Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:08 ◼   ► Hello and welcome to Episode 1 of Upgrade,

00:00:12 ◼   ► a show that looks at how technology shapes us over time

00:00:15 ◼   ► and drives us into the future.

00:00:17 ◼   ► This is Episode 1.

00:00:19 ◼   ► Today is September 16th, 2014.

00:00:23 ◼   ► This episode of Upgrade is brought to you by Igloo,

00:00:25 ◼   ► an internet you'll actually like,

00:00:27 ◼   ► and TextExpander from Smile.

00:00:29 ◼   ► Type War With Less Effort.

00:00:31 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley, and I have the pleasure of introducing your host, Mr. Jason Snell.

00:00:36 ◼   ► Hi, Myke, and hello to everybody out there.

00:00:38 ◼   ► It's great to be here.

00:00:40 ◼   ► It's great to have you on Relay FM, Jason.

00:00:43 ◼   ► It's, yeah.

00:00:44 ◼   ► Well, I've been on Relay FM several times, but this is episode one of Upgrade, which

00:00:49 ◼   ► is exciting, because I was just a guest in other people's houses before, and this is

00:00:55 ◼   ► the home we share, Myke.

00:00:56 ◼   ► I know.

00:00:57 ◼   ► It's very nice, isn't it cozy?

00:00:59 ◼   ► very cozy in here. So, I mean, should we talk a little bit about Upgrade before we, like,

00:01:05 ◼   ► get into the main topic?

00:01:07 ◼   ► I think we should. I mean, it is episode one, and it is, yeah, we should talk about it at

00:01:12 ◼   ► least a little bit before we talk about the stuff that's going on in the new iPhones,

00:01:18 ◼   ► which I have and I can talk about now, which is exciting.

00:01:23 ◼   ► So we've been like, basically this show is, the way that I look at it is with you we have

00:01:30 ◼   ► someone who has a vast amount of experience.

00:01:33 ◼   ► Right, that means I'm old.

00:01:34 ◼   ► For a man of your young age.

00:01:36 ◼   ► Okay, well done, well played.

00:01:39 ◼   ► And you know, you are a man of great insight as well.

00:01:42 ◼   ► And you know, now that you are a free agent, it would be a travesty if you did not have

00:01:47 ◼   ► a place every week where you could wax lyrical about what's happening in the technology industry.

00:01:51 ◼   ► And one of the things that I wanted us to focus on was not just Apple.

00:01:57 ◼   ► I mean, we're talking about Apple today, but I think that your sort of knowledge goes across

00:02:04 ◼   ► different types of companies.

00:02:06 ◼   ► So across like to Google and Microsoft and to maybe other different software and hardware

00:02:11 ◼   ► vendors and stuff like that.

00:02:12 ◼   ► Because I think that there's definitely more than just the Apple news cycle.

00:02:16 ◼   ► And I think it would be really interesting for us to take a look at how things are changing

00:02:20 ◼   ► over time look at how things are going to change into the future but across the entire

00:02:23 ◼   ► industry rather than just one company or one type of thing.

00:02:26 ◼   ► Yeah, I agree. I mean, when we were talking about companies, I kept mentioning Amazon

00:02:30 ◼   ► too which I'm fascinated by. I'm a big Amazon. I mean, other than Apple, I think my number

00:02:35 ◼   ► two company whose services and products I consume, it's probably Amazon and then Google

00:02:40 ◼   ► below that. And there's a lot going on that's interesting. Obviously, as somebody who has

00:02:45 ◼   ► written about primarily Apple stuff and related for the last 20 years since I was a baby.

00:02:55 ◼   ► Obviously Apple is near and dear to my heart and what's that saying? If you cut me, I

00:03:00 ◼   ► bleed six colors? That is true. But I always take a skeptical view toward Apple and I'm

00:03:08 ◼   ► always taking an open view toward the other stuff that's going on. I think it's worth

00:03:13 ◼   ► talking about that and you can view that through a perspective of people as Apple product users

00:03:18 ◼   ► and as a perspective of people who are or are not and how it affects Apple and how it

00:03:23 ◼   ► affects the rest of technology. We're all using the web, web publishing and the evolution

00:03:30 ◼   ► of the web continues and Amazon is like I said a fascinating company too. So we have

00:03:35 ◼   ► lots to talk about and then if we want to you know horn in on Casey Liz's territory

00:03:40 ◼   ► we'll talk about feels a little bit too. So we can do that. Anything is possible, it's

00:03:45 ◼   ► episode one. There's a blank canvas before us, Myke.

00:03:48 ◼   ► Nothing's holding us back anymore. That's right. And I mean, you mentioned it.

00:03:53 ◼   ► I love podcasting. People who know me may know that I have been doing a podcast called

00:03:59 ◼   ► The Incomparable for about four years now that I started in my spare time, mostly because

00:04:04 ◼   ► I thought podcasting was really cool and I wanted to do more of it and I also wanted

00:04:08 ◼   ► to do something that wasn't in the auspices of my employer, something that I could make

00:04:12 ◼   ► and control and have it be exactly what I wanted it to be. And it has been that and

00:04:17 ◼   ► continues to be that and now has a bunch of spin-offs. And at Macworld, you know, I could

00:04:21 ◼   ► have forced things and said, "Look, I decree that the Macworld podcast will be my podcast

00:04:26 ◼   ► and it will only be me and I will, you know, I could do that." But the fact is Macworld

00:04:32 ◼   ► had a fantastic collection of people who wrote for it. And I wanted them to all have a chance.

00:04:41 ◼   ► And so since, you know, our feeling was that everybody who worked there, their technology

00:04:47 ◼   ► parts of their brain were really being taken up by their employer, that limited my outlet

00:04:53 ◼   ► in terms of tech podcasts. I've guested on a lot of them, but I didn't feel like I could

00:04:57 ◼   ► do one and I didn't really want to start another one inside IDG. So having left IDG last week,

00:05:06 ◼   ► when I knew that was happening, we started talking about it because I definitely do want

00:05:10 ◼   ► to do podcasts about technology. And rather than put them at the incomparable, which is

00:05:14 ◼   ► really about pop culture, I decided I didn't want to muddy those waters with technology.

00:05:19 ◼   ► I really love what you guys have been doing with Relay. And so here we are. So here we

00:05:24 ◼   ► go.

00:05:25 ◼   ► I feel like right now people are just clamoring to hear what we're about to talk about.

00:05:31 ◼   ► So we should probably give it to them.

00:05:33 ◼   ► I think you're probably right.

00:05:35 ◼   ► So as we stand today, my order is in and I'll talk about what phone I've ordered.

00:05:43 ◼   ► But you are one of the lucky chosen few and you have an or multiple iPhones in your possession

00:05:51 ◼   ► right now?

00:05:52 ◼   ► I do.

00:05:53 ◼   ► was one of the people that was fortunate enough to be given advanced access to the iPhone

00:05:56 ◼   ► 6, which comes after they announce it, but before they release it. And I've gone on and

00:06:03 ◼   ► off that list over the years, but I got on it this time, which was kind of awkward as

00:06:07 ◼   ► I was exiting Macworld, and so we sort of agreed that I would do one last review for

00:06:13 ◼   ► Macworld of the new model. So I have both. I have the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus.

00:06:17 ◼   ► I've had them since last week.

00:06:20 ◼   ► My review should be, if it's not up now, shortly on Macworld and maybe some other places

00:06:26 ◼   ► too, but, and then I'm talking about it with you here.

00:06:28 ◼   ► But yeah, so I've been able to play with them for the last little while and that's

00:06:34 ◼   ► been fun.

00:06:35 ◼   ► Before we talk about the products, I think something that interests so many people that

00:06:41 ◼   ► are outside of this chosen few, of which there are many people that would like to be in it.

00:06:50 ◼   ► I've always been very curious about what happens after the event is over. So the event's over,

00:06:58 ◼   ► you get led into this ominous cube this time, right, which is maybe a little bit different.

00:07:03 ◼   ► We worked out what the cube was for.

00:07:05 ◼   ► From the ground level, it wasn't ominous at all. It looked like a really big Apple store.

00:07:09 ◼   ► And it was just, it was exactly what we all thought it was going to be.

00:07:12 ◼   ► What we who go to these events, not the like Kremlinologists thought it was going to be,

00:07:17 ◼   ► which is a spaceship that would be combined with some sort of surgery practice that would

00:07:22 ◼   ► implant things in your head.

00:07:24 ◼   ► It was, it's a hands-on area.

00:07:26 ◼   ► And at Yerba Buena, where they often do these events, but that's a much smaller venue,

00:07:30 ◼   ► there is another building across the way from the main theater that was always set up as

00:07:34 ◼   ► the hands-on area.

00:07:35 ◼   ► But it was very small.

00:07:37 ◼   ► And so even with a smaller theater, there'd be a long wait.

00:07:39 ◼   ► There was actually, strangely enough, still a long wait to get into this thing.

00:07:42 ◼   ► It wasn't that huge, but it was, you know, they had a big area with iWatches or Apple

00:07:48 ◼   ► watches, sorry, on little stands.

00:07:51 ◼   ► And then they had areas where they had iPhones laid out on the tables and Apple employees

00:07:57 ◼   ► next to each station to show you and make, you know, how they work and also make sure

00:08:02 ◼   ► that you didn't steal them.

00:08:03 ◼   ► And then also some iWatches or Apple watches.

00:08:05 ◼   ► God, I've got to stop saying that.

00:08:06 ◼   ► It's too hard to not say it.

00:08:08 ◼   ► I know, I know.

00:08:09 ◼   ► Apple watches.

00:08:10 ◼   ► Why just watches?

00:08:11 ◼   ► It could be, it could be you.

00:08:13 ◼   ► It could be me.

00:08:13 ◼   ► Uh, and they had those with people too.

00:08:15 ◼   ► And that was funny because they had, um, the Apple employee would have one that

00:08:19 ◼   ► they would put on your wrist and it was running in a demo loop, so it wasn't

00:08:23 ◼   ► actually functional in any way.

00:08:24 ◼   ► It would show you things and it would vibrate.

00:08:26 ◼   ► So you could get the feel of like the weight of it and you could see what the

00:08:29 ◼   ► screen looked like and you could, you could feel what the haptic stuff, uh, felt

00:08:34 ◼   ► like but you couldn't actually use it and then separately while you had it on your wrist

00:08:38 ◼   ► then they would demo on their wrist a very limited set, basically a script of what they

00:08:45 ◼   ► could show you with the Apple Watch. So that was what that cube was.

00:08:51 ◼   ► It's clearly not ready. No, it's just like the original iPhone. When

00:08:54 ◼   ► I, at Macworld Expo back in 2007, I mean I was one of the people who got brought in to

00:09:00 ◼   ► see that thing. They brought in, I don't know, 20 or 30 members of the press to touch the

00:09:03 ◼   ► iPhone and use it. And there wasn't even a script. They're like, "Here, have this."

00:09:08 ◼   ► And I remember it was like warm and that display was, which it wasn't even retina, but it was

00:09:13 ◼   ► so high resolution compared to what we were used to. And it was such a weird feeling to

00:09:18 ◼   ► do it. But also I remember from that, that I tapped on like the contacts app and what

00:09:24 ◼   ► came up was obviously a fairly low resolution compressed JPEG of a screenshot of what the

00:09:30 ◼   ► contacts app might look like.

00:09:32 ◼   ► And I thought, "Okay."

00:09:34 ◼   ► I'll just back away from this one.

00:09:38 ◼   ► Touch any of the 11 apps that are here or however many there were and you found that

00:09:43 ◼   ► like four of them actually were there and the rest of them were sort of representations

00:09:47 ◼   ► because they just weren't working right yet.

00:09:49 ◼   ► And the Apple Watch felt like that.

00:09:52 ◼   ► It's not done.

00:09:53 ◼   ► We usually see Apple products when they're already being manufactured and they're going

00:09:57 ◼   ► to be shipping.

00:09:58 ◼   ► And the iWatch, Apple Watch, I'm just going to keep saying it, Apple Watch, Apple Watch,

00:10:01 ◼   ► Apple Watch, it is, I'll say it, it'll appear.

00:10:06 ◼   ► It's months away.

00:10:07 ◼   ► It's months away.

00:10:08 ◼   ► The software isn't done.

00:10:09 ◼   ► People are talking sort of conspiratorially about the battery life.

00:10:12 ◼   ► And all Apple will say is, "At the end of the day, you will charge it," which implies

00:10:17 ◼   ► it will still be functional at the end of the day.

00:10:20 ◼   ► But you know what?

00:10:21 ◼   ► They don't know.

00:10:22 ◼   ► trying very hard to shoot for a goal but they don't know what that battery life is really

00:10:27 ◼   ► going to be because the software is not done, the hardware might not be done.

00:10:31 ◼   ► So we're a long way off there and it's not ready.

00:10:36 ◼   ► You get one chance when you're launching a product category to pre-announce it and all

00:10:41 ◼   ► the other times you're going to kill your sales of the other product so you have to

00:10:45 ◼   ► wait.

00:10:46 ◼   ► But you can pre-announce and build interest one time, the first time and that's what they

00:10:50 ◼   ► did with the Apple Watch.

00:10:51 ◼   ► So yeah, it's totally not ready.

00:10:55 ◼   ► It's funny how not ready it was.

00:10:56 ◼   ► In fact, I tapped on one and the guy was like, "Oh, oh, you're not supposed to tap on that."

00:11:01 ◼   ► I tapped on one of the apps and it opened and it kind of looked weird and he's like,

00:11:05 ◼   ► "No, button, button, get us out of there."

00:11:08 ◼   ► Because I think I got off the script a little bit.

00:11:10 ◼   ► They didn't want us touching it.

00:11:14 ◼   ► You just reached in anyway.

00:11:16 ◼   ► I wanted to see about the tap targets because I was worried that the tap targets are so

00:11:19 ◼   ► small that if you want to launch an app are you really going to be able to get it? And

00:11:23 ◼   ► it did a good job. I mean, it launched the app and then the app was kind of funny, but

00:11:27 ◼   ► it worked pretty much like you would expect. I mean, I didn't miss it and launch another

00:11:34 ◼   ► app, but by doing this I launched an app that wasn't supposed to launch apparently.

00:11:39 ◼   ► So does everybody that gets invited to the event get to go into the press area and see

00:11:45 ◼   ► the devices?

00:11:47 ◼   ► I think so. I mean, most of the people there are press or they're VIPs and they all get

00:11:51 ◼   ► to be allowed in. And then there are Apple employees that probably don't because the

00:11:55 ◼   ► Apple employees are, you know, some Apple employees were there to see the unveiling

00:12:02 ◼   ► of it. But, you know, there was a fire marshal there. It's a very limited space. They were

00:12:08 ◼   ► letting people in as people left because they were at full capacity. So the press is all

00:12:14 ◼   ► allowed to go and we all have our little colored badges that indicate that we're

00:12:18 ◼   ► press and then the Apple employees I think are if they're supposed to be

00:12:22 ◼   ► there they can walk right in and if they're not supposed to be there then

00:12:24 ◼   ► they they're told to go away go home go back to work. They probably show it to

00:12:30 ◼   ► them another day or something if they... Probably so. So then how do you know if

00:12:37 ◼   ► you're going to be given one of one of these units do they come and find you?

00:12:42 ◼   ► How does that process work? For as much as you're able to say?

00:12:46 ◼   ► I don't know if it's secret or not.

00:12:49 ◼   ► John Gruber famously wrote about one of these, and it works like that.

00:12:56 ◼   ► You get a heads up in advance from Apple PR saying, "Hang around," or, "We'll meet you over here,"

00:13:03 ◼   ► or, "Here's a time. Come over here."

00:13:05 ◼   ► It can vary based on what they're doing.

00:13:08 ◼   ► Are they just handing you a product to walk away with?

00:13:10 ◼   ► with? Are they setting you up for a briefing? So there's a heads up, a high sign, a little

00:13:18 ◼   ► secret handshake that says, "Stick around." And when you don't get that, then you're like,

00:13:23 ◼   ► "Oh, okay. I guess I'm leaving with nothing, but I've been there."

00:13:28 ◼   ► You just kind of drag your feet around a little bit and look at people and be like, "Me? Do

00:13:33 ◼   ► you want me today?" But generally, traditionally, certainly in the Katie Cotton era of Apple

00:13:38 ◼   ► They wanted you to really keep it on the down low.

00:13:41 ◼   ► Like, don't mention this to anybody else and don't just be, you know, fly casual.

00:13:46 ◼   ► Come over here and we'll take you back into this other area where you'll wait for your

00:13:50 ◼   ► briefing.

00:13:51 ◼   ► Don't show off that you got a briefing and, "Yeah, I gotta go.

00:13:55 ◼   ► I got my secret product briefing," right?

00:13:57 ◼   ► They always sort of frowned on that.

00:13:59 ◼   ► That said, I did, as I was leaving the hands-on area, I ran into a writer of some note.

00:14:08 ◼   ► who was carrying an Apple logoed, you know, Apple store bag with a couple of boxes in it.

00:14:13 ◼   ► And I thought, well, those are your review units.

00:14:17 ◼   ► It was pretty funny. It was like, not quite a secret.

00:14:20 ◼   ► But then again, you know, what was that person going to do?

00:14:23 ◼   ► Were they going to hide it in a bag somewhere and deny all knowledge?

00:14:27 ◼   ► It does seem strange to me, though, to give you an Apple store bag

00:14:32 ◼   ► because, like, I know people are getting the phones that day

00:14:36 ◼   ► and everyone in the world knows where the event is.

00:14:39 ◼   ► So if you see somebody walking away with an Apple bag with a couple of boxes in it,

00:14:44 ◼   ► you know what's in the bag.

00:14:46 ◼   ► Right, and everybody knows.

00:14:47 ◼   ► I think Apple is not really as concerned about that.

00:14:49 ◼   ► They don't want people kind of flaunting their access.

00:14:54 ◼   ► But ultimately what Apple really doesn't want is public displays of the new devices.

00:14:59 ◼   ► So if that person had gone over to a TV crew and said,

00:15:02 ◼   ► "Let me show you this new thing," they would be in trouble.

00:15:05 ◼   ► But it's not quite, it seems to me, not as severe as it used to be. It used to be really like,

00:15:11 ◼   ► "You can't admit that this thing exists. You can't admit that you've been using it. You

00:15:14 ◼   ► can't show it to anybody." And now it's a little bit different. Now it seems to be more like,

00:15:19 ◼   ► no public exhibitions. But if I'm reading the rules right, I'm within my rights to use it,

00:15:26 ◼   ► and even for people to see it. But I can't write about it publicly. I can't go on somebody's TV

00:15:34 ◼   ► show and show it, anything like that. It's meant to be kind of, you know, people can

00:15:38 ◼   ► nod and say, "Oh, there's Jason. He's got the new iPhone." If they ask to look at it,

00:15:42 ◼   ► I probably, I might shake my head and say, "I can't really," or I might show it to them briefly,

00:15:47 ◼   ► but it's a private conversation and then I walk away. But you got to, you know, the idea is,

00:15:53 ◼   ► you've got this for some extra time so that you can work on your review and have it and then take

00:16:00 ◼   ► take your time with it. Don't turn this into a media opportunity for you to be the first

00:16:05 ◼   ► one to break the personal demo of this new device. The rules are shifting, I think, because

00:16:13 ◼   ► Apple PR's approach may be shifting, but generally it's kind of common sense.

00:16:18 ◼   ► So let's talk about the devices. How have you been using them? Have you been just distributing

00:16:25 ◼   ► your time between both because this is different right having two phones to look

00:16:29 ◼   ► at once. Yeah it is it is different I mean I've done that before when I

00:16:34 ◼   ► reviewed the iPads when there's on the iPad Air and an iPad Mini right I end up

00:16:38 ◼   ► with two and I think okay well here we go right this is so it's a little

00:16:45 ◼   ► different I put my SIM card from my 5s in the 6 and they come with sample you

00:16:52 ◼   ► temporary SIM cards. So they've got cell

00:16:54 ◼   ► access anyway. So I put that in my six

00:16:56 ◼   ► review unit so that I could get my phone

00:16:59 ◼   ► number on it and I could actually use it.

00:17:01 ◼   ► I set up, put in passwords and

00:17:04 ◼   ► stuff on that. On the bigger one,

00:17:06 ◼   ► I can't have them both be my phone.

00:17:09 ◼   ► So that one was still using

00:17:11 ◼   ► the demo SIM, the two-week

00:17:14 ◼   ► life, one-month life SIM card.

00:17:18 ◼   ► And yeah, and so I've used that some,

00:17:22 ◼   ► but I probably used the smaller one more

00:17:24 ◼   ► just because I feel like it's a better match

00:17:26 ◼   ► for how I use my current iPhone.

00:17:29 ◼   ► And I wanted to see that experience

00:17:30 ◼   ► where the other one seems a little further away

00:17:33 ◼   ► from my current frame of reference.

00:17:36 ◼   ► So yeah, I try to use both of them.

00:17:38 ◼   ► I brought them with me to Portland for XOXO

00:17:42 ◼   ► this past weekend and tried to use them there

00:17:44 ◼   ► and on the train and just get a sense

00:17:47 ◼   ► of what it's like to live with these things in your pocket.

00:17:51 ◼   ► That's the most important thing is to pull it out of your pocket and use it and see what's

00:17:56 ◼   ► different and how it feels different.

00:17:57 ◼   ► But you had some attention at Exo.

00:18:00 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:18:02 ◼   ► Like I said, fly casual.

00:18:03 ◼   ► You're just trying to walk around going, "Hey, anybody want to see the iPhone 6?"

00:18:08 ◼   ► You don't want to do that.

00:18:09 ◼   ► You don't want people taking pictures of you with it.

00:18:12 ◼   ► You don't want to do that.

00:18:13 ◼   ► How big are these funds?

00:18:15 ◼   ► Like I know people have shown, you know, printing off PDFs, I've seen people carving them out

00:18:21 ◼   ► of wood to make them on 3D printers, but you actually have the thing that you use and you've

00:18:26 ◼   ► been using it.

00:18:27 ◼   ► So, you know, it may be a certain size, but you know from use how big it feels when you're

00:18:33 ◼   ► tapping buttons and turning the volume up and down.

00:18:36 ◼   ► Is there a way that you can try and describe, compared to the 5S, what the 6 and the 6 Plus

00:18:42 ◼   ► feel like to use from how big they are?

00:18:45 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm still trying to process it.

00:18:51 ◼   ► The 6 doesn't feel as shocking as you might think.

00:18:56 ◼   ► Part of that is the curved edges.

00:18:58 ◼   ► It's got a much more curved feel like the iPads a little bit.

00:19:05 ◼   ► I mean, it really is sort of like taking on this other design

00:19:08 ◼   ► language that's been coming back with Apple devices

00:19:11 ◼   ► The iPod touch has a very curvy edge.

00:19:14 ◼   ► The iPads have a curvy edge and the iPhone since iPhone four has had the

00:19:18 ◼   ► straight edge, the, you know, 90 degree, it's got the metal ring around it and

00:19:22 ◼   ► these don't.

00:19:22 ◼   ► And so when you hold it in your hand, uh, the smaller one, especially it actually

00:19:28 ◼   ► doesn't feel that much bigger because it's thinner and because it's curved on

00:19:32 ◼   ► the edges.

00:19:32 ◼   ► And so I was expecting it to feel more kind of like dramatically oversized and

00:19:38 ◼   ► you get used to that pretty quickly.

00:19:40 ◼   ► So in that sense, I don't think it's a big deal.

00:19:43 ◼   ► In another sense, though, I think once you start using it, you realize that, um, you

00:19:50 ◼   ► realize that it is bigger because every now and then I try to reach my, my, my

00:19:54 ◼   ► finger or my thumb to a faraway point and it doesn't go like it used to.

00:20:00 ◼   ► And I realized some of my body language has to change because it is bigger.

00:20:04 ◼   ► Um, and when you're trying to reach for something far away on the other side of

00:20:08 ◼   ► the screen is when you really notice it.

00:20:09 ◼   ► Compared to the Plus? Well the Plus, there's no comparison. I mean I can hold it in my hand and it feels fine, but it is huge. I mean it's huge. I have tried to have an open mind to it. The big screen is nice. It's like half an iPad. I have an iPad Mini and it's not an iPad Mini, but it is pushing upward toward an iPad Mini from an iPhone.

00:20:38 ◼   ► from an iPhone. It's still an iPhone, but it is really big. Typing in landscape on the

00:20:46 ◼   ► iPhone 6 Plus, I actually felt like I was stretching my thumbs to reach the letters

00:20:52 ◼   ► in the center of the screen for thumb typing. It actually felt like not, I'm used to sort

00:20:57 ◼   ► of having my thumbs not stick straight, I could do it, but I didn't feel, it was kind

00:21:02 ◼   ► of a long way, I was surprised. I'm like, wow, this is a really large, really wide held

00:21:07 ◼   ► in that orientation, really wide keyboard that I'm typing on now. And I thumb type on

00:21:14 ◼   ► my iPad mini too, so it's not like I'm not used to stretching my thumbs. But it struck

00:21:18 ◼   ► me that this is a large device. It really is. You're going to notice how large it is.

00:21:23 ◼   ► I think iPhone 5 users will get used to the 6 pretty quickly. After a few days, your frame

00:21:30 ◼   ► of reference will change a little bit and I think it'll probably be fine. The 6 Plus

00:21:34 ◼   ► is just a different beast. It's totally different.

00:21:37 ◼   ► In the keynote, Fuschiller mentioned about the devices being curved. Did he mean, I haven't

00:21:46 ◼   ► seen anybody really clarify this, did he mean that the screens are curved or just the edges

00:21:50 ◼   ► are curved? No, just the edges. It's instead of having

00:21:52 ◼   ► that chamfered edge, we all learned that word and now it's useless because it's not there

00:21:57 ◼   ► anymore, instead of having that chamfered edge where you've got the sort of 90 degree

00:22:01 ◼   ► angle and then there's the little edge part that's at the 45 degree angle that's all shiny.

00:22:07 ◼   ► Instead it just, there's glasses on the front and then there's a curved metal back plate.

00:22:13 ◼   ► So it curves around to the back and as a result when you hold it in your hand you don't have

00:22:18 ◼   ► those, you don't feel those 90 degree angles as much. Instead what you get is this sort

00:22:25 ◼   ► of smooth curve. So I actually think it's got a more pleasant hand feel. Is that a thing?

00:22:30 ◼   ► More pleasant feel when you hold it in your hand.

00:22:32 ◼   ► I don't know, is it like mouth feel except it's hand feel

00:22:34 ◼   ► and suddenly we're cooking.

00:22:36 ◼   ► And it also reminds me of the original iPhone.

00:22:38 ◼   ► I think this is the, that had a curvy side thing

00:22:43 ◼   ► and this has got the same thing.

00:22:45 ◼   ► So it's, it reminds me of that.

00:22:48 ◼   ► Another thing that struck me about it is that the,

00:22:50 ◼   ► this is the first time on the iPhone

00:22:52 ◼   ► that the camera has stuck out.

00:22:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, that seemed like a really,

00:22:57 ◼   ► I'm surprised to have not seen more criticism of this because...

00:23:01 ◼   ► Apple didn't mention it, I wonder why.

00:23:04 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:23:05 ◼   ► This is something that you see lots of criticism that people levy towards Android phones, like

00:23:10 ◼   ► it has a lens or something that sticks out of the back.

00:23:14 ◼   ► Because so, the way that I've had devices like this, I've used devices like this, and

00:23:20 ◼   ► then when you lay it down on a desk and you press it, it rocks.

00:23:22 ◼   ► I assume that the iPhone does that?

00:23:25 ◼   ► It does a little bit, depending on where you press.

00:23:28 ◼   ► If you press right at the top, it's going to rock a little bit more.

00:23:32 ◼   ► As you get further down, it's really stable.

00:23:37 ◼   ► The camera lens pushes out.

00:23:38 ◼   ► It doesn't push out very far.

00:23:39 ◼   ► It pushes just at the lens.

00:23:41 ◼   ► There's not like a big bulge, but it is definitely a departure because it's not a completely

00:23:47 ◼   ► flat back.

00:23:48 ◼   ► Now, I never use my iPhone while it's laying on a flat surface.

00:23:54 ◼   ► I don't do that.

00:23:56 ◼   ► It's in my hand.

00:23:57 ◼   ► But if you do, you might notice a little bit of rocking.

00:24:01 ◼   ► It's true.

00:24:02 ◼   ► It's not as severe as if the whole back was curved

00:24:06 ◼   ► like on the iPhone 3G,

00:24:08 ◼   ► but it is real because it is sticking out.

00:24:11 ◼   ► It doesn't stick out very far either,

00:24:13 ◼   ► but I think this is one of those cases

00:24:15 ◼   ► where Apple just, they wanted the product to be thin.

00:24:18 ◼   ► They are obsessed with the product being as thin as possible

00:24:20 ◼   ► and it is thinner than any previous iPhone.

00:24:23 ◼   ► but the laws of physics require that you have some space for the optics in a camera and they

00:24:29 ◼   ► know how important having a good camera is and they've you know spent a lot of time in the in the

00:24:34 ◼   ► event talking about how great this new camera is and those two things fight against each other and

00:24:41 ◼   ► so they finally decided to just kind of hold their breath and have it stick out and just deal with it.

00:24:46 ◼   ► Did they need to shave those millimeters off do you think?

00:24:51 ◼   ► I don't know. I mean, I don't know about the weight. I mean, the weight feels good, and I wonder if it was thicker.

00:24:56 ◼   ► Would it feel as comfortable in my hand if it was thicker, and would it weigh more?

00:25:01 ◼   ► Because presumably if they made it thicker, they'd add more battery or something like that to it.

00:25:06 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:25:07 ◼   ► Which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, by the way.

00:25:10 ◼   ► But they have a lot of variables that they're solving for.

00:25:13 ◼   ► They're solving for battery life, and they're solving for lightness, and they're solving for thinness,

00:25:16 ◼   ► and they're also solving for camera quality.

00:25:20 ◼   ► and you make some tough choices and you know they seem to be comfortable with their battery

00:25:26 ◼   ► life that they have on iPhones, which a lot of people aren't, but Apple seems to be comfortable

00:25:31 ◼   ► with it.

00:25:32 ◼   ► And they want it to be thin and they sacrifice that completely flat back to also have the

00:25:38 ◼   ► camera be good.

00:25:40 ◼   ► Let's talk about the Retina HD screens.

00:25:44 ◼   ► Does Retina HD mean anything or is it just a marking term?

00:25:48 ◼   ► Like can you see a difference in these screens and how they look like the color reproduction,

00:25:54 ◼   ► things like that?

00:25:55 ◼   ► I, you know, I wear glasses.

00:25:59 ◼   ► I can't see much of a difference.

00:26:03 ◼   ► We're talking about resolutions that are so high that they are the retina, the whole idea

00:26:09 ◼   ► of the retina thing is that it's beyond our ability to perceive.

00:26:12 ◼   ► I mean if you zoom in or you have great vision and can look really closely, you could probably

00:26:18 ◼   ► tell some difference. I think, I mean, it's a marketing term. In fact, I think it's

00:26:22 ◼   ► sort of a redundant marketing term, right? I mean, I already, Retina was already HD,

00:26:26 ◼   ► I think. But although this is capable of, you know, 1080, beyond 1080, but, you know,

00:26:32 ◼   ► it's, I don't know, they just wanted a marketing term that it's better than Retina.

00:26:36 ◼   ► And so rather than say better than Retina, they say Retina HD. It's, what they're

00:26:42 ◼   ► doing that's interesting is that they're technically what they're doing is very much what happened

00:26:49 ◼   ► with the Retina MacBook Pro.

00:26:51 ◼   ► Which is your prediction by the way. Bravo on that one.

00:26:55 ◼   ► Yes, I nailed it.

00:26:56 ◼   ► Yeah, completely.

00:26:57 ◼   ► Well this seems to be… So Apple at some point decided high resolution screens don't

00:27:01 ◼   ► need to be pixel perfect. Apple was a one to one pixel perfect company for a long time.

00:27:05 ◼   ► And when the Retina MacBook Pro came out, and I remember we actually at WWDC we got

00:27:11 ◼   ► one at Macworld and we did a party that day or the next day and Marco Arment took the

00:27:18 ◼   ► Retina MacBook Pro and was doing all this crazy stuff to it during the party.

00:27:22 ◼   ► And one of the things we found out is that if you take a screenshot on the Retina MacBook

00:27:25 ◼   ► Pro, it's larger than the physical resolution of the screen.

00:27:28 ◼   ► It's like, "What is happening?"

00:27:30 ◼   ► And the answer is, "How is this possible?"

00:27:33 ◼   ► Apple decided that the scaling in the GPU is so powerful and the screens are so high

00:27:40 ◼   ► resolution, that you're actually better off rendering your display at a larger

00:27:45 ◼   ► resolution and then just scaling it to fit the screen. And back, anybody who was

00:27:49 ◼   ► trained in the days of lower resolution flat panels, the idea that you would do

00:27:54 ◼   ► anything but one-to-one, it's like you get a fuzzy screen because then it has to

00:27:59 ◼   ► anti-alias everything on the screen and everything looks bad, everything looks

00:28:02 ◼   ► fuzzy. But what Apple found out when they were building the Retina MacBook Pro is

00:28:07 ◼   ► that above a certain DPI you can't tell that it's scaled because the anti-aliasing,

00:28:14 ◼   ► the pixels that are fuzzy because they're actually between pixels, are so small as to

00:28:19 ◼   ► be imperceptible to the human eye and when you step back it looks fine. And that was

00:28:25 ◼   ► the premise of the Retina MacBook Pro. That's what that machine does and that's why you

00:28:30 ◼   ► can change the size of what goes on the screen to a whole... there's like a slider. In the

00:28:37 ◼   ► the iPhone 6, that's what they're doing. Certainly on the 6 Plus. I'm not sure whether

00:28:41 ◼   ► they're doing it on the regular 6, but on the 6 Plus for sure, that's what they're

00:28:46 ◼   ► doing. They're scaling it at a large resolution and then scaling it down. So they're drawing

00:28:52 ◼   ► it big, scaling it down. You can't tell, really, but it's going to make a difference

00:28:58 ◼   ► for developers because the rules have changed, have really changed. They're not one-to-one

00:29:04 ◼   ► anymore. But, you know, for users, you're not going to be able to tell. And it actually

00:29:14 ◼   ► enables them to do some other interesting things. Like there's essentially a large print

00:29:18 ◼   ► mode. I forget what it's called in the iPhone 6 Plus where you can make it, you can make

00:29:24 ◼   ► just everything bigger. So you can opt to either have more information on this giant

00:29:28 ◼   ► screen or just have it be like a regular iPhone screen big. Like all the words are big, all

00:29:33 ◼   ► the icons are big. And that's all because now they're sort of free scaling it. They're

00:29:37 ◼   ► happy to scale the screen to any number of ways you might do it. And so that's an interesting

00:29:44 ◼   ► approach. So they're very much kind of like they've gone off the there's one X and then

00:29:48 ◼   ► there was like there's two X. But it's all pixel perfect. There's just four pixels there

00:29:53 ◼   ► instead of one. Now we are living in a scaled display world for the iPhone. And so yeah,

00:30:02 ◼   ► going to be different. But the screens, the Retina HD, which is where we started with

00:30:06 ◼   ► this, are so high resolution that it lets them get away with it.

00:30:10 ◼   ► Do you see any difference between the two? I mean, obviously the Plus has like a million

00:30:16 ◼   ► more pixels. Can you see any of those million? Like, when you put those phones next to each

00:30:23 ◼   ► other, can you see that there is a more dense screen on the Plus than there is on the 6?

00:30:32 ◼   ► I can't, but like I said, I wear glasses. I think what you see is that they're more

00:30:38 ◼   ► pixels because the thing is huge. In terms, I mean, if I hold them right up to my face,

00:30:44 ◼   ► this is what I'm doing right now, I mean, I can't see the pixels on the smaller one.

00:30:49 ◼   ► So I certainly can't see them on the bigger one. So the question is, why would you add

00:30:54 ◼   ► pixel density when you can't see it? And this is the answer. The answer is you do it

00:31:00 ◼   ► so that you can scale the screen in different ways and nobody knows that you're scaling

00:31:05 ◼   ► it because it's so high resolution. In fact, the other place where there's scaling is

00:31:10 ◼   ► when you're running an app that hasn't been modified to support the new screen sizes.

00:31:15 ◼   ► This is what happens. It just gets scaled. And you can kind of tell that it's scaled

00:31:20 ◼   ► if it's a bitmap resource, it's a graphic or something versus text. But it looks pretty

00:31:27 ◼   ► good and the reason it looks good is that that high resolution screen is so

00:31:31 ◼   ► high resolution that a lot of the artifacts that you would notice for

00:31:36 ◼   ► scaling are too small to see and it all just kind of comes out in the wash so I

00:31:41 ◼   ► guess that's the rationale for having a super high res or let's say retina HD

00:31:46 ◼   ► screen is is for scaling stuff and not because you're actually seeing those

00:31:52 ◼   ► pixels because from you know if you've got even normal eyesight you take a look

00:31:57 ◼   ► and you can't see the dots. You still can't see the dots. So that's not any different.

00:32:04 ◼   ► Should we stop and talk about something, as Casey would say, something cool?

00:32:08 ◼   ► Of course we should. Thank you so much for doing that.

00:32:10 ◼   ► It's episode one. We're learning here, but we do have sponsors. I don't want to forget

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00:34:17 ◼   ► Thank you.

00:34:18 ◼   ► I actually have a bow, but I'm going with that one instead.

00:34:21 ◼   ► We have the A8.

00:34:23 ◼   ► Yes.

00:34:25 ◼   ► As opposed to the A7.

00:34:27 ◼   ► It's one more.

00:34:29 ◼   ► Another A. It's one bigger.

00:34:32 ◼   ► Is there any perceptible difference between the models?

00:34:35 ◼   ► Oh, perceptible.

00:34:37 ◼   ► Why did you have to say perceptible?

00:34:39 ◼   ► Testably, yeah.

00:34:40 ◼   ► Testably, they are different.

00:34:45 ◼   ► actually exactly what we saw last year with the iPad Air and the iPad Mini Retina, where

00:34:52 ◼   ► at the event we all thought, "Oh, they're essentially the same specs. It isn't like

00:34:57 ◼   ► an older chip or anything in the Mini, they're the same." And then when it came time to test

00:35:01 ◼   ► them we realized, "Well, they're the same except that the A7 running in the Mini was

00:35:10 ◼   ► running at a lower clock speed probably to save on battery. This is the case now

00:35:17 ◼   ► too. The iPhone 6 Plus is running at like 1.4 gigahertz and the 6 is running at 1.2

00:35:26 ◼   ► gigahertz so the 6 Plus is faster a bit than the 6 because it's running at a

00:35:34 ◼   ► higher clock speed so it's perceptible I don't know I mean it's really hard to

00:35:39 ◼   ► tell. They are really similar, they're really close, they're both

00:35:46 ◼   ► faster than the 5s but not, I would say not hugely so. I'm sure

00:35:55 ◼   ► there are ways where we're going to notice but this is actually, there was a

00:35:58 ◼   ► really interesting chart at the event last week where they showed the

00:36:03 ◼   ► incredible march of processor performance from the original iPhone.

00:36:09 ◼   ► And what we all noticed watching it was that used to be a chart that just kept

00:36:14 ◼   ► accelerating and it didn't accelerate this time. The curve started to bend the other way.

00:36:23 ◼   ► Well the last, the A7 was so much faster than the A6. It was twice as fast.

00:36:28 ◼   ► was dramatically faster. It's hard to keep that up.

00:36:31 ◼   ► So it went from 32 to 64, right? That was the main reason for that, I assume.

00:36:35 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah. I mean, and there was some other stuff too, but I mean, they, they, it was

00:36:38 ◼   ► a huge leap for them. And this time they didn't, the AA doesn't make a huge leap. As far as

00:36:43 ◼   ► we can tell, it is just faster. It is, I mean, they said it's like 20% faster. It is faster

00:36:47 ◼   ► than the A7, but the, it looks to me like the performance gains that they've been able

00:36:52 ◼   ► to eke out as they've been growing the A processor line are slowing down now. It's not like the

00:37:01 ◼   ► processors are slow or the processors are still faster, but they're only, whatever,

00:37:06 ◼   ► 20 or 30 percent faster instead of twice as fast. And so, yeah, that's a sign of something

00:37:12 ◼   ► that Apple, maybe just that Apple couldn't keep up those speed increases because they

00:37:18 ◼   ► were really crazy for a while. I think that team was eking out every possible last bit

00:37:23 ◼   ► of performance. What I thought was interesting is that they compared themselves with the

00:37:28 ◼   ► competition and talked about how they can run at those faster rates for longer. And

00:37:34 ◼   ► that is a way, when you're comparing it to other devices, that it can win. And it

00:37:41 ◼   ► is totally faster than the iPhone 5S with the A7, there's no doubt about it. But it's

00:37:47 ◼   ► It's only 20% faster. It's good, but it's also interesting to note that it's not like

00:37:56 ◼   ► they doubled it again. Last time was a huge leap and this is a more incremental push forward.

00:38:03 ◼   ► You can't keep doubling it. Eventually, it becomes too powerful.

00:38:11 ◼   ► Probably not every year. That's the other thing. They might be able to make it more

00:38:16 ◼   ► powerful but they also have to balance it with the fact that they've got a

00:38:18 ◼   ► battery and battery technology doesn't necessarily evolve as fast as chip

00:38:22 ◼   ► technology does and power management is a huge part of what they're

00:38:26 ◼   ► designing here because some of this is using less power or ramping up to

00:38:31 ◼   ► those high speeds more efficiently so that they don't kill the battery because

00:38:34 ◼   ► if you kill the battery it doesn't matter how fast you go. So it's a tough

00:38:38 ◼   ► balancing act. This is some serious science but it is faster.

00:38:44 ◼   ► They are continuing their march.

00:38:46 ◼   ► It's just, it looks like maybe it's gonna go

00:38:49 ◼   ► at a little bit of a slower pace now

00:38:51 ◼   ► because they've made up so much ground

00:38:53 ◼   ► over the last few years.

00:38:54 ◼   ► I mean, it is dramatic how much faster these devices

00:38:56 ◼   ► have been than the ones four years ago even.

00:39:01 ◼   ► But now it looks like it'll be a little bit shorter march,

00:39:04 ◼   ► a little bit slower march than before.

00:39:06 ◼   ► On the graphics side, by the way,

00:39:08 ◼   ► that's an interesting case where,

00:39:11 ◼   ► You know, these screens have a lot of pixels.

00:39:16 ◼   ► And so you would actually expect that it would be hard for them to keep up with a smaller display.

00:39:26 ◼   ► And that actually is not the case.

00:39:29 ◼   ► These devices, the graphics abilities on these is pretty impressive.

00:39:36 ◼   ► because they're able to eke out really great benchmark scores with, you know, I don't know if there's some scaling going on or if it's at full resolution or what, but the graphics power in these things is amazing.

00:39:49 ◼   ► They have definitely cranked up the graphics power, and that's something that's hard to pick up because they have a bigger screen.

00:39:55 ◼   ► It's not like a Mac where you can plug it into the same screen and run all the tests. They have a bigger screen, so they have more pixels to draw or scale or whatever.

00:40:02 ◼   ► whatever. And every time you make a bigger screen, you have to improve the graphics performance

00:40:07 ◼   ► or it's going to slow down because it has to draw all those extra pixels. And Apple's

00:40:13 ◼   ► not kidding when they said that the graphics performance is up because it is. I ran some

00:40:18 ◼   ► tests and it's a yeah, they put in the horsepower to draw these on these giant displays and

00:40:25 ◼   ► scale and all of those things. And the result for a regular person is they still work like

00:40:29 ◼   ► an iPhone, they don't feel slower, they probably feel faster if you really paid attention.

00:40:35 ◼   ► Is there any indication that there's more RAM in these devices?

00:40:41 ◼   ► How much RAM? I think not. I mean, I need to do some more investigating there, but when

00:40:47 ◼   ► I ran Geekbench on them all, they all reported basically a gig.

00:40:56 ◼   ► gig. All right, because I think that's what the 5s had. So I and and that and yeah when I ran that

00:41:02 ◼   ► number on the on the 6 the 6 plus and the 5s they all gave me essentially the same response so I

00:41:07 ◼   ► think I think not. I could be wrong because one of the challenges of using benchmark apps when a

00:41:14 ◼   ► product isn't out yet is there may be bugs because the benchmark people need to look at the new

00:41:20 ◼   ► product and find ways that they can make sure it's testing things appropriately where I have to sort

00:41:25 ◼   ► of do some tests on my own but yeah they seemed to have the same

00:41:29 ◼   ► amount of memory as the 5S does.

00:41:32 ◼   ► Like you didn't notice that you could have more Safari tabs open or

00:41:35 ◼   ► there wasn't anything really noticeable that you've seen

00:41:39 ◼   ► that would suggest this. I didn't try to open a billion Safari tabs which I

00:41:43 ◼   ► probably should do but it seemed to be pretty much

00:41:47 ◼   ► pretty much the same. Can we talk about the interface additions

00:41:51 ◼   ► a little bit? Sure. So there's obviously there is a few more of these on

00:41:55 ◼   ► the Plus. And I'm personally really interested in the keyboard.

00:41:59 ◼   ► Mm-hmm, yes. Keyboard is one of the big changes with these models. They're

00:42:03 ◼   ► picking up some features that are, it turns out, are iOS 8 features that we

00:42:08 ◼   ► didn't know about because there wasn't a device that could use them and now here

00:42:12 ◼   ► they are. So is it just the Plus that has these additional keyboard features?

00:42:18 ◼   ► No. No, in fact, so on both of these, when you're in portrait mode, what you get is a keyboard.

00:42:28 ◼   ► It is the keyboard you would expect. However, one of the nice things about it, I'm opening them on both of them right now,

00:42:35 ◼   ► one of the nice things about it is that the keyboard is bigger. Like, the keys are bigger in portrait mode.

00:42:42 ◼   ► So even though it's just the same old keyboard, the keys are larger.

00:42:47 ◼   ► And having more room to hit those keys, it really does help.

00:42:52 ◼   ► On the Plus especially, that is a pretty big keyboard.

00:42:55 ◼   ► It's not quite iPad size, but you've got more room to hit those letters and not hit

00:43:02 ◼   ► the one next to them.

00:43:04 ◼   ► But it's the familiar keyboard.

00:43:05 ◼   ► And obviously in iOS 8, you're going to be able to swap that out for a different keyboard.

00:43:09 ◼   ► But in landscape is where the situation totally changes.

00:43:13 ◼   ► They are taking advantage of the extra width on these displays to add extra keys on the

00:43:22 ◼   ► sides.

00:43:23 ◼   ► So basically the 6 gets an extra column of keys on either side of the keyboard.

00:43:30 ◼   ► And the 6 Plus gets two extra columns of keys on either side of the keyboard.

00:43:35 ◼   ► with it with a default keyboard and again you can switch it out for

00:43:38 ◼   ► something else. So on the 6 what happens is the microphone, an undo button, a comma

00:43:45 ◼   ► and emojis are on the left side. I imagine that for other people who don't

00:43:52 ◼   ► speak an emoji that would be the international button. I speak an emoji.

00:43:56 ◼   ► And on the right side you get a back and previous cursor button and a period and

00:44:02 ◼   ► and then also the expand and hide keyboard button is over there.

00:44:07 ◼   ► So that back and previous, that moves the cursor, because they didn't mention it in the keynote,

00:44:13 ◼   ► and I have been dying to know.

00:44:15 ◼   ► Yeah, that's the...

00:44:16 ◼   ► It moves the cursor back and forth.

00:44:17 ◼   ► It moves the cursor.

00:44:18 ◼   ► Yep.

00:44:19 ◼   ► So a little cursor action, just one, you know, it literally moves the cursor back or forward for editing purposes.

00:44:27 ◼   ► Now on the plus, it gets even crazier.

00:44:30 ◼   ► easier. On the plus, you get a—there's a cut, copy, and paste button. So there's

00:44:40 ◼   ► each—there are three buttons. There's little scissors, a little sort of like box

00:44:45 ◼   ► with an A with another one behind it, and a bottle of paste, I guess. It's kind of

00:44:52 ◼   ► funny, kind of literal. But you got to do something. So there are those. So you can

00:44:57 ◼   ► literally, you know, select some text, copy, move somewhere else, press paste, and it does

00:45:01 ◼   ► all of that. There's a bold button, which will bold your text like you think. Somebody

00:45:09 ◼   ► at Apple hates italics because there is not an italics button. Undo microphone emoji,

00:45:16 ◼   ► and then on the right side you've got left and right, and now it's got exclamation

00:45:19 ◼   ► point, question mark, period, and comma over there. So it's trying, obviously, I mean,

00:45:25 ◼   ► They've been thinking about what common uses are when you're in the keyboard mode,

00:45:31 ◼   ► and these are the things that they think are most common to float to the top level.

00:45:35 ◼   ► You can still flick over to symbols and numbers and things like that, but they brought a lot

00:45:40 ◼   ► of this stuff up to the top.

00:45:41 ◼   ► So yeah, there's a lot there on the plus, but even on the regular six, you've got

00:45:47 ◼   ► undo, period, comma, and some cursor movement happening.

00:45:52 ◼   ► You mentioned earlier about it hurting to kind of fun type on the 6+ right?

00:45:59 ◼   ► It doesn't hurt but you can feel that you're reaching further and that it's further out

00:46:04 ◼   ► of sort of what you're used to when you're typing.

00:46:07 ◼   ► My thumbs are lazy, they don't like to travel far.

00:46:12 ◼   ► So two questions.

00:46:16 ◼   ► Is it still too small to kind of do any hunt and peck typing?

00:46:20 ◼   ► if you put it down on the table, are the keys there too small to do that kind of typing

00:46:27 ◼   ► with?

00:46:28 ◼   ► I don't know how you type. I wouldn't – my iPad method for typing with two hands

00:46:36 ◼   ► would not work on these. It's too small for that. I think thumb typing or holding

00:46:45 ◼   ► it in one hand and poking with the other finger on the other hand are probably better input

00:46:50 ◼   ► methods but who knows I think I think you could I think you'd need to not use

00:46:54 ◼   ► your thumbs because that's what always what I want to do with the iPad keyboard

00:46:58 ◼   ► is is space with my thumb and there's just no room on this I you just hit

00:47:04 ◼   ► whatever is below the phone it's just you can't it's just it's a little too

00:47:09 ◼   ► compact because it still needs to show the upper part of the screen so you can

00:47:12 ◼   ► see the content so it's it's wide but it's not super tall it's just wide and

00:47:17 ◼   ► and is it possible to get a split keyboard?

00:47:20 ◼   ► - That is a great question.

00:47:23 ◼   ► I don't think so.

00:47:27 ◼   ► I'm actually trying that right now.

00:47:29 ◼   ► - Try pinching apart.

00:47:31 ◼   ► So the way that you can do this on the iPad, I didn't know.

00:47:34 ◼   ► If you just put like two fingers in the middle

00:47:36 ◼   ► of the keyboard and just pull it apart,

00:47:38 ◼   ► it will split on the iPad.

00:47:41 ◼   ► Doesn't work.

00:47:42 ◼   ► Okay, that's interesting to me that they have not done that.

00:47:44 ◼   ► - Nice try.

00:47:45 ◼   ► Well, this is the thing is they made

00:47:46 ◼   ► some very interesting choices about how iPad-y especially the Plus is and how iPhone-y it

00:47:52 ◼   ► is. And every time I think it's going to behave like an iPad, it basically doesn't. It has

00:47:59 ◼   ► a layout that is sort of like, it reminisces on the iPad in the sense that you can have

00:48:05 ◼   ► a column on the left for your mail and show the mail on the right, which we've only seen

00:48:09 ◼   ► on the iPad up to now. But below that, you know, it's still not the iPad and there

00:48:16 ◼   ► are lots of other changes that don't, they're, you know, it's an iPhone. It reminds you

00:48:21 ◼   ► like, "No, this is an iPhone. I'm not going to let you do these crazy iPad things that

00:48:25 ◼   ► you think the iPad should do because I'm not an iPhone or I'm not an iPad, I'm an iPhone."

00:48:29 ◼   ► So it's funny. It's just enough to make you start thinking, "Oh, this is like the iPad."

00:48:36 ◼   ► And then you realize, nope, it's not.

00:48:38 ◼   ► So let's talk about that then, because I'm super interested in this.

00:48:41 ◼   ► So they showed on stage some of the Apple apps taking advantage of the additional screen

00:48:47 ◼   ► real estate and showing some more iPad-like assets.

00:48:52 ◼   ► Is this just on the Plus or is this on both?

00:48:56 ◼   ► So like showing messages with the split pane view and things like that.

00:49:00 ◼   ► is so apparently there's a concept in the UI now that's something like a large sized display

00:49:10 ◼   ► for phones and it's like responsive design on the web where below a certain size it uses A and above

00:49:19 ◼   ► it uses B and the plus is above it in landscape and the 6 is not. And so almost nothing, there's

00:49:32 ◼   ► a whole class of features that only exist on the plus. So in the notes or settings or

00:49:37 ◼   ► mail app, on the plus, if you put the phone on its side, you will get that extra column

00:49:44 ◼   ► on the left, that doesn't happen on the phone. The regular iPhone 6 doesn't happen. It's

00:49:50 ◼   ► just like your iPhone today. It doesn't… and that's… so the breakpoint is in there

00:49:54 ◼   ► somewhere between the little… I keep saying it's a little phone and it's not because

00:50:00 ◼   ► it's bigger than the iPhone now, but the smaller of the two. And the larger of the

00:50:05 ◼   ► two has all of this. So not only does it do things like putting the column there, it's

00:50:09 ◼   ► It's got a landscape springboard, the home screen, which no iPhone has had before.

00:50:19 ◼   ► And what's even wackier about that is that because this is a 16x9 device instead of a

00:50:24 ◼   ► 4x3 device like the iPads, the dock rotates.

00:50:28 ◼   ► The dock is on the right side of your screen with the items in the dock stacked.

00:50:35 ◼   ► It's crazy!

00:50:38 ◼   ► So that's very interesting, and the animation for that is actually really funny.

00:50:42 ◼   ► Just on the Plus, where when you rotate it, it's like the dock goes away, and then obviously

00:50:49 ◼   ► it's run behind your phone, and it goes all the way back to the other side, and then it

00:50:52 ◼   ► pops in on the other side.

00:50:54 ◼   ► It's very strange.

00:50:55 ◼   ► Hey buddy!

00:50:56 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:50:57 ◼   ► Here I am.

00:50:58 ◼   ► What?

00:50:59 ◼   ► Did something happen?

00:51:00 ◼   ► I'm right here.

00:51:01 ◼   ► But so yeah, so a lot of these tricks are only on the Plus.

00:51:04 ◼   ► The Plus is a weird new device that is between what we think of as an iPhone today and the

00:51:13 ◼   ► iPad, but it's not either.

00:51:16 ◼   ► It's following some rules that are in between.

00:51:19 ◼   ► And for developers especially, that's going to be a challenge because they're going to

00:51:22 ◼   ► need to think, "What is my…" and Apple provided the tools for them to do this, but

00:51:27 ◼   ► they've got to think, "What am I going to do in these different device sizes?

00:51:30 ◼   ► What do I want the behavior to be?"

00:51:32 ◼   ► And I think Apple has obviously given them some guidance by making some decisions on

00:51:37 ◼   ► its apps, but it'll be interesting to see how other developers use it.

00:51:41 ◼   ► Because it's not, you know, it's like a really, really tiny iPad, and sometimes that will

00:51:45 ◼   ► be good enough.

00:51:46 ◼   ► And other times you'll be like, you know, it's too cramped, and you should just use

00:51:50 ◼   ► your iPhone layout, because it's just there's too much stuff on that screen.

00:51:53 ◼   ► Even though it's a big screen, it's not the size of an iPad.

00:51:57 ◼   ► So I'm going to assume, but I want to ask the question anyway to make sure, that current

00:52:03 ◼   ► universal apps do not show you this iPad view.

00:52:11 ◼   ► I'm assuming that they have to be iOS 8 developed with the new layout stuff.

00:52:19 ◼   ► iPad apps are iPad apps, and so they don't run on an iPhone.

00:52:22 ◼   ► They don't run on an iPhone.

00:52:24 ◼   ► If it's an iPad only app, that's not the point.

00:52:26 ◼   ► is an iPhone. And so it will run in iPhone mode if it's a universal app, and if it

00:52:34 ◼   ► hasn't been updated, they will scale it up. And like I said before, the scaling up looks

00:52:38 ◼   ► okay. They don't letterbox it or anything. These are all 16x9 devices, even the 5s, right?

00:52:44 ◼   ► So they will all just scale until they get updated to support the larger screen sizes.

00:52:52 ◼   ► you know, that's it. And for iPad app developers, they're going to have to make

00:52:57 ◼   ► the decision, "Do I want to make an iPhone version?" I don't think they have the

00:53:00 ◼   ► ability to make a version that only runs on the Plus. They have to commit to doing

00:53:04 ◼   ► an iPhone version of their app and then decide what shows up in these various

00:53:08 ◼   ► places. So it's going to be a challenge for people who really segregated the

00:53:11 ◼   ► iPhone and the iPad. If they've got both versions, they can just make their iPhone

00:53:15 ◼   ► version, maybe inherit some of the features. If they've only done iPad but

00:53:20 ◼   ► want to be on the iPhone 6 Plus, they're going to need to do an iPhone version of their app,

00:53:26 ◼   ► because that's how they're going to get it. So it's funny. It's the biggest wrinkle in being an

00:53:34 ◼   ► iOS user and especially for developers since the iPad came out, because this is a totally

00:53:43 ◼   ► different class of device that's in between the other two.

00:53:47 ◼   ► So my concern is that there's going to be an issue with this.

00:53:57 ◼   ► I feel like many developers will choose the 6,

00:54:02 ◼   ► as I think many people-- I think in our little bubble

00:54:05 ◼   ► will choose the 6 and not the 6 Plus.

00:54:08 ◼   ► So my concern would be that there

00:54:12 ◼   ► won't be enough dedicated development

00:54:15 ◼   ► to take advantage of that screen size.

00:54:17 ◼   ► Like in the way that, especially since iOS 7,

00:54:20 ◼   ► it seems really that iPad development has slowed down.

00:54:24 ◼   ► - Right.

00:54:26 ◼   ► - My concern is that there won't be enough,

00:54:29 ◼   ► like, advantage taken of this larger display.

00:54:34 ◼   ► I mean, I know it's so early,

00:54:35 ◼   ► but do you have any sort of feel for that?

00:54:38 ◼   ► - You know, I think obviously good developers,

00:54:41 ◼   ► developers who really care about this stuff,

00:54:43 ◼   ► they're gonna buy one of these

00:54:45 ◼   ► just because they're going to want to have it for reference.

00:54:47 ◼   ► And yes, you can also develop in the simulator.

00:54:49 ◼   ► The simulator will simulate this device

00:54:51 ◼   ► and you can see this is how it looks on this device

00:54:54 ◼   ► versus this other device.

00:54:55 ◼   ► But in reality, let's be honest,

00:55:00 ◼   ► the thing that you carry around with you

00:55:01 ◼   ► in your pocket every day

00:55:03 ◼   ► is going to be the most influential device.

00:55:05 ◼   ► It's going to be.

00:55:06 ◼   ► If you're a developer,

00:55:07 ◼   ► it's going to be the most influential device.

00:55:09 ◼   ► So you might even have a 6+ around,

00:55:11 ◼   ► but if the 6 is the one that's in your pocket all the time,

00:55:14 ◼   ► It can't, even the most conscientious developer

00:55:18 ◼   ► has to fight against the idea that it's an afterthought

00:55:20 ◼   ► because it's not their daily use.

00:55:23 ◼   ► That said, I do think a lot of developers are going to say,

00:55:27 ◼   ► "Oh, this is great.

00:55:28 ◼   ► "I can take these decisions that I made

00:55:31 ◼   ► "for my iPad layouts and apply them."

00:55:36 ◼   ► And in addition to that, I also will do,

00:55:39 ◼   ► all the other things you need to do

00:55:41 ◼   ► to support these other sizes

00:55:42 ◼   ► and have some scalable layouts

00:55:45 ◼   ► instead of pixel perfect layouts,

00:55:47 ◼   ► they probably wanna do that anyway, right?

00:55:50 ◼   ► Because they don't wanna have a scaled up

00:55:51 ◼   ► iPhone app on the 6.

00:55:53 ◼   ► And if they're doing that

00:55:54 ◼   ► and they've got some previous iPad work,

00:55:57 ◼   ► they could probably put it together.

00:55:58 ◼   ► But that is an extra direction to go.

00:56:01 ◼   ► And depending on how well this sells,

00:56:04 ◼   ► they might not choose to do it.

00:56:06 ◼   ► Especially, I mean, you talk about

00:56:08 ◼   ► the context that you live in.

00:56:09 ◼   ► I mean, it's not just the phone in your pocket,

00:56:11 ◼   ► It's the country that you live in.

00:56:16 ◼   ► I live in the United States of America, by the way, Myke.

00:56:19 ◼   ► Yee-haw.

00:56:20 ◼   ► No comment.

00:56:21 ◼   ► Okay.

00:56:22 ◼   ► Actually, I'm sorry.

00:56:24 ◼   ► I live in the state of California, Myke.

00:56:26 ◼   ► We're our own.

00:56:28 ◼   ► The independent state.

00:56:29 ◼   ► It's the US out of California.

00:56:31 ◼   ► Anyway, yeah.

00:56:33 ◼   ► So this one's going to sell really well in Asia.

00:56:37 ◼   ► Galaxy Note has shown, and it's ilk, has shown that in Asia there's a huge market for giant

00:56:44 ◼   ► phones. Not so much in the West, but in Asia there's a huge market for giant phones. And

00:56:49 ◼   ► there are a few reasons for that. I actually talked to some people at Apple about this,

00:56:53 ◼   ► and they acknowledged that this is true. And there's some reasons. Some people in Asia

00:56:57 ◼   ► are single-device people. They don't have a computer. They don't have a tablet. They

00:57:01 ◼   ► have a phone. And if the phone is their only computing device, they want it to be big,

00:57:05 ◼   ► they want to do everything on it and having a bigger device is better than having a little

00:57:09 ◼   ► tiny device if it's your only device. And there was also, it also was a status symbol

00:57:14 ◼   ► in a lot of Asian countries and cultures apparently, this is what I hear, you know, bigger is better.

00:57:22 ◼   ► This is probably also true in Texas, I don't know. But the idea like my phone is the big

00:57:27 ◼   ► phone, right? I got the big, look at me, I got the hugest phone. And you know, other

00:57:32 ◼   ► cultures are like, "Whoa, I'm just going to get a tablet if I want that. I don't

00:57:36 ◼   ► want a huge phone." So my point is, developers who are serving those markets where this device

00:57:43 ◼   ► is going to sell really well, those are the ones who are going to need to pay the most

00:57:46 ◼   ► attention to it. So you may see apps that sell really well in Asia going crazy over

00:57:52 ◼   ► this and taking full advantage of it, and apps that really sell best in the United States

00:57:58 ◼   ► Europe not. We'll have to see but that might be something interesting to watch

00:58:03 ◼   ► where the really Asia savvy apps rush in to support the iPhone 6 Plus because I

00:58:09 ◼   ► think it will you know I imagine it will follow the pattern of phone sales up to

00:58:14 ◼   ► now which is that in areas where big phones are popular this will be popular.

00:58:18 ◼   ► Purely anecdotal. In the UK where you don't see someone with an iPhone they

00:58:26 ◼   ► they tend to have a large Samsung phone, like a Note or one of the new S5s, which is approaching

00:58:33 ◼   ► that sort of 5-inch size.

00:58:35 ◼   ► Well, it makes sense, right? I mean, that's an option that Apple doesn't offer. So if

00:58:39 ◼   ► you want a big phone, you need to buy a giant Samsung phone.

00:58:45 ◼   ► And also, I see especially the Note far more in use by women than men.

00:58:51 ◼   ► I've heard, I've heard, I mean everybody's got, everybody's different, right?

00:58:55 ◼   ► But that scenario is a scenario that sort of makes sense.

00:59:00 ◼   ► I've heard some women say, "Look, I want a small phone because I, you know, I want

00:59:04 ◼   ► to hold it in my hand and I have small hands and I can't hold that giant phone in my

00:59:09 ◼   ► hands."

00:59:10 ◼   ► But I've also heard women say, "Look, I don't have pockets.

00:59:13 ◼   ► I carry it in my bag.

00:59:14 ◼   ► I'm fine using it two-handed when I pull it out of my purse or whatever.

00:59:20 ◼   ► So why would I not want a big phone?

00:59:23 ◼   ► So I can see both scenarios, right?

00:59:25 ◼   ► Some women want it to be a small phone that they can have in their pockets or they can

00:59:29 ◼   ► have with them and hold it in one hand, and that's how they work.

00:59:33 ◼   ► That's how they use the device.

00:59:36 ◼   ► And other women are freed by the fact that they've got a bag already so they don't have

00:59:41 ◼   ► to worry about the size of the phone, and the way they use their device is conducive

00:59:45 ◼   ► to having it be very large.

00:59:47 ◼   ► So there are a few different use cases here, but both of them make sense to me.

00:59:51 ◼   ► It totally makes sense that if you don't have to worry about having something gigantic

00:59:55 ◼   ► in your pocket because you have small pockets or no pockets, then why not?

01:00:03 ◼   ► So I want to talk about reachability.

01:00:08 ◼   ► One I want to get your idea on the name, but we'll come to that in a moment.

01:00:15 ◼   ► But first off, I just want to take a quick moment to thank our second sponsor for this

01:00:20 ◼   ► week's episode.

01:00:21 ◼   ► Whoo-hoo!

01:00:22 ◼   ► For this week's episode.

01:00:23 ◼   ► Yeah, we're rolling.

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01:03:28 ◼   ► Thank you so much to Smile for the support of this show.

01:03:30 ◼   ► - Well done.

01:03:31 ◼   ► - Reachability.

01:03:32 ◼   ► - Reachability.

01:03:33 ◼   ► - Why did they call it this?

01:03:34 ◼   ► - You got reachability, Myke?

01:03:35 ◼   ► I wish I did.

01:03:37 ◼   ► So it works by double tapping the home button, right?

01:03:42 ◼   ► Like, tapping, not clicking or pressing.

01:03:45 ◼   ► Right, so the home button, you know, it's Touch ID, which means it can tell when you're touching it.

01:03:48 ◼   ► So it's like a little like a track pad, where you don't have to depress it for it to know that you're touching it.

01:03:53 ◼   ► And therefore they've turned that into a gesture, where if you, on either phone, if you double tap on the home button,

01:04:02 ◼   ► everything slides down like toward your thumb basically so on the in the

01:04:10 ◼   ► springboard it it slides the it's funny it's just scrolls the apps down they

01:04:15 ◼   ► just all kind of slide down the whole screen doesn't come down just the app

01:04:18 ◼   ► slide down but in most apps what happens is it's like somebody took your screen

01:04:22 ◼   ► and just like pulled like a like a like a roll up window shade they just kind of

01:04:28 ◼   ► pull it pull it down towards your thumb halfway and the idea there is then you

01:04:32 ◼   ► can touch something that's on the top part of the screen and when it registers that touch

01:04:38 ◼   ► then it all slides back up and it goes on its merry way.

01:04:41 ◼   ► How quickly does this animation occur?

01:04:44 ◼   ► Like does it like all the way go down or does it like have some animation where the phone

01:04:49 ◼   ► like it brings everything down to you like a shade or something?

01:04:52 ◼   ► Well yeah it slides down it doesn't it doesn't like pop down it slides down it's pretty fast

01:04:57 ◼   ► but it's definitely an animation. And then what's left above it is sort of this void.

01:05:02 ◼   ► It's not black, I think. Maybe it is, but it's a mysterious void. It's not your backdrop. It's not

01:05:10 ◼   ► your lock screen thing, I think. I think it's just a mysterious void. It surprised me to see that,

01:05:17 ◼   ► because that black background seems to go against some of the work they set out of iOS 7,

01:05:23 ◼   ► like the layers, it feels like there should be at least, I mean, it probably doesn't

01:05:28 ◼   ► look great, which is probably why I didn't do it, but like the transparent layer of your

01:05:33 ◼   ► home screen back there, you know?

01:05:35 ◼   ► Right, right.

01:05:36 ◼   ► There's the logic question of what's behind there, and they've decided to just keep

01:05:42 ◼   ► it simple and have it be nothing.

01:05:44 ◼   ► Nothing's behind there.

01:05:45 ◼   ► But you're right.

01:05:46 ◼   ► If we can see translucency, perhaps the home screen should be back there all grayed out,

01:05:51 ◼   ► all blurred out, like we're watching it through a layer of glass.

01:05:54 ◼   ► Well, like when you go into multitasking, the way it looks there.

01:05:58 ◼   ► You know, you see your background sort of blurred out, like behind the frosted glass

01:06:04 ◼   ► look.

01:06:05 ◼   ► I just expected it to look like that, as opposed to just a black emptiness.

01:06:11 ◼   ► I have one very specific question.

01:06:15 ◼   ► When you're in an application and you tap the status bar, sometimes, in most good apps,

01:06:21 ◼   ► it will jump to the top of the content. Does this work with reachability?

01:06:28 ◼   ► Oh man, that's a great question.

01:06:31 ◼   ► You can like open tweetbot now or something.

01:06:33 ◼   ► That's why I like you so much is that you ask these great questions.

01:06:37 ◼   ► Well that was actually something that Federico asked on unconnected, so I'm just pulling that question in.

01:06:43 ◼   ► So it does work. It brings it to the top and then I assume it snaps back up?

01:06:47 ◼   ► Yeah, actually let me see. I think it doesn't snap back.

01:06:51 ◼   ► Generally when you interact with this, it snaps back up. No, in fact,

01:06:55 ◼   ► well it snaps back up after a moment's pause, so I wonder, I think

01:06:59 ◼   ► maybe it's waiting to see if you want to do something

01:07:03 ◼   ► else at the top. Yes, indeed. That's good.

01:07:07 ◼   ► That's the right interaction. And if after a second or so you do new interaction

01:07:11 ◼   ► it just slides the whole thing back up. But yeah, you have to, I think, get it right.

01:07:15 ◼   ► I think if you if you if it's down a little bit too much

01:07:17 ◼   ► I think it won't work

01:07:19 ◼   ► But this is one of the funny things about the reachability is it does if you tap in the in the in the black void

01:07:25 ◼   ► It goes away

01:07:27 ◼   ► But if you tap right at the top it does like you tap the menu bar and yes

01:07:31 ◼   ► You can do full interaction anywhere on that screen that portion of the screen. That's there

01:07:36 ◼   ► Using reachability and while you're interacting

01:07:39 ◼   ► it seems to

01:07:43 ◼   ► keep the reachability mode

01:07:45 ◼   ► except when it doesn't and this is one of the things that actually I think they're gonna need to work out over time is

01:07:50 ◼   ► Sometimes I tap something and right away

01:07:52 ◼   ► Reachability is over and other times it waits to see if I want to do more and then it finishes and slides everything back up

01:08:01 ◼   ► And I cannot figure out why it does one and not the other and I suspect it's I suspect it's just the software is

01:08:10 ◼   ► consistent about that because really when I press a back button it should stay in reachability mode and let me keep on you know

01:08:17 ◼   ► Press it a couple more times and do whatever and and it doesn't seem to do that. It seems sometimes

01:08:22 ◼   ► It's like okay you press something. I'm done right away instead of

01:08:25 ◼   ► Do you want to scroll now? You know do you want to press this button again?

01:08:30 ◼   ► So it's it's a brand new feature right and and hasn't gone through

01:08:35 ◼   ► the broad developer beta testing that the rest of iOS 8 has so it's a it's it's a

01:08:41 ◼   ► Clever way to approach this but it's not entirely consistent. I think yeah, I think I

01:08:48 ◼   ► called it something strange like I

01:08:51 ◼   ► Kind of coined this really weird phrase which some people found peculiar

01:08:58 ◼   ► An elegant solution to an elegant problem

01:09:03 ◼   ► Huh, so like you I think you know really you do she said like an elegant solution to an impractical problem or something like that

01:09:10 ◼   ► But it to me just feels like it's it's a nice way of doing something that is otherwise really awkward

01:09:16 ◼   ► Like it doesn't feel like it's it's that there is no perfect thing here

01:09:21 ◼   ► But what they've done is create something that gets over. What is an actual problem with these display sizes, but it's not perfect

01:09:28 ◼   ► I talked to Gruber about this a little bit on the talk show when I was on with him right before the event and we

01:09:32 ◼   ► we were both kind of scratching our heads like, how do you, it's exactly how you described it.

01:09:39 ◼   ► This is a problem because human hands, unless you're Craig Hockenberry, human hands cannot reach

01:09:44 ◼   ► across this giant phone. They can't. Unless you are a basketball player, unless you are somebody

01:09:49 ◼   ► with enormous hands, it's just, it's too far. You gotta, if you want to use it one handed,

01:09:54 ◼   ► which oftentimes we do. People, not always, but a lot of people use iPhones with one hand a lot

01:10:01 ◼   ► of times. And so how do you solve that? And do you have like a virtual finger or I mean

01:10:09 ◼   ► there's and so yeah reachability is weird but it's interesting to think about. It's

01:10:18 ◼   ► either that or you create gestures or you just make sure that there's nothing tabable

01:10:22 ◼   ► at the top of the screen. And one of the things I like about iOS 7 is that they added that

01:10:26 ◼   ► swipe back gesture. If you swipe from the left side of the screen it just goes back

01:10:30 ◼   ► you don't need to tap the back button. And it's a gesture, so not everybody even knows

01:10:34 ◼   ► that it's there, but once you learn it, it's really convenient. And so I think that's good.

01:10:40 ◼   ► You don't have to use reachability to get back to the previous screen. But yeah, I think

01:10:47 ◼   ► you nailed it. It is not a particularly great solution, but it's better than not having

01:10:53 ◼   ► one and saying, like, literally, "Sorry, you're going to need to use your other hand for this

01:11:00 ◼   ► one." I mean, that's—Gruber was talking about, like, maybe they scale it down, because that was

01:11:06 ◼   ► the—Brian Chen in the New York Times had this story about this feature, essentially, but it was

01:11:11 ◼   ► kind of vague. It was like, "Does everything scale down? They could do that. We know that they

01:11:15 ◼   ► can scale the UI really well. That would be the other way to go, is to literally just shrink

01:11:19 ◼   ► everything down. And they probably tested that and decided that that was maybe problematic

01:11:25 ◼   ► or favored left handers over right handers, although with the gyroscope you could probably

01:11:29 ◼   ► tell what way the phone was tilting and where the thumb was going to come from. I don't

01:11:34 ◼   ► know. So yeah, it's, I don't know if I'm going to use it. I mean, every now and then

01:11:40 ◼   ► I think like, oh yeah, reachability. And Apple seems to think, the people who I talked to

01:11:44 ◼   ► at Apple seem to think that this is something you just get used to, that it becomes second

01:11:48 ◼   ► nature, like that swipe backward that you tap a couple of times and tap it and go on

01:11:52 ◼   ► with your life and it's like, to put it in Futurama terms, it's the "thing longener."

01:11:59 ◼   ► It's the "this makes my finger longer." It's a stupid invention, but in this case, having

01:12:05 ◼   ► it is better than not having it. I don't know. Did you watch Futurama?

01:12:10 ◼   ► Yeah. Do you remember the "thing longener?"

01:12:13 ◼   ► No, I don't remember.

01:12:15 ◼   ► It's one of the, like the Smell-O-Scope, it was one of Professor Farnsworth's lesser inventions.

01:12:21 ◼   ► Kind of pointless to have, it makes your finger longer. But that's totally what's happening here,

01:12:25 ◼   ► is you got to do something, right? People use phones one-handed and the thing is too huge.

01:12:30 ◼   ► Even the 6, regular 6 is kind of too big, and that's why it's on that phone too. Even the 5

01:12:36 ◼   ► and the 5s are a little bit large if you've got small hands. So.

01:12:41 ◼   ► Do you have any specific opinions about the camera?

01:12:45 ◼   ► Because I know this sort of thing, like for me, the camera features are fantastic,

01:12:52 ◼   ► but most of the time I don't use them or I can't really tell.

01:12:55 ◼   ► Right.

01:12:56 ◼   ► Do you have any feeling on it?

01:12:59 ◼   ► My feeling is that they're better, and Apple's not kidding.

01:13:01 ◼   ► Apple knows that that's an important feature, that they're better.

01:13:04 ◼   ► The optical stabilization in the bigger one is a great idea.

01:13:08 ◼   ► You know the cameras have come so far. I wonder how far they can go without some

01:13:17 ◼   ► serious changes to the hardware. We're already seeing it with the camera

01:13:21 ◼   ► sticking out a little bit. At some point the size of the camera is going to be

01:13:26 ◼   ► the issue and I start to wonder if the next phase for Apple is going to be some

01:13:31 ◼   ► mechanics to like literally pop the camera out when you're taking a picture

01:13:34 ◼   ► and then draw it back in because at some point that's going to be the problem is

01:13:39 ◼   ► that they literally they need more depth than the phone has and we're already

01:13:44 ◼   ► there but it could get worse but they you know I like that Apple really puts

01:13:49 ◼   ► an effort into into cameras I no longer reluctantly take a picture with my my

01:13:54 ◼   ► iPhone camera even with the 5s I don't avoid it because I know how good the

01:14:00 ◼   ► pictures are going to look and they might not look as great as an SLR but

01:14:03 ◼   ► but it isn't worth it to go get the SLR

01:14:07 ◼   ► because the phone is great.

01:14:10 ◼   ► So yeah, I mean, every time they do this,

01:14:13 ◼   ► the cameras are better.

01:14:14 ◼   ► And what I've really been impressed by

01:14:17 ◼   ► is the way that they've handled focusing.

01:14:19 ◼   ► I'd say even more for video than for stills.

01:14:22 ◼   ► They made a big deal in the event of these focus pixels

01:14:25 ◼   ► and the idea that they're able to,

01:14:27 ◼   ► through the hardware working with the software, very Apple,

01:14:30 ◼   ► do something that generally was available

01:14:33 ◼   ► on things like SLRs before, which is use the focus

01:14:37 ◼   ► of the light to determine where the focus point

01:14:42 ◼   ► of the image should be.

01:14:43 ◼   ► And that's great because focusing better and faster is good.

01:14:47 ◼   ► What really has impressed me, especially with the samples

01:14:50 ◼   ► they showed at the keynote is the ability to move

01:14:54 ◼   ► through a bunch of focus areas and have it feel natural.

01:14:58 ◼   ► And some of that is using that technology

01:15:01 ◼   ► and some of that is the software.

01:15:02 ◼   ► lot of video focus is instantaneous. It's like, you know, we can go from A to B, so

01:15:09 ◼   ► we just jump there. And as somebody who's used to watching TV and movies, they don't

01:15:14 ◼   ► do that. They move physically, even if there's no physical focus ring, they move from one

01:15:20 ◼   ► focus point to another. And what impressed me about the video samples, especially at

01:15:25 ◼   ► the event, is they actually have, I mean, they're demos, right? But they're very impressive

01:15:30 ◼   ► demos that somebody put something close to the camera and pulls it away and the

01:15:34 ◼   ► focus follows them and it doesn't wait and then snap back it actually follows

01:15:39 ◼   ► them and that's impressive because video has video focusing it's actually one of

01:15:45 ◼   ► the reasons why I am always reluctant to use my iPhone 5 to shoot videos

01:15:50 ◼   ► especially like that I'm going to show professionally is because you know the

01:15:55 ◼   ► focusing is is crappy

01:15:59 ◼   ► Battery life. Please tell me that we have good battery life on these devices.

01:16:07 ◼   ► So one of the problems with testing a new iPhone is that battery testing takes forever

01:16:13 ◼   ► and you can't use the phone when you're doing it, essentially, because it's got to run.

01:16:17 ◼   ► So I don't have quantified lab-based battery life answers for this.

01:16:23 ◼   ► Apple's claims, which I think, you know, one of the things I said on on Gruber's show

01:16:30 ◼   ► also was the idea that Apple solves for a certain battery life. There's a certain

01:16:34 ◼   ► amount of battery life that Apple thinks is appropriate for an iPhone. And with the 6,

01:16:39 ◼   ► they did that again. I mean, it's it's they're claiming slightly better battery

01:16:43 ◼   ► life than the 5S, but they're not claiming dramatically better battery life. Apple seems

01:16:48 ◼   ► to think that's how much however much that is, that's how much battery life a phone

01:16:52 ◼   ► should have. And if you're somebody who runs out of battery all the time on your

01:16:55 ◼   ► iPhone, that's frustrating. Apple's just decided that for most people it's enough,

01:17:00 ◼   ► and that for the people it's not enough, they can get a case or they can have a little

01:17:03 ◼   ► backup battery ready to plug into the charger when they need to, which is what I do. I mostly

01:17:10 ◼   ► don't need it, and when I do, I have a little Kensington battery with a USB port and I just

01:17:16 ◼   ► plug my iPhone charger into it, and in about 20 minutes it sucks all the power out of the

01:17:21 ◼   ► battery and the phone's back at charge. And that's what I use when I'm traveling and things like that.

01:17:25 ◼   ► So obviously Apple has decided that's what they want to do. And I know that frustrates some people,

01:17:31 ◼   ► but they think that's okay. And as far as I can tell, the 6, you know, that's the truth of the 6,

01:17:36 ◼   ► is it's got battery life like an iPhone because Apple makes them all roughly have the same

01:17:41 ◼   ► battery life. The amount of power they consume changes, the amounts of battery capacity change,

01:17:47 ◼   ► But in the end, Apple does the math to get them to work to meet that goal of essentially 10

01:17:54 ◼   ► or 11 hours of usage time. And then the Plus has a bigger battery. And even though it uses more

01:18:02 ◼   ► power because it's got a bigger screen, it's got a bigger enough battery that Apple seemed confident

01:18:06 ◼   ► in giving it a few more hours of time. So it'll last longer. It's not like your, you know, it's

01:18:12 ◼   ► It's not a Razer Max or a Droid Max or whatever it is,

01:18:15 ◼   ► those with two Xs, those giant Android phones

01:18:18 ◼   ► with huge batteries.

01:18:19 ◼   ► It's not that, but it's got more life

01:18:22 ◼   ► than the smaller device because they're able

01:18:25 ◼   ► to lay that much more battery in there.

01:18:28 ◼   ► So it'll last a little bit longer.

01:18:29 ◼   ► But people who are dreaming of Apple making

01:18:31 ◼   ► a 25-hour life phone, I don't think it's gonna happen

01:18:34 ◼   ► for a long time unless there's a huge breakthrough

01:18:36 ◼   ► in either low-power chips or amazing battery technology

01:18:40 ◼   ► 'cause Apple is not willing to make the size trade-off

01:18:43 ◼   ► to load a giant battery in there,

01:18:44 ◼   ► and they think better that you make the trade-off

01:18:47 ◼   ► by sticking a case on it,

01:18:49 ◼   ► or that you do what I do,

01:18:52 ◼   ► which is just carry an emergency battery

01:18:54 ◼   ► to charge it up when you need it.

01:18:56 ◼   ► - That's just gonna keep waiting

01:18:57 ◼   ► for those graphene batteries, right?

01:18:59 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, it's like fusion power.

01:19:01 ◼   ► Fusion power and amazing battery technology

01:19:03 ◼   ► are always just 30 years away,

01:19:06 ◼   ► and they never get any closer.

01:19:09 ◼   ► This is a kind of random question and this is served just because it's something that

01:19:14 ◼   ► I care about but I don't know if a lot of people do. You might actually. The speaker

01:19:18 ◼   ► quality, like the loudspeaker, I use it sometimes to listen to podcasts. I have a jam box but

01:19:26 ◼   ► sometimes in a pinch I will listen to it. I will listen to like Total Party Kill whilst

01:19:31 ◼   ► I'm cooking pasta on Thursdays, right? It's a very common thing. People cook pasta while

01:19:39 ◼   ► listening to people playing Dungeons and Dragons. It happens quite a lot actually which is kind

01:19:43 ◼   ► of peculiar. Well I always listen to John Siracusa's Hypercritical podcast while I mowed

01:19:48 ◼   ► the lawn and now I mow the lawn and I feel the absence of Hypercritical. Whatever podcast

01:19:53 ◼   ► I listen to it's just not the same. That was our special time and he mowed the lawn together,

01:19:58 ◼   ► me and John and Dan. We mowed the lawn together. I did most of the work. They did most of the

01:20:03 ◼   ► talking and it's funny. I mean that's one of the things I love about podcasting is you

01:20:07 ◼   ► kind of fit it into your life in certain ways. I don't know about the speaker

01:20:11 ◼   ► quality of these things. I need to test that more. I think it's better.

01:20:17 ◼   ► I think that the Plus has a nice loud speaker. I know Apple talked about

01:20:22 ◼   ► that at one point. This is a fairly good, I mean it's never going to be the

01:20:28 ◼   ► same as having a big speaker, but they've got a little more room in the

01:20:32 ◼   ► Plus especially. But I gotta say, I'm not ready to make a call or a

01:20:36 ◼   ► judgment on that quite yet. I need to spend some time annoying people with loud sounds

01:20:41 ◼   ► on my phones first before I do that.

01:20:44 ◼   ► My last question.

01:20:45 ◼   ► I'll get back to you.

01:20:46 ◼   ► Yeah, please do.

01:20:47 ◼   ► Fortunately, we have episode two for follow-up. I've never done a podcast where I've been

01:20:52 ◼   ► able to do follow-up before, so we'll put that in the follow-up.

01:20:54 ◼   ► Oh, we're going to do so much follow-up. You won't even be able to contain yourself, Jason.

01:20:58 ◼   ► It's just be all follow-up.

01:21:00 ◼   ► Where do people go to leave us feedback, by the way, since we're talking about follow-up?

01:21:03 ◼   ► Also there's a few different places actually. You can go where we have our show notes which

01:21:07 ◼   ► is relay.fm/upgrades/one and you can click the little button and send us an email which

01:21:14 ◼   ► reminds me I need to ask if you want to receive that email. And also...

01:21:19 ◼   ► I do.

01:21:20 ◼   ► Excellent.

01:21:21 ◼   ► I volunteer as one of those hosts who will receive it in email, yes.

01:21:24 ◼   ► Oh, that's so good.

01:21:25 ◼   ► I love getting follow-up. We can't do follow-up on the incomparable because the panel changes

01:21:29 ◼   ► all the time. So I'll have like no John Syracuse on and all the follow-up will be,

01:21:32 ◼   ► "What did John Syracuse say? Why did he say that?" And he's not there to defend

01:21:36 ◼   ► himself. And this is exciting because we can actually, like week-to-week, answer

01:21:40 ◼   ► people's questions. It's not like I don't love the feedback, it's just that on my

01:21:42 ◼   ► other shows, I can't do anything with it. So...

01:21:45 ◼   ► Like you're not gonna do the Doctor Who follow-up and the Guardians of the Galaxy episode.

01:21:50 ◼   ► Like it doesn't make sense.

01:21:51 ◼   ► Exactly! It doesn't make any sense. And the people who talked about the one thing

01:21:54 ◼   ► aren't there for the other thing and, you know, but we'll be here for episode two.

01:21:57 ◼   ► So it's fine.

01:21:58 ◼   ► Also, Twitter is a great place. Jason is @jsnell, J-S-N-E-L-L, and I'm @imyke. Someone needs

01:22:08 ◼   ► to make us a fancy song that speaks those names.

01:22:12 ◼   ► That's nice. I do love on analog how you always describe Casey's Twitter account using the

01:22:19 ◼   ► song from—

01:22:20 ◼   ► I can't help it. I cannot help it. So, yes, please send in your follow-up feedback

01:22:26 ◼   ► we would love to receive them.

01:22:28 ◼   ► So my last question for you is which phone

01:22:31 ◼   ► are you gonna buy?

01:22:32 ◼   ► I feel like I know the answer,

01:22:33 ◼   ► but which phone are you gonna buy?

01:22:34 ◼   ► - The 6.

01:22:35 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:22:37 ◼   ► - And yeah, the 6.

01:22:38 ◼   ► I toyed with the idea of the 6 Plus

01:22:41 ◼   ► because I am an iPad Mini user.

01:22:44 ◼   ► I have an iPad Mini with Retina and I love it.

01:22:46 ◼   ► And I have a 11 inch MacBook Air,

01:22:49 ◼   ► so I like small things.

01:22:51 ◼   ► And so this is the question of,

01:22:52 ◼   ► do I want the smallest phone then?

01:22:53 ◼   ► Or do I want a phone so big

01:22:55 ◼   ► that I don't even need the iPad mini anymore.

01:22:57 ◼   ► I can get an even smaller iPad.

01:23:00 ◼   ► And the 6 Plus is not a smaller iPad.

01:23:02 ◼   ► It is a bigger iPhone.

01:23:04 ◼   ► It is, compared to my mini, I would prefer,

01:23:09 ◼   ► in all those scenarios where I have to choose

01:23:10 ◼   ► between using my phone or my iPad,

01:23:13 ◼   ► the 6 Plus doesn't change the equation.

01:23:15 ◼   ► It still, if I'm in that scenario, I want to use my iPad.

01:23:20 ◼   ► So I could see, if you literally only have one device,

01:23:25 ◼   ► It makes sense.

01:23:27 ◼   ► But I have an iPad, and I really like it,

01:23:32 ◼   ► and it doesn't fill that need for me.

01:23:36 ◼   ► So the 6 makes more sense to me.

01:23:37 ◼   ► The 6 feels a lot like the 5,

01:23:39 ◼   ► albeit a little bit bigger.

01:23:41 ◼   ► And, yeah, it's the next iPhone.

01:23:45 ◼   ► It's a nice jump in a bunch of different areas.

01:23:47 ◼   ► We haven't talked about things like Apple Pay,

01:23:50 ◼   ► which doesn't exist yet

01:23:51 ◼   ► 'cause it's coming in October, they say.

01:23:54 ◼   ► I have a Whole Foods very near my house.

01:23:55 ◼   ► I'm looking forward to going over there

01:23:57 ◼   ► with nothing but my phone and paying for something

01:23:58 ◼   ► just because I can, but I can't yet.

01:24:01 ◼   ► - We have time to talk about those things.

01:24:03 ◼   ► I mean, and I can reiterate why Apple chose

01:24:05 ◼   ► the wrong country to put Apple Pay in,

01:24:08 ◼   ► but they saved that for another day.

01:24:10 ◼   ► - Or perhaps the right country,

01:24:11 ◼   ► but that is a great topic for a future episode,

01:24:13 ◼   ► and we have those now because this is a podcast

01:24:16 ◼   ► that we share together.

01:24:17 ◼   ► - That's lovely. - Right.

01:24:18 ◼   ► - I'm going for the plus, by the way.

01:24:20 ◼   ► So-- - Really?

01:24:23 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:24:25 ◼   ► So I have a few reasons.

01:24:27 ◼   ► So I am a very, very heavy iPhone user, very heavy.

01:24:33 ◼   ► And we've spoken about this before.

01:24:37 ◼   ► I use my iPhone constantly throughout the day.

01:24:40 ◼   ► And it lives in a Mophie juice pack.

01:24:43 ◼   ► Is it the juice pack?

01:24:44 ◼   ► One of the Mophie cases, I keep it in the Mophie case

01:24:46 ◼   ► all the time.

01:24:48 ◼   ► Sometimes during the day, I will charge my phone

01:24:52 ◼   ► by plugging it in at work, but then most likely throughout the day I've also run down the

01:24:57 ◼   ► battery of the Mophie case as well as that.

01:25:00 ◼   ► I use my phone very, very heavily.

01:25:04 ◼   ► There is an argument that I should clean my phone, like restore my phone.

01:25:08 ◼   ► It's an ongoing thing.

01:25:09 ◼   ► I'm thinking about doing it for the Plus and just starting fresh.

01:25:14 ◼   ► I'm seriously thinking about it to try and give it the best start in life.

01:25:21 ◼   ► But both of these phones are too big to live in a phone battery case.

01:25:28 ◼   ► They're both too big.

01:25:31 ◼   ► So I'm measuring...

01:25:32 ◼   ► I was going to say for now, you know there will be, but they'll make it even more huge.

01:25:36 ◼   ► They'll make them, but both of them will be too large at that point because it changes

01:25:41 ◼   ► the dimensions in every angle.

01:25:43 ◼   ► And I think if you made the phone fatter and bigger, both of them would be unusable, I

01:25:49 ◼   ► I think.

01:25:50 ◼   ► I mean, I measured out my iPhone 5S

01:25:54 ◼   ► with the Mophie case on it,

01:25:55 ◼   ► and it basically comes in just slightly under the six

01:25:59 ◼   ► with the case on it.

01:26:02 ◼   ► So, but a lot thicker, like twice the thickness.

01:26:06 ◼   ► So, you know, I've been thinking of battery life.

01:26:09 ◼   ► So I want to have the best battery life possible.

01:26:11 ◼   ► So, tick number one, the plus.

01:26:13 ◼   ► And I have one of those Mophie packs,

01:26:16 ◼   ► like the little brick things,

01:26:17 ◼   ► and I'll just see if I can keep that in my bag

01:26:19 ◼   ► and just try and work through life like a regular human.

01:26:22 ◼   ► I'm really, really interested in the bigger screen

01:26:26 ◼   ► for additional content, they both have bigger screens,

01:26:29 ◼   ► but I'm also really interested about the kind of pseudo iPad

01:26:32 ◼   ► like layout that, I think that's super cool

01:26:37 ◼   ► and I'm very, very excited about that

01:26:40 ◼   ► because I am also an iPad mini owner

01:26:42 ◼   ► and maybe I won't need an iPad mini anymore, I don't know.

01:26:46 ◼   ► I'll see how that goes over time.

01:26:48 ◼   ► I don't like the larger iPads,

01:26:50 ◼   ► so it would either be iPad mini and iPhone Plus,

01:26:53 ◼   ► which kind of seems redundant anyway, or just iPhone Plus.

01:26:56 ◼   ► They're kind of my main things, to be honest.

01:27:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think my,

01:27:01 ◼   ► I mean, it depends on how you wanna use

01:27:03 ◼   ► these different devices.

01:27:04 ◼   ► If you are out and about and using your iPhone all the time,

01:27:08 ◼   ► then it sort of makes sense, although again,

01:27:10 ◼   ► it's gonna, that size is gonna need to work for you.

01:27:11 ◼   ► That's a challenge, and it's not gonna be

01:27:13 ◼   ► like double the battery life.

01:27:14 ◼   ► it's just going to be a little bit larger battery life.

01:27:17 ◼   ► Is that the scenario?

01:27:19 ◼   ► I mean, the other, not to be doctor, you know,

01:27:22 ◼   ► iOS diagnosing guy, but you know,

01:27:25 ◼   ► would having a mini with a data plan work for you,

01:27:30 ◼   ► or are you just, you're just moving around

01:27:33 ◼   ► and have the phone in your pocket is the important part?

01:27:36 ◼   ► - Phone in my pocket is the important part.

01:27:38 ◼   ► I've had, I've had data on iPads.

01:27:40 ◼   ► - How big are your pockets?

01:27:42 ◼   ► - Let's find out.

01:27:43 ◼   ► I mean to buy it, I have to be very deep, I can tell you that.

01:27:46 ◼   ► 'Cause I'm buying off contract.

01:27:49 ◼   ► - Right, oh man.

01:27:50 ◼   ► - I'd been preparing for this though, I'd been preparing.

01:27:53 ◼   ► So my feeling is, I'm going with the six plus,

01:27:58 ◼   ► but I have two weeks to decide.

01:28:01 ◼   ► So if after a week I cannot cope,

01:28:06 ◼   ► I will return it and get a six.

01:28:07 ◼   ► But I feel like I need to, I want to try it,

01:28:12 ◼   ► I'm interested in it. I would like to be able to use the larger device for a bunch of reasons.

01:28:18 ◼   ► I think I could live with it. I have relatively big hands. I have... my fingers are... this

01:28:24 ◼   ► is a very strange fact about me. For my hand size, my fingers are over average. There you

01:28:31 ◼   ► go. A doctor told me that once and it's true. I have very long fingers.

01:28:35 ◼   ► Do you have normal hands but long fingers?

01:28:39 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:28:40 ◼   ► - Or large hands with even larger fingers?

01:28:43 ◼   ► - I'm gonna say maybe the latter.

01:28:46 ◼   ► - I'm glad we've gotten this all out in episode one.

01:28:48 ◼   ► I'm glad we know.

01:28:49 ◼   ► So you've got large hands and even longer fingers.

01:28:51 ◼   ► - Uh-huh.

01:28:52 ◼   ► I'm like, all right.

01:28:54 ◼   ► - I have long fingers too.

01:28:56 ◼   ► I have long fingers too.

01:28:57 ◼   ► I don't think my hands are large, but my fingers are large.

01:29:00 ◼   ► My toes are long too.

01:29:01 ◼   ► Does that help?

01:29:03 ◼   ► - I don't know.

01:29:04 ◼   ► how many phones you want to use. Interesting. So let's see I mean that's

01:29:09 ◼   ► gonna be the interesting follow-up I think for episode two is can Myke cope

01:29:13 ◼   ► with a 6+ I'm hoping that it will arrive in time for the next episode so

01:29:18 ◼   ► we'll see I mean I I'm very I'm very interested in it and I also there's also

01:29:26 ◼   ► a part of me Jason that and I seem to have assumed this role in we've

01:29:31 ◼   ► connected as well. It's stupid, a different one. And there's this part of me that's being

01:29:36 ◼   ► drawn to, this is the phone that not many other people are going to get, and I feel

01:29:40 ◼   ► like that there should be some opinions about it. And boy do I have opinions.

01:29:44 ◼   ► You could be that guy. Yeah, I'd be that guy.

01:29:46 ◼   ► You could be that guy that's like, in every podcast they'll be like, "Well, of course,

01:29:50 ◼   ► I'm not like Myke Hurley, I just got the 6." And you'll become famous as that guy who got

01:29:54 ◼   ► the big phone. The only guy.

01:29:55 ◼   ► Could be. I'll go from being the British guy to the guy who has the plus.

01:29:59 ◼   ► I will say they're very popular in Asia and with Myke Hurley.

01:30:04 ◼   ► It's good demographics.

01:30:06 ◼   ► So we'll see.

01:30:07 ◼   ► I mean, it's exciting, right?

01:30:09 ◼   ► Two phones is very exciting.

01:30:12 ◼   ► The fact that we knew it kind of diminishes from it a bit, but two phones is very exciting

01:30:17 ◼   ► to me, I think.

01:30:18 ◼   ► So let me blow your mind here.

01:30:20 ◼   ► Because it's four phones, because they're still selling the 5C and the 5S.

01:30:25 ◼   ► And here's the question.

01:30:27 ◼   ► Maybe I won't blow your mind, but here's what I wonder for next year, which is, I wonder

01:30:33 ◼   ► if that smaller phone size will stick around.

01:30:38 ◼   ► I wonder if next year they do something to update the 5 or they create a new 6 or whatever

01:30:47 ◼   ► that is a mini that's essentially what we think of now as the iPhone.

01:30:52 ◼   ► I wonder if Apple really wants to give up that traditional iPhone size.

01:30:57 ◼   ► This year it's easy.

01:30:58 ◼   ► This year they can just keep the 5S around and lower the price, keep the 5C, which I

01:31:02 ◼   ► think is actually done despite everybody kind of rolling their eyes at it.

01:31:05 ◼   ► My daughter told me today she sees the 5C everywhere.

01:31:09 ◼   ► It's not for super tech nerds.

01:31:10 ◼   ► I think it's for kids and regular people who want a new phone.

01:31:14 ◼   ► So now that's free with contract in the US.

01:31:17 ◼   ► So this year's kind of a gimme for them.

01:31:19 ◼   ► But next year, that's my question, is do they abandon at some point the smaller phone size

01:31:25 ◼   ► or do they keep it and just make it another so that you have three?

01:31:29 ◼   ► Right now we've got two new ones and then the old ones are still around, but that would

01:31:33 ◼   ► be my question, something I'm interested to see, is perhaps in a year or two the iPhone

01:31:38 ◼   ► line will be three and it will be small, medium and large.

01:31:42 ◼   ► Right now it's medium and large and then last year's great one is the small.

01:31:47 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:31:49 ◼   ► happens to that. Does the small phone eventually fall off the end or do they just keep one

01:31:53 ◼   ► around forever?

01:31:58 ◼   ► Do they just keep upgrading the specs and still call it the 5S? Or do at some point

01:32:02 ◼   ► do they call it iPhone mini or iPhone 6 mini or something like that and change its look

01:32:10 ◼   ► and change its internals but keep it at a small one? Or are they just completely out

01:32:14 ◼   ► of that market?

01:32:15 ◼   ► The tail will be in the numbers.

01:32:17 ◼   ► The tail is in the numbers.

01:32:19 ◼   ► We have no idea right now if these phones are going to sell.

01:32:22 ◼   ► No, I mean, what we know is that there is a market for larger phones,

01:32:28 ◼   ► because Android has exploited it.

01:32:30 ◼   ► That the only real major segment of the high-end phone market,

01:32:34 ◼   ► which is where Apple plays, that isn't controlled by Apple,

01:32:38 ◼   ► is the large screen size, because they don't have a phone there.

01:32:42 ◼   ► there, and they've left their competition to have that space. What we don't know is

01:32:47 ◼   ► if the people who currently have an iPhone will go to that extra size or not, and how

01:32:54 ◼   ► many of them? How many of them will the 6 be good enough, you know, not too big, versus

01:33:01 ◼   ► people being repelled by it? I think most people will just go to the 6 and be fine,

01:33:05 ◼   ► but it's going to be interesting to see if they feel that there's a market for a smaller

01:33:08 ◼   ► because I think there is. I think some people don't really want a big phone just for their

01:33:15 ◼   ► lives and who's to say that Apple, I mean now that we have two brand new iPhones, why

01:33:21 ◼   ► couldn't they just do three? They're selling four models now in three sizes. They could

01:33:25 ◼   ► keep doing that if there's a market for the smaller and presumably cheaper device. I don't

01:33:32 ◼   ► know.

01:33:33 ◼   ► would never use a phone bigger than her iPhone 5C.

01:33:38 ◼   ► She just would not.

01:33:39 ◼   ► And she will upgrade her phone every couple of years.

01:33:43 ◼   ► So when it comes to that point, she will not want to use one of those bigger phones.

01:33:47 ◼   ► So then what do they do?

01:33:48 ◼   ► There are lots of my mums in the world, you know, and I'm sure that Apple doesn't want

01:33:53 ◼   ► to stop serving that market.

01:33:55 ◼   ► But I don't think we're going to know the answer to that question for a couple of years

01:33:59 ◼   ► yet.

01:34:00 ◼   ► Right.

01:34:01 ◼   ► Because we need to see what happens when the 5S moves that far down the line.

01:34:05 ◼   ► If they eliminate all of those phones, because in the next year or two, those phones will

01:34:11 ◼   ► still be available.

01:34:12 ◼   ► So if you don't want the larger phone, you'll just get the 5C or the 5S.

01:34:16 ◼   ► So it will take some time.

01:34:18 ◼   ► Although I am sure that Apple is doing some serious product research on this thing.

01:34:23 ◼   ► And they probably know the answer already to whether this is really going to be a consumer

01:34:28 ◼   ► need or not.

01:34:29 ◼   ► That's what I keep wondering is, I think maybe it is.

01:34:32 ◼   ► Maybe this is a three product line,

01:34:36 ◼   ► and this year the only new ones are the two bigger ones,

01:34:40 ◼   ► but at some point is it a three product line,

01:34:43 ◼   ► small, medium, large, or are those old phones

01:34:45 ◼   ► just kicked to the curb and it's old news

01:34:47 ◼   ► and everybody's got a big phone now,

01:34:49 ◼   ► and eat it old man.

01:34:51 ◼   ► I mean, that could be, but I don't know.

01:34:56 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:34:57 ◼   ► It is great to see the 4S fall off that lineup though.

01:35:01 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah that's good.

01:35:03 ◼   ► That stuck around for a year longer than it needed to.

01:35:06 ◼   ► Yeah and the 5, the 5 you know, the 5 is a really good, the 5 was a really good model

01:35:10 ◼   ► so the 5C for free with contract in the US is, that's a pretty good deal because that's

01:35:16 ◼   ► actually a pretty good phone.

01:35:17 ◼   ► Even now I would say that's a pretty darn good phone.

01:35:20 ◼   ► I love the way that phone looks.

01:35:21 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah it looks neat and like I said my daughter would love one.

01:35:25 ◼   ► I think she's going to get my old five instead.

01:35:28 ◼   ► No color, just black.

01:35:30 ◼   ► But I won't feel bad about it.

01:35:33 ◼   ► Exactly.

01:35:34 ◼   ► She can color it up with a case.

01:35:37 ◼   ► So there's still so much to talk about over the next couple of weeks that came out of

01:35:39 ◼   ► this event because we have months worth of things happening because we've got the watch

01:35:43 ◼   ► and all that sort of stuff.

01:35:45 ◼   ► So there's still a lot more to unpack but I think for today, for the phones we are done.

01:35:50 ◼   ► Jason, thank you for sharing your thoughts on these.

01:35:52 ◼   ► It's been fascinating.

01:35:54 ◼   ► I may say a great start to upgrade.

01:35:57 ◼   ► I think it went really well and I hope people will keep listening. We'll be back next week

01:36:02 ◼   ► with episode 2. How about that?

01:36:04 ◼   ► Sounds fantastic. Until then, as we said before, our show notes are relay.fm/upgrade/1. And

01:36:11 ◼   ► that's it for this week. Thank you very much.

01:36:15 ◼   ► Bye everybody.

01:36:16 ◼   ► Goodbye.

01:36:16 ◼   ► Goodbye.

01:36:18 ◼   ► [Music]

01:36:25 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]