taugust04_ai

DAalseth said:

A thought; how about an M2-Ultra, but multiple processors. Yes, the ultra, but 2, 4, or 8 of them? 

Then maybe having the option to upgrade the processor later?

I’m thinking the same. If memory or storage are expandable, it may make more sense to develop an extra high speed bus to connect multiple soc’s to each other as well.

The chip shortage is very real.  No new hardware.  Apple is probably still much better off than other OEM's but I'm sure there are still things out of their control with everything going on.  Apple's not going to announce a major product like a MacBook Pro unless the availability is realistic for customers - go to some other hardware vendors and many products aren't shipping until September if you want anything other than one or two specific SKU's on many products.

Beats said:

Apple had how much time? Like 15 years to work on Podcasts. Now their own creation is leaving their hands after they had a monopoly for a decade.

They didn’t work on it because the feedback from podcasters was they wanted the service to be free and cross-platform.

Competitors are throwing large amounts of money around now, so clearly podcasters have changed their minds about exclusivity on platforms.

I side-loaded several apps onto my iPad, including Facebook and Microsoft Authenticator.

My gut feeling is that Apple doesn’t care about these installs - they are legitimate purchases linked to Apple ID’s to function properly.  But just like every other Internet connected app developers were probably getting logs that said traffic was coming from Macs on these apps and they complained to Apple. Probably crash reports too because some of these sideloaded apps could be unstable (as I experienced).

Developers have Apple in the cross hairs these days and if they sneeze the wrong way, they reply with “anti-trust”. So I’m giving the benefit of the doubt to Apple on this one and chalking it up to developer demands that this functionality be disabled.

Eric_WVGG said:

why on earth would they release a high-performance ARM 24" iMac when all anyone buys are 27" models*? The only way this makes a lick of sense is if they've got something new like the Surface Studio planned, I don't buy it.

my bet:
Mac Mini
12" MacBook
12" MacBook with cellular

* yes, I know, they sell a lot of 24"s to schools

I don’t think the 12” MacBook is coming back. I think the MacBook Air and the iPad Pro now occupy the spot in the lineup that the 12” MacBook once occupied.