Notes From All Over -- Let's Go, Bitcoin -- October 19, 2021

Bitcoin: continues to surge. Up another $1,300 today. Now trading over $62,600.

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Apple's Focus Group

The fifth-generation MacBook Pro laptops are incredible on so many levels. Most obvious, Tim Cook threw out all the "revolutionary" changes in the previous generation that irritated the "pro" base / the core Apple base. It is quite amazing. Steve Jobs' personality was such my hunch is Steve Jobs would have stayed the course. 

Tim Cook must have been thinking about this a long, long time.

If one reflects on the special event yesterday, it seems Tim Cook went back to that which made Apple huge: music. Steve Jobs figured that out -- perhaps lucked into it with the iPod -- but regardless, music made Apple, and Steve Jobs tapped into that. 

The presentation began with Tim Cook saying the special event would be about two things: music and the MacBook Pro. 

The opening video was an incredible mash-up of just that: music and Apple. So much fun -- from a single opening note to a computer-generated orchestral product, the video took us from Apple's very beginning to where we are today.

Four incredible reverses:

• instead of eliminating ports, added more ports, something "everyone" has been requesting;
• back to the MagSafe power "slot"; "everyone" was completely dismayed when Apple eliminated MagSafe;
• back to a tried and proven keyboard;
• removal of that TouchBar

The ports.

The headphone jack is particularly interesting. It would have been fun being a fly on the wall as this debate was being hammered out in Tim Cook's office. He must have been for keeping the headphone jack from the beginning whereas the pushback to get rid of the jack must have been incredible. But when the decision was made, to keep the jack, the soldiers stood up and saluted. But they did one more thing. They said, "fine, if the jack stays, it's going to be even better."

From MacRumors:

Apple's new MacBook Pro models are equipped with the "best audio system in a notebook," according to Apple, with upgrades to the headphone jack and the speaker system. 

The 3.5mm headphone jack now offers support for high-impedance headphones. High-end headphone options that are high-impedance models from companies like Sennheiser and Beyerdynamic will offer better sound quality on the MacBook Pro models, a boon for professionals who want to use the MacBook Pro with studio quality headphones. 

The 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pro models also include an upgraded high-fidelity six-speaker sound system with force-cancelling woofers and wide stereo sound, along with a studio-quality three-microphone array with a high signal-to-noise ratio and directional beamforming.

Look at the rest of the ports ....

Following years of complaints about a lack of ports, both sizes of the new MacBook Pro feature several ports that Apple had removed in 2016, including an HDMI port, SD card slot, and MagSafe. Both models also have three Thunderbolt 4 ports — two on the left side of the machine and one on the right — and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

... and what they can support:

These ports allow the new MacBook Pro models to support up to two external displays at up to 6K resolution when configured with the M1 Pro chip, and up to four external displays at up to 6K resolution when configured with the M1 Max chip. Apple's tech specs confirm the HDMI port is HDMI 2.0 instead of HDMI 2.1 to the disappointment of some users.