Upgrade - 371: Midnight Is Starlight's Best Friend

Episode Date: September 14, 2021

Apple announced new iPhones, Apple Watches and iPads on Tuesday, and this is our quick reaction to the news. What color is the saddest rainbow? Why was Joz locked out of Apple Park one night? Why is Myke disappointed about the Apple Watch design but excited about iPhone photography? Together, we'll make sense of Apple's tour of California.

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 371 and today's show is brought to you by instabug uni pizza ovens and fitbud my name is mike hurley and i'm joined by jason snell hello jason snell hello mike hurley so we are 20 minutes or so after the iPhone event ended. We started our recording as soon as we could this time. Might be our fastest event to recording. So usual caveats. We haven't even looked at the websites yet. What we've got is just what happened in the event itself.

Maybe our chat will give us additional information because we do stream the show live. Yes. As we go through. But we're going to give our immediate impressions of what Apple has just announced. But we start every show with a hashtag snow talk question. And so I will ask you this one from Snape, who asks,

how many windows did you have open during the event? This time what I did was I sat on my couch, had it on the TV via Apple TV, and I brought out my MacBook Air this time. So I had Slack open. I had a note open in BBEdit to take notes. And I had a web browser window with upgrade.cards open so that I could score the upgrade draft. And so three is my answer. had a note window right so i set up a

note for this event then i also had my safari next to it but i was flicking between tabs for the whole time watching it on apple tv just like you i never look at twitter during apple events i get overwhelmed by it and i'm more focused on, I mean, sometimes I will tweet during an Apple event, although lately I've been more like I was in the discussion, the Apple event channel in the six colors Slack this time instead, which I think was a better use of my time. But yeah, Twitter is just kind of overwhelming and I've got to take notes. I mean, really the most that I did was fill up my document with my own notes about what was going on.

Yeah, if I didn't need to take notes like I do, because we start recording immediately, I would probably spend time on Twitter. I know I used to do that, right? But before Upgrade, I'd always take notes, but I would be less focused because I would watch it again maybe before I do a show later in the week but because we go live straight away i just want to clarify something by the way for snape how many windows did you have open during the event i did have a window open in my living room a window open in the dining area and a couple windows open in the back of the house so i had lots of windows open in my house during the event, but I don't think that's what the question was.

So we need to review our draft results. So should we just straight up say it went down to the tie this year? It did. We can detail what happened, but it did go down to the tie break by a hair, by a hilarious hair to the tie. And we'll get to that moment because it is an amazing moment. So on the iPhone, you bested me on the iPhone 3 to 2.

I got the higher frame rate display. And I missed on the LiDAR sensor and the always-on display features, which we'll get to. Don't exist. Not there. You got the iPhone 13, that there is a camera feature that other exist, not there. You got their iPhone 13, that there is a camera feature that other phones do not have. We were arguing a little bit while the event was going on

about whether the macro photography was going to count. And then they announced the HDR, or the ProRes video. Yeah, it made that one easy. The notch being called out as smaller which was a great pick because i thought they might not mention it but they did mention it yeah they kind of mentioned all of the parts right like they said because we were like oh maybe they won't mention that the notch gets smaller but let's say the screen's bigger and

they did both things they did yes they did it's like just in case you don't get this this is what we've done so ultimately it came down to and this was one of the deciding factors in the whole thing yeah the price points are dueling price points oh the price points was was the actual decider because that was the last thing basically yeah yeah and the answer is i picked that they would match their price points and you said that there would be at least one model that would cost more than its current price point. I'm still convinced there's going to be that jiggery pokery that we spoke about, right?

That was like not in when we spoke about this last episode that like, sure, like one of them is probably more expensive, but there's some deal or whatever. But that's not the point of the draft here today. I was I was genuinely very surprised that none of the four got more expensive. That was my hope, was that they would find ways to get it out of you, but it wouldn't be in the base price. On iPhone, the base prices that they

quote are the same. They fit those slots, which is not... The last few years, they've been very slowly cranking those up, but for this year they're just kind of leaving them where they are. On the Apple Watch side, 2-2 was the score. We had three picks.

I put my trust in Ming-Chi Kuo, who had that report last week that said, no, no, Apple Watch production is great. They'll ship in September. They are shipping in the fall, later this fall with no definitive date. So I missed on that one. And we'll talk about, I mean,

I guess we won't talk about it later because we only are going to talk about things that actually happened. All the rumors of the flat sided design. Oh no, Jason. Of the Apple Watch. I'm talking about this later. Don't you worry about that.

Okay, all right. We're coming to the design of the Apple Watch. Whatever the design of the Apple Watch changes are, flat sides is not a thing. So you missed on that. What we got right, increased screen size and no changes to band compatibility. That was me. They actually said that out loud too, which surprised me. And new watch faces added. Yes, absolutely. And no new health sensors. You got those. So 2.2 in Apple Watch. And that brings us to the other pick

section. I picked, we pay a Visit to Apple's Chip Lab. That did happen. The stage of the Steve Jobs Theater is seen. You know that tweet showing the Joshua Trees came out this morning, and I thought, oh, no. Yeah. They're going to do it all outside. And the answer was, no, Tim is not going outside. Tim is going to be on the stage of the Steve Jobs.

Well, he came from outside to inside, which was interesting. To the Steve Jobs Theater. And we see Ted Lasso himself himself for people who don't know i basically said we're going to see a picture of ted lasso it doesn't have to be like in character on stage or something like that we just need to see jason sudeikis as ted lasso his face not just the name not just mentioned but a picture and indeed they blew it up really big at one point so that's three for me you got two in this category because airpods were not introduced i'm surprised that that was the one you missed i expect that they do this in october with max if they're gonna do

something else i guess so this is the big thing obviously we're going to talk about the ipads uh we had no ipad picks in the draft because we didn't think they would have ipads which no i think that ended up being a bit of a failure on our end i think the draft would have been very different if we would have had another round for iPads, but there's nothing we can do about it. I'm starting to wonder if we should just force ourselves to pick in a category so that it basically comes out. If the product doesn't get introduced,

then we just miss all of those picks. I mean, we could, but you don't like there to be tons and tons of picks. So we would then be on to 12 rounds for the draft. Yeah, I know. We have to make educated guesses if we're going to do categories yeah well we and we could have picked ipad stuff here and we just chose not to um so you missed on airpods uh apple tv plus trailers promo video is shown absolutely i was hesitant to pick this because you know i've been burned in this category before, but Tim was literally like, hey, we got a lot of stuff. Let me show it to you now.

And they rolled the whole thing out there. This pick has burned me maybe four times. I know, right? I finally got it. So I feel like it's a win for me. And then that brings us to your last choice here because as we've described it so far, I've described seven points for me and six points for Mike. So the last pick, pick 10 for Mike, is the rainbow stage at the center of Apple Park is seen.

And I didn't score this for you for the whole event. And then Steven said in our little Slack chat, oh, we definitely saw it. And I said, I'm going to need a need a screenshot jason required receipts for this i did and here's the thing we we have a screenshot i absolutely am going to give you this point i just want to point out it is a shot of apple park at sunset that where the ring is lit. And inside, if you zoom in, you can see, sort of turn to the side, and in darkness, the rainbow stage. At which point, I said to myself, that is the saddest rainbow stage you'll ever see.

It's the dark rainbow. It's where rainbows go to die. That's a pro rainbow. That is an Apple pro rainbow. That's right. That's your midnight lemon right in there. Yeah. So you get that.

And that means it's 7-7. I was thinking it might be 7-6, but it's 7-7, which means we have to go to the tiebreaker. People may remember our tiebreaker. It's got to be one that one of us will definitely win. That's why we do an over-under based on the running time of the show. I set the over-under at 72. Mike picked the under. And the show ran for 78 minutes.

So close. That was so close. I didn't know it was that close. You do win. And you know what? Congratulations to you. I do not mind winning tiebreakers because it's kind of like I was comfortable with my picks. I think we both did really well in this draft like

pick was other than completely blowing it with the uh with the ipads we don't have to think about that no let's not no i i think i think there were some good picks in here i think there were some surprising omissions given all the rumors um and just that that it did come down ultimately to the price points because at the price point whoever whoever was going to get the iPhone Pro prices right was going to win the draft. And Apple chose this year not to do what I always say they want to do, which is raise the prices of things. So that's how it goes. So no controversy here.

It's all adjudicated. And I believe that closes the draft results segment. Yes. Completed. Draft is done. We can move on and we can talk about St. Jude because oh my word. Let's do it. Things have gone bananas, Jason, in the last week.

So we were going to come into today to talk about how close you were getting to the $333,333.33 goal, but we can't because that goal was reached this morning. We've blown past it now. There's three things happened in the last week. We hit a quarter of a million. We hit the amount of money that took us to $1 million raised over the last three years. And then today, we passed our goal of $333,333.33. Smashed through it. We've now raised over $336,000 for the kids of St. Jude.

We have a new goal, $400,001. This is where we want to get to now. The St. Jude Podcast-a-thon is coming this Friday, the 17th. We are running from 12 to 8 p.m. Eastern at twitch.tv slash RelayFM. We have game shows. We have games. We have hijinks. We have guests. It's going to be eight hours long. The longest, biggest, baddest, in a good way, podcast-a-thon we have ever done. We are going all out this year and we want to smash through all of our goals.

There's balloons, there's confetti, there's all kinds. Make sure that you're there. Twitch.tv slash RelayFM on Friday, September 17th from 12 to 8pm Eastern. Also, go donate. StJude.org slash relay donate now then donate again during the podcastathon we'll see you there should we get into it let's do it let's start with

the ipad because that's kind of where apple started yeah and where we didn't yeah um this is a surprise to me i mean we can probably talk about this later but i don't know now what i think about the rest of the year yeah i guess we'll get back to that this was something that i i think you and i both fully expected would would come later but they have this stuff now and given it's interesting the apple watch they don't have now and they still announced it but the ipad they've got it now it's ready to go and so they're gonna they're gonna put it out there i guess i should say before we get started with this one of the themes here of this California streaming, even though Tim is on stage in Cupertino, is they had people in

different locations for the different products. So the iPad is in San Francisco, basically at the Exploratorium on the water by the Ferry Building. And that's where they did the iPad presentation. And then the others are in different places. We'll have to mention those when we get there. But that's where the iPad was. And we got two new iPads, right? We got the iPad, the adjective-less just next generation of iPad, and the much rumored and wanted, I think, iPad mini in iPad Air style. So that, which, you know, I, I'm by far more excited about the iPad mini, but, you know, leave it to Apple to point out. Yeah. I know all of you nerds are bored by the 329, uh, iPad with the A13 chip and the still has the touch ID home button and uses the first generation pencil and all that.

But it is, and I quote, our most popular iPad. Did they say that? I missed that. Yeah. Oh yeah, more than once they said it. Yeah. I wonder, I mean, they're not gonna, because I was wondering like, you know, of all time. Yeah, of course. But yeah, that's interesting.

I guess it just, they wouldn't say it, right? It's like like what's the point well this is remember we were talking about like the fate of the ipad when it was kind of doing badly this is their solution right which is that they were always being beat up for the fact that there were all these cheap tablets and then apple's tablets were just not uh competitive in terms of price and's solution was the iPad, which they introduced for that first time. They were reintroduced, I guess, right? Because they brought back the original base iPad at that event in Chicago. And since then, it's been holding down the low end of the price and it freed them to innovate up at the high end and have expensive iPads while having the whole line kind of start down at the

bottom with a lot of the features that just are in the OS that you get regardless of whether you spend $1,000 or $329. So, you know, it's not a product that's exciting technologically for most of us who follow this. What's exciting about it is that it's $329 and now it's a lot better than it used to be. It's never going to be cutting edge. It's always going to be trailing several years behind the other iPads. But their message is for schools, it's $299 and it's way faster than a Chromebook. That's basically their whole argument there.

It doesn't need to be faster than an iPad Pro. It needs to be faster than a Chromebook and of a reasonable price where they can try to sell it into schools. And is that price $329? Is that any different i don't think so right i don't think so i don't think the price has changed say 299 for education hitting the slot it's what they did was they get they doubled the storage to 64 from

32 so technically better value it's 329 if you think that i mean the biggest feature on this ipad is the uh center stage with the ultra wide camera that's the i think that's the biggest feature on this honestly like everything else is like got a13 update you know which is nice because the old one wasn't and so great but yeah i think you're right the uh the 12 megapixel ultra wide with center stage which is this you know it was not i think not fated to be even at the time high-end feature, but it rolled out on the iPad Pro. So it was a Pro feature, but it's immediately rolled down to the lowest end of the iPad line because, of course, it has. This is just a, I think it's a no-brainer feature for everyone.

I think Center Stage ultimately is going to be on every product Apple can possibly make and put it in. So, of course's it's here this this in fact i think maybe signals that you're going to see center stage in a lot of places because um why wouldn't you it it's a great feature and first gen apple pencil true time display yeah it's still they made a lot of first gen apple pencils and they're gonna still sell them so let's talk about the ipad mini which as we know, the most important use, secure to the leg of a pilot. Uh-huh. That was really interesting.

In a doctor's lab coat, it's also pretty good. Yeah, I was really glad that they... This presentation checks a lot of boxes that you and I always want them to check and that they frequently don't check and it gets frustrating. This is a perfect example where I want to know the use case for the iPad mini. Like sell me on why this product exists. And they immediately did it, right? They said it's strapped to a leg of a pilot in flight, tucked in a doctor's lab coat. Like here are real world uses where you want a little iPad mini.

And then lots of shots of people holding it in one hand with their fingers wrapped around it, which is like the most effective message to send about why iPad mini exists, right? As you can hold it in one hand, you know, wrap your whole hand around it. I mean, it depends on your hand size,

but like the point is that's the thing. It's this small. So later on, you know, I'm going to talk about something that disappointed me greatly in this presentation. And without the iPad mini here, I think I would been a pretty uh bit of a downer on this presentation to be honest because the thing i was most excited about they they didn't do but the

this ipad mini is like the dream device that i've wanted for a while now along with many people like this thing looks absolutely fantastic like so we've got the great design, you know, the flat side design, small bezels, comes in a bunch of colors, purple, pink, starlight, and space gray. All right, Apple. Apple, we need to talk about your colors again

because it's more confusing now. Why do some colors have names and some colors are just the name of the color? We have starlight, midnight. What is starlight? What is Starlight? What is Starlight? Starlight, Midnight. You know, as you know, Starlight, Pink.

You can compare those, right? Starlight, Midnight, Pink, Gray, all over the place. Here's my question. Starlight is in multiple options. The Apple Watch comes in Starlight as well. So my question for people look color is not my best thing it's not my best thing i like colors right but i can't see them very well certain ones and all that what i'm really asking here is is starlight just silver i think so

because it's not pink because it's got a kind of a pinkishy no it's a yellowy hue is it yellowy so it's not kind of yellow but it's not silver so did they did they did they did they gold up the silver and call it starlight because most stars are well i mean stars are like there are lots of stars and starlight can be lots of frequencies so that is from a science perspective it's very confusing but i laughed when they said it because they said starlight and space gray and i thought have we just gone just gone all in on the, like, if you're facing this way, it's space and it's gray. And if you're facing that way, it's you're in space, but it's starlight. I don't, I don't know. Also space isn't gray.

It's really black, but starlight really isn't this, whatever color this is. I don't know what starlight is. And I guess we'll find out. Is it just a rebranded silver or is it a yellowy thing that is a little bit different from silver but isn't gold? I don't know. I'm very confused by Starlight. The iPhone 13 comes in pink, blue, midnight Starlight and product red. I don't understand midnight Starlight. I don't get it. get it like whatever but there's the colors i mean there's a purple one i think it looks fantastic pink one looks great too uh but anyway liquid retina display it's the same physical size now has an 8.3 inch display because it's right you know shrunk the borders down 500 nits of brightness which seems really great on this kind of device

yep touch id power button 5g it's basically an ipad air a little ipad air which is what it should be usbc it has no smart connector of any kind but it does have the second generation apple pencil it has better cameras it has center stage apple seems super pumped about this uh in general uh landscape stereo speakers starting at $499 order today available next uh next week you mentioned the smart connector and i i had a moment where i tried to envision an ipad mini sized smart keyboard or magic keyboard and my hands immediately cramped and i had to stop imagining it but it is like you know you can can always attach a keyboard to it, Bluetooth keyboard or whatever, and use it that way too. But it's a very small

device is what I'm saying. But it is otherwise, it feels like it's basically an iPad Air, which is great because that's a great iPad. And now the iPad mini is that way. And also just the flat sides and all of that, that whole whole styling I feel like that's going to be a better feel in terms of holding this thing it looked really good and I think benefits greatly from not being that old design anymore I think it makes the iPad

mini much more appealing I'm super excited about this product I think it looks really really nice like I'm intrigued to see where it will fit in my life like I think I have a good idea. I use my 11-inch iPad Pro on the sofa at home all the time to do reading and watching video and stuff like that. And I honestly think this is probably the better product

for those things. But we'll find out. I mean, this also feels like the iPad that I could always have in my backpack. So I've just having this thought now. I struggle to choose between laptop and iPad now when I'm traveling because I like the iPad for a bunch of things. This one, I'm sure you would never even notice it in your backpack compared to any of the other iPads, especially because, you know, it doesn't have like a keyboard or or anything so you would just get the... I have a little

smartphone. I ordered one already before we started the recording. Right before the show we had to stop. The reason the show isn't even closer to the event itself is Mike had to order an iPad. Yep, because they're available straight away and I really wanted to pick one up because it looks super great so I'll have one

of those next week. So I'm really excited about this product. I think this seems just really cool. It has an A15 in it with six core CPU, five core graphics. Apple didn't mention this during the presentation. They didn't say the chip. They just were talking about how powerful it was, but it has an A15 in it. So yeah, I'm really into this, right?

Seems great. I really laughed when they talked in detail about all the percentages of fastness that it had and didn't mention what chip it was. yeah i'm really into this right seems great i really laughed when they talked in detail about all the percentages of fastness that it had and didn't mention what chip it was and there was that moment of like oh it's the a15 and they don't want to announce it yet so they just said it's fast suffice it to say it's fast but if you go this is the one apple web page that i did go to after the event before we did this which is the ipad mini page that says, yeah, it's an A15. So that's what it is, even though they haven't announced at this point in the keynote, they haven't announced

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it's uh it's foggy out there i i mean i'm gonna buy one i'm actually kind of excited by it but let's let's let's get to your your boo here because you really felt, and we talked about this last time, you really felt like it was time for Apple Watch to get a new look. And although they made some tweaks that I think are interesting and nice, they are tweaks to make the standard familiar Apple Watch design a little bit nicer. They're not a rethinking of what an Apple Watch style should be. Yeah, I think nicer is still maybe, you know, we're not sure because it's bigger, right? And I'm intrigued to see what that's actually going to feel like. One of the things that I was intrigued about with the watch getting bigger

with the potential of having a design refresh is it may have felt a little bit more sleek on the wrist. Now I think it's potentially going to feel just a bit clunky, a bit chunky. I mean, we really don't know. As somebody who's had one on my wrist for almost every day since it shipped, I think seeing them say, you know, softer, more rounded corners with a subtle wraparound effect and seamless integration with the curve of the case, like trying to get it to be a little bit less like a hamburger with cheese on top of it and more like, right, the glass kind of sitting on top of the thing instead having it be kind of a little bit more kind of smoothly integrated that's going to be nice i would like that crease to go right that crease being removed or the little ridge that that is on the current apple watches from the screen to the case it's going to be really great right and pulling out

the the border right and having it be even 40 less of a border than on the Series 6, right? Again, picking up that real estate, I had to laugh at the one stat, which is it's 50% more pixels than the Series 3. Now, the Series 3 should not even be something that we talk about, except we're going to have to talk about it because they're still selling it. But it is remarkable that the new one has 50% more pixels than essentially the original Apple Watch pixel count. That's good. So what we're getting here is what could very well be a really, really nice evolution

of the standard Apple Watch design. What disappoints you, clearly, is that that's all it is and you thought that this would be the year where they might take a little bit more of a leap. Yeah, it was something that a lot of rumors were pointing to and also just logic. You know, like so many of Apple's products now

are moving to this new design language that we spoke about a bunch with flat sides and stuff like that. And it really felt like it was the time for the, in my opinion, for the Apple Watch to go that way. I think the amount of time that it's been around for, it's maybe been around for, I think, too long

with the curved edges. I think that design is tired now for me for something to wear which is supposed to be fashionable. I think this one design style has reached its,

I think, logical conclusion. Apple doesn't think so and that's fine. I'm probably going to get one uh but i think somewhat begrudgingly for two reasons um one because i don't like the design and two they don't have the case that i want i'm a ceramic apple watch wearer and i would love a new one but they don't have that so i don't even really know what i would what kind of uh case i would go for honestly because again they do a lot of colors uh starlight is here as well uh i don't

like the colored aluminium watches myself uh they have midnight starlight red yes blue green in the aluminium um which i don't know i don't know so i'm disappointed silver graphite and gold stainless and a natural and a space black of the titanium and then there's a gold one but i don't know what material that is that's stainless steel then the there's a gold one, but I don't know what material that is. That's stainless steel. And the stainless steel, the gold one? Yeah. So the big top line stuff here,

also new watchOS features we should mention, more bike features. They held these back to announce here. More bike features, including auto pause and resume when you stop and start your bike. They're like outdoor bike, outdoor bike features. Fall detection that's tuned toward bikes. So when you're in more bike features, including autopause and resume when you stop and start your bike. Like outdoor bike, outdoor bike features. Fall detection that's tuned toward bikes. So when you're in a bike workout, it uses different algorithms to detect if you've fallen off your bike.

They say they better support e-bike. So if you're riding a bike with a power assist, it's going to do a better job of calculating out how much you're actually working. Everyone with a power bike is like, oh, no, right? They'll lose their rings. Yeah, that's right. You didn't earn those, folks. You didn't earn those. The actual watch, yeah. More pixels, shrunk the borders, tightened up the design of the watch, and especially the glass and the watch contour. 70% brighter

display when in its dim display mode indoors that's really good they talked about what fits on that screen that they redesigned like the ui so it's easier to hit the buttons they can fit keyboard that is a full keyboard with tap or slide keys you can fit 50 more percent more text text type on the screen compared to, again, compared to the Series 6. There's some new faces. They talked about that the glass is more durable and crack resistant because it has more robust geometry. I think that's a really interesting example of materials engineering, right, where it's the shape of the glass or the, you know, the shape of that surface that's making it more resistant.

It's like they've probably reduced some stress points or whatever when it takes impact. Yeah, exactly. It added IP6X certification, which is for dust resistance. So, you know, it's still swim proof. It's still fine. But like they added this dust resistance qualification.

I guess there are a lot of people who are like, their example was, you know, falling off their there are a lot of people who are like, their example was falling off their bikes into the dust. And they're like, oh no, it's okay. The dust ingress is gone. Faster charging, they have a fast charging with a USB-C cable. Unclear whether that's included in the box or whether you have to buy it separately. No way is it included in the box, Jason. Come on.

The USB-C version of the cable, you got to buy that separately. But updating the charging. And so there are virtues here that they're extolling. One is in 45 minutes, you can go from zero to 80%. But I think perhaps more importantly, eight minutes will get you enough for sleep tracking for the night. So if your watch is running out of juice, pop it on the charger for eight minutes while you're brushing your teeth

and getting ready for bed, and then it'll be ready for sleep tracking overnight so that's all of what's going on here's the thing this is a good addition to the apple watch i wished i would have never seen the rumors that told me it was going to look different because otherwise i wouldn't feel as frustrated as i do um somebody in the chat i will get their name in a moment gwen suggested that i get the gold one to match my phone and that's probably what i'm gonna do uh those i was thinking about gold anyway because that's an actual watch color you know and and right you know as i said before like i like to try and make it as watchy as it can be some of the watch faces look nice but i already know like the one they were showing

off a lot where like the numbers are kind of leaking around the edge that's my favorite visually but i can't put any complications on that, I would assume, which is a bit of a bummer. So, yeah, look, I, what I'm going to, look, basically. Can you imagine like the complications kind of oozing out of the side too? Like, ooh, weird. It's unusable. I'm just a little frustrated, right? I wanted more here.

This is a good update, but it's not enough for me. I will be moving to this though, because there was some stuff that I do want to pick up. Like I want the brighter always on display, because that got brighter in the Series 6 and then brighter still in the Series 7, and still on the Series 5. And so that's something that I know that I would like, and we'll see, you know, and I'll move forward from there. But a bit of a shame, I'll say, for me. It was a bit of a shame. The biggest shame, though, is that Series 3 is still around.

$199. The SE is at $279. Still can't get it cheap enough. And Series 7 starting at $399. I think, well, your comment, I think, from last time about how it's just going to be another year. Like, it's not going to happen yet. You were proven proven right and so we all have to live with a series three for another year and and they're gonna keep the se around and and they just haven't been able to do it so um so be it so be it and then of course later this fall for shipment. So all those rumors about them having trouble

getting production ramped seem to be true in that they are not giving any timeframe other than later this fall for Apple Watch sales, which bums me out because I am ready to buy a new Apple Watch and I would have already done it if they had let me. But I am going to definitely get one. I don't know what I'm going to get

in terms of the model. I use my Apple Watch all the time. I'm using a Series 5. This looks great. Bigger screen, brighter. I'm really looking forward to it. Color-wise, yeah, I have had a black watch the whole time, and I assume that's where I will go.

I guess that's midnight? Yeah, it's kind of a bit bluish looking on the website. I don't know. Or I may, Mike, I may treat myself. Oh, treat yourself, Jason. And go with space black titanium. Now, you will be dealing with a weight difference. Yeah, I know.

If I leave the light embrace of aluminum, I'm going to have to deal with a different weight with titanium or stainless. Although titanium is pretty light. I imagine that the titanium weight isn't as dramatic a difference as going to stainless. Yeah, a lot of that stuff is like you're not going to know until you try it on.

Yeah. And then there's a good old Midnight. Midnight. Good old friend Midnight. Well, Midnight Starlight's a good old Midnight. Midnight. Good old friend Midnight. You know, Midnight Starlight's best friend, I guess. There was some Fitness Plus stuff that they focused on. They spent quite a lot of time with Fitness Plus. I know.

New workout types. He does. More countries, but with subtitles, which seems like a weird way of dealing with, hey, you want to work out? Read the subtitles. I don't know why they wouldn't do dubbing. Dubbing feels like the right move there. My guess is that they have a strategy

for international rollout and this is what they have in this phase. And then they will go beyond that because what you'd really like is to have instructors speaking different languages, but they only have so many instructors already. But you're right. You could also do dubbing.

You could totally do that. And maybe they'll get there because I agree. Who wants to read subtitles while they're exercising? It's a peculiar choice, I think, to do that. and Mike group workouts powered by share play a feature that does not exist yet uh with up to 32 people working out together using share play at the same time I don't know how that's going to work they really just kind of mentioned it in passing I guess it's sort of like a make your own peloton I don't know I don't know what is going on there um but yeah they spent some time with fitness plus right just to sort of remind everybody that fitness plus is part of the apple watch uh equation as well as the services equation it's

where apple watch and services meet in the venn diagram is fitness plus so you know they mentioned it and showed that they you know they show off that they've got all their trainers and that they're they're i think it serves a purpose just to remind people that that is a service that exists and that apple continues to grow it. Yeah, because a lot of people might not have thought about it very much. And like in that time, they've added so many new workouts, new different types of workouts, as well as just like the weekly additions that they have, you know. The SharePlay thing is like just like as a reminder, you've got to have an active FaceTime call. I don't want to be FaceTime calling my friends and having them look at me while I'm working out.

That's not, nobody wants that um but i do like the idea of them having some kind of group feature for fitness plus uh but it being powered by share play i don't know man i don't know i i just can't imagine that jason you would like to see me while i'm working out i can't imagine that either i mean i miss you either of us. You know, I miss you, Jason. Yeah, I know, I know. Not that much. But you don't need to see me on my bike. You don't need to see me on my stationary bike sweating.

We should mention, since we're in the Apple Watch segment, that we should mention that this is, of course, there was that story about how the keyboard for the Apple Watch that was on the store for a long time, flick type, was removed from the store by Apple because it was a keyboard for Apple Watch. And then, of course, they announced a keyboard for Apple Watch today.

So, you know, that's going to be... Apparently, it is already another lawsuit. So there you go. Yeah, Costa Ilithario, they posted an image on twitter i'll put it in the show notes of their review saying that it was rejected because it was a a keyboard for the apple watch which is against the ios human interface guidelines um but not for not for apple unfortunately you would see yeah anything else on the apple watch i mean you seem

pretty into it yeah i wasn't looking for what you were looking for from it. I do agree that Apple needs to branch out with the Apple Watch. And that could be some new designs. It could be some specialty versions, which don't necessarily even need to be. They could be mid-generation, right? They don't need to be every fall. be mid-generation, right? They don't need to be every fall. So they could do a ruggedized version of the Series 8 in the spring or something if they wanted to. But the idea of doing kind of like a super ruggedized version and also taking that original thing and refining it a little bit more,

I do think that they need to get there. And I appreciate your feedback on that. It's not what I was really looking for. I'm happy with it. But I think I see what you're getting at. And it has been a long time since Apple introduced the Apple Watch. And it hasn't changed a lot. So that has to happen at some point. I am in a minority of Apple Watch users here with the frustration that I have on it. of Apple Watch users here with the frustration that I have on it.

And, you know, it's just because I spent the last few years, every five or six days, changing out my watch for one of the, like, five watches I own. You know, they're, like, varying price points. I have, like, a G-Shock. I have an Omega. Like, I have a selection of watches that I collected over the last few years. And I like to be able to switch that up. And now I wear the Apple Watch

because I'm focusing more on my fitness. And it's amazing for that. And that's why I wear it. Like, it is so good at fitness that I am willing to not wear my Apple Watches for the time being because I really want what it gives me with fitness. There is nothing else like it. Like, and it pushes me to do a little bit more every day. Like, all of that stuff is amazing.

And I feel in better control of my health because of it in a way that it hasn't before like just its features and my current outlook have aligned and but i i'm i'm a little tired of seeing not just this same design every day but ultimately like by and large the same design that i've seen for the entire run of the apple watch and when there was a potential it seemed like it was going to change i was excited about it i will say the bigger screen interests me for sure there are other features of this which i'm i'm kind of into uh and maybe it'll be one of those things that like i get a new nice case color like i get a nice shiny gold one and i'll be really happy i don't mean to like because i know people get like they're going to be excited about it and I don't mean to like, because I know people get like, they're going to be excited about it

and I don't want to like harsh anybody's buzz on it. Like if you're into this, like Jason is, awesome. Like I'm happy for you because it means that you got what you wanted, right? Like you put me, maybe somebody out there doesn't care about the iPad mini,

but I really do and I'm excited for it, right? It's like different strokes for different folks and I'll just keep crossing my fingers that I'll get something new in the coming years yeah i think i think that's about right this episode of upgrade is brought to you by uni pizza ovens the world's number one pizza oven company they make surprisingly small ovens powered by your choice of either wood charcoal or gas letting you make restaurant quality pizza in your very own backyard uni pizza ovens are incredibly easy to use they're super portable they're going to fit in any outside space

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it works you know you put the pizza in and not only is the dough um getting all that heat soaking in that heat from the the ceramic uh i think ceramic the the stone on the bottom. Yeah, the stone. But the flame is above. And the flame is melting the cheese and kind of caramelizing it. And then you take it out and the edges are a little bit burned. And it is what you would get at any place that's got a brick oven that they bake their pizzas in. A much more traditional kind of thing. So you can get a much more traditional, fancy pizza place kind of pizza, and it's more than you're ever going to get in your home oven, just bottom line. So Ooni Pizza Ovens, they start at just $299. They're free shipping to the US, the UK, and the EU. They have two of their coolest models. One is the Ooni Coda 16. This is

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13 and iPhone 13 mini. Of course, comes in five colors, pink, blue, midnight, starlight, and red. Midnight, starlight. First star I see tonight. It's that Daft Punk song, right? Starlight. That one. That's going to be in my head a lot now. So midnight starlight first star i see tonight it's that tough punk song right that one that's gonna be in my head a lot now uh so the screen is bigger because the notch is smaller percent smaller sensor bar i think is what they said 800 nits of brightness at 1200 peak nits of brightness

there's a much brighter screen for that phone which is fantastic uh features an a15 bionic chip which is still five nanometers the six core cpu to performance for high efficiency cores and four core gpu of a 16 core neural engine so interestingly apple is binning the a15 for the iphone 13 yeah the pro has five gpu cores and the third and the regular has four. So they are right out of the gate doing some processor binning, which is that process where you make chips and some of them have those cores enabled and some of them don't because they didn't qualify or whatever. And they're using that to their advantage here. So there's a little more graphics power in the Pro model than in the non-Pro model. model also i've been told starlight by muse not by daft punk don't email mike no i'm thinking of a of a starlight by the supermen lovers which is a french house musician but not daft punk oh yeah it's the supermen lovers that's the song i'm thinking of so there you go now i've got that muse song in my head thanks the cameras are diagonal now. Yeah, just the domino configuration.

So for those people who have opinions. It seems like this is because they've put the sensor shift. Optical image stabilization here. So maybe the sensors are bigger. Maybe they needed to spread them apart a little bit more than they did before. 47% more light. And new new ultra wide of less noise and they got the cinematic mode video what do you think of that i i need to see more i mean they did do a whole kind of funny uh whodunit uh mystery thing as a demo knives out parody i mean let's just call

it what it was yeah i i'm i'm i don't know exactly what's going on there is it all using portrait mode tech to do that it sounds like it is because at one point somebody in the in the iphone pro video mentions that you could you can change it later so that suggests that it is a calculated thing but the way it works is you can do what looks like deep focus photography except it's video and it is using some machine learning stuff they've analyzed how actual cinematographers do rack focuses and things like that and then they built an engine that does it and it's looking at the composition of the frame and where people are looking and all of that to do sort of dynamic stuff. And then you can also sort of tap in order to tap on a face to focus to that face or tap and hold to follow focus on that. There's a bunch of stuff in there that Apple, you know, showed really quickly and it makes it sound great and i immediately thought i bet it's way more complicated and uh maybe not

as effective in reality my i gotta be honest i i saw a lot of twitter hot takes that were basically like ah ha ha we've eliminated the need for cinematographers and all of that which i know they're jokes but i looked at the demo which is apple at its best, right? That demo is Apple showing off this feature at its best. And I thought, eh, I don't think it's that great. Like, I don't think it looked that natural. You know what I think the problem was with the demo? It's that we're overdoing

it. Like, you know, if you were making a video or I were making a video losing this feature, like, it's not going to be a thing that I would focus on. I think the biggest feature of this cinematic mode, which I didn't really focus on, is that you can change the focus after the fact.

Yes, that's the thing. It's because it's synthetic, you can change it later. I think that you could maybe be in a situation where you're like, all right, I'm going to shoot this important family video or whatever, right? Like I'm shooting a video that's important to me. I'll just do it in cinematic mode and I'll handle the focus part later on. Like that seems really cool or like that you just don't need to think about it. Because for me, like I'm not going to be able to work this stuff out as I'm shooting because there's stuff that you can choose. Like you can fix the focus onto a certain person and not necessarily rely on the machine learning stuff.

But I'm not setting up scenes, so I don't know what's going to happen in the videos that I'm taking, right? So this could be a cool feature for that. But we'll kind of have to see. There was a great line where the presenter said, we studied the art of cinematography. I just thought that was very funny to me. Yeah, and we consumed it and now we are it but anyway my point is that um it looked you know they made it look simpler than it probably is and i thought that their demo was not as impressive as a a baked demo by apple should be

it's cool and it looks fun and i think people will use it and i like that they're doing some of this stuff but like even their demo i was not super impressed with some of the the the focus moves they felt able to explain a little bit more like like what is it that doesn't impress you i thought the camera focuses happened sometime sometimes they felt like they happened late sometimes they happened they felt like they happened a little too fast like instead of having a kind of more smooth transition it was more like a honestly it felt a little like a camcorder where it goes from one focus point to another focus point and it goes, and it happens really fast. And I, you know, those, those timings, there's an art to it. And it just, it felt a little bit off to me. And, and that's all I really

have to go on is that I watched it and I thought this is a cool feature and I like a lot of things about it. And I like the whimsy of the demo. And yet there were several times in it where I thought, yeah, but it really, I don't think it's that great. And this is it at its best in an Apple demo. So we're going to all have to see how this actually works in practice. I appreciate that they're trying to do stuff like this because the, you know, the end goal is that your home movies look cool and fun and more cinematic. That is the end goal. It's not to put any cinematographers out of work, which is nice because they had that one very nice cinematographer who was in the pro video. And, you know, he still had a job to hold an iPhone camera and shoot fake scenes from things that aren't movies with Catherine Bigelow.

So, you know, he still is going to have a job, I guess, is what I'm saying. But if you can make more movie texture for people's home videos then that's fun that's great for me i think it was just i saw it too many times in that in that little video and i think that that might have been the thing i know what they were doing right i get what they were trying to do with that like and i don't really feel like i can judge it from a technical level or an artistic level really i know that there was a bunch of stuff going on i'm intrigued intrigued to see it because there was a part of me that was like, oh, wait, can I already do this? But I guess it's the automatic stuff especially, right?

It's doing it on its own rather than me choosing what to focus on. I'm intrigued by this feature. As I said, the thing that intrigues me most is choosing focus afterwards. That seems like a cool thing. And I'm really surprised that they didn't really press on

that which makes me maybe think that that part of it is not as good as i hope maybe because i feel like that's the whole feature like in my mind it's like oh yeah amazing i can choose to focus later on like i definitely want that so i don't know we'll see we'll see i don't know and and keep in mind it's it's probably portrait mode style so it's probably going to have cases too where you look at it and you're like yeah but it doesn't look very good it didn't get everything it's a little bit interesting right yeah and it all like maybe it just doesn't look as crisp in points i don't know we'll find out i'm sure i'm really intrigued to see what this feature is all about like apple thinks that this is good enough that they are adding a mode to the camera right like there is a new like option cinematic dial which is called cinematic and so they think that it's important

enough right now and into the future that it's worth adding that into which is that is prime real estate right they don't add a lot of things into that wheel i don't think many have been added in over time maybe just portrait is they only want so you've've got, oh, and slow-mo. So there's time-lapse, slow-mo, video, photo, portrait, and pano. They're the things in there. And you think like maybe there's two that have been added in there over time. So adding another one in there, that feels like a big deal. So they said it's all Dolby Vision, HDR graded and that kind of stuff. I'm intrigued, right?

Like I think I'm just intrigued i want to see how this works uh 5g there's 200 carriers now uh as i've said it's taking over 5g is taking over sure so that's good uh battery life this was an interesting one for me i feel like this is actually the biggest story about the iphone 12 and the 12 pro 2 but um it's it's the fact that they managed to improve battery life which i imagine you mean 13 oh sorry 13 yes okay cool i thought you were saying like the biggest story of the 12 is that the battery was bad or something yeah no well i mean on the mini maybe no the on the 13 the um battery life through some combination of a better 5G radio, a better algorithm to switch off of 5G when it's not necessary, and a bigger battery. They made a point of showing the little x-ray

thing and saying a bigger battery that they have managed to get. They're rating it as an hour and a half longer on the mini and two and a half hours longer on the 12. And the pro phones also are rated as having longer battery life like that's really good especially for the mini which the battery life wasn't fantastic on it so if you manage to eke out an hour and a half more and two and a half on that mainstream phone the 12 that's that's really good like that and i think that is a testimonial to both the new processor, but also a little more mature 5G radio. Find My Support is coming to a new MagSafe wallet. I just found that like an interesting little tidbit.

Well, the way they described it, it sounds to me like essentially when your wallet disconnects from MagSafe, it logs where you are. Yes. Which is similar to the way that AirPods work. Yeah. So what it's not doing is it doesn't have like a little secret detector in there, right?

But it is going to let you, it is going to let you go back to that point of like, where did it detach? Because that's really, it's literally, I lost it. Well, where did you last see it? The phone will say, I last saw it here. And maybe that will be helpful. Unbelievably, it does not work with the clear case.

This is a thing on Apple's website. I cannot fathom what would mean that one case is different, but it doesn't work with the clear case. I don't know. How, like, what is that? What's happened there, you know? So let's get to the most important thing, I think, about this.

Honestly, the most important thing is that for these phones is that they're $699 and $799. They held the price points and they doubled the base capacity to $128. There were lots of rumors out there that Apple was going to be really messing around with capacity on low-end iPhones. And those proved to be completely untrue. They start at 128 and

they added 256 and 512 options. That's really good. My daughter has a 64 iPhone 11 and like, no, no, you can't. No, it's not good enough. So doubling the storage capacity from the old 64 base to 128 and hitting the price point, and then you throw in that they extended the battery life. Again, you're not, the market for this is not people

who are already using a one-year-old phone. The primary market is for people who are using a two, three, four-year-old phone. The fact that they are able to hold their price points from last year though, and keep it at 699 and 799. The fact that it starts at 128. I actually think that that's the best,

the single best thing about it is it is better, costs the same, and the storage all got a boost. Like that's all really good. And the battery life is better. Like what do people want? And the cameras are better. I mean, you roll it all together and it's like, especially for the non-pro model, like that's what you want.

You want it to be better. It costs the same. That's, I don't know. It's not, I know that doesn't sound very nuanced, but on one level, I feel like we can overthink it. Like that's what the iPhone 13 needs to be. It needs to kind of keep going keep getting better don't ratchet the price up anymore and solve the capacity issue and help the battery life a little bit this is as well as but that's i'm not saying that in a bad way like

but i think apple's just off the s naming now they're just incrementing every year which i prefer if they're going to continue to increment every year yeah the iphone 12 was an absolutely fantastic iphone and all of the ways that they've improved on this one are good right brighter screens awesome uh longer battery life like who doesn't want that and my understanding is especially if you have a 13 mini you really want that it's a shame that they could only find an hour and a half right because i think it needs a lot more is the understanding i have from the people that i know including you that have a mini seems to be a battery life uh thing and camera's getting better right like all of that stuff is just that's exactly what you want um these are all the features that you're looking for no uh no ultra wide on the selfie camera yet which we we were hoping for. But I bet, I would be very willing to bet

that the iPhone 14 will have center stage support. I think that they seem to be pretty keen on that feature. And as I said before, there are a lot of benefits to putting an ultra wide lens in a selfie anyway, because you can get better selfies. So absolutely, more people in them. This episode of Upgrade is brought to you by fitbod

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able to tailor the program to you. It can also be really hard to know exactly how much you should be doing while exercising. So FitBod figures that out for you so you don't have to worry about under or over training. And then it's going to mix up your muscle groups, exercises, sets, reps, and weight over time. It keeps you on top form, keeps you doing new things, it doesn't get repetitive, and helps you stay on the path that's right for you to become a better version of you, who you want to be. One of the things I really love about football, let's talk about my Apple Watch earlier, has an Apple Watch app. It's really easy to combine those together. So for example, if I know a bunch of the exercises that I'm doing, sometimes all I need to know is just to be told

them. Like I've done it a bunch of times, just need to see I don't need to see the the video I don't need the instructions the Apple Watch just says this is the exercise you're doing I can change the amount of sets and reps if I want to do that on my watch and then I can advance really easily to the next workout so I really love that makes it super super simple to get it done FitBud is available on iOS and Android, and you can get started right now by going to fitbud.me slash upgrade, where you'll also get 25% of your membership. That's fitbud, F-I-D-B-O-D dot me slash upgrade

to try out FitBud for free and get 25% off your FitBud membership. A thanks to FitBud for their support of this show and RelayFM. Now I should mention, because we did our tour of California, that that the iphone 13 was in san diego okay so shout out to i've been right past there that was that was san diego looked look great um the iphone 13 pro was jaws standing outside apple park at night at night pro pros only work at night that's right that's why outside Apple Park. At night. At night. Because he's a pro.

Pros only work at night. That's right. That's where the dark rainbow is. Cupertino, you got to embrace the dark rainbow. Yeah, that was weird. I thought like, well, we're taking a tour, but Jaws didn't go anywhere. Jaws isn't in Yosemite or something. Jaws is just outside Apple Park.

And I'll just, a little bit of stagecraft here because we do like to talk about that. Jaws also seemed super dubbed in. Apple Park wasn't a great place for audio. So it felt to me like his whole performance was dubbed in later. It sounded really unnatural to me. And the screen behind him, again, in part because it was at night, the screen behind him seemed extra fake. Now, I wonder if the screens are, and in fact, I suspect that those screens are- There's no way those screens were real. Are fake all the time, right? Because when they were doing presentations in public places, they can't have those screens just showing off the features of every single new iPhone.

There's no way they were real. So the screens are almost certainly fake, or at least there's a screen there, but it's replacement. But there's something about the Jaws screen that I think because of the darkness, it just seemed extra fake. The whole thing seemed really kind of weird and artificial to me, just from a pure stagecraft perspective. And I wonder if they actually intended something better and different and it didn't come off. And so they ended up having him be outside Apple Park at night but it just seemed like tour of california we're going to take you to all these places and now we're back at apple park uh for jaws but anyway it's fine it's pro you're right it's dark and professional and that's where we are yeah it's a big old camera bump hold on hold on

sierra blue sierra blue okay. They have a good color. They have a real bright color. So we've got graphite, gold, silver, and Sierra blue. This is different to blue. And it's not like, I don't know, sea blue or like, I don't know, shimmer water or anything. Midnight blue. Yeah, we've got Sierra blue. Clearly only blue and green can be pro colors.

It went, they run through them they just go back so next time we'll get like forest green or something like that Nevada green graphite so it's not space grey still the graphite still kind of looks green to me or browny obviously I was getting the gold again

I absolutely adore my gold phone I'm getting another gold phone I'm assuming for you, the Sierra Blue might be enough to tempt you away. But maybe we'll get to that in a minute. Because I know we were talking about whether you would move away from the mini or not. So again, smaller notch. Has the A15 chip. It has the more powerful version of the A15 chip.

Five core GPU. So the binning here, you know, again, more graphics power if you get the Pro. I think that, you know, I think it's a big thing because it's yet another way for Apple to differentiate Pro from not is by, you know, from the beginning saying that their chip, you know, chip features, the best chip only goes in the Pro model. And in practice, what it's going to mean is that the GPU performance will be that much faster because it's literally, it scales. So instead of it being four, it'll be five. And so it'll be that much faster. It won't be that interesting, I think, in terms of the benchmarks.

There'll be graphics-based benchmarks where it's faster. It's probably not going to be something that affects everybody. I will also say that that GPU is probably necessary because they did finally do something with it that is going to need more graphics power, which is driving that new display up to 120 hertz. that new display up to 120 hertz so the display is probably where the biggest i think user feature will be but again yeah you know as you said to me and it's the same that every youtuber has had for a long time you can't demo 120 hertz in non-120 hertz content it's just not possible to give the impression they kind of tried to show like it was a half-hearted effort because they had to do something of showing like oh it's responsive and all of that but you know we're all watching at presumably 30 frames per second or maybe 60 frames per second we are not seeing 120 frames and you can't show you can't show hdr on a non-hdr you cannot show 120 frames when it's not 120 frames you can't show the p3 color gamut when you're not using high

color in your video. There's stuff you just can't demo very well. And so this is one of those cases where we know if we've used a ProMotion display on an iPad, quite what that looks like and how impressive and smooth and nice that can be. Or in the case of somebody like Stephen Hackett, how creepy and weird

it can be and you turn it off. But you have to kind of experience it and they couldn't show it we're not saying steven's creepy and weird by the way like steven just doesn't like that feature well i mean when he's looking at 120 hertz refresh display he does get a little bit creepy and weird but that's why he has to turn it off to go back to normal it's like a kind of a werewolf type thing looks at the moon yeah oh man that's he's like a screen wolf bigger werewolf type thing. Yeah, oh man. He's like a screen wolf. Bigger, brighter screen. iOS, of course, has been optimized throughout

to go with the 120 hertz. I wonder if this is going to be one of those things where developers are going to struggle with it. I'm not sure, right? Are there optimizations you would want to make as a developer? I don't know. And if you're on an iPad,

you've already done it, presumably, right? Because the iPad already has this feature. This is a feature that's already on the iPad, know and if you're on an ipad you've already done it presumably right like because this is the ipad already has this feature this is a feature that that's already on the ipad so it's probably already kind of handled and so you know i i think but but it's a really nice feature that that's the thing about it is like we when promotion was rumored on the ipad pro we're all like yeah well okay and then you see it and you think unless you're're Steven, you think, oh, right. Like, oh, oh, I see. Yes. Right. And then you go back to one that doesn't have it. You're like, oh, this is garbage. The other one is really nice. It's just really nice. And the fact that they can do this and that they can dynamically change the display rate,

it's all the things that we already talked about like four or five years ago about the iPad Pro are now true of the iPhone 13 Pro, where you get that ProMotion feature. And they're using the ProMotion designation for it, which I think is also interesting. All the developers in the live Discord chat are saying that it's not difficult to optimize for 120 hertz in most instances. So that's cool. I'm really pumped about this. I mean, there isn't much we can say i mean in a few weeks time you'll be hearing us talk about how good it looks or whatever right and then you'll

still not really get anything about it this is just one of those things it's hard to to demo but i do think it's going to make a real big usability difference um i think it's going to make our phones feel quite different if this is one that you go for so this is a feature i've wanted for a long time and i'm really excited about it they did not take that extra step to take it to an always-on display i know i wouldn't be surprised if this is an ios feature next year maybe because in theory they can do this now you know maybe they will want to wait until the iphone 14 might get this feature then um and then maybe they can attack it then. They could announce a developer tool.

You know, when they announce iOS, whatever, what's next now? 16. iOS 16 will have it always on display, and they can announce it as being for the iPhone 13 Pro, and everybody can work on that. And then, you know, the new iPhones will all have it or something like that. They could do that now that they have a device that's-

And the iPads could benefit from it too, maybe. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. So yeah, it's hard for us to get this across because this podcast is very cinematic and is shot in 24 frames a second. So we can't-

There is a rumor of OLED iPads coming. So maybe it's a combo of all of that. I don't know. But now that they've got the XDR with the mini LED. There's rumors still saying they go into OLED. I don't know, man. I don't know. There's rumors that say it's a flat Apple Watch

and that there's an always on display, right? Not all the rumors are true. Some of the rumors are fake. OLED's better than mini LED anyway, right? All right. If you can actually go there, you actually get true blacks rather than, I don't know. We'll find out.

All right. Cameras. Biggest camera advancement ever. Okay. I feel like they bring out, they said most pro iPhone ever. I'm sure they stayed they they bring out like they said most pro iphone ever biggest i'm sure they said this last last time as well i know it's marketing it's always the most pro everything because it's always the best everything it's always the best iphone ever it's

the least like the more they say it the more i roll my eyes of course it is you are you making your products worse over time of course it's the best thing you've ever made but what exactly you know did they do and the answer is that they you know they increased the sensor on the wide and they added an auto focus on the ultra wide and they added a macro mode and now all the cameras support night mode and like they they there was a lot of refinement here of sorting adding adding features to some of the cameras that didn't have parity with the other cameras. There's a new version of Smart HDR, Smart HDR 4. It's kind of weird to brand it, but the idea there is just that they've got a Smart HDR feature.

And they've got this thing called Photographic Styles, which I thought was really funny. Because what they're trying to do, because when you take a photo on your iPhone, there's this whole image processing pipeline that fires off. And Apple does all this stuff with it. And if you shoot in RAW, you don't get that, I believe, is kind of what happens there. And what they're trying to do here is create sort of like some styles that are variables in how the pipeline works on photos that create different looks. They try to sell this to pros. And there's this moment where I was thinking to myself, are pros really going to want to do like photographic looks in the pipeline? But maybe, I mean, basically what they're saying is they've got the four default styles and then there are some aspects of those styles that you can edit with a couple of sliders and make it and this is on

the 13 and the 13 pro and make it look sort of like how you'd like so is that a pro feature i'm interested to hear how pro photographers react to that i think the answer is probably that if you really just want to bypass Apple's pipeline, you will shoot in raw and that'll be it. But that if you're somebody who likes, kind of likes the look of what Apple is doing with the photos, but it's not quite right, you may be able to tweak essentially Apple's presets into a better preset and use that. And that seems to be what's going on with the photographic styles. So I have some skepticism because it sounds sort of like a pro feature that pros are going to turn off. And so it's like, okay, then why does this feature

exist? And I don't know whether it's more for sort of people with pro aspirations, but they really need more help. And Apple is letting you dip down into their pipeline and change a couple of the settings, which is cool. I'm not convinced, I guess, that this is a pro feature versus a really prosumer kind of feature to make better automatic pictures rather than what a pro might want from it so i think like maybe maybe i could maybe make a use case for this so like i was interested in pro raw because i like to take i like to take and fiddle around with photos right like i'm not i don't consider myself to be a professional by any means but i like to take photos on my iphone and i like to play around

with them in um like visco and stuff like that and edit and tweak and all that kind of stuff and so i thought okay well let me try pro raw and see if it makes any benefit to me and i don't understand what i'm doing like it's maybe too much of a jump for me i've never used raw photography before and so maybe this is like a bridge for someone like me this that's exactly what i think i mean we have a question a while ago about what does pro mean, right? For to help somebody with their thesis. And I think this might be a good example of that, which is, is this really a pro feature? I would love to hear from pros who are like, yes, actually, we will use this.

But I think the point is not necessarily that it's for professional photographers. it's for professional photographers. It's for people who care more about photography and want to do a little bit more with it, but are not going to go to just shooting everything raw and working on it. It gives you more control over Apple's pipeline, which I think is cool. Again, I think it's cool. I have questions about exactly who's going to use this feature, but the idea that Apple has built a feature that lets you have at least a few sliders and some presets about how the Apple pipeline itself reacts to when you capture an image and what image is finalized.

I'm watching like a little demo on the website and they're showing like how you'd kind of tweak stuff. I am the person who wants the feature. Because I like to to play around with with photos and this would give me live in the camera like if you adjust the color or the saturation in this way you're going to get a little bit like i think i think this could be a feature i could really enjoy and the end result is by the way and i think this is very cool um and again it's not for everybody but the end result is that you can kind of create a look

for all the photos you shoot with your iPhone. So like you can make a look that is, you know, Mike's pictures look like this. These are Mike's preferences of how he shoots on his iPhone. And they're down in the details of Apple's image pipeline. And so all the photos you shoot then are going to have that sort of your preference applied to them. Whereas up to now, the Apple imaging pipeline, there is one preference for how they capture.

Honestly, I'm really excited about this now. I did not understand it when they were talking about it. I don't know why it just missed. I think hearing you explain it and looking at the website and like seeing how the UI works, I think has really helped me. Like maybe I was taking some notes then. So like maybe they showed out and I didn't see it, but yeah, I would say I'm, I'm pretty into this idea. I think this could definitely be something just for me. It's not a lot of sliders. I think that they showed two. So it's like, you've got, you get looks and then you've got two sliders to customize. But the net result is that, yeah, you are for the first time able to sort of set up a preference of how Apple's image pipeline works to make images that are pleasing to you. And I think that could be really cool.

And it's not just a pro feature. They showed it in the pro section, but it's like it's on all the phones. So it really is more a prosumer kind of feature. And I think it's a i think it's a fun idea pro res video was one of the things that they did add this is for the yes which is again it's like adding pro raw last time maybe they'll add something next time which it makes pro res video uh more um approachable to me but there's some new there are some new things going on with the camera hardware so So 92% better low light performance for ultra

wide, which I'm really into because the low light performance on the ultra wide is really bad. This is a note that I wrote down. All of the lenses seem to be better in a bunch of ways that people who like photography will probably like. Loads of statistics that I don't get, right? But going to a

three times optical zoom, which is interesting because I went to 2.5 from two and now up to three i've tried some phones with three times optical zoom i think it might be a little too much so i'm intrigued to see what i think about that from the iphone what i am personally really excited about is macro photography they're using the uh new auto focus mode on the ultra wide and you can get up to a two centimeter distance and it really has like a very different look i've wanted macro on an iphone for a long time because sometimes it's like a little picture that i want to take i want to zoom in a lot

and i kind of can't get it or i can't get the details the way that i want um and so like something that i've done for a while is like using the telephoto lens instead to help me get closer but it's still not that look that i'm after so i'm really excited about macro like some of the shots that they show look really good because one of the things on a lot of phones with macro lenses is they put a specific macro lens on it which is low quality but the images that apple is showing and it also does macro video as well looks really cool so i'm very much looking forward to playing around with all of the new camera stuff to be honest i'm actually pretty excited about it more than i was i feel like

more practically excited this time than last time because the iphone 12 pro max there was like this big sensor what could it mean dslr i'm really like it didn't i don't really think it made a massive difference right like year over year from pro to pro with the pro max um it was a better camera but we i think we're all thinking like oh my god have they finally done this massive jump and i don't know how much of a big jump that it was like the sensor shift stuff so but for me these features like the optical zoom i'm intrigued about but it will be something i can see better low light and ultra wide macro photography and then the the photo uh styles is that what it's called uh yeah i think so styles photographic styles those things just for me they seem like

they are right up my alley for what i do with my phone's camera. So I'm excited about those. Nice. 1.5 hours longer battery on the Pro, two and a half hours longer on the Pro Max. Jason, this phone is going to last longer than I can, I think at this point. The Pro Max's battery is absolutely unbelievable. Like I've noticed that, you know, as I've been leaving my house more and we went traveling and we went like we went to Romania a few months ago, I really noticed on a travel day just how powerful the battery was. And now it's just going to go forever.

So I'm like two and a half hours more on that phone. I would not have expected this year a battery jump, let alone one of that kind. Two and a half hours is amazing i'm curious how much of the battery gain they mentioned that the battery is bigger in all of them so obviously they're saving size in some way in the internals they've found more room for battery what's that about but i've got to think that the the 5g like it's a year later. Apple wasn't there at the very beginning of the 5G rollout,

but Apple was there at the 5G rollout last year. It's still a pretty young technology. They've got a new 5G radio this year, I assume, that is, we're in such early days for 5G that I would imagine that the 5G is way more battery efficient than it used to be. Plus, they mentioned that they've got their own tech that's essentially doing exactly what it should be, which is, and I don't know if it's their own or if it's literally in the Qualcomm modem, but it's the idea that you can,

if you're only getting LTE speeds, it drops you down to LTE. And so that's a battery saver too. So I wonder how much of their battery life claims here are coming out of just having a better 5G modem versus A15. You know what? I think I might be able to answer that for you, Jason. So this is iPhone 12 Pro Max to iPhone 13 Pro Max on Apple's power and battery page.

So video playback goes from 20 hours to 28 hours. Audio playback goes from 80 hours to 28 hours audio playback goes from 80 hours to 95 hours video playback streamed from 12 hours to 25 hours uh-huh that difference in the streamed is nearly is over double yeah and it's not that big a difference for the other for the other areas so maybe it is something about the 5g right right? Like there's something going on there. That's a huge difference because video playback without streaming is an eight hour difference.

Is that a streaming on cellular or is that streaming on Wi-Fi? It just says video playback streamed. That's what it says. But that's a much, much larger difference. So potentially. The victory, you know, there are lots of different ways

that battery life gets extended, but I've got to think that 5G modems being better is a big part of it. Plus the battery is bigger. Plus the A life is the most important feature in your phone. If you lose your phone because it's died or you have to bring a battery pack around, that's not as good. Having phones that last. And Apple has come a long way in the last few years with battery life. But to continue making those kinds of improvements is a big deal. And I'm honestly surprised that they have increased it with the promotion, because most phones that go to high refresh rate or adaptive refresh rate displays, they see a battery life hit. Like this is something Samsung has seen, OnePlus has seen,

they see a battery life hit. I think this must be Apple being really aggressive in terms of how they handle video and cranking down the frame rate when you're not using it. They had that little demo where they- Everyone says they do it, but Apple can do it the best because all the other companies are building on Android. They've built their own controller and they've got, right? Like Apple's done a whole custom job and I'm not surprised that they would be eking out better battery life because of that.

And these phones can go up to one terabyte of storage it'll cost a lot of money but you know if you're shooting pro res video you probably need a terabyte one thousand five hundred and four ice pounds hold on let me get the uh let me get the u.s uh amount here it will go up to let me see what the gold one will cost. Let me make a difference. $1,599. Sure. For a 1TB phone. Pro Max. Don't think I'm going to go for that.

I know I'm not going for that. $512 I'll probably go for. $1,499 for a 1TB Pro if you don't want the Max. Why would I want the Pro? Oh, well, no, you. I mean just people in general. But yeah, if we want to max it out to the maximum, maximal price point.

Max to the Max. Max to the Max is $1599. So I'll ask you, I mean, it's probably too early to tell for you because but uh do you have a feeling about what you will be going for with your iphone uh i'm still thinking about it i'm inclined to go with the the mini just because i have loved um the mini for the last year and i think that that is you know i just i i like the size and then I hold a larger phone in my hand and I think oh no like this is this is too much that that said ProMotion and yeah those cameras like I'm open to the idea of getting an iPhone 13 Pro but I'm also really tempted by the

mini I want to see them in person too because uh it seems like they haven't changed a lot in terms of the look and i i liked the look of the 12 better than the 12 pro and if that's still the case which it seems like it is um that's going to factor in too that i just like how it looks but them having a blue model even though it's kind of a boring blue, they have a blue pro. I'm intrigued by that. Like, I'm not... Mike, you were saying I was on the fence last time. I'm not on the fence, but I'm next to the fence.

I'm looking over at the other side. I'm thinking about if I need to jump the fence, but I'm still standing on the mini side of the fence right now. I mean, and there is a possibility that you will get the opportunity to handle some of these sooner than other people. It's happened in the past. Maybe it will this time or at least kind of around that time. So you'll be able to make an informed decision. So maybe you'll help other mini owners just make their decision. Because I think really it's going to come down to a lot of people for like what they think of that display.

I think that's going to be the big difference. A lot of people I can imagine will just go, yeah, I don't know. But I already know where I sit in that camp. And for me, it will be a must buy for me. So I'm into it. I'm excited about the phone. I think this one is better in all the ways that I wanted this iPhone to be better in.

I didn't need anything else personally. It's got what I want. It's got better cameras.. It's got better cameras. I always want a better camera. It's got things I wouldn't have expected in the camera, like a macro. I didn't ever assume Apple would do this, and I'm pumped about it. And it's got the ProMotion display, which I've been asking for, for I think two to three years now.

So bigger battery life as well. Take it. I'll have it. And they've also re-upped that gold look because that's 100% what I want. I love my big shiny phone and I want another one. All right, well, that is, I mean, I wrote that review of the 12 Pro Max.

It is an amazing slab of technology. Most iPhone and it continues to be most iPhone. And this is the most iPhone they've ever made, Mike. To what I noted, aside from the battery life, there isn't anything different in the Pro Max. I don't recall any specific feature that the Pro Max has that differentiates it from the Pro phone. Because obviously we have to...

It doesn't seem so. Because all of them have the sensor shift now. I don't think there's... I'm looking at their website real quick. It got like what bigger screen. There's no other like dividing line on the specs page. So by and large, the same. It just depends on the size that you want of the phone.

Yeah. So overall, how are you feeling about this event? I think it was fine. I think it was exactly what it needed to be, other than the iPad stuff, which was a surprise and is nice to see. The iPad itself is boring, but necessary and popular, right? But it's nothing new. The mini is nothing new because we already had the iPad Air,

but it's new for the mini size, which is great. And I think that's an exciting product because of that. But in terms of the Apple watch on the iPhone, you know, the main events there, they're what we expect. Like, I don't want to damn it with faint praise. I want to say it is exactly what Apple needs to do. This was not an event that was going to blow us away in terms of what they had. It was more obligatory. It's Apple doing its best because every year it's going to come out with new iPhones and they're going to be incrementally better. And every now and then they do something that's more newer or more impressive than that. But this is not that year. This is the kind of year where Apple needs to do its job and improve all of its products and then sell them. And I thought it did a perfectly fine job of

doing that. I think the presentation was fine. It was all okay. I know that you're disappointed about the Apple Watch. I'm excited about the Apple Watch because I want a new Apple Watch. And it was necessary and they did a fine job. But it's also if people are looking like some people always are for the next big revolutionary thing. No, of course it wasn't that. It was this year's iPhone event. And it was absolutely that. Like this is their most iPhone event ever.

How about that? I like it uh for me i feel good about it because i you know i was disappointed in one thing but i got something i didn't think i was going to get out of this event you know i figured that basically the entire ipad that they many that they have shipped is exactly what i wanted them to do and kind of expected them to do and they've given it to me maybe a month earlier than i was expecting that so So I'm perfectly fine with that. Pre-orders for iPhones begin this Friday. Also shipping on the 24th.

So luckily, I just checked the pre-order opens at 1 p.m. here for me because I really didn't want to be pre-ordering a phone during the podcast-a-thon. And so I don't need to because in my time zone, the podcast-a-thon starts at 5 o'clock. So I will have my opportunity to try and get my iphone pre-order in in time so i could pick it up the week after along with my ipad mini that's gonna be a great day for me if i can get all of those at the same time so yeah that was it that was the september event that's it was one one for the books if you

want to find uh links and information this episode, you can go to relay.fm slash upgrade slash 371. If you would like to get longer ad-free episodes of Upgrade, you can go to getupgradeplus.com and you can sign up there. I would like to thank Instabug, Ooni, and Fitbod for their support of this episode. I will also like to remind you of two things. StJude.org slash Relay. This is where you can go to donate to help us in supporting St. Jude Children's Research Hospital who are defeating childhood cancer. That's their entire thing,

which it's Childhood Cancer Awareness Month right now. And so we run this campaign throughout all of September because St. Jude is an incredible place. But another thing that I want you to do, super important, twitch.tv slash RelayFM. Be there on September the 17th from 12 to 8 p.m. Eastern time for the third annual RelayFM podcast-a-thon

for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. I'll be there. Jason's going to be there. Jason's going to be there in a big way. It's going to be all snow, not all the time. Oh, I'm feeling, well, no. I the time a one-eighth of the time more than one-eighth of the time yeah more than we say that more than jason's jason's got a bunch of exciting things 15 of the podcast-a-thon i'll be present on how about that jason might be on it more than me who

knows i hope not i'm getting really prepared over here. It would be something bad would have happened. Oh boy, Jason, my studio is being destroyed right now. I'm not kidding. Every piece of equipment that I own for video and audio is being dismantled and put to use in different places. It is. But I'm very excited. Like I've been working really hard, like me and Adino, my wife,

have been working really hard over the last couple of days and continue to be working all the way up until Friday afternoon and from my side things are going to look so much better than they did last year so I'm really into it

I really hope that you'll join us even for some of that time we'd really really appreciate it if you want to find Jason online go to sixcolors.com you can be rest assured that there's going to be tons of great writing

about this event over at Six Hollas. And you can follow Jason. He's at jsnl, J-S-N-E-L-L on Twitter. I'm iMike. I am Y-K-E. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell. We can't wait to see what you do with it.