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Two new 15-inch MacBook models possible

In a tweet Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said he believed a new 15-inch MacBook model would go into production some time in the first half of 2023

Interestingly he said there could be versions with M2 and M2 Pro processors

To me this would indicate Apple doing a 15-inch notebook for both consumer and pro Mac fans

He also indicated that the new model might not be called MacBook Air

Display analyst Ross Young had said in the past that Apple was planning a 15-inch MacBook Air.

A rumor that was also repeated last week by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman

Finally he put some cold water on the rumors of a 12-inch MacBook.

You might remember that Mark Gurman has claimed that Apple was looking at possibly releasing a 12-inch notebook sometime near the end of 2023 or in 202

Signs of M2 performance

And surprise, it basically lines up with what Apple told us

Apple said the new M2 processors would be about 18 percent faster than the M1

The new M2 is clocked at 3.49GHz compared to 3.2GHz for the ‌M1

Early benchmarks started to show up on Geekbench this past week

The single core scores came in around 1919, or about a 12 percent speed improvement over the M1

The multicore score was 8928, or about 20 percent faster than the M1

An analyst at Strategy Analytics estimates that Apple has at least a 2-3 year lead over other Arm-based PC processor vendors.

a recent report from them showed that because the the M-Series Apple has a 90 percent revenue share of ARM based Notebooks

A teardown of Apple’s new 35W Dual USB-C Compact Power Adapter by ChargerLAB reveals some interesting details

The internal design makes it easy to swap out the prongs, likely for supporting various international versions of the adapter

The front and back portions are also symmetrical and it contains two identical power supply circuits.

Testing by 9to5 Mac shows that while charging different combinations of devices you can expect to get different levels of charging power

Charging a Mac and an iPhone or iPad each device gets up to 17.5 W

Same with an iPhone and an iPad, up to 17.5W

A Mac or iPhone with an Apple Watch or set of AirPods and the Mac / iPhone get up to 27.5W and the Apple Watch / Air Pods up to 7.5W

Of course if you just connect one device it will get up to the full 35W

What’s next for M2? Mark Gurman shared his thoughts in his recent newsletter

M2 and M2 Pro versions of the Mac mini

New 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with M2 Pro and M2 Max chips

A new Mac Pro tower with M2 Ultra and "M2 Extreme" chips.

Interesting no mention of M2 or M2 Pro versions of an iMac?

Upcoming new “home” devices

Gurman also thinks Apple will be updating their living room options with a new Apple TV and HomePod

An updated Apple TV with an A14 chip and 4GB of RAM

And a new HomePod based on the S8 chip, the same chip expected to power the upcoming Series 8 Apple Watch

The details on the Apple TV seems to be minimal and it seems to be mostly just a processor update

Though there have been references found in the iOS 16 betas that seem to indicate the possibility of a new Siri remote

More interesting to me were his comments on the HomePod

Saying, “will be closer to the original HomePod in terms of size and audio performance rather than a new HomePod mini.”

He also says there will be an updated display on top possibly with multi-touch functionality

Half of top smartphones are iPhones

At least for the month of April according to the most recent report from Counterpoint Research

The top 10 selling smartphones account for 21 percent of the total smartphone market and within those 10 models Apple account for five of them.

In fact, the top four spots for April we’re all iPhones

iPhone 13 at 5.5 percent

iPhone 13 Pro Max at 3.4 percent

iPhone 13 Pro at 1.8 percent

And iPhone 12 at 1.6 percent

Then the iPhone SE 2022 model came i n number 7 with 1.4 percent

The SE making the list might be surprising, but the report notes that the SE is doing well internationally and that it saw “triple digit” growth in month over month sales

Specifically in Japan the SE captured 18 percent of their smartphones sales in April

iPhone 12 sales were driven by increased sales in Japan and India

When it comes to the premium end of the smartphone market the research from Counterpoint shows that Apple is “crushing” it.

In the first quarter of 2022 for phones $400 or more Apple’s iPhones accounted for a 62 percent share of the market, up from 57% in the same quarter last year.

The numbers are lead by the iPhone 13 which the firm says, “…has been the best-selling model globally each month since October 2021.”

Apple’s AR / VR headset could debut in January

According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo

Kuo thinks that as Meta pulls back a bit in VR hardware to focus on it’s primary business Apple is primed to make a big impact

He described Apple’s upcoming headset as, “the most complicated product Apple has ever designed,” and said the product “will further boost the demand for immersive gaming/multimedia entertainment.”

More and more signs seem to be pointing to Apple getting ready for the release of this product

Tim Cook in an interview with China Daily this past week re-iterated his excitement about AR technology

He spoke about how he feels we are just in the “early innings” of how the technology will evolve and pointed to the already 14,000 ARKit apps in the App Store

He then concluded by saying, “…stay tuned and you'll see what we have to offer.”

Apple still hopes for “Sunday Ticket”

Apple, long with Disney and Amazon, have submitted their bids to the NFL to try and get the NFL Sunday ticket games for the upcoming season

This is according to CNBC who says the bids were submitted “weeks ago”

Now Apple has to wait to see if they are picked to be able to carry the Sunday “out of market” games on Apple TV+

DirectTV paid more than $1.5 billion for the current deal and will cover the upcoming 2022-23 season. For this next deal the NFL is reportedly looking for a deal of more than $2 billion for the package.

AirPods Pro 2 render leak

A source for reliable AirPods Pro leaks in the past posted image renders of what is rumored to be the upcoming AirPods Pro 2 designs

The images come from “52audio” and they previously posted what turned out to be accurate images of the new AirPods 3 design

This time we have what look like renders that show off some interesting details

First the case and AirPods design seem to be largely unchanged

Some other rumors have claimed Apple could adopt a “stemless” design for AirPods Pro 2

The case also has “speaker” holes on the bottom presumably to support a built-in Find My feature

It’s hard to tell, but there is debate on if Apple will switch AirPods to a USB-C connector

My gut says they will stick with Lightning as long as the iPhone still uses Lightning

Finally, there is a side connector that looks like it would be for a strap or loop of some sort.

The leak is focused on the design, but there was also some hints discovered in the AirPods Beta firmware that Apple might add support for the the LC3 codec via Bluetooth 5.2 support

The Low Complexity Communication Codec (LC3) allows lower bitrate transmissions that can maintain higher audio quality

It can improve audio calls and make them more efficient and stable

Other features and prediction for AirPods Pro 2

A new version of Apple’s H1 chip which could support Apple’s Lossless Audio format

Possible health features including heart rate detection and temperature sensors

Maybe hearing aid capabilities

A mic on the charging case could pickup audio and transmit it back to the AirPods to enhance sound and playback

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The “For All Mankind” Newton

I mentioned last time, and again spoiler alert, that on Season 3 of the Apple TV+ alternative history of the Space Race serve “For All Mankind” that in this season they have show Newton Message Pad 120s being used to make video calls.

What was cool was I replied to a comment from a listener about this on Twitter noting that the video calls were in color, yet the UI was still greyscale which I found odd.

Then I got a reply from the VFX Supervisor on the show expanding that decision was intentional because the UI is a “blip” on the screen and it wouldn’t have been worth the cost to have to design a build a color version of the UX. Cool.

This week I saw a post about the Newtons in a tweet from a series producer

Ben McGinnis said that to get the POV shots for the show the props team were able to fit an iPhone 12 Pro Max into the Newton, so that perspective was “Shot on iPhone”

Clarus is back

If I say Clarus, or Dogcow, or Moof! The more “classic” of you probably know what I’m referring to while others of you are probably confused

The “Dogcow” also known as Clarus was an icon designed by Susan Kare who was a graphic designer on the original Macintosh team who was responsible for many of the icons and UI elements the Mac is known for.

The “dogcow” was actually part of an original Mac “dingbat” font called Cairo. Dingbat fonts typed out symbols and icons rather than letters and Clarus the dogcow was the icon for the letter Z in that font.

She is called a “dogcow” because the design was a dog that also looked possibly like a cow as well.

You don’t often see the dogcow but in versions of MacOS through the 90’s the most common place you’d see Clarus was in the Page Setup dialog. The icon was used to show your page orientation.

But when Steve Jobs returned to Apple and with the introduction of Mac OS X. Clarus was removed from the page setup and you saw less and less of the dogcow in the OS and in Apple’s marketing.

So why am I bringing all of this up now? We’ll looks like in macOS Monterey Claus the dogcow is back!

She has had some cosmetic work done however to smooth out her jaggies and I’m not sure how I feel about that.

Still the dogcow is right back where she belongs in the Page Setup (Command+Shift+P) in apps that use the built in Printing Set-up

How big is a “Family”?

Apple announced at WWDC that they are finally going to add to iCloud Photo Library the concept of a “shared” Family Library

This will be a separate library from your main iCloud Photo library and each member of your iCloud Family plan will be able to add and share this album

Any and all change made by any member of that album will also be made and sync’d to all other members

But here’s the thing… according to Apple a “family” is apparently defined as six people

From their PR, “iCloud Shared Photo Library gives families a new way to share photos seamlessly with a separate iCloud library that up to six users can collaborate on, contribute to, and enjoy. “

So Michael wrote to me this week and asks…

“Should Apple consider expanding their Apple Family Plan options, so you can have more than 6 people on the plan?”

As he points out, especially with photo sharing, you might have many more than 5 other people in your extended family that you want to share a photo Library with

If you include parents, children, spouse, siblings and their families that might be quite a few people

Michael says in his own family that would be about 12 people and he’d be willing to even pay more for the privilege.

I can see his point. Right now I’d say the limit is simply historical. Apple Family Sharing was designed originally for family members “under the same roof”.

I’d guess six people in a single household was some sort of statistical majority and struck a balance especially when it came to “app sharing”

The one thing I’d worry about with a larger group of family members sharing a photo library is it’s more possibilities for things to go wrong?

If I add my photos to the shared library and then grandma or my sister-in-law deletes them, then what?

You all know in my case I’ll have backups, but you get my point.

I would hope, but I don’t know, that Apple will add some sort of version history, a la Time Machine, to iCloud Shared Photo Library?

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