know, podcast is the bit where I say, Wes, how are you? But no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, let's skip straight back into the conversation because Wes, I'm obviously in Britain and you're also in America. You do in America have a humble pie phrase, don't you? A humble pie. Yeah, I've heard that before. Okay. Are we at the stage where you might need some dessert over the iPhone fold because there's like a ton of rumors and you said there wouldn't be. Well, see, here's the problem is there are still no product leaks, period, no assembly footage, no device, nothing. We got a video of someone holding something that looked like one, which was clearly fake and now they've claimed it was an April Fool's joke. So yeah, yeah, we're back to square one. There is a ton to get to here. And then I wrote a whole thing. I'll tell you about what it started out as and we evolved the pieces we went along. But I'm not this sounds like you're trying to just distance yourself from previous. No, you're not. Okay. Oh, I'm doubling down, William. Oh, you're committed. Okay. All right, then. So basically, this week started with a rumor from a somewhat okay source instant digital saying iPhone fold had entered manufacturing tests. Finally, this was a month after the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max had entered their validation testing. So a little late, but better late than ever. Again, no product leak, no component leak, no real, I mean, we saw a CAD, but it was no different from the 3D printed models we saw before. Shortly after this, we'll get to it. But there was dummy models, which still look like the CAD, which still look like the 3D model. I'm not 100% on those. Those are mostly red herrings to distract us. The actual thing that I want to see that I will repeat here is I want to see a component. I want to see that camera module. I want to see the hinge. I want to see something someone claiming with a shaky, grainy shadowy footage of a random plant in China of an iPhone fold component. And we have yet to see that. That happened last month, last year, for iPhone Air. We had seen the whole device by April. So it's odd to me that we still have yet to even see a component and it has now entered this mass production testing, which means they're making thousands of them. And we still have seen no leaks. But then, after this entering the manufacturing test rumor came, not hours later, same day, we got a leak from someone from Nakea Asia, which is a source. So they've previously got photos or something rumors about a display being made in a factory and they called it an iMac. It was a studio display, right? So they've made mistakes like that before. But this particular rumor is Apple told suppliers, they have sent out a warning that mass production may be delayed of the iPhone fold. Now, I don't know how you misinterpret that or get that wrong. There's always a possibility that they could just be lying. Who knows? That seems a little unlikely. So that report comes out. And then everyone's going crazy. Apple stock per drop 7%. And a couple hours later, Bloomberg puts out a report because at the same time, I saw a couple places do this, Reuters and a couple, maybe Ars Technica, they said the iPhone fold could be delayed by months because it's Nakea Asia report, which is what the report said. We were talking December, January at this point, not October. And then they were saying like Gurman said, which is not what he said. So he puts out a report saying actually no, the iPhone fold is still fully on time for September release, according to his sources. So now it's a whole mishmash of crazy. Who's right? Who's wrong? I'm going to say, I'll let you say something before I get to it. Because I have a feeling I have an understanding of the order of operations here. What exactly happened with all of this? But what do you think of all of it? I really want to know. There's one thing I could just hopefully use for you to check. When you're saying that about Gurman said that, no, it didn't. That remind that the video that was going around, you mentioned the April falls joke, when that first was going around the internet, it was being presented as this is it. This is real. And it clearly, clearly wasn't. I was contacted by the man who actually made the video. And he'd made it as an April falls was really, really annoyed. The people were clipping out bits and stringing it together, something like that. So yeah, things start in crazy places and they spread. But it doesn't leave me understanding where anything is. I feel I'm still at the stage of I'll wait for Apple. But you know better. Well, I mean, this is the wrong way of phrasing it. You have, you think you can see what's happening throughout this mess. Instant digital is a Chinese leaker who gets their information direct from the supply chain. They probably have family that works in a factory is my guess, or some cousin or friend, something. That's usually how these kinds of leaks happen. A lot of these social media leaks are kind of, you know, family related. And they make money on the side because of it or advertising. There's a whole like orchestration going on there, a whole business. So best not to get into that too much. By the way, speaking of leakers, I'll inject this here. If you see Majin Buu anywhere, that's fake. He is gone. He doesn't exist. There's a new account. They took the it's Majin Buu officials, the tag that was originally, it's the same tag without the L on the end. So clearly fake. So just keep that in mind. But anyway, I've seen Apple fakes where the L of Apple is a one and something like that. The name is clever, actually, isn't it? But I would have been filled by that. I hadn't seen it yet. Okay, sorry. Yeah, I saw several publications publishing Majin Buu. And it's like, don't, don't, don't give the fake person attention. They have like four followers. Now they have 400 because of this one article. Anyway, so this is my supposition. So the leaker in China, instant digital, probably gets information late, or probably gets information and holds onto it to protect their source, right? So you can't just get information and leak it immediately. You got to confirm it. You got to hold on to, you know, there's all these things because the if you're just putting it out as you get it, you're in danger of exposing your source because Apple could be putting out fake leads. They could, there's all, Apple has all these methods for catching leakers. So I think the iPhone fold entered manufacturing earlier in the month, even a couple weeks ago. And he only just leaked out that they had entered this thing. But the K Asia, Apple alerted the supply chain and then the supply chain, this, this isn't, you know, some inside leak from a family member or friend or whatever. This is the supply chain. They immediately contacted the press and said, Hey, Apple just told me that this is getting delayed. So the same day that we get that one report, we get the other, but one information was delayed while the other was instant, right? Right? Kind of funny that it wasn't instant digital who have the instant information. But anyway, Nakeya Asia says that the iPhone fold could be delayed months because of a manufacturing issue they've encountered during testing. They didn't specify what that was. But later, we also found out that Apple has to rely entirely on Samsung that no one else can make this display. Yeah, that could be what it was that maybe they couldn't overcome this limitation. Hard to say. Oh, no, hang on a second. No, I could I wrote about that Samsung thing. It appeared. Well, the story was, as far as we know, that Samsung laid out the terms of Apple basically take it or leave it. It's us, isn't it? Because Apple had been talking or wanted to talk to BOE. But the foldable screens they do for other smartphones are in some way considered inadequate for the iPhone fold. And LG display would have been the other one. They aren't apparently even doing any foldable stuff. So it was Samsung or nobody Samsung said, right, well, tough, you've got us and you're only having us for three years, which means I presume they're charging a lot for it because part of the story was also a division of Samsung has to justify why it's helping out arrival to Samsung. So the story I understood was Samsung's doing well out of this Apple's okay. But you think that there might have been actually a problem with that screen? It's the only other piece that we can grab on to. Because again, no one's talking about what the issue might have been. I don't know if it was the display, it could have been the hinge, it could have been anything. But German coming out, I think maybe the next day, very close together, it's all within 24 hours. I think he put out his report without any real new information. I believe he was trying to cover his narrative and make sure that it was being accurately reported that he was saying the iPhone fold was coming in September or October, because that's what he keeps saying. He keeps hedging. He's not saying September, because some people got this story from German and reported, oh, he's saying it's on time September, yeah, he's saying it could be a month delay at most, like iPhone 10. But it is September or October, not this multi months. He called the K Asia's reporting flawed. Now, again, I don't know how you get a supply chain report, and misinterpreted enough that it would be entirely flawed. The only way this could be being misinterpreted is, perhaps Apple only alerted some of the supply chain, because they over indexed on some products. Then I don't know, the warning was specifically mass production might be delayed. It's a whole mess. My take on this is, we don't know, we're not going to know until September when Apple announces the iPhone fold. Their entire fall and their advertising and their marketing plans, everything is built around this new foldable. Apple's going to do everything in its power to make sure it gets this thing out there. It can't afford to have a delay. Imagine if it's December or January when the iPhone fold is ready. That would be catastrophic for a lot of reasons. I wrote a story about this. It started as, and I'll share, because I wanted to hardline it. I really wanted to hardline it, but Mike asked me to take a step back, and I agree with the changes we made to be clear. I said iPhone fold doesn't need to exist, but Apple will release it anyway as the headline. It was originally more like the iPhone fold is in trouble and Apple should let it die. It's a step back from that, but the cinema is the same. I make it clear in the piece that I still, if I had control of Apple, I would never release this device because it doesn't make sense. Actually, let me start there. Why doesn't it make sense? Samsung's been doing foldable since 2019, I think somewhere around then. I mean, I've seen only a few in the wild, but I've seen them. They're being sold. They do a job, presumably, and people seem to like them when they've got them. You've argued before that you spend all that money. You're going to have to like it, but what job is it doing? Well, I am, I vacillate, which I'm interested or not usually affected by what I hear the latest price is going to be, but when it seems affordable, I really like the idea of it replacing my iPad. I mean, I have a large iPad, I have a small iPad and like a mini iPad for various things. That sounds strange when you put it like that. Just get one. But the ability to, I mean, I'll go somewhere and the meeting is delayed and I will write on my iPhone, but if I could instead have iPad sized screen and proper keyboard attached, yeah. Also watching certain things, reading, I'm scrabbling, but there's a few things to scrabble over a bit. The dummy unit that we got appears smaller than what you're describing, because you're describing an iPhone that opens to an iPad mini. This appears to be smaller than an iPad mini when it's open. And what's more is the length and width of it. If you open it and watch a 16x9 video, that video is going to be the same size as watching it on an iPhone that isn't the fold because of black bars, right? Right. So you're not gaining anything in that aspect. I mean, maybe four by three video would look better, right? If you want to watch some 90s cartoons. But I am researching a book on a 1970s TV show. That would look great. There you go. Yeah, four by three is good on an iPad. I like watching some old TV on an iPad. But then you, but there's so many things. Okay, so let's start from the top. What purpose does the iPhone fold serve? What is it doing? Right? The idea that was pitched in 2019 when Samsung released its device is that it is a smartphone when it's shut and it is a tablet when it is open. Great. That took six, seven years now to really come to full fruition. It's less than 3% of the market. I think I'm getting that number wrong. I think it's 3% of a segmented, like, like, went to holiday quarter and less than 1% of the market. Like, there's some crazy math here, but it is a, let's just call it a very small percent of the market, like, fractionally to the point that it doesn't exist. It's, well, what, what, what, what, I mean, 3% say of Apple iPhone sales is, I mean, that's the kind of sales and other companies would, would weep to get so, so I don't relatively, but I'm not sure that it would translate to 3% of iPhone sales is the problem because you have to imagine the smartphone market is the whole world and there's, you know, hundreds of millions, if not a billion smartphones sold a year, Apple accounts for a decent chunk of that. But even then Apple is only, I don't know, 25% of the global smartphone market. So if you look at these numbers and keep slicing it down, $2,000 to $2,500 for a foldable and yeah, a lot of people are making them now. Well, not a lot, but you know, we have the usual suspects, Xiaomi, Samsung, OPPO and Honor, like these guys in China are pumping these things out because as we've learned from go read the Apple and China book, the entire modus operandi of China is bring in the engineers, learn their craft, hand it over to state sponsored companies, let them make their version of the smartphone and sell it in China. That's their whole thing. That's what they do. And so that's why we see foldables cropping up because Samsung is developing foldables. So China is also developing foldables. They're the same market. The problem is, is it still hasn't penetrated the market, even with these multiple OEMs entering foldables, we're still talking about less than 3%. And that's over seven years it took to carve out even that niche. And these people are very hopeful. We've seen a lot on market analysts say Apple is going to save foldables. Apple is going to create the foldable market. They're going to come in and turn 3% into 20% within five years. They're talking maddeningly crazy outrageous numbers for a $2,500 smartphone. So I was going to say exactly that to you. The example is there were many, many tablets before the iPad came out and boom, everybody wanted an iPad because it was tablets done right. iPad would be this iPhone would be the same. They have a form on this. I have no doubt that Apple is capable of making foldables popular. I have no doubt that they can announce this and make people want a foldable and then look down market to the cheaper Chinese alternatives. That is absolutely an Apple's power. They've done it before. They'll do it again. That is not beyond reality. That's not what I'm saying. But anyway, the point is, the market really isn't there. It's so low volume that iPhone owners, like iPhones, people, Apple people will buy this device. I don't think it's not going to be zero. But it's going to be really low volumes. I think it's an experimental device. I think this could very well be an iMac Pro situation. This could be a one and done. We'll see. But anyway, the point of the piece to get back to that that I wrote was to first off to explain everything that's been going on with all these rumors. I've echoed some of what I've said here on the show. But it's a flawed device because, as we've discussed toaster fridges before, Tim Cook said this about Windows PCs in 2012. It's not a good iPhone and it's not a good iPad. It's probably an okay foldable. But what does that even mean? Because when the device is closed, first off, it's going to need a whole new UI paradigm. I know there's scaling involved in iOS now and the UI can stretch to fit. iOS has never had a short squat display like this before. So I don't know if that external display is going to even be fully interactable in the way that we're expecting. It could be a full iPhone experience. I don't know. But it's like two thirds. Imagine if you cut off an iPhone at the camera plateau. That's how much display you have when it's shut. That is a squat display. So fitting the UI in there, when it's been designed, the iOS has been designed for years to be this really tall right thing. This isn't running iPadOS and even if it did, the UI would be too small. This is a tiny, tiny, tiny display. It's a corner pocket of the iPad mini when it's shut. So okay, fine. It's basically just a standby display until it's open. Let's assume that external display is barely even being used and Apple expects you to open it every single time or maybe the display is so awkward you have to open it each time. I don't know. I'm just assuming that is a very short, weird display. I don't know what Apple's going to do with it. But you open it and you're about as tall as an iPhone Pro Max. Maybe a smidge taller. But you're wider by about a quarter. So you gained a little bit in one direction basically. It's a wider device. It basically, maybe it'll display two squat iPhone apps side by side. Cool. There'll be a crease in the middle. They can utilize that crease to have two apps side by side. Maybe it's a landscape device because of how the cameras are positioned. They expect you to use it in landscape. It's going to open like a passport or a billfold, not necessarily going to open up into a taller phone, right? So cool. Maybe they'll figure it out. But like I said before, there's no advantage to video. The apps are going to have to adopt a whole new form factor for one device that's going to sell in the tens versus the millions. Switch it to portrait mode. William, where do you hold it? Are you gripping it by the rear display? Or are you gripping it by the camera bump? It's just such an awkward device and no MagSafe. Well, this is something I want to ask you about that. But when you said that about the smaller size being folded, there's an argument that there are people who like small iPhones. The iPhone 12 mini and 13 mini. I mean, they were both successful and failures. They didn't sell enough Apple, but compared to most of the phones, they did really well. And people who liked them, loved them. Is this not a way to kind of hit both markets? It's small until you want it to be big. That's the point of the device. No, that's the point. That's the whole reason foldables exist, is small until it's big. And if the dummy unit is anything to go by, the thickness of this thing is paper thin. It is very thin, right? It's thinner even than the iPhone Air. And when it's folded shut, it is maybe a little thicker than the Pro Max, right? Like you're, they're definitely doing their best with thickness here. But I still think it's a bit awkward because it's squat and wide, right? I guess it's meant to be a rear pocket device like you put it in your back pocket. I can't see it being very comfortable in your front pocket, but it might fit. Again, it's so much wider than an iPhone even when it's shut. So well, beyond that, like this is a fully Apple's problem to pitch, right? I'm not going to do Apple's pitch deck. They're going to convince us. Maybe they make me like it. I don't know. Apple has the capability of doing, of making me want this thing. But the problem is the chief concern that I have, there's three that I have. No MagSafe. Everything in my life is MagSafe, right? So if I bought this phone, I would basically have to redo my house. It's, it's that bad. Like my bedside table, the mount I'm using for the camera, like there's so many things. Well, you bought a new house at the wrong time then, didn't you? Clearly. Yeah, I bought it. Yeah, MagSafe house. No, it's just everything is MagSafe. And so then I'm just going to go buy an iPhone without MagSafe. That's madness. But on top of that, there's two more things. Touch ID instead of Face ID, because you're not going to put two Face ID modules on this. It needs to authenticate in every orientation, every direction. The only way you're going to do that is with Touch ID. And then we are lacking a camera system that is pro. So I'm paying $2,500 for a worse camera experience on an iPhone. That is counterintuitive to me. So. Well, actually, I think I was going to make a very similar point. The idea that the most expensive iPhone, the top of the range now, they might even be called the iPhone Ultra to put it over above the. I'm going to ignore that rumor. Yeah, is the one that doesn't have a base. It's not funny how you get so used to something. MagSafe isn't a basic feature. It's a great thing and it was difficult to do. It's really good. And here I'm going base level, but it doesn't have that. I had not thought about the cameras, except that no tell a lie. If you put this in my mind, we're talking about how you hold it, how you take things. I shoot a lot of videos, but a YouTube channel and it's about using Apple gear. So A, because it's relevant, I use Apple gear to do it. I use an iPhone, but also because I can't afford a DSLR camera or something for it. I put my iPhone 18, my iPhone 16 Pro Max in a little mount. Actually, I was just about to replace it. I put it in one of these, grips it on the tripod, away off I go. I already know that if I buy an iPhone Fold, I'm not going to wedge it in one of these. I'm going to keep my old iPhone film on that because it just feels like it'll be too flimsy or too big. So you wouldn't have the option of a proper grip because you're squeezing the sides of a foldable. I don't know what that would look like. MagSafe isn't an option. Maybe the dummy and it's got it wrong and it does have MagSafe awkwardly on one side. I mean, my brain wants to imagine a hinge where you wave it around and it's just flapping like a book. I don't think it's like that. It's probably a very stiff hinge. It probably locks in place. So I honestly don't see why. Well, I can see why MagSafe would be an issue because it's all the weight would be on one side. The only time you could use MagSafe is if it's shut. Sure, I guess, but MagSafe is primarily a charging feature, not a mounting feature. So perhaps Apple just, maybe the battery isn't even on that side of the phone. Who knows? It's hard to say. Maybe the thinness. If I had to guess, it's the thinness and they needed to save every millimeter and part of that was removing the magnets for MagSafe. But that is such a fundamental premium part of owning an iPhone now is I have MagSafe everywhere. And now again, they're not selling this device to me. They're selling this device to people. There are people who don't even know what MagSafe is. This could very much be an excellent device. My thing about this actually that I've thought about, if this was the iPad mini, I would be okay with it. Maybe a little bigger. And I would probably even buy one because that is an interesting device to me as an iPad. But I cannot wrap my head around this as an iPhone because again, you're getting the lesser, it's not as good of an iPhone experience, but as a secondary device as a little, like, you know, I put it in my like breast pocket of my jacket or, you know, carry it in my bag and have it as a little, you know, reading tablet. It can literally open like a book and maybe the hinge opens halfway and I can flip through pages. Like there's a lot of cool ideas here. I could use it as a Nintendo DS emulator. Like there's a lot of ways this could be interesting. I do not want to let my annoyance with how this is being built break into the fact that I do believe these foldables are cool devices and I do want to play with one. But I'm trying to reconcile how this is a premium iPhone. How is this replacing this device that does so much every day? It's a fundamentally different device and I would almost rather have my iPhone that is my professional camera and this foldable device as my everything else. And that's stupid, but perhaps Apple finally just needs to sell a camera so I can buy devices with worse cameras. I don't know. I do particularly want to ask you about cameras, but there's one thing I've got to raise. It sounds to me like this might be the first time we've spoken where you accept that the iPhone fold is coming. You previously had, I mean, you said again today we haven't seen any bits, but you're talking as if we're getting it. Okay, so this is what we did need to get to that. So this is where I stand currently. Yes, we needed to get to that eventually. So this is where I am today on is the iPhone fold even going to arrive. And part of the reason I wrote this story again, the reason why it started off as Apple should just let it die is because if the Nikkei Asia report is 100% accurate, note they're not flubbing it or they're not exaggerating and they have encountered issues that could set back the production by months. Apple releasing the iPhone fold in December or January goes against everything they've planned for 2026. They want to split iPhone release. They want a slow rollout so that they have more buying power for chips and batteries and components. And they want to smooth out the peaks and valleys of iPhone buying season across the winter and the spring. So if you suddenly throw a $2,000 iPhone in the middle of that, first off, everyone who was going to buy the expensive phone already bought one in September. Do you announce the iPhone fold in September and then release it in December? That seems like you're also undercutting potential sales. There's a lot of weirdness here. That's the other point of fact. Yeah. Yes, but I mean, I don't think that it's not going to sell in very high volumes. I think the report said something like seven or eight million units is expected total in the first. One report said a few months ago Ming Chi Kuo was saying, I can't remember if it was between six and 10. It might have been in calendar 26, calendar 27, it went up to 10. But then that later report you mentioned earlier was saying that it was down to like two or three on the assumption that Apple was being a bit more cautious about such a expensive price. But yeah. So first off, releasing an iPhone in December is just weird. Holiday season's over, people spent their money, tax season hasn't begun yet. New iPhones are coming in a few more months. We're getting the iPhone 18 and 18e and possibly another iPhone air, which you know, obviously is the lesser iPhone fold as far as if you want to go buy hierarchical structures, the iPhone fold is above the iPhone air, not above the iPhone pro. That's how I view it. It used to be so simple. Here's the iPhone. There's a branch now, you know, iPhone pro iPhone air. So this is the problem. I, if Apple can't get the iPhone fold out in September, I can't, I know their marketing's already ready for it. Maybe they push it anyway and they just say forget it. Let's get it out there. But there is a world where Apple says this isn't going to work. We need to wait until next September and iron out all of the manufacturing details, get it ready to go and push it to 2027. If that happens, William, it will be the death of the foldable industry. What? Okay, need to absorb that for a second. This episode is brought to you by Claude from Anthropic. And look, this is going to sound like a really trivial example of how useful it is, I mean, given everything Claude can do. But it helped me hugely. I'm due to deliver a sample chapter of a book to a publisher and this is particularly key fact. It's a nonfiction book, a particularly key fact that I've really got to have in there. And it's one of those where you know it, you just can't prove it. And I had to not only prove it, you know, citing sources, but I couldn't just write this thing out. I absolutely totally had to quote the people involved. Claude found them in moments. Google didn't. And actually, I didn't either. I'm deep into this research. I've got my own sources. I've exhausted the internet archive of newspaper collections and I did not. I could not find this thing. Yet there it was. There's not much. Actually, but Claude found the only two references to this thing online and they are enough for what I need. I searching, it should not be the case that a simple search is better with AI, but there it was fact found paragraphs written in the moment. Actually, after you and I done talking, well, I'll do a last read over, but then emailing the chapter out onto the next job. And tropic says that Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough. It's the collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and that it thinks with you, not for you. And yeah, it actually does. This fact I was looking for. Well, it doesn't matter what it is, but it wasn't directly related to a video project. I put there was a kind of a bit of overlap. So when I was doing that search, called didn't just give me the answer. It suggested which result I had found might be most useful for my 58 keys YouTube videos. Now, I did not prompt it with the name 58 keys, but it knew. It knew because I've used Claude about that YouTube series before. Even I don't remember what I've asked it before, but Claude does and they put these things together for me. So if you're researching topics or whether you're debugging code at midnight or strategizing your next business move, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter. Ready to tackle bigger problems? Sign up for Claude today at Claude.ai slash Apple Insider. That's Claude.ai slash Apple Insider. And do check out Claude Pro, which includes access to all of the features mentioned in today's episode. Claude.ai slash Apple Insider. And thanks to Claude for Antropic for supporting the Apple Insider podcast and for helping me get my book sample finished. All right, I've absorbed that. Apple finally joins the iPhone, excuse me, the folding phone industry and destroys it. You don't think it's what they're deliberately setting out to do? It's a double-edged sword, William. Right? If Apple releases an iPhone fold in September of 2026, great. All thumbs up. Everyone's ready for it. The foldable companies that make foldables, they're gearing up manufacturing now. They're making more units than they ever have before. They're getting ready for Apple to release one because they know, they know Apple's power in the market. They're going to make people want foldables. So Xiaomi is currently making an identical clone to the iPhone fold based on this dummy model that came out. They're going to be ready in China for the millions of devices in demand that aren't iPhones, except if Apple doesn't release their smartphone because of marketing and because of lining up. It gets pushed back for whatever reason to 2027. All of this work will have been for nothing. All of this inventory will be sitting there. The demand won't be there. Companies could suffer greatly, like the supply chain, everything around this iPhone fold. They expect, I'm telling you, these analysts, go read some of these reports, they're expecting like a 30% bump in foldable sales because of iPhone. If that doesn't come and they were prepared for that, that is devastating. It could actually kill this market entirely because a whole year goes by and they can't sell these devices and the numbers they were expecting and now they don't have the money to prepare for next year's ramp up. Some of these brands could drop off of the foldable train entirely and by the time we get to iPhone in the fall of 2027, we've got Apple smart glasses. We've potentially got Apple Vision Pro 2. We've got more devices that solve the, I want more display, less pocket space coming in the next year. Apple could arrive at next year and then ultimately can the whole foldable project because it's just taken so long that the better devices have arrived to replace it. But that's my own supposition. I do believe Apple really wants to release this device. They want to, but if the supply chain is against them or if the market's against them, they won't. They're intelligent enough to call it quits. They haven't mass produced this thing yet. There aren't eight million sitting in the warehouse right now. They might have a hundred of them going through validation tests. But yes, the research went into it. But anyway, the point is this could be devastating to the foldable market and by the time Apple wants to enter it in 2027, it could be just Samsung out there selling these things. I was thinking of Samsung. Is it Google Pixel? Isn't there a version of this where or rivals can crow that they've got foldables when Apple still haven't because we they've been doing that for seven years, William. That's true. And nobody's noticed really. Okay. They're neat. They're for people with more disposable income than people who buy premium smartphones, right? You can get a Galaxy Ultra, whatever for $2,000, just like you can get an iPhone for $2,000. I mean, my iPhone has a terabyte of memory. I'm pretty sure it's over the $2,000 mark. So the it's not necessarily the price because there are people buying $2,000 smartphones. It's the utility. And I think having just because one of the foldables happens from an iOS, I do think that has power, but I don't know. They're expecting miracles out there. And I'm not sure that that's what they're going to get. Right. Apple Vision Pro didn't accelerate meta quest sales. If anything, it impacted their sales. So it'll be interesting to see where this all ends up. We can end up in a world where Apple is competing with itself with smart displays and foldables all at once. Apple loves that kind of cannibalism. So, to reiterate my point, we still haven't seen any component leaks. It's a bad sign. Apple's clearly having problems getting this thing mass produced. There is always the chance of a delay until we hear otherwise. Until we hear mass production has begun and it has been confirmed by reliable sources. There's nothing else to say about this. It could just not release this year. I'm not saying it won't release this year. There's a possibility. There's definitely, it's the possibilities more in that favor now than it has been, but there's always that chance, William. So my preference would be the Apple Skip It, but they are clearly devoted to this device at this point for whatever reason. Someone at that company wants this thing out there. I know what it was. It's when you mentioned meta quest, put in my head, like an hour before the Apple Vision Pro was announced, meta leaked its five-year plan of these wondrous devices. Actually, we're several years in now. We haven't seen any of them. What a shock. I'm looking forward to seeing Samsung announcing future foldables. That will tell me that things are really coming. But yeah. It's, well, we, tri-folds, Samsung's tri-fold sold out instantly because they were able to make six of them before they ran out of components and apparently. Is that the one that they've pulled from sale or something? Yeah. So they're putting it back on sale on Friday for probably another 15 minutes. They'll sell out again. They're difficult devices to manufacture. This is, like, this is not your average. This isn't, oh, it's hard because, you know, it's using a rare metal or it's hard because of scarcity or, no, it's hard because they're literally difficult to make. And I don't know. This, it, it will be interesting to watch this unfold. That's all I'm saying. Okay. We seem to spend a lot of attention on the iPhone fold. Let's go completely the different way to other iPhones. In fact, I've got to say this way. I'm really sorry. iPhones in space, if you don't remember the Muppet Show, that is, I just look stupid. If you do remember it. I know. Anyway, this was the talk of the week, it seemed to me. And I thought, so often I do this, something happened, I think, of you, the Artemis crew reportedly using iPhones at least some of the time to make some of those gorgeous shots of the earth. Apple must be beside, I mean, imagine these shots on iPhone, billboards that are going to come out of that, except, is it real? Because there are some other non-iPhone cameras. Why wouldn't they use them? So the moon landing was faked. We've never left our atmosphere and the earth is flat. So clearly, no, um, right. That flag was CGI. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah. It's all made in a Hollywood basement. So I remember Capricorn one, but okay. Yeah. So first off, I fun tidbit. The Apollo mission, right, was what got us to the moon. Artemis is Apollo's sister. Also, yeah, and this is us returning to the moon. And there's a woman on board, right? And it's the furthest a woman's ever been from planet earth. So it's all very fun. I love, I love the naming. That's crazy that only now is a woman going, well, I suppose nobody's gone this far. Okay. But all right. I did not make the Apollo Artemis connection. Artemis is also the name of Andy Weir's second book between the Martian and Project Hail Mary. And it's not as good, but that's another story. Okay. Yeah. That's set on the moon. It all works together. Okay. So, they're off having a nice time going around the moon. Great that they're back there ish. So the photos that you've seen, the photos of earth, where you can see the atmosphere and the aurora, that was taken on a Nikon D5, very, very nice camera. Right. There are specific equipment on board for cataloging things. The iPhones that were brought on board are personal devices that were brought for video and photos, but they do not have any Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection. If you're going to get a photo off of them, they have to be connected directly to something and then sent to earth that way. So we have seen, they forgot their USB-C cables, didn't they? Right. Okay. We have seen photos taken on iPhone, but most of them are interior shots. We've, the, my favorite I've shot on iPhone photos are the ones, if you've seen a photo of, I forgive me, I don't know their names, but the female astronaut looking to the earth from below, that is an iPhone photo. And they actually captured each of the astronauts looking out the window on an iPhone. So that, those will be beautiful billboards. I'm sure Apple will make at some point. Yeah. But yes, the most striking photos were definitely captured on a DSLR, actual big lens camera, nothing against the iPhone, but man, I don't see it capturing the earth in that way. The photos of the moon with the earth in the background are probably my favorite photos, but yes. Yeah, but those, like Samsung always just swaps in a picture of the moon from stock. Right. And that's what that was. So what's interesting here is this is unprecedented, right? If I got that word completely out. This is unprecedented in the fact that personal devices are allowed at all. So we actually have a story about this. Personal devices on spacefaring crew missions, not really a thing. It took until the iPod for them to really allow it. And even then it was in the 90s that a Mac portable got put on board. Oh, God, the first ever email. Yes. The first email from space was on a Mac portable, which weighed more than the rest of the rocket. Okay. Yeah, the thing was definitely you had to get a workout carrying that around. I tried to friend CV with that portable on my lap, crushing the blood out of my legs. Yes. Great. So very clacky, I'm sure. So yes, Mac portable went to space. But before that, NASA has its involvements with Apple, of course. They had Apple twos in the field, but never in space. Yeah, Mac portable. And then we saw a couple of other devices, a power book, I believe, an iPod. So there is a history of Apple products going to space. But this iPhone does represent a change. The iPhone four was the only iPhone ever before to go to space. But that's when we were not really going very far. We basically go in the upper atmosphere, we'd exit Earth's atmosphere, but we wouldn't get anywhere near the moon. This was in like 2012, obviously. So we were just kind of going up there, messing around. I think the International Space Station has also seen some devices like this. But they did video, they did, they had an app for taking photos of the Earth on the space station and estimating elevations of certain things. Like that was, that's a neat thing they did with the iPhone four. But again, that was more for testing purposes. This is the first time ever that we've had personal photo and video devices on the space station. And when they come back, they're coming back as we record tomorrow, so Friday, they'll splash down, they'll get back here, they'll connect to Wi-Fi, they'll sync their iCloud. And boy, their social media is going to be crazy because they can show moments we've never seen before on a space. I'm sure they have some obvious restrictions from NASA, but I'm sure everything they post is going to get vetted. But I just find it fascinating that the same phone that I'm using right now is in space, taking photos. And iPhone has now traveled further than any other human has from the Earth. And I just find that all very fun. Are there any Android phones? Are any of the Asteroids Android phones? I don't think I know. So as far as I am aware, no. This is, it's very specific. They didn't just put out a bulletin saying, bring whatever you want. It was, it was a very specific, delicate process. And I don't even think Apple was involved. I'm pretty sure what happened is NASA, the astronauts, someone made the request internally, like, hey, why can't, why not? Let's do this. And they had to go through a rigorous process of making sure that the phone wouldn't interfere with anything, yada, yada. And the iPhone specifically got approved. And we've seen in photos from around the, what is, what is their pod called? Their pod has a name. Anyway, the floating around the pod where the humans are, because the mission is the artist must Artemis too, right? Yeah. Anyway, in their pod, you can see iPhones floating around. It's crazy. While they're just chit chatting, or like, or like taking mission logs and stuff of phone will just fly by and it's an iPhone. Like again, like this is easy stuff for Apple to put in an ad somewhere. If they don't have it in a WWDC reel, I would be very surprised. But I'm just very fascinating. I can't resist the thought that maybe one of the astronauts is actually an Android fan is having tears on my phone and it's up there griping about outlook is in connecting or anything like that. Oh, the outlook thing is so funny. It's so funny. You know, everyone's, everyone made the obvious joke of look, they're just like us. They think they're astronauts, they train for years, they go to space, and they still can't use outlook just like me. I just, I love the whole thing. And of course, the whole world's watching this mission because it is, it is something about space and humans being there. It's just such a beautiful, wonderful concept because it's us breaking through our bounds and it represents so much human history. Like we had some Canadians and Americans go up there and it's this is very powerful moment and very happy to see that it all went well and they seem to be arriving back safely. So that'll be great. I'm excited to see them return. I'm sure they're excited to return as well because the toilet keeps breaking. I heard about a $30 million toilet. Okay, I'm pretty sure there was a joke about that in the Big Bang theory once, but we seem to be focusing this week on the iPhone completely. How about just to shake it up? We instead go to iPhone components such as the processor in the MacBook Neo because I love this story. I have so many friends that are considering the MacBook Neo who either weren't Mac users before or they would be except the Mac was so expensive for it. So they were putting up with junk PCs really. I mean, I'm not lucky. I will often knock PCs. I'm not knocking there. It's these ones, the affordable cheap ones were junk. Budget PCs are actual garbage. They're actual trash. I was trying to be fair there, but no, let's not. Yeah, no, I've kind of had this challenge putting feelers out various places, discords, things of just show me anything that competes with the MacBook Neo and it is impossible without at least getting to $1,000 and even then their processors junk. Someone presented this like ZenBook something and yes, yes. The MacBook Neo beats it in single core by almost double and the ZenBook has 16 CPU cores and the MacBook Neo has six and so obviously the ZenBook has better multi-core, but only because of the 16 cores that has available. Like it's madness William. It's madness. How good this computer and how well designed this computer is, but I hate to disagree with you, particularly when you're right, but you've forgotten something key there. That PC, the name of which I have already forgotten 10 seconds later is apparently fractionally lighter than the MacBook Pro. It's made of plastic. So yeah, yeah. The story here is the MacBook Neo is a smash hit to the point that Apple is running out of bend iPhone 18 Pro chips. Now, to be very specific, the reason why one of the cost cutting things that Apple did for the MacBook Neo is it went to its garbage bin and it saw all these 18 pros laying there and they're like, what's all this? And they said, oh, those are the ones we can't put in iPhones. They're not good enough. They're missing a CPU core. Great. Let's put them in our crap laptop. Okay. And that's the story. Great. Right. They definitely use the word crap. I'm quite sure of that. Okay. It should explain because I didn't know this. I kept hearing the term bend. It's everything you just said, but it's like the yield on the manufacturing. Some of them won't be right. Some will. So normally it's a double meaning, William. Yeah. It's bend because it's missing a core, but it's also bend because they put it in the bend. So the bend there, they had a, okay. Yeah. They had a free stock of chips laying around that the MacBook Neo could use. They're almost, they're running out. The bend chip stock pile is running dry, which means for the first time, and I don't know, two months, when did this thing come out? Not long ago. The first time in this thing's life, like, I don't know, a week ago, Apple's going to have to spend money to develop chips for it, which means it's going to be, it's not going to be as cost effective. Oh, I wonder who wiped out the margins. That'd be funny. I cannot. So this report hedges on Apple raising prices. No, there is, there is zero on this. No, this is not going to happen. Okay. So what are their alternatives? So what they've done apparently is they worked out a deal to get another few million chips for as little money as they can. But after that's done and another couple of months, because again, those, those chips are just going to, they, they zip by Apple selling these things like hotcakes. They're going to have to pay real money for a chip they don't even like the A18 Pro, right? So, and they're going to either, they're going to make new chips and grab the Ben ones. It's tough. There's also the conversation that I think is missing here is what chip is going to be in the next Apple TV. Because if I was Apple and I needed some, a reason to make new A18 Pro chips and balance the cost a little bit, I'd be looking at my, what is it, $200 Apple TV set top box that definitely has like 98% margins and use that as an excuse to make more 18 pros. But we'll see. It does feel like this means firing up an old production line when they've moved on to newer processors and, there's an A19 Pro currently. Right. It's been up the A18 Pro until I'm actually, if you don't do it very well, that's fine. We want the, the bent ones for it. Okay. Why not just slip in the A19 Pro's binned versions and hope nobody notices. Cause obviously nobody would. That's a problem. Just cause they want to do that with the next ones. So they're saving up all the bend ones for the next Neo, but the next Neo's, you know, they can't release them every month William. That would be a thing, right? That's, that's how good the market's gotten is they can just put a new chip in every couple of weeks. I don't know. This is one of those silly things. Apple, this was presented as a kind of Apple problem. I don't really see it as a problem. Apple has so many avenues for cost cutting and financially saving money that all they have to do is like, okay, yes, they have to spend some money on the A18 Pro. Take it out of the battery. Right. Like go to the battery manufacturer and be like, Hey, give us less money, charge us less money for this. And they have no choice but to agree because Apple is their entire business. Right. So they'll make it concomitant rise in the need for batteries for it. So the success means greater buying power as well as Apple being horrible. Yeah. Okay. I think this story was meant to say, ooh, potential. Uh-oh. Look out potential price raise. Buy a Windows PC instead. Please. Yeah. That kind of story. Okay. All right. So I put this here at the end because I wasn't sure how long our show would be. So I want you to tell me about it and auto correct it again. It says Legato. Elgato stream deck. Did you have a problem with that? Writing this review, auto correcting to Legato? Because that's an annoying. I didn't notice if it did. Whoops. I should go back and check. Oh, right. That's slightly worrying. Yeah. There may not be a link to that article. There's no notes if I've got it wrong. Okay. So do you have an Elgato stream deck plus sitting in front of you right now? Right in front of me now. I have the original stream deck and I'm actually using it. If I cough or something, I push that button. If I new chapter with that button, just so I have a list at the end of when we need the artwork, all that sort of stuff. But the one I reviewed. Do you have a mic just cursed button? Why would? Once when Mike Worthley was on, I did actually add in an Apple, a Mac startup chime. If I'd known I was going to need it, I could have had it on the button. Yes, but I didn't. Yes. You're thinking of this one. Got to reach past different stream decks. Actually, that's about as far as the world will go. That's a stream deck with eight buttons, four dials on the screen. And I kind of use that to control other things. The reason I did that is review is it's actually been out a long time, but things are changing in the stream deck world. There's an our new version of that with 36 buttons, six dials and nobody, nobody needs it at all. And everybody wants to talk to you. I am strongly if I could find somebody to sell one of these two, then I would be a fluctuate. Yeah. Do you use all four dials? Yes, actually, first ones mute and volume for the system control. I have a button above it that I love that swaps between sending the music to the Mac Studio speakers and my headphones. So when I'm about to edit, just pass a button off I go. I have some lights that are controlled by it. And I've totally forgotten the third one. I use it very often. Though I need more. You start turning the knob and it turns into one of those very, very British like Mr Bean skits where you turn the knob and it opens a door and it hits someone in the face and you turn the knob back and it slams it shut. And someone's trying to figure out who's controlling the store and it's you playing with this knob on your stream deck. No, okay. I didn't know where that was going to go there. But yes, classic British humor. Yeah. Anyway, I do admire Rowan Atkinson and stuff like that. I one thing I would say is I love El Gato's hardware. The buttons are dials. The dial things, they're infinite scroll dials. So there's no start or end. You can just turn them up and down as you need, which means you're never looking for the start. It just where it is. Move it. And they're all buttons as well. And just it's so well made. But the software tends to be a problem. So even today with the stream deck controlling my lights, I had a Wi-Fi problem and it said, well, you haven't got any lights of you. And then when I fix the Wi-Fi problem, it's tough. So I reset them and actually right this moment, the lights are on, but the control isn't working on the stream deck. So it's not flawless. But I don't, I just don't have a use for one. I'm primarily iPad. They kind of work with them. They kind of don't. That's true. That's actually, that's a failing. Two years ago now, El Gato announced a program that would have it work with iPad. And it was so clever. It was on the Mac. And then nobody really works with the system. Yeah. On the Mac, it can be part of Mac OS. So these buttons, you know, they can control any app you've got. They can send sequences. And great. On the iPad, it would have to work individually with each app. Each app manufacturer would have to sign on. And I assumed they would, but they didn't. They didn't. But, all right. Where are we on time? Because I don't have... Tell you in a flash. Oh, we're on an hour. Okay. All right. So let's wrap up. Well, I could actually go on and tell you about what each of the buttons do on the, I'll tell you one of them I love. One of them makes a huge, huge difference. And the reason, even if I do cave and buy the huge, enormous, big one that I will never get rid of this, is that this now sits to the side of my keyboard. So track back to one side, this to the other. And there are controls in it for, I've set it up to Control Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro. And my editing has sped up enormously, except I was on a different Mac the other day. And I couldn't remember how to do something because it didn't have my stream deck with it. So, yeah. But anyway, yes, that's quite enough about that, William. Email me if you want any more details about the stream deck. Well, I say details. I just want infusing email, William at AppleInsider.com. But that seems like a good time to say. I think we've had reviews this week. We haven't for a while, but do we have reviews? Or am I making them up? We do have reviews. Making them up. Right. Yeah. What have we got? Are they good or bad? So... Because if they're bad, we're running out of time. So if you want to have your review read on the show, obviously, I have to do is go to Apple Podcasts and leave a review. Maybe you can make a button on your stream deck that will automatically leave a five-star review every time you press it. So first, we got a five-star review from the Little White Fern, good show. Apple Insider is the only Apple news coverage I bother with these days. The sensationalism of the other sources drive me nuts. Had to chime in and let you know that Apple Podcast listeners haven't all died. Yes, they say this because last week, I said that it had been three months since we got a review. So thank you for leaving that one. You definitely helped revive the feed because we got two more after that. So this one, I wanted to point out, this is the Great Scott. I've had a similar complaint to this in the past. So this is this is fair. I'm gonna say they're being fair, but I will say email me. Next time any listener has this specific complaint or currently has this complaint, let me know the specific thing I'm saying. All right. That is incorrect because I want to know when I'm being incorrect. So this review is titled, The Android Ilinformed Mention Are Unnecessary. And it's a bit of a longer review. They direct this at me, obviously, and I'm saying that I need to stop discussing Android if all I'm going to do is spread misinformation and FUD, which is fear, uncertainty, and doubt. They began listening to Apple Insider after returning to iPhone after about 15 years of Android. And while they prefer Android, they use iOS as their daily driver and they don't like how we're characterizing Android in the show. So and they've even worked for Apple before. All right. So I'll say this, look, thank you for leaving the review. It's two stars. It's fine. Again, this is something I want to address. I it's not that I don't have an Android phone as a daily driver, but it's not that I never see Android. I am exposed to all the time through various friends and family members who have questions. I interact with the modern systems. I see podcasts and YouTube videos and things of people who use these things and hear their opinions. And if I share something about Android, it's not it's out of information that I have, not something that I've just made up on the spot because I don't like Android or something. So if I have said anything at all that mischaracterizes Android or is incorrect, I would love to know what it is so I can correct it on the show. That's so thank you for leaving the review. Reach out through my email or next time any of you guys leave a review about this, say specifically what I'm saying incorrectly because this this review also was not specific. So just putting that out there. Well, finally, we have a five star review from developers nickname. I believe this is a return. So the beginning of their reviews, I think the same text. This podcast is amazing. The second it comes out every week, I listen to as fast as possible. William has quipped before hopefully not too fast because he does not sound good at 5x. So there's an improvement. I accept that. But yes, okay, I don't like speed it up. Yes, okay. It's like chipmunk level of yes, that's the way speaking. So when do you think the M5 Mac mini will be released? William, do you have any input on this? I'm is it giving away something that I've actually written an article about the M5 Mac mini in the expectation that it will be out soon? I mean, obviously, until it's out, we don't know things. There's just like the skeleton of it, what's expected and things. And then I will make it right before it goes out. But I was directed to do that just this week. So I'm highly confident it's coming very soon. And it's an exciting time to get like, yeah, it could just follow for the back of a truck on a Monday. It's before WWDC is my guess. But when is harder to nail down? It could be April, it could be May, we'll see. But anytime is the answer. And is it worth the upgrade? If you have an M4, no, there's there's some stuff in the M5 that isn't in the M4, there always will be. You have those neural operators on each core, like that's great. If you're doing a lot of local AI, the people buying M4 Mac minis for AI are going to go crazy over the M5 Mac mini like that. That's going to be the primary seller. I'll be surprised if they don't sell out immediately. So there is a reason to upgrade for very specific people. But general users, me, nah, my M4 is going to be fine. It'll be the same design, same ports, all that stuff. They so anyway, finishing up, they said, thank you for making this podcast every week. It's the highlight of my week. It's signed another young listener. Also, William, they want their two pence. So we'll get that mail very soon. So yes, thank you all for leaving those very good reviews. I started by saying, you can reach me when I'm at Pizzeria.com. I went into this. Before I ask you where you went, let's just check, you are in your new house, so it's presumably still settling in. Last week, you admitted to having injury problems. That's not too specific there. Is everything fine in your back blogging, for example? I have been blogging. It's funny enough because of this slow news week with Apple, other than iPhone fold stuff. I have been struggling to find stories that Mike doesn't want to steal from me. So for instance, the iPhone fold was one of the ones that was almost a blog post. So it happens and I don't begrudge him that I work for Apple Insider, the blogs aside project. So I still try to do it Monday to Friday. Sometimes Mondays are harder, so there's sometimes not a post Monday. But yeah, hilly.tech is me on Blue Sky. You can find me at the hilly.tech blog, which is also hilly.tech. Doing that every day, newsletters are on Fridays and keeping that going. Please reach out to me on Blue Sky. You can tag me there, ask me questions. My messages are open. Always happy to hear from people who listen to the show. I get a few messages every couple of weeks from people commenting on the podcast. So always appreciate those. And of course, westatappleinsider.com is my email if you want to reach out. I've said it three times now. No, it's twice. I'll say it a third time. William at appleinsider.com is probably the best for me. But I am also on YouTube 58Kies and actually next week's edition is about what's going on with Kindle and what's being dropped off there. I'm trying to make that sound dramatic when actually it's just as mostly fine. Well, if you're not affected, you don't care. But if you are affected, there are ways around it. So yeah, 58Kies on YouTube. But that's that. This is this. I realize actually for all that we've talked about the iPhone Fold and things, there is something more to say and we are intending to say it in Apple Insider Plus. Yet again, this I love your ideas for Apple Insider Plus. This was your idea. Excuse me. Apple Insider Plus is the ad free extended version of the podcast. So I'm about to shut up. But then if it's, you know, if you're a subscriber through Apple podcast subscriptions or through Patreon, then we just stick around a bit of an extra nata in this case about Apple Foldable. So we're going to be talking about designing our perfect Apple Foldable. If this thing's so crummy as we described in the main show, what would make it good? What would make this ad actually worthwhile purchase? So we're going to dig into what we want a foldable to be. I'm terribly intrigued by this. I have thoughts, but I didn't think that you would. So this is going to be, this is going to be fun. That's Apple Insider Plus in a moment. So if you're already a subscriber, hang around for that. And if you're not, well, then you can subscribe. Obviously, it'd be great to have you. But otherwise, forget we mentioned anything. And let's just say thank you very much for listening. Thank you to our sponsors, Clouart by Anthropic. And Wes and I will be back to chat again next week.