Rene Ritchie

M1 vs. M2 Apple Silicon. Old design vs. new design. LCD vs. Mini LED. Black bezels vs. white. Forehead vs. notch. Potato cam vs. 1080p. $999 vs. $1099… Maybe $1199? Yeah, if the rumors are true, there are a few really good reasons to wait, but also a couple truly massive reasons not to. So, if you’re perseverating over grabbing an M1 MacBook Air now, now, now, or trying to hold out for the M2 MacBook later, don’t worry, I got you.

Design

First up. Design. The M1 MacBook Air didn’t get a new one. It stuck with the same enclosure it’s had since 2018 in specific and 2010 in general. And that’s ok. That’s fine. It’s a classic and it gave Apple not just a known thermal envelope for that M1 chipset, but some breathing room to focus on the new iMac and MacBook Pro designs. Plus is kept the price down. And more on that in a potentially show-stopper minute.

It’s still thin, still light, still the absolute easiest Mac to carry from home to school to work — or these days, kitchen to bedroom to couch — and still has that famous Star Destroyer-style wedge shape that launched a thousand ultrabook clones. And I still love it. All caps love it. It’s just not new any more.

But that’s exactly where the M2 redesign is supposed to come in. According to reports, it’ll be a bit flatter and more retro, like the new MacBook Pros, but way lighter and thinner. And way less wedge-ee-er? Maybe as light and thin and flat as the previous, now discontinued, 12-inch MacBook. Once again pushing the envelope — the manila envelop — on what an ultra-light, ultra-portable Mac really means. And it maybe, just maybe deleting the Air brand again and taking back the MacBook… as in MacBook Nothing name.

Also, Thanos-snapping the bezels to make the overall casing around the display as hipster minimal as it can possibly be. Reportedly off-white, like the recent 24-inch M1 iMac redesign, which Apple thinks fades away better into home and front-of-house decor. And bringing back that old school iBook — or just modern iMac-style — taste the rainbow palette of colors. Which, yeah, I can’t freaking wait.

So, if you don’t give a damn about design and the classic Air is more than light and thin enough, and you prefer Air wedged, your bezels black, and your casings more silver and space grey conservative, get the M1 now.

But if you’re all hot damn about the potential for something even smaller and lighter and flatter, with white bezels, and a cavalcade of colors, you’ll want to wait for the M2.

Display

The M1 MacBook Air has the best display ever in an Air. 13.3-inches and Retina, which means high enough density you can’t easily make out individual pixels at normal viewing range, just crisp, clean text and images. TrueTone, so whites never look too blue or too yellow, just proper, paper white. P3 wide color gamut for richer reds and more vibrant greens. But only standard dynamic range and nowhere nearly as bright as Apple’s more recent displays.

Which is exactly what the M2 MacBook is supposed to fix. Probably the same 13.3-inches, give or take, just in a smaller enclosure. Like what Apple did with the 12.9-inch iPad Pro rather than the 11-inch iPad Pro, or 14-inch MacBook Pro. Though maybe, just maybe with a notch. That is, if they want to get the bezels as small as possible and also increase the quality of the camera as much as possible. Which, yeah, all the fingers crossed.

Also, the M2 display is rumored to be mini-LED, which Apple seems intent on pushing across their whole entire premium product line right now. That’ll allow for HDR, high dynamic range, meaning deep, inky shadows and bright, blinding highlights. Probably no 120Hz ProMotion, since Apple seems just as intent on keeping that exclusive to their Pro level product line, at least for now. But otherwise just a huge escalation all around.

So, if the current display or more than enough for your computing needs, go ahead and get the M1 MacBook Air.

But, if you really want you some high dynamic range, you’re going to have to hold out for the M2.

Silicon

The M1 MacBook Air has… the M1. Apple’s first generation of custom silicon for the Mac. It’s ased on the same IP and architecture as the A14 Bionic in the iPhone 12. And I’ve got a deep dive video up on it that I’ll drop a link to in the description below the like button. Basically, it’s an ultra-low-power system on a chip, which means it’s ultra efficient to the point of providing up to 18 hours of battery life, but also higher performance than pretty much any other chipset in its class. There’s no fan, so it’s ultra quiet, but if you want to do heavy sustained workloads of longer than 20 minutes, you may want to check out the Pro instead. Otherwise it’s just ultra fast and ultra responsive as it is quiet and long lasting. Like, game-changer level. All of it.

The M2 MacBook will have… M2. Apple’s second generation custom silicon. And if it comes out any time soon, that means it’ll most likely be based on the same IP and architecture as the A15 Bionic in the iPhone 13. So, more efficient performance cores, higher performance efficiency cores, way more powerful, and more numerous, graphics cores, and maybe some level of the ProRes engines Apple just brought over to the new MacBook Pros. At least enough to make ultra-light video editing, if nowhere nearly Pro level, at least way less frustrating than its ever been before. In other words, same if not slightly better battery life, but a whole lot more capability.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing to suggest an increase in memory, storage, Wi-Fi technology, or the addition of any cellular options. At least not this time around.

So, if the M1 is more than enough power and battery life for your needs, go ahead and get it now.

But if you want to see Apple squeeze just a little more power into a little less packaging, wait for the M2.

Ports

For a while the MacBook Air was the only Apple laptop loitering with legacy ports. But, in 2018, it went all-in on USB-C and Thunderbolt, just like everything else. All-in meaning to two of them, even if both were… yeah… hey Cap, on your left. Rather than the more useful one on each side. And that’s what the M1 has. Two of them. Both on the left.

The M2 MacBook is rumored to be restoring at least the MagSafe port, Apple’s magnetic charging dingus. That should be in addition to 2 USB 4 ports, which carry both USB-C and Thunderbolt 4. Because going to one port, even one port plus MagSafe, would just be one hell of a regression.

So, if you’re cool with the two USB-C slash Thunderbolt 3 ports on the M1 MacBook Air, go get ‘em. And if you’re at all worried Apple might drop that down to one, go get ‘em now.

But, if you think M2 might give you MagSafe back and two USB-C slash Thunderbolt 4 ports to boot, well… you’re just going to have to wait and see.

Pricing

The M1 MacBook Air starts at $999, even less with an education discount or if you can find it on sale. And that’s always been just the minimum magical price for the Air. And sure, $999 isn’t as cheap as a low-end plastic PCBook, but given the performance, the battery life, the build-quality, the macOS, just everything that comes with it, the value more than makes up for the cost. Which is just exactly why it’s perennially the most popular Mac. And it’s available now.

The M2 MacBook though… that might start at $1099, just to cover the increased cost of mini-LED. Maybe even $1199, if there’s any other new technologies Apple needs to pay down on top of that. Also, because rumor has it, it’s not so much meant to replace the M1, but to slide in on top of it as a more premium option. At least at first. Which wouldn’t be anything really new for the MacBook or the Air. They’ve always launched at higher prices, and then, in the Air’s case, dropped down over time. And in the 12-inch MacBook’s case, just been dropped. Plus, it’s only come this spring at the earliest, but maybe not until the late fall.

So, if money or time matters to you most, and you want an entry level MacBook Air, you’ll want the M1, available now.

But if money and time are literally no object and you’re lusting after a higher-end MacBook, you’ll have to wait on the M2.

Now, I’m nowhere nearly smart enough to all the math, relativistic physics, quantum mechanics, and probability theory around those equations, but that’s where today’s sponsor, Brilliant comes in. The online, interactive STEM-learning platform, and there’s no better time to start than right now, with the New Year.

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And they’ve been totally revamping their courses so they’re even more interactive, including their brand-new Logic course, which is just jam packed with opportunities for hands-on problem solving. For example, exercises like this one (clips here) open up your mind and help you look at problems in a completely new way. Maybe even enough to figure out the maximum risk reward ratio

$550 and the AirPods Max can’t even stream lossless audio. Never mind the $250 AirPods Pro. Why? Because they’re Bluetooth and — wait for it — Bluetooth is lossy. Well, lossy like trying to fit a river through a hose is lossy or… watching the cam version of No Way Home IMAX is lossy. You can have the best source in the multiverse but Bluetooth has such limited bandwidth, is such a narrow pipe, that you just can’t fit real, true lossless audio through it. Including Apple Music Lossless. Or hitting that subscribe button so we can build the best community in tech together… lossless.

So, what do you do? I mean, besides hitting the button and cursing in the comments, obviously. Well, if you’re Apple… If you’re Apple, maybe you kill Bluetooth. MDK it just to watch it die. And then you replace it — or maybe superset it — with a silicon and signal solution that’s just way, way better.

That’s what Front Page Tech’s John Prosser said Apple was planning on doing — updating the AirPods, or AirPlay, or both, to support lossless audio. AirPlay being Apple’s wireless media streaming protocol. It’s what the iPhone uses to send video to the Apple TV or audio to the HomePod, for example.

I’ll get to how in a minute, but the why is super important. See, according to Apple lore, the original version of AirPlay was a weekend project, a hack, to get something like the old AirPort Express AirTunes protocol up and running for iOS.

It was really, really cool and compelling, and worked well enough at the time for Apple to ship it. But it was also extremely limited and inherited a ton of technical debt. Like a lot of Apple’s audio stack at the time. Something they found out the hard way when they wanted to ship that OG HomePod with features like… multi-room audio. So, AirPlay 2. Refactored to fit the needs of a way more modern media ecosystem. Ultra-low power Bluetooth to broadcast availability and negotiate connections, and ultra-high capacity point-to-point Wi-Fi to handle the actual media streaming.

Which was really critical for a product like the OG HomePod, whose marketing pitch was based entirely on it sounding way, way better than Bluetooth speakers. And part of me still wonders if the reason Apple didn’t include Bluetooth on the HomePod was so that it could never, not ever sound only as good as a Bluetooth speaker, not just in rooms, but reviews, in Pepsi challenges all over YouTube, just blowing up that whole entire marketing pitch.

And yeah, I know, Apple spent millions on AirPlay 2 and Russia just took a pencil to space. By which I mean why not just include an actual hard line-in for actual high quality audio.

But all-caps love it, or just hate it’s breathing guts, Apple is all-in on the future being wireless. And for AirPods, which Apple was developing at the same time as HomePod, AirPlay just wasn’t an option. Because, unlike the Apple TV, the HomePod, AirPods weren’t going to be plugged into a wall 24/7. They weren’t going to be plugged into anything, well, except for our ears and tiny, tiny batteries.

And while Wi-Fi can be more efficient than Bluetooth for specific use cases, basically race-to-sleep, or transiting very fast bursts of data and then shutting the radio off to save power, streaming media is pretty much the exact opposite of that use case. And thanks to the way each protocol has been used, and how the chips and radios have evolved to support those uses, AirPods were limited to Bluetooth, it’s very, very low bandwidth, and all the lossy, lossy compression that came with it.

Which brings us to Gary Geaves, Apple's VP of Acoustics, who’s legit awesome, and what he just told What Hi-Fi:

“We have to concentrate very hard on squeezing the most that we can out of the Bluetooth technology, and there’s a number of tricks we can play to maximise or get around some of the limits of Bluetooth. But it’s fair to say that we would like more bandwidth and… I’ll stop right there. We would like more bandwidth”, he smiles.

That first part involved spending some of Apple’s billions on one of the largest, state-of-the-art-of-audio labs in the world, just down from Apple Park in Cupertino. I got a tour back when the HomePod was released, and from the negative decibel… a quiet place… to rooms that could be molded and remodeled to match the acoustic profiles of a multitude of test environments… There’s just been a serious escalation in Apple’s physical and computational audio teams over the last few years. As all their recent headphone, speaker, and mic systems can attest.

But also in silicon. The original AirPods use W1, Apple’s first wireless chipset. Basically tiny little computers in each pod, they’re what made the Bluetooth connections and synchronization so quick, easy, solid, reliable, low latency, and consistent. I mean, Bluetooth is still Bluetooth, so if you put enough of your ugly bag of mostly water body between, say, your iPhone and your AirPods, more than they can compensate for, you can still disrupt them. But, for anyone who previous lived their lives on the island of traditional Bluetooth, W1’s implementation was indistinguishable from radio magic.

For efficiency and specificity reasons, Apple eventually split W1 into W2 and W3, adding Wi-Fi handling, and integrating them into the Apple Watch system-in-package, or SiP. And, H1, Apple’s first Headphones chip, for the second-generation AirPods and, eventually, AirPods Pro and AirPods Max. H1 stuck to Bluetooth but became basically it’s own SiP, using up to 10 audio cores to support computation-heavy features like active noise cancellation, transparency mode, conversation boost, Dolby Atmos, and spatial audio with dynamic head tracking. But, not lossless audio, never lossless audio, because stuck to Bluetooth. And like Gary said… Apple would like more bandwidth.

And, just by way of showing how concerned Apple is for efficiency in the AirPods, the original HomePod used an A8 system-on-a-chip, same as the iPhone 6, and the HomePod mini uses an S5 system-in-package, same as the Apple Watch Series 5. If not recycling silicon but spending actual real new money and resources on something custom for headphones, it’s because everyone from the execs on down consider it essential.

Which is why I wonder if Apple really could just flip a bit and turn on Wi-Fi-dependent-AirPlay on for existing AirPods, not just because of the power draw — the potential hit on battery life — but the system architecture itself. I mean, I’d all caps love it, best surprise upgrade ever, but I’ll only ever expect it when I see it. And having not seen in in the year-and-however-long its been now since AirPods Pro and Max and Apple Music Lossless… those expectations are only dwindling.

Same with Apple going all-in on aptX, which is Qualcomm’s high-fidelity Bluetooth audio compression codec. Specifically, the recently announced aptX: Lossless. Which, yes, all the nerd dreams and drool. All of it. But even though Apple and Qualcomm are playing nice with 5G modems these days, aptX Lossless is really aptX CD quality. 16-bit.44.1kHz. Which is phenomenal for Bluetooth. Legit game-changing for Bluetooth. And a huge improvement for AirPods. But still Bluetooth. And Apple may want their dependency on Qualcomm to go only so far… if not in the other direction entirely.

Also, just licensing a codec doesn’t really seem to fit Apple’s style, let alone swagger. Not when their key product differentiator is better experience through tighter integration of hardware, software, and most recently, services.

Which is why it’s possible Apple will finally, the Rock-style FINALLY move to just replace Bluetooth altogether with something much higher performance but also.. even more efficient. Maybe it’s marketed as AirPlay 3, maybe not. Maybe it leans on a next-generation H2 system-in-package for AirPods Pro 2, and eventually AirPods Max 2, if there are an AirPods Max 2. Maybe not.

But supply chain exfiltrator extraordinaire, Kuo Ming-Chi, just released a report saying that AirPods Pro 2 would not only have a new design and speakers in the charging case to improve the Find My experience, but they’d also support Apple’s own lossless audio codec, or ALAC.

Now, I’ll drop a link to more on Apple’s upcoming AirPods in the description right below the like button, but here’s a question that pretty much immediately pops to mind:

Which version of ALAC, since Apple’s codec supports 16 to 32-bits and up to 384kHz? Unclear, but I’ll also assume the least for now so I can be surprised rather than disappointed later. Even if these are the freaks and geeks who just added 10-bit ProRes HQ to the iPhone Pro…

But if Apple really wants to blow minds and ears, they’re going to really want that more bandwidth than Bluetooth by itself allows, and that leaves some type of point-to-point Wi-Fi, or maybe some fusion of Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, even ultra-wide-band like the U1 chip. None of which are ideal on their own, but maybe could be in very clever combination. I mean, it’s really just an implementation detail at this point, but one I’m super beyond curious about.

Now, In Nilay Patel’s worst nightmare hellscape of a world — and mine too, honestly — this… as of right now almost entirely fanfic new protocol… would be all the next generation of AirPods and headphone silicon support. Like AirPlay 2 on the HomePods. But my own personal hope and dream would be for Apple not so much to rip and replace Bluetooth, but to superset it. Not just so that Nilay’s head is saved from actually exploding, but so, if you have an older device or a non-Apple device that can’t support Lossless, you can elegantly fall over into good old fashioned Bluetooth lossy. Maybe even aptX. I mean, make the kids happy — hell, make the Qualcomm patent licensing treasury, and those increasingly beyond acid salty regulators happy! Just oh, so very, very happy. But… but… if you have the latest and the greatest, you get the absolute best lossless AirPods experience on the planet. If your human ears can even distinguish the difference… beyond audiophile LARPing, that is.

15 years ago today, Steve Jobs and the iPhone changed... everything. Since then, Apple has relentlessly introduced new models and new features every year, on the year, from the retro-chic iPhone 4 to the ultra-modern iPhone X, to the jam-packed iPhone 13, to whatever is coming next in 2022. This video highlights every major step along the, every keynote, every advance, everything that, for a decade and half, has made the iPhone... the iPhone

I’m going through all the popping fresh hot new iPhone 14, iPhone SE 3 and 4, and iPhone Fold Alpha leaks that just dropped, reacting live, and giving you all the background, context, and analysis you need to figure out how to best spend and save your hard earned Apple Cash in 2022. Because some of this… is really, really cool, and some… is just flat out terrible.

iPhone 13. Mini. Pro. Max. Same retro future chic design. Same OLED Displays, Notch, Dolby Vision Cameras, and Lightning Ports. But with way, way better battery life and 120Hz, ProRes, Macro, and 3x Zoom on the Pros. But what about iPhone 14? Well, some of that might be changing for the better… and for the worse. So, in this video I’m going to tell you if you should race out and get an iPhone 13 now, now, now, or do everything you can to wait for an iPhone 14 this fall. And the answers… never mind may — they WILL surprise you!

Design

The iPhone 13 has the same iPhone 5-inspired design as the iPhone 12, with flat sides that look way cooler but aren’t anywhere nearly as comfortable to hold as the old curves.

The mini has a 5.4-inch display, the 13 and Pro have 6.1-inch displays, and the Max has a 6.7-inch display. All still notched, though a tad narrower.

Rumor has it, the iPhone 14 with switch from the iPhone 5-style metal wrapped design, to something closer akin to the iPhone 4-style glass sandwich. Just ever so slightly more retro, but maybe also just ever so slightly more comfortable?

On the Pro models, those bands might move from stainless steel to titanium as well, which would make the whole package a bit lighter. Combined with a more efficient A16 chipset and X65 modem allowing for a smaller battery, maybe more than a bit lighter. More on those, and the Lightning Port, in a minute.

Now, the mini is supposedly being replaced by a decidedly non-mini, but also non-Pro version of the Max. That’s right, no more 5.4-inch model, like at all, just two two tiers of 6.7-inch model. So, if you really want a mini, just go get the 13 mini right now and hold onto it for as long as you can. With all day battery life, it’s basically the platonic ideal, form mini iPhone now anyway.

But, if you’ve always wanted a 6.7-inch iPhone but simply refused to pay full-on Pro prices, and don’t care AT ALL about ultra-high end displays or cameras, you might want to wait on the 14 non-Pro Max. Unless you can find a really good deal on a 13 or 12 Pro Max.

And, yes, I’ll be doing it for every Apple product coming our way this year, so hit that subscribe button and bell so you’ll know how best to spend — and save — your hard-earned money in 2022!

If you like steel and substantial, hefty-feeling phones, you might also want to jump on a 13 Pro now, whereas if you’re all Ghetta-level in love with Titanium — or holding out, literally, for a lighter Pro phone — you may need to hold out, literally, for the 14 Pro.

Likewise, if you hate notches, multiple reports now suggest at least the iPhone 14 Pros will be switching to hole punches instead. So, Face ID sensors under the display, RGB selfie camera still cut out front and center. If you hate the hole punch more, though, grab a notch while you still can.

Displays

The iPhone 13 Pro LTPO OLED displays are literally the best in the business right now, with all the 120Hz benefits and none of the compromises that plagued earlier, competing displays. No decrease in resolution, No loss of color management or high refresh at low brightness. They’re so good, it’s legit hard to see what the iPhone 14 could do to improve on them. Maybe always-on, like the Apple Watch, if the battery life hit isn’t too severe?

It’s also hard to see what Apple could do to improve the non-Pro displays, aside from adding the 120Hz ProMotion of the Pros, and they’re just not likely to do that until the Pros go to 240Hz, which will probably take a while still.

Maybe I just lack imagination here, so tell me if I’m missing something, and hold out hope if you can wait, but if the display is what’s most important to you, and you need an iPhone now, you can go ahead and get one now.

Cameras

The iPhone 13 cameras are likewise some of the best in the business, and for video, the absolute best. Period. Exclamation mark even. You’ve got IBIS, or in-body image stabilization across all the wide angles now, improved ultra wide angles, macro and 3x telephoto on the Pros, the ability to shoot ProRAW photos and 10-bit Dolby Vision ProRes videos on the Pro models, and Cinematic Mode for video focus select and depth effect on all the models.

And yeah, I’ll get into the whole ProRes over Lightning thing in a minute as well.

Point is, though, they’ve been terrific everyday cameras under ideal conditions for years now, so what Apple’s been focusing on is making them as terrific as possible under less and less ideal conditions, and even better for creative pros in general.

And it sounds like that’s going to continue with the 14 line. Especially for the Pros. With a 48 megapixel, 4x binned wide angle that’ll not only take better photos, and maybe provide slightly better zoom, but enable 8K and downsampled 4K for the first time.

I’ve got a whole entire video up diving deep into the new camera system rumors, which I’ll link in the description below the like button, but If none of that means anything to you, or it does and you just don’t care, then go ahead and grab an iPhone 13 or Pro now. If it means everything to you… well, then you might want to wait for the 14 Pro.

Chipsets

The A15 in the iPhone 13, and the extra, 5 core GPU version in the iPhone 13 Pro, are still a couple of generations ahead of everyone else on the planet. Qualcomm has some ex-Apple engineers that might help them out longer term. Google has the currently very Exinos-y Tensor that, if they stick with it, will get better and better every year. But for right now, Apple could cram the A15, never mind into the next SE, but the next next SE, and it’d still be world class.

Of course, the A16 coming with the iPhone 14 will be even better. The A15 is fabricated, or fabbed, on TSMC’s second generation 5 nanometer process. But A16… that should be on their next-generation 4 or 3 nanometer process. Which means even better performance with even better efficiency. How much of each will depend entirely on how Apple spends and saves that new transistor budget. But if they go heavy on the efficiency, especially on the GPU side, then it could be real good news for hardcore iPhone gamers, given the tiny thermal envelope of even the non-minis. Likewise, the Neural Engines could see an extra boost thanks to ARMv9 matrix multiplication improvements. Which’ll be great for anything Machine Learning related.

So, if you love Apple chips even more than you love Pringles or… I dunno… Doritos, well… you probably buy every new iPhone every new year anyway. But this iPhone 14 year could be something extra special. Otherwise, again, the iPhone 13 is going to be better than everything else on the market for good while still. So buy at will.

Radios

The iPhone 13 has Qualcomm’s X60 5G cellular modem, which is slightly more efficient than the previous X55. Thank goodness. And battery life. Also, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.0, and a U1 ultra-wide-band spatial positioning chip.

The iPhone 14 should have Qualcomm’s X65 5G modem, which will be even slightly more efficient again. Maybe Wi-Fi 6E, which includes 6GHz capabilities. But Apple, who usually jumps on new wireless standards faster than JJ Abrams on beloved sci-fi franchises, has been uncharacteristically slow about going to 6E. So, at this point, I’ll believe it when we see it.

Bluetooth isn’t getting much better in general these days, but there are fresh rumors about Apple super-setting it again for lossless audio on AirPods. Even if it makes Nilay’s head explode. Or maybe specifically TO make it explode? And there’s always a chance they’ll go from U1 to U2, even if nobody could take all the potential jokes they’d incur on that. Nobody.

So, if you’re super into radio nerdery and have the towers and routers and everything else ready and waiting to actually get any benefit from the newer modems, it’s worth waiting to get that benefit. If not, most people won’t see much if any real difference for another generation or few.

Biometrics

When it comes to Biometrics, the iPhone 13 is Face ID-only, like the iPhones 12, 11, XS, and X before it. There have been persistent reports about Apple testing in-display acoustic or ultrasonic finger print readers, and they’ve even shipped power-button Touch ID on the iPad Air and iPad mini… but common case designs often cover the power buttons on iPhones, and there’s still nothing to suggest in-display is imminent.

So… despite us now entering year 3 of the world ending, many places masking up and locking down again, and Apple Watch being the only workable workaround for the current version of Face ID being less authentication and more frustration, it’s even odds as to how or even if Apple will address any of it with the iPhone 14. I mean, unless they figure out a form of facial geometry scanning that can get sufficient data points to guarantee security without having to include the nose or mouth…

But at this point, I’m only going to expect that when I see it. Or unlock with it. Whatever!

Lightning

Apple replaced FireWire with the 30-pin Dock Connector in 2003 only to kill it for the much better 8-pin Lightning Connector in 2012, just under 10 years later. September of 2022 will mark exactly 10 years for Lightning, so a lot of people are hoping Apple’s about ready to repeat history — Kill Lightning and replace it with something much better again on the iPhone 14. But what exactly?

One possibility is Lightning 2. Same plug that fits millions of existing iPhone accessories, nowhere near the complexity of USB-C, but still with much faster charging and data transfer speeds. The EU would hate it, but it’s be seamless for the vast majority of actual mainstream iPhone users. And their CarPlay systems.

Another possibility is USB-C. Same plug as the Mac and now, most iPads, never mind almost every other modern gadget not made by Apple. And, yeah, USB-C isn’t getting any younger either, and speeds and power delivery potentials are still a laughing crying mess boomer emoji of a mess, but it kicks the connector can down the road for another half decade at least. And if Apple can somehow cram a Thunderbolt lane and controller into A16, every Pro trying to pull 4K ProRes off their iPhone might just have reason to celebrate, never mind 8K ProRes if that turns out to be true.

Then there’s wireless. Because of all the persistent rumors around Apple deleting all the ports on an upcoming iPhone, or all upcoming iPhones, in the near future. Sure, that future is always coming but never quite arriving, but it’s probably going to happen one day. And, according to some more recent reports, Apple’s already testing a new, ultra-fast wireless connection for the Watch, which lost its diagnostic port last year.

But there’s plenty a slip twixt a leak and a ship, so this is also all just stuff I’d never base a buying decision on at this point. Like, pretty much fanfic. So, I mean, if you’re desperate for something faster than Lightning, which is still stuck at USB 2 point nothing speeds, it might be worth waiting. But if you’re paranoid that Apple might take away your hardline, then you might want to buy now.

Over the 370 videos, 42 million views, and as of New Year’s even, 301 thousand subscribers. When I quit my big media job back in March 2020, right before the multiverse descended into madness, I never imagined we could build this indie channel back up so quickly, this community… so amazingly, especially during 2020, Parts 1 & 2. So thank you, sincerely, for the ongoing support, it means everything to me, happy new year, and I can’t wait to see how far we get in 2022! Seriously, be here, tell all your friends. Now, crack a beverage and let’s do this.

New watch bands, of course. Spring, summer, and fall. New Apple Watch Series 8. New Apple Watch SE. And new, really new, Apple Watch Extreme. But which one is the flat one?

I’m Rene Ritchie. YouTube says 70% of you watching still aren’t subscribed, so hit that button and bell so we can make this the absolute best community in tech!

Watch is Apple’s most fashion-forward product. Sure, you can get an Hermes case for your iPhone if you really truly want to, but you have to dig for it. With watch, all of that is front and center. So, at the least, the very very least, we can expect a bevy of new Apple Watch bands throughout 2022.

New spring colors, around March or April event time, whether there’s an actual event or not. A new pride band in the Summer around WWDC. Whether it’s in person or… still not. And then new fall colors, and maybe new band styles, to go along with new fall hardware. Hopefully back in September and not delayed again until October. But the 2020s gonna 2020… 2.

As to that hardware, there’s been a new series announced pretty much every year on the year since the Series 2. Some of them have big internal updates, like going dual core, 64-bit, or LTE. Others, big new designs, like the Series 4, or small new designs, like last year’s series 7. There haven’t been too many rumors about Series 8 yet, but my guess is we’re still going to see it. The A13-based cores introduced with the S6 system-in-package are still plenty fast enough for a wearable, but the silicon nerd in me would still love to see A14-based cores in the S8. Just to keep some extra headroom for the future. I’d also love fully independent LTE. I mean, everything is 5G 5G 5G these days, but I’m not sure Qualcomm is anywhere nearly efficient for the Watch yet, and Apple’s custom modems are probably a couple years out still.

More new health sensors remain the holy grain here, of course. Everything from blood pressure to blood sugar and more. Just all the sensors. But those are proving really, really hard to bring to market. The tech has been coming but never quite arriving going on half a decade now, even though Apple keeps buying companies that swear they’re almost there. Only to stay exactly there, at almost. Over and over again. Which is super frustrating for everyone. And that’s before we even get into what’ll be regulated for health, like ECG, and what’ll be marketed as simple metrics, like blood oxygen.

There are stronger rumors around a new Apple Watch SE and really new Apple Watch Extreme, both kinda orbiting around a flat-edged design that many wrongly assumed was meant for last year’s Apple Watch 7. Including a bunch of legit cockamamie stories around Apple changing the design at the last minute. Which just doesn’t happen. I mean, sometimes things get delayed, and something less conservative prototypes win out over more audacious ones, but Apple doesn’t do parts-binned products. Everything is custom. And all those decisions have to be locked and loaded way, way earlier in the production schedule. It’s a 2-3 year process. The delays we got last year were 100% delays on the exact Apple Watch Series 7 design Apple ended up shipping.

Because often these reports arrive with zero context, so everyone just tries to make their best guesses, based on their experience, and it’s easier to think a last minute change was made than an engineering sample got out where the prototyper was using an old container as a quick test for a new project, or vice versa. And then, damn. But I digress.

So, where does that leave that flat edged design? Well, as a different Apple Watch entirely that was pushed from 2021 to 2022. Some think it’ll be marketed as the next Apple Watch SE. That, Apple likes to visually distinguish their flagship designs from their entry-level designs, and they usually do that by keeping older versions around, like the iPhone SE or 9th generation iPad, Home buttoned both. But the as-of-last-year older Watch design doesn’t really look that different, and for something as fashionable and wearable as a watch, the flat sides is an objectively less premium looking design, so it has to be for the next SE.

Others think the flat design is the long rumored Apple Watch Extreme. The more rugged, larger version of the Apple Watch meant to compete with Garmin. And because recent iPhone increased their toughness not just with Ceramic Shield but because of the flatter design that better protected against impact, that a flatter watch design would do the same thing for more extreme athletes and activities. And, yeah, for people who care about ruggedness, being chonkier isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. And, I mean, come on, no one really expects even an Apple Watch Extreme to look like a sand-blasted Otterbox, right? Right?

Either way, anyway, it’ll be interesting to see what Apple decides to include in a new Apple Watch SE. Right now, it lacks the always on display, ECG, blood oxygen, and other, pricer features. Just like the iPhone SE and iPad might as well call it SE and come to think of it, why don’t they? Don’t include the better and fuller screen displays and camera systems. So, whether flat or not, I think the focus there will be on an updated processor to extend watchOS and app headroom, and probably not much else. But a nerd can dream.

As for the Apple Watch Extreme, or whatever Apple ends up calling the bigger, more rugged watch, that I see being more of an Apple Watch Max. Every bell and whistle Apple has available, especially on the health and fitness tech end, but with way better durability in lieu of fancier camera systems. And maybe a whole new set of bands dedicated just for them, along with whatever watchOS 9 has coming our way.

Web3. Coins. Blockchains. NFTs. DAOs. Virtual and augmented reality. Electric Vehicles and self-driving. Autonomous technologies and artificial intelligence. 2020 and 2021: 2020 Resurrected were hella ugly. Brutal even. But they moved us forward each in their own way. 2022 is poised to do the same. Pushing us closer to some aspects of the future, and maybe even finally delivering on a few as well. These are the hottest topics and biggest trends in tech that we’re seeing today, and where and how Apple’s choosing to play.

I’m Rene Ritchie. YouTube says 70% of you watching still aren’t subscribed, so hit that button and bell so we can make this the absolute best community in tech!

Ok, let’s start at the most imminent and work our way further out.

Augmented and virtual reality

Virtual and augmented reality. Immersive and opportunistic interfaces. This, along with automation, is one of the very few future-facing subjects Tim Cook is typically more than happy to discuss. Because they aren’t actually products. They’re core technology. Like LCD and OLED. Moving from CRT to LCD let Apple make iMacs thinner than ever before, but it also let them make iPhones and iPads, which could never have been made as CRTs. Screens were never the product but they enabled almost all the products. Same with VR and AR. There’ll be an initial product, like there was an initial LCD iMac. Two products, actually. But eventually they’ll be integrated throughout the lineup.

Further out, will be the AR glasses. There’s just a lot of tech that still needs to mature there. Similar to the Apple Watch, they’ll be lighter but also more dependent on existing products for the heavier connection and compute tasks, at least at first, but that’ll improve over time. And the killer feature will be convenience. Forget not having to reach for your phone when your notifications and glanceable information are only a wrist raise away on your watch. Now you won’t even have to raise your wrist. Those notifications and glances will be right there, already in your field of view, right on your glasses.

Closer up, will be the VR headset. Not the one from a few years back that Apple was reportedly working on with Valve until Jony Ive drop-kicked the concept of a headset tethered to a brain box. But a fully self-contained system, which is now just way closer to a solved problem. It’s even got former SVP of hardware, Dan Riccio, running it 24/7 now. The exec previously in charge of shipping iPhones every year on the year. Dual 4K displays and spatial audio streams driven my something akin to an M1 or M2 chipset. A ton of sensors driven by new custom silicon. Similar to the Apple TV, it’ll be heavier but more dependent on existing services to provide truly immersive content and experiences. Forget sitting on your living room sofa, you’ll be in virtual movie theaters and stadiums, concert halls and workout vistas, around digital conference rooms and event centers. It’ll be expensive at first, like the original iPhone was. And basic. Like the original iPad. But if Apple does it right, it could be every bit and category defining.

Electric vehicles and automation

Autonomous technologies, and by extension artificial intelligence, is the other topic Tim Cook’s been… positively chatty about, given Apple’s usual cones within cones of silence. Again because it’s not a product but a core technology. Apple’s been all-in on machine learning, neural networks, computer vision, natural language processing, and more for years. It’s rampant throughout iOS, macOS… all the OS.

Apple’s SVP of Machine Learning, John Gianandrea is currently running this specific special project group, now with the help of Kevin Lynch, who’s run Apple Watch software since pretty much the beginning. And the goals seem to have shifted somewhat over the years. From a straight ahead til car, complete with Jony Ive and team designs, and a whole new, whole NeXT NeXT-style approach to operating systems, bug reporting, interfaces, even culture, to a focus on self-driving systems, to a collaboration with an existing automaker to… well, we’ll just have to wait and see at this point.

It’s still a ways out, even though, just like the AR and VR projects, technology from the LiDAR and computer vision and other teams have already made their way into our iPhones and iPads, by way of example. And who knows, just like on-device intelligence is everywhere already, autonomy could easily follow suit. I’m not saying Apple person robots or HomeKit droids. But I’m not not saying it either.

I mean, full self driving electric vehicles sound great and even drive great in California and Arizona, but there’s a long way to go before they work great in places like Winnipeg and Montreal where it can hit -40 or -50 and the roads, lanes, and signs are covered in camera confounding ice and snow.

But, whether it’s the Apple Park shuttles, or consumer cars we can actually drive, a decked out Apple Roadster Max and eventually a less expensive Apple Hatchback SE, or a fleet of Apple Ubers as a service, just hail, ride, repeat. Only time, like several more years of time, will tell.

Web3

First, there was Web1. Angle bracket. Marquee. Blink. Slash. Angle bracket. Under construction dot Gif Jif. Or as you probably remember them, raw containers for super janky ActiveX and Flash sites you beat your head against until you could find the opening hours for the restaurant. And nobody but nerds really cared.

Then there was Web2. AJAX. CSS. OAUTH. And a whole bunch of other acronyms and initialisms that… still nobody but nerds cared about until they became part of the core infrastructure for a new generation of apps and services we all now use every day. Google Maps. Twitter. Flikr. Wikipedia it. Facebook. Oh god, what did we do.

Now, Web3. Coins. Blockchains. DAOs. NFTs. Which I’m apparently not allowed to call nifties. And they’ll become part of the core infrastructure of a next generation of apps and services that we’ll all use… one day. The key difference between Web2 and Web3 is that people seem to go to war way, way, way more over what Web3 is and isn’t than they ever did Web2. Like full on Raid Boss Karen in my timeline, every damn day. And I mean it, y’all seriously need to chill. Embrace the namaste side of your inner hipster again. Whatever. And maybe just because we’ve all been stuck in various forms of physical and psychological lockdown for the last two years. Maybe because the worst of the Silicon Valley and fintech grifters took an interest in fetishizing and monetizing Web3 technologies in a way they never did or could Web2. Or maybe just Doge. I don’t know.

Apple’s WebObjects drove a lot of commerce in the pre-Web2 days, and Web2 wasn’t just the sweet solution Apple offered developers in the days before the App Store, it what a lot of WebKit interfaces were built on, both wrapped in apps and put up on the web, up to and including iCloud dot com.

Given Apple Pay, Apple Cash, and Apple Card, an Apple Coin would be interesting, and they’re uniquely positioned to offer something… mainstream there. If not full on financial services at some point. Maybe Apple’s just waiting on more environmentally friendly technologies to make any moves there or on the blockchain in general. Apple also doesn’t have their own micro-transaction system, like big game studios, where using NFTs would let them extract a share of every artificially scarce digital good through every reseller, forever. That could tie into an updated Apple Arcade, especially for VR and whatever normal humans end up calling the Metaverse, though. Even while I hope Apple never gets into something that potentially gambling-adjacent, at least not directly. Doesn’t fit the Disney clean image.

And since they’ve moved to Apple Music and Apple TV streaming, even if they were super into the idea of us reselling our digital downloads in a media swap meet, even some kind of iTunes Live Bootlegs, I’m not sure Hollywood and labels would be down with any form after market. Although maybe they just need to see more zeros attached?

New iPad Pro with M2. And MagSafe. 11-inch Pro with Mini LED. iPad Air with A16 and Mini LED. iPad mini… maybe not so much. But 10th Generation iPad. iPad Non-Pro, Non-Air. iPad Nothing with a spec bump and 10.5-inch display?

I’m Rene Ritchie. YouTube says 70% of you watching still aren’t subscribed, so hit that button and bell so we can make this the absolute best community in tech!

Apple’s baseline iPad has consistently been one of the best values in tech. It’s never had the best display or best camera system, but year in, year out, every September, on the September, Apple’s been updating it with better and better processors, and added support for everything from the OG Pencil to the Smart Keyboard. I know some people want a laminated screen, while others maintain non-laminated is cheaper to repair, and many want Pencil 2 because charging Pencil 1 is still so damn awkward looking. But my guess is, 2022 will bring more of the same. Would it go, could it go USB-C like literally every other iPad now? Even odds. Way easier to see — an A14 Bionic chipset, the 10.5-inch display scale-up that was rumored for last year already, and the same great $349 price tag.

The iPad mini… that’s tougher to see getting another update so soon, especially since the current one just got a massive redesign last September, and especially especially because it took two and half long years to arrive. Don’t get me wrong, I’d all-caps love to see mini-LED on that tiny display and now. Just Mini-LED all the things. And I know some of you want nothing more than a full-on iPad mini Pro… or iPad Pro mini… with 120Hz, a Magic Keyboard, a 90-degree draw switch to de-jelly refresh, and every other premium bell and high-end whistle. But Apple sees the market as a smaller Air, not a smaller Pro, and the update cycle as every couple or few years, at least so far. So I’m not going to expect anything more from the mini until I see it, and I just don’t think that’ll be any time soon.

The iPad Air though… That got its massive redesign in September of 2020. So, 2020 seems about right for a more iterative update. Including moving it to Mini LED, which Apple seems like they’re going to be doing with everything other than their entry-level lineup and soon. If it comes out in the spring, like in 2019, I’d expect an A15 on-board. If it comes out in the fall, like 2020, I’d expect a next-generation A16 on-board. That should be 4 or 3 nanometer, depending which new process node Apple and TSMC go with. But either way, better efficiency and performance, with how Apple spends and saves those even tinier transistors determining the exact mix of both. Especially since Apple uses efficiency to drive performance. Probably no 120Hz, at least not until the iPad Pro goes 240Hz, but a fresh new rainbow paint job of fresh new colors, like the iPhones get every year, seems like a safe bet. That, and maybe 5G?

The 11-inch iPad Pro didn’t go Mini-LED last April like the 12.9-inch did. It would have just blown up the price point… at that point… here’s my point — it’s rumored to be doing that next. I doubt Apple’s going to be willing to let the starting price go much if any higher than it already is, so maybe the Mini-LED process has been paid down or just come down to make swallowing it into the existing bill-of-materials just way less bitter of a pill. It’s already got literally every other premium feature, from the ultra-low-power Mac processor to the ultra-expensive Magic Keyboard, so getting it to full parity while also stepping it all up should absolutely be the priority. There’s just nothing I like better than choosing based on display and battery size and literally nothing else.

And I know a lot of people are going to say, just throw macOS on it and call it a day. But we already have the Mac. Damn fine Macs now as well. So that would be such an utter disservice not only to the iPad but to everyone who wants an iPad, not a Mac. I’m going to stop myself before I abuse that old Steve Jobs car truck analogy more than I already have in my life, but you can make really freaking powerful cars without them having to be trucks, and really freaking luxurious trucks without them having to be cars. And there’s still a ton of benefit to both.

Speaking of SUVs… the 12.9-inch Pro already has Mini-LED but if it comes out this spring, like the previous two did, it should be upgraded with an M2. If it comes out this fall instead, maybe an M3. M2 would likely be based on the A15, so much more efficient performance cores, much more performant efficiency cores, way better graphics cores, and full-on ProRes media engines so it can cut through high fidelity video… maybe not like a MacBook Pro, but way closer than any iPad Pro before it. M3 would likely be based o A16, so all that, plus another generation of improvements, multiplied by another process shrink, and, yes, drool! Also rumored is MagSafe charging, Apple’s brand of power cable that attaches magnetically and charges inductively. Some call it wireless, but it still requires contact and… yeah… there’s still a cable on the other end. Would that be something like MagSafe 3 on the latest Apple Silicon MacBook Pros, or more like iPhone MagSafe with the magnetic disks? The former could just plug in with minimal changes needed to the core design. The latter would require some form of non-metal contact point. Would am iPhone-style glass back work at iPad scale? Would just a glass Apple logo in the center be capable, and structurally sound enough? I have so many questions!

New iPhone 14. No mini… but another Max. iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max. No iPhone flip or fold. At least not year. But maybe an iPhone SE 3… or 2 1/2. Something?

I’m Rene Ritchie. YouTube says 70% of you watching still aren’t subscribed, so hit that button and bell so we can make this the absolute best community in tech!

First up — maybe literally first up… as in as soon as this spring — new iPhone SE. Kinda. Not the same leap as the iPhone 5s-based SE in 2016 to the iPhone 8-based SE in 2020. Because only two years later and not four. So more the small step of same iPhone 8 enclosure but with new A15 processor and Qualcomm 5G model. Probably the X60 that’s in the iPhone 13, because it’s way more efficient than the previous model… and if this is the way Apple’s going, they’ll need it. The iPhone SE 2 was already challenged when it came to battery life, so unless Apple amps up the capacity, they’re going to need all the chip efficiency they can. That, and an updated single camera system, because of course.

And, as much as some Home button lovers will be ecstatic that Apple is holding onto this design at least one generation longer, there are also fans of the more modern design desperate for Apple to move the SE onto the iPhone XR or 11 platform. Full screen. No Face ID. Touch ID in the power button. And I’d love to see it… I’m just not sure we’ll see it this soon

Now I know it seems like the iPhone 14 has been leaking for years already, but that’s mostly been the Pro. Which I’ll get to in a minute. The regular 6.1-inch iPhone 14 we actually don’t know a whole lot about yet. Except that it’ll still be OLED, still have a Notch, and almost certainly debut Apple’s next-generation silicon, the A16. Maybe still Bionic. I guess we’ll see how truly happy Apple is with that architecture at this point. Moving to TSMC’s 4 or 3 nanometer process will help with both efficiency and performance, depending on how Apple chooses to spend and save on that new transistor budget. Maybe ARMv9 too, though I continue to believe that’s more about catching up to Apple’s silicon than helping push it further. It should boost vector though, which could be interesting depending on where Apple takes their neural engines next. And, of course, a better image signal processor for improved Cinematic Mode and more.

The iPhone mini sounds like it’s two and done, at least for now. Twitter and tech YouTube just aren’t a viable-enough market, especially when it’s split between SE and mini, cheap and small.. instead of one model that’s both cheap and small. But maybe Apple will experiment with that segment again in the future.

Instead, reports point to a lower cost Max. A non-Pro Max. An amateur Max? Either way, anyway, instead of a 5.4-inch iPhone 14 mini, a 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Max. Which should legit be terrific for everyone and anyone who wants or needs a bigger display, who uses their iPhone as a primary computing device. Or just wants the bigger battery without the bigger pro price. Especially with that more efficient A16 chipset and next-general Qualcomm x65 5G modem. Some are hoping Apple will bring 120Hz ProMotion to the non-Pro lineup. 120Hz RegularMotion? And never say never, but so far Apple’s kept that as one of the big value ads for Pros, and it’s hard to see that changing until there’s something even better for Pros. Like 240Hz ProMotion. The human eye probably peaks out at 480Hz, so we’re really only just beginning.

Because it probably won’t be flipping or folding. I mean, eventually, but Apple’s been working on hinged phones since at least 2011, and proper folding phones for the last couple of years now, but they apparently still don’t think the technology is ready for prime time. They’ve certainly had the equivalent to the Galaxy Fold and Flips 1, 2, and 3 in the labs. They’re just going to keep it there, in the labs, until they think they’ve got something durable and affordable enough to ship to mainstream customers in the hundreds of thousands of units. And it sure doesn’t sound like that’s an iPhone 14 Flip or Fold, at least not yet.

Now, iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max, that’s a total different story… those there have been a ton of reports about. And yes, there’s still plenty a trip twixt a leak and ship, but so far we’re hearing titanium rails instead of stainless steal, to help reduce the weight added by the extra battery. Also, a hole punch instead of a notch, with the infrared camera, flood illuminator, and dot projector buried beneath the display, and only the RGB camera remaining, staring back at us. That’ll go in-display as well at some point, when it can better shoot betwee the OLED sub-pixels, at least enough for machine learning to correct for. But not today. As to the in-display fingerprint reader that’s been rumored for years now, it’s really hard to say. Apple has been working on an acoustic system, and has access to Qualcomm’s ultra-sonic patents, which should be way better than optical kind some others have been using. But at this point, I’d settle which just getting it back iPad Air style in the power button as well.

The camera system is finally supposed to be getting a 48 megapixel sensor. That’ll give it 8K video as well as 4x binned 16 megapixel photos with even more light. Maybe better zoom as well, to match the macro mode we got in the 13, although a true periscope zoom sounds like it’s still another year away. Also, a bump up to 8GB of memory to support that new camera and it’s 8K ProRes video. Maybe even a 2 TB version to record that…. What… 12 to 24 GB per minute footage?