Fri. Mar 29th, 2024
0:00 On today’s Apple Daily,
0:47 Could we see new AirPods NEXT WEEK?
1:21 New iPad Pro miniLED Reports Confirm 1st Quarter Refresh
2:33 Apple Earnings call set for Jan 27th
3:20 The MagSafe Ecosystem

That was a lady who lives in my phone and I’m iCave Dave, if you’re an Apple Sheep like me hit that like button, and if you want all the Apple news every weekday with a British accent, subscribe and ring the bell so you never miss a thing. I’ll even say thanks in our next video if you do that and post #NotificationSquad in the comments, just like Oculus Picks and That Drummer Kid did yesterday. That’s right, I’m mixing it up and putting them at the top of the video like a crazy person.

Let’s do that news then. One quick “maybe headline” before we start – there are reports that Apple may introduce AirPods 3rd Gen next week with AirPods Pro style design and wireless charging but no noise cancelling. The rumour comes from a new twitter account with no track record and 24 followers at the time of writing. So, keep your eyes open on January 12th, just in case. Sometimes these burner accounts are set up just for a new piece of info, but we’ll see.

New iPad Pro miniLED Reports Confirm 1st Quarter Refresh

Supply chain leaks suggest we should be seeing our first iPad Pros of the A14 generation with the A14X variant in the first quarter of the year according to DigiTimes. They report that the first miniLED devices were originally expected by the end of 2020 (remember when I predicted that?) but worldwide health issues delayed it, not any technical problems.

The miniLED Displays are set to be produced by Epistar though again we’re only seeing reports of a 12.9” variant. Its quite possible that Apple is planning for the larger iPad to retain the Pro name, with the 11” being replaced with the Air model in future updates, or it could be that panels just simply aren’t ready at this point in the smaller size.

Beyond the displays, iPad Pro 2021 is expected to ship with Apple’s A14X chips with similar performance to M1, 5G Cellular support and few other changes.

Apple Earnings call set for Jan 27th

On Wednesday January 27th Apple’s senior team will report the holiday earnings in what could be a massive year. Without any iPhone launch in the previous quarter, as well as including the Apple Silicon Mac release, iPad Air, iPad 8th Gen first full quarters of Apple Watch Series 6 and SE, and what seems to have been the runaway success of the iPhone 12 series, it could be a huge quarter, beating last year’s very strong $91.8 Billion in sales from the iPhone 11 launch.

Apple will of course also have increased services revenue with Apple One fully launching, and this will help carry revenues into the coming year too.

The MagSafe Ecosystem

Adding some fuel to the fire that could be redesigns coming to the Mac range in the near future, Patently Apple has discovered new patents for Apple’s plans when it comes to integrating 2 way wireless charging between devices.

These new patents suggest multiple charging zones on devices like MacBooks with potentially three devices charging wirelessly across the palm rests and trackpad when the machine is not in use, or even up to 9 charge rings in the lid allowing a stack of products to charge through each other in a kind of mad looking pile.

The most interesting though is the idea that charging an iPhone on the screen of an iPad may allow the iPad to put whatever is obscured by the phone onto the phone’s own display, so the iPad could still be used on a table.

If this is to be the case going forward, there would be a number of design changes needed, such as different materials that can pass through the wireless current, so could we see Ceramic Shield backs coming to iPads and Mac lids? If the durability is good enough that could also allow slightly thicker laptop lids which also could accommodate the better cameras everyone wants along with FaceID in a sensible position and implementation.

The standardised magnet layout could also be used to attach different devices to future accessories, like being able to put different devices onto a magic keyboard and trackpad style base to make an iPhone more productive for example, though this would need a new generation of these devices of course.

What do you think the most interesting part of this is? It looks like there was a good reason Apple didn’t bring 2 way wireless charging in the past, and this could be a great way to implement it. Let me know your thoughts in the comments, thanks for watching and I’ll see you in the next one.