speaker-0: Apple had a pretty big week of announcements this week. New iPhones, iPads, MacBooks, even new displays. The Apple Neo got announced this morning, but like always, there's a lot of coverage around the specs, the chips, the new hardware. But as you know, here at Plugable, we look at these announcements a little bit differently. The way we work has changed dramatically over the past few years. People are working now across multiple screens, connecting more devices than ever. building flexible setups at home, in the office, on the go more than ever. So when Apple announced new devices, the questions we care about here at Plugable are things like how many displays can they support? What are the ports actually enable? And so to dig into that, I'm joined by one of our product engineers, Bob, to talk through the latest Apple announcements and share our take on what they mean for the way we work today. So Bob, let's get into kind of our first question. There were quite a few firsts, I feel like that were announced this week that maybe not everybody kind of picked up on. So I'm curious from your perspective watching now these Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday announcements, what might have people missed and kind of what stood out to you?
speaker-1: There's a lot to go over because Apple introduced a lot of things. Like you said, everything from a new iPhone model to a refreshed iPad model to a new MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and a new MacBook Neo laptop. And we'd be here forever if we went through all the different technological changes that they did. But since our focus at Plugable typically is on expanding your workspace, either via docking stations or video adapters, What I was focusing on was what display output capabilities each of these devices now had. For those who may not be familiar when Apple first transitioned to their, what they call Apple Silicon, their first ⁓ series processors, they changed the way the amount of external displays would work with a different Mac. And it's been somewhat of a challenge for consumers ever since to understand how many displays could I add to my computer. I say all this because the evolution has changed to the point that with the M4 series of chips, with the MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air, there was a certain amount of stability in terms of that any MacBook Air or MacBook Pro with an M4 processor could drive at least two external displays. There could be more in certain instances, but that was the baseline. And that's what most people want as a minimum. With the M4, they've continue that trend and they've expanded on it in an interesting way, at least from my opinion. The MacBook Air M5, as an example, will still support two external displays via Thunderbolt port. Okay, great. Where it gets interesting is when you switch over to the MacBook Pro with an M5 Pro processor. Yes, Apple's naming convention is somewhat hard to say at a quick glance. the M5 Max processor. With the M5 Pro processor, Apple has done something new for the first time in that you can support three displays via that chip. And what's really interesting is they've explicitly called out that you can do three displays via a single Thunderbolt connection to the computer. Now, okay, how are they doing that? The M5 Pro and the M5 Max support Thunderbolt 5. For those who may not know, Thunderbolt 5 mandates certain capabilities to be able to label your computer with Thunderbolt 5 and make certain capabilities optional. When Thunderbolt 5 was first introduced, they would mandate two external displays, but it was optional that a computer could support three. When Apple came out with their first Thunderbolt 5 systems, the original M5 MacBook Pro, it didn't support those three displays. very few Windows computers actually supported three displays via Thunderbolt 5. So to just introduce more confusion, Apple has now changed this in that the MacBook Pro with an M5 Pro processor can now support three displays via Thunderbolt 5, taking what was optional before and making it standard, at least on that line. So that's a big change. We don't necessarily understand why Apple makes the decisions they do, but it's an improvement and it helps make things a little clearer. for customers, including the fact not only can you get this via the technical specs, they're calling that detail out specifically. Apple has this in their technical specifications where they talk about how many displays you can add in the resolution, but they even call out that specific wording. And I'm going to go and I'm going to read to just make sure I get it quite right. So for the M5 Pro, it explicitly states, supports up to three external displays over a single Thunderbolt. Okay, you can't get more clear than that. that's a big change and a big advantage, especially since we make a Thunderbolt 5 docking station that can support three displays. typically we don't call it out because of the confusion.
speaker-0: Yeah, exactly. And I think it's, it's not normal for them to tell us exactly how many displays are supported. Like, I feel like a lot of the times, like, I mean, we did it this morning. We're waiting until pre-order opens up for these. We're trying to get the laptops in our office as quickly as possible so we can put these new devices to the test to see what they're actually capable of. So for them to come out and say three displays and be really the first people to put this into practicality for people is pretty different.
speaker-1: It is different and it's appreciated and it's interesting in that it takes some of the ambiguity out of it. Obviously, you we're still going to test it and see that it works as it it expected, but we'll see later as we get to some of the other announcements that even with this additional clarity, there's still some ambiguity how things work. But going back just a bit for the previous generations, Apple would always call out how many displays were supported. but they wouldn't necessarily say how you had to connect things to make that work. So this takes some of that uncertainty out of that. But now it's, it's interesting to see where this is going to go. If I can continue, I don't want to monopolize the conversation. We have the base M5, which will do two displays, the M5 Pro, which will do three, and then the M5 Max, which can do four. Now the previous max variance could do four as well, but Along the same vein of what we're just discussing, Apple calls it out specifically again. They say supports up to four external displays over a single Thunderbolt port with the M5. Well, that's really interesting. It's interesting for a couple of reasons. The main reason is I'm not quite sure how they intend to do it because the Thunderbolt 5 standard, again, requires two video outputs, optional for three, but it doesn't really say anything about four. I have a hunch. Don't quote me on it, I'm not a gambling kind of individual, but we'll see how this goes. But it's, again, they're being very explicit, but they don't necessarily say how. So that's something that we have to untangle.
speaker-0: Yeah, and I wonder is your hunch around having to use multiple ports to get those four displays?
speaker-1: I don't think so because it says, again, if you go to their specifications page, it says supports up to four external displays over a single Thunderbolt port. Okay. All right. So that's pretty clear. But like I said, it kind of goes against what we know of the standard. Like said, I've got some hunches and we're going to talk about a few other things in another minute that I think may shed some light on it, but it's interesting. And for those who may not be aware of it, There is a technology called DisplayPort Multi-Stream Transport where you can usually connect multiple displays together on a daisy chain. And getting into the technical details of that is outside the scope here, but the key thing is that Apple Macs don't support that technology. They just don't. So normally I would think maybe this is using DisplayPort MST, but it's not. At least it doesn't seem like it is, because that would go counter to what they've done in the past. But again, I have a hunch. When we switch to the next topic, we can go to that, well, probably two topics down. But the takeaway and all that to say is Apple has maintained that level of consistency that they introduced with the M4 chips with the M5. And they've also augmented it to a certain extent, not only by adding an option where you can get three external displays, but also that they're calling out that you can do so via one connection back to the computer. That's the big takeaway for me, at least from the MacBook Pro line.
speaker-0: Yeah, and was going to ask about this new Neo that they announced at the $599 price point. There's two USB-C ports on there. It sounds like they do different things. So what does that mean from a display perspective?
speaker-1: From a display perspective, it's kind of like going back to the past that we just talked about with the introduction of the first MacBook Pro with an M1 processor that only would support one external display. Apple's again, they're very helpful because they're very specific. The new MacBook Neo has two USB type C ports. They don't support Thunderbolt, it's just USB-C only. And where it gets interesting and potentially confusing is both those ports don't have the same capabilities. One of the USB-C ports will go up to 10 gigabits USB data transfer, will allow you to charge the laptop via USB power delivery, and will allow you to connect one external display. The other port, despite looking physically identical from the exterior of the Mac, doesn't have those same features. It will do USB 2, which is a much older standard, which is much slower for data transfer. It will allow you to charge the Mac, but it won't do video at all. So you can only add one external 4K display at 60 Hertz with the MacBook Neo. Now that's not terribly unsurprising because it's obviously their first entry level product into this space. So there's certain things that obviously weren't gonna make the cut and they want you to pay more and get their higher priced computers. But it's kind of like deja vu all over again, where some people may not be paying attention to these details or they may not simply know to take them into consideration. They'll go to set things up and say, can I plug my two monitors into this? And the answer is no. They'll have to use other solutions. Fortunately, Plugable should be able to offer those solutions with some of our products, like example based on display technology. But to your point, we're going to want to test it and make sure everything works as expected.
speaker-0: Yep. And I've been one of those Mac users that goes and I'm like, Hey, I got a second display. I'm going to go just plug a HDMI cable right in and no siree, it's black. So yeah, being able to understand kind of the complexities of these and why it doesn't work because then it's like, okay, what do you do? can't, it's not a cable issue. So understanding the port capabilities and what the laptop is capable of is sometimes very difficult for people when they look the same. The ports look the same.
speaker-1: It can be confusing and to your point, cause the ports look the same, also sometimes it can be the cable. Not all cables that have USB-C connectors on both ends function in the same way internally. Some of them will only let you do charging for a device like plugable actually makes cables like that, which are specifically for that purpose. And other cables will let you do USB data and video. They don't all work the same. So you have to know. Thankfully, we label our cables with what they can do and we even color code them to help you tell which ones are data only or not. yeah, it's confusing. It's getting better. It has evolved. The standards seemingly have been rising even at the lower price point levels, but there's still this ambiguity. this, the MacBook Neo kind of like I kind of takes us back a little bit to some of those early days.
speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So let's get back into the, pro and the max and being able to connect multi monitors. So monitors, they announced displays. Do you want to talk a little bit about what they announced?
speaker-1: Apple, for the longest time, you know, they've had this history with making displays with under the Apple brand going back, geez, now trying to double check my memory, 20, 25 years. And they seem to go in spurts where they introduce these displays, they make them for a while, then they don't, and they make them again. At one point, actually, they actually were selling an LG display in the Apple store to go with some of their Macs because they hadn't had a new model. What's interesting about the displays whenever is Apple's made them. They are, to a certain extent, somewhat proprietary in that Apple will, of course, drive the technologies that they believe in and obviously provide the features that they think their customers want. When it comes to today, they've introduced two new displays. One of them is called the Studio Display, and one of them is called the Studio Display XR. And the primary difference between these displays is the maximum refresh rate they can support and other facets of the display panel. Again, from a pluggable standpoint, those are neat, but doesn't really factor in our equation. Where it's interesting here is that this is the, they call out specifically that these displays can be daisy changed. And the way they're doing that is these displays have a built-in Thunderbolt 5 hub that allows you to connect the display directly to your Mac via Thunderbolt 5 cable, and then connect another display to that, what they call the downstream Thunderbolt 5 port. like you would string, you know, holiday lights together if you were plugging in multiple strands. Now, that's not a new technology. They've had Thunderbolt 3 displays that can do that, Thunderbolt 4 displays that can do that, and unsurprisingly, Thunderbolt 5 displays that can do that. What's interesting is the fact that Apple is calling out, and they did this in their press release, and I quote, I made a note here so I could, you know, call this out, says, Users can daisy chain up to four studio display models with a MacBook Pro with an M5 Max processor. Okay, pulling that apart, what does that mean? We know that the M5 Max variant at the M5 Pro can support four displays because they talked about it. They talked about that you can do that with one cable. So the presumption is they're talking about daisy chaining displays like this to make it work. The uncertainty I have is I'm not sure how they're doing four. Two, sure, maybe even three. How are they getting to that fourth display? Have they introduced some new technology that we're not aware of? Are they using, you know, who knows what they're using, but it's interesting. It'd be interesting to see how this works. As of right now, when I was looking this morning, Apple has not put up any manuals or anything like that that talks about how that's to actually happen. So it's just something that everybody's going to have to discover, but it's going to be very interesting. The key takeaway with all this is The devil is in the details. There are, course, their specifications are going to be correct. Their marketing information, of course, is going to be correct. But what do you actually need to take advantage and do this to make it work? For example, if you weren't using an Apple studio display because they're quite pricey, they're out of the reach of many. So we have to figure out where that reality lies, how we can offer products to. meet those needs if we can or what things may have to change in the future so we can kind of match that capability.
speaker-0: Yeah, I was going to ask you about what would the use case be for being able to daisy chain four, like these studio displays are expensive and then you're talking about getting four displays in total.
speaker-1: Well, there's a whole bunch of different scenarios I can think of off the top of my head. One of them is content creation, like especially video editing. The studio display XDR is designed to meet a lot of standards as far as calibration for making sure that your colors on screen look like they will when they're broadcast on television or displayed in a movie theater. These are professional tools. So, all right. I have my Mac, I want to do my video editing, I want all these displays, all right, in typical Apple fashion, they want to make it as relatively simple and straightforward and as beautiful as possible when you're doing that. Just having one cable connecting between each display rather than this kind of octopus tentacle thing coming back to the computer to connect everything together would be very intriguing. And if it provides the same level of performance, I can see that being very, very welcome from professional users. Just a question of, okay, how are they actually doing it? I'm sure it's going to work because they say it's going to work, but I still want to know how it works behind the scenes.
speaker-0: Yeah, and like you said, what exactly do you even need to buy on top of the studio display to get this to connect and work?
speaker-1: It doesn't look like, again, this is my opinion, let me make sure I say that. Doesn't look like you'll need to do anything else. At least that's the impression. But like I said, it will be interesting to see how it works. I can see three displays working. I'm not sure how four were. Time will tell.
speaker-0: Time will tell. Yes, that's true. Do you want to get in and talk a little bit about the other releases? Obviously, new iPhone 17e came out and then they released a new iPad as well, both USB-C, but there's some caveats and different things that they've introduced there that we haven't seen before.
speaker-1: They released an iPad Air with a M4 processor, not an M5 processor. So it's not a radical jump like we've seen with some of the other products, more of an evolutionary one, which isn't unexpected. The Air tends to have that market where I don't need an iPad Pro with its size and expense and everything, and I don't need the base iPad. I want something in the middle that's light, hence the Air designation. So this is evolutionary. The interesting thing about that is that USB-C port in that iPad and again it's a USB-C port, it's not a Thunderbolt port, will support video output and it will support USB up to 10 gigabits, USB 3. So not too much has changed, evolutionary change. What's interesting by way of comparison is Apple introduced a new iPhone model, the iPhone 17e, which is meant to be their low-end or entry-level phone in the space, which wasn't unexpected. For the price point, which I believe it starts at $599, they obviously had to make some compromises compared to the higher level model phones, which you can get into the four figures. And the interesting thing is, again, when you read those details, the USB-C port in that phone does not support video output at all. And it only supports USB 2 speeds much lower than USB 3. So they've obviously made that as a differentiator. It's unfortunate because people are starting to expect that anytime they see a USB-C port, on anything, whether it's a phone, a tablet, computer, that they should all be able to do all these things. USB data, video output, uncharging, but that's not always the case. In this case, it's not quite as bad as some of the limitations we've seen in other instances, but it's unfortunate.
speaker-0: Yeah. And like you said, I feel like it comes with the price point. Price seemed to be a really big focus for Apple during this announcement period.
speaker-1: It's interesting. The announcement, it's actually changed from the past. mean, I think most people remember the heady days of Steve Jobs being on stage and doing all these announcements and do that. And they've gotten away from that in that they've pre-recorded a lot of them. And in this case, the live event was just at a small venue in New York City somewhere, I think at a hidden location. So they kind of dribbled everything out over the course of the last three days. My initial takeaways, and again, I'm I'm not an economist, I'm not a marketing genius like you are or anything like that, but it's like they're going after a market they've never gone for before. It'll be interesting to see how that's received because even their quote unquote now lower level entry level products like the Nia and the 17E are still, know, whether or not something's expensive depends on your perspective, but It's less expensive than they have ever been. So if I went into the store and bought a new iPhone 17e for $599, I could also buy a MacBook Neo for the same price. Interesting. But it's also, you know, it's like they want you to use both and then their promotional materials. don't know if you had a chance to look at the video yet that they did for the MacBook Neo. It's actually quite, quite amazing to see. They're showing and they're touting that integration with the whole Apple ecosystem that you can use your iPhone in conjunction with it. So they obviously want you to have.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: both, which makes sense. But it's like, how is that going to land? How many people will buy multiple of the lower end products or will they just buy one? What will they see the take up? Anybody? It's anybody's guess, but I have a funny feeling it's going to be very successful.
speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, and I think it was really interesting to kind of watch what they've done where they didn't actually raise prices on anyone in the pro line, I don't believe. And I think that's the first time that they've done that.
speaker-1: They did raise prices a little bit, if I'm not mistaken. I don't have the exact numbers, but I think like for like compared to previous iterations in the same space. For example, the MacBook Pro, if you were looking at the base M4, M4 Pro and M4 Max, and now comparing the M5 with the M5 Pro and the M5 Max, the starting prices have gone up a little bit, but I believe Apple's justification is that they have done things like upgrade the base storage. from what was 256 gigabytes of storage internally to 512. But obviously it still costs them more. So there's been slight bumps, but I think not only are the bumps a result of Apple has the ability to offer systems that combine the processor and the memory into one component so they can have some efficiencies of scale. They've also, their RAM upgrade prices were typically higher than anybody else, but now with the RAM shortage and RAM prices being raised due to the influx of AI. It seems like they've, I don't want to say taken advantage of it, but they found an interesting way to kind of work through all these challenges by providing storage upgrades, still offering memory at a certain price where everyone else is going to have to play catch up and raise prices potentially even higher. And the MacBook Pro and the Air, they're premium products. People are going to expect to pay that premium. I don't think it's going to have too much of an impact on what people purchase because these are things that people want. They want these things. They're going to pay for them. And unsurprisingly, Apple has made it very compelling to buy them.
speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, it's been really, it's been fun to watch kind of the announcements every day. I don't know if I prefer the full keynote or the watch what comes out each day, but it's been interesting to kind of follow.
speaker-1: It has been interesting because everybody, mean, this is not news. There's always the rumor mill, what people think are going to happen, supposedly leaks or whatnot. And then what people think is expected just because it's logical and evolutionary. And a lot of these announcements are evolutionary. Some of them are, I wouldn't say revolutionary, but pretty close to it in terms of that display of disport change. And the reason I say that is. People tend to follow what Apple does. Apple will do things for the first time. I'm going to date myself. The iMac was the first computer to get rid of a floppy drive. Well, everyone else followed suit with that. Now when the Apple says this is what's going to be the standard, other people have to try and match that or catch up or exceed it. So I think in the end, everyone will benefit. It's just going to take time for those things to trickle down. I'll be curious to see how everyone else responds outside of Apple.
speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. Well, I love getting pluggables take on it always. Like I always watch, it's just like a fan of Apple products. But then I'm also always so curious about our product teams take because it's very rare. I mean, a lot of people still obviously work on laptops, but for those pro users or the people who actually like I started this, the amount of displays people are connecting and the amount of peripherals people are connecting are more than ever. Especially as you think about ⁓ AI and you need more screen real estate. So I love getting our perspective and approach on what Apple's released because sometimes just a laptop isn't enough and you need to be able to connect other peripherals, devices, monitors, and so forth. And sometimes that's hard to find and figure out what exactly is your laptop is capable of. And when you're going in purchasing and looking to upgrade, I'm always going to our product team and asking, okay. what exactly is Apple saying here. So yeah, I appreciate us running through this. It's been really helpful.
speaker-1: Apple does a very good job, not surprisingly. Outside of that ecosystem, it's even harder to figure out what the reality is. So even with the confusion you may have, it could be a lot worse if you went outside of it. So yeah, I've also, I switched to Apple, I don't know, a couple months ago. I'm using an M4 Mac mini from my computer. Yes.
speaker-0: No way. Wow. I'm surprised.
speaker-1: Well, it kind of goes with the ethos that we have at Plugable is, you know, finding the right tool or product to solve a problem. And I've been in this industry longer than I'm going to care to admit right now, but yeah, it's nice to look at the new things that are fancy and all this powerful. I've always kind of been kind of in the middle. Like I want the tool that does the job and it's a tool. just want the tool and Apple with the Mac Mini M4 created a very compelling tool. that has a certain level of expandability meets my needs and then our products can help augment it if I need to. So it's like, okay, that's interesting. And it works, in my opinion, it released my experience very consistently. having Apple introduce so many new choices for the customer from all different price points, both in the mobile space, the laptop space. And we don't know what the future will bring for their desktop space because they didn't introduce anything new about their desktop computers. You know, I think they're doing a really impressive job by trying to provide offerings for everyone. They're still not the least expensive by any stretch, but I think it's great value. And by having that whole widget, the hardware, the software, all that integration work together, it's just better. And hopefully when better isn't the best for you, Plugable can come in and help fill those gaps to help expand out what you need to.
speaker-0: Amazing. Is there anything that we didn't touch on that you feel like is worth bringing up or did we get it all in there?
speaker-1: I think we got it in there. Like I said, this is, as we're doing this, this is Wednesday, March the fourth, you know, people will pull apart some of those details and reporters will get hands on and pluggable I think has ordered a whole swath of these new products for us to, test and go through. And there might be other little things, but I think that's the big takeaway that overall some evolutionary, some almost revolutionary improvements, at least the customer. The only thing that I would caution is when looking at the Apple MacBook Neo, you have to be aware of what those limitations are and then use that when trying to determine the ultimate solution. And hopefully if it's not your ultimate solution, that Plugable can be there to help provide it.
speaker-0: Well thank you, Mom. It was great chatting with you. It was nice to do this right after. I feel like I'm always searching for information everywhere and like looking at like Tom's Guide and trying to figure out what was announced. I could just come right to you. We'll just do this next time.
speaker-1: There's a lot to go over because Apple introduced a lot of things. Like you said, everything from a new iPhone model to a refreshed iPad model to a new MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and a new MacBook Neo laptop. And we'd be here forever if we went through all the different technological changes that they did. But since our focus at Plugable typically is on expanding your workspace, either via docking stations or video adapters, What I was focusing on was what display output capabilities each of these devices now had. For those who may not be familiar when Apple first transitioned to their, what they call Apple Silicon, their first ⁓ series processors, they changed the way the amount of external displays would work with a different Mac. And it's been somewhat of a challenge for consumers ever since to understand how many displays could I add to my computer. I say all this because the evolution has changed to the point that with the M4 series of chips, with the MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air, there was a certain amount of stability in terms of that any MacBook Air or MacBook Pro with an M4 processor could drive at least two external displays. There could be more in certain instances, but that was the baseline. And that's what most people want as a minimum. With the M4, they've continue that trend and they've expanded on it in an interesting way, at least from my opinion. The MacBook Air M5, as an example, will still support two external displays via Thunderbolt port. Okay, great. Where it gets interesting is when you switch over to the MacBook Pro with an M5 Pro processor. Yes, Apple's naming convention is somewhat hard to say at a quick glance. the M5 Max processor. With the M5 Pro processor, Apple has done something new for the first time in that you can support three displays via that chip. And what's really interesting is they've explicitly called out that you can do three displays via a single Thunderbolt connection to the computer. Now, okay, how are they doing that? The M5 Pro and the M5 Max support Thunderbolt 5. For those who may not know, Thunderbolt 5 mandates certain capabilities to be able to label your computer with Thunderbolt 5 and make certain capabilities optional. When Thunderbolt 5 was first introduced, they would mandate two external displays, but it was optional that a computer could support three. When Apple came out with their first Thunderbolt 5 systems, the original M5 MacBook Pro, it didn't support those three displays. very few Windows computers actually supported three displays via Thunderbolt 5. So to just introduce more confusion, Apple has now changed this in that the MacBook Pro with an M5 Pro processor can now support three displays via Thunderbolt 5, taking what was optional before and making it standard, at least on that line. So that's a big change. We don't necessarily understand why Apple makes the decisions they do, but it's an improvement and it helps make things a little clearer. for customers, including the fact not only can you get this via the technical specs, they're calling that detail out specifically. Apple has this in their technical specifications where they talk about how many displays you can add in the resolution, but they even call out that specific wording. And I'm going to go and I'm going to read to just make sure I get it quite right. So for the M5 Pro, it explicitly states, supports up to three external displays over a single Thunderbolt. Okay, you can't get more clear than that. that's a big change and a big advantage, especially since we make a Thunderbolt 5 docking station that can support three displays. typically we don't call it out because of the confusion.
speaker-0: Yeah, exactly. And I think it's, it's not normal for them to tell us exactly how many displays are supported. Like, I feel like a lot of the times, like, I mean, we did it this morning. We're waiting until pre-order opens up for these. We're trying to get the laptops in our office as quickly as possible so we can put these new devices to the test to see what they're actually capable of. So for them to come out and say three displays and be really the first people to put this into practicality for people is pretty different.
speaker-1: It is different and it's appreciated and it's interesting in that it takes some of the ambiguity out of it. Obviously, you we're still going to test it and see that it works as it it expected, but we'll see later as we get to some of the other announcements that even with this additional clarity, there's still some ambiguity how things work. But going back just a bit for the previous generations, Apple would always call out how many displays were supported. but they wouldn't necessarily say how you had to connect things to make that work. So this takes some of that uncertainty out of that. But now it's, it's interesting to see where this is going to go. If I can continue, I don't want to monopolize the conversation. We have the base M5, which will do two displays, the M5 Pro, which will do three, and then the M5 Max, which can do four. Now the previous max variance could do four as well, but Along the same vein of what we're just discussing, Apple calls it out specifically again. They say supports up to four external displays over a single Thunderbolt port with the M5. Well, that's really interesting. It's interesting for a couple of reasons. The main reason is I'm not quite sure how they intend to do it because the Thunderbolt 5 standard, again, requires two video outputs, optional for three, but it doesn't really say anything about four. I have a hunch. Don't quote me on it, I'm not a gambling kind of individual, but we'll see how this goes. But it's, again, they're being very explicit, but they don't necessarily say how. So that's something that we have to untangle.
speaker-0: Yeah, and I wonder is your hunch around having to use multiple ports to get those four displays?
speaker-1: I don't think so because it says, again, if you go to their specifications page, it says supports up to four external displays over a single Thunderbolt port. Okay. All right. So that's pretty clear. But like I said, it kind of goes against what we know of the standard. Like said, I've got some hunches and we're going to talk about a few other things in another minute that I think may shed some light on it, but it's interesting. And for those who may not be aware of it, There is a technology called DisplayPort Multi-Stream Transport where you can usually connect multiple displays together on a daisy chain. And getting into the technical details of that is outside the scope here, but the key thing is that Apple Macs don't support that technology. They just don't. So normally I would think maybe this is using DisplayPort MST, but it's not. At least it doesn't seem like it is, because that would go counter to what they've done in the past. But again, I have a hunch. When we switch to the next topic, we can go to that, well, probably two topics down. But the takeaway and all that to say is Apple has maintained that level of consistency that they introduced with the M4 chips with the M5. And they've also augmented it to a certain extent, not only by adding an option where you can get three external displays, but also that they're calling out that you can do so via one connection back to the computer. That's the big takeaway for me, at least from the MacBook Pro line.
speaker-0: Yeah, and was going to ask about this new Neo that they announced at the $599 price point. There's two USB-C ports on there. It sounds like they do different things. So what does that mean from a display perspective?
speaker-1: From a display perspective, it's kind of like going back to the past that we just talked about with the introduction of the first MacBook Pro with an M1 processor that only would support one external display. Apple's again, they're very helpful because they're very specific. The new MacBook Neo has two USB type C ports. They don't support Thunderbolt, it's just USB-C only. And where it gets interesting and potentially confusing is both those ports don't have the same capabilities. One of the USB-C ports will go up to 10 gigabits USB data transfer, will allow you to charge the laptop via USB power delivery, and will allow you to connect one external display. The other port, despite looking physically identical from the exterior of the Mac, doesn't have those same features. It will do USB 2, which is a much older standard, which is much slower for data transfer. It will allow you to charge the Mac, but it won't do video at all. So you can only add one external 4K display at 60 Hertz with the MacBook Neo. Now that's not terribly unsurprising because it's obviously their first entry level product into this space. So there's certain things that obviously weren't gonna make the cut and they want you to pay more and get their higher priced computers. But it's kind of like deja vu all over again, where some people may not be paying attention to these details or they may not simply know to take them into consideration. They'll go to set things up and say, can I plug my two monitors into this? And the answer is no. They'll have to use other solutions. Fortunately, Plugable should be able to offer those solutions with some of our products, like example based on display technology. But to your point, we're going to want to test it and make sure everything works as expected.
speaker-0: Yep. And I've been one of those Mac users that goes and I'm like, Hey, I got a second display. I'm going to go just plug a HDMI cable right in and no siree, it's black. So yeah, being able to understand kind of the complexities of these and why it doesn't work because then it's like, okay, what do you do? can't, it's not a cable issue. So understanding the port capabilities and what the laptop is capable of is sometimes very difficult for people when they look the same. The ports look the same.
speaker-1: It can be confusing and to your point, cause the ports look the same, also sometimes it can be the cable. Not all cables that have USB-C connectors on both ends function in the same way internally. Some of them will only let you do charging for a device like plugable actually makes cables like that, which are specifically for that purpose. And other cables will let you do USB data and video. They don't all work the same. So you have to know. Thankfully, we label our cables with what they can do and we even color code them to help you tell which ones are data only or not. yeah, it's confusing. It's getting better. It has evolved. The standards seemingly have been rising even at the lower price point levels, but there's still this ambiguity. this, the MacBook Neo kind of like I kind of takes us back a little bit to some of those early days.
speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So let's get back into the, pro and the max and being able to connect multi monitors. So monitors, they announced displays. Do you want to talk a little bit about what they announced?
speaker-1: Apple, for the longest time, you know, they've had this history with making displays with under the Apple brand going back, geez, now trying to double check my memory, 20, 25 years. And they seem to go in spurts where they introduce these displays, they make them for a while, then they don't, and they make them again. At one point, actually, they actually were selling an LG display in the Apple store to go with some of their Macs because they hadn't had a new model. What's interesting about the displays whenever is Apple's made them. They are, to a certain extent, somewhat proprietary in that Apple will, of course, drive the technologies that they believe in and obviously provide the features that they think their customers want. When it comes to today, they've introduced two new displays. One of them is called the Studio Display, and one of them is called the Studio Display XR. And the primary difference between these displays is the maximum refresh rate they can support and other facets of the display panel. Again, from a pluggable standpoint, those are neat, but doesn't really factor in our equation. Where it's interesting here is that this is the, they call out specifically that these displays can be daisy changed. And the way they're doing that is these displays have a built-in Thunderbolt 5 hub that allows you to connect the display directly to your Mac via Thunderbolt 5 cable, and then connect another display to that, what they call the downstream Thunderbolt 5 port. like you would string, you know, holiday lights together if you were plugging in multiple strands. Now, that's not a new technology. They've had Thunderbolt 3 displays that can do that, Thunderbolt 4 displays that can do that, and unsurprisingly, Thunderbolt 5 displays that can do that. What's interesting is the fact that Apple is calling out, and they did this in their press release, and I quote, I made a note here so I could, you know, call this out, says, Users can daisy chain up to four studio display models with a MacBook Pro with an M5 Max processor. Okay, pulling that apart, what does that mean? We know that the M5 Max variant at the M5 Pro can support four displays because they talked about it. They talked about that you can do that with one cable. So the presumption is they're talking about daisy chaining displays like this to make it work. The uncertainty I have is I'm not sure how they're doing four. Two, sure, maybe even three. How are they getting to that fourth display? Have they introduced some new technology that we're not aware of? Are they using, you know, who knows what they're using, but it's interesting. It'd be interesting to see how this works. As of right now, when I was looking this morning, Apple has not put up any manuals or anything like that that talks about how that's to actually happen. So it's just something that everybody's going to have to discover, but it's going to be very interesting. The key takeaway with all this is The devil is in the details. There are, course, their specifications are going to be correct. Their marketing information, of course, is going to be correct. But what do you actually need to take advantage and do this to make it work? For example, if you weren't using an Apple studio display because they're quite pricey, they're out of the reach of many. So we have to figure out where that reality lies, how we can offer products to. meet those needs if we can or what things may have to change in the future so we can kind of match that capability.
speaker-0: Yeah, I was going to ask you about what would the use case be for being able to daisy chain four, like these studio displays are expensive and then you're talking about getting four displays in total.
speaker-1: Well, there's a whole bunch of different scenarios I can think of off the top of my head. One of them is content creation, like especially video editing. The studio display XDR is designed to meet a lot of standards as far as calibration for making sure that your colors on screen look like they will when they're broadcast on television or displayed in a movie theater. These are professional tools. So, all right. I have my Mac, I want to do my video editing, I want all these displays, all right, in typical Apple fashion, they want to make it as relatively simple and straightforward and as beautiful as possible when you're doing that. Just having one cable connecting between each display rather than this kind of octopus tentacle thing coming back to the computer to connect everything together would be very intriguing. And if it provides the same level of performance, I can see that being very, very welcome from professional users. Just a question of, okay, how are they actually doing it? I'm sure it's going to work because they say it's going to work, but I still want to know how it works behind the scenes.
speaker-0: Yeah, and like you said, what exactly do you even need to buy on top of the studio display to get this to connect and work?
speaker-1: It doesn't look like, again, this is my opinion, let me make sure I say that. Doesn't look like you'll need to do anything else. At least that's the impression. But like I said, it will be interesting to see how it works. I can see three displays working. I'm not sure how four were. Time will tell.
speaker-0: Time will tell. Yes, that's true. Do you want to get in and talk a little bit about the other releases? Obviously, new iPhone 17e came out and then they released a new iPad as well, both USB-C, but there's some caveats and different things that they've introduced there that we haven't seen before.
speaker-1: They released an iPad Air with a M4 processor, not an M5 processor. So it's not a radical jump like we've seen with some of the other products, more of an evolutionary one, which isn't unexpected. The Air tends to have that market where I don't need an iPad Pro with its size and expense and everything, and I don't need the base iPad. I want something in the middle that's light, hence the Air designation. So this is evolutionary. The interesting thing about that is that USB-C port in that iPad and again it's a USB-C port, it's not a Thunderbolt port, will support video output and it will support USB up to 10 gigabits, USB 3. So not too much has changed, evolutionary change. What's interesting by way of comparison is Apple introduced a new iPhone model, the iPhone 17e, which is meant to be their low-end or entry-level phone in the space, which wasn't unexpected. For the price point, which I believe it starts at $599, they obviously had to make some compromises compared to the higher level model phones, which you can get into the four figures. And the interesting thing is, again, when you read those details, the USB-C port in that phone does not support video output at all. And it only supports USB 2 speeds much lower than USB 3. So they've obviously made that as a differentiator. It's unfortunate because people are starting to expect that anytime they see a USB-C port, on anything, whether it's a phone, a tablet, computer, that they should all be able to do all these things. USB data, video output, uncharging, but that's not always the case. In this case, it's not quite as bad as some of the limitations we've seen in other instances, but it's unfortunate.
speaker-0: Yeah. And like you said, I feel like it comes with the price point. Price seemed to be a really big focus for Apple during this announcement period.
speaker-1: It's interesting. The announcement, it's actually changed from the past. mean, I think most people remember the heady days of Steve Jobs being on stage and doing all these announcements and do that. And they've gotten away from that in that they've pre-recorded a lot of them. And in this case, the live event was just at a small venue in New York City somewhere, I think at a hidden location. So they kind of dribbled everything out over the course of the last three days. My initial takeaways, and again, I'm I'm not an economist, I'm not a marketing genius like you are or anything like that, but it's like they're going after a market they've never gone for before. It'll be interesting to see how that's received because even their quote unquote now lower level entry level products like the Nia and the 17E are still, know, whether or not something's expensive depends on your perspective, but It's less expensive than they have ever been. So if I went into the store and bought a new iPhone 17e for $599, I could also buy a MacBook Neo for the same price. Interesting. But it's also, you know, it's like they want you to use both and then their promotional materials. don't know if you had a chance to look at the video yet that they did for the MacBook Neo. It's actually quite, quite amazing to see. They're showing and they're touting that integration with the whole Apple ecosystem that you can use your iPhone in conjunction with it. So they obviously want you to have.
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: both, which makes sense. But it's like, how is that going to land? How many people will buy multiple of the lower end products or will they just buy one? What will they see the take up? Anybody? It's anybody's guess, but I have a funny feeling it's going to be very successful.
speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, and I think it was really interesting to kind of watch what they've done where they didn't actually raise prices on anyone in the pro line, I don't believe. And I think that's the first time that they've done that.
speaker-1: They did raise prices a little bit, if I'm not mistaken. I don't have the exact numbers, but I think like for like compared to previous iterations in the same space. For example, the MacBook Pro, if you were looking at the base M4, M4 Pro and M4 Max, and now comparing the M5 with the M5 Pro and the M5 Max, the starting prices have gone up a little bit, but I believe Apple's justification is that they have done things like upgrade the base storage. from what was 256 gigabytes of storage internally to 512. But obviously it still costs them more. So there's been slight bumps, but I think not only are the bumps a result of Apple has the ability to offer systems that combine the processor and the memory into one component so they can have some efficiencies of scale. They've also, their RAM upgrade prices were typically higher than anybody else, but now with the RAM shortage and RAM prices being raised due to the influx of AI. It seems like they've, I don't want to say taken advantage of it, but they found an interesting way to kind of work through all these challenges by providing storage upgrades, still offering memory at a certain price where everyone else is going to have to play catch up and raise prices potentially even higher. And the MacBook Pro and the Air, they're premium products. People are going to expect to pay that premium. I don't think it's going to have too much of an impact on what people purchase because these are things that people want. They want these things. They're going to pay for them. And unsurprisingly, Apple has made it very compelling to buy them.
speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, it's been really, it's been fun to watch kind of the announcements every day. I don't know if I prefer the full keynote or the watch what comes out each day, but it's been interesting to kind of follow.
speaker-1: It has been interesting because everybody, mean, this is not news. There's always the rumor mill, what people think are going to happen, supposedly leaks or whatnot. And then what people think is expected just because it's logical and evolutionary. And a lot of these announcements are evolutionary. Some of them are, I wouldn't say revolutionary, but pretty close to it in terms of that display of disport change. And the reason I say that is. People tend to follow what Apple does. Apple will do things for the first time. I'm going to date myself. The iMac was the first computer to get rid of a floppy drive. Well, everyone else followed suit with that. Now when the Apple says this is what's going to be the standard, other people have to try and match that or catch up or exceed it. So I think in the end, everyone will benefit. It's just going to take time for those things to trickle down. I'll be curious to see how everyone else responds outside of Apple.
speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. Well, I love getting pluggables take on it always. Like I always watch, it's just like a fan of Apple products. But then I'm also always so curious about our product teams take because it's very rare. I mean, a lot of people still obviously work on laptops, but for those pro users or the people who actually like I started this, the amount of displays people are connecting and the amount of peripherals people are connecting are more than ever. Especially as you think about ⁓ AI and you need more screen real estate. So I love getting our perspective and approach on what Apple's released because sometimes just a laptop isn't enough and you need to be able to connect other peripherals, devices, monitors, and so forth. And sometimes that's hard to find and figure out what exactly is your laptop is capable of. And when you're going in purchasing and looking to upgrade, I'm always going to our product team and asking, okay. what exactly is Apple saying here. So yeah, I appreciate us running through this. It's been really helpful.
speaker-1: Apple does a very good job, not surprisingly. Outside of that ecosystem, it's even harder to figure out what the reality is. So even with the confusion you may have, it could be a lot worse if you went outside of it. So yeah, I've also, I switched to Apple, I don't know, a couple months ago. I'm using an M4 Mac mini from my computer. Yes.
speaker-0: No way. Wow. I'm surprised.
speaker-1: Well, it kind of goes with the ethos that we have at Plugable is, you know, finding the right tool or product to solve a problem. And I've been in this industry longer than I'm going to care to admit right now, but yeah, it's nice to look at the new things that are fancy and all this powerful. I've always kind of been kind of in the middle. Like I want the tool that does the job and it's a tool. just want the tool and Apple with the Mac Mini M4 created a very compelling tool. that has a certain level of expandability meets my needs and then our products can help augment it if I need to. So it's like, okay, that's interesting. And it works, in my opinion, it released my experience very consistently. having Apple introduce so many new choices for the customer from all different price points, both in the mobile space, the laptop space. And we don't know what the future will bring for their desktop space because they didn't introduce anything new about their desktop computers. You know, I think they're doing a really impressive job by trying to provide offerings for everyone. They're still not the least expensive by any stretch, but I think it's great value. And by having that whole widget, the hardware, the software, all that integration work together, it's just better. And hopefully when better isn't the best for you, Plugable can come in and help fill those gaps to help expand out what you need to.
speaker-0: Amazing. Is there anything that we didn't touch on that you feel like is worth bringing up or did we get it all in there?
speaker-1: I think we got it in there. Like I said, this is, as we're doing this, this is Wednesday, March the fourth, you know, people will pull apart some of those details and reporters will get hands on and pluggable I think has ordered a whole swath of these new products for us to, test and go through. And there might be other little things, but I think that's the big takeaway that overall some evolutionary, some almost revolutionary improvements, at least the customer. The only thing that I would caution is when looking at the Apple MacBook Neo, you have to be aware of what those limitations are and then use that when trying to determine the ultimate solution. And hopefully if it's not your ultimate solution, that Plugable can be there to help provide it.
speaker-0: Well thank you, Mom. It was great chatting with you. It was nice to do this right after. I feel like I'm always searching for information everywhere and like looking at like Tom's Guide and trying to figure out what was announced. I could just come right to you. We'll just do this next time.
