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today's 3:59 is sponsored by player unknowns battleground mobile pub G mobile is an on-the-go Battle Royale at its greatest with i popping graphics super smooth gameplay and a variety of exciting play modes download the official mobile version of pub g for free go your android or iOS App Store and type P ubg mobile and collect a special reward using the promo code hol ZB zx9 C code also listed in the episode description play now take - I screwed everything up but that's the charm of this show right Ben and Alfred it's it's really I love how we continually get worse with each new episode very much a DIY podcast that's right a diva di BVG it's dude you're doing great the fact that the TriCaster didn't completely fall apart this time is proof enough I'm you're learning I'm just really glad the microphone wasn't working before because we had acts accidentally unveiled some secret information about the Apple event tomorrow right I'm really glad that that wasn't caught so we were both we're both under very strict embargo and we know that they're gonna be releasing a new can we cut off the Mike's again sorry okay that's that's all I we're not under embargo but we are gonna be talking about the Apple event and what we are expecting the various rumors and reports that have been coming out about it we'll also round out the show with Sam's Club now which is Walmart's effort that's similar to Amazon go anyway sending your questions and comments well get to as many as we can at the end of the show let's get to the podcast standby for podcasts time in 3 minutes and 59 seconds from 3 to welcome to the 359 cast pod I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm Alfred hang and it's more Apple news today the tech giant is hosting a press event in Brooklyn tomorrow starting at 10:00 a.m. Eastern where it's expected to refresh a bunch of devices that aren't iphones big surprise let's start with the one that I'm really excited about and really care about it's a rumored refresh of the MacBook Air 99 sorry $999 laptop is expected to get a high-resolution display and keep its price you excited as I am I'm never excited for anything boy I do think that you know a refresh is very much needed for all of these fan favorite favorite devices a lot of people love the MacBook Air just because it was so small light but the fact was that it wasn't getting the updates that it needed or anything like that and you can also say the same for an iPad Mini which hasn't gone a new version since 2015 are we expecting a new iPad I'm not expecting it but that's also one of the brands for Apple that like has not gotten like any updates or anything like that for a while now-like similar to the MacBook Air yeah it looks like the one that's gonna get the biggest refresh is the iPad pro which is obviously much more expensive and it's helped really update the tablet line and you know get a little bit more enthusiasm into it and get bigger sales it's expected to get a bigger display with no touch ID home button and face ID instead so you're gonna be unlocking it by like looking at it like you would with your iPhone there's also expected to be an eye USBC connection added in and it's supposed to get an updated Apple pencil stylus two sizes expected 11 inch and 12 point 9 inch so the last time Apple had an event for its iPad it was done at a school in Chicago or at least Illinois it's one of those two it was in Chicago okay then I'm glad I'm right but so you know they had done that because it's this whole theme about the iPad pro being for schools and you know they wanted more teachers using in their classrooms and things like that so this time they're doing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and I'm curious if that's an indication of you know what they're gonna be unveiling with potential new iPad or new updates or anything like that they're like content or something like that pushing forward with like maybe like a video streaming service or something like I don't really think we're expecting that either but that is something that Apple has been working on for the past couple of months if not like more than a year now so we'll see what goes on with that I also wanted to mention the update for the Mac Mini which is another fan favorite because it's Apple's lowest price computer at $4.99 that's also expected to get an update I'm not really sure what they would do with it maybe update its specs it's just kind of like a little block that you plug into a monitor yeah actually was oh oh that other thing I was the iPad Mini but you're talking about the Mac Mac Mini I would be surprised if there were an update for that just because I think they're they're more all-in on the just the iMac itself I just have been seeing a lot more people using that and Mac Mini but to be fair it also hasn't received an update in a while so yeah next Walmart introduced a new test store in Dallas called Sam's Club now which does away with cashiers instead letting you scan and go using your phone it's kind of like Amazon Go which now has six stores so maybe we're gonna get rid of cashiers altogether not really sure every single time one of these new types of stores gets introduced though it's always interesting to me that the companies belabor the point that like hey we're not gonna have cashiers but don't worry it's not just gonna be robots we're gonna you know move people around to different places it's still gonna have as many employees as previously yeah it should definitely be interesting I would have loved to use something like this at Costco there's no sam's club around where i live or anything like that but it i would i think it adds a lot of convenience to things but at the same time i would agree that you know that kind of sucks for cashiers dude literally every single time i go to costco there's like a line of like 100 people yeah so i don't know much that would really be a value to having that type of situation and maybe we'll see if Walmart's getting into it amazon's getting into it maybe we'll see a lot more of this kind of thing in the future if you want to read more about these stories check us out on CNN I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm Alfred Hank thanks for listening and thanks for joining us for the recording of the audio podcast as bumpy as it was I don't know it wouldn't be Monday if I didn't screw something up so anyways let's go ahead and jump into the chat and take some questions and comments from you guys to keep the conversation going right out the gate sir enjoy what I would like to see it apples Mac event a friendly apology to one plus for screwing up their event date oh good point so one plus was supposed to have their event date tomorrow and then they switched it to today because of Apple yeah that's just that's just life yeah one plus you're not Apple not yet anyway sometimes it be like that right so they're they're better off switching the date and I guess maybe you know I think it would have been fun if they did it on Halloween then everybody would get dressed up to go to the oneplus event I would be incredibly surprised if they did open up their event like at like Tim Cook walks out I was like I just want to start this off by saying sorry to one plus we didn't know that was the same day of my back yeah that's just unfortunately that's just a reality for like us like reporting in the tech industry literally any Apple event like it's it's always funny to me how any like press otherwise tries to like sneak in there and I'm like guys sorry like everybody's just paying it was actually supposed to go to a security event tomorrow and then Apple made their announcement so I had to tell them hey sorry there's new it's like a conference though right computers yeah yeah yeah so anyway sorry 1 plus yeah ok go on CNET if you want to learn about oneplus today cnet.com just to clarify cnet.com or the app we also have an app or news.com we own that one too okay go ahead be mad that's relevant okay so for more from the Mac event john paul hunt new mac mini me edition and pro editions we shall see do we know how many breakout sub models that we're gonna see in any given Apple product tomorrow I don't know the the problem with this is is that these are a lot of the as Alfred mentioned like the fan favorites but that have been unloved because Apple makes so much of its money with the iPhone and the iPhone prices keep going up and up and up my hope is is that with these fan favorites the reason their fan favorites is because they're less expensive there's still Apple products so you could still go and get like a Chromebook for for less money or you could get like I don't know like a Samsung Tab I I think for less money like there are always like cheaper alternatives out there but if they are gonna update the air if they are gonna update the Mac Mini hopefully it doesn't bust the price yeah because that would that that kind of like ruins the whole I mean looking at the eyelid looking at the iPad Mini which at the time the for at least was the budget version it's currently more expensive than any iPad that's out there now that's a lot more updated than it yeah so I'm hoping that like if they do update all these like outdated devices or introduce a new version of it that it'll be like the price scale will actually make sense now yeah the the MacBook Air was like that too right the yeah the air is like at least a hundred dollars cheaper than whatever you know comes up afterwards if I'd don't don't like take that to the bank I haven't checked the Apple website beforehand but anyway the the problem that I'm worried about with the air is is that if all they do is update the screen and they kind of keep the same look like and they have like the same like frame around the display that they have currently it's gonna continue to look like pretty outdated it what do you want like a notch for a year no I don't like care this is a MacBook Air we're all very aware Ben look at my password if you wanted to I'm gonna shut down everything if you wanted to we could we could look in the Chen just see how many people are aware that that's a Mac okay yeah I wonder where I know that how do you know that this is an apple I'm not really sure whereas this computer is a complete mystery and it's a machine it's the CBS issued corporate machine right so I hope that they do more than just to refresh the display but I know Tim Cook probably isn't watching the show and it's paying attention to what I'm telling him to do it's it's I guess for me like most consumers we wanted to get updated but don't want the price to change and Apple is not very good at doing that so I don't know we'll see what we see you tomorrow I'm just glad they are gonna do a refresh all right more questions from Yoda Akbar any word on a new Apple TV then we just get a new Apple TV like late last year did we didn't we feel like we keep waiting for a new Apple TV and then it never shows up I will act like a ruler or something either way as far as the rumours are concerned no we're not expecting a new Apple TV to come out this time around so don't hold your breath and yeah that's that's not part of the rumor roundup at all we're really like expecting this mostly to be based around the Mac products and the iPads and that'll rule out any potential for a new Mac iMac pro or any word on peripherals Timothy dews got a good question about 4k or 5 k LG monitors uh I think they did come out with a 5 came out of it or quite like a couple years ago so maybe they'll make something that's like a little less expensive but I really doubt it like the the 5k folks they're more than willing to spend a ton of money to get 5k because there aren't a lot of folks that actually want 5k at this point not yet I mean it's it's it's coming and I bite my tongue when I say that but yeah it's it's definitely not ready for for a prime-time I would say any word on a home pod - pretty much everybody's just asking hey you listed those three primary Apple things what about every other Apple thing are they updating those - okay so as much as I would like to see an update to the home pod that's also not something that's been rumored and Apple has actually been pretty sleepy when it's been coming to you know smart home stuff whereas like Google and Amazon are really like in a pretty intense fistfight it would be really cool if Apple came out with a home pod mini bite there would be rumors for that device or like some expectation that like something around that were in the works and we're not hearing anything about that so and the home pod also very recently came out I think it was just introduced started selling like lastest it was introduced last year and then didn't start selling I think until January so I don't think that they're going to update the home pod I also don't know what an updated home pod would look like you know like it's guy I mean this man is already yeah I mean a tiny home pod I would be into that but I don't think that's happening yeah horns not right now student a pod you could put it anywhere in your house and it would cost a million dollars it cost more than at home okay anyway yeah Brian you're right Apple TV 4k was first introduced in last year so I think we're gonna get another Apple TV not a too soon long story short like the rumors have leaked what they said they're gonna unveil was probably what they're gonna unveil anything else will be a surprise to you and us and I wouldn't expect many surprises out of them at this point yeah I think the MacBook Air as long as they refresh the design and give it a higher resolution screen that really is gonna be a crowd-pleaser for a lot of people people have been waiting for that for years every single time there's a Mac event like this one in October usually like the what we would like to see type of thing from tech reporters always includes a refresh of the MacBook Air and usually what they only end up doing is improving the process or you know like the the guts of the thing so I would definitely want to give them credit where credit is due if they spent any time improving this device because they don't make nearly as much money off of the air as they do with their iPhones like the iPhone 10s max I mean I I can only imagine what the profits are on a device like that so yeah thousand dollar device Apple doesn't really care as much about alright I really when it comes to a laptop anyway I really want to get into the Sam's Club now but we got a couple more real cookies about Apple event I like this question from Ed hudley has Apple abandoned trying to push the iPad pro into business haven't really heard anything since the relationship with IBM that's a good point like what is the iPads supposed to be doing now when their latest update I mean it looks like what Apple wants with the iPad pro is mostly in schools I think they wanted to compete with what Mike soft is doing with its surface and also what chrome has been doing if all its Chromebooks in all these schools you know they talk about how the iPad has much more usability or like it lasts much longer than a Chromebook would for students like a school can buy they're a lot more expensive than Chromebooks are but they can buy these iPad pros and they'll be able to use them for like years as opposed to Chromebooks which are obviously a little bit different so I don't really see it as like selling it to like a company or a business or anything like that but they are dealing with like departments of Education like across the country so there was that IBM push that's a good point from the commenter there was that IBM push I would imagine they probably have a couple contracts out there but that did get a little bit quieter afterwards so yeah I'm not not really sure what the status of that is but I imagine they got at least some people they got them all right moving on here's one from Josh Moya let's move into the Sam's Club now cuz this is kind of an interesting idea for one like we've seen the scanning stuff before what I was really interested in we only kind of brushed on was that it Maps the store for you oh yeah you can use voice commands to help you use it to find specific things in the store which goes against all of the laws of the grocery store right just that any grocery store I know of hides all the important stuff and makes you browse through all the candy and crap to make you want to buy more on the way to the essential thing you came there to buy but yeah that's that's me maybe we can talk more about that later josh says i know that the greg the grocery stores with the cashier list approach there's been a lot of pushback from the grocer's union i don't know much about that but he goes on to say i don't know how i feel about having an app for every single store i shop at it seems to be more cumbersome than just having a regular self checkout so i guess what do we feel about this whole phone shopping situation luckily it's not nearly in the mainstream as i mentioned on the show it like earlier on the podcast amazon go only has 6 locations that's amazon's small cash earless convenience stores and this is just the test in Dallas like the the Sam's Club one so if it's going to end up becoming a much bigger deal it's probably gonna take a couple years for that to happen by if Amazon sees a lot of benefit in this if Walmart sees a lot of benefit in it then I would expect it to start generating a lot of interest but at this point they're not really like laying people off were they're not reducing their staffs to have these types of stores because people because they know that people have this sensitivity to automation whether that's going to change when there are you know hundreds of thousands of these stores it still remains to be seen and you know it's the technology is still new enough that I don't know if this is gonna result in people shopping more at these stores or not I don't know if I'd actually consider any kind of change in the shopper volume but in a perfect world it'd be great if Sam's Club Walmart whatever the corporate is would offer training programs for people who were cashiers to perhaps become engineers and technologists that would look after these automated systems you know because you always need the human to fix the robot because the robot is going to break down yeah that's that is definitely a cool idea but they are introducing this new a new concept called a member host I'm gonna read this off of their blog post from today think of these associates as concierge to the club so that's that goes back to that whole idea that okay we're not gonna have cashiers but we are gonna introduce other concepts so we're gonna help people transition into other jobs so yeah all right we only have a couple minutes left I like this idea from John Paul hunt they should put that tech in the Apple watch or I'll go ahead and addendum that any mobile device any wearable to help with mobility and then syringe oi says China has been successful in cash airless stores using RFID which utilize NFC and capable phones for easy payments why isn't that used elsewhere they're not enough NFC the I know Apple restricts NFC usage so that's that's the iPhone which is about 50% of the US market that might have something to do with it here also I don't really know what other retailers are trying to do at this point related to cache earless stores like we saw the Sam's Club thing that was just announced today Amazon Go has been pushing out Amazon Go stores but there are only six of them and they're planning on opening only a couple more of them so the RFID idea with with NFC or like the NFC RFID idea obviously sounds interesting but until retailers see an enormous value like they see a value in completely redoing their stores for this kind of thing I don't know if that's gonna go anywhere I think the sam's club approach does help these stores though like outside of the convenience factor and outside of making it easier for you as a customer like go out and also not having to pay cashiers as much as far as like using an app to it's like set up a shopping list and tell people where things are like that you have to make an account for that obviously they make a log of that and like they can probably send you push notifications on things like that to make you come back to the store more say hey your milk is about to expire like that you bought like last week we're definitely tracking all of this so please come back and like buy some more stuff from us soon until they incorporate buttons like Amazon did so it's just all fully automated also here's a question are they actually going to start removing the humans from the store experience in general cause like I let there was a question that came through and I apologize I missed the name but somebody asked something about you know what if you can't reach something on the shelves there's still gonna be clerks in the store there should be that can reach something off the high shelf if you need or fetch something from the back if you need it right I'm still pretty sure people will figure out ways to steal from these stores too so you do need clerks and you do need like a human eyes watching what's going on so with Amazon go you just log in at a turnstile grab whatever you want and leave but self checkout has been like known in the retail industry for just being rife with like people figuring out different ways to game it and steal from it so this is similar in the sense that you're not checking out with a cashier so I definitely think that you're still gonna need people there to just monitor how things are going or else people are gonna like walk out with like a ton of free Lucroy which is a problem yeah the croix shortage of 2018 thanks a lot Tech Deck made it really hard to buy Lacroix terrible yes all right good chat today guys thanks everybody for putting up with the technical difficulties in eginning and will happen again I promise but until then we'll see you folks not tomorrow probably there's a 99% chance we're not gonna do a show tomorrow scene it's gonna be of course covering all the Apple stuff so there will be live show coming out of our SF office throughout the day coverage from the event in Brooklyn and then lots and lots of other redundant crap so we'll see you back here on Wednesday at the regular scheduled time and we'll recap all the things you've probably already heard about the Apple products unveiled Tuesday so until then everybody take care Ben yep the 359 is available on iTunes tune in feedburner stitch or google play music google podcast the amazon echo and of course Cena calm thanks everybody for watching we'll see you on Wednesday see you folks you you