The Chaser Report - Is The iPhone 15 Pro WORTH IT?

Episode Date: September 28, 2023

Every age has its Epic. Homer's Illiad, Dante's Divine Comedy, Priscilla Queen of the Desert - even these pale in comparison to the grand story of Dom's trek for the first iPhone. But, should he buy the newest one? Listen as he and Charles review Apple's iPhone 15, and more! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello, and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Hello, Charles. What's that phone that I see over there? It looks, is it an iPhone 14? 13, 13, 12. Yeah, I mean, they all look the same, don't it.

Yeah, I can't tell from the look of it. But I would be able to tell if you'd bought one of the new iPhone 15 prize, because they've got titanium. But doesn't titanium look exactly like... Like the stainless steel that's on yours? No, no, it looks duller. If you wanted that, but a little bit duller, not so shiny and reflective as that,

you would get a new iPhone 15 Pro. Now, whenever I open any website, any app, I just got a push notification from my telco saying, would you like to look at the iPhone comparison tool to work out which one's the best for you? It's pulling me towards getting a new iPhone, which I just do not need. It's a huge dilemma.

It's one that so many of us face. Because what have you got? You've got a 14. I've got a 14 pro max, yeah, which is insane. Yeah. So I objectively don't need a new one. And yes, while walking here, I jumped on the Apple store just to see if they had any in stock. Oh, and I reserved one.

Oh, do I get it or do I cancel more reservation? That is the dilemma in today's episode. More after this. Just to be clear, this is not a paid advertisement. No, this is not a paid advertisement. This is really thinking about the insane. name, despisable nature of technology. So you might recall, I don't know if you were living in Australia at the time,

but I went through hell to get the iPhone 3G, the first one available in Australia, on launch day. So what happened was, I was out at a nightclub because I used to be fun back then. This is 2007 or 2008, something like that. Yeah. I think our fact checkers will probably have something to say. Can we say more fun? Yeah, right.

Actually, what I'm about to say makes me say, not fun at all. But anyway, so I was out at this nightclub, and it was sort of two in the morning or something like that. And I just thought to myself, you know what, I'm out. It's really late. Maybe I should go down to the Apple store, which had only recently opened in downtown Sydney, and join the queue for the first iPhone. I wasn't going to.

So it was like instead of a donna cabab, you wanted to pick up the latest piece of technology. I had a, I'm sure I had a kebab already at that point. So I thought, you know what, I'm out? What the hell? The queue would probably be quite short at this point. So I went down to the Apple store at probably by then three in the morning. I was maybe the 10th or 15th in line.

like quite near the front of these people who were very hardcore, they'd have been obviously watching the US videos of one camping out and stuff. They weren't as fun as you. No, they weren't as fun as me. And so there I didn't bring anything. They all had like stools and stuff to sit on and food and whatever. So I just sat there basically just. Well, not playing on your phone.

Not playing on my phone. I had a blackberry. I had one of those tiny little blackberries that was very annoying. And so I'm sitting there, I don't know, typing on my little keyboard or something. I don't know what I did. And then at 7 o'clock, the staff come out. And they're very excited. And it's part of the Apple store pitch is that they're so.

excited on a new iPhone day, because they make you feel like you're fun. So there we are. And they actually, they went and got coffees and they got like snacks and stuff, like sandwiches and stuff from the cafe over the road, and they handed them out. So they were giving us all this stuff like we're in a race. Yeah. Like we're a marathon competitor. Like it was good value to get a free coffee for buying a $1,400 piece of equipment.

That's right. Yeah. So there we are. By this time, the queue gets incredibly long. There's media everywhere. And there's like cameras because the first time the iPhone's ever been available in Australia. It was only the second model that ever existed. And it's called a three.

Yeah, the iPhone 3G, that's right. And the world's media there, because we're probably, I think we're the first Apple store in the world that's open because of the time difference. Right. And so a lot of it was the only one in Australia at the time. So I felt like I'm really, this is the center of the world right now. The center of the world. I'm here. I'm here.

And so anyway, the Q progresses and then people start coming through the door. And you might have seen the video of this because it's part of their marketing. You go through the door and everyone, like 20 staff members give you a round of applause. What? And they cheer. Yes. No, they don't. It's like you've won a prize.

And they gave us special T-shirts and stuff. and it was just this whole thing. I got an iPhone on launch day, and it was very exciting in a nerdy way to be there. So I thought, okay, well, this is amazing. I'm near the front of the queue. I've been up all night. I'm exhausted.

I'll be able to get through and sort it all out. There was one hitch in this plan. And it's a hitch that has only recently been resolved. Did it involve not having enough money? Actually, funnily, not back then. It was that Australian telcos suck. So everyone was going through and getting. getting the new iPhone and, like, getting shown it.

And then they had to, Apple had recently trained their staff on signing people up to all three major telco's different platforms, different computer systems, which all involved, certainly back then, various DOS-based, complicated, annoying back-ends. Yes. And so it was taking hours for every single person. This is before the NBN. Before the NBN. So it took literally hours for everyone of those first few customers to do it. And I eventually got into the store, I think at about 11 o'clock in the morning.

I actually got through the door. And by then no one was cheering anymore, and clapping really. But I was still quite close to the front of the queue, and I was like, I'm not leaving here until I get one of these things. They sorted us out by queue, and my telco then Vodafone was the slowest and had the worst system because it's Vodafone. Unlike now, we did. So basically, to cut a long story, slightly shorter.

At one point, I found myself going to sleep. You know, have those nice wooden tables. I went to sleep under one of those tables for several hours, still maintaining my place in the queue. And I didn't get out of there with the new iPhone until, I don't know, two or three in the afternoon. Oh, my God. So it was a fully 12-hour odyssey to get the very first iPhone read.

And was it worth it, Dom? No. No, but it was a sunk cost. They already spent all these hours in there. And I told people that I was waiting in the queue. Yes. I hadn't tweeted about it because Twitter didn't even exist back then, I don't think. But, yeah, so that was when I became addicted to getting the new iPhone.

And since then, every single year just about, I've sold my old one for the amount that I owed them. Because it's always worth what you owe them after a year. Got a new one. every single year. But I'm beginning to think I'm a fucking idiot, is the problem. Yes. Well, quite aside for this, anyway. Yeah, but this is the thing.

I've sucked into the marketing hype, but the idea that a new iPhone exists that I don't have, I can't live with because I'm so addicted. But I don't understand. I think that they've got to the end of the line, Apple, haven't they? Because the whole rule that Steve Jobs had for so many years was you don't market the features, you market the emotion. Yeah, well, that was that was me.

Yeah. My empty, shallow, single-man life back then, it was literally the only mark of joy that way. You were buying being at the centre of the world. Yes, that's right. And the excitement and the fun, you're buying all that. You weren't buying, you know, the titanium back or anything. No. Whereas Apple, I think they've jumped the shark because all their marketing is titanium.

Yeah. Oh, that's very good. Do that again. Titanium. Why don't you own money doing that? That's really good. But nobody, who cares? Who cares what the material is?

It's to do, like, it should be like, oh, I'm buying the chance at true love. Well, this is the whole point, is that every single year, you can kind of, it's one of those asymptotes. Like, it's getting closer and closer and closer. Just being literally exactly the same. Yeah, yeah. So the differences are very minimal. But still, I'm still just, oh, I still want one.

But the best thing, and we should probably just take an ad break, hopefully it'll be for Apple. Yes. And then what I'll do is I'll tell you all the reasons why. I predict that this is going to be the worst iPhone for many, many years. Oh, that's really good. Because I can cancel my book. No, no. I definitely think you should buy it.

Well, you know what the funniest thing is before we go to the ads. Oh, this titanium. Oh, my God. And it is quite beautiful. Like, titanium is nice, right? My wedding rings made out of titanium. It's a nice material. You put a fucking case on it.

And guess what? I've got a... Yeah, you've got the world's ugliest case. I've got the world's ugliest case on mine. Yeah. So, but if I drop it, it doesn't get... broken, you know why I do that, resale value so I can resell it after a year. Oh my God.

But when I put the case on it, no one will even be able to tell I've got the new iPhone. No, no. Except that I'll tell them. I mean, I thought that was an Android. Exactly. The Chaser Report, news you know you can't trust. So, Dom, the thing is, if you were surfing the TikTok, as I am wont to do. Are you a talker?

Oh, yeah. And a ticker. I'm bigger. on the talk, because I'm hip to the groove, you would know that all the initial stress testers, so there's all these TikTokers who each year stress test the latest iPhone and see whether they can break it, right? And this is the weakest iPhone, certainly going back to at least the 6S, I think, is what people are saying.

Really? And possibly could be even worse than the terrible 4S antenna. Oh, that was the antenna gate problem. Which is that if you gently press the back with two thumbs, right? Most iPhones will just sort of not break. There's no flex, whereas the new 15 ones just completely shatter. Oh. The glass on the back shatters very quickly.

Could this be why the local Apple store suddenly has availability? Yes, this might be the case. The other great one is that if you drop, drop it on its back from about a metre, which, I mean, I do that. I do that all the time. That's why I've got this sort of sharp. But if you do that, it just immediately, not just shatters, but the lenses fall off and the whole back comes off. Now, the thing is, and the theory, Apple hasn't commented on this problem yet, but Apple, in their presentation, boasted that they have made the glue on the back much, much easier to remove, so that you can self-repair it. Well, this is the whole new thing, and it's a good debate in tech, the right to repair, whereby the theory is any consumer should be able to repair.

their own product. But, Charles, it does seem rather to undermine the point of that if it makes you more likely to need to repair your product, yeah. Exactly. So they're saying not even a shitty Android phone is that weak in some of these stress tests. I mean, not that one is likely to put two thumbs on the back and try and push your phone in. Yeah, but if you sit down on something, you might bend it. Exactly.

It's not a possibility. Yeah. And so, yeah, I think you should get one and we'll see how long it last. You know, the other funny thing is about this new iPhone, right? So I mentioned the titanium, and it's only the sides. So it's the previously shiny, stained-in-the-steal sides, a titanium. And they've got a range of colours. There's natural titanium, just the colour of the metal, white, blue, and black.

Here's the thing, though. Apparently, when you drop it, it chips off the coating, and so the natural titanium comes through. So if you chip it enough, it ends up being natural titanium-colored regardless. Right. Because the different ways they've got to colour it haven't seemed to work. And there was a theory that the new Apple Watch would also be titanium. But certainly Marcus Brownlee reckons that this, that might not have done that because they have found that it's just massively chipped and...

It's a fucking piece of shit. That's a disaster. So the one big feature, the titanium, it turns out is not so good. Well, that is actually, that is interestingly another rule of marketing, which is that you find the weakest part of your product. Yeah. And you make that the selling point. Yes.

So maybe they went, oh, fuck. We made it out of titanium. It's a shit substance. Okay, that's got to be... Everyone's going to want it. Yeah, everyone... Makes it more precarious. It's like buying a tulip or something.

Yeah, that's right. Exactly. Well, in terms of the feature set, there's almost nothing, right? It's got a five-time zoom instead of a three-time zoom. That's basically it. No, no, can I tell you the big feature? And I am actually desperate to hold one in my hands because of these, which is that it is about 10% lighter.

Yes. It's like, it's down to about 170 grams. I think the last one was about 220 or something. Yeah, everyone says 10% lighter. Yeah, 10%, 11% lighter. But, and this is what I've read, is that actually it feels significantly more lighter, like a third lighter.

And the reason is fascinating. I read this article by this guy who does physics. Right. And he said, the actual feeling in your hand, like your hands are very good at sensing movement, right? Yeah, yeah. And getting a sense of how much something weighs. But the way it does that, the way the human brain processes weight, is it's how difficult things are to move.

It's called the moment of inertia. Right. And the titanium is on the outside of the case, right? And so it's much, much lighter than steel. So instead of having a really heavy outside, it's very light on the outside, and all the weight of the iPhone is now in the center of phone. And so actually moving it from side to side, which is the way you sort of get a sense as a human of how much it weighs, it's very, very easy because it's the centre of gravity is right in the middle. And so it actually feels much, much lighter.

And people that say it's sort of magical how light it feels. Yeah, until you put a giant case on it and then it becomes just a thing. But you don't use a case, right? How have you gotten away with it for all these years without it just smashing it? So I've got this amazing thing. It's a hot tip and I think everyone should. to do it and I'm not being paid by Apple. Say this.

What you do is you get fucking Apple care. Yes. Yes. See, I have Apple Care. Yeah, and so they, I haven't claimed on it. So, but, but you can. Like, I have, I broke the screen twice. Yep.

And they just give you another screen. It's like 45 bucks or something. You get a new screen if you've smashed it or whatever. And then the back, you know, I've smashed at least once. And you just get it and it's like 45 bucks is, I mean. So it's totally worth it. Have you told Craig about this? Because he's not going to be happy.

Oh, yeah. There's a war on waste, Charles, and you just moved onto the side of waste. But this is the thing, this is the whole dilemma for me about this new technology, right? Like, sort of the broader issue is I love getting new gadgets. I really enjoy it, whatever. And then I always sell it. So someone who cares less about technology and wants a new phone, they still use it. My phone, probably my phone from five years ago is still being used by somebody or other somewhere.

Yeah, so you should. Does that make me bad or am I just part of the circular economy? Isn't that what you want to be, a circular economy? This is at the top of the circular economy. Yeah, that's right. I'm at the sort of beginning of the circle. You're the asshole. Now, I'm the idiot that takes that appreciation every year is what I am.

Oh, yeah, you're doing it so selflessly, don't. But, you know, I've come up with a perfect solution for what you should do with that time. Oh, what's that? Sell it to me. Let's talk after the episode. But I know, I just feel like they're getting so much less impressive every single year. Yes. Next year, the only difference is going to, it'll just be the colours that are different.

And the colours this year, by the way, are horrible. But I think that this year, next year you'll need to buy a new one because it'll be the only way that it links to your Vision Pro. Oh, that's what they're doing. Actually, you know what, that's one of the features of this one, is that it can take video for the Vision Pro, which the previous one I don't think can. So it can take video for a product that hasn't yet been released.

Yes, it can take spatial video or something. Well, you've got to get it then. Yeah, I can't get my Vision Pro. What are you doing here? Go down to the store, line up. I've already reserved that. I reserved it other way here. I'm such an idiot.

Our gear is from Road. We're part of the Aconiclass Network. You're an idiot. I know, but it's titanium.