By Dan Moren

January 31, 2023 2:05 PM PT

The Back Page: M2, Brute?

It wouldn’t be the release of a brand new Apple product without the release of a brand new -gate to go along with it. Unlike power adapters and headphones, the company continues to bundle in controversy with every single purchase. (At least this time, it’s environmentally-friendly renewable controversy, since we already went through SSD-gate with the M2 MacBook Air last summer.)

Why does the company keep committing these unforced errors? For a trillion dollar corporation, it seems like there should be somebody whose job it is to make sure all the iMacs are dotted and all the AirTags are crossed. Which leaves only one possible conclusion.

They’re doing it on purpose.

Yes, there may not be someone in charge of stopping these gaffes, but after exhaustive investigative work, my sources have exclusively confirmed that there is somebody in charge of making them.

And their name is Erin. Or maybe Aaron. It was hard to hear over the iPhone I was holding wrong.

Yes, Erin/Aaron is the mastermind behind all of Apple’s most famous -gates of the past two decades. Mousegate: The Lightning connector that plugs into the bottom of the Apple Magic Mouse? Their handiwork. Camgate: The Apple Studio Display’s lackluster webcam? All them. Mapsgate: The launch of Apple Maps? They went to town on that sucker.

The real question, of course, is why. Why was such a position ever created, and why does it persist to this very day? Surely Apple would prefer if its products were not being actively sabotaged from the inside out.

Ah, but therein lies the galaxy-brain rationale behind it all. By baking in its own controversies, Apple is doing its customers a favor.

Yes, I said it. A favor.

Nobody wants to spend all their time looking for the flaw in the expensive iPhone they just bought, or thinking “Oh… this MacBook is just too good, there must be something wrong with it.”

But if you tell them up front what the stupid tradeoffs are going to be, you engage that good old cognitive dissonance reduction that says “Oh, sure, this iPhone might bend if it’s in my pocket [Bendgate], but it still feels like the future!” Because, frankly, everybody talks about slow read/write SSD speeds, but nobody ever does anything about it.

Now, thanks to Erin/Aaron, you just don’t have to worry about mights and maybes. The other shoe is pre-dropped for you. You’re welcome.

It might sound counterintuitive, but you can’t argue with success. Sure, people might have complained about keyboards (Butterflygate) and outdated video-out protocols (HDMIgate) and surprisingly talkative processors (Hiss-gate), but Apple has still sold products hand over fist despite the OMG major flaws inherent in each of them.

Plus, and perhaps most importantly of all, this has kept Aaron/Erin in a job for twenty years. And you don’t want to see what would happen if they were unleashed on the rest of the world.

Just think Twitter, but bigger. With more flames.

So when the Apple AR/VR headset eventually comes out and inevitably has a clunky battery pack that you need to stick in a pocket, don’t get mad. Just sit back, nod knowingly, and say, “Nice one, Erin/Aaron. Keep up the good—er… bad?—work.”

[Dan Moren is the East Coast Bureau Chief of Six Colors. You can find him on Mastodon at @dmoren@zeppelin.flights or reach him by email at dan@sixcolors.com. His latest novel, the supernatural detective story All Souls Lost, is out now.]

By John Moltz

January 27, 2023 12:05 PM PT

This Week in Apple: Feel the elephant

The M2 Mac mini and MacBook Pro reviews are in, Ivory is here, and details of the Apple headset?! Our collective cups runneth over.

“You made the car too good.”

The new M2-based Mac mini and MacBook Pros fell into the hands of reviewers this week and the results were mostly what you’d expect.

Let me just check the notes here I made from reading several reviews…

Just says “hecka fast”.

Actually it says something different but I changed it to “hecka” because this is a family-friendly site.

(It was “darn fast”.)

Here’s Jason on the MacBook Pro:

These are incredibly fast laptops, and they don’t slow down when they’re running on battery power.

Here’s how Dan described the M2 Pro Mac mini:

…a high-performing machine that will go up against the more expensive products in Apple’s desktop line, like the Mac Studio.

The Verge’s Chris Welch said of the same model:

So far, it’s been an absolute screamer worthy of the “Mac Studio junior” moniker — and then some.

Greg Joswiak says the new Mac mini is:

A powerful media engine for blazing performance.

Oh, wait, he’s… that guy. Never mind. He’s not supposed to be in here.

These machines are so hecka fast, though, that they have Dan asking if Macs are getting too fast for their own good.

The truth of the matter is that even the Pro series processors are way overpowered for most common computing tasks.

Well, at least the low-end SSD configurations are slower!

Wait. That doesn’t… uh…

Really, though, while I understand people complaining about Apple going cheap on the SSDs, when the computers are already so fast, doesn’t it make some sense for Apple to make the low end devices a little, well, low end?

I’m legit asking because I kind of feel like we’re in uncharted waters here.

Ivory is here

With the much-anticipated release of Tapbots’s Ivory for Mastodon, I’d be tempted to say our long national nightmare is over but it really hasn’t been that long. It’s only been a bit over two months since the “unpleasantness” started at Twitter, so the fact that we already have a cherished and familiar interface for our new home in the off-world colonies is pretty cool.

And if you’d like to take a step outside the familiar, there are any number of other terrific iOS clients for Mastodon currently in development and even for sale. Here’s hoping the Mac catches up soon. (Literally as I was typing something snarky about the state of Mac Mastodon clients, a Mac beta for Mammoth arrived, so I retracted my comment.)

It’s a great time to be a part of Mastodon, if you like cutting your fingers on sharp edges! And, for a limited time only (disclaimer: not for a limited time only), if you set up a Mastodon account now, you can follow none other than Apple Fellow Phil Schiller!

Yes, the guy who introduced all those phones and Macs has joined Mastodon after famously deleting his Twitter account back in November. It’s almost like the guy has a problem with Twitter’s new management.

Look, if you’ve been hanging on to Twitter wondering if there’s enough to argue about on Mastodon to make it worth your time, let me assure you that you’ll find any number of people you’ll think are catastrophically wrong about which Mastodon client is the best. So come on over and check it out; you’ll be glad you did.

So, that’s how it works!

Finally, via Mark Gurman, we will find out…

“How Apple’s Upcoming Mixed-Reality Headset Will Work”

Is it magnets? I’m gonna bet it’s magnets.

The headset will have several external cameras that can analyze a user’s hands, as well as sensors within the gadget’s housing to read eyes. That allows the wearer to control the device by looking at an on-screen item — whether it’s a button, app icon or list entry — to select it.

So it’s not magnets?

Users will then pinch their thumb and index finger together to activate the task — without the need to hold anything.

Good news for those who were breathlessly waiting for the dystopian world of The Peripheral to become real! Jackpot!

Like Meta’s latest headset, Apple’s device will use both virtual and augmented reality.

And a third reality called “pudding reality”. Apple thinks you’ll find it “delicious”.

The device will have a so-called Digital Crown — like the Apple Watch — that lets users switch between VR and AR.

Transitions lenses, now for reality. I cannot wait for people to be wearing these while driving, because I really needed another anxiety. My doctor said I wasn’t getting anxious enough.

The details in Gurman’s piece are interesting, but the part that’s still nebulous is what it’s for, other than vague hints about meetings and games, neither of which have ever really been an Apple forté. At the risk of mixing metaphors with the Mastodon stuff above, it does still feel like we’re feeling our way around this elephant. It’ll be a relief to finally see it when it’s revealed and find out what Apple’s… pachydermed into it.

I’ll see myself out.

[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.]