By John Moltz
December 8, 2023 6:27 PM PT
This Week in Apple: The haves and the have nots
Apple’s got big plans for next March, Android users are muddying the waters and, sure, she’s got an award-winning podcast and I don’t, but have you seen her dance? Terrible.
March Madness
According To Mark Gurman™, this March will be a big one for Apple, possibly because they will have an extra day to prepare for it.
Tim Cook: “I don’t know how we’re going to get this all done for a March event.”
Jeff Williams [rushes in breathless]: “February has an extra day next year!”
Tim Cook: “Oh, cool, we’re good, then.”
Gurman says Apple will ship new iPad Pros, the rumored larger-screen iPad Air, another new Apple Pencil, and M3-based MacBook Airs.
“Apple Readies New iPads and M3 MacBook Air to Combat Sales Slump”
John Gruber speculates that the new Pencil is to allow Apple to move the camera from the short end of the iPad Pros to the long end. I speculate it’s to introduce more confusion to the Pencil line.
This all comes on top of Gurman’s earlier reporting that Apple would ship the Vision Pro around March as well.
You might want to clear your calendar for March. And pack your bank account.
Conflicted feelings
Look out iPhone users, because soon you may not be able to spot the Android user in a message thread. (You know how we all like to do that.)
“Beeper Mini for Android sends and receives iMessages, no Mac server required”
An Android user who signs up using Beeper Mini is then able to send messages via iMessages, which appear on iPhones with blue bubbles instead of green.
Well, if Android users are going to have blue bubbles, then I’ll just find a way to have a green one!
Wait, that doesn’t make any sense. Also, don’t we want more interoperability so that our message threads aren’t a cacophony of different colors and awkward replies about how “Beatrice loved an image”, no matter how many times you tell Aunt Bea not to do that, all just because fricking Todd switched to Android?
Dammit, Todd.
Still, I do like feeling like I’m a member of a select club, even if it is one that is the majority of users in my country.
Very confusing. (Update: Beeper Mini now appears to be broken.)
In a related story:
“Thieves rob DC Uber Eats driver, reject stolen Android phone for not being iPhone”
Haha, stupid Android! Even thieves don’t want…
Wait, is this an ad for iPhones or an ad for Android phones? I don’t want my phone to be stolen when I’m delivering someone’s future gastrointestinal pain direct from Chipotle.
What is happening here?
Bitter? I never even met her.
You know it’s a slow Apple news week when we’re talking about podcast awards, but this week Apple announced its 2023 Show of the Year and I regret to inform you it’s not your podcast. No, not even you, Whiskers, the talking cat. And you seemed like such a shoo-in.
“Apple Podcasts Announces ‘Wiser Than Me With Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ as 2023 Show of the Year”
Yes, it seems the talented get more recognized for their talent and the rest of us just get harder and harder to listen to.
This is quite a feather in the cap of a podcast that’s only been available since April. Some of us have been toiling over a hot mic since January.
Well, showing up and recording, anyway.
“Wiser Than Me” has been renewed for a second season that is due to premiere in spring 2024.
Oh, well, then this is a great time to announce that the award-eligible podcasts that I’m on—The Rebound and Biff!—have both been renewed for their tenth and fifth seasons respectively.1
I mean, unless there’s anything good on TV. Or, in the case of Biff!, if there isn’t.
- This seems like an error on the part of a network somewhere. —Ed. ↩
[John Moltz is a Six Colors contributor. You can find him on Mastodon at Mastodon.social/@moltz and he sells items with references you might get on Cotton Bureau.]