Upgrade

00:00:00 ◼   ► - From Relay, this is Upgrade, episode 579 for September 1st, 2025.

00:00:16 ◼   ► This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, Seltrios, Claude, and DeleteMe.

00:00:22 ◼   ► My name is Mike Hurley, and I am joined by my draft competitor, Mr. Jason Snell.

00:00:27 ◼   ► Hello, Jason Snell.

00:00:28 ◼   ► Hello, Mike.

00:00:29 ◼   ► The summer of fun is fading into the distance of one final sunset, and instead out comes

00:00:34 ◼   ► the marching band, because it's draft time.

00:00:37 ◼   ► - So we're recording this on US Labor Day, right?

00:00:40 ◼   ► And my understanding is Labor Day is actually the end of the summer, is that correct?

00:00:44 ◼   ► That's what people say?

00:00:45 ◼   ► - I would say notionally, it is the end of the summer.

00:00:48 ◼   ► In America, I think Memorial Day to Labor Day is seen as the summer.

00:00:52 ◼   ► - So that's great that we're actually recording this episode on the day in which summer has

00:00:57 ◼   ► ended, because the summer of fun is in it.

00:00:58 ◼   ► - Put your white pants away, everybody.

00:00:59 ◼   ► - Okay, good news.

00:01:00 ◼   ► - That's it.

00:01:01 ◼   ► Can't wear you that linen suit anymore.

00:01:03 ◼   ► - I guess not.

00:01:04 ◼   ► I have a Snell Talk question for you, Jason Snell.

00:01:06 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:01:07 ◼   ► Sure.

00:01:08 ◼   ► - How was the summer of fun?

00:01:09 ◼   ► This one comes from me.

00:01:10 ◼   ► - Oh.

00:01:11 ◼   ► Oh, pretty good.

00:01:13 ◼   ► I mean, do you mean my summer?

00:01:15 ◼   ► Do you mean the upgrade summer of fun?

00:01:17 ◼   ► - Whatever you want.

00:01:18 ◼   ► - I'm happy.

00:01:19 ◼   ► I wish, you know, doing a lot of those fun topics, it takes a lot.

00:01:22 ◼   ► I'm very happy that people liked the weird sounds of the summer thing that we did.

00:01:27 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:01:28 ◼   ► - That was good, because that was fun to put together.

00:01:31 ◼   ► Yeah, it's nice.

00:01:33 ◼   ► It's weird for me, because this is the thing.

00:01:35 ◼   ► It's weird for me, because I'm sorry not to talk about the weather, but you know, it's

00:01:40 ◼   ► like we're having a heat wave right now, and like it's been really warm for the last couple

00:01:43 ◼   ► of weeks, and this is our, we're just getting into the real good summer weather here the next

00:01:49 ◼   ► month, which I know seems weird to people, but that's just how it is here.

00:01:52 ◼   ► So for me, the summer continues, but, and also like the iPhone event is part of that process,

00:01:59 ◼   ► and now the St. Jude campaign is part of that process, and it's a whole thing that goes

00:02:02 ◼   ► on, so, but you know, summer is, summer is nice, summer is good, and I'm happy to, you

00:02:09 ◼   ► know, we went to a ball game, sat out in the sun, it was a hot day, we sweated and watched

00:02:14 ◼   ► a baseball game.

00:02:15 ◼   ► That's pretty summery.

00:02:16 ◼   ► I like it.

00:02:17 ◼   ► So, yeah, it's been pretty good.

00:02:18 ◼   ► How about you?

00:02:19 ◼   ► How was your summer of fun?

00:02:20 ◼   ► - I would say the summer of fun, content-wise, was good.

00:02:23 ◼   ► I liked the special and weird stuff that we did.

00:02:25 ◼   ► It was one of those summers, though, where there was like a lot of news and a lot of it

00:02:29 ◼   ► wasn't fun, you know?

00:02:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's true.

00:02:31 ◼   ► - That's true.

00:02:32 ◼   ► - That happens sometimes.

00:02:33 ◼   ► - We had one of the least fun segments we've ever done during this summer of fun, so that

00:02:37 ◼   ► was something.

00:02:38 ◼   ► - But it happens.

00:02:39 ◼   ► You know, it happens.

00:02:40 ◼   ► This has happened before.

00:02:41 ◼   ► Like, it just, sometimes it just goes that way.

00:02:44 ◼   ► My summer feels like it didn't really exist because I have been in like baby mode for six months.

00:02:52 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:02:53 ◼   ► So it's like the days are very similar.

00:02:56 ◼   ► And we were supposed to take a little vacation, but because I hurt my back, we didn't do that.

00:03:00 ◼   ► - Right.

00:03:01 ◼   ► - We did have, we went to a family barbecue over the weekend.

00:03:03 ◼   ► That was nice.

00:03:05 ◼   ► And we'll make up for it next time around, you know?

00:03:08 ◼   ► - Good.

00:03:09 ◼   ► Good, good, good.

00:03:10 ◼   ► Good.

00:03:11 ◼   ► But now it's September.

00:03:12 ◼   ► - Indeed.

00:03:13 ◼   ► It is September.

00:03:14 ◼   ► There's no getting away from that.

00:03:15 ◼   ► I, Jason, would like to pre-game a little bit.

00:03:18 ◼   ► We're doing the draft today.

00:03:19 ◼   ► - Oh, all right.

00:03:20 ◼   ► - I want to do a bit of pre-game analysis.

00:03:22 ◼   ► - A little tailgating going on here.

00:03:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, I guess.

00:03:25 ◼   ► Yeah, I guess.

00:03:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, we're tailgating.

00:03:27 ◼   ► Casey has provided us with a TV with other drafts on it that we can watch while we sit here

00:03:32 ◼   ► and roast some sausage.

00:03:33 ◼   ► - No, we have like 20 iPods and they're playing all of the other prediction games across all

00:03:38 ◼   ► the other podcasts.

00:03:39 ◼   ► - Oh, good.

00:03:40 ◼   ► I love it.

00:03:41 ◼   ► Great.

00:03:42 ◼   ► That's what we're doing right now.

00:03:43 ◼   ► That's happening in the background while Casey is grilling some meat on a grill.

00:03:46 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:03:47 ◼   ► - He's grilling.

00:03:48 ◼   ► So the iPhone event was announced as we expected it would be, and it is going to be on September

00:03:53 ◼   ► 9th at the Steve Jobs Theater.

00:03:56 ◼   ► - Mm-hmm.

00:03:57 ◼   ► - I just wanted to see before we draft, like what's your vibe about the iPhone event?

00:04:02 ◼   ► I want to get a vibe check from you.

00:04:04 ◼   ► Are you interested, excited, nonplussed about this this year?

00:04:08 ◼   ► How are you feeling?

00:04:09 ◼   ► - You know, here's what I'm excited about.

00:04:13 ◼   ► I'm excited about new things.

00:04:15 ◼   ► And I think the last few iPhone events have been kind of iterations on old things.

00:04:20 ◼   ► And like, it's very important.

00:04:22 ◼   ► And so we, it's important.

00:04:24 ◼   ► So we cover it, but like, it's not the same as covering something new and interesting.

00:04:29 ◼   ► So whenever there's something new, that's what I kind of attach and get excited about.

00:04:33 ◼   ► So if there are new AirPods, that's exciting.

00:04:36 ◼   ► If there's Apple Watches that do something new, which I'm not sure there will be, that would

00:04:40 ◼   ► be exciting.

00:04:41 ◼   ► But that iPhone Air, which seems to be a real product, like a totally new take on the iPhone

00:04:48 ◼   ► that looks like no iPhone before.

00:04:51 ◼   ► And also the thought that this begins a cycle where Apple every year for the next few years

00:04:56 ◼   ► is going to have a weird and wild new iPhone, the likes of which hasn't been seen before.

00:05:01 ◼   ► That is exciting to me.

00:05:02 ◼   ► So I guess what I'm saying is the iPhone, and I don't know if you feel this way, but like,

00:05:05 ◼   ► one of the problems with the iPhone event is that it's so important, but it's also kind of a grind.

00:05:10 ◼   ► Because it's vital, but I haven't, it's been a few years since I've had a genuinely exciting

00:05:17 ◼   ► iPhone moment.

00:05:18 ◼   ► And I think that's true of everybody.

00:05:19 ◼   ► Like the iPhone's been kind of motoring along for a little while.

00:05:21 ◼   ► And now we've gotten to the point where we may be entering another one of those cycles.

00:05:24 ◼   ► So I'm, you know, also it's a signifier for me.

00:05:28 ◼   ► And I think for you, like, this is also a high season for us in terms of everything we do.

00:05:35 ◼   ► And so there's a little, I always have a little trepidation.

00:05:37 ◼   ► I'm like, I'm at the top of the slide, right?

00:05:40 ◼   ► Like the top of the roller coaster.

00:05:42 ◼   ► That's how I feel today.

00:05:43 ◼   ► Is that, is that we are about to go over to the other side and plunge downward.

00:05:47 ◼   ► And then, you know, gravity takes over and you, you know, you're going to be buffeted.

00:05:51 ◼   ► And there may be, you may get wet.

00:05:53 ◼   ► Like you, there's some splashing that's going to go on.

00:05:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:05:57 ◼   ► And then, and that's just, that's September.

00:05:59 ◼   ► So that's how, sort of how I feel.

00:06:01 ◼   ► How do you feel?

00:06:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:06:02 ◼   ► I mean, I think I already mentioned this on Connected, but we were texting.

00:06:06 ◼   ► Uh, of, uh, the weekend, I think it was.

00:06:09 ◼   ► And you were saying like some of this kind of stuff, like, it's like stress, you know,

00:06:13 ◼   ► it's like a lot going on at this time.

00:06:15 ◼   ► And my kind of feeling of, about this is like, you know, this time is coming and then it happens.

00:06:21 ◼   ► And you're like, oh, I thought I was ready, but like, I'm actually not ready.

00:06:25 ◼   ► Cause it is really, really busy.

00:06:27 ◼   ► And like, but it's, it's, some of it is busyness that we, that is, that is happening.

00:06:32 ◼   ► And some of it is busyness that we are creating.

00:06:34 ◼   ► But like that, of course, there is a reason for that is because this is the high season.

00:06:38 ◼   ► This is, this is it.

00:06:39 ◼   ► This is the annual release of the most, arguably the most important consumer product in the world.

00:06:44 ◼   ► And we just so happen to cover every year, you know, like it.

00:06:47 ◼   ► That's right.

00:06:48 ◼   ► This is, this is just what happens.

00:06:50 ◼   ► And so like it becomes pretty intense.

00:06:53 ◼   ► I agree that it's always a lot of work and the amount of work doesn't particularly change,

00:06:59 ◼   ► but it's always way easier and more fun when we are given good things to talk about.

00:07:06 ◼   ► And I am so excited for next week because it's new stuff.

00:07:11 ◼   ► Like the, the, as you said, the air, but also like just the general look of the iPhone.

00:07:16 ◼   ► It's about to change potentially quite significantly.

00:07:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:07:20 ◼   ► What does that bring?

00:07:21 ◼   ► Like there's going to be fallout from that, which will be interesting to talk about.

00:07:25 ◼   ► I mean, if they do new cases last time, we've got a bunch of, a bunch of content out of just cases.

00:07:30 ◼   ► Like there is, there is the potential for a pretty good season, like a good fall.

00:07:37 ◼   ► There is excitement with, with all of the, you know, I mean, one of the reasons that my, my enthusiasm is a little muted is just because it is also the OS releases, which means I got a text from Federico over the weekend.

00:07:48 ◼   ► And then part of it was just like, you know, here we go.

00:07:54 ◼   ► Review time.

00:07:55 ◼   ► Right.

00:07:55 ◼   ► Like, so that's in there too.

00:07:57 ◼   ► Uh, we've got our fundraising stuff that we're doing.

00:07:59 ◼   ► There's just a lot of work happening and all happens at once.

00:08:02 ◼   ► And it has to happen at once.

00:08:03 ◼   ► And, and, and, but you're right.

00:08:04 ◼   ► The, after a long summer of chewing on WWDC announcements and betas, it is nice to be tossed something fresh, which is new, actual new products that do new things.

00:08:19 ◼   ► Uh, and we can talk about them in detail and that, that, what a look, I think, I think we do our best stuff when there's new stuff to talk about.

00:08:30 ◼   ► I mean, I know that seems obvious, but what I'm saying is I don't look, we do a good job parsing the rumors in the rumor roundup.

00:08:37 ◼   ► We do, but I feel like if I could, if every episode was about something new that came out, that would be our best life.

00:08:47 ◼   ► Right.

00:08:48 ◼   ► Like that would be peak us and it can't be that way.

00:08:53 ◼   ► Right.

00:08:54 ◼   ► This is just like how people complain.

00:08:55 ◼   ► Like I almost did there about like, well, you know, Apple this year, the iPhone's kind of like last year.

00:09:00 ◼   ► It's like, you can't do a brand new revolutionary product every year.

00:09:04 ◼   ► Right.

00:09:04 ◼   ► Like it's impossible.

00:09:05 ◼   ► It's impossible.

00:09:06 ◼   ► I wrote a piece in Macworld about Tim Cook's, uh, uh, whatever it is, anniversary of being named CEO.

00:09:12 ◼   ► And, um, and one of the criticisms is, you know, when Steve, back when Steve was here and it's like, it's just not true.

00:09:20 ◼   ► Back when Steve was here, they were not doing a brand new revolutionary product every year.

00:09:23 ◼   ► That was not possible, but people don't care.

00:09:25 ◼   ► They just want to be entertained.

00:09:27 ◼   ► And so like, sure, you know, that is true, but at the same time, you can't get, you can't get away from the fact that there are ones that are years that are new feeling and years that are kind of slightly nuanced new feeling.

00:09:41 ◼   ► And, uh, when there's a pure, fresh new stuff, that's the most exciting thing.

00:09:46 ◼   ► And if, but similarly though, if every year was like an absolutely brand new iPhone in the aggregate, we get less exciting.

00:09:53 ◼   ► I suppose you would just be used to the fact that that happens.

00:09:56 ◼   ► And all right, it's shaped like a star now.

00:09:58 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:09:59 ◼   ► Okay.

00:10:00 ◼   ► All right.

00:10:01 ◼   ► All right.

00:10:02 ◼   ► All right.

00:10:02 ◼   ► This one floats.

00:10:03 ◼   ► Fine.

00:10:04 ◼   ► Great.

00:10:04 ◼   ► I'm excited.

00:10:05 ◼   ► I'm really excited.

00:10:06 ◼   ► We'll talk a little bit at the show about kind of what our plans are, but I could just take,

00:10:10 ◼   ► we have no idea, but there'll be an episode on Tuesday.

00:10:13 ◼   ► We have no idea.

00:10:14 ◼   ► I'm just giving you the plans.

00:10:15 ◼   ► We don't know.

00:10:16 ◼   ► That is.

00:10:17 ◼   ► There will be an episode on Tuesday.

00:10:18 ◼   ► We, we literally, when will it be?

00:10:20 ◼   ► We don't know.

00:10:21 ◼   ► Don't know.

00:10:22 ◼   ► How will it be?

00:10:23 ◼   ► We don't know.

00:10:24 ◼   ► Not sure.

00:10:25 ◼   ► Somewhere.

00:10:26 ◼   ► Yep.

00:10:27 ◼   ► Before we get into the draft, uh, I would like to take a moment to talk about our campaign

00:10:32 ◼   ► supporting St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

00:10:35 ◼   ► It is September.

00:10:36 ◼   ► September is childhood cancer awareness month, and it is an opportunity for us to come together

00:10:40 ◼   ► in the fight against childhood cancer.

00:10:42 ◼   ► For the seventh year in a row, the relay community is rallying to support St. Jude, because together

00:10:49 ◼   ► we can make a big impact.

00:10:51 ◼   ► And we have, we've made a huge impact together.

00:10:53 ◼   ► Uh, in the last seven years, the relay community has raised over $4 million for supporting the

00:10:59 ◼   ► life-saving work of St. Jude and supporting the kids of St. Jude.

00:11:03 ◼   ► Uh, we have fundraising goal to $700,000 this year, which seems massive, but last year we

00:11:07 ◼   ► raised a million.

00:11:08 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:11:09 ◼   ► So like, this is, this is what we do gang.

00:11:11 ◼   ► And we're at $30,000 raised so far.

00:11:14 ◼   ► Can I, I just want to tell you a little data point.

00:11:16 ◼   ► It was, uh, it was child cancer, uh, childhood cancer awareness day at the ballpark yesterday,

00:11:21 ◼   ► which is, it's, it's really sweet.

00:11:23 ◼   ► They put up all the photos of the ballplayers are replaced by drawings by cancer patients of the

00:11:28 ◼   ► ballplayers.

00:11:29 ◼   ► It's adorable.

00:11:30 ◼   ► I just want to say this in a positive way about everybody involved, but because that's

00:11:35 ◼   ► what this is about.

00:11:36 ◼   ► But I will say the, the giants president of baseball operations, who's their former catcher,

00:11:40 ◼   ► a future hall of famer, three-time world champion, Buster Posey.

00:11:43 ◼   ► His foundation is to stop a childhood pediatric, pediatric cancer.

00:11:48 ◼   ► He is in this fight with us.

00:11:49 ◼   ► He's working with UC San Francisco instead of St. Jude kind of makes sense being a San Francisco

00:11:53 ◼   ► icon to work with UCSF.

00:11:55 ◼   ► It's right next to the ballpark.

00:11:56 ◼   ► And they have a lot of people doing great work down there.

00:11:58 ◼   ► I just want to point out a base, a future hall of famer beloved by the city of San Francisco

00:12:03 ◼   ► in a place that it's got millions of people come into that ballpark every, uh, every year.

00:12:08 ◼   ► His foundation has earned $6 million.

00:12:11 ◼   ► The nerds who listened to relay and associated have raised $4 million.

00:12:18 ◼   ► I'm going to say that, that is the, we are hall of famers is what I'm saying.

00:12:24 ◼   ► We are hall of famers.

00:12:25 ◼   ► That is like, and again, they've raised more money than us and, uh, it's all very impressive.

00:12:31 ◼   ► And I love that they're doing that, but I'm just saying, I had that moment of realization

00:12:34 ◼   ► where I was like, you know, all the power and fame of Buster Posey and the giants behind this

00:12:38 ◼   ► whole thing.

00:12:39 ◼   ► And relays like in the ballpark with them.

00:12:44 ◼   ► And, and that is down to our community and the, and the power of our community that we

00:12:50 ◼   ► could even be, I was like, well, if relay raised 4 million, what's the number going to be for

00:12:53 ◼   ► Buster Posey?

00:12:54 ◼   ► It's going to be 15 million.

00:12:55 ◼   ► It's going to be 25 million.

00:12:56 ◼   ► And again, I don't know, 6 million is a great number, but the fact that it's not an order

00:13:01 ◼   ► of magnitude greater than relay, I think just shows you that again, we are all hall of famers.

00:13:07 ◼   ► That's what I'm saying.

00:13:08 ◼   ► We have a very generous audience.

00:13:09 ◼   ► I mean, I'm, I'm, I get, I'm, I'm often struck by this, you know, like I see creators who have

00:13:14 ◼   ► much, much larger audiences than us doing all kinds of charity fundraisers.

00:13:18 ◼   ► And I'm always surprised at how close we tend to be to them.

00:13:22 ◼   ► And it is because of the generosity.

00:13:25 ◼   ► And I think it's, you know, it's for many reasons, like this message resonates with our

00:13:30 ◼   ► audience, right?

00:13:31 ◼   ► Because one of us was involved in this, right?

00:13:34 ◼   ► So like part of it is, is we're closing ranks with, uh, with Stephen Hackett and his family.

00:13:39 ◼   ► And people understand that and they get to see, and because we have such a close relationship

00:13:43 ◼   ► with St. Jude, people get to see kind of like as close as possible, the work that is done.

00:13:48 ◼   ► So I want to give you some stats.

00:13:50 ◼   ► We love stats around here.

00:13:52 ◼   ► We do know that an estimated 400,000 children around the world get cancer every year.

00:13:57 ◼   ► In many countries, four out of five children who develop cancer will not survive.

00:14:01 ◼   ► And this is largely due to a lack of access to quality care.

00:14:06 ◼   ► St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and all of us at Relay find that unacceptable.

00:14:10 ◼   ► Because curing childhood cancer is a tremendous undertaking.

00:14:13 ◼   ► So St. Jude needs our help.

00:14:15 ◼   ► The generosity of donors everywhere supports cutting edge research that saves lives and ensures

00:14:20 ◼   ► that families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing or food.

00:14:24 ◼   ► Every child deserves a chance to live their best life and celebrate every moment.

00:14:28 ◼   ► And when you support St. Jude, you can help make cures possible for kids of cancer,

00:14:33 ◼   ► because together we can save more lives.

00:14:35 ◼   ► And it is worldwide, right?

00:14:36 ◼   ► So the St. Jude is, you know, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is located in Memphis,

00:14:41 ◼   ► and they treat children there.

00:14:43 ◼   ► But the efforts that they do in the treatment, they learn and they share that access, the access to knowledge worldwide.

00:14:52 ◼   ► They are sharing drugs worldwide now to help cancer children.

00:14:58 ◼   ► This is something you're going to hear us talk a lot more about over the month.

00:15:01 ◼   ► And I just think it's incredible.

00:15:03 ◼   ► It really requires help from everyone.

00:15:06 ◼   ► So we are inviting the Relay community to continue the incredible generosity that you've shown in the last seven years

00:15:12 ◼   ► to once again make a donation to support the Lifesaving Mission of St. Jude.

00:15:16 ◼   ► Donors who make an individual gift of $60 or more will be eligible to redeem a digital bundle of campaign-themed wallpapers,

00:15:22 ◼   ► which as always are incredible.

00:15:25 ◼   ► Amazing.

00:15:26 ◼   ► as well as a wonderful screensaver too.

00:15:28 ◼   ► Donors who make a gift of $100 or more can redeem the 2025 sticker pack,

00:15:33 ◼   ► which features six all-new host stickers, including Jason.

00:15:37 ◼   ► If you want a Jason Snell snicker, that's the way to get it.

00:15:39 ◼   ► Please go to St. Jude.

00:15:41 ◼   ► A snicker?

00:15:42 ◼   ► A snicker.

00:15:43 ◼   ► A snicker snicker.

00:15:44 ◼   ► There's a Jason Snell snicker.

00:15:45 ◼   ► Now you can get a sticker.

00:15:46 ◼   ► I thought I got away with that one.

00:15:47 ◼   ► I really thought it was like a hi.

00:15:48 ◼   ► He didn't hear me.

00:15:49 ◼   ► But no, he did.

00:15:50 ◼   ► I hear everything.

00:15:51 ◼   ► Please go to stjude.org/relay where you can make a donation today.

00:15:54 ◼   ► Check to see if your employer will match your gift by clicking the blue search employer donation button on the donation summary page.

00:16:01 ◼   ► I'm going to give you some other stuff.

00:16:03 ◼   ► If you know what a...

00:16:06 ◼   ► What is it called?

00:16:07 ◼   ► I don't know what it's called.

00:16:09 ◼   ► What?

00:16:10 ◼   ► A donor-advised fund.

00:16:11 ◼   ► If that means something to you...

00:16:12 ◼   ► Ah, yes.

00:16:13 ◼   ► We don't understand this.

00:16:14 ◼   ► Donor-advised funds.

00:16:15 ◼   ► Jill told us to say this.

00:16:16 ◼   ► Donor-advised funds.

00:16:17 ◼   ► If this means something to you, go to stjude.org/relay.

00:16:20 ◼   ► If you don't know what it means, this is a way that people who have large sums of money can make large donations.

00:16:27 ◼   ► It's essentially what it is.

00:16:28 ◼   ► So if you have one of those, we would like that money to give to the kids of St. Jude.

00:16:34 ◼   ► So go to stjude.org/relay where you will learn more.

00:16:36 ◼   ► And also, we're going to invite you to continue the incredible generosity that you've all shown us by becoming a community fundraiser of your own.

00:16:44 ◼   ► So you can set up your own fundraiser for the overall community.

00:16:48 ◼   ► It all goes into our total.

00:16:49 ◼   ► And there are some incredible incentives available for different amounts raised starting at just a dollar.

00:16:54 ◼   ► And this can be...

00:16:55 ◼   ► You sign up and then you can go to the people in your life, at your workplace, your friends, your family, your school.

00:17:00 ◼   ► You can get them to donate to your campaign, which goes into our campaign.

00:17:04 ◼   ► And you can redeem some incredible incentives if you fundraise that way.

00:17:09 ◼   ► There's so much to learn.

00:17:10 ◼   ► Of course, this is the beginning of the month.

00:17:11 ◼   ► So we'll find those at you.

00:17:13 ◼   ► We're going to tell you so much more throughout the month, including details of the podcast-a-thon.

00:17:17 ◼   ► But for now, go to stjude.org/relay.

00:17:20 ◼   ► Help give them more tomorrows.

00:17:24 ◼   ► Go to stjude.org/relay to donate or start your own fundraiser today.

00:17:29 ◼   ► You know, I love it when the tagline gives me chills.

00:17:33 ◼   ► And that one gave me chills because just get those kids more tomorrows.

00:17:38 ◼   ► That's where you're going to go.

00:17:40 ◼   ► But that's enough of that.

00:17:41 ◼   ► Let's get into some true competition.

00:17:43 ◼   ► It's time to talk about the rules of the draft.

00:17:46 ◼   ► Oh, boy.

00:17:47 ◼   ► There will be 10 rounds in today's game.

00:17:49 ◼   ► That is 20 overall picks.

00:17:51 ◼   ► The draft will be split into four categories.

00:17:54 ◼   ► We have four iPhone picks, two Apple Watch picks, two other picks.

00:18:00 ◼   ► And the first time we're doing two wild card picks where we can just pick anything from any category that we like.

00:18:05 ◼   ► Right.

00:18:06 ◼   ► The winner of the previous draft will get the first pick.

00:18:09 ◼   ► That is me.

00:18:10 ◼   ► The items that we will be drafting are chosen from a predetermined list of choices that Jason and I have worked on together over the last few days.

00:18:18 ◼   ► We have agreed that they could be verifiable on screen and not ridiculously obvious.

00:18:23 ◼   ► For an item to count, it must be clearly announced on stage or on a slide during the presentation.

00:18:30 ◼   ► We will defer to Stephen Hackett for adjudication in case of a stalemate.

00:18:35 ◼   ► There are no partial points awarded.

00:18:38 ◼   ► The points awarded on the episode are final and finalized during the scoring segment.

00:18:43 ◼   ► In the case of a tie, there is a tiebreaker question.

00:18:46 ◼   ► The loser gets the pick of the tiebreaker question and the current winner has to choose the...

00:18:52 ◼   ► It tends to be an over or under or who knows whatever Jason might pick.

00:18:56 ◼   ► Right.

00:18:57 ◼   ► The winner will then become draft champion and display the champion's pennant.

00:19:01 ◼   ► The loser becomes the draft challenger and displays the challenger pennant.

00:19:04 ◼   ► You can find an interactive scorecard at upgrade.cards.

00:19:08 ◼   ► Thank you to our friend, Zoe Knox, friend of the show.

00:19:11 ◼   ► Zoe Knox is putting together the scorecards.

00:19:13 ◼   ► You can buy your own draft tee.

00:19:15 ◼   ► I'm wearing one today, but also hoodies, all kinds of stuff over at upgradeyourwardrobe.com.

00:19:22 ◼   ► We have a selection of merchandise that you can buy all year round.

00:19:25 ◼   ► The draft merch is a part of that.

00:19:27 ◼   ► The 2025 results so far.

00:19:29 ◼   ► We've had two drafts this year.

00:19:31 ◼   ► We had the paternity draft, which I won, and WWDC, which I won.

00:19:35 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:19:36 ◼   ► Continuing my winning streak.

00:19:38 ◼   ► You know, there are young people out there listening to this who just think that Mike always wins the drafts.

00:19:43 ◼   ► Children.

00:19:44 ◼   ► Children.

00:19:45 ◼   ► Children think Mike is always the winner.

00:19:47 ◼   ► Here's the thing.

00:19:48 ◼   ► I'm the Washington generals of the drafts.

00:19:50 ◼   ► It's reminding me.

00:19:51 ◼   ► I went and counted stuff.

00:19:52 ◼   ► So, in our September event, we've had nine.

00:19:56 ◼   ► We've had nine September drafts over the course of upgrade history.

00:19:59 ◼   ► You have won six of those, and I have won three.

00:20:02 ◼   ► I won my three in a row.

00:20:05 ◼   ► You won your six in a row.

00:20:07 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:20:08 ◼   ► So, the draft.

00:20:09 ◼   ► I know.

00:20:10 ◼   ► Streaky.

00:20:11 ◼   ► Streaky drafts.

00:20:12 ◼   ► It's a big time when the big thing when the draft changes over.

00:20:15 ◼   ► It makes me wonder if having the first pick is really actually much more important than we think.

00:20:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:20:21 ◼   ► I mean, that's what everybody tells us, but I'm not so sure.

00:20:23 ◼   ► You know what?

00:20:24 ◼   ► I'm not so sure.

00:20:25 ◼   ► Who could change the rules?

00:20:26 ◼   ► I think I'm just drafting bad.

00:20:27 ◼   ► I think that's what it is.

00:20:28 ◼   ► Who could change the rules?

00:20:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:20:30 ◼   ► It can't be done.

00:20:31 ◼   ► It can't be done.

00:20:32 ◼   ► But we know that it can change hands because it has.

00:20:35 ◼   ► So, it's possible.

00:20:37 ◼   ► Yes.

00:20:38 ◼   ► It's possible.

00:20:39 ◼   ► It's possible.

00:20:40 ◼   ► What's the tiebreaker?

00:20:41 ◼   ► Tiebreaker is length of the video.

00:20:44 ◼   ► Okay.

00:20:45 ◼   ► Last year, the video was 90.

00:20:47 ◼   ► Thank you to friend of the show again, Zoe, for this.

00:20:50 ◼   ► She got us the numbers at a last minute request.

00:20:53 ◼   ► Oh, amazing.

00:20:54 ◼   ► Because I was about to do some furious Googling.

00:20:56 ◼   ► It was 98 minutes and 50 seconds last year.

00:21:00 ◼   ► It was 82:56 the previous year.

00:21:03 ◼   ► It was 94:59 the previous year.

00:21:06 ◼   ► And then there were some short ones in 2020 and 2021.

00:21:09 ◼   ► Why was last year so long?

00:21:11 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:21:14 ◼   ► What happened?

00:21:15 ◼   ► It's all just a blur to me now.

00:21:17 ◼   ► Apple Intelligence?

00:21:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:21:20 ◼   ► 22 was big too.

00:21:21 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:21:22 ◼   ► I'm sure there was a reason for that.

00:21:24 ◼   ► I'm just not sure why.

00:21:26 ◼   ► Like, what happened?

00:21:27 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:21:28 ◼   ► Anyway, so I'm going to pick the over/under.

00:21:30 ◼   ► And I'm going to set the over/under.

00:21:33 ◼   ► I was going to do straight up 90.

00:21:35 ◼   ► But given the error, I'm going to set it at 94 minutes.

00:21:43 ◼   ► 94.

00:21:44 ◼   ► And you can go over or under.

00:21:45 ◼   ► So we had iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max.

00:21:48 ◼   ► Apple Watch Series 10.

00:21:49 ◼   ► Ultra 2.

00:21:50 ◼   ► AirPods 4.

00:21:51 ◼   ► Ultra 2 again.

00:21:53 ◼   ► I know.

00:21:54 ◼   ► And then I get like camera control.

00:21:56 ◼   ► And I guess some...

00:21:57 ◼   ► I'm just surprised.

00:21:58 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:21:59 ◼   ► It just didn't...

00:22:00 ◼   ► I'm surprised looking at that list.

00:22:02 ◼   ► Maybe they showed like a cartoon in the middle.

00:22:04 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:22:05 ◼   ► A trailer for severance.

00:22:07 ◼   ► For me, 94 minutes...

00:22:09 ◼   ► If last year was an hour and 38, I feel like a new iPhone, like a new iPhone that they're...

00:22:16 ◼   ► I know.

00:22:17 ◼   ► It's not just a little one.

00:22:18 ◼   ► It's not just a big one.

00:22:19 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:22:20 ◼   ► Like the mini and the plus.

00:22:21 ◼   ► I know.

00:22:22 ◼   ► It's like, what about current iPhone but different size?

00:22:24 ◼   ► This is a brand new iPhone.

00:22:26 ◼   ► It makes it feel like this isn't over.

00:22:28 ◼   ► Okay.

00:22:29 ◼   ► I feel like it's got to be around the same time as last year.

00:22:34 ◼   ► But we'll find out.

00:22:35 ◼   ► So I'm going to go over 94 minutes.

00:22:38 ◼   ► Okay.

00:22:39 ◼   ► All right.

00:22:40 ◼   ► Sounds good.

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00:24:44 ◼   ► Okay.

00:24:45 ◼   ► Mike, before we get started.

00:24:46 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:24:47 ◼   ► I was kind of assuming we would do this like our other drafts where you could pick in any

00:24:50 ◼   ► order as long as you've got four iPhone, two watch, two other and two from any category.

00:24:55 ◼   ► In the document, it's set that we're going to pick four iPhones and two watches and two other,

00:25:01 ◼   ► right?

00:25:02 ◼   ► And then two wild cards.

00:25:03 ◼   ► What do you think?

00:25:04 ◼   ► Well, my, my thought is that the wild card picks would be at the end.

00:25:08 ◼   ► And so like, okay, pick, pick up anything.

00:25:10 ◼   ► So what were you thinking about like that?

00:25:12 ◼   ► You could just pick randomly.

00:25:13 ◼   ► I was thinking of that.

00:25:14 ◼   ► Maybe we'll talk about it for next time.

00:25:16 ◼   ► I really like the strategy where you can pick from any category at any time, as long as you

00:25:20 ◼   ► fulfill those, those basic.

00:25:21 ◼   ► Oh, like the WWDC draft.

00:25:23 ◼   ► WWDC draft.

00:25:24 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:25:25 ◼   ► We could do that.

00:25:26 ◼   ► I mean, I have not at all prepared that for myself that way, but we can do that.

00:25:31 ◼   ► If you want to do that, I'm up for it.

00:25:32 ◼   ► I haven't prepared that either, but maybe we should do that from the next time.

00:25:37 ◼   ► Okay.

00:25:38 ◼   ► But I like that.

00:25:39 ◼   ► I do.

00:25:40 ◼   ► I do like that.

00:25:41 ◼   ► If we're picking categorized, I like the extra level of strategy of having to pick from,

00:25:44 ◼   ► you know, choosing which ones seem lighter and which ones seem heavier and all of that.

00:25:49 ◼   ► Okay.

00:25:50 ◼   ► We could do that.

00:25:51 ◼   ► I didn't specify that.

00:25:52 ◼   ► I can do that.

00:25:53 ◼   ► I do think though, we're just, we're just in it now.

00:25:55 ◼   ► We're just talking about the draft now.

00:25:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:25:57 ◼   ► I think the problem with the iPhone event, and maybe this is similar to WWDC in some

00:26:02 ◼   ► way.

00:26:03 ◼   ► Is she just going to so heavily front load iPhone?

00:26:05 ◼   ► Yeah, I know.

00:26:06 ◼   ► You know?

00:26:07 ◼   ► It's true.

00:26:08 ◼   ► So I wouldn't be surprised if like, if we did that, like, here you go, just pick them

00:26:13 ◼   ► in any order.

00:26:14 ◼   ► I'd probably pick like three iPhone picks.

00:26:15 ◼   ► Okay.

00:26:16 ◼   ► So here's what I would say though about that.

00:26:18 ◼   ► The counter would be, um, if I think that there are some certainties later on, I might

00:26:26 ◼   ► pick them first.

00:26:27 ◼   ► If, if like, if I'm looking at other and I think, wow, there's only two others that I

00:26:31 ◼   ► even think are going to happen.

00:26:33 ◼   ► I might want to grab those, which forces you to take others that I don't think are going

00:26:38 ◼   ► to happen.

00:26:39 ◼   ► In exchange though, you would be picking from the iPhone.

00:26:41 ◼   ► It's, it's, it's an interesting strategy question.

00:26:43 ◼   ► And I kind of like it because it's a little more strategic.

00:26:46 ◼   ► I will say one of the reasons we do this draft is because it's a vehicle for us to talk about

00:26:51 ◼   ► what's going to happen at the Apple event.

00:26:52 ◼   ► And if it's all mixed up, it's less good of a vehicle.

00:26:56 ◼   ► That's true.

00:26:57 ◼   ► That is true.

00:26:58 ◼   ► So we're going to start with the iPhone picks.

00:27:00 ◼   ► Let's start with the iPhone picks then.

00:27:02 ◼   ► Sometimes like I was actually, I was talking to Steven about this today.

00:27:06 ◼   ► Uh, sometimes it is worth remembering that like, we do this as a way to talk about what

00:27:12 ◼   ► is going to happen.

00:27:13 ◼   ► Not just as like, what is the best game we can make?

00:27:16 ◼   ► Like, is it just a way for us to talk about predictions in a way that is more fun?

00:27:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:27:21 ◼   ► This is the reason that the draft scoring is not a bigger event.

00:27:25 ◼   ► Uh, the week after like the day of the iPhone event when we do it or any other event, because

00:27:31 ◼   ► we're not there to talk about the draft scoring.

00:27:34 ◼   ► We're there to talk about what happened, right?

00:27:36 ◼   ► Like, and, and using, that's why we don't use the scoring to be a, a way to, uh, talk about

00:27:42 ◼   ► that.

00:27:43 ◼   ► Like, no, cause the, it's just a, it's a frame.

00:27:45 ◼   ► It's a fun game, but it's like a frame for a discussion.

00:27:48 ◼   ► And I think the discussion is maybe better, uh, if we lock it in this way.

00:27:52 ◼   ► So we're going to do iPhone picks is what I'm, I'm saying.

00:27:54 ◼   ► Love it.

00:27:55 ◼   ► All right.

00:27:56 ◼   ► So my first round pick, I'm, I'm already, I'm looking at my list here and I'm already

00:28:02 ◼   ► guessing myself, but I think I'm going to do it because, all right.

00:28:06 ◼   ► So there's been a bunch of different like visual designs of what this iPhone might look

00:28:11 ◼   ► like.

00:28:12 ◼   ► And some of the case kind of leaks we'll call them look one way and some look another, but I'm

00:28:17 ◼   ► going to kind of lock in something that I do think is going to happen, which is iPhone

00:28:22 ◼   ► pro models feature aluminum on the back, not just glass.

00:28:27 ◼   ► Okay.

00:28:28 ◼   ► So for a long time, currently it's just glass back there.

00:28:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:28:32 ◼   ► Currently it's all glass front and back.

00:28:34 ◼   ► Right.

00:28:35 ◼   ► And early on and at some different points through the kind of like the quote unquote

00:28:40 ◼   ► case leaks, there has been this design, which is, there is like a, a, a rectangle of glass,

00:28:48 ◼   ► which is kind of like the size and shape of the wallet, the MagSafe wallet that is on the

00:28:53 ◼   ► back of the phone.

00:28:54 ◼   ► The rest of the back is aluminum.

00:28:57 ◼   ► Now, why would they do this?

00:28:59 ◼   ► No idea.

00:29:00 ◼   ► But I think they might because it will look visually different and interesting.

00:29:04 ◼   ► And I would actually personally quite like that.

00:29:06 ◼   ► Like that would be along with a potential, maybe we'll talk about it at some point.

00:29:11 ◼   ► Actually, I don't even know if we've actually got this as a pick because maybe it's just too

00:29:14 ◼   ► obvious at this point, like an edge to edge camera bar design, right?

00:29:17 ◼   ► That we've seen.

00:29:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:29:19 ◼   ► It's not in there because it seems like it's certain.

00:29:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:29:21 ◼   ► That will look different.

00:29:22 ◼   ► But then why not just go the whole way, embrace it and do something different.

00:29:25 ◼   ► And going back to aluminum on the back might do that.

00:29:27 ◼   ► Plus, I'm sorry.

00:29:28 ◼   ► One last thing.

00:29:29 ◼   ► The titanium was, was introduced as a way to reduce weight, right?

00:29:33 ◼   ► If they are actually moving away from titanium and back to aluminum, it wouldn't be a good

00:29:39 ◼   ► thing to make the phones heavier.

00:29:42 ◼   ► And I think replacing glass with aluminum in some form on the back may help them keep

00:29:48 ◼   ► the weight down.

00:29:49 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:29:50 ◼   ► That's a good point.

00:29:51 ◼   ► Uh, I know just in, in case you missed it in the rules that I'll throw in here.

00:29:55 ◼   ► Um, and we just alluded to it.

00:29:58 ◼   ► If it's obvious or we deem it obvious, we're not going to talk about it because what we don't

00:30:03 ◼   ► want, while we want this to be a frame for what's going to be announced, what we don't

00:30:06 ◼   ► want it to be is boring of, you know, list of things that are fundamental, like that there

00:30:13 ◼   ► is an iPhone air coming and that there's going to be a bar on the back because everybody like

00:30:19 ◼   ► that's already been determined.

00:30:21 ◼   ► So we're going to get a little more esoteric than that.

00:30:23 ◼   ► We make a bunch of like, even within the pixels, they're just like a bunch of assumptions,

00:30:27 ◼   ► right?

00:30:28 ◼   ► Like that, that is going on here.

00:30:29 ◼   ► But I thought that this one, there looked like it for a point, like this is a lock, but

00:30:34 ◼   ► then it stopped, like all of the design leaks and stuff stopped looking like this, right?

00:30:39 ◼   ► Like, and they just went to a single color.

00:30:41 ◼   ► And it's like, is it all aluminum?

00:30:42 ◼   ► Is it all glass?

00:30:43 ◼   ► No, I think it will be this like two tone color-y thing that's going on there.

00:30:49 ◼   ► So.

00:30:50 ◼   ► Okay.

00:30:51 ◼   ► I am going to go with an esoteric pick that I think we've all kind of taken for granted

00:31:00 ◼   ► and forgotten about, but it's been in rumor roundup for like two years now.

00:31:07 ◼   ► I think you're going for my second round pick.

00:31:09 ◼   ► Yes, you did.

00:31:10 ◼   ► Which is the Apple, the Apple C modem that is in the 16e will appear in another phone that,

00:31:16 ◼   ► which is probably the air.

00:31:18 ◼   ► But this is Mark Gurman's reports about Apple's planned rollout gradually of its own modem

00:31:23 ◼   ► in various iPhones.

00:31:24 ◼   ► The idea that that C modems next appearance will probably be in an iPhone air, but that

00:31:29 ◼   ► we'll see the C one probably in something else because we, for all of our talk about Apple's

00:31:35 ◼   ► challenges and building their own modem.

00:31:37 ◼   ► The fact is there's basically not been an issue with the 16e.

00:31:42 ◼   ► It is a very functional phone that works well, even though it's got Apple's chip in it.

00:31:48 ◼   ► My mom's 16e lost its eSIM the other day, leading to extreme stress on my part as I tried to solve

00:31:59 ◼   ► her SIM problem remotely.

00:32:02 ◼   ► Thank goodness.

00:32:03 ◼   ► How does that happen?

00:32:04 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:32:05 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:32:06 ◼   ► Thank goodness.

00:32:07 ◼   ► Uh, she was on wifi and I got, and she FaceTimed me and I got to use iPhone screen sharing.

00:32:14 ◼   ► And through screen sharing, I opened her AT&T app and asked them what to do.

00:32:19 ◼   ► And they said, just go to this part of the AT&T app, which was hard to find and ask for

00:32:23 ◼   ► a new eSIM for that device, which is sent wirelessly over the internet to the device.

00:32:30 ◼   ► At which point I, I pressed, you know, install and set without breaking the signal, the wifi

00:32:38 ◼   ► connection, the screen sharing bloop, the, the, uh, cellular network came back.

00:32:43 ◼   ► Amazing.

00:32:44 ◼   ► So, um, that, that made me after the fact, I was like, is that the C one doing that?

00:32:48 ◼   ► Or is that something else going on?

00:32:49 ◼   ► Probably something else going on anyway.

00:32:50 ◼   ► But generally the C one has been a success in that we haven't heard about it.

00:32:54 ◼   ► And I think it's going in that, uh, that new iPhone.

00:32:56 ◼   ► That new iPhone.

00:32:57 ◼   ► So I'm going to pick the C modem in another iPhone as it, as we gradually roll toward

00:33:01 ◼   ► Apple, uh, completely getting away from Qualcomm modems to build their own modems.

00:33:07 ◼   ► And you know, this could be any C modem.

00:33:09 ◼   ► Like they may, they may use this as a chance to revision, uh, to revise it.

00:33:12 ◼   ► I should say, I don't, I don't, I don't know.

00:33:15 ◼   ► It could be a CB radio, anything.

00:33:17 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:33:18 ◼   ► Maybe it would be fine, but maybe if you wanted to replace one of the existing phones, you

00:33:23 ◼   ► wouldn't just swap in the C modem, right?

00:33:26 ◼   ► Like that, that maybe it's doing things that, that you would need it to do to replace that.

00:33:31 ◼   ► But if you built a phone from the ground up, maybe it would work better.

00:33:34 ◼   ► This is just another phone.

00:33:35 ◼   ► They could, they could put the, the C modem in all the low end phones if they wanted to.

00:33:39 ◼   ► I wonder, like, I do wonder, will it find its way to the 17?

00:33:43 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:33:44 ◼   ► That's a, it's an open question, but I do think that that's going to happen.

00:33:47 ◼   ► I'm a believer in that one.

00:33:48 ◼   ► So I'll pick that one.

00:33:50 ◼   ► Uh, my second round pick, I feel like this is one of these things that does feel like

00:33:58 ◼   ► a bit of a given, but I think that the reason that we're, well, you can tell me if you disagree

00:34:04 ◼   ► with it as I say it, maybe you missed it in the thing.

00:34:06 ◼   ► My thinking on it is that it is a little hard to believe, even though I know it's, I feel

00:34:12 ◼   ► very confident it's going to happen, which is that the iPhone air has a single camera on

00:34:15 ◼   ► the back.

00:34:16 ◼   ► I did not.

00:34:18 ◼   ► I, so I, I thought this was enough.

00:34:20 ◼   ► I didn't exit out because I thought it is, uh, an open question.

00:34:25 ◼   ► It sounds like they're only going to have one camera back there, but I, I, you know, could

00:34:30 ◼   ► they have two, would they do that?

00:34:32 ◼   ► Maybe I I'm, I'm fine with it.

00:34:34 ◼   ► I thought that was a, in fact, I was unsure enough to not put it high on my list.

00:34:38 ◼   ► Cause I'm really not sure I believe it, but I mean, it's an easy, easy decision for them

00:34:43 ◼   ► to make in some ways, but.

00:34:44 ◼   ► I think they've been building to this right.

00:34:46 ◼   ► Um, for a while in the way that they build the.

00:34:50 ◼   ► Calling 48 megapixel cameras, multiple cameras.

00:34:53 ◼   ► Yes.

00:34:54 ◼   ► And so I feel like.

00:34:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:34:57 ◼   ► They're going to be able to talk about this in a way that makes it seem like you're getting

00:35:01 ◼   ► getting as much as everybody else gets, even though you're not.

00:35:04 ◼   ► And like, the, the, essentially it is a, I wouldn't even be surprised if they call it

00:35:09 ◼   ► like something like a two camera system in a single lens.

00:35:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:35:13 ◼   ► Some, some nonsense like that.

00:35:14 ◼   ► Yes.

00:35:15 ◼   ► Which, which I feel like they've kind of leaned into that kind of talk.

00:35:18 ◼   ► And, and it's, as we've spoken about on the show, there, there is credence to what

00:35:22 ◼   ► they're talking about.

00:35:23 ◼   ► Right.

00:35:24 ◼   ► About like the way that the pictures are taken and the quality of the image and dah, dah, dah,

00:35:27 ◼   ► dah, dah.

00:35:28 ◼   ► And it's, it's more than just a zoom, right?

00:35:30 ◼   ► Like that, like a, it's more than just pinch and zoom of your fingers, right?

00:35:34 ◼   ► Like there is more going on there.

00:35:36 ◼   ► So I feel like they've been laying the groundwork to the point where they could introduce a premium

00:35:40 ◼   ► device of a single camera and it, and it be of benefit.

00:35:45 ◼   ► I'm wondering now, I want to go look at the specs page for the E and the, I'm not sure how

00:35:51 ◼   ► they talk about that camera and that, that I'm just, I'm intrigued about that now.

00:35:55 ◼   ► But I think that, yeah, they call it a two in one camera system with a 48 megapixel.

00:35:59 ◼   ► So similar thing there.

00:36:02 ◼   ► So it will be interesting to me to see how they talk about this camera in such a way to

00:36:09 ◼   ► make it feel like it makes sense on your expensive phone.

00:36:14 ◼   ► Right.

00:36:15 ◼   ► And like, and also it will be interesting to me to talk about, I don't know if they're going

00:36:20 ◼   ► talk about, I don't know if they're going to talk about, it probably won't be, you never

00:36:23 ◼   ► know, like the challenges of trying to put more than a single camera in a phone so incredibly

00:36:28 ◼   ► thin.

00:36:29 ◼   ► I don't know if they'd go negative on it, but I expect maybe some talk about that afterwards.

00:36:34 ◼   ► Well, it's not negative if it's, if it's Apple's amazing technology that was able to create such

00:36:39 ◼   ► a high quality camera in such a thin space, that sort of thing.

00:36:44 ◼   ► I, I.

00:36:44 ◼   ► And maybe even talking about like our camera technology has gotten so good, it has allowed

00:36:47 ◼   ► us to be able to do this, that kind of thing.

00:36:50 ◼   ► So yeah, the iPhone air has a single camera on the back is my second.

00:36:53 ◼   ► Definitely.

00:36:54 ◼   ► Vibes of like the, it's a, it's a 24 megapixel, you know, 2X zoom, uh, or this cam, this phone's

00:37:03 ◼   ► got a 24 megapixel, uh, 3X zoom and a 48 megapixel, uh, wide, wide camera.

00:37:11 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:37:12 ◼   ► Are you getting it yet?

00:37:13 ◼   ► It's one camera, but it's two cameras.

00:37:14 ◼   ► That's the, that's a very Apple thing for them.

00:37:16 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:37:17 ◼   ► I mean, Apple call it optical zoom on the E.

00:37:19 ◼   ► That's what they call it.

00:37:21 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:37:22 ◼   ► I think, I think that replaying the E, uh, conversation again for the air, uh, is, uh, a thing to look

00:37:28 ◼   ► for, but yours is simple.

00:37:29 ◼   ► One camera on the back, but very different phone, right?

00:37:32 ◼   ► Like a $600 phone compared to a, I don't know, $800, $900 phone, like TBD.

00:37:38 ◼   ► It's a different, it's a different conversation.

00:37:40 ◼   ► So it's going to be interesting to see how they talk about it.

00:37:42 ◼   ► Well, you're, you are zooming in, focusing in on key features of iPhone hardware.

00:37:50 ◼   ► Meanwhile, I have picked a modem chip and now I pick something even more exciting, a case.

00:37:56 ◼   ► The Apple introduces a replacement for fine woven cases, a replacement, a new woven perhaps

00:38:03 ◼   ► of some sort, but basically something new.

00:38:06 ◼   ► That's not silicone.

00:38:07 ◼   ► Yep.

00:38:08 ◼   ► That is a new case design, uh, you know, material.

00:38:12 ◼   ► And, uh, we think this is going to be that tech woven thing that's been out there.

00:38:16 ◼   ► I think that there's a very good chance of that, but, uh, uh, yeah, let's do it.

00:38:21 ◼   ► Let's, uh, let's move to the next stage of weird case discourse.

00:38:26 ◼   ► What we're talking about is like something that sits above the silicone, right?

00:38:29 ◼   ► So they have the silicone case in the lineup.

00:38:31 ◼   ► This is something on top of that.

00:38:32 ◼   ► You need another, another material.

00:38:34 ◼   ► They tried it with fine woven because they dumped leather.

00:38:36 ◼   ► Um, fine woven, uh, didn't work.

00:38:39 ◼   ► And so they're back with, uh, another, another material.

00:38:43 ◼   ► Um, so replacement for fine woven cases is another way of saying cases in a, in a, in

00:38:48 ◼   ► a different material, but we all know what it means.

00:38:51 ◼   ► Yep.

00:38:52 ◼   ► Uh, I'm going to double down on cases.

00:38:55 ◼   ► Let's do it.

00:38:56 ◼   ► iPhone cases featured lanyard attachments.

00:38:59 ◼   ► Lanyard.

00:39:00 ◼   ► This is such a weird one to me.

00:39:03 ◼   ► Um, so Jason, I don't know if you've seen this people wearing their phones.

00:39:07 ◼   ► Have you, have you seen this?

00:39:09 ◼   ► Um, like it's, it's a trend that has been, you know,

00:39:13 ◼   ► it's been growing in popularity over the last few years.

00:39:15 ◼   ► So you get these kind of like phone straps and you connect the, you can't.

00:39:21 ◼   ► So in a case and you connect it through where the charging port is, which I always feel must

00:39:25 ◼   ► be annoying, right?

00:39:26 ◼   ► So like it, it tends to be, that's where the connection point is.

00:39:30 ◼   ► This would potentially make that a lot easier for people if they want to kind of wear their

00:39:35 ◼   ► phones in this way.

00:39:36 ◼   ► Maybe it would be like a, like a lanyard of a little attachment points on it or something.

00:39:40 ◼   ► Um, I don't know how this is going to work.

00:39:43 ◼   ► Like, you know, that wouldn't come off so easily.

00:39:45 ◼   ► Maybe you just take the case off.

00:39:46 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:39:47 ◼   ► But if I was Apple and I was seeing people doing that kind of stuff, I would say, well,

00:39:51 ◼   ► I would like a piece of that action.

00:39:53 ◼   ► Um, and I've said this, it's a, it is a pick in the draft, but I don't think anyone's

00:39:57 ◼   ► going to pick it.

00:39:58 ◼   ► I think there is going to be charms.

00:40:00 ◼   ► I think, I don't know if, I don't know if Apple will make them, but I think charms on

00:40:04 ◼   ► an iPhone will become a big thing.

00:40:06 ◼   ► Um, if you can just, all the iPhone cases have these attachment points in them.

00:40:10 ◼   ► You just put little charms on them.

00:40:12 ◼   ► Right.

00:40:13 ◼   ► It becomes one of those things where Apple, Apple, uh, makes that available as a lanyard attachment,

00:40:17 ◼   ► but people will do with it as they want.

00:40:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:40:20 ◼   ► Which is typical.

00:40:21 ◼   ► Okay.

00:40:22 ◼   ► I guess my, my hesitation here is if they talk about it or not, right?

00:40:26 ◼   ► Like I, they, they got to talk about it or show it on a slide.

00:40:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:40:30 ◼   ► Will they get into the lanyard on a case or not?

00:40:32 ◼   ► They might not, but they might, but it might be visible.

00:40:34 ◼   ► Oh, and it's got a fun, it's got a fun lanyard attachment now.

00:40:37 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:40:38 ◼   ► They, they, I could see them just glossing by it now, but this might be a thing where they

00:40:42 ◼   ► show the case and you're like, there it is, right?

00:40:44 ◼   ► Like you can see that there's two holes in the corner of that case.

00:40:47 ◼   ► It could be, it could be.

00:40:49 ◼   ► Okay.

00:40:50 ◼   ► That's a, that's a good pick.

00:40:51 ◼   ► They might.

00:40:52 ◼   ► Now you're saying they might not talk about the cases at all, right?

00:40:54 ◼   ► Like they might exist, but they might not talk about them.

00:40:57 ◼   ► We'll have to wait and see.

00:40:58 ◼   ► That's, that's right.

00:40:59 ◼   ► It's not what you think.

00:41:01 ◼   ► Um, all right.

00:41:03 ◼   ► I'm going to go with a pivoting from modems and cases to measurement.

00:41:12 ◼   ► measurement.

00:41:13 ◼   ► Hmm.

00:41:14 ◼   ► I am going to pick that the iPhone air is the thinnest iPhone ever, but not as thin as the

00:41:23 ◼   ► iPad pro.

00:41:24 ◼   ► Oh, okay.

00:41:25 ◼   ► Interesting.

00:41:26 ◼   ► Okay.

00:41:27 ◼   ► So you're what we're beating here.

00:41:29 ◼   ► So the, the number to beat is I think 5.1 millimeters is the iPad pro M4.

00:41:35 ◼   ► It's actually the thinnest product.

00:41:38 ◼   ► Apple has ever made thinner than any iPod, which is an unbelievable thing to imagine that

00:41:43 ◼   ► the, that the iPad pro is thinner than the iPod nano, but it is.

00:41:48 ◼   ► So then that is an important number to be, I think.

00:41:51 ◼   ► Cause I, I can imagine they probably would have wanted this to be the thinnest thing.

00:41:55 ◼   ► Yep.

00:41:56 ◼   ► Yep.

00:41:57 ◼   ► But yeah, I just don't think, I don't think they can, but, um, we'll see.

00:42:00 ◼   ► It is the advantage the iPad pro has is they've got the volume to put the battery spread across

00:42:06 ◼   ► all that stuff spread across that huge area.

00:42:09 ◼   ► Um, there are a bunch of reports about this.

00:42:11 ◼   ► It's unclear.

00:42:12 ◼   ► It sounds like this is more like a five and a half millimeter thin product, in which case

00:42:18 ◼   ► it doesn't meet the iPad pro, but it does allow them to say it's the thinnest iPhone

00:42:23 ◼   ► ever.

00:42:24 ◼   ► That's what I think they're going to claim.

00:42:25 ◼   ► We should find out what the thinnest iPhone ever is.

00:42:28 ◼   ► Okay.

00:42:29 ◼   ► That would be helpful.

00:42:30 ◼   ► I think.

00:42:31 ◼   ► We'll set our research staff.

00:42:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:42:33 ◼   ► On that.

00:42:34 ◼   ► It'd probably be good to know that in advance, but we can work that out.

00:42:36 ◼   ► That data exists.

00:42:37 ◼   ► Yep.

00:42:38 ◼   ► Yep.

00:42:39 ◼   ► All right.

00:42:40 ◼   ► My final pick in the traditional iPhone round.

00:42:44 ◼   ► So all of these phones we are assuming go, they have like this bar that's going across

00:42:51 ◼   ► the back where the cameras live.

00:42:52 ◼   ► Right?

00:42:53 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:42:54 ◼   ► Why are they doing this?

00:42:57 ◼   ► Unsure.

00:42:59 ◼   ► Right?

00:43:00 ◼   ► Right now.

00:43:01 ◼   ► Honestly, like unsure.

00:43:02 ◼   ► Unsure.

00:43:03 ◼   ► Um, especially say on the air, right?

00:43:05 ◼   ► Like what's going on up there?

00:43:06 ◼   ► There's one camera.

00:43:07 ◼   ► If it's going to be one camera, then what is going on up there?

00:43:10 ◼   ► So I figure.

00:43:11 ◼   ► I would assume that it is that there is technical reasons for doing it.

00:43:17 ◼   ► And there are static reasons for doing it.

00:43:19 ◼   ► And there are also future proofing reasons for doing it.

00:43:22 ◼   ► Like there's this kind of new design style will make benefits in other ways.

00:43:27 ◼   ► It will stop phone wobble.

00:43:28 ◼   ► But I really don't think that's the thing that anybody cares about in the sense of then

00:43:32 ◼   ► Apple changing the way the iPhone, uh, what looks, um, it will give it a new look.

00:43:38 ◼   ► Um, it will, uh, replicate what I think is the best part of the pixel phones is that look like that, you know, that that is a good look.

00:43:45 ◼   ► I think it's a nice way of doing the camera thing about the lump, but like why if, if, if Apple have done this, what could their engineering team benefit from?

00:43:56 ◼   ► And so I'm going to say that the iPhone pro max has an increased zoom on the tetra prism lens, because if you have all that space up there, why not do something with it?

00:44:07 ◼   ► And it's going to be such a large area on the pro max.

00:44:11 ◼   ► Give me something.

00:44:15 ◼   ► Okay.

00:44:17 ◼   ► I think that's good.

00:44:18 ◼   ► Uh, that was probably my next pick, or at least it was one of the potentials.

00:44:22 ◼   ► I think that's good.

00:44:23 ◼   ► Um, who knows, right?

00:44:25 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:44:25 ◼   ► Like, I don't know if we've gotten clear rumors about that, but that was one of the vague rumors last time too, was they're doing something up there with the zoom and it turned out to not be what we thought it was not a periscope, but it was this other tetra prism thing instead.

00:44:41 ◼   ► I think that's an interesting, uh, I think that's interesting.

00:44:44 ◼   ► Very interesting.

00:44:45 ◼   ► All right.

00:44:46 ◼   ► Wow.

00:44:47 ◼   ► I am left really wondering here what I'm going to do.

00:44:52 ◼   ► Um, huh, huh.

00:44:57 ◼   ► There are a lot of okay choices here, but not a lot that I love.

00:45:03 ◼   ► Um, I'm thinking about, uh, I'm just going to go with, I don't love this one, um, but I'm going to pick it and I'm not going to tell you what I'm thinking about because we have miscellaneous later.

00:45:18 ◼   ► Um, so I'm going to go with a thing that I had you explain to me so that we could talk about whether it was okay or not, which is the Apple logo on the iPhone is shifted.

00:45:30 ◼   ► shifted.

00:45:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:45:32 ◼   ► And the idea here is the sensor bar.

00:45:34 ◼   ► This is the rumors.

00:45:35 ◼   ► There's a much debate about this.

00:45:37 ◼   ► the, the, the Apple logo is basically going to be shifted down to be centered in the space between the bar and the bottom of the phone instead of having the Apple logo up by the bar, which is where it would be if it was centered on the phone.

00:45:51 ◼   ► Right?

00:45:52 ◼   ► Yes.

00:45:53 ◼   ► So you've got, you're, you're kind of going to like visual centering and actual centering.

00:46:00 ◼   ► Like the, the logo is currently actually centered on the phone, but if you have this new kind of plane, which is created by the fact that you have like a, uh, like a heading on the top of the phone that you may actually want to center the Apple logo in the new pane.

00:46:17 ◼   ► Especially if we go back to my first pick, that new pane is a different material.

00:46:23 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:46:24 ◼   ► So like it would look super weird if the Apple logo sat at the top of a rectangle of glass rather than in the middle of that rectangle of glass.

00:46:34 ◼   ► Right.

00:46:35 ◼   ► So, um, and this is on any iPhone.

00:46:37 ◼   ► We'll just say for the, for the sake of this pick, this is just on the iPhone shifted.

00:46:41 ◼   ► It could be on any of them.

00:46:42 ◼   ► Um, because it might just be the pros that have that look, but I'll tell you what.

00:46:46 ◼   ► I don't think Apple will do.

00:46:48 ◼   ► If, if every phone has a bar, every phone will have the Apple logo in the same place.

00:46:52 ◼   ► We'll see.

00:46:55 ◼   ► You know, the 17 might not have a bar.

00:47:02 ◼   ► Well then it might not get, it wouldn't, it wouldn't get the change then.

00:47:05 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:47:06 ◼   ► I think the iPhone 17 is, is, is not going to be like that.

00:47:09 ◼   ► I think it's going to be old style.

00:47:10 ◼   ► And the, the, the, the, the, at least from the case rumors is the 17 still has the little, yeah, the domino.

00:47:16 ◼   ► And then the pros and the heirs have a, have a bar.

00:47:18 ◼   ► Have the bar.

00:47:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:47:19 ◼   ► Okay.

00:47:20 ◼   ► Well that, that's, that's what the pick is, right?

00:47:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:47:23 ◼   ► We'll say the Apple logo on an iPhone is shifted.

00:47:25 ◼   ► Uh, and we'll figure it out.

00:47:27 ◼   ► We'll figure it out.

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00:49:30 ◼   ► Can you guess the name of the independent developer who made this app?

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00:49:34 ◼   ► Our thanks to Cell Trios for their support of this show and Relay.

00:49:39 ◼   ► We move on now to the Apple Watch picks.

00:49:43 ◼   ► We've got two of these.

00:49:45 ◼   ► Yeah, we do.

00:49:46 ◼   ► I'm actually going to go with a software-focused one because there was a rumor of this a while ago,

00:49:52 ◼   ► and I had a slightly different take on it, but I do think it's something that Apple will do,

00:49:56 ◼   ► and why not do it now?

00:49:57 ◼   ► Apple introduces a feature that scores your sleep or vitals.

00:50:01 ◼   ► So you'll wake up in the morning and they'll say, "Hey, here's your score."

00:50:05 ◼   ► This is becoming a thing that is more and more prevalent.

00:50:08 ◼   ► The rumor said sleep.

00:50:10 ◼   ► I think it will be vitals, but I'm not going to pigeonhole myself like that.

00:50:13 ◼   ► But you'll wake up in the morning and they'll be like, "You scored 90 out of 100."

00:50:19 ◼   ► And you can either feel good or bad about yourself, I guess.

00:50:22 ◼   ► I'm being a bit flippant, but these things are interesting.

00:50:26 ◼   ► I wear a whip band.

00:50:28 ◼   ► I've been wearing them for a while, and it gives me a score on my sleep.

00:50:32 ◼   ► That is a good top-line thing, and then I can dig into it if I want to.

00:50:36 ◼   ► And I think this would be a bit of an improvement over the vitals feature.

00:50:41 ◼   ► So the vitals feature is just like a chart of a bunch of up and downs.

00:50:47 ◼   ► But all of that stuff you can collate together to give someone an overall picture of their health while they were sleeping.

00:50:54 ◼   ► And this is one of them.

00:50:56 ◼   ► So why would they save this since this is just a watchOS feature?

00:51:01 ◼   ► Because why not?

00:51:02 ◼   ► This won't be available to developers to do anything with.

00:51:05 ◼   ► Right, and they can bulk up the watch.

00:51:08 ◼   ► I think we heard when we talked about this rumor that people said that this actually is pretty common in a lot of sleep.

00:51:13 ◼   ► People who are being studied for sleep because they've got a sleep problem that this score out of 100 is a thing that happens.

00:51:21 ◼   ► And it's a pretty common concept.

00:51:23 ◼   ► And so, yeah, that could totally happen.

00:51:25 ◼   ► So Sleep++ has one.

00:51:27 ◼   ► There's a recovery score on it.

00:51:28 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:51:28 ◼   ► Oh, good.

00:51:29 ◼   ► Good to get a plug in there.

00:51:31 ◼   ► Available wherever you get your apps.

00:51:34 ◼   ► Well, you're marketing.

00:51:36 ◼   ► You're doing one job inside another job.

00:51:38 ◼   ► I admire your skills.

00:51:39 ◼   ► I like a Matryoshka.

00:51:40 ◼   ► That's it, right?

00:51:41 ◼   ► Matryoshka?

00:51:42 ◼   ► Yep.

00:51:42 ◼   ► That's right.

00:51:43 ◼   ► And if you want to write down my ideas, I could tell you about a great notebook.

00:51:46 ◼   ► Would you like one?

00:51:47 ◼   ► Oh, dear.

00:51:48 ◼   ► I've got one on my desk.

00:51:50 ◼   ► Thank you so much.

00:51:51 ◼   ► I don't write in it, but I aspire to write it.

00:51:54 ◼   ► It doesn't matter.

00:51:55 ◼   ► They're just beautiful desk objects, you know?

00:51:57 ◼   ► They are beautiful objects.

00:51:58 ◼   ► I am going to go with a hardware feature, which is after all of this time where iPhones have

00:52:06 ◼   ► been able to do, when you think about it, a crazy idea of communicating with a satellite.

00:52:12 ◼   ► But you know what doesn't communicate with a satellite is the Apple Watch.

00:52:15 ◼   ► And so I am going to predict that the Apple Watch Ultra 3 gains texting or at least communication

00:52:24 ◼   ► via satellite, right?

00:52:25 ◼   ► It may just be limited like with the iPhone initially to emergencies.

00:52:28 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:52:29 ◼   ► But the idea of sending messages via satellite communication, a thing previously only available

00:52:35 ◼   ► on iPhones, will be available on the Ultra Apple Watch.

00:52:38 ◼   ► This is a thing that I had totally forgotten.

00:52:41 ◼   ► It wasn't available on any Apple Watch.

00:52:43 ◼   ► I know, right?

00:52:44 ◼   ► You think about it and it's like the emergency satellite thing is such a logical thing.

00:52:49 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:52:50 ◼   ► Especially on the Ultra.

00:52:51 ◼   ► Like especially.

00:52:52 ◼   ► Maybe it's maybe not so much on the regular, but like on the Ultra especially, it should be

00:52:57 ◼   ► there.

00:52:58 ◼   ► I think, yeah.

00:52:59 ◼   ► Right.

00:53:00 ◼   ► And for people who are like, well, why would you do this?

00:53:02 ◼   ► Because wouldn't you have an iPhone and all that?

00:53:04 ◼   ► It's like, well, first off, you don't know.

00:53:05 ◼   ► Maybe you lose your iPhone.

00:53:06 ◼   ► Maybe your iPhone dies.

00:53:07 ◼   ► Something like that.

00:53:08 ◼   ► Having it there.

00:53:09 ◼   ► Also, you know, some people do go.

00:53:12 ◼   ► The whole point of the Ultra is that it's got the long battery life and it's rugged and all

00:53:16 ◼   ► these things about it.

00:53:17 ◼   ► And also, it's on your wrist.

00:53:18 ◼   ► What if you're out for a hike and you need to communicate in an emergency and the phone is

00:53:23 ◼   ► back where you were staying and you didn't bring it with you or it's at camp and you fall down

00:53:27 ◼   ► a river.

00:53:28 ◼   ► Many different scenarios.

00:53:29 ◼   ► Plus, it's the Ultra.

00:53:31 ◼   ► Like this is a brand feature for the Ultra.

00:53:35 ◼   ► If there's ever a product that should have a satellite fall back, it's the Ultra.

00:53:40 ◼   ► So I'm going to say Ultra gains communication via satellite.

00:53:44 ◼   ► Now, my question is going to be this.

00:53:47 ◼   ► Is this a cellular feature or is this on all Ultra models?

00:53:52 ◼   ► Because that would be really interesting, right?

00:53:54 ◼   ► The idea that if you, like I, so I go out for a run.

00:53:58 ◼   ► I have a cellular Apple watch.

00:53:59 ◼   ► I go out for a run.

00:54:00 ◼   ► I think the Ultra is only cellular.

00:54:02 ◼   ► Oh, is it only cellular?

00:54:03 ◼   ► Okay.

00:54:03 ◼   ► I think they are.

00:54:04 ◼   ► They only offer one.

00:54:05 ◼   ► But like even, even if you weren't on a cellular plan or whatever, it doesn't matter.

00:54:09 ◼   ► Right.

00:54:10 ◼   ► The idea that you're, you can go out with your Apple watch and regardless of your connectivity,

00:54:13 ◼   ► you get emergency.

00:54:15 ◼   ► I feel like it should do that.

00:54:16 ◼   ► I feel like it should do that.

00:54:17 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:54:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:54:19 ◼   ► And that includes, like, if you have a fall.

00:54:20 ◼   ► I mean, as long as you can kind of like hold it, hold it up.

00:54:23 ◼   ► Like satellites.

00:54:24 ◼   ► Not so useful if you have a fall, to be honest.

00:54:27 ◼   ► Maybe though.

00:54:28 ◼   ► Like I'm falling over.

00:54:29 ◼   ► It's like, if you just go 10 millimeters over there.

00:54:31 ◼   ► If you fall and your wrist falls in the right direction, you might be saved.

00:54:35 ◼   ► Anyway, it feels like a very ultra, ultra Apple watch feature.

00:54:39 ◼   ► And so I think maybe this is the time.

00:54:42 ◼   ► All right.

00:54:43 ◼   ► My second and last pick in the defined watch round is.

00:54:47 ◼   ► So last year, the series 10, the screens got bigger.

00:54:51 ◼   ► The Apple watch ultra was unchanged except color.

00:54:56 ◼   ► I think that this year, the ultra three will get a bigger screen.

00:55:00 ◼   ► I think they'll do what they did with it.

00:55:02 ◼   ► Well, because the ultra as well, especially like it really comes in from the body.

00:55:06 ◼   ► And I think they could expand that screen out a little bit to kind of more flatten out the edges of the body a little bit.

00:55:13 ◼   ► So because you've got that like lip that goes up.

00:55:16 ◼   ► They could kind of stretch that out and get a bigger screen on that thing.

00:55:19 ◼   ► Oh, very nice.

00:55:20 ◼   ► Very nice.

00:55:21 ◼   ► Well, I'm going to.

00:55:23 ◼   ► My Google doc is getting very weird here, Mike.

00:55:27 ◼   ► I am going to pick that the ultra three gets a new chip.

00:55:32 ◼   ► Okay.

00:55:33 ◼   ► That's that's my that's my pick.

00:55:35 ◼   ► It is dancing around in our document and looks like it's lined out even though nobody's picked it yet.

00:55:40 ◼   ► But I'm going to pick it.

00:55:41 ◼   ► Ultra three gets a new chip.

00:55:42 ◼   ► Now that's s.

00:55:43 ◼   ► What is it?

00:55:44 ◼   ► Is it s 10 is currently?

00:55:47 ◼   ► Yes.

00:55:48 ◼   ► I don't know the idea.

00:55:49 ◼   ► Ultra two was two years ago.

00:55:51 ◼   ► Ultra three new chip from the ultra two.

00:55:53 ◼   ► That's that's the pick is that it will be an update.

00:55:56 ◼   ► I think that that is a natural.

00:55:57 ◼   ► Now, if you're saying, Jason, that's obvious.

00:55:59 ◼   ► It's a new watch.

00:56:00 ◼   ► It must be a new chip.

00:56:01 ◼   ► It's like, oh, but Apple sometimes does a new watch without a new chip because they don't turn that chip over as much.

00:56:08 ◼   ► But I think that they're going to do it this time.

00:56:09 ◼   ► I think the ultra three is going to be a real.

00:56:11 ◼   ► I mean, we made three ultra three picks here.

00:56:13 ◼   ► I think the ultra is a really interesting product.

00:56:17 ◼   ► I think it was weird that they updated it after one year with some minor changes and then let it go with just a new color in in year three.

00:56:25 ◼   ► But having waited two years, I think that ultra three is going to be be a blockbuster as at least as much of a blockbuster as an Apple watch can be.

00:56:34 ◼   ► And honestly, the series 10 was such a blockbuster last year.

00:56:37 ◼   ► That was such a huge upgrade for the series models.

00:56:39 ◼   ► And I bought one because I was like, oh, yeah, that that now is the time I'm going to do that.

00:56:43 ◼   ► But one in Tennessee, in fact, I where there's oxygen sensor rules are the same in Tennessee as California, though I wasn't trying to sneak something past Massimo or anything.

00:56:56 ◼   ► That's just where we were when they came out.

00:56:58 ◼   ► So, yeah, I think this is ultra three easier to shine.

00:57:03 ◼   ► No, there'll probably be a series 11, but like it feels to me like ultra three gets the spotlight this time.

00:57:10 ◼   ► All right.

00:57:11 ◼   ► Let's get into our other picks round, which are many things to pick anything else.

00:57:16 ◼   ► Yes, I am going to go AirPods Pro three have a new design, have a new design.

00:57:24 ◼   ► What will that design be?

00:57:26 ◼   ► Not scored, but I'm curious.

00:57:28 ◼   ► Shaped differently?

00:57:29 ◼   ► Yeah, I think there will be some accommodations based on whatever it is they put in them.

00:57:34 ◼   ► And there are some things that they're going to put in them.

00:57:39 ◼   ► And I think that that could change the design up a little bit.

00:57:42 ◼   ► Okay.

00:57:42 ◼   ► I also think that Apple like to with the AirPods kind of a little bit of a status symbol as well.

00:57:50 ◼   ► Differentiate them somehow.

00:57:51 ◼   ► And so giving them something where they look visually different to the two.

00:57:55 ◼   ► If the little stem gets shorter.

00:57:57 ◼   ► Could.

00:57:58 ◼   ► Yep.

00:57:59 ◼   ► Just a new design.

00:58:00 ◼   ► Maybe the shape changes a little bit.

00:58:02 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:58:03 ◼   ► This is going to be, it's going to be an interesting argument.

00:58:05 ◼   ► I feel like they probably are going to need to say it's got a new design.

00:58:08 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:58:08 ◼   ► Because if it's just like a bulgy white blob, like the current ones are, and it doesn't look

00:58:13 ◼   ► that different.

00:58:14 ◼   ► But it's like, we can't, we can't do the like zoom in and be like, ah, but it's the bulge

00:58:19 ◼   ► is slightly different.

00:58:20 ◼   ► It's like, no, that's not it.

00:58:21 ◼   ► You're saying new design.

00:58:22 ◼   ► There are, there are two ways that this can be scored.

00:58:25 ◼   ► It's either if Apple says we have a new design or it is so strikingly different that we can't

00:58:29 ◼   ► argue with fact.

00:58:30 ◼   ► Right.

00:58:31 ◼   ► That's like one to two.

00:58:33 ◼   ► Right.

00:58:34 ◼   ► That was a bit.

00:58:35 ◼   ► It looked a lot different.

00:58:36 ◼   ► Like they looked a lot different.

00:58:38 ◼   ► It's true.

00:58:39 ◼   ► We'll see if it happens again.

00:58:40 ◼   ► True.

00:58:41 ◼   ► If the case is redesigned, does that count?

00:58:44 ◼   ► Why not?

00:58:45 ◼   ► Let's do it.

00:58:46 ◼   ► Okay.

00:58:47 ◼   ► All right.

00:58:48 ◼   ► Just, I'm excited by it.

00:58:50 ◼   ► I mean, when you asked me if I was excited for this event, the first product I listed

00:58:53 ◼   ► was the AirPods pro three.

00:58:54 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:58:55 ◼   ► I hope they, I hope they come.

00:58:56 ◼   ► I hope that it isn't like an October announcement.

00:58:58 ◼   ► This is the perfect announcement for it.

00:58:59 ◼   ► And it's such a.

00:59:00 ◼   ► I would be surprised if they have them this year, even if they're shipping them later,

00:59:03 ◼   ► you would talk about it now.

00:59:05 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:59:06 ◼   ► Talk about during the iPhone event.

00:59:07 ◼   ► It's a natural pair.

00:59:08 ◼   ► And I hope they do it.

00:59:09 ◼   ► I really hope they do it.

00:59:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:59:11 ◼   ► Okay.

00:59:12 ◼   ► I'm going to go with iPad.

00:59:14 ◼   ► AirPods pro three includes some health monitoring sensor.

00:59:17 ◼   ► Yep.

00:59:18 ◼   ► Or sensors of some sort.

00:59:20 ◼   ► So basically this is what you alluded to.

00:59:23 ◼   ► Uh, they may have to redesign this just because they are adding a temperature sensor or something.

00:59:30 ◼   ► Uh, but I, I feel like Apple wants to extend monitoring of your health to other devices that

00:59:37 ◼   ► you wear.

00:59:38 ◼   ► This is the logical one for that.

00:59:39 ◼   ► It would allow non Apple watch people to actually have trends of at least one thing.

00:59:44 ◼   ► Uh, maybe two things.

00:59:45 ◼   ► There could be a pulse monitor too.

00:59:47 ◼   ► Who knows?

00:59:48 ◼   ► So anyway, I think they will try.

00:59:51 ◼   ► There's been a lot of buzz about this, but nothing.

00:59:54 ◼   ► I think definitive.

00:59:55 ◼   ► I think they will try to put some sort of sensor in it.

00:59:58 ◼   ► I think it's going to be heart rate.

00:59:59 ◼   ► I was thinking of this is going to be my next pick.

01:00:01 ◼   ► I was thinking about this, uh, today.

01:00:04 ◼   ► Those beats headphones have heart rate sensors in them.

01:00:07 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:00:08 ◼   ► Right.

01:00:09 ◼   ► It's like, that's a good sign beats fit and say Apple bill.

01:00:11 ◼   ► All the hooks for that to work.

01:00:13 ◼   ► Um, and so it, it would make sense to just bring that technology to the AirPods.

01:00:19 ◼   ► Even if it's just another tick box, you know, like it's like, Oh, they also do this.

01:00:23 ◼   ► You know, if you, if you are exercising with your iPhone and not an Apple watch, it is going

01:00:29 ◼   ► to get you heart rate monitoring.

01:00:30 ◼   ► Right.

01:00:31 ◼   ► That would be great for me.

01:00:32 ◼   ► Right.

01:00:33 ◼   ► Because I'm not wearing an Apple watch right now.

01:00:35 ◼   ► And then I would get the heart rate monitoring during exercise.

01:00:38 ◼   ► Cause I'm always got my AirPods in when I'm doing that.

01:00:40 ◼   ► So that I would, I would actually quite like this feature.

01:00:44 ◼   ► It's something that I'm personally eager for.

01:00:47 ◼   ► Okay.

01:00:48 ◼   ► I'm glad you were rooting for me to get a point.

01:00:50 ◼   ► Uh, I'm going to pick something that you asked to be put into the document today.

01:00:53 ◼   ► So I'm surprised you didn't pick it already.

01:00:55 ◼   ► Um, AirPods improved audio quality as a microphone is mentioned.

01:01:00 ◼   ► Yes.

01:01:01 ◼   ► Um, well, I just, I, I feel like, uh, I was going to pick that next.

01:01:06 ◼   ► So you picked it.

01:01:07 ◼   ► That's fair.

01:01:08 ◼   ► Um, so the story is there's an, there's an operating system, I guess, a firmware update

01:01:13 ◼   ► that they announced WWDC about AirPods sounding way better as microphones, um, that there's

01:01:20 ◼   ► a high quality microphone mode or whatever, and you could record a podcast with them.

01:01:24 ◼   ► Don't do that, but you could.

01:01:26 ◼   ► Um, and it struck me this morning that whether or not they improve the hardware.

01:01:35 ◼   ► And this is one of my suspicions is it's possible also that the AirPods pro three has a, an improved

01:01:41 ◼   ► microphone that works with this feature in a way that we maybe didn't anticipate to make

01:01:46 ◼   ► it even better that they might claim, you know, studio quality microphones in your ears or

01:01:51 ◼   ► whatever it is.

01:01:53 ◼   ► I could imagine them pairing this with the, like, just to, again, talk about the, uh,

01:01:59 ◼   ► new recording features on the iPhone and on iPad.

01:02:02 ◼   ► Right.

01:02:03 ◼   ► Like, yeah, exactly.

01:02:04 ◼   ► It's like an, exactly.

01:02:05 ◼   ► So, and that's what we're saying.

01:02:06 ◼   ► This pick is literally, they will mention during the presentation that AirPods have improved audio

01:02:12 ◼   ► quality as microphones, uh, which is that you get this if, if there's nothing specific about

01:02:18 ◼   ► the AirPods pro three, but they're just touting that great feature that they already announced

01:02:23 ◼   ► at WWDC about it.

01:02:25 ◼   ► Cause what better time to say it again than an iPhone event?

01:02:28 ◼   ► No, I think that's a good, I think that's a good choice.

01:02:32 ◼   ► Um, okay.

01:02:34 ◼   ► Well that was, I had a couple that I was thinking of, including that one.

01:02:39 ◼   ► One I'm, Oh, Oh, huh.

01:02:44 ◼   ► So tough here.

01:02:47 ◼   ► I have two that I like about AirPods pro three.

01:02:52 ◼   ► And I don't know which one I'm going to pick.

01:02:54 ◼   ► I I'm going to, I'm going to go with following on from what they did with the new AirPods four,

01:03:04 ◼   ► which is funny, but they did it.

01:03:07 ◼   ► And so I think they're going to do it again.

01:03:09 ◼   ► So my pick is going to be AirPods pro three have improved noise canceling that Apple will refer

01:03:15 ◼   ► to.

01:03:16 ◼   ► Yep.

01:03:17 ◼   ► With an impossible to measure X amount of improvement that they'll say it's two X better.

01:03:24 ◼   ► And we'll all go, what does that mean?

01:03:26 ◼   ► And they will not explain themselves, but that's what they're going to say.

01:03:29 ◼   ► The idea of like, okay, well they improved the, uh, noise canceling in the, they put noise

01:03:34 ◼   ► canceling into the AirPods.

01:03:36 ◼   ► And it's been a while since they did AirPods pro.

01:03:39 ◼   ► Surely they've got something sensors, algorithms, sample rate, whatever that makes the AirPods pro

01:03:45 ◼   ► even better at noise canceling.

01:03:47 ◼   ► And, and I think when they do it, they will have, they won't be able to help themselves.

01:03:51 ◼   ► They'll, they'll, they'll announce, I don't know if it'll even have an X, but it will, they'll

01:03:56 ◼   ► refer to the amount of improvement, right?

01:03:58 ◼   ► In a way that we all look like, how does that get measured?

01:04:02 ◼   ► So anyway.

01:04:03 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:04:04 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:04:05 ◼   ► AirPods, AirPods pro three has improved noise canceling.

01:04:07 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:04:08 ◼   ► I mean, that's really bottom line is yes.

01:04:09 ◼   ► They're going to boast about better noise canceling in AirPods pro three.

01:04:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:04:13 ◼   ► That's, that's the basic pick.

01:04:15 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:04:16 ◼   ► But I do, I do really want them to, uh, say two X and we can all be like, all right, what

01:04:22 ◼   ► does that mean?

01:04:23 ◼   ► And they're no, it's, we measured it somehow.

01:04:26 ◼   ► We measured noise and then we found that there was less of it.

01:04:29 ◼   ► And like, okay.

01:04:30 ◼   ► I mean, I'm sure there's a way they can do it.

01:04:31 ◼   ► I just found that I always find that such a bizarre thing.

01:04:34 ◼   ► It's like, it's three X better.

01:04:35 ◼   ► I'm like, okay.

01:04:37 ◼   ► I'm sure they've, they, you bamboozled me.

01:04:40 ◼   ► I'll take it.

01:04:41 ◼   ► I'll accept it.

01:04:42 ◼   ► It's better.

01:04:43 ◼   ► I believe it.

01:04:44 ◼   ► I believe you.

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01:06:38 ◼   ► So we move now into our wild card picks.

01:06:42 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:06:43 ◼   ► Where we can go back and pick from anything.

01:06:45 ◼   ► Anything goes.

01:06:46 ◼   ► Anything goes.

01:06:49 ◼   ► I'm picking one that I think is a little weird.

01:06:52 ◼   ► Okay.

01:06:53 ◼   ► But I'm going to pick it anyway.

01:06:54 ◼   ► I mean, weird is just like I just don't know if people are really, really care or are thinking about it.

01:06:59 ◼   ► And it also feeds into a bigger conversation of where does the iPhone Air fit in the lineup?

01:07:08 ◼   ► Like actually, where is it going to go?

01:07:10 ◼   ► Yep.

01:07:11 ◼   ► That is the thing I am most interested about for next week.

01:07:14 ◼   ► Like how much does it cost?

01:07:16 ◼   ► What features does it have?

01:07:18 ◼   ► Like what type of device is this thing?

01:07:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:07:23 ◼   ► So my pick is that the iPhone Air will have an always on display.

01:07:27 ◼   ► Ooh.

01:07:28 ◼   ► That is a feature which is just in the pro phones right now.

01:07:32 ◼   ► But I think is something we could see here.

01:07:35 ◼   ► As I am saying that, I realized that that might be a terrible pick to have made because this thing may have a smaller battery.

01:07:41 ◼   ► So maybe you wouldn't want to have an always on display, but I'm sticking by it.

01:07:45 ◼   ► But it's luxury.

01:07:46 ◼   ► It's nice.

01:07:47 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:07:48 ◼   ► I mean, the Apple Watch has an always on display.

01:07:50 ◼   ► I know it's a smaller display.

01:07:51 ◼   ► It's a smaller battery too.

01:07:52 ◼   ► I mean, this is the, yes, the most fascinating thing that will come out of this event is the iPhone Air.

01:07:59 ◼   ► And the most fascinating thing about the iPhone Air is going to be what tradeoffs they made.

01:08:03 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:08:03 ◼   ► Right.

01:08:04 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:08:04 ◼   ► Right.

01:08:04 ◼   ► Because they clearly had a goal, which is to make it thin and light.

01:08:07 ◼   ► What other goals, you know, what, what was sacrificed and what was prioritized in order to reach that goal?

01:08:13 ◼   ► What do they define as thin and light?

01:08:16 ◼   ► What, what is acceptable battery life?

01:08:18 ◼   ► What is acceptable camera quality?

01:08:20 ◼   ► What is acceptable display?

01:08:22 ◼   ► And we haven't even touched on it, but like, what is acceptable price for that product?

01:08:28 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:08:29 ◼   ► Is that a, is that a, because the iPhone plus is $899, I want to say.

01:08:36 ◼   ► Is that right?

01:08:37 ◼   ► I think so.

01:08:38 ◼   ► I'm going to find out for you.

01:08:39 ◼   ► I think it's $799, $899, $999, and $1199 for those four.

01:08:45 ◼   ► So where does the air go?

01:08:46 ◼   ► I feel like whenever we do these episodes, I should just keep the iPhone compare page open all the time.

01:08:51 ◼   ► I know.

01:08:52 ◼   ► Like, because I have now been to the iPhone compare page, I think like four times during today's episode.

01:08:57 ◼   ► Sure.

01:08:58 ◼   ► $899.

01:08:59 ◼   ► $899.

01:09:00 ◼   ► $899.

01:09:00 ◼   ► $899.

01:09:01 ◼   ► So the question is, was that the target to fill the, the plus spot?

01:09:05 ◼   ► Or is this a $999 or a $1099, right?

01:09:09 ◼   ► Are they, does this become part of Apple's creep upward in price?

01:09:14 ◼   ► Do you want, in fact, do you want your generic iPhone pro buyer to not be able to say, Oh, I'll save a hundred dollars and get the cool new phone.

01:09:24 ◼   ► Do you want to prevent that?

01:09:25 ◼   ► Or is it really not a superpower phone and the, and $899 is fine.

01:09:32 ◼   ► We don't know what Apple's thinking there.

01:09:35 ◼   ► I, I might talk about this on another podcast later this week.

01:09:39 ◼   ► I think that the iPhone air will be more expensive than the pro.

01:09:47 ◼   ► that's what I think is going to happen.

01:09:49 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:50 ◼   ► I mean, that's probably what I would, uh, what I would say as well.

01:09:54 ◼   ► That the price wise, it will go 17 pro air pro max.

01:09:57 ◼   ► That's what I think is going to happen, which would be a choice.

01:10:01 ◼   ► And with my, and with my next pick, I will choose that the iPhone air is more expensive than the iPhone pro base price.

01:10:10 ◼   ► Okay.

01:10:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:10:11 ◼   ► I wasn't going to do that for the draft, but the same reason, um, I think like, look, certainly it would be easy for them to put it at $899 or equivalent.

01:10:22 ◼   ► We should say $899, unless they raise all the prices because of, you know what?

01:10:26 ◼   ► Um, it could do that.

01:10:30 ◼   ► I, I, again, I feel like this is going to be an aspirational product and they're not going to want, look, even if you could sell it for that price, doesn't it almost degrade the product a little bit to say it's thinner and lighter, but it's also cheaper.

01:10:47 ◼   ► So it's really just a cheap iPhone, uh, cheaper than the pro iPhone.

01:10:51 ◼   ► Pro iPhone.

01:10:52 ◼   ► I know it's not a pro iPhone.

01:10:53 ◼   ► How about this?

01:10:54 ◼   ► Do you, or would you be, um, okay.

01:10:57 ◼   ► If I said same or higher price.

01:11:00 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:11:01 ◼   ► Then the iPhone phobic.

01:11:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:11:03 ◼   ► Pro base price.

01:11:04 ◼   ► Cause maybe it's $999, the same price.

01:11:05 ◼   ► It's the same price.

01:11:06 ◼   ► I think we're in the same area, which is like, well, this phone is not replacing the, that price plot.

01:11:14 ◼   ► The plus.

01:11:15 ◼   ► It's not replacing that price point, which is what I think people naturally assumed would be the case.

01:11:19 ◼   ► Right.

01:11:20 ◼   ► But, and so this is why I think as well, you, we may see some features that have only been on pro phones until now, because this phone may sit in a different spot than the one it is replacing, which I actually think would logically make sense because.

01:11:39 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:11:40 ◼   ► Apple has not seemed to have been successful in that price.

01:11:43 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:11:44 ◼   ► The point that I keep making on podcasts is the last seven years has been an experiment by Apple to find out how much they can raise the price of iPhones, how elastic the pricing in iPhones is, how much willingness there is for people to pay lots of money for an iPhone.

01:11:58 ◼   ► For an iPhone.

01:11:59 ◼   ► Cause the iPhone 10 was so much more expensive than the other iPhones and it worked and it has continued to work.

01:12:05 ◼   ► And you know, Tim Cook's Apple, they will continue to be in the lab finding ways to extract more and more revenue from iPhone buyers.

01:12:11 ◼   ► And I, I don't mean that in an evil way.

01:12:14 ◼   ► I mean, like, you're like, Hey, everybody loves an iPhone for seven 99.

01:12:18 ◼   ► And you're like, well, what if we made a cooler iPhone for 10 99 or 11 99?

01:12:21 ◼   ► And people are like, yeah, we love it.

01:12:23 ◼   ► We'll spend that.

01:12:24 ◼   ► If you're going to give us value for that, we'll spend that.

01:12:27 ◼   ► Um, and so if, if you're, if you're on that path and you've got a brand new, newly engineered phone, which by the way, because it's newly engineered, the margins are going to be less on it to start.

01:12:37 ◼   ► And you've had also, let's just say you've had no success that apparently at a 99 or with the non pro alternate, the mini and the plus they're being replaced.

01:12:50 ◼   ► It looks like.

01:12:51 ◼   ► So why, why go back there and not, not make this thing seem cool.

01:12:58 ◼   ► And I really do believe there's a danger if it's eight 99, that it seems like a lesser product.

01:13:03 ◼   ► Whereas if it's nine 99 or 10 99, you're going to psychologically, you're going to have buyers being like, Oh, it's desirable.

01:13:09 ◼   ► It's a special, cool, thin thing.

01:13:11 ◼   ► Whereas if it's eight 99, you're like, yeah, it's just another, you know, it's just a thinner version of that low end model.

01:13:17 ◼   ► And that's not the message they want to send.

01:13:19 ◼   ► So yeah.

01:13:20 ◼   ► Okay.

01:13:20 ◼   ► I've talked myself into it.

01:13:21 ◼   ► Great.

01:13:21 ◼   ► Thank you for your help in talking me into it.

01:13:24 ◼   ► Anytime.

01:13:25 ◼   ► Uh, I was wondering where I was going to go.

01:13:27 ◼   ► I have some other picks.

01:13:27 ◼   ► I have some other picks.

01:13:28 ◼   ► We will talk about the things we didn't pick in upgrade plus today.

01:13:31 ◼   ► Go to get upgrade plus.com.

01:13:32 ◼   ► Yes, please.

01:13:33 ◼   ► I am going to make another iPhone pick.

01:13:35 ◼   ► Um, all right.

01:13:36 ◼   ► In February, Mark Gurman had a report about Apple trying to position the 17 pro as like, Hey, creators, stop using dedicated cameras.

01:13:48 ◼   ► We've got the best camera.

01:13:50 ◼   ► Like they're going to add features to either a new app or the camera app to, to enforce that.

01:13:56 ◼   ► And so one of the things that I think that they might do is dual camera recording on the iPhone pro.

01:14:02 ◼   ► This was very high on my list.

01:14:04 ◼   ► Actually, it might've been my next pick.

01:14:06 ◼   ► This is the idea that you can record.

01:14:08 ◼   ► Uh, this has been possible with third party software for a while now.

01:14:12 ◼   ► filmic did it and Apple has shown it off before and like, and promoted it.

01:14:17 ◼   ► And this could be two of the back cameras.

01:14:20 ◼   ► It could be front and back.

01:14:21 ◼   ► Um, but that you will be able to take two more camera feeds at once and record them both.

01:14:28 ◼   ► Uh, this would be a great feature for the iPhone in general.

01:14:31 ◼   ► I think people would really dig this.

01:14:33 ◼   ► Um, and, and I, and I also think it would be a big whim of careers if they did do it.

01:14:39 ◼   ► So I think a lot of people would really enjoy this.

01:14:41 ◼   ► It would make like reaction content, social media content easier to produce.

01:14:45 ◼   ► If you can get your face and the thing you're looking at, be able to switch between them.

01:14:49 ◼   ► I was going to say the, it's hard to believe that the creators of the slow fee have not already created a camera mode where it records a video of what you're looking at and you looking at it in a mode, right?

01:15:09 ◼   ► A picture in picture, uh, maybe editable later, but certainly like a, a, a, a me watching it mode and it, and it's just not in there.

01:15:18 ◼   ► Think of a FaceTime window where there's you and there's what, uh, you're looking at or in that, in that case is the other person.

01:15:24 ◼   ► We'll think of that as a high quality video being recorded one direction and also the other direction, but also that a composite is built where you're like, Whoa, triple rainbow all the way.

01:15:34 ◼   ► Right. And then you're like, you're amazed and the rainbows are there and everybody's really happy about it.

01:15:40 ◼   ► Like if they're going to do slow fees, which again is a feature that they created that the slow-mo selfies that I feel like was essentially, well, we can do this.

01:15:48 ◼   ► So let's, let's gin this up.

01:15:50 ◼   ► Um, but like if they built the technical infrastructure where they can get all that data recorded, which is the, the, the challenge is right.

01:15:57 ◼   ► Getting all that high quality data off those sensors at the same time.

01:16:01 ◼   ► And that is actually hard.

01:16:02 ◼   ► Yep.

01:16:03 ◼   ► Um, would they, would they do that?

01:16:05 ◼   ► Like that would be, uh, I can see it.

01:16:07 ◼   ► I can picture that part of the demo.

01:16:09 ◼   ► Especially because the iPhone is actually capable of it because there are apps to do it.

01:16:13 ◼   ► Like you can do it like the iPhone has the power to do it.

01:16:18 ◼   ► Um, and if Apple's going to have done work like tidying, I don't, I don't know if this will be a separate app or if it would like, maybe it's in final cut camera or something, but Apple will make something that does your camera recording.

01:16:32 ◼   ► Okay.

01:16:33 ◼   ► Love it.

01:16:34 ◼   ► Uh, just to make this, not all iPhone picks, I'm going to go back to Apple watch and I'm going to pick a bummer pick to end.

01:16:42 ◼   ► No new health sensors on the Apple watch because everybody wants there to be glucose monitoring and blood pressure and all that.

01:16:47 ◼   ► And someday those will come, but I just am really skeptical that they're going to be able to do any of that.

01:16:52 ◼   ► It's really hard.

01:16:54 ◼   ► And I feel like Mark Gurman has talked about, Oh, they want to do this.

01:16:57 ◼   ► They want to do that.

01:16:58 ◼   ► He does that, but like, I never feel like they actually do it.

01:17:02 ◼   ► Like when, when they do it, I feel like we know about it and, uh, I just don't believe it.

01:17:08 ◼   ► I think it's incredibly hard and that Apple desperately wants to do it, but I don't think they're going to be able to do it.

01:17:13 ◼   ► It just feels like I may be wrong, but I feel like in general, it's not the worst pick to just say no new health sensors on Apple watch.

01:17:21 ◼   ► Eventually they're going to get there. Right. It's like, you're saying, I agree. Like the rumors are talking about something that Apple is doing, but it's like a long time thing that they're trying to do.

01:17:34 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:17:35 ◼   ► And, and the level of the thing that they're doing may then require new approvals and all this kind of stuff. Um, like if they really want to get that blood glucose system done and get it done the way they want, it's going to have to be like the heart rate sensor, right? Like they're going to need that thing.

01:17:50 ◼   ► That thing fully approved by health regulatory bodies to have the kind of impact that it should have and that they would want it to have would be my assumption.

01:17:58 ◼   ► Yeah. We'll see. I I'm, I'm realizing now that I have AirPods getting a sensor in the Apple watch, not getting a sensor. Funny, funny.

01:18:06 ◼   ► Yeah. But the AirPods are getting a sensor that Apple already really knows how to make, right? Like it makes sense, right? Like, um, it would be weird if, if, if the AirPods already had a heart rate sensor and then you made that.

01:18:19 ◼   ► Just like AirPods are going to get glucose monitoring, but the other sensor.

01:18:23 ◼   ► All right. We're now going to do another round.

01:18:27 ◼   ► This is not a round in the, in the draft.

01:18:29 ◼   ► This is not for draft points.

01:18:31 ◼   ► This is the St. Jude challenge, which we instituted last year. And this is for podcast on points. So in the podcast on every year, uh, which will be on September 19th from 12 to 12 Eastern. So 12 noon to 12 AM Eastern 12 hour extravaganza that me and Jason will be out along with a selection of wonderful relay hosts.

01:18:55 ◼   ► Uh, Steven and I will be competing and there'll be various team games and all kinds of fun, but we also encourage some, uh, games to be played, uh, by us on, on our various shows.

01:19:06 ◼   ► And the St. Jude challenge is one of them. So, oh, there is one draft point for the winner. Sorry. There is one draft point for the winner. I said, there were no draft points.

01:19:13 ◼   ► I just told a lie. I apologize for lying. Um, this will be adjudicated by a friend of the show, Zoe Knox, because Steven can't be trusted if he's going to be gaining points on this. We have a set of phrases that could be said during the keynote.

01:19:26 ◼   ► Uh, we have 10 total points each that we can allocate and bet on each of these things happening or being said. Uh, our final total will be multiplied by 10 with Jason's score going to Steven and me having my own score. Uh, I'm going to read to you the set of phrases that we have both input into the system. And then Jason and I will, we'll put our chips down, uh, on these phrases once I've read, once I've read through them all. So as light as air.

01:19:55 ◼   ► Edge to edge, thinnest iPhone ever, most advanced camera ever, aerospace grade aluminum. You'll forget it's in your pocket. World's most popular headphones, gorgeous colors, two tone, and one more thing. I got a little giddy when I saw you add that one to the document.

01:20:24 ◼   ► I, I, I enjoyed that, uh, a lot. So, um, all right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna put some chips down. What I'm gonna do is, I'll tell you what you think, if you agree with me here, we'll put our points down, we'll settle them, and then we'll talk about maybe why we're choosing the things that we're choosing, so we're not gonna influence each other.

01:20:41 ◼   ► Sure, sounds good.

01:20:42 ◼   ► All right, so, let me just do all of mine, and then you can do all of yours.

01:20:46 ◼   ► Should I, maybe keep that easiest?

01:20:47 ◼   ► So I'm gonna put three points on edge to edge.

01:20:52 ◼   ► I'm gonna put three points on thinnest iPhone ever.

01:20:59 ◼   ► I'm gonna put one point on most advanced camera ever.

01:21:03 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

01:21:05 ◼   ► One point on aerospace grade aluminum.

01:21:08 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

01:21:10 ◼   ► One point on world's most popular headphones.

01:21:13 ◼   ► Oh, yeah.

01:21:14 ◼   ► And one point on two-tone.

01:21:17 ◼   ► One point on two-tone.

01:21:19 ◼   ► Okay.

01:21:21 ◼   ► That's, that's good.

01:21:22 ◼   ► All right, I don't even have a plan here, so I'm gonna say.

01:21:26 ◼   ► I love it, I love it.

01:21:27 ◼   ► I am gonna say, um, four points on edge to edge.

01:21:36 ◼   ► Wow.

01:21:37 ◼   ► Four points on thinnest iPhone ever.

01:21:39 ◼   ► I have two points left.

01:21:43 ◼   ► And two points on one more thing.

01:21:47 ◼   ► Do you think the iPhone Air might be a one more thing?

01:21:51 ◼   ► I do.

01:21:52 ◼   ► Wow.

01:21:53 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:21:54 ◼   ► That's cool.

01:21:56 ◼   ► I, I like that.

01:21:58 ◼   ► The last one more thing was the Vision Pro.

01:22:01 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:22:02 ◼   ► And I think.

01:22:02 ◼   ► No, no, it's, I mean, it's a big, it's a big deal.

01:22:04 ◼   ► But imagine, imagine a, an event that begins with the Apple Watch and the AirPods.

01:22:12 ◼   ► And then, now here's the real deal.

01:22:15 ◼   ► It's the iPhone.

01:22:16 ◼   ► And it's the new iPhone 17.

01:22:18 ◼   ► And it's the new iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max.

01:22:21 ◼   ► And then there's one more thing, a brand new iPhone, the iPhone Air.

01:22:24 ◼   ► Let me tell you, I love this.

01:22:26 ◼   ► Let me, let me, let me say to you why I think it might not happen.

01:22:30 ◼   ► Because next year is the fold.

01:22:32 ◼   ► And that's okay.

01:22:33 ◼   ► Might want to wait for that.

01:22:34 ◼   ► But maybe they do it two times in two years.

01:22:36 ◼   ► Because they got new phones.

01:22:37 ◼   ► Let's just keep doing more things.

01:22:39 ◼   ► More things.

01:22:40 ◼   ► Every year, one more thing.

01:22:41 ◼   ► To keep doing more things.

01:22:44 ◼   ► All right.

01:22:45 ◼   ► So I'm going to talk through mine here.

01:22:46 ◼   ► Okay.

01:22:47 ◼   ► So edge to edge, I think, could count in a bunch of places.

01:22:50 ◼   ► Right?

01:22:51 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:22:52 ◼   ► Apple Watch.

01:22:53 ◼   ► Apple Watch.

01:22:54 ◼   ► Is sort of what I was thinking.

01:22:55 ◼   ► Could be the camera bar thing.

01:22:57 ◼   ► They might say is edge to edge.

01:22:59 ◼   ► There is rumors of the iPhone 17 screen getting bigger.

01:23:03 ◼   ► That could say that's an edge to edge screen.

01:23:06 ◼   ► There's a bunch of places they might say that.

01:23:07 ◼   ► Sure.

01:23:08 ◼   ► Thinest iPhone ever just talks for itself.

01:23:10 ◼   ► I think so.

01:23:12 ◼   ► Most advanced camera ever.

01:23:14 ◼   ► The other rumor is that they're going to.

01:23:16 ◼   ► Another rumor is that I really want them to do.

01:23:17 ◼   ► Is they're going to put all 48 megapixel sensors in the Pro phones.

01:23:22 ◼   ► So they're all going to be higher quality sensors than we have now.

01:23:25 ◼   ► Which I think would be fantastic.

01:23:26 ◼   ► Because I really want that.

01:23:27 ◼   ► Because of that gosh darn macro mode thing that they really want you to do.

01:23:31 ◼   ► Aerospace grade aluminum.

01:23:35 ◼   ► Usually good.

01:23:37 ◼   ► They love it.

01:23:39 ◼   ► But also, I think they're going to have to.

01:23:41 ◼   ► Not have to.

01:23:42 ◼   ► I think they're going to want to.

01:23:43 ◼   ► Hype up.

01:23:45 ◼   ► Going back from titanium.

01:23:46 ◼   ► Now it's such a big deal about titanium.

01:23:48 ◼   ► And now we're going back to aluminum.

01:23:50 ◼   ► You've got to sell it to me.

01:23:53 ◼   ► And I think this would be one of the ways to sell it.

01:23:55 ◼   ► And I'll just throw in here.

01:23:56 ◼   ► Two-tone.

01:23:57 ◼   ► Meaning the phone color.

01:23:59 ◼   ► Right?

01:23:59 ◼   ► That will have two-tone colors in the phones.

01:24:01 ◼   ► I think that will be another part of it.

01:24:03 ◼   ► I think they definitely may describe it that way.

01:24:06 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:24:06 ◼   ► And as I said.

01:24:07 ◼   ► I've thrown in some points on one more thing.

01:24:09 ◼   ► Because I think that that is a very strong possibility.

01:24:11 ◼   ► If ever they're going to do it.

01:24:13 ◼   ► This might be the time to do it.

01:24:14 ◼   ► Yep.

01:24:14 ◼   ► Well, it's most popular with iPhones.

01:24:16 ◼   ► Because they can do a normal.

01:24:17 ◼   ► What they like to do.

01:24:18 ◼   ► Is they do a normal iPhone announcement.

01:24:20 ◼   ► Here's the iPhone.

01:24:22 ◼   ► You know.

01:24:22 ◼   ► And here's the iPhone Pro and Pro Max.

01:24:25 ◼   ► Isn't it great?

01:24:26 ◼   ► Yay.

01:24:26 ◼   ► iPhones.

01:24:27 ◼   ► Yay.

01:24:28 ◼   ► Oh, but wait.

01:24:29 ◼   ► Boom.

01:24:30 ◼   ► iPhone.

01:24:31 ◼   ► iPhone Air.

01:24:31 ◼   ► So that's why I think that might happen.

01:24:33 ◼   ► I like it.

01:24:34 ◼   ► It's fun.

01:24:35 ◼   ► The St. Jude Challenge.

01:24:36 ◼   ► It's great.

01:24:36 ◼   ► It is done.

01:24:40 ◼   ► This episode is brought to you by Delete Me.

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01:26:28 ◼   ► We're going to finish out with some Ask Upgrade questions.

01:26:33 ◼   ► Aaron writes in and says, in a bit of bad timing, I need to replace my iPhone.

01:26:40 ◼   ► I have an iPhone 12 mini whose camera has stopped focusing properly.

01:26:44 ◼   ► It's been annoying, but I've been waiting for new iPhones.

01:26:46 ◼   ► However, I have a trip to Scotland scheduled the week the iPhone 17 is rumored to come out.

01:26:52 ◼   ► I can try and get my mini fixed beforehand, or maybe I just get a 16.

01:26:57 ◼   ► If you're in my position, what would you do?

01:27:02 ◼   ► I mean, I'd almost want to see about getting the phone fixed or borrowing somebody's phone.

01:27:11 ◼   ► I mean, do you...

01:27:12 ◼   ► Apple has like a return policy.

01:27:14 ◼   ► You could maybe like buy a phone, take it to Scotland, and then return it.

01:27:17 ◼   ► Yes, what I would do.

01:27:18 ◼   ► And get a proper phone.

01:27:19 ◼   ► Is that what you would do?

01:27:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:27:20 ◼   ► It's a 30-day?

01:27:22 ◼   ► I think it's 30 days, check it, but that's what I would do.

01:27:25 ◼   ► I mean, because at the end of the day, they're going to end up with more money out of you.

01:27:28 ◼   ► You know, you kind of end up probably buying a phone that's a little bit more expensive.

01:27:31 ◼   ► I would do that.

01:27:33 ◼   ► And I would imagine you could even just say to them like,

01:27:36 ◼   ► hey, I bought this phone, and a new one came out, and I wanted that one, and I want to return it.

01:27:40 ◼   ► So my other ideas are, yeah, borrow one from a friend, or depending on what you're interested in doing, rent a camera for Scotland.

01:27:51 ◼   ► Yeah, you can do that.

01:27:52 ◼   ► And then it doesn't matter that your iPhone doesn't take pictures, right?

01:27:54 ◼   ► Because you have a camera with you, that would be another thing to try.

01:27:57 ◼   ► But it's got to be...

01:27:59 ◼   ► But yeah, you could also just go and get an iPhone 6.

01:28:00 ◼   ► Zoe says it's 14 days, but you never know.

01:28:03 ◼   ► 14 days.

01:28:04 ◼   ► Here's what I would say too as well.

01:28:05 ◼   ► Maybe you don't want what the 17 has, and so you buy a 16, and you're like, I'm fine with this one.

01:28:12 ◼   ► Yeah, that's true.

01:28:14 ◼   ► That's true.

01:28:14 ◼   ► So you might be fine with it.

01:28:16 ◼   ► But I would say if this trip is important to you, just get a new iPhone.

01:28:20 ◼   ► If you want to take pictures on an iPhone for some reason, right?

01:28:24 ◼   ► I agree with what Jason says.

01:28:26 ◼   ► If it's just a camera, get another camera.

01:28:28 ◼   ► Wait to see what happens with the iPhone, and then make your buying decision.

01:28:32 ◼   ► Because you may, again, see the iPhone 17 and be like,

01:28:35 ◼   ► that's not really that much better than the 16.

01:28:37 ◼   ► Get a 16, it'll be cheaper, and then think about it later on.

01:28:41 ◼   ► Yeah, and if you can do it in the 14-day window, then great.

01:28:44 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:28:44 ◼   ► James says, has there ever been an iOS or macOS beta that made you have instant regrets for installing it?

01:28:53 ◼   ► I don't know the version, but there was a macOS beta a few years ago that I installed,

01:29:01 ◼   ► and it was, and I had to do it because I was writing about photos and the photos updates were big.

01:29:08 ◼   ► But I installed it on my main computer.

01:29:10 ◼   ► And my memory of that is I ended up putting my server, which is, I think it might have been in this room with me.

01:29:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:29:18 ◼   ► But I bought, I just found it because I was cleaning up my cables and I found it.

01:29:22 ◼   ► I bought this enormous USB extension cord, or maybe it was just an enormous USB cord, but like laughably long.

01:29:32 ◼   ► And I was like, right, I had to do podcasts for several months where my microphone was plugged into this very long extension cord that ran to the other side of the room where my server was.

01:29:49 ◼   ► And then used screen sharing to control the server.

01:29:51 ◼   ► And my podcast recordings happened on that computer while I looked at my computer that was running the beta.

01:29:58 ◼   ► So it was two computers at once.

01:30:00 ◼   ► I don't know if you remember this.

01:30:02 ◼   ► Oh, I remember.

01:30:02 ◼   ► But we used to do upgrade where I was like, literally, I was talking to you through a different computer than the one I was looking at.

01:30:10 ◼   ► Because the beta had broken everything I used.

01:30:14 ◼   ► Because I remember I was really nervous that what if something's not working and then you would say, oh, I'm screen sharing in so I can check that it's still recording.

01:30:22 ◼   ► It's like it was just a horrible time.

01:30:24 ◼   ► It was not great.

01:30:25 ◼   ► So that's my story.

01:30:26 ◼   ► I'm going to pick.

01:30:28 ◼   ► So I know you hear people like, oh, iOS 7.

01:30:31 ◼   ► No, everybody knew what was going to be going on with that.

01:30:33 ◼   ► You know, like that wasn't a regret.

01:30:35 ◼   ► iOS 13.

01:30:36 ◼   ► I had to look this one up.

01:30:39 ◼   ► iOS 13 was so bad.

01:30:41 ◼   ► This was the one that was so bad that the iPad never got the 13.0 released.

01:30:48 ◼   ► Like it just never came out.

01:30:49 ◼   ► Oh, right, right, right, right, right.

01:30:50 ◼   ► And the 0.1 came out a few days after the 0.0 because they had to release the 0.0 so it could go on the iPhone, right?

01:31:00 ◼   ► Like it was like a thing they released because it had to be on the iPhone because it was put in the boxes.

01:31:04 ◼   ► And then the 0.1 came out like at the end of the week or something.

01:31:08 ◼   ► I think you could still upgrade an iPhone to 13.0, I think.

01:31:13 ◼   ► But I know that the iPad just never got it and it just came with 0.1 because it was just a really, really coming in hot kind of iOS release.

01:31:24 ◼   ► Jacob asks, as we are leaving the summer of fun, I wonder if as Apple can become less quote unquote enjoyable to cover, what are some other tech or tech adjacent areas that you'd like to branch upgrade out into covering?

01:31:40 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:31:41 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:31:41 ◼   ► I mean, this is kind of my deal.

01:31:42 ◼   ► Yeah, me too.

01:31:43 ◼   ► And I would say Apple has had some things around it that are less enjoyable to cover, but I still find the products enjoyable to cover.

01:31:54 ◼   ► Yep.

01:31:55 ◼   ► I agree.

01:31:57 ◼   ► And I think that they're interesting.

01:31:59 ◼   ► I think Apple, I read about, look, other companies are fine.

01:32:03 ◼   ► They're fine.

01:32:06 ◼   ► But Apple is doing some of the most interesting stuff in the world in terms of their products.

01:32:13 ◼   ► Like, that's the truth of it.

01:32:15 ◼   ► And, you know, there are other companies that are doing other interesting things, but like Apple, like read that Apple in China book if you haven't.

01:32:24 ◼   ► The fact is, it made it clear to me that Apple isn't the only company doing this.

01:32:31 ◼   ► They're doing it in maybe more areas and more important areas, but there are other companies that are pushing it forward, like Sony and Samsung and LG.

01:32:39 ◼   ► But like Apple's whole MO when it comes to manufacturing is they envision a product and then they figure out how to make it.

01:32:50 ◼   ► And they invent, working with their manufacturing partners, they invent new methods in order to get them where they want to go.

01:32:59 ◼   ► They build their own chips and work with TSMC on the fabs that are coming online for TSMC.

01:33:07 ◼   ► And I have no doubt that Apple as a key TSMC partner is talking to them about what they would like to be able to achieve that TSMC is keeping in their roadmap.

01:33:16 ◼   ► Like Apple is, a lot of tech companies, and they don't want to talk about it because they're not proud of it, but a lot of tech companies, it's a matter of taking things off the shelf and assembling them in an interesting way.

01:33:27 ◼   ► Yep.

01:33:29 ◼   ► And Apple doesn't do that.

01:33:32 ◼   ► I mean, they do that sometimes with some things, but Apple has a drive to say, like in that book, they talk about like the Gorilla Glass stuff.

01:33:39 ◼   ► Like the way that the Gorilla Glass is handled for making iPhones is a method that they basically invented.

01:33:47 ◼   ► So much of the manufacturing of iPhones especially, but of devices from Apple in general, is Apple saying, we want to do this thing.

01:33:55 ◼   ► And the manufacturers are like, well, it's never been done.

01:33:58 ◼   ► It's like, well, let's figure out how to do it then.

01:34:00 ◼   ► And I'm just saying, just regardless of all the other distractions going on around Apple, I will say, I find them interesting to cover because they still, even to this day, are striving to do things that other people have never done before.

01:34:14 ◼   ► And that's really interesting and fun to talk about and to cover.

01:34:20 ◼   ► My experience in other like top line product categories, especially when I was at IDG and I was also in charge of PC World, when we tried all sorts of things to find other tech communities, there's not a lot of tech communities that have the vibrance of the Apple community.

01:34:37 ◼   ► And I think this is one of the reasons why.

01:34:39 ◼   ► So I think the community, the products that I like, even if there are issues around it that bum us out, I think that they are, they're just so interested, interesting to cover and to talk about because of that, they're trying stuff that nobody else is.

01:34:54 ◼   ► We, you know, to answer Jacob's question, you've already seen it.

01:34:58 ◼   ► Like, I also pay attention to like e-readers because that's a category that I think is interesting that nobody seems to care about, but like a teeny tiny group.

01:35:06 ◼   ► But I'll tell you what does happen is I get a text every week or two from somebody saying, hey, Jason, about e-readers, I need to buy a new e-reader.

01:35:12 ◼   ► What should I get?

01:35:13 ◼   ► And I'm like, oh, let me tell you.

01:35:14 ◼   ► And that's fun.

01:35:15 ◼   ► I think that's a category that's interesting.

01:35:17 ◼   ► I explored all those weird, you know, Android e-readers and will probably do so again.

01:35:23 ◼   ► So that's a little tech category that is near and dear to my heart, but also kind of fun and weird and interesting sometimes, sometimes deadly boring, other times really interesting.

01:35:33 ◼   ► And like, I used to be really big into like DVRs and TiVo and stuff like that.

01:35:38 ◼   ► And I'm a lot less interested in it now because I'm all in on Apple TV.

01:35:41 ◼   ► And then the other answer, you've already, I did a whole podcast about it.

01:35:45 ◼   ► We do downstream now, right?

01:35:47 ◼   ► Like, which is about streaming media tech and business and content.

01:35:52 ◼   ► And I think that's a lot of fun.

01:35:54 ◼   ► So, you know, honestly, there are a lot of areas you can already see in what I do that are the other areas I'm interested in.

01:35:59 ◼   ► But I still think Apple is sort of like number one in terms of doing stuff that's interesting.

01:36:03 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:36:04 ◼   ► I mean, similar, right?

01:36:06 ◼   ► Like if I find other interesting things in technology, I will bring them to my shows and I'll bring them to this show, right?

01:36:12 ◼   ► Because it is just a thing that we do.

01:36:13 ◼   ► And like the show has changed over time based on new and weird and wonderful things that we find.

01:36:18 ◼   ► And enjoyable and interesting are different, right?

01:36:22 ◼   ► Like, I don't enjoy all of the things that we have to, I do not enjoy all the things that we feel like we should talk about, but I do find them interesting.

01:36:32 ◼   ► And so like that to me, like as Apple is becoming more complicated politically and legislatively, I do still find those conversations to be intellectually engaging.

01:36:47 ◼   ► Sometimes more so than talking about a new iPhone.

01:36:50 ◼   ► I don't find it to necessarily be like an enjoyable thing.

01:36:54 ◼   ► Like I would, you know, sometimes you give me the choice.

01:36:56 ◼   ► I would choose a new product over talking about the DMA, but I have found our coverage on that to be like just really interesting to think about.

01:37:07 ◼   ► Like it's kind of like broadened my horizon a little bit into the types of things that we cover and we find our balance where we can.

01:37:15 ◼   ► And I mean, but yeah, I agree that at its core, I mean, I don't, I would be super surprised if we were ever just like, no, we're going to do something else now.

01:37:24 ◼   ► Like I just don't think that that's what we're going to do.

01:37:27 ◼   ► And we can just keep doing what we have been doing, right?

01:37:31 ◼   ► Where it's like, oh, don't like that they're doing this.

01:37:33 ◼   ► I think they're wrong for doing this or that.

01:37:36 ◼   ► I would do it differently if I was them.

01:37:38 ◼   ► I think they're making mistakes.

01:37:39 ◼   ► And still say, yeah, but I love this new iPhone.

01:37:43 ◼   ► I think that's a balanced way to be.

01:37:45 ◼   ► Right.

01:37:45 ◼   ► I, uh, coming into covering Apple in the nineties, Matt, that I cover, I was covering a company that made products.

01:37:53 ◼   ► I loved that was a disaster of a company that was falling apart, making really bad decisions.

01:38:00 ◼   ► And so I kind of have internalized that, right?

01:38:03 ◼   ► It's like, it's about the products.

01:38:04 ◼   ► It's not about the company.

01:38:05 ◼   ► Your job is not to defend the company.

01:38:07 ◼   ► It is to explain the company.

01:38:08 ◼   ► Um, yeah, and you know, sometimes that gets lost, but like one of the things we do here a lot is try to understand why they do what they do.

01:38:15 ◼   ► It doesn't necessarily mean we endorse what they do, but we, we try to understand what they do.

01:38:19 ◼   ► I think that's important because I do, I do get the sense and there, as various incidents happen, I get the sense that a lot of people are like, why would they do that?

01:38:26 ◼   ► And if we can offer an explanation, like, again, not a defense, an explanation of like, this is their mindset.

01:38:33 ◼   ► You don't have to like what they do, but here's why they did it.

01:38:36 ◼   ► And I think that is helpful and informs whenever they do a new product or they don't do a new product and we can go, ah, like just today talking about the iPhone air.

01:38:44 ◼   ► I feel like our, uh, conversation is elevated because we understand what they've been doing to ratchet up the average selling price of an iPhone over the last seven years.

01:38:53 ◼   ► Right.

01:38:54 ◼   ► Like that helps that analysis in a way.

01:38:57 ◼   ► And, uh, you know, I enjoy that.

01:38:59 ◼   ► I'll tell you what I didn't enjoy.

01:39:00 ◼   ► And this is, I'm going to mention another, uh, podcast here that we killed is download, uh, where Stephen Hackett and I were trying to cover general tech news.

01:39:08 ◼   ► And again, part of that is the Apple, the Apple stuff is more fun in a lot of ways than a lot of these other areas where these companies are just trying to optimize.

01:39:17 ◼   ► And they're trying to steal all your data and ruin your privacy and optimize every dollar out of you one way or another.

01:39:23 ◼   ► And we did that in a particular era.

01:39:26 ◼   ► Although Stephen and I text every now and then when there's a spate of stories about a subject for a couple of months and we're like, well, if we, if we didn't quit download, then we would have quit it now.

01:39:35 ◼   ► And there's truth in that it goes in cycles, but we were, I feel like there's no way the two of you would be able to keep doing it in the AI world.

01:39:42 ◼   ► Like just talking about every model every week.

01:39:45 ◼   ► It's, it's true.

01:39:47 ◼   ► But I, what I would say is, um, we were doing that during the height of Facebook every week.

01:39:54 ◼   ► There was another thing about Facebook doing a terrible thing.

01:39:58 ◼   ► And the answer to that is we have clear evidence of what happens when something becomes completely corrosive and not enjoyable.

01:40:05 ◼   ► And neither Stephen or I really love Facebook.

01:40:07 ◼   ► Right.

01:40:08 ◼   ► So that was easier.

01:40:09 ◼   ► They, we didn't make, I mean, maybe Instagram, but like didn't make products that we really loved.

01:40:13 ◼   ► Um, but we stopped doing the podcast because it was so corrosive and awful because it's not fun to do that.

01:40:20 ◼   ► And, you know, we had the, let's, let's just put it this way.

01:40:24 ◼   ► What if that was a wild success of a podcast that made us so much money that we could just do that and focus on it?

01:40:29 ◼   ► That would be a really rough thing, right?

01:40:31 ◼   ► Because now you're covering something that's brutal every week, but it's your job.

01:40:34 ◼   ► And we have the luxury of instead saying, we'll just stop doing this because it's a bummer and it's not a huge success for us.

01:40:41 ◼   ► And kind of a blessing that it's not because otherwise that becomes your job.

01:40:46 ◼   ► And I wouldn't want that to be my job.

01:40:48 ◼   ► It's something that, that much of a downer.

01:40:50 ◼   ► And I've not, despite what's been going on with Apple, um, I have never really felt that way.

01:40:55 ◼   ► And that's because although those things are terrible, it does help that I like the products and I'm excited about the products that they use separate from the rest of it.

01:41:03 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:41:03 ◼   ► There's an upside.

01:41:04 ◼   ► Like, yeah.

01:41:05 ◼   ► Like a genuine upside.

01:41:07 ◼   ► And plus that Facebook stuff, there was no upside.

01:41:09 ◼   ► No, I mean, and also like Apple talking about Apple is also a conversation about so many small companies that are around the ecosystem that we like to talk about, you know, like developers and apps and experiences, you know, like something to book and what we talk about at the top.

01:41:28 ◼   ► One thing that I meant to mention, um, is I'm really excited for iOS 26 to start seeing the interpretations of liquid glass.

01:41:39 ◼   ► Like I've, I've got three apps right now, like three third party apps that I'm using that have got the, that I'm finally seeing liquid glass, um, updates for like apps that I've used for a long time.

01:41:54 ◼   ► And they've, you know, I'm on the test flights forum and they've just pushed out their designs and I'm like, oh, wow.

01:41:59 ◼   ► These are completely different from each other.

01:42:01 ◼   ► This is fascinating.

01:42:02 ◼   ► So like, I'm really looking forward to seeing a lot of apps that I use frequently get their redesigns and see how they interpret them, what they do, what they don't do, how they do this, how they do that.

01:42:14 ◼   ► Um, yeah.

01:42:15 ◼   ► And so like that, that kind of stuff is also part of this overall conversation that we have, uh, uh, every week.

01:42:21 ◼   ► Last question, Tom asks, do you both still use the camera control?

01:42:27 ◼   ► We're approaching a full year.

01:42:28 ◼   ► I'm curious to hear what your thoughts are.

01:42:30 ◼   ► I was going to say no, but that's not actually true.

01:42:34 ◼   ► The thing is, I don't, I don't, as I've said many times before, use my iPhone a lot.

01:42:39 ◼   ► Obviously I use it when I'm out and about and I'm taking pictures and all of that.

01:42:43 ◼   ► I use it then and I realized, yeah, when I'm out and about and taking pictures, I do use the camera, camera control.

01:42:49 ◼   ► I don't use it.

01:42:50 ◼   ► Like I have given up on the whole, like a little swiping and all of that kind of thing.

01:42:54 ◼   ► Although my swipe is only between cameras, which is not bad.

01:42:58 ◼   ► I will occasionally do that, but mostly it's just launch the, launch the app and take pictures.

01:43:03 ◼   ► Very intrigued to see if they change that, um, with, with the phones coming out.

01:43:07 ◼   ► It's not, there's no change in 26 to the swiping stuff, but, um, I use the camera control every single time I take a picture to open the camera.

01:43:18 ◼   ► And then I press the shutter button on the screen because I find the act of taking a picture with the camera control button to not be very satisfying.

01:43:28 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:43:29 ◼   ► I see that.

01:43:30 ◼   ► So, but, but it's, it is my universal camera, like opener from anywhere in the system, no matter what I'm doing.

01:43:38 ◼   ► And I really like that.

01:43:39 ◼   ► I like having that as a thing that like at any point I can just, Oh, I've opened the camera.

01:43:45 ◼   ► Like I'm, I'm looking at something on my iPhone and I open the camera.

01:43:48 ◼   ► Like I think that that's really good.

01:43:50 ◼   ► And I like, I like having that, that kind of functionality as it were.

01:43:53 ◼   ► If you would like to send in a question for us, uh, for a future episode, got follow up, you've got feedback you'd like to give us.

01:44:03 ◼   ► You can always go to upgradefeedback.com.

01:44:06 ◼   ► Uh, thanks to our members and supporters of Upgrade Plus and Upgrade Plus this week.

01:44:10 ◼   ► We're going to talk about some of the things we did not pick in the draft.

01:44:13 ◼   ► Um, so you can go to getupgradeplus.com to sign up and get that.

01:44:16 ◼   ► If you want to find us on YouTube, like if you want to see what the, uh, upgrade draft t-shirt looks like on me, you can go to YouTube, search for the Upgrade Podcast and you'll find us.

01:44:25 ◼   ► Uh, I want to thank our sponsors one last time.

01:44:27 ◼   ► That is Delete Me, Claude, Seltrios, and Squarespace.

01:44:30 ◼   ► Um, what else?

01:44:32 ◼   ► I want to thank you for listening and also remind you that we will be streaming and live and releasing the episode as soon as we can after the event on Tuesday next week.

01:44:42 ◼   ► So, yeah, there will be an episode on Tuesday.

01:44:45 ◼   ► We don't yet know when it will be, similar to most years, really.

01:44:49 ◼   ► Uh, but we will be recording on Tuesday because, uh, that's, that's the game.

01:44:53 ◼   ► I'm looking forward to it.

01:44:53 ◼   ► So, yeah, for sure.

01:44:56 ◼   ► Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Upgrade.