AppleInsider podcast talks 'iPhone 8,' Mac Pro, Thunderbolt GPUs & more
This week on the AppleInsider podcast, Victor and Dan talk about the uncharacteristic rumors moving Touch ID to the back of the "iPhone 8," Mac Pro hardware rumors, the Mac Gamer, Thunderbolt GPUs and more.

AppleInsider editors Dan Dilger and Victor Marks discuss:
Listen to the embedded SoundCloud feed below:
Show note links:
Why an all-glass 'iPhone 8' makes sense, and could be more durable than you expect
http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/04/19/another-alleged-iphone-8-schematic-shows-touch-id-home-button-on-back-of-device-vertical-camera
Apple promises future products to be made from 100% recycled materials
Apple upgrades 2013 Mac Pros with more cores & faster GPUs
Apple passingly acknowledges external GPU technology during future Mac Pro, iMac reveal
Why Apple should cater to 'serious' gamers - and why it probably won't
Nvidia 1080ti with new drivers in external enclosure quadruples MacBook Pro native performance
Nvidia reveals Mac Pro-compatible Titan Xp PCI-e GPU, macOS drivers for Pascal-based video cards
EFF: Google Chromebook is still spying on grade school students
Follow our hosts on Twitter: @DanielEran and @vmarks.
Feedback and comments are always appreciated. Please contact the AppleInsider podcast at [email protected] and follow us on Twitter @appleinsider, plus Facebook and Instagram.
Those interested in sponsoring the show can reach out to us at [email protected].

AppleInsider editors Dan Dilger and Victor Marks discuss:
- iPhone and a glass back
- The idea of moving Touch ID to the back of an iPhone
- Apple's environmental report
- The Mac Pro history of updates
- The Mac Pro as a gamer's rig
- Thunderbolt GPUs for MacBook Pro
Listen to the embedded SoundCloud feed below:
Show note links:
Why an all-glass 'iPhone 8' makes sense, and could be more durable than you expect
http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/04/19/another-alleged-iphone-8-schematic-shows-touch-id-home-button-on-back-of-device-vertical-camera
Apple promises future products to be made from 100% recycled materials
Apple upgrades 2013 Mac Pros with more cores & faster GPUs
Apple passingly acknowledges external GPU technology during future Mac Pro, iMac reveal
Why Apple should cater to 'serious' gamers - and why it probably won't
Nvidia 1080ti with new drivers in external enclosure quadruples MacBook Pro native performance
Nvidia reveals Mac Pro-compatible Titan Xp PCI-e GPU, macOS drivers for Pascal-based video cards
EFF: Google Chromebook is still spying on grade school students
Follow our hosts on Twitter: @DanielEran and @vmarks.
Feedback and comments are always appreciated. Please contact the AppleInsider podcast at [email protected] and follow us on Twitter @appleinsider, plus Facebook and Instagram.
Those interested in sponsoring the show can reach out to us at [email protected].
Comments
Niel, thanks for correcting DED on Android Auto. If DED feels that Android Auto is so bad on a variety of current/recent android phones AppleInsider should do a video where he compares the APPLE 7 & SE phone against two Android flagships and two mid range phones in atleast 3-5 different cars. Would be a great project to see this tested.
Specific to Samsung, the article noted:
"Samsung sells more Android phones than anyone. They're also more customized than just about anything out there. There's good and bad news here. Take the Galaxy S7, for example. There are folks who have used it without issue. And then there are those of us who have never gotten the GS7 to work. Maybe it's a software issue. Maybe there's something inherent about the GS7 that doesn't like the cable I'm using. I don't know.
"But I do know that there are 31 separate versions of the Galaxy S7 (worldwide). Some work. And some don't. Again, I'll point you to the forums."
http://www.androidcentral.com/best-phone-use-android-auto
The ARM chips that Apple use are not comparable to a desktop, not by a long shot. The closest is roughly performance parity with a 6 generation old mid-tier laptop intel CPU.
You may see ARM chips in tablet-like devices or tablet-convertable devices but you're not going to see Apple or Microsoft just up and go "Intel party train is done, time to ARM", Apple is not in the predicament it was in when it switched from PPC (which video game consoles all switched FROM this generation) where nobody was actually producing any parts for them.
Apple would not be able to build enough ARM parts for both their iPhone/iPad lines and any other computer systems. It just is not going to happen. The iPad Pro and the Apple Macbook Air notebook slot into exactly the same user business case, but the iPad Pro probably works out to be better for full time use, where as the Macbook Air probably works out to be completely useless if it switched to ARM.
That is what you're going to see. Nobody seemed to take the lessons from Android seriously. People build software in C/C++, not some platform-proprietary language in order to run on all CPU types. Java has been a colossal fail for the desktop, and needs to die in phones too. Nobody loves Android development because it's a rubbish platform to begin with, worse than the Win3.0/3.1/95/98/ME evolution where at least Microsoft finally threw out the bathwater in Windows NT 4.0/2K/XP and it stopped sucking to build windows software because it no longer had to work on 9x.