Upgrade - 210: Tennis Macs

Episode Date: September 13, 2018

Jason's back from Apple Park, where he watched Apple unveil a new Apple Watch and three new iPhone models. We break down the naming choices and new features, the surprises and reveals, and (perhaps most importantly) the results of the 2018 Apple iPhone Event Draft.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 210 today's show is brought to you by our friends over at simple contacts molecule and rx bar my name is mike hurley i am joined by jason snell hello jason snell hello Hurley. Today is the big day. It is and has been the September event, the iPhone event day, and we have a lot to get to. But we must start this show as we start every show with a hashtag SnowTalk question, a question from our audience to kick off this week's show. And this week, it comes from Rick, and Rick wants to know, Jason, what were the best snacks at Apple's event this morning?ick let me tell you here's a pro tip the at um at the new apple

park steve jobs theater space the bathroom the bathroom access is poor so you can go to the bathroom when you park because you park beneath the um the uh visitor center there is a bathroom in the weird entry bureau of interchange entryway there but there's only like those are singles so that's really bad they actually warn you when you park they're like if you need to use the bathroom use it now and then the other bathrooms are in the theater but they're in the theater after you go downstairs, after they start to seat everybody. So you've got to then have somebody save your seat while you go and hope that you can come back. What I'm saying is I have a pretty strict no food and especially no drink, but also no food policy for these things. I ate a little breakfast before I left here at 6.45 in the morning,

and then that got me through until after the event when I had some lunch. They did have some food and stuff there, but I have no comment on the snacks. But at least now you know the huge design flaw of the Steve Jobs Theater, which is when you have people waiting outside before the event, there's no bathroom because the bathroom is hidden down below. There's no bathroom because the bathroom is hidden down below. I did see a lot of Instagram stories today of a smoked salmon and avocado tartlet that people kept taking pictures of. I guess. Great. Good for those who like that sort of thing.

Fantastic. I don't like salmon, so it would not have been. But I have no idea. I didn't even look. They had a little place place a little kiosk back sort of behind the so the entrance to the steve jobs theater is this round glass thing it's like a round glass wall and then you go in and there's a there's a place where people can stand but there's no furniture or anything and then there there are two circular staircases down because the whole like entryway is like a giant circular it's like a tube that they've built levels on and at the back of that was where the food was but i didn't yeah and it

was sunny and hot and we were we were just chatting outside that's that's how i spent the morning was just chatting with a bunch of people matthew panzerino john gruber who else was there dan frakes a bunch of people so i I got to see Renee Ritchie, got to see Serenity Caldwell briefly. But of course, I think she would deny it because she has to deny everything now that she works at Apple. But she was there.

I was missing her because I usually, she's the person that I usually always, you know, meet up with at the event. And they're like, hey, how's it going? And I was like, I said to Renee, there's no Serenity. And then she appeared, which was pretty awesome. So yeah, anyway, it is funny to,

they mobilize an army for these events. They shut down the street, Tantau Avenue outside was shut down today. If you looked in the Maps app, because I did, I wanted to check traffic. So I just said, you know, what directions to the Apple Visitor Center? And I noticed that the Apple Visitor Center metadata said close today,

because they closed it up for the event. And then there's just an army of people telling you where to go and where not to go and go up the hill. And they're all very friendly. They're friendly Apple people directing traffic and all of that. But it is quite a logistics thing to put on one of these events, which is why I always thought they probably won't do another one. Right. And now I'm thinking maybe they're good at it. So last week we did our draft. Thank you to Rick, by the way, for sending in that hashtag Snell talk question. So last week we did our draft and we picked our predictions for what we think might happen.

And you crushed me, Snell. You crushed me. I've scored it at 7 to 3. I can run through it real quick. You got watch bands. You got lower-end notch iPhone to have color options. Updates to iOS. You got a game demo.

Updates to watchOS. LCD iPhone less than 999. And Apple Watch 4 thinner than Series 3. So that's seven points for you out of a possible 10. I got larger screen, OLED phone, 1099 or higher. I got an AR app demo and no new iPads. Tim Cook personally screwed me over within the last five minutes. You lost two points

in the last five minutes of the show. That was the thing. So I was sitting there, I am going to admit, I had Zach Knox's webpage open on my iPad while I was at the event. Yeah, Zach Knox created an incredible interactive scorecard,

which I'll put again in the show notes. The pacing of this event was slow enough that I had time to score the draft as we went because it was a slower paced event and um but i'm sitting there looking at at these things i haven't touched because i can't touch them until the end which was like the mojave not mentioned on stage mac not mentioned on stage and it was a really funny thing because we get to the end of the whole thing because we're not going to take this chronologically we're going to we're going to jump around and prioritize this um the end when they're done like they're literally and that's the tim cook is back he's like the iphone and the apple

watch that's what this event has all been about and then he was like now i want to mention the home pod and mojave yep just what and that Go on. I'm really bummed out about this. Cause I, because like my problem was I knew, I knew it was over for me by like Thursday because a bunch of things started coming out. Like the naming of products started leaking out. Right. And then I knew I was done cause I had two points wrapped in on product naming.

Right. Like, so I knew I wasn't going to get it. So it was a shame. I really wanted to win. But you have, again, for the third consecutive time, taken the win for the September event. As it stands right now, Jason cannot lose this year. At worst, he will tie if there's going to be one more event because we now stand at

march events jason's wwdc was mine and the september event was now jason so congratulations jason snell you know thank you i really didn't want to get beaten in the way that i got beat which was really badly but i kind of feel like if i'm gonna get beat i don't want it to be like a one point thing i want it to be like you hit twice the amount of points i'm glad you feel better about that we're gonna be fighting about like oh what about the airpods thing right because like and you know whatever is changing the focal length of portrait mode really a new ios feature we don't need to quibble about it you won you did it i'm glad you picked ar app demo and not and didn't and i didn't say AR games don't count because it was an AR game.

But in the demo section, I was like, oh, okay, that one's for me. Oh, there's Mike's. That was pretty good. Maybe there'll be another chance. Maybe I can at least bring it up to a tie for the year. We'll find out. So we should actually get to that. Let's talk about what was missing from this event today.

So I think it is not too surprising i wrote a piece yesterday on six colors where i said you know logically i gotta say there's no ipads and no macs at this event because there have been no leaks about them like there have been general leaks but like the detailed leaks that are about the event the stuff that we've've been listening to since August 28th, I think, when that first Guillermo Rambo, where he just guessed the string of the URL of images on Apple's website, all of that stuff included iPhones and watches, but nothing else. And so that really should have been, that was the strongest signal. And what I wrote was, but I'm still hoping, you know, it's the wishcasting thing. It's the same reason i picked the ipads and the low-cost

macbook is kind of like i want that to be there and i thought it was less likely that apple would do two two events but i have a hard time believing that apple's going to do a brand new completely redesigned ipad pro and a new mac laptop and not build an event around it. So they didn't get mentioned. So I think I, I would guess that there will be a late October event, but we'll have to see. Maybe they'll do something different.

I mean, they did the Chicago event, right? So they could do something very different if they wanted to, or they could just invite everybody back to the, the Steve jobs theater to talk about, you know, something about the future of computing

and something like that. Yeah. And literally just say there's more. I actually think it's good for us as people who think about this stuff, and it may be even good for everybody who uses Apple stuff and pays attention to have Apple spread it out a little bit.

I don't think it does anybody any benefit, including the other products, to get loaded into September. Yeah, yeah. But when I have a broken iPad, I want the products, you know, sooner rather than later. So I'm going to take a guess here.

I reckon the event's going to be on October 16th because the iPhone XR ships on the 26th. So I reckon they will have more products to ship on that day. So they would do an event a week beforehand, have pre-orders on the end of that week. That would be if I was going to pluck a date out of the year,

that's when I would pick that for. A month from now. The only question is the turnaround. Can they put together a whole other keynote presentation in four weeks? And do they want to do that? Traditionally, in the turnaround, like can they put together a whole other keynote presentation in four weeks? And do they want to do that? Traditionally, in the past, it's been more like six weeks.

At least some of that stuff could have been in the presentation up until like a month ago, right? So like, you know, there is a version of a presentation which has iPads in it and they just decided to hold them or whatever, we don't know.

But we'll see, we'll see. There was no mention of air power or anything related to uh qi charging for the airpods funnily enough apple didn't even mention qi charging on the new phones at all yeah they it was a bullet point in a slide so if we had drafted it it would have counted but it was never spoken they never talked about how convenient and great wireless charging is. They did that last year. This year, it's just a bullet point on the slide.

And now it is, we'll get into it, but it is on all of them. That was a question people had. It's like, well, will the lower cost phone be, you know, will it have like an aluminum back and all that? And the answer is no, it has a glass back and it does wireless charging it is it is in most ways the exact same phone as the other as the other iphones that were announced today it is very possible that that product is gone the air power we will just not see it oh yeah yeah it hasn't hasn't been disappeared it's possible it's not on the website anymore except on the airpods uh page yeah and no airpods update

yeah the yeah i was i i was surprised about that one i thought that it would do something but but yeah it seems that uh it is unknown there's a lot of unknown about airpower right now which is very peculiar it maybe seems like maybe apple bit off a little bit more than they could chew on that one is what i'm gonna say all right so uh let me give you some little pieces of information we've got a couple of little bits a couple of things that have happened since the event before we dig into the iphones i can't wait to hear this because of course i went to the event and then i drove home and so i don't know anything and i didn't even check twitter or anything i have no idea what people have been talking about for the last hour and a half,

where they've gleaned things from the website or from people who are reporting from the scene who got some sort of a tidbit that I did not get. So tell me, Mike, what happened at the event I just went to that I missed? Well, there are lots of little details that we'll talk about throughout the rest of the episode, but a couple right up front. So the iPhone SE and the iPhone X, they are no longer sold. And Apple's website states that they will be available to authorized resellers. So they're gone. They're in the chain, but they're no longer being sold direct from Apple, and then they will presumably just die. There is a more expensive version of AppleCare in the US called AppleCare

Theft and Loss now, where you get up to two years of technical support and hardware coverage, plus accidental damage coverage, theft coverage, and loss coverage. Right, this answers the question of like, well, why do I pay for AppleCare if you won't cover my damage or you won't cover if my phone gets stolen? And the answer is, well,

we got a new level of AppleCare for that now. It's really great for a services company to have a more expensive version of another service that they do, because you can buy it with and without theft and loss. is another way for apple to throw an extra hundred dollars or two onto the top of an iphone sale um there is a home pod software update that will be shipping next week will brings with it finally multiple timer support um and also phone calls and find my iphone and they called out uh official support for uh shortcuts as well

yeah that was nice that is nice yeah ios and watch os will be shipping on monday so they're going to be shipping on the 17th and mojave will be shipping on the 24th right right in our last minute surprise announcement of mojave exists it It will be out a week from Monday. I guess the other thing to mention is the other phone that seems to have died is the iPhone 6, right? Or 6S. Yes, the 6S is gone as well, yeah. And that's not as surprising that the 7, you know, they keep on going down, stair-stepping over time. So, like, the 7 and the 8 are still there because the 8 is now a previous year model

the 7 is pushed down to an even more previous year model and then the 6s falls off the bottom yeah that one i think everyone would have naturally expected but the 10 is really interesting yeah yeah yeah getting rid of the 10 is a big surprise but when we talk about the the lineup i think it kind of makes sense when you look at it now. Yeah, I agree. That was my theory all along with the name. When I was saying that I thought the name

would just be iPhone X and they'd have different models of iPhone X, I was wrapping in that the implication that they wouldn't keep selling the iPhone X, that they would just be like,

that's last year's model and now... So they didn't do that naming-wise, but they did do it where the iPhone X is an iPhone that sold for a year and it's gone like that's it it's gone wacky yeah all right jason this episode is brought to you and not just to you to everyone by irx bar irx bar are whole food protein bars with simple real ingredients they believe in being totally

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You like the peanut butter ones, huh? I thought this was suddenly an RX Bar draft. Sorry about that. Which is your favorite then, Jason Snell? Peanut butter is pretty great. And the peanut butter chocolate is also pretty great those were i think my two favorites i also liked the chocolate chip peanut butter and chocolate put those in things and i will be happy they taste good like i mean i know you enjoy them

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They are great for having that snack at the office, like Jason said, right? When you can't even conceive of having lunch. They're great for breakfast on the go. You can throw them in your bag for when you're traveling or maybe even for a pre or post workout snack. Try them out for yourself right now and you can get 25% off your first order if you go to rxbar.com upgrade and use the promo code upgrade at checkout. That is rxbar.com upgrade and the promo code upgrade for 25% off your first order, which is a great discount. Our thanks to RX Bar for their support of this show and RelayFM. So let's start with the iPhone, shall we? I want to kick off talking about the product naming.

This has been a thing that we've been focusing on a lot recently. There have been a lot of avenues that we thought Apple could go down, and I would probably hazard a guess to say that the avenue they ended up going down is one that I don't think either of us would have expected we have the iphone 10s the iphone 10s max and the iphone 10r now these are the names how do you feel about them oh boy um i don't i don't love them i get what i get what they're doing here's here's the thing here's it's like i have to settle down this is like um princess bride it's like uh let me explain no there is too much let me sum up i think what this suggests is that last year when they decided what to name this thing they weren't thinking ahead because the big problem is not tacking an s on right they've been doing that for ages they've

been doing that since the iphone 3gs where they famously styled it one way and then styled it a different way and we asked phil schiller what it stood for and he said it stood for speed and then we asked Phil Schiller what it stood for, and he said it stood for speed. And then they said it didn't stand for anything, but they had already said it stood for speed. Who knows, right? But S has been like the half marker for the iPhone. Okay, that's fine. But when they decided to use the Roman numeral for the iPhone X, they were getting in really shaky ground. Because what you're doing is you're asking people to read the first letter they see as a Roman numeral and the second letter they see as a letter.

And that is not good, right? Now, they're styling it, I noticed, very much in the classic Apple S iPhone style where it's smaller and in a box. Which I think I mentioned last week might have been like, well, this is probably what they'll do is they'll have the little box which of course we don't get to use the little box we just have to type it and so you end up being like should there be a space should there not I think there needs to be a space because otherwise it is very clearly like the iPhone XS whereas if you leave the space maybe there's space for your brain to flip over between 10 and 10S. So that's weird. Going from plus to max is also a little bit weird. Although I did notice the Droid Max, which is a phone that actually existed, had two Xs. Apple showing a great deal of restraint here.

Just the one X. They went with three Xs. And a triple X. There is already an X with the 10, right? So technically there were two Xs in that name, but they're not together. So that's good. And then there's the R, which do So technically there were two Xs in that name, but they're not together. So that's good. And then there's the R,

which do we know what it stands for? Does it stand for anything? It's really cool. I can't get my head around the R. I cannot get my head around 10R. And here's the thing, Jason. I had to really work hard to not say X, right? iPhone X. Like I had to work really hard on that.

Right. I know I'm going to fail with this because you're putting two letters next to each other. Like I can't help it. When I see it, I see XS Max and XR and like Apple's website is all over the place because where they can, they use that little box, but where they can't,

they just have a capital letter next to the other one. It's, it is, and a special like span tag or something it's super weird um and and again it would be solved if they had just not used the roman numeral right yeah 10s with one zero spelled out not not a problem to say 10s like oh i get it the iphone 10s like the like the like the 6s i get it but instead it's the X10S. I mean, or they could have just decided to call it the iPhone X and gotten off numbers and gone to letters. They could have done that too. Right. But they didn't do that.

So not thinking ahead. What they've done is pick the two worst options, really. And I will say, I don't like Macs. I know. You prefer iPads. This is part of the problem for me. Oh, you mean Macs, not Macs. Because Apple makes Macs, and now they also like Macs. I know, you prefer iPads. This is part of the problem for me. Oh, you mean Macs, not Macs. Because Apple makes Macs, and now they also make Macs.

I think it is really peculiar for a company that makes a product called the Mac to release a phone that's got the word Macs at the end. It almost feels like nobody said it out loud. It's very peculiar. But, okay, so the idea of Mac of Max just in the thought of, oh, I'll just call my phone Max. It's kind of cute, right? My phone has a name now. My phone's name is Max. But I don't, I feel like that these names are very peculiar. I cannot fathom R. I don't know what, like, because it comes before S, but that doesn't make any sense, right? Because I find it all very peculiar.

But this is, I mean, any long-time Apple fan will know, they make sometimes seemingly very peculiar decisions with their marketing. But Apple's marketing on the whole is very good, so you kind of got to give them the benefit of the doubt. It feels weird right now, but in two months' time, we'll be very used to it, and then it's not going to be a thing anymore. I will call the XS Max. We will just call it the Max.

It will be the Max, right? Like the Plus. And XR, I mean, I don't know. XS, XR, we'll just have to get used to it yeah we will and we will you're right we will get used to it it's just I find the the mental disconnect of having the roman numeral followed by the other letter because I don't have a problem with them saying this is the iphone 10 line and there's three phones in it right although I would say there then you know it is a little bit weird that it's the XS and the XS Max, but okay,

that's like two, how many things are you going to stack on the end there? Could the XS Max have been something different? XR, like the iPhone 5C is like, it's just, it's a different kind of iPhone 10. Like, okay, I guess I can get behind that. It's more just the disconnect of when you hear it, it doesn't sound as bad as when you read it. And I was already in the same camp where when I read iPhone X, I generally say X in my head. Like, right? I don't, I never converted to just saying, thinking X. I always think X and then try for podcasts to say X, right? This just makes it that much worse.

So I don't know. I think they painted themselves as in a corner. I think that's the end story here. I fear for them next year. I don't even, well, I mean, at this point, the good news, Mike, the good news is next year, Spinal Tap is back on the table.

Yeah, it sure is. All right, let's talk about the XS and the XS Max. Do you consider these to be standard S-revision phones? Like, so they've got all of the things you'd presume. They have faster processors, better cameras, face ID is faster, there's more storage, 512 gigabyte storage, and there's a new color. Yeah.

But there isn't, like, a thing, like there has been Touch ID or 3D Touch or you know like these or like um video recording right from the 3gs no it feels very much like the the feature that they're using to key because this is i mean this is what you're asking right it's like what is that feature that you're like aha it's not just faster processor it's also this feature. And it feels to me like the feature in this is primarily other than the, you know, the camera update. Sure. It's, it's better, but it's the neural engine in the processor. So it's part of the processor and that they're using, they're saying, you know, it's, they went from two cores to eight cores or whatever.

And very much the presentation is trying to say, there are huge numbers of things that these phones can do, because they having that more advanced neural engine allowed them to unlock all of this machine learning stuff that they couldn't do before, because they couldn't do it fast enough. And so the argument and I'm not saying I entirely believe it, because in the end, it is kind of a, it's faster, so it does different stuff that we couldn't do before. In fact, that game demo, all those demos, the three app demos, they were all walking this really fine line where it's like, it's very clear that their apps are going to be available for all iPhones, right? of punch up why the new iPhones can especially be great because they have more power and more features. Because it's not like that game's not going to run on an iPhone 10 or an iPhone 8. But they want to point out that, well, on the XS with the A12 Bionic, we've got the access to that GPU and we've got the access to that neural engine with all the cores. And that's what's unlocking these new features. And Apple was playing that game too. So clearly they told

them to hit that point. Because the point here is to sell a new iPhone, right? Not just to sell how great ARKit is. They want to sell new iPhones, which means they got to really hit the A12 Bionic. But that seems to be like the neural engine stuff. Basically, they broke it out and said, this actually enables a lot of stuff that we didn't used to be able to do that we can do in terms of like the HDR photography, in terms of some of the portrait mode stuff, in terms of other, in terms of faster face ID, not from the sensors, but from the processor and the neural engine being able to run faster. But yeah, that's it. I would say that's exactly, you know, unless you want to get super specific,

I'd say that's what an S phone is, right? It's some upgraded hardware stuff where the camera gets nicer and the processor is better and there's some new features that get enabled by it. But it's not one of those kind of mind-blowing oh everything's changed also keeping in mind the 10 was such a huge leap to begin with that it's not too surprising to me that they they pushed so far ahead last year that this year you know what what what do we ask of them like this is a kind of like a regroup uh year where they're just doing some polishing and on uh which is not to say that that new processor, I mean, we've come to take it for granted that the new Apple processor every year in the iPhone is just faster. It keeps getting faster. It's a thing that we expect. Still more impressive, right? This is the first seven nanometer, right? That was one of the other big things this time.

Yeah. I can't wait. I don't have a bell to ring here, but I can't wait to hear what John Syracuse especially has to say about that on Accidental Tech Podcast this week, because they've had an ongoing conversation about the chip things. But it has been known, I think, for a little while now that Apple was using a fab that was going to be able to give them a seven nanometer process thing. And it's and Apple boasted about it on stage that here we are with the first seven nanometer smartphone chip, I think, or commercially available consumer product deployed, whatever. It's a thing for them to crow about. And it is just like the Bionic because they kept the same name, right? So nobody on Connected won that bet. Yeah, that was really strange to me that they've been giving them new names every year and then kept the same name. This is why. So the Fusion, I think internally, and I think it's been borne out now, those names aren't just empty marketing. They have a meaning. And fusion, the idea there was they had two banks of cores. In the A-10 fusion, there were two banks of cores.

There were the high-performance cores and there were the low-power cores. And they switched back and forth. And the idea there was a fusion of two sets of cores, one that was powerful and one that was energy sipping. The bionic, the whole idea was it's bionic. It's those two sets and they work together. And the idea there is you've got those six cores or whatever, but they can all be running. They can shut down the high power cores if they want to, but the low energy cores can work regardless of whether the high power cores are working. And now, given that they call this A12 bionic, I think that's basically

what they're saying is, no, bionic means what it means, which is how we have those cores in there and how they all work together. And so it is a marketing name, but it appears to be that meaning behind it. Yeah, I think what we can see now is there weren't yearly iterations of names. The numbers are iterating, but the name applies to something that we have internally. But it was just we were, you know, human beings are pattern oriented and there was a new name each year. So we just expected there would be a new name. But that seems to be not the case.

I was very confused for a little bit. I was like, hang on a second. Is there no new chip? I couldn't remember what number we were on, but I knew the name. And so I was scratching my head a little bit. But Jason, I have been sitting here and thinking, I think I might have two things that the S stands for this year. Okay.

One is SIM, because these iPhones, they get dual SIM support. All of the iPhones now have an eSIM embedded in them, so you can set up a new line, so you can put a SIM card in them. You can also set up a second line. Unless you're in China, where they have made a specific China-only model for two physical SIM cards, because they didn't say why, they're just like, we can't use eSIM in China, and they just move right ahead. So this is a feature that I don't have a use for anymore. This is a feature I would have definitely had a use for like three or four years ago um but my uh my network offers me the ability to use my

data and minutes and stuff wherever i want um but as a person who travels like if this isn't a thing for you being able to let i mean and we need to see exactly how the eSIM thing will work but if it could work like the ipad does that would be incredible right where you could just grab some data for a bit. And one of the carriers that they put on the screen is a carrier called GigSky, who does offer this for the iPad, right? GigSky, you can just sign up for 30 days and get some data on your iPad. So if that is a thing that you can do with the iPhones, that's going to be really good for people traveling, that you could land in the US or land.K. and then get data for the next week. That's excellent.

Yeah, I'm excited about the prospect of because I've been buying, you know, like a three sim for traveling in Europe. I would love to be able to just in advance of a trip overseas to just go to a website and say, yes, I want to sign up for this thing and get the data and scan it in or whatever and have it pop into the virtual SIM, essentially on my iPhone and know that at that point, when I travel to that country, boom, it's taken care of.

That would be pretty awesome. Yeah, like this is just, there are places in the world that people really need this. And then we all benefit in theory from being able to use it when we need it, right? Like, but there are a lot of places around the world where people have two SIMs. And I know a lot of my friends who have work phones and personal phones, and now they wouldn't

need that in theory. Right. Because there could maybe be a way to do it. For data purposes, they might, but not for like calling purposes. Yeah. I'm not entirely sure how all of it works. calling purposes. I'm not entirely sure how all of it works. Like when I get to the UK, do I turn off the data on my OneSIM, but leave the phone part on so that I can still get texts or calls or something? There's some details to be worked out there, but

it's pretty interesting. Yeah. There is a question in the chat room. I don't know this. I'll ask you if not, I'll find it out. The iPhone XR, does it have dual sim as well i think it does i think it does i think there is actually very little that the 10r doesn't have yes there are some very specific things right it's got a different screen it's only got one camera on the back um it's lcd and not oled but there are lots of things that are just the same, including the processor and the wireless charging. And I believe the dual, the eSIM thing, I believe. It does. It has a dual SIM, nano SIM and eSIM. Yeah, the dual SIM, the physical dual SIM is only on the XS Max in China. Like there's one model where they're going to do physically two SIMs in the phone. I didn't know that. But everywhere else, you just get the eSIM.

And the XR has more in common with the XS phones than it doesn't. So we'll come back to what you were saying a moment ago about like what the XR has compared to the other in a second. But I do want to say like the other thing, and I think like I'm being coy with like saying, oh, I have a name for it. The other name is size. But I think when we look back on this year in a few years time, we will classify this as the time when Apple brought out three phones of different sizes that were all new. Right. Like that is this year. Now, I understand.

Now, I understand. I mean, I know I noticed a few quite a few people with the Ask Upgrade questions that we'll do at the end of the show. We're writing and saying, oh, this was a boring year, a snooze year. I don't think I feel that way because I have gotten something I really wanted, which was a large phone. I'm going to get the Max again. Yeah. And the Max is I mean, I don't think I said this earlier earlier but the big difference between this and like the plus distinction is they're identical like the iphone 10s and the 10s max the only differentiator is the screen size otherwise they have every other feature is exactly the same between them which is literally just a larger version of the same well the only thing that's different is battery life. There is a little bit more battery life on the Max.

Right, which is a function of the fact that there's more. And I would imagine that also its graphics benchmark will be a little bit less because it's pushing more pixels than the X, but it's the same hardware inside. And then the battery is bigger because it's physically a bigger phone. Like there aren't features, right?

There are no specific features, but it's just, oh, this has, they said, right? Doesn't have a different camera. It doesn't have a different processor. It's the same. So the other thing, the other size, right? Is the, the R, the 10R. Now you mentioned, right? And I'm very surprised.

I think everyone is super surprised about how close this device is to the XS. I think we were expecting this would be closer to the 8, right, in what it has. But it has the same faster Face ID. Apparently, Face ID is faster probably because of the chip. They didn't really say that there was any new technology, but it's like the neural engine and the enclave is faster. Yeah, the algorithms are faster who knows what that's going to actually work out to be we'll see i think some of that is probably ios 12 and

then some of it is this it's literally the speed of the of the stuff in the processor so the bionic chip uh has wide color has true tone it has one camera but it's the same sensor as the wide angle lens. Right. But it can do portrait mode. Yeah, how about that? And depth of field adjusting, which is a new thing that you can adjust the depth of field. So they're using machine learning and... Oh, Joe Steele is going to have a field day with this one when it ships.

Because they're using... It's like Google, I think, actually. They are using machine learning and their focus pixels to determine depth with one camera. So instead of the front-facing has one camera, but it's got sensors, all of Apple's portrait modes on the rear-facing camera have up to now been based on the idea that it's got two different cameras to look through, and it can do some depth detection based on the parallax. And that's not happening here. This is all portrait mode in software on the XR. I think it's safe to say if you don't like portrait mode on the current set of iPhones, you're really not going to like this.

Right? Yeah. Well, I mean, it's even more artificial than that. It's even more artificial than that. That said, I'm not convinced that we aren't headed for a world where you will be able to do immaculate portrait photography with a single camera based entirely on software. I believe so because Google's pixel portrait stuff does tend to perform much better than Apple's and they only have one camera. And the Pixel 3 is due out in like a month month and i guarantee you that thing will have one camera because google have nailed that they know how to do i'm just saying you know somebody who's got a trained eye like joe steel will be able to circle things in orange and red and say like no this

doesn't work but um but it's getting better all the time and the more machine learning stuff that you throw at it which they can with the a12 then the better it's going to be i've been very impressed with the the way that portrait photos have been improved in ios 12 i i think that they look a lot better yeah and then you throw in that demo that they had they had a sample photograph of a woman with her hair blowing in front of the background and the hair was, um, so, you know,

the theoretically the hair is in the foreground and the, um, the, the, then there's the background and I know they picked the one that looked great, but it was in focus clear. And then the background was fuzzed out and it did that. And like,

you know, they couldn't have even, they would have had to shoot millions of those last year in order to get that photo in there. They were showing off, but it is a good sign that they're much more confident about this stuff. And it's the case where, yeah, the software getting better alone can make a huge difference. And they mentioned computational photography on stage, a new era of photography.

And there's something to that. They basically laid it down there, which other, they're not the first company to do this, but to lay it out there that, you know, they can improve the hardware and the sensors, and they are doing that. And that's great. But the other thing you do is you have a lot of really great hardware and software, like the the image single signal processor, and the fact that it's tied into the, uh, the AI stuff, the machine learning, uh,

stuff in the neural engine. And they've got their smart software sitting on top. And like, that's how you get like their description. I really enjoy their description of how the new smart HDR mode works, where it was very cleverly described as being, well, when you take a picture,

there's zero, there's zero frame lag. There's zero lag from the shutter. But when you think you're taking one picture, we actually take four. Pause. And actually, we're also taking secondary inner frames shot at a different exposure for highlight detail. Pause. And we're also shooting a longer exposure to get shadow detail. Pause.

And we're also shooting a longer exposure to get shadow detail. Pause. And then all of that is analyzed and merged together simultaneously in a process that can take when you take a smartphone photo, you know, you're not just getting a JPEG dumped from the sensor. You're getting this intensely processed collection of multiple exposures of the image with the right ones being picked up and the bad ones being thrown out and them all merged together. And, and you end up with something that that ideally i can't wait to try it out looks um looks much better than a normal photo would because it's able to better simulate basically what our eyes see which cameras traditionally are really bad at so the iphone 10r comes in how many colors, Jason? Well, I didn't count.

I counted. It sure seems like a good number. It's six colors, Jason. It's six colors. That's how many colors it comes in. How about that? We have blue, yellow, coral, which is like a red-de-orange, product red, black, and black and white yep you've seen

the colors in the amazon area i have what do you think of the the colors uh they're very bright the yellow i spent some time with the yellow like the yellow back of that it's such a bright yellow and the blue looks really nice the coral is gorgeous. Here's my caveat about it, which is the back is glass and the ring is aluminum, anodized aluminum, the metal ring around it. So when you're looking in the front, what you're really seeing is sort of the corners of the metal ring. And then you look at the back and then you see the big expanse of glass. The metal ring looks nice. The glass looks beautiful. It is very similar to what the iPhone 10, which anybody who's forgotten how great the back of an iPhone 10 is, because you

have a case on it or something, look at it. It's just, it's a beautiful glass colored gorgeous back um problem is those the the aluminum and the glass don't really i think what they said was something like they're paired or they're they combine or their color the you know their their color matched or something like that but they're not the same um especially in the yellow like the the frame the band around the yellow one that I saw looked almost gold, and the back is like banana yellow. It's the super vibrant yellow. And so I think that's a question, is that I'm not sure people who care about this sort of thing

are going to love it only because they're not, you know, it's a little bit of a mismatch because the color you're going to get on an anodized aluminum surface and the color you get on that super shiny glass back are not the same in large part. They're not quite the same. And the yellow one really struck me. Now, some of that is probably expecting to see a gold, but it felt very gold to me compared to the yellow on the back. So that's my caveat about it. I think they're beautiful. I think they look really nice.

Those bright colors are great to see. I'm so happy that there are colored iPhones from the get-go in bright colors and not just metallic, various metallics like on the XS. on the 10S. But just a warning, you know, that the color of your anodized aluminum ring around your phone may not be quite the same kind of color and vibe

as what you're going to get from the glass back. Okay, well, that makes sense. So one of the things that has been lost, though, is 3D touch. There is no 3D touch on these devices.

There is something called Haptic Touch. Do you know anything about this? Yes. Well, again, maybe we'll learn more over time, but everything that I did, I tried it out. And not to be too cynical about this, but I think it's amazing that Apple branded this haptic touch. What Apple did is they, I would be, I would be interested to see if they bring this to other phones. They probably won't bother, but, um, or quite frankly to the iPad, because what it really is, is tap and hold. And then there's a pause and then you get a little little from the from the taptic engine. And then something happens. It's literally just a tap and hold with a bit of feedback to tell you that your tap and hold has been interpreted as a tap and hold, which is the equivalent of a 3d

touch. So you could argue that Apple has essentially defined a 3d touch and a tap and hold as the same thing. But they've done it in a way that allows them to brand it as haptic touch instead of as like tap and hold. And that makes it maybe seem more special, but as far as I can tell, it is literally just tap and hold because there's no other sensor there. All it can do is measure touch. There's no pressure sensor there. So yeah, I think haptic touch is just, they're putting some dressing around the tap and hold. Probably, some of it's marketing and some of it is maybe that there's a good user experience in giving people feedback that they're resting their finger somewhere and the phone has now interpreted that as a command

in a way that maybe they didn't intend. So it's sort of as a warning, or at least gives you the feedback like, yep, I got it now. You don't need to stay here. I noticed that you wanted to turn on the flashlight from the lock screen is a good example, or the camera from the lock screen, because those are things that you 3D touch to do on the iPhone 10. On the XR, you just lay your finger there and wait, and then it goes, and then it does it as if you 3d touched i'm intrigued to see if that is something that could come to the ipad right because the ipad has that like you kind of just press for a little while right and you can use

you can do like notification actions and stuff like that. Like it has that. And I guess this is something that's kind of like that, but there's also a little buzz to it as well. I wonder if that's a thing that they would consider bringing to the iPad in the future. I guess we'll see. The price was the last thing I wanted to ask you about

with the 7R. So, 7R, the 10R, my word. It starts at $749. Yes, that's way less than I thought it would. I was saying that I thought that we would be lucky if it was $799. I really did expect this to be, I don't know, $899, $849, $799 at best.

They were not kidding. Those reports that said that Apple was really trying to make this a lower-priced product, they really were. Now, $749 is not exactly super cheap. We're not going to get a million think pieces about how this is Apple's entryway into markets that they can't serve because their products are too expensive. It's still a $749 phone. But compared to what they were selling the iPhone 8 Plus for, like this is basically an iPhone 10 with some features taken out, but a bigger screen. And it's $749 instead of $999. So I think that's pretty good. We'll see how it plays, right? This is the thing

that ever since these first reports came out, we've all been turning around in our minds, which is what if Apple made their mainstream or mass appeal phone and it was like an iPhone X but cheaper, but not small, but a bigger phone, something that's a little bit more like a Plus. Well, here it is, right? I mean, I held it in my hand. The problem with the context, in context, I held the XS Max in my hand and I was like, oh, this is fine. And then I held the XS and I was like, oh, it's so tiny, but I know that that's not right. I know that- You felt fine? Not that it's for you, but because you were always very against the Plus phone, but you held it and felt it was fine.

In the context where you're just holding a phone, I felt like I was holding an iPhone 10, but then I held the iPhone 10 and it felt small because it is a much bigger phone. And then the iPhone XR is bigger than the iPhone 10, but smaller than the Xs max right so you know it's we'll see how people feel about large phones i know that there we hear from a lot of people who don't like large phones i think the market shows that most people do most people do like large phones and that uh

this will be an interesting question of like, will Apple sell a lot of these for $749? Because there is no new iPhone that is smaller than the iPhone XS now. New iPhone, right? And it's $999. So if you want a cheaper iPhone, you can get one for $749, but it's a bigger iPhone. So if you don't want the big iPhone, there'll be an interesting kind of case there of having to weigh, do I want the larger phone or do I want the more expensive phone? That will be interesting to see. And quite frankly, the difference between the 749 phone and the 1099 phone, the iPhone XS Max, like that'll be an interesting dynamic too, because that's a lot more money, $350 more for a phone that's got the same processor, you know, a lot of the same features. No, it doesn't have the OLED screen. No, it's not as high resolution to display for sure.

No, it doesn't have the OLED screen. No, it's not as high resolution to display for sure. But there are probably a lot of people for whom that's just fine. Having been someone who is a large proponent of large phones, I think the two key reasons that people buy large phones is they want a bigger screen and a bigger battery. And the Max does both of those. Yeah, but so does the XR. The XR has a bigger battery and the max does both of those yeah but so does the 10r the 10r has a bigger battery too right but it's also the it's got everything else right it's the oled screen and you know it's true it's got other features right so it's if you want the top of the line and it's the biggest screen you can get right like you know so there are you know there are many

reasons that someone like me would still go for the Max. But we do have some Ask Upgrade questions at the end of the show today where we got some people that are wondering, like, which phone should I go to? And I think that that is an interesting thing these days. But I will say, we spoke about the iPhones. And unless you have anything to say, I really want to talk to you about the Apple Watch. I think the Apple Watch is the most interesting thing that got announced today,

which is why I guess we saved it for last. Yes, save nothing more. This episode is brought to you by Molecule. I'm sure that you have all spent a lot of time thinking about trying to make your home the most comfortable thing that it can be, the most welcoming, maybe even the most smart home that you can make it.

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And when you make your first order, use the code UPGRADE for $75 off. That's UPGRADE for $75 off at Molecule.com. Our thanks to Molecule for their support of this show and RelayFM. So would you say then that the Apple Watch Series 4, which features pretty significant updates in design, functionality, and software, is maybe the more interesting thing that happened today? I actually was asked by an Apple employee, like, so which did you, were you more excited about, the Apple Watch or the iPhone? I said, Apple Watch. I was more excited by the Apple Watch, for sure. So the product imagery that I've seen,

and you've actually seen them, so you can attest to this, it looks like a really different design. Like the overall kind of, you know, if you were to turn the screen off and look at it, it might look similar. But with the screen on, it looks very different. Yeah, it is um well it doesn't even look that similar with the screen off it is okay it is taller right like it's taller it's thinner which is why i got a point in the draft for that it's not wider

which is means all the watch bands work which i also got a point for in the draft. Anyway, but it is taller, which is interesting. And that's the dimension that they measure. Well, they are actually, so they are taller and they are wider, but they've just made it all work. Yeah, yeah, it is slightly wider, but the volume is less because they made it thinner. And that is the dimension that's really going to gain you.

And also it's actually kind of a little more curved down at the edges. So that is, you can see it's not quite the same. If you've been looking at an Apple Watch on your wrist for the last few years, you can see that it's not quite the same. And then the screen is fascinating too. So it is 1.5 to 2 millimeters bigger in dimensions, either or tall depending right right like so it's kind of all over that isn't the whole story the corners are also kind of more rounded down they're actually some saving some room there and then the screen itself is not rectangular anymore it's got

rounded corners yep as well it looks closer to square than than it used to as well like it's it's a very interesting look um the the actual model sizes have changed right so it's gone from yes 38 and 42 to 40 and 44 in millimeters and that's the dimension that is across your wrist is the dimension that's measured there so So when I say it's taller, I'm sort of saying if you're holding it in front of your face looking at it, then that dimension, which is the width of your wrist, is expanded by two millimeters. So I will say as well, because this is where it gets a little, it's a tad confusing because yes, that is what they're measuring. But with these ones, the same as the last ones, the actual height of the product

is also that too. So the 40 millimeter is 40 millimeters tall and the 44 is 44 tall. And that was the same with the previous. The 38 was 38.6 millimeters tall and the 42 was 42 and a half. So it's just for whatever reason, whatever way this stuff works out,

they're the kind of the dimensions. So it's just for whatever reason, whatever way this stuff works out, they're the kind of the dimensions. So it's shaped a little bit differently. Yep. Not just different. The volume is reduced, but it's a little bit different, even though the bands all work together. The screen is as edge to edge as they could get,

like to the point where you can actually sort of see it gets right to the border in those corners and they're curved. And that's right as the glass is also curving so it's you know it is um it is you get that feeling like every little tiny bit of the space of that watch face is available space okay yeah the screen is 30 larger in volume which is a wildly large figure isn't it when you think about it? That just seems like, how could you make it 30% bigger

without making the thing that much bigger? It's really wild. But it's using the volume better, right? It's using the available space way, way better. Did you play around with WatchOS 5 on this thing? Because they made kind of an offhand remark, or they mentioned it a couple of times without going into too much detail about the fact that

they've effectively redesigned everything to fit this better. Yeah, it's hard to tell. I wanted to see how the new complications and stuff work, and I was stopped immediately by the guy in the demo area. He was like, no, no. And I get

the practicality of it is he didn't want me to mess up the complications that he then has to demo for the rest of the hour to everybody else who's there. Like, I get it. But I didn't get to spend a lot of time. I did, I mean, clearly there are new layouts for everything. You know, wherever you go, you are seeing stuff

try to fill that space. And this is the, well, you know, it's the first time since the beginning that we haven't had just the two sizes right. Because there was always a larger layout and a smaller layout. But now these are two new layouts that are a little bit larger still. Did you try the new digital crown? Because it features Taptic Feedback now, right? I tried it but um whatever mode i was in i wasn't actually getting the the feedback so i don't have i don't have

the haptic feedback to report but the idea there is that yeah as you're flip flicking it it should actually be they said they redesigned the whole crown even though it looks the same they redesigned it and it's funny that there were all those rumors about it being like a non-moving crown because that's absolutely not true it is you can still move and feel it, but it is giving you haptics to basically give you more feedback as you spin the wheel, like how many sort of ticks you're spinning that wheel as you spin it. But it felt perfectly normal to me in the context where I was spinning that that crown around but i wasn't feeling any of the the haptics so this this new digital crown brings with it coupled with a new sensor on the back because they've also redesigned the back to include some new sensors which will allow you to perform an echocardiogram on yourself which is bonkers like that is that's huge right like i i you know we were talking on on kind of our draft picks episode about like oh we don't think we're gonna they're

gonna add new sensors to this thing right we didn't think there would be new sensors specifically um because we just like oh what else would you measure but like they've already been measuring hard stuff but i don't know if we would have expected that oh they're gonna they're gonna add the ability for you to perform an ecg on yourself yeah it's it's really this is really big yeah it is it's um it's a the first big new health sensor feature and we we keep hearing rumors that Apple's testing new health sensors. One of the challenges is it's a medical sensor, so you need approval. And Apple not only said that they're getting FDA approval for this, but that the president of the American Heart Association came out on stage to say, this is know, basically. So that's pretty fascinating. And the idea,

I'm sure in the days to come, we're going to get think pieces from cardiologists about how people shouldn't get too excited about this, or, you know, it's not going to be a very good electrocardiogram or, you know, all of those sorts of things. But on its face, it seems to be the idea here is, just yesterday, there was a story by Jason Perlow, who is a tech writer who said that he's going to be an Apple Watch user for life now because he had a fast heartbeat detected that they followed up and found out that he had atrial fibrillation, and he ended up having a heart procedure to stop it. The idea here is that the electrocardiogram will be able to much more accurately say, we think you may be an AFib,

and you can send that data to your cardiologist. Also, if your cardiologist wants you to take an electrocardiogram every so often, you could do it right from your Apple Watch and then just pass that on to them. That's kind of interesting instead of going in for an appointment somewhere to have it measured. So it will be interesting to see how that goes. They also adjusted the heart sensor so that it also can do low heartbeats, which is interesting because that's another sign. So, yeah, it's a little interesting bit of engineering. Their challenge is how do we get a sensor in that actually does something and works

and yet fits in this very, very tiny space? And it turns out the answer was an electrocardiogram is something that they could do and wire it to the crown. So you can sit there and touch the crown with your finger and it's touching your skin with the electrodes on the bottom. And using that circuit, it can do an ECG on you. It is a shame, you know, as these things go, it's US only for a while, because they've got FDA approval, they have that, so they can launch it and it's out there.

But they need, and I understand, they need to go and get medical approval from all of the major bodies and all of the places they want to put this thing into, but they're going to work on it. Something else that I thought was absolutely amazing is the uh support for detecting a fall if someone has a fall they have better accelerometers for gyroscope stuff because i was thinking like for my grandma right like yeah i would if if this if that became a thing in her life which at some some point it could, I would 100% spend the money to put an Apple Watch on her.

Just so I had the peace of mind. I was thinking about how, you know, because the idea here is if you take a fall, it will immediately put up the thing that you can slide to do an emergency call. If you take a fall and don't move for a minute, so basically you're unconscious. It calls, right? Plus it sends your information to your emergency contact, like where you are and all of that. I thought that was really interesting, right? As a proactive way of like, if the user of this device is in trouble, can the device sense it and call for help? And that's what they're trying to do with this feature in the Series four. Yeah. It's very, very clever. I was thinking about like, if I'm out for a run and I, and I fall

and hurt myself and I can't move, you know, or I can't get up or something like that, then you know, that, that is, or if I'm unconscious to be able to call for help immediately. It's right after a minute. It's it yeah that's really smart yeah like i i am these two things have really surprised me the most of like how much of a jump they have taken again in the health censoring when it kind of felt like they may have hit their limit for now but they're like nope here's a bunch more like i was really really impressed by those two uh those two health kind of focus things um but we should maybe talk about some of the the less kind of um monumentally important but maybe more daily important stuff which is the watch faces so we have seen the artwork of the the heavily customizable

like eight or nine complication watch face with the with the analog clock in the middle um that was detailed a little bit more. They showed that it's basically richer complication data. There's a lot more stuff going on. But they also had a new version of the modular face as well, right? Yeah. So it looks like there's two faces, the modular face and this face with hands. So basically, you've your lots of complications and hands

and lots of complications and digital but beyond that um they're much more customizable than they were before i i um there are those four circles all of which can be complications or they can be photos of people you know that you tap and it lets you contact them. So there's a much bigger, richer, circular complication style that is available to developers. There are those corner complications, which again, I don't get a lot of detail of, but again, it looks like there were yet more places that you could put complications in the corners in addition to those circles. So you've got like eight or more complications on that one. And then there are also in the modular version, again, there are a lot of different places you can put them.

And then the other thing that they showed, in addition to the circular complications, is it's a complication, but it's almost like a mini app. It's like a little bit of data. And I laughed at the first one that they said, which was stocks. Stocks! Oh boy. Somebody loves stocks. You can see a stock chart on your watch at all times. Oh, boy. Great.

Great. But then the next one was baseball. Hey! I ran into a guy from Major League Baseball before the session. I was like, oh, they really like to use you guys on stage, don't they? And there it was. There was a baseball line score showing. So a big horizontal space where

an app can put a bunch of data if it wants to these are called uh the infograph modular face and the infograph watch face they're the names of these faces but there there's a lot of data there and again uh and then there are a bunch of faces that are just pretty colors and and they're they're very they have like some effects right like a fire and a water and like so dina was watching it with me today and she saw those and she's like oh i like those and there's the breathe face too and i was like but there's no information on them she's like yeah but they're better than the silly toy story ones and i was like good point yeah right i was like yes it takes that is a good point and that's the point here is it takes all kinds right like the breathe face is hands and the thing that's going to remind you to calm down and breathe.

Or you can get one of these just completely information overload faces. And that's great because different people want different things out of their Apple Watch. At Storybroke with the image and a bunch of the designers that you and I know started rolling their eyes about just how many complications were on that watch face. My comment was, you don't have to use it. But I'm excited about it. Right? I mean, everybody's got an opinion. If I am electing to wear a computer on my wrist, I want it to have access to the most amount of information that it can possibly have right show it to me because otherwise what's the point and if that's not your bag then that's great but like i want more i want i always want more information on my

apple watch face than is there always have always done so yes please more and then if you want just a like a pretty kind of like wind face with hands and like blowy wind of colors or something. Great. Great. They have that too. You can have that one. I want the one with all the complications on it. So, uh, one thing is worth noting for the sizes, and this is obvious when you think about it, but I've had a bunch of people ask me, so I'll clear it up. So the sizes have gone from 38 to 40 and 42 to 44. The watch straps, the bands, are compatible, but only in the same class. So if you want to go from 42 to 40, none of your bands will fit.

The 40 and 38 share bands, the 42 and the 44 share bands. Good one. That's a good idea. Just something to bear. You just got to bear that in mind. Because I know that there will be a lot of people that will want to go from 42 to 40 and they'll you would probably get a lot out of that but just understand that you'll be starting again with the bands and it is interesting that like i can't seem to find on apple's website like watch bands in sizes that aren't 40 and 44 anymore unless you buy a series three i think they've

basically decided that that's what they're going to call their watch bands now but they're compatible with the old one so it's fine oh yeah of course silly me i've just walked myself into my own logic puzzle yeah rather than saying this is a 38 and 40 they just that's confusing that if you do have a series three right it's like what is it gonna fit i can't believe i just explained that and then got myself tied up if anything that was a good thing to go through because now nobody can get confused because we've just hopefully not information um the there is a new uh stainless steel a gold stainless steel which i think looks awesome i'm very keen to see how that looks in person because i i bet that would look really good especially they do a gold milanese loop as well now so i think that's going to be a pretty good look um are you i mean i'm i'm naturally assuming that if you were going to

get a phone you would get the the 10s but you you mentioned like you know you may not want to buy a 10s you might just wait for the next one um are you keen on buying one of these for yourself well i i'm going to buy a a series four watch for my wife because she's got a series zero yeah so that's gonna happen yeah will i buy one for myself we'll see um i i need to write about it right so it's possible um it's possible that i will just get a um if i get a loaner from apple i can use that for a while and I know how that is and then that'll be fine. So we'll see how it goes. But I'm definitely the most interested in this.

If I were to buy, if you said, Jason, you can buy one of the things that got announced today, I would absolutely buy the Series 4 Apple Watch with cellular. That's the one i would buy i think if you can say one of the coolest products this and the 10r is is cool like i'm surprised how much i like that that product like yeah i have been dooming it in my mind to the fate of the 5c but i don't think it's gonna have that i think part of the problem with the 5c it was the colors weren't the problem the outdated technology was the problem exactly the perception that it was an old phone. Yes. And this is not an old phone. It looks like a new phone, and it's got the guts of a new phone. And I think this thing is going to sell. It's going to sell well because of that.

And the colors are amazing. And the Apple Watch looks really cool. Now, look, I do not believe I'm going to buy one of these for myself. I'm going to be buying one of these to give to my wife, right? Like, Adina is using a Series Zero. Yeah, so our wives, what's wrong with us? Our wives are using old Apple Watches. She's perfectly happy with it. I was like, no, this is a thing.

I want to see what it looks like. I want to get a feel for it so I can buy it. And then it's yours, right? Like, I'll play with it for like two days so i can get an idea of it and then it's all yours and so like that's something that i'm gonna do and then she can get a nice update to her apple watch because she does use it and wears it and loves it right every day she uses it and so this will be a this will be an incredible upgrade for her to but to go from series zero to series four. Um,

yeah, that's going to be amazing. And it's also, you know, we saw this in the images, but it's really great that they, uh, dial back the red on the digital crown for the,

for the, yeah. Yeah. So the crown has a ring and it's black if it's the GPS model and it's red, if it's the cellular model. And that is that ring, I think is the contact for the, the ECG as well. But it's red if it's the cellular model and that is that ring i think is the contact for the the ecg as well but it's but i think that's the color coding is and yeah that's as somebody who

put a space gray dot over my red uh cellular dot on my crown i endorse this plan to not have it be a big red dot on the side of your watch. Yay. Good job. The Series 3 is sticking around at $279, which is a fantastic price, I think, for that. I'm surprised that they are keeping it for that price. But yes, you got $399 for the GPS, $499 for the cellular, and they keep in $279 for the Series 3 Apple Watch which is still going to be around.

Yeah, so Series 3 is the survivor this time. That'll be your... And Series 3 Apple Watch is pretty good. And that's a cut down price for it. So that's not a bad deal either. I have given some thought to the fact of like does Lauren want the series four or

does she want the series three for cheaper but i think not only do i want to get the new watch model but i think having the bigger screen is going to make a big difference so i think you're going to go with that one all right jason the upgradians they've got their questions oh boy and only we can attempt to answer them. That's right. Not a guarantee we will, but we will attempt it. But this episode is brought to you by Simple Contacts.

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how it's supposed to uh renew your existing prescription that's actually what it tests so there's a video it's very clever it uses your your device's camera. You set it up. You walk away from it. It wants you to be, I think, 10 feet away. And it actually will use the camera to figure out how far away you are. And it gives you feedback. There's like a little video eye doctor who appears and says, nope, now you got wearing your contacts. And the idea is there, can you see the eye chart from that distance? Because that verifies that your current prescription is still valid, is still accurate. And they literally put up the little eye chart and say, read the second line. And you say it out loud and it verifies what you said. It's the whole, you're just taking an eye test

and that's how they do it. It's very clever. As a listener of this show, you can get $20 off your first order of contacts. just go to simplecontacts.com slash ahoy20 or you can enter ahoy20 a-h-o-y-2-0 at checkout simplecontacts.com slash ahoy20 or just use the code ahoy20 for $20 off your first order our thanks to simple contacts for their support of this show and relay fm so we do have some hashtag ask upgrade questions first one comes from mark maxis what is the width those lasers lasers excess yeah we use the lasers the extra small lasers now here yeah or the extra small maximum ones extra are their extra

righteous lasers extra radical lasers what is the width of the 6.1-inch screen on the iPhone XR? Is it more comparable to the Plus? I recommend you go to the tech specs page on Apple.com. This is where I got my information. Don't worry, Jason. I've got it for you. It's hard to tell from the pictures. I don't like the skinny XS size.

So the comparison tool on the website says that the XR is 2.98 inches wide. The Plus is 3.07 inches wide. So it's slightly smaller than the Plus. But for comparison, the iPhone X is 2.79 inches wide. So it sits in between them, but closer to the Plus in its actual physical size. And it's in between the iPhone, they said the iPhone 8 and the iPhone 8 Plus. It actually slots right in between those two. It's sort of halfway between. But then also though,

the screen is bigger than both of them. So that could be good for you, right? I'm including in the show notes, the wonderful Kate Matthews did a lovely little drawing which shows you how these things will stack up together. So you can see with a lovely little outline which shows you how these things will stack up together so you can see with a lovely little outline exactly where all those uh where all those devices fit so you can see

what's right for you but i would say that like if you don't like the physical size of the 10 but want the features of the 10 that maybe this is right for you and this is goes into scott's question am i crazy in thinking that i want to trade in my iphone 10 for a 10r i don't think so i think um i don't think it's crazy either yeah i mean it's like we said it's a good price and it is i'll tell you i'm sure the screen on the 10s and the 10s max are nicer i'm sure they are i'm sure that the blacks are blacker and all of those things and they said that the dynamic range is even better on the 10s than it was on the 10 that said the 10r feels really good like it feels like an iphone 10 like a like it i know

the screen isn't as as uh as nice but it's pretty nice i mean this is not apple's not it's not a cheap screen this is a this is a screen that's better than the screen that's on the 8 and 8 Plus. And so I think it's got appeal if you're somebody who wants a larger screen but doesn't want to spend $1099 for it. You can get a great price, well, a great price today, right?

A regular price two years ago of what a new iPhonehone will cost you right 750 dollars yeah we're back to the standard yeah plus but price in 2018 for a flagship phone a good price you're getting all of the technology inside basically all you're losing is the telephoto lens and the oled screen. So, you know. Do you care about those things? That is your question. And if you also would love a wonderful blue, yellow, or orange phone, right?

Then like, yeah, maybe you should get a XR. Like, I feel like it kind of like with the Apple Watch, there should be a lot of people that maybe don't pre-order on Friday. Like, go to a store and look at these things because you might change your mind about what you want like i think if you are someone who is on you don't want the max i think that that there is a there is there are some questions you want to ask yourself about what phone you want i think which i don't think it's been this way before um Keith wants to know,

are you able to confirm the improvements of face ID unlocking? Is speed and reliability improved? Now, you can't train your face in the demo room. It's not allowed. And they don't show you anything? Well, I mean, even if they weren't trained for anybody's face,

they didn't have a passcode on them. So I could do nothing. There's no way I could test that. There was also nothing to say about orientation now i don't know what that means for the ipad like will it be ipad only will there be two cameras we don't know right now right like it's all seems up in the air because we're expecting all that stuff to come together i believe that apple drew and that they're saying it's faster i'm keen to see what that actually ends up looking like um avi has written in i feel sorry for avi avi says i've held off on getting airpods

anticipating an update is it worth continuing to wait indefinitely now famous last words i think you should just get them because if air power was close, they would have said, yeah, air power may not exist anymore. As far as we know. Um, who knows?

I would say the big rumor is that they would have, um, always on, um, ahoy lady. Um, and if that's a feature you desperately want you might want to wait for it but otherwise i think the current airpods are great and you should just go get them and not worry about it and if they were imminent they would have surely been shown off today like

even in just a oh by the way there's new airpods or they would have shown up in the store yeah if there are new airpods will they be ready for for the holidays maybe but it may maybe they don't ship until october or november or maybe they're next spring who knows and the likely updates really are like you get always on siri and may may be better battery life possibly a color like and honestly airpods are so awesome if you get them today and they add those features you'll be fine because airpods are great as they are right now um mike wants to know along with many other people will the older watches get the new faces i don't think so i don't think so i think those are faces designed for those for those sizes of

screen yeah that's why that's the whole premise they're designed for the edge to edge screen that's what they're for i don't think you're going to see those in any other and even if they fit i don't think they'll do it because it is a selling point is a unique selling point of the new models exactly steven asks what do you think the delay in bringing the new heart features to apple watch outside of the u.s will mean for sales i don't think it will mean anything because you'll get the features if you buy the watches whenever it's available. But I don't really think that many people would make their purchasing decision

based just upon this. I feel like you'd have other reasons. Yeah. I don't think it's going to be a difference maker. And it will be a nice thing whenever the watches end up supporting them. But I feel like if you really needed that, a difference maker and it will be a nice thing whenever the watches end up supporting them. Like, but you know,

I feel like if you really needed that, you would probably have a different product in your life already. But it will be a nice feature whenever it does happen. Sure. Will have said any word on how keyboard cursor works on the iPhone 10 are without a 3d touch, or are we back to covering up texts with press and hold? Do you know if the keyboard selection thing works? I didn't try that.

It would be interesting to see if you tap and hold and get the little haptic. Does that mean you can move the cursor around on screen? I didn't try that, so I don't know. My guess is it won't, but I would love to be pleasantly surprised. So iOS 12 added the ability to navigate by swiping on the spacebar i wouldn't be surprised if that was part of it maybe that's why yeah good one good one

so you can swipe on the spacebar uh i believe well you yeah there is a way to do it i don't i don't use the apple keyboard so i'm i can't really help you there, there is a way to do it. I don't use the Apple keyboard, so I can't really help you there. But that is a thing. You can swipe on the spacebar to move the text insertion cursor around. So maybe that's what they're going to have. Or if they don't, that's an easy thing to do. Gboard has that already, right? It's like a thing that they could do.

And Lachlan asks, do the new phones come with the same five watt chargers the answer is yes they do oh good because they don't have little chargers laying around at the event so i have no answer there yeah they do they come with the same five watt power adapters which is a real shame because the batteries are bigger um they don't come with any more powerful uh charges which is that's frustrating i think that apple should maybe bundle something a bit more a bit better in there especially because the 18 watt charges are expensive uh and they you know the usbc lightning cable thing like all of that stuff they should they should move to um i did see as well

jason i mean i personally don't really care about this now but uh these phones will not have um headphone to the lightning lightning to headphone adapters in them yeah apparently not so you know that they can add that to the list of uh sins on the running scoreboard on the verge yep and now uh as i i saw Verge article headline today, it did make me laugh. They said, oh, there are no longer any more phones, because now they killed the SE and the 6S. Yeah. There are no more headphone jacks on Apple's phones. Did you know that the Verge has a story that they keep updated that is, here's a list of the best phones that have headphone jacks?

Mm-hmm. That is a great example of an editorial organization reflecting the priorities of its leader yeah because neilay really cares about headphone jacks like i understand like if you care about it like i get it but at this point just like i feel just wait just wait though because if they do away from the headphone jack on the ipad pro then you're gonna hear me complain about it all right then you can keep a running article yeah i would yes that will be frustrating the ipads that have headphone jacks none especially if the rumor of usbc comes true that would make it even weirder because then i need an adapter to edit a podcast on an airplane which i'm not going to do with Bluetooth headphones.

I need adapters, and then they don't... Yeah, let's not... Well, there are other episodes of Upgrade for us to turn over other iPad rumors, but good news, we'll be doing that for who knows how long now, because they weren't announced. They were not. So that is it. That is the September event. Thank you so much to everybody that sent in questions with the hashtag ask upgrade if you'd like to hear us answer a question at the end of the show just send a tweet with the hashtag ask upgrade and we get them in a sheet and we can go through them or if you want to open the show with the hashtag snell talk it could be a

question about literally anything now jason i'm going to assume that you're going to have lots of things going up online lots of words to still be written about what happened today. Where can people go to get that? I need to start writing things. All the links and some of the words will be at sixcolors.com. Great. So you can go there. You can also follow Jason online. He is at Jsnell, J-S-N-E-L-L on Twitter. I am at iMike, I-M-Y-K-E. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Upgrade. I hope that it has provided you with entertainment and information

about what has occurred today. And, you know, it's always great to have Jason, who's been there amongst it all. You always can help provide a very useful perspective, having actually held and touched and seen the products, which you don't get many other places.

That's why I'm here. That's one of the reasons you listen to Upgrade, right? Upgradian, because you get that insight. Thank you so much to Simple Contacts, Molecule, and RX Bar for their support of this show. You can find this show and many more at relay.fm slash shows, and you can go there and pick something new. There's lots of great stuff, especially around this time of year.

Maybe you want to listen to something like Connected or Rocket or Under the Radar. You know, there's loads of great stuff. Download. You're going to talk about this and download? Yes, absolutely. Of course. So relay.fm slash download for that as well. Thank you so much for listening.

We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snow. Goodbye, everybody.