Our 2026 Tech Predictions

Welcome to Comfort Zone, a podcast all about pushing your hosts, well, outside of their comfort zone. I'm Christopher Lawley, and each week I'm joined by two incredible co-hosts. As always, I am joined by Matt Berchler. Matt, how are you doing? I'm doing great. It's new year, new me, new all the things. I'm excited. I almost made that joke as well. And we're also joined by Niléane. Niléane, how are you? I'm doing great. New year, new me, and still me.

Yes, that's the spiel. Well, if anyone's wondering, hashtag new year, do me. And I have a dream. We do hashtags now. Yeah, and I make the finger sign for the video people. I make the symbol. That's the six, seven symbol? Is that? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We are not getting into that. Absolutely not. Look, I have a drink. I have a Palestine Cola. A what? What is that? Yeah, I know.

That's like, I didn't know about this. So I just wanted to shout it out because I think it's nice. We're book-oating Coca-Cola in our house. And so, well, we found out about Palestine Cola, which is made by palestinedrinks.com. You can go look it up. It's a Swedish NGO. They're producing this cola alternative and they're giving all the profits to organizations helping people in Palestine.

Oh, okay. So if you're also boycotting Coca-Cola, you can import this and drink that instead. It's very liquid. You know me. I have my Dr. Pepper, which is independent from Pepsi or Coke. But that's, yeah. We have a couple of small, tiny topics that we need, like some brief housekeeping items. We have a new feedback form link. I barely noticed this because I was on break, and I just happened to pop into the MacStory Slack and notice this.

But everything's on the Notion side of things now. Do you guys know if it's any different for our listeners? Like, I think the link is different, right? But is the submission thing? I should have looked at this. Yes. So now I tested it. It's a notion form, but you shouldn't have to create any account whatsoever. You just got to join the cult. And the new thing is you can enter your name. If you want to be called out by your name or pseudonym or whatever on the show, you can put that in and you can leave it empty if you want to remain anonymous nice so if you want to give us

that hot apple gossip or um just any other gossip i like gossip especially office drama i love office drama that is the thing i miss the most about having a real job i don't get office drama anymore anytime danielle comes home and she has something to share i love listening um but yeah so well that That link will be in the show notes going forward. So if you have feedback, challenge stuff, whatever, go there. Yeah. And it's a unique form for all the MacStories shows.

Oh, cool. To send feedback to us, you have to click comfort zone first. But it's easy. Nice. Nice, nice, nice. I have a brief statement I need to make. If we can put some somber music underneath this, editor Chris, that would be really appreciative. on the last episode titled My Pink Booties I mentioned that Danielle the love of my life my partner used my toothbrush on purpose I brought that up she had since listened to the episode she doesn't listen to every episode and I was counting

on her not listening to that episode well she listened to that episode and she had a correction that made me or she required me to share and has brought it up quite a bit since she has listened to it. And since it's been a while since we've recorded an episode, I've been hearing this a lot. She did not use my toothbrush on purpose. It was an accident. I regret this error, and I regret the shame that I have brought upon myself and my family. I apologize to Danielle and our listeners and my co-host for lying on air, even though I swear I wasn't.

But she did not do it on purpose. She is not that kind of person. I regret this error. I will take this time to really reflect upon myself. And I ask for some privacy in this harsh time. I will reflect upon my words. And please respect my privacy in this very difficult time. I will not be taking any questions at this time. Are there any questions?

Are you under duress? Yes. She's just off frame with a gun pointed at my head. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. No, I'm just kidding. But no, I regret that error. You know, what is it? Oh, thoughts and prayers. Yeah, thoughts and prayers at this time. Interesting. How does this keep happening here, says the bathroom in California where this keeps happening.

Anyway, moving on, we have an exciting episode. We are doing our predictions episode again. And Matt, you kind of came up with this game. So I'm going to just let you take it away and explain it all. Yeah, so we're doing a predictions game where we are using our vast knowledge of the technology industry to really be a Nostradamus of sorts to what's coming in the next year. You can make financial decisions based on these predictions. We are guaranteeing them.

Chris is guaranteeing them personally that they will come true. I will financially back them. Not really. This is not legal. This is not legally binding. But we made some guesses. And the gist was we weren't going to make safe guesses. So the rule was, I don't think we expressed it exactly this year. So we'll see if this happens again. But the idea was that if it's already rumored to happen, you can't make that your prediction. You can't just say, you can't make basic predictions that are obviously going to happen.

You can't say we're going to have an A20 processor in the new iPhones. That's going to happen. We all know that. We want to start with pro predictions. So these are predictions that are going out a little on a limb, that are a little ambitious. Maybe they're wish casting a little, but they could happen. And we're going to make a couple of those about hardware and software. Then we get even more advanced with our Pro Max predictions, where we just really shoot for the moon and see what we can do, see what we can figure out. And we actually got at least one of those right last year, which will be very exciting to get to.

So overall, this is going to be eight predictions for each of us, 24 total for the show. Obviously, we're going to get at least 24 right, maybe even more somehow. And yeah, well, let's go through last year's. We did this last year, and then we'll have new predictions after this first run when we judge ourselves to see how well we did. So are you ready to go through last year's predictions? yes yes oh i'm so excited about this i went back and listened to the episode so excited about this okay so we're starting with the pro predictions and these are all going to be hardware based at

first so the first one was from me the meta quest 4 will release and has specs shockingly close to the vision pro this year now i'll be the first to admit this one's a little wrong there was no meta quest 4 and therefore the specs were as far away as possible from the vision pro so i totally missed this one there was there was a new vision or new meta quest headset but it was a lower end model so uh yeah i biffed it um not a good year for vr and not a good year for that prediction yeah sad yeah but maybe neilian can bring us back from the brink with her first pro prediction

my hardware pick my first hardware pick is that there is going to be a home pod with a screen on it oh no is there any home pod hardware this year um no but but I have a home pod on my desk right now it's a home pod mini and it kind of has a screen already go on no it lights up No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I did NOT anticipate this work or this loophole. No, just flat wrong. Maybe this year, though. Maybe This Year. Okay, okay. All right, Chris, your first prediction. There will Be a new iPad Pro in the fall or winter time. So latter half of the year, it will have the M5 chip and all the base starting RAM for it will be 16 gigs. And it will have improved battery life. And by what I mean by this is since the start of the iPad's life, Apple has claimed it has a quote unquote all day 10 hour battery life.

That number or phrasing will shift in some way to be more than 10 hours. I got, I got greedy with this one. First half of the prediction, spot on. It was looking great. Second half, I got greedy. the starting RAM did get increased I did not expect it to be 12 gigs because at the time I think at the time we made these predictions the only RAM in the base chips were 8 and 16 so I just assumed they would go to 16 and they wouldn't do 12

and I was really sure that they would actually put more battery life in this iPad they did fast charging but yeah nope I'm sorry I was listening to this one and I I was like, oh, he's got it. He's, oh, no, he's lost it. Yep. Nope. I got greedy. I got greedy. Too many words. Yep. Yep. Maybe I learned my lesson this year, or maybe I didn't. Yeah, maybe. Ooh, we'll see. Okay. So my next prediction is going to hopefully, hopefully bring us back.

The thin iPhone that's been in the rumor mill all year will release this fall, and it will just be the normal iPhone 17. Oh. I, too, talked too long. Yep. But in my defense, it would have been a boring prediction because we all knew that was coming. I still think this is what Apple wants to do. I still think they intend to have the iPhone Air and the iPhone Pro and then whatever third tier they're going to make. But, yeah, for now, it is more expensive and has worse specs.

So, yeah, I missed. My bad. Which brings us to Nealian, who had a theme with her predictions. Yeah. There is going to be a portable HomePod. Okay. And it's going to be called the HomePod, just like I predicted on my stories last year. So that HomePod on your desk, are you able to walk around the room with it by chance? No, but the one in my kitchen is a HomePod.

but not made by Apple and not called Rumpod. Did I say it was going to be made by Apple? There is going to be a portable HomePod. And there is one. Yeah, there is one. It's in my kitchen. I don't think we can make the predictions come true. Can we make the predictions? Can we? Can we? Unfortunate. No, we said we are chill. Let's not... We are chill. You're right. You're right. We're not even keeping score.

We're just giving each other a hard time. I'm keeping score. Okay. Well, then, Chris, you're going to love this next prediction, which is from you. Apple will update their external monitors. What I'm thinking is that there will be at least one new external monitor that has a higher refresh rate than 60 hertz and an OLED panel. Oh, God. I wanted this so bad. No. Nope. Nope. Nope.

Just no from the jump. Just no. Not a peep from the Apple display. Come on, Apple. The studio display is over. The panel in the studio display is over 10 years old. Hey, but at least they introduced a new feature with the studio display. Now it flickers. That's true. If you update to Tahoe. If you update to Tahoe, which I did. And it is still flickering even on Tahoe.2, whatever. So the first part of your prediction is kind of true. They did update.

That's true. I think I should get a half point. Okay. You get half of the made-up point. All right. So that moves us past the pro hardware picks and pro software picks. So what software things do we think would happen this year? So we'll start with one of mine. At least one feature of Apple intelligence that was shown at WWDC 2024 will not be in iOS 19. Yeah. We finally got one. Okay. Blanket before anyone writes in. I would like to make a blanket statement that anytime we mention iOS 19 or macOS whatever or something like that, we just automatically round it up to iOS 26.

We round it up. iOS 26. Like, we weren't predicting that they were going to change the numbers. We were just predicting the next version. Yes. So, you 100% get this, Matt. Yeah. First one on the board. Numerous Apple intelligence features. I can't ask Siri to do anything for me. Nothing. None of that works. So, yeah. At least one feature. Oh, yeah. At least one. At least one. At least one. Understatement. The big one. Okay.

So, next up, we have Nelian's first software pick. iPhone mirroring. You remember? Mm-hmm. Yeah. The macOS feature, which lets you control your iPhone from the Mac. It's not available right now in the EU. And my pick is it's not going to be available in the EU by the end of 2025. Didn't it? I thought they really... No, that was something else. That was Apple Intelligence. Nope. Yeah. That was right. Still no mirroring in the EU. And I think I took a risk with this one.

Maybe not. But yeah, it's not in the EU. I think you did. I think you did. Because I know that some people say, oh, DMA, DMA, but I don't really know if this falls under the DMA. I don't know. Oh, yeah. Whatever. We're not here to debate that. Yeah. At the point we recorded this, Apple had already announced Apple Intelligence was coming to Europe. So I think it made sense for us to assume iPhone mirroring was also going to be kind of part of that. Yeah. And I think that was around the point also where support, Apple support pages started showing up in French

on the French Apple support website, which is why some of us like also, I know I'm Mac generation in the French tech press. People were kind of expecting that finally it's coming. It's coming soon because they're starting to translate everything. But nope, it's not here. That's a bummer. I'm sorry but I'm congrats on the point you got that thank you you're on the board okay can we make it three for three

Chris here is your next prediction about software iPad multitasking will be fixed and by fixed I mean myself Federico and whoever's left on the iPad will be happy and have no major complaints. I think I get that one. I think you get it. I went back and listened to it and Neelion was laughing at me the whole time I was making this one.

And I was like, not today. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was just like, just absolutely like, I got this. I was not expecting to get this when we made the predictions. When we made this predictions, I don't think I had said it, but I was already like, okay, I'm going in on the Mac this year. I'm like, the iPad's not getting updates. Oh, boy. Nope. Nope. I get this. I, I. Yeah. Okay. Okay. This was a big surprise. Yeah. Outside of. I think I should win the whole thing because, because of this one alone.

We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. So now, starting now, we all get, we get everything right. Right. We are on a good trend. Yeah. It was a rough start, but we've gotten three in a row. It's going to be a sweep from here on out, for sure. Yep, 100%. So here's my next software pick. Apple completes its acquisition of Pixelmator, and Pixelmator becomes a free app. Sorry, Matt. Nope. Another example of talking too long. They did complete the acquisition, but yeah, those apps are still paid, and that's fine.

Whatever. I didn't need the point. I'm still writing high. by the way. Yeah, they're not really getting updated either, which is, you know, whatever. It's fine. It's okay. Yep. Yep. Yep. So yeah, we don't need to dwell on that. Let's move on to another stage manager prediction from Neilian. My pick is stage manager remains untouched. Both on macOS and iPadOS. Untouched. It's exactly the same.

Okay. Maybe New bugs. Maybe new bugs. Hey, Niléane, I don't know about you, but on my platform of choice, Stage Manager got completely overhauled. How is it on your platform of choice? It's untouched. It's exactly the same as it was a million years ago when it launched. A good half point again. That's what I'm saying. Half point. Got it on the back, but yeah, the iPad, the biggest change.

maybe. Okay. Speaking of ones that get so close to being right, Chris, here's your final pro software pick. I am saying they're going to bring a clipboard manager to iOS and iPadOS. And iOS and iPadOS 19. You got the clipboard manager part right. Why didn't I say macOS? So Chris, my platform of choice has gotten a clipboard manager. What about yours?

No, it does not. It frustrates me every single day. How did they not bring this to iOS and iPadOS? They did it on macOS, but not iOS and iPadOS. This one's crazy. I'm so sorry. Close to being right. So that moves us on to our Pro Max picks. So these were pie in the sky. These are things people actively don't think are going to happen. And happy about this next one. I'll just let it play and speak for itself. There will be new Vision Pro

hardware released in 2025. And again, in the background, you can hear Chris laughing at me. And if you listen to the episode, you will go on and be like, it's not happening. Nothing's happening. All the rumors say no. All the pundits say no. But I disagreed. I had faith in the platform I don't even really like that they were going to release new hardware. I did specify a spec bump would count and you know what we got that m5 a flagship m5 product the vision pro right there

it's sitting right there i can i it's right right right there um i could not believe when i was listening back i was laughing at you so hard and oh boy did i just have to eat my shoe like oh boy yeah um good job that that one felt good that one felt good yeah Neil-Yan, let's go on to your first crazy Pro Max hardware pick it's a winner the airport router is back this year unfortunately I mean, I've been to an airport

and there was Wi-Fi routers everywhere if you look closely in corners of rooms they're all over the place the boingo wi-fi's or whatever yeah free wi-fi's they have all the places close so i'll go ahead and check the box that says i'm correct okay all right now chris well let's just listen to it let's see foldable ipad pro no that goes from What I'm thinking is it is the width of the portrait version of the 11-inch iPad Pro.

Then it opens up into what is now the standard 13-inch iPad Pro. Yeah. I got this one, right? Would you be willing to fold an iPad in half on camera right now? Where's my iPad? Sure. Apple, sorry, I'm going to break your review. So many details. Yeah. I really thought we were. I actually thought we were going to get a foldable iPad in 2025.

Yeah. Well, I was going to ask if you think it'll be next year, but that's for the next segment. Yeah. We'll see. Okay. I'm going to play the next two back to back because unwittingly, we didn't look at each other's predictions ahead of time. So Nelian and I made basically the same pick. I'll just play them right back to back. Apple will announce a new portable Mac form factor. So there will be a MacBook Pro, there will be a MacBook Air, and there will be something new.

At which point Nelian was like, wow, that's very vague. Let me be more specific. Apple will announce the revival of the 12-inch MacBook, just called MacBook. maybe 11 inch, maybe smaller. And it comes in as many saturated colors as the iMac. Well, not so much. Yes. About that. We were hopeful, naive, and thought that whimsy was still a thing in this world.

But it is not. If 2025 has taken away anything, it is whimsy. That is true. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But hope is not lost. This is our longest prediction next. It comes from Chris. And you're just going to just kick back. Just go ahead and check it is correct right now. Just go ahead and check it is correct. I know it's right. Okay, I'll check it is correct, but let's hit play while I'm doing that, just to make sure. Apple is going to realize they need partners to build a car. Apple, Ford, and Dr. Pepper partnered to make the ultimate Mustang.

It's going to have CarPlay 2.0. What is wrong? Spatial audio support, like that Mercedes I got to try, that video I made about the Mercedes with spatial audio in it. It's going to have that. A few minutes later. So, yeah, that's probably a little bit more likely than iPad multitasking getting fixed. I do not appreciate being summarized and not getting... I demand to read the full thing, and I have the text here. I demand to read the full thing. Apple realizes they need partners to build a car.

Apple, Ford, and Dr. Pepper partnered to make the ultimate Mustang. Carpoint 2.0, spatial audio support like the Mercedes I got to try. A built-in cold bar for drinks like James Bond, but it's just Dr. Pepper zero sugar with cream soda. Ford brings the proper circle steering wheel back. Only comes in the V8 5.0 engine and above. Mustang Mach-E is discontinued or at least renamed because it should not be called a Mustang. They let me reveal it and I get the first one off the line.

Ford and Dr. Pepper become a permanent sponsor and pay me in products because they get my money anyways. Daft Punk and all techno music is blocked in this new Mustang. Thank you for your time. That was correct. My favorite part of this is at the end after you read that entire manifesto that you think this is less crazy than your window management prediction from earlier. Which you got right. Yeah, which I got right. Yeah, that's how depressed I was when it came to the iPad this time last year.

You can tell. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, that was absolutely correct. Happened. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, yeah, definitely. All right, well. Car's sitting in my garage right now. Interesting. All right, let's bring it home with our Pro Max software picks. starting with my perennial pick. Things 4 releases and is a subscription app. Guys, I don't think that app's ever coming out. It's just Things 3 from now until the end of time. I'm convinced Nobody's... Things 3 is just in maintenance mode.

They haven't added anything in a long... They did a liquid glass update, and that's it. Yeah, I don't know what the deal is over there. It's fine. I'm not itching for features, I guess. It's just I've been predicting Things 4 is definitely coming for like six years now. Oh, wow. Yeah. It's a little crazy. So anyway, it didn't happen. I think GTA 6 will come out before Things 4. I guarantee. Oh, that's a good. It's not one of my picks, but yes, I do think so.

All right. Then, Niléane, you have another bit of wish casting. The macOS 16, which I believe is going to be the number this year, the new version of macOS this year, will feature a new Apple Music app rebuilt from the ground up away from the legacy iTunes Foundation. How'd that go? We are in big 2025 and the music app has never been this bad in all of the history of transistors, the fire and the wheel and the invention of writing.

There you go. It's the worst app on my Mac right now. It's so bad. They have not rebuilt anything. They have just slapped liquid glass on there and made UI worse in every way. I am so mad about this one. So mad. This one hurts. Maybe they'll rewrite it eventually. I don't care. I don't care no more.

Well, Chris, now it's your turn to Wishcast. Let's see what you predicted. Virtual display mode on Vision Pro, but for the iPad. Yeah, how did I not get this one? How have they still not done this? I know you can run iPad apps on the Vision Pro, but a lot of developers turn them off. And on top of that, they're not great. So give me the virtual display mode. Give me external trackpad and mouse.

And just... Can you play the iPad? You can, but it lags a little bit. Like, it's just frustrating. It's just buggy enough to where it can be frustrating. And, like, you wouldn't want to do it for, like, editing video or something like that. Right. Whereas I can totally do virtual display mode on the Mac with the Vision Pro and edit video. Sorry. All right. Well, bringing it home, we each have one pick left. Let's see how many we can get.

So this is mine. Apple releases a major update to Time Machine for the Mac that adds co-pilot style screenshots of everything you do. And Apple stresses this never leaves your device and is uniquely powered by their on-device models. Now, here's what I'll say. If they released this, they would have said it's powered by our on-device models and everything stays on your device. They didn't release it or announce it. So they didn't get a chance to say those things, but they would have.

I mean, you're not wrong, but you're also wrong. Looking back, this pick is very strange because you were like, okay, so Microsoft, the most unpopular thing that Microsoft did in the last decade. Yeah, Apple is going to do that, by the way. That's my prediction. It was a different time, a different administration. Things, you know, things felt different. Oh, Trump's fault. Yeah, I know. I know that story. Yes, a co-pilot would be great if it was.

Anyway, anyway. I can't get into that today. Can't deal with that today. Okay. Well, I do have another bright spot. So this is Neilian, your final pick. Apple is going to add functionality to macOS this year to manage your menu bar icons. I can't believe you got this. I can't believe you got this either. Incredible. Thank you. Apple did something with menu bar icons.

They acknowledged the existence of menu bar icons. They did the bare minimum. Absolutely. Yes. Enough to get the point. But hey, you know what they did? They allowed users the ability to get Adobe out of the menu bar without having to install a third-party utility. That's worth a lot. that's worth something right there that's worth the flickering right there yeah I've uninstalled Bartender

I don't have Bartender anymore on my Mac I'm just using the Mac OS Tahoe stuff alright well Chris you're gonna bring us home I'm gonna get this one I hope you're swinging for the fences on this one oh yeah you know me there is a Mac mode for the iPad but this would be it would be iPadOS and tablet mode. What does that mean, even? I don't know what that means, but I've never been more happy to get a prediction wrong. I'm so glad I got

this wrong. iPadOS 26 is better than getting macOS on the iPad. Come fight me. Alright, well... Obviously, we didn't get all of them right. But we did get five of them right by my count. Yes. And Matt and I, we're tied. Right? I don't know. I also got that Ford one. Don't forget about the car.

If we give you the Ford one, then we all tie. I mean, I got the airport and the Rumpod as well. So at this point, I win. I think we all did good. We're dangerously close to setting up some sort of constitution that we have for this, which we do not want to do. We don't want to do that. We're not going down that route. You know who won? It's a dangerous road. We know who won. Our listeners. Because this was very entertaining. That's who won. Because this was entertaining. All right. Well, thank you for going through all of our predictions from last year.

I think we did a job. And I think we can only do better this year. I think it shows that had Apple followed all of our predictions for this year, for last year, the company would be in better shape for sure. Oh, yeah. If they would have made that Mustang, what's above a trillion dollars? You know, what's above a trillion dollars? Quad billion dollars? It would have been the first quad billion dollar company if they would have made that Mustang.

You're not wrong. But they did fix iPadOS window management, so, you know. Can't have it all. That was worth another trillion right there, at least. Yeah. Okay. Well, that brings us to the most exciting part, which is what is going to happen in 2026. Yes. And all of it will happen. And again, starting with our pro predictions, no safe bets. These have to be things that we don't know are going to happen. And we're going to split up between hardware and software. So we can start with the hardware picks.

and I we can do the same order so me neely and chris does that work sure okay so my first hardware pick just pro not pro max this is this is gonna happen the folding iphone releases it's called the iphone ultra it starts at 1,999 with 256 gigabytes of storage and it is both a major critical and sales success.

So we know the phone is coming out and all the other details need to be right for me to get this one. I think I got the price point. I think I know the starting storage. I think I know the name. I think ultra makes sense. And I really think a critical and sales success will be tricky to judge. Hopefully it will be obvious by this time next year, But I think it will be, I think if I had said the iPhone Air was a major critical in sales success, we would not say that is true.

So it will be more successful than the Air. It'll be hard to get. It'll sell out quickly on launch day. Yeah, that's what I think is going to happen. But are, like, so looking at your pick, this seems like very, like, likely. But I wonder, like, are other folding phones right now a sales success? Like, is that such a, like, would that be a new thing that the foldable phone becomes like a real, real flagship success, you know?

I, that's a good question. We're never going to know the exact numbers, so it's a little hard to say. I think I mostly mean by this, however many Apple makes, they're going to sell out of them. And it's going to be hard to get them for at least a month or so after launch. Okay, okay. But, yeah. And then the 1999, I think, is lower than people are expecting for this.

Samsung's and Google's are only like $200 less than this. So they could go higher. iPhone Ultra. I don't think we've seen any rumors on what it's going to be called. But my guess is iPhone, iPhone Air, iPhone Pro, iPhone Ultra. But we'll see. They could do iPhone Studio. That would be weird. No. You don't like this, Chris? Just no. No. No. Well, maybe we'll get to it. I don't know. Maybe we'll get to it.

I don't know. Okay. Okay. Maybe. Looking at it right now. I don't want to show my hand. Looking at it right now, if I'm trying to buy an iPhone 17 Pro Max, it can already go up to 2,500 euros. Yeah, but that's for the 2 terabyte one. Yeah, but also 9, wait, what? 1,979 euros for the 1 terabyte ones.

So, I mean, it seems like too close on the price ladder. I mean, it depends on the storage. The 256 gig 17 Pro Max is $1,200. So, just over half the price. Like, we're almost doubling the starting price. I feel like that's... I mean, if it's all the same, you could happily buy me one. That'd be wonderful. But I think that's a big difference. $2,000 for a phone is crazy, honestly. That is close. Remember when the best iPhone was $600?

Or when you could get an iPhone for $200 with carrier subsidies. Yeah. Anyway. All right. Neil-Leon, I'm very excited to see what your first pick is. So we're doing pro hardware, yeah? Pro hardware. Okay. So my first one is a MacBook model with an OLED or OLED-like display is announced. So I'm saying OLED-like because it's Apple.

They might do something weird. They might say they invented a new kind of OLED or whatever. So I'm just covering my bases here. Pro-LED or something. Yeah. Yeah. If it turns out... Tandem OLED or whatever. And all the verbiage, it's just OLED with fancy tech on top. It qualifies. So there you go. Just any MacBook model can get released this year. with an OLED display and I would win this point.

That's it. Okay. Any MacBook model. Any MacBook model. Probably not the Air. Maybe. Let's get ProMotion there first. Let's start with that. Yeah. I think I want OLED first on the Air rather than ProMotion, to be honest. But yes. Okay. I'd be very happy if this came true. Yeah. All right. So my first pro hardware pick is Apple makes an OLED iPad mini, but there's one major compromise that causes a controversy, but it isn't jelly scrolling.

It also gets the same fast charging that the iPad Pro M5 has, and it does get the same quote unquote all day 10 hour battery life. It costs more than the previous model in US dollars. I love this 10 hour thing. And yes, it's always a part of your predictions. Yeah, because I hate that 10 hour battery. I hate I hate that. Every time I hear the oh, it gets the all day 10 hour battery life. It annoys the crap out of me because I'm like, first off, no day is 10 hours.

Second, I have never once had an iPad get to 10 hours of battery life ever in doing anything. My iPad Pro, I have the biggest iPad Pro, which probably has the biggest battery in it. and I still only get halfway through my working day, not even my whole day. So even in freedom time units, there's no 10-hour days? Yeah, even in freedom time units, yeah. I mean, this is literally every iPad, right? Literally every iPad in the line has this 10-hour mark on it.

Yeah, literally every iPad since the first iPad, Apple has quoted as the quote-unquote all-day 10-hour battery life, Which none of them... But even if they did, every iPad ever has literally the exact same battery performance. Yeah, which is not. That's weird. Yeah. It's a weird one, Apple. Change it. Yes. Okay. My second pro hardware pick is the Valve Steam Deck, or sorry, the Valve Steam Machine releases in Q1.

It sells out immediately on the first day and becomes one of the most sought tech products throughout 2026. And by this, I mean, it will be difficult to purchase. It will sell out and then it'll be the sort of product. It'll be like when the PlayStation 5 and Xbox series launched where like there will be discord bots and Verge articles about like it's back in stock. Go buy it now. And then by the time you see the article, it's already sold out.

Yeah. So that's what I'm predicting. And it will go through the entire year. It will be a challenging thing to just buy throughout the whole year. And it's going to be in some way a viral product. There's going to be a whole market around. I'm sure we'll be able to 3D print custom covers for it and that sort of thing. It's going to be a thing. It's going to be something that's talked about consistently through the year. Do we already have a price announced?

We do not. They have announced the product. They said it's coming this year, and they have not said the price. So rumors are it's going to be... I will depend largely on that. Yeah. I'm guessing it's going to be around $800. I think that's pretty reasonable. I think it's going to be $800 with the option, and that's the starting price, with the option to go above $1,000. Yeah. I think that is likely, and I still think it will be very popular.

Yep, I think so too. I'm already looking to replace my Xbox and stuff with this. Considering the rampocalypse. Yeah. I mean, it's possible they can't even make enough. They'll sell whatever they already had purchased, and they just can't update the inventory after that. I don't know. I'm saying it right now. If it shifts and it's around 800, 900 euros, this is what I'm getting this year.

This is the gaming machine I was waiting for. Okay. Okay. So I hope you're right. I'm very intrigued. Yeah. Okay. Nelian, what do you have? All right. Very passionate pick prediction for 2026. The magic mouse remains unchanged and untouched in 2026. This is my prediction. Both it remains unchanged and untouched.

This might be the safest prediction of all time. This is extremely risky, Chris. And you will see why a little later. Okay. Yes. I can you just. So unchanged, I get. What do you mean by untouched? I mean, untouched. Like, if they refresh the iMac and the iMac has new colors, right? And they match the color match, the keyboard and the Magic Mouse. I'm saying they're not doing that.

Oh, so like they will color match the keyboard and the trackpad, but they won't color match the Magic Mouse. What I'm predicting is not only that the Magic Mouse remains a product in the lineup like it has for years. I'm saying it's getting worse. This is what I'm saying. It's getting worse. It's unchanged. And they're not even color matching it anymore. You're getting the white one. And that's it. The CAD file date modified does not change to 2026 at any point. The CAD file for the Magic Mouse.

Exactly. Okay. Can I tell you a joke pick I had on my list before I thought of a real pick? was in protest, Apple releases a magic mouse with the charging port centered on the top. It was hard to get the ergonomy right. Exactly. So now you can charge it and use it. But now you have a new problem. Okay, okay. All right, Chris. All right. This one, I'm going for the jugular on this one.

Apple kills the HomePod again. And by this, I mean the regular HomePod, not the HomePod mini or the HomePod with a screen and an arm or whatever that thing is supposed to be. I mean, the regular HomePod, they kill it again and they do not replace it with anything. I hate this. Okay. I was a HomePod lover for the longest time. When they killed the HomePod originally, I was upset. The HomePod has become one of the worst products Apple makes. It does not respond.

It does not listen. When you tell it to do something, it does something different. When you ask it to play a certain kind of music, it plays something else. It is the worst. I have gotten rid of all of my HomePods. I hate them now. They are just not reliable at all. And it's very clear that with whatever they do with the new Siri, they are not fast enough to run it. I don't think Apple's going to come out with a replacement for them. I don't think they sell well enough. I think they'll just kill it. Wow.

Okay. So the mini sticks around. Maybe they add another type of HomePod, but the big $300 one. Yeah. Dunzo. Dunzo. Interesting. Because in order to get those things to sound good, you have to buy two of them. They're not $300. They're $600. I do not. I do not. Like, if you're going to buy a high-end speaker to listen to music, first off, don't get HomePods. But if you are, you're going to want stereo. And one HomePod is not stereo.

It's 360 degree sound, Chris. It bounces off walls, Chris. Oh, my God. Anyways, yeah, that was me going for the jugular. That's okay. Oh, man, to be killed twice in the same decade by Apple, that'd be tough. That'd be tough. Yeah. Okay, so we're still in the pro category, still could happen. And then we move to software picks. And my first software pick, this is one for Chris. This is one that'll make everybody happy.

iPadOS 27 has three modes when you boot it up the first time. Single app mode, simple mode, and advanced mode. And single app is what you have right now. The single app, you just have full screen only. Simple is something more like what we had previously. Maybe it's a slightly modified version of the split screen and slide over that they've implemented in the point releases on iPadOS 26.

But no way to get into multi-window. Maybe if you connect to a display. But like more of what we had previously. Advanced mode will be the full windowing system. Basically what we have now with whatever changes they make to that. but basically three options because there's two options right now and actually there's three right now well you have stage manager sort of yeah that's true that's true set stage manager aside yeah i know what you're going for but single app i think is too restrictive for people and then the multi-window gives people i think more freedom than some of them want so i think they'll then

clearly they're reacting to this and the point releases like they're trying to make those users happy and i think that potentially swipes pro uh they could implement a specific mode that's more traditional and will be called something like simple i could see this and the one thing i would like them to add is the ability to auto switch modes so go into the simple mode when there is no keyboard and trackpad attached or detected or whatever and the minute you attach this magic keyboard or wireless keyboard and trackpad or whatever it goes into the advanced mode do something

like that that would be killer yeah i would also there's not part of the bet but i also it would also be nice if based on the device you have it would default to the right one selected so if you have an ipad pro it'll do advanced by default but if you have an ipad mini it'll be single app probably um but you can change it you could do whatever you want but i think it'll default to something it makes sense. Okay. Because multi-window on the iPad mini is insane. Yeah. Right? It is a little wild.

Cool it's there. But man, I struggle with it on my 11-inch. So anyway, that's my pick. All right. All right. My pick is that this year, the macOS Tahoe successor, whatever its name, version number, This is the new way of predicting new OSes. So the macOS Taho successor supposedly, which means Apple announces that, it focuses on stability and quality of life.

So a snow leopard release. Yeah, but I'm adding a caveat to my prediction. It's part of the prediction. Liquid glass still sucks. My prediction is that yes, maybe they will focus on stability and quality of life, but no, they're not walking back any of the bad design decisions just yet. I wouldn't be surprised if things change, but liquid glass is definitely here to stay, but I think it'll evolve.

Yeah. I'm curious, how do we judge this? How do we know it focuses on stability and quality of life? Does Apple have to say this at WWDC? Do we have to see this as one of the main features on the new macOS page on Apple.com? It's obvious that this is the focus of the release. Okay. We'll just know. Yeah. That would either be Apple announces it or they don't say anything.

And this is what we see when the OS ships, is that they're only doing stability work and bug fixes. If it seems obvious to us by the end of the year, I think that would work. Okay. Okay. I think if that's the big focus of the OS release, they will say it on stage. Yeah, that seems. Especially coming off of this last year. Yeah. Okay. I mean, and honestly, that's what their Pixelmator release notes are like now. Pixelmator used to do like elaborate blog posts explaining the new features. Now every release is just bug fixes and improvements.

So this would be an Apple style. My guess regarding Pixelmator is they just have a Git job running automatically every Sunday and pushing the release to the App Store. And there's nothing being done. It's the same commit over again and again and again being compiled and being pushed to the App Store. There's nothing happening. This is my guess. Oh, boy. Well, speaking of that. Oh. My first pro software pick is Xcode, Motion, Compressor, and a new photo editor that's based on Pixelmator.

I don't know if it'll still be named Pixelmator. I don't want to pick naming. But it comes to the iPad and completes the suite of pro software. Wow. All of that this year. So what pro software exactly? The one that can do background tasks? Xcode, Motion, Compressor, and some kind of new photo editor. Okay. Man. That's a lot of apps all at once. I think it's going to happen.

I'd be so mad if like three of the four come. Like it's Motion, Compressor, and a photo editor, and there's nothing for Xcode. Yeah. Or like they add motion features to Final Cut. And you're like, oh. I don't think so. just because the UI is very different for what you need for something like that, I think it would be a separate app. Okay. Okay. This has a lot of details in it, which I like. That's what makes it fun. That is what makes it fun.

Okay. I mean, listen, this would be great if it happens. So I'm rooting for you. Now, my final software pick in the pro category is quite simply Google Gemini gets more downloads on the iOS app store than ChatGPT which I do think is a bold prediction. Apple does have year-end lists where they'll show you here's the most downloaded apps of the year so you can validate this this time next year but ChatGPT has been the number one app all year consistently and they were the number one app

most of last year. It is the biggest app in the world and I think Gemini is going to crack the code. They're just going to use that Google ecosystem and people are going to be using Gemini more. And I think it will surpass ChatGPT in downloads. But we'll see. I think it's a bit of a swing. Yeah, I don't think so.

It's a thing that even people using Gemini and other apps, They're calling them chat GPT. Oh, sure. It's getting the Kleenex treatment. Whatever AI people are using, they're calling it chat GPT. I don't know. Are you arguing this is a bonus Pro Max prediction? I should get double points next year when I get it right? No. I'm not arguing. You're just already predicting I will be so wrong. Yes, yes. Okay. Well, that's why it's not one of our boring picks that we don't even talk about.

This is a tough one. Speaking of not boring picks, my last Pro Software pick is incredibly not boring because I predict that Stage Manager remains unchanged on macOS. Ed, Ed, Ed, are you going to add it? I'm saying unchanged on macOS. No new features, no improvement, And same bugs. This is the prediction.

This is an updated prediction from last year where obviously I went wrong. I imagined that also on iPadOS they would not fix it. But now I'm saying, like I'm now doubling down on the fact that on the Mac, no one's working on it anymore. There's no lab, like no one's hired to do anything with it. So I'm doubling down. This is happening, or rather, this is not happening. Stage manager is staying as it is forever.

Okay. And I think this is bold because if, like, look at my previous software pick. I'm saying this will be a macOS release focusing on stability and quality of life. And I'm saying that at the same time, they will focus on stability. And at the same time, they will forget entirely that stage manager is something that needs to be fixed. So there you go. Man. Big risks taken here in Niléane land.

Okay. So it's a bug fix release, but they don't fix any bugs in stage manager. Exactly. All right. Or add features. They make a specific energy targeting toward not touching stage manager while fixing bugs. I'm going to laugh if they add one thing, like the ability to shift-click an app icon to add it to a current stage. Something like that. Just something small enough. All right. So my last pro software pick is Final Cut Pro for the iPad gets a big update.

Solves some of my issues, but not all. And I'm specifying a big update because I would argue Final Cut Pro for the iPad has never got a big update. it's only ever gotten small updates. Like, there's been, like, the multi-cam thing, which is nice if you do that kind of thing, but it's not really a big deal in editing land. But other than that, like, it's gotten, like, very small updates. Like, oh, you can do image playgrounds, or, oh, you can do, oh, there's stabilization, but only if you capture the footage in the Final Cut app

and not, like, even Final Cut Pro for camera. there really needs to be a big overhaul to that app. And I think this is the year that it's going to happen. Okay. So big 3.0. Because the 2.0 was multicam, right? Was the multicam thing. And I get it. It's important for some people. But honestly, they should be focusing on core editing features. Like the ability to copy and paste effects using keyboard shortcuts.

Or even the mouse. Just anyway. Or maybe you can do that already. Well, you can with the mouse, but you've got to go through the menus and stuff like that. But you can do it. I just want to be able to select a clip and hit Command C, and then either Command Shift V and get the list of effects I want to paste, or Command Option V and just paste all the effects. That's such a small thing. Not too much to ask. That would go so far.

and then the ability to do stabilization to a clip that's in the timeline. That would be huge. Does that big release include background export? Yes. Absolutely. If background export, if we do this, I will say this now. If we do this, when we score these predictions next year, if background release, background export, background render, whatever you want to call it, is not in the update, I do not get this pick. If everything else on my wish list is there, but background export is not, I do not get this pick.

I will plant that flag in the ground. I don't know why I'm shooting myself in the foot, but I'm going to do it. I like it. You should. That should be the next feature they release. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Well, those were our pro predictions. Thank you. We move on to our pro max. And these can range from a car. A car, Chris. a Doritos, no, not a Doritos, a Dr. Pepper, I forget all the things that were involved. Ford. He said a lot of things.

There was a wet bar, like, you know, James Bond's Asher Martin. That's right. So these could be anything. I'll kick us off. We'll do the same thing again. We'll do our hardware picks first. My first hardware pick is an evolved version of what I did last year, which brought me so much glory. Apple releases a new product in the Vision family that is not just a processor upgrade. So if it's the same hardware with an M6, I don't get it. So examples of this could be a new Vision Pro with an updated design, not a total redesign, but just like maybe it's a little lighter,

maybe it'll be a different design. Or it could be they release a stripped down product that's closer to the Meta Ray-Bans and doesn't have all the AR, VR stuff, but maybe has a camera and does some, I don't know, Siri stuff. Maybe it's called the HomePod Face. That's not part of the prediction. But it's going to be. I think they'll release some sort of product with vision in the name. And yeah, it could be anything.

My money would be on they make great progress on their sunglasses adjacent product and that gets a release late in the year. So we'll see. But this is risky because I don't think there's any rumors of it actually happening. But there weren't last year either, and I went with my heart. I have, like, I want to help you, okay? What if instead of releases, you put in announcers? Announcers? I could get behind. If you would agree, it is still Pro Max.

Yeah, I think so. Because it's not likely at all, but it makes it a tiny, tiny tad likelier that they announced it this year and it comes out in harmony. That's true. That's true. They could announce it in October and it releases in February or something. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I've changed it to announces. You're welcome. And I'll still get it wrong. But that's fine. Samirian, what do you have that's a little crazy? My Pro Max, first Pro Max hardware prediction is Apple stops selling the Magic Mouse. See?

told you there was something coming. Apple, they now, they stop selling the Magic Mouse entirely. And this is also part, and this is what makes it a Pro Max prediction, they start directly selling the Logitech MX Master in partnership with Logitech, obviously. Which means, like, remember when they did this with the LG display, right? The ultrafine, whatever. They had no display in their lineup anymore.

So they made a partnership. They started selling the LG 5K display. I'm saying they're doing this with the mouse. They don't want to get in on a new mouse. That's it. They've abandoned. Now they're going to partner with Logitech. They have a great relationship with them, obviously. And the MX Master, you will be able to bundle at a purchase when you get a Mac Mini, just like you can bundle the Magic Mouse now. That's Pro Max right there. That's what I was wondering.

Because they already sell the Mac version of the MX Master. But you're saying it will be on the configuration page where you can add it to the purchase. It'll be just in the box. Yeah, this is what I meant. I can add that in text. It will be... How can I write this down? It'll be in the configuration. You will be able to order the Logitech MX Master in the configuration page. Okay. As though it's an Apple product. So not just.

So if they discontinued the Magic Mouse and you just have to go figure out how to buy a mouse, you would not get it. This specifically needs to be the MX Master. Yeah. It's offered right there when you can add stuff to your Mac configuration. Okay. Wow. Okay. That's swinging right there. I like it. It's pro maxi for sure. It's not the worst idea, though. I know. Everyone likes the MX Master. Well, most people like the MX Master. I would wager more people like it than the Magic Mouse.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I have no idea. Hard to say. Nobody likes the Magic Mouse. Okay. So we're doing... Our feedback form is at the Notion web page. It's in the documents. Let Chris know if you like the Magic Mouse. It's a new link. That's fine. Send me a link. Send me some feedback. Send me a link. Not a link. Send me some feedback. All right. So first Pro Max hardware pick for me. The AirPods Max 2 are announced, and they still don't fold.

They don't have all the features of the AirPods Pro 3, but they do do wireless lossless via Apple Music, and they're still overpriced. And by overpriced, I mean they're still over $500. Okay, I will say something that may spark controversy. I don't think this is a Pro Max pick. Really? I think this is way too likely to happen. Really? Yeah. I was going to say.

Apart from the name, I don't think they would name it AirPods Max 2 specifically. Oh, I think they would. I actually think Apple would. Although, yeah, they did. The new AirPods are AirPods 4, right? AirPods 4, AirPods Pro 3. Yeah, you're right. But I think the fact that they don't fold, that they don't have all the features of the AirPods Pro 3, and they do wireless lossless, that's not Pro Max-y? I think the Pro Max part of this is that you say they're going to be announced at all.

I mean, honestly, that was kind of what I was thinking. Like, the fact that they come out at all. Because I really wouldn't be surprised if this line gets killed, too. like if these don't, if they just don't ever update. I think they will update it. I think this line is surprisingly successful. It's kind of like a status symbol in a way that HomePods aren't. I see people all the time wearing AirPods Max. That's true. Especially if you go to the airport, like they are surprisingly.

Okay. So do we think this is a Pro Max? Yeah, okay. Do we count this? Okay, because I can come up with something else. I think it's okay. think if they are announced then i think the things you said have a decent chance of happening but it's not gonna happen so yeah that's true i i i don't think i i really don't think they will update the design i think if they update if they do airpods max 2 like if they are announced this year i do not think they will have an updated updated design i think you're you're kind of right matt that they're a status symbol and apple knows that and they will keep it the same look so i don't think

they will fold i i don't i mean i would be shocked if they were announced and they don't have all the features of the airpods pro 3 and by that i mean like the live translation and stuff like that and like stuff like that it would be so funny if they had the same chip as the current ones just to keep it going just to keep it going and and wireless lossless i don't really know if that's a thing yet and I'm saying they do do wireless sort of versions of it yeah yeah they would have to like they would have to announce a new protocol or something

but right now I think and I don't do this with no 3 I don't know no they don't do wireless lossless they do with the vision pro specifically oh well that's the low latency I don't think it's lossless audio It's lower latency, but it's not lossless audio. Because lossless audio is too much data for Bluetooth right now. You're right. And it's probably just because they're right up next to the computer on your face. Yeah, I think that's really it. It's just like they're literally touching.

It's like technically a wired connection. Yeah, that could be why. That's funny. Okay. Okay. I would love, this is not part of the pick, I would love it if Apple was like, and we measured 10 years for the AirPods Max. And they were all Chris. That's all we needed. You know, just make them big enough, it's fine. Okay. They only need to update the headband, by the way. If the One AirPods Max designer at Apple is listening, just update the headband, it will still look the same,

and it will be a better product. There you go. Okay. Well, my next hardware Pro Max pick is another combo. So, again, out of the Apple space for a little bit. Sony reveals their new portable PlayStation. Microsoft shares some concrete data on the next Xbox console. There is another Xbox-branded third-party device. So this is like the ROG, Xbox, Ally, whatever.

And we see both a price hike and a price drop for some combination of the existing mainstream consoles. So Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo. Some model will get more expensive. Some model will get less expensive. Okay, wait one second. It's computing in my brain. Yeah, this one is a lot. It's five things or four things. So a new portable PlayStation is announced. Maybe not released, but announced. Microsoft. And you're saying this is going to happen in 2026.

All of this happens in 2026. Why is this? This is the topic. If we were a video game show, this would be all of my picks. Yeah. A new PSP, that would be incredible. There's strong rumors that it's in the works. So, yeah. So, not a streaming device. Not a portal thing or anything. Games run on it. so Sony PlayStation Portable Microsoft affirms they are still in the console business by announcing something concrete about the next

Xbox console they do another partnership so there's some other device that they call an Xbox even though it's not really a traditional Xbox so like the RG thing? yep and again price changes PS5, Xbox Series Nintendo Switch one of them will go down in price one of them will go up in price why you why why this is that spot i wanted to make sure it was pro max okay wow wow okay all right that's uh that's a pick that's a pick it's a pick okay it's gonna be three of them right and i'm gonna get the fourth wrong and i'll cry but it's fine yeah so

So, is it my turn? It's your turn. Okay, so my second Pro Max hardware prediction is like, remember what Chris said? All the negativity coming from Chris regarding the HomePod? Oh, I remember. Yes, that was terrible. They're going to kill it. I am on the opposite spectrum of that. And I am predicting that in 2026, Apple announces, or I don't say announces, there will be a new audio file targeted HomePod that will be revealed.

They can be used wired or wirelessly. Both. Yeah, you can plug in a cable. can be plugged into things like vinyl turntables, etc. via old-school standards, like big old RCA cable. Apple will release their own RCA cable. I don't know how, why, or for whom, but Apple will release that. And they will also allow wired headphones usage with Apple TV.

So like if this is connected to your Apple TV, you will be able to plug in directly your wired headphones to use them with the Apple TV. And basically this new audio file targeted HomePod will be Apple's new audio hub in the home. Wow. Yes. I know. That is a lot. That's swinging for the fences. Probably happening tomorrow actually. Yeah. If it happens tomorrow because we're recording this on the 30th, you wouldn't get it.

Yeah, the day after tomorrow, I mean. There you go. I think this would be great. I have long wanted, I always prefer a speaker that can be used wirelessly but has some sort of direct connection as well. I think that's a really good thing for longevity. So this would be great. That was my thing. I would love to see it. I don't think we will, but I would love to see it. I don't think so either. Earlier in 2025, I struggled to make my HomePods work with my vinyls.

That was horrible. And I think Apple has heard me and they will fix it. Okay. All right. We'll see. So my final Pro Max hardware pick. This is going to be a short one, so no big deal. The foldable iPhone is released. It's not as big as the iPad mini when opened. Has Touch ID, not Face ID. Touch ID is on the lock screen button like the iPads.

Okay, that's the safe part. Here's where we get into the Pro Maxi part. I just wanted to clarify some stuff. Has some kind of multi-app mode. So when you open it, you can have multiple apps side by side, which no iPhone currently can do. When you open it up, it runs a version of iPadOS. It's still called iOS, but it behaves iPadOS-ish. Dock, menu bar, split view, maybe slide over, that kind of thing.

The starting price is above $2,498 US. Does not have pro camera features like RAW, ProRes, or Log, but has the same chip as the pro model of that year. So the iPhone 18 Pro has the same whatever chip that I can't ever keep up with what chips they're at. And this is the first iPhone event I'm invited to. Oh.

There you go. I've never been invited to an iPhone event. Nudge to Apple. I've been invited to other events. I've been invited to other product events, WWDC, but I've never been invited to an iPhone event. So a little, I don't know, a little career prediction in there for me. Okay. So all this happens and they don't invite you. We distressingly have to say. I don't get it. If literally all of that happens and I don't get invited to the iPhone, then I don't get this one. Okay. Okay. So we disagree on the price. I mean, it's a Pro Max pick. I'm swinging for the fences. That's a big price.

I honestly think it's going to be $2,500 for the starting price. And it'll probably be configurable up to $3,000. I cannot wait for the blog posts about the fact that it's called iOS, but it has iPadOS features and how the lineup is confusing. And all those blog posts will be right. I don't think it'll be confusing at all. I don't think it's going to be confusing at all.

Could one of your Pro Max software picks be that this is the year we get Apple OS and there's no confusion. It's just Apple stuff. I've heard this before. Yeah. You know, I thought about including Apple OS again, but I still think that's going to happen at some point. I really do think it's going to happen at some point. I mean, it does seem like there's some sort of thing they're trying to go to. It really does. Like, it really, like, a scalable... Cut to the Craig Federighi thing of the no behind him.

No. I think that was a really dumb thing that they did and that they should have just said, look, we're not – they should have just in some interview been like, yeah, we're not planning on merging Mac and iPad anytime soon, which can be true. but I do think at some point I mean look at some point on a timescale what we know as the base of Mac OS and iPad OS and iOS all that Darwin that's going to go away at some point and they're going to have something more modern

and why not have that thing be a little more adaptable to the hardware it runs on anyways that's not what we're talking about today that's not what we're talking about today what we are talking about is our final leg of the journey are Pro Max software predictions. So we each have two to go. And my first one, this one comes from the heart. This is one of my passions. Okay. There is a way to run macOS 27 on an iPad.

Ooh. Okay. So let me clarify what this means. This could mean Apple has a legit way to buy an iPad and have macOS installed on it from day one. It could be there's some way they offer you post-purchase to put macOS on it. Or it could be because there are strong rumors we're going to get a touchscreen Mac this year, so macOS will support touch. It could be clever individuals on the internet figure out a crazy way to force macOS to install itself on an iPad, and it kind of works.

Maybe it's kind of messy. Maybe it doesn't perfectly work, but you can boot into macOS on an iPad through some sort of hacky solution as well. Okay. I hope you're wrong. wow i think my best chance is that they don't officially support it but the the community that is going to mess around with the stuff is going to find a way to get the iso file and flash it onto an ipad life finds a way life finds a way you can install mac os on a windows like a on like a generic pc so you know i think uh hey this is a different m5 device sure why not we'll see we'll

see okay i i i would be interesting to see this happen but yeah this would be my biggest ipad video ever if this happens matt suddenly makes uh ipad os walkthrough Oh, God. You coming for me, Matt? You're coming for me? I'm coming for your territory. Better not miss. If you're going to take a shot at the king, you better not miss. Oh, boy. All right.

Neil, let's see. What do you have for software? Okay. My first Pro Max software prediction is SlideOver comes to macOS Taho's successor. Hmm. It's a buggy mess, but it's there. And it will probably remain untouched for many years to come. This is the prediction. Okay. Okay. Yes. I don't know why. I think it could happen.

Yeah. I like that you refused to name the next OS. I continue to think that's delightful. This is my part of it. You really got burned last time. Hmm. Right now, you can swipe on a trackpad, and it pulls up the widgets, right? Yeah, they could replace that with a slide over. Okay. No one will use it because it will not work half the time. It will be very buggy, and Apple will forget about it and fire the only guy who worked on it, but it will ship.

Alan Dye. That was his last project. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Okay. All right. so we are doing our first Pro Max software pick so for my first Pro Max software pick kind of the opposite of Matt's Apple makes a reverse catalyst of some sort so some Mac apps run on the iPad so they don't do Mac OS on the iPad they figure out a way to get some Mac apps to run on the iPad which is really what people want I don't know

okay so they're gonna So this is not iPad versions. This is not Final Cut Pro coming to the iPad. This is literally the Mac app. This is some Mac apps running on an iPad. Okay. Do with that. This is difficult because... This is a man who just wants Hush on his iPad so bad. It really do. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah, that's it.

That's my Pro Max one. Okay. I'm a little worried about my final software pick because it's similar to one of Chris's pro picks, but we'll see. We'll see what you think. Apple releases their pro app subscription service, which includes Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, and Pixelmator is the only app added. It costs $19.99 per month and is included in a new Apple One Pro bundle.

So there's Apple One, there's Apple One Family, and then Apple One Pro. That might have some sort of like collaboration stuff in there. Not really sure how that'll work, but yeah. Need a new bundle. Isn't that bundle rumored, though? Like, isn't that rumored? Is it? Is it rumored or is it just obviously something that they could do? I swear I saw something about like Apple's working on a Pro bundle for Pro apps or something like that. But maybe not. I mean, you predicted the folding iPhone.

Yeah, but we predicted details. Okay. So I think the details here are the specific apps available. Pixelmator must be added. So this isn't just like here's a new combo. What if they just do a new photo app and it's not named Pixelmator? I think it needs to be called Pixelmator. Okay. And it has to cost $19.99 a month. It has to be an Apple one. If any of those are wrong, I don't get it.

Hmm. Okay. All right. What if they named it Pixel Pro? That would be disappointing for me. That would be a terrible name. Pixel Pro. Yeah, but it will work with Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixel Pro. There you go. Yeah. I mean, it is called Pixelmator Pro right now. Yeah. Yes, that's true. I guess I'm saying they'll take away the Pro. Maybe it'll be Pixelmator Pro. can I amend it to be Pixelmator Pro? Yes I mean sure I'm adding that so Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro that's the bundle okay alright

okay my final Pro Max software pick is for the our fans the fans of the browser podcast my prediction is in 2026 the browser company finally kills ARK browser and renames the year to ARK. The new ARK has reached quasi-feature parity with the old ARK and now offers an option to turn off all AI-powered features.

This is my final prediction. This is the car pick of the year. This is our car pick. There is zero chance of this happening. I think this, like, I'm not even joking. I think this is super likely in some shape or form. Oh, no. Oh, yes. There's absolutely no way. Back me out. Back me up. Is that the expression? Yes. This is positively crazy.

This is insane. The fact that they would rename Dia to Ark. I know people love ARK, but they've spent way too much money on Dia. Like, Dia is here to stay. I'm not saying they're killing Dia. I'm saying they're naming the ARK. And an option to turn off the AI features? Yes. These Silicon Valley bros are so high on their own supply when it comes to AI. They couldn't even comprehend the idea of turning off those features.

This is what I was going to say. they may not have a switch to turn off AI features, but they may have a way to turn AI features up to the max. There will be a toggle to make them even more substantial. Like, literally, you don't browse anymore. It does everything for you. You just go, like, it's like I dream of Jeannie. You just go, hmm, hmm. I think you're not, okay. I don't think you're tuned in enough to Josh Millers, who is the CEO of the browsing company, now owned by a passion.

This guy is... This freaking guy. Pivoting on himself all year round, and his newest pivot is admitting that he made a mistake pivoting to an AI browser, And now they're all in on turning India back into arc, but with better performance, better foundation, technical foundation and all that.

And before I made this prediction in the document, I went on his Twitter. Some people call it X. And looked at his replies. It's fascinating. This individual is fascinating. I may be obsessed. And he did reply to some random guy on X asking for a way to turn off AI in DR. And he said, is that what you want? A kill switch to turn off the AI features in DR?

And the random guy replied, yes, this is what I want. And then he never replied. I think he's thinking about it, boys. I think he's thinking about it. I've thought about it for a few more seconds. And it sounds less crazy, actually. And the reason is because of the Atlassian acquisition. That's why it's crazy to me. Atlassian is going to want to bundle this as part of the Atlassian subscription that tons of businesses pay for.

And some of those businesses will use Jira and blah, blah, blah. And they'll want to have a good browser. They can have all their employees used that's approved by security and everything. And some of those companies will not want the AI features. And that'll be a deal breaker for them. So for those companies, they will make a way to turn off AI from the managed part of the account. Like none of my users can even turn this on if they want. So maybe there will be a way to turn it off.

I don't know if they're going to call it ARK. God, it'll probably like Atlassian browser or something. I think they are realizing how Ark still is, like a name that has public recognition, at least in this space. And they want to capitalize on this. And the Josh guy has realized he's made a mistake, like giving it up.

And yes, he will find a way in his incredible brain to pivot again and say Dia was actually just a long-term project to rebuild ARK from the ground up. And now it's just ARK, but better, like a better performance and all of the features you used to love, but rethought and improved. And anyway, this is my pick. We get a new ARK in 2026. Okay.

Yeah. I, okay. I don't even, yeah, okay. Yep. All right, so for our very last pick, for my very last Pro Max software pick, I'm going to go Great Bambino. I'm going to call my shot. I'm pointing, I'm pointing out to left field here. I'm calling my shot. Apple is going to bring a clipboard manager to iOS and iPadOS 27. It's going to happen. It's going to happen. It's this year.

Come on. It's this year. I've said it every year up until now, but it's this year. I'm calling it right now. If that's not Pro Max, I don't know what is. What is the name of the OS? iOS and iPadOS 27. Okay. What if this year is 37 or something? It's going to be 27. They're not going to change the numbering again the year after they did that. It's going to be 27. What do you guys think?

I mean, come on. I'll call my shot. Way out left field. It's this year. It is this year. It is going to happen. I think you're being hopeful. I can't really tell if it's happening. It's going to happen this year. No, it's happening this year. It might be an off year for iPadOS, you know? No, no, no. I don't think so. I don't think iPadOS is getting off years anymore. Oh, wow. Okay, famous last word. I think there might be smaller years, but I don't think we're going to have an iPadOS, what was that, 18 again,

where it basically didn't get anything. I don't know. Okay. I think iPadOS is going to have some steam going forward until AppleOS comes out, of course. Of course. Okay. Okay. Well, that was great. Now we know what's going to happen this year. yep you guys that's it you don't even need to listen to any other apple podcast well watch my videos you don't need to watch matt's videos um don't need to read any of the blogs or any of that stuff just just watch my the rest of my videos for this year but yeah you know everything that's gonna happen this year that's it wow i'm excited about the the new arc

i gotta say i'm excited about the uh the major changes in apple's mice oh yeah oh yeah reverse Catalyst and Clipboard Manager, baby. If they called it Reverse Catalyst, that would be so funny. Oh my god, I would love that so much. I just couldn't come up with it. I think it would probably just be called Catalyst and it would just work both ways. But I thought Reverse Catalyst was kind of funny. Reverse Catalyst. That's the way you name it. Uno. It's like Uno. It's like reverse card. Flip down the reverse.

Okay. Alright. This was good. I like this. I like these. I think Apple has a good year ahead of them, if they listen to us. If they don't listen to us, you know, can't help. We're doomed. Apple needs to kill off the HomePod, though. First thing, January 1st, they're killing off the HomePod. Or not. Or turn it into an audio file. Nah, they're going to kill it off. They're going to kill it off. They're going to realize it's a stinker. All right. So that kind of brings us to the end of this show. But I need to issue a challenge, because we didn't issue a challenge last week.

because we were doing this, and it's my turn to issue a challenge. So, what I want you to, but I would also like our listeners to jump in on this one. So I want us to clean up our offices and organize them. Impossible. Come up with interesting things on how to do that. And maybe bring some images to the show, you know, bring some photos. Oh, but this is like, this challenge was tailored for people who just got a Philly Pinto.

I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about. I have no idea what's happening in that corner. This is not. Now, I must say, I support this entirely. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. Honestly, Matt, I came up with this for you to get a shot at, like, actually, like, redemption for cleaning up your desk setup. Like, this was literally for you. I want you – this is your redemption arc.

This is when you come back from the dark side and come back to the light. I'm not worried that being able to 3D print things is going to make his setup worse. It's going to be all the flowing with stuff. It's not easy at all. It can only be upside. I don't see how that's possible It's definitely not creating clutter at all Yeah I mean Do I have glow in the dark filament sitting right over there? I don't know I have no idea Tune in next week to find out Okay This is a great challenge I sport it entirely

Just so you know right now there is salt on my desk This is the brand of salt You can use this challenge To go put that salt in your kitchen see made in France real salt I didn't know there was such a thing as fake salt but alright that brings us to the end of the show thank you all so much for listening we went long so I'm not going to do an end of the show actually you know what I do have an end of the show question for you guys what are you doing for New Year's

anything special so we're recording on the 30th yes I'm going to Lyon at a party It's going to be a big one I'm kind of anxious about that Like I am always When I'm in places where there's a ton of people But such is life It will be fun Matt, what about you? Well, first off, this is a great question For a group with people in their 20s, 30s and 40s To get different answers

My sister-in-law is coming to town So she'll be in town and we'll do, but we'll just do it at home. Nice. Nothing crazy. Normally we go to a friend's house for New Year's Eve, but that friend, they're a nurse, and they have to work New Year's Eve, so we don't actually have any plans. So if anyone wants to have us over, you know, let me know. But, yeah, we don't actually have any plans right now. We're probably just going to stay home and play Mario Kart. But they will hear this after the fact? I know. Okay. I know. It's okay. Just make sure.

I wasn't actually expecting anyone to invite me over. It's totally okay. All right. Thank you all so much for listening. Big thank you to MacStories for having us. We're a MacStories podcast after all. Go check out all the other writings and shows. Everything should be spinning back up after the new year now. And have a great day. Bye. And test the new feedback form. Oh, yeah. Test the new feedback. Send us challenge ideas or, I don't know, your Apple predictions. Yeah. If you made it to the last 30 seconds of the show, you're one of our favorites.

Yes. Let us know. That's true. All right. Talk to you guys later. Bye. Bye.