Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Ding]

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode 425.

00:00:13 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by Hover, Memberfall, and Doordash.

00:00:17 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined by Jason Snell.

00:00:20 ◼   ► Hi, Jason Snell.

00:00:21 ◼   ► Hi, Myke Hurley. How are you?

00:00:22 ◼   ► I'm good.

00:00:23 ◼   ► Uh, we're recording this on the evening of Sunday, the 18th of September.

00:00:28 ◼   ► I'm leaving for home tomorrow, so we're recording a tad earlier than we normally would, but

00:00:33 ◼   ► I'm feeling good!

00:00:35 ◼   ► Sunday night upgrade, and you're, uh, you know, in a different location.

00:00:39 ◼   ► Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!

00:00:41 ◼   ► And I don't know how I'm gonna even get up on Monday morning, 'cause you're the reason

00:00:46 ◼   ► I get up on Monday morning. You give me a reason, let me rephrase this, Myke, you give

00:00:50 ◼   ► me a reason to get up on Monday morning. Every week.

00:00:54 ◼   ► And usually it's for a #snotalkquestion.

00:00:57 ◼   ► This one comes from Chris who wants to know, "Do you think, Jason, that a mid-cycle release

00:01:02 ◼   ► of the iPhone 14 line is coming of a new color, either pro or regular?"

00:01:07 ◼   ► Well, after we made fun of it last time, and everybody said, "No, no, it makes sense from

00:01:12 ◼   ► a fashion standpoint, and it might prod people into going and considering getting a new iPhone."

00:01:18 ◼   ► It all makes all the sense in the world, because we thought it was kind of funny, right?

00:01:21 ◼   ► Like they put out a press release, and they literally sent me a green iPhone, and said,

00:01:24 ◼   ► look, a green iPhone.

00:01:27 ◼   ► And I thought to myself, okay, great.

00:01:31 ◼   ► So Chris, yes, of course, of course they'll do it.

00:01:35 ◼   ► 'Cause this is what they do now.

00:01:36 ◼   ► They will do a mid-cycle release of some color

00:01:39 ◼   ► for the iPhones and it'll not be anything too exciting

00:01:44 ◼   ► for the rest of us, but it will put another color

00:01:47 ◼   ► in the store and that seems to work for them.

00:01:49 ◼   ► So I think so.

00:01:50 ◼   ► I think this is just what Apple does now

00:01:52 ◼   ► is they have their spring color refresh,

00:01:55 ◼   ► which usually means they add a color to an iPhone

00:01:59 ◼   ► partway through its life.

00:02:01 ◼   ► - I don't feel like I know why they do it.

00:02:03 ◼   ► Like, you know, I can assume that they are doing it

00:02:07 ◼   ► because they think it helps make them more money,

00:02:09 ◼   ► but like, I also don't really feel like I know

00:02:12 ◼   ► if that's true.

00:02:13 ◼   ► Like, I don't know if that necessarily

00:02:15 ◼   ► makes logical sense to me, like that many.

00:02:18 ◼   ► How many people are really waiting that much

00:02:21 ◼   ► for whatever color it is, you know?

00:02:22 ◼   ► - I think a lot of people aren't waiting, right?

00:02:24 ◼   ► The point that we got when we complained about this

00:02:26 ◼   ► the last time is that there's so many people out there

00:02:28 ◼   ► who are just buying an iPhone,

00:02:30 ◼   ► and they're not waiting for the new iPhones,

00:02:31 ◼   ► and they're finally there.

00:02:33 ◼   ► And the idea that you might prod some of them

00:02:35 ◼   ► to rethink buying any iPhone,

00:02:36 ◼   ► not just the new green iPhone or whatever,

00:02:39 ◼   ► that it's worth doing,

00:02:40 ◼   ► there must be some sign that it gives them a lift,

00:02:44 ◼   ► or they wouldn't do it, right?

00:02:45 ◼   ► Like, I'm sure that their metrics focus didn't enough.

00:02:47 ◼   ► - That's smart enough, and they have the data.

00:02:49 ◼   ► They know, right?

00:02:50 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:02:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, they're probably smarter than us,

00:02:52 ◼   ► but what we do know for sure is they have the data

00:02:54 ◼   ► and we don't.

00:02:55 ◼   ► And I'm gonna assume that they would not do this

00:02:58 ◼   ► because there's somebody in there who says,

00:03:00 ◼   ► "No, I just like having an extra color in the spring."

00:03:03 ◼   ► Right?

00:03:04 ◼   ► Like probably somebody that's the guy

00:03:06 ◼   ► who's gonna get fired as the colors are

00:03:08 ◼   ► when we're put in charge is that guy.

00:03:10 ◼   ► Mr. Extra Color.

00:03:12 ◼   ► - I like, by the way, that you say,

00:03:14 ◼   ► "Probably about the smart."

00:03:15 ◼   ► That was nice that you, it's correct.

00:03:16 ◼   ► They just have the data.

00:03:17 ◼   ► if we had the data, we could make all the decisions.

00:03:20 ◼   ► - Maybe, I mean, we could try.

00:03:22 ◼   ► - I mean, we could make them.

00:03:24 ◼   ► I don't know if they would be the right ones,

00:03:26 ◼   ► but there are decisions we would make.

00:03:28 ◼   ► - I'm not gonna assume like so many people

00:03:30 ◼   ► who are in our position do that the people

00:03:32 ◼   ► who talk about things for a living are smarter

00:03:34 ◼   ► than the people who do the things that they talk about.

00:03:36 ◼   ► 'Cause no, I also am not gonna assume

00:03:39 ◼   ► that the people we talk about are smarter than us.

00:03:41 ◼   ► 'Cause they might, some of them might not be,

00:03:43 ◼   ► but probably a lot of them are.

00:03:45 ◼   ► and there's a lot of smart people who work at Apple,

00:03:48 ◼   ► but you know, not necessarily all of them.

00:03:50 ◼   ► And that guy who was like, "Meow, it's green."

00:03:54 ◼   ► Right, like that guy. - Oh, that guy.

00:03:56 ◼   ► That guy doesn't sound very smart.

00:03:58 ◼   ► - That guy, I don't know why he still got that job.

00:04:00 ◼   ► Get him out.

00:04:01 ◼   ► Replace new color commentator.

00:04:04 ◼   ► Anyway, yes is the answer.

00:04:06 ◼   ► There must be a reason why they do it.

00:04:08 ◼   ► Maybe, I did have a theory,

00:04:10 ◼   ► which is that at a certain point

00:04:12 ◼   ► in the life of the iPhone production cycle,

00:04:14 ◼   ► they're so far ahead that they can afford

00:04:17 ◼   ► to add colors to the mix because they can reduce

00:04:19 ◼   ► what they're making in,

00:04:21 ◼   ► like I don't know if they make all the colors at once

00:04:23 ◼   ► or if they make a bunch of one color

00:04:25 ◼   ► and then a bunch of another and a bunch of another,

00:04:28 ◼   ► but maybe there's a thing where the extra color comes in

00:04:32 ◼   ► when they have some bandwidth to make another color

00:04:34 ◼   ► and add another skew to the line.

00:04:36 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:04:37 ◼   ► - If you would like to send in a snow talk question

00:04:40 ◼   ► to help us open a future episode of the show,

00:04:42 ◼   ► Just send out a tweet with the hashtag SnellTalk or use question mark SnellTalk in the RelayFM

00:04:47 ◼   ► members discord.

00:04:48 ◼   ► That was a real ask upgrade feeling SnellTalk there though.

00:04:52 ◼   ► Yes.

00:04:53 ◼   ► Not very personal, right?

00:04:54 ◼   ► No.

00:04:55 ◼   ► I think it was a question to me.

00:04:56 ◼   ► That was a good question.

00:04:59 ◼   ► Perfectly good question.

00:05:00 ◼   ► So here's why I picked that one.

00:05:01 ◼   ► I actually picked that one specifically though and forgot the reason why I picked it until

00:05:07 ◼   ► right now, which was to mention at this point that today's episode features our review and

00:05:14 ◼   ► discussion of the iPhone 14 line. That's why I picked this one as like a setup, but then

00:05:21 ◼   ► I forgot to do the setup. Well done. So, you know, it's late. Yeah, look, I can't be trusted

00:05:27 ◼   ► to remember everything, you know? That's just how it goes sometimes, I'm afraid. I'm going

00:05:32 ◼   ► I'm gonna withdraw that statement I made before about who's smarter.

00:05:36 ◼   ► Hey! Hey!

00:05:38 ◼   ► There is a reason we're recording this show today and why it's late and all that kind of stuff.

00:05:43 ◼   ► I'm still in Memphis, Tennessee because just a couple of days ago we hosted the fourth annual podcast-a-thon for the Kids of St. Jude.

00:05:50 ◼   ► We are raising money all throughout September for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

00:05:55 ◼   ► In their 60th year since opening its doors in 1962, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital has grown in size

00:06:02 ◼   ► and capabilities for this one special reason that they have, which is finding cures and

00:06:06 ◼   ► saving children because they believe that children all over the world deserve the same

00:06:10 ◼   ► chance at survival.

00:06:12 ◼   ► We love St. Jude and being there and hosting the podcast with them for all that time and

00:06:17 ◼   ► getting to interact with the people that we, one of the people we get to work with and

00:06:20 ◼   ► seeing the incredible videos that we get to watch all night that they put together and

00:06:25 ◼   ► are able to show our viewers and listeners.

00:06:28 ◼   ► It is a good reminder of why we do the work that we do.

00:06:32 ◼   ► Cancer Awareness Month is an opportunity for us to come together in the fight against childhood

00:06:35 ◼   ► cancer because together we can make a big impact and so far this year we have made a huge impact.

00:06:41 ◼   ► Together as a community this year we've raised over $380,000, where we stand right now.

00:06:49 ◼   ► This year we have a goal of $494,840 because when we hit that we have raised $2 million over the

00:06:58 ◼   ► last four years as a community which is just absolutely unbelievable. If you

00:07:02 ◼   ► didn't catch the podcast-a-thon I'll put a link in the show notes, it's on YouTube

00:07:05 ◼   ► now so you can go and watch it. It really was a magical evening for me

00:07:10 ◼   ► honestly, it was everything I wanted it to be. I was so happy with how it came

00:07:13 ◼   ► together and we raised over a hundred thousand dollars, I think it was a

00:07:17 ◼   ► hundred and nine thousand dollars we raised which is the most we've ever

00:07:20 ◼   ► raised during a podcast-a-thon. Everyone's blown away including me. It was

00:07:24 ◼   ► It was a fun and very emotional evening.

00:07:27 ◼   ► I was so happy that we got to do it

00:07:31 ◼   ► and it was so happy to be back together in person

00:07:33 ◼   ► and to be in the studio and just had a great time

00:07:36 ◼   ► and we raised a lot of money together

00:07:37 ◼   ► and we had a lot of fun.

00:07:38 ◼   ► Jason, you did such a good job with the Family Feud.

00:07:42 ◼   ► Oh sorry, the feuding families.

00:07:44 ◼   ► I was dying watching it. - Literally extinct.

00:07:46 ◼   ► - It was so funny.

00:07:47 ◼   ► So that's there for you to go and watch too.

00:07:50 ◼   ► Yeah, it was really, really great

00:07:52 ◼   ► and yeah, I'm just really happy to be here

00:07:55 ◼   ► to be able to do this.

00:07:56 ◼   ► And I'm even more happy with how much money

00:07:58 ◼   ► we've raised together.

00:08:00 ◼   ► Please go to stju.org/relay.

00:08:03 ◼   ► You can donate still up until the end of the month

00:08:06 ◼   ► and we're gonna keep talking about this.

00:08:07 ◼   ► We're doing the first time we've ever done this this year

00:08:10 ◼   ► on September the 30th.

00:08:11 ◼   ► Little more details to come shortly.

00:08:13 ◼   ► We're gonna be doing a closing celebration

00:08:15 ◼   ► where we announce the final total raised

00:08:17 ◼   ► and close the fundraiser.

00:08:18 ◼   ► We've never done that before,

00:08:19 ◼   ► but we wanna make fun out of that.

00:08:21 ◼   ► so we're going to be hanging out on stream for a couple of hours

00:08:23 ◼   ► and talking about stuff, playing some games, those kinds of things.

00:08:27 ◼   ► So you can come catch me and Steven then.

00:08:29 ◼   ► We've decided we want to do it,

00:08:32 ◼   ► but we haven't worked out any of the plans yet

00:08:34 ◼   ► other than the fact that we're doing it.

00:08:36 ◼   ► Because the goal, sorry, the final total every year,

00:08:41 ◼   ► it's always so much higher than when we end the Podcastathon.

00:08:45 ◼   ► We've raised tons of thousands of dollars since the podcast ended a couple of days ago.

00:08:55 ◼   ► So we want to do something more to celebrate where we actually end at the end of the month.

00:09:01 ◼   ► So this is the first year we're doing that and I hope in future years that also becomes more of a grand affair too.

00:09:07 ◼   ► So we can get to celebrate a bit as a community is what we've all come together to do.

00:09:11 ◼   ► We've mentioned you can donate, and you can donate any amount that you want.

00:09:15 ◼   ► You can also sign up to fundraise.

00:09:16 ◼   ► We have over 200 people that have signed up to fundraise themselves, and there are some

00:09:20 ◼   ► special incentives that are available to you for that.

00:09:24 ◼   ► So there's a bunch of stuff for you to go and check out.

00:09:26 ◼   ► Please go to stj.org/relay.

00:09:28 ◼   ► Check out the podcast.

00:09:29 ◼   ► I'll put a link in the show notes.

00:09:30 ◼   ► Thank you so much to everybody who's tuned in and everyone that's donated so far.

00:09:34 ◼   ► That's a follow-up for you, Jason Snow.

00:09:36 ◼   ► Okay.

00:09:37 ◼   ► All right.

00:09:38 ◼   ► I'd like to thank the Academy.

00:09:39 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:09:40 ◼   ► like to go ahead and thank the Academy on behalf of Ted Lasso?

00:09:43 ◼   ► Yes, thanks Emmy Awards for once again bestowing many Emmys upon Apple TV+'s Ted Lasso. Best

00:09:53 ◼   ► comedy. Jason Sudeikis won, lead actor. Brett Goldstein won, supporting actor. And they

00:09:59 ◼   ► got a directing Emmy as well. So more, I mean, the big one is, I mean, Sudeikis really and

00:10:06 ◼   ► Goldstein are great, but also the best comedy means that Apple has won that one two years

00:10:11 ◼   ► in a row, plus they've got best picture. Like, you know, it's good. It's good for Apple.

00:10:17 ◼   ► It makes Apple happy and makes them feel like their service is legitimate.

00:10:20 ◼   ► Oh, I bet. I was a bit disappointed that Severance didn't pick up any major wins.

00:10:27 ◼   ► Tough, tough categories. I mean, I think Ted Lasso did really well and I definitely heard

00:10:31 ◼   ► people grousing about that too. There's a lot. And, you know, peak TV. There's a lot

00:10:35 ◼   ► a really good stuff out there and for Severance I think the truth is for Severance the honor

00:10:38 ◼   ► was just to be nominated. You know I think you're right that that drama that best drama

00:10:43 ◼   ► category was absolutely stacked this year. You know like everyone is mad about whatever

00:10:48 ◼   ► it's at least one show that didn't win it you know what I mean like I am as equally

00:10:52 ◼   ► upset that Better Call Saul didn't win it but I know they're gonna get one more shot

00:10:56 ◼   ► and I really do I really hope they pick it up next next year because they've never won

00:11:01 ◼   ► Which is what show so good, but I also wanted severance to win

00:11:06 ◼   ► So I think one of those things where like most people were just not gonna be happy about where the best drama went

00:11:10 ◼   ► But yeah, it's really interesting to see I still have my eye on on Ted lasso

00:11:18 ◼   ► Like what are they gonna do?

00:11:19 ◼   ► Like it seems like I was reading some stuff that apparently the the season's been delayed a little bit which which has been called

00:11:26 ◼   ► Sudekis perfectionism?

00:11:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, there was actually a lengthy piece in Puck News,

00:11:32 ◼   ► which is a subscription site that is fascinating

00:11:37 ◼   ► 'cause it went into a lot of details about

00:11:39 ◼   ► how Bill Lawrence is not one of the showrunners this year

00:11:44 ◼   ► who sort of helped them get started

00:11:45 ◼   ► and he was never a major creative force,

00:11:48 ◼   ► but like he wasn't involved this time,

00:11:50 ◼   ► he wasn't over there,

00:11:51 ◼   ► he's got other shows that he's doing.

00:11:52 ◼   ► Sudeikis, you know, exerting more of his power as, you know,

00:11:57 ◼   ► and the fact is that those guys, him and Brendan Hunt,

00:12:01 ◼   ► those guys were the brains of the show

00:12:03 ◼   ► from the beginning, really, who plays Coach Beard.

00:12:07 ◼   ► And they kind of stepped into even more authority this time,

00:12:12 ◼   ► but also it sounds like they demanded some, you know,

00:12:18 ◼   ► rewrites and they changed some stuff midstream

00:12:21 ◼   ► and they added additional shooting locations

00:12:24 ◼   ► for stuff late in the season.

00:12:26 ◼   ► And this was all keyed off of his moment when he accepted

00:12:30 ◼   ► and he said that, essentially he said,

00:12:32 ◼   ► "You'll see season three eventually."

00:12:34 ◼   ► Because they wanted it this summer, which is now over.

00:12:38 ◼   ► And it's unclear when season three of Ted Lasso

00:12:41 ◼   ► is even gonna be done.

00:12:42 ◼   ► And then the article also went into a bunch of stuff

00:12:44 ◼   ► about like, it was a really good article,

00:12:48 ◼   ► but it's like the compensation

00:12:50 ◼   ► that some of the actors are grumbling because they don't get paid as much as they should

00:12:54 ◼   ► for this Emmy-winning show, but at the same time it has made their careers so that they're

00:12:58 ◼   ► making a lot of money on other things now because they're bankable and that Halbright

00:13:03 ◼   ► Goldstein doesn't get paid much as an actor given that he's won two Emmys, but he does

00:13:06 ◼   ► get paid as a writer and a producer, so that kind of like eases the pain a little bit.

00:13:11 ◼   ► There's a lot of complications going on.

00:13:14 ◼   ► He is a star on the rise, right? And that it came from being so good in Ted Lasso.

00:13:19 ◼   ► of the people who are in Ted Lasso, even if they don't make a lot of money, and I'm not

00:13:22 ◼   ► saying they shouldn't make a lot of money from Ted Lasso, but the other thing they're

00:13:25 ◼   ► getting is a real boost to their careers. But there's a lot going on, and there's money

00:13:30 ◼   ► overages when they say we want to go shoot in Amsterdam. Like, there's money overages

00:13:34 ◼   ► and who pays for it, and that's fascinating because of course Warner Brothers is the producer

00:13:38 ◼   ► of the show, even though it airs on Apple TV+, and so there's a question of like, who

00:13:43 ◼   ► pays for the overages? Does Apple pay for it? Does Warner Brothers pay for it? Does

00:13:49 ◼   ► Does Apple use Apple Pay when Apple pays for it? How many woodchucks would a woodchuck chuck?

00:13:54 ◼   ► So uh fascinating stuff.

00:13:55 ◼   ► I'm sure hanging over all of it too is like a desire from a lot of people, maybe not everyone,

00:14:01 ◼   ► for the show to continue and like what what does that mean and are they going to? Are

00:14:05 ◼   ► they going to try and find a way? Like this is stuff we don't really have any answers

00:14:09 ◼   ► to yet.

00:14:10 ◼   ► Yeah it's uh all just kind of floating out there um of um because I think the puck story

00:14:18 ◼   ► suggests that although everybody has always insisted that it's a three and out sort of

00:14:25 ◼   ► thing, that there's a feeling a lot of people involved have this feeling that everybody

00:14:30 ◼   ► may realize at some point before too long that this is one of, if not the high points

00:14:36 ◼   ► of their career and that it probably wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if they extended.

00:14:41 ◼   ► The third season is already 12 episodes, so they've already extended. It's like give us

00:14:46 ◼   ► as much as you can. But they've been pretty insistent that the story ends after three

00:14:51 ◼   ► years. But I've been saying for years now here on this show that you have to resist

00:14:58 ◼   ► the money truck being backed up to your house because at some point they're going to be

00:15:01 ◼   ► like, "Apple's got all the money and they want you to make more Ted Lasso." And Jason

00:15:05 ◼   ► Sudeikis is going to have to say, "I'm okay with where we are and I don't want your money."

00:15:09 ◼   ► Or, you know, like, just to say what you were saying,

00:15:12 ◼   ► maybe Sid Acres wakes up one morning and he's like,

00:15:15 ◼   ► "Actually, this might be my best work,

00:15:17 ◼   ► and maybe I don't want it to end," you know?

00:15:20 ◼   ► Who knows?

00:15:21 ◼   ► - Or maybe there's some other way for this story to go

00:15:24 ◼   ► or with some of the characters or something like that.

00:15:26 ◼   ► And I mean, I admire him.

00:15:27 ◼   ► If he says, "No, this is what the show is,

00:15:29 ◼   ► and we're done," and walks away from it,

00:15:31 ◼   ► I really admire that.

00:15:33 ◼   ► I'm just saying that the reality is that a lot of times--

00:15:37 ◼   ► - It doesn't always work that way.

00:15:38 ◼   ► - The commerce gets in the way.

00:15:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, it's that classic Simpsons line, right?

00:15:42 ◼   ► Which is that we're all gonna have a great time

00:15:43 ◼   ► until the show becomes unprofitable.

00:15:45 ◼   ► And that's, if it keeps on making money,

00:15:48 ◼   ► you have all these shows that you're like,

00:15:49 ◼   ► how did that show go on that long?

00:15:51 ◼   ► Like, this weekend was the 50th anniversary of M*A*S*H,

00:15:53 ◼   ► which is one of the great TV shows of all time

00:15:56 ◼   ► for people who haven't seen it.

00:15:58 ◼   ► I mean, it's old, it's 50 years old,

00:15:59 ◼   ► although it's also 40 years,

00:16:01 ◼   ► because it was on the air for more than 10 years,

00:16:03 ◼   ► and more than 10 years, about 10 years.

00:16:07 ◼   ► And even in the retrospectives about 50 years of MASH,

00:16:10 ◼   ► they say, "Oh yeah, those last few years,

00:16:13 ◼   ► they weren't very good."

00:16:14 ◼   ► And it's like, they weren't very good,

00:16:15 ◼   ► but they made so much money that they just kept making them

00:16:18 ◼   ► even though they weren't very good.

00:16:20 ◼   ► 'Cause the networker was like,

00:16:21 ◼   ► "Nope, 22 more episodes, please."

00:16:23 ◼   ► And everybody said, "Yep, I wanna feed my family,

00:16:26 ◼   ► so we're gonna make more episodes."

00:16:28 ◼   ► So that's the art versus commerce thing

00:16:31 ◼   ► that's at the heart of this.

00:16:32 ◼   ► And if anybody was gonna do it,

00:16:34 ◼   ► Jason Sudeikis might do it to say,

00:16:36 ◼   ► "I got what I wanted out of this. This is the story we wanted and we're walking away."

00:16:41 ◼   ► And there's nothing wrong with that.

00:16:44 ◼   ► I wanted to just, before we move on as well, just touch on the Apple Watch Series 8 a little

00:16:48 ◼   ► bit, in that all we're really going to touch on is a little bit.

00:16:55 ◼   ► You have one, right?

00:16:57 ◼   ► I do. It's right here in its box.

00:17:00 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:17:01 ◼   ► I have no intention, I mean I said this on the show,

00:17:05 ◼   ► I was with no intention of buying this device,

00:17:08 ◼   ► it's not for me really.

00:17:10 ◼   ► I'm perfectly happy with my Series 7

00:17:13 ◼   ► and the Series 8 doesn't have any features

00:17:15 ◼   ► that I want as such.

00:17:18 ◼   ► And like with a lot of these devices,

00:17:20 ◼   ► it is I think some of the easier reviews

00:17:23 ◼   ► and I feel like there's a little bit about the iPhone 14,

00:17:27 ◼   ► and we may fall into this trap a little bit too

00:17:29 ◼   ► of like, if you do year over year reviews,

00:17:32 ◼   ► there isn't that much to say about the Apple Series 8,

00:17:35 ◼   ► the same as the iPhone 14.

00:17:37 ◼   ► And then that can kind of become the review,

00:17:40 ◼   ► which I don't think is necessarily that helpful to everyone.

00:17:44 ◼   ► It's only helpful to the person that either A,

00:17:48 ◼   ► gets these devices every year from Apple to review,

00:17:50 ◼   ► or in my case, buys these devices every year

00:17:53 ◼   ► because I am one, want to,

00:17:55 ◼   ► and two, I consider it a part of my job.

00:17:58 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:17:59 ◼   ► Just to say, I think the best review I've seen of the Apple Watch Series 8 is by Victoria

00:18:04 ◼   ► Song at The Verge because she comes at it from just a very simple perspective of going

00:18:09 ◼   ► through the product and talking about what's good about it.

00:18:13 ◼   ► I liked the way that she looked at it, which is a simple line but it's a fun line of "If

00:18:17 ◼   ► it ain't broke, don't fix it."

00:18:19 ◼   ► But in a way that feels more positive than the often used take I've seen about some of

00:18:24 ◼   ► these products of like, Apple's just doing the same again,

00:18:27 ◼   ► iterative, iterative.

00:18:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, I know we've covered this a lot,

00:18:32 ◼   ► but it is one of my least favorite things

00:18:34 ◼   ► about tech product reviewing and tech journalism in general

00:18:38 ◼   ► is that tendency for people who do this for a living

00:18:41 ◼   ► to say, "Boring!"

00:18:44 ◼   ► Like the goal is to entertain them

00:18:47 ◼   ► while they're doing their job.

00:18:48 ◼   ► And we know the truth, right?

00:18:50 ◼   ► And sometimes they get really irate,

00:18:51 ◼   ► Like, how dare Apple release a product

00:18:54 ◼   ► that's not that different from the one

00:18:56 ◼   ► that I reviewed last year?

00:18:57 ◼   ► I don't know what I'm gonna even write about.

00:18:59 ◼   ► And it's like, believe me, I get it,

00:19:02 ◼   ► but nobody, again, other than our listeners,

00:19:06 ◼   ► nobody's buying an Apple Watch every year, right?

00:19:08 ◼   ► Like, that's not the point.

00:19:09 ◼   ► It's that, this is why John Gruber wrote that column

00:19:12 ◼   ► for Macworld, you know, for me like 10 years ago,

00:19:14 ◼   ► that like Apple's iterative,

00:19:15 ◼   ► this is how Apple rolls, right?

00:19:16 ◼   ► It's like, it's this iterative thing.

00:19:18 ◼   ► And there are moments, delightful moments,

00:19:20 ◼   ► like in the early days of the smartphone

00:19:21 ◼   ► and even the early days of the Apple Watch,

00:19:23 ◼   ► where things were happening fast.

00:19:25 ◼   ► But for the most part, whether it's a laptop

00:19:28 ◼   ► or a smartphone or a tablet or whatever,

00:19:30 ◼   ► it is about the cumulative effect

00:19:32 ◼   ► of going several years between a purchase, right?

00:19:37 ◼   ► And so the Series 8 is not that interesting

00:19:40 ◼   ► in that it's a lot like the 7 and a lot like the 6.

00:19:43 ◼   ► However, if you've got a Series 6 or 5 or 4 or 3,

00:19:48 ◼   ► that is the, you know, you will pick up a lot of features.

00:19:52 ◼   ► It's just a matter of, you know,

00:19:54 ◼   ► 'cause most people aren't buying it every year,

00:19:55 ◼   ► because why would they?

00:19:56 ◼   ► I mean, really, why, no,

00:19:58 ◼   ► even if they made huge changes every year,

00:20:00 ◼   ► people are not gonna buy an Apple Watch every year.

00:20:02 ◼   ► They're just not gonna do it.

00:20:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I think that this is a nice upgrade

00:20:06 ◼   ► if there are features in it that you want.

00:20:08 ◼   ► Like if you care about the temperature thing,

00:20:09 ◼   ► if you care about the retrospective,

00:20:12 ◼   ► like ovulation tracking,

00:20:13 ◼   ► if you care about the car crash detection,

00:20:15 ◼   ► like this could be a good product for you.

00:20:18 ◼   ► I'm just saying for me, I don't want any of those things, particularly, which in the same

00:20:24 ◼   ► way that I didn't want any of the stuff from the Series 6, particularly, so I didn't get

00:20:30 ◼   ► that one.

00:20:31 ◼   ► And so that's just a thing for me.

00:20:33 ◼   ► I think later on we go, "You wanted to talk about this and I'm really interested about

00:20:37 ◼   ► the upgrade cycle and I'll touch on this again in the Apple Watch then."

00:20:41 ◼   ► So I'm not going to buy it and I don't think you're particularly that jazzed on reviewing

00:20:46 ◼   ► it fast, at least.

00:20:47 ◼   ► - It's still in the box.

00:20:49 ◼   ► Yeah, it isn't that interesting as a brand new product.

00:20:51 ◼   ► It is more about that, like what's new over time

00:20:54 ◼   ► from where you're coming from.

00:20:55 ◼   ► And there's nothing wrong with that, that's okay.

00:20:57 ◼   ► - And this is a prioritization piece for me and you, right?

00:21:00 ◼   ► Where like, you have three iPhones right now,

00:21:03 ◼   ► which we're gonna talk about in a minute,

00:21:06 ◼   ► but like websites like The Verge,

00:21:07 ◼   ► they can assign each of these products

00:21:09 ◼   ► to three different people and like they can make it work.

00:21:12 ◼   ► - I feel bad for the person who is assigned a product

00:21:15 ◼   ► that hasn't changed much in the last year

00:21:17 ◼   ► because what do you say about it?

00:21:18 ◼   ► And the answer is, I think you have to start with,

00:21:21 ◼   ► this is, you know, here's what's different

00:21:23 ◼   ► from last year's model, and here's what is accumulated

00:21:27 ◼   ► over the last two or three years.

00:21:29 ◼   ► Because, you know, like you said,

00:21:32 ◼   ► which I just wanna pause for a moment

00:21:33 ◼   ► and reflect about this, if you want it for crash detection,

00:21:38 ◼   ► which I like on one level I get it,

00:21:40 ◼   ► but another level it's like,

00:21:41 ◼   ► do you get in a lot of car crashes?

00:21:43 ◼   ► If so, yes, you should get this product.

00:21:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, but I don't drive, you know,

00:21:49 ◼   ► like I have my iPhone on me all the time,

00:21:51 ◼   ► like it's not, for me, a thing, right?

00:21:55 ◼   ► But my wife was like, "I want that."

00:21:59 ◼   ► So she's gonna, you know what I mean?

00:22:01 ◼   ► - All right, I mean, and everybody's different.

00:22:03 ◼   ► That's, that would be enough.

00:22:05 ◼   ► It's 'cause it's always this way, right?

00:22:07 ◼   ► It's like, if one of these two new features matters to you,

00:22:09 ◼   ► get this thing.

00:22:10 ◼   ► Otherwise, you know, your one from last year

00:22:12 ◼   ► or two years ago is just fine.

00:22:14 ◼   ► And we move on.

00:22:15 ◼   ► It's hard. I get it.

00:22:16 ◼   ► Like, I don't envy anybody who has to try to find

00:22:20 ◼   ► a news angle for a slowly iterating product

00:22:23 ◼   ► because it's not fun.

00:22:25 ◼   ► I get it.

00:22:26 ◼   ► It's just also not...

00:22:28 ◼   ► Again, the problem is to say the new Apple Watch is bad

00:22:31 ◼   ► because it bored me.

00:22:33 ◼   ► Because that's not...

00:22:33 ◼   ► It could be bad,

00:22:35 ◼   ► but it not having a lot of new features versus last year

00:22:39 ◼   ► does not fundamentally make it bad.

00:22:41 ◼   ► Just 'cause it bored you is not enough to make it bad.

00:22:45 ◼   ► But sometimes that I do see that where it's sort of like, you didn't entertain me,

00:22:49 ◼   ► you know, boo bad product.

00:22:51 ◼   ► And it's like, well, really?

00:22:53 ◼   ► Is it is it a bad product or is it just boring to review?

00:22:56 ◼   ► Because it's not the same thing.

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00:24:44 ◼   ► So let's talk about the iPhone 14 and 14 Pro.

00:24:49 ◼   ► Could you let our listeners know what models you have

00:24:53 ◼   ► and how long you've had them?

00:24:54 ◼   ► - I got on Wednesday, I wanna say,

00:24:58 ◼   ► I got the, so the day that the reviews dropped,

00:25:01 ◼   ► which is when the second wave of your reviewers

00:25:03 ◼   ► get their products.

00:25:04 ◼   ► I got three iPhones.

00:25:06 ◼   ► I have a, what they claim is a purple iPhone 14.

00:25:10 ◼   ► I have a black iPhone 14 Pro

00:25:13 ◼   ► and a purple iPhone 14 Pro Max.

00:25:18 ◼   ► That's what I have.

00:25:19 ◼   ► And I've been using the black iPhone 14 Pro.

00:25:24 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:25:24 ◼   ► - Space black, spacey, spacey black.

00:25:27 ◼   ► - I don't really feel like there's much to say

00:25:28 ◼   ► about the colors anymore.

00:25:29 ◼   ► Like we kind of set it to the end.

00:25:31 ◼   ► - We sort of beaten that one to death, haven't we?

00:25:34 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:25:35 ◼   ► - I'll just say that I feel, once again,

00:25:37 ◼   ► I feel like Apple is pranking me

00:25:38 ◼   ► by claiming that this iPhone 14 is purple

00:25:41 ◼   ► because it looks white to me, but it's not quite white.

00:25:44 ◼   ► Apparently it's purpley white.

00:25:46 ◼   ► - White is interesting.

00:25:48 ◼   ► I haven't heard it described as white so far.

00:25:52 ◼   ► - I'm colorblind, but it certainly doesn't jump out at you.

00:25:54 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:25:55 ◼   ► - So I'm like, okay, I don't see any colors there,

00:25:57 ◼   ► so it must be white or some sort of gray.

00:26:00 ◼   ► Yeah, but anyway, yes, we've beaten the,

00:26:02 ◼   ► the colors aren't the strongest.

00:26:05 ◼   ► - No.

00:26:06 ◼   ► - And people can differ on that.

00:26:07 ◼   ► - I love the one that I get though.

00:26:08 ◼   ► I got the gold.

00:26:10 ◼   ► I think the gold looks great.

00:26:12 ◼   ► For me about the gold,

00:26:12 ◼   ► it's all about the accents more than anything else.

00:26:15 ◼   ► And I think they do a good job of compliment

00:26:17 ◼   ► in the gold Pro Max or the gold Pro

00:26:21 ◼   ► with the glass back that they do.

00:26:23 ◼   ► And I feel the same about the white/silver too.

00:26:25 ◼   ► I think they do a good job of compliment

00:26:27 ◼   ► in the silver and the white together.

00:26:29 ◼   ► I think those colours are pretty standard at this point but also look really good year

00:26:35 ◼   ► over year.

00:26:36 ◼   ► I continue to be very happy with my choice of gold.

00:26:38 ◼   ► I have the 14 Pro Max as you would naturally assume I would do.

00:26:44 ◼   ► I obviously want to hear everything you have to say but I have something I need to get

00:26:47 ◼   ► out of the way first.

00:26:50 ◼   ► Which is, long time listeners of this show will know that me and Jason spent a long time

00:26:55 ◼   ► talking about the setup and transfer process of a new iPhone. We have had many episodes

00:27:02 ◼   ► about this. And then over time, it got better. I think this year, Jason, I have had what

00:27:08 ◼   ► I think might be the worst transfer process I've ever heard of an iPhone. For what I expected

00:27:14 ◼   ► to happen. How much of it had to do with you being in America and how much of it had to

00:27:19 ◼   ► do with other bad things? I'm not talking anything about eSIM. So the eSIM process failed

00:27:24 ◼   ► for me but I'm not surprised about that. I'm expecting I'll need to do that when I get

00:27:28 ◼   ► home and it won't be a problem. You know at the moment this phone can't talk to my actual

00:27:32 ◼   ► network so it can't do the transfer. I am talking merely about the phone to phone data

00:27:38 ◼   ► transferring process. Right? So I set the phone up as fresh so I could have it on podcast

00:27:45 ◼   ► on Sunday so I got it on Friday morning. So I just basically set the phone up, I put a

00:27:50 ◼   ► couple of apps on it so I could use it during the day and like you know take

00:27:55 ◼   ► pictures of it and that kind of stuff. Because plus I gave my 13 Pro Max to my

00:28:02 ◼   ► wife Adina and she was posting things on my Instagram and on Twitter and stuff

00:28:06 ◼   ► during the podcast-a-thon so I didn't have to it was really helpful but I could

00:28:09 ◼   ► still have my phone on me to take pictures and that kind of stuff. Then on

00:28:13 ◼   ► that night I refreshed I like reset the phone to factory settings and did the

00:28:19 ◼   ► phone-to-phone transfer. So you put the two phones next to each other and

00:28:24 ◼   ► you have it like it took three hours and it does the transfer from one phone to

00:28:29 ◼   ► the other. Then once the phone's done I set it up

00:28:34 ◼   ► like put the last parts in that I need to. Now I don't know if I did something

00:28:41 ◼   ► wrong here but I have been coming across I don't know maybe like 70% of the apps

00:28:48 ◼   ► that I use. It's as if they've never been used by me at all. I'm not logged in, my

00:28:55 ◼   ► preferences aren't synced, or it's like a bit one or the other. I'm logged out when

00:28:59 ◼   ► I log in my preferences are there, or I'm logged in but my preferences aren't set

00:29:04 ◼   ► correctly. My data is not in an application. I am going

00:29:09 ◼   ► through app after app and it's some form of one or the other and it is completely

00:29:16 ◼   ► inconsistent about which apps I'm signed into and which aren't. It's

00:29:24 ◼   ► absolutely maddening to me because of the inconsistency of it. Now we had John

00:29:30 ◼   ► Siracusa on the Podcastathon and he spoke about having a very similar

00:29:35 ◼   ► experience. Now John was talking a little bit about some of the beta apps that he

00:29:40 ◼   ► was using but it isn't just beta apps that have been giving me this issue. I have

00:29:43 ◼   ► It has been the last two days, I'm basically having to try and go through and open effectively every app that I have

00:29:50 ◼   ► to try and get it to some kind of normalcy again.

00:29:55 ◼   ► Is this one logged out or is this one logged in? Are the notifications on or are they not?

00:29:59 ◼   ► I don't know what has happened, but just something terrible happened.

00:30:06 ◼   ► And then I get so far into it, it's like a sunk cost thing.

00:30:09 ◼   ► where like I was working on it for a day and I think it's like why don't you just

00:30:14 ◼   ► try it again? I said well because I spent last day setting it up halfway I don't

00:30:19 ◼   ► now want to go through this whole thing again if I then do another three hour

00:30:23 ◼   ► transfer and I'm back to where I was before so like I don't know what has

00:30:26 ◼   ► happened. So you did device device transfer instead of iCloud backup

00:30:30 ◼   ► transfer? Yes. Yes. Which I did I've done before and my understanding is this is

00:30:36 ◼   ► the best way to do it now?

00:30:38 ◼   ► - I mean, it's not what I do.

00:30:40 ◼   ► I just do iCloud because I don't wanna wait

00:30:42 ◼   ► for hours and hours.

00:30:43 ◼   ► I wanna have the phone up and running again

00:30:46 ◼   ► and then have it backfill.

00:30:48 ◼   ► And it does mean that I have to log into a few things,

00:30:50 ◼   ► although not as many as it used to be.

00:30:52 ◼   ► My concern, so my son got his

00:30:56 ◼   ► and he did a device to device transfer.

00:31:00 ◼   ► And it said five minutes left for four hours.

00:31:05 ◼   ► four hours. And then basically we kind of flipped it open and added just, just basically

00:31:12 ◼   ► said just no, go ahead. And, uh, or, or maybe we powered it off. I think I just flipped

00:31:18 ◼   ► it open, you know, from the bottom. But anyway, so we basically sort of like, I wondered,

00:31:23 ◼   ► are you in a weird interim state or were you really done after all? And it's unclear and

00:31:30 ◼   ► and I haven't heard from him, so I don't know.

00:31:33 ◼   ► Probably if he had, he would come to me

00:31:36 ◼   ► because that's how that works in this house.

00:31:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, of course.

00:31:40 ◼   ► Or maybe he's having trouble and he just doesn't know.

00:31:42 ◼   ► Like what was the thing with the USB port

00:31:44 ◼   ► that was broken or whatever, right?

00:31:47 ◼   ► That he just didn't tell you?

00:31:48 ◼   ► Maybe it's one of those situations.

00:31:50 ◼   ► But yeah, look, I don't know if I did something wrong

00:31:52 ◼   ► or whatever, I don't know.

00:31:53 ◼   ► But all I know is for me, this shouldn't be what occurs.

00:31:59 ◼   ► So I've just found this whole thing to be very frustrating.

00:32:01 ◼   ► Potentially I'm an edge case here,

00:32:03 ◼   ► or potentially I'm not, but like,

00:32:05 ◼   ► this is one of the most important things

00:32:09 ◼   ► that they should be working on.

00:32:10 ◼   ► It's like, because it's not even about the year to year,

00:32:13 ◼   ► anytime somebody does this,

00:32:15 ◼   ► every single path should always be flawless

00:32:18 ◼   ► for as much as it possibly can be.

00:32:21 ◼   ► And like, I don't understand how an app can say,

00:32:26 ◼   ► transfer from device to device,

00:32:28 ◼   ► have all of the stuff stored in it, but maybe logged out.

00:32:31 ◼   ► Right?

00:32:33 ◼   ► Like, it's just like, how is this occurring?

00:32:35 ◼   ► And then like, I'm running into all these random edge cases

00:32:38 ◼   ► now because apps are getting confused.

00:32:41 ◼   ► - Some apps are bad at this.

00:32:43 ◼   ► Some apps won't let you bring it across.

00:32:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, and there's some that I expect.

00:32:48 ◼   ► - If you're having that a lot, then you're having a,

00:32:50 ◼   ► you're having a bad experience.

00:32:51 ◼   ► And the thing that I always wonder,

00:32:53 ◼   ► because I, my transfer went fine, but one, I used iCloud,

00:32:57 ◼   ► And two, I didn't do it on Friday when everybody is there.

00:33:00 ◼   ► And that's always my fear,

00:33:02 ◼   ► is that there's some authentication or authorization

00:33:05 ◼   ► or some other thing that's going on.

00:33:06 ◼   ► Theoretically, if you're doing device to device,

00:33:08 ◼   ► you should not have to have this, right?

00:33:10 ◼   ► Because you're not using anything but the two devices

00:33:13 ◼   ► to talk to each other.

00:33:13 ◼   ► - And that's why I did it,

00:33:14 ◼   ► 'cause I'm in a hotel on hotel wifi, right?

00:33:17 ◼   ► So I'm like, I'm not gonna do this over iCloud.

00:33:20 ◼   ► But still, Jason, all the apps downloaded from iCloud.

00:33:23 ◼   ► So it was like, what was the point?

00:33:25 ◼   ► I had to leave the phone overnight for the apps to download.

00:33:29 ◼   ► Like, what is it actually transferring?

00:33:31 ◼   ► Like, when I opened the phone and it was done,

00:33:34 ◼   ► every app said, like, "Waiting,"

00:33:35 ◼   ► and they were all downloading from the app store.

00:33:37 ◼   ► It's like, what is happening in this process?

00:33:40 ◼   ► Like, what I'll say is, I'm going back to iCloud again,

00:33:44 ◼   ► because I feel like that was less frustrating, maybe.

00:33:48 ◼   ► So yeah, I just needed to get out of the way,

00:33:51 ◼   ► 'cause this has been a very frustrating thing for me

00:33:53 ◼   ► over the last couple of days.

00:33:54 ◼   ► So I just needed to get it out there.

00:33:57 ◼   ► We can now move on from this if you want to.

00:33:59 ◼   ► - I would be very curious what would happen

00:34:02 ◼   ► if you erased your phone

00:34:03 ◼   ► and did device-to-device transfer again,

00:34:05 ◼   ► and if that would actually work better.

00:34:08 ◼   ► But I understand your point,

00:34:09 ◼   ► which is you don't wanna go through this again

00:34:12 ◼   ► if it fails again.

00:34:13 ◼   ► - If it fixed, then great.

00:34:14 ◼   ► But also I have now spent like four hours in total,

00:34:17 ◼   ► like going through all the apps and log it.

00:34:19 ◼   ► So now at this point, I'm kinda like,

00:34:21 ◼   ► I'm just gonna move on.

00:34:22 ◼   ► But yeah, potentially if I would have,

00:34:25 ◼   ► what I should have done in hindsight

00:34:28 ◼   ► is just do it again immediately.

00:34:30 ◼   ► But I didn't and now this is where I am.

00:34:33 ◼   ► So yeah, eSIM for me, I'm confident it will work

00:34:35 ◼   ► when I get home.

00:34:36 ◼   ► Even if the device to device transfer doesn't work,

00:34:39 ◼   ► my network does eSIMs, I'll get an eSIM, it'll be fine.

00:34:41 ◼   ► I tried it while I was here, it didn't work, but whatever.

00:34:43 ◼   ► How did that process go for you, the eSIM part?

00:34:46 ◼   ► - I'd like to exclusively reveal, it's not exclusive,

00:34:48 ◼   ► I'd like to reveal here after the great cliffhanger

00:34:51 ◼   ► last week about my eSIM experience

00:34:53 ◼   ► that I apparently did already transfer to an eSIM

00:34:56 ◼   ► because there was no SIM card in my iPhone.

00:34:59 ◼   ► So yeah, I already-

00:35:01 ◼   ► - Jason, you had Schrodinger's SIM card in your phone.

00:35:04 ◼   ► What? - Well, until I opened it up,

00:35:06 ◼   ► it could have been an eSIM or it could have not.

00:35:07 ◼   ► Actually, I went to the cellular menu

00:35:09 ◼   ► and it did not say convert to eSIM.

00:35:12 ◼   ► Instead it said remove or delete eSIM.

00:35:14 ◼   ► And I was like, wait a second.

00:35:16 ◼   ► And then I popped it open and there was no SIM.

00:35:21 ◼   ► in the SIM tray, so.

00:35:22 ◼   ► - That is incredible.

00:35:24 ◼   ► - I already was living the eSIM life.

00:35:26 ◼   ► The call was coming from inside the phone.

00:35:28 ◼   ► And so I just did a transfer and I did the iCloud backup

00:35:31 ◼   ► and the, would you like to transfer your number

00:35:34 ◼   ► from phone A to phone B?

00:35:35 ◼   ► And I said, why, yes, I would like my number

00:35:37 ◼   ► to be transferred and it transferred it

00:35:39 ◼   ► and not really any problems.

00:35:42 ◼   ► And it said, would you like to transfer your Apple Watch?

00:35:43 ◼   ► And I said, yes, and the Apple Watch rebooted

00:35:45 ◼   ► and it was very quick and that all seemed to work fine.

00:35:50 ◼   ► Although, what I will say is that,

00:35:52 ◼   ► and I don't know whether this is the transfer

00:35:54 ◼   ► or whether it's the OS update or what,

00:35:57 ◼   ► but my Apple Watch seems to not be talking to things

00:36:02 ◼   ► as reliably as it did before.

00:36:05 ◼   ► I went out for a run

00:36:07 ◼   ► and it couldn't see the cellular network.

00:36:10 ◼   ► And then I've had a couple of times

00:36:11 ◼   ► where it's done that little icon that basically says,

00:36:13 ◼   ► "I can't find my phone.

00:36:15 ◼   ► "My phone is my buddy."

00:36:16 ◼   ► And like, its buddy was right there.

00:36:19 ◼   ► but it was like, no, no phone.

00:36:21 ◼   ► So I had to restart them both

00:36:22 ◼   ► to get them to talk to each other again.

00:36:24 ◼   ► And again, I don't know whether that is an effect

00:36:27 ◼   ► of the move or the iOS version

00:36:29 ◼   ► or the watchOS update or what,

00:36:31 ◼   ► but I had had a little bit of that.

00:36:33 ◼   ► But in terms of the direct from iPhone 13 mini

00:36:37 ◼   ► to iPhone 14 Pro transfer, that all went pretty smoothly.

00:36:42 ◼   ► And because I chose iCloud, I was actually up and running,

00:36:46 ◼   ► although with apps still having to load pretty fast.

00:36:49 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:36:50 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm honestly always surprised

00:36:53 ◼   ► that the Apple Watch transfer works at all.

00:36:55 ◼   ► Like that, it seems so precariously weird.

00:36:58 ◼   ► - They have come so far with that.

00:37:01 ◼   ► Like I did not do anything.

00:37:04 ◼   ► I didn't have to do anything.

00:37:05 ◼   ► I was listening to, I think ATP last week

00:37:08 ◼   ► where they're like, was it John?

00:37:10 ◼   ► Somebody was saying, it was probably John,

00:37:12 ◼   ► like, oh, what do I have to do?

00:37:13 ◼   ► Do I unpair and do all that?

00:37:15 ◼   ► And I'm sitting there thinking, no, don't do anything.

00:37:18 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:37:19 ◼   ► - Because it's all built in now.

00:37:21 ◼   ► It didn't used to be, but it's all built in now.

00:37:25 ◼   ► And it says, hey, you have an Apple Watch.

00:37:28 ◼   ► Is that Apple Watch moving to this iPhone too?

00:37:31 ◼   ► And you say, yes.

00:37:31 ◼   ► And it goes, great.

00:37:33 ◼   ► I'm gonna need to restart your Apple Watch,

00:37:35 ◼   ► but otherwise it'll be fine.

00:37:36 ◼   ► And then the Apple Watch restarts on its own and seen.

00:37:41 ◼   ► Like that's it.

00:37:42 ◼   ► That was it.

00:37:43 ◼   ► - It's incredible.

00:37:44 ◼   ► that that was. You used to have to unpair your watch from your iPhone and then

00:37:50 ◼   ► repair it and watch as it reloaded everything onto your watch, right? That is

00:37:55 ◼   ► out the window now. Well, because that unpairing was effectively delete

00:37:59 ◼   ► everything. Yeah, you do an iCloud backup, wipe your watch, and then go to your new

00:38:05 ◼   ► phone and pair a new watch and restore an iCloud backup. Well now, they

00:38:12 ◼   ► don't do that anymore because obviously Apple has figured out ways in watchOS and iOS where

00:38:19 ◼   ► a phone can take a phone that's been restored from a different phone can take ownership

00:38:24 ◼   ► of a watch and the watch goes, "Oh, you're over there now. Got it." And all it takes

00:38:29 ◼   ► is a reboot, which is set off manually by the phone and so that the user doesn't have

00:38:35 ◼   ► to do it. So I was very happy with that because that used to that used to be terrible and

00:38:40 ◼   ► and now it's actually pretty okay.

00:38:42 ◼   ► - I expect that it's something along the lines

00:38:44 ◼   ► of the watch independence over time, right?

00:38:46 ◼   ► It's allowed for it to be able to live

00:38:48 ◼   ► a little bit more freely that way.

00:38:50 ◼   ► - Maybe, although this feels very much like,

00:38:54 ◼   ► I mean, it's a little bit of that,

00:38:56 ◼   ► but it's like when they launched it,

00:38:58 ◼   ► they didn't really think about what happens

00:39:00 ◼   ► when you upgrade your iPhone,

00:39:01 ◼   ► and they have inserted something that is literally,

00:39:06 ◼   ► there's something in the code that lets a new watch say,

00:39:09 ◼   ► "You're mine now."

00:39:11 ◼   ► And then the Apple Watch, or a new phone,

00:39:13 ◼   ► says, "You're mine.

00:39:14 ◼   ► Come over here, little watch."

00:39:15 ◼   ► And the watch is like, "Oh yeah, I live over there now,

00:39:18 ◼   ► and reboot, and it's done."

00:39:20 ◼   ► And that is, it's a beautiful thing.

00:39:22 ◼   ► - What do you think of the always-on display?

00:39:24 ◼   ► - It seems, now, okay.

00:39:29 ◼   ► I am not your average iPhone user.

00:39:31 ◼   ► I really am not.

00:39:32 ◼   ► I use my iPad way more than my iPhone.

00:39:34 ◼   ► I use my Mac way more than my iPhone.

00:39:36 ◼   ► I almost said I live in my garage.

00:39:38 ◼   ► I live in my house, I work in my garage,

00:39:40 ◼   ► my commute involves not going outside.

00:39:43 ◼   ► And so I'm not really out and about with an iPhone a lot.

00:39:48 ◼   ► So I'm bad at this. - So things have gone wrong

00:39:49 ◼   ► for me, I live in the garage now.

00:39:51 ◼   ► - I live down, this is where it is now.

00:39:53 ◼   ► There's something heavy fell in front of the door

00:39:55 ◼   ► and now I have to live here.

00:39:56 ◼   ► There's a blow up mattress out here,

00:39:59 ◼   ► I can blow that up later.

00:40:00 ◼   ► So that all said, that's my disclaimer

00:40:03 ◼   ► about being a kind of a weird iPhone user.

00:40:06 ◼   ► It seems inessential to me, if that makes sense.

00:40:10 ◼   ► It seems like, it's nice, I mean, I've been,

00:40:14 ◼   ► since I got it, I've been carrying it around

00:40:16 ◼   ► and I put it on my coffee table and I put it on my desk

00:40:20 ◼   ► and I'm looking at it now and like,

00:40:22 ◼   ► is it nice that I can see the time?

00:40:24 ◼   ► Sure, I can see the time on my watch though.

00:40:26 ◼   ► Is it nice that I can see that I've got the weather forecast

00:40:30 ◼   ► and I know what my next appointment is

00:40:33 ◼   ► in the little widgets?

00:40:34 ◼   ► Sure, is it nice that I can see sort of the album art

00:40:38 ◼   ► for whatever is currently playing

00:40:39 ◼   ► if I've got that feature turned on?

00:40:41 ◼   ► Yeah, that's actually, that is kinda nice.

00:40:43 ◼   ► But is any of it essential?

00:40:45 ◼   ► I kinda think not.

00:40:46 ◼   ► And then on top of that, I would say,

00:40:49 ◼   ► this is one of those cases where I think Apple's restraint

00:40:52 ◼   ► in terms of design hurts it.

00:40:55 ◼   ► Because the widgets especially are so restrained

00:41:00 ◼   ► that the information,

00:41:01 ◼   ► I know that they didn't want a lot of information density

00:41:04 ◼   ► on the lock screen, I get it.

00:41:07 ◼   ► But like that always on screen would be more valuable

00:41:11 ◼   ► if I could see more things or they could be bigger.

00:41:14 ◼   ► So I could see them from further away

00:41:16 ◼   ► because oftentimes my phone is laying, you know,

00:41:20 ◼   ► four feet away or two feet away,

00:41:23 ◼   ► not like right by my eyeline.

00:41:25 ◼   ► And they didn't do that.

00:41:28 ◼   ► It is limited in what widgets it has.

00:41:32 ◼   ► And so, yeah, that's the, I mean, like,

00:41:36 ◼   ► I think it's cool, I guess, but it does seem inessential

00:41:40 ◼   ► or I could also say unnecessary,

00:41:43 ◼   ► or like it's cool that it's there,

00:41:46 ◼   ► but I'm not getting nearly as much kind of use

00:41:51 ◼   ► out of that information as I thought I might,

00:41:55 ◼   ► or I hoped I would.

00:41:57 ◼   ► How have you reacted to it?

00:41:59 ◼   ► - I'll start by saying I really have grown

00:42:01 ◼   ► to like it a lot.

00:42:03 ◼   ► And I'll come back to that in a minute.

00:42:05 ◼   ► But it does feel to me in a way that like,

00:42:08 ◼   ► somebody at Apple heard that an always on display

00:42:12 ◼   ► was a thing that existed

00:42:14 ◼   ► and decided to make the iPhone's display always stay on.

00:42:18 ◼   ► Which is not necessarily what people think of

00:42:23 ◼   ► when they hear about an always on display on a phone.

00:42:27 ◼   ► Right?

00:42:28 ◼   ► - They literally thought,

00:42:29 ◼   ► what if we take our lock screen

00:42:30 ◼   ► and just keep it there all the time?

00:42:31 ◼   ► What if the phone looks like it actually never goes to sleep?

00:42:34 ◼   ► That's what they decided.

00:42:37 ◼   ► And you know what though? That may have been like,

00:42:40 ◼   ► "Hey, here's what we're going to do that no one else can do."

00:42:45 ◼   ► Quote unquote.

00:42:46 ◼   ► "We are going to make it look like the iPhone never goes to sleep.

00:42:51 ◼   ► Won't that be cool? No one else does that."

00:42:54 ◼   ► Right?

00:42:55 ◼   ► I'm not saying that that is a bad thing,

00:42:57 ◼   ► because I actually know after a couple of days,

00:43:00 ◼   ► I think I like it more than it does that it's like this.

00:43:04 ◼   ► - And we call it the sleepless retina display.

00:43:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, but like it's a bold choice, right?

00:43:12 ◼   ► Because everyone's gonna have this experience

00:43:15 ◼   ► when they get, if they get an always on display on a phone,

00:43:18 ◼   ► like on the iPhone, a Pro Max,

00:43:20 ◼   ► maybe if it comes to other device later on.

00:43:22 ◼   ► Within the first couple of hours of using it,

00:43:25 ◼   ► you're gonna look at it and be like, oh, my phone's on.

00:43:28 ◼   ► But it isn't, right?

00:43:30 ◼   ► Like you think you haven't locked it,

00:43:31 ◼   ► but no, it's just how it looks now.

00:43:33 ◼   ► Because they have done a very good job

00:43:35 ◼   ► of making it just look like the phone's display dims.

00:43:39 ◼   ► That's it, right?

00:43:40 ◼   ► Like I can look at the picture of my wife

00:43:42 ◼   ► and one thing I'll say that they're doing, Jason,

00:43:46 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure they've done this.

00:43:48 ◼   ► I think that they are looking for people

00:43:52 ◼   ► and keeping more color on the person on the lock screen.

00:43:57 ◼   ► Because on the image that I have here, the background is less saturated than the subject of the image on display.

00:44:09 ◼   ► And if I look at it, I can kind of see there's a little line that goes around her hair.

00:44:16 ◼   ► Like it's a portrait photo, which it isn't.

00:44:19 ◼   ► So I think that they're doing some stuff here with their new person detection feature stuff.

00:44:25 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, they are definitely processing,

00:44:30 ◼   ► like really processing those images

00:44:33 ◼   ► in order to get them to show up.

00:44:37 ◼   ► I mean, not only are they doing all of that processing

00:44:39 ◼   ► for the layering effect,

00:44:40 ◼   ► which is not only limited to like portrait mode,

00:44:44 ◼   ► they will process any photo

00:44:46 ◼   ► and find the foreground and the background.

00:44:48 ◼   ► And I think you're right.

00:44:49 ◼   ► I think they are also generating a,

00:44:54 ◼   ► we saw this because somebody found

00:44:55 ◼   ► that the clownfish pictures, you remember that?

00:44:58 ◼   ► And it looked like it wasn't just like a filter,

00:45:03 ◼   ► like they were processing it for a certain effect

00:45:08 ◼   ► and that that's the dimming effect.

00:45:10 ◼   ► So something is going on there.

00:45:12 ◼   ► - So that's like, so what I've come to really like

00:45:16 ◼   ► about it though is just, it's just my phone.

00:45:18 ◼   ► My phone looks like this.

00:45:19 ◼   ► I see my phone like this all the time

00:45:21 ◼   ► and it always is like this.

00:45:22 ◼   ► I have the widgets there.

00:45:24 ◼   ► I can see notifications when they come in if I have it set up that way.

00:45:27 ◼   ► I've actually come to really like it.

00:45:29 ◼   ► There is a consistency in the experience that I like.

00:45:33 ◼   ► You know, just like this is just what my phone looks like.

00:45:35 ◼   ► And I use sleep focus mode

00:45:39 ◼   ► and therefore it goes off at night time on its own

00:45:43 ◼   ► which is exactly what I hoped it would do.

00:45:45 ◼   ► I have seen people say on Twitter that like if you don't do that

00:45:48 ◼   ► the phone's too bright, which I expected 100% would be the case.

00:45:52 ◼   ► So I recommend people look at the sleep focus mode.

00:45:55 ◼   ► I will say it's really cool.

00:45:56 ◼   ► You should do it.

00:45:58 ◼   ► Do what I do.

00:45:59 ◼   ► Create a home screen as well.

00:46:00 ◼   ► So you take off the apps that you shouldn't be looking at

00:46:02 ◼   ► at midnight because really you should be going to sleep

00:46:04 ◼   ► or you should be winding down or whatever.

00:46:06 ◼   ► So take slack off your home screen

00:46:08 ◼   ► and all that kind of stuff.

00:46:09 ◼   ► So you have less of a desire to look at those things.

00:46:12 ◼   ► That is my recommendation to you

00:46:14 ◼   ► if you have one of these phones

00:46:15 ◼   ► because then you'll also benefit from the phone

00:46:17 ◼   ► going into sleep focus mode.

00:46:18 ◼   ► You don't, like don't get it twisted.

00:46:21 ◼   ► This is what I thought.

00:46:21 ◼   ► I thought if you set up the sleep focus mode,

00:46:23 ◼   ► you had to use the sleep tracking

00:46:25 ◼   ► and all that kind of stuff,

00:46:26 ◼   ► you don't have to do any of that.

00:46:28 ◼   ► So you can just have it do its thing

00:46:29 ◼   ► and the screen will turn off at night

00:46:31 ◼   ► kind of around the time that you want it to.

00:46:33 ◼   ► But what I also am wanting to do,

00:46:35 ◼   ► and I'm gonna play around with this a little bit more

00:46:37 ◼   ► over the next few weeks is,

00:46:38 ◼   ► so one of the times where I would have my phone

00:46:41 ◼   ► kind of like on my desk or whatever,

00:46:43 ◼   ► or like when I'm recording a show,

00:46:44 ◼   ► I have you in a dock,

00:46:46 ◼   ► I wanna set up a recording focus mode.

00:46:49 ◼   ► Sorry, I have a recording focus mode already,

00:46:51 ◼   ► which really pairs back with the notifications that I get.

00:46:55 ◼   ► But now I'm thinking, oh, I should set up a recording home

00:46:58 ◼   ► screen that has widgets that might be useful for recording

00:47:02 ◼   ► as opposed to usual.

00:47:04 ◼   ► So maybe there's a time tracker on there,

00:47:06 ◼   ► and maybe I have a different wallpaper.

00:47:08 ◼   ► So I'm liking it for that, because I'm playing around

00:47:12 ◼   ► with it more.

00:47:14 ◼   ► Also, on the display, when the display is actually on,

00:47:18 ◼   ► I have found the additional brightness

00:47:20 ◼   ► that this screen has to make the phone feel more vivid

00:47:23 ◼   ► in a way that I wouldn't have necessarily expected,

00:47:26 ◼   ► just brightness to do.

00:47:27 ◼   ► I don't know if there's maybe something else going on

00:47:30 ◼   ► with the display itself,

00:47:31 ◼   ► but putting the phone side by side

00:47:34 ◼   ► at both what they consider to be the automatic brightness

00:47:38 ◼   ► and also setting up the same brightness level,

00:47:40 ◼   ► I find the display on the 14 Pro Max

00:47:43 ◼   ► to be nicer than the 13 Pro Max.

00:47:46 ◼   ► So that's great.

00:47:47 ◼   ► The extra brightness is always great, especially outdoors.

00:47:50 ◼   ► I don't know if you've experienced anything like that.

00:47:53 ◼   ► I know you obviously get a lot of sun where you are.

00:47:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's a big, bright display.

00:47:58 ◼   ► I mean, there's no doubt about it.

00:47:59 ◼   ► I haven't, you know,

00:48:00 ◼   ► I don't think I have anything to quantify there.

00:48:02 ◼   ► Every time I hit something that's in HDR,

00:48:04 ◼   ► it's like, whoa, right?

00:48:06 ◼   ► Like the- - I love it.

00:48:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:48:08 ◼   ► - It's very impressive there.

00:48:10 ◼   ► But yeah, and yeah, it's a bright, beautiful,

00:48:12 ◼   ► colorful display.

00:48:13 ◼   ► There's no doubt about it.

00:48:14 ◼   ► I just, the always on seems,

00:48:18 ◼   ► I think you're exactly right in saying

00:48:20 ◼   ► Apple just wanted it to be,

00:48:22 ◼   ► what if my screen never went dark?

00:48:24 ◼   ► And I also appreciate that there's a bunch of stuff

00:48:26 ◼   ► like the live activities stuff that will make this,

00:48:30 ◼   ► in some ways, the bottom part of the screen

00:48:33 ◼   ► is a canvas for live activities to appear on.

00:48:36 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:48:37 ◼   ► - Just like currently the now playing interface

00:48:40 ◼   ► for audio goes there, and that's actually really useful.

00:48:44 ◼   ► And so I can see like if you've got some other kind of live

00:48:47 ◼   ► activity going on to have it sit there and know that it's

00:48:50 ◼   ► your, you know, it's your DoorDash order or sit there

00:48:54 ◼   ► and it's a baseball game or sit there and it's your Uber

00:48:58 ◼   ► driver and when they're going to come and get you.

00:49:00 ◼   ► And with those activities also on there,

00:49:05 ◼   ► I feel like it's a little more information dense and a

00:49:08 ◼   ► little more useful.

00:49:09 ◼   ► But one of the funny quirks of this cycle is that those

00:49:14 ◼   ► don't exist yet, right?

00:49:16 ◼   ► And that leads to the dynamic island not having

00:49:19 ◼   ► as broad support as it presumably will down the road.

00:49:22 ◼   ► And it also means that the lock screen

00:49:24 ◼   ► is a little more barren.

00:49:25 ◼   ► Although regardless of that,

00:49:26 ◼   ► I think there should be a second row of widgets optional.

00:49:29 ◼   ► And I think there could be more widgets on the home screen

00:49:31 ◼   ► and that that would be perfectly nice.

00:49:33 ◼   ► And I think they're a little too spare,

00:49:34 ◼   ► especially when they've got these huge phone screens.

00:49:37 ◼   ► So yeah, it just feels a little bit less necessary,

00:49:43 ◼   ► or less necessary than I thought it would.

00:49:45 ◼   ► I thought it would be like, oh, now I can see everything.

00:49:48 ◼   ► But especially now that they're rolling up notifications,

00:49:52 ◼   ► there's not as much on my lock screen as there used to be.

00:49:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I use count notifications as an option

00:50:03 ◼   ► where it just shows the number at the bottom now,

00:50:05 ◼   ► so there's less on mine.

00:50:06 ◼   ► But I like it like that.

00:50:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, so there's some space there that I feel like,

00:50:11 ◼   ► I appreciate that there's not a lot going on there

00:50:13 ◼   ► and that for a lot of people that's great,

00:50:15 ◼   ► but I feel like if you're gonna have this screen

00:50:18 ◼   ► that is always on and can be in my peripheral vision,

00:50:22 ◼   ► I'd like the option to put more stuff on it

00:50:24 ◼   ► so I'm not required to pick it up or tap it

00:50:28 ◼   ► in order to see what's going on.

00:50:30 ◼   ► If I could put more stuff on there that I could just,

00:50:32 ◼   ► right, you know, the idea that I can pick it up

00:50:34 ◼   ► and unlock it and launch an app

00:50:37 ◼   ► and get a piece of information and then close it down.

00:50:40 ◼   ► But one of the ways that an always on lock screen

00:50:43 ◼   ► could help me is by having me put,

00:50:45 ◼   ► or having the phone put it because I set this up,

00:50:48 ◼   ► that information on the lock screen.

00:50:51 ◼   ► So I don't have to do anything but look at my phone.

00:50:54 ◼   ► And then I've saved myself a pickup and an unlock

00:50:57 ◼   ► and an app launch and maybe being distracted

00:51:00 ◼   ► and launching another app while I'm there.

00:51:02 ◼   ► I think there's value in that.

00:51:03 ◼   ► And I think that the problem with the always on screen

00:51:06 ◼   ► as it is right now is that it's not enabling

00:51:09 ◼   ► quite enough of that kind of behavior.

00:51:11 ◼   ► - You mentioned the dynamic island.

00:51:14 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:51:14 ◼   ► - What do you think about the dynamic island?

00:51:17 ◼   ► - You know, I think it's a really,

00:51:20 ◼   ► everything we said last time,

00:51:21 ◼   ► I think it is a really clever idea.

00:51:24 ◼   ► I love that Apple is leaning into a design limitation

00:51:29 ◼   ► and making it a strength.

00:51:30 ◼   ► I think it's very smartly designed.

00:51:34 ◼   ► I think that the way it looks and the way it moves

00:51:37 ◼   ► is beautiful in, you know, for some,

00:51:42 ◼   ► as much as a system widget,

00:51:46 ◼   ► status widget can be beautiful,

00:51:47 ◼   ► like they bless them for trying, right?

00:51:49 ◼   ► Like they're trying really hard to make a black blob

00:51:51 ◼   ► at the top of the screen, dance and sing.

00:51:53 ◼   ► And like, it's like, wow, okay, you didn't have to do that,

00:51:56 ◼   ► but I love that you're trying that.

00:51:58 ◼   ► And so like, I'm encouraged by it,

00:52:02 ◼   ► but again, the problem is, and this is like,

00:52:07 ◼   ► I know I said this a week or two ago,

00:52:09 ◼   ► it's just like when it starts out beta season,

00:52:11 ◼   ► you get that new OS on your phone as a beta user,

00:52:14 ◼   ► and you're like, all right, all right,

00:52:17 ◼   ► this is gonna be great 'cause there's this great feature

00:52:19 ◼   ► that I'm really looking forward to.

00:52:20 ◼   ► And then you realize, oh, that feature

00:52:23 ◼   ► has to be built in to the new APIs

00:52:28 ◼   ► by all the third-party apps that I use.

00:52:30 ◼   ► And that means that I'm probably not gonna actually see

00:52:34 ◼   ► almost anybody using this feature until the fall

00:52:37 ◼   ► when the OS ships or even months after

00:52:40 ◼   ► as they get their apps updated for the OS

00:52:43 ◼   ► and it support the new APIs.

00:52:45 ◼   ► This is a little like that where it's like,

00:52:47 ◼   ► all right, the dynamic island is here,

00:52:49 ◼   ► but other than a handful of Apple apps

00:52:51 ◼   ► and people who are using the now playing interface

00:52:55 ◼   ► for their audio, or I think there's one other example

00:52:59 ◼   ► where stuff gets thrown up there,

00:53:01 ◼   ► but basically everybody else just has to wait

00:53:04 ◼   ► for the Live Activities API.

00:53:06 ◼   ► And so it feels like a work in progress.

00:53:08 ◼   ► It feels like Apple has built a really interesting scaffold

00:53:11 ◼   ► that might become great, but it's too early to tell

00:53:16 ◼   ► because right now most of what I see up there

00:53:20 ◼   ► is my music or podcasts playing.

00:53:23 ◼   ► What about you?

00:53:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, just to touch on the Live Activities thing

00:53:26 ◼   ► 'cause I agree with everything you said about that, right?

00:53:28 ◼   ► that is like a one-two punch in a way.

00:53:31 ◼   ► You can experience it for what it is now,

00:53:33 ◼   ► and it's going to get way better later.

00:53:34 ◼   ► And because of that, I kind of can't believe

00:53:38 ◼   ► that Live Activities was not a 16.0 feature.

00:53:41 ◼   ► They must have known how important it was going to be.

00:53:45 ◼   ► And I'm surprised.

00:53:47 ◼   ► Because for as much as I can tell,

00:53:51 ◼   ► I don't believe developers can specifically ask

00:53:56 ◼   ► for what goes up there, or maybe I'm wrong.

00:53:59 ◼   ► Yeah, anyway, but it surprised me.

00:54:01 ◼   ► - I think they could do it.

00:54:02 ◼   ► So this is my question, which is,

00:54:05 ◼   ► is the live activities thing not in 16.0

00:54:10 ◼   ► because it wasn't ready?

00:54:13 ◼   ► Or is it not in there because they knew

00:54:15 ◼   ► that if they released it--

00:54:16 ◼   ► - It would do something away.

00:54:18 ◼   ► - Everybody would know what the dynamic island is.

00:54:21 ◼   ► I think maybe it's the latter, and so here we are.

00:54:25 ◼   ► - I think you might be right.

00:54:26 ◼   ► feel a little bit like a, I mean, I get it, right? You don't want to give away the secret,

00:54:31 ◼   ► but now your secret has come out and yet nobody's going to be able to take advantage of it. Like,

00:54:35 ◼   ► people are going to expect the Dynamic Island to just be supported by all the apps, and

00:54:40 ◼   ► it's not going to be for a while. So it's a challenge for Apple, and I get it, but it

00:54:46 ◼   ► does diminish what the possibilities are. And like I said, I think that's true of the

00:54:50 ◼   ► lock screen too. Like so it's a double whammy because I think live activities

00:54:55 ◼   ► works right? It's like live activities make the lock screen better and they

00:54:59 ◼   ► make the Dynamic Island better and it's not there.

00:55:02 ◼   ► However the Dynamic Island for what it is right now

00:55:07 ◼   ► it's kind of like you know like it or not this is Apple at its best where they

00:55:13 ◼   ► have had a smart idea which improves upon the technological limitations that

00:55:21 ◼   ► they are otherwise given and they create something incredibly fun with it. The way

00:55:29 ◼   ► in which this thing animates is so unnecessary but great. Like CableCasser

00:55:38 ◼   ► had a tweet that I think kind of went viral over the last few days where he's

00:55:41 ◼   ► is showing how you can, depending on the angle at which you throw an application,

00:55:50 ◼   ► like when you're going to the home screen,

00:55:53 ◼   ► depends, then has a relationship to the angle at which that app minimizes

00:55:59 ◼   ► into the dynamic island.

00:56:01 ◼   ► It's like, there is no reason to go to that level,

00:56:05 ◼   ► but I love that you did.

00:56:07 ◼   ► And then the reason is because we want it to just be as good as it could possibly be,

00:56:13 ◼   ► which not everyone would necessarily do.

00:56:16 ◼   ► And so I appreciate it for that.

00:56:18 ◼   ► The animations are very fluid.

00:56:20 ◼   ► They have a kind of almost alive feeling to them.

00:56:23 ◼   ► I do.

00:56:24 ◼   ► They're using that ProMotion mic, which I haven't been using for the last year.

00:56:29 ◼   ► And I started using it and I think, "Oh, right.

00:56:31 ◼   ► Oh my God."

00:56:32 ◼   ► Like I almost feel like I'm getting dizzy because all the ProMotion.

00:56:36 ◼   ► like number one reason for the pro motion,

00:56:39 ◼   ► like Dynamic Island really looks good

00:56:41 ◼   ► with that extra, the extra frames

00:56:43 ◼   ► and the sub pixel anti-aliasing.

00:56:46 ◼   ► And there's like a little glow that happens around it

00:56:49 ◼   ► sometimes depending on the context.

00:56:51 ◼   ► There's a lot going on there.

00:56:53 ◼   ► - It's really, really cool, right?

00:56:55 ◼   ► Like it's really, really cool.

00:56:57 ◼   ► - Right, so the next question is, but is it useful?

00:56:59 ◼   ► And the answer is kind of right now, kind of,

00:57:03 ◼   ► But I feel again that we need to see

00:57:07 ◼   ► the third party support here

00:57:09 ◼   ► and that's gonna tell the story.

00:57:10 ◼   ► And I hope that Apple has figured out

00:57:13 ◼   ► the third party support story, right?

00:57:15 ◼   ► 'Cause the danger is that everybody's gonna look

00:57:17 ◼   ► at the Live Activities API and be like, oh.

00:57:22 ◼   ► - The one thing I've seen people kind of grousing about

00:57:24 ◼   ► with Live Activities is,

00:57:26 ◼   ► and this does actually doesn't surprise me when I hear it,

00:57:29 ◼   ► but it could frustrate people.

00:57:30 ◼   ► You have to open an app before a live activity can begin.

00:57:35 ◼   ► - Right.

00:57:36 ◼   ► Yeah, 'cause the whole concept of the Dynamic Island

00:57:38 ◼   ► is that essentially you trigger an event that's happening

00:57:42 ◼   ► and then you leave the app.

00:57:44 ◼   ► And the happening events,

00:57:46 ◼   ► thinking of music playback as the best example,

00:57:49 ◼   ► you play a song and then you leave the music app

00:57:52 ◼   ► or Spotify or whatever,

00:57:53 ◼   ► but you play a song or a podcast or whatever,

00:57:55 ◼   ► and you leave that app.

00:57:57 ◼   ► And what happens next is that app

00:57:59 ◼   ► flies up into the dynamic island with a little waveform

00:58:02 ◼   ► and a little image, and it now is playing in the background

00:58:07 ◼   ► and that playback is being displayed in the dynamic island.

00:58:10 ◼   ► You can tap and hold and control it and all of that.

00:58:13 ◼   ► So that's the fundamental premise is like,

00:58:16 ◼   ► you start an activity and then you, you know,

00:58:19 ◼   ► swipe it off into the dynamic island

00:58:22 ◼   ► and you move on with your life and you,

00:58:23 ◼   ► and it continues living its life in the dynamic island.

00:58:27 ◼   ► it doesn't happen automatically, right?

00:58:29 ◼   ► And very little happens automatically on the iPhone.

00:58:34 ◼   ► But I can see that as a developer, you might be like,

00:58:38 ◼   ► "Oh, but wait a second, what if?"

00:58:39 ◼   ► And it's like, yeah, well, that's where it's gonna get you.

00:58:41 ◼   ► And that's the fear is like,

00:58:43 ◼   ► did Apple anticipate all the needs here?

00:58:46 ◼   ► And if they, I'm sure if they didn't,

00:58:48 ◼   ► they will address it down the road,

00:58:50 ◼   ► but they're already gonna be late with this feature

00:58:54 ◼   ► and people will already have had their phones

00:58:57 ◼   ► And, you know, I know this is the start of the journey here,

00:59:00 ◼   ► but that is the danger is that some new technologies die

00:59:05 ◼   ► because they're just, they're not adopted early on

00:59:09 ◼   ► and they're not embraced.

00:59:10 ◼   ► And that's something that, you know,

00:59:11 ◼   ► I think Apple really wants everybody

00:59:13 ◼   ► to embrace the dynamic island.

00:59:15 ◼   ► And that means they need to have that API be really robust

00:59:18 ◼   ► and have the user experience be really good.

00:59:20 ◼   ► - I've also found that the island makes, for me,

00:59:23 ◼   ► the screen feel bigger.

00:59:25 ◼   ► I think just because there's more pixels up there

00:59:27 ◼   ► that have got color on them,

00:59:28 ◼   ► like it just is a trick of the eye.

00:59:30 ◼   ► - Oh yeah.

00:59:31 ◼   ► All the cynical people are like,

00:59:32 ◼   ► oh, why do they even have those pixels up there?

00:59:34 ◼   ► It's like, 'cause it makes the whole phone feel bigger.

00:59:37 ◼   ► I've got a sky background on my iPhone right now.

00:59:40 ◼   ► And the fact that above the dynamic island

00:59:43 ◼   ► is part of the blue sky,

00:59:46 ◼   ► like it makes a difference.

00:59:48 ◼   ► It really does.

00:59:50 ◼   ► Even though there's no information imparted up there,

00:59:52 ◼   ► it's saying I'm part of the whole.

00:59:55 ◼   ► I am the part of this larger thing on your screen.

00:59:59 ◼   ► It's like, it's really smart.

01:00:01 ◼   ► - And it is much more noticeable than the notch ever was.

01:00:04 ◼   ► For me at least, at least right now.

01:00:06 ◼   ► - Oh yeah.

01:00:07 ◼   ► - I feel like I was able to ignore the notch way more.

01:00:09 ◼   ► I would say I use a lot of dark,

01:00:12 ◼   ► I use my iPhone in dark mode all the time

01:00:14 ◼   ► and I actually use a lot of apps in like pure black

01:00:18 ◼   ► rather than gray.

01:00:19 ◼   ► If you do that, you are treated to not seeing

01:00:22 ◼   ► dynamic island very much. Whether you consider that good or bad, I don't know, but I also actually

01:00:27 ◼   ► think the animations of the dynamic island also look nicer when you're using dark mode anyway.

01:00:32 ◼   ► Like if you've got something playing, to me that looks, it looks very attractive to have it that

01:00:38 ◼   ► way, so. Well I mostly don't use dark mode and I agree with you. It is, right, the notch was meant

01:00:48 ◼   ► to be ignored. It was it's like your blind spot, right? Like it's meant to eventually just fade

01:00:53 ◼   ► out of your view and the Dynamic Island is not like it's part of the personality of the phone

01:00:58 ◼   ► is that there's this blob up there this intelligent blob that morphs and and puts information around

01:01:04 ◼   ► it and that you can tap on and all that like that's why it's there and I think yes it's going

01:01:10 ◼   ► to be interesting to see how different people react to it because it as much as we made out

01:01:15 ◼   ► out of the notch. The notch was really easy to ignore. And this thing isn't. So is it

01:01:19 ◼   ► going to frustrate people? They're going to be like, "Oh, why is that stupid thing up

01:01:22 ◼   ► there?" Or are people going to love it? Or are people, or if we wait another week, will

01:01:27 ◼   ► we all have lost sight of it again? I doubt it, but it's a good question.

01:01:32 ◼   ► Will Barron The last thing I think to talk about is the

01:01:34 ◼   ► camera. I think that for me, the jury's still out a little bit on the camera. And I know

01:01:43 ◼   ► I've only had a couple of days to use it. It feels like across the reviews the general consensus is that

01:01:48 ◼   ► the pros camera is not a massive leap it's definitely not the leap that I hoped it would be

01:01:55 ◼   ► if you're using it normally. So if you're just taking photos regularly and they're taking the

01:02:00 ◼   ► 48 megapixel and they're bidding it down to 12 megapixels you know the actual detail in the image

01:02:06 ◼   ► can sometimes be better maybe in medium to low light situations but most of the time

01:02:11 ◼   ► looks pretty similar to the iPhone 14.

01:02:14 ◼   ► And, you know, depending on who you are,

01:02:16 ◼   ► you may either like or not like this camera.

01:02:19 ◼   ► And there's some photonic engine stuff,

01:02:23 ◼   ► and that seems to be helping the ultrawide look better,

01:02:26 ◼   ► the selfie looks better, especially with the autofocus.

01:02:30 ◼   ► That's kind of the general consensus

01:02:31 ◼   ► from the reviewers that I've seen.

01:02:34 ◼   ► What's your take, Vin?

01:02:36 ◼   ► -And I want to rely on the people

01:02:38 ◼   ► who really care about iPhone photography

01:02:40 ◼   ► because they care about it more than we do.

01:02:43 ◼   ► I'm encouraged by the fact that it does better,

01:02:47 ◼   ► you know, better in low light

01:02:49 ◼   ► because it's doing the quad pixel thing.

01:02:51 ◼   ► I think that's great.

01:02:52 ◼   ► What I have seen, and this is what surprises me,

01:02:56 ◼   ► is it seems like the thing that we thought would be less,

01:03:01 ◼   ► more of a niche thing and less important

01:03:04 ◼   ► was the fact that there was a 48 megapixel sensor in there

01:03:09 ◼   ► and that you could do two things with it.

01:03:12 ◼   ► You could do the 2X where you just kind of crop

01:03:14 ◼   ► to the center and there was the raw shooting.

01:03:17 ◼   ► And I will say about the 2X,

01:03:18 ◼   ► I really love that that feature is there.

01:03:20 ◼   ► And I know that you're losing performance

01:03:25 ◼   ► because it's not being able to do pixel binning anymore.

01:03:27 ◼   ► But Apple makes a point of saying

01:03:29 ◼   ► that it's actually the best.

01:03:30 ◼   ► If you do the math, you can see it

01:03:32 ◼   ► 'cause of the sensor size.

01:03:33 ◼   ► It's actually the best 2X camera

01:03:34 ◼   ► that they've ever had in an iPhone.

01:03:36 ◼   ► Now, they're, you know, not all iPhones have 2X cameras.

01:03:39 ◼   ► So, you know, there's an asterisk there,

01:03:42 ◼   ► but it's giving the extra range of having the 2X mode

01:03:47 ◼   ► and having it not be a digital interpolation,

01:03:51 ◼   ► but it literally being the pixels on the sensor.

01:03:54 ◼   ► And it looks, it doesn't look as great

01:03:57 ◼   ► or perform as great as the binned pixels,

01:04:00 ◼   ► but it doesn't matter because it's the shot you wanted.

01:04:04 ◼   ► I think it's really good.

01:04:07 ◼   ► And that surprises me a little bit.

01:04:08 ◼   ► The one that really surprises me is that the people

01:04:12 ◼   ► like Sebastian de Vite, who does Halide,

01:04:14 ◼   ► and oh, what's his name now?

01:04:17 ◼   ► I can't remember.

01:04:18 ◼   ► You know, the guy that Apple always links to,

01:04:20 ◼   ► the Austin Mann. - Austin Mann.

01:04:21 ◼   ► - Right, like that's the thing that's interesting.

01:04:23 ◼   ► Austin Mann's really interesting 'cause they give him the,

01:04:26 ◼   ► I thought he gave a really measured review

01:04:28 ◼   ► and it's worth reading because he criticizes the things

01:04:31 ◼   ► that he doesn't think are that great about the camera,

01:04:33 ◼   ► which is not normally what you see in a thing

01:04:36 ◼   ► that Phil Schiller tweets out, right?

01:04:38 ◼   ► But they love that he's so enthusiastic about the cameras

01:04:41 ◼   ► and he does highlight what's great about them.

01:04:44 ◼   ► But what surprises me is that that 48 megapixel RAW,

01:04:49 ◼   ► I have seen all the people who are like

01:04:52 ◼   ► the really into it RAW shooting photographers

01:04:57 ◼   ► say it's amazing.

01:05:01 ◼   ► And I know that's a real niche,

01:05:02 ◼   ► But like, I thought they would look at that 48 megapixel ROM,

01:05:05 ◼   ► they'd be like, "Yeah, you know, it's okay."

01:05:09 ◼   ► I have, all I see about it is raves from people

01:05:13 ◼   ► who are blown away by the fact

01:05:15 ◼   ► that they can get that out of a camera.

01:05:17 ◼   ► And I've seen several different people say

01:05:20 ◼   ► that it's the best image they've ever gotten out of a phone.

01:05:23 ◼   ► And I'm gonna take them at their word, right?

01:05:25 ◼   ► Because it's not my bag to do that.

01:05:27 ◼   ► So I think that's really interesting.

01:05:29 ◼   ► And it's kind of funny that I expected it to be the reverse,

01:05:33 ◼   ► which is we'd all be like,

01:05:34 ◼   ► "Oh my God, the quad pixel binning,

01:05:36 ◼   ► "it like looks totally different.

01:05:38 ◼   ► "It's the, the performance is so great."

01:05:40 ◼   ► And then the raw people would be like,

01:05:42 ◼   ► "Yeah, you know, it's not as good as the,

01:05:45 ◼   ► "because, and that's not what's happened."

01:05:47 ◼   ► So I'm also keeping in mind coming from the mini,

01:05:51 ◼   ► which has a much less good camera experience already,

01:05:58 ◼   ► as opposed to coming from a 13 Pro,

01:06:00 ◼   ► but I've been really impressed with it.

01:06:02 ◼   ► I did some action mode shots today.

01:06:05 ◼   ► - Oh, I haven't played with that yet.

01:06:06 ◼   ► That's the stabilization thing, right?

01:06:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, it is, at least so far,

01:06:12 ◼   ► like it's kind of amazing, right?

01:06:15 ◼   ► Like I have used so many video cameras

01:06:19 ◼   ► with motion stabilization and also post production software

01:06:23 ◼   ► doing motion stabilization.

01:06:25 ◼   ► And you know, some of it looks bad and some of it looks okay.

01:06:30 ◼   ► The few action mode shots that I took today,

01:06:34 ◼   ► I felt like, I really did feel like I had suddenly

01:06:37 ◼   ► switched onto a gimbal or something.

01:06:40 ◼   ► Like it was very impressive.

01:06:42 ◼   ► So I'm looking forward to playing with that more.

01:06:45 ◼   ► - So I have been just taking a few side-by-side photos

01:06:50 ◼   ► with raw and I cannot believe the detail that this lens can give. So it's very easy, you

01:07:01 ◼   ► can go into the settings app and go to camera and you can turn on the ability to shoot in

01:07:06 ◼   ► raw and then you get a button on the top right hand corner of the camera app that says raw

01:07:11 ◼   ► on it and it's got a line through it when you're shooting normally and it's not when

01:07:16 ◼   ► you're shooting in raw and it turns off and if you're photographing styles, the photo

01:07:20 ◼   ► stars and it turns off all that live photos. So I've just been like sitting my phone in

01:07:24 ◼   ► a standard position, take a photo, turn on raw, take a photo, it takes a couple of seconds longer

01:07:29 ◼   ► and just zooming in on them I cannot believe how much detail like sharpness is there in the raw

01:07:37 ◼   ► photography. So I like to take pictures of lots of things like lots of people. I very specifically

01:07:44 ◼   ► love taking pictures when I'm traveling. I like to take pictures of buildings. It's just a thing

01:07:48 ◼   ► that I enjoy. I imagine now I'm looking forward to the Halide update when they

01:07:54 ◼   ► actually fully support it because I find Halide to be a really great app for it

01:07:58 ◼   ► can do a thing that I really actually very much like where it takes both

01:08:01 ◼   ► photos at once right so you take a picture and you get the the standard

01:08:07 ◼   ► Heath is it or is it Heeke HEIC which one is the image one is the image one's video

01:08:11 ◼   ► but the high efficiency codec one yeah it's the Heeke HEIC is the container

01:08:17 ◼   ► file that contains the image file that's a HEAF format. So it's both.

01:08:23 ◼   ► And it also spits out a raw image. At the moment they can't take, they haven't got

01:08:27 ◼   ► access to the full 48 because they haven't updated it, they haven't tested and updated

01:08:30 ◼   ► it, right? Because the phone's just come out. So it's been taken side by side. But I also

01:08:34 ◼   ► like to take my images and edit them. And do, raw is the best way to do that. I know

01:08:39 ◼   ► that, but I've just never really cared about it enough. But now I feel more inclined to

01:08:44 ◼   ► want to play with this because it feels like the benefit to me for taking an image in raw

01:08:51 ◼   ► here is I'll get additional detail in certain circumstances and I find that intriguing.

01:08:56 ◼   ► And what I like about Halide specifically is it will give me both if the raw image isn't

01:09:02 ◼   ► necessarily going to be that helpful to me, right?

01:09:05 ◼   ► Because it can also be more finicky, right?

01:09:08 ◼   ► So I, what I'll say is I thought there was going to be more of a difference in the standard

01:09:17 ◼   ► lens than there necessarily is, but there is actually an incredible amount of headroom

01:09:24 ◼   ► available and I'm very excited about that, I mean about playing around with that and

01:09:30 ◼   ► learning more about that so maybe I'll follow up on this in the future if I tinker around

01:09:34 ◼   ► for some more, but it is something at the moment I'm finding myself pretty excited about

01:09:39 ◼   ► to be honest.

01:09:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I feel like with photos, it really does take time. You need to shoot a

01:09:44 ◼   ► bunch and I love listening to the people who live and die by iPhone photography because

01:09:49 ◼   ► they're the ones who notice those details and we should all be paying attention to what

01:09:55 ◼   ► they have to say. But like I said, I think the reports from the field are that that is

01:10:00 ◼   ► spectacular. If you're not one of those types of people, the improvements are going to be,

01:10:06 ◼   ► it sounds like, more subtle. And again, it's one of those things, though, that you're going

01:10:10 ◼   ► to get a new iPhone and it's going to have that. And whatever your iPhone you're coming

01:10:16 ◼   ► from, it's going to be that much more of an improvement if you're coming from a two-year-old

01:10:19 ◼   ► or three-year-old iPhone than from somebody like me or Myke who is comparing it to last

01:10:24 ◼   ► year's model.

01:10:25 ◼   ► yeah I'll put in the show a couple of links one is to something some images

01:10:33 ◼   ► that Sebastian do with he actually took the photos a posted on the halide

01:10:36 ◼   ► Twitter account yeah from San Francisco and there's that with the street sign

01:10:41 ◼   ► and the Sun in the background it's kind of a spectacular yeah yeah and then also

01:10:45 ◼   ► I'll put a link in the show notes to Tyler Stormans YouTube review I always

01:10:51 ◼   ► really appreciate Tyler's reviews because he kind of just looks at the

01:10:55 ◼   ► camera and really does a good job I think of showing these differences side by side

01:11:03 ◼   ► and explaining them in a way that I can understand.

01:11:06 ◼   ► So yeah, I'm excited about this overall.

01:11:09 ◼   ► I actually think this is a really great upgrade and it is weirdly seems like, as we mentioned

01:11:14 ◼   ► especially with live activities, a phone that's going to get better with age in the near future,

01:11:20 ◼   ► which is strange.

01:11:21 ◼   ► I just have one other note,

01:11:23 ◼   ► which is using this phone for a week

01:11:24 ◼   ► after using the iPhone mini for a year.

01:11:26 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, okay.

01:11:28 ◼   ► - Every time I pick it up, I think, did I make a mistake?

01:11:31 ◼   ► Is this the Pro Max?

01:11:33 ◼   ► It's not the Pro Max, but it feels so huge.

01:11:38 ◼   ► It just feels so huge.

01:11:41 ◼   ► It feels, you know, it's big when it's in my,

01:11:44 ◼   ► I carried it around, took pictures when I was doing curling

01:11:47 ◼   ► and I was like, oh, that phone is gigantic in my pocket.

01:11:51 ◼   ► And I look at it and I think like, again,

01:11:53 ◼   ► I always do a double take and I think,

01:11:55 ◼   ► is this the big phone?

01:11:56 ◼   ► Did I use the big phone by mistake?

01:11:58 ◼   ► The answer is no, it's not.

01:12:00 ◼   ► So that is really taken some getting used to.

01:12:02 ◼   ► I'm so used to the smaller phone,

01:12:05 ◼   ► but the ProMotion is really good.

01:12:07 ◼   ► Like again, I learned to live without it,

01:12:10 ◼   ► but when I see it, I think to myself,

01:12:12 ◼   ► oh, that's really nice.

01:12:14 ◼   ► So I'll give you that one.

01:12:16 ◼   ► But I'm missing the size of the mini.

01:12:20 ◼   ► Like I just, it's just really funny to have been so trained

01:12:25 ◼   ► on the smaller phone that now the smaller

01:12:28 ◼   ► of the two Pro phones feels enormous to me,

01:12:30 ◼   ► but that's where I am.

01:12:32 ◼   ► Oh, well.

01:12:33 ◼   ► - You gonna order one of these 14 Pros?

01:12:35 ◼   ► - No, no.

01:12:36 ◼   ► - You're gonna stay on them, eh?

01:12:37 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:12:39 ◼   ► Yep, when all is said and done,

01:12:41 ◼   ► that's my phone and that's fine.

01:12:44 ◼   ► But for now I'm gonna live with the Pro

01:12:48 ◼   ► while I'm writing the review and all that.

01:12:50 ◼   ► And that's a, and I'm liking it.

01:12:52 ◼   ► Like it's really good.

01:12:53 ◼   ► I just, I just, the, the size take just I'm taken aback by the size on a regular

01:12:59 ◼   ► basis.

01:13:00 ◼   ► It's just because it's so much larger than the mini.

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01:15:40 ◼   ► So you wanted to talk a little bit about upgrade cycles today.

01:15:43 ◼   ► - It's just a thought that I had of a little game we could play,

01:15:48 ◼   ► which is what do we recommend for people

01:15:53 ◼   ► and what do we do ourselves?

01:15:57 ◼   ► Because we've been talking a lot about,

01:15:59 ◼   ► "Oh, you don't upgrade every year.

01:16:01 ◼   ► You upgrade every two or three or four years."

01:16:03 ◼   ► And I was wondering if we might have our own recommendations for what we think that that

01:16:10 ◼   ► should be today.

01:16:14 ◼   ► How often should you be updating your items or separately from that, how often are we

01:16:19 ◼   ► updating the stuff that we buy?

01:16:22 ◼   ► Okay.

01:16:23 ◼   ► What I will say for me personally is rather than what I think people should be doing,

01:16:29 ◼   ► is what I would recommend people would do to have a good balance between a good experience

01:16:34 ◼   ► and not necessarily buying every single product.

01:16:38 ◼   ► Because "should" is difficult, especially with something like an iPhone, right?

01:16:42 ◼   ► Because how often should someone upgrade their iPhone?

01:16:46 ◼   ► Probably every five years, you know what I mean?

01:16:48 ◼   ► It's like, you're going to be fine for a really long time.

01:16:51 ◼   ► Like do you see what I'm saying there?

01:16:54 ◼   ► Like the "should" part is a little complicated.

01:16:57 ◼   ► because I mean our audience I'm sure is way over,

01:17:01 ◼   ► I know it to be pretty over indexed

01:17:05 ◼   ► to people that do upgrade their phones every year.

01:17:07 ◼   ► But I do really love this as a conversation.

01:17:09 ◼   ► Do you want me to start or should you start?

01:17:12 ◼   ► - Well, why don't you start with this?

01:17:14 ◼   ► Well, let's start with the iPhone.

01:17:15 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:17:17 ◼   ► I upgrade every year and did before and would anyway, right?

01:17:21 ◼   ► Irrespective of my job.

01:17:24 ◼   ► I would, because I was doing this every year.

01:17:27 ◼   ► I mean, I've had every iPhone except one, which is the 3GS.

01:17:30 ◼   ► And I honestly don't remember why I didn't upgrade to the 3GS, but I just didn't.

01:17:36 ◼   ► I think I was in a contract and at that time I was, I don't know, I was like 19.

01:17:41 ◼   ► I didn't have the money to do the upgrade.

01:17:45 ◼   ► I was, I don't believe, I don't know what was going on with me at the time, but I just didn't do it.

01:17:49 ◼   ► I should have probably hold it in 19.

01:17:51 ◼   ► I was in my twenties, whatever.

01:17:53 ◼   ► But I just, other than that, I do it.

01:17:55 ◼   ► So I would go every year.

01:17:57 ◼   ► Everybody else, I mean, every two years probably,

01:18:03 ◼   ► two to three years,

01:18:06 ◼   ► 'cause you get on that like TikTok kind of schedule, right?

01:18:09 ◼   ► You know, if I look at the iPhone 14,

01:18:13 ◼   ► I would say the iPhone 13 was skippable,

01:18:16 ◼   ► but the iPhone 12, I think was great.

01:18:19 ◼   ► The iPhone 11, you know what?

01:18:22 ◼   ► So like, that's kind of how, if I think back,

01:18:24 ◼   ► I would say every two years

01:18:26 ◼   ► and you would get a more meaningful upgrade for sure.

01:18:31 ◼   ► So I would say two to three years.

01:18:33 ◼   ► - Personally, it's every two years, right?

01:18:36 ◼   ► I'll buy a new phone every two years

01:18:39 ◼   ► and we've generally been rolling those down in my family.

01:18:42 ◼   ► So we'll see how that goes.

01:18:44 ◼   ► I feel like the iPhone you could get away with at this point,

01:18:48 ◼   ► I feel like you could get away with three years.

01:18:51 ◼   ► - Yes, pretty easily.

01:18:53 ◼   ► So Jamie's got an iPhone 11.

01:18:56 ◼   ► She's gonna, she got it her freshman year,

01:18:58 ◼   ► she's gonna be a senior, right?

01:18:59 ◼   ► So three years.

01:19:01 ◼   ► And it's fine.

01:19:06 ◼   ► But I did have that, I had that thought today,

01:19:08 ◼   ► or this week, I've been thinking about that phone.

01:19:12 ◼   ► I thought like, "iPhone 11, how's that going for her?"

01:19:17 ◼   ► And then I had that moment where I realized,

01:19:18 ◼   ► well, she's gonna graduate from college in June.

01:19:22 ◼   ► So, you know, she'll get a new iPhone.

01:19:26 ◼   ► I'll get her a new iPhone for college

01:19:27 ◼   ► or for her birthday or something like that.

01:19:29 ◼   ► It's coming.

01:19:30 ◼   ► But I think at three years on from getting that iPhone--

01:19:34 ◼   ► - That's funny.

01:19:35 ◼   ► I thought you were gonna say,

01:19:36 ◼   ► which is where my mind went,

01:19:37 ◼   ► well, she can buy her own. - She can buy her own.

01:19:38 ◼   ► - She can buy her own. (laughs)

01:19:40 ◼   ► - No, no, I really,

01:19:43 ◼   ► so this is why I say three or four years,

01:19:45 ◼   ► 'cause I feel like she's at three years

01:19:47 ◼   ► and it's like, you know, it's fine.

01:19:50 ◼   ► but it's at the edge and I feel like next year,

01:19:55 ◼   ► she probably should get another iPhone.

01:19:59 ◼   ► And again, like Myke said, so many caveats here.

01:20:02 ◼   ► Everybody's situation is different.

01:20:03 ◼   ► Everybody's priorities are different.

01:20:04 ◼   ► Everybody's budgets are different.

01:20:05 ◼   ► But if I'm like giving really broad advice to somebody

01:20:08 ◼   ► about like, how many, you know, is it okay?

01:20:12 ◼   ► Like if you had a friend who's like,

01:20:13 ◼   ► "Oh, I've had my iPhone two years, should I get a new one?

01:20:16 ◼   ► "Should I, or is it okay if I keep it another year?"

01:20:19 ◼   ► I would say you're fine.

01:20:21 ◼   ► And if they said three years, I'd say,

01:20:23 ◼   ► "Well, if you can eke another year out, do it.

01:20:26 ◼   ► "If you're feeling pain now, go ahead."

01:20:30 ◼   ► Which is why I come into that kind of three or four years.

01:20:32 ◼   ► And I also know that there are people out there,

01:20:34 ◼   ► and I have friends who have like five-year-old iPhones,

01:20:36 ◼   ► and like, great, great, good for you.

01:20:39 ◼   ► But that's when I start looking at the new stuff

01:20:41 ◼   ► compared to the old stuff and go,

01:20:42 ◼   ► "Mm, yeah, you're gonna get a lot out of..."

01:20:46 ◼   ► Barely it's like, you're gonna get a lot

01:20:48 ◼   ► out of this upgrade at this point. It's been a while for you. Apple Watch? Apple Watch.

01:20:55 ◼   ► Uh, I mean, for me, two to three years. Easy. Like I have no problem with that. I think

01:21:03 ◼   ► it actually works pretty great. Even for like someone who considers himself an enthusiast

01:21:08 ◼   ► like I do, I wouldn't recommend getting every Apple Watch. I don't think they do enough

01:21:14 ◼   ► to them, which I think is fine.

01:21:16 ◼   ► For everybody else, I'd say four years, probably.

01:21:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think you're right.

01:21:23 ◼   ► For me, it's three years or maybe two to three years.

01:21:28 ◼   ► I have not bought that many Apple Watches,

01:21:31 ◼   ► even though it's been out for seven and a half years.

01:21:35 ◼   ► I think I bought three.

01:21:36 ◼   ► And Lauren's on her second.

01:21:42 ◼   ► So you could take your time with the Apple Watch, it's fine.

01:21:47 ◼   ► And I would apply that to everybody else too.

01:21:50 ◼   ► I'd say you can, if you got a new Apple Watch

01:21:53 ◼   ► every three or four or maybe even longer years,

01:21:56 ◼   ► it's fine, right?

01:21:57 ◼   ► Because the pace is so slow.

01:21:58 ◼   ► And unless there's a new feature that you,

01:22:01 ◼   ► in fact, I'd say with the Apple Watch,

01:22:02 ◼   ► sometimes that's what it is.

01:22:03 ◼   ► It's like one year, there'll be your feature

01:22:06 ◼   ► and you'll be like, yeah, I'm updating.

01:22:08 ◼   ► And it's for that one feature.

01:22:10 ◼   ► And as long as that feature doesn't come,

01:22:12 ◼   ► you just don't worry about it

01:22:14 ◼   ► 'cause your Apple Watch is doing just fine.

01:22:16 ◼   ► iPad.

01:22:20 ◼   ► - Oh.

01:22:21 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:22:23 ◼   ► - I also just, I simplified it and just said one iPad

01:22:26 ◼   ► for those who have many iPads.

01:22:28 ◼   ► I'm sort of pretend you have an iPad.

01:22:30 ◼   ► - For me?

01:22:34 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:22:35 ◼   ► - Three years?

01:22:36 ◼   ► Two to three years, easy?

01:22:40 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:22:40 ◼   ► I have been doing that.

01:22:42 ◼   ► I had been using an iPad very frequently.

01:22:45 ◼   ► Before my iPad mini, I was using my 2018 iPad Pro.

01:22:51 ◼   ► That's what I would take travelling with me and it was great.

01:22:55 ◼   ► So that was like a four year old iPad at that point.

01:22:58 ◼   ► And I forgot the age of it.

01:23:02 ◼   ► I mean, I would say three years is easy for me.

01:23:06 ◼   ► for me, for other people, like five, you know?

01:23:11 ◼   ► If you're using an iPad Pro,

01:23:14 ◼   ► you're in a different category, I reckon,

01:23:17 ◼   ► which is probably closer to me.

01:23:20 ◼   ► - I think that's one of the challenges.

01:23:21 ◼   ► Ironically, I think that if you've got an iPad Pro,

01:23:25 ◼   ► on one level, you can use those for years

01:23:28 ◼   ► because, like, functionally,

01:23:29 ◼   ► other than some of the feature changes,

01:23:32 ◼   ► like the 2018 iPad Pro is still,

01:23:36 ◼   ► pretty good. It doesn't, you know, it's not going to run Stage Manager or something, but

01:23:41 ◼   ► like it's still pretty fast, even 2018, right? So that's a four-year-old iPad Pro. It's pretty,

01:23:48 ◼   ► you know, it's still, I'm showing its age a little bit in terms of new features, but

01:23:52 ◼   ► still pretty good. It sort of depends, so not only it's like what model do you have

01:23:58 ◼   ► and what are you doing with it? I think that the iPads, I think that's one of the reasons

01:24:03 ◼   ► people were grumpy about the M1 requirement for stage manager was because those iPad Pros

01:24:08 ◼   ► tend to, you know, you can use them for a long time and they don't ever break a sweat.

01:24:14 ◼   ► It's very impressive. So I agree with you. I think I ended up buying an M1 iPad Pro and

01:24:23 ◼   ► I had previously bought the 2018, I think, so I only lasted whatever that is, two years.

01:24:31 ◼   ► But I think that for me, I use my iPad a lot, and yet I feel like every two or three years

01:24:38 ◼   ► is plenty.

01:24:40 ◼   ► And yeah, it's hard to make a generalization, but I feel like the iPad in some ways is even

01:24:45 ◼   ► longer a life object than an iPhone or an Apple Watch.

01:24:51 ◼   ► Because you're probably buying it, depending on what you use.

01:24:54 ◼   ► You buy a base model iPad or an iPad Air or an iPad Pro or an iPad Mini based on what

01:24:59 ◼   ► you're using it for.

01:25:00 ◼   ► And I think they're all pretty well matched then in saying you can probably hold on for

01:25:05 ◼   ► whatever level you're at, you could probably hold on to it for four years.

01:25:10 ◼   ► Easy.

01:25:11 ◼   ► And it'll be fine.

01:25:12 ◼   ► And again, the caveat is if there's that must-have feature, then you're prompted to upgrade.

01:25:17 ◼   ► But I feel like you can hang on to those for a long time.

01:25:22 ◼   ► And then the Mac.

01:25:24 ◼   ► I don't have a years for the Mac.

01:25:27 ◼   ► like when there's a design that speaks to you. It's kind of like my thing here.

01:25:35 ◼   ► The last few years have been complicated for me because there's been all this new stuff going on

01:25:44 ◼   ► including like here's a new iMac. Do you prefer this to your current one the way it looks and

01:25:49 ◼   ► acts? Yeah I do. Or like here's a new MacBook Pro and now here's a new MacBook Air. But like now

01:25:54 ◼   ► Now I've got these sorted, I don't envision making any change to my Macs for multiple

01:26:00 ◼   ► years now.

01:26:02 ◼   ► So for me it's either a design, and that design can be either visual or the overall hardware

01:26:09 ◼   ► design package, what it provides.

01:26:13 ◼   ► I think that's what it is, right?

01:26:16 ◼   ► I don't think that there is a necessary time limit that I think for me or that I would

01:26:21 ◼   ► recommend to other people. It's just kind of wait until there's a product that for

01:26:26 ◼   ► whatever reason you think feels better than yours but it's not on a cycle like

01:26:31 ◼   ► I don't think that there's really any need in going so like when they have an

01:26:36 ◼   ► M3 MacBook Air I have no desire to move to that product like same as when they

01:26:41 ◼   ► have an M2 Pro MacBook Pro I'm good like this I'm all set with this thing.

01:26:48 ◼   ► - Well, I was thinking about that I bought the iMac Pro

01:26:51 ◼   ► and then the Mac Studio.

01:26:53 ◼   ► And so that was not quite five years, but it was close.

01:26:57 ◼   ► And that's my workhorse on my desk.

01:26:59 ◼   ► And before I had the iMac Pro, I was using a 5K iMac.

01:27:04 ◼   ► And so that was 2014.

01:27:07 ◼   ► So that was about three years.

01:27:10 ◼   ► And you're right, some of that is just

01:27:12 ◼   ► what speaks to you when, but I went three years

01:27:15 ◼   ► and then five years with those desktops.

01:27:18 ◼   ► And the laptops are a little different.

01:27:19 ◼   ► You know, again, we hand things down in this house,

01:27:22 ◼   ► but it's the same sort of thing of,

01:27:27 ◼   ► every context is gonna be different.

01:27:30 ◼   ► But like, my son had a 2018 Air, 2017 Air,

01:27:35 ◼   ► and went to the 22 MacBook Pro,

01:27:41 ◼   ► and my wife had a 2018, I wanna say, or 17 Air,

01:27:45 ◼   ► and just got my M1.

01:27:47 ◼   ► and the fact that the M1 is still for sale.

01:27:48 ◼   ► Apple Silicon really changes the game too.

01:27:50 ◼   ► I feel like these Apple Silicon Macs

01:27:52 ◼   ► are gonna be great for a long time.

01:27:54 ◼   ► I really do.

01:27:56 ◼   ► They overshot by so much.

01:27:57 ◼   ► - Oh yeah.

01:27:58 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:27:59 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

01:28:00 ◼   ► Maybe the idea for everyone is like,

01:28:02 ◼   ► just run it until it causes you a problem

01:28:04 ◼   ► and then think about changing.

01:28:06 ◼   ► - I think that there's real truth to that.

01:28:08 ◼   ► And when a design speaks to you,

01:28:11 ◼   ► I think is a good phrase to round up

01:28:14 ◼   ► everything we've said here,

01:28:15 ◼   ► which is obviously maybe the number one reason,

01:28:18 ◼   ► I mean, number one reason you upgrade to a new device

01:28:21 ◼   ► is because your device died or is dying.

01:28:24 ◼   ► That happens or you broke it.

01:28:27 ◼   ► No judgment here though.

01:28:28 ◼   ► It just, it wasn't feeling well.

01:28:30 ◼   ► And so it had to go.

01:28:31 ◼   ► Number two is a something prompts you to upgrade, right?

01:28:38 ◼   ► Something in a product.

01:28:41 ◼   ► It's not the calendar flipping over, right?

01:28:44 ◼   ► It's something in a product that you go,

01:28:46 ◼   ► "Ooh, that is enough for me to go."

01:28:50 ◼   ► And then sometimes it's time,

01:28:52 ◼   ► which is sort of like, it's getting slow, it's getting old.

01:28:56 ◼   ► Maybe there's all these new features,

01:28:57 ◼   ► but it's like, okay, it's time.

01:28:59 ◼   ► And you're almost fortunate if you get to that point

01:29:01 ◼   ► where it hasn't fallen apart.

01:29:04 ◼   ► And I don't know, I just thought it was really interesting

01:29:10 ◼   ► 'cause we talk about this a lot

01:29:12 ◼   ► and yet I never really kind of walked through it.

01:29:14 ◼   ► So I appreciate you walking through it with me,

01:29:16 ◼   ► this idea of what we do, and we are, you know,

01:29:18 ◼   ► we are in our unique cases of covering this

01:29:20 ◼   ► and talking about it.

01:29:22 ◼   ► And so we need to spend time with the new technology

01:29:24 ◼   ► and all of that.

01:29:26 ◼   ► Although there's also a truth about what we would do

01:29:28 ◼   ► regardless of whether we need it for our work or not,

01:29:31 ◼   ► doing a lot of things with computers right now.

01:29:33 ◼   ► So, but also sort of like,

01:29:35 ◼   ► when we talk about Apple's iteration process,

01:29:41 ◼   ► What do we think the pace is?

01:29:44 ◼   ► And I think that what we've said here is actually,

01:29:47 ◼   ► if you extrapolate kind of what we're saying the pace is

01:29:50 ◼   ► in terms of what,

01:29:51 ◼   ► like we obviously think the Apple Watch pace is less

01:29:56 ◼   ► and that the iPhone pace is a little bit more

01:29:59 ◼   ► and that the iPad pace is a little bit less.

01:30:01 ◼   ► And I think that's true.

01:30:02 ◼   ► And that the Mac pace is kind of all over the place

01:30:05 ◼   ► and also to be determined

01:30:07 ◼   ► because the Apple Silicon thing changes it.

01:30:09 ◼   ► But I think that that's part of this story too,

01:30:11 ◼   ► is like how long, it's not just about like,

01:30:13 ◼   ► how long can you hold onto it before it breaks?

01:30:15 ◼   ► It's also, how long can you hold onto it

01:30:17 ◼   ► until you look at what's current and say,

01:30:19 ◼   ► it's so much better that it's worth getting a new one.

01:30:22 ◼   ► And you know, not all of Apple's products work in lockstep.

01:30:26 ◼   ► It's not like Apple comes and says,

01:30:27 ◼   ► all right, 2018, clear them out.

01:30:29 ◼   ► Like that's not quite how they do it.

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01:32:33 ◼   ► It is time for some #AskUpgradeQuestions.

01:32:40 ◼   ► First one comes from Brans who says

01:32:42 ◼   ► Do you think Apple would bring the Dynamic Island to the non-pro models?

01:32:49 ◼   ► And if so, do you think Apple would bring those features to non-pro models

01:32:54 ◼   ► without also bringing the 120Hz display

01:32:58 ◼   ► or do you think it is required

01:33:00 ◼   ► for everything to work properly?

01:33:02 ◼   ► - I think it's inevitable that the dynamic island

01:33:06 ◼   ► will come to the rest of the iPhones.

01:33:08 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:33:09 ◼   ► - I don't think,

01:33:14 ◼   ► I think 120 Hertz is nice,

01:33:17 ◼   ► but I don't think it's required.

01:33:20 ◼   ► And I think it is a matter of sequencing.

01:33:25 ◼   ► I think it becomes a matter of what Apple wants to bring,

01:33:28 ◼   ► 'Cause Apple, remember, Apple is really trying

01:33:30 ◼   ► to differentiate between the two models,

01:33:32 ◼   ► but it's got cameras and processors

01:33:35 ◼   ► and the Dynamic Island and ProMotion and Always On.

01:33:40 ◼   ► There's a lot differentiating these two.

01:33:43 ◼   ► So even if they pull a couple of them off the shelf

01:33:45 ◼   ► and push them down into the lower end phones,

01:33:48 ◼   ► there will still be plenty of differentiation.

01:33:51 ◼   ► So I think Dynamic Island is so fundamental,

01:33:57 ◼   ► a change to the interface that it has to come

01:34:02 ◼   ► to the other phones.

01:34:03 ◼   ► And so I think you need to look at the,

01:34:06 ◼   ► at face ID in the notch and see how it was not that long

01:34:10 ◼   ► after when they went everywhere, right?

01:34:13 ◼   ► Like when the XR came out, XR was an LCD,

01:34:17 ◼   ► not an OLED iPhone, but it had a notch and a face ID sensor.

01:34:22 ◼   ► So I think it's gonna be like that.

01:34:25 ◼   ► If not next year, then the year after,

01:34:27 ◼   ► but it might be as soon as next year that they do this.

01:34:30 ◼   ► 'Cause remember, all they're really doing is a cutout

01:34:32 ◼   ► and the under glass proximity sensor

01:34:37 ◼   ► and then the software on top.

01:34:39 ◼   ► And if that's all that's required,

01:34:40 ◼   ► that's not hard for them to introduce.

01:34:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think Jaws said it was just as iconic

01:34:47 ◼   ► or it's iconic already, right?

01:34:50 ◼   ► This look. - Yeah, well, it's literally,

01:34:51 ◼   ► I mean, I mentioned this in a piece I wrote for Six Colors,

01:34:54 ◼   ► but literally, they used to have the silhouette

01:34:56 ◼   ► of the iPhone and it had the bars at top and bottom

01:34:58 ◼   ► and the circle at the bottom for the home button.

01:35:00 ◼   ► And then the iPhone 10 came out and it's like, no, no,

01:35:03 ◼   ► now this is the iPhone and it was with the notch.

01:35:06 ◼   ► And now they've got that same silhouette

01:35:09 ◼   ► with the dynamic island on it.

01:35:10 ◼   ► It's like, no, no, this is the iPhone now.

01:35:12 ◼   ► And it's like, that's how Apple thinks of these things

01:35:15 ◼   ► is like, what's the simplest way to express

01:35:18 ◼   ► what the iPhone looks like.

01:35:20 ◼   ► And it's now the dynamic island,

01:35:23 ◼   ► at least for these pro models.

01:35:24 ◼   ► but like it has to be as the home button vanishes

01:35:29 ◼   ► and the notch kind of gets pushed down,

01:35:32 ◼   ► the dynamic island starts to go everywhere.

01:35:36 ◼   ► - They're reporting a lot over the last couple of days,

01:35:38 ◼   ► but display analyst Ross Young has said that he thinks

01:35:42 ◼   ► that the island will be coming to other phones,

01:35:45 ◼   ► probably with the iPhone 15,

01:35:47 ◼   ► but not promotional always on.

01:35:49 ◼   ► So they're more likely to roll out to dynamic island

01:35:53 ◼   ► like this is, as you say, like the iconic thing.

01:35:56 ◼   ► This is the way it goes,

01:35:57 ◼   ► but it doesn't need to bring everything.

01:35:59 ◼   ► - ProMotion, always on,

01:36:00 ◼   ► and the dramatically improved cameras

01:36:05 ◼   ► are really easy to just leave in the pro line, right?

01:36:07 ◼   ► Those are really easy to leave there.

01:36:10 ◼   ► - Well, what about this then from Jay Ref who says,

01:36:12 ◼   ► "Do you think the dynamic island

01:36:14 ◼   ► "will show up on the iPad Pro?

01:36:16 ◼   ► "And if so, would it be on the short side or long side?"

01:36:19 ◼   ► - My answer is maybe.

01:36:22 ◼   ► If Apple thinks that the Dynamic Island or a version,

01:36:26 ◼   ► 'cause we gotta say, or a version of it, right?

01:36:28 ◼   ► The idea of using the same information

01:36:31 ◼   ► that's coming out of the Live Activities API on iPadOS

01:36:34 ◼   ► to do a status thing somewhere,

01:36:36 ◼   ► maybe inspired by the Dynamic Island,

01:36:40 ◼   ► maybe like the Dynamic Island.

01:36:42 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that there's a strong possibility

01:36:46 ◼   ► that they'll do that because it shares a code base.

01:36:49 ◼   ► iPadOS shares a code base with iOS.

01:36:51 ◼   ► And if they feel like this is going really well

01:36:53 ◼   ► and the people sort of expect to have that information

01:36:56 ◼   ► that they would also build that in to the iPad.

01:36:59 ◼   ► Would it be on the short side or the long side?

01:37:01 ◼   ► My answer is yes, it'll be at the top

01:37:04 ◼   ► because the iPad doesn't need cutouts for sensors.

01:37:07 ◼   ► And I don't think it ever will.

01:37:09 ◼   ► And so I think that if they do bring something like this

01:37:11 ◼   ► to the iPad, it will just be software.

01:37:15 ◼   ► - Oh, you've just blown my mind there.

01:37:17 ◼   ► 'Cause what I've been thinking of is like,

01:37:19 ◼   ► I don't imagine Apple changing the design of the iPad from what it is right now for

01:37:25 ◼   ► the far foreseeable future of there being a thin bezel that is uniform around the whole

01:37:31 ◼   ► device, right?

01:37:33 ◼   ► I can't imagine them making a really thin bezel on one side so they could put the Dynamic

01:37:38 ◼   ► Island in there and put the Face ID sensors in there because that doesn't make sense for

01:37:42 ◼   ► just how fundamentally the iPad works.

01:37:45 ◼   ► You just pick it up and it's already ready to go in whatever orientation you want and

01:37:48 ◼   ► the iPad does need bigger bezels so you can hold it more comfortably.

01:37:52 ◼   ► But if they did what you're suggesting of like they have just a pure software version

01:37:58 ◼   ► which shows the live activities and all that kind of stuff,

01:38:02 ◼   ► that would probably work pretty great.

01:38:05 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:38:06 ◼   ► Especially because you don't need to look at the dynamic island on the iPad

01:38:13 ◼   ► because like for face ID,

01:38:15 ◼   ► because the face ID works in all orientations,

01:38:17 ◼   ► et cetera, et cetera.

01:38:18 ◼   ► Yeah, that makes sense.

01:38:19 ◼   ► - Right.

01:38:20 ◼   ► And you know, they may do, if they do it,

01:38:22 ◼   ► it might be just an implementation of the dynamic island,

01:38:24 ◼   ► or it might be their unique iPad spin on it, right?

01:38:27 ◼   ► Where they're like, "Oh, but this is different."

01:38:28 ◼   ► And that you flip it down from the top of the screen,

01:38:31 ◼   ► or I don't know, right?

01:38:33 ◼   ► I don't know whether they, you know,

01:38:36 ◼   ► might have their own spin on it

01:38:37 ◼   ► or whether they'll keep it familiar.

01:38:39 ◼   ► But I think if they feel that it is successful

01:38:41 ◼   ► and that people like it,

01:38:42 ◼   ► and that they, like that live activities API

01:38:45 ◼   ► is really interesting.

01:38:46 ◼   ► On the iPad, when you've got that extra screen real estate,

01:38:49 ◼   ► how do you instantiate the information

01:38:53 ◼   ► about other activities that are going on,

01:38:55 ◼   ► especially if you're not in stage manager mode, right?

01:38:58 ◼   ► Maybe this is the way, maybe not.

01:39:03 ◼   ► Maybe it's something that's more like the menu bar, right?

01:39:05 ◼   ► Like I feel like the menu bar on the Mac

01:39:07 ◼   ► is what the dynamic island is more or less.

01:39:09 ◼   ► You can put stuff up in the menu bar

01:39:11 ◼   ► to tell you what's going on.

01:39:13 ◼   ► But the iPhone doesn't make sense.

01:39:15 ◼   ► Where's the iPad in all this?

01:39:16 ◼   ► Like, it doesn't have a menu bar,

01:39:18 ◼   ► but it's not so small as the iPhone

01:39:21 ◼   ► where it needs the Dynamic Island.

01:39:23 ◼   ► So what do they do?

01:39:24 ◼   ► It'll be interesting to see if they have a new take on it,

01:39:28 ◼   ► but I think they could,

01:39:29 ◼   ► if they really love the Dynamic Island,

01:39:30 ◼   ► they could just do it in software on the iPad

01:39:32 ◼   ► and it would be fine.

01:39:34 ◼   ► - If you would like to send in a question

01:39:36 ◼   ► for us to answer on a future episode of "Upgrade,"

01:39:38 ◼   ► just send in a tweet with the hashtag #AskUpgrade