Rene Ritchie

Yes! I’m still using an Intel Mac. Right now. Right this minute. To edit this very video. For you! No, not because I hate myself or because I need the thermals to stay warm in winter… but…

239 vids, 26 million views, 236,000 subs in one year. The very first year of this new indie channel. Thank you so much to all of you for all of your support. And just wait till you get a load of year two. Sponsored by Skillshare. Now, yes, it's true. I'm still using an Intel Mac. An Intel 16-inch MacBook Pro to be exact. And no, it is not because I hate myself or because I just need the thermals to stay warm in winter. And it's not because of Intel's hyper cringe, hyper self-destructive attack ads, which they immediately, confusingly followed up by just the worst, I hate you, don't leave me for Apple's Foundry business.

While also admitting their seven-nanometer process is still years away and then wanting to do away with nanometer measurements entirely. While I'm assuming Apple isn't even wasting a second on wicked side-eye as they prepare to go all-in on three nanometer or who the Hank Pym knows anymore, subatomic with Taiwan Semiconductor. And not because I don't love M1 Macs, I do. I all-caps love them. They have absolutely industry-leading performance in the very first models, the ultra-low-power models. And when you count in performance per watt, power efficiency, there is just nothing else that even comes close. And it's not all that. It's not the battery life. It's the quality of life. Everything is just instant. Like iPad instant. Utterly responsive. And when you combine all that with the performance, where I can render a video as fast as I can render it on a much bigger Intel box.

And with the battery life, where I can go not just twice as long, but three times as long with M1 as I could with any of the Intel boxes, it's legit hard to imagine what would keep me on an Intel Mac at this point. But, of course, I don't have to imagine it because I still feel it. I still live with it every day. And it's like three or four things that just prevent me from making the quantum leap, the warp space leap to M1 just yet. And the first thing is display size. I basically live in Final Cut Pro all day, every day making these videos, and Final Cut Pro, it just behooves you to have the biggest display you can possibly have. Not just so that you have the biggest view of the video you're editing but so that you have all the space for the additional toolbars and timelines and everything that goes along with it.

And 13 inches, there, still feels just a little bit cramped for me. So I'd much rather work on... Well, I'd much rather work on an iMac, on a giant, current 27-inch iMac, or some theoretical future 32-inch iMac. But for a MacBook, the 16-inch is just a much better size for me. Same with the RAM. The M1 Macs currently only go to eight gigabytes or 16 gigabytes. And thanks to unified memory, they're really, really efficient. It's not like eight gigabytes is the new 16 gigabytes. There are still really, really hard RAM limits. And if you're doing any sort of multitasking, just heavy workload, you should absolutely still get 16 gigabytes of RAM. But I need more than that because I'm often doing multiple, multiple apps, and multiple heavy workloads at the same time.

And I really feel most comfortable, right now, with 32 gigabytes, maybe even 64 gigabytes, just to future-proof as much as I possibly can. And then there's SSD size. And I know for some people that's totally not a factor at all. They just get the minimum that they need for their boot volume and for their base level storage, their apps, things like that, and everything else they just hang off the back, with either low-cost, high-volume storage or high-cost, high-speed storage. And I have that. I have all the hard drives. I have the USB-C hard drives. I have the Thunderbolt 3 hard drives. But all other things being equal, I don't wanna create that additional dependency, that additional point of failure. Especially before the world started ending and hopefully after the world stops ending and I'm traveling again, I don't wanna have to rely on those cords coming loose when I'm trying to work on a video.

And unfortunately, the current M1 Macs top out at two terabytes, where the theoretical M1X MacBooks that'll be coming next will go to four terabytes for the 13 or 14-inch and hopefully, eight terabytes, again, for the 16-inch. And lastly, and probably most critical to me now, the current M1 MacBooks just don't have enough ports. They're limited to two USB 3 ports, which are hybrid USB-C Thunderbolt 3 ports. And they're really, really fast. They're onboard. They're in the M1 chipset. But there is still only two of them. So, for example, anytime I do a live stream, like I did back to back this Tuesday, where I did Luria Petrucci first and then I did "MacBreak Weekly." I have to connect power, which is one port. Then, luckily, I have the microphone going into the camera and the camera going into a switch. So that's just one port. Otherwise, I need two, I need a cable just for the microphone and just for the camera.

Then I have ethernet because like "The Matrix," you have to use a hard line. I'm just never gonna trust streaming to wifi. And that's a third port. And yes, I'm totally aware, I could use a hub but that, again, introduces even more gear, even more points of potential failure, even more points of potential interference. And I always wanna keep setups for mission-critical stuff as absolutely simple as possible. And that means plugging all the things right into the one machine and I just can't do that yet with an M1 Mac. And Apple, absolutely, 100% still knows that which is why they're still selling the Intel version of the Mac Mini and the MacBook Pro, and not just selling them, but continuing to support them despite all of Intel's shenaniganization on the side. But, believe me, the minute, the Nidavellir hot minute that Apple announces an M1X 16-inch MacBook Pro, Thanos snap design or not, I am going to do that maxing out, that max-Booking out. And then just ride it like a silver surfboard or like a Space Gray surfboard. Dare, I hope, a matte-black surfboard, straight into the second year of this channel.

But yeah, no, it's shot in our studio. It's shot... We literally use a lot of footage and examples of the Galaxy S21 Ultra review that we made earlier this year. So we shot a bunch of behind-the-scenes and saved a bunch of that footage and kept the archive of the actual projects I go through and like, literally show you why I made certain edits, how I analyze some of the analytics from the video after the fact. It's just kind of all there.

Marques Brownlee, MBKHD, joins me to dream up our ultimate iPhone 13 Pro — with refresh rate, brightness, cameras, charging, and features far, far beyond Max. So many Hz, so many nits, so many megapixels, so many watts, so many... all the things, it might as well be Ultra.... even... ultimate!

iPad Pro with M1. Power of M1. Give it to me now. Like now now. Only… if Apple sticks to pattern, it won’t be an M1. Not exactly. It’ll be A14X. And that’s caused… some confusion. Some consternation. But let me explain.

September: Apple Watch and iPad. October: HomePod and iPhone. November: The Apple Silicon Macs. March: Crickets. But April, dear sweet April…

Now, I know some people are saying Apple doesn't host April events. They haven't done that in a decade ever since… iPhone OS4 in 2010.

But in case you hadn't noticed, 2020/2021 are like Justice League and the Snyder Cut and none of the old rules apply anymore.

Does this mean Apple needs an event? No, absolutely not. Especially if they're for iterative or upgrade products that are super easy to understand barely an inconvenience. But if there are things that are new, things that are novel, things that require an explanation, it is just always better for Apple to do that in an event, especially now that they're hosting virtual events.

And it could be as soon as April sixth.

Read the rest in my weekly column at iMore:

https://www.imore.com/my-april-2021-apple-event-expectations

Wait, what is that? Hold up, hold up. Zoom. Enhance. Zoom. Enhance. Zoom and holy . This is all fake. Intel screwed up and Photoshopped the bezels off the MacBook. That looks good. Sponsored by Brilliant. Last time, out of nowhere, Intel just turned into merchant silicon vendor scorned. And they went right after Apple, where they literally bait and switched comparisons over and over again. And now they're back with a whole campaign. We're talking videos, websites, tweets and after the drubbing, the absolutely humiliating, embarrassing drubbing they took last time, there's just no way, no way they could make it worse, right?

Hello? I'm a Justin.

Aiya!

Stop! Hang on, wait!

Pausing for just a hot minute. So anybody under the age of 30 can go Wikipedia "Live Free and Die Hard" or "Galaxy Quest". I'm totally kidding.

By Grabthar's Hammer

The classic switch to Mac.

Hi, I'm a PC.

Okay. We're past that. We've moved beyond that.

Yeah. I had to restart there. You know how it is

Actually, I don't.

Although, I really, I really can't imagine that outside of all of you watching this channel, there would be too many people who are familiar with this style of interior baseball joke to begin with.

Just a real person doing a real comparison between Mac and PC.

Okay. A real comparison. That's way better than what they did last time. So I've got some hope. I've building up some hope here.

These are all PCs.

Oh, and then right out the window, goes to sense of reality because it would be hard to imagine that this many laptops would still be rocking Intel, given the stratospheric ascent of AMD these days.

Whoa, my face just unlocked that, that's so cool.

Yeah, wish there was face ID on the Mac. That's entirely Apple's fumble.

[Justin] I've never seen a screen like this before on a laptop.

[Narrator] A multi touch bar.

Aiya!

And let's see over here.

Wait, what is that? Hold up, hold up. Zoom. Enhance. Zoom. Enhance. Zoom and holy . This is all fake. Intel screwed up in Photoshopped the bezels off the MacBook. That looks good.

[Justin] So these are the newer Macs?

[Man] Yeah.

Who was shouting, "Yeah," the Photoshop artist? The one who made up the fictitious slides from the last campaign?

Okay, PC. It's a laptop. Aha, tablet. Laptop. Tablet.

And that's fair. That's totally fair. There are foreign factors in PC that don't exist in the Mac world simply because Apple only chooses to make a few Macs, while there are a myriad, a great diversity of PC makers who do everything from reverse, foldable displays to full-on convertibles where you can actually just pop the screen right off and use it as a tablet.

Now you got a laptop and it's-

Wait, the bezels, those bezels still look fake. Did Justin sneak into John Dernis's office and Yoda prototype? What is going on here?

Oh, I also have to get a tablet, I guess. and a keypad, oh and a stylist.

That's interesting because they didn't show the stylist coming with the PC. Although, I assume it does.

And a dongle?

The ports are only a design decision. You have MacBooks that are both M1 and Intel that only have USB-C ports. And then you have the Mac mini and it has a wide range of ports from USB-A to USB-C, to HDMI to Ethernet.

And it's especially kind of cringy and embarrassing given what stuntpants said on Twitter, which is "This is a company that spent 20 years failing to come up with a connector that could be plugged in right on their first try until Apple gave them the USB-C design."

Call 911, there's been a Twitter murder.

And even more embarrassingly, Intel is a board member of the USB-IF of the standards body that creates these things. They are a major driver of that technology. and what's super extra cringy, weird here is that Apple still sells and promotes Intel-based Macs.

There's this famous marketing saying where Coke never mentions Pepsi. Coke doesn't do a Pepsi Challenge because Coke is the market leader. And this is Intel voluntarily, actively choosing to become Pepsi. I mean the Mac in general has a very small market share. And the M1 Mac, a tiny, tiny market share.

And here you have the presumed leader of the PC market just giving all of this attention to the M1, something that might be a mine share threat to them, but is not gonna be a market share threat anytime soon. And yet, Intel is treating them, is telling us to treat them like an existential threat. By the lowest power, Apple silicon, that they go straight into Thanos rain fire mode. And at the same time, everything that they're showing off, everything that they are claiming is an advantage of the PC over the Mac, of Intel PCs, over a Mac has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with Intel.

You can do all of this stuff, many would say better with AMD. And you can even do all of this stuff, you can even find computers that are reversible, convertible, all of that, that use ARM-based processors that don't come from Intel or AMD that come from Qualcomm. So at the same time, they are telling us, they are showing us that they are no longer the market leader in their own minds. They are also showing and telling us that they are nothing more than a commodity part and that everything, everything they provide of value is provided by Microsoft through Windows and through just the vendors of all of these PC designs, by the sheer volume of vendors and volume of designs that they provide. It's like turning around in the Superbowl, running, getting a touchdown on your own side, and then spiking the ball and dancing.

And what hurts, what hurts so much to people like me who are lifelong Intel fans, who, you know, stuck with Intel, even when they were missing roadmaps, not by years, but by half a decade, for people like me who still recommend Intel Macs who's still using an Intel Mac. I am still doing almost all of my work on a 16-inch MacBook Pro that only comes with Intel Inside because I need this big screen.

I need these four USB-C ports, the ports they're making fun of. And I also need the high levels of RAM, and the high levels of SSD to do all of these videos that I upload for all of you all the time. And I still love Intel. I want Intel to succeed. I don't want them making really dumb, really cringy, really factually challenged marketing campaigns like this. I want them spending all of their time making their chip sets so good that I regret going to an M1 processor, that Apple regrets ditching Intel for custom silicon.

March 16 Apple event, no. March 23 Apple event, no. Delayed, canceled, just what the Federici is going on right now?

Back on October 16, 2020, John Prosser tweeted that the AirPods Max would headline an Apple Event on March 16, 2021. And John is currently rated 78% accurate across 147 rumors. But obviously AirPods Max came out already, they came out last year, last December. So, wait, no, there's more. On February 19, 2021, China's Economic Daily News reported or just repeated the same date. That site is rated at like 37% accurate across 38 rumors, but they also quoted a fake anonymous leaker account. So I guess put that in your internet barbecue and slow roast it, because it is totally unclear if that was based on any reporting at all or just the original report from John and that fake leaker account. It gets better.

Later that same day, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman dropped like a flying elbow from the top rope right onto the report, saying there wouldn't be a March 16 Apple event. And then whatever the opposite of clarifying is, he said that March 16th wouldn't be the launch. Which I guess you could take as meaning March 16 wasn't the date or that there wasn't gonna be an event, just a launch. Because while Mark might be rated at 89% accurate across like, 402 rumors, he can also be just cryptic as hell and even way beyond salty at times.

So then nobody knew what to expect anymore until March 8th, when Kang the rumor conqueror, 98% accurate, 98% across 134 rumors, reported the Apple event would be on the same date as the OnePlus event. In other words, March 23, but just to add fuel to that hot roasting rumor fire, around the same time, John Prosser tweeted the number 23 and then followed up on Kang's rumors saying, he hadn't even known about the OnePlus event. And then claimed a reliable source told him that AirTags, iPad Pro, AirPods, presumably AirPods 3, maybe AirPods Pro 2 and the Apple TV refresh were all good to go. And then on March 12th, l0vetodream, the Apple cat, not at all to be confused with Ice universe, the Samsung cat because everybody got to be a cat, who's rated 89%, tweeted, "enjoy 23." And then followed up on the 15th with a tweet saying, mini led not just for iPad, which made everybody just go full on Lady Gaga about new or at least the potential for new MacBook Pros as well.

And so anticipation started to build. Everyone started waiting for invitations to go out, for websites to go up, for Greg Joswiak, Joz, to tweet out some major AR kit event logo flex, but today, 9:00 AM Pacific Time, came and went with precisely zero, zero Apple event news. I mean, aside from some just wicked, wicked obvious thirst traps. I mean at least wicked, wicked obvious to most people. R.I.P. Until finally, finally, Apple pushed out the news, Oprah and Siri. And yeah, you can now ask Siri all about Oprah, you are welcome, happy Tuesday, love Apple, slam troll dunk.

And now the internet is just strewn with the corpses of expired blog posts, curdled Twitter hot takes and videos all burned beyond anyone trying to watch that Snyder Cut premiere last night. And here's the thing, it doesn't sound like there was ever March 16 or March 23 Apple event, at least not on the books. Maybe those dates were bandied about a while back. Maybe they echoed around and got leaked out. Maybe they were just canary traps designed to be part of Apple's continued crack down on leakers. See my video from this weekend. Because it's not just about John Prosser and his eyebrows getting it wrong, it's about l0vetodream and Kang getting it wrong.

And these are a lot of people with a lot of track records, all getting the same thing wrong at roughly the same time. Maybe now that Apple doesn't have to worry about renting out venues like Yerba Buena or Moscone anywhere nearly as much, or even bringing teams and guests in from around the world, maybe they can just be more flexible about scheduling or shifting schedules, at least as product timelines shift. Or maybe they can just look at some combination of events for truly new products. Maybe March 30th, maybe April 6th. God, maybe they'll make us wait until WWDC in June. But come on, Apple, we need this stuff.

And then press release drops like previous years for any products that are more iterative, more updates, that doesn't require the entire video apparatus at Apple to spin up. And if this helps to keep not just the fake leakers at bay but some of the inter-leaker, inter-reporter drama, the salt down, so much the better for everyone, so much the better for what's becoming increasingly toxic leak culture. Because swear to Joz, if I have to pull any more egos over and turn this whole next event around, I will do it.

Here's Apple's statement:

We’re grateful to the French Competition Authority for recognizing that App Tracking Transparency in iOS 14 is in the best interest of French iOS users. ATT will provide a powerful user privacy benefit by requiring developers to ask users' permission before sharing their data with other companies for the purposes of advertising, or with data brokers. We firmly believe that users’ data belongs to them, and that they should control when that data is shared, and with whom. We look forward to further engagement with the FCA on this critical matter of user privacy and competition.

And the news:

https://www.autoritedelaconcurrence.fr/en/press-release/targeted-advertising-apples-implementation-att-framework-autorite-does-not-issue

The Autorité de la concurrence examined whether the measures implemented by Apple to offer users a reinforced framework of consent for the use of their personal data could be regarded as necessary and proportionate to the objective pursued. It also received an opinion from the CNIL (National Commission on Informatics and Liberty) on the issues raised. In the state of the investigation, the Autorité considered that the decision of Apple to set up a feature for collecting complementary consent to that implemented by other players in online advertising, did not appear as an abusive practice, when

(1) a company, even if it is in a dominant position or can be considered as a structuring platform, has the freedom in principle to set rules to access its services, subject to not disregarding the laws and applicable regulations and that these rules are not anti-competitive;

(2) the applicable regulations (GDPR and ePrivacy) do not preclude the implementation of such an obligation, while the wording adopted does not appear to induce an unfavourable bias to the monitoring procedures on third-party sites, such as imposing an unnecessary obligation or lacking proportionality, and that such a measure can facilitate, for users, the control of the use which is made of their personal data.

The Autorité therefore rejects the request for interim measures. However, it continues the investigation into the merits of the case. This should in particular make it possible to verify that the implementation by Apple of the ATT framework cannot be regarded as a form of discrimination or "self-preferencing", which could in particular be the case if Apple applied without justification, more binding rules on third-party operators than those it applies to itself for similar operations.

Apple has just discontinued the HomePod. Not the new mini. The Biggie. The OG. And I’m going to tell you why they did it, and why I hope they’ll bring it back in a newer, better, more final form.

From Apple:

HomePod mini has been a hit since its debut last fall, offering customers amazing sound, an intelligent assistant, and smart home control all for just $99. We are focusing our efforts on HomePod mini. We are discontinuing the original HomePod, it will continue to be available while supplies last through the Apple Online Store, Apple Retail Stores, and Apple Authorized Resellers. Apple will provide HomePod customers with software updates and service and support through Apple Care.

https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/12/apple-discontinues-original-homepod-will-focus-on-mini/

Here\'s what I learned about titles for my fellow creators at Standard and some early Clubhouse rooms:

• Like YouTube videos, YouTube titles should be as short as they can possibly be but no shorter. Try to keep them from truncating whenever you can.
• Keep titles glanceable and incredibly easy to ‘read’ even if someone is scrolling or just scanning across the page.
• Test your titles with https://thumbsup.tv
• Look away, look back, see how long it takes you to parse your title.
• Always think about the audience when it comes to titles — what about your title would make a casual viewer care about your video? What's the selling point? Make sure that's in the title. "iPhone Review" is generic "iPhone Review — Should you Upgrade?" gives a value proposition.
• Make titles shareable. How would someone tell a friend about your video? How would a core audience memeber recommend it to a casual viewer? That phrasing could be the best title. “Did you see MrBeast gave away 100 Elon Musk posters?” -> “I gave away 100 Elon Musk Posters”
• Your videos compete with other videos on YouTube and other videos on your channel. Pick a title that makes your video competitive with both!
• Go into YouTube search, type in the topic of your video. Go into Google search, type in the topic of your video. See what’s ranking. Use that to make your title better.
• Front-load the keywords (put them first/early) not for SEO (YouTube SEO isn\'t really a thing...) but so that people’s eyes latch on to them immediately. It’s like having a crisp, distinct images in a thumbnail. “Minecraft, but with only one heart.”
• If the keywords themselves aren’t attention-getting, you can preface them with an exclamation. “Gross! Don’t make this pie!”
• Thumbnails should stop people from scrolling or scanning in their tracks but titles need to compel them to click — live in their head until they click.
• Questions work if the answer isn’t simple, obvious, or conventional. “Are you getting too much sleep?”
• So does hinting at information most people might not know. “Why everyone is wrong about donuts”, “The truth about economy class tickets”
• You can also introduce doubt, but it can stress people so be careful. “Ford vs. Toyota — Don’t make a mistake!”
• Plus out your title to stand out. “Canon C70 review” -> “Canon C70 review — 3 weeks on-location!”
• “— Real XYZ reacts” or just “— XYZ reacts” can entice people to see how someone with presumed expertise views something they care about. “My Cousin Vinny — Real lawyer reacts!”
• Classics are classics for a reason, especially if you’re targeting YouTube and Google search, and you niche down and over-deliver: “Best iPhone accessories for photographers” “Top 5 Mac accessories for podcasters”
• Consistency can work. (You always know what you're getting at McDonald's.) If a certain title pattern gets results, repeat and iterate on it until it stops getting results. "PS5 vs. a Zamboni" "Xbox Series X vs. a Zamboni"
• But, avoid "Part 2","Part 3", etc. in titles. It reduces the chance people who haven't seen previous parts will click, and that group gets larger with every part. Use title patterns (and thumbnail branding) to create "series" instead.
• Great artists steal. In other words, take inspiration from other titles you see working, but always adapt them to the specifics of your own content and iterate to improve them further. Don't just copy — copy forward!
• If a title isn’t working (you can see real time views and click-through rates in Analytics) don’t be afraid to change it. You can come up with 3-5 solid variants before you post the video and have them ready to test after the first hour, first 3-6 hours, 6-12 hours. (In combination with cycling thumbnails as well.) Even if it’s just to tweak from initial core audience service to more broad browse/suggested appeal.
• Like with everything -> Test, iterate, learn, improve, repeat.

A dramatic, abridged, annotated reading of Apple's lawsuit against former employee and alleged leaker Simon Lancaster:

Plaintiff Apple Inc. (“Apple”) brings this action to stop the misappropriation of Apple’s trade secrets by its former employee Simon Lancaster.

Despite over a decade of employment at Apple, Lancaster abused his position and trust within the company to systematically disseminate Apple’s sensitive trade secret information in an effort to obtain personal benefits. He used his seniority to gain access to internal meetings and documents outside the scope of his job’s responsibilities containing Apple’s trade secrets, and he provided these trade secrets to his outside media correspondent (“Correspondent”). The Correspondent then published the stolen trade secrets in articles, citing a “source” at Apple. On multiple occasions, Lancaster proposed that the Correspondent give benefits to Lancaster in exchange for Apple’s trade secrets. For example, Lancaster proposed that the Correspondent provide favorable coverage of a startup company in which Lancaster was an investor as a quid pro quo. Lancaster even recruited the Correspondent to serve as his personal investigator. In one instance, Lancaster requested that the Correspondent explore a rumor that could prove harmful to a company in which Lancaster had invested.