Upgrade - 157: The 2017 iPhone Event Draft

Episode Date: September 6, 2017

It’s time for Jason and Myke to reveal their picks for what will happen on stage at the iPhone launch event next week! They draft 12 different things they expect (or hope) to happen at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino next week. Who will pick wisely? We’ll know in less than a week.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 157 the iphone keynote draft this episode is brought to you by casper freshbooks and encapsula my name is mike hurley and i am back baby and i am joined by mr jason snell hey mike welcome back it seems like you were only gone a week if you're a listener but you were gone much longer much longer many many many weeks it's been three and a half weeks i think since i've recorded upgrade of you yeah we did we did a week where we recorded and i'm not kidding about this three episodes of upgrade and then two weeks where there was no upgrade and then the one last week with uh with merlin so i'm glad you know what though jason jason nobody cares about that nobody cares about this hashtag snell talk this week comes in from brent and bre wants to know, Jason, do you use any podcast playlists in your app of choice?

And if so, what are they? I only have one. I have the priority playlist, the defining playlist, which is the stuff that I – some podcasts get automatically added to it, and others I add manually from overcast and put them in the queue and so that's that's sort of how i do it is that i've got a a queue of things that i'm manually adding and then the podcast that i've deemed uh strong enough that i want to just every new episode goes in there and that's my which means that which means that a lot of times it's the um you know atp and flop house podcast with other podcasts also appearing but uh just the one i don't have a separate like podcast for a different mood maybe maybe i should try that sometime to

like when i want to listen to dragon friends or the adventure zone or any of those like dungeons and dragons podcasts or something like hello from the magic tavern i can put that in its own thing but i don't i just sort of uh keep a collection of them teed up in the in the one playlist so i assume that you have an all on all episodes right and all unlisted episodes and then the queue that you can get set up whoever cars where you pick like reorder things that you want to listen to yes then you also have the priority list and if anything's in there it gets listened to first yeah so the priority list is the is the list and then everything else i'll go into a podcast and say oh yeah here's here's this episode like um uh cortex is a good example where and reconcilable differences is also a good example where, and Reconcilable Differences is also a good example where I am, depending on who, how you define it, I'm either way behind or I just pick and choose episodes. Don't listen to everyone, but I do listen to some.

to the priority list and i i will um every so often i'll be like oh yeah i want to listen to that episode of cortex and i'll go in and add an episode or two of cortex or erectifs and i'll put them in there and then and then they're in there but they're not always in there so for me just as examples i just have an all unfinished so every unfinished episode like every unlistened to episode and then a cue and then i just go through the Unlistened and I add things to my cue. That's how I do things. Okay. I mean, that's basically what I have, except I don't use the all Unlistened. Instead, I actually look at the – I very rarely use the all Unlistened.

I just look at the podcasts. And I'm generally driven by thinking like, oh, I haven't listened to Rectifs for a little while, and I'll add a couple episodes. like oh i haven't listened to rectifs for a little while and i'll add a couple episodes and but rather than looking at that you know giant stack of every unlistened episode of every podcast i subscribe to you're a picker and a chooser guess so all right i want to talk about the summer of fun real quick summer of fun summer of fun is over now um i feel like, considering this is the inaugural Summer of Fun, we have to set some parameters. And I feel

like the Summer of Fun ends with the iPhone keynote. That's when the Summer of Fun ends. I think you're right. I think you're right. So as we go into the draft today, we'll be leaving the Summer of Fun behind. But the nice thing about the Summer of Fun, and again, just to peek behind the curtain here, is you can hear mike invent the summer of fun in uh the what which episode was that in the uh

draft no no it was the one after that wait it was the no it wasn't okay it was it was the it was the automation episode we we invented is that what we invented the summer of fun in the automation episode or we did we invented in the draft and then back no so it's a complicated thing we invented it and then we had to go back um that's what it was we invented it in the automation episode but then um the uh next episode was the uh hardware draft which had already been recorded before which had already been recorded before. Which had already been recorded. So we had to go back and re-record the very beginning of that episode to

incorporate the Summer of Fun. What I'm saying is we stumbled on the Summer of Fun. You invented it. You can hear me say boy, you've got a real knack for this branding. The Summer of Fun. Thank goodness you didn't call it the first annual Summer of Fun. I would have gotten very angry with you. But this all happened basically in August. So what i'm saying is next year we will have to figure out what

starts the summer of fun well i actually know what it is but we can't talk about it right now but i know what begins the summer of fun and the summer of fun may be longer next year is is the summer of fun after wwdc i believe it will start around then yeah okay so it's like draft to draft from wwdc keynote to iphone event is the summer of fun yeah that's a good way of putting it yeah i like that so from all right yeah it's well i know it's three months it might get a bit tiring to shout summer of fun every episode uh that wasn't my thinking but uh okay but we'll see. We have plans.

I'm thinking more on the Summer of Fun now as a thing to occur every year. Because typically, unless firmware leaks, as we know, summer in technology news can be tough. So it's about us coming up with some fun things to do over the summer. Sure.

And we travel a lot, right? Which is one of the reasons the Summer of Fun actually exists, is we travel a lot. And we're sort of forced to be creative in order to have Upgrade happen every week, which is why we had... I mean, the Summer of Fun this year was essentially all these kind of unusual episodes

because of travel. Yep. Talking about unusual things, we do mike at the movies every now and then where we watch a movie at the end of an episode of upgrade uh we have the next mike at the movies movie picked we're going to be watching this for the episode on the 25th of september so right at the end of this month and it is going to be Terminator 2. So this is your forewarning. If you watch Terminator 2, it will be discussed on the episode on the 25th of September. But today's episode, because it is the iPhone keynote draft, is all about the draft.

And we're going to get into the draft in just a moment. But before we do, let's talk about the iphone event itself because the reason we are doing our keynote draft today is because there is going to be an iphone keynote next tuesday but this iphone keynote is slightly different to other keynotes because of where it's taking place which is in the steve jobs theater on apple park and it is the first time that the press at large i believe will be going to apple park and it's the first time that the press at large, I believe, will be going to Apple Park. And it's the first time that an event is going to be happening at the new Campus Theater. That's right.

That's right. They sent out the RSVPs and they were all like an Apple Wallet and stuff. You click and say, I'm coming, and then it adds a barcode to your Apple Wallet. And this is different? It doesn't usually do that when you sign up for these events usually it just says reply to RSVP you know whatever

at Apple.com and tell them you're coming and then you get then usually you get an email from a PR person saying did you get the invitation and you get another one saying it's great that you're coming and it's what I'm saying is it was really super, like low tech, like not a system before.

And they actually have put in a system this time, which is kind of cool. So new venue, new system, the whole, the works. So I was wondering what you're expecting from the venue and what Apple could do to make it accommodating to the journalists that will be visiting. Well, so Apple's history with these events, it's really changed. Originally, these Apple events were very kind of Spartan for the most part. kind of spartan for the most part and and as the um pr team has evolved they've changed it around a lot to make it more friendly i think the uh unkind way to would way to put it would be to say that

when uh steve and katie cotton were in charge and and ruling over the world uh they figure that the media would come and do what they say and it wasn't a big deal. They would just have them wait and then come in. And then they started adding amenities to make it more comfortable, like to be gracious hosts and things,

which again, it's inside baseball. It's well known that journalists will eat whatever free food you provide for them. That's how it works. But so this is, it'll be interesting to see how far this goes. Will there be, um, they're going to be shaking out the bugs. So, uh, it'll be interesting to also see how it changes the next time from this time, what they learn from this. Um, we have all these questions about like, you know, you're

supposed to park at the visitor center and I'm sure they'll have people there to sort of like wave us in and all of that. And then you've got to walk over to the event. Are we going to wait outside? Are we going to wait inside? How big is the waiting area? I don't know. I mean, in the end, it doesn't really matter.

They're going to have a big theater, and they're going to fill it with people. But I am kind of curious about how it's going to work. They did very clearly specify in this invitation where we're supposed to go. There's a specific street address, which is basically the visitor's center that they're built for Apple Park, where people can come and buy stuff. And I don't know what else they're going to do at the visitor's center, but that seems to be the parking lot that we're going to use. And then presumably people will lead us, you know, or will point the way to get to the Steve Jobs Theater. And that'll be most of us, you know, with a couple exceptions, it'll be our first time on the Apple Park campus. So that's pretty

exciting, even though it's Steve Jobs Theater is sort of, you know, at the bottom corner of the campus. It's not, you know. It's not the big ring itself. You'll still see it, though, right? Which will be a wonderful thing. You can't miss it. Yeah, you can't. Yeah, you can't miss it at all. If you look at a map,

it's just this enormous structure right next to this little theater. One thing that I thought was really cool, the Verge had a post that they put up a couple of days ago where they embed an Instagram kind of gallery from a site called Mac Magazine. And it's showing, I assume, a construction worker has leaked images or sent images of the current state of construction,

presumably a week ago. So you kind of get a flavor for what they're going for look-wise. And it all looks like the kind of birch or the light wood that Apple have been using in Apple stores. It doesn't look like your conventional theater by any stretch of the imagination. So I'm really keen to see how it's presented on the video. And what I also found funny, I realized this when we were doing Connected,

like we're going to have one of the most packed episodes next week talking about this. But we have to still just devote some time to talking about the room you're in, right? Because that's going to be interesting. And there are a lot of reports like Bloomberg has a report talking talking about how the demo space is built in and there's a sliding door that opens up and reveals the demo space. Wow. Okay. Wow. Because the most important thing to remember about this is this is what this venue was built for.

This venue is purpose built for Apple media events like the iphone launch this is why they made it so they made it based on all of apple's needs in doing a product launch because while they will use it for you know corporate events company meetings and and things like that the reason this thing exists is for apple to do its events on its campus in a space it controls, and it's built it in order to do that. The last thing you do is build this theater and then realize, oh, and it isn't suitable for this need that we've got in every one of our events. And one of those needs is the hands-on area, right, after an event. So it sounds like they have built a hands-on area, which is unsurprising,

but that it may actually be a little more dramatic than that. Wouldn't that be wonderful? That there's an open space that kind of like retracts according to bloomberg to reveal the uh the demonstration room that you can uh that you can then go in which is uh would not surprise me at all right that makes that makes sense because that's why this thing exists is for this stuff i hope that they keep the cameras rolling if that happens just to see the room that's right at the end because it might be kind of cool but yeah this is the thing right we can expect next week's episode to last seven hours or something i don't know how we're going to be doing it as soon as we can um after the event as always so uh you could look out for that next

tuesday it was going to be um our iphone uh episode yeah about great and i'm not gonna i'm not gonna do it in the car i think we've decided that i'm going to use our iPhone episode of Upgrade. And I'm not going to do it in the car. I think we've decided that I'm going to use the car time to reflect and ponder. Then I'll get back here and we'll do a podcast. Yep, which is the way it should be, I think. Give everybody some time. Because as well, in taking that break time, I get to find out all of the little details that come out after the events.

So I'll be armed with as much information as possible. I'm really excited about this event, Jason. I'm really, really very excited about it. Great. Are you? Yeah. I mean, this is busy, right? So it's excitement tempered with just the feeling of how much work.

There's going to be the next couple of weeks. It's a lot. There's a lot to digest, a lot to figure out, because in addition to the hardware, presumably we're going to get OS launches. It's just, you know, this is it. This is peak Apple for the year is this next couple of weeks. All right, we should get into the draft. Before we do, let's take a break and thank our first sponsor.

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So it's casper.com slash upgrade and the code upgrade at checkout. get those $50 off. So it's casper.com slash upgrade and the code upgrade at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. Thank you so much to Casper for their support of this show. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the second annual iPhone keynote draft. Can you believe, Jason, this is only the second time we've done the keynote draft? I looked meticulously through our back catalog and we have done many drafts, but this is actually just the second iPhone draft. Yeah, you said the second keynote draft. That's not true. This is the, what, third or fourth? Yeah, it's the second iPhone keynote draft. It's like maybe the third or fourth keynote draft. Okay. All right. Yes, but no, we only started this last this madness last year

hey i think you should refer to it as this wonderful tradition okay second annual though you finally get to use the use that that's i approve of second annual second annual iphone keynote draft so these are the rules the rules have been established over many many drafts now on this draft we are going to do six rounds which is 12 overall picks jason did i finally get that right you did yes okay uh as you know we have me and jason have amassed a possible uh pick list that we have between the two of us where we will be picking from so no no curveballs thrown in but jason always finds a way to do that anyway. The winner of the previous draft gets the first pick, and as

the WWDC keynote champion, I get the first pick. For an item to count, it must either be clearly announced on stage, or presented on a slide during the presentation. Yes, nothing sliding by in a press release,

released simultaneously, or a change on apple's website that is not mentioned it must be in the video feed or a pre-announce this week of stuff that they're clearing the agenda in order to not talk about it doesn't count unless that stuff is then also mentioned right i think we've agreed on that in the past yes now typically the draft is scored by myself and jason when we come to an agreement with our score on the episode but in case of a scoring stalemate stephen hackett will adjudicate there will be no half point points awarded it is full points only there are no points awarded so therefore no picks for any ridiculously obvious items like

if we were to say a new iPhone doesn't count. That does not count. Got to be a little bit more specific than that. Now, there can be other products. Like, for example, there is a pick in here, which is new Apple Watch. Now, that is not as obvious as new iPhone, right? I think we can all agree on this. The points will be awarded on the the episode next week and they are final

there is no no backsies on this one so no follow-up with point changes that's not how that's not how the draft works jason snell not at all um today we are going to do something a little bit different to previous drafts um where at the very end because i like this from the hardware draft we'll do a bring out your dead segment where the things that we think could happen but didn't make it into our draft, we also can get to talk about them, but we will not be awarded points for any of those. Right.

So, pick number one. I get to go first. And this is the closest to obvious, but I think not completely a done deal. My first pick is that there will be three iPhones announced during the keynote. Now, I will start with a couple of things that could make this risky, right? Yes. There could be just two, or there could be four.

The iPhone SE could appear at this event. We don't know. If the iPhone SE does pop up on the stage, then I do not get this. These are the three iPhones. And obviously what we're expecting here is a revision to the current iPhones plus a more fancy iPhone. Did you agree with that? I think that's where we're both coming from, predictions-wise.

That's exactly right. That's the idea, is that there will be stepped-up versions of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus and the OLED high-end fancy phone. Now, a couple of things on this just while we're talking about it. From a naming perspective, because we enjoy talking about product naming, what do you think the two iPhones will be called? Do you think there will be the 7S or do you think they're going to go to 8? I've seen reports of both, but that's one of those things that, you know, it's held close to Apple's heart.

You know, that's something that is hard to get out of them because it's in Phil Schiller's group, right? They're making decisions about that and have made decisions about that. I don't know. I could go either way. Like, logically, they are the 7s and 7s plus but i could see with this third phone hanging over the product line that they might prefer to refer them

all as like iphone 8 or something like that iphone 8 iphone 8 plus and iphone 8 pro or iphone pro or iphone edition or whatever we want to call it, that they might want to have them all. It's an easy way to make the other models seem newer because it's 8 instead of 7. Also, can I just say, once you add plus to the line, the S thing gets really complicated, right? We already have the 6S Plus and the 6S.

But the 7S Plus, again, it's not a great name. There's a lot of modifiers there. 8 Plus makes more sense. So if I had to pick, I'd say that they're just going to go ahead and call them iPhone 8. But that would be a change from all the S models that we've had. The extra syllable in 7S Plus to 6S Plus really does make it more clunky to say. I agree. It's clunkier to say, and then you've got that new phone up top.

So maybe you just move them all along and and uh potentially even call them all iphone 8 something yeah so you know i hadn't considered because i've heard people say about the calling them the iphone 8 but i hadn't considered that the fancy oled phone would be included in that naming structure that's interesting to me that's that's really interesting because then they're not calling it it's not going to be called the 7 pro like they they that doesn't make sense right or the 7s edition like that that's weird right so i'd always just assumed that that iphone would just get called like iphone plus modifier name without any number but if they want to put a number in there

which they may want to depending on what they think the roadmap's going to be like but if they want to put a number in there which they may want to depending on what they think the roadmap's going to be like like if they can't make two of these oled phones next year then they may just call it like the iphone 9 iphone 9 pro iphone 9 plus do you know what i mean so that that could be a big thing around it because i i had originally thought um that they would maybe keep them on the the other two on the seven range so they could differentiate them even further from whatever the other phone's going to be called but they might not want to do that because they still have to sell the other ones this is this is a real i'm really really interested to see how they name

these products i mean i always have an interest in it because i think it's kind of fascinating the product marketing anyway. But this one is really interesting because they're doing something new, and it will set a precedent. I mean, I think that there is still a possibility that they just drop all the numbers, and it's just iPhone, iPhone Plus, iPhone

Edition, and then they just deal with it, you know? And then numbers either come back or don't, but they just get rid of those numbers. All of that is draftable,able too i'll just point out all name predictions yep all of that still up for still up for drafting uh so i guess we should go straight into what is your first pick all right i decided to go with the idea much rumored but i'm going to put it out there, that the new iPhone comes with a biometric feature that allows it to unlock based on seeing you, your smiling face or your frowning face or your expressionless face. It doesn't matter that it's real and that on at least one of these

models, the high-end model, there will be face unlock so that instead of having to touch your finger to a Touch ID sensor somewhere, you can just be present and your iPhone will unlock. It's a strong pick. It's a very strong pick. I mean, it is heavily rumored, just as the existence of three iPhones is. But I'm going to put my flag in that. I think that that is a strong rumor. It makes sense to me. And it also makes sense philosophically that Apple would go that way.

That in the end, in the ultimate phone, in the perfect phone, you shouldn't have to fiddle with a button or a sensor. You should just be able to pick up your phone and use it. And the way you get there is by having something like this. And I can see how that has driven Apple to this point where they want it to be that the act of picking up your phone or looking at your phone is enough to unlock the phone. You don't need to do something else fiddly with it, whether it's, you you know putting in a passcode or resting your finger on a particular sensor just it knows it's you and you can use it and somebody else tries that it knows it's not them and they can't i think that there's there's some real elegance and simplicity in there that sounds very apple and face unlock is how you get there so i hope they

did it if you want people to to secure phones, like if that is something that Apple wants people to do, which they will for many reasons, philosophically and also business-wise, because Apple Pay, not ever having to do anything is fantastic. Like all you do is look at your phone, which you will do every time you want to use your phone. That is what unlocks it.

Like, that's it, right? Like, that's the dream. I mean, it would be amazing. If that's what they're able to pull off, even in like a revision or two, like, it's perfect. I don't expect it to be that flawless. I do expect it to work really great, better than any biometric stuff we've used before like this, like where you use eye scanning or anything like that. I expect it to be good.

Because otherwise, why else would they be shipping it? I mean, you and Merlin were talking about this, and this is part of my feeling of trying to be optimistic about what Apple is doing this year. I believe that if they're shipping this, if they're taking away Touch ID and putting in a biometric scanner, like some kind of face scanner, some kind of eye scanner, whatever it is,

I expect it to be better than anything else I've used before, i.e. it works great. They can't ship it. They can't ship it if it doesn't work. Like, you can't ship an iPhone without a biometric sensor. They can ship it if it's slightly slower or slightly clunkier than touch id that's fine and i don't right and i'd be fine with that because i would like the coolness factor of the face unlock but yeah they have to ship it and it be accurate they

have to because the payment stuff is tied to it and be at least a touch id level of quality i think but that if you think about touch id especially first gen touch id as we said last week um touch id is not perfect i i have failures to read my thumb print on touch id all the time because i'm washing the dishes or whatever and you know it's a little frustrating but it works most of the time and you know i don't think we're asking for this feature to be perfect it It just needs to be in the ballpark of Touch ID quality. And if you think, until very recently, both me and you were using first-gen Touch ID

every single day on our iPad Pros. And I never really felt like, oh, this is so slow. It didn't register for me too much. It's like, oh, it just unlocks. You know, Touch ID 2 is so much quicker, but Touch ID 1 wasn't laboriously slow. So yeah, I would like to see the face unlock stuff.

I think this has a very strong chance because there is not just rumors, but elements of hard evidence that such a feature exists at some stage. There is some kind of face something in the in the firmware that was in the home pod so there is good evidence there all right pick number two i am going to go back to the uh back to the iphone again and i'm going to say that the uh the oled iphone the top of the line iphone starts at one thousand dollars or higher. Wow. Yeah, I know.

This is where I think it's going. I think it's going to be $1,000 or higher, and I could be potentially setting myself up for a problem because it could be $999. If it's $999, you don't get this. I don't get it. But I think that this is where this phone is going to start. As I'm saying this, I think I should i should have said 900 but it's too late now because i've said it uh i i think this is going to be a really premium priced phone so

let's just ignore my pick for a second let's say it's 900 right whatever it is i think it's in that ballpark more than 900 that the i think it's i think it's at least 999 so yeah you're probably right and uh i will be very upset when that is the definite price. My gosh, why didn't I think of that? Anyway, my point is that the phone that people will end up buying is going to be $1,000 or more. Whatever people end up getting will probably end up being over $1,000, and I think it's because this is what this product is going to cost to make, or this is what they have to price it at to stop it from selling to many of them.

Whatever the reason that ends up being. The Galaxy Note is basically $1,000. It's $940, something like that. And I think that it's fine to have phones that exist in this point of the market. This is consumer choice. And if you want to get the best of the best, this is what it costs you. I think the essential phone is around this level of money too. And, you know, these are incredibly expensive, but for a lot of people, if you don't

want to, you don't have to pay, you don't have to walk into an Apple store and give them $1,000 cash, right? There are many ways to still get phones and you pay every month for them. That is still a thing in the US, in the UK, it's still a thing. Even though things are kind of split up now and you pay like part for the phone, part for the contract, you can still do that. So, you know, it's not like with the iPad Pros where like if you want one of those things, you're taking $1,000 and putting it on a table and saying to Apple, debit me, or here's all my cash. So I think that there is still room for the market for this stuff, and I think that Apple wants a piece of that.

And they can't start charging $1,000 for the current iPhone, but they can for the new one. Yeah, yeah, I think that this all makes sense. Apple is not a company that is hesitant to price things high. Like that's part of their story is they want you to give them money. That's why they make money.

That's why they make money on their products is that they focus on a market that is spending more money and they have high-end products where they are reaping profits, great profits from them. And they have high end products where they are reaping profits, great profits from them. And they have built, by all accounts, a high end expensive phone. They've spared no expense, as they say. And so it's not unreasonable to think this. I think there's questions about

some of the details. What comes in the box? What's the opening storage level? Are they going to use $999 or $1,000 as a starting point, but have a meager storage, you know, have $64 on there, and then that's an open draft pick about how much storage if somebody wants to take it. It's a question, is it going to be a really nice product at $1,000, or is it going to be in their usual method, you really want the one that is $1,100. But that's Apple. And that is the gamble here is that you're going to have people who don't want the lower-end models.

They really do want the high-end model and are turned off by the price. Yeah, and go elsewhere. That's the risk. But as we talked about, will the market bear that kind of a price i guess they'll find out but i have a hard time believing that a hot new super high tech iphone that costs a thousand dollars is not going to sell well in fact my guess would be and this is not a prediction because it's not keynote based or it's a prediction but it's not a draft pick my guess would be that no matter how they price this thing they're not going to be able to make them fast enough that it's going to be a hard to get item throughout the rest of the year even with the

high price i'm very concerned about either a whether i'm going to be able to get one in time or b how much money i have to spend to do that do you know what i mean right like am i gonna have to spend fifteen hundred dollars to get the phone because the ones that the entry price are all gone right and uh so we'll see what that ends up being like jason what is your second pick uh my second pick is going to be about ar kit i think about ARKit. I think Apple had huge press at WWDC for ARKit. Apple has spent the summer crowing about how Apple's platform iOS will be the premier augmented reality platform as soon as iOS 11 ships. They have taken great delight in all the demos of apps that have been, you know, showing you how to do a virtual yardstick or whatever using augmented reality on existing iPhones. You've got new iPhone hardware that's

presumably even better tuned for ARKit. You've got iOS 11 shipping. And you've got an opportunity to find some amazing vendor, amazing software company that is working on an amazing app that takes advantage of ARKit. And so even though this isn't the developer conference, it is going into the holiday season, which is why it will probably be a game. But I'm going to predict there will be an augmented reality demo on stage, not just a video, that would be a different pick. But on stage, somebody will demonstrate augmented reality. Because I just think Apple wants to keep beating this drum. They perceive it as an advantage. Google came out with an announcement about ARCore, which is very much, I mean, they've

been working on it for a long time too. But obviously, at some point, somebody at Google was like, we need to be part of this conversation. Apple is making so much hay with their AR kit, and we've got this thing. So they announced it, and it'll be on some Android devices. But again, they want to be in the game. This is an advantage that Apple has. Google knows it. Google's trying to blunt it. Apple will put its foot on the gas. Plus, they're crowd pleasers. They are those AR demos that we've seen videos of are kind of amazing. So I think there will be, you know,

we're gonna we're gonna get more AR because Apple really wants to make that one of the buzzworthy things about the new software and the new hardware. This was my next pick. I agree 100% of everything you said. all we have seen that ar kit can do from apple was a tech demo that they put together and was it something from epic games like just kind of like a mostly non-interactive demo of like there was that the games on the table yeah the person jumped off the table you know yeah that's all it's been since then, there've been so many amazing things. And I've got a couple of betas that I've been trying out that use ARKit. And it's amazing. And, you know, I think Apple should really just have someone on stage to measure some stuff.

Because it's like a killer feature of this. You know, and I expect it will be IKEA, right? Like IKEA will be there, I reckon, to show off their stuff. Because IKEA is perfect for this and i know that there's been some stuff um in the last couple of weeks where apple have been uh doing some releases with these companies to show off some of the ar stuff that they've been doing which may be some demos that got cut right like there may be something there um but yeah there looks like there's going to be some fantastic things and this is one of the things that i'm most excited

about for ios 11 because these things don't exist yet and i expect to be spending literally all of the money to buy basically every single app that's going to be in the featured part on the app store on i iOS 11 day where they show all of the apps. There's a Walking Dead game and stuff like that where you shoot zombies in the real world. I'm really excited about this. And I think Apple is very aware

of what they have done here. Yeah. Alright, so that's the first two picks. So we have four more picks to go, which seems like a perfect time to take a break and thank our sponsor, one of our sponsors for this week's, and that is our friends at FreshBooks. Hey, freelancers, people out there who are self-employed,

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Just go to freshbooks.com slash upgrade, and in the How Did You Hear About Us section, hey, tell them that you heard about them on this show. We like to thank fresh books for their continued support of upgrade and relay fm all right pick number three um i'm gonna go with here now this is uh this is a pick this in the list and it's and it's kind it's close to a pick that we already went with. And I'm going to say that there will be no Touch ID on the high-end iPhone. So there is some contention, I think, even still, about whether some kind of Touch ID sensor will remain, right? That there will maybe be some kind of fallback. Maybe it's in what is considered to be a larger home button,

like a lock button that's going to be on the side of the phone. Maybe there'll still be something that can read through the glass there are many different theories about this um i don't think that touch id is going to exist if the face unlock system exists i think that they will go one or the other because it won't be a great demo or at least an introduction for the face unlocking system if they're like oh by the way there's touch id because it makes you immediately think that the face unlock won't work yeah you can bail out it's like oh you don't have to do this if you don't want to there's touch id no the the other option will be put in a passcode which nobody wants to do so i don't i do not believe that there will be touch id on the high-end iphone um i think that this is a

I do not believe that there will be Touch ID on the high-end iPhone. I think that this is a swan song for the Touch ID on the iPhone, as over time now, the key will be for Apple to find ways to remove it from the entire line. So I think that's a thing. I think that that is a real thing. Yeah, I think so. I wrote a piece that I think is going to go up on Macworld this week that is about the obvious in hindsight aspect of some of Apple's moves where later moves make you realize that previous moves they made were part of a pattern that you didn't see or maybe you did see.

That's like, oh oh those were connected and so one of the rumors that mark german wrote about at bloomberg last week is this idea that the um the buttonless new iphone um one of the ways that the ways that you get around to multitasking or a home screen is through swiping up from a bar at the bottom of the screen and what he describes is basically ios 11 multitasking on the ipad and it's one of those moments where you're like, oh, like it's a bigger move that they're making. And I think it's true. I think that when we see this product, we're seeing the future of iOS hardware. Maybe not as much on the iPad as the iPhone.

But even there, I feel like this is where Apple's going. Apple wants everything to be face unlock, I think. I think that's where they want to go. And I think Apple wants to get rid of the home button and replace it with gestures. I really think that that's where they are headed and that this is going to be fascinating because it's going to be the first product out with some of these things that really change fundamental interactions of iOS. So yeah, I feel like they could put Touch ID on the back. I have a Nexus 5X that has a fingerprint scanner on the back. It's fine.

But you're right. It does send the message of like, you can bail out of our Face ID thing and just use your fingerprint like you usually do. And I can't see them having these two different ways of doing it. Unless it's like, oh, but Apple pay requires that you have a fingerprint or something but everything i've read says that the banks are gearing up to support other forms of biometric id not just a fingerprint yeah there are banks that already support like vocal authentication and stuff like that yeah so if apple wanted to do this they'd just get it because people have said that

as an example of why there must be touch id on it. And it's like, it could be a reason why they keep Touch ID on it. But it's just as likely that Apple went to all of their Apple Pay partners and said, here's a new form of biometrics we want you to endorse. And my guess is they were probably all like, all right, Apple Pay is really great for them. Let's do it. And so, yeah, I would be surprised if it was there. I think that's a pretty good pick. I think there's a chance. There's a little bit of a risk because it would be something like Apple Pay or something that maybe, right, not technological constraint, but like a partner or contract constraint that makes them like hedge. But Apple doesn't sound like a company, you know, that hedges, right?

They don't do that. I would expect. I don't know this. I could just be completely wrong because I'm kind of just speaking. I would expect that even something like Touch ID isn't necessarily

endorsed by Apple Pay providers, but that there is some kind of agreed upon security standard that Touch ID meets and that this face unlock will meet. They don't need to go to visa and mastercard and all the banks and say hey endorse this new thing but apple just need to meet the security standards required that's how i would imagine it to be there's a biometric uh clause

about like how you do authentication and biometric things and they probably add to it and amend it and it probably has some... It's probably broader than just you must have a fingerprint sensor, right? Exactly. Because there are lots of different ways to validate biometrically. This level of encryption,

this must do this, must do this, must do this, and have this kind of failsafe and this kind of check, etc., etc., etc. That's how I imagine this stuff works. I mean, heck, these contactless payments, a lot of what Apple Pay is doing, most of the time they're performed without any biometrics of any kind. It's just tapping a plastic card, which is in somebody's wallet.

So I can't imagine that this is the most stringent of things. And I know Apple Pay can go higher than that, but I'm just trying to make a point of, like i want to spend 15 pounds in a store i can just put my piece of plastic against it that's all it is so yeah you know i i assume that the apple is able to meet whatever security practices are required otherwise they again i don't think that they would move to the face unlock thing apple pay is so important to them now yep that i really imagine that any type of biometric whatever it is has to be able to support it and one last thing for the the face unlocking thing i was talking to marco arment uh about this last week that the there is a higher like or maybe steven hackett

someone i've seen lots of people and they're all merging into one now. If you want to bring biometrics to the Mac, it's probably easier to do it through a camera than to try and put some kind of Touch ID on a keyboard. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I had that same thought that that's, it would be nice to add a Touch ID sensor like they did the macbook pro but if apple's already like past touch id it also does make sense for things like uh like uh max and you know imac imax and mac laptops and all that i mean the laptop you can integrate a touch id sensor if you want to but it's a more much more for every mac basically other than the mac pro has a camera and the mac pro will come the new one will come with a an apple monitor that presumably could also have that sensor built into it.

And isn't that a better way to do it? And isn't it curious that Apple decided to get back into the standalone monitor game again? Makes even more sense if they put a camera in it for face unlocking. Jason, your third pick. All right, with my third pick, I'm going to go, again, something that's highly rumored doesn't necessarily mean it's going to come out, especially since Apple sometimes kicks things out of September and makes October announcements, blacker blacks and brighter whites and it's just a broader dynamic range of a picture it's more it's a higher picture quality and it's hard to describe but i think in in uh it's going to

impress people i think hdr is actually more noticeable than going from 1080 to 4k because dynamic yeah dynamic range is a thing that's hard to describe, but then you're like, oh, it looks so much better. It's like, yes, it does. It looks much better. So Apple's competitors have had 4K and some HDR support for a while now, especially Amazon and Roku. Apple has been behind here. We were kind of all hoping for a 4K Apple TV, I think, last year, and it didn't happen. I think the time is right.

It's beyond right. It's got to happen. And I think it's going it didn't happen. I think the time is right. It's beyond right. It's got to happen. And I think it's going to come with partnerships. Not only does Netflix have 4k content that will presumably be playable on this Apple TV, but Amazon does. And Amazon does have an app coming out for the, for the Apple TV. It makes me actually wonder if this was one of the reasons that got delayed is that they just want to release it with, with their 4k content on Amazon, on Amazon prime Video as well. And I think there's an iTunes portion of this announcement too, which is Apple wants to start renting and selling people movies in 4K and HDR on iTunes so that you can attach this Apple TV to your 4K HDR TV and get one of those new-to-home video rentals for six bucks or seven bucks or whatever it is,

and have that be beautiful. And then of course, 4K and HDR also is using HEBC, the new codec, that's also an iOS 11, in order to save bandwidth. They don't, like Netflix and Amazon, they don't stream. I know Netflix doesn't. I think Amazon doesn't either. They're not streaming 4K using H.264 video. they're using the new codec because uh 4k is a lot more information to pass along and uh and so it's only natural right this is all this seems to all be of a of a uh again it's one story that apple's going to but we haven't seen all the pieces yet uh apple also mentioned that you can do something h-like with the iPad displays. And there's also the OLED display on this rumored high-end iPhone. So I think Apple may have a broader story about the quality of movies on other devices

also being enhanced by these features, not just on your 4K HDR television with the new Apple TV. So I think all the pieces are there. I think it's time. I would expect maybe something to do with the wide collar on the iOS devices might help with the HDR, right? And yet, of course, the OLED phone is going to make it look even better when the blacks are true black, right?

Because of the OLED. So yeah, I think that this one makes perfect sense. And it's something I actually do want. This would be the only reason that I could foresee wanting to upgrade an Apple TV, because I have a 4K HDR television, which was bought with all this stuff in mind, because it's where games consoles are going,

it's where TV content is going. So that was why I bought the TV that I bought. I have a Panasonic 4K HDR TV. The product names are just too hard. Just search for that, and you'll find the series that I have if you have a Panasonic 4K HDR TV. The product names are just too hard. Just search for that and you'll find the series that I have if you're looking for it. It's great and I think we're in a good viewing range

for this stuff because I really do notice a difference but the HDR is wonderful. Just really, I scream when I see how good the picture looks. There was a BBC demo where they used some nature footage, and it was just unreal, absolutely unreal. So I'm excited for more of this stuff,

especially because I have a good internet connection now, so I can watch it as well. So that all works out for me. Pick four. For some of the same reasons, I'm going to go with dual cameras on all iphones now the reason i say this is looking at ios 11 ios 11 has a really robust depth api like it is if you are not aware of this so this Depth API is the Portrait Mode stuff. And they are adding a lot of really interesting things to this.

So, like, for example, somebody who maybe builds an app with the Depth API, you could use Portrait Mode to change the color of a background. So I could take a picture of Jason and make it black and white behind him. Or I could use it as some kind of pseudo green screen type thing. And with a depth API, I could put a background in. And all of this stuff can be done to already taken portrait mode photos. So there is a lot of really interesting stuff that can be done. The layers can all be pulled apart and edited individually.

They're really, really enhancing this and making it available to developers. I think that they won't want to keep that for just the big phone and then this new edition, pro, whatever we're going to call it phone. And also because that phone is going to be smaller than the Plus, I think it makes it harder to argue why the regular phone shouldn't get it plus the regular phone needs some new features one of those could be dual cameras i will as well say like i am a i love my my plus phone and the dual camera is fantastic and i use it all the time and i love being able to do that two times zoom um sometimes i test to

make sure i'm using the two times zoom because you can do that. Because you may not know this, the second camera will only work in good lighting conditions. So the way I do this, if I'm unsure, I just put my finger over the second lens and press the button to change. And if it doesn't go black,

then I just go back to the one times and just take regular pictures and can crop them later if I want to. But when it works, which most of the time when I want it, it does work. I love the, I love what I get. I love the photos that I get from it because I can zoom in way more on stuff. So yeah, I love that camera. I don't use portrait mode a ton, but I would use it way more with all of these cool apps features that I could maybe get a hold of. So that's why I think there's going to be dual cameras on all iPhones. I think it's a great pick.

I have floated this idea, and I think there's some concern that what Apple's not going to do is do enough of a redesign work on the iPhone 7 to add the second camera to it. But I feel the same way you do, which is they should, right? Unless their eye is completely off the ball, it would actually be a notable upgrade for the iPhone 7 for that size and model, whatever they call it, 7S or 8 or whatever, to get that second camera that currently is only on the Plus. I think there may be, there are always camera upgrades.

And I think our eyes are off the ball a little bit with this new high-end iPhone, where we aren't really talking about more of the details of the cameras, because there are always camera upgrades. And I imagine there will be more. But adding that feature to the plus last time it would be really great if they could have figured out a way to get the dual camera into the whole line now and make it you know extol the virtues of of having the two cameras set up even more so I'm uh I'm hopeful I hope you're right on that despite our our fiercely competitive draft

that we're doing I hope you're right because i think that the that phone that i have the iphone 7 that's the thing that makes me sad about it is i like the size i wouldn't use the 7 plus but um but that camera on the 7 plus you know it's really nice really nice it would be nice if that was on the 7 too yeah like every year, Apple likes to like extol the virtues of the new camera thing that they've added.

And I think with the last one, they kind of coupled it with a lot of the wide color stuff, right, as being one of the things that you'd really get when they weren't talking about the second camera, right? So I think that

I think that this is the big thing. This is the big thing that's happening in smartphone cameras right now is to have a second one for whatever purpose you use it for. I think this would be the big win for them, and I expect it's the one that they are going to push for with the whole line. And I'm going to give you, if there is magically an iPhone SE update, I'm going to give it to you if it's not iPhone SE update, I'm going to give it to you that if it's not on that one. I appreciate that a lot, actually, because that would be really unfair.

That would be what a technicality to lose on. I know. Yeah, that would be really unfair. Thank you for that one, Jason. All right. What's your pick? I'm going to go. I'm surprised it's still here and that we haven't gone to it.

And I'm going to make a very particular Apple Watch. I'm not just going to say there's a new Apple Watch because that's kind of boring. I'm going to say there's a new Apple Watch with cellular connectivity. Okay. That's what I'm going to go with. I think this is something that has to come to the Apple Watch. We've started to get rumors that it's going to happen soon. Yep.

And this is going to be the third anniversary of the announcement of the Apple Watch. And with GPS added last time in the Series 2, that leaves this one clear feature missing, which is cellular. There are Android smartwatches that have cellular connectivity. And some people poo-poo it, but I think we've talked about it on this show before. The fact is, once your watch can get your texts and get data updates and get phone calls, if you need it, then there are lots of situations where you might not actually need to bring your phone with you. If all you're concerned about is getting a text or getting a phone call, you can do that without your phone around. And there are circumstances, whether it's active circumstances, you're going for a run

or a bike ride or something like that. Or even the example I gave, I think last week was when I'm walking my dog over to the field that's over at the school by my house in the evening, like I bring my phone with me. Why do I do that? Really in case somebody needs to get in touch with me. It's basically there for emergency purposes. I'm not going to be sitting there checking Twitter while I'm talking to people and watching my dog run around. That's not going to happen. And this would free me from having to bring my phone with me because I would still

have access to all the data stuff. It gets the Apple Watch platform, which still needs to grow, but it would allow it to become a little more independent as well and count on having a connection. And so I feel like this is a necessary place for the Apple Watch to go, and I hope it goes there this month. Yeah, I buy this. I think this is happening. I'm pretty sure it's happening next week. It could not be, right?

But it feels like this is apple watch season like why would you not talk about the apple watch now this is when you know this is when the big apple watch announcements have happened is this time of year now you know they skipped a year right they went they went from uh from the initial announcement and then two years later they announced the the series too so there's a question about like would they do it is it too soon but once the rumors started up um and this goes back to that ask upgrade question we had at the beginning of the summer, right? The moment that we said, oh, there's probably not a new Apple Watch, that there were rumors that there would be. But I'm going to pick it. I feel like

Apple wants to be aggressive here and keep its lead. And I think with the Apple Watch, the way that they've done it, where they keep another model around that's cheaper, I think with the Apple Watch the way that they've done it where they keep another model around that's cheaper I think that that's a good approach for them because that means that they can have this be a little more pricey and still have a more accessible watch for people who just want to get something for fitness tracking and

don't want to spend the extra $100 or $200 to get the model that's got cellular data. So here's my question on this about the timing. The Apple Watch, I think, has proven to be a pretty successful holiday product. That's been a thing for them. They found it to be successful during the holiday season,

especially if they can continue to offer good Apple Watches lower on the price line, right, by bumping them down. There is already enough products in the pipeline for the end of the year with apple right i mac pro and the home part which we know are coming out at the end of the year they might want something else if they want to maybe do an event and that could also include a new apple watch in that event so they do an event maybe in october which could include an apple watch home pod update and i mac pro update potentially i mean if i was going to put my chips on the table i say the apple watch comes out next week it was uh it was actually going to be one of my one of my next picks

probably but i think that there is a question there my my gut feeling is apple has done so much product announcement this year it's refreshed the whole Mac line that it cares about and made pre-announcements about products that are in the Mac line. That it kind of cares about. And it's already announced the HomePod, and the HomePod is going to ship by the end of the year. But they've already announced it, that if I had to put money down, and again, it's outside of the keynote, so I can't do it. But I think there won't be any more Apple events this year. I think this is it. I think that they will announce the release of the HomePod and schedule with media to review it and things like that. I think they will announce the shipment of the

iMac Pro and have reviews of it. And that may be one of those ships on December 31st kind of things, but I think that they'll do that. But otherwise, I think they're going to be done. But it's possible, depending on how they're feeling, that they could do it. They own the theater, right? They can call everybody back in six weeks, and that's fine. But the iPhone is the big spotlight. So if you want to push other products that will benefit from being in the same spotlight as the iphone um now would be a good time to do that if you believe that so if i had to put money down i'd say this is it for them for this year the weird part of it for me that's i

completely agree right is why i i predicted the original ipad pro would be with an iphone because it's where you where everybody's looking but this time the iPhone is being used to introduce an iPhone which is something that they've maybe not done before and that that makes this this one there's just a lot of question marks for me about around what's actually going to get shown no the the other yeah the other way to go is to make this all about the iPhone and then just like push everything off into another event because the argument is the iPhone blinds everybody to everything else right like the iPhone shines so bright that you're like you know and also there was an Apple TV like you miss you miss it but at the same time more people are paying attention during the iPhone event so it's a it's a it's a tricky it's a tricky balance I think but I think they've generally shown that they are inclined to launch

Apple Watch and Apple TV and stuff in this event. Because I do feel that the HomePod does not yet warrant its own event or an event that's mostly dedicated to it because I think if Apple's being realistic, they should know this is an enthusiast product at best

right now. Yeah. Well, and they already announced it. So I think they're just going to ship it. I think a HomePod, they're just going to ship it. All right. Pick five. I am going to go with a slightly meta one. I'm going to go with Picture of Steve Jobs on a slide on stage. Oh, that was going to be my next pick.

Well done. Well done. I put that in our list. on stage. Oh, that was going to be my next pick. Well done, well done. I put that in our list. There is just no way they start this event without mentioning Steve.

It will be mentioned because they will mention the fact that they're at Apple Park and it's the first time at Apple Park and they'll say where they are because it's a thing and if they talk about Steve in any way, they will show a picture of him and I would be very surprised if none of those things happened. Well, I put it in our list, so you know that I approve of this

pick. I think it is chancy because, again, they could mention him because it's Steve Jobs Theater. It's undoubtedly true that they're going to mention him, but I feel like they won't let the inaugural event at Apple Park at the Steve Jobs Theater pass without honoring Steve. And that probably means a picture of Steve in a slide on screen or a video, whatever. And so, yeah, I think I think that's a good I think it's a good choice. How could we not have some? I mean, just as Tim stood on the stage at a town hall and said, we've had a lot of great events here at town hall, and this is probably the last one, and it wasn't. There was another one. But I imagine they will note that they are at their new home and mention Steve.

But there is a risk, of course, which I understand of, I mean, you've got to get out of the shadow at some point and I know they didn't make it any easier on themselves by naming the theatre the Steve Jobs Theatre it was a fitting tribute the right thing to do but I understand the risk and the issue of

always referring to Steve Jobs you know like it's a tricky thing so I can understand a balance to it but i think at least this time he will be called out i think that's right i think that's i think that's a a good pick very good pick pick five for you jason well since you took my next pick you snipe me i'm gonna make what what seems like an obvious thing but i actually think it's a risky pick but i'm going to make it um i'm going to say that they are going to mention

mac os or the mac on stage at some point whoa i know this was we have i we have i almost did i went the other way i almost did mac not mentioned on stage we have a list of something like 25 26 items or something like that because i've been removing mines we've been talking about them maybe even more this was my penultimate item in the ranking on this list i think it's not happening at all i i think we need to set some parameters for this one as well jason i think we need to like what are we what are we classing as a mention so i i think they have to mention a mac model or the mac or they have to mention uh high sierra right i think the existence of the mac is what i'm saying is that the existence of the mac as a product or operating system will happen at some point.

And the funny thing is, I think it's risky. But I thought about picking Mac not mentioned on stage, because I think it's entirely possible that they don't even mention High Sierra. And they may not even release it at the same time. I mean, anything is possible. Anything is possible here with macOS. But I feel like in the context of iOS and watchOS and all that, and the fact that there's a new macOS as well, that it will probably be mentioned there.

I'm more skeptical about Mac hardware. Although, again, I think it's possible that they will point out that in high Sierra using Mac hardware, you can build VR or AR and it could be in that context as well. But I think what is, what's interesting about this is that it should be a thing that Apple mentions the Mac when it, because it's one of its key products,

right? And I think that's not, I think it's an open question, but I'm going to go with it. I'm going to say the Mac somehow will wedge at least a little bit of a mention into the iPhone keynote somewhere, somewhere. So that's a bingo.

That is a true bingo moment, right? Wow. All right. I want to make sure that we're just making sure we set our parameters on this as well as we can. So like, let's say, for example, they're demoing the the 4k apple tv and they talk about itunes movies and they say that they will of course run on your iphone and

your mac does that count yeah absolutely if they specifically mention that 4k itunes movies play on the 4 and 5k imax i think that that counts the word Mac or Mac OS, that's what we're looking for here. Now, I'm perfectly happy with this. Or High Sierra. I'm perfectly happy with this. It is the acknowledgement that the Mac exists. I see it as possible that it might not happen, right? And this is, I think your parameters you're looking for is,

imagine that you aren't aware that the Mac exists and you go to this event. Will there be a mention that would make you go, the Mac? What is that? What is that? That's what I'm looking for here. We'll see. I mean, if you would have said this to me a year ago,

I'd be like, there's no way that's too obvious. Like we're not putting that in. I know. Today, I'm like, yeah, okay. I can totally see it. I can totally see them, just never. Because if they talk about the Apple TV, the Apple Watch, and the iPhone, the Mac doesn't need to be mentioned at any point. What I'm hoping is that it's going to be mentioned in very much like like if we had done a draft of uh that

uh that event that uh the journalists were invited to which we didn't know was happening so we didn't do it and somebody had said like okay the mac mini is going to be mentioned and the mention was the mac mini is also a product in our product line right the most innocuous pointless lack of endorsement mention ever but it was there you'd be'd be like, see, they did it. That's, I think, the delight in this is will they do it? Will they completely ignore the Mac or will they acknowledge it somewhere? And I think, actually,

the way they acknowledge the Mac will be telling about what Apple thinks is important with the Mac right now. Like, is it the iMac Pro or is it like the VR stuff or is it the existence of High Sierra or is it playing back 4K movies on an iMac?

All of those things are like up for grabs. They could mention the Mac. Where do they choose to do it or do they not? Or do they effectively give the version of the Mac is one of our product lines. It's also a product line that we produce. a product that's doing great that we produce uh yeah also they've done away with their uh with their uh you know they used to do like let's do a retail update let's do a product line update and they've done away with that in recent events too so you can't even count on that anymore so a presenter it's fun either on stage or in one of the videos has to say one of the following three words slash phrases mac

mac os high sierra right i mean i mac or mac pro or something like that would count too but yeah exactly pictures doesn't count i'm gonna say like if there's a mac in in in the background or something that doesn't count it has to be the picture of steve jobs has the original mac next to him doesn't count you see why i just wanted to make sure we set that although i will say if they mention that there's a mac in that picture it does totally does count i would say it totally counts yeah if they say like there he is with the original mac that's a point for you that's yep okay i'm glad we agree on this today that's gonna you know that's gonna there he is with the original Mac. That's a point for you. That's it. Yep. Okay. I'm glad we agree on this. Today, you know that's going to be the one with the contention.

I just know it. I know it. Today, we're going to need loads of action replays or something. Wow. Okay. Here we go. You know as well, I'm going to have to be the one that's honest because I will be able to pay, I think, more attention to the words than you will because you'll be dazzled by the bright lights i don't know i'm gonna have my mac

radar turned up all the way now to 11. maybe spinal tap will be there today finally today's show is brought to you by encapsula encapsula has the website security tools and a content delivery network that you need to make your website, to make any website, safer, faster, and more reliable. It's so easy to get started with Encapsular. You just need to make a small change to your DNS. That's it. There's no hardware to install, no software to install. It's ready to go whenever you are. You just sign up, make a small change to your DNS, then you will have access to Encapsular's 30 data centers with three terabits of bandwidth. This is all part of their global network. And what that will do for you is keep away bad guys. It will make sure that denial of service attacks never hit your servers,

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Sixth and final pick time. Now, I have in my document here, I have two things that are incredibly similar. And I need to make a decision as to where I'm going to go with this, and it's another iPhone one. And it's the name, the name of the high-end iPhone. I want to make a pick here as to what it's going to be called, and I'm going to make a last minute change, and I'm going to say that they're going to call this... No, I'm sticking to my guns. iPhone Pro.

They're going to call it the iPhone Pro. That is my pick. Just to let people know, you may pick this, but the choices really were... Well, there are three of them. iPhone Pro, iPhone Edition, and iPhone 8. They're the names that me and you have settled on as what this phone could be called. I was going to change my mind to Edition, but I spent some time thinking about that in over the

five seconds and think that maybe Edition has kind of got a bit of a bad rep for them like i don't think that the the apple watch edition was really met very kindly um and pro is part of the product lines across all of the product lines so maybe there should be an iphone pro as well so i'm gonna go with iphone pro um as the as the the ending name what if they call it the iphone 8 pro would that count yes okay so pro is my kind of like new naming thing i think that's i think that's fine i think that's a good a good possibility i hope it's true there's there's that too i hope it's true i think you like the most you know i don't like the meaning of it because a professional phone user and yet i feel like in this context it what it really means is that it's the high-end thing um i don't like

addition at all like i don't like that name i think it's a luxury brand context and like a jewelry kind of thing and i think that that's a mistake for this product so I don't I don't like it yeah they had a shot at that name and kind of blew it really yeah yep so I think that's good I I um I don't know I think that's probably what I think the most likely name for it is is the iPhone Pro or iPhone 8 Pro. All right. All right, I've got a bunch of funny ones here. I don't like any of these. Yeah, I mean, really, I could mention Spinal Tap again.

iOS 11. I'm just going to say, like, I mean, I want to win. I don't think they're touring. Because I want to win something other than just a wwdc one but i don't think spinal tap's gonna be on stage i don't think they're gonna be i actually am tempted and this is gonna reveal one of my bring out your deads i'm tempted to pick a musical guest will perform because Sia performed last year at this event. So I think a musical guest performing, despite there being a lack of any reason why is something that seems to happen

now. And so they could do that. That would be possible. But instead I'm going to go with this, which I think is going to happen. And it'll be fun to see when we get to that point. I, I think, and you can tell me how we're going to judge this. I think we are going to get a more than just a throwaway line about the

OLED screen on the high end iPhone. I think we're going to get an explanation, perhaps even with some technical jargon, about why OLED is a superior screen. Now, even though OLED phones have been out there for a while now, I think Apple in its own way is going to explain how now that Apple has embraced OLED with this screen on this device, now OLED is great. So that's what I'm going to go with is a more than just a passing. Oh, and it's an OLED screen. I'd say this is a pretty safe bet.

Description of why OLED is good. I'll tell you why I think this. Because I think they're going to sell it. They're going to sell it. The selling feature of that phone is the screen. Because that's all the phone is

now. So I expect them to go into painstaking detail about how difficult it was to make that screen. And why they knew that the only technology that could go into a screen like this would be OLED. Right, like I know that's going to be their big thing.

OLED gives you blacker blacks and brighter colors. The color gamut on this OLED screen is the best we've ever done. And you really see the difference, right? There will be a pitch for that screen and the OLED tech behind it. But there is a risk for the screen. In trying to talk about OLED too much, right? The OLED is the best and only screen now when they are still going to be making LCD screens. To other phones and all their other devices.

There could literally be just a thing about why this screen is great. But what we're looking for here is oled being spoken about and why oled okay that's cool i i i think that this is a very strong one but for that reason i would maybe not pick it because i think that there there are a lot of risks here about what apple is going to do to the rest of the iphone line and they don't want to make those phones look just junk like junk i think i think it would be unfair for me to pick apple will talk about how great the screen is right yeah yeah like that that's i might as well pick like faster processors this iphone will be rectangular like you know it's it's yeah faster processors than last year you know uh yeah sure probably

but here i feel like there's enough specificity here that it's a while i think it's still a likely thing it allows us to have that question of like are they really going to pump the oled but i think they are i think they're gonna i think this is going to be that typical apple thing where there's a thing they haven't integrated before and now they do and it's like they just found it and it's the greatest thing ever even though it's been around that no no no now it's the greatest thing ever and this screen is the reason that oled is now the greatest thing ever they may they may also throw throw old oled under the bus it's entirely possible like you know there have been oled screens before but yeah you've never seen this oled like this screen

and i think that's all part of the conversation. But yeah. All right. So that's it. That's the six picks. And of course, you will find in our show notes a link to a score card, a bingo card, a scoring card, so you at home, whilst you're watching the event, can score along with us. Let us know how you score us, but just just bear in mind it does not bear weight on

the picks but i love to one of my favorite things now during an apple keynote is to get people playing along and tweeting at us and sending us this it's fantastic it really is great because i don't keep up to date with my twitter timeline during the events but i do keep up to date with my mentions so i like to see people scoring along with us and yeah that's a lot of fun yeah but yeah so there are six picks let's talk about some things that we think are going to happen but didn't make our picks this is the bring out your dead section so yeah i think the wireless or inductive charging will be on the high-end iphone but i also don't think that it's something that ships in the box and i don't think it will be on the high-end iPhone. But I also don't think that it's something that ships in the box,

and I don't think it will be something that's immediately available. Yeah, I think that's right. I think there's a chance it won't exist, right? I think there's a chance. They don't need it. I'm a little skeptical about this. Yeah, because this feels like something that's like,

what's the story around this? At the same time, if they do it, they can have a whole bunch of awesome accessories and they can make a battery pack for it and they can do, you know, who knows what else they can do with it. There's a bunch of fun stuff you can do if you have it, but there's already going to be just so much in this phone

that's new anyway that you can hold it. It's definitely not going to come in the box, right? It's going to be like, you can, it's now, you know, and it's got not going to come in the box right it's going to be like you can it's now you know and it's got this great inductive charging thing that you can go you can buy for 200 or whatever right it's yeah yeah um let's see what what do i have that i i um i didn't want to mention um well i mentioned i mentioned musical guest so i'll put that in there i i think there will probably be a musical guest only because there was before. I don't know who it's going to be, and it probably won't be Spinal Tap.

We did get a Spinal Tap reference at WWDC, so I feel like I'm satisfied there, and that was the right audience for it. But I'm going to say, again, in the round that doesn't count, probably be a musical guest that will be baffling. And they'll say something about how, well, you know, we like to have musical guests now. Like when they had Bono and The Edge come out on stage and when they had had see it last year and they do this from time to time so um i i thought about picking that but i didn't uh i think they're going to change the airpods pricing oh you do interesting yeah the reason i think this is because when I was in New York, I was seeing them everywhere.

They're becoming really popular, and I think one of the best ways to capitalize on the popularity is just bring that price down a little bit. What are they, $150 now? Sell them for like $120, $130? Not a big change, but a change. And if they've got the... $160.

$160, yeah. So bringing them down to like $130, you may as well just do that so you can put them on stage again and also mention how great they'll be with the new iPhone. And yeah, I think bringing the price down a little bit if they've worked out the kinks in production would be smart because this is clearly a very desirable product.

Bringing the barrier to entry down a little bit, I think, would be a good thing. And I understand about like, oh, yeah, you want to sell them for as much money as you can, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But really, I think the closer they can get this to impulse buy, the better it will be. If they can get this closer to $100,

they will sell them with basically every single iPhone, right? Like, they will sell a massive amount if they can get it to $99.99 at some point. And this is a way to get there. I had a couple AirPod related ones that I'll mention now since we're bringing out our dead, which is one is new colors.

I think that's a possibility that there'll be, even if it's just they're also in black now. I think that now that they've been shipping for a year, that offering some variety is something that I would imagine they will do at some point. You want to start with the classic white earbuds, but offering them in a different color or colors I think is something they could do and will probably do at some point. Maybe it will happen for this holiday season, maybe not. And then the other speculation, which I think is not likely to happen but it was on the list and i thought about it is that the high-end iphone will come with them not necessary i think that's exactly right which

is why why throw um 160 product in the box when you can get people to spend $160 on it in addition to the $1,000 phone. If I'm Apple, that's how I'm thinking. Apple are not going to apologize to you for making you spend $1,000 on a phone. It's $1,000, but look at the value we packed into it. It's probably not something that they're going to say. Including AirPods in

the box is a $150 discount. They ain't giving you that. They want that $150 or so. ain't giving you that. They want that $150 or so. I think that's right. Yeah, I don't see it happening. I see a future where AirPods come with iPhones, but that future is many years into the future.

I think we're many, many years down the line. I think we're going to get more HomeKit details, more HomeKit stuff. There's a lot of HomeKit stuff in iOS 11. And I think that since Apple has announced their software certification stuff, we may see many more partners coming on board, and they may want to show that.

Because I do expect iOS 11 to get some time specifically at this event, because it always does. And I think HomeKit will be a will be a big part of that where they say, and with iOS 11 comes all this new stuff with HomeKit. And we now have all of these partners that are going to have HomeKit products in the next few months. And I fingers crossed hope that my lovely my lovely canary will get HomeKit support, because there is this thing now like and I think I understand it at this point, where you can get your software that you've written

for your product certified by Apple. By doing that, you can then get HomeKit certification and your product can be updated to support HomeKit. That's how this software thing works, is my understanding now, rather than what you needed before which is to physically include a chip into a device so it is possible for existing home products home automation products to get software updates that include home kit support so i think that we're going to

see a lot more companies doing this now i i think that's good i think that's a good one um i was trying to pick what the starting storage price is for the fancy new iphone and i went back and forth between 64 and 128 you can't buy a jet black iphone in 64 or in 32 you have to get 128 and i don't think they're offering 64 and and so what I want to say, and what Michael Gartenberg said on download a few weeks ago is that it'll start at 128. I don't think Apple, again, like the AirPod argument, I don't think Apple is going to pack stuff in and say, look at the value. So I think it's more likely that it'll start at like 64, 32 or 64 and not 128, even though it's a thousand dollar phone

because what they want to do is have you buy the 1100 phone which has 128 um maybe it's 128 256 512 or something like that maybe they do it that way but i just only do two storage options you think so and and what will they be 128 and 512 yeah You think so? And what will they be? 128 and 512? Yeah, I think so. Okay. Well, we'll see. I have... I would love for it to be 128, which is why I think that it won't be. You know what, though?

They could literally say, and you only need 64 because of our amazing image compression. And our incredible app removal feature in iOS 11. Although they probably wouldn't say anything if they did do it. But if they were questioned by someone afterwards, that could be an answer. It's like, well, you don't need it anymore because we've done so much to reduce the space that your phone needs. Yeah.

Can I just throw one more in? Yeah, I've got two or three more too. go ahead what else do you have i think if any person not from apple is going to be on stage it will be an entertainment industry executive yes i had that in my list and i almost picked up but i decided i did the apple tv thing um and i think this goes hand in hand i think having a movie person probably although it could be netflix or amazon but having a an entertainment industry person on to say it's so great the 4k stuff is amazing and hdr stuff is amazing and you're gonna love it i think it's i think it's a distinct possibility they like to do that i wonder if they could go big had miyamoto right for super mario run what if they brought out bezos yeah i guess they could it'd be weird but it's not impossible right but like i guess you know

they could also get like um they've had him on before like rich Richard Plepler from HBO come out and say, you know, the first HDR 4K release of Game of Thrones and Westworld ever is on iTunes or something like that. Which is actually probably a really good pick, that exact thing you just said. Something like that, maybe. I don't know. I don't know. But something like that. I think there's a good chance. The couple others that I wanted to mention, I had in my pocket in case I really needed during the

draft, Johnny Ive narrating a white room video, because I think we're going to get a, you know, lavish hardware, you know, hardware focused video about this design and why this spacious all, all screen design, right, is going to be something we're going to get right i i think i think we have to and it'll probably be johnny it could be somebody else could be uh you know great job another product margin but i think johnny will be there because he's going to be involved in this one this is a super designy phone and so i feel like calling the white room video is uh is important um and then the other one that i uh is there another one i wanted to mention i don't know maybe that's it maybe that's it um

there i had some that i don't think are as likely to happen like an icloud uh expansion um what the new apple watch is called i I'm assuming Series 3, but it might not be. I think it will be. I like that name. The one I wanted to mention was the Apple TV. I would like to believe, and I think for competitive reasons it'll happen, I would like to believe that the 4K Apple TV is going to come in at one of the existing Apple TV price points and that they may downpr price one of the existing Apple TVs

to get it closer. Because for people who don't know, who only follow Apple products, the 4K HDR products, the premium 4K HDR products from Roku and Amazon are $100. And the existing Apple TV is $150, basically. Yeah, I think they need an Apple TV that starts under $100 and also is an option for people that don't have a 4K TV. Right, so I think the existing Apple TV, what I would like to predict is that the existing Apple TV will be repriced at $99,

and then this one will be $139 or $149. It'll still be more expensive than the 4K HDR boxes from Roku and Amazon. Of course it will. It's Apple. But there will be, but there will be something down in the sub hundred price for Apple TV. And it may be another prediction I was not willing to make in a draft context, but I'll make here is it may be that it doesn't come with a fancy Siri remote. You know, the cheap one, you may be stuck with the Siri remote on the high end one, but it could be that they go back to a more traditional clicky remote on the 99 dollar model i don't know i don't know about that

i don't know about that joe steel well i i think i think we've got an interesting thing to watch um about uh the serial remote and how much apple really likes it because you know generally people don't seem to like it at least a lot of people don't seem to like it. At least a lot of people don't seem to like it. I'm inclined to say that the 4K Apple TV gets a new remote, which includes Siri, and that the current one keeps the one that nobody likes. That's possible. I think that there could be a new remote that goes along with this new Apple TV. That isn't necessarily like an apology remote, but it's just new. It's just designed differently but i

expect will feature all of the same functions so it will have a touchpad it will have all of that stuff but it'll just be designed differently that's what i think will be triangular it'll be yeah it could you know it could be a puck they go in the exact opposite for what you'd expect an apology remote to be and they make it circular yeah all right but we didn't pick any of those and we get no credit for that but they're just in there they're just in there so we just because we want to talk about them all right so that's it that's the draft no ask upgrade this week no ask upgrade last week no ask upgrade next week most likely you know why you know why because because i hear no no it it's because ATP stole our thing.

If you want to find our show notes for this week, head on over to relay.fm slash upgrade slash 157. I have no problem with it. Actually, honestly, here's the thing. I like that they did it. No, I'm very happy that they did it too. I think it's a mistake for them to put ask atp and follow up at the beginning of the show i agree with the show goes on for an hour there's a reason ask upgrade is at the end of upgrade people but i do enjoy that they that they do it and i love

their answers to their questions i think it's all really good so it just so happens for me that that creator of follow-up john syracusa is using the thing a thing we made we made and i don't know which one of us coined the phrase someone can tell us it's a cross licensing arrangement that obviously has happened here anyway we've had questions from people like john kyle jay justin and rob in our notes for ask upgrade for a while now and there they will sit for probably another couple of weeks. But, you know, we'll get back to it. Maybe after the summer of fun is gone and the Apple event has blown through,

maybe it will be time for a Jumbo Ask Upgrade edition. Yeah, I think that will be fun. We'll see. Plus, we get so many of them over this period of time anyway. So, please keep sending. If you have things keep sending them in because i always need stuff there's always stuff that we need for the document so please continue to send them in uh but just know that we're not going to do them over the

next couple of weeks so asking us now what you think what we think the iphone's going to be it's probably not worth doing because probably not it will be out by then um but yeah we'll be back to ask upgrade in a couple of weeks. This is just the tail end of the summer of fun is no Ask Upgrade. So yeah, that will be back. But yes, ATP, I really appreciate it, actually. But I think it might be good to put it at the end. I like it at the end.

I like the bookends to follow up onup, and I was going to grade. They have a post-show, which we don't have, which is also very confusing, but I just feel like, as a listener who loves it, that's a lot of material before they get to the meaty, whatever the hot topic is, so that's the reason we put it at the end anyway. But I love that they're doing it.

Me too. I'm very happy about it. I just find it funny that as I've been listening to them doing it that we haven't been, but it's completely coincidental completely coincidental they didn't steal our cheese we didn't we didn't stop getting questions or it wasn't like everyone directed their questions to atp instead uh just email marco do you know what I've just realized? Do you know what we have on the Pan Addict? What? Ask TPA.

Of course you do, because it's such a good idea. No, but it's TPA and they have ATP. ATP. I wonder at what point they start getting fountain pen questions. When is that going to begin? And what about Ask Pat? And who is Pat? And why does Pat have answers?

The podcast against... Tyranny. Tyranny. Podcast against tyranny. With your host... It's a rebel podcast. Anyway. Pat.

It's just the coincidence. Pat is the host. That's amazing. Pat is the host of Podcast Against Tyranny. How did that... Well, it's Pat's that clever. Pat likes to come up with acronyms for what Pat's name is. host that's amazing pat is the host of podcast against tyranny how did that that's good well it's pat's that clever pat likes to come up with acronyms for what pat's name is yeah he doesn't even really care about tyranny that much but his name was so you know it's just the first thing it

came to so anyway uh relay.fm slash upgrade slash 157 for this week's show notes thanks again to our sponsors the fine folk casper fresh books and encapsula next week jason will be at the apple event so we will be recording and releasing after next week's apple event so the next episode of upgrade will be out on tuesday the 12th of september look out for that because it will be coming to you as quick as we can possibly put it out so you will have it either for the evening or the morning whenever you want it and it's gonna going to be a big one. We're really excited about it. I know I am. I know Jason is too. Jason, where can people follow

the coverage that you'll be putting together for the Apple event next week? It's a great question. Let's say sixcolors.com will have all the details of where our coverage will be. So keep your eyes peeled to sixcolors.com and at Jason L on Twitter, J-S-N-E-L-L. I am at, I Mike,

I am Y K E. Don't forget in the shirts will be your scorecard. So you can score along with our, with our six draft picks. Um, the, the bring out your debt. It's not going to be on the scorecard.

That's not necessary. Um, and, that's it for this week. Thanks for listening. We'll be back next time until then say goodbye. Jason. No.

Bye everybody. until then say goodbye Jason Snow goodbye everybody