What’s next for Apple AR

Yes Apple’s AR /VR headset isn’t even here yet but according to 9to5 Mac Haitong Intl Tech Research analyst Jeff Pu thinks he knows what’s next.

And we’ve heard this before so apologies in advance for probably repeating myself.

Pu says after the launch of Apple’s AR / VR headset the company will have a set of AR glasses coming possibly around the second half of 2024

Pu believes Apple AR Glass has entered the design development phase, with a prototype to be ready by the end of this year

The main difference is that the AR / VR headset, which rumors predict could be announce this year or next year, will be more like a standard set of VR “goggles” with full autonomous functionality with their own connectivity and processor, etc. along with a high price tag. Apple’s VR glasses will be more like exactly that, a set of “glasses” with an AR display.

There are not a lot of details at the moment, but most expect the AR glasses to function more as an accessory to iPhone with the iPhone doing the heavy lifting on CPU/GPU along with connectivity and the AR glasses functioning mostly as a display.

Turning back to the AR / VR headset, there are also rumors this week via The Elec that LG Display, in addition to Sony, might be supplying MicroOLED displays for the mixed reality device

Apple is expected to use the Sony panels for the main graphics heads up display

While LG panels, according to the report, will be for an “outer screen, or an 'indicator’”

We did hear rumors recently that the exterior of the AR / VR headset might have a display that could show the eyes of the wearer so people around them could see and their facial expressions.

This still seems like it’s be creepy?

The report says that LG has hopes for the future that they may also win Apple’s business for the internal microOLED displays as well.

iPhone 14 may get ‘selfie’ upgrades

This according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo

He believes Apple has added new suppliers, specifically the South Korean company LG Innotek, for the FaceTime camera components and that will bring some overdue improvements

The updates are expected for all iPhone 14 models and will include finally adding auto-focus, a six part lens, vs the 5 part currently used, and a larger f/1.9 aperture (vs f/2.2 currently) which should improve overall quality

And a big CPU upgrade might be coming to iPhone’s in 2025

Nikkei Asia is reporting that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC) announced it expects to begin production of ultra-advanced 2 nanometer chips by 2025.

The company claims the tech is based on “nanosheet transistor architecture" and that it will offer "significant improvements in performance and power efficiency."

Finfet infrastructure is the technology currently used to make chips for Apple

and just for perspective, Apple’s latest A-Series and M-Series chips use 5nm tech and 3nm tech is already in the works and expected to be ready later this year.

Rumors have pointed to Apple possibly adopting the 3nm technology for the next round of M2 Pro and M2 Macs chips possibly in 2023 as well as for future iPhone chips

Continued rumors of M2 iPad Pro updates

Last week a lot of the buzz around iPad Pro was about the possibility of a larger 14-inch version with rumors coming from display analyst Ross Young and twitter user Majin Bu

But this week Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who tends to be pretty reliable, in his recent newsletter doubled down on his perspective that Apple intends to stick with upgrades to the current sizes

Gurman claims he expects to see Apple update the iPad Pro lineup in September or October with new M2 chips, wireless charging, and upgrades to the camera system.

Previously Gurman has also claimed Apple has been experimenting with larger iPad displays but he didn’t seem to feel Apple would do anything with larger iPads until at least 2023.

Last week Majin Bu also added that Apple was planning M2 updates to the existing 11-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pros.

And speaking of display analyst Ross Young… this week he has new information that makes the idea of a 14-inch iPad even murkier

He claimed that in recent checks with suppliers that it seems like the 14-inch iPad panel that Apple is looking at is not a miniLED panel and most likely does not support a 120hz variable refresh rate (Pro Motion)

If that turns out to be true that would seem to imply this panel is destined for a larger iPad vs iPad Pro

That said, the 11-inch iPad Pro also does not have minLED or ProMotion, but when explaining why Apple claimed it was because 11-inch users wanted a more portable lighter weight design while XDR technology (miniLED Pro-motion) was best suited for a larger canvas, like the 12.9-inch iPad Pro

So you’d assume bigger panel, better tech, but that is seemingly not the case?

So does. 10-inch and 14-inch “iPad” make sense?

A since we’re talking entry-level iPad…

9to5 Mac says this week that Apple is readying a new entry level iPad that will offer an A14 chip, 5G, and switch (finally) from Lightning to USB-C

They also say that the updated iPad will have a better and possibly larger 10.5 or 10.9-inch Retina Display that will match the quality of the iPad Air, but will likely lack the higher end features like wide P3 color gamut or higher display brightness

They didn’t have any other details regarding the design, so it’s not clear if it will remain the same with the large bezels and home button or if it will finally adopt a more modern look with FaceID

Seems like it’s time, right?

We continued this week to get more from Apple, via several statements and interviews, on why the new iPad OS 16 “Stage Manager” features requires an M1 or better iPad

Apple told Rene Ritchie, “"Stage Manager is a fully integrated experience that provides all-new windowing experience that is incredibly fast and responsive and allow users to run 8 apps simultaneously across iPad and an external display with up to 6K resolution. Delivering this experience with the immediacy users expect from iPad's touch-first experience requires large internal memory, incredibly fast storage, and flexible external display I/O, all of which are delivered by iPads with the M1 chip.”

In an interview with TechCrunch Craig Federighi said that, “It's only the M1 iPads that combined the high DRAM capacity with very high capacity, high performance NAND that allows our virtual memory swap to be super fast” and that’s what allows the M1 iPads to be able to have 8 apps operating “instantaneously” since each app is now capable of consuming up to 16GB of memory

Federighi also told Forbes that they tried to make Stage Manager work on no M1 iPads and that their teams were just not satisfied with the performance.

And in fact 9to5 Mac did some digging and found internal settings in the iPadOS 16 betas that allow you to enable “Chamois” (the Stage Manager codename) for “Legacy Devices.”

So in essence… they are saying that it’s all about the architecture and specifically the way the M-Series iPads can handle the unified memory. Basically being able to use the fast NAND storage on the iPad as additional memory swap.

But there’s a place where this argument falls apart and it’s the 64GB base model iPad Air 5

As pointed out by developer Steve Troughton-Smith, that iPad lacks virtual memory swap capabilities yet still supports Stage Manager

Now to be fair Apple has claimed it’s also the speed and processing of the M1, so it’s logical to assume that memory swap might not be the “only” factor

It’s also logical to assume that maybe the Stage Manager experience might not be as good on a iPad Air 5, but it was acceptable enough for Apple’s team (vs what they experienced on a non-M1 iPad)

On a 12-inch MacBook…

Remember last week when Mark Gurman said Apple was working on a 12-inch notebook, but it was unclear if I’d be a standard or “Pro” model? I said I was skeptical.

Turns out display analyst Ross Young is skeptical too. He said in a tweet that none of their supply chain checks has turned up a hint of a 12-inch notebook in the works

Not only that but Apple’s current strategy seems firmly planted in the 13-inch and up camp.

I’d be more apt to believe Apple is taking the iPad Pro line from and 11-inch and 12.9-inch size up to a 12-inch and 13.9-inch (14-inch) size in 2023.

In fact… moving to OLED panels which have been rumored “in the works” for a while now from several sources.

Young says that Apple will likely launch a notebook with a 13.3-inch OLED panel in 2024 along with OLED versions of the 11-inch iPad Pro and 12.9-inch iPad Pro in the same timeframe

He says they will use “tandem stack” display technology, using two red, green, and blue emission layers, to provide increased brightness and lower power consumption. The technology also creates a longer lasting display.

In addition he expects Apple will use variable refresh rates to further help with battery life.

Apple’s 13-inch MacBook Pro with the M2 chip got went on sale June 17th and will be available for in-store purchases on June 24th

Their two new Dual USB-C 35W power adapters, both the compact and the standard versions, are now also on sale.

Has Apple found it’s way into games?

Apple hasn’t historically been much of a “gaming” company and still really isn’t when it comes to AAA desktop titles.

But… you’d be hard pressed not to believe they have a significant presence in mobile games and now it looks like between that and their Services they are set to carve out a nice “little” business with Apple Arcade

The analysts over at JP Morgan think Apple Music and Apple Arcade could have a subscriber base of upwards of 180 million subscribers by 2025

Breaking it down to about 110 million users for Music and about 70 million for Arcade

All together that a predicted growth of about 36 percent and would see just these two Apple services brining in about $8.2 billion by 2025. Making Apple Arcade a $1.2 billion service by itself.

Not too shabby.

Even with the good predictions there are signs from the UK that inflation might have an impact on services revenues

A survey from Kantar in the UK indicated that last month Music streaming services as a whole in the UK lost about 1 million subscribers

Not a huge loss, but interesting considering previously we’d seen mostly growth.

Even more concerning might be that younger subscribers seem to be canceling quicker, likely due to having less discretionary income

For All Mankind season 3 made it’s way into the Just Watch weekly list of top ten streaming shows even after only being online for 3 of the seven days of that week.

The alternative history of the space race show is great and the latest season so far for me has been a lot of fun.

It did however happen to be the only Apple TV+ show to make the top 10 list this week.

Spoiler Alert

One nice nod to Apple history that has made an appearance this season is the Newton Message pad.

I think I’ve seen at least two versions, but the most prominent being the Message Pad 120 which is in a seen where characters are making a video call with the devices

Jon, tweeted me about it and I posted that the only thing I ground odd was that the video calls were in color yet the UI on the main device was still the traditional greyscale

Then a cool thing happened, the VFX Supervisor for the show, Reddfield, replied in a [tweet](https://twitter.com/Jay_Redd/status/1538884663569043458) and gave us some behind the scenes insight

“…I’m glad you noticed that, and in fact was a deliberate decision, so we didn’t have to get into a whole ‘color UI’ re-design for something that lasted as merely a ‘blip’ on screen. #efficiency”

Starting in 2023 Apple TV+ will be the exclusive place to catch every Major League Soccer match

Apple and MLS announced a deal this week that will make all games, the Leagues Cup, and select MLS NEXT Pro and MLS NEXT matches without any blackouts or need for a traditional pay TV bundle.

Though you will need to subscribe to a new MLS streaming service, available exclusively through the Apple TV app

The deal will last 10 years, into 2032.

Apple also says a broad selection of matches will be available at no additional cost to Apple TV+ subscribers, with a limited number of matches available for free.

Fans with MLS full-season ticket packages will also have full access to the MLS streaming service.

All MLS and Leagues Cup matches will include announcers calling the action in English and Spanish, and all matches involving Canadian teams will be available in French

The deal is said to be worth an estimated $2.5 billion

Apple has reportedly signed a new limited series deal that will start Billy Crystal according to deadline

The show is called “Before” and Billy Crystal will play Eli, "a child psychiatrist who recently lost his wife when he encounters a troubled young boy."

The series is written by Sarah Thorp and will be directed by Barry Levinson

2nd Gen AirTags?

As noted by analyst Ming-Chi Kuo Apple hasn’t said too much about AirTag since it’s launch almost two years ago

Really the only time we’ve heard much about it has been with all the questions and concerns around security, privacy, and stalking.

Apple has been also steadily making software improvement to address those concerns.

Now Kuo says that AirTags have actually been pretty successful selling, he estimates, 20 million units in 2021 with that rising to 35 million in 2022

This leads him to believe that, if sales of the device keep growing, that Apple could do a “gen 2” at some point

What would we want to see…

I think thinner with possibly other form factors suited for different applications, like a “card” for your wallet.

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The Finder tips continue

Play tip on file re-naming from Andy

Play three finger drag tip from Dan

Addressing the “rats nest"

Dan wrote in with a question regarding something I think we all suffer from, but likely all have different solutions for.

Cable clutter

I’m like Dan and I have almost a dozen items connected to my Mac

Drobo

Media Drive

Backup Drive

Clone Drive

Audio interface

Mouse

Keyboard

USB-Hub

Headphones

Power cable

Two monitors each with a video cable + power cable

It’s an absolute mess so how do you wrangle it?

I’ve tried all minds of products and cable organizers over the years.

No system ever seems to be perfect

Zip ties are good, but when you need to undo or re-do anything there’s pain involved

So then you try velcro ties and they’re good too, but you often need quite a few and they can be more expensive

I then use different sized “split” tubing to bundle sets of cables together and cover them

You have cable covers that can attach to walls and desks. Under desk shelves or bins.

I’ve seen cable management bins that sit on the floor and can house and cover power strips that look good but never tried them.

One item that really helped my setup, at least for my laptop was a Thunderbolt 3 hub.

I can connect everything into that and clean up and tie up the cables at my desk. The just “dock” and undock my laptop with a single cable for everything.

So what are your solutions, recommendations, and products?

What are clever / helpful tips and tricks to reducing or eliminating cable clutter?

Run a Terminal Speedtest

This is a cool Terminal trick I found on [iDownloadBlog](https://www.idownloadblog.com/2022/06/14/speed-test-terminal-macos/)

It’s not as pretty as running a Speedtest at Speedtest.net, but if you just need some quick results without all the extra ads and stuff, and you’re running macOS Monterey or newer, try this…

Open the Terminal and type: `networkQuality -v`

This will run a quick network upload/download speed test and display the results

You can run the command without the `-v` option and it will give you a slightly less detailed result

If you want to know full set of available options you can run the command with the `-h` option for help or use the man page, `man networkQuality`

There is a handy `-s` option that runs the download and then upload test in sequence rather than in parallel. You can also use a `-C` option to feed in a configuration URL.

Play around with it and see what you think

Interestingly Apple also has a [support page](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212313) that details this terminal command along with instruction so you can install a “Wi-Fi” network testing profile on iOS 15 if you have an Apple developer account.

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