The Vergecast - Reviews for the iPhone 11 Pro, Apple Watch Series 5, and a new Facebook Portal

Episode Date: September 20, 2019

Apple iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max review: the battery life is real Apple iPhone 11 review: the phone most people should buy iOS 13 is now available to download Apple pushes up iOS 13.1 and iPadOS to September 24th iOS 13 review: join the dark side Apple Watch Series 5 review: the best smartwatch What can Google do to compete with the Apple Watch? Not much Amazon Music rolls out a lossless streaming tier Everything we know about the Pixel 4, the most-leaked phone … Google announces October 15th hardware event for Pixel 4 ... Microsoft is working on foldable Surface devices with liquid … Microsoft's Surface Laptop 3 may include a new 15-inch … Microsoft's next Surface Pen looks like it'll have wireless ... Facebook's new Portal devices are cheaper, smaller, and … Facebook introduces Portal TV, a video chat camera ... The 10 Apple Arcade launch games you have to play - The … Apple Arcade could have huge consequences for the iOS app … Where’s the Apple Arcade, Music, and TV Plus bundle? Nintendo Switch Lite review: a triumphant return to dedicated ... We’re hiring! theverge.com/podcastjob We are conducting an audience survey to better serve you. It takes no more than five minutes, and it really helps out the show. Please take our survey here: www.voxmedia.com/podsurvey.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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dropping May 14th. Tap in with us. This week on the Vergecast, we talk about our iPhone 11 and 11 Pro reviews, iOS 13, and the Apple Watch. We also talk about the events coming up from Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, and a little bit on whether you should plug a Facebook camera into your TV. That's the Vergecast coming up now.

Hello and welcome to Vergecast, the flagship podcast of the Vox Media Empire, Galactic. I think we should start calling it the Empire Galactic. Planetary. Yeah, planetary. You see what I'm saying? You got where I'm going. I'm your friend.

Yep, there it is. Keep going, Paul. I'm your friend, Eli. Paul Miller is here. He doesn't know any Beastie Boys songs. Hello. Deeter Bone is here. I'm here to be a disruptive force, apparently.

That's going to set Paul off. It's iPhone review week. It happened. It's, uh, it is one of the strangest weeks of the, I saw our friend, Joanna Stern, we were on CNBC together, and she literally said, this week is getting harder every year, as though this is actually like a real thing. Right? Like, iPhone week is now just a part of our lives. Like, in September, there'll be an Apple event, there'll be some iPhones.

No one will talk to us for a week, and then there'll be iPhone reviews. And that's how it goes. Yeah. It's wild. So it's like a fixed point in time, but it's iPhone week. Deeter, you reviewed the Apple Watch Series 5. We kind of did the iPhone 11 review together. I didn't get iPhone 11 Pro review.

I kind of had Becca Farsace helped me with that. That was really fun. We reviewed some phones. And they're really good. Obviously, the answer is don't buy any phones ever from what most of the reviews say. But that's not your opinion, right? I mean, I have some deep philosophical thoughts about the nature of phone reviews in a monopolized market dominated by Lachin in the United States. It's the verse cast.

Here they are. You tuned into this show, people. You did this to yourselves. Well, let's talk about the phone first. Then we can do some media criticism maybe. I will say that John Gruber will be in the interview show on Tuesday. So if you want to, like, hear us really yell about other phone reviews, listen to that episode because it was fun. I like talking to John a lot.

He and I have some beef with some of the other reviews, particularly the New York Times. We'll talk about that a little here. But if you want to go all the way in, just wait for Tuesday. Let's talk about the phone. Here's what I think is true. Apple, for many years. especially after Steve Jobs left, like overhyped their products. Right?

They had to like deliver the thing. They had to deliver one more thing. They had to say it was better than ever. They had to put out a new product category. They had to have these events. Say they were changing the world. So they were better than everybody else. The example I come back to over and over again is that when they introduced the Apple Watch,

they said the digital crown was an input device on par with multi-touch. Nope. Which I think it's fair to say it's not true. Like you had to know. Yeah. And like, you know, like Bono was there. Like, their events tend to come with an associated level of hype. Yeah.

Although I will say that, you know, in writing the Apple Watch review, I like needed to like refer back to the original series Zero Apple Watch a bunch and so I had to look up the event that it came out. And that was a really good year. In terms of Apple products? Yeah, I mean, the Apple Watch was a done. But that was also the iPhone 6 and 6 plus year. Yeah.

which was like a very, very important iPhone in the grand scheme of things. Yeah, and it was the Apple Pay year. Yep. Yeah, I mean, look, their products are good. They're a successful company for a reason. I just think that part of their narrative has been them thinking their products are slightly better than they are for a while. And if you just look at the history of their sort of first-gen products, I gave the Apple Watch a seven. The HomePod got a 7.5.

The first Apple TV 4K until they, like, added a. bunch of features to it, got a 7.5, like, they're sort of like launch additions of products in particular have been lacking. Right. Okay, well, this year they didn't do shit. Right? Like, we all flew up to Gupertino and like, pretty muted event. They're like, the battery lasts longer and the camera's better.

There's some mute camera features coming and an update that'll come. Here's a picture of a sweater. You hear some phones? Oh, the display stays on all the time now. That's it. It has a compass. Compass is going to change the world. It's like multi-touch, but for pointing.

They just said the things that people wanted to hear, and then we got the things and went home. And the things are really good. Like, those are the things. Yeah. The thing that's wild is they were way more muted and chill about the year-over-year upgrades from the iPhone 10S to the iPhone 11 Pro.

They were much more relaxed. But the difference, the iPhone 11 Pro is, such a huge upgrade over the 10S. It's a much bigger upgrade, I think, than the 10S was over the 10. Oh, yeah, absolutely. So, like, the less Apple hypes it, the better it is? Is this the lesson we're taking away? Yeah, it's just like, you just lower those expectations a little bit, right?

I mean, if you have a, this is the first year, and this is going to really get us into the controversy that's swirling on Twitter right now. This is the first year I've ever said, this is worth a year over your upgrade. if you have a 10 S or 10 S max they're fine and you can keep them and they were very expensive when you bought them so I understand why you wouldn't want to upgrade I think those cameras were horrible

like I really do I think I was too polite in those reviews I said they were very good but not great and now I'm just like I should have just said they're not great yeah right like they're I don't think they're good I think they're good if you look at the photos on a phone screen and the second you do anything else

they look bad and like most people look at photos on a phone screen so like maybe that's fine, but I don't know if you have like kids or a pet or something, you want the sweaters to last. You don't want to be like, huh, my phone was crappy back then. This is a huge upgrade in the photos. Yeah. Just massive.

Well, and we actually don't know the full extent of the upgrade because sweater mode might change everything. Sweater mode. Yeah, but it's just like very clear that Apple underplayed the year-over-year improvement in the sensor. So the 10-S sensor, remember the big story about the tennis sensor was that it was so much bigger

and do all this stuff well it's also noisy as shit right so if you shoot in halide and you pull off Raws off that sensor like they're noisy and so the phone had to do all this noise reduction and it just destroyed detail and then smart HDR was like drunk all the time

and was like shadows and highlights they should all be the same and like literally kill the dynamic range of your photos even though it's like smart HGR it just looked weird like they just made weird photos with no detail this sensor is not does not seem nearly as noisy.

So they're not even having to do the noise reduction. Then Smart HDR is like they calmed it down. So it makes things look better. Then it seems just like their night mode. It's actually bracketing. It's bracketing like potentially lots of photos. It's really good. It's better than the pixels night mode.

I want to talk about that for a minute, the night mode. But finish your spiel and we'll come back to it. So that, I mean, that gets you better. detail and bright light. It gets you a better night mode, which has a different approach to night mode. And obviously the pixel 4 is coming out. It's like looms over the whole thing. And then somewhere in there,

like deep fusion sweater mode is going to pick up everything from bright to night. Yeah. Right? So you're inside. It's like weird light inside. That's where deep fusion is not like a mode. You don't have to turn it on. It's just going to replace the processing

at that time. Yep. So the iPhone will automatically switch basically between three types of photo processing, regular smart HDR, when you're outside in Sprite, deep fusion for basically the majority of lighting situations, and then night mode for everything dark. And it just handles it in a way, which is what I always want out of a camera app, is to just do the thing for me. Let me know what you're doing so I can change it, but do the thing for me.

And actually, that's the thing that Android phones have been doing for a while, Samsung and Huawei especially, although their stuff is not quite as direct and straightforward. as apples. With night mode in particular, I agree with you that by and large, the iPhone, I've been using the iPhone 11 is better than the pixel three. But it has a different approach to taking night photography and they like have, they value different things. And so the iPhone brings brightness up a little bit more than I would like in some cases. But my actual beef with it is I, the iPhone has a bias towards giving you a naturalistic looking shot. And the pixel has a bias towards getting the shot.

And what I mean by that is I've been taking night mode pictures of my cat because that's what I got. And with the iPhone, I have to stay much more still. And the result of that is I get a better photo. And I also am really happy that I don't have to like go into a mode specifically to get it. With the pixel, it's much more forgiving. It will get me a shot no matter what. But if the cat moves or I move, it'll just be a slightly crappier, like, lighting

condition or lighting shot. But it's much more forgiving at my super. shaky hands than the iPhone is, but the iPhone, if everything can stay still for a second, produces a better shot. So I think the iPhone is doing a little bit more long exposure and a little bit less computation than the pixel, is my guess. That's exactly right. So the iPhone is actually bracketing. It's taking lots of shots and then one of them is a long exposure. So it's a much more traditional HDR in that sense, right? In traditional HDR, you take like a short one, a long exposure, a low exposure. You merge them together. You map the image.

So the iPhone's doing that. Obviously, it's doing a bunch of computational stuff because it's able to get the detail back out of the photo. Right. But it's definitely like there's a long exposure bracketing going on. And so if you move, that long exposure gets blurry or the frames don't line up and it's all over. Right. If you move a lot, you're always moving. It's just the nature of holding a phone.

Yeah. The pixel, on the other hand, also it's bracketing, but like mostly what it's doing is it's just cranking the gain on the sensor. and then Google is saying we're real smart and our math will fix it. So it's like overrunning the sensor and then like doing a bunch of math to denoise it and get detail back and make night sight. So you're not doing that traditional

long exposure I'm going to see in the dark where I think Apple's doing that and that's what makes that different. Well Google's also using the delta between like the differences and the different shots to like make its math better. In the same way that like the super zoom, like your hand move it actually makes it better. And like if the pixel is perfectly still,

it actually moves the sensor around, it actually utilizes that handshake to make a better photo. And I think that I don't know if the iPhone is doing that or not, but the pixel is definitely doing it more. Yeah, I think a very fair characterization of these cameras is Google is better at math.

Right? And you just like, Google leans into that strength. So they, you know, the pixel is like a commodity sensor. It's not some like special custom weird thing. It's just a pretty normal sensor and Google is able to do really great. That's why if you put a Google camera on another Android phone, your photos get better. Right.

Like Google's just like better at that math. Apple throws horsepower at it. Yeah. Right? Like huge sensor, F1.8 lens. Another sensor. The telly is faster now. Like they started from that direction.

Right. What's great is like, okay, two steps into that direction, they've surpassed Google's mathematical ability and then the pixel four will come out. That's a great race to be. Like if you're a car person, it's like, do you want a really fast V8 or do you want like a powerful turbo 4 and like that's cool? I have a better idea. If these cameras were mid-90s bands that geeks were obsessed with, Apple would be Dream Theater and Google would be tool. I hate this comparison.

I hate this comparison because Dream Theater fucking sucks. They were loud and operatic and they just used lots of... Nope. Nope. Get out of here with this. On the math angle, something I notice, so Apple detects, and I know a lot of these cameras do this, they detect the subject of your photo. Yeah.

And do different things to even different sectors. Like you mentioned Apple sharpens hair. Yeah. So Apple knows what hair is and knows that that should be sharp, but other things maybe not. How worried should I be? Because that I, that stresses me out that like, what if I'm just in this weird zone and I want to get a photo, but it's not like an Apple approved subject. And so Apple just has no idea what to do and just falls apart. That's really, I hadn't thought about it that way. So first, I think most

people probably assume this because it's Apple. No data is leaving your phone. They're not like doing facial recognition, right? Like they're able to recognize a scene. So I don't have the full list of things they can recognize. But I don't think it's true that if you are, I don't know, what's the, picture of an alien. Yeah. If you, Take a picture of an alien race. You're like a Zelda fan and you're in Asia and you found a Hardy Durian and you're like an Apple just doesn't, you know what I mean? Like it's not going to get that photo. If I, if Dieter's cat walks into a dark alley and I try to take a picture of it.

How different is that going to be than if my friend who is has their face towards me is in that same dark alley and I take a picture of that. Is your friend wearing a cat suit? Probably. My friend who is the lead in cats. We are living in the year. of the Cats, the movie.

We're just going to start all over here. That's the year we're in. 2019. So like that, right, that list of things it knows about,

we don't know the whole list. So, like, I don't, I don't know the answer to that question specifically. I do think the level that it's sort of

doing its semantic rendering is, it's not so much that it's, like, crappy if it doesn't do it. Well, because classically with the, the portrait mode, right?

If it didn't see something as a face, it just didn't really know how to portrait mode it. Yeah, but that was more about cutouts in depth, right? And like now it's good at pets. And you could always trick portrait mode into like doing a wine glass or something, right? Like you could do it. It just was optimized for faces.

Here it's very specifically like, we know that's the sky. We're not going to apply a sharpening filter to the sky. We know this is a face. the tones across the face should be more even. So we're going to bring up highlights and shadows on the face appropriately. We know this is hair or facial hair. A light sharpen across this is good.

I don't think it's that's a cat. We're going to make it look more like a cat. You know what I mean? Like I think that's an open question. Like what is the full list of things that semantic rendering will take care of? What they told me that I was going to put this in the review, but I thought it would just be dumb. Because they kept on being like,

the sky faces hair facial hair and I kept on my name sky face face sky hair sky like they just because they kept saying face hair facial hair but the only the one that didn't fit was sky so every time they said that to me I'd be like in sky face obviously no see I took it out of the review it doesn't play it didn't play it played in my head and I deleted it that that was the list they kept giving me was like sky face hair facial hair sky face it didn't work again I tried again. What about Sky Hair? Hair Sky.

You see what I'm saying? Anyway. So Paul, I don't know the answer to your question. I think people are going to get their hands on these phones, and we will discover that, like, it just fails out when you take a picture of an alien. It definitely knows what the subjects of the photos are. Yeah. Right?

It will like put a box around a face. It knows, okay, these are faces. And then it will do the, this is very broken in iOS 13. But if you take a group photo and there's like a lot of people in it, it will recrop the photo using the wide angle sensor, which is super. cool the one time it worked for me, and every other time it's broken. So that's the other thing they added. They added the ultra-wide camera, which I think is great.

We should have this argument. We had a bit of the argument in the iPhone 11 video. Yeah. But we should actually have it out that. I mean, we both agree that wide angle is better than telephoto, right? Yes. I think they made the absolute right call by putting the wide angle inside the telephoto. But I actually think that you get more utility out of a wide angle than you do out of a

telephoto, even though it is a worse lens, because just stepping back on the wide doesn't get you the, like, picture profile that the wide angle gives you. It, like, it creates a different kind of photo with, like, different, you know, lens characteristics and different angles on the, you know, different distortion. Yeah. And so, like, to me, it's more fun, but it's also more useful, because fundamentally, like, if it were, like, a 4x telephoto or an 8, then I'm with you, but a 2X is like, I don't know, I guess it gives you better portrait photos, but in terms of like raw Zoom utility, I'm just not impressed. Yeah, I've never been depressed. It's fine, but like I just don't get it.

Last year, you know, we told everybody to buy an iPhone 10R instead of an iPhone 10S. And part of the reason was if you really care about the screen, get the 10S. And that was it. Because I didn't think, I've never thought the telephoto lens on these iPhones is good. I think it takes worse photos. It's a smaller sensor. It was a much slower lens. The wide angles just looks.

fun. And it gets you that sort of like shoot outside the frame full screen finder, which I think is very useful for people. Well, and it gets you a ton of, ton more options in video as well. Yeah. And I think people who are who are trying to zoom on an iPhone are just going to pinch in digital zoom and it's going to be fine. You know what I mean? Like if you're the sort of person who's like, yep, zooming on my iPhone is what I need to do. Like you're probably fine by just like taking a horrible photo. But I think the wide angle like it a looks so different. B is so useful. enables this feature of the automatic recropping, which does not work, which we should talk about iOS 13.

But it's a much more useful lens. And the fact that it's on the 11, too, makes the argument for the 11 so much stronger than last year. Right. Like if the 11 had a telephoto in a regular lens, it'd be like, it'd be kind of worth the pro to get the ultra wide. Yeah. But interesting. Because it's, whatever. Yeah.

The telephoto is a faster lens now. It's F2.0. So it's a little bit better. And it's a little bit better in low light. but still in the dark the iPhone does the thing where it crops the main sensor instead of switching to the telephoto because it knows

you'll get a better photo out of the big main sensor and faster lens if you crop than out of the smaller sensor and slower lens. Right. It's a little bit more eager to switch because it's a faster lens but it still crops the main lens. A lot of people, bizarrely a lot of people ask

me about that. It's a very inside I think it's they know that I will answer that question. Like, who is the nerd who cares about it? It's like me. But yeah, I don't know, Dieter, you had the 11 for a week. Yep. The big story for the other phones is battery life.

We actually led the review with battery life the first time ever. But you didn't see some huge noticeable difference in the 11 from the 10-R. Yeah, Apple claims an hour. I didn't see a huge difference. But I think the part of that is just that the battery life on the 10-hour was so good to begin with. And that was one of the reasons we recommended it over the 10-S back then. The things are identical. I walked out of my apartment once, got all the way to the subway, and then looked down and realized I was carrying the 10R instead of the iPhone 11 and had to go back because I had the wrong phone in my pocket.

So it's like, it's other than the camera and the new glass on the back, it's the exact same phone, exact same screen. If you have a 10R, I don't think it's worth an upgrade to an iPhone 11 for you. You are going to get, the cameras are way better. but if you were that worried about camera quality in the first place, you probably were the kind of person who ended up getting a 10S in the first place. So I think if you have a 10R, you could definitely hang on for, you know, another year or two because the battery life jump isn't that big. Whereas with the 11 Pro, it seems like the combination of the battery life jump and the camera jump,

and I don't know, Nilai, you could talk about whether or not the screen jump is worth it better than I can because I haven't seen it in person in real conditions. does make it a thing where you might consider upgrading year over year. At least, you know, if you're two, three years back, you definitely are going to want to go take a look at it. But even if you're, like, really into it, year over year might be worth it. Especially if you're on like an installment plan or something, like, just go check it out.

Last year when the price differential was $250, bucks, it was a lot easier for me to say, like, buy a screen. Right, like, it was just, yep, it just felt like if you really care about monitors and I tell you to buy a slightly more expensive monitor for your PC and the Delta's 250, right? Like that's a pretty normal price range for a month, like, or TV. Like a cheap TV costs $500 and I'm like buying OLED, it's $3,000 and no one gets confused about what I'm trying to say. So to me, the screen upgrade is like, it's $250. It's a far superior display. It's bizarre to me that now that it's $300, I'm like, I don't know. It seems like a lot of money.

It feels like a deal. Yeah. $300, a $700 phone somehow seems dramatically cheaper than a $1,000 phone. I really have two minds about this because at the same time, especially things like skimping on the charger, you know, skipping on the screen a little bit compared to Android does not feel like much of a deal. But compared to the iPhone 11 Pro, if you don't absolutely need crazy camera stuff, you know, it feels like a great deal.

Can we talk about the $700 price and price range for a minute? $700 does feel substantially different than $750. It is for only the 64-gig version, but I think that if you use a bunch of streaming music, you're probably fine. If you shoot out of video, you're going to want to jump up. And the iPhone 11 gives you a 128 option where the 11 Pro does not. Anyway, the thing that is fascinating to me is the thing Dan keeps saying, which is don't look at the price when the phone is announced. look at the price like three, four, five months later, see how much, how often it's getting discounted.

That applies especially to Samsung phones, but it also kind of applied a lot to the 10R. So this $700 phone might, for all intents and purposes, if you can like find a deal on it in a couple of months, be like $600, maybe less, who knows? Yeah. The story of the year up to now for Android has been, man, there are a lot of like $6, $700 Android phones that are flagships that are like shockingly good. The One Plus 7 Pro is like the top of that list. There's some other phones in that zone.

And the level to which the upgrade on the camera from the 10R to the 11 puts it on top of those Android phones that up until this week were like, oh, wow. Yeah, I actually would totally recommend this over an Android phone. Android phone over that thing. Like the 10R is playing at a lower price point and it's just weighted into this very competitive zone of Android phones. and I think it's going to, it outperforms all of their cameras, and that's going to be a really interesting fight. Yeah. Are they going to do a Pixel 4A?

Everyone is assuming they will. I don't know if they'll do it right now. There was a rumor that they wanted to release the Pixel 3A next to the 3, but they were worried it would cannibalize sales, which it absolutely would have. Yeah. I mean, at this point, the Pixel 4 is cannibalizing sales. Yeah. This phone is so deeply leaked.

It's, like, hilarious. My joke is that they're going to announce the Pixel 5 at the Pixel 4 event. They're so far ahead of their skis. They might as well just be like, and next year we'll do another one. Yeah, I mean, we'll see. I think that it's better than all the sort of $700 dollar camera. Like, the thing that gets me, we just did all this camera testing.

This is like my favorite time of the year. Like, how did I end up with a job where I take a bunch of photos and then like 50 people want to stand around me yelling about how good the photos are until midnight? Yeah. That's the best thing that, like, once a year I get to do. That's great. So we're going to do it again with the pixel.

The thing that gets me, and, you know, we published a photo comparison and I made a very definitive claim. Last year, my claim was like, you must look into your own heart and decide if this crappy photo is crappy. Right? Like, these are aesthetic choices. This year, I was like, it's better. Like, I just think it's better. Yeah. So you make a definitive claim on the internet and people are going to tell you what they think.

And so many people are like, I like this note 10 photo. that is wild to me, but I completely understand it. Yeah. It's like, you know, when you go to the store and the TVs are all set crazy, they're like super high brightness, all of the picture in like every TV retailer, like TVs have a retail mode. Like when you take them out of the box, like, are you at home or are you in a store? You say like, accidentally choose you're in a store and it gets nuclear bright.

That is the note 10. The note 10 is like your hammered friend at a party saying he can fix it, right? just like drunk, crazy, making no sense. Do you want me to sharpen and smooth this photo? Do you want it to be as bright, over-exposed? And then it's on a screen, like the note screen is so bright and so saturated. I completely get it. Like, absolutely get it.

I found when I was using the note 10 that my photos did not look that over-processed. So maybe they changed the software or maybe just like when you look at it that much head-to-head to these other phones. It's different. No, here's the thing. You definitely called it. I just want everyone to, if you didn't read the Lys review, you should because you get lines like this that the iPhone 11 is far more natural than, quote, the note tens processing fiesta.

It's a process. It's a party. Like, every time you look at it, you're like, this is a party. Like, they're just having a good time. They don't care what anybody else thinks of them, right? They showed up. They had a couple beers before the party, and now they're ready to get. Like, those photos, just look at them.

And I understand why people like them. It's the same reason the TVs are really bright in the store. Your eye is naturally drawn to the brightest, like, most saturated thing. And you're like, that's the best one. And then you look at it, like I'm saying, you look at it next to the other photos. And you're like, this photo looks bonkers. Like, it's just, it's the brightest, most processed photo of the bunch. And I think it's really interesting that so many people even,

even in that comparison, I like, I like that one. And I think it's great because there's choice in the market and everyone's not chasing the same look. But man, they look nuts. Like just, it's the Kool-Aid man. Right? Just like, yeah. I don't know.

And I don't know why Samsung does that by default. I suspect it has to do with... People like Kool-Aid. I suspect it has to do with like literally, like sales in the Asian market, right? Like skin, we've gone through this every year. Like smoothing filters and skin smoothing and face smoothing,

all that stuff is way more acceptable in Asian markets. Those phones all do it like mad. I suspect it's related to that. I also suspect there's a value in just looking different and like looking like that because it looks different. I think that's kind of the same reason the ultra wide is the choice over the telly. Like it just looks different. You can just,

you're like, this is different than what I'm used to. It's not just closer. But yeah, it's just, you look at these photos and it's like, what, I just want to go to Samsung's party. I want to go to the room where they make decisions about how to process photos and just be like, where's the cocaine? Is it here? Because I've long suspected it's here. This kind of brings me to my other point, the big point, because, Deeter, you mentioned that the 11 in particular is waiting into very competitive waters. Yeah.

So, you know, we do our reviews. We are nerds. so like okay we're going to take the photos to 100% and we're going to see if there's more detail even though we know no like very few people will ever do this but at this point all the cameras are good all the screens are good

all the phones connect to LTE right like they've stopped exploding there's the one year where the bar was like does this phone explode but like they're all good phones they're expensive they do the jobs they run the collection of apps we're not arguing about

or their Windows phone will gain an ecosystem, right? Like, there's two main players, and you're in one ecosystem or not. Yeah. And to evaluate their differences, you kind of have to be a huge nerd now. Right? You have to understand how cameras work.

You have to understand what they're doing differently. You have to understand why those results look different. Mm-hmm. You, I don't know. You have to know about OLED screens. Like, your Apple Watch review, like, spends a little time talking about screen controllers, because you just have...

It's so short. It's like one sentence that I'm like, I'm going to link elsewhere. I'm not getting into. But to do a credible job of differentiating these products. So then we published our review and then like, I want to see if I got it right. It's like go and read everybody else's review. And this year in particular, I was struck at how inevitable everybody treats the iPhone.

BuzzFeed, John Pachowski at BuzzFeed, who's great. And his review is really funny. It's just photos of his dogs and like list of features and telling you whether or not they work. And he did it on purpose. He actually tweeted me, smartphone reviews are useless. just pick the ecosystem you're in and every couple of years get a new one

and it'll be fine. And I think that's a take and it's valid and John knows what he's doing. Right? He did that on purpose. He believed smartphone reviews are useless

and so he wrote his review that way on purpose and it's funny and you should read it because it's funny. But he's fundamentally saying there's no competition here. There's no way to evaluate

this phone in the context of other phones. It doesn't even matter. You're just going to get the next one in your ecosystem and move home. So that's like one take And I think that was very honest and very sincere.

Then there's like the Times, which is like literally the line of the review was you don't need a better phone now. Just take flash photos to get better photos. If your phone is functional at all, you're like. And that to me is so nihilistic. First of all, it assumes that Apple won't screw up, which is an incredible thing to assume. Right. Right? Like, yes, they generally don't screw up.

But it's a thousand dollar product. And you should. You should see if they screwed up. Yeah, like maybe see if the software works. Yeah, maybe see if iOS 13 doesn't crash every 20 minutes. Yeah. Which is not reflected in this review. Everyone else, like, they all say, like, iOS 13 is pretty buggy.

And like Apple pushed up the release date of iOS 13.1 today. Yeah. Because it's so buggy that they don't want people to say with it. And iPad OS. Catalina is still out there, like literally in Catalina. No one knows. I just, I don't get it. And that we keep talking about locking in,

and monopoly and blah, blah, and I think the strongest evidence I have that this monopoly is damaging competition is that people who are paid to help you make buying decisions have just seated, have just seated the ground. They're like, there's no reason to help you make a buying decision. We know what you're going to do. You're just going to buy the next iPhone. Now the only question is, how soon should you buy the next iPhone? Which is like the ultimate, right?

Like, it's, there's like, what if you want to switch? What if the answer is this year's iPhone isn't very good? And you should switch to Android. Like, why would you just cede that ground? And it's literally been driving me crazy. You can obviously tell it's been driving me crazy for a week. But, like, I'm very curious what you two think about that. Even if you grant that people are locked into their ecosystems and we'll never leave them because I message.

By the way, I've discovered that it's also airdrop. Really? Yeah. I mean, what did I do all this past week? I took 5,000 photos and tried to get them on my computer to look at them. AirDrop's really good. I'm seeing those hot takes like AirDrop is the secret teen social network. For crimes, probably.

But yeah, it's hot. Even if you grant that people are locked into their ecosystem for life forever, at the very least there's like more than one iPhone to talk about, right? Yeah. And there's like, you know, possibly like skip this year instead of just buy it, when you need it. And I would, if I saw a skip this year review, I'd be like, okay, cool. But, man, the only argument for the iPhone 11 Pro to be a skip year if you need a phone

and you should like hold out for another year if you can is that the 2020 iPhone is expected to be a much bigger change. But again, we overdo it with car analogies, but like, man, it's starting to look like a pretty bad idea to buy the first gen of an Apple product. And like the first model of a car, you wait until they work out the kinks in the second year, in the iPhone 10's case, the third year. And I don't know. I guess I'm basically with you. Yeah.

So I keep thinking about the Chinese market where there is no iMessage lock-in. Yeah. Where there is a thriving ecosystem of Android phones that don't have play services, so they've like mutated in different directions. Where everyone uses WeChat, so like the hardware matters more year over year. and they're like very smart analysts who have like made this case in great detail. Ben Thompson comes to mind that because we chat is fundamentally the operating system of the phone that you can just switch hardware and then like that is actually the thing. And so you look at the Chinese market, the phones are way more interesting.

Cameras are flipping up and down all over the place. There's 40 megapixel camera sensors. With the mate 30 pro came out today, it's got four cameras in a circle. And no Google. by the way. It didn't have Google in China anyway. Yeah. That's one of Apple's biggest markets.

So when they get outgunned in hardware in China, they have to compete. The reason this camera is better is because Apple has to make it look better, in particular than the P30 Pro, which is the camera they cross-tested the most when they were briefing us on the cameras. They kept on telling us how bad the P-30 looked. That's on purpose. Yeah. Right?

Like the P-30 Pro is a pretty good camera. that's the competition you want. Apple has to perform better because in China there's actual competition for the phones. In India, there's actual competitions

for the phones. So I think we've talked about this on the Verchast months and months ago, but like Gadgett 360 is the biggest gadget site in India. It's around by Knoldua.

It's like a friend of us. It's as big as the Verge, has a bigger audience in the Verge, and just reviews like a dozen phones a week in exhaustive detail because it matters and the audience wants that stuff.

There isn't a site in the States that is actually performing at that volume that knows, okay, iOS users might switch to Android. No one's trying to make that case here. I just think it's wild that, okay, like the New York Times is doing all this monopoly stuff and BuzzFeed is doing great tech coverage. You can't connect the dots between how bored you are with your iPhone review and the fact that these are monopolies. Just do it. Just draw the line. It's right there. I'm doing it for you right now.

Instead, you're like, take flash photos. If you are going to resign yourself to like, well, we're always just going to have new iPhones every year, that's like, that's, then it's basically becoming politics. And then you got to start lobbying. Like, I'm, you know, I'm the small phone contingent from Tennessee and we want small phones and we want them now. You know, like that at least you could soapbox your review a little bit. Yeah. It's just bizarre to me. And like, there are good reviews.

adage review is very good. Joanna Stern, she actually wrote two at the journal. Very good. I'm not saying that like no one did the work. Lauren's Review and Wired is very good. Those are like our family. Right?

Like those are so much average people. And like that you can see it. Like that history of like, okay, we have to actually critically assess this product, which is one of the most important products you will own. We will see it if it lives up to Apple's claims.

The basic job. Not this is inevitable Apple always has a good job. Just hold off a little longer. Here's how I see it. Like, why even bother reviewing the new Jonathan Franzen novel? I mean, there's going to be new one every year. It's going to be mediocre.

Everyone's going to buy it anyway and have opinions about it. Why bother? Yeah, exactly. Why? Yeah, so you convince Paul. Thank you. The joke I was trying to make on Twitter as other Camry and everyone thought I was actually talking about Terry to Camry's clearly did not play.

If I was to work at a major mainstream home, I'm CNN's car reviewer, car reporter. Yeah. And I go on the air on CNN. I'm like, yep, I've been driving the 2020 Camry for a year. It's pretty good. But, you know, all cars are fine. I only compared this Camry to the 2019 Camry,

and I've never driven any other cars. Buy one if you want one. Like, that's horrible. And like, no one would accept that as useful. You can switch from. a Camry to a Honda and your family still talks to you. That's what I'm saying. Anyway, I don't want to get overly meta on this.

It is just the frame that the iPhone exists in when, in fact, this iPhone is actually by far the best year-over-year iPhone upgrade. They have produced since, like, the iPhone 3GS to the iPhone 4. You think it's way bigger than the iPhone 8 to the 10, huh? Yeah, I do. Yeah. Speaking of the phone basics, I want to talk about iOS 13. Wait, we've gone for 40 minutes.

Let's take a break. Come back and talk about iOS 13. Support for this show comes from Shopify. Starting something new isn't just hard. It can be really scary, too. So much work goes into this thing that you're not entirely sure will even work. But here's a better thought. What if it did all work?

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Yeah, so it's a buggy. iOS 13 is an important part of a phone because the phone runs the software. And we're coming on the heels. Apple obviously didn't bring it up at their event, and maybe they've swept it fully under the rug. It's still really looming very large in my mind. Apple had a huge security vulnerability, a couple years. back and it seems all patched and all fine now. But if you are putting out software, especially

if you're actually shipping it to people, it's not just a developer beta. If you're shipping software to people that is a buggy mess, I don't, bugs do not always equal security vulnerabilities, but security vulnerabilities are bugs. And when you have software that is a mess and crashes, it's a good sign that it might be lacking in the sort of quality assurance, the same sort of quality assurance that is necessary to keep your phone secure from being hacked by, I don't know, your best friend, China. Yeah. I mean, Apple's, like, in China.

Like, it's one of their biggest markets. So I see what you are saying. Like, don't ship buggy operating systems when you're about to enter a huge market like that. I just think they're rushing it out. I think it's a much more innocent. Right? Like, they just need to get it done and they, they just race to the finish line. It's not done. But they don't need to. I mean, yes, they have a financial responsibility to themselves to remain rich to keep on pushing out phones exactly on the year and ship an operating system with it. But they have no true obligation to ship buggy software. It's a liability.

Yeah. So the fact that they move the date up six days is a huge tell to me. Why are they even releasing iOS 13? 13.0 to the general public when so initially it was iOS 13.0 in the new phones everybody gets it today right the 19th or the 20th yes right right one of those days yeah and then iOS 13.1 comes out on the 30th for everybody right then today an iPadOS was back there as well and again Catalina is literally in Catalina and then literally today which is when all the iOS like 13 reviews and stuff started hit because it's going to come out Apple quietly didn't tell anyone they updated their webpage to say iOS 131 is coming out in September 24th. And Lauren Good, to her credit, at Wired, noticed it, tweeted it, then everybody called Apple out once and confirmed it. This is what happened. And then, yep, they moved it up basically a week. So now it's a four-day delta between everybody with an iPhone getting upgraded to a buggy operating system and then presumably getting the update that fixes it. Presumably it fixes it. Why even ship 13.0?

Okay, why? Like, the question is, is there something about shipping the iPhone 11 that, like, requires them to get 13.0 on all the other phones? Is there like, if there's a, if there's an iPhone 11 in the world with 13.0 and it like pings Apple servers, are they not able to figure out that like it shouldn't be getting a 12 update? Like, what is the reason that they cannot have some phones of 13 and some phones with 12 for a week? Wait, but that reason can exist. There's, it's always going to be a gradient. of operating systems, right? Right. Yeah. Even on the day 13.1 comes out, they're going to have a bunch of people with 12 for a while. Yeah. So

I think that problem can't exist because it would be a problem every year. And like literally every year, like iOS 12 was super buggy. And every year before that, like, they would do the updates and everyone's alarm clocks would get reset. So like maybe that is a problem. Who knows? Like that can't be the

issue because it's already necessarily true that not everybody is going to get it at the same minute. Why are they shipping it then? I cannot tell you why they're shipping it. They should just cancel iOS 13. And by the way, if you're listening to this. 13.0.

13.0. If you're listening to this, I realize you're, I mean, you're a Vergecast listener and you just put up with a rant about lock in Monopoly Power in iPhone reviews. So like you're in it. I'm assuming that if you put up with that, you've upgraded your phone. It feels like a one-to-one there.

But you shouldn't upgrade 13.0. You should wait the four days. Absolutely. It is, I mean, Deeter, you've been running it. Our staff has been running it in betas. On my review, and it was super buggy. I talked to Lauren. It was really buggy on hers.

I talked to Joanna. I was really buggy on hers. Like, messages will just, the keyboard will disappear and the text field will go to the top of the screen. That just happens. Again, I was using AirDrop a lot. AirDrop crashed so hard so many times that I had to reset the phone three times. Springboard crashes.

Sometimes the camera, the great camera that I say is the best in the industry. So I just, yeah, didn't show up. Sometimes the camera just decided to stop saving photos. And not like the pixel where the pixel just drops the photo every now and then, but keeps working. No, the camera is just like, no, I'm done. You can continue to take photos, but I'm not saving them for you until you reset.

Yeah, Safari, my favorite way that Safari got hooped, you know, they took out 3D touch and out Taptic touch to be long press, so, like, that's how the movies work. it's like log press on link I'm like oh this isn't working and I realized it was working in slow motion just a very slow like it's one pixel yeah four pixels yeah it's like the thing is zooming the drop shadow appears the window started expanding I was like this is very relaxing I I do wonder this is a very suspenseful way to preview a web page uh and why why did that happen and I just to re- like force quit safari and try again. Like it's a buggy operating system.

And I will tell you, one, people ask, why did you give it, I gave the phone a nine, why did you give it a nine when you say the operating system is buggy? Well, because I knew iOS 13.1 was coming 10 days after the phone ships. Yeah. So if iOS 13.1 is as buggy on this phone, I think there's a real conversation we're going to have to have about changing the score of the thing.

Yeah. Right? For sure. But I asked Apple, literally the first question I asked Apple on every like briefing call we had, during the review process was, hey, is iOS 13 ready? Right? Like, do you know? And they're like, yeah, you know, iOS 131 is coming.

Yeah. And that was the answer every time. So they know. But it's bizarre to me that they're shipping it to the general population when they've pushed up the 131, the general population. It's like people with iPhone 11s are like in maximum security. It's all right, because your phone at any moment will crash. You have to be isolated.

It is bizarre to me that they're releasing it this way. It's also bizarre to me that there are so many features that aren't coming. That they told us were coming at WWV. Okay, there's sweater mode. What else is there? Sweeter mode is coming later this fall. Okay. So we don't even know when that's coming.

That's just off in the future. And so, like, that was another question. Like, Deepfusion's coming. Why don't you give them credit for it? And it's like, I don't know. Maybe it'll never come. You don't know. Air power never came.

It would have been a tan with sweater mode. Is that what you're saying? I don't know. Oh, it was like, because, you know, the pixel and the note won a handful of comparisons that in particular, DeepFusion should make the iPhone better at. So people are like, why didn't you say diffusion? It's like, well, because it might never happen. Yeah. Like, you one day Apple will ship a charger lets you charge everything at once.

You know what? A year later, they're like, no, it won't. Like, you can't, you can't review promises. But the U1 ship doesn't work at all until 131 shows up. Airpod sharing, which is a thing that is on the product pages for the phones. Doesn't work yet. Like, it's just like a lot of things. The auto-resized photo thing, that's maybe.

Maybe that operates now. So it's just a weird release cycle for them. And I've just heard over and over again, it's kind of messy at Apple this year. I think they could have shipped the phones with iOS 12. And as long as the cameras were better and the battery life is as good. Fine. Dieter, have you had as many problems I was 13 as I have?

Not quite as many, but close. I mean, I had that camera thing. I've had springboard crashes. I've not had weird THX slow-mo Safari pop-overs happen. I tried to remember there was like a key command

on the Mac that would make it. If you hold down shift when you do expose, it used to go slow. Was it shift? There was some key command to make it go slow. There was one when they, you know, the genie and, to the doc thing.

Yeah. I can't figure it out. Huh. Well, please at Dieter and let him know. Though, have you, have either you guys tried,

uh, shortcut stuff? Yeah, here and there. From the app developers I follow, like the people who are super deep into the ecosystem, they're pretty stoked on it. Yeah.

I mean, again, I, like, I don't trust iOS 13. Hmm. So, like,

I don't want to spend my time building shortcuts that might click. Like, it's, it's, it's writing code in a laborious. way. That's like what shortcuts is, right? Like, I'm going to drag and drop these random little interface bits and bobs into an editor and it's going to eventually be a macro. It's writing code, which is a laborious thing. It is theoretically one of the more straightforward ways to write

code, but yeah. Yeah, no, it, that's actually a really interesting question. Because, like, there's a part of me that just wants to type, when this happens, do this other thing, but instead you have to, like, open a list of, like, images and then drag them into a puzzle. so I think that's harder but like it's it may be like I just want to write AppleScript what if this then that but then you left off the semi-call

what about that though yeah I hear what you're saying it's they told us when they announced it this is the like spiritual successor to AppleScript yeah and it absolutely is but there's a part of me it's like just give me the Apple script editor and it doesn't exist

so like you know what I mean like it's a again You're right. It is in one sense much less laborious and much more democratic because people just figured out. But yeah, I haven't wanted to invest time in something that I'm like, oh, this will just break. Because the OS is probably, but I think it's cool. I wrote a shortcut last year that was my favorite shortcut where I could hit one button on my

home screen and it would just tweet Fire McCarthy in relation to the Packers coach, which is like really useful and funny. I just like did that every Sunday and it was great. But I haven't done anything more exciting. I'm excited for when they let you have file system access to make a bunch of photo shortcuts. I think that'll be really fun. Yeah. Yeah.

Deuter, have you done anything? This is like, this is your zone. Yeah, I've done a few. I have a bunch of custom web searches. So if I want to search like just within the verge domain or if I want to search for just links that came into the world were birthed on the web in the last week.

Or if I want to search a particular link on Twitter to see what. people are saying about a particular story. So I have shortcuts for all that stuff. I also have a shortcut that lets me create icons that just go to nowhere or like go to a webpage. But the thing about shortcuts is you can choose your icon, which means that you can make an icon that perfectly matches pixel for pixel your wallpaper, which means that you can have your icons on your home screen at the bottom instead of at the top because you've got dummy icons at the

top. Wow. Life hacks. And then if you were really clever about it, you can set those dummy icons to go to whatever webpage you want so that you secretly know that if you tap on the moon, it goes to like BuzzFeed or something. Your secret shame. The website BuzzFeed.

I love you, but just give me an example of the utility of this functionality. So you don't have to reach all the way to the top of the screen for your icon, so you can actually, like, customize your home screen the way that you want it. Okay. Okay. But like the secret BuzzFeed link specifically. You know, man, sometimes you just want to tap on the moon. Okay, I'm with you.

And just know, does it like give you like a random quiz? That's what you should do is like, like a macro I would have is like, hey, Siri, make me sad and just like opens Twitter to the explore page. Yeah. Is there a macro, is there a vanity URL for open random quiz on BuzzFeed.com? There really should be. Feeling quiz. You just refresh that button. Stumble upon.

but for BuzzFeed quizzes. Yeah, and it's always the most obscure thing. Yeah. Like, which of these very specific My Little Pony's are you based on sandwiches you like? And it's like, I don't know anything about either one of these subjects. I bet you that quiz exists. All right, we should talk about the watch. Dieter, you reviewed the watch.

What do you think? Yeah, it's the best watch. I mean, I love that the screen is always on. It does have a tiny little battery hit, but it still is within line of what Apple. claims, but it is not like so much better in the way that the Series 4 was. The watch faces and watch OS6

are really good, but they're not like Apple Apple's aesthetic is not quite my aesthetic. And it's better than the default average third party watch aesthetic on WareOS, which is like goth,

Tron, I don't know. But it's always just a little bit not perfect. Every single Apple Watch Face is just like, ah, it's close, but this thing is a little bit too bubbly or this thing's a little too round, or I can't quite get the widgets where I want or whatever. And so I wish that they would just do a third-party watch store, watch Face Store. Just do it. That's the whole review. It's really, really good. Actually, the more important watch, I think, or the more interesting watch. I mean, Series 5 is great. If you have an iPhone and you want a smart watch and you can spend

$300, go get it. If you want the cellular one, I mean, you need to have very particular reasons to want it. Nely has one very good particular reason, and that is that he is 100% unable to not look at his phone when it's within 100 feet of his body. And so he needs a cellular Apple Watch. I need a cellular Apple Watch so that if I decide I don't want to carry two phones with me,

I can have an Android phone and then have my phone number on my Apple Watch because I've decided I'm locked into IMessage. So now, like, my Apple Watch is just basically to become my IMessage machine, and then I'll use an Android phone sometimes. You should know that you should only update your iPhone when your previous iPhone begins to physically harm you. Oh, because you're locked in the IMessage ecosystem. There's no need to even have another phone. Yeah, just take flash photos.

If I am Fitbit, I am freaking the hell out over the fact that the Series 3 is only $200. Oh, yeah. I'm losing my mind right now at Fitbit. Because, like, I could not imagine a world where I would recommend an iPhone owner get a Fitbit over a Series 3. Well, let me ask. A couple of worlds. If you're deep into Fitbit world, maybe. But, like, I don't know.

How many people are deep into Fitbit world? Some people. I don't know. Okay. Fitbit's a social network. If Fitbit could send iMessages, if they could address the messages app, would that change your equation?

Well, so this is a question that I don't quite know the answer to. I actually cut this from my, like, Google's screwed rant. There's a couple things I cut from Google is screwed in Smartwatch's rant, one of which I regret, one of which I don't. The thing I regret is there's a rumor that Qualcomm has another smartwatch processor coming soon and maybe that'll save it. I cut it because I'm tired of believing in Qualcomm and so I cut that because I don't actually have faith, but maybe I'll be wrong. The thing I don't regret cutting is like if Fitbit could send eye messages, does that mean that it would be worth it for Fitbit to try harder and therefore there would be better watches and more competition? Yes.

But there's like, but why aren't there good, great smart watches on Android then, other than like Samsung stuff, which are like pretty good? Well, I mean, well, that's your answer. Why isn't Fitbit better on Android? I know. Where they can do whatever the hell they want. Yeah. That's why I cut it. It's like, I want to believe that if Apple wasn't so limiting on the iPhone that there would be an incentive for companies to make better watches.

And maybe it's the case that that's true because, like, iPhone owners tend to spend more money. on other things and therefore it's more worth it for third-party watch companies to make, you know, watches for the iPhone, et cetera. But it's like it's the situation with bad smart watches for Android and like, you know, all other smart watches basically except the Apple Watch being like pretty good but not great has gone from like annoying to confounding. And that's that's kind of where I live right now is I don't know what to tell anybody that doesn't have an iPhone what watch to buy. Like if you care about fitness, get a Fitbit. if you want a cool watch,

I don't know, get a fossil and know that it's going to be a little bit nerffy, nerfed. And then if you want the Samsung watch, go for it, but be ready for a bunch of Samsung software on your phone. Which maybe you already have because you have a Samsung phone. Well, so I'm just looking at the Apple Watch edition pages. You can spend

$1,400 on Apple Watch. Yeah. The ceramic one with the weird leather band, which bizarrely only comes in 44 millimeters. Interesting. Anyhow, but you can spend $14.00. And people are going to buy them. So I think you're like, you're, and it's the same Apple Watch. It's just a more expensive case, right? Right. If you're Fitbit, you are capped. Like,

you have a more price sensitive audience. Yep. Because you can't address every iPhone owner. Yep. Because you are necessarily offering a less good product because you can't send messages. And then we do know that Android owners, at least in the United States, are a little bit more price sensitive than Apple owners. They spend less money anyway. That's like just stats. So you're not bringing in as much money. You're not bringing in as much just pure gravy by selling $1,500 products that just look different. And you probably, because of that, aren't attracting like the absolute best talent in watch stuff. Right. Because they can't win. Yeah. Right. And I think that's just like a really hard cycle. And I want to say like, okay, if you do let them do more stuff with the iPhone,

then at least you get to make more competitive products for a bigger audience. Whereas I think if you have an iPhone, it is absolutely, unless you have very specific needs. You know, like you need a Garmin watch because you're going to go hiking for four days and Garmin's good at that. If you have an iPhone, there's no reason to buy any other product. I cannot think of a reason that a Fitbit is a better product for you. That is a challenging position to be in. Yep. I will say, though, that all this talk about, like, lack of competition that we've been cycling in and out of, the thing that I will give Apple huge credit for is they have not slowed down on the Apple Watch. They have made it iteratively better year over year, added, like, meaningfully important good features year over year that are, like,

either make it worth the upgrade or make it worth buying in the first place. They're making a good product on top of locking everybody else out of making a good. product, which is like a pretty good place to be in. I mean, this is the hard problem with all of this conversation. I was talking to Addy today about Google. Like a huge problem with Google search is that it is legitimately the best search. Yep. Right.

And the sort of like flywheel of it, they have more data so it's even better than before. Well, they kicked off the flywheel by getting out ahead of everyone. So like, how can you complain when the product is legitimately better? And then Apple will confidently tell you the product is better because of the integration. right like they won't like for example the battery life it's very simple why the battery life is five hour better on the 11 pro max the battery is huge the battery's 25% bigger there's a tear down like the the

watt hours on the battery is 25% more in the end they took out 3D touch and they made the phone thicker there's a lot more space in the case the battery's bigger the end Apple's like it's a unique combination of our chip design iOS 13 1000 power like no dude the battery's bigger but like Apple's argument is this not components.

It's a product that we engineer is one thing. I agree with you. They've made the watch so good. That first Series O review, I was like, the watch is slow and they don't know what it's four. And now I'm like, you should get one. It's fun.

Like, the end. We have not talked about it's one feature that's different from the series four, which is the display. Are you bought in on this Always In Display? Oh, yeah, I love it. It's great. You can turn it off if you want.

The battery life hit on turning it on is pretty small because they have the variable refresh rate thing. Having an always-on-screen is a thing I've wanted since the beginning, it's deeply good if you have an older Apple watch that's, like, dying on you. I know there are lots of people that actually still have those series zero watches. It's totally worth getting the upgrade to it for the always-on display. Apparently, like something like 70%, I saw, where did I see this? This Vergecast, right?

Spot off stats, I think I saw on Twitter once. I think it was 70%. 70% of Apple Watch buyers are new customers, not upgraders. Really? So, yeah. I mean, where I get this number from? Who knows? I saw it on the Internet.

Cool. Cool journalism, theater. Just anyone can tweet. That makes sense, right? Like, the, again, the market of people who own iPhones is huge. CNBC. Oh, they're fine. Yeah, I trust them.

Is that Todd? Can't BC's SEO isn't as good as 9 to 5 Mac. Max. Yeah, it's Todd. Okay. Good old Todd. Todd Hazleton. I was just saying, you trust Todd. Got the stats.

Can't trust Steve. Yep. Kidding. Steve is correct. Actually, it's Todd. We got it from Apple. Apple says that 75% of Apple Watchbuyers have an own a previous model. Well, then you definitely can't trust it.

This is how the internet works. I think you saw a number. And then like Google, which is very good, gets you someplace. And then blogs are actually nice and diligent about linking their sources. And then you go back to the source and then you see. That's how it works. That's how you verify things. We're just fully off the rails.

We're going to take a break. Also, you get on the phone. Here's what I'm going to tell you. It was Apple Review Week. We made a bunch of videos. You should watch it. We wrote some reviews. You should read them.

There's a lot of photo sliders. Just slide those sliders until you've convinced yourself that whatever phone you like best is the best one. Then really consider the fact that if you have iMessage, you are just going to get an iPhone. It's just the thing that is true. And then consider what regulatory. invention would it take for a market for cell phones to exist again. Then pull the car over the side of the road, listen to this ad, and Paul is going to tell you his thing after we come back. Support for the show comes from LinkedIn. If you're a small business owner, you know that

every hire counts, but time and resources are limited. Finding, connecting with, and screening the right candidates takes up valuable time you could be giving to your customers. That's where LinkedIn Hiring Pro comes in. It's built to be your hiring partner, helping you find the right candidates faster. That way you can hire with confidence without turning it into another full-time job. Hiring Pro streamlines the entire process from drafting your job to shortlisting candidates and conducting AI-powered interviews for initial screenings. Its updated conversational interface lets you describe what you need in plain language. Nearly 60% of hirers find a candidate to interview within a week. With hiring pro, you spend less time searching and more time connecting

with the right talent. And instead of getting buried in resumes, you get a focused shortlist that actually moves your hiring forward. Join the 2.7 million small businesses using LinkedIn to hire. Get started by posting your job for free at LinkedIn.com slash track. Terms and conditions apply. Support for the show comes from Anthropic. Not every question, has an easy answer. And the ones that are really worth asking usually come with a healthy mix of inspiration and backpedaling, aha moments, and quiet meditation. When you're working through one of those problems, you want a partner to bounce ideas off of and figure out where the deeper issue lies. That's where Claude can help. Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop at good

enough. It's the collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and thinks with you, whether you're debugging code at midnight or strategizing your next business move. Cloud extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter. Plus, Claude's research capabilities go deeper than basic search. It can have comprehensive, reliable analysis with proper citations, turning hours of research into minutes. Ready to tackle bigger problems? Get started with Claude's today at clod.a.ai slash vergecast. That's clod.a.ai slash

Vergecast and check out Claude Pro, which includes access to all the features mentioned in today's episode. Claude.a.ai slash vergecast. Paul Miller, every week. Yeah, I do always, I do a segment. It's called, let me just jot that down

with my money pin. Oh, my God. Oh, man. I know where this is going. So Starbucks has apparently Okay, you know when you go to Starbucks, you can buy like a gift card, right? And those are refillable. So they're basically like a debit card, right? They hold money. In Japan, they have this whole Starbucks touchline where you can do, like they have these products that are NFC. The one that makes the most sense is like a mug. It's a refillable mug with an NFC built in so that you pay with the same mug that you get the drink into. But now they also have Star Starbucks touch, colon, the pin. And it's just very good. It's a pen with it.

The ink is like a coffee brown, which is quality. And then you can pay for things. And it just, I hadn't really thought of the fact. We're pretty used to, we've moved from checks to cards to now we're kind of like, we've got cards and we also have phones. And if the reader doesn't work, we'd go back to the card or something like that. A lot of countries, not as much in the United States use QR codes. Those are very common.

But really, what Starbucks is demonstrating here is that you could pay with anything. If you can carry it, if you can carry it and you can wave it relatively close to the NFC reader, you can pay with it. So I just think there's a lot of possibilities there. What if you have a basketball? Like pay with a basketball. Maybe at a sports store, you buy a basketball that is refillable with sports. But don't you have to off the basketball somehow? Yeah, by waving it close to the thing.

You don't have to do a secondary off with the money pen? No, that's the whole deal. It seems like a very dangerous pen. Well, I mean, how do you think a gift card works? You don't have to re-off the gift card. You just get in the queue card and the way you go. Some countries have this stuff built into their credit cards. It's like our chip is like real.

I've got the contactless chip and I hate it because it screws up my subway card. My bark card. Oh, really? It's too powerful. Yeah, the contact list. I can no longer enter our office building by just tapping my wallet because all of the card chips are wireless now. Well, all the more reason for it to be a pin or a basketball. So what I want, Paul, is I want it to be a basketball.

But every time, I wanted to have more than just the NFC chip. I wanted to have a little tiny raspberry pie inside it that the text when the chip's been read. And then every time the chip is red, it lets a little bit. of air out of the basketball. And then you know that you need to re-up your card when your basketball is like fully deflated. Yeah. Yeah.

But then instead of going online to refill it, there's a special pump. And the pump generates electricity and you sell that electricity back at market prices and fill your basketball with real money derived from energy you've generated. How can we integrate Bitcoin into this scheme? It was born for, for Bitcoin. Let me tell you.

Oh, no. All right, Paul's segment, as it does every week, Paul's segment has come to an end with a diversion into Bitcoin. Check out that Lightning Network, everybody. You're not going to talk about anything else on our rundown, are we? No, I think we

this is, we're going to do it. Okay. Deere, you're going to be in charge. Lightning round. There's a thousand more events. iPhone week is just the beginning. of this autumn of monopoly discontent. All right, here we go. Three more ecosystems are here to take over your life.

Amazon, September 25th. Last year they announced 70 products in 60 minutes. I think that they're going to do it again. I don't know what they're going to do this year. But Dan and I and Viren are going. It's going to be wild. Google announced the date of its event, which is October 15th.

I'm going out of order chronologically at this point, but whatever. they put up a picture of an orange pixel 4 in Times Square, verifying that, not that we didn't know. If you want to know what they're announcing, Jay and Sean put together an incredible, just everything you need to know, rumor roundup that actually goes topic by topic.

It's great. Microsoft is like October 2nd, 5th, somewhere in there. I'm getting the date wrong. They, it seems clear that they might have a foldable surface device that they might show off. There's a patent that of watching. that it has liquid inside the hinge. Microsoft makes the best hinges.

Yeah. They're just the most fun. They got liquid like your knee, you know, like there's some carlin, you know. Yeah. There's, I enjoy nothing more than talking to Penn S-Pen-A about hardware engineering. Yeah. I mean, he's just so, he is so amped. I am dying to hear him talk about this hinge.

They might make a 15-inch version of the Surface laptop, which would just run right into the surface book. But you know what? I'm here for it. Yeah. A 13-inch and a 15-inch surface laptop taken out on the MacBook. I love it. We're so overdue for a new surface laptop, period. I'm very excited to see whatever they do,

but I really feel like this is a hot year for the 15-inch. This is the year where kind of seemingly one of the best processors on the market is like these sort of weird 9th-gen processors. They're not ultra-book processors. They're like actually powerful computer processors, and there's some really good laptop. out there. And a lot of them are like, they're like 15 inch laptops with like, like the, was it, the think pad, uh, X1, Extreme or whatever. They also have like the P1 version of it, the Gen 2.

Like they're lightweight, but they're 15 inch and they have a graphics card, but they're also not super hot. And they get good battery life and they're more powerful than ultra book process. I feel like it's a pretty, it's like a sweet spot right now. I mean, I feel happy for you. I want a processor all the way on the other end of the spectrum. this rumored arm surface laptop using the Qualcomm 8cx that's what I want that sounds really exciting

so okay that is Amazon Google Microsoft Apple might have another one we don't know and then last but not least Facebook also makes hardware and they just had an event where they announced a couple of new portals

at this point I'm going to stop talking because my wife works for Oculus which is a division of Facebook and someone else could talk about the portals I'm ready to talk about monopolies again here we go Now, here's the thing about the new portals. They made a better portal with a screen and a camera.

It's a portal. It kind of looks like the Echo Show, right? Same idea. It's $129, which is a price cut. Then they made the box that goes under your TV that has a camera, plugs into your TV, turns your TV into a portal. It's $179. Those are prices that are just obviously less than it costs to make.

They're making either no money or losing money in every one of these things sold. Well, hang on, the Google Home, sorry, the Nest Home, whatever the screen is and what we're supposed to call it now, that's pretty cheap. They're either making no money or losing money in every device, every one of these devices sold. I think Google is too. You know, Casey went and he wrote a story and I was reading all the stories. Nicole Wayne at BuzzFeed has this quote from Andrew Bosworth, Bos at Facebook, who's in charge of stuff. And he goes, we don't know the business model. We're not focused on the business model for these now.

We just want to see how people use them. So they're selling hardware with no business model next to it for what I'm almost certain is zero or a loss. Why is that? Because Facebook has monopoly profits everywhere else and they can just flood the zone. That means if you are a startup, you're an indie hardware maker, you're even a competitor. Like you're up against a company that's willing to just lose. That's basically predatory pricing, in my opinion. Can I, we got to get into portal, but I'm just going to say really quickly,

Amazon started selling a shoe that is completely indistinguishable from the cool Silicon Valley shoe, the Albird shoe. Like, it's identical to the little startup Albert shoe. Anyway, sorry. Yeah. And it was like 14 cents if you have prime. Like, yeah. I'm just saying this is the pricing of these things is the most interesting to me because it's clear they don't have to be businesses unto themselves. They're just lost leaders so that you'll use Facebook's other services that make money.

Which is the same that Google does, which is the same thing that Amazon does, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, so that aside, I'm not arguing that in any way. Portal TV, right? This is the obvious product. You have a camera near your TV. Hopefully you can cover the camera, which apparently you can in this case, so that's nice. But you have a camera near your TV and you use it to video chat with your grandparents, or at least your grandparents use it to chat with their, their, their, their,

teen criminal grandchildren who are using phones or something, right? This is a very obvious product. So now who could build it? Apple makes FaceTime. Apple could build it. Google can't quite figure out how to make anything video chat related that isn't confusing and sad. But theoretically, they could totally build it.

Amazon has made a product kind of like this. but is not known for their video chat services. There's like a list of companies who would do this. And Facebook is probably my least favorite of those companies. But it just seems such an obvious thing to do and to be really good at. Yeah. And then no one else has done it. And I think there's a reason why.

I think fundamentally Microsoft try to do this and fail. Yeah, there's Skype. But they launched that stuff. right when, like, they were starting to be really bad at Skype. Yeah. And they put out the Connect, which could have done it and it didn't do anything. Yeah. So there have been some attempts.

There was, um, there was some, like, indie hardware product that was a Skype camera for TV that I got really excited about. Do you remember this? I had it in my office in our old office theater. And it was just, like, the worst. Like, it was awful image quality. And it was like a slow computer that only ran Skype, but it was like outdated Skype. People have tried.

Um, Google makes a bunch of like Google hangout hardware for businesses, Google Meat hardware. I think they're, they're getting out of that. No, you can still buy the meat kit if you're like an enterprise. Um, but it's like killing some of that. I think it cycles and out. I think the reason is most people's living room setups are actually not conducive to this kind of video conferencing, right? Like you put that box on your TV and then you like want to have a conversation and it like will sound bad. It will probably look weird.

Like you need a really wide. angle so you're not actually looking anyone. Like, I think this is less impressive historically, and I think that's why this market hasn't existed. Like, you have to know Apple thought about this for the Apple TV. Right? It's a no-brainer. And they're like, no, people are just going to use their phones.

So, like, I think Facebook is trying to do a thing here that's differentiated. But ultimately, the second you involve your television in any consumer product, the complexity starts to skyrocket, right? Like, do you know what Facebook is asking everyone to do? Switch inputs on their TV. They're doomed. The product is doomed. Leeland.

Don't worry, there's an open standard for communicating over HDMI. This thing has an IR blaster. You're like talking to Facebook. Here's the other problem. This product requires that you sit in front of your TV and then pay attention to the person you're talking to because they're huge and they can see you and then you can't just go do something else.

it also requires that you keep your living room clean all the other products you can like turn the camera so that nobody can see just how messy your house is yeah i don't want to uh yeah there have been other attempts of this they've just not gone anywhere and i think the like literally the the the difficulty of setup which is true for any tv product like you have a smart tv you've got a roku you've got an xbox

All right, now you got one more thing to monkey with with a different UI on your TV. You've got one more remote to monkey with. Like, whatever. And then to Deeter's point, and now I've got to keep my house clean. I don't care how predatory this pricing is. So you're saying that like the $130, $180 picture frames are far more compelling to you than this $150 portal TV. So, I mean, I video conference with my parents all the time because they want to see the baby. So, like, I'm confidently FaceTime.

I confidently tell you I FaceTime like four times a week at least. We are always doing it on our phones because the baby moves around. So, like, mostly I'm just like, I bought a gimbal and, like, I've, like, FaceTime with the gimbal before. Just, like, chasing the baby around. Like, that's fun, whereas, like, there's no way I can park her in front of the Echo Show or whatever. And then I got to switch services, right? Like, FaceTime is great. Like, you just, like, use it and it works.

I'm not moving them to whatever Echo thing. To WhatsApp. Well, and that's exactly why I would never touch these Facebook products because I'm trying to live my life Facebook free. Yeah. But I just feel like they're pretty, I just feel like this fills a void. Yeah, I mean, look, lots of people use WhatsApp if this makes WhatsApp calling. And lots of people use WhatsApp video calling if this works. But they have not yet sold a lot of portals from what I understand.

I don't, I think making them a lot cheaper, like that one will sell, the Echo Show. we one, the regular portal. This TV thing is a lark. Just like Amazon put out like the, what's it called, like the echo tuner. The recast. Yeah, the recast. For TV recording.

Yeah. Which is like a very complicated antenna OTA solution. And it's like, I love that they did that. It's super fun that they like Amazon is selling like a DVR for your attic. Like that's great. I want more

of those things to exist that speaks to me? Like, what, what consumer is, like, doing that, right? I did it. Well, you're, but you're Dieter Bone. Okay. Did you get one? Yeah. Do you love it?

I wanted to stop paying for YouTube TV. Yeah. Yeah. Do you love it? Uh, it lets me watch national TV broadcasts what I feel like it, which happens way less often than I thought it was. Yeah. Which is why I wanted to stop paying for YouTube TV.

So I love it insofar as it saved me $40. month. I'm very excited to, I think TiVo is going to put out apps that run on the Apple TV that can stream from a TiVo. So I'm very excited to just buy a little TiVo and have that be my cable box and actually have the Apple TV, just have a TiVo app on it. That is not a good solution. Like, I don't recommend anyone else attempt that. It's just that's who we are. So you're, you are saying you actively want to move from the TiVo remote to the Apple remote, from the remote that literally has won awards for being a good remote.

No, because I have a Kavo remote. Oh, right, okay. Well, that's just cheating. Yeah. I mean, the Kava remote is like yet another Android box under my TV. I'm saying I'm the person who's willing to have an Android remote control talk to an Apple TV running, Apple, like, TVOS, talk to my Android TV and sort all that out. And I'm still like, I don't know that I want to put this weird Facebook camera.

a computer under my TV. Like, it still seems too hard. I don't know. It's cool, though. Like, I'm glad people are trying. I just think that, you know, like, the reason ERO went to Amazon is because Google underpriced them with Google Wi-Fi and then ran ads for Google Wi-Fi on Google when people were searching for Eero. Like, that, like, cratered their business. I think that's, it's just more me ranting about monopolies. But this pricing to me is the story. They've lowered the pricing, so they're going to lose money just to move units. And I think that's, that, that, is a, it's distorting in its way. All right.

Last thing up, there's actually a bunch of subscription stuff to talk about. Apple Arcade is out. It looks great. Dieter, you've been playing with it. It is great. I have many questions about what it's going to mean for like the future of the games marketplace. I wrote a piece. Patricia Hernandez over at

Polygon wrote a really good piece that like subscriptions for games are here, Netflix for games are here. There's a good piece over at Kataku. Everyone that pays attention to games are like, yo, these games are really good. There's a a ton of them. It's going to be hard to get through them all. Apple clearly paid a lot of money

to a lot of really, really good developers to get some really good games that don't have crappy and at purchases, that don't have stupid life meters, that don't have dumb timers that aren't trying to scam you out of money. They're just good games. If they can sustain this,

it could completely up in the market. People will have to be trying to convince Apple to fund their game and the whole patron system is going to get really topsy-turvy. Games might end up getting, like really bad in the way that your average Netflix show is like not that good because they're all just trying to, you know, get a little slice of the subscription thing and no longer make AAA. There's like a thousand things that could happen three, four, ten years from now if this pans out.

But right now, Apple, like, distributing its money to use its like market power in other areas to convince you that you want an iPhone and you want to pay for stuff on the app store means that you're getting a ton of games for five bucks a month, $120 a year. Would I spend $120 over the course of a year on games for the iPhone? Actually, I don't know. Maybe not. I don't spend that much on games for the iPhone,

but it would be in that zone. So it's, I don't know, it's a fascinating product. You should sign up and play, at least the free trial and maybe a little bit more. It's a sort of thing that I could see a lot of people

like dipping in and out of when they like want to play some games. I'm excited because I like, I'll burn a game for a couple of months and then need something else to play on the train. And it's always a struggle to find the next one that isn't crappy. And now that problem is just solved for me for five bucks a month and it's worth it. I'm very interested to see if this incentivizes me to play games on the phone.

I've been so turned off by free-to-play mechanics and then like, okay, I am willing to pay 20 bucks for a game. And then it's like, I'm going to look at 5,000 games and not note. Now it's like, whatever. I'm just going to like try it. So the thing that this might do, because most of these games work offline, is there's a non-zero chance this will incentivize me to play games on my iPad, and it could actually hurt the Switch for when I travel. That is super interesting. Yeah.

But the iPad's really big. iPad's really big, but I'm carrying it with me when I travel anyway. That's true. Are you going to start carrying around a PS4 controller to play games on your iPad? It's smaller than the Switch? No, I'm not going to do that. That'd be ridiculous. Speaking of traveling, Switchlight.

Oh, it's out. Andrew really liked it. Yeah. I really like it. I mean, I haven't touched it, but I like the idea. I like that it's a nicer product than the Switch. It makes me sad about my Switch being a first-gen product that's like a little bit hirky-jerkie. Well, Deider, here's what I'll tell you.

If your switch works and you like it, you can, instead of doing the year-over-year upgrade to the Switchlight, you can just start taking flash photos. You're the worst. It's, ah! I'm so frustrated. Let's try. I think I'm going to buy a Switchlight, even though I have a Switch. Yeah, but I do like playing on my TV from time to time, so I'm going to keep my Switch. I want this Flex Adventure game.

I want the Switch box, the $100 TV switch right next to my portal TV. Apparently, I love plugging things into my television. Paul, I'm going to buy you like a 14-port HTML Switch. Guys, imagine how ripped I could be if I beat the Nintendo. Nintendo's Flex Adventure. Perfect. Now, I think I'm by a Switchlight. I just decided right now.

Usually on the show I buy Pixel phones. This year I'm buying a Switchlight. I'm not going to do it now. Next week. I'm going to think about it a little bit more. Yeah. I made a promise myself that I wouldn't do Impulse purchases this month. It's gone medium.

Yeah, mine has not gone well. Medium. But the Switchlight, that feels like a definite impulse purchase. All right. it's been a long show. The iPhones are great. I promise you, you will like it if you get it.

I think it is, again, it's a weird year for the iPhones in general, right? It's three cycles into the 10. It's like by necessity they're great. And in this camera thing, the pixel four is out there. So we're going to see on October 15th if Google can come back.

Or before, because it'll leak another 30 times. Google's just going to send you one. They should just let us review it the day before the thing. At this point, why not? They really got to lose. Anyhow, that's the show. We'll be back.

Like I said, Tuesday, John Gruber is on the interview episode. We taped that yesterday. If you want yet more iPhone ranting, we delivered. I'm going to promise you we delivered. It was a wild episode. We've come to a conclusion that for the past two years, I've gone in his show after iPhone Review Week, because this year it came on mine. We've come to the conclusion that we're going to do that every year after half in interviews.

And the fact that we're very comfortable doing it out, I'm telling you, it was a wild episode. So that's coming Tuesday next week. Friday, we've got the chat show. We'll be back. I've got one thing to plug that's very important. We're hiring an editorial director of podcasts for the Vergecast, for the interview show, for other shows across the Verge. If you have listened this far, you obviously love the Verge cast, and you want to make it better, and you've got some, like, podcast experience. Please make it better.

You can, yeah, have you listened to this episode? We talk over each other? You just did it again. Constantly. Go to the verge.com slash podcast job. You can apply. I highly encourage you. If you, you love podcasts, you love this show.

We'd love to hear from you. Verge.com slash podcast job. We're also conducting an audience survey. Just five minutes. Go to voxmedia.com slash pod survey. We've done these regularly. You've heard me talk about them. They're very helpful to us.

So check. That's everybody. Everybody go to boxmedia.com slash pod survey. Podcast producers looking for a rocket ship to the top, you go to Theverge.com slash podcast job. You see what I'm saying? Future of music is all wrapped up. Charlie XX.

That episode's coming out. It's awesome. Go check that out on YouTube with Danny Deal. You can also listen to Recode decode with Kara and Scott Galloway. You can listen to Pivot with Kara and Scott Galloway. You can listen to Recode media of Peter Kafka. And finally, last thing to plug, Land of the Giants, the Rise of Amazon, hosted by Recode's Jason Del Rey, is out in force.

It's great. It's just a great show all about Amazon. If you want to hear more talking about Monopoly, who, I've got a series for you. It's called Land of the Giants, The Rise of Amazon with three-coach's Jason Del Rey. That's it. You can tweet at me on Matt Reckless.

Dieter's at Backline. Paul's at Future, Paul. We'll see you next week. Rock and roll. Paul. promo code.