Appleviews – 06th January 2023
Happy New Year
I hope you had a lovely break over the holidays, and you are ready to face ’23 with renewed vim and vigour.
And, if you’ve been patiently waiting all week, here is your treat – the first Appleviews of the New Year.
Sign writing
If you have a little of the Christmas bonus left over, I may just be able to help you invest it wisely.
Auction house, Alexander Historical Auctions, have two items of Apple memorabilia that may just tickle your fancy.
Firstly, is the sign that Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniack used at their earliest trade shows in 1976. They then went on to place it outside their California headquarters for many years too. It is still in the original, wooden, weathered frame, and has the iconic, rainbow-coloured logo on it (see the image at the top). It is expected to fetch between $100,000 – $200,000.
The other item, is Wozniack’s Apple Computer toolbox. The toolbox bears Steve’s name on top, and was used around the time of the Apple I computer. This is expected to fetch up to $30,000.
Is it headset time?
This week, I have both written, and made a video about Apple’s AR/VR headset.
Late last year, there had been some hope of a January event, at which the headset would finally be launched. According to Ming-Chi Kuo, those hopes have now been scuppered.
The latest delays are due to mechanical component drop testing and the availability of software development tools.
Kuo now believes that Apple may hold a springtime media event, or more likely, showcase it at this summer’s WWDC. Although that event usually focuses on developer-centric announcements, Apple has not been afraid to announce hardware there from time to time.
If it is announced in the summer, headsets should be landing in customers hands by the end of the year, once developers and suppliers have had a chance to ready themselves for the launch.
Get set, ready, go
Historically, the first Apple event of the year, is in March.
According to leaks, from the highly reliable LeaksApplePro, this year’s March event, looks like it will be focused on the Mac – and not just one…but THREE new Macs.
The much anticipated Apple silicon Mac Pro is slated to make its debut this spring. It now looks likely that the Mac Pro will run on an Apple M2 Ultra processor, not the planned ‘M2 Extreme’. The Ultra will top out at 24 CPU cores, 76 GPU cores and 192GB of RAM.
The Mac mini will also receive its facelift, and power-bump. This tiny, popular, powerhouse, was last updated in 2020. Finally, it looks as if this spring, it should be getting the M2 Apple silicon processor. I’d expect that Mac to fly from the shelves.
And the final new Mac on show in spring, looks set to be the 15-inch, M2 MacBook Air. It may finally ship with a 15.5-inch display.
LeaksApplePro is worthy of taking notice of, as he posted images, that turned out to be pretty spot-on, of AirPods third gen, just before release.
Always on or not
Since iPhone 14 was launched running 1OS 16, one of the main concerns, had been about the battery drain coming from the Always-On Display.
To some degree, this has recently been addressed with the slimmed down Always-On experience, now on offer with iOS 16.2. But, have you ever wondered just how much energy it saves?
Well, YouTuber PhoneBuff put the two versions to the test. They placed the iPhone 14 Pro in Airplane Mode at 1,000 lux brightness, which is about what the iPhone uses in an outdoor environment.
The results indicated that the Always-On with wallpaper had 0.8% battery drain per hour, whilst the black-only, Always-On saw a drain of only 0.6%.
Over a 24-hour period, the iPhone 14 Pro with the Always-On display with wallpaper consumed 16% of its battery life, compared to 14% with a black background, and 0% with Always-On disabled.
Clearly, this is not a real-life scenario, as generally, you’d have a Wi-Fi or LTE connection, there would be incoming notifications, as well as the general, daily usage. But, nonetheless, it does offer some data at least.
First financial call
Apple will be announcing the results of their first fiscal quarter of 2023 on 2nd February. The results will be accompanied by an investor conference call featuring CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri. They will discuss the first quarter’s results in an investor call, later that same day.
Cook & Maestri will take this early opportunity, to not only look at the results, but also make forecasts for what could be a tricky year ahead. Forward-looking guidance will be broken down in to specific segments.
More for less
With the release of last year’s iPhone 14, Apple made a large demarkation between the pro, and non-pro phones. This year, that gap, may be slimmed down somewhat.
Analyst Jeff Pu, of Haitong Intl Tech Research, expects to see significant camera upgrades coming to this year’s 15 and 15 Plus iPhones.
Based on supply chain data, Pu thinks unlike last year, when the mid-range phones differed little from the previous year, this year, the gap could be closed.
Both iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus are now expected to have a 48-megapixel wide lens, with a stacked sensor. The midrange iPhone 15 models, however, still won’t have a telephoto lens or a LiDAR scanner.
These two phones will also remove the lightning port, being replaced by a basic USB-C port, and be upgraded to the A16 Bionic chip.
Apple are still keen to steer customers to their flagship phones, of course. The headline news, this year, is expected to be a periscope-style zoom lens. The 12-megapixel lens will offer 6x optical zoom. This will sit alongside the existing telephoto lens for 3x optical zoom.
Both iPhone 15 Pro models are expected to have a new A17 chip built with 3-nanometer technology, 8GB of RAM, thunderbolt-speed USB-C, and a titanium frame instead of stainless steel.
The dates pencilled in, currently, for release are 15th September, and then in-store 23rd September.
Expensive batteries
In a press release earlier this week, Apple announced the price of replacing batteries is about to increase.
Apple is increasing the price of out-of-warranty battery replacements for all iPhone models older than the iPhone 14 later this year. The price for iPad and MacBook batteries will also increase.
As of 1st March, the out-of-warranty batteries on iPhone 13, 12, and older, and iPads will increase by $20. The price increase for MacBook batteries will raise by $30.
The increase will only affect customers who have not taken out AppleCare, or AppleCare+.
Fun of fitness
The superb Apple Fitness + service, has received a New Year’s freshen-up.
As of the start of this week, kickboxing is now offered as a new workout category. And, as with other workouts, there will be ten, twenty, and thirty-minute sessions available. The workouts will initially be led by trainers Jamie-Ray Hartshorne and Nez Dally.
A new category has been added to the meditation sessions – sleep, is aimed to help users relax, and get a better night’s rest.
I am a devotee of the Time To Walk series, and for 2023, there are some new guests on there to listen to, and walk with.
Jamie Lee Curtis, talk-show host Amber Ruffin, actor Jason Segel, chef Jose Andres, and actor Sheryl Lee Ralph, recently Emmy nominated for her work in the hit comedy series Abbott Elementary, are all available to listen to whilst walking.
Meanwhile, the Artist’s Spotlight workout series has added a new playlist centred on songs from Beyonce’s newest album, Renaissance.
There will be some new trainers added to the Fitness + roster this month as well. Brian Cochrane will focus on high-intensity interval training, and, Jenn Lau will lead strength workouts.
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