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I love reading the tea leaves of Apple’s event announcements.
When Apple holds a product launch, the company usually sends out invites that include a short animation of the Apple logo. Instantly, everyone goes into forensics mode, analyzing the animation for clues about the products to be released.
Tim Cook set off a frenzy this a.m. by posting a message on X that said: “Big week ahead. It all starts Monday morning!” That basically confirmed what the rumors were saying: Apple will release a raft of products next week, likely each on a different day.
Cook’s post included a short animation of what looks like the back of a MacBook with someone making an Apple logo with their fingers. So, MacBook + multitouch. Most of the comments on Tim’s post speculated about new MacBook Pros that will supposedly come with a touchscreen.
But those machines aren’t expected until later this year. Next week, we will more likely see spec-bumped MacBook Pros with the latest M5 chips.
What’s going on? Is Tim throwing shade?
Maybe. Take last year’s spring event, for example, which Cook teased with a liquid chrome Apple logo with some kind of halo.
The halo sorta resembled an AirTag, but could have been the top of a HomePod smart speaker. Or it might have been related to Apple Intelligence somehow. The big rumor for the event was a new budget iPhone capable of running Apple’s AI tools. And lo and behold, that is what was revealed: the iPhone 16e, which did indeed support Apple Intelligence.
But looking back now, divining that from the teaser would have made you some kind of Nostradamus. It wasn’t obvious at all.
The same holds true for next week’s product-palooza. Nonetheless, here’s what we are expecting.
Also in today’s newsletter:
I thought this was a joke, but no, Keychron really is making a keyboard out of concrete.
I’ve never seen this before: Apple put out an unusual press release touting the extraordinary out-of-the-box security of iPhone. It’s high enough for classified NATO secrets — which is great news for user privacy, too.
🔥 DEAL OF THE DAY: Ditch your house keys with this well-reviewed new smart lock that’s fully compatible with Apple Home, on sale for 26% off. The gray version is even a little bit cheaper.
As we discussed on last week’s Cult of Mac podcast, we all miss the days of free weeklies, which published concert listings. The new Concerts feature in Apple Music promises to fill the gap, but it has an inexplicable shortcoming that’ll hopefully be fixed in future versions.
Cult of Mac writer Ed Hardy loves a good iPhone/iPad external SSD, and they are smaller, faster and more voluminous than ever. Here are three of his top picks.
Don’t miss the last X post below from AI expert Andrej Karpathy. Exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. We’re on the cusp of a very strange new world.
— Leander Kahney, EIC.
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It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.
Today’s poll
What is the deeper meaning of Tim Cook's X teaser?
Results from yesterday’s poll: Now are you interested in a touchscreen Mac?
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