Upgrade - 261: The 2019 iPhone Event Draft

Episode Date: September 2, 2019

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 Tuesday. Has Jason’s recent run of success gone to his head? Will Myke play it too safe? Will a Spın̈al Tap pick be made? All will be revealed!

from relay fm this is upgrade and this is the 2019 iphone event draft today's episode is brought to you by squarespace bombas and ero my name is Hurley, and I am joined by my partner and enemy, Jason Snell. Hi, Jason Snell. Hi, Mike Hurley. The summer of fun has come to an end. Now it's the late summer of drafting? Yeah, that's all business now. All business autumn.

All right. That's what we're in. Okay, great. Before we move into that i actually was thinking we could maybe call this the autumn of content like it's the autumn of content uh but that's a nobody cares about any of that oh and it leads into the winter of discontent i like what you're doing there that's nice hashtag snail talk this week comes from me jason are you feeling confident you're going to win the 2019 draft championship um i'm feeling i'll tell you what mike i'm feeling confident that i'm not going to

lose it yeah you're doing pretty good so uh 2019 draft results so far there have been two events and jason has won them both so unless apple does three events and i do a clean sweep between now and the end of the year uh you're not going to lose this one. There is a strong possibility of two events. We'll probably talk about that a little bit over the course of this episode. But I will also give a recap for people. We have done, we've been doing this for three years now. This is our fourth year, actually.

So 2016, Jason was the winner. Yep. And then we both drew 2017 and 2018 it's very close race so technically that means i'm still the champion you are still the reigning champion i guess because you're the only champion has ever been uh yeah i'm the founding and reigning champion as i was going through the draft results um i was reminded of just my crushing defeat at wwdc uh-huh right it was it's so close it was how i remember it and it was like one of those things where we had to decide on a justification and then it was a it was a win for you i could have could have just anyway but that's

how these things go sometimes drafts can be very upsetting they can also be time for great jubilation like they are today and all jubilation begins with rules so here are the rules for today 10 rounds 20 overall picks we pick make 10 picks each so that's how we do this with some of the bigger events like these ones we can we can really we got lots of things to pick from we probably had like 50 possible things that we could pick from because we do compile a list that we pick from sometimes jason goes rogue but that's typically stuff i would never pick anyway so he can just have those things like spinal tap the winner of the previous draft gets to pick first and that is jason so jason will have all of the picks for an to count, it must either be clearly announced on stage or on a slide during the presentation.

We always prefer to score ourselves, and we will score ourselves at the beginning of next week's episode. But if we can't agree, Stephen Hackett will play adjudicator for us. No half points. No points awarded for anything pre-announced or ridiculously obvious uh there is a slight caveat to this we are pre-recording um we are pre-recording this episode on august 31st so we will have to make that judgment but um if anything is pre-announced we won't know it so yeah no it doesn't count for us it doesn't It doesn't count for us because there's no way for us to know it if it gets pre-announced.

So if you're somebody who says, ah, that was pre-announced on Monday morning before Upgrade was released, it doesn't matter because we recorded this. We're recording this in the morning on Saturday, August 31st because of travel. I have travel. I'm going away for the weekend, so we're doing it now. because of travel. I travel. I'm going away for the weekend.

So we're doing it now. And the points awarded on the episode are final, no matter what happens. There is a tiebreaker question, which we've instituted this year. And that's how we're going to begin the draft today with the tiebreaker. And the tiebreaker is, what is the number of total iPhone color options available on all new models?

Jason will get to pick a number, and I get to say if it's over or under. For context, this is currently nine. There are nine color options available across the XR and XS range. So, Jason, how many iPhone color options will there be across all of the iPhone 11 range? So there are three XS colors and there are six XR colors. And there is speculation out there that the invitation for the event is five colors. It's like the Apple rainbow, but not quite. is five colors it's like the apple rainbow but not quite um and that people are suggesting maybe those are the colors of the new successor to the iphone 10r and if you think that plus if they stay

with their kind of you know gray gold silver for the pro models the 10S models, that would be down one. But you've also got to remember that there are four brightly colored XRs and then black and white. So what I'm saying is if you wanted to think that they're just going to let it ride, you say nine. If you think that it's going to be five colors, you could say eight. And this is leaving aside like what they're going to do on the pro models, the high-end models. So I'm just going to go right down the middle and I'm going to say nine and you have to choose whether it's more or less. It's just a tiebreaker, not worth any points unless we tie in the unlikely event which totally happened that we tie so you're going with nine

i'm gonna say less i'm gonna say less okay under i don't think they'll do more so they're not gonna they're not to have like 12 different iPhone colors. So that's not a bad guess. I picked it where I did for a reason. I think there are good arguments to be made for both up and down there. So, all right, that's our tiebreaker then. We will count the colors if we have to, but only if we have to. Yep.

It's not scored unless it's needed. Right. Before we begin our first round of picks today um i would like to talk about something very special to us uh this september you can join relay fm in support of saint jews children's research hospital in honor of childhood cancer awareness month childhood cancer remains the leading cause of death by disease for children under the age of 15 children undergoing treatment for cancer and other life-threatening diseases often need transfusions, physical, and cognitive therapy.

Your gift can help St. Jude provide the best care and treatment for their patients. If you go to stjude.org slash pineapple, you can help save St. Jude kids. Again, that is stjude.org slash pineapple to donate now. RelayFM is St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's first official podcast fundraising partner. And we take this very seriously here at RelayFM for a bunch of reasons. But this is just a wonderful charity to support.

And we're going to be doing a ton of really fun things throughout the month. Something that's happening right now to uh my dismay uh for every donation of over 250 dollars to that page all relay fm um donations go to the same place so we continue to go to stu.org slash pineapple because that's a fun url but it all goes into the relay fm part um every donation of over 250 dollars right now uh includes what I call sticker misery so Steven is adding a sticker to his

laptop and I have to remove a sticker from one of my devices I maintain that Steven is able to have more fun with this than I am but that's what's happening right now so I am a little concerned we removed four so far and we're going to be doing it every couple of days,

just like Stephen will tot it up and he will tweet the number and then we will both do what is necessary. I'm concerned that I might run out of stickers. So I don't know what I'm going to do about that. I'm going to have to move to different devices. I'm going to be a very unstickered individual. But that is something that's happening. So if you want to cause me a little pain and steven a

creative thing then 250 donations can do that um but i think maybe even more excitedly on september 20th from 4 to 10 p.m eastern we will be streaming the first ever relay fm podcastathon live on twitch over video and there will be audio available as well, but it will be, I think, primarily a video thing that you'll want to come and watch. So that is going to be a six-hour podcast-a-thon broadcast live from the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Me and Stephen are going to be there together, and we're going to be pulling in a bunch of your favorite RelayFM hosts. And it's probably going to be New iPhone Day, so I think we're both going to try and buy iPhones and unbox them on the stream. Why not?

That seems like a fun thing to do. Can I buy an iPhone in America? We'll find out. So that's going to be, we'll be talking more about this over the course of the next couple of weeks. But we're trying to raise $75,000 for St. Jude. We're doing very well so far, which is incredible. So thank you to everybody that has donated. We're really kind of moving along at quite a clip, which I'm very excited about.

And my personal goal is that we hit that fundraising goal before the live stream, which I think would be amazing and I think is really doable. Thank you to everybody that's helping support this cause. Yep. Slash pineapple. Slash pineapple. stjude.org slash pineapple. Isn't it great that we got them to create that URL for us? It's because, as is usual, slash upgrade is typically used

for something else. So we got pineapple. Who knew? Should we do some picks? I guess. It's time to start the draft. So Jason, give me your first draft pick. Okay, this one is on brand for me.

And I don't know how many there will be. That's a tiebreaker. But I'm going to say new colors. New colors on iPhones. Colors that have never been seen by human eyes before. No, just a new range of colors like Apple Watch bands, a new range of colors that it won't be the XR colors. They'll tweak it a little bit. And I think it's fun to make new iPhone colors.

So I'm going with that. It's going to be interesting to judge that one. It is. Is that shade of blue slightly different than this other shade of blue my hope is that they would just say here's a selection of new colors and then that would be dealt with if not we're gonna have to go to come to a decision about that one uh i had this pretty high on my list i am unconvinced about the uh six color rainbow situation that everyone's very excited about right now.

Although a purple iPhone would be really nice, but yeah. I'm also sad because there's no big orange glass thing on the invitation. The orange is only sort of there looking through two different little glass things. And I think the orange iPhone XR is beautiful is beautiful the coral and it would be sad if it went away but i think it's going to go away because i think it's going to be like apple watch bands they want to refresh one way to refresh hardware that is not that different is by changing the colors yeah i am intrigued why they only went with five colors for the invitation

doesn't i don't understand that. But that was what they did. So that's what we have. Did you find that strange at all? Yeah. Again, like what? I don't know. But I think it means something that we don't know.

I mean, I do think it probably has something to do with the colors that they're going to make available. And that's why it is the five that it is. But I don't know. I mean, I do think it probably has something to do with the colors that they're going to make available. And that's why it is the five that it is. But I don't know. And considering they had a bunch of colors that were kind of like the old rainbow colors they just threw out in the invitation, right? Yeah. We'll see. We'll see.

All right. So I get my first pick now. I feel a little bit more confident about my pick than yours, but we'll see. Wide angle lens on the iPhone. Yep. This seems like an obvious one. If you're going to do anything for a camera right now, this is what you would do. It is what everybody else is doing for good reason.

Wide-angle lenses are fun. And I've been thinking a lot about this based on uh the rumors from um bloomberg last week uh that the the software that they will show off will be the way they will sell this i was reminded of live photos you know like live photos were a great demo but it's actually something that's continued to be something that people enjoy like it is a useful thing and i think apple might be able to tell an interesting story around some of the stuff that they would be wanting to do with the wide angle lens you know like the idea of reframing an image changing a photo after it's been uh edited like it's kind of like a you know it's one of those things that anybody could do but if they do it first it'll be like oh that's the apple brilliance

so i think that's the thing that they're going to really try and use to sell this phone will be the camera and whether that's in the video stuff that we'd heard about that might come up later right like these new video effects or in this wide angle lens stuff and potentially a low light mode as well these are all up for picking later on um i think that that's going to be the story that Apple tries to tell with the 11, especially on the Pro, right? Just how professional the camera is. I think that's the selling point. Yep. I think you, I mean, you're never going to lose a draft betting on photography features on the iPhone. Yep. It's what they go for, for good reason. And it's what people want, again, for good reason. So Jason's what people want, again, for good reason. So Jason, what is your second pick, please?

I am going to pick the absence of a technology that was once promoted as a revolutionary new iPhone feature. And it's been a long time coming. We've seen it happening. Last year's introduction of haptic touch on the iPhone XR suggested it's going to happen i'm going to predict um and pick no 3d touch on new iphone models gone this is a peculiar pick i was not going to pick it and i'll tell you why the likelihood of them mentioning something being removed seems slim to me well if okay so you're saying you're

saying they need to mention that it gets removed because i think the these models will not have right but how will we know if we only know what's on stage because they'll mention well i guess they'll just mention haptic touch if they talk about haptic touch that works for me okay um but that's if they do right like i we don't know okay they it's very likely that they will say and they will feature our wonderful haptic touch haptic touch technology and you've got your tick but my thought on this one was i don't know it's it is a change it's a it's it's uh it's something that they you know they don't mention 3d touch in their displays anymore right um so That's because it's going away.

See, I 100% agree with you that it's going away, but I don't know if they will call it out on stage. We'll call this pick No 3D Touch Slash Haptic Touch Mentioned. I am going back to the well of upset for my second pick. Okay. I am going to be picking what defeated me in WWDC. Demo of Apple Arcade. Demo of Apple Arcade.

Okay. Now, this was the pick, if you remember, that I ended up, I went with it, I was confident of it, and they didn't really give what we considered to be a demo. Right. But due to the fact that Apple Arcade is set to launch in a couple of weeks, I'm very confident now that they will be demoing Apple Arcade. I think this will be the game demo portion. We'll be showing off Apple Arcade, showing off some games uh that kind of thing

um they we have i think we can i feel pretty safe in this pick this time if they're not going to demo it now they're never going to demo ever again yeah yeah no i think i think you're probably right they always want one of the things about the iphone is that when they're boasting about the amazing graphics capabilities and processing capabilities of the A13, right? And it's going into the holiday season. This is a legacy of sort of like when they used to talk about games on iPods and things like that. It's the holiday concept. They like to mention games. So I think it's not a bad guess that why if you're going to mention games on stage why would you not um use it as a way to promote your game service that's coming out and if there is any specific user user uh ui for this we've not seen it yet so you know like they haven't really shown off

the app store where it is right if there's any chat features or game center like stuff in apple arcade apple haven't shown it um and it's not in any of the betas because apple arcade is not available so i expect that apple arcade launches of ios 13 that is my expectation so or very shortly thereafter um based on stuff that apple has said and stuff that other game developers have said. So I'm expecting to see a demo of this because this is, I think maybe of every service Apple have available or will have available right now, this will probably be the most successful in the near term.

It certainly seems like it's going to be the best. People like games. They love them on their devices. This is a good deal for a lot of games from a lot of very talented developers. It feels like the most surefire hit of all of them. I mean, there's some assumptions there, right? We don't know what the deal actually is in terms of the price, and we don't know what the catalog is going to be. So these are up in the air, but you're right, I think it has the potential.

Well, we know many of the games included, and many of the games included are made by talented companies. You have the possibility that when we get it, we're going to find that the reality doesn't match what our hope for it was. And there's going to be a letdown there. So I just want to, I kind of want to just retain a little bit of skepticism about it. But I think you're right that Apple Arcade has the potential to be, of all of the services Apple has been rolling out for this year, it may be the one with the best chance of success. Because it does feel kind of like a no-brainer. Like, yeah, I pay a flat fee my entire family gets access to a whole catalog of great exclusive ios games uh yeah that that aren't gonna try and nickel and dime me for you know coins and things like that yes please i want that i want that now what's your third pick i'm gonna go with new apple watch materials that's okay that's gonna be my choice that this is going off that rumor that they're gonna be

you know a ceramic and a titanium so currently the apple watch availability is aluminum and stainless so i'm gonna say um i'm not i'm not picking here whether they're going to call it Series 5 or whether it's going to be kind of like Series 4 Plus kind of thing. But I do think that that rumor, it sounds accurate to me that they would try to push on materials again and do some different variations. It's a little bit like how I mentioned about the colors on the iPhone, the Apple Watch bands and how Apple has had success with that. Offering the Apple Watch in some new materials makes it seem refreshed. Even if there is a Series 5, offering it in some new material options gives it some variety, gives more buying decisions, let people who want fancier materials spend more money, which Apple is happy to let them do. So that rumor has some resonance with me. I think that's a good one.

I agree with you for all of the stuff we've been talking about the last few weeks. What else are they going to do? If they're going to do anything on the Apple Watch, this seems like the thing to do would be to offer new models and new materials, maybe some higher end models. It doesn't seem like there's going to be much else for the Apple Watch this year. I would love to be surprised, but it certainly doesn't seem that way. Yeah, there's no buzz about this is why I think it's still an open question. I think it's most likely there will be a Series 5 because why would you not increment it if you

have minor hardware updates? But I still think there's a small percentage chance that they'll just say the apple watch is great and now we've got some great new models and this great new os and they don't actually increment the series and then even then we may discover that they did a little flip stream update in there but it's not enough for them to market i don't know that's probably not going to happen but there's just so much quiet silence just There's so much silence out there about it. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think we knew about the EKG, ECG. I can't remember which one it is,

functionality before that came out. I mean, there is a possibility that they could do something, like some other sensor, which could be interesting. It's on our draft board. You can pick new Apple Watch sensor later if you like. I don't think I will,

but I'm pleased that you gave me that option. Okay. Yeah. I'm doubling down. Apple Arcade pricing and launch date will be set. I don't know if you noticed in our little shared document, but I actually was going to pick this and then I backed off of it and decided I wasn't going to pick it because I think you are almost certainly right that this is going to be, that they're going to

say Apple Arcade, it's going to come out October 1st or September 20th or whatever it is, and it's going to cost $499. I think almost certainly. However, I will say this is what gave me pause is how certain is Apple about these launch dates of these things that they've got? Like they say they're sometimes very limited in what they talk about in terms of launch dates of these things that they've got. Like they say, they're sometimes very limited in what they talk about in terms of launch dates. So that's what gives me pause is not that they won't mention the price because I think it's almost certain

they will mention the price, but that they may say later this month. And does that count? And if they don't say September 23rd, does that count? That's my question. Okay, so here's the thing. They say a timeframe. I think that's my that's my question okay so here's the thing they say a time frame

i think that's that's how i was thinking of it because they always give themselves a range you know but but i think like some some kind of time frame uh more specific than fall yes because they already said yes more specific than fall you know they may say like september october within the next month you, like that kind of thing. But more than a season. Okay, Apple Arcade pricing and clearer launch time frame is the way that I'm going to refer to this. And that means they need both. Yes.

But they don't need to say an actual date. Mm-hmm. Yes. I think you're probably going to get it i think why would you not use this opportunity to do that if it's coming that soon again like maybe we could talk about this later i'm more confident in them doing this than giving apple tv plus's launch date apple arcade feels more likely than to get its date to me than Apple TV Plus will be. But maybe we can talk about that a little later on.

Who knows if it will come up? Who knows? So that's our first three picks down. We have seven more rounds to go in the 2019 draft. But I want to talk about our first sponsor, and that is Bombas. Every kid can remember what was cool when they were younger, whether it's something like Pokemon cards, which were cool when I was a kid, or Rubik's Cubes. You know, everyone thinks, I think yo-yos. Yo-yos were a thing when I was a kid too. Pokemon cards,

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Man, Mike, you're making me want those socks. I didn't get any sponsor socks. Well, Jason, I'll see what i can do for you okay all right i love socks i love nice socks i'll get you that's like on brand for me nice socks i'll get you some socks don't worry all right what is your fourth draft pick jason oh boy um i am going to... I'm going to live my own best life here. All right. Spinal tap? I'm following my own home. Oh, my God.

You know, if it's iPhone 11, they could totally do it. They played a gig not too long ago. I'm definitely not trying to make you pick that one. No, no, no, not at all. No, I'm going to say what I said earlier, which is nobody has ever failed at a draft by making camera selections about the iphone and so i'm gonna uh follow the speculation that that 10r replacement is gonna have a second camera because the one thing i think

that makes me sad when i use the iphone 10r is that it's got like the fake uh portrait mode and it doesn't do a zoom which i've really more than portrait mode which i use occasionally the zoom the 2x zoom on the uh on the iphone camera i love it i love it all the time and then i use the 10r and i'm like oh yeah right i guess i'm i guess I'm going to get closer, you know, or I'm going to do a stupid zoom that's going to be really ugly. So I think, you know, there are definitely rumors out there that it's the three cameras on the, including the wide angle, which you picked on the XS replacements and on the XR replacement. I'm going to go there with the second camera because it's just, it's such a great feature. And you and I have talked about this a lot. I'm going to go there with the second camera because it's such a great feature. And you and I have talked about this a lot.

Smartphone photography is about the most important thing that exists in this category. Like photography, people want good... This is their camera. This is their life. We're all used to having cameras with us. Good cameras and good camera performance are the most important. I mean, you take, there's a lot of table stakes of like, is it on the internet? Does it run apps? Sure. Fine. Can I see the screen? Great. But like the camera matters, it matters a lot and it matters for really personal reasons. So I think, um, the more, you know, you can invest as a smartphone

maker in your camera stuff, the better and 10r is such a great product and that's one of the things that really gives me pause about it is that it's only got the one camera because i really like that second camera so yes i'll be sad if this comes to pass and there's now a third camera on the other ones that's even more awesome but i think second camera is going to make a big deal for whatever replaces the 10r i cannot disagree with you on that one. I think that it is needed. I think it would be very disappointing if the new phones get three cameras

and the Pro models, if that's what they're going to be, and that the 11, if that's what that's going to be, gets just one, right? I feel like they have to go to two. Yeah. Again, I feel like if they didn't, I wouldn't't be surprised but i would also be surprised at the same time it's one of those old apple

things both surprised i'm not surprised by more cameras all the great cameras i am going to the dangerous area of uh naming product naming yes, it is dangerous. There's an extra difficulty level here. I am going with the XR replacement becomes the iPhone 11, and the XS and XS Max become Pro models. That's the big flagship switch, right, in a way. I love it. I love it. I love the idea. It is super dangerous because we don't know what they're going to do. We really don't know when the marketing in terms of pricing and naming, we never really know. That's closely held. They could change it if they want. It's not part of the kind of hardware supply chain. There are presumably boxes printed somewhere that have this, but they can keep it quieter.

but they can keep it quieter. But I like the idea, so I want it to happen because I think it's a nice idea to have the lowest-priced model be the base and then have those expensive phones be the, specifically the pro or high-end model instead of where it is now where it's like, I don't know, there's a couple different iPhones floating around and one of them's bigger but cheaper

and it's a mess. So I think this would provide clarity and I like the idea that the XR replacement which is a you know 10r is a really great phone just say yeah that's the iphone 11 that's it and then spideltap comes out on stage yes from this from the rafters i think that this is the of the options available the most logical but who knows? Like, if they're going to name them something, which they are, right? They're going to name them something.

This seems like the most logical option to me. It seems like a way to solidify the XR as the phone for most people and then try and put even more kind of, like like gravitas to the more expensive phones. These are pro models for professionals like you. You want one of these, right? But I think that then it also means that to get into the iPhone 11 line doesn't start at $1,000 or whatever it is. And I think that Apple would like to say,

this is the iPhone 11 and it's three phones. And that is the range now. There are three phones and there will always be three phones available. That is what we do. And all of the rumors coming out of the supply chain over the next multiple years from Ming-Chi Kuo is like, it seems like three phones are here to stay. So I think it's about time seems like three phones are here to stay so i think it's

about time that apple brings all that branding together does it at the same time and then makes something which makes sense from the get-go um and calling and having the cheapest one just be the 11 and then moving on from there makes the most sense to me yeah the less i guess the more conservative approach here would be that they would call it like the 11r and then the other two ones would just be the 11s but i don't like that i mean i don't i don't like the r and s and all of that either i mean it's these are most people would probably agree that the current iphone naming scheme is really ugly and i get why iphone 10 was an awesome thing like iphone 10 and with big x it's like yes but then it's year two and you're like uh 10s but

it's going to be xs and it's max and there's an r and so let's take it down so it's one of those that i want to see happen but you know they they have made weird naming decisions before i think that's what you're getting at when you say that this is a this is a risky pick a ricky pick is uh they uh they do weird stuff that doesn't make sense so we try to apply logic and be like oh yeah this is the logical thing for them to do and then they're like no it's the 11 s2 or 10 s2 or whatever it's pronounced it's an x followed by an S followed by a numeral two. And that's what it's called. But it's pronounced 11.

How do we say that? You say it as 11. It's pronounced 11. We didn't bother putting the I in there after the X. We just want you to say 11 anyway. It's X followed by 11. 10, 11? That doesn't make any sense.

X11. Oh. But they could do something that we don't expect. But I hope that you're right. What is your pick number five? Oh, boy. I am, oh, so many choices, so many choices. I was talking on this week's or last week's TV Talk Machine with Tim Goodman from the Hollywood Reporter podcast.

I do. I don't just talk about TV with you. I talk about it with him. That although Apple doesn't have to do it, I feel like if they're launching this Apple TV service, now is going to be the best time because, you know, the iPhone launch brings world attention. So I don't see it's the most watched event it's the most talked about event because the iphone is such an important product i don't see how you're launching a tv service

that is meant to have broad appeal in the fall without using this as your launch platform so in uh i've reworded this to be like what you said about Apple Arcade. And I'm going to say Apple TV Plus clearer launch timing. I hope that it's a date and a price, but I'm not going to pick the price. I hope they're like later this month or in October. And I really hope that they'll say it's October 7th or whatever. And then that'll just be what it is. But,

um, I think, you know, what I'm getting at here is I'm trying to pick something that I think is likely in this scenario of disclosing more information about Apple TV plus, because why would you not, you've got the world's attention. You're launching this thing worldwide.

Why would you not do this? So I, that's what I'm going to pick though, is that the date will be clearer. I'm leaving the pricing for you. You can take pricing or bundling. Those are out there, but I'm going to choose the timing. Yeah, I agree with you.

Like we said this for years, if you have something, if Apple has something they want the world to see, you couple it with the iPhone. No matter whether it makes sense or not, you put it on stage in the iPhone event because that's when everyone's going to see it. And think of everything right now, considering the cost and the investment, which could be upwards of $6 billion, we know now, they want people to know about this.

They want people to think that it's important, as important as they think it is. They put a lot of money behind it. They've got a lot of important people behind it. I think they're going to want to make sure that they have a lot of information about Apple TV+. And if they have a launch date

or a launch window, this is when they will share it. And I expect it will be shared because I think it's very soon. They've even said fall on trailers recently so um you know i think we're gonna get we should get as we say better than fall right is what we're looking for yeah and that wall street journal um wall street journal i think said in the next two months in august and bloomberg's report was by November, which does not mean November. It means by November.

So I think they could very easily say this is coming out later this month or it's coming out next month and that would be enough. And then I hope what they say is, yeah, it's going to come out on October 10th or something like that. Which is what they should do. They should give a date. Premiere date. Hollywood likes premiere dates, right? That's what they should do. They should give a date. Premiere date. Premieres. Hollywood likes premiere dates. They sure do. That's what you should do. I'm going back to photography. Hey, I left a really nice pick in there for you that I thought about picking.

I thought I'm going to give Mike another photo pick. Low light mode for photography. Yep, that was the one this is a google you know has been kicking apple's behind with their night mode in the the google uh phones it's just even even my really dumb uh pixel one has night mode that puts makes the iphone uh low light photography just awful and that's a bad camera continues to change people who who test these things say huawei's is even better than google's and samsung has a mode now in the note line which will probably come to the s11 which is as good as google's as well so apple was severely left behind because all of their competitors, their biggest competitors, have this now.

They need to do something. I don't know how they do it. I don't know whether it's hardware, software, or Apple's usual thing of a combination of the both, which helps them get better results. But they need to say they have good results whether they do or they don't because everyone's going to be looking at them. And this will be in that top five list of reasons Apple's beat by X company if the iPhone 11 doesn't have a low light mode. And I really hope that they have it. I hope that Apple's going to do smart stuff and it will do it automatically. That's what I want, right? Like I want an automatic low light recognition and turn that mode on. But however

they do it, I severely expect them to have something in this arena for the iPhone's camera. In some ways, this is like the greatest hits or the clip show version of Upgrade, these draft episodes, because we're like rapid fire going through all these things that we've discussed over the year about like what Apple could do and what their strategy is. And I think this is a great example. I don't remember what episode it was, but we talked about how Apple has this philosophy of photography. Like they very clearly are guided by a philosophy of photography. That's very sort of naturalistic. They don't want to pump up the colors. They want to capture the real colors. They want to make effort, like with the smart HDR stuff, they want to make an effort to more clearly reflect what you see

with your eyes. That is the philosophy that has served them, except in this low light scenario where I will totally grant you what they're revealing is not quite what you see and is not super naturalistic, but allows you to get a shot that you otherwise couldn't get. And the challenge with Apple, I think, has been the reason they've been behind here is that it kind of goes against their photography philosophy, but they got to do it. In this instance, I think low light modes are more important than gain accuracy. I agree. And my hope is that they will actually talk about this and that maybe they'll even have a take on it that is a little bit different that's driven by their philosophy. But it may

also just be that they're like, yeah, people want this and isn't it amazing? And we used our machine learning and blah, blah, blah. But I think, I suspect this has been a challenge inside Apple, not as, I mean, there's technical challenge for sure, but that it's a cultural challenge for them a little bit too, which is really fascinating to see. So I hope they do it because that Google Pixel low light mode that I've tried is amazing it's amazing those walls started to come down a little bit with um

what is the hdr called smart hdr smart hdr i think the wall started to come down a little bit there because i love the photos that smart hdr produces but they aren't completely natural anymore. You know, they are doing some interesting things to some of those images to make the colors and the exposure look different. I really love it, but we'll wait and see. And I hope that they continue following that with a low light mode. Yeah.

All right. My pick is going to be also iPhone photography related, but a little bit different. It's not actual photography. It's cameras and other sensors. I think that on stage, they're going to mention it's been two years since the iPhone 10 introduced the true depth camera hardware that includes the flood illuminator and the camera. And there's all these different things in the little notch area. And so my pick is going to be that they're going to talk about some aspect of that hardware that's been updated because last year's hardware was not updated it was faster face id but it wasn't updated hardware so i'm going to just take a flyer here on them boasting about some way that that hardware is better you're playing hard mode on this pick

i am because we have pickable faster or better face id i'm up well i yeah you know but i don't know i don't know i feel like this might be better than faster face id for a second consecutive year also i'm up two drafts to nothing so i'm having having fun. I'm doing some power sliding. Yeah. Look at this guy. I'll be humbled and then I'll come back for October. That's what's going to happen. I think it makes sense to me that they would do this if they had it. I'm just not sure they have it. So we'll wait and see.

Because they can say that Face ID is better in a bunch of ways, like how the iPad does it. And the iPad doesn't seem to have any different hardware in it. Because if it does, Apple never mentioned it. And that seems unlikely. Imagine if I picked that I lose the draft. What would happen then? Then I'd get a point which would make me win the draft?

No, no. At which point I would lose the point because I lost the draft? You would announce on stage that you've lost the draft. Okay, you're right. All right. Which seems... I mean i mean look if they like they put connected at that point i would let you win i don't care which which relay podcast will be shown on stage this year probably none probably none we got there probably no podcast features this year probably not all right i'm gonna go

if they're gonna show off the apple watch i they're going to show off one of the features that Apple thinks is the most important, whether the rest of the world does or not. We'll find out. Watch App Store. I think they will demo the Watch App Store. I think if they do demos of the independent watch apps, which they probably will, they'll have some people come up and show off,

these are the new things you can do. They will show at least something about one of them being downloaded, or they're going to show off some screenshots of the watch app store. We will see. What does demoed mean, Mike? Demoed, I think, would mean that they actually have to show it on an Apple Watch on stage.

I'm fine with that. We've been here before. They have to show it on an Apple Watch on the screen. We have to see it in living color video. What do we know about this Apple Watch? What do we know? All we Watch? What do we know? All we really know is watchOS stuff. And the big watchOS focus is independent apps and the App Store. So why would they not hit home with that if they're going to talk about the Apple Watch at all?

I think they've got to push that concept further. So, yeah. I think they should be showing it. They should be showing how it works. They should be showing that it works. You know, like that this is a thing that you can do with your apple watch right like i would be really surprised if they didn't if they didn't go for that yeah i think so what have you got for pick number seven oh this is going to be another weird pick but i'm gonna i'm just i'm just leaning into

the weird picks now uh even though it's only round seven i'm gonna i'm gonna pick that among the things that they mention about ios 13 on the iphone will be a feature that they will say is coming later this year i had to think about this they're going to mention a feature that is great and awesome but is coming later this year something that has gotten kicked out of ios 13 but that will be great when it arrives later this year so let me ask you this question because i was thinking about this pic this is this is the os 13.0 versus 13.1 thing which is like how do you acknowledge that and you acknowledge it by saying and later this year we're going to have this other great feature that you're going to get. Whatever it is. I was thinking about this.

Of the stuff that has been seemingly bumped from 13 to 13.1, I can't figure what they would need to give stage time to. Yeah. Because it's stuff like ETA sharing and maps and shortcuts automation and stuff like that.

They didn't even show off shortcuts automation at WWDC. Like, we had to find that out later. I think ETA sharing and maps might actually not be bad. But I'm not sure, and it might be something that we haven't even thought of. I just am putting a little chip down here on, with everything going on with the iOS 13 and getting it ready in advance and all of that, that there'll be something that they want to mention, but they're going to have to put an asterisk on. I mean, all right.

We need to just do a clarification here. Something like Apple Arcade. That's a service. That's not a feature. I'm only thinking iOS features. That's cool. I just wanted to double check that because I feel like something like that could have been apple arcade is enabled with a software

update is that a feature i'm gonna say i'm gonna say no okay cool i'm thinking of an os feature not a feature that enables a service sweet i just wanted to check you see why i want to check that though right like that totally i figured that was getting up from right because because um i could argue like oh well what if it's enabled on a software update and then we don't know and we can't score the draft and that's not any good so i'm really thinking they're going to extol the virtues of a feature of the operating system that is great and it'll probably be something like and later this year you're going to be able to do this thing and all that and you know what it is i don't know i just feel like there's enough floating out there that maybe we pick uh or maybe i pick the uh that some of it is deferred we'll see i am going to say that the 10r replacement which i'm calling the iphone 11 will keep its

lcd display that's pretty low difficulty pick don't you think yes but it's if they mention it oh well that's true i mean they will they'll talk they'll do the display specs they'll say oh well it's got this beautiful uh blah blah blah lcd display and it's great i'm playing to win i'm not playing for this wild game that you're playing this is important to me i'm two picks okay i'm two drafts down this year it's true september I'm playing to win this sucker, all right? Like, I'm not doing this hard mode game that you're playing. Okay. That's fine.

I think it's a good pick. I don't think there are any rumors at all that suggest the XR is getting an OLED display. Nope. So I, you know, point to you. Don't worry. My next pick is, I pretty bold okay so we'll see if you pick it first but i i think that many people will think that i'm wild for picking what i'm gonna pick for round eight but i think okay there's logic to it uh but before we do that let me thank our second sponsor of this

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Not a problem. If you had wandered around to where we were cooking steven hackett's steak which is in the side yard where the irrigation controller is that's a smart controller that's on the wi-fi you'd have wi-fi there too it's everywhere my house is not that big but it still had dead spots and it doesn't anymore because eros got it covered you can get your Wi-Fi fixed as soon as tomorrow by going to Eero.com slash Ahoy and using the code Ahoy at checkout to get free overnight shipping of your order. That's

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ero for their support of upgrade and relay fm what is your pick number eight please jason snell okay you've chastened me a little bit um and uh i need to i feel like i need to go make a relatively non-risky pick here and get a point back so i'm going to pick that apple will show new apple watch faces on screen okay that is a good one uh when you say no do you mean previously unseen new to the apple watch no to the not previously unseen at wwgc just new in this version of watch os new to the apple watch from current for real a real easy one there uh that's fine again we never know but it's on the list if it's on the list it can be picked um but they might not they might not but it's like i guess it's like saying apple will show an iPhone home screen, but it's on the list and nothing's on the list for all we know. And we,

we then, and I think this is fair to say, they may not show anything about the Apple watch. They may not. They may not. Don't know that. Right. The reason maybe there's not a lot of rumors is because there's no Apple

watch until November. So who knows? All right. You ready for my pick? Number eight. Oh boy. I wonder if you think this is going to be as wild as I think other people will think it is wild. Disney Plus we mentioned during the keynote.

I, so just a little behind the scenes here, I put this on our list. Yes. And my thought there was if they do an Apple TV segment and they're on the Apple TV. It's going to be tied in with the Apple TV app in terms of data, even though it's not going to be a channel. Yeah, exactly. So why would you not mention it

as one of the great features of Apple's television environment? It would be foolish to not mention it because this is the one everyone's thinking about right now. Yeah. So you kind of piggyback and you say, you know, our TV environment is great.

Disney Plus, you know, it's going to show up and, you know, and other services. So I think this is, you know, plausible, which is why I put it in here. It is a little bit wacky that they would mention the competition to their own thing. But I feel like, I don't know,

I feel like there's a good chance that they will at least mention it in the context of the functionality of the TV app. This is going to be a constant struggle now with Apple as the provider and the content company. And this is something that's just going to continue to prevail across everything as they increase their services. Like, will they want to demo games on stage anymore that aren't in Apple Arcade?

We'll find out. If the game's big enough, maybe they will, right? And so it's like, will they continue to sell the Apple TV? If they want to continue selling that product, which I assume they would, they would want to talk about the software, which is tvOS. And one of tvOS's main features of this year, and of the last year,

was the integration with other providers, right? In the channels feature, or in the redesigned TV interface, in the TV app itself. The TV app exists on iOS as well, and Apple wants that to be the home. They want people to be going to the TV app because that's where their TV content will be as well.

And one way to do that is to try and get all of the big players on board and this could be something that they want this could be something disney asked for yeah it could be as part of the deal to get them on there you know be sure to talk we may see someone from disney come out on stage and show off the disney plus app could happen it could happen but what you're picking is that it'll be mentioned by a person on stage and show off the Disney Plus app. Could happen. It could happen. But what you're picking is that it'll be mentioned by a person on stage. Yeah.

So if it's like in a slide of the TV interface, it doesn't count. You need to actually, somebody needs to say the words Disney Plus. Yeah, I'm not going to go too easy on this one. Someone's going to say Disney Plus. I mean, if they say that great new streaming service from Disney, that's fine. We'll give it to you. From the mouse house. We own the Plus.

Only Apple gets the Plus. They call it Disney Plus. Well, then Studio Canal is going to be very upset with Canal Plus, right? Okay. You ready for mine? Yeah, I'm ready. This is a meta pick. But again, I'm running the virtual keynote in my head.

And you know what we often get at the iPhone event is a retail update. And Angela Ahrens is gone. Or going. And Deirdre O'Brien is there. She's gone, right? She's gone. Deirdre O'Brien is in charge. One of our options is to say Deirdre O'Brien is going to come on stage and give a retail update. I'm not going to go that far, but I am going to do this.

I'm going to pick that there will be an Apple retail slide with a photo of a new, relatively new, flagship store. Because there's always a picture of a new Apple store on the keynote. So I'm going to pick that. That's a good one. It's a good one. Always. I don't know what store. I keynote. So I'm going to pick that. It's a good one. It's a good one. Always. I don't know what store. I don't know where.

I don't know. But I feel like there's always a retail update, at least briefly with a picture, because it's a beautiful picture. And it's more interesting than showing like a bar chart of retail sales or something. So they show a beautiful picture of a new Apple store. And they say, hey, the Apple store is great. And then maybe they just move on. But that's my pick this next pick that I have is is a difficult one because this feels like

something Apple would want to do but I just don't know if they're able to do it and that is that new Apple TV plus content deals will be announced oh Ooh. Now, this is something they would want to do, right? They would want to be able to surprise us with an individual or a property that they will have on Apple TV Plus. But Hollywood doesn't like secrets. Right. Apple does.

It could be, and the way I'm thinking of this is, they have something that will be in development, right? Like it hasn't even begun. They've inked a deal and they will be announcing it and it won't be at launch, right? Like this is something like, imagine like the Oprah thing, right? Where Apple owned that. They got it out first. Could be something like that. It could be that they've bought the rights to something and we just don't know yet who knows but uh i think apple would love to do this to try and surprise people

i don't know if they're going to be able to do it but i know they would want to do it so much that i'm going to pick it i i can't argue with your logic I don't think this is going to happen because it is hard to keep a secret in Hollywood. But I agree with your rationale that Apple would love to have some sort of a surprise. Whatever it is, I don't know. But they would love it. I just don't know if it's possible for them to do it. But I'm sure they would love it. And they definitely want to talk up apple tv plus for sure final pick time oh final pick time oh

you know what i really want to pick and i now regret not putting it on a list is spinal tap reference because there have been spinal tap references in the past to this these go to 11 look if you really want it you can have it you could have put it on the list and i was never picking it so it's not like i feel like you've beat me in some way like i was never going to pick it but it's so important to you i don't know how important it is but it's the iphone 11 thing if they do it you will be so upset if you do it and you didn't pick it okay spinal tap reference and that means that if it is uh these go to 11 that's all it goes to 11 that's all i need to get this is that there'll be a spinal tap reference to that famous line about the amp that doesn't

go to 10 it goes to 11 so it's louder uh from this is spinal tap my final reference one is you need phil schiller you need i feel like shill is the one to do this or uh yeah federighi does it too but yeah there's this would be a presumably with the iphone it's probably phil schiller could be greg jaws react but it's you know it's one of those guys and it really just needs to be a these go to 11 at some point for the iphone 11 if I'm ever going to get it. I mean, technically, as long as Mac OS X is version 10 point something, there's always hope for Spinal Tap. But with the iPhone 11, I feel like I'm never going to get a better opportunity. So yeah, thank you for letting me choose Spinal Tap Reference. If we didn't go for boring titles of these episodes, always a chance for Spinal Tap.

That's why I love this episode. All right. I'm struggling with this. I've got two that I'm trying to pick from here. One is boring. And we've already... If I beat you with these picks that I've made, you're going to feel really bad. Don't do that to me.

That's not fair. You can't do that, Jason. They're all available. All of the things that you've picked are possible they're just a little bit riskier oh yeah that's true i have lost on incredibly obvious things right like that's also true right all folks like oh these are definitely going to happen and then they just don't mention any other product line hey mike let me mention some things that you have to choose that you have not yet chosen from and that i have not chosen from gosh we have not chosen any ipads we have not chosen

any macs there's an item that is the mac is mentioned on stage hasn't been chosen so there's a lot that's uh that's hanging out there yeah the home pod has not been chosen for anything airpods have not been chosen for anything so you got a lot of straight up picks and then also i just want to marvel at the fact that we've uh there's lots of stuff that we haven't picked apple mentions apple tv app availability on non-apple hardware platforms oh that's one of mine that i put in there yeah this is like it might not even be new but it's the idea that apple's going to say, isn't it great that we're on Samsung or Roku or all of this.

And they're going to boast about the fact that that TV app where you can get Apple TV plus is not just on the Apple TV and on iOS and on the Mac, but it's on TVs. It's only on Samsung TVs right now. That was definitely an exclusive deal. I think they even made reference at one point to other TVs later. I think later is now. Yeah, okay. And the Apple TV app will be available on more platforms

than we currently know it to be at the launch of Apple TV. But even if they just mentioned Samsung, it would be okay. I just want to get that boast of uh you know we're we're on other devices it's not just us yeah um so there's stuff that we didn't pick the thing that i was uh struggling with the two that i had was making my last pick faster or better face id but it felt too boring considering you already picked new or updated true depth hardware like they can't be like oh we updated the uh the cameras and it's slower now that felt probably that felt a bit boring so let's let's talk about some so we as you just mentioned there are like most of apple's

product line is not being mentioned here and that I expect, because we both believe there will be an October event this year. Yes. Yeah. It makes so much sense. It's iPad and Mac. It's more professional focused. So you get a MacBook Pro, you get the new iPad Pro,

you get maybe some detail about the Mac Pro. The rumors of the iPad Pro really solidified this to me. I could imagine a world where they showed off this new MacBook Pro on stage and that was done, right? That they did it in September because they want people to see it. But if they're also going to be doing iPad revisions this year and it's like new processors only,

they weren't going to do it in the September event. And then I would feel like, okay, now you have enough to wrap up into an October event. Put the focus on the pros. Have some people come down. Gives you more time to show off the Mac Pro again. Like there is way more of an October event in what they could show off this year than there even was last year. Right?

Like the iPad Pro was an amazing thing. But it was more amazing than we believed it to be before it came out. Right? Like just how great that device is. But that was like the star of the show, right? But if they have this new MacBook Pro, that is more than enough reason. And we know Apple have other products that they might want to give a little bit more time to this year.

So it feels like that is like a whole thing. One thing that we did have that I was toying with was ipad os mentioned on stage i think that will happen but i just didn't pick it yeah no i i i thought about that one um two that i i thought i might pick and i didn't pick um the we never said like the 10s and 10s max replacements are called pro we never said although though you pick that it's the base model, right? No, the one we didn't say is that the XS and the XS Max will share a name, which I kind of like that idea

that they're only differentiated by screen size and we can get rid of this ridiculous Max name. I don't know if I believe it because again, Apple does weird things with naming, but I wanted to pick it.

I also wanted to pick and never got around to reverse wireless charging, which is I find a very boring feature that uh is still a feature that if you can do it you would mention it but i find it really boring like that because it's slow and yes you could charge your airpods case with your iphone i guess um not that exciting that's the reason to do it uh i think that that's a great thing to have but it is not the most exciting thing in the world.

They will mention it because it's going to be a new hardware feature, so it will get mentioned, but it's just not going to be great. We didn't pick always on OLED screen on either the iPhone or the Apple Watch, our perennial for us of the dream that you'll be able to leave the screen on

and see the clock all the time. But it hasn't happened yet, and maybe Apple's just committed to not doing that so we didn't pick any of those uh we didn't pick apple pencil support on the iphone which is a i feel like we've done the last couple of years we've talked about that i think maybe we've just broken down and given up been a little bit beaten out of me i think over time yeah i just think that's becoming less possible as time goes on rather than more possible. They have all the pieces, but they seem to not be interested in doing it.

So maybe if they come up with a mega-sized iPhone in the future, and that is one of the rumors for next year, is an even larger that the XS Max successor successor will get even larger. Maybe that's their opportunity to put the Apple Pencil support in that model or something. But until then, they've got all the pieces. They just don't want to put it together. We mentioned nothing about service bundles, like services bundles, although I believe we both think there's going to be one. I do. I'm really worried.

I'm really worried about Apple's approach to bundles. I have a real concern that they're not going to do a bundle, That they're just going to say, look, everything's got a price. Buy what you want. And I would like them to bundle, but maybe there's something where they're saying, oh, well, bundles are complicated. We're going to keep it simple. Everything is an all-a-cart purchase. And that sounds like something Apple would do,

even though I think that we would all be better served with a bundle. And I decided not to wish-cast into that one, because my concern is that they're not going to do it. Also, we didn't mention, like, we had a bunch of fun ones for apple tv plus that i think are all a little bit risky which is why we didn't go down that route route but it's like a trailer or a sizzle reel for apple tv plus somebody related to a show a producer director actor or writer from an apple tv show apple tv plus show is brought out on stage at some point. Both of those are going to happen in my mind, but I just didn't think of them. The producers, Zach Van Amburg and Dreamly Ehrlich, who do Apple TV Plus on stage, that

may also happen. They may be the ones who present if there is an Apple TV Plus segment. So there are a bunch of things there that we could have gone for and didn't, but they probably still will happen. One of mine was a Johnny Ive appearance. Maybe his last. I think they will do that. And I also think there is a possibility, which is in the pick, that he will have some kind of thank you or farewell from Tim Cook on stage. I think all of those things are going to happen. We wrap that up in a, could we could appear in an ad he would hear his voice in an ad

or in a video one last time or maybe it's literally just um hey thanks to johnny who's who's leaving we're still working with him on projects oh yeah totally but he's leaving us and he's great and everybody applaud uh that would be a thing that you know again i don't know what likelihood that is i i would say less than 50%, but I think it definitely could happen. So there are a selection of things that we didn't pick. There are in the show notes, scorecards, both a PDF scorecard

and an interactive scorecard made by the wonderful upgrader Zach Knox. So you will be able to score along with us. And as always, we love to see the pictures of people's scorecards. We love to see how people are scoring us you can feel free to tell us exactly how you think we should be scored

it will not be taken under advisement but we love to know anyway uh so please do on a keynote day um please be sharing all of that online we'd love to see those uh we're gonna jason where will people be able to see the reporting uh we still have more to do in this episode but we've got uh we're gonna jason where will people be able to see the reporting uh we still have more to do in this episode but we've got uh we will obviously be recording our episode next week after the event so you can keep an eye out for that uh so that's gonna be a fun thing for us and all of my stuff will be on uh sixcolors.com so just uh look there as always sixcolors.com as they say even if there are only five colors of phones it will still be at sixcolors.com, as they say. Even if there are only five colors of phones, it will still be at Sixcolors.com.

I had a bunch of people ask me, are you going to register Fivecolors.com? And the answer is one, no, there's already a Fivecolors.com. It's super weird. And two, no, the historic Apple logo is the six-color rainbow, and that's what the site is named after. It's not named. In fact, when I named it, there was

no expectation that Apple would ever even toy with the six color rainbow ever again. So of course not. Sixcolors.com forever. All right. Shall we, we have some follow-up that we want to do and a couple of ask upgrade questions.

But we should take a break, our final break for this episode. And then we should do that because there's some interesting news that we want to make sure we've covered before it gets lost in the shuffle over the next couple of weeks. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace. Make your next move with Squarespace

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there's a couple of press releases from Apple that we're going to cover that happened over the last week. They have expanded third-party repairs and they've got a brand new program. So now the independent businesses that want to do iPhone and Mac repairs and that kind of stuff can get access to parts, tools, and resources directly from Apple without needing to be an authorized service provider. There's no cost to join the program.

They just need to be certified, and then they can get that access. Yeah, this is good news. I would say the story here is complicated. And I had a guy who actually was complaining to me about being not nice to Apple in saying that they should maybe, I mean, originally, my post about this said, leave it to the professionals, which good point, kind of insults the people at Apple who are the professionals. That's not really what I intended. So I changed it. But the story here is that there used to be a vast number of Apple authorized service providers that were like the computer guy, the computer repair shop in your town.

And they were the people who fixed Macs. And then with the rise of the Apple retail store and the complexity and kind of appliance ish nature of things like the iPod and even the iPhone, Apple started to kind of take control of service and say, you should go to the Apple store. The Apple store is where you get service. And it made life very hard for a lot of those repair shops. And many of them just went out of business, although they're still around, some of them. them just went out of business, although they're still around, some of them. And somebody made the point to me that a lot of those people were lousy and they'd have one certified technician, but they would have a bunch of people working behind the scenes who weren't certified and who did terrible things. It's like, I have no doubt that that's true, but that doesn't invalidate the idea that there was a large network of repair shops. And then for any repair shop or plumber or whatever, you got to take your chances. And some of them are good and some of them are bad. The problem is when Apple kind of

took its ball and went home a little bit with Apple retail, what they ended up doing was, and this is a thing that Apple does from time to time, is they say, no, no, we're going to do it. We're going to really take this over and you should come to us and we're going to do it. And although that has implications for the people who were doing it and it can be unpleasant, I get why they might say that, which is, it's going to be a better experience if we do everything and it's through the Apple store or you send it to us and we've got the people who are trained and it's our hardware and we understand what's going on here. The problem is when Apple takes total control of something and then doesn't do a very good

job of it. And initially the genius bar and all of that kind of stuff was kind of brilliant. But over the course of time, Apple's, the volume of Apple products sold and customers has gone up so quickly and the Apple store and Apple's repair ability to generate enough technicians and trained people to deal with all of that has been outpaced by Apple's growth. retail, right? The idea that maybe Apple retail is very, very, very good at being a showroom. But if you go in there with a broken computer, it can be really frustrating to be in an Apple retail store. It doesn't mean that the technicians are not qualified, but you can wait a long time and it can be really frustrating and you may have a very bad experience. And then there are a lot of people who don't live anywhere near an Apple store. So what Apple is doing here is just opening it up a little bit more.

Now, if you talk to like iFixit, they'll tell you this is Apple kind of trying to get in front of right to repair legislation, which might legally like force Apple to allow access to its devices and its tools and its parts and things like that. And that may be the case. But I'm viewing it from the perspective that there used to be a thriving third-party repair network for Apple. And Apple has really clamped down on that and been very limiting in what those people are allowed to do while building up the Apple Store as a place to go. The Apple Store is not as good as it used to be as a place to go. And now Apple's like, all right, you're right. And they've been over time expanding what they're going to allow. And this gives those people get to order Apple parts, Apple certified parts and things like that. It's a good thing because if you're living nowhere near an Apple store and you've got your local repair store in town,

and they're really your only option, and they've gone through the training to be a certified Apple person, they should be able to fix your iPhone or your iPad or your Mac or whatever, ideally. So I think it's good. It's complicated and there's a lot else going on, but I think just the fact that Apple is loosening up a little bit in this area, it's a good thing. I think the idea of them getting ahead of legislation, I don't really see that as a problem in the sense of like, well, it kind of doesn't matter as long as they have a good solution.

I think for people like the folks that I fix it, what they're really saying is this doesn't solve our bigger issue that we have, which is right to repair, which is individuals having the ability to repair their own stuff and open it up and not, you know, be allowed to do that legally. And so because they did, like Kyle Weins said, I fix it, like they praised this, like this is a good move. But then they also said, but also let's not forget that there's this larger fight also going on that maybe Apple is trying to get in front of. And I think both of those things can be true. And Apple have changed their Siri grading policy. So Apple have apologized for the Siri call grading. This is where they were having contractors listening to audio clips of Siri conversations. They have announced a number of changes to their policy.

They're no longer retaining audio recordings by default, but they will continue to use computer-generated transcripts, and the only way to opt out of that is to not use Siri. They will have opt-in for audio sampling, so the audio sampling program will continue, but it is an explicit opt-in now. And if you do opt-in, only Apple employees will listen to those samples,

so they will not be having contractors, and they will be tasked to delete any audio that seems to be an accidental trigger. I mean, this is this is better, but I mean, there's still a part of it which I find awkward. And I was talking about this on Connected this week, like I was kind of going through my feelings live about it, really. Uh-huh. I heard. I'm still giving them the information.

It's just text now yeah and i'm you know i think that this is a good move it is the move they should have made i would love it if they let you not have the transcripts but i feel like and this is clearly what went into this policy is is somebody having the same feeling which is it's less of an invasion of privacy to have text rendered from text to speech or speech to text and sent over the line trying to figure out how it interprets stuff than it is to send an audio recording source from my home that I wasn't aware of. So I do think there's a difference there. It would be nice if people had a chance to opt out of that. There's definitely a difference. And maybe the difference is that it's an opt-in for the audio sampling. Maybe in the long run, what they need to do is have an opt-out for transcripts. That one is not an opt out for transcripts just that it's op that one is not an opt-in they they

really want those text transcripts but even then maybe you can go flip a switch and say i don't want that i can't imagine they're gonna put that opt out this is when they would have done that if they would have done that like that and honestly it kind of felt to me that even though it's written in there they're still trying to kind of like not make let you pay attention to that part well you can imagine that there was a whole argument here about the people who use uh who you know people and machine learning to fix siri and train siri that then apple comes and says we got to shut this off and they're like no no we can't we can't do that and they're like all right well and they end up coming up with this uh solution which is we're going to get you text we can get away with doing text transcripts but we can't get away with

sending recordings from people's houses without their consent and having them go all right but you need to ask and it will probably be my guess is it will be like all of those other opt-ins that we get where it'll actually be in our face when we upgrade to a new version of iOS, where it will say, would you like to share your audio files of Siri activations to help make this service better, right? It'll be one of those things just like about sharing information with app developers and all of that. It will be a very positive, like, you want to do this. You want to make it better, right?

You know how bad Siri is, right? They won't say that, but yeah, right. We'll improve the service. It'll be great. And then you can go, no. And then that's, that's it. That's probably how it'll work. And then the, the employee thing, I don't know, you guys were talking about it on connected. And for me, it is, I just feel that there is something fundamentally different with having it be a person who works for Apple. Because I put my trust in Apple at some level for all of this stuff. And a person who's just a contractor. Because to me that seems like it's now my sound is going outside of Apple.

Outside of the domain of Apple. I know how picky Apple is about their employees. You get a job at Apple, you're going to be afraid to lose it. There are lots of things about having it be somebody at Apple. Presumably, you are better paid with better benefits. Contractors, and I don't like this about Silicon Valley, but it's a fact of how they use contractors now. They don't have good benefits.

They aren't paid as well. They come and go. I imagine turnover in contractor land is much greater than it is in Apple employee land. The people who are fully Apple, you know, made men at Apple, like they've got the imprint of being part of Apple. Like I would imagine that that is a more hard to get kind of job. And I'm not saying anything bad about contractors. I'm saying the way they're treated and the fact that it cycles through because people are looking for better contracting jobs and things like that. about did you hear these people having sex on this audio file or whatever it is or discussing a drug deal on this audio file and just and i don't have any facts to back this up i'm literally just saying my feeling is that if somebody is at apple and they're doing this under the threat of losing their fancy job at apple they're going to be less likely to do things like show those files around and talk about it with their friends and talk about it to the Guardian and things like that.

And because they're better treated, they have more to lose, and they're being held to Apple standards. And so Apple, to me, it's a big deal, even though it seems like a very fine point to say, it's just going to be Apple employees. We're going to keep these files inside Apple. We're not going to have kind of random contractors listening to them. It matters to me. All right, we said some hashtag ask upgrade questions to round out today's episode. The first one comes from Benjamin and does also reference another news story that happened in the last week. Benjamin asked, do you think the iOS 13 will be released to owners of older hardware or will 13.0 only be for new phones

until 13.1 is ready for everybody? Surprising everybody, Apple released the first beta of iOS 13.1 before iOS 13 is shipped. It seems that some features that are not in 13 beta 8, I think it was, are in 13.1. And so it seems like Apple may have cut off some of the stuff, pushed it to 13.1 because it will be coming sooner than usual, maybe like a month after or something. Or maybe the 11 is the only phone to get 13 and everybody else waits. What do you think?

So my guess is that iOS 13 is an emergency get it out the door so that we can ship it on the new iPhones OS. It would... I think it depends on when 13.1 is ready. If 13.1 is ready around when the phones ship on presumably September 20th, then yeah, everybody will just get 13.1 and people who aren't on the new iPhones will never even see iOS 13. If 13.1 isn't going to come until like October when like the iPads come out, would they ship iOS 13 for everybody else rather than having like the people on new phones have this OS version that nobody else has where if they

upgrade their reminders database or reminders iCloud stuff it breaks the compatibility with all their other devices which can't update until later uh then again you know is mac os gonna ship in September I can't see that it will maybe it will so if I had to guess I'd say that um 13 will ship in in September with the phones and then that yeah I think it's a coin flip I I let's say yeah let's say that 13 if it comes out for one iPhone model will come out for all of them not sure about the iPads though and then the rest of it'll have to wait until but I wouldn't put it past him to just have 13 be on the phones and say it's coming in a few weeks for everyone else. And Zach asks,

I recently bought a 12.9-inch iPad Pro that I'm using as a secondary work machine. I'm torn between getting a bridge keyboard or the smart keyboard. My job doesn't revolve around writing, so the keyboard would receive moderate use on email, web browsing, and stuff like that. I already have a Bluetooth keyboard and stand at home, and I like being able to easily remove the iPad from its case or keyboard to use as a tablet. I also want something that is easy to use on a lap.

Any thoughts on what I should get? This is difficult. On a lap, easy to use on a lap, the bridge keyboard is going to be the best thing to use on a lap, I think. And it's cheaper than the smart keyboard, believe it or not. The smart keyboard is not as good to use on a lap, although you can, and it's okay. It's just a little bit more wiggly. So, you know, the nice thing about the smart keyboard is that it's just a cover. And it is additional bulk from just the regular case. But you have a keyboard when you need it. And when you say you've got moderate use, but not a lot. Using the bridge, you know, you've got to, it's really like for serious typing.

And you've got a laptop at that point until you take it back out. So, you know, I don't know. My, my gut feeling is that the smart keyboard might be fine, but, um, but I do like the bridge keyboard. It just is. And I use it that way, but it's a little more serious, a little less casual. So it sort of depends on how much you want to have that mode shift where you're like, all right, it's time to enter typing mode and go get the bridge keyboard and slide it in there. Whereas you can just walk around with that smart keyboard and flip it open when you want. I'm all in on bridge.

I have one of both my iPads now. This is the way that I like to use my iPad. I'm still hoping for one with a trackpad. That would be great, right? Because even if I just used it for scrolling stuff and text insertion, right? I want it. Like I have that space.

iOS can understand a trackpad now. Let's get a trackpad on one of those keyboards, please. Bridge, I would like that very much. I know it's not the easiest thing to have to explain to your customers right like how to enable that mode but just give me an option make it more expensive and let the pro pros get it right like come on give me it give me give me give me i want one one very much well they have one for the surface keyboard right so presumably they know how to do it. Yeah, and they have one for Chromebooks, I think, or Chrome tablets too, right? Like I don't think it's just the one device. So they know how to do it. They have the space for it. The devices look exactly the same, you know,

like they look very, very similar. Come on, come on, gimme, gimme, gimme. That's what I say. All right. All right, so that wraps it up for this week's episode of Upgrade. You have everything you need now to go on forth toward the event next week. It's going to be on Tuesday, so we'll be putting the episode out Tuesday evening. So we're not going to record on Monday because that would be wild as a thing to do, to record the day before the event and have nothing to talk about. So we're going to wait and we'll record on Tuesday. the event and have nothing to talk about so we're gonna wait and we'll record on tuesday and we'll give you all of the news straight out of everything that will be occurring and going down in the steve jobs theater over at apple park so they're doing it right steve does theater yeah

so we're very excited iphone time is big time and so we have now said goodbye to the summer of fun we're into the autumn of iPhone. And we'll be back next time. If you want to find the show notes for this week, including all of the wonderful scorecards, you can go to relay.fm slash upgrade slash 261. I would like to extend a thank you again to Squarespace, Bombas, and Eero for their support of this show.

Don't forget to donate to St. Jude. We'd love that. Stjude.org slash pineapple to do that. And keep your eye out on Twitter and places like that for the other things that we're going to be doing to help support this wonderful charity through the rest of September, which is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

If you want to find Jason online, he's at jsnall. I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. Keep it locked to sixcolors.com over the next week. And we'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell. Goodbye.