Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Upgrade episode 321.

00:00:13 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by Teamistry, Bombus and MailRoute.

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

00:00:20 ◼   ► Hi, Jason Snell.

00:00:21 ◼   ► Hi, Myke Hurley. Big episode today.

00:00:24 ◼   ► We just basically finished watching the Apple October event, the iPhone

00:00:29 ◼   ► and HomePod mini event that ended about an hour ago.

00:00:33 ◼   ► And we are going to do our level best to break it down for you.

00:00:37 ◼   ► But we will start this episode the same way that we start every episode of Upgrade

00:00:41 ◼   ► where, Jason, we ask you a question.

00:00:43 ◼   ► And this one has come from me.

00:00:44 ◼   ► Jason, I would like to know, having watched the Apple event today,

00:00:49 ◼   ► would you stand on the roof of Apple Park?

00:00:51 ◼   ► I mean, are you offering?

00:00:55 ◼   ► Yeah, if I could make that happen for you.

00:00:57 ◼   ► I mean, I would be first off, I've never been anywhere at Apple Park

00:01:00 ◼   ► other than the Steve Jobs theater.

00:01:02 ◼   ► So I'd love to be at Apple Park in general.

00:01:05 ◼   ► And what I stand on the roof? Sure.

00:01:07 ◼   ► It looks beautiful up there.

00:01:09 ◼   ► Amid the solar panels, I could stand there and I could explain why

00:01:14 ◼   ► that thing you want is bad for the environment and the earth

00:01:17 ◼   ► and you should feel bad for wanting it.

00:01:19 ◼   ► I cannot believe that Lisa Jackson stood.

00:01:25 ◼   ► What it looked like, I mean, I'm sure it wasn't,

00:01:28 ◼   ► but it looked like she was completely unsupported or secure.

00:01:31 ◼   ► Yeah. You know how big Apple Park is?

00:01:33 ◼   ► She was nowhere near falling anywhere.

00:01:35 ◼   ► It's like slanted.

00:01:37 ◼   ► If there was a big gust of wind or one of those drones came over.

00:01:39 ◼   ► No, it's fine. It's perfectly safe.

00:01:41 ◼   ► You just grab onto one of those solar panels.

00:01:43 ◼   ► All I say is, I wouldn't do it.

00:01:46 ◼   ► I am a person who has a fear of heights

00:01:49 ◼   ► and that would do me in. I could not handle it.

00:01:53 ◼   ► I would absolutely, absolutely do it.

00:01:56 ◼   ► So, of course, we're going to be talking about everything

00:01:59 ◼   ► that Apple announced today.

00:02:01 ◼   ► But before every episode when there is going to be event discussion,

00:02:05 ◼   ► we have a draft where Jason and myself make our predictions.

00:02:08 ◼   ► We turn it into a game.

00:02:10 ◼   ► Jason always wins. Jason's won again.

00:02:13 ◼   ► I can't I can't handle this anymore, Jason.

00:02:16 ◼   ► I said to you earlier, I don't know why I get so excited for the drafts,

00:02:20 ◼   ► considering I just keep losing them.

00:02:22 ◼   ► Well, you win one every now and then and it gives you hope.

00:02:25 ◼   ► You're so mean.

00:02:26 ◼   ► And what did Ted Lasso teach us about hope?

00:02:28 ◼   ► It's the hope that kills you.

00:02:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:02:30 ◼   ► As is usual.

00:02:32 ◼   ► Well, actually, the way that these drafts tend to go

00:02:36 ◼   ► is that one of us doubles down on something and that thing doesn't happen.

00:02:41 ◼   ► So for me, this time is I double down on Apple TV.

00:02:44 ◼   ► So I had two Apple TV related picks.

00:02:47 ◼   ► Neither of them happened.

00:02:49 ◼   ► That was what what did me in.

00:02:51 ◼   ► If Apple TV would have been shown off.

00:02:54 ◼   ► You know, it could have been closer or it could have been a tie,

00:02:56 ◼   ► but we scored it at nine seven to you.

00:02:59 ◼   ► I'll include in the show notes the scorecard if you want to peruse

00:03:03 ◼   ► the picture yourself.

00:03:04 ◼   ► Yeah, we got all of the iPhone picks right, because we all, you know,

00:03:07 ◼   ► we knew what we were picking and all those things happened.

00:03:10 ◼   ► And so it ends up coming down to other things that are going to be in the event.

00:03:14 ◼   ► We had five picks of those.

00:03:16 ◼   ► And I you know, I mentioned the home pod, so I got two points off of that.

00:03:20 ◼   ► You picked the JAWS would appear and he did

00:03:22 ◼   ► an A14 boast segment down in the chip lab.

00:03:26 ◼   ► Absolutely happened. We got that again.

00:03:29 ◼   ► I had details of a not yet seen feature in iOS.

00:03:32 ◼   ► There were actually two because there's the Apple Pro Raw

00:03:35 ◼   ► as well as the the little walkie talkie esque.

00:03:39 ◼   ► Oh, I was thinking there were like there's a lot

00:03:43 ◼   ► there were a lot of new features in the camera app, right?

00:03:46 ◼   ► So there was there was new video recording modes,

00:03:49 ◼   ► there's new enhancements to portrait and stuff.

00:03:51 ◼   ► I think I said last time that if it was just a new,

00:03:54 ◼   ► you know, thing in the photo app, it wouldn't count.

00:03:57 ◼   ► But there were two other features, including one that they literally

00:03:59 ◼   ► intercom is the is the is the thing that cinches it here,

00:04:02 ◼   ► because I think we could still discuss pro raw like a little bit.

00:04:05 ◼   ► But and if it was going to be the decider, I would have said, you know,

00:04:08 ◼   ► he literally stands on stage or in the video and says, this is a new feature.

00:04:13 ◼   ► So I think I would call that a new feature since they said it was a new feature.

00:04:17 ◼   ► But yeah, it doesn't matter.

00:04:18 ◼   ► And then the last one, my big gamble that totally paid off is Mac not mentioned.

00:04:25 ◼   ► Yeah. Is Apple is Apple a company that makes a computer called Mac?

00:04:29 ◼   ► They wouldn't stop showing them, which was so annoying to me.

00:04:32 ◼   ► They were everywhere.

00:04:34 ◼   ► You've never seen more Mac pros in a presentation.

00:04:37 ◼   ► I think we saw more Mac pros in this presentation

00:04:39 ◼   ► than we saw when they introduced the Mac Pro.

00:04:42 ◼   ► There were Mac pros littered all over the place, like they were rolling around

00:04:45 ◼   ► inside of Apple Park and bouncing into tables. They just get stuck.

00:04:48 ◼   ► So the thing was, this could have gone one or two ways, right?

00:04:51 ◼   ► Like if they didn't do the home part, but did the TV, I would have won

00:04:55 ◼   ► because you had two home part picks.

00:04:57 ◼   ► I had two TV picks and that's just the way I ended up.

00:05:00 ◼   ► The one that made me laugh the most, though,

00:05:01 ◼   ► is that I had that pick that was the Emmy Awards are mentioned.

00:05:03 ◼   ► Yeah, the the Academy Awards were mentioned.

00:05:06 ◼   ► Were they? I missed that.

00:05:08 ◼   ► Yes, because they they had that short film from the Oscar,

00:05:11 ◼   ► the Oscar winning cinematographer.

00:05:13 ◼   ► He hasn't won an Emmy, but he won an Oscar.

00:05:16 ◼   ► And that made me laugh.

00:05:17 ◼   ► It's like, oh, wrong award show, wrong award show.

00:05:20 ◼   ► But yeah, and for the record, the tiebreaker, which we didn't need,

00:05:24 ◼   ► was set at 80 minutes and it was about 68 minutes.

00:05:28 ◼   ► So I'm feeling like the next time we do this, that tiebreaker,

00:05:30 ◼   ► that over under is going to be down.

00:05:32 ◼   ► Oh, yeah, because it's going to be down at 60 minutes or 70 minutes.

00:05:35 ◼   ► If there's another event, it's not running longer than the iPhone.

00:05:38 ◼   ► No, I feel like we've we've discovered Apple's secret plan

00:05:41 ◼   ► for when they do three events in when they do monthly video

00:05:45 ◼   ► product release events, which is an hour shoot for an hour. Yeah.

00:05:48 ◼   ► So I am frustrated to have lost again because now I can't even tie the year.

00:05:52 ◼   ► But I will say compared to previous drafts, I was more happy with my

00:05:58 ◼   ► my overall success in this draft.

00:06:02 ◼   ► And it just ended up being really like, I feel like

00:06:05 ◼   ► the Craig Federighi one was a stupid one to pick,

00:06:07 ◼   ► but it was just unfortunate, really, to me.

00:06:11 ◼   ► I don't know if you felt this way, but I was pretty convinced

00:06:14 ◼   ► that they would have an Apple TV at this event

00:06:16 ◼   ► or especially show or even, I should say, show off some content.

00:06:21 ◼   ► But I think they ended up kind of pushing it down

00:06:25 ◼   ► because they pushed it down the line a bit that that renewal to February.

00:06:28 ◼   ► Maybe that's why they're not doing anything here now.

00:06:31 ◼   ► I think that's it.

00:06:33 ◼   ► All right, we should get into it.

00:06:35 ◼   ► We should start actually by talking about the brand new HomePod mini,

00:06:39 ◼   ► which I don't know about you, Jason, but I actually think was the most surprising

00:06:43 ◼   ► of all of the features and all the things shown off today.

00:06:47 ◼   ► But well, you can answer that question

00:06:49 ◼   ► and we can get to it in a little more detail after our first break.

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00:08:58 ◼   ► So, Jason, let's talk about the HomePod Mini presented by friend of the show,

00:09:05 ◼   ► Bob Borchers.

00:09:05 ◼   ► I was very excited to see Bob come out on the stage.

00:09:08 ◼   ► It's like, hey, Bob, I know you.

00:09:10 ◼   ► But he's been shrunken down into a little tiny man who lives in a dollhouse.

00:09:13 ◼   ► Yeah, that was that was an interesting looking set.

00:09:15 ◼   ► But it's a small dollhouse and for the small HomePod.

00:09:20 ◼   ► So straight up, we should just talk about the price.

00:09:23 ◼   ► Ninety nine dollars for the HomePod Mini.

00:09:26 ◼   ► So HomePod Mini is a much smaller HomePod.

00:09:28 ◼   ► It's a little orb.

00:09:29 ◼   ► Funnily enough, very similar to the new design of the Amazon Echo,

00:09:33 ◼   ► which is also circular.

00:09:34 ◼   ► I love when this stuff happens, you know, like first they're all cylinders.

00:09:38 ◼   ► Now they're all balls.

00:09:39 ◼   ► And that's where we're at at this point.

00:09:41 ◼   ► We're into smart home balls.

00:09:43 ◼   ► This looks like one of those candles that you you like to like

00:09:45 ◼   ► drive mosquitoes away or something.

00:09:48 ◼   ► Exactly. Or like a little coconut.

00:09:50 ◼   ► It looks a little coconut.

00:09:51 ◼   ► Maybe that's what I'll call it.

00:09:52 ◼   ► The coconut mini.

00:09:52 ◼   ► I think that it is clear at this point, at that price point,

00:09:58 ◼   ► when we were our draft pick was under 200 because we thought maybe 199,

00:10:03 ◼   ► 149 at best. 99 as the price.

00:10:05 ◼   ► That's I was surprised now as I've had some people point out to me,

00:10:10 ◼   ► you know, Google's is forty nine dollars.

00:10:13 ◼   ► So it like Apple still offering this at a premium price.

00:10:17 ◼   ► But for Apple and the HomePod, they've come a long way.

00:10:21 ◼   ► It's what I'm saying.

00:10:22 ◼   ► You got a great $99 Apple connected home product is pretty, pretty big for them.

00:10:26 ◼   ► Like look, it's Prime Day today.

00:10:28 ◼   ► You can get an Echo Dot for thirty dollars, right?

00:10:31 ◼   ► Like this isn't what we're talking about.

00:10:33 ◼   ► Happy Prime Day by the way.

00:10:33 ◼   ► Happy Prime Day to you.

00:10:34 ◼   ► Happy Prime Day one and all.

00:10:36 ◼   ► To you and everyone out there listening.

00:10:37 ◼   ► Happy Prime Day.

00:10:39 ◼   ► But I think the point here that we are making is they are selling this product

00:10:43 ◼   ► at a better, much better price point than we would expect.

00:10:46 ◼   ► Half of what we would expect,

00:10:48 ◼   ► which does mean that they're at least attempting to be competitive

00:10:51 ◼   ► in the way that Apple does.

00:10:54 ◼   ► You know, this wasn't when the HomePod, the original HomePod,

00:10:57 ◼   ► was always significantly overpriced, right, compared to what it was going up against.

00:11:02 ◼   ► And I think it could be fair to say that, you know,

00:11:05 ◼   ► and also the Echo Dots that you can get for like twenty dollars,

00:11:08 ◼   ► they're the old ones, right?

00:11:10 ◼   ► Amazon have new ones coming.

00:11:12 ◼   ► And yes, they will be cheaper than the HomePod.

00:11:14 ◼   ► But again, this is Apple, right?

00:11:17 ◼   ► Is this what the HomePod should have always been?

00:11:20 ◼   ► Should the original HomePod ever should have existed?

00:11:23 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, this is I think this is one of the questions

00:11:26 ◼   ► is this is Apple learning a lesson.

00:11:30 ◼   ► Like the existence of this product is Apple learning a lesson

00:11:34 ◼   ► from what happened with the relative failure of the HomePod,

00:11:37 ◼   ► which I think we've all known for a while now was kind of over engineered

00:11:43 ◼   ► and really overpriced.

00:11:45 ◼   ► So they are they seem to have learned a lesson,

00:11:49 ◼   ► which I think is interesting that they've done that.

00:11:54 ◼   ► I'm also interested, by the way, that this is the HomePod mini

00:11:57 ◼   ► and the HomePod appears to continue to exist.

00:11:59 ◼   ► And that makes me wonder if perhaps there is still going to be a HomePod.

00:12:04 ◼   ► Like, are they going to take another crack at that of like a higher

00:12:08 ◼   ► or is this going to be a product range or is in the end,

00:12:11 ◼   ► a mini going to be the only one that's out there?

00:12:13 ◼   ► I'm curious what they are thinking about this and where they go from here.

00:12:17 ◼   ► I mean, I could imagine now having the opportunity

00:12:21 ◼   ► to actually push the HomePod higher,

00:12:24 ◼   ► you know, like they can push it further at the price points.

00:12:27 ◼   ► Like they could keep it like $299 or whatever it is and give it more.

00:12:32 ◼   ► Right. So like they're able to keep that price point separated.

00:12:35 ◼   ► I mean, the thing that I'm going to be intrigued about

00:12:38 ◼   ► and the thing that I'm looking forward to testing is

00:12:40 ◼   ► what are we talking about in the sense of how loud this thing gets,

00:12:46 ◼   ► how good it sounds?

00:12:48 ◼   ► It surely is going to sound great.

00:12:49 ◼   ► It surely isn't going to sound as good as the original would be my expectation.

00:12:53 ◼   ► Oh yeah, it's not going to. Of course it's not.

00:12:56 ◼   ► I mean, they engineered the original HomePod to be this kind of,

00:13:00 ◼   ► like the iPod Hi-Fi actually a little bit,

00:13:02 ◼   ► they kind of engineered it to be this amazing sounding thing

00:13:06 ◼   ► for a high price and it bit them.

00:13:09 ◼   ► And so the real question with the HomePod mini is exactly how good

00:13:13 ◼   ► or bad does it sound?

00:13:16 ◼   ► What did they sacrifice for a $99 smart speaker?

00:13:19 ◼   ► Well, one phrase I didn't hear, you can correct me if I'm wrong,

00:13:21 ◼   ► but this is something they spoke about constantly with the original.

00:13:24 ◼   ► There was no reference to room filling sound.

00:13:27 ◼   ► Right. And that was the thing that they were always very, very,

00:13:31 ◼   ► very focused on, right, was that you could get a HomePod

00:13:35 ◼   ► and it will fill the room.

00:13:37 ◼   ► And I did not catch them saying that this time.

00:13:41 ◼   ► So I think that this thing, oh, actually, I'm looking at the Web page, Jason,

00:13:45 ◼   ► and it says room filling sound on the Web page.

00:13:47 ◼   ► I thought I would go check it.

00:13:49 ◼   ► I just did Command F on the Web page and they're saying the rooms are smaller.

00:13:53 ◼   ► Maybe I'm just going to say like, I mean,

00:13:56 ◼   ► I don't think that anyone's going to be surprised with this thought.

00:13:59 ◼   ► It's not going to be as loud or as good sounding as the big one.

00:14:02 ◼   ► But I bet is going to be really good for its price.

00:14:06 ◼   ► I love the sound quality that I get from my HomePods.

00:14:11 ◼   ► I have two in a stereo pair.

00:14:14 ◼   ► That's how we watch TV.

00:14:16 ◼   ► And I think it sounds so imagine because that's what I was going to say is that

00:14:19 ◼   ► it's not just that it's ninety nine dollars, but it's that for two hundred

00:14:24 ◼   ► dollars, you can get a stereo pair.

00:14:25 ◼   ► Yeah. And I think that is the ideal.

00:14:29 ◼   ► I really recommend that to people.

00:14:31 ◼   ► If you are somebody who watches Apple TV a lot and you're watching Apple TV

00:14:35 ◼   ► through your TV speakers, get two of these things

00:14:39 ◼   ► and your TV viewing experience will be vastly better

00:14:44 ◼   ► because there's really smart stuff that it does with all of the stereo

00:14:48 ◼   ► and working out, you know, like it does all the sound analysis and stuff.

00:14:51 ◼   ► Really, I love it.

00:14:53 ◼   ► Like we don't have the ability to set up a surround sound in our home

00:14:57 ◼   ► where we watch TV, like in our living room.

00:14:59 ◼   ► But I think we get a lot of the way there with a product like this,

00:15:03 ◼   ► because it will be very frequently that like we're watching a show

00:15:06 ◼   ► and something will happen on the left hand side and it comes from the left hand

00:15:10 ◼   ► side speak right. Like it sounds really good and it immerses us in that audio.

00:15:13 ◼   ► So I think people are going to are going to really get a kick out of that.

00:15:17 ◼   ► You know, I noticed, Jason, I went to the to the Web page

00:15:20 ◼   ► to look at the pricing in the UK because it's like £99, of course,

00:15:23 ◼   ► because conversion rates don't exist anymore.

00:15:26 ◼   ► And one of the things on the order page says, want to put one in every room

00:15:30 ◼   ► for multi room audio?

00:15:31 ◼   ► You can just change the quantity of items in your bag.

00:15:34 ◼   ► And I just thought that was really funny.

00:15:36 ◼   ► It's like, all right, Apple, just chill out.

00:15:38 ◼   ► I could just buy more of them.

00:15:40 ◼   ► Well, buy one for all of your friends.

00:15:42 ◼   ► You know what I want to see?

00:15:44 ◼   ► I want to see some YouTuber like fill a ball pit with one of these or something,

00:15:47 ◼   ► you know, and jump in it.

00:15:50 ◼   ► I'm really excited for this product.

00:15:52 ◼   ► I'm going to I'm definitely going to pick one up for my studio

00:15:56 ◼   ► because I've been struggling with some of the home related.

00:16:01 ◼   ► Like I have some Hue lights and stuff there,

00:16:03 ◼   ► and they've been causing me some problems with my Echo devices.

00:16:06 ◼   ► So I want to see if HomeKit will do a better job with that.

00:16:09 ◼   ► I have actually found recently like registering stuff like lights

00:16:13 ◼   ► and things of HomeKit has been much nicer than Echos.

00:16:16 ◼   ► The Amazon Echo really struggles

00:16:19 ◼   ► if you have two Hue bridges, which I do.

00:16:22 ◼   ► I have one home and one in the studio, and it really gets upset.

00:16:26 ◼   ► So I'm hoping that maybe the HomePod will do a better job with that.

00:16:29 ◼   ► But yeah, I like it.

00:16:31 ◼   ► I think that this is a super cool little product and it's priced really well.

00:16:36 ◼   ► There was a couple of interesting software features.

00:16:39 ◼   ► Oh, we should say the S5 chip is inside of this thing.

00:16:42 ◼   ► It's powering what Apple's calling computational audio,

00:16:45 ◼   ► which is a clever thing where it's analyzing the music and it's tweaking

00:16:48 ◼   ► the output to suit it, which I think is is quite clever.

00:16:52 ◼   ► Oh, it has a use for the U1 chip finally.

00:16:55 ◼   ► Yeah, it's something that I like amazingly,

00:16:59 ◼   ► you know, have been beating the drum of like U1, Ultra Wideband.

00:17:03 ◼   ► It's the future.

00:17:04 ◼   ► Get ready.

00:17:06 ◼   ► Uh, any day now.

00:17:09 ◼   ► We wait any year.

00:17:10 ◼   ► 2025 cars will have it as a feature so you can unlock your car.

00:17:14 ◼   ► Well, anyway, there's a U1 chip in the HomePod mini and it does

00:17:18 ◼   ► it does a new version of Handoff where it basically is be

00:17:22 ◼   ► it's going to be able to precisely detect when you bring a device with the U1 chip.

00:17:26 ◼   ► So an iPhone basically up to it and then do Handoff,

00:17:30 ◼   ► which I think is interesting.

00:17:33 ◼   ► And it's it's I will say I tried to use Handoff with my HomePod,

00:17:40 ◼   ► the old version of that, and it never worked right.

00:17:44 ◼   ► So maybe they fixed that or maybe it's better or not.

00:17:48 ◼   ► But like I was laughing when I saw the demo because like it sounds great,

00:17:52 ◼   ► except I never got it to work right with my HomePod.

00:17:56 ◼   ► So we'll see.

00:17:58 ◼   ► We'll see what they do with that.

00:18:01 ◼   ► And I really liked the intercom feature

00:18:04 ◼   ► that they're working on, which I thought was a kind of a cool.

00:18:07 ◼   ► What I liked about, you know, I've seen other products do this, right?

00:18:10 ◼   ► Like I think all of the smart devices have some kind of intercom mode,

00:18:13 ◼   ► you know, like you can do it with the Google stuff and the Amazon stuff

00:18:17 ◼   ► where you can basically announce your voice in other rooms.

00:18:20 ◼   ► But what I liked about this more was that you could actually integrate

00:18:25 ◼   ► some other products so you could be out of the home

00:18:29 ◼   ► and use intercom on your iPhone and it will play to all of the HomePods at home,

00:18:34 ◼   ► as well as send notifications to people on their devices.

00:18:39 ◼   ► Exactly right.

00:18:40 ◼   ► It's not going to it's not going to make your phone go beep

00:18:42 ◼   ► and then play annoying thing from someone.

00:18:44 ◼   ► It was just going to send you a push notification saying,

00:18:47 ◼   ► here's an audio message that you can play if you want to. Yeah.

00:18:50 ◼   ► And I assume that in home, in in CarPlay, it will say, you know,

00:18:54 ◼   ► you just got a message.

00:18:55 ◼   ► Do you want to play it?

00:18:56 ◼   ► That kind of thing like it does for for other messages.

00:18:58 ◼   ► We have to back up.

00:18:59 ◼   ► There's a site on there's a place on Apple's website that says comparing the HomePod models

00:19:05 ◼   ► and does not have home theater with Apple TV 4K listed for the HomePod mini,

00:19:10 ◼   ► but does for the HomePod.

00:19:12 ◼   ► I don't know what that means.

00:19:13 ◼   ► I'm going to guess that the that a stereo paired HomePod set is looking at 5.1 audio

00:19:21 ◼   ► and doing some home theater E kind of effects with it.

00:19:26 ◼   ► And my guess would be that maybe a stereo pair of HomePod minis would just get stereo out,

00:19:32 ◼   ► but I don't that's just a guess.

00:19:33 ◼   ► Um, but that's that's weird.

00:19:36 ◼   ► That's weird.

00:19:37 ◼   ► And also that it doesn't have spatial awareness in the HomePod does,

00:19:41 ◼   ► which I think is all those things where it was sending out like test tones

00:19:44 ◼   ► and automatically adjusting its sound and these they just you know,

00:19:48 ◼   ► they just play they play in 360 degrees or whatever,

00:19:51 ◼   ► but they're not like testing your environment and adjusting automatically.

00:19:54 ◼   ► Those seem to be things that are not available on the on the mini

00:19:59 ◼   ► that are still available on the 299 HomePod.

00:20:01 ◼   ► OK, huh.

00:20:03 ◼   ► Well, I guess, you know, even even stereo pairing them together would still sound good,

00:20:10 ◼   ► but you're not going to get the same the same features.

00:20:13 ◼   ► I guess definitely if you had a big pair, it's $99.

00:20:16 ◼   ► They're not going to they're not going to put every feature of the 299 speakers in there.

00:20:19 ◼   ► It's not going to happen.

00:20:20 ◼   ► That's a shame, though.

00:20:23 ◼   ► They're also getting support for Pandora and Amazon music, which was seem weird.

00:20:28 ◼   ► Like, why isn't Spotify there?

00:20:31 ◼   ► Like, I'm sure that there's something going on with the two companies,

00:20:33 ◼   ► but it kind of just feels a bit like what are they doing, you know?

00:20:36 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:20:38 ◼   ► It seems weird to me, like, why are these two?

00:20:41 ◼   ► I mean, it also may be that that they just chose not to promote Spotify,

00:20:45 ◼   ► although, you know, Spotify is a better story, right?

00:20:48 ◼   ► Like and it'll work with Spotify.

00:20:49 ◼   ► But obviously there's some I don't know.

00:20:52 ◼   ► They don't get along. They don't get along.

00:20:55 ◼   ► But I find that I'm an Apple Music customer.

00:20:58 ◼   ► And yes, it's cool for me.

00:20:59 ◼   ► But I can imagine that that slide, I'm sure, caused more frustration

00:21:04 ◼   ► than it did make people feel happy about that, about their choices, right?

00:21:08 ◼   ► Like, I can imagine more people there being like, well, that's annoying.

00:21:11 ◼   ► Then people go, yay, Amazon music.

00:21:14 ◼   ► So, yeah, I know.

00:21:16 ◼   ► I know the Spotify is the question there.

00:21:18 ◼   ► But again, that relationship is kind of fraught.

00:21:20 ◼   ► And even if Spotify is working on something, perhaps sometimes Apple

00:21:23 ◼   ► rewards companies by putting them for doing things that Apple wants

00:21:28 ◼   ► by putting them in media events.

00:21:30 ◼   ► But it may also be that they don't have everything signed and they're

00:21:33 ◼   ► debating things or, you know, that happens too.

00:21:37 ◼   ► Like Amazon for a long time was noticeably absent from Apple mentions

00:21:42 ◼   ► because they were at odds over something.

00:21:45 ◼   ► And then they, you know, made up and signed a deal.

00:21:47 ◼   ► And now they talk about Amazon all the time.

00:21:50 ◼   ► I want to come back one last time to the kind of setting them up with a TV thing.

00:21:56 ◼   ► I still think that a stereo pair for $200 is pretty good because it's

00:22:02 ◼   ► not all you'd use them for, right?

00:22:04 ◼   ► Like there are people in the chat who are saying, why don't you just

00:22:05 ◼   ► get speakers and plug them in?

00:22:07 ◼   ► And it's like, that is a good point, but the speakers don't do anything else, right?

00:22:11 ◼   ► Like if you just buy two bookshelf speakers and use those, like, I still

00:22:15 ◼   ► think that for $200, a great feature of these is you could stereo pair

00:22:19 ◼   ► them and watch something, uh, on, on Apple TV, right?

00:22:24 ◼   ► Like, I guess, I guess it, cause it, I'm assuming that it means you could

00:22:28 ◼   ► airplay the Apple TV to them, right?

00:22:30 ◼   ► Yes.

00:22:31 ◼   ► It says, yeah, the site says that you can do that.

00:22:33 ◼   ► So I think that it's just going to be a stereo pair, uh, taking the stereo

00:22:37 ◼   ► signal out of the, uh, out of the, the Apple TV, rather than it being a, uh,

00:22:41 ◼   ► you know, some sort of integrated home theater, uh, kind of thing.

00:22:46 ◼   ► But I don't, I don't know, like, no, none of us knows for sure until we try

00:22:49 ◼   ► this stuff out, what the differences are.

00:22:51 ◼   ► You know, I've said for a long time that I, I think that they should make

00:22:53 ◼   ► a home pod that's a, um, that's a sound bar, right?

00:22:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:22:57 ◼   ► And maybe even integrate Apple TV into that as well, where you basically it's,

00:23:02 ◼   ► it's an Apple TV and it's a sound bar and it's a home pod and you know, and

00:23:06 ◼   ► then that's going to provide you a real kind of, uh, uh, home theater experience.

00:23:11 ◼   ► Plus it's got all of Apple's airplay and stuff built into it.

00:23:13 ◼   ► But, you know, suffice it to say that Apple's home strategy is, um,

00:23:18 ◼   ► mysterious and inconsistent and that they've missed a lot of opportunities

00:23:23 ◼   ► and they had some misfires and it remains to be seen, you know, it remains to be

00:23:29 ◼   ► seen whether they've got their act together.

00:23:31 ◼   ► I think I, this, this is a, an encouraging product in that it seems to understand

00:23:38 ◼   ► things about what people want from these products that the original home pod did

00:23:42 ◼   ► not, but there are so many other aspects of the connected home world that Apple

00:23:51 ◼   ► doesn't play in or the way they play is weird.

00:23:56 ◼   ► And you know, it's one of those, it's one of those areas where I look at it and I

00:24:00 ◼   ► think, I don't understand what they're doing and I get the distinct impression

00:24:03 ◼   ► that they don't know what they're doing.

00:24:06 ◼   ► Wouldn't it be cool if the next home pod was a, was a soundbar?

00:24:10 ◼   ► Why not?

00:24:12 ◼   ► Just go for it, right?

00:24:13 ◼   ► That's that.

00:24:13 ◼   ► That'll be the next one.

00:24:14 ◼   ► I would like to see that product.

00:24:16 ◼   ► That would be really cool.

00:24:17 ◼   ► All right.

00:24:18 ◼   ► Should we get into talking about the iPhone?

00:24:20 ◼   ► I think we need to.

00:24:22 ◼   ► All right.

00:24:23 ◼   ► This episode is brought to you by Teamistry, a podcast that tells the stories

00:24:27 ◼   ► of teams who work together in new and unexpected ways to achieve remarkable

00:24:31 ◼   ► things.

00:24:32 ◼   ► Every episode of Teamistry tells a story and in every story, you'll find practical

00:24:36 ◼   ► lessons for your team and your business.

00:24:38 ◼   ► On this season, the show travels deep into underwater caves of Northern

00:24:42 ◼   ► Thailand to discover how divers, medics, soldiers, and volunteers freed a

00:24:46 ◼   ► group of trapped teenagers.

00:24:47 ◼   ► It explains how a world renowned watch company pitted their two factories

00:24:52 ◼   ► against each other in an attempt to become the best watchmaker in the world.

00:24:55 ◼   ► And also finds out how Iceland went from having one of the highest COVID-19

00:25:00 ◼   ► death rates in Scandinavia to an interesting example of how the virus

00:25:03 ◼   ► could be dealt with.

00:25:05 ◼   ► Discover stories that entertain, packed with business cases you can actually use.

00:25:09 ◼   ► Season two of Teamistry is out now.

00:25:11 ◼   ► It's hosted by award-winning documentary filmmaker, Gabriella Coppertwite,

00:25:15 ◼   ► the director of Blackfish.

00:25:17 ◼   ► Um, I got a sneak preview of one of the episodes of season two.

00:25:20 ◼   ► Um, I really loved the production values, great music, really engaging interviews.

00:25:24 ◼   ► It's all sewn together really well.

00:25:26 ◼   ► And what I liked that the show really does show that teamwork comes in many forms.

00:25:31 ◼   ► Like it's also not just about office work by any stretch of the imagination.

00:25:34 ◼   ► The episode that I listened to is about an application called Wild Book that helps

00:25:38 ◼   ► conservators and researchers keep track of wild animals like whale sharks and

00:25:42 ◼   ► zebras via AI analysis of imagery.

00:25:45 ◼   ► Super fascinating.

00:25:46 ◼   ► And it shows something that's really helping with conservation efforts and

00:25:50 ◼   ► understanding the world around us.

00:25:51 ◼   ► And a project that takes this kind of size is a huge undertaking involving many

00:25:56 ◼   ► people, but actually typical problems that are the same as teams of any size,

00:26:01 ◼   ► like data management and communication were the things that were coming up.

00:26:04 ◼   ► So it's stuff we all have to manage no matter what we do or where we are.

00:26:08 ◼   ► You can search for Teamistry anywhere that you listen to podcasts, or you

00:26:12 ◼   ► can find a link in the show notes.

00:26:13 ◼   ► So thanks to Teamistry for their support of this show and Relay FM.

00:26:17 ◼   ► Jason, let's talk about the iPhone 12 line.

00:26:21 ◼   ► Now we're going to say this upfront.

00:26:23 ◼   ► There's a lot of information about these phones, a lot of points and there's, it's

00:26:32 ◼   ► difficult to get our head around some of it right now.

00:26:34 ◼   ► We're going to do our level best, especially the camera stuff, which honestly

00:26:38 ◼   ► I always struggle with a little bit because there's lots of numbers around

00:26:42 ◼   ► the cameras, but we have four phones.

00:26:44 ◼   ► They all have flat sides.

00:26:46 ◼   ► They all have OLED screens.

00:26:48 ◼   ► They all have the A14.

00:26:50 ◼   ► They all have the new ceramic shield glass, which is, this is the first thing

00:26:56 ◼   ► to come out of Apple's partnership with Corning.

00:26:59 ◼   ► If you remember, Apple put a ton of money into Corning recently.

00:27:03 ◼   ► They're the people that created Gorilla Glass, and now they have this thing

00:27:07 ◼   ► called ceramic shield glass, which I wouldn't be surprised would be

00:27:11 ◼   ► exclusive to Apple for a little bit.

00:27:13 ◼   ► It's nano ceramic crystals that are infused within the glass and it gets

00:27:19 ◼   ► four times better drop performance.

00:27:20 ◼   ► So basically the phone is really durable or more durable now than it's ever been.

00:27:25 ◼   ► One thing I didn't catch, Jason, I don't know if you did.

00:27:28 ◼   ► Is it the same on the back and the front or is it just the screen

00:27:32 ◼   ► that gets this ceramic glass?

00:27:34 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:27:35 ◼   ► They showed it on the front.

00:27:36 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:27:37 ◼   ► I wouldn't be surprised if it was just there.

00:27:39 ◼   ► Um, but they, they invested an absolute ton of money.

00:27:42 ◼   ► It was called a strategic investment, I think was what Apple called it.

00:27:46 ◼   ► Um, and this was, I'm sure one of the first things to come from that.

00:27:49 ◼   ► There are new colors across the line.

00:27:52 ◼   ► The iPhone 12 and 12 mini get black, white product, red, green, and blue.

00:27:58 ◼   ► And the pro phones get silver graphite.

00:28:01 ◼   ► We say goodbye to space gray now, I suppose, gold and Pacific blue.

00:28:06 ◼   ► Uh, frankly, I'm happy to get rid of space gray.

00:28:09 ◼   ► It never made sense to me.

00:28:10 ◼   ► Space isn't gray.

00:28:12 ◼   ► It was never the same color on any product.

00:28:15 ◼   ► Um, so I think graphite makes more sense.

00:28:18 ◼   ► I was convinced I would want blue, but the stainless steel gold, like frame

00:28:25 ◼   ► looks amazing in Apple's photos.

00:28:27 ◼   ► So I might be going back to gold.

00:28:30 ◼   ► We'll see.

00:28:30 ◼   ► I haven't made my mind up yet, but considering the phone, I'm sure that I

00:28:33 ◼   ► will want to get, I do have a little bit longer to look at pictures.

00:28:36 ◼   ► Something else that all of these four phones have is MagSafe.

00:28:41 ◼   ► Jason Snow.

00:28:42 ◼   ► MagSafe is back.

00:28:43 ◼   ► It's back.

00:28:44 ◼   ► This is magnets around the Qi charger.

00:28:47 ◼   ► The Qi charger now does 15 watt fast charging and as well as new charging

00:28:52 ◼   ► products for the iPhone, there's like a, basically a big silver Apple watch

00:28:56 ◼   ► charger, um, which is like $39.

00:28:58 ◼   ► It's just a disc.

00:28:59 ◼   ► You plunk it on the back.

00:29:01 ◼   ► Um, that's how you charge the phone.

00:29:03 ◼   ► I guess you can even use it for travel.

00:29:04 ◼   ► You could pick it up or you could maybe just stick one on your nightstand, which

00:29:08 ◼   ► is what, uh, I did for, you know, for her Apple watch, it's just got a bit of

00:29:11 ◼   ► blue tack on the back and sticks on.

00:29:13 ◼   ► Um, they also have a duo product for the iPhone and the watch, which isn't

00:29:19 ◼   ► available yet or on Apple's website in the for sale section.

00:29:23 ◼   ► Let's hope that they haven't done another AirPower on this, Jason.

00:29:26 ◼   ► It's like, here's this charger.

00:29:27 ◼   ► But you can't buy it yet.

00:29:28 ◼   ► It's pretty straightforward.

00:29:29 ◼   ► It's very similar to other chargers that we've seen.

00:29:31 ◼   ► So yeah, this one is not exciting by any stretch of the imagination, but it's

00:29:36 ◼   ► like a collapsible travel charger.

00:29:38 ◼   ► Um, but as well as everything we expected, something like MagSafe would do, which

00:29:44 ◼   ► is help for better Qi charging, they have a bunch of new accessories.

00:29:47 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:29:49 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:29:50 ◼   ► Yeah, I think the, they mentioned Belkin.

00:29:54 ◼   ► Uh, and so I like that there's a third party story here and obviously there's

00:30:00 ◼   ► something about just the fact that there are Apple's doing something that is going

00:30:05 ◼   ► to help enable a lot of third party things.

00:30:09 ◼   ► And they mentioned it, you know, the ecosystem of iPhone accessories.

00:30:11 ◼   ► It's a real thing, but of course, Apple has picked its spots where it wants to

00:30:16 ◼   ► be, you know, taking a lot of money off the table.

00:30:20 ◼   ► And so we've seen them in the charger and then the MagSafe stuff that's

00:30:25 ◼   ► integrated into, into their cases.

00:30:28 ◼   ► Um, and then things, you know, so the cases have the magnet attachment now

00:30:34 ◼   ► where you can, you can, you know, attach them magnetically to the back of the.

00:30:37 ◼   ► Phone, which is really interesting.

00:30:39 ◼   ► And I wonder how, how much the magnet is holding them on versus some other means.

00:30:44 ◼   ► Um, no leather cases, by the way, at least, at least, at least not yet.

00:30:49 ◼   ► At the moment it's all silicon.

00:30:51 ◼   ► Um, and I thought, Oh, my must've gotten rid of leather.

00:30:54 ◼   ► But one of the products that's not on the Apple website right now is that

00:30:57 ◼   ► like sleeve pouch thing that they had.

00:30:59 ◼   ► Right.

00:31:00 ◼   ► So maybe there are more cases still to come because that looked

00:31:03 ◼   ► like it was made out of leather.

00:31:04 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:31:05 ◼   ► I feel like John Syracuse might, might return to the pouch lifestyle with that.

00:31:09 ◼   ► Oh my God.

00:31:11 ◼   ► Can you imagine him with that little pouch?

00:31:13 ◼   ► I'll be so funny.

00:31:13 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:31:13 ◼   ► Cause you, the way it works is it slides in and then, and then it knows it's got a

00:31:17 ◼   ► magnetic attachment, it knows that it's in there and apparently it's got a special,

00:31:20 ◼   ► you know, basically it will display the.

00:31:23 ◼   ► The time through the little window when it, I don't even know what

00:31:27 ◼   ► they're doing with that one.

00:31:28 ◼   ► Um, clear case, what is going on with the clear case, but has magnets in it.

00:31:33 ◼   ► This is in a circle with a little line below it, which looks very

00:31:36 ◼   ► much like an old school floppy disk.

00:31:38 ◼   ► It looks like a magnifying glass.

00:31:39 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:31:40 ◼   ► Or a magnifying glass.

00:31:41 ◼   ► You should only buy the clear case if you're going to also get the little wallet

00:31:46 ◼   ► attachment, like, I don't know why you would buy this clear case and then have

00:31:50 ◼   ► that big white magnifying glass in the back of your phone.

00:31:53 ◼   ► So the wallet is a great example of not only Apple being smart and recognizing

00:31:58 ◼   ► what people are using the iPhone for, but also then taking some money off of the

00:32:02 ◼   ► top and away from other people because it's a leather, I mean, here's your

00:32:05 ◼   ► leather, it's a leather magnet wallet that you attach rather than these, all

00:32:09 ◼   ► these things.

00:32:09 ◼   ► So when Jamie went off to school last year, I got her an iPhone 11.

00:32:14 ◼   ► I texted her this morning, by the way, and I said, your phone is now obsolete.

00:32:17 ◼   ► She said, what?

00:32:17 ◼   ► I said, well, it's an iPhone 12 now.

00:32:19 ◼   ► And she's like, oh, right.

00:32:20 ◼   ► Uh, but, but we bought her a leather card wallet for the back and it's, you

00:32:25 ◼   ► know, you just stick it on.

00:32:27 ◼   ► And then after, you know, 10 weeks, it falls off.

00:32:32 ◼   ► Like if it falls off and you don't really want your cards and stuff to fall off

00:32:36 ◼   ► your phone.

00:32:37 ◼   ► And I look at this and I think, oh, this is really smart.

00:32:39 ◼   ► Like this is, if I were buying that iPhone for Jamie today, this is what we

00:32:45 ◼   ► would do.

00:32:45 ◼   ► And I like that it's a first party has thought of the fact that people carry

00:32:51 ◼   ► their cards attached to the back of their phone and they built it in.

00:32:55 ◼   ► And because it's all magnetic, they all go together theoretically, which I think

00:32:59 ◼   ► is also really interesting.

00:33:00 ◼   ► And they said, Apple says on their website, it's shielded.

00:33:02 ◼   ► So, you know, you're not going to wipe the Stripe off the back of your credit

00:33:06 ◼   ► card or something like that, but that you can do that and you can attach it to the

00:33:09 ◼   ► back of the phone or to the back of one of the cases.

00:33:11 ◼   ► I like that.

00:33:12 ◼   ► That's really smart.

00:33:14 ◼   ► And again, Apple's making all these calculations of sort of like, what do they

00:33:17 ◼   ► want to leave and what do they, where do they want to play?

00:33:19 ◼   ► And they know that not everybody's going to buy a case from Apple, but a certain

00:33:22 ◼   ► percentage of people, if Apple offers a case, will buy the case.

00:33:25 ◼   ► And now they're going to take that iPhone wallet and they're going to take a

00:33:29 ◼   ► certain percentage of those people are never going to look at the third parties

00:33:32 ◼   ► when they're in the Apple store or when they're on the Apple online store,

00:33:35 ◼   ► they're just going to buy the Apple wallet.

00:33:37 ◼   ► What I want is a magnetic pop socket.

00:33:40 ◼   ► It's going to happen, right?

00:33:41 ◼   ► I mean, it seems inevitable.

00:33:42 ◼   ► You would like to think so.

00:33:44 ◼   ► Seems inevitable.

00:33:44 ◼   ► As long as that magnet is strong enough.

00:33:46 ◼   ► I say it depends on the strength because if I'm trying to pull the pop

00:33:49 ◼   ► socket out from the phone and it comes off every time, like that's, that's not

00:33:53 ◼   ► what you want.

00:33:54 ◼   ► So I, you know, because I'm looking at that and I'm like, oh, that looks really

00:33:58 ◼   ► like for as far as wireless charging stuff that, that looks really clever.

00:34:02 ◼   ► Like, uh, you know, this is a better way to do the Qi charging stuff.

00:34:05 ◼   ► It needs to be powerful enough to hold a wallet on it too.

00:34:07 ◼   ► Right.

00:34:08 ◼   ► Like, I mean, you need to have some degree of certainty that the, that the

00:34:13 ◼   ► magnet's going to hold strength there.

00:34:15 ◼   ► You know, I was just, I was basically thinking like I, I have come to really

00:34:19 ◼   ► rely on a pop socket is something that I do genuinely really rely on.

00:34:24 ◼   ► And at this point, I don't think I could use a large phone without it.

00:34:30 ◼   ► So, you know, I it's, it's the reason I have, one of the reasons I've resisted

00:34:35 ◼   ► any wireless charging cause I can't use a wireless charger with a pop socket on

00:34:38 ◼   ► the back of the phone, uh, very reliably for all, but if they were able, if

00:34:43 ◼   ► somebody was able to develop a product, which is basically like a pop socket,

00:34:47 ◼   ► but integrates with this, uh, with this magnet, I'd be all over that.

00:34:51 ◼   ► And then I could actually start to use, um, some of these products, you know,

00:34:55 ◼   ► pop socket actually make a, uh, a wallet of their own, like a pop wallet.

00:35:01 ◼   ► And so who knows, maybe that would be a thing that I would want, but I

00:35:05 ◼   ► like this, I genuinely am very pleased that this is something which.

00:35:09 ◼   ► I mean, obviously third parties would make products for this anyway.

00:35:14 ◼   ► Uh, I liked that there is an official way to make it happen, uh, in such a way that

00:35:19 ◼   ► it could then change what's going on on the phone, like the phone is aware of the

00:35:24 ◼   ► fact that it has that thing attached to it.

00:35:26 ◼   ► Right.

00:35:26 ◼   ► So, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm excited about that.

00:35:29 ◼   ► Uh, we knew it was going to happen.

00:35:32 ◼   ► Charger and headphones are gone from the box.

00:35:36 ◼   ► Uh, we had a segment of Lisa Jackson.

00:35:38 ◼   ► We mentioned it earlier.

00:35:39 ◼   ► She was standing on the roof of Apple Park.

00:35:41 ◼   ► Um, basically enough carbon savings will be, uh, gained here that are

00:35:47 ◼   ► equivalent to taking 450,000 cars off the road every year, but still, I.

00:35:54 ◼   ► This is a cost saving measure as well as it is an environmental one.

00:35:57 ◼   ► In my opinion, we said this before.

00:36:00 ◼   ► Um, even if Apple care about it, uh, from the environmental perspective,

00:36:04 ◼   ► which I'm sure they really do.

00:36:05 ◼   ► I have no doubt about that.

00:36:07 ◼   ► Um, there is nothing for the customer in terms of cost savings or, uh, gaining any

00:36:15 ◼   ► ability to get a charger if they need one.

00:36:18 ◼   ► So Apple are trying to take two wins here and that's not how this works.

00:36:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:36:24 ◼   ► I, I, uh, was going back and forth somebody on Twitter about this this week that

00:36:28 ◼   ► it's like, but you know, it can be both.

00:36:30 ◼   ► And it's like, well, yeah, it can be both.

00:36:32 ◼   ► But the point is that it feels it is awkward and you need to question it when

00:36:38 ◼   ► it's like, look at what we're doing for the earth and the environment.

00:36:41 ◼   ► But we know they're also saving money by doing this, right?

00:36:46 ◼   ► They're saving money and Apple saving money, not just, you know, carbon output,

00:36:49 ◼   ► but saving money in a lot of ways because they said the box is going to be smaller,

00:36:53 ◼   ► which means more fit on a pallet.

00:36:54 ◼   ► Well, yeah, that means that there are going to be fewer flights with boxes of

00:36:58 ◼   ► iPhones coming from China to everywhere else in the world, but it also means that

00:37:02 ◼   ► Apple is not paying for any of that.

00:37:03 ◼   ► So Apple saving money and keeping things away from customers who might actually

00:37:10 ◼   ► need them at which point they then need to go out and buy them themselves.

00:37:14 ◼   ► Does that mean that it's a net win for the environment?

00:37:17 ◼   ► I do believe it is.

00:37:18 ◼   ► Do I think that Apple should make it easier for a new iPhone buyer to say, I

00:37:23 ◼   ► actually need a pair of headphones, or I actually do need a charger?

00:37:28 ◼   ► Um, I think they should.

00:37:30 ◼   ► I think that would be a consumer friendly thing to do, but this is not what they're

00:37:34 ◼   ► doing.

00:37:34 ◼   ► So here we are.

00:37:36 ◼   ► And I understand that at this point, uh, I'm sure lots of people can, can use it,

00:37:42 ◼   ► but at the same time this year, they're including a USB C charger in the box.

00:37:48 ◼   ► So if you want to be able to charge with the new cable, you will need to buy a new

00:37:56 ◼   ► power brick in most cases.

00:37:58 ◼   ► Right.

00:37:58 ◼   ► So, you know, this isn't, I would have liked to have seen this story told a little

00:38:02 ◼   ► bit better from them having more of a more full approach.

00:38:05 ◼   ► Um, apparently Apple is selling a 20 watt USB C power adapter for $19 now, which

00:38:12 ◼   ► feels like a better price than what they've done in the past, but still that

00:38:17 ◼   ► $19, you know, let people choose to include this in the package, right?

00:38:22 ◼   ► Like why not?

00:38:22 ◼   ► Not everyone's going to do it, but some will do it, but yeah, nevertheless, this

00:38:26 ◼   ► is where we are with that.

00:38:28 ◼   ► Uh, what else is going on here?

00:38:30 ◼   ► So there were three sizes of iPhone across the four phones.

00:38:35 ◼   ► So the iPhone 12 and the iPhone 12 pro have a 6.1 inch screen, which is a bigger

00:38:42 ◼   ► screen, uh, than what they replace with slightly larger physical dimensions.

00:38:46 ◼   ► The iPhone 12 pro max has a larger screen at 6.7 inches, which is the

00:38:52 ◼   ► biggest screen ever in an iPhone.

00:38:53 ◼   ► Phone of course, also slightly larger than the phone that it replaces.

00:38:58 ◼   ► These are all in like the couple of millimeters in size.

00:39:01 ◼   ► Right.

00:39:01 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:39:01 ◼   ► I, I got, um, I got this pick in the draft and I actually laughed when they mentioned

00:39:06 ◼   ► it because they said almost the, almost the same size as the, well, almost means

00:39:11 ◼   ► it's not, uh, and it is slightly larger, but it's very, very, very slightly larger.

00:39:14 ◼   ► I think it's a one 10th of an inch or maybe it's one 10th of a millimeter.

00:39:18 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:39:19 ◼   ► It's, it's, it's slightly taller and very, very, very, very slightly wider.

00:39:23 ◼   ► But it's also thinner and lighter than the pro max of the 11.

00:39:28 ◼   ► So, um, and a bigger screen.

00:39:31 ◼   ► So basically you get a bigger screen with, with a phone that's not essentially not

00:39:35 ◼   ► bigger.

00:39:35 ◼   ► And the iPhone 12 mini has a 5.4 inch screen.

00:39:40 ◼   ► So it's smaller than any of the 11 line.

00:39:43 ◼   ► Right.

00:39:43 ◼   ► So don't forget that.

00:39:44 ◼   ► Like it's worth just keeping this all in your mind.

00:39:46 ◼   ► In size, it is comparable to the iPhone eight.

00:39:52 ◼   ► Right.

00:39:52 ◼   ► Or the se essentially.

00:39:54 ◼   ► Sure.

00:39:56 ◼   ► I need to double check that, but I guess an iPhone se are the same size.

00:40:02 ◼   ► You are correct.

00:40:03 ◼   ► Yes.

00:40:04 ◼   ► Uh, but the se has got the top and the bottom cause it's got the, you know, it's,

00:40:08 ◼   ► it's old style.

00:40:10 ◼   ► Whereas this is iPhone tens style device.

00:40:12 ◼   ► It's it's smaller than the se.

00:40:15 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:40:16 ◼   ► So, uh, 5.1, 5.18 inches, uh, in height versus 5.4 on the se two and a half inches

00:40:25 ◼   ► wide versus 2.6 inches.

00:40:27 ◼   ► Right.

00:40:28 ◼   ► So it's actually smaller than the iPhone se with a 5.4 inch display rather than a

00:40:34 ◼   ► 4.7 inch display that you would find on the se.

00:40:37 ◼   ► Um, and the iPhone 11, uh, had a 6.1 inch screen.

00:40:42 ◼   ► Um, so yeah, it's.

00:40:45 ◼   ► This is an interesting product lineup.

00:40:48 ◼   ► Uh, I think really, I think there are two types of customers that win here and then

00:40:55 ◼   ► you have a lot of people in the middle.

00:40:57 ◼   ► So I, as a big phone person, are getting a bigger phone and I'm super pleased about

00:41:04 ◼   ► it.

00:41:04 ◼   ► Um, the, uh, people, uh, that want a smaller phone now have a much smaller,

00:41:12 ◼   ► modern, powerful phone than they've had in years, but then they're all everybody in

00:41:17 ◼   ► the middle, uh, where they're facing, I think, more, a bit more of a question

00:41:22 ◼   ► about what phone they might want to go for.

00:41:24 ◼   ► Right.

00:41:24 ◼   ► Like it's an, it's, it's quite an interesting lineup overall.

00:41:27 ◼   ► Yeah, I think, and I've mentioned this before, but I think one of the big

00:41:32 ◼   ► questions is going to be the, uh, people who like smaller phones or who have come

00:41:39 ◼   ► to accept the existing iPhone size of the 10 class phones.

00:41:44 ◼   ► Um, that phone doesn't exist in this product line, right?

00:41:49 ◼   ► The 12 is, is the, you know, was the big phone and is, is still a big phone.

00:41:54 ◼   ► The 12 pro is bigger and the 12 pro max is about the same size.

00:42:00 ◼   ► And then you've got the 12 mini, which is so much smaller.

00:42:03 ◼   ► And that is going to be a really interesting buying dynamic to see who

00:42:08 ◼   ► goes for the 12 pro or the 12 and who says, you know what?

00:42:13 ◼   ► I usually buy the top of the line model, but I'm not going to this time because I

00:42:17 ◼   ► want, because I don't want a larger phone.

00:42:20 ◼   ► In fact, I missed when it was a smaller phone and that mini is awfully

00:42:25 ◼   ► interesting, like awfully interesting.

00:42:27 ◼   ► If I, I'm not in the mo the market for an iPhone this year, because I bought

00:42:31 ◼   ► an iPhone 11 last year, 11 pro.

00:42:33 ◼   ► But if I were to buy one this year, it would absolutely be the 12 mini.

00:42:38 ◼   ► It would be, I mean, we'll talk about it later.

00:42:40 ◼   ► Talk about later on in this episode, what we would buy, but like, certainly,

00:42:44 ◼   ► I mean, I want to get my hands on them.

00:42:45 ◼   ► I want to see and feel what they really feel like, but it's hard for me

00:42:49 ◼   ► to imagine having a bigger phone.

00:42:51 ◼   ► I feel like the 10 class size is already pushing my limits.

00:42:55 ◼   ► And the idea that they're making a, um, a modern iPhone that's that small.

00:43:02 ◼   ► I'm I'm intrigued by that and I know so many people who, who held out with

00:43:08 ◼   ► the original se for so long because they just didn't want to be pushed up

00:43:11 ◼   ► even to, uh, an iPhone six, seven, eight class phone, let alone the 10 class

00:43:17 ◼   ► phone that, um, are going to look at that, that mini that mini is a really

00:43:21 ◼   ► interesting and compelling product.

00:43:22 ◼   ► We have a little bit of follow-up I want to throw in there by the way, it

00:43:27 ◼   ► looks like according to Apple's webpage, the Qi charging is still rated at 7.5

00:43:31 ◼   ► Watts.

00:43:31 ◼   ► It's mag safe.

00:43:33 ◼   ► That's up to 15.

00:43:34 ◼   ► So I wonder Apple is, they piggybacked on top of Qi and made their own magic,

00:43:39 ◼   ► uh, sauce, their mag safe sauce that they're, that they're putting in there.

00:43:43 ◼   ► So that's, uh, interesting.

00:43:45 ◼   ► Can we try and talk about the cameras?

00:43:48 ◼   ► And I really say try because this is very confusing.

00:43:52 ◼   ► I had Apple's comparison page up.

00:43:54 ◼   ► Now I also want to point out something that Apple has, uh, maybe needs to

00:43:57 ◼   ► rethink, which is that their comparison page for iPhone only has three slots

00:44:00 ◼   ► and they have four brand new iPhones.

00:44:01 ◼   ► Work on that, work on that Apple, but I've got it up here now.

00:44:06 ◼   ► So if we want to talk about the cameras, let me see if I can, if I can explain

00:44:09 ◼   ► this.

00:44:09 ◼   ► So, um, they all have a, uh, 12 megapixel camera system, but, oh, okay.

00:44:22 ◼   ► The ultra wide is eight is a 2.4 aperture.

00:44:24 ◼   ► Great stuff.

00:44:26 ◼   ► The wide is a 1.6 aperture.

00:44:29 ◼   ► There's only telephoto on the pro models.

00:44:31 ◼   ► The telephoto on the pro is 2.0 aperture, but the telephone photo on the

00:44:37 ◼   ► pro max is a 2.2 aperture.

00:44:39 ◼   ► So let's just say, I don't know what the, like, I don't really know what that

00:44:42 ◼   ► means for me.

00:44:43 ◼   ► Like this is my thing with the cameras.

00:44:44 ◼   ► Always.

00:44:45 ◼   ► It's a more light.

00:44:45 ◼   ► We can talk about the Fs.

00:44:47 ◼   ► We can talk, you know, like, and like, and again, like we could talk about the

00:44:50 ◼   ► focal length.

00:44:51 ◼   ► We can talk about all of that.

00:44:52 ◼   ► And I understand that things get better at different elements.

00:44:56 ◼   ► I understand all of that.

00:44:57 ◼   ► But for me as somebody who just takes pictures with my phone, I don't really

00:45:01 ◼   ► know how any of that translates.

00:45:03 ◼   ► The pro max 2.5 X optical zoom as opposed to the two X optical zoom on the pro.

00:45:11 ◼   ► So the, the larger phone gets a little bit more telephoto camera.

00:45:17 ◼   ► So there is actually, and I know you love this cause you love being hashtag Myke

00:45:22 ◼   ► was right.

00:45:23 ◼   ► Yeah. Hashtag plus club, whatever hashtags you get this time max club.

00:45:27 ◼   ► Um, you like lording it over the little people with their little phones with your

00:45:32 ◼   ► enormous phone that has better features than any other iPhone.

00:45:34 ◼   ► Congratulations.

00:45:36 ◼   ► You got it.

00:45:37 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:45:37 ◼   ► See, there was a rumor about four times and five times optical zoom, right?

00:45:42 ◼   ► But this was someone who saw Apple's product pages and thought that that meant

00:45:47 ◼   ► there's going to be a four times telephoto and five times telephoto, uh, zoom.

00:45:52 ◼   ► But that's not the case.

00:45:52 ◼   ► It is the overall from like range that they have from all the way out on ultra

00:45:58 ◼   ► right wide to all the way in on telephoto.

00:46:01 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:46:01 ◼   ► When they say it's five X range, they mean in the iPhone interface and the camera

00:46:06 ◼   ► app, you've got three choices, right?

00:46:08 ◼   ► You've got one X 2.5 X on the pro max and 0.5 X, which is the w the pullback wide

00:46:17 ◼   ► screen.

00:46:17 ◼   ► And that is a range of five X, right?

00:46:20 ◼   ► If you, if you consider 0.5 to be one, which is not cause it's 0.5, then the 2.5

00:46:25 ◼   ► would be five it's algebra people.

00:46:27 ◼   ► But, um, the way they, the way they describe this is so weird because they're

00:46:31 ◼   ► trying to be camera E like zoom.

00:46:34 ◼   ► As our discord chat just pointed out, like it's not like it really zooms.

00:46:38 ◼   ► It's three different fixed things.

00:46:40 ◼   ► And then you can, uh, you can digital zoom in between them and it chooses which

00:46:45 ◼   ► camera it uses for those.

00:46:46 ◼   ► But like, it's not really zooming, but, but it's the effect of zooming, which is

00:46:52 ◼   ► that you've got a, a wide and a middle and a zoom in a telephoto kind of thing.

00:46:58 ◼   ► But it, yes, it is very strange, but suffice it to say that that extra space in

00:47:02 ◼   ► the pro max and the extra price of the pro max, you, if you really love your

00:47:06 ◼   ► telephoto, you will get a two matter telephoto experience on the pro max.

00:47:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:47:10 ◼   ► And I always loved it.

00:47:11 ◼   ► If I abandon the pro line for the 12 mini, I will lose that, which will make me sad,

00:47:17 ◼   ► but we'll get into that.

00:47:18 ◼   ► So the pro max gets not just a better zoom.

00:47:22 ◼   ► The telephoto lens is better.

00:47:24 ◼   ► Yes.

00:47:25 ◼   ► Wide angle lens is better than even the improvements in the other phones.

00:47:30 ◼   ► So every phone has got a better regular camera, the wide angle camera, but the

00:47:36 ◼   ► pro max has 87% better low light performance on the wide.

00:47:41 ◼   ► And a brand new optical image stabilization system, which is called

00:47:46 ◼   ► sensor shift, where essentially if I've understood it correctly, instead of the

00:47:51 ◼   ► camera being what is stabilized, they stabilize the camera sensor and this

00:47:57 ◼   ► enables optical image stabilization on every camera in the phone, rather than

00:48:04 ◼   ► just the ones that they optically image stabilize.

00:48:07 ◼   ► Very smart.

00:48:08 ◼   ► Super cool.

00:48:10 ◼   ► So the camera, I'm pleased about this because when the plus was introduced,

00:48:16 ◼   ► you know, like you paid more, it was a bigger screen, but you also got additional

00:48:20 ◼   ► features because the phone was bigger, right?

00:48:23 ◼   ► They could do more with it.

00:48:25 ◼   ► And that was a really great thing.

00:48:26 ◼   ► I loved that.

00:48:27 ◼   ► And then over time it just became, I'll just choose the screen size.

00:48:30 ◼   ► And I was kind of finding that a little bit frustrating, you know, like maybe you

00:48:34 ◼   ► got a little bit more battery life, but I always felt like they could be more.

00:48:37 ◼   ► So I am very pleased to see that the pro max is getting that attention again.

00:48:42 ◼   ► In the additional money that I'm paying for it, I'm also getting vastly better

00:48:48 ◼   ► camera performance across all of the cameras.

00:48:52 ◼   ► I'm very excited about that.

00:48:54 ◼   ► Right.

00:48:55 ◼   ► It looks like the sensor shift is specifically on the wide.

00:48:58 ◼   ► Oh, so confusing.

00:49:00 ◼   ► Right.

00:49:01 ◼   ► Well, it's well, okay.

00:49:05 ◼   ► But the other cameras say like optical, dual optical sensor shift optical.

00:49:09 ◼   ► So what is the only stabilizing the wide angle?

00:49:13 ◼   ► On the pro max with sensor shift, the rest of them are the other more traditional

00:49:18 ◼   ► optical image stabilization.

00:49:19 ◼   ► It's very confusing.

00:49:20 ◼   ► So there is optical image stabilization across the cameras, but just the wide

00:49:24 ◼   ► angle camera is the one that's getting the sensor shift.

00:49:27 ◼   ► Yes.

00:49:28 ◼   ► And only on the pro max.

00:49:29 ◼   ► Yes.

00:49:29 ◼   ► Clear as mud.

00:49:31 ◼   ► Clear.

00:49:31 ◼   ► Nice and clear.

00:49:33 ◼   ► Mm hmm. This is one of those things where it's like, just understand from what we

00:49:37 ◼   ► said at the start, all the cameras are better no matter what phone you're buying.

00:49:41 ◼   ► But the more money you spend, the cameras get better, right?

00:49:45 ◼   ► Like, yes, that does seem to be the case.

00:49:47 ◼   ► And they seem to have not, I think what is fascinating here is that they've made a

00:49:50 ◼   ► choice to not care about having everything be exactly the same and do a little bit

00:49:55 ◼   ► more, uh, feature differentiation among the models beyond size, which you said you

00:50:00 ◼   ► liked.

00:50:00 ◼   ► And I think that this is an interesting choice on their part because it ruins

00:50:04 ◼   ► simplicity, but it provides more value to the possibilities of the entire iPhone

00:50:11 ◼   ► line because yes, there's at least one iPhone that does this thing and it's the

00:50:15 ◼   ► most expensive one.

00:50:16 ◼   ► And you know, you may, um, I, I am fascinated by the entire concept.

00:50:24 ◼   ► We're going to talk about video in a minute, but like very clearly apple is

00:50:27 ◼   ► trying to make some, it's not concessions, some, some choices that prove why they're

00:50:36 ◼   ► calling it pro.

00:50:37 ◼   ► And a lot of these things, I think most buyers of the pro can't pro phone won't

00:50:44 ◼   ► care about, but some people will care a lot.

00:50:47 ◼   ► And those people are going to be motivated to buy the higher end phones.

00:50:51 ◼   ► And it lets apple say, we've got a range.

00:50:53 ◼   ► Our range matters.

00:50:54 ◼   ► It's not just about size and the highest end phone does get some special tech that

00:50:59 ◼   ► we couldn't fit in the next one down.

00:51:02 ◼   ► Like I get what they're doing there and they made that as a conscious decision,

00:51:06 ◼   ► right?

00:51:06 ◼   ► Because they could have capped it and said, no, if we can't do it in both of the

00:51:10 ◼   ► pro phones, we should only, we should keep them the same.

00:51:13 ◼   ► And they chose not to do that because they do want that to be a different

00:51:17 ◼   ► differentiator.

00:51:18 ◼   ► And they have to realize that it does make things a little more confusing, but it's

00:51:23 ◼   ► a choice that they made.

00:51:24 ◼   ► And that's interesting.

00:51:25 ◼   ► Apple pro raw was the feature, which is a sneak peek for coming later in the year.

00:51:31 ◼   ► Every year for the last few years, apple have had something to do with a camera

00:51:35 ◼   ► that doesn't come at launch.

00:51:37 ◼   ► They talk about it was sweater mode last year.

00:51:38 ◼   ► Yep.

00:51:39 ◼   ► And I think it was portrait mode one year as well.

00:51:42 ◼   ► Yes.

00:51:42 ◼   ► This is effectively allowing for you to have a new option where you still get

00:51:49 ◼   ► images in raw.

00:51:50 ◼   ► So you shoot in raw, which means that you can then have a lot more control over the

00:51:55 ◼   ► image in your own kind of post-processing for color and exposure and that kind of

00:52:00 ◼   ► stuff.

00:52:00 ◼   ► But they are including apple's image processing in the whole bundle, which

00:52:07 ◼   ► basically means that you still benefit from all of the work that apple is doing

00:52:11 ◼   ► of image processing while still getting a lot of the typical control that you would

00:52:16 ◼   ► have with raw, which would allow people using these phones.

00:52:19 ◼   ► I'm sure to get very, very good images out of this, these sensors.

00:52:24 ◼   ► So again, this is a little bit over my pay grade when it comes to like dealing with

00:52:29 ◼   ► raw images.

00:52:29 ◼   ► Like I can't imagine ever, uh, using this myself, but it's, it's a, again, it's a pro

00:52:34 ◼   ► feature and it means that you can take those things off of the iPhone and into,

00:52:40 ◼   ► uh, I'm going to assume pretty much any, yeah, any pro, uh, photo app will

00:52:46 ◼   ► actually support this except I guess, but light light room is a good example.

00:52:52 ◼   ► Um, and you'll have access to all of that apple image processing raw data to make

00:52:59 ◼   ► your edits and, and yeah, pro photographers are, are going to love it.

00:53:02 ◼   ► And again, another example of a pro feature in the pro phone, even though most

00:53:06 ◼   ► people aren't going to use the pro features or aren't going to care, uh, how

00:53:11 ◼   ► do you justify calling it pro one way you do is you do load in features for the

00:53:15 ◼   ► pros. I like apple again, most iPhone pros are not used to shoot feature films or

00:53:20 ◼   ► commercials, right?

00:53:21 ◼   ► But some value of Hughes, some value accrues to them in the fact that somebody

00:53:28 ◼   ► does right. Like, Oh, this is so good that you can make a movie with it. I'm not

00:53:32 ◼   ► going to do it, but isn't it awesome. And like that, that is part of the kind of

00:53:36 ◼   ► the halo that surrounds the, and also building to that level, building to, you

00:53:41 ◼   ► could make professional grade video and photo with this camera means that the

00:53:46 ◼   ► person who is using their phone to create the YouTube videos that they want to make

00:53:51 ◼   ► will benefit, right? Like you will get some benefit. And some of that might be

00:53:55 ◼   ► in a, you think pro video as well, which is HDR recording, including being the

00:54:00 ◼   ► first camera that can shoot in Dolby vision HDR at 4K 60 frames per second

00:54:08 ◼   ► with live previewing as well. Yeah. So yeah, I can imagine the HDR video stuff

00:54:14 ◼   ► will be something that a lot more people will benefit from than the pro role.

00:54:19 ◼   ► I saw a funny comment on Twitter scroll by during the event, which was like, you

00:54:23 ◼   ► know, Apple is very good at pointing out the features that it doesn't include and

00:54:28 ◼   ► saying, Oh, well, we didn't think people would, you know, would care. And, uh,

00:54:32 ◼   ► the, then they include features and make a big deal out of them that literally

00:54:35 ◼   ► nobody is going to care. And it's sort of like 120 Hertz scrolling. Yeah. You

00:54:40 ◼   ► know, do people really want that? Oh, but Dolby vision HDR, we have that. It's

00:54:45 ◼   ► like, you know, but it's like, cause sometimes the choices are about what

00:54:50 ◼   ► you're capable of doing and what you're capable of doing at a certain price

00:54:53 ◼   ► point and all that. And Apple's again, like I said before, this is a pro

00:54:56 ◼   ► feature. It lets them say, look how amazingly capable our cameras are. Most

00:55:00 ◼   ► people aren't going to care. I don't think people are going to care about HDR

00:55:03 ◼   ► video recording too much. Although I suppose, you know, if you're taking

00:55:06 ◼   ► pictures of your newborn and the TVs of the future are all HDR, then you've got

00:55:12 ◼   ► more dynamic range and colors for those pictures of your, of your kid, the

00:55:16 ◼   ► Dolby vision thing. I'm waiting for the pro to say all this really is doing is

00:55:21 ◼   ► tagging every, you know, every video with Dolby vision stuff on the fly in order

00:55:25 ◼   ► to claim that it's Dolby vision. It doesn't really make it any better, but

00:55:29 ◼   ► you know, it's a, it's a thing that they can check the box about. Again, it's,

00:55:33 ◼   ► for most people, this is a little bit silly other than to say, wow, like Apple

00:55:37 ◼   ► keeps on dumping even more high level features and buzzwords and things. And it

00:55:43 ◼   ► feels good that I've, I'm using the best camera to shoot my random video that

00:55:47 ◼   ► I'm shooting.

00:55:47 ◼   ► The LIDAR sensor, which is only included on the pro phones. It finally has a

00:55:55 ◼   ► feature which is of use, um, rather than just AR, uh, it helps with focusing in

00:56:01 ◼   ► low light, including a new night mode portrait. Um, but it also does better

00:56:07 ◼   ► auto-focusing and stuff like that, which I think is a great use is, you know, for

00:56:10 ◼   ► me, like, great. Uh, I don't really care too much about AR at the moment,

00:56:14 ◼   ► especially with everything that I've seen. Um, but I'm super into using this

00:56:20 ◼   ► sensor for better auto-focusing and stuff like that.

00:56:24 ◼   ► Yeah. We talked about how people were skeptical of the use of LIDAR for

00:56:28 ◼   ► photography, but they found a way to use it to augment their, their stuff. Now

00:56:33 ◼   ► I'm, I'm, I have a little bit of skepticism about how much of this is, uh,

00:56:39 ◼   ► is super helpful and how much of this is something that helps them explain why

00:56:48 ◼   ► LIDAR is cool because AR maybe isn't enough.

00:56:53 ◼   ► Right? Like I'm not, I'm not a hundred percent that this is in the end going to

00:56:57 ◼   ► be that the LIDAR as a use in certain, uh, camera situations is worth having the

00:57:04 ◼   ► LIDAR sensor there. But I think it maybe broadens the appeal of adding that

00:57:10 ◼   ► sensor to say, Oh, it also helps with your photos instead of the, the pitch for

00:57:14 ◼   ► the iPad pro, which was literally it's great for AR. And that was it.

00:57:21 ◼   ► Now, the thing we haven't spoken about yet, which is the thing, which is the

00:57:24 ◼   ► thing Apple couldn't stop talking about throughout this entire presentation.

00:57:28 ◼   ► And that was 5G. Now I knew 5G was going to happen on this phone. It seemed

00:57:35 ◼   ► obvious to me from the beginning. Um, and we have it, but the level at which

00:57:45 ◼   ► Apple spoke about 5G during this presentation was far more than I expected

00:57:53 ◼   ► for a company that poo pooed 5G and didn't come out with a 5G phone last year

00:57:57 ◼   ► because 5G, whatever, what is it good for this year was like, they had been,

00:58:03 ◼   ► Apple had been in a program where they had, you know, there had been an

00:58:07 ◼   ► intervention and they'd been sat down and they said, no, you got to understand

00:58:10 ◼   ► 5G is very important. And they're like, Oh, Oh yes, I I've got it now. I've got

00:58:14 ◼   ► it now. Let's bring Mr. Verizon out on stage to talk about 5G.

00:58:17 ◼   ► That was ridiculous. That was too much. They went too far with that in my opinion.

00:58:21 ◼   ► Honestly, I felt really nostalgic because it's been a while since I've been to a

00:58:26 ◼   ► live Apple event and I felt super nostalgic to have Tim Cook introduce a,

00:58:31 ◼   ► an executive from some other company, some other company who is going to stand

00:58:37 ◼   ► there and talk about how great their product is for way too long. It's like,

00:58:41 ◼   ► that's old. It was like, Oh, it's like, I'm back in the Steve Jobs theater.

00:58:46 ◼   ► Also. I went and got myself a drink during that part because which you can't

00:58:49 ◼   ► do if you're at the Steve Jobs theater. But, um, yeah, it's too much. And I

00:58:54 ◼   ► wonder about the Verizon thing, like some interesting carrier stuff going on

00:58:59 ◼   ► in the background here. And this is one of them, which is like, what is the

00:59:01 ◼   ► backstory about letting the CEO of Verizon on stage for an Apple event?

00:59:05 ◼   ► Like what was, what did they give Apple in exchange for that? Because that has

00:59:10 ◼   ► to be right. Like, I feel like that's not Apple saying, well, we really need

00:59:13 ◼   ► Verizon to play ball here. Like that's not the case.

00:59:15 ◼   ► I don't understand what they could have done because no matter what they did,

00:59:19 ◼   ► Apple don't just sell the phone on Verizon. They don't.

00:59:23 ◼   ► So like if Verizon did a bunch of stuff to make the iPhone run better on 5g on

00:59:29 ◼   ► Verizon, that's awesome. But Apple sell on four networks in America and then

00:59:34 ◼   ► on many, many, many more across the globe. So me sitting here in the UK,

00:59:39 ◼   ► I'm like, can I even get 5g with this iPhone? And I'll tell you, Jason, I have

00:59:44 ◼   ► been looking and I cannot find the answer to that question right now.

00:59:48 ◼   ► Well, yeah, this is, this is a part of the challenge here. And I even wonder

00:59:52 ◼   ► in the U S like AT&T has got to be feeling sad. Um, and they apparently put

00:59:56 ◼   ► out a press release like right afterwards saying, yes, we have it. And

00:59:59 ◼   ► also here's a deal we'll give you. I think, I think literally AT&T is trying

01:00:03 ◼   ► to do a deal where they, where if you trade in a phone, um, and are on their

01:00:08 ◼   ► unlimited plan or whatever, they'll just like give you an iPhone 12. Like,

01:00:11 ◼   ► they're like, please, please, please don't leave us. But, um, something, I

01:00:17 ◼   ► don't know, you know, Verizon made an announcement. They said that they were

01:00:20 ◼   ► turning on their nationwide 5g, uh, as opposed to just, I wonder if there's

01:00:24 ◼   ► some of the deal here was like, we want you to hold this and tie it to the

01:00:28 ◼   ► Apple event so that the launch of the iPhone coincides with the launch of

01:00:31 ◼   ► your, I don't know what the deal was. I don't know either this, this, I was

01:00:36 ◼   ► baffled by it and I'd like to know the behind the scenes of why this happened,

01:00:41 ◼   ► but it was super boring. Um, uh, 5g is overhyped. I, you know, it doesn't

01:00:48 ◼   ► mean 5g is important in the long run, but like in the short run, it's actually

01:00:53 ◼   ► not that important. But if you're Apple, you've got 5g phones, you kind of want

01:00:56 ◼   ► to flog it. And, you know, if you're a carrier, you want to flog your 5g

01:01:00 ◼   ► networks. And so, you know, Hans is out there from Verizon doing just that,

01:01:05 ◼   ► but I found it, uh, yes, extremely uninteresting. I think the 5g features

01:01:13 ◼   ► are the least interesting thing about these phones and we spent an awful lot

01:01:19 ◼   ► of time doing it. So whether Apple believes that there's just been so much

01:01:23 ◼   ► 5g marketing, um, that they, they need to counter it. That's why they had to do it

01:01:29 ◼   ► was because the networks are saying that it's here. I don't know that they had to

01:01:34 ◼   ► go as far as they did mentioning 5g as, cause it wasn't just in that

01:01:39 ◼   ► excruciatingly long beginning segment. 5g came up throughout the entire iPhone

01:01:45 ◼   ► presentation, just kept on flying back, hitting us in the head every time. Like

01:01:49 ◼   ► you, Nope, no, it's back. So this, in my opinion, uh, 5g on the iPhone is the

01:01:55 ◼   ► thing that we're going to be talking about over the next couple of months,

01:01:59 ◼   ► because we need to understand across the globe as people are getting these

01:02:04 ◼   ► phones, if they can even get 5g. So that's going to be a set of stories and

01:02:09 ◼   ► then we'll have the stories of like, whether it actually works for people or

01:02:12 ◼   ► not. And if we could end up getting to the end of this year and we could all be

01:02:17 ◼   ► going, you know what? They were right. This is amazing. Right. But I don't know

01:02:22 ◼   ► if anyone is at that point, especially when everyone's home more. Right. So the

01:02:30 ◼   ► other, other interesting quirk here is we've talked a lot in the past about

01:02:33 ◼   ► special versions of the iPhone for China, especially, but for other countries,

01:02:38 ◼   ► like that have different wireless standards, these iPhones have a different

01:02:42 ◼   ► version for the U S because there is the millimeter wave tech that, that Verizon

01:02:49 ◼   ► is using, um, in the U S and so they support that, but apparently only in the

01:02:56 ◼   ► U S models, as far as I can tell, a lot of weird stuff going on here that we're

01:03:00 ◼   ► going to have to have to learn about. Um, fortunately, and this is a little

01:03:03 ◼   ► tidbit that I also thought was kind of funny. Um, if you're not needing 5g

01:03:10 ◼   ► speed, the iPhone software automatically takes you back down to LTE to save

01:03:17 ◼   ► battery. It's good. It's good. It's also kind of funny of like, Oh yeah, we

01:03:21 ◼   ► can't stay up there. No, we need it. Yeah. But when LTE launched, there was

01:03:25 ◼   ► like, you know, you could turn it on and off. You had to manually turn it on

01:03:30 ◼   ► and off to save battery. Right. But this is like, no, no, we did it in the

01:03:32 ◼   ► software, which I like, I like, but, um, I don't know. I don't know. The

01:03:37 ◼   ► Verizon thing went on too long. That was the part that just, I don't know

01:03:40 ◼   ► why that happened. I don't think we really needed that much time. What, what

01:03:46 ◼   ► did Verizon do for Apple to get that slot? I don't know. So anyway, 5g.

01:03:54 ◼   ► So yeah, it looks like, you know, the millimeter wave stuff is coming to

01:04:00 ◼   ► other countries. So like, that's the other thing that's weird to me is like

01:04:03 ◼   ► other countries will get millimeter wave. So why does the, was the U S the

01:04:08 ◼   ► only iPhone 12 that will ever have millimeter wave? And I don't know that

01:04:13 ◼   ► maybe it has something to do with the Qualcomm modems and what's available

01:04:16 ◼   ► and in what volumes. I don't know. It's all very strange. This is what I'm

01:04:21 ◼   ► saying. Like the 5g part, I think is something that we're going to keep

01:04:25 ◼   ► checking in on as time goes, because we will get more information about it.

01:04:28 ◼   ► People will start to use it. They'll be able to talk about their experiences

01:04:31 ◼   ► a bit more. Um, but I really do think we're going to look back at that

01:04:36 ◼   ► presentation. Like we are now in the future and be like, they were way too

01:04:39 ◼   ► excited about 5g. Like 5g is going to be great, but it ain't great yet.

01:04:43 ◼   ► Yeah. It's not there. And I really don't understand the whole Verizon thing.

01:04:48 ◼   ► So anyway, the iPhone 12 mini is going to be 699, uh, starts at, and the

01:04:54 ◼   ► iPhone 12 starts at 799. In America, the source are called nine to five Mac.

01:05:00 ◼   ► These prices are available as special offers from Verizon and AT&T.

01:05:05 ◼   ► So this is the thing. These prices are, are not real. Yeah. Another, another

01:05:11 ◼   ► interesting quirk in iPhone pricing that has been so quirky over time.

01:05:16 ◼   ► When Apple says it's 699 or 799, or we'll get to 999 and 1099, it's not,

01:05:23 ◼   ► it's actually $30 more. And they have special deals in the U S anyway, the

01:05:27 ◼   ► special deals with Verizon and AT&T, but not the other carrier carriers,

01:05:34 ◼   ► soon to be carrier. So there's a $30 discount you get as an AT&T customer or a

01:05:43 ◼   ► Verizon customer that makes it 699 or 799. But if you're a T-Mobile customer,

01:05:50 ◼   ► guess what? It's 729, which is bananas. It's, it's a, you know, it's basically

01:05:59 ◼   ► a promo price that Apple is, is selling you, but depending on your care, you

01:06:02 ◼   ► don't get it. And of course, if you want to buy a SIM free model, you know,

01:06:06 ◼   ► completely free and clear, you don't get the special deal. Um, it doesn't seem

01:06:11 ◼   ► like there are any strings attached. Like as an AT&T customer, I believe I

01:06:16 ◼   ► can just say, yes, I have AT&T and I get it for 699, but I find it really weird

01:06:24 ◼   ► that they've got these special deals that will they continue? Will they not

01:06:29 ◼   ► continue? Is this effectively a price raise that's just going to be slow

01:06:33 ◼   ► acting for some, but not for others? But the bottom line is, you know, I don't

01:06:38 ◼   ► think we can call this a 699 iPhone 12 mini or a 799 iPhone 12. I think we

01:06:44 ◼   ► have to call them 729 and 829, right?

01:06:49 ◼   ► >> I guess. Uh, the 12 Pro starts at quote 999, um, but now starts at 128

01:06:57 ◼   ► gigabytes. So they bought the storage on the minimum, which is great. 12 Pro

01:07:01 ◼   ► max at 1099. So the iPhone, now follow along with me here. The iPhone 12 and

01:07:08 ◼   ► the iPhone 12 Pro are available in October. The 12 Pro mini and the 12 Pro

01:07:16 ◼   ► max will be available in November. So the smallest and largest November, the

01:07:22 ◼   ► two phones in the middle, October. That's how it's working. So we're going

01:07:27 ◼   ► to be talking about iPhones for a long time, right? Because these phones will

01:07:32 ◼   ► be coming out. Uh, so that's the iPhone 12 line. Let me just say, I know that

01:07:36 ◼   ► I've expressed frustration, right? Yeah. And the frustration for me mostly

01:07:41 ◼   ► comes at like there being a lot to try and digest. There are things that I

01:07:48 ◼   ► want on, uh, these phones that I don't have. But I think for the phone, this

01:07:54 ◼   ► phone in general, I'm very excited about it. I think it looks fantastic. I'm

01:07:59 ◼   ► really excited for the new physical design, the flat side design. I'm really

01:08:04 ◼   ► excited about. I'm excited to get an even larger screen because why not?

01:08:09 ◼   ► Let's just go for it and see what that's like. Uh, and I am super excited to

01:08:13 ◼   ► try out these new cameras now on the Pro max. Um, so I would say like I am,

01:08:18 ◼   ► I am eagerly awaiting a 12 Pro max, but I have question marks, especially

01:08:25 ◼   ► around 5G. Um, and it's usefulness to us at the moment. Um, I think that

01:08:31 ◼   ► we're like a couple of years away and 5G is going to be unbelievably great,

01:08:36 ◼   ► right? Like if we can get all of the technology in place, but we're not there

01:08:39 ◼   ► yet. And the fact that we're not here yet is what's made Apple's 110% on this

01:08:47 ◼   ► kind of strange for them at least.

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01:10:32 ◼   ► - A little real time follow up by the way. I was going on about the hidden

01:10:39 ◼   ► $30 charge in the 799 and 699 iPhone 12s. The pros don't have the hidden charge.

01:10:45 ◼   ► The pros are actually 999 and 1099. - So they've stuck at price and that's

01:10:49 ◼   ► that. - But on the cheaper models, they are, you know, cheaper by $30 only in

01:10:57 ◼   ► certain promotions apparently. - Which means they are more expensive then.

01:11:00 ◼   ► - It means they're more expensive. So it really is sort of $729, $829, $999,

01:11:06 ◼   ► and $1099. - So you mentioned that you would buy the 12 mini if you were buying,

01:11:16 ◼   ► right? - Yeah, and I want to get my hands on it because it's possible that if I

01:11:20 ◼   ► try the 12 mini, I would even trade in my phone and upgrade because I like the 10

01:11:29 ◼   ► class phone and I've gotten used to it and I have the 11 Pro now. But so here

01:11:35 ◼   ► are the things. One, it is a little bit too big. And two, it's slippery so it

01:11:42 ◼   ► requires a case. And back in the iPhone 5 era, I didn't use a case on my iPhone. I

01:11:50 ◼   ► didn't need to. It felt comfortable in my hand. And we've gone back to a design

01:11:54 ◼   ► with these flat sides where I'm hopeful that this is not going to be a bar of

01:12:02 ◼   ► soap, right? A slippery bar of soap that's like, "Whoa, there goes my iPhone. I hope

01:12:06 ◼   ► that new ceramic thing works because it's flying through the air and it's about to

01:12:09 ◼   ► hit the ground," right? So if it feels really good in my hand, like the screen is

01:12:16 ◼   ► big enough, everything looks good, and I don't feel like I'm going to drop it,

01:12:23 ◼   ► it's possible that I would do a trade in either of my 11 Pro or of my old 10 that

01:12:32 ◼   ► Lauren has and then, you know, roll that one down to her, one of those. I might. I'm

01:12:38 ◼   ► a little bit tempted, but that would be what it would be. It would have to be

01:12:42 ◼   ► something where if I tried it out, I felt like it was going to be—I could go

01:12:47 ◼   ► caseless and that it was—it just felt better to have that size because it's

01:12:53 ◼   ► been years since I used a phone of that size. And it's possible that the iPhone

01:12:57 ◼   ► 10 class phone design has ruined me and I can't go back. But also my priorities

01:13:04 ◼   ► in a phone, like even before the pandemic, I spent a lot of time on my iPad and at

01:13:11 ◼   ► my desk, you know, on my Mac. iPhone is not the most important device in my life.

01:13:18 ◼   ► I use it when I'm out. I'm not out very much now, but I do use it when I'm out.

01:13:22 ◼   ► But like, it's not my primary device. I have other devices for that. So it

01:13:27 ◼   ► doesn't really need to be big. And so, I don't know, that's what I'm all kind of

01:13:32 ◼   ► turning around in my mind. But I think the real question is going to be when in

01:13:37 ◼   ► November we get a chance to hold these things and actually have that experience

01:13:43 ◼   ► because there's a huge range in the iPhone line right now. Like this—imagine

01:13:48 ◼   ► that 12 Pro Max and the 12 mini. Like, those are the—it's like that picture

01:13:55 ◼   ► of—sorry, this is a baseball reference—but there's a picture of Aaron Judge, who's

01:13:59 ◼   ► like the almost seven-foot-tall Yankee standing at second base, and little Jose

01:14:05 ◼   ► Altuve, who is a very small second baseman. And there's this picture and it's like,

01:14:10 ◼   ► baseball players come in all sizes, right? This is like that with these phones. They

01:14:14 ◼   ► are so dramatically different in size. So that's exciting. And I hope that it

01:14:20 ◼   ► works for you and me because I imagine that that's what you're thinking is give

01:14:24 ◼   ► me the largest iPhone possible while I'm thinking maybe give me the smallest

01:14:27 ◼   ► iPhone possible. So what's your first read as a—as the founding member of the

01:14:32 ◼   ► of the Plus/Max Club? I remain hesitant at the increased size, right? At a

01:14:43 ◼   ► certain point, these phones are going to be too big for me, right? I don't know if

01:14:50 ◼   ► we've hit it yet, but we're certainly close. Because even though the physical

01:14:55 ◼   ► size is only a little bit more, the additional screen size is still the size of the

01:14:58 ◼   ► screen I have to reach across. And, you know, I am blessed with being a

01:15:04 ◼   ► relatively tall guy, so I have big hands and my hands have been fine for these

01:15:08 ◼   ► phones, but I don't know what this one's going to be like, right? Like, maybe the

01:15:12 ◼   ► iPhone 12 Pro Max has passed what I am willing to be happy to use, right? But I

01:15:18 ◼   ► just don't know it yet. But what Apple have done, which was for me, was like best

01:15:25 ◼   ► case scenario, they've made it an easy decision because they've given me

01:15:28 ◼   ► additional functionality again, which is something that I really wanted. So like,

01:15:33 ◼   ► giving me an even better camera might mean that if I get it and I'm like, oh,

01:15:38 ◼   ► this might be a little bit too big for certain circumstances, I can at least say

01:15:42 ◼   ► well, but I've got that really great camera that I want. So the only thing for

01:15:46 ◼   ► me, I'm going Pro Max for sure. My only thing is, I don't know what color to get,

01:15:53 ◼   ► because I loved the green, right? The midnight green of the iPhone 11 Pro,

01:16:02 ◼   ► really happy with that color. And at the time, thought I also would love a blue,

01:16:08 ◼   ► right? And they've given me blue and blue looks great. But the gold, the gold,

01:16:13 ◼   ► so shiny gold is getting you. Good. Yeah, like that it was it. They're showing it

01:16:19 ◼   ► a lot on the pages. They made a specific point of showing it during the

01:16:22 ◼   ► presentation, though what they've done to the stainless steel sides, that looks

01:16:28 ◼   ► superb. So I'm not sure between the two of them, leaning towards gold right now.

01:16:37 ◼   ► I really hope that I get to see some pictures of this before. Oh, I will,

01:16:42 ◼   ► won't I? Because the 12s will come out and people will have reviews about them

01:16:48 ◼   ► before I have to order the 12 Pro Max. Right, you'll be able to see some

01:16:54 ◼   ► pictures of the gold or even go to an Apple store at some point. I could go to an Apple

01:16:57 ◼   ► store. I mean, I could, I guess. I could try. Bundle up, put on your space suit.

01:17:03 ◼   ► I might do that, actually. I might do that. The big decision here is that

01:17:08 ◼   ► Deano is due for an upgrade and she's gonna have to really think. She watched

01:17:12 ◼   ► the event with me and was not sure about what she would do. She has an 11 Pro

01:17:18 ◼   ► right now. But as a lot of people like you, the Mini is tempting to her because

01:17:25 ◼   ► she's a tiny person. And especially now that the gap is way closer between

01:17:32 ◼   ► those phones. But the thing that she would have to give up is the telephoto

01:17:36 ◼   ► lens. I think that's one of the things that people will give up. Everything else

01:17:42 ◼   ► seems better than the, even in the Mini than it was in the 12 Pro by a lot of

01:17:48 ◼   ► instances. But you do lose a camera. So you have to be willing to lose that

01:17:53 ◼   ► camera. And if you use the telephoto lens a lot, like I genuinely do, I wouldn't

01:17:58 ◼   ► want to give it up. But it's about trade-offs, right? Do you want a much,

01:18:03 ◼   ► much, much smaller phone? I mean, this is a very interesting year. It's a very

01:18:09 ◼   ► interesting year. Apple have gone very bold with this lineup, I think, in having

01:18:16 ◼   ► the smallest phone get smaller and the biggest phone get bigger. I think we've

01:18:21 ◼   ► been hearing about this, as you said, for a couple of years. And it was intriguing

01:18:24 ◼   ► then and it's really intriguing now. But the thing is, a lot of people are in the

01:18:28 ◼   ► positions that me and you are in right now where it's like, "Do I do what I've

01:18:32 ◼   ► always done or do I change?" So that's...

01:18:37 ◼   ► This is a moment where the line has changed appreciably and I think it's

01:18:41 ◼   ► going to cause people, unless you're buying a 12 coming from the 11 or the 10R

01:18:46 ◼   ► or you're buying a 12 Pro coming from the 10S or 11 Pro, those, the ones that

01:18:55 ◼   ► are coming first, I think are like straight down the line. But the ones, the

01:18:59 ◼   ► outliers are interesting enough to make you have a rethink.

01:19:04 ◼   ► Yes, I think so. Although the... But there is the question though that I think

01:19:13 ◼   ► that people need to think about. If you had an 11 Pro, the 12 Pro is bigger. The

01:19:19 ◼   ► screen is bigger. And so if you were already feeling like that screen was too

01:19:24 ◼   ► big for you, you'll be going from 5.8 to 6.1 inches.

01:19:27 ◼   ► No, you're right. And that's where I am, right? So you're right. You're right. I

01:19:31 ◼   ► think that if there's a decision point, if you've got a 10, 10S or 11 Pro where

01:19:37 ◼   ► you have to decide if you want a bigger phone or not, or if you've reached your

01:19:39 ◼   ► limit. And that's where I am. And like I said earlier, I'm fascinated to see if

01:19:46 ◼   ► Apple will ever give us any color on this or based on anecdotes that we hear,

01:19:50 ◼   ► how many people get off the Pro train. Because while they like a nice phone,

01:19:59 ◼   ► what they really liked was that it was the smallest current iPhone. And it's not

01:20:04 ◼   ► anymore. You know, I'm sad because I do like that telephoto lens and would

01:20:11 ◼   ► prefer it to a wide angle lens, to be honest. But that may not be enough, right?

01:20:17 ◼   ► Like given the size issues. And this has always been an issue since Apple

01:20:21 ◼   ► went up to the 6 from the 5 that some people don't want a bigger phone. Most

01:20:27 ◼   ► people do, turns out. Some people don't. And will they get off the Pro line and

01:20:32 ◼   ► go to the Mini instead? I think a lot of people will. But that's going to be a

01:20:37 ◼   ► decision point right away.

01:20:38 ◼   ► The comparison page, the battery life seems like it might be worse on the new

01:20:44 ◼   ► phones. So the iPhone 11 Pro is listed to 18 hours video playback. The iPhone 12

01:20:50 ◼   ► Pro is 17 hours video playback.

01:20:53 ◼   ► Hmm. That's weird. Right?

01:20:59 ◼   ► Well, that's not something that Apple would talk about.

01:21:02 ◼   ► No, but it's also something that we usually see either. How peculiar.

01:21:09 ◼   ► Yeah, I wonder if 5G factors into that?

01:21:14 ◼   ► The Pro Max phones, the same. 11 Pro Max to 12 Pro Max, same battery.

01:21:20 ◼   ► Huh.

01:21:22 ◼   ► But the 11 Pro to 12 Pro, less battery.

01:21:27 ◼   ► Yeah, it's the video playback up to 17 hours versus 18 hours. Video playback

01:21:35 ◼   ► streamed the same. Audio playback the same. I don't know.

01:21:41 ◼   ► Hmm.

01:21:44 ◼   ► Why do they use video playback as the battery?

01:21:48 ◼   ► Well, because it's taxing, you know, because otherwise you've got to create

01:21:54 ◼   ► like a virtual, like a little fake hand that taps on things and you got to

01:21:59 ◼   ► find something to keep the phone active and emulating actual real world use.

01:22:05 ◼   ► And they can do that and they have in the past, but it's hard and it's easier

01:22:09 ◼   ► to just play a video until it dies.

01:22:11 ◼   ► Oh, Jason, the 12 mini is 15 hours.

01:22:14 ◼   ► But, you know.

01:22:17 ◼   ► Wow. I know it's a small phone, but if you're used to that battery life.

01:22:21 ◼   ► That's a big difference.

01:22:26 ◼   ► It's a difference, but I think that the people who want that phone are going to,

01:22:31 ◼   ► that's not going to be their priority.

01:22:34 ◼   ► Right. But what this does though, is it makes that decision more difficult for the

01:22:40 ◼   ► people that are in the, I have an iPhone 11 pro or I have an iPhone 10 and I want

01:22:46 ◼   ► to decide. So again, like bringing it in and back into the conversation again,

01:22:50 ◼   ► because we were talking about it earlier. One thing that she wants is more battery

01:22:53 ◼   ► on her phone again, because she's at that point where she's had a phone for long

01:22:56 ◼   ► enough and the battery's starting to go. So if I now say to her, well, the phone,

01:23:01 ◼   ► the 12 mini has a worse battery than the one you currently have, she's probably

01:23:06 ◼   ► not going to want to go for that phone. So like the people that are in those middle

01:23:10 ◼   ► areas that are trying to decide like, where do I want to go next? Something like

01:23:15 ◼   ► the battery life is significantly lower, like significantly lower. Like, as in,

01:23:21 ◼   ► like you're going to lose the gain that you got from the 10s to the 11 might

01:23:28 ◼   ► make people think again on it. I mean, I know they've, Apple didn't mention it,

01:23:33 ◼   ► but I'm surprised that it's taken me this long to see that in the comparison charts

01:23:38 ◼   ► that there is quite significant battery life changes. Hmm. Well, there you go.

01:23:44 ◼   ► Yeah. Just to be clear, it's actually more battery life than the 10s, but it loses

01:23:49 ◼   ► that gain of the 11 where they had a huge, um, a huge gain in battery life.

01:23:55 ◼   ► Yeah. So it goes, it sort of reverts. So basically if you're coming from a 10 or a

01:23:58 ◼   ► 10s, it's not going to be less battery life. Yep. What about everything we didn't

01:24:04 ◼   ► see it? It was a lot that we didn't see right at this event. There was Apple

01:24:09 ◼   ► Silicon. It's very clear. It's very clear that there's going to be another event,

01:24:14 ◼   ► right? I can't see them releasing the first Apple Silicon max with no fanfare.

01:24:19 ◼   ► So I would have, and they've gotten good at doing one hour ish long video events.

01:24:23 ◼   ► So why would they just not do a Mac event? Like in the past, they might've had that

01:24:27 ◼   ► debate of like, well, why don't we just do some briefings and a press release and

01:24:32 ◼   ► an embargo time and we'll do it that way. But I feel like they probably won't do

01:24:37 ◼   ► that this time because why not do an hour on this and brag all that you can about

01:24:45 ◼   ► how amazing Apple Silicon is. Oh, um, by the way, we didn't even talk about it.

01:24:51 ◼   ► Let me take us a little, little sidebar here, Myke, little sidebar about the new

01:24:56 ◼   ► processor. Yeah. Not a lot of detail, not a lot of comparisons to the A13.

01:25:05 ◼   ► Instead comparisons to other smartphones. What did that mean? Did iPhones not count

01:25:11 ◼   ► as other smartphones? I think they're burying A14 performance still. And I

01:25:18 ◼   ► wonder if it's because it's not as impressive as they had hoped. Uh, if it is

01:25:24 ◼   ► as impressive as they had hoped, I'm a little bit baffled. Why they compared the

01:25:27 ◼   ► iPad to the previous iPad air and they compared this iPhone in most cases to

01:25:34 ◼   ► other smartphones and not to the previous generation iPhone, as far as I

01:25:39 ◼   ► can tell. And that's weird. I just, I, it's not what I expected. And they either

01:25:44 ◼   ► have a, are playing a different game than I thought they were playing, or there's

01:25:47 ◼   ► some reason why they're reluctant to quote direct A13 to A14 numbers.

01:25:51 ◼   ► Right. Right. Okay. And if they really want to see a big number, just compare it

01:25:58 ◼   ► to the competition. Yeah. Well, you're going to get a bigger number that way. So

01:26:01 ◼   ► anyway, I just wanted to mention that because we, we didn't, we, we passed

01:26:04 ◼   ► that aside, but I was expecting more bragging. I know they did have some

01:26:07 ◼   ► bragging about the A14, but every time they brought up the A14, I kept waiting

01:26:11 ◼   ► for them to sort of like dig in a little bit more than they did last month. And

01:26:15 ◼   ► they didn't really like they didn't really. So, so take this with a grain of

01:26:20 ◼   ► salt then, but I feel like if they're going to do the Apple Silicon max thing,

01:26:23 ◼   ► they really do want to brag on how much better those are than the Intel max.

01:26:27 ◼   ► Right. And then, and other Intel PCs. So I think it needs to be an event. And

01:26:33 ◼   ► that it sounds to me like that's going to be, you know, next month or early

01:26:37 ◼   ► December. And, you know, those max may very well ship early to early to late

01:26:43 ◼   ► December. But I feel like that there's probably almost certainly has to be

01:26:49 ◼   ► another one of these, uh, Apple events to come for us with Apple Silicon,

01:26:55 ◼   ► because they said, by the end of the year, they put, they didn't need to

01:26:57 ◼   ► put that stake in the ground, but they did. And I don't think they're going to

01:27:01 ◼   ► let it go by and say, Oh yeah, here's a Mac book air with Apple Silicon.

01:27:03 ◼   ► Anyway, uh, happy new year. I don't think they're going to do that. Especially

01:27:07 ◼   ► because there's so much other stuff which could still come this year. Like

01:27:13 ◼   ► AirPods of some kind, right? The overrear ones, especially, uh, and Apple TV

01:27:18 ◼   ► hardware, maybe more about Apple TV content. Like I do think that we are in

01:27:23 ◼   ► for one more event. I don't think there's going to be a press release kind

01:27:26 ◼   ► of situation. I think we have November one more.

01:27:29 ◼   ► Given, given that we're going to be that you ideally want to get your lineup

01:27:34 ◼   ► set before the holiday buying season begins and November, you know, doing a

01:27:39 ◼   ► late November event is late for that. Although you could do it Apple TV. I

01:27:43 ◼   ► start to look at and think, I wonder if they're going to do a spring services,

01:27:48 ◼   ► something that has an Apple TV announcement in it and do it that way.

01:27:53 ◼   ► If they don't, if that product isn't ready to go, it would allow them to talk

01:27:57 ◼   ► about their shows and all those other things. I wonder if there's another

01:28:00 ◼   ► venue for that. Um, that is early next year. And honestly, I'm starting to

01:28:06 ◼   ► wonder, is this going to be the model going forward for Apple, which is every

01:28:09 ◼   ► month or two, they're just going to do an hour. They'll drop an hour with a

01:28:12 ◼   ► bunch of products that are all related to each other and not mention any of

01:28:15 ◼   ► the other products that Apple makes because they want to keep the focus.

01:28:19 ◼   ► Maybe, maybe, um, the question of how you roll out something like Apple,

01:28:24 ◼   ► um, AirPods studio headphones or something like that still, uh, still out.

01:28:30 ◼   ► I kind of thought that they might pair that with a home pod and that seems

01:28:34 ◼   ► like a great holiday product. Maybe it's not ready. I don't know.

01:28:37 ◼   ► I can only imagine that that's the case, right? It's just maybe not ready or

01:28:45 ◼   ► maybe it's just not for now. I don't know, but it feels like there's still

01:28:49 ◼   ► enough stuff that could come this year that we haven't yet gotten to. Uh, and

01:28:56 ◼   ► it seems like maybe there'll be one more event in the offing to allow them

01:29:01 ◼   ► to get those things out because I'm sure that any headphones stuff they're

01:29:07 ◼   ► really going to want for the holidays, right? Yeah. Um, you know, all those

01:29:14 ◼   ► rumors about Apple clearing out other headphones stuff from there and saying,

01:29:17 ◼   ► oh, well, there's definitely gonna be a headphones announcement because they've

01:29:19 ◼   ► cleared all that stuff out. Um, I keep thinking that that's one of those

01:29:23 ◼   ► examples where you're overthinking it and it's probably Apple. Apple dumps

01:29:27 ◼   ► third party products from the Apple store all the time. And if they're

01:29:31 ◼   ► thinking about the holidays and thinking about Apple stores where they're

01:29:35 ◼   ► going to have limited space for people, it's possible that they just decided

01:29:40 ◼   ► they're going to clear out that stuff and clear out that space and use it for

01:29:44 ◼   ► something else or use it for more space. So we'll see. But like, obviously they

01:29:51 ◼   ► didn't announce it here. They could be doing this because they're doing that

01:29:54 ◼   ► and they made that decision to happen a while ago and these headphones are

01:29:57 ◼   ► coming a little bit later than expected. It could also be multiple decisions. So

01:30:00 ◼   ► they're just doing them all. We should talk about what the iPhone didn't get

01:30:04 ◼   ► specifically, right? Like missing features on the iPhone. There was all of

01:30:09 ◼   ► the rumors that there might be promotion, which I feel like makes the most sense

01:30:14 ◼   ► when you've got Apple pencil support, but it also has its advantages just from,

01:30:19 ◼   ► you know, smooth scrolling, smooth scrolling on the iPad pros real nice.

01:30:22 ◼   ► And there's a reason, you know, every top tier Android phone has this feature.

01:30:26 ◼   ► Like there is, there are genuine benefits that you can feel on a daily basis. Also

01:30:30 ◼   ► gaming, you can get high refresh rate gaming. Like there are lots of reasons

01:30:34 ◼   ► for it. Apple chose like the pixels per inch on these phones is all, is very

01:30:39 ◼   ► impressive, right? These are super high resolution displays. That's great. But

01:30:45 ◼   ► the 120 hertz refresh that we had talked about being a possibility didn't happen.

01:30:49 ◼   ► The one that's the big one is there is no emergency touch ID sensor like on the

01:30:54 ◼   ► iPad air on these iPhones to supplement face ID. I really hoped it was a long

01:30:59 ◼   ► shot to hope it, but I did hope that they could have done. I hope all of these

01:31:02 ◼   ► journalists who are getting briefings with Apple press them on that question. I

01:31:06 ◼   ► want to hear what the stock Apple answer is for. Did you not consider why did you

01:31:13 ◼   ► not do something to try and deal with the fact that we're all wearing masks?

01:31:17 ◼   ► Yeah. And I'm sure they have a dumb answer that doesn't satisfy anyone. I

01:31:22 ◼   ► have just realized now, but I want to hear it. Talk about face ID at all. No,

01:31:27 ◼   ► no, it's just on a slide. No, it definitely was not something that they brought up

01:31:31 ◼   ► because it's a weakness for them and they didn't have an answer for it because

01:31:33 ◼   ► they didn't build a touch ID sensor into these iPhones. I would lay money at this

01:31:38 ◼   ► point that the next iPhone will have a touch ID sensor. But, um, I'm a little

01:31:42 ◼   ► disappointed that with the heads up that they did get, and I ranted about this on

01:31:46 ◼   ► a previous show, so I don't need to do it again. But like this, you got the tech

01:31:50 ◼   ► there. I would like that. I would like that explanation even, you know, what

01:31:55 ◼   ► would satisfy me if they said, you know, we looked at it because we do think

01:31:58 ◼   ► that that's something that might be possible in the future. They'll never say

01:32:01 ◼   ► that, but, but, um, the, it wasn't possible. Like I would love a senior Apple

01:32:06 ◼   ► executive to say, to say that, to say that, like, you know, we, we, we think

01:32:12 ◼   ► that we, we see that point, maybe it'll happen in an analyst call. Like we see

01:32:16 ◼   ► that point, but, um, you know, we, we didn't have that tech on the iPhone. I

01:32:22 ◼   ► know it's on the iPad, but that was years into the planning. Like I would love for

01:32:25 ◼   ► a real truthful answer where Apple said, we get it that you want it. And, and

01:32:32 ◼   ► maybe even, and we tried, but it wasn't possible, but you know, I don't think

01:32:38 ◼   ► they're going to admit to not having superhuman abilities to create iPhone

01:32:43 ◼   ► features either. So, and obviously no USB-C that people wanted it, but that

01:32:49 ◼   ► never felt like something that was coming this year. I would love it if it

01:32:52 ◼   ► happened, but doesn't the existence of the mag safe on the back suggests that

01:32:59 ◼   ► the direction that they're going to go ultimately is to add some, um, to add

01:33:03 ◼   ► some data to the magnetic connector. And that's how they get to, um, the so

01:33:12 ◼   ► called portless iPhone. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how that would work, but I

01:33:18 ◼   ► guess it could write like like a smart connector. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I guess it's

01:33:24 ◼   ► not on the aluminium so they don't need to do a little cutout. It's going

01:33:27 ◼   ► through the glass. I assume you could transfer data that way. I don't know

01:33:31 ◼   ► though. I don't know. But yeah, I think, I think that is something that is

01:33:37 ◼   ► continuing to prove that I don't think we're ever getting USB-C on the iPhone

01:33:42 ◼   ► of any kind. I think that they will want to push mag safe further until that can

01:33:47 ◼   ► be the only thing that could be, could be, who knows. But, um, I would love to

01:33:52 ◼   ► see it, but it didn't happen and probably won't, but you never know. Big event. Uh,

01:33:59 ◼   ► I am genuinely, uh, very excited about the products announced today. I can't

01:34:04 ◼   ► wait to get my orders in. Uh, but I'm going to be waiting now until mid to

01:34:08 ◼   ► late November for all of the stuff that I will want to be getting. So I like, I

01:34:12 ◼   ► want to try out one of the home pods, uh, and I'm going to be getting a Pro Max.

01:34:17 ◼   ► I think gold, Jason. I think I'm leaning towards gold. I sure sounds like it.

01:34:22 ◼   ► So that's it for this episode. We'll be back as normal next week, where I'm

01:34:26 ◼   ► sure we'll have more to talk about when it comes to everything announced at the

01:34:30 ◼   ► Apple event as more information comes out. If you come by, anything that's

01:34:34 ◼   ► interesting that you think you want to hear us talk about in regards to these

01:34:37 ◼   ► phones, you can send it to us on Twitter. I am iMyke, I M Y K E. Jason is @jsnell,

01:34:42 ◼   ► J S N E double L. Toss it in a hashtag ask upgrade maybe. And that's a great

01:34:46 ◼   ► thing to do as well. Hashtag ask upgrade or question mark ask upgrade and the

01:34:50 ◼   ► Relay FM members discord will go to help us, uh, plan out some topics for and

01:34:55 ◼   ► questions for the future episodes of the show as we lead up to new iPhone

01:34:59 ◼   ► season again. We're in the thick of it much later than we expected. And now I

01:35:04 ◼   ► guess we can start to try and guess when that next event is going to be.

01:35:08 ◼   ► Sometime in November, I suppose, if you want to get more of upgrade with no ads,

01:35:16 ◼   ► you can go to get upgrade plus dot com. And that is where you can sign up,

01:35:21 ◼   ► become a member, uh, $5 a month or $50 a year. Go to get upgrade plus.com and you

01:35:27 ◼   ► will get upgrade plus, which includes more content from every episode and no

01:35:31 ◼   ► ads as well. Uh, thanks to Bombas and Teamistry and Mailround for their

01:35:37 ◼   ► support of this show. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of

01:35:41 ◼   ► upgrade. You can find Jason over at sixcolors.com if you want some more

01:35:45 ◼   ► analysis about what's going on, uh, over the next few days. We'll be back

01:35:50 ◼   ► next time until then say goodbye Jason Snow. Goodbye Myke Hurley.