Episode 1002: Mac mini and Mac Studio reviews

Welcome to the Macro Podcast

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0:30Your heart can tell you a lot about your health. Apple Watch Series 12 measures your heart rate every five seconds with the most accurate heart rate sensing in a wearable. So your vitals app, now with heart rate variability, can tell you when something is off. And your readiness score can let you know when to rest and when to push. Hear the story in every heartbeat with Apple Watch Series 12. The features described are for wellness purposes only and not for medical use. iPhone 11 or later required. Based on Apple conducted study of heart rate accuracy, August 2026. Visit apple.com slash Apple Watch Series 12.

1:05Unscripted, unfitled, unafraid, welcome to the Macro Podcast. My name is Michael Simon and I am joined by Jason Cross. Good morning. And our producer, Roman Loyola. Ahoy there. This is episode number 1002. And today, Roman, we're going to talk about Macs, your favorite subject. Last week, are you trying to do the, the, the, the, the, I think we turned that off. I was going to, and then I realized I don't have the reactions on. We all turned it off. He gave, for those listening, he gave two thumbs up trying to spark some fireworks.

1:38And we don't, we will, we're not having that.

1:42Last week, we posted our reviews of the Mac Mini, the M5 Pro Mac Mini and the M5 Max, Mac Studio. And so today, we're going to talk about that, the new chips, which includes the M6 and the M5 Ultra. Prices, probably a lot about prices because, man, that's like the number one thing that, that we should talk about.

2:04Whatever's coming in the future, maybe if we get to that, if we, we'll, we'll see where it goes. But, but it's going to be all about Mac. So if you, if you're only here for iPhones, you can, you can tune in next week when we will talk about the iPhone 18 Pro.

2:18After that stuff, we'll have this week in Apple history and we will close, as always, with our common corner. Speaking of comments, you can contact us through Blue Sky Facebook threads. Search for Mac, or look for the Blue Mouse logo. Send an email to podcast.macworld.com. Comment under a video, comment under a post, send us a personal email. Just get in touch with us. Tell us what you're thinking and we'll talk about it on a future show. All right, Roman, those that don't know, this is like a third attempt at doing this today. So we're not sure how it's going to go the rest of the day. We might have technical issues, but right now it's going okay.

Mac Studio performance and upgrades

2:49And we're going to start with the Mac Studio because it's crazy expensive and no one, like, I don't think anyone is looking for our recommendation to buy one. If you, if you want one, you know, you want one. We're not going to convince anyone to spend three grand on a computer because we like it. Giving people not compelling reasons to stay tuned to the podcast. No, no, no, no, no, no. I think, so, no, it's quite the opposite because I think it's super interesting to talk about, even if you're not going to buy one.

3:20Because it's a really, it's a fantastic chip. Well, let's start with Roman's, like, review and, like, the actual product, you know, and mine. And then we can get into the whole pricing thing because I feel like that's its own huge discussion. The pricing is the thing, right? Let's pretend that we can afford all this stuff. Roman, how good is the Mac Studio? I do that all the time. Yeah, how good is the new Mac Studio compared to last year's, compared to whatever?

3:51Well, actually, ever since the Mac Studio has come out, it's been a chip upgrade every time. That's right. Apple's never going to, well, I don't want to say Apple's never going to change the form, but I think it's here to stay for a long while. There's nothing wrong with the design or anything, unless you're into installing third-party cards or anything like that, or you have a desire to want to upgrade things on your own.

4:24You can't do it because this is, you know. Yeah, and that's gone for good. Yeah. That's gone for good. Well, I remember. I was thinking about that this morning, actually. I want to say it's gone for good, but then there was news that Apple's working on a new XServe server because of AI. And so, who knows? And it's so Apple is paying attention to the AI market and the demand there.

4:55And they got a new CEO. Right. They have a new CEO. So, who knows? Maybe there will be eventually a demand for a Mac tower all over again because of AI. That's the only thing I could see it, how I could see it happening is, you know, AI companies are like, you know, if you made a tower, we'd buy 10,000 of them. And that's the only way I could see it happening. 10,000. Apple doesn't get out of bed for 100,000.

5:26Wait, quick question for Jason before we get off this topic. Is it conceivable that Apple could make a standalone graphics card or could that, like, is that impossible? Well, it's conceivable. Like their own. Like an NVIDIA GeForce thingy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they could make something like that. It would be, there'd be a ton of work involved for them to make it something that can work with, like, Windows or Linux or something like that and other people's CPUs, right?

6:01But they're far more interested in finding ways to link up. They have their whole chip. They have their whole system on a chip, which is a CPU complex and a GPU complex and a neural engine. And they're far more interested in finding ways of making multiple computers work together. So, like, their server, their blade servers that are for their own servers are just multiple Ultra Chips, like, in little, they're in little modules, but it's the whole Ultra Chip. And they spent a lot of time in the review process for these, for the new Mac Studio and the new Mac Mini, showing that they support a new Thunderbolt standard where you can link multiple systems together and they see each other's memory pool and they all work in parallel, which is, like, for AI, like, to work, to do big AI loads and stuff like that.

6:55They, like, they, like, demonstrated how, like, here's four, we have four, like, Mac Studios and they're all linked together with Thunderbolt and I'm going to send a job to them and they're all, you can see the whole system process of all of them. You can see, like, oh, all their GPUs are busy working on this big AI project and stuff like that. So, that's how I think they're thinking of it. They're not thinking, like, we're going to have a CPU and memory and motherboard and then separate GPUs you plug in the stuff and everything. And I just think they're, like, no, we're going to have, like, a server, a rack server, where we get rid of all the aluminum enclosures and drives and all that stuff and you just have, like, essentially entire Macs, like 16 Macs in a Blade server without all the enclosures and all the other stuff.

7:43Because why are they going to bother? I remember when the Mac Studio first came out, they called it modular and we were kind of laughing at that. But that's kind of what, like, that's kind of what Jason's talking about. Like, it's not, like, you can't, you know, pop in an SSD or pop in RAM, but they do kind of work nicely and Thunderbolt is fast enough where it all kind of works seamlessly and you don't even really know who's switching to what and what's going on. If you have, like, $20,000 to blow on stuff. But we'll talk about prices later.

8:14All right, Roman. Sorry, we sidetracked almost immediately. But let's get back to the Mac Studio. Yeah. So I looked at the M5 Max, Mac Studio, and we also have benchmarks from the M5 Ultra, but I'll talk about the M5 Max that I reviewed. So it's a chip upgrade. There's nothing else, as I mentioned. There's nothing else really new about it. There's some more, there's some more robust, robuster?

8:46There's better display support now. Yeah, there's some stuff where if you have multiple monitors attached, they support higher refresh rates on the, like, multiple monitors, which is more of a Mac Studio thing. And that is a hardware bit, but it's not like they didn't support two or three displays before. Now it's just like, oh, it's higher refresh rates on each of the displays. It's a pretty niche thing, but, yeah, that's what's new. So in terms of the performance, I mean, it's pretty much an incremental update from the M5 Max, between the M5 Max and M4 Max.

9:26You know, with Geekbench 7, we saw a 22% multi-core CPU performance boost, which is pretty much in line with what we've seen in the past. Yeah. It's funny, back in the Intel days, we would have killed for 22%, but that was like, yeah. And going from M4 to M5, the split between how they did performance cores and efficiency cores changed. Right. Right? So there's more efficiency cores and fewer performance cores, and it gives you more, and it's just more to have more cores in general.

10:04So the multi-core numbers, the best improvement. The single core is not, it's less than that, and, you know.

10:14And single core is what? Like, do I ever use multi-core? I bet I don't.

10:21Or rarely. For what you do, probably not, but you also probably don't need a Mac Studio, right? Right. Yeah, I definitely don't. But even, like, I have a MacBook Pro, and I'm using, I don't think I'm getting the most out of the, I have an M3 Max from a couple years ago, and, like, there's no way. Like, those cores are just sitting here, like, can you give us something to do?

10:43You need to start working on your AI development. Something, yeah. Yeah, so the biggest change that I saw, everything else is pretty much an incremental update. The biggest change that I saw, the most dramatic change, was with the SSD, which we saw with the M5 Max MacBook Pro. And so that was, finally, it comes to the Mac Studio, and it's a pretty dramatic change. It's almost, it's more than, like, twice the performance. Yeah, it's like double, yeah. Yeah, which, you kind of think about it, it's kind of, kind of a shame that it took so long to come to the Mac Studio, because the people who use the Mac Studio desperately need that.

11:27Yeah. And, you know, it's almost kind of wrong that it came to the MacBook, well, the MacBook Pro people need it, too, but Apple needed, should have introduced it sooner than later. That's, it's a whole M5 generation thing. That was a big leap from the M4 generation in any product to the M5 generation, is double the SSD performance, basically. And it double sounds like a lot, until you realize it had been completely flat for about, since, like, the M2.

12:00Yeah, right. Like, the M1 was pretty slow, and then, like, from M2 to M4, which was, there were, those weren't just three years, because it was, like, there were some extra years there. It was, it didn't change at all. So, it went from, like, back in the M2, it used to be, like, wow, Apple's SSD performance is really fast. Like, all the PC folks were just, like, man, they have really good SSDs, and then they just passed us all by.

12:30Yeah. So, this kind of just catches them back up. It's, you go, like, wow, it's double, but it didn't change for years. So, this is just catch-up on all those years they missed. Yeah. And it's good. It is really fast. Don't get me wrong. It's great SSD performance, but it's equivalent to a really great Windows machine's SSD performance. Yeah. So, we also looked at the M5 Ultra, and compared to the M5 Max in Geekbench 7, we saw a 47% multi-core boost.

13:05Over the M3. Yeah. Over the M3, it was more, like, 34%. Okay. So, yeah. I mean, that's not that surprising, considering that an Ultra is, like, I mean, it's not technically correct to say that. Well, I guess you could say it's two M5 Maxes. It's pretty close. It's basically two M5 Maxes. Yeah, it fused together, yeah. Yeah, it fused together with an interconnect. So, you know, you're going to get a super boost, a big, giant boost there. Yeah, it's fast.

13:36You sound really, really excited about this robot. Well, it's exciting, but it's also tempered, because it's like, well, that's what I kind of expected. Right. Yeah, of course. Which is not a bad thing. Yeah, it's not a bad thing. It's just, you know, like Jason said, the SSD boost is really nice until you put it into perspective of, oh, but it's really playing catch-up. You know, everything's nice, and then it's all kind of tempered, because the boost is sort of like what we expected, and, like, the SSD is playing catch-up, although it is a nice boost.

14:12And the M5 generation in all products didn't have any real major architectural change. You know, like the M6, they doubled the Neuro Engine to 32 cores, like in all the products. And so it doesn't have anything like that. And the M4 generation is where they added, like, a big graphics ray tracing, like, update and stuff. So, like, I think the only real major architectural thing was they added those neural processing cores in the GPU, right?

14:51Then they do some, like, AI cores in the GPU. Is that in the M5 generation, I think? Like, not in the M4. But other than that, it really is just like a, well, it's the same, but faster. It's 20% faster. Like, how excited are you about 20% faster? Roman, is there anything that you were hoping or looking for in this update that you didn't get? Like, okay, like what? Like, yeah, okay, it's good. So let's jump to the M6 for a second.

15:21It'll be 25% faster or 22% faster. Like, what are you looking for from Apple to give the Mac Studio something? One thing that was interesting when I got the M5 Ultra benchmarks and looking at the Geekbench AI results and the difference between the Ultra and the Max, the M5 Ultra and the Max, were flat. They were basically the same results, which I thought was kind of interesting because you would think that the Ultra would get some sort of boost, but they were essentially the same result.

15:58And I was kind of hoping for more from the M5 Ultra in that aspect, especially because the M5 Ultra, it has a 32-core neural engine. Yeah. I mean, it could also be the way it's being measured as well. It has two 16-core neural engines, right? Yeah. I mean, that could be the benchmark as well. Yeah. We don't – I need to run other AI benchmarks on it. That's kind of relatively new. Right.

16:27Which kind of brings me to, I guess – I don't know if we want to talk about recommending the Mac Studio or not. We can wait. Or do we want to talk about the price first? Yeah, let's wait. Yeah, it's worth bringing up that they're changing up the schedule some. So they just released the M6. Normally, it'd be like the M6 and the M6 Pro. But it's just the M6, and we're not going to get like an M6 Max and M6 Ultra next year if the rumors are true. What they're trying to do is introduce the M7 in the spring next year instead of in the fall, and then more quickly move to the M7 Pro and M7 Max and all this.

17:04So the next Mac Studio is probably not going to be the M6 Max and M6 Ultra. It's going to be an M7 Max and M7 Ultra. They're trying to skip ahead to the M7 because the M7 is going to be like better for AI and stuff. Right. Right? But on an accelerated schedule. So that doesn't mean we're going to wait necessarily two years for it to come. It could still be within 12 to 18 months. Right. Yeah, it's going to be like 12 to 18 months, but they're just going to skip that generation. Right. So it'll be interesting to see because the M6 made some actual interesting architectural changes, and they're trying to get ahead another generation.

17:42So jumping from the M5 to the M7, that ought to be an interesting jump. Whereas the M4 to M5 wasn't a very interesting jump. And that kind of brings me to what's kind of interesting and bad and good about the Mac Mini. When you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work, use Indeed Sponsored Jobs. It gives your job post the boost it needs to be seen and helps reach people with the right skills, certifications, and more. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes.

18:15Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Your heart can tell you a lot about your health. Apple Watch Series 12 measures your heart rate every five seconds with the most accurate heart rate sensing in a wearable. So your Vitals app, now with heart rate variability, can tell you when something is off. And your readiness score can let you know when to rest and when to push. Hear the story in every heartbeat with Apple Watch Series 12.

18:48The features described are for wellness purposes only and not for medical use. iPhone 11 or later required. Based on Apple conducted study of heart rate accuracy, August 2026. Visit apple.com slash Apple Watch Series 12.

Mac Mini changes and pricing

18:57is that the Mac Mini, it's been two years since we had a Mac Mini. The last Mac Mini was the end of 2024. Now it's in 2026. So that was an M4 and M4 Pro. So now we're jumped to the M6, but there's no M6 Pro. So it's the M6 and the M5 Pro.

19:21Right. And I reviewed the M5 Pro and it's not that great. Like it's the exact same. You mean comparatively to the M4? Yeah, right, exactly. Well, and just for compared to its price and everything else, which we'll get to, but like it's the exact same computer with a faster chip in it. That's just kind of like faster in a very expected way. After two years, you're like, well, I expected a jump of 15 to 20% after two years and that's

19:53what I got. And that's fine. You know that it's got the N1 chip in it. So the networking is a little better, but nobody's really going to notice the difference between Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7. Like that's not a huge, big deal for people.

20:08It has that better multi-display support with like higher refresh rates with multiple monitors. But in the Mac Mini, is that a huge deal with a lot of people? Like it was good with two displays before. It's going to be even gooder. Like, I don't know. So the M4 was, that was the redesign, right? That was the big, the M4 was the big change. Yeah, I'm almost certain. Because there was no M3, so that was the M2. Right.

20:38So it's, that was an exciting bit last time around along with the processor. Now it's like, okay, it looks the same, has the same ports, has, you know. And M2 to M4 was a huge jump. Oh, sure. So, and so M4 Pro to M5 Pro was not a huge jump. It's interesting that we got a, we did get a two-generation jump with the low-end model, the M6. Right. And that does show some interesting results. So if we go back and we look at MacFelt's results where they tested the M6.

21:13Yeah, they got the M6, we got the M5 Pro. Yeah. And they're, you know, you get, that one's even faster single core. So anytime you run an application, even if it's multi-threaded, if the performance is limited by kind of one master thread or whatever, it's going to be faster on the cheaper one. Right, right. Because M6, it has. Which, as we just pointed out, is what most people use a Mac Mini for. Yeah. It has better, it does have better GPU performance for graphics, for rendering 3D graphics, but

21:47it has better GPU performance for compute because it's a new generation GPU with better cores in it for compute. But also for, if you use the GPU for AI stuff, it's really close between the M6 and the M5 Pro. The M6 is only just a little slower. And if you use the neural engine, the M6 is faster because they doubled the cores. So you've got this system that costs the M6 version of the Mac Mini, right, that starts

22:21at $900. And then you've got the M5 Pro that starts at $1,700, almost twice as much. And it's not that much better. Like, it's only better in a few ways. And it's actually even worse in other ways. And it's more expensive. And they didn't change anything other than the chip. And it's been two years and we only got like a one generation chip update. So it's just really hard to record. It's not like it's a bad computer. It's fine. It's a good computer. But it's really hard to look at it and say like, yeah, you should get this.

22:53Like, it's... If they were both, like, so taking price out of the equation. Right. But would you recommend that someone get the M6 over the M5 Pro just because it's a newer chip than different... It's a two nanometer architecture. Well, if it was complete... If they were free to you, if there was completely no price involved. No, no. The M5 Pro is better. It's got... It does have more CPU cores. It does have more GPU cores. It's not that much better.

23:24The only ways... And they both have similar SSDs performance. So really, there's only some narrow ways in which the M6 is faster. Like, very narrow. And it's only barely faster. But it's half the price. Like, not taking price out of the equation, it's really hard to recommend the M5 Pro. So with the RAM issue and the storage issue, and neither of which seems to be solved anytime soon... No. Are you surprised they even bothered to make an M5 Pro Mac Mini and didn't just leave it

23:57with the lowest-end model?

24:03Yeah. And a little bit, I am. Because here's a price comparison I looked at. The entry-level M5 Pro version, which is a 512-gig SSD and 24 gigs of RAM, and it's a reduced version of the M5 Pro. It has fewer CPU and GPU cores enabled. That's $1,700, right? Yeah. It's $300 more than it was in the M4 version and everything.

24:33The version I reviewed is upgraded from that. It's got the full M5 Pro chip. That's $200 extra. It's got 48 gigs of RAM. That's $600 more. Yeah. It's got a terabyte SSD. That's $300 more. And gigabit Ethernet. And so that winds up being $2,900. In U.S. pricing, it's worse than the rest of the world. You can get the entry-level Mac Studio with the M5 Macs for $100 less.

25:08$24.99. No, $27.99. Oh, with the extra drive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. $27.99. Yeah. Right? And it has 36 gigs instead of 48, but it's the M5 Macs. It's got more CPU cores, more GPU cores, still has a terabyte SSD, still has a terabyte gig. So, like, it's just a little less RAM, but it's still 36 gigs of RAM, still a lot. And it's $100 less. When playing, you have all the extra ports and the ports in the front with the SD card slot, all the things the Mac Studio gives you.

25:42So, it's, like, really hard. It's always been bad. Apple's upgrade pricing has always been bad, like when you add RAM and add storage. And it's just so much worse now. Like, the starting prices are worse, and then also the adding RAM and storage prices are worse.

26:00It's just, it's a bad time to buy any computer. But if you need a computer, it's hard to go, like, yeah, buy the M5 Pro Mac Mini. Like, no, don't buy the M5 Pro Mac Mini. That's not the one. Yeah, it's so hard to recommend. And this isn't Apple's fault in the sense that Apple's prices of, you know, like Apple has a wrap forever for overcharging, and it's not worth it. That's not what this is. The Mac Mini that Jason's talking about is a fantastic machine.

26:33And if you compare it against anything from Dell or HP, it's great. Yeah. But a year ago, not even a year ago, three months ago, that machine was $599, and you could regularly get it for $499 on Amazon, the M4 version. Yeah. Now that machine is $900. Yeah. And you'll be lucky to get it for $880. Yeah. It's 50% higher. And it's not 50% faster. It is faster, but it's not 50% faster. Right, and the people who are going to buy it, the people who I would recommend it to, aren't going to care anyway about that extra speed.

27:09The M4 is good enough. You can't find an M4 for less. You could probably sell, if you bought an M4 in May, you could probably sell it for more than you spent. I would assume. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, if it's in good condition. Yeah, it is just so hard to recommend because clearly, like you said, this isn't Apple's fault entirely, right? But it is their problem. Well, everybody who's invested, every company who has invested heavily in AI infrastructure, of which Apple is one, is responsible for this mess.

27:45Okay. You could say. Okay. But it's not like they're singularly involved. Like, it's not their fault. But it is their problem. And it is their problem that they have always been the expensive choice, especially on the upgrade front. And they didn't bother to go like, well, we need to mitigate. They say they've mitigated that as much as they can. But look at their financials. Their profit margins have not changed. Like, that is sacrosanct.

28:16They're not like, oh, we're going to lean, take less profit. No, no, no. So, it's just really hard to recommend these things. Yeah. And they're obviously paying more for all this stuff. I was looking. So, I have an M3 Max MacBook Pro. 36 gigs of RAM, one terabyte of storage. It was the entry spot for the Max. Yeah. In 2023, I paid $31.99 for it. And I had to trade in. So, it was $31.99. Okay. That same machine now, which has two terabytes of storage because Apple doubled the storage.

28:50Like, it forces you to get more storage when you get that machine. It's $1,000 more. That is crazy. Yeah. The same. I mean, it's obviously better. But it's the same starting point, entry point for that tier. However, it's $1,000 more than it was three years ago and probably just a few months ago. It's nuts. Nuts. Yeah. And it's hard to recommend anything because like if you've been following Apple for any amount of time. So, I'll use my son as an example.

29:21He just started high school and he was telling me the other day, it's like, you know, for Christmas, maybe I can get a new laptop. And I'm like, damn, I wish I would have known as it six months ago. I know. I could have saved hundreds of dollars on the same thing. Whether it's a Neo or an Arrow, whatever I'm going to get him or Dell, I don't know yet. I got to go do shopping and see what he needs and what programs. But whatever I get, it's going to cost $300 to $500 more than it would have in March. And you're going to be on a five-week waiting list and stuff to get it and stuff like there's that.

29:56I mean, yeah. So, some of this is just sort of the entire computer industry. It's gone haywire. But Apple's been on the bad edge of it when it comes to pricing. And for that to get worse, but the products not to get massively better at the same time is really hard to deal with. It's a totally different thing if these products were massively better.

30:23And the leap from M4 to M5 really just hasn't been. M4 to M6 is a much more interesting proposition. As much as I hate that the entry-level Mac Mini went up from $600 to $900, it's at least way better than the M4 was. The M6 is way better than the M4 was. It's worth noting that Apple raised prices in June. When the M6 Mac Mini came out, it raised the price again by another $100 on top of the other.

31:02So, it's gone up now twice since June. And it's just so brutal to spend that kind of money, even though it's comparable and even though you can argue, you can make, Apple can make its arguments and I hear them. But it's just so tough to reconcile with the fact that you're paying 50% more for a computer that shouldn't be. It should be the same price.

31:34By should be, I mean that in a normal computing landscape, the M6 would have come out and it would have been $599. And everybody would have said, this is a great machine and it's worth it. It's four and a half stars and go buy one and it's great. Don't upgrade the RAM because it's too expensive. But if you need it, you know. And, you know, Apple was so close to getting it right. Like a year ago or two years ago, they bumped from 8 to 16 gigs of RAM. The storage was great. They came back with the Neo and Mars. Like everything was right there and then boom.

32:05Now it's just, it's impossible again.

32:09I think I said in the review that some of it is really to say that like sometimes good things are still hard to recommend. Sure. Like, so there's no doubt that it's a good thing. It's just like, yeah, but at what price? Like it absolutely is not good enough to justify spending this much. And I would never recommend it to anyone. I wouldn't either. And it sucks because it's, it's recommendable, as you just said, just not for 900 bucks. But I don't think it's going to get any better. And this machine could be over $1,000 this time next year.

32:42Yes.

32:45And, and is it going to be like way better? Like, cause I'm okay with paying, buying a thousand dollar computer, but it's got to be a thousand dollar computer. It's got to be good. That good. They're just not that good. So I, I don't know if, I don't know how Apple gets out of this or beyond this or whatever, but, um, especially if they're not willing to make less money. And you can't even go buy an old one because they can't find them. Yeah. Yeah, I know. Like the AI industry is snapping them up. They're like, this isn't a problem. If you're a regular user, a regular, like not an AI researcher buying four of them to link together.

33:21But like, if you're just like a regular user who needs one for their home computer or school or something like that, I just feel so bad for you because there's just no good option. Look on the refurb store. Maybe. I don't know. Like I just, for like older models. You can occasionally find them. You won't find an M6, but you can get an M4 here and there. They pop up, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And just go with that. Like Apple's refurbs are great. You know, they come with a warranty and they're all tested and everything else. But you know, you got to find cables and all that stuff, you know.

33:52Roman, how much was, do you have that in front of you? The Mac Studio that you got, do you know what the cost was? The Mac Studio that I tested, the M5 Max, is $68.99. Oh, well, that's, I mean, let me go buy a couple of them. That's, yeah. The Ultra that I tested is $12,000. Okay. Or not I tested, that Mac Velt tested is over $12,000. All right. So let me do some comparisons, Jason. You can correct me if I'm way off base here.

34:23So I'm looking at Geekbench. The closest to the Mac, well, it's actually almost identical. The numbers to the M5 Ultra is the AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 9985WX. All right. If I look on Google just to buy that chip with. Yeah. Workstation chips are hecka expensive. Yeah. I assume there's RAM.

34:53I'm looking to see the numbers here. Oh, is this just a CPU? There's no RAM built in. Oh, so there's not even. So it is just a CPU. No, this is a normal, you put in a big old workstation, you buy RAM separate, put them in a motherboard. Yeah. Right. So, all right. I'm not, right. So this is just the chip. On Best Buy, it's $9,100 just for the chip. Well, it's a workstation chip. Right. Which is comparable to the M5 Ultra in Geekbench 7 numbers. Oh, right. In the Geekbench numbers.

35:25Yeah. I'm just looking at those. So as we were just saying, it's not like you can go buy a Dell and save $2,000. Like, it's just, this is pervasive across the whole industry. And it, you know, it sucks that, you know, we're Apple people and I'm going to get as much life out of my MacBook Pro as I possibly can. Like normally three years, I would start thinking about upgrading. It ain't happening. I am going to use this thing until it dies because I'm not spending $4,300 or even half

35:59that for a machine that a year ago was $1,500 or $1,700 or whatever it was. It's just, it's such a frustrating time to be a technology writer, enthusiast, journalist, whatever you want to call us, because, you know, as Jason was just saying, like, this is a great time for development chip. The Apple's chips are faster than ever. The designs are great. The duo coming out is amazing, but man, you got to have some money to get in with this

36:31stuff. I know. And they didn't even, they didn't introduce any of their cheaper, like the cheaper iPhone and stuff like that this fall. Right. So even that you have to wait. Like the only kind of thing that they introduced this fall that's in the like cheap stuff for normal people ranges is, is the regular Mac mini, the, not the pro Mac mini. And that's up 50%. By the way, that Amazon chip you're talking about.

37:02Yeah. Okay. That's on the top. If, if that's the latest model, it's called the Graviton five. And it's a, yeah, it's a server chip. That's 192 cores. Oh, it says that. Yeah. It says not 192. Yeah. That's, that's, that's crazy. So that's, that's why the multi-core. That's probably a $40,000 CPU. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Apple, I mean, Amazon just custom makes them for themselves, right? Sure. The TSMC makes them for, but they just go into a server where they run a bunch of, it's a runs a bunch of instances for a bunch of clients, a bunch of Amazon web service clients.

37:35So it's a bunch of AWS clients running that. Right. Right. At one time, they don't need to be fast. They just need to service a bunch of people. And so, yeah, 192 cores versus 48. What is the, what is the, what is the ultra have? Hold on. It's 36. So yeah, that's, that's quite a bit, that's quite a bit more. Yeah. Anyway, we, we, we, we digress. But so as Jason says, next year, we'll get the budget stuff, probably a new MacBook Neo,

38:09which could also go up again. Like the, we already got a hundred dollar price cut less than six months after it was on shelves. It starts at, um, instead of 599, 699, and that could go up to 799. And you know, this, we're forcing people into pricing tiers that they shouldn't have to be in. And I don't know if it ever changes. I don't know if it, if these numbers ever go down, like, I don't know if this gets better or worse or what, but I think we're in this for at least all of next year.

38:41And probably into 2028, as far as this is the new, the new bottom for the Mac mini is 900 and maybe next year it'll be 1100. Like this is just the way it's going to be. And it just, it absolutely sucks. That's the conundrum, right? Because we don't know if prices are going to go up again. Yeah. So should you buy now because they're going to go up again or should you wait and see if they're going to go up again, but you'll get, and maybe they won't go up, but you'll get

39:13a better price performance index, but they could go up again. So I really feel like that's, I really feel like that's what you got to tell people is like, if you don't absolutely need one, just never upgrade. Like wait till your computer's completely busted because you should at least, yeah, prices are continuing to climb and stuff, but you need a big, we need a bigger jump in capability to justify these price jumps, right? So yeah, it's going to be bad, but it's like you said, it's going to continue to be bad,

39:47but we should at least expect then the products to have a bigger improvement to justify the price. I think Apple wants to do that. There's only so much, what's that, what's that law, Jason? Moore's law. Moore's law. There's only so much that these things go up every year. You know, you can't just magically make chips three times faster. I was just looking on the Apple website. But there's other things you could do. Yeah, right. There are other things and we don't have time to talk about them, but there's the MacBook,

40:18the MacBook Pro is getting a redesign. We're getting touchscreens and you know, like the OLED, iPad mini. There are things that Apple is doing. That will also come at the price. I was just looking, Roman, the M5 Ultra chip. I'm sorry, the M5 Ultra Mac Studio. The 36 core version is backordered until next February. Oh yeah, I just see that right now. And it's not like, I don't think that's because tons of people are buying them. I think it's because that...

40:49Low volume. It's right. Apple has such a hard time getting these things and manufacturing them and getting them into people's hands because everybody wants new chips and new RAM. It's just, it's, it's, it's, it's very depressing. Yeah. Yeah.

41:05All right. On that note. On that note. We're all depressed. Yeah, yeah. No, it's just, it stinks. And, you know, like, I want to be excited about the Duo, but it's $2,000. I know. You know, I want to be excited about the, so the Mac Studio, when the M1 came out, even the, even the high-end version at $39.99 was like, wow, that, that is a really good price to performance ratio, particularly compared to the Mac Pro that was like seven grand. And now that machine starts at almost $6,000 and it's like, well, forget it now.

41:40I know. Yeah.

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42:14Your heart can tell you a lot about your health. Apple Watch Series 12 measures your heart rate every five seconds with the most accurate heart rate sensing in a wearable. So your vitals app, now with heart rate variability, can tell you when something is off. And your readiness score can let you know when to rest and when to push. Hear the story in every heartbeat with Apple Watch Series 12. The features described are for wellness purposes only and not for medical use. iPhone 11 are later required. Based on Apple conducted study of heart rate accuracy, August 2026. Visit apple.com slash Apple Watch Series 12.

42:46All right. It's been a depressing podcast. It has. Maybe this week in Apple history will help us. Maybe it'll, I don't know how uplifting Apple history will be, but at least it's a little quirky. Very good.

Excel debuts on the Mac

43:04This week in Apple history, on September 30th, 1985, so that's, what, 41 years ago? Oh, my goodness. I can do the math in my head. Microsoft, they debuted Excel on the Mac, and the thing that's noteworthy about that debut is that Microsoft actually released Excel on the Mac before Windows.

43:35Oh, yeah. So, it came out on the Mac first.

43:38A few months before. DOS, really? Yeah. So, a few months before this, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates held a conference and announced this release, and then the software came on September 30th. It's interesting why Excel came out first. There were a number of reasons why that happened. And it's mostly because, at the time, people were using Lotus 1, 2, 3 on PCs.

44:14They had the dominant market. Yeah. So, that was one of the main reasons. And also, at the time, I mean, that was Windows didn't ship, wasn't shipping yet. It shipped a couple months later. Later. Yeah. Which is weird, because you would think Microsoft's developing Excel and Windows. I don't know. How come they're not? There seemed to be, like, the synergy didn't seem to be there in terms of development. I don't know that for sure, but it just seemed like that would be something that Microsoft

44:47would time for the release of Windows, but they didn't. Steve Jobs probably worked on some sort of partnership deal with exclusivity. Not necessarily exclusivity, but gave Microsoft an incentive, so to speak, to release it first on the Mac. This was the same year. In January of this year, they tried to do Macintosh Office. That was that Super Bowl ad that spectacularly failed. Oh, right. And so I wonder if, because that means, yeah, yeah, like you, I assume, I mean, I don't know

45:22that much about Macintosh Office. It never really shipped, but I assume some kind of a spreadsheet software was part of it. And they never really delivered on that. And, you know, maybe they turned to Microsoft and said, hey, you know, what do you work on? The interesting thing to me is that, like, yeah, Windows 1 got released just a couple months later in November, but there's still, there was no Excel for that. They really didn't seem to be developing Excel for Windows yet.

45:54It was released exclusively for the Mac for like two years. It was 1987, two years later with version 2.2 that they released a Windows version for the first time. And then also that coincided with the like Mac version 2.2. That was the first time like Excel was the same. So it was really just for a couple of years, it was just a Mac program. Excel was literally only on the Mac. Was it because of like the graphical user interface on the Mac that made it easier to visualize

46:28this stuff? Like, I don't know. I think it was part of that. It was part of, I think Microsoft had a different sort of, they weren't as concerned with like competing with the Mac market then. They didn't think of themselves as having their own platform that they needed to compete. Right, IBM was the competitor, yeah. IBM was the competitor, and Microsoft's entire push in those early days was software should

46:58be its own marketplace. Yeah, yeah. Right? And we should make software for all kinds of different computers, and there should just be a software market. There was no software market before Microsoft.

47:10Like, I mean, people forget that before that, the company that made your computer made the software for your computer, and other people did not make software for that computer. And you had to buy it from the maker of your computer, and that was it. So, yeah, so I think it was just, it was a different Microsoft back then as well. Yeah. And it filled a big need for Apple, so they got together, Jobs and Bill Gates held a press conference.

47:42It's funny, Roman shared a photo of that press conference, and like, Steve Jobs looks like a literal rock star compared to Bill Gates.

47:52Young Bill Gates is the darkest looking guy. He looks exactly like you would imagine he would look. If somebody just, like, in the 80s told you about, like, some young computer magnet making cool computer software, you'd be like, what a, he looks like a member of Devo or something, and you'd be like, yep, yep, that's him. I'll put a link of the picture in the show notes, but it almost looks like a clip from a movie, you know, of a high school, you know, the high school nerd, and that's a popular person.

48:25Right, right. I don't want to rag on his looks, and I certainly looked incredibly nerdy when I was there. Oh, yeah, yeah. But it is. He looks like the stereotype of, like, the, you know, computer. He looks like Anthony Michael Hall in, you know, Sweet 16 or 16 Candles and all those movies. Well, that's why he was so brilliant to cast him in that Pirates of Silicon Valley movie. He's like, who else are you going to get to play Bill Gates?

48:58Can I just go on record, Roman, and saying that I hate Excel, and I've always hated Excel. Oh, it is. Well, I was going to ask if you guys ever watch, since we're talking about Excel, if you ever watch the, I think, I want to call them spreadsheet jockeys. They have, like, Excel competitions. Oh, right, yeah. I know they exist. I have never, never seen it, nor do I want to. I've tried watching them. I have no idea what's going on, but the commentary on it is really funny.

49:29You know, they have the, like, sports commentary, people watching them and making comments. It's really funny because you sit there and go, what are they talking about? I don't have no idea what the, and I'm not trying to sound like a jock or anything. It's just that I don't use Excel that deeply, so it's really foreign. Excel is one of those things where. Yeah, I can barely get, like, a simple spreadsheet going. I just never learned that. Excel is just an incredible piece of software that I just absolutely hate to use. Yeah. But it can do so much.

50:01Yeah. It really is, I've argued for a long time that there's a market for Excel for the normies, right? Like, just an easy-to-use thing that doesn't do any of that fancy stuff that Excel does that is really deep. Well, Apple's numbers is pretty close to that. It's supposed to be. Numbers is not good. It is not. It's all right. It's okay. It's very mid, you know. Yeah, well, that's what it's supposed to be. Like, if all you need is the grid, then numbers works fine.

50:33It doesn't do a good job making charts in certain ways. There's some stuff missing. It needs some stuff. So you need, there's somewhere between Excel and numbers that is a sweet spot that, but yeah, Excel's the worst thing that, nobody's got one better. Nobody's got something better is the thing. Yeah. So if you have any comments on, thoughts on Excel. Yeah, tell us how much you need Excel, or if you love it. Or love it, yeah. If you're one of those spreadsheet jockeys, I'd like to hear from you. I have to use it like every day.

51:04To me, it's fascinating. I hate it. Like, at some point, I have to open Excel for some reason. Like, oh. It doesn't help that a lot of Excel spreadsheets you get from other people are just incredibly poorly formatted. Yeah. They're just hard to read for no good reason. Yeah, that's true. And you're just like, okay, this is, could you have spent five minutes just, like, making this legible? Yeah. We have a, I'll call him an editor from Germany that creates these incredible spreadsheets that I'm just amazed when I open them.

51:40Like, they're gorgeous. They're color-cordering. Like, they're drop-down movies and stuff. Yeah. Like, if you know what you're doing, they can look really nice. But I still, every time I need to use one, I'm like, oh, I hate this because I don't know what I'm doing. Yeah. All right.

Apple Watch Series 12 feedback

51:55So, this week in Comment Corner is, we got some comments about the Apple Watch Series 12. We talked about that briefly last week. Will I Cook on TikTok said, it's great, but literally can't set a cooking timer. Which I think Jason has kind of commented before about the... Well, the new one can, right? Like, it's better now or something?

52:22Isn't that more of an issue of iOS than the watch itself, than the hardware itself? I don't know what he means by can't set a cooking timer. Yeah, it doesn't elaborate. Wasn't there an issue before, Jason, where you couldn't... What couldn't you do before? And then, like, all of a sudden, you could with iOS 27.

52:43Oh, so the old thing with iOS 27 was... Hang on. The old thing that they fixed. You couldn't add to it or something. Like, you wanted to add 20 seconds or something. If I just said, yeah, if I just said, like, add three minutes to the timer, it wouldn't do that. It would let me set a new time for it. Right. I would have to do the math myself and just, you know. Yeah, I couldn't add time to a timer on Apple Watch. And that works now. I think it might just be like, it's not working well.

53:14And he's right about that. Like, Siri for things on the Apple Watch is slow now. Since iOS 27, for things like turning on lights and starting timers and the things that used to be super, super fast, it is kind of slow right now. I'm wondering if there's a soft update coming to prove that because, yeah, watchOS 27 made Siri slow on the watch. We got that .01 update yesterday. I don't know if you've installed it. I can't because my watch is too damn old to get a watchOS 27.

53:48I have not installed it because I'm using the .2 beta. The beta.

53:56ASG4AA on Instagram said, this is lacking AI. AI on watches is where it's headed. This is an embarrassment. But there is AI on it, isn't there? Kind of. Yeah. Kind of. I think they're hoping for more. I mean, it's a rough. Yeah. That audio intelligence stuff, that's absolutely AI. I mean, yeah, that's weird. It's not out yet. I can't wait to try it. That's true. Yeah. So, you know, AI, some people want more and more of it, and some people want less and less of it.

54:29So, that's, you know, you're either on one end or the other. Isaac P on Facebook said, I'm sure it'll be great for people who actually use and understand all the extra data, but I'm not heavily invested or nerdy regarding this sort of thing. So, it just seems like a lot of stuff I wouldn't use. Same with all the new granular controls on the iPhone 18 Pro. Sure. I'm with you there. Yeah.

54:56Like, there's so many things that I have a Series 8 or whatever, 7. There's so many features that I never touch on this thing that I'm sure are great. And, you know, I can say the same thing about my iPhone to a lesser extent, but, yeah, Apple, they got to make each release compelling. But I do think that the Series 12 is probably the best reason to upgrade that we've had on an Apple Watch for quite some time.

55:27The continuous heart rate stuff, you don't need to be an expert. It just does it. The audio and television stuff, you don't need to be an expert. Like, I think there's a lot of those little quality of life improvements that they'll bring to your watch that you can't get on the 11 or previous. That readiness metric and stuff. I really feel like it's one of those things where the new health app that is coming with 27.2 and that readiness metric and stuff like that, that is really aimed at the whole idea that you don't need to be an expert. Right. Just wear your watch, it'll gather a bunch of data, and then when you look at it and wear it to sleep every night.

56:03And then when you just look at the health app, it'll just start off with, look, we've analyzed all your stuff and you just need to go to bed earlier or whatever. Like, they're going to, you know, they're going to give you your overall health advice and stuff like that, just based on all the data that's collected and everything. Yeah, and I think that's where Apple's going to apply AI best in, you know, taking the, like, making all this stuff kind of foolproof. And we'll tell you, well, I'll analyze all your data when you're not looking, and we'll tell you what you need to know to get going.

56:41And that does it for comment corner this week. All right. Is that it, Roman? Are we done? I think that's it, unless you guys want to talk about something else. It seems like it's been a shorter podcast than it has, because we had tough, but this has been the longest podcast. We had, like, 17 different technical issues, and we've been sitting in front of our computer's kids for two hours. Yeah, the listener and viewer is never going to know, but we've been having really bad technical issues today, so, yeah.

Closing thoughts and next week

57:13So, that does it for this episode of the Macro Podcast. Episode number, Roman, I have 998 listed here. How? Why? You're living in the past. I never even changed it for episode of that. Oh, that's because you did it. That's why. We're living in the past when the prices were lower. I just, at least I know what to do.

57:34Episode 1002. Yeah, our podcast is also more expensive than ever. Thanks to, you know what, let's just, at the risk of any more technical issues. Next week, we're going to talk about the iPhone 18 Pro. Both Jason and Roman have one. So, we're going to talk about that. There's some interesting stuff. That's actually interesting things to say about it. And that's what, you know, people can afford and will buy in the coming months, so stay tuned for that. Yeah, it went up in price, but not like by a...

58:05Not, not, not, not. Not 50%. And, yeah, we will see you. Hold on. Yeah, all right. We'll see you next week. Apple Watch Series 12 measures your heart rate every five seconds with the most accurate heart rate sensing in a wearable.

58:45So, your vitals app, now with heart rate variability, can tell you when something is off. And your readiness score can let you know when to rest and when to push. Hear the story in every heartbeat with Apple Watch Series 12. The features described are for wellness purposes only and not for medical use. iPhone 11 or later required. Based on Apple-conducted study of heart rate accuracy, August 2026. Visit Apple.com slash Apple Watch Series 12. Looking for a simple way to thank your clients or recognize employees for a job well done? A Starbucks card is more than a gift. It's a pick-me-up, a break in their day, and a reminder that you appreciate them.

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59:34Hello. Look what TJ Maxx dragged in. The Devil Wears Prada 2 is now streaming on Disney Plus and Hulu. We are digital. We are downloadable. We are streamable. The fashion event of the year is certified fresh. Pull yourself together. We have work to do. Critics say it's smart and witty and the perfect sequel. That's all. Get runway ready for The Devil Wears Prada 2 on Disney Plus and Hulu. Rated PG-13.