584: Musical Deck Chairs

Hello and welcome to another perfectly normal New Year's episode of Connected, number 584. We are not... the kind of podcast that gives our hosts ridiculous made-up titles. No, we don't. So why would we? I would like to introduce you to my entirely unremarkable friend and co-host, James Thompson. Hi, James. Thanks, Jason. I mean, it is always a pleasure to do this show. And I'm not just saying that because I'm trying to make up for any bad behavior that may or may not have occurred last year.

But in turn, I'd like to introduce you to my completely fine co-host, John Voorhees. Hello, hello, everybody. Could we just maybe think about going back to titles? Because I kind of miss them. I mean, I feel like I have a chance to win. this time around and you know i i just like to have a title again and but yeah we're okay we're back we're back together again yeah yeah we're back together and it's you know

You expect us because we're here every week. So yeah, let's go on with the show, right? Okay. All right. Yeah, we'll just, I mean, it's perfectly normal. Let's do some follow-up. Follow-up. A lot of people wrote in to complain that James was too mean to John. We're sorry. We didn't notice because we just assumed that that's what happens. But obviously other people notice. James, be nicer. The Connectidians demand it. He knows what he did. Yeah, but nicer. James, come on.

Hey, look, we had, we got some really nice compliments last week too, that I wanted to mention because we had those great kids on, you know, we had Federico, Steven and Mike, and they're doing some great stuff over at the prompt. So we're, we're, we're really, we're, proud of them. I mean, you know, they're out there doing their thing and doing their podcasts. I'm glad that they're still around. Yeah, it's good to hear from those boys. Nice. Very nice.

I am informed by a few listeners that Jason was incorrect when he said that Netflix offered a buttload of money. In the UK, we say and it was David Ellison who offered it. It's a slightly different system of measurement for sure. Yeah, I regret the error, I guess. Fine. Okay, James.

I think we put this off long enough. It's time. Yes. So as with every single New Year's Day episode that we've done, we like to look back on the previous year. and present some awards to the deserving candidates. So I welcome you to the 2025 Japeries. Woohoo! Okay, I'll kick it off with the most self-indulgent synergy. This goes to Apple for its sudden wholehearted embrace of Formula One in all its forms as it was releasing F1 the movie.

Probably my favorite thing. John, you might have gotten this press briefing or email. They made this big deal out of adding... a 3d monaco to apple maps because the monaco grand prix was going to be happening there in a couple of years and i was like that apple maps as your formula one synergy is going a bit far in my opinion they even had little cars on the map it was really cute yeah

It was. It's just, I mean, there was so much. Like, Apple went from zero to 50. Huh? Huh? Huh? In its love of F1. They started with Tim Cook waving a flag, after all. That's true. The cars on the 3D map were definitely a step up from there. I think it was the fact that every time I opened any part... of ios it was plugging the movie yes you know you open up find mine it'll tell you where you can find the movie and things like that

All right. Well, our second award for this installment of the Japeries is the Everywhere and Nowhere All at Once Award. And this year, that goes to our friend App Intents. Because, you know, App Intents, they're both... everywhere powering everything all at once but they're also kind of nowhere because they're not really doing much with siri these days yeah i'm glad i didn't rush to like

fully re-implement all my app intent code you know for for siri because i've probably got another couple of years give it time yeah you've got you've got to have that action that does one plus one and pcalc you know indeed So the Alan Dye Award for being completely transparent goes to Tim Cook for handing over that glass and gold trophy. You know the one. We're not going to mention who.

But the transactional nature, shall we say, of some of these interactions did rankle a little bit. I think that's fair. I'm going to give the Graceful Exit Award. And this goes to Jeff Williams, former Apple COO, who managed to cover himself in dignity by retiring, not... having anything weird going on, not being part of a week of Apple executives coming and going. He just retired.

He just peaced out. It was good. Yeah. Yeah. I want to applaud him. He sounds like he made a decision like a regular human being. And you know what? His reward for that, in addition to the Graceful X Award, is that he got a seat on the Disney Board of Directors, which is... Gotta be pretty sweet.

for a retirement gig uh yeah i mean it's spend time with the family and spend time with the board and lifetime pass for your whole family to all disney parks everywhere i assume as a part of that so awesome good job jeff williams graceful exit award

Yeah, well done, well done. This year's Finally Award goes to Apple Product Marketing for finally unifying the OS version numbers on all the platforms. Finally. John, it's so nice. I know James is... It's probably complicated for developers. It's always complicated. For writers, it is so nice to be able to casually say, oh, the 26.2 updates came out today.

Yes, it is so nice. Although I do now find myself forgetting what the last version of all the OSs was because I think about 26 all the time now. I don't think about. 18 or 11 or whatever it is of the other things. I mean, this is Apple product marketing. They'll just retroactively rename them. So like 25, 25, 23. That would be really complicated. We'd have to have a chart, I think.

Yeah, the A-series processors still bother me. Ah, yes. Because they're so close to the iPhone numbers, but not. Yep. Yeah. I'm sure they will like... round up these like renegade numbers every now and again and just change them to what the current main number is. I hope so. The Are We The Baddies Award goes jointly to Services Revenue and the App Store.

for continuing to fight all attempts at regulation on a country-by-country basis, you know, rather than just say, well, actually, you know, the right thing to do is this. No, we will fight it in every court in the land. Yeah. I mean, you're giving, you're literally giving an award to services revenue, which I think is a bold move. Um, and I guess you can go to the purple charts on six colors and give it to them there. They're the purple bar. So yeah.

yeah they it's a it's a war on all fronts for apple continues to be wars on all fronts go so well they do they do um i am going to give what i'm calling the most dented can award to satellite SOS, which has always been introduced as being only for a couple of years. You're not going to get it forever. Everybody's like, well, what happens?

when that runs out and Apple hasn't said anything and they keep deferring, kicking the can down the road because they can't quite figure out how to square the idea that they need to make money from a service. that is designed to keep people from dying because that leads in some very distressing places. I would argue...

that when you buy an iPhone, you probably should just get satellite SOS for the life of the iPhone. But I find it very funny that Apple continues to struggle with whether they're going to let you and what happens. If it lapses by saying, no, another year, it's fine. It's fine. And that can is so dented now. I think the commercial that, you know, for that feature would be quite different if it was a paid service, you know, probably.

They'd have a way that you could activate the subscription over satellite so that you could pay for it. You know, when you're on the mountain and you really need it, you know, press here. uh to to sign up and send an sos my thought was that they would build out all these other things like like texting and all of that and at that point they would charge for that but they'd keep the underlying sos allowed or

That's kind of what I was thinking, yeah. Alternately, they could charge you per use. So if you have to use SOS and you're not, then you just pay $10 or whatever to Apple. But I think it's better if the SOS part just stays. free forever with your free with your expensive iPhone purchase. Sounds good to me.

Yeah, sounds good to me too. Well, this year's Musical Chairs Award goes to Apple's AI team who seemingly can't sit still for more than a few months at a time. Yeah, who? Who would get it? We don't know. I mean, it's the fact that, you know, are they at Google? Are they at meta? Are they at Apple? Who could say?

Although there seem to be a lot more chairs empty at Apple than there are anywhere else. Yeah, well, they're rearranging them. Nothing bad can happen if you rearrange the deck chairs, right? The musical deck chairs are what? Yes, I like that. Finally, the Louvre Award for the heist of the century goes to Generative AI for continuing to steal the creative work of everybody on the planet. I see what you did there. I see what you did there.

Okay. That was great. I think we had a good time. Always like to do some fake awards. Now it's sponsor time. And again, because of our bad behavior in the past. RelayFM co-founder Stephen Hackett has insisted that he read the ads because sponsors won't let us do it anymore. Everybody knows why. We won't get into it. Stephen, please read an ad now. This episode of Connected is brought to you by Century. Logs are really helpful when they're part of the full picture, not stuck as a separate tool.

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Now we come to the section that some people have been waiting for. I don't think that any of us should be defined by our wins, losses, cheating in these pickies competitions. I mean, we all contribute so much to the podcast each year. on top of that. But I guess we should look back and just see how good we were at predicting the technology trends of 2025. And first up, because we have multiple competitions to adjudicate this year, we have the overall annual pickies for 2025.

I'm feeling pretty good about this one. Oh boy, this is going to be amazing. Please lower your shoulders and relax for the reading of the Minimalist Pickies Charter. Every year, we play two games and predict what will happen at WWDC and throughout the year. We pick in reverse order of the previous contest's final standards. Everyone picks five things that they think will happen.

The person with the most right things wins. In the case of a tie, there are multiple winners. We do not let mere chance determine success here. There shall be no disputes over scoring because we are just inherently honorable people. I think we're going to have to change number one on the charter. To say, sometimes we play a third game, which is predicting things in the autumn. But we'll do that on Jason Voorhees' day next year. It'll be fine.

For those who don't know, that's the first Friday of the 13th of the year is Jason, officially Jason Voorhees day. Every day is James Thompson day. It's fine. I like to think so.

Okay, it's round one. I guess we should recap our own picks here. So John, why don't you get us started? Sure. So I said that a revision or new model of the Apple Watch will be introduced... That supports a new sensor. Nope. This is false. I said that a new iPhone SE would be introduced that supported Apple intelligence. Now. The lawyers have said that no iPhone SE was introduced, and thus this is false.

You could argue that the 16e is really an iPhone SE, but that's not how I worded it. Yes, you could argue that if you had worded this slightly differently, you would have been correct. Yes, if I had written a different sentence. A new low-end iPhone model. You didn't. No, but since there are other people who have also mentioned iPhone SEs, I'm prepared to accept this rule.

So my first pick, boy, I was so confident in this. Apple will introduce a new home appliance with a screen. Well, it requires new Siri. And last year at New Year's, we still thought maybe Apple was going to ship AI features. which they didn't at all the whole year. So that's wrong. Let's move on to round two. I don't even, that was bad. Swing and a miss.

All right. Well, I got on the iPhone SE bandwagon, too, and I predicted that the iPhone SE would have a 48-megapixel camera sensor. Nope. Now, of course, the 16e did, but that's... Not Nessie. Not Nessie. Could have worded it better. I picked. There was going to be a brand new redesigned mouse. And I don't know why I picked that. I don't. At the time, I was baffled. I'm still baffled. I mean, it was like because we had the whole, you know.

All the jokes, all the memes about the magic magic plug in the bottom thing. I thought there would be something, you know, but no, apparently not. I applaud your optimism, James. Yeah, it's wish casting. Speaking of optimism and returning to my theme of what we thought about AI last year at the turn of the new year, I said a third party LLM partner.

other than OpenAI, will finally be announced by Apple, but it won't actually be available until the last quarter of 2025. This is false on all counts. Remember when they kept dropping Google? Gemini's name in 2024 in the summer. And here we are a year and a half later and it's still just open AI. Yeah. I just don't understand what's going on there. I mean, The only thing I can think of is there's money exchanging hands in some direction, but I don't know.

Well, it doesn't help that they don't have smart Siri ready. I mean, you know, what are you going to do? We're going to use Gemini someday in a product that might come out at some time. Third-party LLM provider, like if you're working with Google on being the first-party LLM provider, maybe you just don't need to worry about the third-party stuff. OpenAI has probably the most popular consumer AI, so you could throw that in there.

But yeah, I think in the background, they're working with Google on Gemini reportedly. I guess that takes priority. Anyway, I'm just really surprised that we've gone 18 months. But all the AI choices that we thought last year are just wrong because they didn't do it.

They didn't do anything. Yep. Yep. Yep. You're right. You're right. All right. So we're on to round three. The scores, by the way, for people who are wondering, are still Everybody Has Nothing. So, we're tied. But we're about to ramp it up here, I think. I feel good about the next three rounds. In round three, I predicted that Apple will not announce a new Vision Pro.

before the next annual pickies. John, here we are. And we did, in fact, get an M5 Vision Pro. I thought this was a lock. I was very surprised. I thought this was a lock for you. I cannot believe it. I know. I was very surprised. Wow. Yeah, M5, Vision Pro, who knew? Who knew? Yeah, and sometimes you need to make...

bold predictions. And I said that Apple was going to get back into the Wi-Fi router business just because, and I'll say, the reason that I picked this is I'm really fed up with all my Wi-Fi routing. equipment and i want something that works uh but apple did not return no between this and the mouse though james something must have happened you had a moment there yeah

He really thought he was Nostradamus there for a minute. He did. I mean, sometimes I think if you pick the really bold thing and it comes true, you look so good. It's true. But if you pick the really bold thing and it doesn't come true, you look like a fool. Lots of style points there. Well, I...

I thought a pretty clever prediction, which was that Apple will receive a record fine from the European Commission. Now, in 2024, the record was what? We looked it up, James. 1.2 billion? Yeah, it was like 1.8. 1.8 billion euro billions um uh and this is false because the biggest fine apple got in 2025 was half a billion so not even close half a billion not even close

So that's wrong. Scores remain zero. We got a couple more rounds to get some points here, John. All right. Round four. A new Apple TV will be introduced with Apple intelligence features. Another one that I'm a little surprised didn't happen. Yeah, I think when there's all these rumors of like, oh, there's going to be this, this, this, and we're expecting it to be announced, you know, like towards the end of the year and just nothing happens.

And I've got to assume everything is tied to Apple Intelligence, and there is a giant factory somewhere just full of new HomePods and Apple TVs. I said that... Apple would introduce an M-series chip in a configuration that is better than an Ultra, which was laughable. And I can't even...

Remember if they introduced the new Ultra even last year. They did, but it was the M3 and not the M4. Oh, that's right. Yes. Right. That was the weirdest naming choice. I mean, I guess they're being truthful. I got to wonder if the Ultra is on the way out. i don't think so because like i mean i think the mac pro is on the way out though yeah i think you're right i think the ultra will stick around but it is awfully weird to just kind of throw in the m3 ultra in the mix with all the m4s

Yeah. Wow. I don't really know what's going on there. My prediction was that the only new feature on the MacBook Air beyond an M4 processor will be an upgraded webcam. Now... I feel like this is the closest any of us have come to being right so far. Yeah, I'd written, you know, it has better support for multiple monitors, which is a feature that Apple breaks out in the spec chart for it. Yeah, and it's a feature, I think, of the design of the M4, but I am...

I have to go with you that that's a feature. They did upgrade the webcam, by the way, but, um, that, that monitor support, I think puts it over the edge as another new feature. So I'm going to, I should have, and I should have, um, said something about like hardware here because that's really what i meant yeah right but yeah so good on apple they you know i should have picked they the the new

there's a new color in the macbook air that nobody can see but i didn't do that okay no score still round five go ahead john all right here we go final round let's let's uh pull out a big win here i predict I predicted that the M5 will separate the CPU and GPU memory architecture, which will be explained in the context of improving Apple intelligence.

and gaming which is again untrue instead we got neural accelerators which are doing something similar to what i was thinking of yeah this is why this was a wild choice this is one of those choices this is like a james choice I think that at one point there was a rumor that the sandwiching of the multi-layer chip architecture was somehow separating those in some way. But obviously that's not true. I mean, two things that you could... say that Apple didn't really care about last year were gaming.

and Apple Intelligence. They say they care about the gaming. I mean, they do every time, you know, but it's a real Lucy's football of a promise. I know, I know. I've given up my optimism about gaming on the Mac. is fading yeah um i again you know last round wild picks i said that apple was going to announce a partnership with a third-party publisher e e.g. Sony or Steam, to help bring games to the Vision Pro. Now, you could say that adding support for Sony's VR controllers...

Only in the sense that you use the word Sony in your pick, but otherwise, no. Define partnership, really. Publisher to bring games. Yeah. I like how you slid in there that you think this was your wild pick, as if your previous four picks were not also wild picks. I feel somebody needs to not just go for the obvious. Okay. All right. Well, I went. Jason, you're the only hope here. I went with the obvious. And my pick is so bad that it's wrong halfway, before it gets halfway through the sentence.

which is Apple's home appliance with a screen will be named in whole or in part HomePod. rebranding the whole home line as HomePod. Well, they would have to ship a home appliance with a screen for that to happen. We all thought it would happen. It didn't happen. We think mostly because the whole Siri architecture that was built to... use didn't ship and so no home appliance i think we were i think we were all ahead of our time yeah yeah some of these things will happen

but it means our final score is I have nothing. James has nothing. John has nothing, which means you could view that as we all lost, but I prefer to think we all tied and are winners. Yeah. By the, by the. The description in the charter, it's three-way tie. We all won. I think so. Okay. One more obligatory commercial from Stephen Hackett.

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for supporting Connected and all of Relay. All right, it is time for us to score more pickies because we did our autumn edition, a new flavor. The leaves turn colors and we decided to play a game where we zeroed in on like the last few months of the year. So here we go. Let's. Are we ready? Are we ready to do the autumn edition? John, did you want to say something here? I do. I have a little statement to make. Regular listeners are going to remember.

that there were some questionable rules added to the Pickies Charter in the autumn by James in an attempt to give them an unfair advantage as well as boost his ego. Yeah. Well, let's read the rules and see what we think, James. All right. Yes. My lawyer has told me not to comment. Every year we play three games and we predict what will happen at WWDC during the autumnal season, a new edition, and over the course of the whole year. James always picks first.

John then flips a coin to see who goes second. For the autumnal pickies, everyone picks five things they think will happen between September 1st and the annual pickies episode at the end of the year. James gets an additional sixth pick because he just deserves it. In the case of a tie, there are multiple winners. Unless one of those winners is James, in which case he wins by default.

See, if I'd had that for the previous one, I'd have been sore. Yeah, there shall be no disputes over scoring because we are all just inherently honorable people, especially James, who is the most honorable. That's what it says here. I got to read it. At the end of each round, Jason and John will alternate saying something nice about James. James will say, thank you very much. And we will then move on to the next round. Well, that's how it worked.

And now we have to score it. So let's see how we did. Round one. Of course, James went first and John flipped a coin and John won. So it'll go in that order, James. What did you pick in round one? I'm sure my hubris. will not result in a terrible loss here. Anyway, my round one pick was an M5 Pro or an M5 Max chip will ship before the end of the year. This was surprisingly...

Yeah, really surprised. I thought that was a good choice. And they only rolled out the M5 and only in the low-end MacBook Pro and iPad. It was surprising. So you can buy a MacBook Pro and you can have an M5 or an M4 Max. The worst one is the M5. It's weird. It is weird. I was, I was convinced we would have a second event in like early November basically, but yeah, we did not. Anyway, my pick was that AirPods pro three would be released and they were so a right answer.

yes finally so predicting a year ahead we're very bad predicting three months ahead we're better yes already yes so good job airpods pro 3 came out um My pick in the first round was the new iPhone will be or a new iPhone will be less than six millimeters thick, but not as thin as an iPad Pro. And this was so precisely chosen.

Nailed it. Absolutely. Nailed it. I got one right here. It's thin. It's super thin, but not as thin as my iPad Pro, which I also have right here. So if they fight it out, the iPad Pro still wins. I said for round two, one of the new phones will have an 8x or greater optical zoom. And I think this is true. It's a 48 megapixel sensor and they're just taking the middle.

24 out of it but i think the whole point was that there's a there's a camera stop that says 8x and i think that there is i think you got it because of that apple would certainly like you to believe there is an 8x and that it's optical

Yeah. All right. I predicted that the Apple TV would be updated and it was not. I don't know why I was so into the Apple TV. Lucy keeps... pulling the football away from you you're like no that apple tv it's really gonna happen i really i don't even really need or want another apple tv but i was convinced it was coming oh um i picked apple tv plus shows will win several emmy awards

but not the most of any outlet which again i think i got it i threaded the needle there they did win a bunch of emmys but they didn't win the most i mean i would argue that the The thing is not called Apple TV Plus anymore. It was at the time when they won the Emmy Awards, though. Yeah, that's true.

That's true. And if you go to their PR webpage, it still says TV plus there too. This is such a good branding campaign. I like the part where they changed the name and then didn't have their new little bumper to show up for like another two weeks. It was like. Really lockstep. Great job, everybody. That should have been one of our awards at the beginning, is the perfect rebranding campaign award. Round three. Again, we're...

picking things that we were certain were going to turn up. A new Apple Studio display is introduced with a better camera I won't complain about. And again, halfway through the sentence, I've already lost. But the rumors still say it's coming. And it sounds really nice. Yeah, there were new rumors that it's going to be promotion and have some sort of HDR, which I mean, like, duh, of course it should have those things, but it still hasn't shipped. Yeah.

All right. I predicted that at least one Apple Watch will be released that doesn't need an iPhone for Workout Buddy. And I was wrong. The Workout Buddy is still, you know, needs its own buddy. Which is the iPhone. I totally get what you're saying here, right? Because the idea is sometimes Apple introduces a feature in the new OS at WWDC and puts constraints on them.

that are resolved by new hardware in the fall that they can't talk about but it didn't happen because they're they're constraints that don't make a lot of sense and especially for people who are like bike riding running that kind of thing The whole idea, I mean, if you get a cellular Apple Watch, you can go do those things without your phone. But now, if you want the Workout Buddy, which admittedly, not the greatest feature ever, but you can't do that still.

All right. My next pick in the third round was a kind of a layup, but you never know. Apple sometimes doesn't do things, but Apple will release a heartwarming film. long commercial for the holiday season and they did they did friends the flight of the concords they had puppets in a forest

It was heartwarming. It was called a film. It was a long commercial because they used an iPhone to shoot it all. The little puppet shot it all on the iPhone as well. So iPhones shooting iPhones shooting iPhones. So I get that. Let's do a little score recap, shall we? After three rounds, I have three points. John has one point. One point. And James has one point. So that's how it is. Let's see how those scores can change in round four. So round four, I said...

that Apple will drop a promo for their Neuromancer TV show. And the reason I picked this was that had it been at least one promotional image had come out months before, I was convinced we would get something. We did not. We don't have any idea when that's even coming at this point, I don't think, do we? I assume next year sometime. Next year, but that's it. They haven't given it a date. I assume they'll give it a date when they release a trailer for it.

Yeah, they really haven't actually announced very much for 2026 yet. I mean, there's a couple of things that were just recently announced for April, but there's not much beyond January. I keep saying next year, people should know. We recorded this a little bit before New Year's. being released on new year's day so when i say next year i mean 26 we're in 25 hello this is the past but we're going to pretend that it's new year's day

In my mind, I'm trying not to say 2027 at this point. I'm confused all over the place. Yeah, it's true. All right. My prediction was that Apple will make an acquisition that's reported to be valued at more than $5 billion. And for context, The Beats acquisition, which is the biggest one ever, was $3 billion. And I was convinced that given all the froth in the AI market, that Apple was going to make some kind of acquisitions of something.

And it would be very expensive and that they were ready to do that. And apparently that's not what happened. Also Warner Brothers Discovery was sitting right there. Yeah, that too. I said Apple will make another newsroom post about a financial commitment to something involving American manufacturing. Just because it seems like they would do that, right?

And indeed, on December 8th, they posted Apple Manufacturing Academy launches virtual programming in which they boast about their plan to invest $600 billion in the U.S. economy. over the next four years. Do I know Apple or not? You do. In fact, they did this over and over and over again in 2025. I wonder why. I wonder why. All right, round five. James? Yeah. So I was feeling negative about it.

the chances of the Vision Pro having any kind of revival. And I said no new Vision Pro hardware would ship before the end of the year. And I fell into the same trap that John fell into because they did. They even had a news trap. So it was a surprise to us all. Yeah. The strap was a surprise. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I still need to order one of those. They're quite good. They're quite nice. It's good. I meant to put it on my Christmas list and I forgot.

All right. So I predicted that Apple will introduce at least one new OS feature based on new hardware that wasn't in the iOS 26 betas. Yeah. That was true. It's the new selfie stuff. Yeah. It's always a camera feature, isn't it? Yep. Yep. It really is. Almost always. And this is the you can hold your phone vertically and get it.

horizontal selfie cam shot. And it's very nice. I've got it. It's cool. It's definitely the best selfie camera I've ever owned. Like, it's really good. They always hold that stuff back. It's really funny. They've gotten better. I will say this. They've gotten better at hiding its presence in the betas. Yes. We used to be able to divine these features and therefore features of the new iPhones from the betas, but they seem to have properly concealed it now.

Yeah, that one was really well hidden. I don't think anybody came up with that in advance. I don't think so. I mean, the beautiful thing about the software side is everything leaks from the supply chain, right? Right. Very little. leaks from inside Cupertino and it's mostly just Mark Gurman sources. And this was a really interesting one because if you can, if you can hold the software really close, you can still surprise people a little bit.

because they can keep a really tight circle around it, and they did with this feature, so good for them. ridiculous round five pick was that the mac pro will be updated or an update will be announced and i am i have gone 180 on the mac pro now i think it's never going to be updated again and it's going to be discontinued but i i've learned

my lesson i don't get a point here ugh nope nope if they ship another mac pro it's just gonna be uh mac studio like sellotaped inside the case yeah that's about it um round six is the bonus pick for james because james knows what we did i guess james what was your pick so um you can tell how like I don't want to say positive we were on Apple Intelligence. And this was three months ago. That's not true.

But I said that Apple would make a significant investment into Anthropic or buy them outright, mirroring Microsoft's investment into OpenAI. Because it seemed like they were just completely failing to do anything. And so the way out of that is you spend some money. But they didn't do that. And they continue to not seem to be making much progress.

Who knows what's happening behind the scenes? Extra pick squandered, James. Totally squandered. As I say, hubris, it just got me. It got you. It got you. So the final score is, it does me great pleasure to announce. I had four, John had two, James with his extra pick still only finished with one. And that means I am the winner. I did get compliments out of it. And I think that that was true. All right. Well, that's going to change for next time.

All right. With that, everybody, it's time to make our picks for 2026. After the harrowing events of the autumnal pickies, it has been universally voted that James be stripped of all unconstitutional powers and that additional safeguards be put in place to stop such things ever happening again. These are the new rules, John.

All right. Every year we play three games and predict what will happen at WWDC during the autumnal season and throughout the year. We pick in reverse order of the previous contest's final standards. Everyone picks five things they think will happen. The person with the most right things wins. In the case of a tie, there are multiple winners. Or losers, I guess. We do not let mere chance determine success.

There shall be no disputes over scoring because we are all inherently honorable people, aside from James, who is questionable at best. Any future attempts to subvert the competition will result in that person being unable to vote. in any of the pickies for a whole calendar year. Remember that, James. Number eight, James is sorry for what he did. All right. Reverse order of last year.

uh sorry john you finished last last year so you get to go first in round one what do you think is going to happen in 2026.

So my round pick is that Apple is going to release at least one brand new app, either a system app or something that's available on an app store. for any device so this what this could include would be something like final cut for the ipad which is available on a store or it could include something like invites which is just i think

Is that one? Maybe that's not automatically installed. Anyway, it could either be a system app, one that's available on the App Store, or it could even be, I said an App Store, not the App Store. It could be a new Windows or Android app. Okay, so it's not...

for all devices. It's just one new app this year. A new app that has not existed before that will either appear as a system app or be available for download somewhere. Exactly. Okay. Maybe on the Epic Game Store for all we know. I like this pick. john because it's broad enough that it could happen but i feel like it also could totally not happen so yes i like it the surprise app i love it james my pick is and this could go wrong

Apple introduces a computer with an M5 Ultra processor. Now, knowing my luck, they will introduce an M4 Ultra processor. But I'm hoping that, like the version numbers, all the numbers will be the same. Yeah, it could happen. I mean, they said that they weren't going to do an Ultra in every generation, but if they skipped M4 and did an M5 Ultra, that would do it. Right? Yep. I mean, maybe they introduced an M6 Ultra. Who knows?

Well, again, I like how it could go wrong or it could make you look brilliant. I am going to go with a new rumor that just was floated a couple of weeks ago, and I love it. And it's so hilarious that I'm just going to pick it, which is somehow the iMac Pro returned.

Now, is this going to be called an iMac Pro? Is that part of your pick? You know, a part of my pick, I guess, you know, we'll all know it when we see it, right? If there's an iMac with a big screen and high-end processors and they just call it a big iMac or something. It's still an iMac. We know what it is. It's an iMac Pro. It's a big one with the Pro-level processors, not the baby processors. I will...

I will bet you that this is someone who saw a new studio display in a factory somewhere. I think that may be true, but Gurman seemed fairly confident.

true two years ago that this pro he's been reporting about this product the apple silicon imac pro for like four years and it was like they kind of want to do it but not enough to prioritize it it got bumped from m2 um and then and then there was a report that they were seeing testing of a device that seemed like it might be, or, you know, in a binary that they didn't.

mean to release or whatever, an actual iMac Pro. And I'm waiting for German to say, no, no, no, that's not it. But as we record this, it's out there. And I feel like... With Gurman saying they kind of always wanted to do it, maybe this will be the case. Although I don't understand it.

I feel like Apple has made a really great case to we make displays, we make laptops that you can connect to those displays and they're very powerful, or you can get a Mac Studio. Do you need to integrate a computer into that display?

I don't see it, but if Gurman's reporting that people inside Apple think it should happen, maybe people inside Apple have a reason for it to happen. So we'll see. I mean, that studio display has a... processor in it anyway just slap a pro processor yeah i mean it's it's yeah it's running at that point right at that point it could just use an a whatever processor like the like the cheap laptop that's being rumored right Just boot macOS on your display.

Yeah, definitely. All right. On to round two, where I predict that Apple opens up its private cloud compute LLM to developers, because right now it's not available. You can only do the on-device stuff as a developer. Right. But you can do it in shortcuts. It makes me think that you're right and that will happen. I wonder how, and I wonder if they're going to charge developers for usage.

Yeah, I suspect that this is a capacity thing, that they haven't been able to scale up the server farms and stuff quickly enough to have done that last year. I was thinking about... weather kit right which is the dark sky api rebooted as an apple thing and apple gives developers a certain number of api calls

on that but beyond that you have to pay them and in a way that's because you know it's basically a weather api and they don't want to give it away for free and all of that and i think i wonder if that could be the model here that they're gonna they're going to charge for usage of it as it scales because i actually think that's kind of fair that you shouldn't you know i doubt that apple wants to make private cloud compute resources available for free

So it'll be interesting to see how they do it. But I do think they'll do it. I think this is a good pick. My pick for round two is that significant changes are made to liquid glass in the 27 updates. Now, I think we'll know it when we see it. Any thoughts about what that might be? Well, having spent the last month and a bit working away on Liquid Glass in my Dice app, there are just so many cases where...

You can come up with something completely unreadable. And I've got code, and it just flips between the old code and the new code. And the old code is much more readable. And there has to be at least more things that they can tweak. I mean, with some of the stuff, it's like, give developers like...

a control over the amount of blurring that's happening behind the glass and things like that. Because sometimes, you know, all you need is just like, you know, 20% more blur and then it would be completely readable. So I think picking the frosted glass or whatever the option is called that turned up in the 26.1 updates, I think we'll get something more.

And, you know, I don't imagine that it's the people are going, oh, well, you know, Alan Dye's left, so everything is going to completely change overnight. I don't think that. But I think we will see. perhaps some more gentle improvements. Yeah. Maybe it's going to be something a little bit like light and dark mode where there's like...

totally clear and frosted mode. Readable and not readable. Right. I mean, it's sort of in there in a way already. I mean, you see elements of that throughout the OS's. It's just not super consistent yet. I think the interesting thing about this pick, James, is that you're putting... the definition of significant in our hands. Yeah. And I, and I feel as we have stated that at least two of the three of us are honorable people. I think.

If it's just completely minor and I'm arguing for some slightly rounded corner or something, then you can just tell me to get lost. Okay, it's in the transcript now. All right. I'm going to just do it again because I am also trying to kick that football. New home device with the screen this time for sure. There it is. I said it. We will see what happens with Apple Intelligence and Siri over the coming months. Unscored, but when do you think this will be, Jason? Oh.

I mean, the rumors are that the hardware is basically done and they are just waiting for the software to catch up. So what I am tempted to say is late spring. because they have promised that they're going to ship those features. And I think they got to do it before WWDC. Although they did say in the coming year, there's a whole coming year of 26. So we could see.

I'm going to say fall, though. That's where I'm thinking too, actually. Because I feel like it's just too much and they're going to want to roll that stuff out and they're going to want it to be at least somewhat solidified.

and maybe even do a little os revision and then get it out for the holidays basically like get it out yeah yeah it would be a good device to have in the spring alongside ipads for instance yeah however i kind of agree with you i think it's more likely to be in the fall i think that the delays of smarter siri we have not seen the end of them yeah i think you might be right i i think the there's going to be people who

If a feature is not done that the hardware depends on, they're not going to roll the dice on that. They're going to want to be sure. how would you like to be the person whose job is to charge up all of those things that are sitting in a warehouse oh yeah Well, they've got that technology now, that thing where they can, you know, software update phones that are still in the box. So, you know, maybe that... Zap them with laser beams? Is that what you're saying? Something.

Roll the dice. That's, I guess, product placement for Dice by Peacock. Yes. Okay, round three. All right. So, I think that Apple is going to debut... a new subscription service and what i'm thinking here is something health related probably i think i mean i think the risk here is that it all just gets rolled into fitness plus

But I could also see some sort of AI health advice type of feature that becomes a separate thing. This reminds me of our discussion of the satellite feature. It's the subscribe or die. It is a little bit. Yeah. I mean, they, they want to, um, it, I think the question is, yeah, do they recast fitness plus and roll that AI coach into it? Yeah. Or, um,

Is it, do they revamp, you know, it and call it something, you know, health plus or whatever. I don't know. Apple health. Yeah. James subscribe and die is something we're already. quite used to in America. So I think that this will do better than the satellite service. I forgot your health system was based on that process. Yeah. James.

I am going to say that Apple unveils a device with a previously unseen form factor. And this covers like 13 rumors. Wow. So you've got your home device with a screen. Yeah. that would be the new thing. Folding phone would also be a new thing. And if there's a significant redesign to a big iMac type stuff. I think...

Again, we'll know if we see it, but I'm sure we're going to get something. Yeah, I like the broadness of this pick. It's just something new. Apple's going to do something new. Could be anything. Could be if that cheap... cheap macbook is not just a recast of the macbook air but is different you know yeah i like it or it could be if they do a new hoodie in the uh the company store

It would have to be a hoodie that had some USB-C port or something. Let's not kick this back to robot or not again with these things about what kind of hoodies are devices. All right. My prediction. Touchscreen MacBook Pros will arrive. I think everybody's expecting that. It might happen in another year, but I'm going to say in the fall, touchscreen MacBook Pros will arrive. And here's the complication.

I think the macOS interface won't be dramatically changed to accommodated. And yes, dramatically. is going to be open to your interpretation, but I do think we know it when we see it or don't see it because I don't think Apple's going to mess up Mac OS just so that touchscreen MacBook Pros have, you know.

easier times touching objects on screen i've used mac os on screen sharing on an ipad it's fine it's not too bad ideal but it's fine and and liquid glass is kind of go bigger uh it is you know hit targets so maybe maybe things will just get 10% bigger again. Yeah. The OS has already gotten a little chunkier as it is. So I can see that. I can see that. All right. So round four. My prediction is that smarter Siri is going to get rolled out in stages.

And that some of the features that were demoed in 2024 at WWDC will not. be out by WWDC 2026. So in terms of scoring, what I'm thinking is we need to be able to recreate those demos that Craig Federighi did like when he went. to pick up his mom at the airport and figure out whether there was what the trap when he had to leave the restaurant to go to the airport that kind of stuff okay so the idea here is

this is what you were saying earlier. It's like, they're going to start rolling this stuff out, but it's going to be more drips and drabs, not a big drop all at once. And that some of the things are probably going to drip all the way into June. Yes. And it's going to overlap too, because I fully expect by June that we will start seeing new things like, you know, new schemas that are going to be introduced for app intents and stuff like that. I think that.

They'll do more, but I also think that some of this stuff is not going to be ready even until at least after June. I think that's a fairly safe bet. I've also gone for a safe bet. I've gone for Apple is going to blame the European Commission for something in a press release. Because Apple loves to say how the European Commission is just making everything harder for everyone. and uh

Okay, so this is not a statement to the press. This is in a press release. So basically something on newsroom that blames the European Commission for something. Yeah, this is specifically a post on newsroom which will say... We couldn't do this because the European Commission said it's not allowed. Like, smarter Siri rolls out everywhere except Europe. Right.

or they'll blast the european commission yeah it's a little this i think is a little risky because i generally think that apple doesn't put people on blast in press releases they may make a statement somewhere to like nine to five or something right but they very rarely say in the press releases that yeah you're not getting this thing because the ec says no way

But we'll see. They have done it. So this is why. No, I know they have. I know they have. And sometimes they make those statements that are the newsroom post that is like... thoughts on flash kind of newsroom posts where they're like, this is anti-competitive and blah, blah, blah. And like, they're over-regulating us and that could happen. Yes. Get the thoughts on the European commission. So here's going to...

I think this is a fun one because it's going to depend on our reaction next year to this. But I think it's very much in the you know it when you see it. Here's my prediction. We will be able to say on next year's episode. that Siri is better and not collapse in rueful laughter about the state of Siri. I'm not saying that Siri is great. I'm just saying if we agree that a year later, Siri has gotten better.

And we'll know it. We will either know it did or we'll know it didn't. And I'm going to say it will be better. Not great, but better. I mean, just because they release the new version does not necessarily mean it's better. If they release a new version and it says something wildly inappropriate to someone and that makes the news.

I think we will still collapse and roof a lot. We'll see. But in day-to-day use, if it turns out that actually Siri's way better and we're using it more and all of that, then I think that I get it. So I think we'll know. Like, did they make Siri better in 2026? We'll find out.

Yeah, I think we'll know because I can tell you right now, looking at it today, definitely didn't happen in 2025. Yeah, we can all do the roof of laughter now and we are inside. So yeah, okay. We'll see. If Siri just doesn't say... I can look that up for you on your phone or something like that. I just want it to tell me the answer to my question. All right.

We are going into the final round, round five. And I want to put together a string of conditions on my last pick, very much like Mike Hurley likes to do on the prompt. I love it. All right. So I predict that Apple will release a new studio display that's going to have Thunderbolt 5. It's going to have a brighter 120 hertz refresh rate.

And it's going to be OLED, which I think is probably the riskiest part of that. Yeah, I think that's... But it's not going to have HDMI or DisplayPort. I think everything in that, apart from the word OLED... I know. I debated that one for a long time. It's a passionate pick. I love it. You can get a really good display that has all of those things for less than a studio display right now if you're willing to go with something from Samsung or LG or any of them.

Yeah, interesting. As an aside, when I heard about that iMac Pro rumor, and it's supposed to be like a 32-inch iMac Pro, I thought... Apple really, really, really needs to re-engineer the external monitor mode on iMacs. um i i plug this every year when the imac every time the imac comes out i mention it but like for a company that's supposedly supportive of uh environmental issues forcing people once the

because the screens last way longer than the computers do. They just do. And forcing, you get an iMac or especially that huge iMac Pro screen, and you should be able to use it as an external display for something else as an option. And I think it's a shame. I understand why it didn't happen in the early days, but we can do this now with Thunderbolt 5.

We can do it. Yeah, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to do that. I actually just abandoned my studio display for a 32-inch OLED screen from Asus because I wanted HDMI. It was really not much more than that. And I wanted something bigger, too. And I wanted OLED. So, yeah, I just, I wish they would, even if it's just Thunderbolt and there's a mode, you can put the display, the iMac in and it turns it into a Thunderbolt display. That would be fine, but they should do.

that it's it's just it's a real shame that they don't because it they're wasting those displays that could be repurposed you know your iMac gets a little old you buy a Mac Studio you plug it into the back of the iMac and now it's a Mac Studio display I think that's not a studio display, a Mac studio with a display anyway. Yeah, no, even the studio display, it has this problem to a degree because you can't just plug a Windows PC into a studio display. I will say that.

I tried that Samsung display that is the equivalent and like, I didn't like the junk, right? Cause Samsung puts all their junk around it. And even when you turn it on, there's like Samsung junk that then has to go away. But what I did like about it is you could plug other stuff into it. Yeah, I mean, that's what I'm doing. That's why I got it. I've got a mini PC and a Switch 2 connected to my display in my office now. So my last pick is that Tim Cook announces his succession plan.

And, you know, as we keep saying, never have a succession plan. Rule one, no succession plans. But I think this might be the year that we get at least, you know, he might not. He might not retire or he might not change his position next year, but I think we're going to hear something. They're going to communicate what's going to happen with Tim Cook over time? Yes. Okay.

He is going to be uploaded into the Apple Cloud Compute. Wow. He's going to be private Cloud Compute. Great. CEO forever. He'll be chief digital officer. He will be the basis. Okay, I'm going to do a little more targeted version of James's pick for my pick, which is I like this theory that it's going to go in stages. And so I'm going to predict that in addition to remaining as CEO throughout this year.

Well, let's not say that. He might stop being CEO at some point in 26. But before that, there will be a period of time where he becomes chairman of the board. and is still CEO. Now, maybe after that, he drops the CEO later in the year or something like that. That's not what I'm saying. I don't want to predict that because he might very well not be CEO at the end of the year. But I do think they're going to do this thing where they're going to elevate him to the board.

Um, and it's just a theory, uh, but I've seen now, uh, I think German said that that was also a possibility. So like, I, I like that idea cause it keeps them around, but, um, and, and the CEO is allowed. in the board guidelines to be the chairman of the board and the current board chair has to come off the board because he's 75. So it seems to me that's...

what you want to do. And that's what Steve did, right? That's what Steve's plan was. And then he passed away so quickly that it didn't really happen. But like, that was the whole idea of the Steve Jobs leadership transition was going to be, he's going to be chairman. Maybe Tim Cook will become interim CEO. ICEO is back. I love it. Yes. I love it. Especially if he gets uploaded to the cloud, then he can be ICEO. Yeah. Well.

I think that reaches the end. I think we're at the end of this episode of Connected, this perfectly regular episode of Connected. But, you know, Happy New Year to everybody. James, John, it's always a pleasure to talk to you. Folks, it's, yeah, it's great. I mean, we do it all the time, but it's always great. That's what I'm saying. Yes. All right. That's it. A whole year ahead of us. Parting words, and then we'll say goodbye.

John, parting words? I'll be back. Laugh hard, run fast, be kind. Yee-haw!