New MacBook Air, iPad Air, and Mac Studio launches
9to5Mac Happy Hour
9to5Mac
4.4 • 884 Ratings
🗓️ 6 March 2025
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Benjamin and Chance recap the newly announced lineup of iPads and Macs. The new iPad Air and base iPad offer even better value for money, while Apple pushes the performance edge with the surprising launch of the M3 Ultra in the Mac Studio, and makes the best MacBook yet with the new M4 MacBook Air. Also, iOS 18.4 beta 2 brings even more new features to discuss.
And in Happy Hour Plus, Apple takes a swing at a home run with a trio of baseball content announcements. Subscribe at 9to5mac.com/join.
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Hosts
Chance Miller
- @chancemiller.me on Bluesky
- @[email protected]
- @ChanceHMiller on Instagram
- @ChanceHMiller on Threads
Benjamin Mayo
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Links
- Apple challenging legality of UK’s secret demand to globally compromise iCloud encryption
- iOS 18.4 beta 2: Here's everything new
- iOS 18.4 adds tons of new Shortcuts actions, hints at Siri’s future upgrades
- iOS 18.4 beta 2 includes seven new emoji
- iOS 18.4 brings RCS messaging to some of the last big carrier holdouts
- iOS 18.4 will address a frustrating CarPlay limitation
- iOS 18.4 upgrades the App Store with these two new features
- Apple unveils new iPad Air, here's what you need to know
- New Magic Keyboard launches for iPad Air with lower price, feature upgrades
- Apple updates base iPad with A16 chip and twice the storage
- Apple unveils M4 MacBook Air in new color and cheaper starting price
- Apple launches M3 Ultra chip with support for up to 512GB memory
- Apple launches new Mac Studio, here's everything new
- With M4 chips, Apple hints at making a key change for the first time
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So, Mayo, we have so much fun stuff to talk about. We have new betas, new iPads, new Macs. |
| 0:05.7 | And yet the first thing in our notes is some follow-up about your country's attempt to force Apple to add a backdoor to ICloud. |
| 0:13.2 | And this comes a financial time report this week said that Apple has made an appeal to the investigatory powers tribunal to challenge this request from the UK government. |
| 0:23.5 | Yeah, this obviously follows them having to disable advanced data protection in the region, right? |
| 0:29.1 | And maybe this legal challenge is the precursor to them having to do even more invasive changes, |
| 0:35.2 | like, you know, those other inter-intending cryptic categories that we talked about before. Maybe if this legal challenge fails, they then also have to |
| 0:41.5 | figure out some alternative method for those things. But at least they're challenging it, right? |
| 0:46.7 | Because there was some blowback to them doing the ADP thing, which was like, oh, Apple needs |
| 0:52.0 | to stand up for this stuff and don't let, you know, |
| 0:54.2 | don't let countries walk over them. |
| 0:55.5 | Well, in practical terms, they're bound by the laws of the region, right? |
| 0:59.3 | And so, as Tim Cook would say, they followed the laws of the countries they operate in. |
| 1:03.5 | But they are also legally challenging it, as reported here. |
| 1:06.7 | So they're at least trying to abate the problem. Obviously it sucks that we're in this |
| 1:14.2 | situation in the first place, but Apple's at least trying. They're not just, you know, |
| 1:19.0 | coutailing to every request, even in a limited fashion. They are at least trying to put up |
| 1:24.0 | a challenge, which is basically the extent that they can do under the law, because countries are more powerful than companies. |
| 1:31.1 | And hopefully it sets a precedent for other countries who initially might have said, |
| 1:34.7 | all it took was this vague threat and they pulled advanced data protection. |
| 1:38.8 | We should do that too. |
| 1:40.8 | At least this sets the precedent that Apple will fight back in at least some form or fashion. |
| 1:45.4 | And all of this is made more complicated by the fact that, as we've said, under the rule of the law, Apple can't talk about the law or the request from the UK government. |
... |
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