Upgrade - 209: The 2018 iPhone Event Draft

Episode Date: September 3, 2018

It’s time for Jason and Myke to reveal their picks for what will happen on stage at the Steve Jobs Theater next week! They draft 10 different things they expect will happen--or _not_ happen--next Wednesday. Did Myke's competitiveness serve him well, or do him harm? Is Jason convinced that the Mac won't make an appearance on stage? The winner could be crowned Upgrade Draft Champion for 2018.

For RelayFM, this is Upgrade 209. The summer of fun is over because it is Apple event time, which can mean only one thing. Today, we're going to be participating in the 2018 iPhone event draft. This show is brought to you by Away, Pingdom, and Squarespace. I am competitor number one. I am Mike Hurley. And I am joined by my friend and my adversary and my opponent, Mr. Jason Snell. Hi, Jason Snell.

Summer of fun. No. Wait a second. Done. Summer of fun is out. Serious business. This is the season. Nothing more serious than drafting, Mike.

We are in high season now. So last week, Apple announced that there is going to be an event on the 12th, Wednesday, the 12th of September. It will be at least the new iPhone. And we're going to get to all of this soon, including, of course, the draft. But before we do, we must open this show as we open every other with a hashtag snow talk question where someone will ask jason a question about anything this time i asked the question jason are you looking forward to returning to the steve jobs theater i am i am looking forward to it this is the second time right this is the

second time i've actually i was there there the day after the Chicago event. I got a briefing that was in the Steve Jobs Theater building. They have briefing rooms that are on the level that is above the theater. So you go down some steps to go. There's like a top level that is right at the ground level of the theater and then there's a level below that where there's a big open space where they put the demo stuff and there's also briefing rooms back there and then that's where you enter and go down to enter the the theater proper and so i have been there a couple of times and i've been i've parked it's

it's funny because all those years parking at, um, infinite loop to get product briefings and stuff that, uh, now I've been a bunch of times, like a handful of times. In fact, so many that when everybody was making their pilgrimages at WWDC to Apple park, uh, instead of the loop, I was like, Oh yeah, people haven't been there yet. Have they?

Cause I'd been there, um, for a bunch of different product briefings and stuff at various, like not in the park ring itself, but in the ancillary buildings that they have over by the Steve Jobs Theater. Well, we can't all be as cool as you, Jason, I'm afraid. Well, no, it was just funny that I just kind of forgotten that it had not been a whole year. This is old news to me now. Yes, that's right. Oh, Apple year. So anyway, I'm coming. Yes, that's right. Oh, Apple Park, whatever.

That's very 2017. I don't know what you guys are talking about. Come on. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Let's come on more stuff. No, so I know where the difference is from purely logistical standpoints. Like I know where the parking is. I know where they're going to send us.

Last year, we had no idea. It was like, go to this place. Here are the directions. How do we get get there it's still partially under construction i'm looking forward to seeing how the um how the the campus has changed in the intervening year because i took a bunch of pictures of but it was like the steve jobs theater was surrounded by dirt basically um they were planting plants and stuff but it was not done and uh i imagine it will be a very different scene this time and uh yeah so i'm looking forward to it and of course i'm looking forward to the event it's always uh you know it's a lot of work uh but i'm also excited to hear what's new and it's uh

it's a very exciting time and i'll probably have trouble sleeping the night before and all of that yeah so before we get into the draft rules and our first picks we have a little bit more information about these products than we had expected via the inquisitive and interested minds over at nine to five mac um so we have some reports from Guilherme Rambo and Zach Hall about two products. We saw a selection of images of what 9to5Mac is calling the iPhone letter X, letter S. I'm assuming XS is my assumption to make here. You can clearly see from the images there is two sizes of phones. to make here.

You can clearly see from the images, there is two sizes of phones. Things that we don't know, we don't know if that's an iPhone X phone and a bigger phone, or if it's an iPhone X phone and a smaller phone. We don't know. But we know that there are two phones in two sizes. They clearly look gold.

Yes. And there is an Apple Watch in a similar color gold. We don't know what uh what material that is we can see that the the lte dot has changed to a little red ring we can see some more information on the watch face more complications maybe arranged in a different way potentially the watch is thinner we're not 100 sure about a lot of the details, but we can see that there is some stuff going on here. Yeah, and these are real images that, as far as we can tell... These appear to be as real as real can be.

Yeah, it sounds like somebody who is really apparently bad at their job thinks that it's okay to post marketing images from an event that's top secret and two weeks away on a publicly accessible web server and enough that uh guillaume uh rambo at nine to five mac was able to uh figure it out and find the files and uh he and he he always does that he's also looking for like video streams and he's just poking around there and it's like that's why you should not be putting anything up. But these very clearly are marketing images. None of this stuff should exist on the internet in any fashion.

No, no. I was thinking air gaps, just air gaps. You should have a network that's just not even on any network, just its own little network that you do all the marketing information and everything like that, because this is kind of ridiculous that it happened like this, because these are totally real images. There's no doubt about it. So this is another unprecedented leak which keeps happening. I mean, last year there was like a version of the operating system that came out and had basically everything on it. We had those multiple days of leaking of the

iPhone X, of Animoji, everything. So, because we believe in the fairest of sport around here in the upgrade draft, we are going to be excluding the following four items from being available to be picked in the draft. The XS name, a gold option for the new iPhone, the existence of an Apple Watch at this event, and an edge-to-edge screen on the Apple Watch. Because we have deemed, the committee has deemed, that these four things are

now basically as close to public knowledge as they can be. So it's like in the same way that we do not consider something eligible to put for the draft if it is announced in any way before the draft so those four things have been removed and one of the reasons we do this is so it makes it a little bit more difficult for us because otherwise the first four items picked this year would have been those exact four things so there's got to be some some uh some competition around here yeah i mean you gotta it would be really boring because the other way to go is we would literally just pick those four things and it's like yay we pick the things that we know are real so there's no point in doing that um and there are a couple other kind of related things where we're basically going to have a footnote that says except for what we saw

in those leaked images those found images leaked is that the right word uh both i think it's a bit of a little colon a little colon b right they got out and then someone found them so the ones that we know for sure because like all of the like mark german reports tend to be a little bit hazy like the existence of iphones i think yeah you know we're gonna we're gonna grant nobody's gonna say oh hey guess what i'm picking that there's gonna be a larger o larger OLED model. I think it's fair to say anything that is in text, we consider fair game. Images, not fair game anymore. It's hard to argue with that.

So there's enough. The idea here is that we're choosing things where there's at least a little bit of uncertainty about it. So here are the rules of the draft. We have 10 rounds of the draft. So we get 10 picks each, 20 overall picks. The winner of the previous draft picks 10 rounds of the draft so we get 10 pick 10 picks each 20 overall picks the winner of the previous draft picks first that is me i1 wwdc for an item to be uh considered scorable in the draft for it to count it must either be clearly announced on stage or on a

slide during the presentation in case of a scoring stalemate between the two of us, Stephen Hackett will act as adjudicator. As always, we prefer to score and agree ourselves, but where we can't, we turn to outside help. There are no half points awarded. This is a binary thing. One or zero. We either get one point or zero points. There are

no points awarded for pre-announced or ridiculously obvious items. See prior, right? And no points awarded for pre-announced or ridiculously obvious items. See prior, right? Yeah. And the points awarded on next week's episode are final. The results for 2018 so far. Jason won the March event. I won WWDC.

For all we know, September will be the winner. Could be it. But we don't know because there is a lot of rumor about an october event and i think that that will play into some of the picks um i want to give a statistic for the september event draft this is real this is real this is the third time that we have participated in a september event draft this is the third annual jason is undefeated so far in the september event so everything's to play for here potentially the winner right or at least i think it's safe to assume whoever takes this point home won't lose i think it's probably a better way to put it right i think that's probably true um so

and also you know it would be uh you've you've got a lot on the line because you aren't defeated and i have a lot on the line because i finally want to defeat you in the September draft. So, you know, this is a big one this year and we should get to it. But before we do, let's take our first break and then we'll get into our first five picks. Today's show is brought to you by Away, a team of thinkers, seekers and designers. Away makes smart premium suitcases so your luggage won't cost more than your plane ticket, but still be full, chock full of amazing features, like a battery. For example, when you buy any Away carry-on, you will see some lovely USB ports right at the top. That

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suitcases. That is awaytravel.com slash upgradepodcast and the code upgradepodcast for $20 off. Our thanks to Away for their support of this show and RelayFM. Alright, so we start off with pick number one and I get to go first. Now, of course, I had picked naming initially and I was leaning towards XS as my first pick

which even before we started seeing this stuff, you were very much believing that the phone would not be called the XS. I was on the iphone 10 just it's the new iphone 10 train and that was i mean maybe a little more wish casting than yeah than prediction but uh yeah i was definitely feeling like because i i feel like 10s doesn't look good i mean maybe they'll put a space or a box around it but 10s and then it is the mixture of a roman numeral and a letter so it looks like xs like the x alone you can say well it's the roman numeral 10 but when it's xs yeah it makes

s is not a roman numeral so how do you pronounce it and you're mixing them and that seems bad so i'm i still am a little incredulous about it but the nine to five mac they're like they're that is the name so i i i'm going to take them at their word i think they found an image with the name in it yeah and they're like that's the name when i look at it i can't help but think iphone extra small which is kind of hilarious to me when there's the big one so it's the iphone extra small plus seems yeah potentially very funny also also the name choices there are tennis or excess or excess both really really good yeah but we're gonna park naming for a moment because my first pick is the large screen oled phone what will be the 10 plus most likely 10s plus maybe i believe that that phone will start its starting

price will be more than 1099 that is my first pick oh interesting so this was a uh late in the game for just a little insider uh choice i uh i added some pricing items because we don't know the pricing that's one of the delightful things we don't know and so you're you're going to come right out and say it's going to be um it's going to be more than 10.99 it will be more than 10.99 wow okay now here's my reasoning for this the current iphone costs 9.99 to start at 64 gigabytes right yes i don't think they're going to get rid of that price point. Maybe I'm tipping my hand for a potential pick later on. I don't think that that price point will go away. I think it will stick.

I think Apple have clearly shown that they can make people buy that phone, especially when they're introducing a phone which should be cheaper as well, right? So in theory, they can keep that 999 the same um and i think that that the the the jump to the plus is not going to be any less than a hundred dollars from 999 and i think that it may even start with a higher storage option pushing it potentially higher like they will really try and position the plus phone as a more even more premium product and i think that probably an 1100 or 1200 price tag will be where that phone begins

purely because i think a lot of the people that want that phone will pay pretty much any amount apple will charge within reason um so i. So if what they're trying to do is increase the ASP, which I think is exactly what they're trying to do, especially from the X onwards, I don't imagine the X getting any cheaper, so putting the larger screen OLED phone at

a more expensive price point just seems like the logical next move for me. So you think they're going to go up $200 from the iphone 10 price of 999 potentially yes interesting interesting that's i mean that's that's an expensive phone to get your iphone 10s plus or whatever pro xl for 11.99 to start but you're right apple has been bold with the prices the pick is 10.99 but i personally think it will probably be about i think it would be 1200 so is the pick is the

pick 10.99 or more than 10.99 more than 10.99 but that you know so so if that so if that large phone is 10.99 you don't get this choice okay say like 1099 or higher then let's say 1099 or higher okay all right that's why i i think i had more than a thousand in our document yeah yeah which is but like you know it's not going to be 1050 yeah or if it is i quit right all right all right well 1099 that that i think is a better pick i think i think it i think it will probably be 1099 okay to start thank you for that could be more clarify that i appreciate that see i i uh i'm trying to be no this is the spirit of our draft it's sportsmanship it's sportsmanship here that you and i have where we are just as we try to uh decide who gets what score without even bringing in our referee steven hackett right Like the goal is not that he decides.

The goal is that we decide. And if we disagree, it's sportsmanship. Anyway, I am going, I am playing at least a little bit to win here. And so I'm going to pick something that is hinted at by the images in the 9to5Mac posted. And when I asked you if we should disqualify this, you said, no, I think it's debatable. And therefore, I'm just going to go ahead and pick it. Hey, Apple Watch bands will still work with the new Apple Watch.

That's my choice. All of your great news, Mike, all of your Apple Watch bands that you bought, I predict will still work with the Series 4 Apple Watch. Congratulations. Okay, so here's the thing on this one right now yeah i believe that's going to happen but will they say it that's what you've got to go against there has to be it has to be clearly outlined on the stage jason that this is going to look right so there needs to be something which we can point

to and say oh yeah there you go yeah but if they say, and there are many more watch bands, it only has to be implied, I would say. But I think it has to be more than just, oh, if you look at that product image from the side, it clearly looks like it. I think it needs to be more than that. I think there needs to be some clear implication. Acknowledgement that it's the same. Sure. Okay. All right. So so i'm gonna go for my second pick the uh lower end notch phone so the the lcd notch phone will be called the iphone 9

okay i i've been calling it that all along and it's only been in the last week where all of my other assumptions about what they were going to do have been uh have have been questioned that i have begun questioning whether that's the case or not it certainly it's right there right it's logical number it's right there it's available to them and it's logical and so far everything we think we know about the naming shows that apple isn't actually looking to change anything right they're keeping s for example and i think if they're going to keep S, I can't imagine them getting off the train for this other phone

unless they call it like the X Air or who knows, something weird like that. But they went from 8 to 10. I think 9 is still clearly available to them. And I think that, you know, it tells the story that, you know, I've the story that, you know, I've been mentioning, I think we spoke about this last week, right, that the iPhone 10 was announced as it being a leap into the future, it was the future's phone. And the 9 was just kind of left

there. And from everything we think we know about this phone, it bridges the gap between the 8 and the 10, because it has some of the features of the 8, some of the features of the X, but it's a new device. So I think calling it the iPhone 9 makes sense. It is an unoccupied space in their naming. Nothing's ever been called this before, which may actually help sell that product, which is in a really weird spot. So if anything, to somebody who maybe doesn't know a lot,

they know the X, they've heard of the X, the XS. Well, the 9, that's not been around before. Who knows? Because I don't even think that most consumers even think of it as the iPhone X. They think of it as the iPhone X. So they have the number available to them as 9, and I think that they'll go for it. Yeah, I think it's logical. I think it's going to be a little bit weird either way if there's this big phone that is residing in one of those spaces.

But that seems to be what they're doing. So it's just a matter of what the details are. And the name is laying right there. So it would be silly for them not to use it, I think. So I think that's a good choice. What is your second pick? You know, sometimes there are regrets. Sometimes Apple has to take promises back.

And sometimes it has to be acknowledged on stage. And that's why I am going to say that what Apple's going to do while they're detailing all the wonderful features in iOS 12 that are available on these iPhones and other devices they may announce at the event, they will mention among the features Group FaceTime and mention that it's coming later this year.

So Group FaceTime mentioned and promised for later is my choice, that they're not going to make it uh persona non grata they're going to mention it as a great ios 12 feature uh but uh not yet interesting i i had this you know i take our list i take our we make we we create a very long list of lots and lots of rumors that we can pick from so there's some consistency and i take that list and i kind of rearrange a subset of them so when we're sitting here now i can pick from stuff that i've already looked at that was at the very very bottom of my list of 25 items that i drank i think that it is obviously it's happening right we know it's happening that it's going to be delayed

i don't know if they'll say it i I think they could probably get away with it. I think the look of it is so striking that they will be hard pressed. And it's actually a major feature of iOS 12. I think they'll be hard pressed not to mention it. I admit, again, all of these are a little bit risky. I think it's hard for them not to show it, you know, in a slide or mention it and say, you know, and later this year, this feature will also be there because I think they're maybe too proud of it and too excited about it. But again, we've seen these features slip and slip and slip. So it's possible that it'll be persona non grata, but I think they can't not mention it. All right.

You have inspired me. Oh, boy. Because you were talking about promises. So I want to cast our mind back to September of last year. Yes. When we were all shown a wondrous device called AirPower. Too late now for AirPower to come out before the event, I think. I think it would, you know, Apple had the option to put it out

and they could still do it, right? It's entirely possible AirPower will be released tomorrow, but probably not. It is entirely possible, but I don't think it's gonna, I don't think it's gonna happen. We actually were talking about this

on Connected a couple of weeks ago. My pick that we gave some predictions for AirPower, and this is not my pick now, but my pick on the show was, I think now we will announce it, but it won't be available yet. It will be available later. But I believe that they will announce this release date during the event. And I think it's going to be like, AirPower will be available in October or AirPower will be available later this year or something like that.

But they will announce. Or even the same day as the as the new iphones possibly that i mean that is what people would want and expect i just personally don't believe that it will be available immediately um because i feel like if it could have been available immediately they could have put it out probably a month ago um but i think the air power will be will have its release date announced uh it this is a very very peculiar product you know i would love for somebody if they know maybe maybe someone like a steven hackett out in the world might know this has apple ever done this before announced the product that it will be available and then it takes a whole other year and they announce it again uh that this has got to be in a club of one

or a very, very small club. Yeah, that's the only reason why I think there's a non-zero chance that it will be announced and shipped in the next two weeks. It's just so that they don't lap themselves. It is very possible, but I'm going to stick with it. It's a little like Airplay 2, right? Airplay 2 is like, we're going to get this out before WWDC

because we don't want to lap ourselves here. I think it's a good choice. I think that's a very good choice. That was very high on my list. I am going to go back to our friend, the iPhone 9, or whatever you want to call the lower-end notched iPhone with an LCD display. LCD, sorry, because the D stands for display in that.

And say it's going to have color options. This is a rumor that's out there. And I'm going to choose it. And by color options, I guess what I mean is not just space gray, silver, and gold. They're color options that are unique to that line right i think is is what we're looking for here actually i i would say my choice is even if the only other color that's available is red and we've seen some red on other products if it's red at day one yeah then well it's it's it's uh well i think what we're looking for here is that the lower end

notch iphone will have color options that the other iPhones don't have, right? No, no, that's not. I mean, that the current iPhones don't have, I suppose is sort of what I'm saying. I'm saying it will have some color that the other phones that are announced don't offer. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say too. Yeah, so like there will be,

let's imagine that the OLED phone gets gold, right? Right. This notch iPhone could get get gold but it could also get blue and that means that there's a color option that it has that the other ones don't have exactly so it's more a more colorful device optionally yeah which again it's been rumored but i don't feel like it's been strongly enough rumored for me to believe that it's a it's a lock at all but i i part of it is I want to see that, and I do think that there's maybe some appeal there.

They're using aluminum, by all accounts, on the ring around it and all of that. So it's like they have more materials opportunities than they have on the iPhone X design, and I think that makes it more likely that they'll do it. All right, moving to pick four, and I apologize, but I'm going for a point. AR app demo.

Okay. There will be a demo of some kind because it's a new iPhone release. Some third party will be brought onto stage. Where this has typically been games in the past, we may see a game now, we may not, but I believe that one of the things

that we will see is an AR app because one of the new features of these phones will likely be, well, will definitely be a new chipset. And I believe one of the features that they will talk about with the new system on a chip will be how much better it is AR than the previous phones. And then they will bring out someone to show off an AR app because Apple like to bring on third parties and have them demo something, right? Like that is, we know this, this happens at every product in introduction of any significance. And Apple's big focus right now,

maybe even more than gaming, is AR and what these devices can do for AR because they clearly believe it's the future of technology for them. So I believe that we're going to see some kind of AR app demo occur on stage during the iPhone announcement. I think this is an interesting choice. I had it lower on my list because I feel like they spent

time on AR in the, it's true, in the Chicago event, and then especially at WWDC where they have a new version of ARKit. So having them demo another AR app, I think, is possible. Yeah, well, if you think about it, though, I know that they showed off a bunch of stuff, but the way that they did it during WWDC is the way that they usually do it for an iPhone event, right? Like, we've had some people come in and work on an unannounced thing, and here it is.

But now, since then, they've had some of their other partners and some other new app developers spend three months with the new version of ARKit. So what there could be is stuff that's a lot more impressive. We didn't really see anything in the WWDC presentation which showed the object permanence that is in the new version of ARKit where somebody could drop something and somebody else could find it. And I think that that is such an interesting feature.

Like the multiple device stuff, they could show a lot more of that. I think it is... I understand why you would be hesitant, but I think that it is highly likely. I think it's less likely than one might think. And I think something else might be a little bit more likely. I think it's less likely than one might think. And I think something else might be a little bit more likely. Am I going to find out what that is right now?

Well, I'm tempted to make that choice right now. But I'm not. Okay. Instead, I'm going to pick a different one, which is there will be new features in iOS. This is, again, a little bit of a you're going for points. Am I going for points here? Maybe a little bit. I suspect that there will be some iOS features that we haven't seen that are going to be keyed to the new phones.

Yeah. Something that was held back. Something that all the beta testing in the world in iOS 12 didn't discover because it's being withheld because it's only being applied to the new phones. I had this pretty high on my list. I think that there typically tends to be something. Yeah, even if it's just a new portrait mode feature or something. But the idea that there's something that they did not show us at WWDC, but now is there enabled by the new hardware. So something I want to exclude from that in case people bring it up, I don't think you

would try and score this, but landscape mode on the Plus phone, right? Because we haven't had that for a while, but it still exists in the current Plus phone. Well, yeah, landscape mode on the existing Plus phones exists, so that's not a new feature. If they did split screen on the Plus phone i wish they would but i that's what i desperately want that but i don't think it's going to happen yet i don't think so but i just wanted to point that out because i think not a lot of people used it and we haven't nobody's really thought about it for over a year right because we're not talking about it i mean we're barely talking about it then but a lot of people have had the iPhone X,

which you would have thought maybe would have done it, but didn't do it. And they may spend some time showing it off again because it will be coming kind of back to the top tier phones. And I just wanted to make sure

that that was excluded because we'll get people, because as you will find in the show notes, as always, a scorecard. So you can score along during the event. And I think that this would be one of those things that people would all be scoring for on that feature alone but who knows i i do think that that will be a point for you because it would be kind of weird

right like here's our new phone it has nothing new for software they see would be would be kind of strange i think that would be a peculiar omission. I'm going to go back to the naming part. Okay. And I'm going to solidify what we've been talking about, that the bigger iPhone will be given the Plus name. The Plus brand is strong, you know, like it is a good name that quite neatly sums up what makes that phone different.

I would be really surprised if they continue to use s but didn't use plus in the in the naming scheme maybe they go with uh double xs who knows but uh although that would be smaller right that would be what maybe they'll just go to xl maybe maybe one gets xs and one gets xl but i i doubt it um i think you're gonna go plus rick allen in the chat is asking plus not pro. Now, we have pro in the list. I don't think there will be any feature for this phone which would make it pro. I think

if and when Apple implement the iPad Pencil, the iPad Pencil, the Apple Pencil into the iPhone, that might be when they call it pro. Or if they gave it a 120Hz screen, which I hadn't thought about until just now, which could be a feature of these phones,

which would be very nice, right? But I think that's really difficult to do with OLED. I don't think a lot of people are doing that right now. But if and when they enable features like that onto the phones, they may give it the Pro name. Or there could be still sometime in the future a more expensive iPhone called the phones, they may give it the Pro name. Or there could be still sometime in the future, a more expensive iPhone called the Pro, which is above the Plus even, which I think I would expect Apple of 2018 to be more likely to do than just change the name. Like they would create

a whole new tier of phone called the iPhone Pro, which is $1,500 and has these two extra features that you can't get on other phones. I don't think that this is the time that they will change it. So I think that Plus is going to be the brand name that they keep for now. That was the pick that I had queued up next. Right. So you got me. I do think that it's a gamble, which is why I didn't have it super high on my list, but it was sort of the last one left because I do think they it's a gamble, which is why I didn't have it super high on my list, but it was sort of the last one left because I do think they could change the naming now. But I agree with you, the Plus naming is strong.

And if we're in a scenario where they're adding the S, then they seem to have decided to just stick with what they've got. Plus is a better brand than S is for what it does. You could argue that the right thing to do is to just say we have this new model and it comes in two sizes but they haven't done that ever before on iphones so will they start now i don't know i think that's a good choice um i am boy it's getting harder mike it's already getting harder and we're only halfway through um boy i'm gonna

go with the one that I mentioned earlier, which is the counterpoint to your AR app demo, which is I, so here's my rationale. I didn't like AR app demo as much as what I'm picking, which is there will be a game demo on stage that is not AR. And that is specifically because an AR game demo is an AR app demo, right? And that's the risky part here because I think there will absolutely is an AR app demo, right? And that's the risky part here

because I think there will absolutely be an AR demo of some sort, but if, and it may be a game in which case you'll get it and I won't, which is unfortunate because I want to win. But here's my rationale for this. I think Apple's talked about AR a lot,

but they're, and it's still part of their strategy, but this is the fall iPhone event. And it has always been, even back when it was the fall music event, it's been about the holiday season. GPUs in your new phones is by doing a spectacular game demo where the game developer comes up on stage and says, this is console level graphics because of the using metal and the whatever, you know, processors and GPUs, blah, blah, blah. And that's why I feel like, um, that's a thing that will happen. And I'm willing to pick at that. It's just, it's a holiday event, holiday facing event. And to get people enthusiastic about these things

because they're great to play games and also to show off the GPUs in these devices, I think they'll do a game demo that is not just an AR game demo, some other kind of game on stage i completely follow you right like i am in pretty much complete agreement with you but i expect i may end up winning this point because they'll have a game that will have an ar mode in it yeah i think that's the real the real gamble here we may also both get points right where there's a

traditional game demo and there's some weird ar demo that's also very i think it's entirely possible but i i just i i'm going with my gut feeling that like they've kind of ar'd a lot and it's still in the province of developers a little bit and that maybe the they choose the the floor space this time on stage the stage time for a more traditional let's blow them away with all the graphics and stuff in this game now um we'll have to leave it to steven hackett to decide if there's an amazing awesome game demo and at the end they flip over and say and there's also an ar mode what that means but uh i think uh maybe we'll both get points in that case anyway that's my choice zed m knocks in the chat has said something that I find very interesting.

I'd love to see Nintendo back at an Apple event showing off their Mario Kart mobile game. There is an upcoming Mario Kart mobile game. We don't know anything more about it other than the fact that it will exist. Imagine if we had that one, was it last year's iPhone event where it was Miyamoto on stage?

I think it was the year before. I think it was the year before. That was like no one could understand what on earth. It was like the earth had opened up, right? Yeah. And something had jumped out. Like it was wild. That would have been a draft pick. Oh, no.

No way. No way. Like no one could have predicted that. That would have been the all-time draft pick. Yes. That would have been the all-time. Like you shut it down, you won the draft, if you predicted that one.

That could happen again. I mean, Super Mario Run was part of the success that it was because of the fact that it was shown off in the way that it was. So, who knows? Maybe at some point that could happen, and it could happen this time. We don't know. So, we are halfway through.

There are whole product lines, three product lines that we have not yet mentioned. Indeed. I wonder what that means. What does that mean for the 2018 draft? We will see, maybe, after this break. Today's episode is also brought to you

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Now, hmm, okay. All right, I feel like we led into something interesting, so I'm going to move one of my picks up a little bit because I am confident about it. There will be no mention of Mac OS Mojave on stage at all. Wow. It's a bold move. I may be tipping my hand a bit about what I think is going to be in this event.

Yeah, well, that's part of it. There are a few product lines that I think won't get mentioned. There's one that I think might get mentioned, but as time goes on, I'm being a little bit more cautious with it. But what I don't think will be mentioned, I don't think the Mac will. I mean, this is a pick for later, so we'll see if I get to it. But I cannot imagine Mojave being mentioned because Mojave might not even be coming out in September. We don't know this.

From some of my friends that I've spoken to seem to indicate to me that Mojave is in a little bit worse of a state than iOS 12 is. And there doesn't really seem to be any particular reason with this cycle that you would need to put them out together. And I just can't imagine Apple giving time to demo Mojave on stage when there's so much other stuff

that fits the September event more. I agree with you. One of the items that I've got on my list is also about the limits of the max participation in this event. But here's my hesitation. And it's why I was hesitating to pick the other one as well. My hesitation is you don't get a point if they say we've got a lot of great updates mac os mojave is coming out later this year blah blah blah blah blah right they they have to pretend essentially that it doesn't exist at all this is more extreme than the one i was going to pick um because i was

trying to pick some way where it's like the mac isn't mentioned except for mojave or something like that right like they'll mention that the update exists or that the Mac exists, but it'll be no more than like two mentions or something like that. So I think this is a tricky pick. I think you might get it, but I think it's tricky. It is risky.

It is risky for sure. But I, you know, kind of looking at what we have, I think they're more likely to mention the Mac in general as a concept than they are Mojave because I just just I can't imagine them doing it because there isn't really a lot of like super really exciting

features for consumers there's stuff in it like dark mode is really nice the dynamic desktop stuff is really nice the updates to the finder are really nice but I just can't imagine them devoting any time to it and if they're not going to devote specific time to Mojave, I don't even imagine them being like,

oh, and it's going to, Mojave will be out week after next. Because there's no context for it unless they're going to actually show it. If they're not going to show it, then what's the point in mentioning it? And if there is a Mac event in late October, they don't need to talk about it at all. I think that there will be an event later on this year, and I don't think Mojave will ship before it. All right.

That's an interesting prediction. I am going into this event knowing what we know now. Of course, there will be other horrible leaks probably in the next eight or nine days. I'm going in now with this assumption. I believe Apple only wants to do one event. I believe they're going to pack everything they can into this assumption. I believe Apple only wants to do one event. I believe they're going to pack everything they can into this event, but not the Mac. That's my prediction, is that the Mac

releases will happen with some pre-briefings and press releases and no event. Do you think that that does include Mojave, just out of interest? I mean, you personally, do you think they're really going to spend any time on next Wednesday? Spend time on Mojave? I don't think so. I think they'll mention it. I think it's more likely than not that it will be mentioned in passing as part of their software update that the Mac, essentially, the Mac remains a product in our lineup. I do think they will probably say that.

I do think there's a non-zero chance that it will be, that if you didn't know that they made personal computers called the Mac, you would be able to not be surprised in the entire thing. I think it's a possibility that the Mac is not mentioned at all. I think it's more likely that they will mention it as one of the many awesome things that they're doing in passing. And it is worth, worth mentioning,

right? Like this pick has come up before and it was correct, right? Like there was a draft at some point i think it may have been last year's september draft i think last year there was mac not mentioned on stage and it and it won yeah or did it or did it they got that maybe it got mentioned in passing one time like and also on the mac and yeah or maybe wwdc was the home pod one like this idea of they're being like important products that are not

just are not mentioned like not even the name uttered is but that's the that's the trick is there's not mentioning it versus mentioning it only in passing and you're going for not mentioned i so having explained my worldview which is i don't think they want to do two events and again i could totally be wrong i don't have any intelligence on this one i don't have any secret uh birdies telling me things i just am thinking it's a lot to do events. Apple has not done a, they only done two events now. This will be the second event for the public in the Steve Jobs theater. So I'm not sure they want to do a second event and I'm not sure they want to do a second event in the Steve Jobs theater. Planning events is hard. We look back at the history of it. They do one of these events every year. They've done two in the last, I think,

five or six years, October events, and they've been at the end of October. And that's because it takes a long time to plan an event. And then you do this event, and it's exhausting. And they're doing their PR tours for all the stuff that gets announced here. And then in the meantime, other people are planning the next product rollout. It's a lot of work. Whereas there are some things that they've shown with the Mac that they can do without. However, there's this other product that we haven't mentioned. And I'm going to, again, not feeling super confident about this, but if I'm going to go with my theory that they're only doing one event and this is a,

an S year for the iPhone, a little bit quieter. I think there's going to be enough time for them to show the iPhone 10 inspired updates to the iPad. I hope you're right so much like, okay, so I still have faith in this. I've been talking about this for the last couple of weeks, right?

That like, in spite of everything against the contract like i believe they're going to show off the ipad pros like for the same reason that the original ipad pro was debuted alongside the iphone it was a big product a big announcement and they want everyone's eyes on this new product but the stuff has happened in the last week has put me on shaky ground a little bit now it does just because there are no pictures of the ipad pro doesn't mean leak some images of a product oh no but like that has made me like like just my my my i've it's gone down a little bit why is it in the sixth round mike right it's because i i too have been given some pause but i keep coming back to thinking i don't think they want to do another event.

And let's point out, Apple Watch and iPhone, okay, those are both good. But I feel like the iPad Pro, if they really are removing the bezels and doing Face ID and all of that, I feel like that's a pretty substantial thing in a year where some of the other updates are a little less substantial and it's all ios right iosy kind of stuff together yep yep because i don't think a an ipad plus mac event makes a lot of sense like come see our new stuff that we didn't already announce is a very weird invitation to send out so i i feel like um the ipad has got to stick close with its with its cousin the iphone there is something about that i agree with you but there is i think there's something also to be argued about new ipad pros and a new set of macs could be an event right that you spend like a 80 minute event and you do like 50 minutes on the new ipads and then you've

got you've got a bunch of Mac stuff right like those new iPads could could bring some eyeballs but I agree with you though that it makes more sense for this product to be alongside the iPhone because this is an as you say an iPhone inspired iPad Pro like you'd be like oh you've seen these new iPhones we've been thinking about how we apply this to the iPad. Here is what we have. It's the future of the iPad. The iPad Pro X.

All of these devices have no bezels and edge-to-edge screens. Then they have a slide about Face ID and it shows it across their entire iOS product line. There is definite reasons. It gave me pause for thought because there wasn't any images. Here is my like my point on that which makes me feel a little bit better we are very confident there's going to be the iphone 9 there were no images of the iphone 9

yes right so i'm now going to go for my pick number seven i believe that we will see a new generation of airpods at the event which includes a new generation of AirPods at the event, which includes a new feature. So that means more than just this case works with AirPower. And I think that what it will be is there will be a new version. This is not the pic, but adding my context, there'll be a new version of the, what is it called? The W chip, right?

So it'll be like W3, I think, which will have a high telephone support. This has been a rumor. It's been around for a while that Apple are working on a bunch of new things in audio. I think it is time. Will we two years on the current generation of AirPods, right? I think that now's the time. This is an incredibly popular product. It is becoming more popular.

I see them everywhere now. I think that it is time that Apple have a new version and it gets more battery life and it's nicer in this way and nicer in this way. And now you can speak to your good old friend Siri with all his wonderful Siri shortcut stuff by just out saying, because in case you don't know,

you cannot summon with voice right now. You have to do the double tapping. So you can summon with voice and then they could maybe add some more features that the double tapping or the tapping can do or whatever. But I think that we're going to see new AirPods because they are. So we have no question about the watch, right? Because the watch is an iPhone accessory. they are of course announced together I think the AirPod is a big enough product now and it is another iPhone accessory so they could spend a minute saying

we have a new version of AirPod that's coming out the same day and you can now say ahoy telephone and speak to your good old friend Siri and I think that would be a quick win for apple in the presentation i like this pick i i did not rate it very high on the chance list but you are making me feel a little bit more positive about it you're right it is an iphone accessory first and foremost and this would be the time to announce it if they've got it um you know what they previously announced is that there would be a new case that would support the air power charger that doesn't exist so uh that was always an

interim solution that i now think may not ever exist now because now there may be a case up you know case update available since they announced it they may make it available but it may be largely irrelevant right if there's a new ipod airpod generation because for like 30 more you can just get the new version right so you never know yeah you never know that's oh that's really uh that's an interesting pick um boy i yeah the picks are getting harder we're into seven you'll pick seven now i am going to go with uh an item that uh i think you put on our list but then i'm going to choose it here and it's sort of the counterpart the watch os counterpart to my ios pick which is i think there will be some new features in watch os 5 not shown at wwdc that

are tied to this series 5 and that we should say this if if all that is new is the new complications that we saw in the 9-to-5 Mac image, that doesn't count. That is not on the board here. But the idea that there will be something new in the watch. Let's do a little bit of clarification on this one. We've seen new complications. What if we see them in a different way? Are we just talking about if they say we have new complications, that's's not enough i think we need to see more than we saw in that image like oh look there's a new temperature one that shows the high and low visually and they show

it on a different face that doesn't do it however if they show a whole new method of adding complications in different ways i think maybe that is worth having having the conversation just a new visual look for complications is not enough. We would need to see something else, which might be like the way you pick them, right? Which would be totally new and we haven't seen it yet. Functionality changes that we haven't seen yet that are, again, my inclination is that they hold features back

that are tied to the hardware. Yeah, and like stuff that doesn't touch developers, right? So like I saw, I think it was Benjamin Mayo talking about this on Twitter, that like you can have this new complication stuff and developers don't need to do anything because the way that the complication stuff works is as a developer, you say, I need you to like have the number. So like say you're doing an app which has a countdown on it. You can say, well, you need to show the number and like say you need say you're doing a an app which has a countdown on

it you can say well you need to show the number and some kind of progress bar and the way that that is visually displayed is all up to apple you just declare what you want it to show and then the implementation of that is on apple because there are different ways of showing it on different watch faces even now right like the different watch faces have different application styles so you give them the like the little pieces of it and then the different faces will display it in different ways based on the size of the space that you're putting the complication in and what the design of that face is yep interesting anyway i think there'll be something new with watch os and uh that is uh an add-on just for the new hardware and it will be fun to see it all right we're into to round eight here

now i'm gonna i'm gonna try if i if i believe still have belief that there will be new ipads and to put my picks where my belief is uh new ipads to have face id i i think that's i almost picked that to double down on the new ipads and i thought no let's let's give yourself some breathing room for this yeah i don't want to double down on that one after all if there are new ipad pros the one thing we can all agree on is that they will have Face ID. Because they could wait six months, they could wait a year. You know, like, I was listening to the episode of the talk show you did with John Gruber, and you both made the point

of, like, the hardware right now is still really good. I mean, we waited between 18 months and two years for new iPad hardware, depending on, you know, for the first revision. And it was fine.

And right now, my iPads are fine, except for the fact that my 12.9-inch screen is broken. But that's nothing to do with Apple. That was my fault. By the way, still going strong, using it every day, right? It is clearly very visibly getting worse. But when I'm using it, it's not completely is clearly very visibly getting worse but when i'm using it it's not completely clear that it's all broken but anyway um so i i do really want new ipad so i

can replace it um and i think that one of the locks that that we will see here is the the new ipad's white face idea i think if it's going to have any feature it's going to have that i boy i kind of want to go to a pricing one here um because that i've got a couple that i've left out there um i'm gonna go with that lcd iphone with the big screen being less than the iPhone X price of $999. It's supposed to be cheaper. I still think that this is

debatable because it's Apple. Betting that something is cheaper that's an Apple product is super dangerous. I want to clarify this. The LCD iPhone the 6.1 inch or whatever it's going to be the lcd iphone will be less than 999 right uh yeah oh yeah you're right that was a different pick on our list yeah you can still make that pick you can still make that yeah that's

that's the one that i want to make is that the lcd iphone will be less than 999 that it will be it's not going to be like, it's a big phone, but it's cheaper than the other big phones because, but it's still $999. I think it will be like $899 or below, but let's just say less than $999. I think, I want to put a little money down on this rumor that it is very specifically meant to be a lower cost device. All right.

This is round nine. i'm struggling now yeah oh i'm out of good choices now i have i have a bunch of things left and i'm just not sure how to arrange them i feel like there's some stuff i can double down on that i feel confident about which would get me two times the points right but if i'm wrong i lose two times the points i know this is why i didn't pick new ipads to have face id which was laying for laying there for me because i was concerned to put two points down for iPads being at this event. I don't know about this one, but I'm going to go back to the Apple Watch. Am I going to go to the Apple Watch?

No, I'm not. I'm not, but we're going to do Bring Out Your Dead. So this is the thing. After we've done all of our picks, But we're going to do Bring Out Your Dead. So this is the thing. After we've done all of our picks, we're going to do a Bring Out Your Dead. So you'll hear all the things that we had in our minds. I might come back to that Apple Watch one.

I don't know if I'm going to do that right now. And I am going to double down. And I am going to say, pick number nine, the Mac will not be mentioned on stage. Wow. Wow. Wow. Could be a huge swing there. Yeah.

So I am confident. I feel very confident about Mojave. And I figure if they don't do it, they don't mention Mojave, is there any need to mention the Mac at all? And I don't think there is. And I think they will not. So I think that the categorically will be no new Macs announced next Wednesday. I don't think that's going to happen next Wednesday because I don't believe they are going to have anything so exciting that it is worth squeezing the rest of the announcements, which are, sorry, everyone, ultimately a lot more important. Look at the

revenue numbers. Like they're ultimately more, everything else in that line is ultimately more important. Even the Apple watch, because it is an iPhone accessory, right? Like, and it is an exciting, it's something that Apple continue to be excited about. So I don't believe there's going to be any new Mac hardware. And if they have no new Mac hardware, why do they even need to talk about the Mac at all?

Especially if they're not showing off my heart, which I already think is going to happen. I think that Apple will give time to the Mac. Either they will have a little event or they will bring in a bunch of press and they will make a song and dance about the Mac before the end to the Mac. Either they will have a little event or they will bring in a bunch of press and they will make a song and dance about the Mac before the end of the year. But an event next week

misses the back to school time by like a week. And that is kind of embarrassing. So you may as well hold it a little bit longer, especially when at least one of the rumored products is perfect for back to school,

which is a new version of the MacBook Air. So I don't believe there's not going to be any new Macs, but my actual pick is Mac will not be mentioned on stage. Wow. That is, that's super risky. You may be right. Well, like, here's the thing. I know that's super risky you may be right well like here's the thing i know that's super risky if i get it wrong whatever if i get it right though oh boy it's over if you get it right it's over well i do agree i look i earlier in this very podcast i said my theory is that they will announce the ipads at this event but they won't announce max and they won't do another event

and they will announce the max using some other means just as they did with the MacBook Pro. I'm far from 100% confident. Here's why I'm a bad pundit, is that pundits are really great at saying, I'm confident that this thing will happen. Whereas I look at something that I think might happen at like 50-50 or 60-40 and I'm like, eh, happen right and that's that's you know you should have more confidence in your kind of questionable opinion if you're going to be a really good pundit and i'm bad at that um all of that said mike um i love that you're doubling down on the mac not being there and that's why i'm picking the sub thousand dollar mac laptop will be announced on stage perfect i love it this is what makes the draft fun look here's the thing here's the thing i believe i have a lot of really good points leading up to now i agree i agree i i was gonna

say when we broke between uh between the first five rounds in the last five rounds that i was i am already not confident about my choices here so i wanted to throw one out there which if i get the point it's like it to me feels like i've won everything and what you did is you opened the door for me to kind of counter that with saying oh you think the mac's not going to be mentioned i think they will introduce a new mac even though I don't really think that. But if that happens, that's a three-point swing. So, you know, that's exciting. I feel like you got to get it.

You know, you've been known in the past, right? They're going to bring out Spinal Tap or whatever, right? And this is my Spinal Tap. The Mac not being mentioned is my Spinal Tap. And I got nothing against it, right? Like, I'm not doing this because like i'm trying to hate on the mac like i i love the mac i love the ipad more but i want there to be a better mac line i'm i'm very excited about a mac mini like if they announce a

mac mini sometime this year i'm gonna buy one of those because I think I could do some cool stuff with that. No, this is more like your inner Apple. Yeah. Doesn't like the Mac very much. Not, not you, not Mike Hurley, but your conception of how Apple feels is that they don't, that they're not going to use this event for the Mac, which is a less important product to them. My view of, of Apple here right now, like my, as you say, my internal Apple says that the September event is not a Mac event. Like they have a lot of stuff. Like personally, I feel like the Apple TV is more likely to get time because it's just a different shakeup. Like they have stuff for the Mac later. They have stuff and like, they don't ever need to put the Mac on stage because I don't think

it pushes the needle one way or another. Like it is a has been a very stable line. People know what they want. I don't think they need to do a lot to ever sell those products, especially when like one of the products that we know about this sub $1,000 laptop. They've missed the right time for it. Like, it would have sold a lot if they would have got it out before, back to school, right? Would you agree with that? Yeah, although traditionally, I mean, they did miss that time.

They could have announced more things in June and in July. It would do great for the holidays, right? It would do great for the holidays, but that doesn't mean they need to unveil it next Wednesday. They could do it in October, and it will probably do just about as good because it's less of a frilly purchase, right?

Like people make these purchases purposefully, and I just don't think it needs the time. I think they have a lot of stuff that has to have the time, and then they have a lot of stuff that they would want to give the time to more. I think Apple know that they've hit on something with the iPad Pro, right? Like the iPad line is going, is positive again. And I think if they have iPads and they have Macs,

they really want to show the iPads more. Because it might be more important for right now. So we'll see. All right, so final pick. Ooh, final pick. Okay. Now let me think. I do not have anything here, which is particularly I feel very excited about or very confident about. I have a few little items here. I don't know whether to hedge my bets

a little bit with this one and maybe pick something against myself. Hmm. I am going to say for my final pick that there will be drum roll no new ipads oh okay plan to win but that goes against you've guaranteed that one of your picks is wrong now because you already picked that the ipad would have face i guess you guaranteed that one of your

picks is right that's what i'm going for okay i'm picking up i'm trying to pick up a point because i have nothing so i'll tell in a moment i'm going to tell you what was left for me yeah and i can tell you why i think that none of that stuff is particularly i feel particularly sure about. So if I don't feel sure, I may as well go for getting a point. Now, the point of the draft, right? Because there's a lot of people very upset at me in the chat room right now. The point of the draft, I'm playing to win.

If I want to win, I want to get points. So I want to make sure I pick up at least a point, which is iPad related. One is its existence and one is its non-existence. And on the off chance that they only do iPhones, because look, they have three iPhones to show off. They've never had that before, right?

Like three iPhones, at least, by the way, to get some significant time because they want to sell them all, as well as at least one new apple watch we don't even know what the situation is there i you know that on its own you could do with enough demos close to two hours if they have a bunch of other stuff to show later off this year they could do it they could do an event in two weeks time for all we know from now yeah right yeah i that's that seems unlikely but they could certainly do an event in late october if they wanted to absolutely didn't they do that once though like they did an event and then caught everyone back again the week after i have a memory of this i don't think so i'm sure that there was an event that they did once at least maybe it wasn't that soon but like the idea of the event

was like we're doing it again right do you remember that once at least. Maybe it wasn't that soon, but like the idea of the event was like, we're doing it again, right? Do you remember that one at least? I don't know if necessarily the timing, but they did like an October event where they were like, oh, come on back kind of thing. Yeah, but I think it was still like

four or five weeks later. Okay. So yeah, I mean, I know it's just, I'm going for tactics. I'm going for strategy. I want to win September and I'm going to give myself that point. Okay.

Congratulations. You've guaranteed yourself a point. I'm trying to think of some way where you could get multiple points there, and it's not possible. Let's be clear here. You've chosen the existence of new iPads. I picked that as well. And the non-existence of new iPads. Yep. Well, look, I doubled down on the Mac thing, right?

So... Yep, you did. I want to make sure I'm not throwing away all my points. I want to make sure in this back five, I've at least picked up something. I think you may win this draft, but your strategy here in the back half has been a little bit bizarre. And we'll just see how it plays out. Hey, look. Who expected any different, right?

Surely you know me by now. You expect my last pick here probably to be the Spinal Tap pick, and I'll tell you, the new Mac laptop, sub-thousand dollars. Oh, that was your Spinal Tap. That's my Spinal Tap pick. Yeah, I know. Here at the end, I'm going to go with a little more gentle thing. I was going to get it down to the millimeter but i'm not going to do that instead i'm just going to say i am going to put a point down on the series 4 apple watch being at least slightly thinner than the series 3 apple

watch so i don't think they want to make it thicker it It might be exactly the same, but I want them to push it back toward like the Series 2 thickness, which is only a couple millimeters thinner. But I am willing to put a point down on the idea that Apple is striving to make that product thinner again. All right. So I believe,

well, this is what I was going to go with. This was going to be my final pick. I know, but you did that crazy thing instead. No, no, it could be thinner, but it might be so small, they don't mention it. Right. Well, that's the question, is will it be thinner than the Series 3?

Because here's the thing about the Apple Watch, right? It hasn't really gotten any thinner. It's actually gotten thicker over time. And the reason is because they keep putting new stuff in it. Now, what we believe we know about this is that the screen is bigger. And if the screen is bigger, it might need a bigger battery. And if it

needs a bigger battery, especially if one of the software features that they might be announcing is sleep tracking, right, that making it thinner might be announcing is sleep tracking, right? That making it thinner might be a bad idea. I get a point for that, by the way. Yeah, of course you do. Right?

ZM Knox in the chat room points out though, and this is absolutely right. If anything gets thinner at any point, Apple will mention it. Yeah, but I'm saying it might not be thinner at all. It might not be. That's why I think that it is a risky choice as always. That's why it was the 10th pick. But I want to believe that the Steve Jobs law,

which is everything gets thinner and lighter, has to apply to the Apple Watch at some point, given that its last step actually bloated it a little bit i would like more battery and then always on display and i don't mind how thick it is but i know other people do and i know it got it's got to kill the product designers at apple that it got thicker so i think i was gonna set like an over under on millimeters of thickness i'm like now let's just say it's going to be thinner than the series take your point man take your point yeah yep i would say especially for this back five picks this is maybe one of the more controversial drafts well it is uh i think it's a real real interesting challenge here where we we have evolved over the last few years from a pick

of here are the things i'd like to see to i need to beat you at the draft now that's a combo right this is a little column a little column b yeah what i have beaten out of a lot of my picks is wish casting which is you know where i where i there's something i want to have happen so i pick it and there is advantage in that that's like betting on your favorite team to win the super bowl or the world series where you know you are uh you get extra reason to root for the team that you're rooting for great great that's fine but you if your team loses you also lose money so you know so i have seven more things that i had put into my kind of uh my my uh whittled down to my personal list that I want to talk about

in our bring out your DAG segment. This is the 10 picks by the way. It's the only things that are scored. Everything else is not scored that we talk about. I mention again in the show notes you will find a PDF which you can download and score along with us and everything as it says on the PDF

is as we have spoken about it on the show. So it's locked in place. That is it. The draft is complete. No more things added. Nothing changed. They are our 10 picks for the September event of 2018.

So we do want to talk about some of the other things that we think might happen next Wednesday. Before we do, let me thank our final sponsor, and that's Squarespace. Make your next move with Squarespace so that you easily create a website for your next idea or project and with a unique domain name, award-winning templates, and more.

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I thought about making stuff like that of my own, of course, but you could and maybe should do it with Squarespace. They're an all-in-one platform. There's nothing to install, patch, or upgrade. They take care of everything so you don't have to, and they back it all up with award-winning 24-7 customer support as well. If you have any type of project that you're looking to make, just give Squarespace a try. Trust me, you're going to be able to do it, and you're going to be less frustrated overall, I believe. You can sign up for a free trial. Go to squarespace.com slash upgrade and you can try it out right now to make sure it's right for you. And when you do eventually sign up for a plan, use the code upgrade to get 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain and to show your support for this show. Once again, that is squarespace.com slash upgrade

and the code upgrade to get 10% of your first purchase. Our thanks to Squarespace for their support of this show. Squarespace, make your next move, make your next website. All right, so shall I just run through all of my Bring Out Your Dead and then you could do the same? Because then we could just talk about them if I have them. Sure, yeah, the stuff that you you considered picking because not everything really i think did we consider in the end but uh yeah yeah let me know let's let's hear it one of

mine was the the original pricing thing that we had and we ended up you went with an adopted like adapted version which i think is totally valid but one of the original ones we had was about the iPhone X, and that it's replacement, so the XS probably, would be less than $999, and I just don't think that's going to happen. Roger Kuo, who is pretty good with supply chain, but again, as we've said before, marketing and pricing is not supply chain. Roger Kuo said that product was going to be priced between $800 and $899, which would imply that the successor to the iPhone X is going to be $100 less than the iPhone X was. And you and I both know it's very hard to bet on Apple lowering prices. That's not what they do.

In fact, I had one that I added as we were going, and then I didn't pick it, but I almost picked it at the bottom, which was iPhone X remains on the price list. Which, if these are truly the XS models and not just the new X, then the X probably will remain on the price list. And maybe it'll be $899. or $899. Unless, you remember all those supply chain rumors that ended up making every analyst in the world say that the iPhone X was selling badly

but what may have been the actual result is that the X just goes away. Yeah, they stopped making it because they're making the new one now. Yeah, that's possible too. So that's why I was also thinking, hmm, what about that one? And I wasn't so sure. In the same vein, we had some picks

on here about a new iPhone to replace the iPhone 8, right? That there would be something like a 8C or a 7C. I think that it is possible, but I don't... Or an 8S. Or an 8S. I just... I would be really surprised

to see them do that, because that's a lot of iPhones to release at once like right that is just a lot going on and and more likely that the 8 remains in the price list it's still available it's still a really good phone and that next spring maybe there's an adjustment there which is a hot theory right now which is that it you know there could be an update to the SE and that could either be the SE as we know it, or it could be redefining the SE as the successor to the 8. Yeah, like I think that that is very possible.

Seems like not now. I don't think it happens next Wednesday, right? It's too many new iPhones, I agree. Gosh, how many phones do you want to introduce in one event? Like, oh, here's our five new iPhones. Like, it's like a lot. This is already, right?

Like last year was a big deal because they had the 8 and the 10. 8, 8 plus, and 10. That was three new phones, right? Now it's going to be this, you know, it's three new phones again, but it's, again, it's two new models that we've never seen before. Last year, it was updates to two models and a new phone we hadn't seen before. So even though it's three new phones again, it's's two brand new models, and an update to an existing model. This is Apple growing. And I think in a good way, I think we might have talked about this last week. But like, I like the idea that Apple realizes one of its

weaknesses in the iPhone is that there's not enough diversity in iPhone hardware. I talked about that when I was on, I hosted Twit yesterday. And that was one of the topics was Android phones have so many different phone makers that there's huge diversity in the different kinds of phones that are available if you want to buy an Android phone. And Apple's knock has always been they only have one phone or maybe two phones. And I think Apple is aggressively trying to spread the product line out. That said, there is only so much they could do at one go. And if they think the eight is still pretty great, they leave it around. Maybe they cut the price on it they leave it around they introduce these three new phones and then they deal with uh some more kind of diversity at the bottom of the line uh maybe next spring one of

one that i had on my list here was a home pod software update i think that's gonna happen i just don't think they're necessarily gonna mention it like i feel like that it is very possible that some of the features that we think could come to the home pod would occur around now right like even things like multiple timers and some of the calendar stuff and personal requests right like those things feel like they're gonna happen they could very well happen but i don't think they're gonna talk about it it's a litmus test too for how apple feels about the home pod they got nothing at wwdc right that was one of the picks i i think there's a a i'm talking a lot about the non-zero probability but i think it's that like is the difference between certain

and possible and unlikely and not going to happen and like i think it entirely depends on how people at inside apple feel about the home pod and whether they think that it's a bomb and they need to do a new one next year and regroup or whether they think that it's still got a lot of uh possibility um if i had to bet i'd probably bet that they think it's got possibility and and this is combining some wish casting in here but if they announce some new home pod features and a bundle of two as we've talked about into a stereo pair set with a more aggressive price for the holidays, and they really are like, we want to sell a lot of HomePods for the holidays, then this would be a great time to do that. Will they do that?

I don't know. I think it would be smart if they did. I think that would be great if they said, the HomePod is way more capable already because we did software updates and there's more coming this fall and we're going to let you buy two because some, you know, you can hear Phil Schiller saying it right. And what the feedback we've gotten from our customers is that they love it when they put two of them together and you fill an even larger room and it's a great stereo sound. And so we're going to make that easier for people. Like there are ways to sell that, that it's also like we need to move these. We're going to cut the price by if you buy two. So I think it's entirely possible that they'll do it.

But I didn't pick it either, right? So it seemed a little too risky for me. And then I have a couple that we can just lump up together, like new smart keyboard and new smart connector for the iPad Pro. Yeah, I had those on my list. When I was picking my, like, what is my iPad 1 going to be, I figured that they're less likely than Face ID. Yeah, and I think these are all really good choices that if I had more confidence in the iPad being at the event, I think we would have broken this down and gone to this level of detail.

Basically, if those 9 to 5 Mac images wouldn't have come out, I would have picked way more iPad stuff. Well, the lack of super heavy iPad Pro rumors is out there, right? Like maybe one of those reasons is that it's not at the event. It's also true. I think this is something that I didn't pick, but I totally could have picked. But again, it's more specific than I needed to be, which is I think if the iPads are at this event, they're not going to ship the week after the event. They're going to ship like a month after the event, because I think they can get away with saying, with delaying iPad Pro purchases at the end of their life cycle and say, the new iPads will ship in October or late October or something like that.

I don't think they're going to ship the same time as the iPhones do anyway. So that may be a reason why the rumors are not quite as strong on them, because they're not imminent in the way that the iPhones are. I figured that another thing that I potentially had is a release date for the AirPower case for AirPods. Yeah, I almost picked that. When you picked AirPods, I almost went with that because I feel like they need to make good on that. And that may be a part of the AirPower announcement is that we're also going to be offering a case for that same day you'll be able to buy a case for your existing AirPods, whether they have new AirPods or not.

Because I feel like that's all rolled up together. Like they're not going to release that AirPower without releasing the AirPower case that they previously announced for the AirPods. And my last one, that there will inevitably be an iOS 12 software demo and Air Force One will be referenced somewhere in an

on-screen image yeah that's i put that one in the document as a wacky pick because often there is a little easter egg for something in those things including hair force one for craig federighi that is a laugh line more wwdc but they often sneak into the the that would have been a fun spinal tap style pick at the end so you know like something that is worth mentioning i mean it's probably not even worth drilling down we had probably somewhere between the range of 10 to 15 items in the mac specifically that we could have picked that we just didn't you know like breaking down every single rumor that has happened you know so like new mac minis and trying to pontificate and what the macbook might be and what it might have and what it might not have that kind of thing.

And I think we just both made it pretty clear that we just don't think that this is the time. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's it. In the chat room, they're trying to guess what my theoretical HomePod bundle would be. And there are a lot of guesses of $549, which is why I'm going to say that it would either be 599 or 649. Cause again, it's Apple, whatever you think a really nice, uh, number would be. It's not that 599 might be a good bundle. Do you have any other kind of bring out your dead? So I, despite a rumor that, uh, that said it's not going to happen, and this is the wish casting part, I still really like the idea that that big iPhone supports the Apple Pencil and that there's a new Apple Pencil. Right. And if we get a new iPad Pro, I would especially think we might get a new Apple Pencil. But somebody, Roger Crowe, I think, said, nope, they tried it.

They couldn't get it. They didn't feel it was usable enough, so they're not going to do it but like if ever there was a time to do apple pencil support with a new apple pencil on a big iphone where like all the software is there i feel like it's now but um that makes me gives me pause can i just ask you real quick i'm not familiar with roger quo do you mean ming chi quo i keep saying roger it's ming chi quo who's roger who's the analyst who's roger i don't know roger i don't know. Roger. I don't know who Roger is. Roger, get in touch.

Roger, get in touch. Let me know who you are. Mr. Rogers, maybe. I don't know. Ming-Chi Kuo, who is super reliable, said no pencils. Yeah. No pencils. So that's a bummer.

That makes me sad. That makes me sad. Yeah, I would like to see that. I am going to believe Minging chi kuo on that one but not that that phone is that the uh that the iphone 10 successor is going to cost 8.99 i choose not to believe that because i think that um ming chi kuo's sources are not in i think ming chi kuo sources know what the cost of manufacturing is but that doesn't mean that apple's gonna follow that pricing what he's saying is that they could

price it at 8.99 but will they maybe not maybe they'll price it at 9.99 anyway right that's and it's more margin for apple they like that so apple pencil support was at the top of my list i i also thought about a bunch of other apple watch things you you had one in there there was a new type of health sensor yep that's a classic new sensor on the apple watch i think we've had that in the draft every year um but we didn't pick it i'm not sure what it would be um new apple pencil i mentioned like i just in general in my ipad picks uh new Apple pencil support for the Logitech crayon or a broader release of the Logitech crayon was another thing I thought like, cause it's education only or release of a,

an Apple branded device that uses the same technology. So like a new, a new small pencil the existence of the Logitech crayon is a special design product. That's only for education seems super weird to me. And I keep thinking that there's more to that story and it's probably a new Apple pencil that's smaller, but maybe not, maybe now is not the time I had given the rumors of that weird connector on the back of the iPad pro. If we go down that path, I, I put in, um, Apple laptop shell for iPad pro, um, because

that was just my, again, wacky idea of like, well, maybe this is the year that you're like, you want your iPad to be a laptop, we got a we got a whole new case design that will do it for you. Not that I think that will happen. I also had no new iPads on my list to go the complete other direction. But I didn't I didn't go down there. And then we had a whole bunch of Mac stuff that I only plucked the sub-thousand laptop, but I had more about the MacBook getting updated, about the Air getting updated after all, despite all the rumors about the MacBook Escape getting renamed and depro-ified. A lot of choices. These may all come back if they do a second event, Mike. a lot of choices.

These may all come back if they do a second event, Mike. Port choices. Does it have USB-A ports? Does it not have USB-A ports? Does it have a butterfly keyboard? Does it not have a butterfly keyboard? But if we don't believe it's going to exist, why would you get into the details of it? And then finally, Mike, the two picks that I left,

because sometimes those are fun to pick, but we didn't get to them. Celebrity on stage and musical guest performs they're both always very possible we may get those although I they they have so much product in the pipeline that I would be very frustrated if they don't announce iPads and Macs and they have a sit for a musical guest but they do like to do that so I wouldn't say it's impossible. It won't be you two, though, because Bono lost his voice.

It won't be them. Good to know. All right, so that's the draft. So I'll mention for the last time, there is a scorecard in our show notes. You can score along with us. It's something fun. I always find it's a fun thing

to just keep me occupied, especially during the long game demos to tick off all my scorecard points. There will be no new episode next Monday, of course. We're going to be recording and releasing on Wednesday after the Apple event. You can follow

us on Twitter at underscore upgrade FM to know when we'll be broadcasting live. We don't know what time that's going to be, but if you do want to tune in live, we'll tweet when we're doing that um but the episode will be up on wednesday evening um there will be a new episode within a few hours hopefully uh with of the event uh having concluded right i have to like look at the products and then drive home and then and then we need to record it and edit it but it will be out out. So you can look forward to that.

You can also, as well, after the event, send in your hashtag AskUpgradeQuestions so we can include as many as we can on the show next week. So if you have questions about the products, you want to know our specific thoughts on certain things, especially considering Jason will have touched whatever is new, you want to send in your hashtag, askupgradequestions. That's a great new slogan for our podcast.

Jason will have touched whatever is new. So send in a hashtag askupgradequestions to do that, and we'll appreciate that. Jason, what is your coverage going to be like, and where can people keep up with it? Well, you should go to sixcolors.com. We'll embed probably a twitter embed

in there i'll tweet a little bit from six colors event which is our uh sort of live event because i don't want to clog up the the standard six colors twitter account um and maybe for my personal account too i'm like i you know i want to i want to think about it a little bit i don't want to do like super heavy coverage it's going to be a live video stream um some people complain that I spoil things because I announce them when they're happening and not when they're on the live stream. So I guess you can't follow along second to second. It won't matter anymore anyway, because nobody can follow in their third party clients second to second. Yeah, that's true. That's true. That's very true. So I'll do I'll do some of that. But otherwise, I'm just going to sit there and take it in and think about it and do that sort of thing so that I'm prepared to do our podcast and write some stories and all of that about it.

So, yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Will I bring my camera to take some pretty pictures? Maybe. Maybe not. I don't know. We'll figure it out. But, yeah, sixcolors.com will have whatever I'm doing. We're both on Twitter.

I'm at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. Jason is at jsnell. Thanks again to Squarespace, Pingdom, and Away. But most of all, thank you for listening to the 2018 iPhone event draft. We'll be back next week with our analysis, thoughts, and opinions of what actually was announced, as well as deciding who the winner was of this draft. Did I screw it up? Was I a genius?

You'll find out next time. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell. Goodbye, everybody. See you next Wednesday.