Upgrade - 323: The Edges are More Interesting
Episode Date: October 26, 2020New Apple hardware season is in full swing! We review the iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, and fourth-generation iPad Air. Myke and Jason find themselves drawn to different models for aesthetic reasons. And ...in Upstream, we discuss why James Bond is probably not coming soon to a streaming service near you.
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from relay fm this is upgrade episode 323 today's show is brought to you by hover
doordash and pingdom my name is mike hurley and i'm joined by jason snell hi jason snell
hi mike hurley how are you very good this This is one of the product review episodes of the fall.
It is.
It's going to be one of many, I think, as we lead up to the rest at the end of the year.
Every year, I think Apple has done too much.
And then the next year, they just do it again or they do more.
And it just keeps on happening.
It's the relentless pace of Apple's fall.
And we're in it now.
We're deep in it.
I'm sure it's going to be fun for're in it now. We're deep in it.
I'm sure it's going to be fun for you when it comes to putting the report card together.
Oh, boy.
And the upgrade-ies.
Let's just tease everything that happens
at the end of the year.
There's a lot of stuff that happens every year,
especially towards the end of the year,
but we have a whole episode to get to today,
and it will begin with a hashtag Snell talk question
from Ty, and Ty wants to know, how often do you change the background on your iphone
unfortunately this is going to be a really boring answer because the answer is almost never okay a
couple of years ago they came out with those um the rainbow apple logo stripe backgrounds right
and i thought those were great the six color
rainbow apple logo and i set one of those as my iphone background and it's still my iphone
background so i would say it's it's a couple of years usually and even my lock screen has basically
been the same for for two or more years at this point so uh rare for me very rare how about you
mike are you uh are you a frequent no wallpaper
changer no it's once every couple of years at most yeah oh there you know something might change
it if something happens or i come across something specific but it's very unlikely like you know if
i charted it it's probably multiple years for me to make those changes before i do yep same, same. If you would like to send in a question
to help us begin an episode of the show
that we can answer,
just send out a tweet with the hashtag Snell Talk
and yours may be included for a future episode.
If you're in the RelayFM members Discord,
use the command question mark Snell Talk.
I have a couple of follow-up items.
Well, I guess the first one is follow-out.
We were both, you invited me to join a panel
on The Incomparable to talk about
the Apple TV Plus television program, Ted Lasso,
which we've mentioned in passing many times on this show,
but we didn't get into any detail about it
because I knew that I was going to be on this panel
along with James Thompson, Dan Morrow, Kelly Gamont,
Aline Sims, Glenn Fleischman, and yourself.
It was fantastic. I loved it.
It's an incomparable episode. There's lots of
people. And we added you because
I wanted a little more
London football
knowledge to drop.
I don't know if I had much of that, but I did
have what it is to be a
Londoner and to live in London.
I could definitely add that to the mix.
I really wanted to be on the show because I really wanted to talk about Ted Lasso,
because like many people, I consider it one of my favorite television shows in a very long time
for reasons that are typically not why I like television shows, I think,
because it's a very different type of program. We're not going to rehash it here. You should
go listen to episode 537 of The Incomparable,
where we spoke about it at length.
Yes, yes.
And that's our second Apple TV Plus show
to get the incomparable treatment after For All Mankind.
So we pick our spots there.
But Ted Lasso demanded, just demanded it.
Which is unlike Ted, really, I think,
to make a demand like that it's a very polite gentleman
that's true no it was his actions his actions demanded it like his actions made it necessary
he inspired us how about that he inspired us french up gradients came out in force which i
was very surprised about nobody got upset at our accents instead they gave us all the follow-up
that we required we received this many many many, many times, but I believe the first was from Simon, who sent us in a picture of their own iPhone box that
included the earpods. We were wondering, how is Apple going to package the particular box for
French customers who require, because of laws which are interesting, that there are earpods
in the box with the new
iPhones, unlike anywhere else in the world. Well, it turns out that they put the earpods in a box
and then the iPhone in that box, and it's just a big outside box with the iPhone box inside. It's
a box inside of a box, everybody. That's how they did it. There's a link in the show notes if you
want to see the tweet that Simon sent in, but basically that's what they're doing.
Simon did also mention that the iPhone is a little bit more expensive in
France than it is in Germany.
So it seems like Apple may potentially have increased the price of the phone
a little in France to account for the included AirPods.
That's great.
I love that there's a box within a box.
Yeah.
Like a cheap, lousy outside box.
Box in a box.
Box in a box.
Yep.
Should we do some upstream headlines?
I think so.
It's been a little while.
Let's get into it.
There's a lot going on.
There is a lot going on.
There always is.
We spoke about the possibility of this,
and it has now been announced.
The Apple TV app and Apple TV Plus content will apple tv and the apple tv app and apple tv plus content
will be available on the playstation 5 at launch so this was something that we'd seen rumored that
apple was trying to get these uh their streaming services and their applications onto these games
consoles which are you know both the playstation and the xbox are like content boxes and it's very
normal and actually all of the streaming services will have an app on the consoles and the Xbox, are like content boxes. And it's very normal. And actually all of the streaming services
will have an app on the consoles
and Apple is now joining them.
This is the, I don't think every content gets,
every content partner gets this,
but this is the package of,
it is Apple TV Plus content.
So if you want to watch any of the Apple TV Plus shows,
you can, but also any TV show or movie
you have bought in the iTunes app or the you can, but also any TV show or movie you were bought
in the iTunes app or the Movies app,
whatever it's called now,
will also show as viewable on your PlayStation 5.
So there you go.
It's like another great way for people to get
the 4K content, the HDR content,
which I expect will be available
because the PlayStation 5 supports all of that.
Everybody's streaming services should be available everywhere the PlayStation 5 supports all of that. Everybody's streaming services
should be available everywhere.
Yeah, right.
Yes.
That's how that should work.
And, you know, this was going back a long time,
but we were really concerned
that Apple would not do that.
And I think that they definitely chose the right path
in following the industry conventions here
because it allows for their content to get out.
And when, you know, we look at a show like Ted Lasso,
which I think has got a lot of word of mouth behind it,
if the only way to get that was to then buy an Apple TV,
it wouldn't work.
But if you already own a Roku
or you own a PlayStation 5, right, when it comes out,
and you're like, oh, the Apple app is here.
I hear people talking about that Ted Lasso.
I'll check it out. That's the only way that you can build that business um if you enforce it by making
people spend hundreds of dollars to buy a box first it's just not going to work well this actually
came up with the announcement that apple uh which we mentioned i think last week uh signed the
distribution deal with the owners of the peanuts cartoons. Yeah. And the story in America is that,
um,
they have been on broadcast TV on a network,
even though they're very old,
they're from the like early seventies,
um,
late sixties and early seventies.
They,
um,
are still aired every year on network TV and it's become a tradition,
especially the Christmas one.
And,
um,
ABC had the, it was CBS for the longest time but it's
been abc the last few years and their contract ran out and as far as anyone can tell i think this
has been confirmed unofficially like behind the scenes apple's the only one that has it now like
there will be no broadcast of charlie Christmas in the U.S.,
which is a huge deal.
But again, so it's on Apple TV+.
But here's the thing.
Apple has gone so far with distribution of Apple TV+,
that you can actually just go to, I think it's tv.apple.com,
in a web browser on any platform essentially
and watch apple tv plus and of course they're making those holiday peanuts holiday specials
available for about three days four days around the individual holidays so uh so even though
it's very different because you got to have an internet connection that can stream video as opposed to free over-the-air television, which reaches different people.
So it's not the same, and there are debates to be had about access to this kind of content.
But I will say that Apple making it free isn't enough.
Apple also has to make it available, and this shows that Apple has built out Apple TV Plus to be in a whole lot of places, including all the way back to, do you have a web browser?
Then you can see this stuff, including presumably the free thing, but also you could pay for Apple TV Plus and literally just watch it on a Windows laptop in a browser and it should work.
Literally just watch it on a Windows laptop in a browser and it should work.
Apple's partnership with A24 is bringing yet another movie to TV Plus,
this time starring Scarlett Johansson.
Directed by Sebastian Laleo, I believe is how you pronounce that.
It is a genre-bending movie called Bride.
This is a quote from Deadline. The plot follows a woman created to be an ideal wife, the singular
obsession of a brilliant entrepreneur.
When she rejects her creator,
she's forced to flee her confined existence,
confronting a world that sees her as a monster.
It is on the run that she
finds her true identity, a surprising power,
and the strength to remake herself as
her own creation. Seems like a kind
of Frankenstein. It's Bride of Frankenstein.
It's Bride of Frankenstein, but modern and interesting.
Interesting.
Apple has shared the trailer for Servant Season 2.
So this is the M. Night Shyamalan show.
Premieres January 15th.
10 episodes coming each Friday.
See, the Season 2s are starting to appear.
I did not watch Servant Season 1.
We can see why they did that extension to February now, now can't we because everything's coming out in january exactly
exactly and and uh i think for all mankind is is uh is gonna premiere at some point probably in
that ballpark and the morning show we know is being shot now and like they're yeah yeah this
is why we this is why we observed the extension because they need more time to roll
this stuff out because you know that you know without a pandemic they would have had a big
fall rollout we'd be in the midst of it right now but that's not what happened we don't live
in that timeline so and it would have been timed as they're timing it now that the trials will end
uh the free year will end halfway through the seasons being aired which is that's when it
does what they should have done the whole time it's what they're doing now uh yeah go for it
big hubbub uh over the last couple of days uh that apple and netflix were rumored to have
approached mgm regarding acquiring rights to the next bond movie uh this has been reported in many
places in many ways uh some outlets saying that mgm were willing to talk about
it but they wanted 600 million dollars and apparently apple and netflix weren't sure about
this um no time to die is the bomb movie it's been heavily delayed at this point currently postponed
to potentially be released in april 2021 as you noted in our document the rumor has been shut down
by mgm and they at this point seem pretty firm on a theatrical release.
Personally, I still think that this Bond movie going to a streaming service is a possibility.
I would feel that MGM are testing the waters.
I reckon that there is smoke to this rumor, or smoke where there's fire kind of thing. So I agree to a point with you,
but the point is the way that I think a lot of people are reading this is that they're going to come up with,
it's going to be a deal where there's an easy exchange of money and then
movies that we don't get to see because they're not going to be in theaters
for a long time.
We'll just not be in theaters.
And while we're here in the pandemic,
we can just watch them on our TV screens and people wish for that. so they want to see it um and and could it happen sure the problem is
that when you abandon theatrical revenue you take an enormous hit because a bond movie in theaters
is going to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars right and just releasing it even if you
do a trolls world tour kind of thing and you you know and you sell it or even if you do a Trolls World Tour kind of thing, and you sell it,
or a Mulan kind of thing, and you've got like, oh, well, if it's $30 or whatever,
very hard even then to come close to what you'd make in theatrical. Plus, don't forget,
you have to subtract what you would have made on home video because you just did home video.
Right. And so you're not going to have that window.
And, you know, bottom line is we are not the business model and the money are not going to map from theatrical down into first run theatrical in your house.
They don't they don't map. They're different.
And that means in the long run, that may be what happened. down into first run theatrical in your house they don't they don't map they're different and that
means in the long run that may be what happened that may that may happen and all the budgets for
movies are going to have to change because right now all these are enormous budget movies because
they can make huge money because they remember we've spent decades now building up that movie
theaters are basically only for blockbusters yeah they're only for things that are suitable
for large screens that you can get huge amounts of money and that if you have a good one you'll
make a billion dollars exactly right like the last bomb movie specter grossed 880 million
yeah now that i see that i didn't know it was that high i now adjust my thinking i do think
they're go personally i think they're going to have to
do this. But I understand why MGA don't want to. So this is the trick. This is the trick. So in
the long run, if it turns out the theatrical is just not going to happen anymore, to the degree
that it used to, what will happen is the strategy will change, and they'll make movies that are
cheaper. But they've got these movies that they made under the old rules that may still be the
new rules. They may not be we don't know. Nobody knows when movie theaters will be open everywhere
because there are lots of markets where the virus is ramping up and the movie theaters are closing,
where they're going to be closing. And then when they open, how comfortable are people going to be
sitting in an enclosed space with random people for especially packed movie theater on a new
release for three hours,
two and a half hours, that is going to take a while.
It's going to take a while.
So we don't know what the fact is.
But if it comes back, then they'll keep on doing what they're doing.
And if it doesn't, they'll change and they'll make cheaper movies.
But in the meantime, we've got these movies made under the old rules, assuming those are
true.
And if you're MGM, you're like, well,
and we've seen everybody do this.
We've got a big tentpole movie and we're going to move it
because we have already spent hundreds of millions of dollars
on this thing.
And if we wait it out, wait the virus out
and put it in a theater, we'll make our money back
and we'll make a profit.
If we give up, we're really just cutting our losses but we're guaranteeing our losses
um and that's that's a tough one to do especially if you don't own the for example streaming service
to which value can accrue so like pixar has a movie that is by all accounts, a great movie soul,
which is coming to Disney plus it's going to premiere on Disney plus.
It's just not going to go to theaters.
And they're not doing the Mulan thing.
It's just,
if they're doing the Hamilton model,
it's just,
they're doing the Hamilton thing.
And we talked about that a couple of weeks ago,
but like Pixar is owned by Disney.
It loses money for Disney,
but it also promotes Disney plus and accrues value to disney plus and so you can
bite the bullet you can get away with it you're like well okay we might as well put on disney
plus we're gonna lose some money but we gain cachet for disney plus and that's you know that's
the the next best thing but if you're mgm you can't do that mgm is looking at like we put all
this money into this movie we need to make the money back we need 700 million 600 million mgm is looking at like we put all this money into this movie we need to make the money back we
need 700 million 600 mgm is always struggling financially and they need james bond right james
bond makes mgm is my understanding yeah and but so like you know the way that this could work is
is apple going to give mgm a billion dollars for James Bond? Because that's what they're going to,
you know,
that could be what they want.
Is it possible?
I probably not.
Probably not a good thing to do,
but who knows?
But this is,
this is the trick is the negotiation.
Isn't pay us what we would,
what we would have made it without a pandemic.
Cause there's a pandemic.
The negotiation is how much are you willing to pay for exclusivity on your
streaming service of this James Bond movie that will drive, presumably drive people to subscribe in order to watch this movie?
Or, or I don't know what, like maybe there are other models there too, but let's just assume it's simple and it's like James Bond movie premieres on Netflix or on Apple TV or whatever.
How much are you willing to pay us?
James Bond movie premieres on Netflix or on Apple TV or whatever.
How much are you willing to pay us?
And internally, as MGM, we're thinking,
how are we ever going to get to release this?
And if and when we do,
will we never make the money that they would have given us because no one's going to go and see it
and they'll wait for it to come to home cinema?
Right, because they delayed Tenet, right?
And then they finally released Tenet and Tenet didn't do well
because there were lots of places in the US where the movie theaters weren't open and the number of
people who were going was very small and you could wait it out. But at one point, are you saying,
well, we're not going to release No Time to Die until 2022 or something like that? At some point,
you got to release it, I would think. And you are betting that the that the theater market, theatrical market is going to come back. But I think if you look at what people thought in April or May, they would have thought that December would have a theatrical market back. And that's not going to happen in a lot of places.
And so that's what's weighing on MGM is, is there an amount of money that allows us to cut our losses, actually get paid for this thing, and get it off of next year, MGM would just say, we're coming out in August of next year.
And Warner would move Wonder Woman to August of next year.
Like everybody would be like, great.
If we've got a guarantee that the box office is back that moment, that weekend when the box office is back, we're there.
But nobody knows.
And so that uncertainty means that you have these kind of interesting negotiations. So if I had to bet, I'd bet that this is not happening, but never say never, right?
Like, I don't know what motivates MGM.
I don't know.
Yes.
Well, you can say it the one time, just never say it again.
So we'll see, because the truth is somebody may make MGM an offer that they can't refuse.
That's a Godfather movie.
That's totally different. Anyway, it's fascinating to watch this because this is about money invested that's sunk cost.
And you're like, do we get a little bit back now or do we double down and hope for the best coming up later?
Like, do we get a little bit back now or do we double down and hope for the best coming up later?
But what I do want to, I just want to restate that I've seen a lot of people, especially tech people, people in our sphere, saying, oh, just put it on home video.
It's great.
Like, charge 30 bucks or whatever and it'll work out.
And the truth is it won't work out because they are not, if they do something like that, they're not going to make $100 million.
They're not.
They're going to make less than that i wish i wish it were that simple trust me all of these movies that have
been delayed would just get released on home video if it was a one-to-one equivalent or even
i don't know maybe even a two-to-one equivalent or one-to-one half equivalent in terms of money
but it's not like it's not the money in theatrical has been enormous and they really don't
want to bypass that if they can avoid it i wonder what the whole james bond back catalog is worth
you know like is there a deal i don't know what the rights are that mgm have i don't think james
bond is available for streaming anywhere i don't think i don't recall it. But, you know, is there a situation where MGM can wrap it all up to someone
and ask for like $2 billion for it?
I mean, the entire James Bond back catalog streaming on a streaming service
would be very valuable.
Yeah, I think the only place it's streaming is on Pluto TV with ads,
which is that Viacom CBS owns that.
Right.
Pluto TV with ads, which is that Viacom CBS owns that.
Right.
I don't know.
The rumor about MGM was always that they were going to get bought by somebody, that somebody was going to buy them and buy out them and Eon or whoever owns all the rights to James Bond and basically take it all and just absorb it into a larger entity. Like one the tech companies netflix amazon apple the more the
more desperate that mgm gets the more likely something like that is to happen they're all
just pushing them no you wait you just wait we'll talk about it later on yeah yeah check back with
me later anyway it's fascinating to watch this because it's a very difficult situation that
everybody who has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on a movie expecting hundreds of millions of dollars or a billion dollars back and has been left like the music stopped and there's no chair to sit on.
And they're like, uh, uh, what do we do now?
So it's it's fascinating to watch.
We'll see.
Last thing we have to talk about at least a little bit
uh quibi is is shutting down yeah quibi we talked about it a little bit this is the quick bites
service the idea that what you really want is not uh to watch a movie when you're in the checkout
line or play a video game you want to watch a very short video um and uh this is the just jeffrey katzenberg led service couldn't take
screenshots it wasn't available on anything but phones it was a bad idea somebody wrote in to us
a few months ago and said uh what what about quibi and basically we made fun of it and said it's a
disaster waiting to happen and that was you know i think even before the pandemic we thought that
but then after the pandemic happened it's like, who is out and about where they would watch Quibi things.
I,
I think the short version of Quibi is Jeffrey Katzenberg's historic,
uh,
success in the entertainment industry convinced a lot of overly credulous
investors.
It bought him some clout.
That they could invest,
they were investing in the confidence
and savvy of Jeffrey Katzenberg.
And he had a plan
and that they didn't understand mobile video
or anything that the kids are into.
But surely Jeffrey Katzenberg understands it.
And so we're going to invest in him
and he's going to figure this thing out.
And I think that you could look at it and say, this is essentially, you know, it's a bad idea by people who didn't really get how people use mobile devices for entertainment.
Who convinced other people who knew even less than them that they had the answers.
And everybody who knew better looked at it and said, there's no way this makes sense.
And they raised a lot of money and are now shutting down.
And the only question I've got is, did they spend all that money?
Yes.
Or did they get to the point where they realized that they were not going to make it and they were going to hand back what portion of the money they hadn't spent in order to exit,
in order to not burn all of their bridges with investors for the future. And that part I don't know because I don't understand how they could have spent the billion-plus dollars that they spent.
But apparently, you know, it's Hollywood.
The lunches are expensive or something.
Wasn't Katzenberg the thing where it was like he was having three breakfasts?
Yeah.
Yeah, three power breakfasts followed by power lunches.
And those are all very nice restaurants, I'm sure.
And yeah, it's Quibi.
It didn't make it.
No one is surprised.
It is, you know, every take has been shared about Quibi at this point.
But like the one thing I'll say about it is it is actually quite rare in technology for a hunch that you have to be proven right so fast you know
i i never thought that this would succeed pandemic no pandemic it was just a flawed i honestly feel
like that the hypothesis was flawed that for some reason if you cut a movie up into 10 minute
segments people will want it more than anything else when you can just press pause whenever you want and also all of the
content exists for free in other places you can get so much content for free so it just never
really made sense to me that this service had to exist and everything that was a selling point
about it just seemed to completely miss the mark and it wasn't like all of the other streaming
services that are just put just putting their time and effort
into making good content that you can consume
in whatever way suits you.
They decided that they would focus in areas
that didn't make sense.
And, you know, we spoke about it,
and, you know, I'm sure people can go back
and we'll find times when we said,
this is not going to work.
And it is so rare that that occurs within six months.
Yeah. Well, I mean, credit to quibi for failing fast i guess but um also worth mentioning um quibi's business model included
getting around union restrictions by claiming that they were doing shorts instead of like tv shows
and they were doing that by basically claiming that each episode was a short instead of it being like an episode of a TV show.
But it was all just kind of just hand-waving to get away with not having to pay for stuff.
And then secondly, the thing we mentioned a while ago, which is this perception that they wanted big names.
And so the big names didn't really want to be on Quibi.
But if their ideas had been rejected everywhere else, they would go to Quibi and Quibi would pay for it,
which meant you got a lot of second rate stuff on Quibi.
It was never seen as a place that you brought your good ideas.
It was a place that you cashed in your bad ideas
that previously would have gone in a drawer
and instead Jeffrey Katzenberg would write you a check.
And so you'd say yes.
And that was Quibi, past tense.
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All right, Jason Snell,
let's talk a little bit
about the iPad Air 4.
So you have one of these for review.
I really liked the way that you positioned this
review in a couple of areas. One was calling saying almost pro, which I liked a lot. And then
also talking about basically this being the cheapest laptop that you can buy from Apple.
So but to start off, I want to start off with one of the main things that you began with in the review, which is basically talking about how this product is almost too good
and why that is an interesting thing to see in Apple's confidence, right?
Yeah.
So the Pro, I mean, we've talked about it here before.
The idea is that they brought so many iPad Pro features down.
This is basically an iPad Pro, a slightly cheaper iPad Pro.
And it's good.
It reminded me of all the things that we reacted to back in 2018
when the iPad Pro sort of second design generation came out,
where the flat sides and the back.
And it's just, it's so nice.
It's such a nice design.
I think this, this you know flat sides
design has legs mike i think apple should bring it to other products anyway um yeah the and then
um you throw in that it's the one of the features that they brought that's a pro feature that they
brought to it is it's the size of the 11 inch pro so it fits the Magic Keyboard. And you throw that in there, and yes, it's true.
The Magic Keyboard is not cheap.
It's a very large percentage of the price of the iPad Air.
But at the base model of the iPad Air,
you can now get that and a Magic Keyboard for $898,
which makes it $100, $101 cheaper than the cheapest Mac laptop.
So I guess this is Apple's low end laptop,
sort of right now lowest end laptop. And then of course, you could also buy a totally different
keyboard, you could buy the Logitech case there, you know, you there are lots of other things you
could do to make this into a laptop ish thing for cheaper than that, of course, but the magic
keyboard is the most laptopy I, of all of the options.
So a really interesting product.
Again, half interesting for what it is because what it is really is sort of a light version of that iPad Pro from 2018.
But the other half of it is, you know, what it implies about the rest of the iPad line.
Because, like, it's so clear.
This is so close to the iPad Pro it doesn't make sense
unless the iPad Pro is about to become something different the only place where that because I
love that like the laptop analogy because I'll just say like the magic keyboard is amazing
it's probably the best accessory Apple has ever made like what it does to the iPad like it
completely changes the product,
makes it something else. It really is
fantastic, beautifully designed, so well
made. I absolutely love the Magic
Keyboard, the one with the trackpad for the
iPad. But the only place
where the analogy of the cheapest laptop
kind of falls down for me
is the storage, which is where
the iPad Air falls down for me
in general. So, you know like the the
ipad the macbook air starts at 999 for 256 gigabytes of storage where the ipad air starts
at 64 which i think is really bad i in for an ipad 64 gigabytes is not enough that this thing
should be i mean because especially when you have to jump up to 256,
this should be starting at 128.
I know that it is a trend.
It is maybe an annoying trope
of Apple-focused tech podcasters
to complain about base storage options.
But I think that this product,
with how good it is,
it's so close to a no-brainer for me, for people, except for that 64 gigabytes.
Because you jump up one more level, and then the price difference becomes even closer between that and the comparable iPad Pro.
And I just think it's frustrating.
If you get the 256 model, it's $150 less than the iPad Pro.
So your big, like, oh, it's way cheaper, is gone.
model it's 150 less than the ipad pro so your big like oh it's way cheaper is gone because then when you're 150 away i would kind of say if you can go for the pro where you know or go up 50 and get the
128 pro right yes that is exactly what i would recommend people do i'd forgotten about that right
because then you are getting the additional features this lacks. But if this started at 128, it's like this is the no-brainer iPad.
But for me, starting at 64, there's a question mark around it.
But that's why it doesn't, in a way.
And I would say, you know, I get the criticism.
I've seen a lot in, we're going to talk about the iPhone in a little bit,
of questioning about, like, how much iPhone storage do you really need?
And I like that people are looking.
I looked at my iPhone the other day
about how much storage,
because I have a large storage iPhone.
And I looked and I'm using none of it.
I'm using none of it.
I am particularly sensitive to this,
especially on my iPhone,
because I store all my photos locally.
But I think on an iPad,
I know.
That's not a common approach. I know, but that's not i know that's not that's not a common that's not a common
that's i know but that's not what i'm talking about here right like i'm ignoring that from
the situation because like i know that i am an edge case there but i have enough space on my
phone to do it but the ipad you know it is in essence in many ways like the best type of
consumption device so you're going to want to put movies device. So you're going to want to put movies on it, right?
You're going to want to put video on it.
Once you start doing that, I mean, very quickly, you've lost it.
I think that's only true if you're going someplace with movies
that you're not going to have an internet connection.
Yep.
Which, if you travel a lot or traveled a lot in the before time
and may again in the future, yes, I hear you.
Like having the inability to store a handful of movies before you go on a long trip, it stinks.
But I think that's the decision that everybody is going to have to make.
But I do think for a vast number of people, 64 in an iPad is fine because they're using the cloud and they're streaming and it doesn't matter.
an iPad is fine because they're using the cloud and they're streaming and it doesn't matter.
But I do, I do agree with you. And I think that 64 is becoming what, you know, 16 was and what 32 was like, it is becoming the thing where it's like, it really should start at 128. And we've
seen Apple elsewhere make that decision. But you know, the story of the iPad air fourth generation
really is that right. It is, it is the places that Apple chose to be brave and bring down.
I've I've had pro features and it's the choices where Apple chose not to
like, and I'm not, not like they're being cowardly, but more that they're,
they're still doing some differentiation. You know, Apple,
Apple's making these decisions knowing what the next iPad pro is and we
don't. And so we only get half the story here,
but it's still interesting to look at the differences and the similarities and see what their choices are.
Because they said storage we're not going to do.
Storage we're going to keep at 64.
Face ID we're not going to do.
LiDAR we're not going to do.
But Magic Keyboard and moving the home button off and having the industrial design be identical,
all of those things we are going to do.
Apple Pencil 2 we're going to do.
We're going to pick up all of the body stuff
from the iPad Pros,
and we're just going to roll those in here.
And the Apple Pencil 2 is so superior to the first one,
having the screen that doesn't have the home button
on the front and the big top and bottom
is such a big deal.
There's so many things about it that they have rolled in
and then there's some that they've chosen not to.
They chose not to do the
TrueDepth sensor
bar stuff, right? It's just not there.
They went to the trouble
of engineering a new Touch ID button instead.
How did you
overall feel about the
touch id versus face id i didn't realize just how many times i was authenticating without thinking
about it on my ipad pro i just didn't realize that if you were if you are somebody who's using
an ipad with the magic keyboard which i know you were I can imagine it is more frequently highlighted to you
how you have to reach up to touch it.
Where if you're using the iPad in your hands a lot,
it's probably not much of a problem
because your hand is probably right there.
Yes, it's true that if you're using it in a keyboard
and you're touching the space bar
and then realizing that on the iPad Pro,
you just touch the space bar and you're in.
Whereas on this,
if you,
if you use that same gesture,
it doesn't work because you have to reach up,
which means that you should really not use that gesture.
You should use the gesture where you reach up and press and let go and let
it scan your finger.
And that's the gesture you should use on this because,
you know,
and I I'm so trained by the iPad pro that I do the other gesture,
but that, that wouldn't be logical if you were using the iPad Air all the time.
And also you're unlikely to have had the iPad Pro before having this iPad Air,
so that gesture is not ingrained for you.
Right. So it's a different gesture, but it does remind me that it's the gesture that we all used
to use, which is you have to reach up and touch your device somewhere in order to unlock it.
And I've gotten away from that.
And so, yeah, it's exacerbated by the keyboard, but I use my iPads out of the keyboard far
more than I use them in the keyboards.
And even then, like you have to adjust your grip or you have to keep, you have to find
a grip that keeps your finger on the home button that's
your other choice right but like it's not terrible but like face id is almost invisible and i think
you train yourself to to just sort of forget that it's even happening whereas with touch id it's more
in your face it's um ironically it's actually in your face. Ironically, it's actually in your
finger. It's a task you have to perform to unlock your device. The beauty of Face ID when it works
is that it's essentially invisible. You don't have to do anything. You may be aware that you
just authenticated, but you don't really have to do anything. You're just looking at your device
and it works. I find that that works more often than not, a lot more often than not, but touch ID, I mean, it works. It's great. They
did a good job. It's a good feature. It's nice. I just, it's not as nice as face ID. And that's
the story here, right? It's like those sensors are apparently expensive. And that was a place
that Apple chose to skimp a little bit, but they did put in this
nice Touch ID that's perfectly good. So if you're coming from an iPad experience that doesn't have
Face ID, then it's not going to matter to you because it's a nice implementation of Touch ID.
But I don't think it's as nice. I had forgotten just how big a change it was to go from Touch ID
to Face ID on the iPad pro.
What did you think about using the smaller keyboard?
You know, I'd never used it before.
The, the 11 inch magic keyboard.
And I'm impressed at how small it is and how it makes this very compact kind of like a writing machine. Like I'm very impressed.
I always think about that. Like if I'm somebody who's a writer and I need to work from place to
place, which right now there's a lot less of that, right. But having the smallest, a little,
a little thing that has all of my writing and gives me everything I need, the smaller, the better,
made me think about the 11 inch MacBook air air like that kind of thing um the first keyboards
that you could clip into a the first small ipad pro right i was thinking about that all of those
kinds of things and their choice to make the keys uh normal size the the alphanumeric keys i think
is good i was able to type perfectly fast on it. It was all of the modifiers and
especially like the, the plus minus keys that are all like fractional width. They're weird widths
that took some getting used to, but you know, if that's your keyboard that you use all the time,
you'd get used to it. The problem is if you switch among keyboards, it's a really weird
keyboard layout because of that.
But, you know, in the grand scheme of things,
I think they made the right decision
to shrink down the modifiers
and not to shrink down the alphanumerics.
The alphanumerics felt good.
I use it all the time and I really like it.
I think they did a great job with that small keyboard.
I think I use it more than the bigger one these days.
I, you know, I immediately, I wrote my review on it,
but I immediately then went back to my iPad Pro
with a big keyboard.
I was like, oh, it's just because it's more comfortable
and it also is a better match
for every other keyboard in my life.
But I do think they did a good job.
I don't disagree.
It's like the iPad Air itself, right?
It's got some trade-offs in order to be what it is,
but what it is, you can see why they made them.
And to have that smaller size is really nice.
So overall, what is your kind of conclusion about the iPad Air 4?
Well, it's twofold.
First, if you're looking for...
I think it's a product for people who don't want to buy an iPad Pro, fundamentally. I think that's what it is, is you look at the iPad Pro starting at, what, $749, $799, $799. The 11-inch mouse is $799 in the US. And you say, no, I'm not going to buy an $800 iPad.
in the US. And you say, no, I'm not going to buy an $800 iPad. Well, now your choice is a little more stark at the low end where you've got the iPad iPad that has the home button on the front
and stuff like that. And then you've got this thing, which is more modern than that. It's got the iPad Pro look. It's got the modern Apple Pencil. It's got the A14.
And I think it is going to appeal to people who look at those two iPads and say, oh, I want the nice one.
But that person is not going to buy an $800 iPad.
They're just not.
And so I think that is how Apple has positioned this.
And so I think that is how Apple has positioned this.
I think hovering all over this is what happens to the iPad Pro, because I've definitely had people say, well, should I buy an 11-inch iPad Pro or should I buy this?
It's like, I don't know how to answer that question.
Because the 11-inch iPad Pro, if you're buying any amount of storage, you're now not very
far away from the iPad Pro with this thing.
So unless you're buying the base model, you're
very close to that iPad Pro. But know that that iPad Pro is essentially two-year-old technology
that is very clearly going to be replaced. And so for people like that, I would say,
do you need to buy an iPad right now? Because if you don't, you might want to wait and see what
Apple does with the iPad Pro. And then it'll, I suspect,
be much clearer about what your choices are. And the reason it's hazy right now is because one of them is about to leave us and be replaced by something different. But in the meantime,
they're kind of in the ballpark. So because, you know, in a lot of ways, in single core
processing tests, the iPad Air is faster because it's an a14 and in multi-core
the ipad pro is a little bit faster because it's got more cores even though it's an a12z
but it's close so it's close though yeah right so i mean that's what it comes back to is if you're
if you're somebody who is shopping for a high-end ipad you might want to wait because they're going
to be new high-end ipads soon i, that will be way more capable than anything Apple is selling right now.
If you're somebody who doesn't really care about that, then the iPad Air is a great choice because
it's got most of the features of the iPad Pro and it's going to be cheaper. And let me tell you,
nothing, looking at the space between the ipad pro and the ipad air
has convinced me that the next ipad pros are going to be more expensive i was just about to ask you
this question right right i cannot see how the next small ipad pro is going to start at 7.99
it's probably going to start at $899 or something like that.
$899?
I would... I mean, who knows?
Apple does all sorts of things.
But if I had to put down money,
I would say that the iPad Pro base price
of the cheapest new iPad Pro,
maybe they'll sell an old model or whatever for a while.
They do that sometimes.
But the new ones that have all of the new hot stuff for 2021,
they're not going to start at $799.
Not with the iPad Air here.
I just don't see it.
So I think what's going to happen...
It's probably one of the reasons
that they made that iPad Air 4
as good as it is, right?
Exactly.
I think that's exactly it,
is that the iPad Air looks strangely close
to the 11 now, the 11 Pro,
but it won't look close to whatever in like the
next ipad pro is especially because the rumors are suggesting that this the next ipad pros will be
potentially the debut of new screen technology right like because i think is it micro led
and as we've just seen with the, screen technology improvements increase the costs, right?
So, like, OLED in the 12 has made it more expensive
than the 11 that it replaces.
Because, I mean, especially when these things are all screens,
I'm sure that that is, like, a lot of the cost.
And so I could imagine that.
And if they do go for a new screen...
Because, look, we've got to assume there,
we would just assume that the next iPad Pro
is going to be some big leaps in some places.
Right.
Because otherwise this iPad Air 4
is just stepping all over a more expensive product.
Well, that's it.
We just had a comment in the Discord
that basically said, well, why, you know,
there's so much power in the iPad Pro now, essentially.
Why do you believe there's a new iPad Pro coming? And my answer is, why does the iPad
Air exist otherwise? Like, all of the signs point to there being another shoe to drop.
And to your point, you just have to go back to the iPhone 10, or in fact, the iPhone 12
this year, to see that bringing in a new nice screen technology is often the point at which Apple says,
well, the prices have to go up now, right?
Like OLED did that.
And if they have this micro LED that allows them to do a true like HDR on an iPad,
yeah, well, guess what?
That's going to start at $899 or $999.
Who knows?
Because as well, like, you know, you just got to look at the earnings, or $999 who knows because as well like you know you just
got to look at the earnings right the the ipad was struggling for a long time then the ipad pro
came around and then the more they did on the ipad pro the more money the ipad like line made
i think apple was aware that like the ipad pro is an area where they can do some wild stuff
and people will pay the money for it because the people that really want it, they want it, right? And I think that that has proven out
like the average kind of revenue per user
or whatever they call it,
like the margins and stuff are good on the iPad Pro line,
especially because all the accessories, you know?
So I think it is an area where they know they can push
and I expect them to do that.
All right, we're going to talk about the the new
iphones but i wanted to give a little bit of follow-up because we said we'd talk about this i
went to a store to buy an iphone um so we pre-ordered an iphone for adina she went from the
she went up to the 12 pro in the pacific blue and we wanted to do an in-store pickup just to see what that whole
situation was like.
So my overall review of
picking up an iPhone from Apple's
Regent Street store, which is one of
the flagship stores in the world, not London's
biggest store, that's Covent Garden,
but I believe
Regent, my favorite factory, I don't think
it's true anymore, but at a point
the Regent Street Apple store in London
made more money per square foot than any other Apple store
in the world, and it's a big store.
So
my kind of overall review of this
is it was fine.
It took a long time.
We had a window, a pickup window of 12 to
12.15. We got there
at 5 to 12, and they were like, please come back
at 12. 12 15 because with
the lines uh and effectively they just had lots of lines across lots of sidewalks so they were like
they really extended it out they had all these stickers on the ground right to keep people
two meters apart or whatever and they also you know you've got those kinds of barriers that have
like what looks like a seat belt that goes in between them you know you've got those kinds of barriers that have like what
looks like a seat belt that goes in between them you know what i'm talking about like those kind
of like you put the barrier out and then there's like a rope looks like a seat but they position
those to also be two meters apart so just stand at the next post kind of thing which i thought
was quite clever yep they had like basically lots of little holding areas so you would would get there and it's okay, get in this line.
And then you'd walk through this line.
Then you would get to a security person who was monitoring with somebody else who was
doing another line down the street, which was the actual line that you wanted to be
in, right?
So you'd go through this little line, they'd do their check-in thing, you know, that's
like want to make sure that you're in your window and all that.
That then send you to the main line, which actually snaked around the store.
We was in that line for like 15, 20 minutes. I got to the front of the store line basically.
And then a guy said, Hey, have you paid for this already? I said, yes. They said,
do you want me to just bring it out to you in the street? And I was like, yes, I do.
So that was what I did. So they just went in, they had a runner go in and then they brought
the, I never even went into the store. that was my experience with the watch band as well because
you it makes sense right like why have more people in the store physically inside yep if you don't
have to they did temperature checks i had to read this thing to say i had no like they made everyone
in the line was had to wear masks or provide one uh i would say that like
the staff was super conscious i thought of making sure that people were safe like i really felt like
they were paying a lot of attention and were going above and beyond to try and expedite stuff uh so
it was a long process but i was fine with it uh i'm gonna to do it again for the Pro Max. I'll do it again.
Because it was like, you know,
I liked the idea that if I've already paid for it,
I don't want to, I don't need to go in the store, right?
You can just bring it out.
They got it in the bag, put it in my bag and I go.
And I guess you might be somebody who's like,
well, I really want to shop for a case or whatever.
But you know, there are a lot of us,
this is what happened with my watch band.
It was like, no, I just want it. Just give it to me. I'll you know, there are a lot of us, and this is what happened with my watch band. It was like, no, I just want it.
Just give it to me.
I'll walk away.
And they're like, great.
Here it is.
Goodbye.
And thank you.
Like, that was, yeah, very orderly.
Like, not...
Because it was interesting, right?
I had a lot of people say to me, like,
I mentioned it, but like, oh, no.
This was better than when I go shop for groceries.
But like a million miles,
because in the grocery store, no one's doing anything, right?
Everyone's walking past each other all the time.
Like you'd line up to go in.
But once you're in, you know, it's like it's a free-for-all, right?
Or any store really.
Like this was the best shopping experience I have had so far.
I found out.
had so far? I found out. So, um, the, uh, liquor chain here, BevMo, um, when in the early days of the pandemic, they started this thing where you could just order online and they would basically,
they were in the store and they would fill your order in the store and, and you would show up
and you pay online and you'd show up and they'd basically roll a shopping cart out and say here.
And so I bought like beer that way.
And I went in recently and I actually went into the store and I thought to myself,
I think I might prefer her as long as there's offering to fill a shopping cart with what I want
and roll it out to me.
I think I might prefer that.
I think I might actually like, like that approach rather than going into a store
where people are randomly walking around
and I'm wearing a mask and I'm feeling kind of tense.
So I'm glad you had this experience.
I think it shows that Apple is trying to find ways
that make sense to distribute these products in this way,
which is good.
Because I really thought this is the stress test right
like they haven't had to do this yet apple like iphone day and i felt like it they managed it
about as well as i could have imagined they could have managed it so i was happy with the experience
overall like it was frustrating because we were there for a long time i felt like
but it was but that was just kind of like i wish they would hurry up but not so much in that like
i'm like oh how dare you you know i would have a funny story about um on iphone day on friday i was
running um just in my neighborhood i do i i did a couch couch to 5k program and now i run three
times ish a week,
a couple of miles.
Um,
and so I'm out on iPhone day and I'm running through my neighborhood and
there are two delivery vans.
There's a UPS van and there's a white unmarked contractor delivery van.
That's clearly rented.
And I think to myself,
Oh,
iPhone day.
Full of iPhones.
And let me tell you what was really funny about it is
i am a very slow runner um but i was able to spot these these vans and ultimately surpass them
because they kept stopping like they'd go down like 50 feet and then they'd stop and then get
out and deliver a thing because they were loaded down i think with iphones um and so at that moment where i ran past
the ups truck and the guy was in the back getting something out because i was gonna shout i really
was gonna do it i was like happy iphone day uh but then i i ran past them and and uh it just was a
funny moment because i got to watch while I was slowly catching up to them
I got to watch the progression of the
of the vans
as they unloaded their iPhones one by one
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and all of RelayFM. So Jason Snell, iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro time. What phones do you have
and how long have you had them? I have the iPhone 12 and the iPhone 12 Pro. What phones do you have and how long have you had them?
I have the iPhone 12 and the iPhone 12 pro.
What colors?
Uh,
I have a black iPhone 12 and a graphite iPhone 12 pro.
I've had them since Tuesday.
So fancy,
which is when those,
uh, those embargo reviews dropped because if you're not in the embargo set,
but you're in the next set of reviewers,
you can tell when the embargoes are going to drop
because that's after that is when they send you the phones.
Yeah, exactly.
So I've got those and I've been using them since Tuesday
or primarily since Wednesday,
since Wednesday was when my iPad Air review dropped.
So I had to finish that up.
But yeah, so I've had them for a little while, almost a week.
Is there one that you've been using more than another?
Or do you kind of split it nicely?
Yes, I decided to put my SIM and connect my Apple Watch to the 12.
Okay.
Why? and connect my apple watch to the 12 okay why and and that was because i got them out of the box and i spent you know a few hours looking at them and holding them and i thought to myself i like
the iphone 12 better okay i'm going to put my thing on the iPhone 12 and carry that around because it seems really nice. And also,
you know, the iPhone 12 Pro is pretty much a match for my iPhone 11 Pro. And so I thought,
let's experience what life is like on the iPhone 12 instead.
I will say color wise, I think you really got the short straw with the Pro. I mean,
I saw all four just through a window. I really don't like the color of the graphite. I think it's like muddy.
It's a very strange color to me.
It's, I mean, I'm surprised they're not calling it space gray.
But yes, it's just, it's boring gray.
It is the most boring, like, I don't know how to say this.
Apple somehow has managed to create the most boring iPhone.
And it's this graphite iPhone 12 Pro.
It's just dull.
If dull is your thing, then this is the phone for you.
But I see why they talked up the gold and the glam of the gold because the gold is,
is supposedly,
you know,
super shiny and awesome and gorgeous.
And I have this,
you know,
kind of silvery gray,
boring iPhone.
But yeah,
it's boring.
It's fine.
If you put it in a case or if you're somebody who doesn't want any kind of
personality on the device that you're using, it's going. It's fine if you put it in a case or if you're somebody who doesn't want any kind of personality on the device that you're using.
It's going to be fine for you.
But I just looked at it and I was like, oh, boy, this is my, you know, we've gone on about a year.
I mean, you would assume black is simple and boring.
But the black that they chose for the 12 and the white, I think it looks really great, right?
Like it's got a boldness to it.
I think it looks really great, right? Like it's got a boldness to it. I think it looks so good.
In fact, one of the things that made me laugh is I picked it up.
I picked up the iPhone 12 backward and the Apple logo was like reflecting a light source.
So as my hand moved up, it glinted and the Apple logo shined.
And I thought, oh, no, did my phone reboot?
And I realized, oh, no no i'm looking at the back
of the phone but it reminds me of the front of the phone because it's just this deep shiny black
just like an off iphone screen would be and then the metal border around it is this matte the
aluminum anodized black it's this matte finish it reminds me of the black iphone 5 which when that came out
i remember being like so impressed with how it looked was that the one that dinged up a lot
i don't know if that if there's a legend about that i had one i loved it it might have gotten
dinged up a little bit i didn't care i thought that it still looked cool but it was the it was the first like this is the all black iphone and it looks so good and this one
looks like that so i love it i would not i would not pick black i think i want to see the colors
more because i think i would pick the blue but let me tell you the black iphone 12 it's it's gorgeous
and you would think it would be boring um but it's not
it's the it's the graphite 12 pro that's that's boring what color did adina get uh pacific blue
oh right right so how is that i like it a lot um i think i like it about as much as i like the uh
midnight green where it's like this is different i like the way that this looks um and it's it's got a
i kind of i i i'm trying to pick the words here because i'm not trying to say that if you pick
another color this isn't you but the the midnight green and the pacific blue both have this kind of
like adult fashion forward feel to them
where they are not big, bright and bold colors, but they are colors.
And they go a lot more with other clothing because they're more dull
and you only really catch the color in certain lights.
So I think that that blue is really nice.
Adina has a plum case and it looks excellent.
So I think with some of these, with
the Midnight Green and the Pacific Blue, more than any other iPhone, you can really make it look good
of a case, in my opinion, where you just see the little pops of color come through because you can
make pairings with them, where if you have silver or black, it's just like, well, whatever, like
any color will go with it because they're so neutral so i i think that the blue is really nice i'm still into the gold big time personally
i've been i've seen images of it i've seen it like again through a window i just think it looks
super good i'm very into that but i i also do i just i really like the the blue if the gold didn't
exist or if the gold was more like a regular gold,
blue is what I would have gone with
because I was such a fan of the midnight green.
And I think that the Pacific blue is the blue
what the midnight green was the green.
You know, like they are very different
to the colors that are on the 12.
But I think Apple chose a very, very good
overall look for that.
And I think that the rails and the back,
they match really nicely
where maybe on some of the other phones,
there is a mismatch to it, good and bad, right?
Like I think the gold, for example,
the gold rails, the stainless steel rail
is way more gold than the back.
But on the blue, they match it very well, actually.
And again, similarly to the green,
the stainless steel green that goes around the green 11 Pro
matches very nicely.
So I think that the blue is a good call
for people that go for it.
You know, I've seen people enjoy the silver
and I completely understand why
because it's like any other silver iPhone.
I used to be a white and silver iphone person for a long time uh as well but yeah i think the blue is a the
blue is a good call and fundamentally it's a it's a personal choice i think what's interesting now
is that if you if you like those kinds of muted colors or not colors then then the pro is your
choice and if you prefer something that is a little more, you know, eye-popping, then the non-pro is your choice, which is, I could make the argument a little unfortunate because you're basically, if you have an aesthetic preference and a tech spec preference for something like the camera, you have to choose between them.
Yeah.
I get why Apple wants consistency here.
yeah um i get why apple wants consistency here i am you know and it's already clear i i am firmly aesthetically on the side of the iphone 12 and um and muted colors if if you're into that if you if
you want it to be there or somebody just in the discord just said you know it doesn't shout i
have a new iphone which i think is a fair point
like not everybody wants this and if you wrap it in a case people aren't going to notice anyway and
so it doesn't matter at all what the color of your phone is because it's hidden in a case um
that all said i you know i find it boring i find it boring and i find apple's reluctance to put
any color or any appreciable color like i know last year there was the green, now there's the blue, but it's like the subtlest.
It's a dark grayish green or blue.
It's super subtle and muted.
And this is Apple's belief, apparently, is that a professional product shouldn't have color.
And if it does have color, it should just have a very, very very light touch of it that's a take i i don't agree and i think they're
i think they're kind of boring and i think the iphone 12s look great and honestly the stainless
steel so it's shiny and um it's a it's an enormous fingerprint magnet. It's super gross. And the anodized aluminum on the 12
is matte and holds out against fingerprints incredibly well.
Looks better, I think.
The back of the 12 is shiny,
which means it's a fingerprint magnet there.
And it's matte on the back of the 12 Pro. So you can't see the fingerprint so much on the back of the 12 pro so you can't see the fingerprints so much on
the back of the 12 pro however i think the shiny 12 back is more grippy because your fingers just
kind of like your fingertips just kind of hold on and here's the funny thing about my phone i'm never
looking at the back i'm looking at the sides in the front i very rarely look at the back and when
i look at the back and i see fingerprints i just rarely look at the back. And when I look at
the back and I see fingerprints, I just kind of wipe it off on my shirt or my pants. And then,
and then I move on with my life. I have been using a caseless by the way, which I haven't
used a phone caseless since the, uh, the six came out and was a bar of soap. And I'm loving that
too. Are you using it caseless because you feel like you can, or is it because you want to?
Yes. Because both, both, because I feel like I can or is it because you want to are you because both both because i feel like i can again because it feels a little uh more comfortable in my hand and less
slippy and because i do prefer it i prefer seeing it without a case and i prefer the weight without
a case and the size without a case that's another thing by the way the 12 pro is surprisingly
noticeably heavier than the 12. It is a heavier phone.
So, you know, so much of this is just personal preference
and it's your personal style choice and aesthetics
or maybe your priority about the cameras.
But I immediately gravitated toward the 12
and like the 12 better.
I have come to a conclusion personally about the fingerprints on the sides because this seems
to be something that everyone's talking about right now uh i mean the 11 pro is the same
right there's fingerprints all over the sides of my phone because it's still stainless steel
and people are maybe noticing it more because it's flat right now but like honestly this will
not be a thing that i or
anybody cares about after like two weeks of owning the phone like yeah if you're taking a bunch of
glamour shots for your phone of your phone to put online you will see the fingerprints but so i have
two two responses to that one is the curved edge of the previous model hides the fingerprints better
maybe because the light because the light
bends around it and so you have inconsistent light around it and second i've never been tempted to
carry my iphone 11 pro without a case all right you see but i have been caseless on my 11 pro
for months now so like you know i can look at the side of my phone right now and I can see it is covered in fingerprints, but I kind of don't care about it, really.
All right.
We had a question from Marlies in the Discord,
one for each of us.
Jason, is the millimeter wave window
as ugly in person as it looks in the photos?
So this is like a little cutout
in the sides of the phones
for millimeter wave in Americaica for 5g are you
bugged by that at all um well on the it's different in the different models right like on
on my iphone 12 pro it's this fairly light the stainless steel is this fairly light material
and then the millimeter wave cut out is black and so it really stands out and I think is less attractive.
On my black iPhone 12, you know, it is not a perfect match for the aluminum.
But it's also matte and it's also black or a very very dark gray and essentially is a match with the
um with the wake sleep button right so aesthetically i'd say it's fine on the 12 and on
the 12 pro i would say aesthetically it is less attractive okay that makes sense because of the
mismatching material right yeah and probably every color has
a different story to tell there and i don't know because i only have the two i've seen pictures and
some of them are better than others yeah um and molly's also asked about for me in the european
union uh the regulatory markings so there's like these little etched regulatory markings on the
side i don't think you'd see them unless you're looking for them you can see them if you want to
look at them but like I barely noticed them.
I can see them on Adina's phone because there they are,
but it would not bother me personally.
What else have we got?
I want to jump ahead real quick
because we were talking about comparing these two.
There's a lot more to get into, which we will,
but there's kind of like a concluding line
that I've been thinking about
that I wanted to share with you now,
kind of like how I have interpreted
the reviews that I've seen
and from my own usage of the 12 Pro.
These two phones,
depending on where you're coming from,
there might not be a lot of enhancement for you.
Like if you're coming from the 11 to the 12, you're making a nice jump, right?
Or, you know, because you've got the OLED screen and all that kind of stuff and the new size and new design.
If you're coming from the 11 Pro, it's new design and some small tweaks here and there, right?
This feels like these two phones are the baseline for the reviews
of this generation because the mini and the max, that's where the excitement is, right? Because
these two phones have different things. The mini, who knows what that's going to be like, right? No
one has any idea at the moment how it is going to feel to use an iPhone 10 size design phone in that size.
It could be fantastic or terrible.
And I bet it is both depending on your own personal opinions, right?
I'm really excited to see the reviews of that phone
because it's going to be all over the map.
And then the Max, what is that camera going to be like, right?
Like there is a lot of expectation placed on that
because that is super interesting.
It could be a mammoth leap right because of the stuff they're doing with the sensor so like these are
the two poles where the reviews are going to get i think really interesting and so it's kind of
funny that like we have this we have a baseline now you know yeah all of the phones have these
features and we're going to talk about them and that is your typical year-over-year improvement to the iphone but then
on the ends which are coming in a few weeks time this is where we're going to start to see the
not normal year-over-year improvement right like what we have in the 12 and the 12 pro
more in the 12 pro really is an s model phone right because the as i say the 12
from the 11 that's really interesting as an upgrade but the 11 pro to the 12 pro i mean like
in the sense of like you get an oled screen right and the new design there's more going on there if
you're coming from an 11 i guess my my my complaint about what you're saying, I get what you're saying in the sense that
we've seen the mainstream, but not the edges.
And the edges are more interesting
because they have some real differences.
Whereas these two mainstream phones
are now almost exactly the same, right?
They use the same cases.
They're the same size,
even if their weight is slightly different and one of them has a few extra features they're essentially the same phone
yeah uh and the style differences but that's the beauty of having these opposite styles on these
two models is they're essentially the same phone so choose what style you like yeah and how much
you want to pay um where i disagree is saying they're essentially S-class phones because you could argue from an industrial design standpoint
that this is the biggest change in the iPhone in many years,
in like six years.
The design is where my analogy falls apart there.
So if we take that part out where I said about the S-line,
what I'm really trying to say is it's like these two phones have set the baseline for all four and then from there
there's some differences right but these two phones are like this is the iphone 12 line this
year all of them have this stuff and then on the mini and the max we're going to start to see
things that are maybe more polarizing more
more interesting but i agree with you that like a design change is always a good thing it's always
an interesting thing it's always a thing that makes people want to buy phones but this is like
a design change which is really great and is wanted yeah well it's it's funny too because i in my review which is not finished yet
i talk about how there have been these eras of iphone design and there's like the early era
there's the original iphone and then the 3g 3gs and then there's the like four and five era where
they had the flat sides and then there's the six through last year era six years of that um but
this is a new era but it's also going back to that four and five era right like these are these
are recognizably the same phone as the iphone four and five they really are the design is very much
the same um and so it's kind of a reversion,
but I love that design.
I think it was the best iPhone design.
So I'm very happy that it's back.
I'm in camp five, by the way.
I know like a lot of people talk about
the four as the best design.
I am definitely in like five and five S is my favorite.
The five is better,
but you know,
maybe my favorite iPhone is that black iPhone five
because yeah,
it got bigger and all that,
but it was still the same design language as the 4.
It was just a taller phone.
And, yeah, so it was better.
But you kind of need to credit the 4 because the 4 is where it came in.
But I agree with you about the edge cases.
I think it will be interesting to see those reviews.
However, I will say that my bet is that they won't be as interesting
as you might think. Because my bet is going to be that the reviews of the Mini are,
yep, this is an iPhone 12, but it's kind of small. It's smaller than you think. And so for most
people, you should probably get the 12 and not the Mini, which will be true because I think the 12 is
the mainstream model and the Mini is kind of a, an outlier model,
but that'll be how those reviews go.
And the max reviews will be like,
you know,
the camera,
yeah,
the camera's better,
but it's not as,
it's not dramatically better.
You know,
it's a little bit better than on the 12 pro.
So you could,
you know,
I just,
that's,
that's my bet is that I don't think that these are going to be revelatory
because I think Apple would have said if they were, I think they're going to be incremental. You know, I just, that's my bet, is that I don't think that these are going to be revelatory, because I think Apple would have said if they were.
I think they're going to be incremental.
You know, the difference being that they're incremental within the same release year,
instead of what Apple usually does, which is make those increments from year to year.
But that's just my guess, is that these will be, you know, I'm still interested to see them,
because I think that both of these phones are fascinating.
I think the reaction to the Mini is especially going to be fascinating but um it wouldn't surprise me if
the reviews are are not quite as interesting as you might hope they are but do you see the things
that you just said that's really interesting to me okay like even because like just people saying
the mini is not as great as you might think it is it's too small of an iphone i find that like
fascinating well we'll see that's just my guess that's my prediction i've never held one in my is not as great as you might think it is. It's too small of an iPhone. I find that fascinating.
Well, we'll see.
That's just my guess.
That's my prediction.
I've never held one in my hand,
but that's my prediction is that that's what those articles
are going to ultimately say
because they're going to be written by tech reviewers
who've used all the products
and they're going to look at the small phone
and be like, yeah, it's nice that it's small,
but it's too small.
And then there'll be people who'll be like,
how dare you say it's too small tech reviewer.
You just don't understand.
I mean, we know how the internet works, right?
But I do think it will find an audience.
It will find a loyal following.
And then on the high end with the Pro Max, I was looking at the Austin Mann review of the iPhone 12 Pro camera, which is great and people should check it out.
review of the iPhone 12 Pro camera, which is great and people should check it out.
But what I found interesting is he makes these beautiful images and he shows like off some of the great features that have been updated, including some of the night mode stuff.
But then there are other features that Apple's like, oh, there's going to be more,
there's new optics, there's more detail around the edges of the camera.
And he has a one line kind of dismissal of that where he's like, yeah, not so, yeah, maybe, but not so you'd notice. Like,
he's just like, well, that's not. So some of the Apple's features, he's like, yes, Apple did this
and other features he kind of shrugs at. And I just, I was thinking about the Pro Max and thinking
he might lose his mind over the different sensor and the image stabilization in the Pro Max.
But, you know,
my guess is that it will be more measured.
My guess is that it'll be more like,
yeah,
it's better.
Like,
but I,
I don't think I,
I,
anyway,
I am skeptical that the pro max is going to come in and everybody's going
to be like,
Oh my God,
the camera on the pro max is so much better than the camera on the regular
pro that any photographer should all should just buy a
pro max i i i'm i'm dubious of that i think it's going to be subtler than that and the real reason
you buy the pro max is maybe because uh photography matters to you but also because you want the big
phone which is fine can we talk about the camera a little bit i have a few thoughts you know yes
i've taken a bunch of pictures and some video
um overall i would say that the photos that i've taken uh with adina's phone and the video um much
more vivid in color in a way that i really like uh there's more contrast more color a little more
detail in certain places especially in indoors so like you know what
apple's saying about the benefits that they're seeing there i completely agree with uh the the
hdr video looks fantastic i i took just some video i basically put both my iphone and her
from side by side and kind of walked around my studio and played them back on the devices and
even like transferred her video to
my phone you immediately see the difference you can really see where the hdr is kicking in like
i take it near some light sources and you can see where the phone is illuminating um it's really
like really cool that the hdr video is awesome my favorite thing though i'm surprised about is
night mode portraits so portrait mode and night mode combined this is a thing that it
does now they have this really like there's a great example of this in austin man's uh photo
review and i've been able to produce some of these myself they have this like dreamy look to them
like it's kind of like like blurry but illuminated in just the right places like
i really like the look of night mode portraits
in a way that I wouldn't have expected. Um, but basically like overall, even without like a ton
of new hardware, I mean, they've changed some stuff in the lenses and then they've done a bunch
of software stuff. I think that the camera improvements are exactly what I would want.
Um, more detail, more contrast, more color. Like they're the three things
that I'm always looking for.
Like I do not profess
to know a lot about photography,
but over the last couple of years,
I have focused more on like
using iPhone apps to edit photos.
And my personal tastes
are for bright colors.
I like color and saturation in my images.
It's just what I like.
And I feel like that the iPhone 12 Pro
for me is more readily producing images that have more color in them. And so I'm really happy with
it. I think it's a great improvement in the images that I've taken. The video is bananas good.
And again, so I just remain excited about what the max will have and if, and how it will
show more, uh, improvement. What is your experience with the camera so far? Any difference?
I've reached the point where I have a very hard time noticing differences between iPhone models.
They, you know, I, I, it, we've long since left the period. There are still moments.
I haven't done an HDR video test.
There's probably something there because I remember when they went to, when I, when they
went to extended dynamic range, which they very specifically didn't call HDR because
it wasn't.
And also because they knew they were going to be adding age true HDR later when they
went to extended dynamic range, you could see the difference.
And I would imagine that as you said, you can see it even more, the idea that it is sampling probably bracketing
images and doing all sorts of very clever things to expand the dynamic range. And for people who
don't know, essentially our eyes are really good at seeing things in brightness and darkness
simultaneously, and cameras are really bad at that. And so when you're there,
they're doing tricks to make the cameras better at approximating what we actually can see with
our eyes. And that especially means things like a scene with bright sunlight and dark shadows,
and being able to get the details in both, which we do naturally as human beings with vision that cameras are bad at. So I would imagine that
they have taken it further. But again, I have not done a lot of shots of that. And I am kind of at
wit's end when it comes to iPhone photography, because I've gotten to the point now where I do
the sample tests on different models, and I look at them, and I can't tell the difference.
And then, and so I rely on people like Austin Mann who are photographers who can actually say,
you know, yes, because the answer is they look good. And that, yes, the things that Apple claims
in terms of improved, uh, portrait mode, improved, uh, night mode and night portrait mode for the
first time using the LiDAR scanner on the pro. Yeah. Like all that stuff is there and I'm impressed by it. I was impressed by night
mode last year too, but beyond that, you know, I don't know. I use my iPhone camera now and
basically don't use my SLR because the iPhone camera is so good. But beyond that, I don't,
I don't have anything else to say about like comparing
them because it's very hard for me to tell if what I'm seeing is a difference in the, in the
minutia of the moment to moment shots of the two cameras, or if it's actually something happening.
It's just like when we were struggling trying to figure out if deep fusion was happening.
Like, it's really hard to tell. It's really hard to tell just, they look good and they look better
than last year and most
people who are buying this phone are coming from a camera that's two three four years older and
they're going to see a big difference but you know from year to year it just gets incrementally
better and the increments build up and most people don't buy a new phone every year last thing
before we finish up for now on the iphone line, how do you feel about MagSafe?
I mean, I like it. It seems nice. The magnet snapping on so you know that you've got a connection is very useful.
is very useful. That said, I had the MagSafe down on my counter and before I went to bed,
I laid the iPhone 12 on it, you know, kind of old school style, like the charging mats and felt like I had gotten the snap and I came out in the morning and it had not connected.
Well, forget that then, I suppose.
Yeah. But it's a nice idea. I have a problem with the idea that Apple has not put a plug.
I mean, so the plug charger in the box of all of these, like I get it. It's fine. It is very
strange that Apple has done that at the same time that they put a USB-C cable in the box.
Because you know what we all have a lot of? USB-A charging connectors, not USB-C charging
connectors. USB-C charging connectors, I don't have that many of
them. And I've got iPad Pros that have them. I don't have that many of them. And so the struggle
with the MagSafe is that is a USB-C connector. And unlike the iPhone, where you can just go find
your lightning to USB-A connector and use that instead, that thing only will take a USB-C
connector. So I had to pull an adapter that I was using
somewhere else out and put it in my kitchen where I charge my devices and plug it into the wall
there. And, uh, you know, I don't know. It's just kind of a pain, but I did it and then, uh, it
works great. And I like the idea of MagSafe and having a whole bunch of different accessories come out for it. I think that's all perfectly good, but I don't know. I, I, the, the, the power adapter thing kind of annoys me,
especially on the MagSafe. Like I get it. The packaging is much smaller, but like it's USB-C
in the end, it's not going to matter. But right now it does kind of matter. Even,
even in my house, that's a very tech tech centric most of the excess charging plug capacity
we have is usb-a not usb-c we bought uh two magsafe things and spent like i spent like half
an hour looking for a spare one of those with the usb-c end i just kept coming across usb-a plugs and ended up finding one in
a backpack somewhere like similarly right like i have lots of charging adapters power adapters
that have usb-a ends on them but not so many with usb-c ends um you know you you want to
you want to rip the band-aid off at a certain point but maybe one more year when we got usbc
but whatever like yeah then it's like what about the people three years before it's a thing that's
frustrating to lots of people i i can see why they're doing it but you know as we said before
it frustrates me that it's it's it is clearly a cost-saving measure as well you know yeah well
i i just think that they did it wrong i think last year they should have put a usb charger in the box with the usb c cord and it
was but it wasn't right it was a usb a charger last year yeah see that's that's i i oh yeah i
guess we should look that's the right thing to the right thing to do is seed the world with usb c
chargers and then take the charger out of the box yeah but then the then the argument would be with Trident Sound is the year-over-year
upgrade is not necessarily the right
place to do that anyway. It's true.
You're right, because they're not... Anyway, yes.
Ideally, they should have switched to USB-C
chargers several years ago.
The Discord is telling us that the
Pro lines had USB-C last year.
The regular ones had USB-A.
Anyway, you're right that most
people aren't upgrading from last year's
model anyway so it's just it's an unfortunate confluence of things that they put a usbc cord
in the box but the chargers most people have are usba it's just my main frustration with
magsafe is how short the cable is it is it's a meter it is and you can't extend it right it's just that's not because you can't
disconnect it yeah it's not it's not very flexible uh you know it's only a matter of time before
there's a magsafe a three meter magsafe uh compatible charger on amazon or something like
that it may be there already i hope so because like we really had to do some gymnastics to snake it up the back of the bedside cabinet.
It was not easy to do.
So that's the iPhone 12.
I mean, obviously we're not done, right?
We'll be talking about the mini and Max
in a few weeks' time, I think.
So I'm excited about that.
But yeah, these are interesting phones.
The design, I think, is I'm excited about that. But yeah, these are interesting phones. The design, I think,
is the real king here. But it depends on what colors you want to go for. I think that's super
cool. And I really like flat sides. I'm looking forward to having my phone every day be like that
rather than one that I can just steal every now and again. Yes. Well, I'm looking forward to
getting my hands on the mini because
i'm still intrigued by the idea of having a smaller iphone although i will say that i i do love the 12
um it's really great and it may it's going to be harder for the mini to sort of dislodge me from
the 12 but i am intrigued by it this episode is brought to you by Pingdom from SolarWinds.
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what tools do you use for publishing
six colors
WordPress and marcella wants to know jason what tools do you use for publishing six colors uh wordpress that's it these days a wordpress and custom templates that i took me months to
build i wrote about this on six colors um i spent like six months working on custom templates and
working with people at automatic who helped out uh i've got plugins and all sorts of custom stuff inside of WordPress. And I've
paid to have a couple of custom WordPress plugins written for me, put all together or modifying
existing plugins. There's a lot of stuff going on there, but we moved from movable type to WordPress
mostly because it allows me to do a whole bunch of membership features and have people log in if
they're supporters and they see different stuff. And're not logged in you see different stuff and um and uh it's been great
what app do you use to send the text do you just paste it into the
uh into the web like where are you getting from computer to, you know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
So on the iPad, I modified all my shortcuts to use the posting API for WordPress, which is essentially the same posting API as for movable type, because they're both using this
old posting standard XMLRPC.
So that was super convenient.
I thought I was going to throw away all the
work I did to post for movable type by shortcuts on the iPad. And it turns out I didn't, it was a,
it was a shockingly simple change to get it all to work on WordPress. Um, on the Mac,
I mostly write in BB edit, and then I can paste that in either to uh the web page cms for wordpress or i use mars edit
from red sweater software which works great with wordpress works better with wordpress than it did
with movable type honestly because we had hacked movable type to do a bunch of things that mars
edit was less happy about whereas it all works just fine with wordpress it doesn't surprise me
as well though smooth yeah oh no not at The type you're using was a billion years old.
Yes. Yes. With modification, the modifications were really the killer. It's like adding custom
fields that were not necessarily seen by MarsEdit. But MarsEdit sees all of the custom fields and
stuff that we've got in the WordPress version. So I use MarsEdit some of the time. I think Dan
writes mostly in MarsEdit. I do a lot of BBEdit stuff
and then just paste it in to the CMS or into MarsEdit.
But on the iPad, it's great.
I have, whether I'm writing in drafts or in OneWriter,
I have like a keyboard shortcut
that just pops it right into the CMS
and opens the webpage in WordPress
with it ready to go out.
Nice.
And then I can check it out and preview it and do whatever,
but it's in there kind of automatically.
Got a Kremlinology. Oh my gosh, Kremlinology. There we go. it out and preview it and do whatever but it's in there kind of automatically got a criminal
criminal criminal oh my gosh kremlinology there we go that's a charm a kremlinology question from
yitz who wants to know do you think apple might have actually filmed all two or all three apple
events at the same time or at least the parts that involve the same people like do you think
they wrapped one and started a whole new one
or do you think there was a continuation?
I think they wrapped one and started a new one.
Like they didn't film them at the same time?
No, and the reason I say that is,
first off, I think it makes more sense
because they're different events
with different people involved
and some of the same people.
But also I would say you would,
you know, you could shoot all of tim cook's stuff at once but you'd need tim cook to change his wardrobe and like
you'd want it to seem like a different event not a rerun of the previous event so that's my guess
um is that my guess is that they are in continuous production of these things especially if there's a third one
but that they probably unless there was a very specific scheduling thing but nobody's really
traveling much um my guess is that they they probably have a schedule with all the different
stuff but that they prioritize sort of like this is for number one and then as they wrap number one
they moved on to number two and presumably as they wrap number, they moved on to number two. And presumably as they wrapped number two, they moved on to number three. That's just a guess.
But my guess is that it is, if you do it as one production, you have to have all the scripts run ahead of time,
which means that they would have needed everything for all three events before they started doing event one.
I doubt that they work that way, even if they know what the products are.
That's a huge amount of work to do in advance of the set.
if they know what the products are.
That's a huge amount of work to do in advance of the set.
Whereas you can have it be,
if you think of it as an assembly line or a conveyor belt,
like the people who are working on the script and then they pass that off
and then it goes to production
and then they pass that off and they shoot it
and then it goes to post-production
and then coming right behind that is number two
and then presumably coming behind that is number three.
Just kind of makes sense to do it that way.
So my gut feeling is they didn't shoot
all of Tim Cook's introductions for the entire Falls event.
Also because like Tim's right over there in his office
and he can just, Tim Cook would probably prefer
a few shorter photo shoots or video shoots to,
also keep in mind they have to be familiar
with their scripts and stuff.
So you're going to give people even more script to record.
I think it breaks down. So i don't know that for sure it's possible but my guess would be that they didn't shoot these that way so i think there's a few things at play here one uh
stuff changes as well right so like especially with some of these products i'm sure they were
going up to the wire on some of them so you would maybe want to give yourself as much time as
possible the weather changes too what if it rains one day and then it's sunny another day
and or it's like a the smoke came in one day and then it's clear another day and you're weird and
you're like well wait that was on a smoky day and like i don't think i think they want to keep i'm
not saying they shoot it all on the same day but i'm saying you know if you shoot in a compressed
amount of time it's going to seem a little more
unified without you having to do work to fake it yeah and also as well throughout the presentations
you can tell that they got a little bit more relaxed about like social distancing as things
became that's true too a little bit more uh feasible people could understand what they
were able to do more people were allowed to be actually at apple park because there's there's more scenes where it seems like people are in the
space with each other right and also like those warnings at the end have changed uh like the
that they're doing at the end so there's no way they could have filmed more at the same time
uh there's a possibility that they may have shared some some like time i think between the two most recent
events but no way was the anything done from wwdc one at the same time like shown later on i don't
think for sure steve says do you have any interest in a bumper style case making a comeback now that
we have the flat side phones again i love those and they would make a lot of sense if you want
to show off your new color and make use of the new MagSafe charging system.
It's a good idea.
Bumper cases have existed ever since the iPhone 4, right?
Companies continue to make them.
And, you know, I know people have used them.
There's a few companies.
I think one of them that I've seen that I've,
I think I tried one once and didn't like it.
It was a company called RhinoShield. Like Like I just didn't like it on that particular phone. And they are back again with
their bumpers. But I think maybe now it makes more sense again that people might want bumper cases.
But I wondered kind of like, is this a, is that a case style that still appeals to you?
that a case style that still appeals to you i'm not sure it ever really appealed to me right um so would i get one probably not like i've said all the things that i love about the anodized
aluminum if i felt like i really needed a little more protection maybe i would get the bumper case
but i'm i have no plan on it but i would imagine that um people will make them and that they will be more aesthetically pleasing on these models, especially on the 12s where they've got the bright colored back.
Like my daughter has a purple 11 and she's got it in a clear case and like she wants to show off the color, but the clear case is, I don't like the clear case.
So something like this that provides a little more protection without um hiding the
color on the back is a good idea but i'm not interested personally yeah i don't know what
it is exactly but i kind of just don't particularly feel for this type of case anymore it's like i
don't know why i loved it then but not now but now I'm kind of just like I'm either going to go with a full case or
no case. It's kind of how I feel about the matter.
And for
my plan is to go no case
on the new phone.
That's the plan. We'll see how that
goes. I have ordered a new pop socket for it.
I'm
keeping the pop socket
life going. I'm
not changing that for the time being.
And I'm just waiting to see if or what
would be a possibility for me for MagSafe.
I don't know if, I've been actually thinking,
I'm not sure if PopSocket are actually making
a magnetic PopSocket or if they are making
a PopSocket that works with MagSafe, right?
That you still adhere something to your phone,
but like MagSafe will still work.
I actually think that is more likely
what they're doing
than making a pop socket
that attaches with magnets
because I don't think it's strong.
I don't think it's going
to be strong enough.
And I think maybe they know that.
Dave asks,
I don't record geotag data on photos
because I don't want to risk it remaining
when I share photos.
How do you manage this?
Multiple ways.
So there's a few things going on here.
One, when you share a photo with somebody
in the share sheet on iOS,
there is a little button,
a text label called options
at the top of the share sheet.
If you tap that,
it gives you the option to uncheck location.
So therefore, when you share it,
it will wipe the location
metadata from the photo for you. So you can share it with somebody in a message or however,
and it will remove it. And I think there's a way to make that the global setting, I believe,
but I'm not 100% sure on that one, but you can turn it off. Many apps like Twitter actually
remove the metadata from the image when it's uploaded.
So if somebody shares an image to Twitter and you download it,
you don't get the location information even if they didn't do anything.
I have also built a shortcut to do this
because sometimes I'll take photos and share them in show notes and stuff for resolution.
I will try to share a link to that shortcut in the show notes for you. It's a
very simple one. It just removes the metadata and asks where you want to put it. So I will try and
generate a link for that shortcut and put it in the show notes. Do you have anything different
on this, Jason? Do you ever think about this? No, and no. You've shown it. Like you have options to not share with location.
That's it.
Last question today from Daniel.
When you get a new phone, do you set it up as new
or do you transfer?
And if you transfer, how?
I transfer it and I actually did it with iCloud
and with a direct device-to-device transfer
because I had the two phones on tuesday and the
iCloud transfer went way faster than the device to device transfer but um on friday dan moran tried
the device the iCloud backup transfer and it took forever and then he had to quit and then and then
he redid it and it worked fine i suspect what happens is Apple servers got a peak of people transferring
their iCloud backups and that there was a hiccup. And so maybe on iPhone day, it's not as good. But
I had a very good experience with the iCloud backup. And weirdly, the device to device transfer
seemed to take longer for me. But that's what I do. And you can even plug in a cable between two
devices and transfer it that way if you want to do it there's lots of different ways to do it you can do it based on a mac backup but i generally
just use the icloud backup when i get a new device and it works great so with adina's phone this is
super interesting to me uh we i tried to do the device to device transfer but it failed and said
that there wasn't enough storage but that wasn't't the case. It was a 256 gigabyte
iPhone going to a 128 gigabyte iPhone. And there was 46.7 gigabytes used on the 256 gigabyte iPhone.
So we were only transferring maximum like 50 gigabytes of storage. So I don't know why
it wouldn't allow for it and then the only thing
we could do was reset the new phone to factory settings and start again and then we just did
cloud store cloud uh refresh and it was super fast and no problem so i don't know if it's because
like because it was going from 256 to 128 but if that's the case that's madness because we weren't
transferring 256 gigabytes of information
but the phone only said it was using 46.7 so that was my as there is always a weird setup problem
that i encounter that was this one but so i'm just going to continue doing the cloud backup because
um it was super fast i have good internet internet, right? So, you know,
I have gigabit internet
so everything was downloading quickly.
I was doing it on iPhone launch day,
had no problems.
So I think I'll just continue
doing the cloud backup,
which is what I'd done before.
The device-to-device backup was interesting,
but it takes a long time as well.
Yeah, it's mostly for people
who don't have a good internet connection
or are data rate limited in some way or data capped.
So if you can
be on Wi-Fi and it's fast and you
can do iCloud backup, I highly recommend it.
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If you want to find Jason online,
go to sixcolors.com. Jason will
be publishing more details
about his thoughts
on the iPhone
and an iPhone 12 review
probably later on this week
I'm going to say
Jason is also
at jsnall
on Twitter
I'm at imyke
I-M-Y-K-E
thank you to
Pingdom
DoorDash
and Hover
for their support
of this episode
and for you
for listening
we'll be back
next time
until then
say goodbye
Jason Snell
bye Mike Hurley and for you for listening. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell.
Bye, Mike Hurley.