New iMacs for pro users are coming this year (Apple Byte Extra Crunchy, Ep. 79)

[MUSIC] And we are live from. [MUSIC] Here we go. From the top of the sixth floor at the CBS Interactive building in San Francisco. It's the Apple Bytes Extra Crunchy podcast. With your host Mr. Brian Tong Slow down, man, slow down. [LAUGH] It's getting crazy up in here. Welcome everybody, it's the Apple Byte Extra Crunchy Episode 79. We're going somewhere. We're almost at 80. We're almost at 80. I'm telling you. I'm Brian Tong. Joining me in the house, the man who makes all the magic happen, Mr. Stephen Beecham. Welcome to the Apple Byte Extra Crunch, all that munchy, it is our complimentary piece to our Apple Byte. Video podcast that happens weekly. But new stories happen, new things happen and we're able to kind of expand on what we talk about. So again this show is all about you all. We had a few issues with the phone calls. So what I'm hoping to do is, first of all, if you wanna call us next week. I think there's a lot of talk about this week. Number is 1-800 616-2638. Tell us your name, where you're from and just get right to it. Try to keep it around a minute. And we will put your calls in because you guys and gals make this show what it is. Also We're going to do some live Twitter answers. Yes. Here today. So if you can, all you gotta do is just tweet me at Brian Tong and we will answer some of your questions throughout the show. Is this Twitter right here? Yeah, I'm putting his Twitter on the screen. That's 90 notifications, are they fake accounts. Although they're actual people actually asking legitimate questions. Someone re-tweeted the periscope. Yeah that's also really disturbing to see my face like that. [LAUGH] >. That's just wrong. Anyway [UNKNOWN] we've already got few people asking some questions. Let me scroll down here. I did see one from viewer, where was it? Although it was crazy. Shanna Mendiola, Where you from? [LAUGH] Where you from, baby? Where you from? Don't give it away [INAUDIBLE]. Where you from, baby? All right, let's get to the show. Because people listening are like damn, it takes so long for them to get into the show. The big story, the huge story this week is all about Apple finally opening up and talking about the Mac Pro. In between product cycles. They have never, never done anything like this before. They invited a small group of tech journalists. Obviously I was not one of them. [LAUGH] Into a round table, into their headquarters in Cupertino. They brought them into one of the design rooms where a lot of their CNC machines are. That's for Basically building prototypes of parts for their products. The CNC Mac Pro Factory? There you go, that's what it is. So they brought a small group of tech journalists in there, and what they wanted to talk about, what do you think? About the future of the Mac Pro, and why Would they do this? Let's be honest, not only have they been getting flat from fans and people like you. But from people like me, I will not let them out the hook the fact that the macros been long over due in over three years. But this is in an really un-preceded way of showing that, you know what? Kinda messed up. We didn't do things right. Here are some of the quotes throughout all the different articles that were out there. Phil Schiller admitted we're in the process of completely rethinking the Mac Pro. Craig Feteriggi who was also there, right? That's hair force one for all you Apple insiders. Said in retrospect it didn't suit some of the people we wanted to reach And we found ourselves a bit boxed in by its circular shape. [LAUGH] Yeah. I- Yeah. I think that most pros that saw it right off the bat were like, how am I going to actually customize this and expand this machine? In kind of an overview of what this [UNKNOWN] said. We made something bold that we thought would be great for the majority of our Mac Pro users. And what we discovered was that it was great for some and not others. Enough so that we needed to take another path. One of the good things hopefully with the Apple through the years has been a willingness to say when something isn't quite what we wanted it to be. Didn't lived up to expectations. And to not be afraid to admit it and look for the next answer. And this is really a transparency that we have never seen from Apple before. And what did they really say? They told these group of reporters that there will be new Mac Pros coming, but they will be coming. Not this year but in 2018. Wow. That's a ways, man. This new design will be, they did not reveal any obviously images or anything to let us know what it's going to really be like. I'm assuming it's gonna be some nice round Not round, shiny rounded edge box. They did describe it. It'll be an all-new modular design, right? You'll be able to customize, cuz the thing about pros is they use their computers different ways. They also allude to the fact that they put a priority in other things because they also saw That a good amount of Pro users were just like, I'm just gonna go get an iMac and just max it out, right. Yeah. I mean, we have iMacs in our office. That's how we roll here, yeah. Right, this new Mac Pro, Apple will also be doing its own Pro display specifically for it. Hm. So this will not be an LG display like Apple has right now It will be a pro display. Remember the old days? Like Apple cinema display? I had one of those. Yeah, yeah. I had the 22 inch. And then I was such a loser, I bought the 23 inch that was a higher resolution back in the day. This is the one that kind of little plasticky, like. Almost like the years two thousand, like kind of plastic [UNKNOWN] look. Now they have the thunder bolt display, but there will be an actual pro display for the smack so they are really throwing it out there that we are committed to the pros. We made mistakes obviously, but I got to give them props. I mean this is a transparency we have never seen from this company before I've thrown more than enough bad apples at them because of their lack of addressing the pro market. But look, again, this is unprecedented and they needed to do this. Could you imagine, Beach, if People stayed quiet, and until 2018,- Yeah. Before they released the Mac Pro, because typically they don't say anything in between products. Yeah, this is surprising, and it's cool that they're actually doing this. I only have seen one of these Mac Pros in the wild. [LAUGH] I never seen any, I still have like an old school one, like a tower. So this is awesome that they're gonna update it and make it easier for people to expand it. I think also though part of me is, I'm not saying this it too little too late, but part of me says well you have really prioritized, let's just sort out their grandmas, grandpas and hipsters. Yeah. With. Obviously, all the resources pointed to the iPhone. All the resources pointed towards tablets. Their vision of what a pro machine, whether they felt they were [UNKNOWN] or not, they didn't support it enough. No. The actual Mac pro, I think, out of all it's products Makes up only like one or two, it's like a single-digit percentage of their entire product line. You can say that, it's because that market is dying. Okay, fine. But you can also argue that it has such a low number because they weren't supporting it. Yeah, they weren't. So it's always twofold. Part of it is market dynamics, the changing consumer, and part of it is How they treat it as a company, and how many improvements actually come out. Now, I found this to be kind of funny as well, they did actually slighty upgrade, I'm using air quotes, to upgrade the current Cylindrical Mac Pro, if for some reason you really need one right now, even though you know that Apple blatantly said we're coming out with all new design that could be customizable, for pros, everything that pros expect. They did update the entry level Mac Pro, that was typically $2,999. It will now come with a six-core Xenon processor instead of four and upgraded the dual fire Pro video cards to the D 500 GPUs. Nice. They also took the higher and $3,999 model and will bring eight cores and goes from a dual D 500 to duel D 700 GPUs. So That is direct. Some of the admissions they talked about in their interview was the fact that they thought that dual graphics cards was the way to go for the pro machine, and instead the market actually trended towards a single, powerhouse GPU. Okay. They also said, yeah, they missed the mark on thinking that everyone was going to use Thunderbolt for expansion. Hm-hm. Yeah. [LAUGH] We have one guy with the, I think we have one or two Pro, Mac Pros here because we bought them at the time thinking that, this is Apple's new machine. Most people feel about the Mac Pro when it first came out was, we're one Apple, we just have to buy the Mac Pro machine. Until you're What? Yeah. It's like, I know pros have racks of hard drives. But it just looks kind of silly when you have a cylinder with like four drives like al near it. Yeah, yeah. It does look funny. Instead of it just being integrated into one. I didn't even. Like when you were talking about the article before. And the size of it made it difficult for people to use. I never really thought about that. Before, but yes, having it sit down on your desk was kind of weird and all the cables plugged into it. But I'm happy that Apple did this and that they're talking about improving it. Can they do the same thing with Final Cut? [LAUGH] Please, I mean I love Premier, but we all have used Final Cut for a long time and every ditched it. We used to use Final Cut, everyone, and then our department, at least started seeing it, all switched over to Premier. We all ditched it. All. Yeah. I don't, there's one person using final cut regularly. Yes, yeah. It was kinda his resistance using final cut. He uses it well too, that's Mark, right? Yes. Mark [UNKNOWN]? And again, I'm not against Thunderbolt as an IO, I'm not against that, but I am against a pro machine. The fact is that Mac Pro was really quiet. But it wasn't a pro machine. You couldn't put audio cards in it. You can't put video cards in it. I couldn't use Pro Tools with it. Exactly, you can't use Pro Tools on the Mac Pro. What? I mean, you could, I just have to buy a bunch of very expensive things to upgrade it. Instead of sliding in the cards that you had before. That would work. Yeah, exactly So those were some of the challenges that obviously they had. They have finally acknowledged it, but again, this is unprecedented. We have never seen that, so I've gotta give props to Apple for doing that and opening, what the say? Opening up the [UNKNOWN]. [LAUGH] Like that. Also some other nuggets came out of this in addition to talking about the new Mac Pro. Again, just to repeat will be a modular model. So you'll be able to customize it depending on how you want to use it as a professional. It will also Be having it's own Apple-branded Pro display coming out after this year. So sometime, expect it in 2018. Now another thing, interesting thing, that was revealed was, they talked about the iMacs, right? And how Pro users were migrating towards iMacs. In the meeting, Craig Federighi said, you can expect to see new iMacs this year With features that, he said, pros will be happy about. We don't know exactly if this just means it will be a new iMac with more power? Upgrade a port or whatnot? But that was clearly stated in this meeting. The other thing that came out of this, is they were asked directly by the media If they have plans on doing an ARM based Mac. ARM chips right, these are the chips that are in the iPhone, that are in the iPad. Apple said no to that but they did say that there's a potential chance that they could use the ARM platform as a complimentary processor or chip to the actual computers in the further. Whether it's something like There's a T1 ship that drives that touch bar on the MacBook Pro. They said that the future of ARM chips still being used in Macs could be utilized just not as the main primary processor. They also were asked about touchscreen iMacs. Mm-hm. And Apple Phil [UNKNOWN] said No. In fact. It's crazy man. RIght, right. They're crazy. Just make one. My kids are never going to use a Mac. All you've got to do is just make one, bro. My children that are going to grow up and be consumers and buy computers, they're not going to use a Mac. Yeah. [LAUGH] They'll use an iPad. They, look, what I found a little ironic is in the meeting, when asked about the touchscreen possibilities for future Macs, Phil Schiller said that nowhere in their survey or feedback from pro users was putting a touchscreen- Come one. A top priority. [LAUGH] Are you kidding me? Well, I'm gonna tell you, nowhere in a Pro user's experience did they ask to make a cylinder that had no expansion. Yeah. I'm just saying. Who was asking for that? I'm just throwing it out there, I'm just throwing it out there. So again, they are acknowledging some of their faults. Now in another kind of cool little nugget Apple addressed the Mac mini. They were asked directly, what is the future of the Mac mini? They were tight lipped about it, Phil Schiller responding to Daring Fireballs, John Gruber said, On that I'll say the Mac Mini is an important product in our line up, and we weren't bringing it up because it's more of a mix of consumer with some pro use. The Mac Mini remains a product in our line up but nothing more to say about that today. Mac Mini is cool man. I think they should have at least said you'll see a new one coming this year just like they said about the iMacs. Yeah, yeah totally. There's a lot of people out there that ask me about the Mac Mini every freaking week. Yeah, it's awesome. We know not everyone has it but when you have a product that hasn't been updated now in over two plus years You're gonna be asking about it. Yeah, totally. So that was one of the other nuggets that came out of this whole kind of keynote. So I wanna know, we really would love to hear your feedback. Are you happy about how Apple addressed this whole Mac Pro issue of moving forward? The future of the. Mac Pro. Are you happy? At least we don't know everything but at least they addressed it to certain degree. I want to know. I want to hear it from you. We have our call line 1-800-616-2638 where you guys can leave a message. I'm also gonna open up and if you guys feel like tweeting me because we're doing this live as well at Brian Tong and we'll try and kind of look at some of those later on the show, Give us few moments to just collect our thoughts. Okay, all right, let's keep on rolling on, we did address the whole idea of, Hey, new IMax are coming this year that is straight from the horses' mouth AKA Apple's mouth. A new blog post [BLANK_AUDIO] From the crew at Pike's Universum, says that according to their sources, there will be new iMacs. They even listed out some of the specs. Expected as part of this, Intel Zion E3 processors I have a pro grade E3 1285 V. 6 processor Intel has actually not released this particular chip just yet. It's based on the previous generation but the processor could essentially be the E3 31280V6 coupled together with Intel HD graphics card. They also expect. Their RAM configuration to start at 16 gigs, go as high as 64 gigs. Nice. 60 gig ECC RAM, configurable to 1632 or 64. Eight iMacs currently have eight gigs of non CCC RAM, so that's gonna be a lot better performing RAM for that system. So again When Tregg Federigi alluded to this will be a more pro machine, they're beefing up the iMac. Faster, non-volatile memory. The rumor claims they will have a better flash storage with capacities up to 2 TB. Ooh, nice. Yes, so we'll see that. I'm seeing 8K display. Well, [UNKNOWN] might be. Apple's working on an 8k display. That's fine. [LAUGH] Everyone jumps into conclusion like, it's good for graphics. You can't really see it, like if your looking at it. You can't really tell. I saw like there's one at CS and it's like, okay, looks great. But you can't really tell the difference between 4k and 8k. Not yet. Unless you're a cyborg or something. Which I am. [LAUGH] So yeah, they're completely, with this whole rethought Mac Pro, a rumor or rumbling from Pike's Universe says it could be an eight K external display. Also expect an option for AMD graphics chip as well as Thunderbolt 3 ports. That would be unsurprising just because we've seen them already in products. But those are just some of the thinkings or the rumors coming from Pike's Universum aka their source about what these new iMacs could possibly be so just overall a whole lot more power, a lot more power than the current Mac Pros quite honestly. So we'll see how that all rolls out. Again [BLANK_AUDIO] Do we all know by now what my favorite product is here on the show? iPad Pro. Thank you, well this is sobering. And I have been saying this, I don't know, since I got my iPad Pro I've acknowledged that yes, I'm in the ecosystem. I've always said the Surface Pro is the best tablet on the market. Well now, A new JD & Powers study has come to the conclusion in their 2017 US tablet satisfaction study that the Surface Pro is ranked the highest in overall customer satisfaction Beating the Apple iPad which came in second place. Wow, that's JD Power, that's pretty big, man. JD Power's a very consumer friendly, reputable, kind of type of place to lean on on these things. Again though, I'm always of the school of though a product is the best for you that serves what you wanna do Yes, yes. So you can have these consumer report stuff. You can even have CNET reviews. You can have JDM Power's surveys. But again, don't take too much. And don't, the whole complex of, I don't have as good of a phone as someone else is such crap. Yeah, that's- It happens all the time, and when you say something Negative or you're critical about another platform. When you say anything that makes someone feel like their phone is a lesser of a phone, they get crazy. I know, right. Whether I'm talking about iPhones or Galaxy phones or Pixels, when I'm just observing how I use it and how I feel People get so mad. It's like, they're so insecure that their phone is linked to who they are. [LAUGH] Get over it brah, get over it. This story is kind of surprising to me because I remember the NFL had like a big problem with the Surface Pros. [LAUGH] And they're like, we need to get rid of them. Bill Belichick is like, I wanna get rid of these Surface Pros. Like we can't use them. That's true. Right. Yeah, that's true. So I'm kind of surprised Well, maybe in the flip off because they're using it for snapshots of the plays as they developed. And they won't communicating properly. Yeah, it was probably like certain, you have a certain amount of time during a time out and maybe they're like Crap it, can't load the play on the or whatever. Or even thinking about stadium wi-fi and cell signals. It's gotta sucks. To transfer all the data over that. Whether you're on a private network or not it's gonna suck. So you're gonna run into those problems. So here's what they found. Microsoft, again, beat Apple. They beat them in areas like the size of the tablet, quality of materials used, and attractiveness of the tablet design. Wow, okay. Microsoft customers who are using the Surface Pro line of tablets are largely said to be early adopters. 51% are younger than the customers of its competitors. So they're basically saying that's it young people that are into the Surface Pro Yeah, that's interesting. Because of its versatility, right? It's really the only tablet out there at least that you can actually still use as a actual laptop. Yeah totally. It's just cuz of the way they built the OS. Yes, the OS is key. [LAUGH] Maybe Apple should have another roundtable talking about the iPad Pro in the near future. It's really simple too. You just, there's a button, you know, tablet mode, desktop mode. It's that easy. [LAUGH] Again, I still love my iPad Pro. Okay. Don't get all mad. I still love my iPad. I've had third gen More key findings from this report says, that drove kind of the selection process, a lower price and past experience are the most commonly cited reasons for tablet selection among customers. Reputation is next at 19%. Nearly one third of customers have a data plan with their tablet. Overall satisfaction among customers with a data plan Is 863 versus 834, now I did forget to mention that the rating system that JD Power uses is based on a 1,000 point system. So Microsoft came in at with an 855 rating, Apple came in with an 849, Samsung came in with an 847. So really there bunched pretty tight. I'm not gonna be like It seems like price one you know price is a big factor And functionality functionality there's no way you can tell me that there's any other tablet that is as functional as a Microsoft surface pro but you do have like windows Totally, I love windows There's a lot of people, there's a lot of people that. Love the product but they just hate Windows and then I'm like Apple are you hearing this? Like seriously bro are you hearing this? [LAUGH] Can we do something about that? So there you go. The Microsoft service beats the iPad in design productivity and accessor use according to that JD Power study. Also today, newsflash, if you haven't checked it out already, Apple has released It's social video editing app clips. You do need to have iOS 10.3 running on your phone. It just dropped around 10:00 AM today. So if it hasn't shown in the app store just be patient. Or if you search for it on the web there is direct links that will lead you to the app store. But it's really it takes your video clips Post them in a square mode. Some of the cool stuff that's part of it is really the ability to talk into it and your text will show up on the screen like dictation. You know kind of cool filters and emojis and stickers and all that stuff. So it's apples. Social media sharing app. You can do something they said up to an hour of video. I was like, what the heck? Wow, really? You can import an individual clips as long as 30 minutes. Dear Lord this is social video app don't put a clip up for 30 minutes. [LAUGH] Yeah. It's gotta be like 30 seconds. You need to rethink your life if that's what you're doing, so. Wait, wait. I have to rewind this, because this is the thing that I hate right here. That right there, I don't like that. You don't like editing by dragging the sides and hoping that you're finger gets in the right spot? No, no, no, no. You don't like that. Like that? No. Let's do something different Apple. Okay, well you know what? [UNKNOWN] you can complain about all you want until you come with a better solution. I'm listening. [LAUGH] It's not my job, it's their job. I like solutions. I'm a solution driven person. [LAUGH] Sounds like, yeah right, you've been complaining about the iPad all the time. Yeah. But no, we offer solutions too. Yeah, I'll have to play with it. And then I'll probably have a solution after I play with it for awhile. Okay, so check out clips completely free. Also the Apple Watch, according to reports, the Apple Watch series three models are expected in the second half of 2017 with a September launch to be likely. That's kind of News to some people, this is just based on, we haven't. Here's one of the indicators, we haven't seen many parts leaked about the Apple watch series three, the rumblings right it will have a faster processor, the form factor will pretty much stay the same. The biggest thing that we expect to see is a one version of it to support LTE connectivity, so it's just a straight up cellular connection. I think that would be nice but apple watch Siri three really. When people ask me should I get the series two or series one. I always tell them get the series one unless you want to swim with it Totally Or like, I'm just joking when I said that's hard to really if you care so much about tracking. The GPS trail on your watch with you then do that. Yeah. But you get a way better deal just getting the Apple Watch Series 1 right now. But Series 3, possibly coming in later this year around that September time frame. And then a final report, this is from the Economic Daily News, and the report suggests because of the difficulty and the difference in the lamination process for this Potential air quotes [UNKNOWN] LED display for the new 5.8 inch iPhone. It could delay the launch as late as October or November. Again this is according to the reports of actually manufacturing and assemblyness. We don't know if this is really true or not, but it's the Apple bite extra crunchy. There's always an obligatory iPhone story that you've got to throw in there. Def, most def. Just cuz, just cuz. [LAUGH] So those are kind of the stories for today. Let's, Mr Beecham you wanna, we do have one call that did get through and then I'm gonna try and take a couple Tweets if I can find some while that call's going on. And then we will listen to y'all. All right, here's Mr call from Texas, thank you. [BLANK_AUDIO] Beach and Mr. Brian Tong, this is Steven out in Austin driving on the fastest road in the nation. Just wanna comment a couple of weeks ago you guys had asked if anybody actually liked the digital camera on their Apple Watch? And I still haven't heard anybody talk about our voicemail so Just the low down of first off. Digital Crown makes it look like a watch. I don't really feel like it looks like one unless it has it. Fossil, my Fossil watches have a lot. They all look like that. To me it looks more like a watch. [SOUND] Second I use time travel like crazy especially in the morning when I'm getting up and get in my sun dress. I know what the weather is. I can fast forward. I see my schedule. I see all kinds of stuff coming forward. Based on when that time is happening. And then last I wear Bluetooth headphones. I control my music with my watch. And I like the fact that I can control the volume without having to touch my ear, my button. So I just scroll up and down and change that volume on that. So that's a couple of reasons why I like the Digital Crown. I hope they don't get rid of it so if I ever upgrade I can still have that one Thank you very much. Love the show. Keep up the good work. Cool. I love those points. Yeah. I think the thing that sticks out about me is dude, he time travels. He time travels. He actually time travels. [LAUGH] That's kind of crazy. That is crazy. News flash that's a feature. Mm-hm. Of the watch. He doesn't actually time travel. [LAUGH] Just in case you got confused. I first got confused. [CROSSTALK] Sounds like he's concerned that they're gonna take. [CROSSTALK] Well because of people like me talking all that junk about it. [LAUGH] But no they'll keep it. He he makes a great point just the aesthetic of it does help to have that digital crown. Makes it look like a watch. And. And the feel. The whole bluetooth headphone thing is a very ballad point. I gotta give him. I see why is like come on, I'm standing up for the digital crownies. Yeah, we got a lot of calls, actually, from people saying, you can control your AirPods with your watch and blah, blah, blah? Yeah, if you can find them in stock. [LAUGH] Totally. All right, just going through some of these tweets and some of your reactions To the Mac Pro. Carson Suite says he thinks the new Mac Pro's form factor limited Apple to easily bring in new tech. He's correct, that cylinder form factor, it's literally you couldn't pop in a single card in that. Hey, give Carly Walsh a shout out. She's from Team Livestream. Carly what's up. Carly, what's up. Team live stream. Yeah. We appreciate that. We appreciate that. Also [UNKNOWN] says two thousand eighteen is way too late for the new Mac pro. Shaking my head. Just got the fifteen inch. He's like, I'm just going to get the Mac book pro. Also we had a comment up here. Let me just scroll to that one before I get Here we go. Franscis Xaviar can you imagine an iPad with an OLED display plus quad speakers plus Taptic Engine for some gaming? They should do the iPad for consuming. He might have a point. But I think until they, we've said this over and over, until they give us a different. Operating system that can do more. The iPad is going to basically be about the same. If you want more Pencil functionality, you might get a few new things, but nothing just ground-shaking. I'm waiting for an NDA to lift before I can start talking about something specifically. About how the iPad is being used. But I can't say it yet. Or maybe not used by certain companies that- You got a scoop. You would think would be using it, but they aren't. [LAUGH] You would think. Yeah. I don't know. So we'll just sit on that. Cool. But anyways, I [UNKNOWN] gonna do for this week. That's it. A lot of juicy, what I like about this week is I wish Apple did this maybe a little more often. We have actual, real stores directly from Apple. Yeah, totally. Right, it's not like Digi Time said this. The Taiwanese Economic Daily News. It was like Apple said this. Yeah. You can't dispute that. All right, boys and girls, call us whenever you can. Phone number is 1 Eight, is it? I got it, right here. [LAUGH] I can't remember it off the top of my head. Call us at 1-800-616-2638. Your name, where you're from, your comments. Love to hear what you guys think about everything we talked about on the show. That's gonna do it for this week. Be safe. Stephen Beacham saying goodbye to everybody. Thanks for watching everyone, we'll see you next week, peace. Peace out. Call us. Leave a message. [MUSIC]