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Macworld Podcast: What to expect from Apple in 2026, part 1
Thursday January 8, 2026. 09:03 AM , from Mac 911
2026 could be one of the most memorable years in Apple’s history. Here’s what to expect from Apple in the first half of the year. This is episode 965 with Michael Simon, Jason Cross, and Roman Loyola. Tune in to next week’s show to hear about what Apple will do in the second half of 2026. Watch episode 965 on YouTube Listen to episode 965 on Apple Podcasts Listen to episode 965 on Spotify Apple in 2026 (January to Jume) Click on the links below for more information on what was discussed on the show. Strap in Apple fans, 2026 is going to be a wild ride 2026 iPhone preview: 4 major changes that could transform Apple’s lineup Get hyped: 2026 will be a big year in Mac releases 2026 smart home preview: Apple to make a major push 2026 iPad preview: What to expect from Apple’s next tablet lineup This Week in Apple History On January 6, 2004, the iPod mini was introduced at the 2004 Macworld Expo. Macworld Mailbag You are giving the iPhone 16e a very hard time. Reviewing it as a $599 device is not fair. This phone is often $99 or FREE on prepaid. It is essentially the affordable iPhone everyone wanted Apple to release.” Arian R. via email Your recent podcast discussion on a lack of future for the macpro was sad to hear but likely accurate. However I note as have some others that there could be a use for Mac Pros that were super powerful – as a ‘cluster’ tower. One Macpro tower could contain 4 ultra or max chips linked by thunderbolt 5 or using the Apple tech used to link two max chips into an ultra chip. Jeff C. via email Subscribe to the Macworld Podcast You can subscribe to the Macworld Podcast—or leave us a review!—right here in the Podcasts app. The Macworld Podcast is also available on Spotify and on the Macworld Podcast YouTube channel. Or you can point your favorite podcast-savvy RSS reader at: https://feeds.megaphone.fm/macworld To find previous episodes, visit Macworld’s podcast page or our home on MegaPhone. Apple Below is an AI-generated, uncorrected transcript of the podcast. The timecodes do not correspond to the published recording. Also, the text has not been edited or corrected, so it will contain improper grammar, misspellings, and other errors. Michael Simon (00:01)Okay. Unscripted, unfiltered, unafraid, welcome to the Mackrow podcast. My name is Michael Simon. I am joined as always by Jason Cross. Jason Cross (00:17)Good morning. Michael Simon (00:19)and our producer Roman Loyola. Roman Loyola (00:21)Ohoy there! Michael Simon (00:24)This is episode number 965. Is that right? Okay, good. And happy new year, everyone. This is our first show of the new year. We actually haven’t recorded in a little while. And today we’re gonna do a preview of 2026. So we were just talking literally like five minutes ago. And we decided that we’re gonna break this into two parts because there was just so much stuff happening or expected to happen this year. So this is… Roman Loyola (00:30)You are correct. Jason Cross (00:51)There’s a lot. Michael Simon (00:53)The first, so we’re gonna break it into two halves. So this is gonna be like January to like June. We’ll end it at WWDC. And then next week we’ll pick up where we left off, because we try to be somewhat conscious of the length of the show, and if we did it all, it would be like two hours, and no one wants to listen to us speak for two hours. So ⁓ we’re gonna try to keep this one under an hour. Roman, that’s your job to yell at us if we’re talking too much. ⁓ Jason Cross (01:00)Right. You ⁓ We don’t want to talk for two hours. Michael Simon (01:19)And then we’ll do a segment on what we’re watching on Apple TV because I want to talk to Jason about Pluribus this week in Apple history. And we’re going to close with our reader mailbag. Speaking of that, you can contact us through Blue Sky Facebook or threads. Look, search for Macworld, look for the Blue Mouse logo, send emails to podcast at macworld.com. Tell us what you’re thinking, what you want to buy, what you’re looking forward to in 2026. Because like I said, there’s a lot of stuff. We’ll talk about the next, we’ll talk about the best. Jason Cross (01:24)All right. Michael Simon (01:50)not the best. We’ll talk about whatever you want to say next week. It doesn’t really matter. I always say the best, it’s not the best. Like who are we to judge? Whatever you want to say, we’ll talk about next week. All right, Roman, give me a couple minutes. We haven’t talked to you guys since December 17th, even though you might’ve listened later than that. So it’s been a while. ⁓ Anything interesting happened to y’all over the break? or happen at all over the break. Jason Cross (02:24)Yeah, the week before Christmas at all hell broke loose around here. My wife got in a car accident that was she’s she’s fine. It’s not it wasn’t like ⁓ it wasn’t serious enough to be like, you know, life’s threatening in any way, but it messed up the car real good. And then we had to deal with insurance and we’re driving a rental and we’re still dealing with insurance because like, you know, the collision places and weekends and then there’s Christmas and New Year’s and all this other stuff. So everything that already was taking too long is taking that much longer. And then the day after that our dog got sick and we had to rush it to the emergency vet. You know, it’s not we’re we’ve been dealing with that because it’s some it’s some GI thing that she’s got some GI inflammation and we’re not sure what’s causing it. But after all these tests, we know it’s her blood works good. She’s got no no disorder. 10. Michael Simon (02:51)Yep. good, that’s good. How old is your dog, Okay. Jason Cross (03:20)And this kind of thing happens and there’s a million things that can cause GI inflammation in dogs. It’s not that she went outside and ate a dead animal or something because she doesn’t go and we watch her and stuff like that. But it can be all kinds of things. And she’s a super nervous dog anyways. So it can be stress, it can be whatever. But we’ve been dealing with diarrhea and vomiting and then it was getting better and then I got… worse again and we were making this new bland food for her. It’s been it’s been Michael Simon (03:54)It’s like having a child. Who can’t talk to a heck of lot tell you what’s wrong. Jason Cross (03:58)Yes. It’s like having a child who cannot talk to you and it’s, yeah. but she’s other than the obvious sort of food and intestinal problems and stuff like that, she’s been acting relatively normal now. At first she wasn’t, she was acting very lethargic and sick and, and she did again a week later when it, when it suddenly went all the way back to square one, but we’re still dealing with Michael Simon (04:13)Okay, that’s good. Jason Cross (04:27)All those things, she’s not back to normal yet. And yeah, and we don’t have our car, we’re driving a terrible rental Chevy Malibu that is just awful. I don’t even know if it’s, that it’s a Chevy Malibu or it’s like the cheapest worst three year old Chevy Malibu as well. Michael Simon (04:35)Ha ha ha. Yeah, that’s probably what it is. I mean, don’t they make Roman Loyola (04:46)Thanks. Michael Simon (04:50)really low end cars strictly for rental companies? Like cars that people don’t even buy, they’re so bad. Jason Cross (04:52)Yes, they do. They do. I know, I know the Malibu and if you rent an SUV, the Equinox are like all over rental car companies and almost nobody buys them. I was, my cousin used to work for Chevy dealer and I was asking her, do you know anybody who ever bought like a Malibu? And she’s like, she’s like, yeah, one of the guys that are, who worked for our dealership did, cause he had to make quota or whatever. And then he hated it and he sold it. Michael Simon (05:03)Right. Right. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Jason Cross (05:22)And it, but it’s like, I think they’re manufactured mostly for big rental car companies. have big contracts with and they buy 10,000 of them at a time and stuff. ⁓ but we hate it and we just want it all to, we want to get on the other side of all this nonsense. So that, yeah, my, holiday has not been great. Michael Simon (05:28)Right. Right. I’ve never had a good rental car experience. So we went to Hawaii a couple of years ago and I rented a convertible. We were like, you know what, let’s splurge. And it was still crappy. It was like an old soft top Audi and it was just like this, no matter what car you get at a rental car, it’s never good. Jason Cross (05:48)Mm. yeah, it’s a way, yeah. I can’t remember what it was. We rented, we traveled to visit, we all went with her, my wife’s family to some theme park in Kentucky or something like that, I don’t remember. ⁓ And rented a house and we rented a car. We rented like a Toyota 4Runner or something there and that was fine. That was just totally fine. We’re like, it’s very snowy, we should get like an. Michael Simon (06:20)Right. Right. Sure. Jason Cross (06:33)some kind of SUV. That’s what they had. was something with four-wheel drive just in case. you know, it’s also I think a four-runner is the top selling car in the world. So it’s not surprising, but Michael Simon (06:35)huh. Right. I went to visit my friend in Florida. This was a while ago. I think it like, like, like pre COVID. And it was, so I took like a, it wasn’t quite a red eye, but I got there like after midnight and I, you know, I booked the car and I show up and they’re like, we gave you an upgrade. It’s in, you know, spot, whatever. And go, great. And I, I, I walked to this thing. It is like a, it’s like an F 150. Jason Cross (07:08)Yeah. Michael Simon (07:09)I think I need a class D driver license. I cannot drive this thing. You gotta give me something smaller. There’s no way. I don’t care if it’s an upgrade. It’s not happening. Jason Cross (07:13)You Michael Simon (07:22)Roman, did you have a nice vacation? Roman Loyola (07:25)Yeah, my vacation was compared to Jason’s was very uneventful. The most exciting thing I did was I watched the HVAC championships on television. It was the most exciting. Yeah, there are actually competitions where people were these HVAC technicians put together a system and they’re timed. Yeah, that was the most, well, that was more exciting than. Michael Simon (07:29)Well, all of ours was. Any track like air conditioning repair? No way. Get out of here. And they broadcast this? Roman Loyola (07:55)This was on the eight ESPN eight where they broadcast weird things. Yeah, the out show. Yeah. That was almost, that was more exciting, a little more exciting than the plumbing competition that I watched right after that. So I was, yeah. So I didn’t really do much to this holiday week. Jason Cross (08:00)The Ocho, I was on the Ocho, that’s awesome. Michael Simon (08:00)yeah, yeah, the Ocho, yeah, yeah. ⁓ up clearly. You could have watched something better than that. I mean, I have my issues with with Pluribus, but it was certainly better than an HVAC competition. Roman Loyola (08:23)Yeah, I did finish Ploribus and I finished Slow Horses. I purposely saved those for the break week and I’ve watched those, so which we can talk about later. Michael Simon (08:29)Yeah. Yeah, sure. Yeah, we got our Apple TV segment. I’m so glad we don’t have to call it Apple TV Plus anymore. All right, Roman, that’s three minutes, right? Jason. ⁓ That’s close. Well, Jason, I’m sorry you gotta deal with all that stuff. I hope it all sorts itself out in due fashion, but insurance is just a pain. Roman Loyola (08:43)Yes, a little more than that. It’s always more than that. It’s, quote unquote, three minutes. Jason Cross (08:45)I think, yeah, it’s always more. It is. Michael Simon (09:01)So all right, well, if this was Roman’s show, he would say, speaking of 2026 or something like that. So like I said, we were just talking about this show. So we always do a preview show every January, at least as long as I’ve been part of the podcast, probably as long as we’ve been doing the Mackerel podcast, all 965 episodes of it. Every year we do a preview. And every year it’s, you know. Jason Cross (09:08)Hahaha! Roman Loyola (09:09)You’re a transition there. Michael Simon (09:29)is a couple of new iPads, a couple of new Macs. This year is crazy with the amount of just new stuff that Apple is reportedly going. There’s like four like brand new or three or four brand new products, some serious updates, a shakeup of it. There’s all sorts of stuff going on. So we’re gonna focus on, we’re gonna go month by month and focus on the first half of the year. And I didn’t take any notes, Jason. I don’t know what the heck is due in each month. So we literally just decided this like 10 minutes ago. So my notes are not month by month. But I think I can figure it out. So we’re in January. We’ll start there. ⁓ Jason Cross (09:58)Right. Yes. Michael Simon (10:17)iOS 26.3, maybe, probably, possibly. Jason Cross (10:21)Right. ⁓ Yeah, usually comes out the dot three. I looked at the history for the last several years worth of that. It usually comes out like sort of last week of January, sometimes just into February. ⁓ But yeah, and 26.3, you know, the beta’s out there and there’s just kind of special in it. That’s not the special. There’s not, don’t get excited. ⁓ Michael Simon (10:43)Yeah, it’s there’s not much. Jason Cross (10:49)It’s really nothing’s gonna happen in Apple land in January or February. Well, that’s not necessarily true. I guess we should start, I guess the first product we should say is the rumors say early 2026 and we don’t know what that means, but it could be before March-ish is that inexpensive MacBook, right? Michael Simon (11:12)Yeah. right. Wait, pause on that one. So at the end of 2025, we heard rumors and rumors and rumors and rumors of a new AirTag and a new Apple TV 4K. Do you think, does either of think that we’re going to get that at some point, just as like a wake up one morning and the website’s refreshed with like a new AirTag or a new Apple TV, or are they going to push that to some point down the line? Jason Cross (11:15)Okay. Mm-hmm. Yes. I think we’re gonna get that, but I think we’re gonna get that in like March or something. Michael Simon (11:46)So like as part of the larger event thing. Jason Cross (11:49)As part of some larger event or some larger, even if they don’t mention it at the event, they’ll probably refresh that and that new HomePod mini that they were talking about that again, it’s also it’s a chip upgrade. Those are all chip upgrades. Yeah, yeah, I think they’re just waiting to build them into the air tags, the wild card, because like, what’s that waiting on? But I think everything else it’s like they’re waiting on new Siri and all that stuff, you know. Michael Simon (11:57)That, right, that too, right. Yeah, so like, by all accounts, those are done, like getting ready to go. Okay. Right, Maybe, yeah, maybe. ⁓ So we have gotten like random announcements in January before HomePod 2. Most recently we got MacBooks, MacBook Pros, was that last year Roman or the year before? That came out in January or maybe the Air last year, I don’t know. But like occasionally Apple will drop something in January. So it’s not out of the question that we could get one or all of those things that show up. Jason Cross (12:20)Mm-hmm. Michael Simon (12:43)next Wednesday or something, you know, at eight o’clock in the morning and just like, look, there’s a new Apple TV and it’s the same thing with a new chip or whatever. Jason Cross (12:51)There’s like five products that are essentially ready to go that could drop before the spring or later, right? And it’s like the Apple TV, a new Apple TV, a new HomePod mini, new AirPods, this inexpensive MacBook, whatever that is, right? ⁓ And was there one more? Michael Simon (13:05)Right. Well, the MacBook Pro, the M4 Max and Pro MacBook Pro, we’re not really sure if those are ready. Right, M5, because we got the M5 MacBook Pro in October and suspiciously absent was the Pro and Max. So like, presumably they’ll come out sooner than later. And then I don’t think Apple is gonna wait all the way into the fall to release the variants for that. Jason Cross (13:21)Yeah, changing the M5s. No. No, no, that’ll be first half of this year’s supply. Michael Simon (13:45)Right, so that could come out at any moment as well. There’s a lot of like, and that’s not even the big stuff. These are also, all so the Jason’s MacBook Pro, or the new MacBook, that’s a big product. That needs an event. If they’re gonna release that, whenever they release that, that’s gonna have its own dedicated thing. Jason Cross (13:58)Yes. I would think so, yeah. It makes sense to release it later. we just mentioned all those things that are basically just chip upgrades. The MacBook Pro getting the M5 Pro and Macs would be kind of the biggest deal of those because they’re supposed to be the M5 Pro and Macs are rumored to be kind of special with how they deal with RAM or whatever. And the 16-inch MacBook Pro didn’t even get an update because it doesn’t have a basic M5 model. Michael Simon (14:14)Yeah, those four. Yeah. Right. Right, that’s true. Jason Cross (14:34)Like it only has a pro and max, right? So it’s still on the fours. So that would be the biggest of those, but the rest are just, you know, that new air tag, it’s supposed to have better range and better battery reporting be harder to. Yeah. It’s like harder to dis to, to, mess with the speaker on it. Like that’s, I don’t know why they’re not out except that maybe Apple has a warehouse full of air tags. need to move first. Michael Simon (14:45)It’s bizarre that we haven’t gotten that yet. Right. They might, because Amazon’s been selling them for pretty cheap. But yeah, something like that, that’s a security privacy thing. It’s surprising that Apple didn’t update it a year ago. But yeah, we’re still waiting for the second gen. Jason Cross (15:02)Yeah. And those are huge during the big travel season, which we’re just on the other side of now. Like that was all the holidays. So yeah, that was weird. Any of that could drop. I guess when we get into the spring stuff, it gets really big. And I feel like the spring event, I feel like there’s gonna be a spring event this year. We’ve had a lot that are just drops, but. Michael Simon (15:14)Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah, think so too. If we could put money on, what’s that website where you could bet on things happening? Like bet on a, yeah, yeah, polymarket. Bet on an Apple spring event, because it’s almost certain to happen. Jason Cross (15:35)there’s a bunch like polymarket or something. Will there be a full spring event? Because there’s kind of two big things going on. One is new Siri and the other is the affordable products, is which would be this new affordable MacBook, this iPhone 17e, right? Like there’s like the inexpensive push, you know. And I think that could make a good holistic event, you know, for Apple. Michael Simon (16:08)So you think 18.4. So 18.4 is the one that’s rumored to, it’s 18, what am I talking about? 26.4, thank you. It’s supposed to bring the new series that we’ve been waiting over a year to get. Jason Cross (16:12)26.4. Yes, ⁓ that was the rumor. There’s been no changes in those rumors. They’ve been pretty consistent. ⁓ As far as we know, it is a completely new foundation for Siri, built on a new large language model. is allegedly Google’s Gemini technology. Michael Simon (16:26)So probably March. Jason Cross (16:46)But it’s not just Gemini, it’s customized for Apple. It’s gonna run on Apple servers. It’s gonna have all of Apple’s privacy protections. It’s gonna have some different, and it’s gonna do all that stuff on your phone that they promised that never got delivered. All the app integration stuff, personal, yeah, the personal context stuff, the understanding what’s on your screen, all those kinds of things. It’s bringing all of those features and just. Michael Simon (17:00)Right. The iPhone 16 stuff. Yeah. Jason Cross (17:14)when you’re not using those features, just all the regular series stuff is just gonna be built on a new foundation. ⁓ I am very, very interested, but my expectations are measured. Like I’m, at this point, I mean, they really have to hit it out of the park at this point, and we’ll see. I think they know that, but God. Michael Simon (17:25)Sure, as they should be. Yeah. Yeah, and I think they know that. I think that at this point, yeah. It’ll be interesting. So 18.3, if we get that in like three or four weeks, that first 18.4 beta, assuming it’s, why am I saying 18? What the hell’s wrong with my brain? It’s not even like, I could say 19 would make sense. Why am I stuck on 18? Jason Cross (17:41)26.3. I don’t know. Yeah. We just, we just came back from holiday and none of us are back into the swing of things. ⁓ yeah. The 26.4 beta. I don’t know if it’s going to be in that or what, like, I don’t know if it’ll be. Michael Simon (17:59)26 for beta. Right, so that was gonna be my question. Do you think Apple will out itself or will they hold back? Jason Cross (18:09)My guess is that people who dig into the code will find references and all this stuff, but it’ll be disabled on the server side until some kind of event or whatever. Because I feel like they need to get out there and say, hey, here’s the new Siri and all it can do and set expectations and all that kind of stuff. Michael Simon (18:17)Sure, yeah. That makes sense. Cause it’s not the kind of thing that. Right. There’s not much developers could do to help them test it. Like it works or it doesn’t. Like it’s not like they can say, well, there’s a bug here or a bug there. Jason Cross (18:42)Yeah, no, there should be a ton, right? Because this should bring those hundreds and hundreds of app intents that developers need to hook into. ⁓ But they could maybe enable that for developers, but it’s just not going to be all the serious things. So I don’t know. Michael Simon (18:50)Well, yeah, that’s true. ⁓ have they haven’t released that apps intent API yet? Jason Cross (19:04)They have a very small handful of them and have had for years and that let you do things like say play this on Spotify and it plays on Spotify or play this audio book. So there’s a very narrow selection of them right now and this is supposed to blow it up to hundreds and hundreds of things that go into every photo app and all kinds of stuff. But they need app updates to work. Michael Simon (19:06)Okay. Right, right, right. Mm-hmm. Jason Cross (19:32)the apps need to be updated to use these things. And either that or maybe they won’t. Sometimes Apple does this stuff where they work in private with a handful of big companies. They’ll work with Instagram or something like that. So they have something at launch and it’s not until after launch that everybody else gets the new developer kit and gets to build updates and stuff. I don’t know how they’re gonna handle it. Michael Simon (19:49)Right. Yep. Jason Cross (20:00)but it’s definitely supposed to be coming. We haven’t heard any word that it’s not. Apple hasn’t announced any of this, but like the rumors haven’t said like, no, but slipping until. Michael Simon (20:06)Right. Yeah. Usually Yeah, so German last year, Mark German from Bloomberg last year reported pretty early on that there were problems with Siri and that it was delayed. And then Apple came out a couple, like a month and a half later and say like, yeah, it’s going to be pushed back to some time in this year. Well, they said this year and then it’s that it turned out to next year. But yeah, so we haven’t gotten that report. If there were problems, we would know, I think. I think we would know because if it’s due in Jason Cross (20:29)We don’t know. Yeah. Michael Simon (20:42)eight weeks, like they gotta be pretty far along and pretty happy with the development by this point. Yeah, you would hope. Yeah. Jason Cross (20:46)Right. You would hope. You would hope. Yeah. Of course, right Murphy’s law is we the second we stop recording this podcast, there’s going to be some news report today saying like, you know, series delayed until I was 27, you know. Yeah. Michael Simon (20:57)Hahaha. Yeah, that’s true. If you’re reading that on our site, ⁓ right, we recorded this on Tuesday, January 6th at 2 p.m. Eastern time. Jason Cross (21:11)So, but that’s a big deal. And that’s gonna be probably March or April. Usually the dot four comes out in March. That’s been the history for a while. Michael Simon (21:23)So will that, right, will it be tied with an event? Or will it come out and then the event will happen or vice versa? So the low budget, the low end budget stuff that you were just talking about, the iPhone 17E and this ⁓ iPhone chip powered MacBook, they don’t necessarily need the new Siri to be great. Jason Cross (21:32)That’s a question. Yeah, so it did. Mm-hmm. Correct. Michael Simon (21:53)Like they are what they are. But there are some products that do, a couple of them we were just talking about. Maybe there’s that HomePod with the display thing. That’s another thing that could come out in the first half of 2026. That’s a brand new product. I don’t think there’s ever been a year of Apple where there’s so many things that could come out that are brand new. Jason Cross (21:55)Yes. Thank There. So that’s the first there’s two things sort of targeted for early this year slash spring or something. One is that a Mac book that is engineered and designed to be well under a thousand dollars never happened. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Six hundred. God, they’d sell a lot. Michael Simon (22:32)Right, well under, like maybe 700 or something, or maybe 600, we don’t know, but yeah. Very affordable by Apple standards. Jason Cross (22:40)Right. And the other is the thing you mentioned that is waiting on this new Siri by all accounts. This thing is kind of ready to go by all rumors and stuff. Yeah. Right. It was supposed because the new Siri was supposed to come out a year ago. It was supposed to come out last year and it’s waiting on the new Siri and this thing people some people call it home pad or whatever but it’s essentially supposed to be a tablet. ⁓ Michael Simon (22:49)Right, we’ve read that it was delayed because the new series was delayed. Jason Cross (23:09)form factor device that is kind of square-ish. It’s not as wide as like an iPad. Something about is like a seven inch display or something like that. Seven or eight inch display. know, kind of think of it more like a more square iPad mini. ⁓ And it is their answer to Google Nest Hub or Alexa or Echo Show. ⁓ Michael Simon (23:14)Mm-hmm. Yes, they’re saying, know, something like that. Echo Echo Show you. Jason Cross (23:37)It is meant to be a smart home command center. It’ll do FaceTime. It’ll cue up music, but it does not have an app store. It’s not an iPad, right? ⁓ And it will have its own custom sort of interface. So that is, and you’re supposed to be able to hang it on a wall and it’ll be battery powered or you can plug it in or whatever. And then, Michael Simon (24:00)If we could hang it on a wall, Ben and I would have a cable hanging from it. I hate those. Those pictures where people show these things and they’re lovely and then you get it and you’re like, wait, it needs to have a plug going down to the wall. So they need to not do that. Jason Cross (24:05)Well, the idea is that it’s supposed to be. Yeah. I the rumors is supposed to be battery powered. But for how long? Like how long do you have to if you’re going to hang it on the wall? Like am I going to charge it every day? Like I don’t know. But I can see it being something that you put on a stand or you keep down and then you put it on a wall to have a FaceTime call while you do something somewhere and you move it around. And that might be something they talk about of it being is something that you move around. And it is. Michael Simon (24:21)Yeah. Right. Every 10 hours I got to recharge. Yeah. Jason Cross (24:45)One of the rumors is it doesn’t have an integrated, big integrated speaker like the Nest Home Hub or something. It’s gonna dock onto a new HomePod. Like there’ll be a new full-size HomePod that you just kind of dock it onto. It just sits on there. Probably, know, Apple loves their magnets. It’d be some magnetic snap-on thing, which I think would be great. And that’d be a great sort of new HomePod design. So that all… Michael Simon (25:05)Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jason Cross (25:14)could just drop in March with the new Ziri. Michael Simon (25:16)Right. Again, that’s another thing that needs its own event, seemingly separate from the iPhone 17e slash cheap MacBook of that, because there’s someone unrelated. But maybe not. Maybe it’s just one massive. God, I hope not. If that’s the case, I’m taking the week off, because that is a ton to write about. But that’s two brand new categories. The smart home hub, yes, they exist, but Apple hasn’t done it yet. And. this low-end MacBook, which sounds like, a big deal, but it is a big deal because Apple’s never had anything under $999 for a Mac. It doesn’t exist. It has never existed. Jason Cross (25:55)Yeah. Although it is, it is just a Mac. So it’s not like there’s new features to talk about or write about. So I can see them talking all about the new Siri and all about their new home stuff and everything like that. And then saying, and it’s, can get into it more affordably than ever. Here’s the iPhone 17 E and this low cost Mac book. And then they don’t have a lot to say about those because they’re not Michael Simon (26:02)Right. Right. Sure, that’s not bad. Jason Cross (26:23)Like both of them are cut down versions of things that exist. They don’t have new features or whatever. ⁓ So the iPhone 17e, we expect it to be. Michael Simon (26:27)Yeah. Yeah, that’s, that’s going to be different. Yeah. Jason Cross (26:36)Yeah, it’s the same playbook as the 16E last year. People are saying that you expect one camera, expect it to have the latest chip, but maybe running a little slower, less storage. And it might have Dynamic Island this time. That’s the change, no notch. But very much the same. It will be to the iPhone 17 with the iPhone 16E was to the iPhone 16. Michael Simon (27:03)Yeah, my question is, will the 16E stick around at $100 less? Because if it does, that’s way more compelling than it is now anyway. Yeah. Jason Cross (27:07)That’s a good question, yeah. I think so. Yeah. I almost feel like they’re not going to do that for that reason. It’s too inexpensive and too compelling. But who knows? Yeah. Michael Simon (27:18)Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, all right. So January, iPhone, iPhone. My head is a mess right now. January, you know what? Like I have all these notes and I can’t use them because they don’t make sense to me. So January, iOS 26.3, no big deal. February maybe like AirTag and HomePy, we’ll see. March, I think is when you really have to start looking out for the first of several. Jason Cross (27:44)Yes, not that big a deal now. Mm-hmm. Michael Simon (27:57)major announcements, March, April. So we’ve gotten spring events in March before, March like 20-ish. And we’ve also gotten spring events in April. And we’ve also gotten, had one last year or the year before, the year before in May, that iPad event. the iPad Pro event, M4 iPad Pro event was in May. So it could be any of those months. My money is on April, like early April, which sucks because my kid’s off of school. Jason Cross (27:59)Right. Okay. Michael Simon (28:25)And I have a trip planned, so we might have to figure something out for that. But I’m going to say, I’m going to bet, hold on, let me bring up the calendar. Take notes, audience, because I’m going to predict April. Jason Cross (28:25)Hahaha! Yeah. Michael Simon (28:45)21st is my prediction for when the, yeah, later in April for this like big, when did the 16E come out? That was in March, wasn’t it? It was pretty early. They don’t need an event for the 17E. mean, they could just drop it. In fact, they didn’t have an event for the 16E and that was totally new. Jason Cross (28:47)late April, okay. Alright. March, yeah. Not for that alone. ⁓ And things like the AirPod. ⁓ Yeah, they just had a neat website. ⁓ Yeah, and they could do the same thing. There could be some stuff that comes out in March and then they have an event in April. We’re in this weird thing where we don’t know what Apple’s timing for releases are. It’s kind of like, here’s everything coming by the spring. And it’s like 10 things that could drop at any moment. Michael Simon (29:26)Yeah, right, right. The other thing is like Apple events aren’t really what they once were in the sense that, they’re not live. like we’ve had over the, like the Mac mini was a huge redesign that didn’t get an event. So this new MacBook, it could just be a website thing. They don’t need to do an event every for all these products anymore. So. Jason Cross (29:36)Great. Absolutely. Yeah, they’ll do this thing where they’ll do a new just direct to web website release like every day of the week for a week. Michael Simon (29:59)Yeah. Right. And they’ll tease it, like an event, but they won’t have a 10 AM video. Right. Right. Jason Cross (30:04)Yeah. Like a big hour long video with a big intro and stuff like that. And that could, could very well handle it that way again. Michael Simon (30:12)Yeah, they did that last year with the MacBook Air, the iPad Air releases, the M3 iPad Air, which, you know, they were, you know, minor refreshments, but still, you know, MacBook Air people pay attention to. that’s an omnis- Right, there’s more stuff in the first half of the year, right? Jason Cross (30:24)Speaking of iPads, that’s another thing we expect to have. Yep, so regular iPad and iPad Air are due for their updates. ⁓ And then maybe a mini, maybe not. Probably not. Yeah, probably not. Michael Simon (30:34)Right, so they got updated last year. Maybe a mini, maybe a bigger than usual mini based on some reports, but all right, so we’ll backtrack a second. The iPad and iPad Air were just updated in March, February? February, March, I don’t know. Sometime in 2025, yeah. Just minor updates. the reports say that this one won’t be much. Jason Cross (30:47)Mm-hmm. last last spring. Early spring. Yeah. Michael Simon (31:03)different M4 probably for the air, The iPad will probably get a bump to the A18 or A19 processor, which will allow it to run Apple intelligence, which is fine. But otherwise, know, just their iPad. I mean, Honestly, there’s not a whole lot Apple could do. If I was an iPad engineer, I would be like, what am I supposed to do with my job? Because like, it’s basically perfect in the sense that the form factor can’t change much. That it’s thin, it’s light, it’s portable. Jason Cross (31:03)Just to, yep. Hmm? Yeah. Michael Simon (31:33)has a fantastic display like what am I supposed to do every year to make this thing better other than give it a new chip which it doesn’t need. Jason Cross (31:37)Yeah, they keep trying to make it. They keep trying to make them thinner. Like the pro just got really thin, but yeah, the regular, mean, the next step is just like, when is it economical? When is it economical to make them have OLED displays? That’s the next step. And it’s that’s about economics. That’s not an engineering hassle. They can’t do right. That’s just like, when is the, when’s the price right? So yeah, that’s what they’re waiting on. Michael Simon (31:43)Sure. Yeah, yeah. It’s not like it’s thick. Yeah. Right. Jason Cross (32:07)That’s where we’re at. Michael Simon (32:09)And so there’s talk, some rumors that the iPad mini of all things would be the first iPad, the first non-pro iPad to get that OLED display that Jason was just talking about. Jason Cross (32:18)Mm. ⁓ Yeah, but that’s not supposed to happen until next year. It’s supposed to go. Michael Simon (32:28)Well, we don’t, maybe, but it’s possible that it happens this year. it’s in the rumors. Jason Cross (32:31)Right. I mean, that’s what the rumors are saying. The rumors are saying it goes next up is the big MacBook Pro refresh, maybe late this year, maybe early next year, and then iPad mini. So it would be the next iPad mini refresh. If an iPad mini refresh happens like this spring, then it’ll probably just be a chip. Michael Simon (32:54)The mini was, when was the mini, the current mini was introduced in 2024, right? Yeah. Jason Cross (33:00)Yeah, two years ago. And it probably won’t be an update this spring. It’ll probably just get a chip upgrade in the fall and then an OLED upgrade, like the bigger upgrade, like the next year, so late 2027 or something. Yeah, they could just skip it. Michael Simon (33:14)Or they could just skip the chip. They could skip the Mini altogether this year. They’ve done that before, where people who buy the Mini aren’t buying it to do high-end tasks. It’s like an e-reader and portable video DVD player. right. So like the chip it has, runs Apple Intelligence. It’s plenty powerful. The screen’s good. So yeah, they could. But that is in the works, allegedly, in OLED Mini, which would be, I don’t know. Jason Cross (33:29)fine for what it is, yeah. Michael Simon (33:42)That’s nice. That’d be nice. I don’t think it would make much of a difference at that size. Jason Cross (33:43)Yeah, but we’re talking 2027 and if our show here is first half of this year, we shouldn’t expect. Michael Simon (33:53)Okay, I’m gonna write that down. on. Jason says no iPad mini. No, hold on, I’ll me. All right. Jason Cross (33:55)for an OLED one. Yeah. No OLED iPad, Benny. If there’s an update, it’s just going to be a chip. I don’t even think there’s even going be an update. Regular iPad, iPad Air. Yeah. Michael Simon (34:06)They might not be. Why, here’s a question just for anybody who’s listening, why does Apple update the iPad every year and usually the iPad Air, but not the Pro and the Mini? What’s the difference? Jason Cross (34:22)I don’t know. The Pro makes more sense to me why it’s a challenge because they get high-end series processors now and it’s like maybe there’s a cooling challenge or a power delivery challenge. They have to adjust more. The regular iPad, it’s just swapping out that. It’s such an easy chip swap. Michael Simon (34:23)Right. Right. Right. And that’s the least of Apple’s products that needs an annual. Jason Cross (34:47)Right. It doesn’t need it. That’s what gets me. I mean, it’s kind of like the Apple watch at this point where it’s like, you don’t get anything more from a one year newer chip. Like you don’t in terms of just updated every other year, they sell a ton of them and they would still sell a ton. Even if the chip inside was just like, it’s a 14 month old chip. Let’s just, it’s fine. Just Michael Simon (34:54)Yeah. Right. I don’t even think people who buy it even pay attention to what the chip is. Right. Right. Jason Cross (35:14)They don’t, can’t, I can’t imagine. Michael Simon (35:18)So anyway, all right, that was an aside. Roman, what do we have? Like a half hour-ish? So we got, all right, so we still got WWDC, but before that, the MacBook Pro, the M5 Pro and Mac’s MacBook Pro also have to come out at some point. Apple almost has to have two clusters of releases here. One, probably an event. Jason Cross (35:22)You Michael Simon (35:47)and one like a bit of a stretch of website announcements because there’s just too much stuff to cram into one event. And they all need like a little bit of attention. Like as Jason said before, the MacBook Pro, it’s not just, here’s the M5 Max. The reason, the allegedly the reason why they waited is because the M5 Pro and Max processors are going to handle graphics and RAM differently. which will allow people to kind of mix and match what they want. So if you want 32 gigs of RAM, but 30 core GPU or whatever, like you’ll be able to have a little bit more control over how you build your machine, allegedly. So. Jason Cross (36:20)Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Yeah. even if that part of it doesn’t end up true, they are using a new process that builds the RAM in closer to the CPU. Like it builds it on the same substrate and stuff like it’s like a new packaging technology from TSMC. So that just takes more time to manufacture and test and stuff than the older, but that could just all be part of them having more memory bandwidth and it’s faster. And you know, these are the great. Michael Simon (36:49)Mm-hmm. Right, and the M5 is already really good. It’s a solid upgrade. So the M5 Pro and Max, they’ll be excellent. I have an M3 Max MacBook Pro I’m considering maybe. I’ll upgrade. But as we’ll talk about next week, there may be an even better MacBook coming out in October. So like I said, it’s a crazy year for Apple. Jason Cross (37:04)Yeah, it’s really great. Hahaha Right. Yeah, I almost feel like they can have. Michael Simon (37:28)This like Tim Cook might be like, know what, this is like my send off. I’m getting through this year and then I’m out of here. Jason Cross (37:36)Yeah. And then, um, then there’s a few little maybes. There’s, there’s some wild cards this year that we don’t know if they’re coming, but like the ones that come, this may come the first half of this year are they’re working on a new studio display. There’s actually two, there’s actually two registration numbers. So that could just be two different models or it could be two different sizes. Michael Simon (37:55)right. That too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Jason Cross (38:03)⁓ We’re not sure, but that and they need to update the Mac Studio and the Mac Mini to M5. They’re not expected to have really any other things except moving to the M5 generation. But ⁓ and those all feel like they should go together, right? It’s obviously a new monitor and the new display list Max, right? Michael Simon (38:04)Right. With M5, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, the original. The original studio display or the current studio display came out with the Mac studio back in 2022. So yeah, they kind of go together. And then there’s also that pro display that’s like $6,000 or $5,000 that also hasn’t been updated in even longer. Jason Cross (38:38)Right. It hasn’t been updated and we don’t have as the solid rumors where people have like code numbers and stuff for a replacement. So maybe that’s not happening. The new studio display is supposed to have HDR and promotion, which would be huge improvements. And I’m sure they’ll have like the speakers are better and all, you know, other things too. So all of those go together. There’s rumors of an iMac Pro that could launch in the first half of this year. Michael Simon (38:59)Right. Right. Yeah. Jason Cross (39:15)So all this stuff could launch anytime up to and including WWDC. Michael Simon (39:19)The iMac Pro would be a pretty big deal. I’d be surprised if Apple just crammed that into like, oh, by the way, here’s this thing you’ve been asking for for 10 years. Jason Cross (39:23)Yeah, it would. Exactly. Yeah. So yeah, just all that just goes to say like they could just have a Mac event that is all of this Mac stuff. There’s so much Mac stuff that could land in the first half of this year that they could just have a Mac only event. Michael Simon (39:40)They could. And like early Mac stuff, usually Mac is like October, November time. all they released last year was the M5 MacBook Pro. So there’s all this Mac backlog of stuff. Like the Mac Mini still has an M4, as Jason just said. The iMac, even without the Pro version, the iMac still has an M4. That could get a new one. that design is now five years old. They could get a new one. There’s so much little stuff. Jason Cross (40:03)Mm-hmm. so much. Michael Simon (40:14)Like that would normally, in a normal year, that would be like, cool, there’s all this stuff. Like that’s like second, like that doesn’t even matter compared to the other stuff coming out. So by April, by May we’ll say, we could have a new MacBook Pro, ⁓ a new low cost Mac. Jason Cross (40:23)Yeah. Michael Simon (40:41)⁓ iPhone 17e. ⁓ smart display thing. Jason Cross (40:49)Yeah, home hub thing, yeah. Michael Simon (40:51)Home hub, home pad hub, whatever. A new series, the new series that we’ve been waiting two years for. And maybe Apple TV, AirTag, HomePod mini, iMac and Mac mini. Before June, before WWDC and the MacBook Air somewhere in there too. And Mac Studio and a studio display. It’s absurd. Right, it’s absurd. Plus we didn’t even talk about the MacBook Air was gonna need an M5 at some point too. Jason Cross (41:05)and and max and max studio and max studio and iPad and iPad and iPad air. Yeah, now like like three quarters of these are yeah, three quarters of these are just ⁓ straight up chip chip and chip things, but there’s still new products, right? And then that still leaves quite a number of products that aren’t that are actually like Michael Simon (41:29)Yeah. Jason Cross (41:34)new or have new features or some special thing. yeah, it’s a massive. Yeah. Michael Simon (41:39)crazy. Like it’s crazy. that’s like, and next week we’ll do the second half of the like we haven’t got so we’ll do WWDC right right now. But the second half of the year is just as big as the first half of the year. It’s it’s it’s crazy how much is rumored like credibly rumored to be coming out from Apple this year. So WWDC is probably going to be June. I don’t know what what is it the second second Monday or something. Jason Cross (41:50)Okay. Yeah. It’s always first week of June, swear. Yeah, it’s always like the first week of June. Michael Simon (42:09)The first week is, so June 1st is a Monday. So we’ll say like maybe June 8th or probably June 8th, right? Jason Cross (42:13)⁓ It could go either way when it’s like that. ⁓ So it started June, WWDC. The last few WWDCs have not had hardware releases, but before that it was really common for them to drop some stuff that developers like, like Macs. So there could be some Mac releases or something. Some of these Mac releases we mentioned could come at it. It did. It didn’t ship. Michael Simon (42:20)Yeah. But one of those, one of those two Mondays it’ll be WWDC. Yeah. And Vision Pro also got its debut at WWDC a couple of years ago. Jason Cross (42:45)but they showed it off, yeah. ⁓ Michael Simon (42:47)Right. Yeah, we’ve gotten MacBook Airs, we’ve gotten MacBook Pros, we’ve gotten Mac Pro, we’ve gotten Mac Studio, all those things have happened at WWDC. So it’s also possible that these things that are in the last segment, some of them get moved to WWDC. ⁓ Jason Cross (42:52)Mm-hmm. especially things that developers like, Mac Studio, Mac Mini, Studio Display, you know, these are developer kind of focused items. ⁓ Those would drop, you know, dropping those at WWDC. Other than that, it’s the big 27 updates and we don’t know much about them yet. The rumors are, you know, UI refinements, of course. ⁓ Michael Simon (43:20)It’s all of the operating systems, yeah. Jason Cross (43:34)and additional Siri and Apple intelligence features. We don’t know what, just additional Apple Siri and Apple intelligence features. Michael Simon (43:41)Yeah, mean, 2025 was kind of light on Apple intelligence, new Apple intelligence stuff. I think we’ll get a handful of new, so once they get the new Siri out of the way, there’ll be like a handful of new stuff that they talk about. Right. Jason Cross (43:56)Mm-hmm. Yeah, it’s about improving that and adding features to that. And there’s one rumor that says that Apple is considering giving Siri sort of a personality, like making it have like a visual identity and personality. They’ve even gone so far as to say, like, if you look at the Mac Finder logo, that’s kind of what they’re talking about, like an animated version of that, like something cartoony and friendly and have a personality. Michael Simon (44:12)Right. Jason Cross (44:27)And that might even be part of the 27 updates. ⁓ There’s a big service update coming this year where Apple is supposed to be taking Fitness Plus ⁓ and health and expanding health and giving it AI features and calling it Health Plus and then wrapping up the Fitness Plus stuff into that. It won’t be Fitness Plus anymore. It’ll all be part of this new Health Plus service. Michael Simon (44:46)Mm-hmm. Jason Cross (44:56)That’s to me that sounds like something that’s gonna be part of the 27 updates. Like they’re just gonna announce that at WWDC. There’ll be a big segment on it and you know. Michael Simon (45:08)Yeah, basically taking the existing fitness plus, which was just updated last week with some new stuff and adding a bunch of health stuff to it, maybe increasing the price by two or three bucks a month or something and cramming that onto Apple One, which we’ve seen them do that before. Jason Cross (45:25)Yeah, yeah, they’re the service supposed to be called health plus ⁓ and it’s will all this stuff live in the health app will be separate apps still I mean we don’t know it’s that’s not really the point. The point is I don’t think a lot of people are using fitness plus so they’re going to. Michael Simon (45:29)Yeah. Great. I was so over the break, There was like an Instagram tease that Apple did before all the new stuff [on Apple Fitness+.] So I wrote a short little story, and I was looking at the comments on the Instagram post. And I was surprised. There was quite a few people who use it and are excited about it and like it. So I think maybe it has more users than we think. I mean, I don’t think it’s as many as Apple Music. But it does have its followers. People do use it. Jason Cross (45:44)Hmm? Yeah, and it’s in Apple one, so you get that. ⁓ But yeah. Michael Simon (46:11)Yeah. And you get a couple months free when you buy a new Apple Watch and iPhone stuff. So yeah, it’s Jason Cross (46:17)So I think that’s the thing. They’re gonna wrap that into a whole new service called Health Plus. I don’t think that’s coming before the 27 updates. I think that’s gonna be part of the 27 updates, yeah. With a whole new design and AI features and all that other kind of stuff. Michael Simon (46:27)That would make sense here. So that’s fall. Yep, yep. And Mac OS, iPad OS, ⁓ Vision OS, know, Vision OS is another thing. Like we’re not even going to really mention that, but there’s the off chance that we get like Apple glasses because we’re in like that kind of nebulous time that… Jason Cross (46:39)Yep. I was going to save that for, we, if we talk about all that stuff, I that, if any of that happens, it’s going to be the second half of the year. So we’ll save that for the next show. Yeah. Yeah. Michael Simon (47:01)It would probably be fall. Okay, good. Cause we’re like at an hour already and we still got, I still got to, got to complain about pluribus. all right. So, so that brings us to June and that’s, that’s, that’s where we said we’d stop. I promise you next week we’ll be more organized because I’ll be prepared for this month by month thing that I wasn’t prepared for. ⁓ but, so yeah, so all right, we, we, we, we’re not going to run down all of the things again, but Jason Cross (47:10)Yeah, so let’s talk about. Michael Simon (47:31)HomePad, low-cost MacBook, like two new products, two huge new products could arrive within the next six months, along with a slew of other smaller updates. And again, that’s only half of that. We’re still climbing the roller coaster of 2026. There’s a lot. Jason Cross (47:54)And new Siri is it’s a big deal, man. It’s that’s that’s could be. It’s kind of make a break for. Michael Simon (47:56)And New Siri, yeah. Yeah, when I was preparing this, kept thinking that it was, it was announced two years ago. Like it is so late. Jason Cross (48:07)Yeah. in WWDC 2024. Michael Simon (48:13)Yeah. Okay. So stay tuned to next week where we’ll do, you know, false stuff, iPhone, Mac. Like there’s a lot there too. All right, good. Okay. Let’s start with, so what we’re watching on Apple TV, I watched and I think we all watched the full series of Floribus. Like, so the finale was right before Christmas. I think it was on the 23rd or 24th. Yeah, right. Jason Cross (48:38)Yeah, just skip ahead 10 minutes if you’re no one spoilers. Michael Simon (48:42)Right, so it aired, think we’re safely out of the like the jerk, jerky spoiler zone, but yeah. If you haven’t seen it and you wanna be surprised, yeah, do your little thing and skip forward a bunch. Or if you’re on. Roman Loyola (48:58)We’ll have the time codes in the description for the. Michael Simon (49:01)⁓ look at that, see? Good job. So yeah, I do that. But okay. So before I give my thoughts, I want you guys to give your thoughts on just the whole series, the finale and where we end. So there was only nine episodes, which I thought was weird. Usually there’s like 10, but ⁓ okay. What do you think? Jason Cross (49:03)Right. Yes. it, I mean, it was very much ended with the knowledge that there’d be a second season. Like this, has no, even though it wasn’t like officially greenlit for a second season until it started airing already. And maybe they had a different ending filmed or something like that. It, it’s completely unresolved. There’s just see you next season ending, right? Michael Simon (49:37)Well yeah, that’s for sure. Mm. Yeah, the- The way they built the show, it was impossible to wrap anything up on episode nine. Jason Cross (49:59)for sure. Yeah. You know, a lot of drama happens as we get to episode nine stuff. But to me, I mean, I love it, but I’m in for a Vince Gilligan experience where there’s these moments of big drama. There’s these moments of like, I don’t call it excitement because it’s not like action necessarily, but like, I mean, Michael Simon (50:26)It’s not. There’s no action whatsoever. There’s some. No, I’m kidding. I’m, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I’m being glib, but. Jason Cross (50:31)You know, they blow up a hand grenade and stuff like that. There’s, there’s, there’s some things and right. And she almost kills, ⁓ Zoja and stuff like that, you know, you know, there’s, there’s, and then everybody leaves her entire city. You know, there’s, there’s things, but then they’re separated by long periods of slow like character development stuff. And that’s very Vince Gilligan. That’s like better call solace like that. Michael Simon (50:41)Sure. Yeah, things happen. Yeah. Jason Cross (51:01)Breaking Bad is that we kind of forget because there were also these high light moments, but we forget that he had a 10 minute sequence of Mike Armintrout disassembling a car to look for a bug. And we sit there and we watch him for an entire commercial break length, like an entire thing, taking apart a car and not saying anything. It’s just like a sequence. And it’s to me, it’s kind of gripping because it’s like, it just shows you get to know these characters in a way. Michael Simon (51:14)Right. Yeah, no, I know that Jason Cross (51:30)and you get to care about them in a way that you don’t when things move really quick. But yeah, there’s a, go ahead. Michael Simon (51:36)Sure, but I don’t think I would have, I don’t think I wo
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