Upgrade - 475: The 2023 September Event Draft

Episode Date: September 4, 2023

Jason and Myke preview what will happen at next week's Apple event. What new features will the new iPhones have? How will the Apple Watch transform? And which one of us will harness the heart of a champion, Lionel Messi style, and score the winning goal?

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 475 for september 4 2023 this episode is brought to you by squarespace and text expander and it is the draft for the iphone event the september event of 2023 i am one of your competitors i am mike hurley and i am joined by my co-host and co-competitor jason snell who let that marching band in here was it you well the summer is over they are the as known as the official end of summer marching band because the summer of fun is over we say goodbye to the summer as we now enter the fall of content they they are also the summer is about to begin marching band if you think about it it's a different band oh it's they literally there's a second band that plays exactly identical music we have the summer of fun marching band and then the end of summer marching band

they are two i think they just walk around the corner change their uniforms march right back in honestly i think they're cashing their checks i don't care what they're doing right but they have their specific jobs they wear the different uniforms and uh they're there's like they take the like the surf rock band and they push them they're on like a platform and they're just pushing them away push them off yeah do they push them off the platform or do they push the platform away entirely i don't know what happened yeah all right more lore the upgrade lore is expanding it's canon it's canon that's canon i have a snow talk question for you jason snow and it comes from me as they sometimes do and

i just want to know are you ready to venture back to apple park um i mean technically i need a week because the event is a week from tomorrow well i don't mean now as we record this so i'm not ready right now but yes it would be great to be back at apple park and the steve jobs theater and watching you know it's a little weird because it's just watching a video on the screen now but then afterward that the hands-on area is there and i'll see a lot of the the same people i see i'll see some people that i don't normally see um are really fm's own steven hackett is going to be there right he sure is so the two of you will be on the ground i had the very surreal experience which is something that i don't think i could have explained to myself of even five years ago that i was invited to go to the iphone keynote and rsvp'd no that i would not be going which is a it's a very surreal thing it is just as much as i want to be there with you and with steven because

me and steven have never been to a keynote together so i thought that would be a sweet experience for some time right it's just something that i cannot do in good conscience right now like yeah i've got too much going on this month and it would jeopardize too many other things that i've got happening and so like i don't feel bad about it like it's a shame but like i feel good in knowing i made the right decision so like i feel like i made the right decision so next year should you just plan to spend september in america and just do it that way this is a conversation that me and steven are probably gonna have right about like timing because like we are able to set the timing of a lot of things and that's true maybe there is a way to time this to time stuff a little bit different but it's also like you're timing against something that you have no idea when it's going to happen so it's always

pretty complicated it's true we'll see i mean i also i'm not gonna i don't really feel like making an entire decision like planned decision for something that might not even happen next year it's true so it's true we'll see how it goes um it's you know it's very different right as you say if it was going to be like an in-person presentation like i might have pushed a little harder and swung for it a little differently but as you say really all that i feel like i'll be losing out on is the hands-on environment right because right we're going to be watching the same video you'll just be in different scene a different yeah different, yeah, a different location. Now, why are you so busy?

This is a transition, Mike. Why are you so busy this month? I am so busy this month as we are, I think, all so busy this month because we are raising money for the kids of St. Jude. As once again at RelayFM, we come together during September, which is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. For the fifth year in a row, the RelayFM community is moving together, we come together during September, which is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. For the fifth year in a row, the Relay FM community is moving together, like joining together to support St. Joe Children's Research Hospital. Their life-saving work is very important. It's very simple. They

will work until no child dies from cancer. And we support that. And I know our listeners support it too, because we have currently raised $152,000. It is September 4th, and we're raising money throughout all of September. With your support, we'll be one step closer to the day that no child will die from cancer. One cure closer, one child closer. We have been doing some stuff over the last couple of weeks. We spoke about this a little bit already, and the community has come together in a huge way to, I think, blast past where we've been at any other point.

But this is just the beginning of our month-long campaign. St. Jude, they care for some of the world's sickest children regardless of their race, ethnicity, beliefs, or ability to pay. Their patients receive customized care to make sure that they can treat childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases no matter what barriers that these children may face because of its supporters saint jude can provide children with cutting-edge treatments not covered by insurance at no cost to families families never receive a bill from

saint jude for treatment travel housing or food meaning that they can do the one thing that matters most, to focus on helping the child live. This September, join RelayFM and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in recognizing Childhood Cancer Awareness Month by honoring those impacted by childhood cancer. And the way that you can honor them is with your money. Go to stjude.org. It is as simple as that. This costs money, and it is donors like you who help make this whole thing possible to change what it means for a child to survive when they are diagnosed with cancer. Donors who make an individual gift of $60 or more will receive a thank you from us in the form of a digital bundle of RelayFM wallpapers and screensavers. Those who donate $100 or more will receive a 2023 sticker

pack featuring some really awesome new designs. But you can also take it a step further. You can set up your own fundraising campaign to help us, to join with us, to raise money yourself, to help us all reach our goals while earning some exclusive merch. If you fundraise at least $1, if you set up a fundraising campaign, you'll receive a 2023 face-off edition of the Challenge Coin. If you raise $250 or more, you'll receive an awesome new desk mat. These designs are all over at stjude.org. You can go there and you can learn more about fundraising, some ideas about how to fundraise. You can share with your friends, your family, your colleagues, your community,

and help us raise money. You can donate yourself to this campaign. You can get your friends and family to donate to this campaign. And that is more money for St. Jude than would have otherwise existed. This is a great way to get involved. Once you make a donation of your own as well, make sure you click the blue search employer button on the donation summary page. This way you'll be able to find out if your employer offers employee gift matching. This is really important because if they do,

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Your support will be one step closer to that day. One cure closer, one child closer this month and every month. Let's cure childhood cancer together. Jason, we are here today for the draft. We are. I would like to go through the rules as they are written. This year, we are going to have 10 rounds in the draft. There's 20 overall picks between the two of us.

The draft will be split into three categories. We're going to have iPhone picks, Apple Watch picks, and other picks. The winner of the previous draft will get the first pick. That is the reward, and that person was me. The items that we will be picking from are chosen from a predetermined list of

choices, which we have both agreed could be verifiable on screen and not ridiculously obvious as for a night to count it must either clearly be announced on stage or on a slide during the presentation the draft is scored purely from the beginning to the end of the keynote presentation right the content i guess we could change this i mean it's the content of the video it must be so if we say they introduce this processor like one of our picks is a three nanometer processor right they have to say they basically have to say three nanometer in somewhere

in the video right otherwise we don't know and we can't go outside of the content of the the film i guess they call it now that's not gonna happen so it has to be based on the content of the presentation that's what we're judging here. Indeed. Stephen Hackett will adjudicate in case of any scoring stalemate between Jason and I. And I'm going to have spies on the ground at Apple Park

to make sure that no money changes hands between the two of you. It's all on the up and up. I'm going to have my spies there. No partial points are awarded, just four points only. Something's either correct or incorrect. The points awarded on the episode are final

and will be finalized during the scoring segment. In the case of a tie, there is a tiebreaker question. The loser gets pick of the tiebreaker. This is something that I always forget. Does that mean you get the tiebreaker question and then I have to say over or under? Is that what that means? I forget this every time.

Yes, that's basically what it means traditionally we choose the runtime of the presentation as the as the over under and so you get to say what the runtime will be and then i get to say over or under on that is that correct uh no no i think is that it? Yeah, I think so. I pick the over-under margin and then you choose higher or lower. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The winner becomes draft champion

and they display the champion pennant as I have behind me right now. The loser becomes the draft challenger and displays the challenger pennant, which Jason has behind him. You can find an interactive scorecard for this so you can score along during the keynote next week over upgrade.cards this is courtesy of the wonderful discord moderator zach knox thank you zach for your continued efforts in making the draft a

interactive experience for the upgradians you can also pick up your own draft t-shirt at upgradeyourwardrobe.com. This is available all year round if you would like one of your own. I'm going to run through some previous results. So, so far for this year, there's just been one draft, which is abnormal. There's usually one in the spring,

but there wasn't this year, and I won that. It was the WWDC draft. In previous September events, you have won all of them except 2022. spring but there wasn't this year and i won that it was the wwc draft in previous september events uh you have won all of them except 2022 is the only time yeah that i won uh that event you're on a bit of a winning streak here so yeah i'm doing pretty well so i'm expecting it to end we'll see we'll see obviously i had the advantage right this is the the advantage i get first picks but doesn't mean the tides can't turn as they have turned in the past.

That's right. It's true. The tiebreaker then. So what would you like to set as the tiebreaker? Well, I am going to put... So they leave a two-hour slot, but they don't always fill it. And in fact, last time, the presentation was 95 minutes long.

I am going to set the presentation over under at 93 minutes. This is very complicated. Uh-huh. This is very complicated. Uh-huh. So last year, right, was it just the iPhones and just Apple Watches, basically? They also did the new AirPods.

Yeah. And so the problem these days is trying to work out what the product balance is going to be, where last year, they spent a lot more time on the Apple Watch because they had the Ultra. Now, we're not expecting that this time but we're expecting a bigger maybe a bigger iphone presentation because they're gonna have some new stuff there so that might like

rebalance it a little bit where like maybe there's not a lot of time spent for the watch but there might be more time spent for the for the iphones this time than there was before and i think you're exploring the two ways to view runtime right which is how much do they have to talk about and then there's almost almost a filler kind of an inflationary expansion kind of thing which is how right because they're not going to do a 30 minute presentation so it's sort of a what do they feel like they can do to get their money's worth? So you stack up, I feel like you stack up the blocks of like the product announcement saying that gives you, like it did with WWDC, it gives you kind of a minimum of like, oh, well,'t change very much, but they've got some new stuff for the phones, it becomes a question of like, well,

how much time do they give to periscope lenses? Right. How much time do they give to that stuff? How much time do they give to USB C or whatever to kind of puff it up? Because I don't expect that this is going to be a tight 60, right? It seems unlikely i'm gonna say this could be on the longer side uh so i'm gonna say over 93 minutes okay i'm going that way purely on like this is no matter what else is in there this is the iphone event right right? Like that's what this is. Like you can put anything else in it. You can have the

Apple Watch Ultra in there, but this is the iPhone event. And I think this year is going to be a bigger story for at least one iPhone model. And so I think they're going to take the time to tell that. I think that's right. I mean, I obviously set this at a point where I have a hard time picking. I think there's a chance that it's a lot shorter just because they don't have as much to do it. Clearly, there's, Zach Knox points out, like, 2021 was 78 minutes. It was a lot shorter. So they can make it shorter. But I think that there's also this whole idea that you want to get your money's worth. The world is watching. You want to set the presentation. And it's also possible, I don't remember, but sometimes when those presentations are short, it feels like it's because something came out. They're like, no, we can't announce that. Take that out. Also, sometimes we have a level of presentation that is surprising. Last year, I was really surprised at how much time.

Last year, I was really surprised at how much time. Remember that video they did for the AirPods where the woman who's introducing them is on the subway and then she's outside and then she goes into a cafe and she's demoing all of those things? Well, I'll remind everybody that at WWDC, they announced some new noise processing features for the airpods firmware and airpods as as primarily iphone accessories this would be a time to re-establish that right and talk about it even if they're just making a minor update to the airpods just the case or whatever also lets them kind of like go through that so there's plenty of opportunity for this to to balloon up to above 93 minutes um i don't really know so it's it's i mean that's the beauty of the over-under thing right it's kind of a uh i'm just setting the bar where i think it's going to be hard and then you make a hard decision and we see and if i set

the bar badly then that's bad for me yeah um and otherwise yeah that's the beauty of it it's it's either over or it's not i think this is going to be on the longest. I think last year I think it really showed that they like I said, they were flexing with the visual presentation and I expect that to continue. I think we saw it at WWDC with the Vision Pro part of the demo was just like visually

very interesting and I think they're going to do that again and all of that means that they can take their time a bit more if it's not just people standing in front of screens for an hour and 25 minutes, right? Never underestimate Apple's ability to talk about photography for a long time. A long time.

But, you know, we're going to talk about, obviously, the things we're expecting, but the entire iPhone lineup is going to get a bit of a shake-up this year. And this should be seen as one of the bigger years for the iPhone. And so I expect that to be reflected in the amount of time they spend talking about it. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one platform for building your brand and growing your business online. You can stand out with a beautiful website, engage with your

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So we move now into the first round, the iPhone picks. So I have my little list. So I go through this morning, take a look at our list that we've worked out over the last week. When on the end of last week's episode, we realized, oh my God, we need to draft next week, most likely. And then we sprang to work putting the list together. So I have my little short list here.

And my first pick is going to be usbc announced on all models of iphone all right it's time yeah it's time i mean arguments can be made about why they're doing it now but realistically this is the right move for everyone who doesn't want this you know what i mean let's let's get rid of one more cable in our lives and go all usbc it is a vastly superior connector in my opinion uh just because i have them everywhere and the light the lightning cable i just you know i'm losing it i don't know where that thing is get out of here i um was struck by mark german's newsletter this week we didn't do a rumor roundup he didn't really have anything new to report so he sort of like played pundit a little bit and i

thought i was surprised where he was trying to contribute to the discourse that we that gruber wrote about it i wrote about it about like how the general public is going to react to this change and i think the answer is going to be negatively because I was still hearing like, oh, Apple, they just keep changing the cables in people's stand-up comedy routines a

couple years ago. And it's been 11 years, right? It's a thing. It's a meme. It's going to get heightened again. I think it's going to slide away faster this time because I think the conditions are very different. But the fact is, it's going to be a thing. I think it's going to slide away faster this time because I think the conditions are very different. But the fact is, it's going to be a thing. I was surprised that Mark Gurman also said something about how people will be mad because they will have invested in a bunch of lightning accessories that don't work. And I don't know.

I feel like that's overstated and that there's less of. And that a lot of accessories are invalid between iPhone versions anyway. And a lot, a lot of people. Yeah. And a lot of people have already learned their lesson from all of those clock radios that were in hotels that use the dock connector. Right. I think that,

I think that everybody, um, is either, uh, you know, there's a lot of USB-C out there. There's a lot of lightning or USB-C out there. And there's a lot of swap in a cable kind of stuff. Right. And so I think it's going to be less of an issue. But Mark leaned into the whole Apple doesn't want to do this.

They just wanted to wait until they made the portless iPhone. And I kind of rolled my eyes at that. It's like a portless iPhone is kind of a dream. And even when it comes, I think it's going to be, you know, portless except for a magnetic connector that Apple makes that does data, right? Like it's going to not really be portless. It's going to be sort of like plug in a plug. And I I've always been skeptical of that report. So I think I, you know, again, I'm sure there are people inside Apple and maybe these are the people Mark Gurman is talking to who are like, oh, we just, we didn't want to do this with stupid EU and all that. And like, I think he's overstating it. Honestly, I think that

this is a logical step for them and they were forced into a timeline by the EU. And, but I would say that if that's the case, that apple really just planned on using lightning until many years down the line when it finally could invent a portless iphone i'm glad they got forced into it because this is a better situation everybody's got usbc stuff it will be a transition that'll be a little bit painful for some people but um a lot less painful i think than the last one so i mean i don't even know if i believe the forced into narrative because we like we have to all agree on a thing here because like we all apparently agree that it takes multiple years to design an iphone right like that's exactly an agreement that we all seem to have made together of like a well they can't make any changes because they have been planned multiple years in advance

what so they could have like six months ago just been like oh better pull that lightning cable out like no like no they've been planning to put this on there for at least a year before that thing came down from the european union like this has just been the route that they were going on or at least have maybe for multiple years had it running in parallel right of like this is a thing that we might do and it's a different design for the phone yeah i i think i mean honestly i think there was that conversation they had shortly after they introduced lightning which was usbc was coming then but it wasn't ready when they did lightning and then usbc comes along they're like well you know we already committed to this and honestly i think they would have

switched sooner if there hadn't been such an outcry and so much negative publicity about the connection uh the dock connector to lightning switch where they're like no no no no no no no we can't we can't do it yet and now they're finally going to rip the band-aid off and great i'm glad they're going to do it but i would actually say this would have happened sooner if they hadn't gotten beaten up so much about the lightning switch and there's going to be so many articles written about this right like because there are publications you know like the world media is like hungry leave what apple's doing again so but but we i think we all have to be sensible about this and realize that like this

is very different to when they did it the last time like they went from one proprietary connector to another proprietary connector where this time. They went from one proprietary connector to another proprietary connector, where this time they're going from a proprietary connector to a cable that people already have in their home for something else that they own. Yeah, an established standard. Also, I don't think this gets talked about enough. 11 years

ago, people were attaching their phones to their computers to sync stuff. Sorry to those who still do that but nobody does nobody does that like that that era has ended it's a charging cable maybe it's a cable for your car play or something and again it's a cable swap right people very rarely is something designed like there's no car place so far as know, where there's like a little dock with a lightning. Well, like a hardwired lightning.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Instead, it's a USB plug and you would just take your USB lightning plug out and put in the USB to USB-C plug and it works. I'm sure they're going to be edge cases, but yeah, the scenarios are really different now than they were 11 years ago when the last time that the switch happened. Before Upgrade, that's how long ago it was. That's forever ago. Ancient history. Before Relay FM existed.

Yeah. With my pick in the first round, I'm also going to go with something that I firmly expect to happen, which is a transition from stainless steel to titanium. I don't know why I said it that way. I just thought it would be exciting. Presenting titanium in this, a better, lighter metal that is going to be much nicer for pro phones than that heavy old stainless steel. This isn't your father's iphone this one sir is titanium uh it's titanium this was my second pick this is going to be my second pick like this one is these two they feel sun right they feel right yeah they do and i'm excited about

this i'm intrigued uh to see truly what a titanium iphone would feel like like people talk about it being lighter and i and i want i'm really intrigued to see what it feels like to hold the stainless steel and the iphone and the titanium iphones like in each hand and see how they feel next to each other i don't report back on tuesday yeah i'm intrigued this is one of those things where i feel like we it's been built up so much that when we actually do it, it's not going to feel that excellent. It's not going to feel that different

because the hype is too high at this point. Right. And you're going to be looking for the weight difference and it'll be different, but how different? And we'll argue about,

can you really tell? And that'll literally probably be a conversation we have in our next episode. I will be asking be asking jason did you feel the titanium phone and how does it compare to the the the pro and all of that and we'll we'll find out but titanium like i was um uh thinking again about how two years ago i i did myself a uh i gave myself a little treat because it was just my and Lauren's wedding anniversary. And I got her a nice thing a couple of years ago. Like, I'm not going to go into the details, but I got her like a piece like a jewelry upgrade, essentially.

And it always comes up when these things happen of like, what is my equivalent of that? What would I get? Because I am mostly, other than a wedding ring, other than a wedding band, I am completely unadorned, right? And I had a flash of insight and I thought, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to get the titanium Apple Watch in black. And here's the thing, Mike. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love the titanium. I love how it looks.

I love how light it is. This is, for people who don't know, this is one of the series watches. This is not the Ultra. This was, they had titanium in the edition line before. Seven? I don't even remember what series it is. It's two years ago series.

So I love it. And so more titanium. Titanium all the things is what I say. Because it's, as we learned on this podcast from experts who are listeners, titanium anodizable into various colors. It would come a long way from the paint, the silver paint on the titanium power book. And I'm really looking forward to entering the titanium iPhone era. All right, my second pick is the Pro Max slash Ultra,

depending on what it's called. Maybe that's giving away a potential pick. Large high-end phone. Nondescript large high-end phone to gain a new camera with increased telephoto zoom, aka periscope lens. The biggest phone will get some kind of new camera module and it will enable a larger zoom.

People have said somewhere between 5, 6x instead of 3. I'm intrigued to see what it will end up actually being like, but that's what I'm expecting. Yeah, more zoom on the big one. Now, I have a question for you, which is, what happens if there's an increased telephoto zoom on both the Max slash ultra and the non pro well i mean this pic isn't only okay right it's just saying that that phone will get it

okay all right well that's i mean that's good for you yeah you know um some of them are onlys. Yeah. I think it feels, nobody's saying, you know, nobody's saying it for sure, but it sure feels like there's a big camera upgrade in the offing here. Right? This is the thing that, honestly, people have been talking about Apple experimenting with a periscope lens. And the idea here, again again is it's pure optics you're increasing the depth of uh of the the i i'm not a physicist but it's increasing the length of the lens essentially by having a much longer run than the thickness of the camera or of the phone and and so the only way you can do that is by turning it on its side so they have a mirror it you know it goes down way you can do that is by turning it on its side. So they have a mirror,

it goes down, and you can actually have the camera housing run, the actual optics run further down. And it's a big deal. Samsung has done it. I think other phone makers have done it. Apple hasn't done it, but they've been rumored to be experimenting with it for years.

And it feels like this is the time when we're going to see it in that one high-end phone that's got the space, and this is the time when we're going to see it in that one high-end phone that's got the space and this is going to be there um on uh on mac break weekly leo laporte likes to bring out this photo he shot that's like of uh from taken from a bluff i think on the ocean to over to another bluff and he keeps zooming in and it was taken taken with one of these, I think, Samsung Periscope phones. And it's amazing because it's this really far away bluff across.

It's like a landscape. And you keep zooming in. And eventually you can literally see that there is a guy on that landscape looking back, holding a camera. It's pretty impressive, right? And some of that is digital zoom with cleanup. pretty impressive, right? And some of that is digital zoom with cleanup, but there, you know, this is how Apple will do it too, probably is that they will have, uh, an increased optical zoom. And then there will be some digital zoom with, um, using the sensors to clean it up and make it look pretty good. And I can't wait to see it because this, this be um just a huge step forward for iphone users in terms of photography i'm trying to reserve my excitement because i got overexcited about the 48 megapixel

sensor right like i thought last year that the new sensor going into the iphone was going to be like a huge step change like like one we hadn't seen in a long time and i would say that that did not happen like that there is a big change of like that you can unlock with given the right tools and the right circumstances but i don't think that it has made a very noticeable big jump from the previous system so i'm expecting there to be a difference but how big a difference will that be i don't know also like how much will i want to use it i don't know right like am i gonna be frustrated by the fact that i have now like one two and six like is that going to be too much?

Right, and all those intermediate steps and will that be frustrating? Yeah. Like, do you know when you're at four what's happening and how that's being captured? And do you feel okay about that? And I think that those are all good questions. So good.

I applaud you for reserving your enthusiasm over that one. Yep. All right, what's your second pick? I think this is pretty certain, but the question is about the StageCraft more than anything else. But I'm going to pick that the three nanometer chip, the new three nanometer chip,

is only in the high-end phones. You know, this is a bold, I think this is bold for round two. I had this in my short list. My judgment was reserved by the case of like we may know this to be accurate but it relies on three nanami of being described in the presentation which i maybe but i don't know i mean i could have i could change this to be new chip only in the high-end phones.

But now we're going in and taking it. But I think this is the right way to do it. I think the only question is, do they describe that it's using a new 3 nanometer process? And honestly, I think they do. I think we're going to see. There's pics later, but I think we're going down into the chip lab or it's StageCraft equivalent of that. However they choose to do it. Maybe they'll fly into space and Johnny Scruci will be in space going, hey, new three nanometers.

I don't know, but I do know that they're using the new three nanometer chip. they'll probably only put in the high-end phones because they'll do the thing that they do now starting last year where the uh they'll roll down the the the last generation chip uh into the low end models but the high-end models will get the new chip so the question is really do they say three nanometer i think they will i can see it happening but i don't have a hundred percent confidence in it too you know well i'm i'm not at i'm at the point where i don't have 100 confidence in any of these so i'm left with the first three i felt pretty good about now we're at four hmm all right so that's that's mine three nanometer chip only in the high-end phones not going to bring it down but they are going to say that it's a three nanometer chip all right my third round

pick is this is something i was referencing earlier where I feel like this is going to be a year where the entire line gets some big upgrades. And I think that that will come in the form of the dynamic island coming to all announced phones. So that was next on my list. The regular iPhone 15 will also get the dynamic island. I think that that is something that will just make the phones look

different right like that even if the bodies stay the same which the rumors are suggesting will be the case right that the iphone 15 is going to when it's the screen is off look like the previous iphone 14 but when the screen is on it's going to have the dynamic island and i think it will make an effect i think it will be you be something that maybe people are aware of, that there are iPhones that have it, but theirs maybe doesn't. And that maybe if the next phone that they upgrade to will, that it will make it feel like a more modern iPhone. Yeah, I think the risk here is, in my mental model of what all the iPhone rumors are,

I feel less certain about this. I think it's one of those things that feels to me like we all assume this is what they're going to do. And because it's the lower-end model and all of that. Remember, we had all of those rumors about the new cutouts on the iPhone last year. And it turned out that they weren't hole punches. They were the dynamic island. And yet I don't feel like we've talked about that at all about the lower end iPhones. But I do kind of assume there was a report that said,

no, no, no, it's going to come to all of them because there were some people who were saying the dynamic island was going to remain a pro feature. And then there was a report that said, no, that's not the case. It also makes sense. I think it's good. And I think Apple likes it it and i think it's a differentiator of the iphone as a product line not of pro iphones so i believe function right i believe live activity has become

more interesting and more useful live activities are an extension of notifications which is and you want them everywhere you want them everywhere. For developers to embrace them, the more phones that have the Dynamic Island, the more they're going to say, okay, we need to prioritize what we're doing for the Dynamic Island. And yeah, actually, in the last year, we don't do exit interviews here. But I will say, I have primarily been using a pro phone this last year um and i i i switch around because i've got some review units and i've got the one that that i own and i'll say this the thing that makes me not want to go back not want to leave the pro model is the dynamic island because i do use it especially when i'm

traveling and i'm using flighty um and i just i like having it there i really do i think it's a pleasant feature yeah even if more could be done with it for sure more could be done with it and i hope more is done with it on the software side but like one way that all of that happens is that it needs to be not on one you know or two models of phone right it needs to be on now an additional four models so it'll be six different phones that have a dynamic island that's better right now we're getting somewhere that's my turn now yep this is a tough one because i feel like i've left the area of certainty now and or near certainty nigh certain items and have entered the more hazy items the wilderness the wilderness of draft picks i am i'm

out in the wilderness now um i'm oh boy how do what do i want to do here i am going to say um i'm gonna bet on a thing that i've learned through the years uh that happens and ruins the book that i write about the photos app which is uh a pro phone gets a camera software feature other phones do not have because there's usually one right there's usually something where it's like oh and now you have this mode and honestly if there's a super zoom yeah this one's this one's actually pretty easy like, in a sense of like, if we can agree that the telephoto zoom seems obvious, then this one's a lock, right? Yeah, I suppose so.

I mean, the question is just like, it comes down to the details of the interface and how they show it. And if there is like, there's a clarity where they're like, oh, and you enter this mode. And it's like, well, there you go. That's a new mode.

And I have to update my book. Well, let's have a conversation now then actually about this like if the iphone ultra or pro max has a button that says 6x rather than 3 is that a software feature all right cool so that has to be like i think yeah just changing the label is my sneaky way of saying that there's an increased zoom and that's not what i'm trying to do here. I'm trying to say that there will be some other thing in the UI or a thing you have to enable or something from one of the pro phones, probably the high-end model. I know it's a little bit squishy, but the way I view this is I finished my update to my photos book, take control of photos, got to gotta name it and handed it in and we agreed that it's basically done and we're holding it because probably they're going to show something at

the iphone event that makes me go okay all right i need to change that and it will be in the camera it might be something big right they might have like a whole new mode sometimes they introduce new modes you know photographic styles was a new a new mode they just threw in it could be a new file format right like i feel like that would count i think right there's lots of stuff here so so we'll just keep an eye on it but i i feel like every year this happens so i'm gonna pick it i like the idea uh of like the the way to to score this is does jason have to reopen his draft file to take control of photos?

Like there's something funny about that to me. Oh God, there it is again. So this is, I get a point for it at least. I'll be in that moment. I'll be like, hey, I get a point. Oh God, I got to update the story now, the book. All right, fine, fine. This one is, so my fourth round pick here.

Okay, I have my own, Fine. This one is my fourth round pick here. Okay. I mentioned I have my little short list, right? Yes. And I rank the short list in likely order. But what always happens is when I relook at it now, like in the cold light of podcast recording, I move things around. Yeah, you're like, no, no, no, no, no.

Yeah, and I'm moving one around to which cold light of podcast recording i move things around yeah you're like no no no no yeah and i'm moving much riskier than i thought to which i feel pretty confident in which is apple touts a new design for the pro phones that's a good one i thought about that one too it's complicated right this is another one where it's like, you have to believe it when we see it. And it's, you know, but I think- And it's stagecraft, right? Is the new Pro phone going to look different enough that they tout it as a new design?

Yeah. As opposed to being, and we're going to have to judge this ourselves. Yeah. As we do, it's a gentlemanly agreement to judge these things. But like really what it comes down to is, is Apple saying, well, it's got a new material for the frame.

It's titanium. Well, that's not a new design. That's a change in the frame. They need to really say and lean into, this is one of those years where there's a new design. Essentially, they need to really kind of like hit that point there are words we're looking for like refine and all that kind of stuff right to like suggest that this one they are saying does not look like the other one whether we believe it to be true or not and right there have been enough rumors of this i think um that you could see it like you piece it together right we've heard like smaller bezels we've heard new frame

we've heard new buttons and we've heard curving on the glass and maybe a different glass texture right if you do take all of that stuff and put it together there's a story that you can tell about the fact that this phone has a new design it looks different yeah and i believe apple will always if they can try to lean on that because they know it sells more phones than they do. They do. They do. Fourth round pick for Jason Snell. It's getting harder and harder.

Yikes. There are a lot of things on here that are like, it could happen. It might happen, but I'm not like super confident. We also have some very picky things. Yeah. And I have, I have,

um, the, uh, I have one more pick after this to do something a little bit wackier or a little bit more daring. So I'm going to go a little less daring and I'm just going to get on the color matched USB-C cables bandwagon.

Okay, interesting. There will be some color matched USB-C cables. Not saying for which phone, not saying whether they'll be in the box or they'll be available separately, but that they will mention the color matched or we will see color matched USB-C cables. I went back to some vaults in this one. So I was thinking, you know, if they're going to change it,

they're maybe going to tell you they're going to put it in the box, right? It's like, oh, you're going to get a new cable. But I also thought, will they? Will they say we're going to put a cable, a color matched USB-C cable in the box and like show it? You know what I mean? But is it going to be in the box or is're going to put a cable a color matched usbc cable in the box and like show it you know what i mean but is it going to be in the box or is it going to be available for the pro phone i think they might do that but like or are they just going to be available and we got a lot of colors and you can you know i i just feel like uh i like this story enough to think that the color match usbc cables will exist in some form and they will be mentioned i don't know the details

although yeah i would love it if every iphone gets a color match cable in the form and they will be mentioned. I don't know the details. Although, yeah, I would love it if every iPhone gets a color match cable in the box. And somebody pointed out to me, the beauty of that is also you'll know what your new iPhone cable looks like. So from a like minimizing people getting frustrated about like, oh, I picked up a lightning cable instead of the cable for my phone. The beauty of the, you know, not only will be nice and they say braided and up a lightning cable instead of the cable for my phone the beauty of the you know not only will be nice and they say braided and like a nice cable but the color matching means it will not look like all of your white lightning cables and you'll be like aha that's my phone cable so i like this story i'm gonna go with it i also have gone back and forth on it but you know so we get later in draft, you start making rash decisions based on limited information.

That's just how it goes. Can I approach the bench for a clarification? Okay, I'm sitting in a chair and not a bench, but sure, yes. Can you go sit on your bench, please? My microphone's not near there, unfortunately, so I can't. Just shout. So we have a pic that says color option added to at least one of the pro phones is different to what we've seen before. I think for this pick, it's going to have to be like not a blue, not a green.

Right. I was willing to go with not a name used before. All right. That's good. I like that. Right. So like if it truly is Titan Gray or something. That's good. I like that. Right. So like if it, if it truly is Titan gray or something, that's, that's new. Titan gray is not a, not a like a titanium blue, right? Like

that's not like blue, like whatever the blue was that we had before. If it's like Titan grain, well, that's not Safari green, which is what we have. Right, right. So it's just we changed the name and they say the name and it's a name we haven't heard before attached to an iPhone. That would be what that would be. My final pick is color option added

to at least one of the Pro phones is different to what we've seen before. Now, realistically, I think that this is a we're leaning into titanium and we're giving it a color, but I'm covering my bases for if it's blue something right or green something sure but i think that i'm gonna i'm

gonna i'm gonna i'm leaning into the idea realistically that they are going to have something which is closer to in color for the whole phone what a raw titanium looks like like the apple watch ultra that's what i think that they will do that because i think that they will know and i think rightly know people will kind of dig that i think that that we're going to hear a lot about titanium and i think that they will want to celebrate that they have titanium that they and that this is meant to be something people are supposed to be excited about and so you know this idea of there being a color of an iphone which borrows from titanium in some way yeah i think we're gonna i think we're gonna see that it's just nothing but it's pure titanium

it's just not even glass natural're natural they made a titanium screen you can't use it but they thought you'd like it yeah it's just it's literally just a slab of titanium you stick in your pocket you know very light all right i'm gonna wrap it up i i have a a boulder pick that i'm not gonna go with but i'm going with i mean again no i'm i'm just gonna go with it i mean again no i'm i'm just gonna go with it my my percentage of liking it is lower now as we go on i'm gonna i'm gonna hop on the action button say at least one iphone is gonna not have a mute switch it's gonna be a button yep the rumors are out there i i think i i it's one of those things where like sometimes when you're diagnosing rumors which is sort of what the draft is you end up with this sort of thing of like they haven't talked about that lately but they talked about it and they said it was going to happen and it seems like it would happen

and the and there was the we in some ways what happens is uh the the report comes out we all debate it and then we forget about it and like the reports out there like it's done they're like yeah this is happening and then we're like tired of it and we move on and then you get to the draft and you're like oh yeah that was a that was a thing we talked about right that's probably happening and i just i i for all the reasons we talked about back then i love the idea that you could repurpose the mute switch to have it do different things it could still be mute if you want it to be that, but as somebody who always leaves my phone muted,

I would rather use that switch for anything else. So I'm going to try to wish it into existence. At least one iPhone, maybe all of them, come on, make it all of them, will have a button up there instead of a mute switch. That is the end of the iPhone picks. How are you feeling so far oh i'm gonna say get some breath here on this round i feel confident okay that's all i'll say how are you feeling i'm feeling pretty good i feel like i could have made some wackier picks that were a

lot less likely and i don't think i did so i'm i'm not there there have been moments in your winning streak on this draft and even before that when I would win. There are moments where I look at one of my picks and I'm like,

did you pick that just because it's wacky? Yeah. Because even if I picked it and I don't think it's going to happen, that's not great. This one I feel better about.

I feel like there's some that are an amount of risk here, but I don't, I'm not looking at it right now and thinking I have deep regrets. I feel like I'm pretty positive about mine too. Today we play to win. So far. This episode is brought to you by TextExpander. When you work in a team, every moment counts. You don't want to be wasting time finding video conferencing details to send to that new client so everyone can be on that Zoom call. You don't want to have to spend time going to your company's website to copy and paste an FAQ into an email that you're

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for their support of this show and RelayFM. It is now time to move in to the Apple Watch Picks. Oh, wait. You can do that if you want to, but I don't think you need to.

That was a laser misfire. Sorry, it's not time for lasers. It happens. We don't think this is going to be a big Apple Watch year, so we only have two rounds for the Apple Watch. You're up. Cold light of podcast, you know? I know, right? You live in that fantasy world where you're imagining this is part of the danger of drafting is you start to imagine your fantasy

keynote yep and you're like oh that'll be so good and that'll be so great and then in the cold light of day of the podcast you look at it and it's also like not only would it be so good when they do it won't it be awesome that i will then win a point from it but it's like it doesn't doesn't always work like that this is why drafting is tricky because you let the wishes in like look i want to be a big i'm a big proponent of people being creative and having a rich inner fantasy life. But for drafting, it's super dangerous because then you let the wish casting in and you're drafting rainbows and don't do it. Don't draft rainbows.

Rainbows have typically done pretty well for you in stage form. Well, in terms of the stage craft, yes. The rainbow stage you can draft. That's fine. But just don't draft unicorns. You know what, Jason? I'm looking towards rainbows. I'm doing it it the apple watch ultra comes in a different color option okay uh you think this is a rainbow pick because it was my number one

apple watch well i mean rainbows in there are colors in a rainbow okay sure well the new color will not be colorful right it will be black probably most likely yes most likely so not the the everybody's favorite color of the rainbow black hey look apple calls it a color look this the simple fact that this is i think the apple watch ultra was a success i i think this was the thing that no one really knew what was going to happen when they put it out but what actually happened was people bought it because it was the most expensive Apple Watch and that was the watch that they wanted. And that was the one that they were going to wear, which I think is a valid reason to buy the Apple Watch Ultra. And I expect, especially if Apple is going all in on titanium, that they

could maybe also match up at least one more color option to go alongside it from the options that they have for the iphone it also allows them to do something at least to rev the apple watch ultra on a 12 month cycle this is where we're going to find out if the apple watch ultra is a 12 month cycle product as well uh we're going to find out here and i think if they do it this will be the way that they do it all right i'm gonna go with a bummer pick which i know people don't like the bummer pick but it's got to be done no new health related sensors yeah not this time nope gotta wait for the x yeah yeah i just think uh we get rumors of sensors here and there but like as we've seen it's really hard like it's really hard to get sensors into the apple watch because they have medical applications and they're all the issues and like we had this

whole conversation last year about temperature and we're like oh we're going to use it to detect and warn you that you might be running a fever and all that. And it ended up being a useful but incredibly constrained cycle tracking thing, right? With a lot of asterisks attached to it. So I'm going to just say no. No new health related sensors. All right. Interesting.

Okay. It was on my list. It was because I just don't see it happening this time around never bet against no sensors yeah there's a lot of negatives in there but yeah always bet on no new sensors or not um all right my second and final apple watch pick is that there will be a new system on a chip with more performance for the series nine yeah no that was that was mine that was mine too you got your winner advantage going for you here i had a thought about this system on the chip and i want to know what you think this isn't really this isn't in the pick but just a thought could they also put

this in the ultra yes right and then that might be another reason to revive revive revise the ultra this year right where like they also have a new chip inside of it which is more powerful and they might like push on that maybe you know i'm sure that they'll say it can allow for something new and that maybe they will say that they want to bring that to the ultra as well i don't know there's been a long time since we had a new a performance increase true i think honestly i think the only question here is how detailed do they go into about the system on the chip and i know more performance but i think you're i i can't imagine that they would do this and not say that yeah so we have apple watch ultra hardware not updated um but we don't have apple watch ultra hardware updated is that right can i not pick that uh

i mean you can you can pick it but like what is that what is an update to the apple watch ultra hardware like that's like a physical change well and colors don't and colors don't count right that was that that is part of it is that well it's the system on a chip right it's like we actually this is not the apple watch ultra this is the apple watch ultra series 2 or uh if you know and it's got the new chip in it and whatever that That would be what it would be. Is that, but is, yeah. Or do you mean like design changes? Because that's not going to happen. I didn't put this in there.

I think you put this in there. Yeah, I think I was trying to do the, is there going to be, it's an open question. Is there going to be a new, well, one of the rumors is, because there's not going to be a design change. The Apple Watch Ultra just came out.

The question is, do they just say, we also continue to sell the Apple Watch Ultra. It's great. And now there's a new color. Or do they say, here's the Apple Watch Ultra Series 2. It's got a new chip in it. That's my question. Do we know which one of those is going to be it?

But what I don't want to do is say, what you say, which is a different color option. If it's just the Apple Watch Ultra, but it comes in black now, that's not a new Apple Watch Ultra, right? That's an Apple Watch Ultra color change on existing hardware. So that's my question for you.

Can I do that? Wait, tell me what you want to pick. Apple Watch Ultra, like new Apple Watch Ultra version, colors don't count? Does that work? I don't know how we'll score it. Well, what do you mean? I mean, if they just say we added a color to the Apple Watch, it doesn't count. If they say we put a new processor in the apple watch and it's the apple watch ultra and it's apple watch ultra you know whether they call it series two or they call

it something else well let's say if they put a new chip in it it's like new or series two or 2023 or like what yes then sure right like okay new how about this let's let's do this sorry for negotiating this on the show but how how about new Apple Watch Ultra hardware? Colors don't count. Okay. Right? It actually needs to be new. If it's literally last year's Apple Watch Ultra

in a different color, it doesn't count. Something physical needs to change, right? Whether it's a physical... No, no, no, no, no. It might not look any different, but they're making a claim. I'm not saying about looks.

Physical includes chips. It includes sensors. It includes yes something it's not visuals it's like a physical item must change that's how right right and changing the color or changing the orange on the button or whatever is not that's not it it's it's it's a and this is coming right out of your pick actually where i'm sitting here looking at the apple watch ultra doesn't change and thinking well wait a second if there's a new system on a chip on the series 9 would they not put that in the apple watch ultra at the same time they've changed they've changed series of apple watch with no changes in the inside to speak of right just to iterate it why wouldn't they do

that with the ultra so i'm gonna throw that in yeah and i don't think this is obvious because i'm still unsure if they'll do anything to it. I am too. I only had three picks that I was willing to make in this round, Mike, and we picked them in the first three. So I'm left with this. Yeah. All right. That's the Apple Watch.

So our final regular pick round is what we are calling Other, and this could include absolutely anything else. Indeed. other and this could include absolutely anything else indeed and i get the first round here and i'm gonna go for airpods pro get usbc okay that's a good one that's a good one and and we should say all this this doesn't mean they're new airpods pro even it means that there will be a usbc charging case and it will be announced in the in the event and then the presumably there'll be usbc shipping but you can also get the case but whatever it is as long as it is mentioned that airpods pro have a have a usbc charger on them now instead of lightning that's it that's all this pick is, right?

And it follows history, right? When they brought, like, Qi charging to the iPhone, they introduced, like, a wireless charging AirPods case, and you could just buy the case on its own, and then also it just started shipping like that for everybody else. I am going gonna go with um boy i've got a bunch of things that i feel pretty good about not 100 good about but pretty good about i'm gonna go because i feel like last year i said this would absolutely be a draft pick next time. Video of Apple devices saving lives is shown. I mean, this was my second pick.

This is the satellite rescue. Oh, and car crash detection? Yeah. I mean, they did that last year too, but yeah. Yeah, but if there's been another life saved, I mean, they're going to show. And look, we're not throwing shade, right? It's an incredible thing that these devices can save our lives but but apple also makes these videos about it and and that you know and the idea that you could have like those people whose lives were saved in the maui wildfires because they got help like i mean

there's so many opportunities here i feel like they've got to do it because this is and honestly it is i'm trying not to be cynical here because it's really legitimately amazing but it's also important marketing for apple to say we built life-saving features into our devices and it's a reason you should use our devices because they will if you are in a certain kind of emergency they will help save your life and that's one of the things we do um it's important for them to do that so um they do this from time to time i think so this is one of those scenarios where two things can be true and and i think it's something that there are a lot of people who just struggle to see this but like you can both add a feature because it's good for the world and also add

it because it's good to sell your product. You can hold both as truths. And I think that that's what Apple do here, right? You can add this feature because it will save people's lives, but you can also add this feature because more people will buy your products because it has it. Yeah. There's a question for you. I'm trying to work this out and I can't remember. Do the Apple Watches have the satellite SOS feature? No.

I wonder if that's something they could add. I'm looking now and I don't think they do. That's why one of our options is something about, or that was one of our Apple Watch options was satellite emergency feature added to one Apple Watch model. Because if they added that- I'm not sure, I think it's too small.

I think it's too small, but you would think the Apple Watch Ultra, the moment they could do it with the Apple Watch Ultra, they would, but I think it's just too small because they're using the iPhone body as the antenna or an antenna in the long iPhone body in order to do the satellite feature.

So I think they probably can't. But you know they want to. You know, I wonder, I don't know enough about this, but like what about an Apple Watch band that's an antenna, right? Like I feel like if it ever became possible, at some point they would try to do that. They absolutely, you know, and probably in the Apple Watch Ultra first. But yeah, absolutely, you know they want to do that yeah all right my second other pick is we pay a visit to apple's chip lab ah that was gonna be my pick i'm gonna go downstairs and see where johnny works and johnny's gonna talk about how many nanometers three equals you know right now now we should say

this is a stagecraft pick in the sense that we have to go to the place that they are saying basically is where the chip people live and if if they don't if johnny sruji just appears on stage or outside apple park or whatever and talks about the chip doesn't count um or other people talk about the chip but this is a thing they've been doing which is uh going to a uh what it's i don't think it's a set i think it's a dressed up place that is part of the chip group's offices and then they do a shoot there but that's the stagecraft here is they're going to do that because they've got a whole new thing to brag about which is the three nanometer process on the new chip yep yeah

i just feel like this is just one of those things, right? Like if they are going to spend some time talking about a new processor in detail, every time they have done this, right? Like they go downstairs and there's all these fun doors and then they're in this like silvery room with like computers all over the place

and Johnny Cerucci's walking towards the camera and he's telling you what chip the new iPhone has. And so we've seen this more with Macs, I think, right? Which is understandable because that's where a lot of the action's been. But if three nanometer is such a big deal and Apple's super proud of it and there was this rumor that they bought all of them,

they're going to want to make it a selling point however they can. I agree. It was next on my list. So I agree with you. Doing a lot of that. all of them they're going to want to make it a selling point however they can i agree it was it was next on my list so i agree with you doing a lot of that is this what it's like to lose the draft you have things sniped right in front of you i think yeah i spent a long time doing this i spent a long time watching those picks get taken up but who knows though ties can change yeah thinking that they're going to talk about AirPods at least a little bit, they did last year. So, that's the risk here, I think, is maybe they don't really talk about AirPods.

I'm a real believer in this pick, assuming they do, because this over the summer these three new modes for AirPods that are in the firmware. Adaptive audio, personalized volume, and conversational awareness. And I feel like if they're going to talk about AirPods at all, they will mention at least one and perhaps even all three of those modes. will mention at least one and perhaps even all three of those modes. So my pick is at least one new AirPods mode of those three, adaptive, audio, personalized volume, and conversational awareness is mentioned. Even though it was mentioned at WWDC, I feel like you got to bring it back around and show it off and say, look at this amazing adaptive audio mode or personalized volume. These are marketing features and this is a marketing event. Why would you not mention them now? I would like to see another demo and more conversation about the adaptive audio thing.

I'm intrigued to know more about that having not used it. So I would benefit from this personally. So if they do it, I'll be happy. For my final pick in the draft, I'm going to choose the honorary draft pick which is the rainbow stage at the center of apple park is seen they do love doing a flyover don't they love a flyover there's so many opportunities for flyovers sometimes you're just going to join lisa jackson on the roof you know like there are many opportunities right and which you could see in the rainbow stage uh this feels like a i don't know we'll find

out but it feels like a bit of a hallmark of these presentations at this point that some kind of aerial shot will be shown sure yeah that was that was actually very high on my list of probabilities of course it was high on my list here right i'm surprised you didn't pick it already well i was saving it the the because i think that they're ones that are that are more likely and you know it doesn't always necessarily seen it depends entirely on how they choose to shoot the event and what they choose to show but they like to swoop in over apple park and then down to tim and you will see the stage if it's out there when they shoot it we have had it in the past where it was like the final shot of the presentation oh yeah yeah yeah yeah um i i so i want to pick the counterpart to that which is the stage of the steve jobs theater is seen yeah it's a similar thing right where what they did is they shot

tim cook on the stage of the steve jobs theater to make it feel like an iphone event but it was just in the video he wasn't you know you know, when I'm there watching it, he won't be on the stage, right? He'll just be on the video. So I think that's a bit of stagecraft that they may, I'm really torn here. They may go with,

I might go with that. And I have another pick that I think is fun. So what do you think, one of our options is the Lionel Messi pick, which is literally Lionel Messi appears somewhere in the video. It doesn't matter. His image appears. It could be a montage of MLS or of TV Plus or of the stars of Apple or whatever.

It literally is just that Apple is so into Lion messi that his visage will appear his image appears at some point doesn't have to say anything doesn't have to be custom could literally be a sports highlight it doesn't matter it's just apple is messy mad right now so it's like we're gonna stick messy in the keynote this is the zeitgeist to pick right we always have one of these in the services kind of like corner of our pick options. It was Ted Lasso for a long time. I think just purely Lionel Messi appears or Lionel Messi is seen is like perfectly valid for a draft pick. Right. And I don't think they're going to be doing services stuff, right?

Probably. But it doesn't matter if they have a video that shows, look at this great iPhone screen. And one of the things is messy scoring a goal, right? Wouldn't that be like, if there's anything we're going to do, and this is not, this is not like a bit with Ted Lasso.

This is literally just the appearance of messy. I'm going to go with it. Lionel messy appears. Uh, you know, it essentially is shown at some point is all that means not nothing special. And if he doesn't appear in the stage of the Steve Jobs theater scene, I'll be sad.

But you know what? I just, it tickles me to think that Apple is going to do a whole presentation that might have nothing to do with the MLS deal or anything like that. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Lionel Messi will be worked in somewhere. Cause it's too much.

The Apple sizzle reel these days there's like this real one is everything else Apple does and real two is just Lionel Messi highlights right at this point they are so in on him and it just delights me to say they can't resist they won't even at the

iPhone event you will not be able to escape Lionel Messi because Apple is an investor in messy messy for messy over there you know yeah the draft got a little messy at the end didn't it it sure did it always does oh so that locks in the traditional picks of the draft but we do have a bonus round as we do on occasion we always have a bonus round for the mac os naming and there is a bonus round of one draft pick on the line, but it's not as simple as that. Allow me to explain. So this year,

the podcast-a-thon is going to have a new theme that we've not done before, and it is Mike versus Steven. That is the theme of the podcast-a- podcast this year. So throughout the event, the 12-hour event, which is happening on Friday, September 22nd, Steven and I are going to be competing in a variety of challenges and we will be amassing points throughout the podcastathon and we'll be crowning the co-founder champion

at the end of the month between us. But these points scored are not going to be exclusive to the podcast-a-thon, and we are going to be integrating the draft on Upgrade into these points scoring efforts with this bonus round. I will obviously be playing on behalf of myself, and Jason will be playing on behalf of Stephen. Yes. Additionally, the winner of this bonus round will also get one draft point. This round will be adjudicated, and this is the first time they will be hearing about this,

hopefully, by Zach Knox in the case of disagreement. Congratulations, Zach. Zach, you've been promoted to adjudicator of this bonus round. Because Stephen can't be trusted. So, yes, because this benefits Stephen and Stephen will take any advantage that he can, then we cannot allow for him to adjudicate this round in the case of a scoring disagreement.

So we will be asking Zach Knox for their opinion of how this will be scored. Also also this bonus round is formatted very differently to any other bonus round that we've done before so allow me to explain we have five terms or phrases yeah or stagecraft items it's yeah things that might be said or shown or played in the keynote yes jason and I have 10 total points that we can distribute and bet on any of these five things happening during the event. We can bet as many of these 10 points as we want on any of these five, and whichever ones happen, the score will be totaled up. The person with the most points at the end of it will be considered the winner of this challenge. So that will be the one draft point. But the total number of the points that

are scored will be going into the appropriate person's podcast-a-thon total. So rather than us saying yes or no for each of these and getting a point if we're right or wrong, we have a pool of 10 and we can lay down numbers on the ones that we're right or wrong. We have a pool of 10, and we can lay down numbers on the ones that we're more certain with. And if it's right, we get those points. And if it's wrong, we'd lose those points. This might make more sense as we go through the game. So Jason and I have 10 points to assign,

and we have five things. And I'm going to read them all now, and then we can go through again and put our scoring on them. So Periscope is said. Aerospace Grade is said. Think Titanium. Bionic is said.

Think Chip. Bionic is said in the name of the new chip, right? If they say the old chip's name, that's not Bionic. It needs to be in the name of the new chip. We're going to say, yes, we're still doing bionic after all these years yes the word breakthrough is said i just there are no rumors about that i just they always say that right and finally david getter's song titanium is played yeah that one shout out to federico who suggested this on Connected last week.

I love it. So I have 10 points to put my bets down and I'm going to assign my bets accordingly, Jason. Okay. I am going to place two points on the word periscope being said. Okay. I am going to place two points on aerospace grade being said. Okay. I will place two points on aerospace grade being said. I will place two points on bionic being said.

And I will place four points on the word breakthrough being said. Wow. I will assign zero points to David Getz's song Titanium being played as part of the keynote event. Okay. Federico is so disappointed in you, Mike. Well, look, it's a great idea. I hate this song, so I don't want to hear it. You don't want to hear it? Okay.

If you hear it, you're going to be extra mad. I will be super mad. But I figured that will just be doubling up on the feeling that I already feel, you know? Yeah. So Periscope, the challenge there is will they describe it as a Periscope camera? Yeah. I have a theory about this that I might share on Connected.

Unique thing that we're doing and we're using mirrors and we're all of that, or they may just say Periscope. So it's a question of the marketing wording for that feature and if they talk about it at all. it's a little like not saying metaverse, right? It's like, we don't like Periscope. Makes people think of Kelsey Grammer, not going to do it. That's a reference. Aerospace grade, titanium. So I was looking back last year, aerospace grade is something that they use to describe the Apple Watch Ultra. It's aerospace grade titanium. And of course they say surgical grade stainless steel. They really like pumping up

the grade of the metal. It's like this awesome metal that they made. Bionic, my rationale for listing that here is that, boy, they keep doing that, right? Like you'd think it would get old,

but it apparently hasn't. And then Breakthrough is they just can't resist it. So I am going to put, let's see, I'm going to put two down on Periscope, four down on Aerospace Grade. I guess if we put the same, then we're basically like,

I'm zeroing out those as choices. So three on Bionic then. Okay. And what is that? That gives me one more for Breakthrough? Yeah. And that's what I'll do. Nobody's playing anything

on David Getz's song, Titanium Being Flayed. So that's not going to make me mad. So actually, I'm going gonna do a little wild card here okay steven hackett gets a point no but that no that no because then that's that's 11 points possible for steven and none and like 10 for me so no you're playing on behalf you are steven hackett in this scenario you're not jason snell you know i know but it's it's now so tempting to uh to do that because just because of literally

just because of that it's kind of an old song though here's my rationale is i actually think that there's a chance they'll do it but it's not an old song it's not a cool song apple like cool music this is not cool okay so i guess there were really only four things we were picking from so i you and i are going to cancel each other out on periscope but i'm going in on aerospace grade i am am peaking a little bit above you in terms of bionic and you are all in on breakthrough and we'll see what happens and uh the winner of this total point will get a point in the draft but the total points from this will be assigned to mike versus steven so two games happening at the same time.

If this is still something you don't understand, there are two ways where you can try and help understand. Go to upgrade.cards, which is the scorecard, and play around with the scorecard and you'll see what happens. Because Zach is incredible, as well as being an adjudicator, has made this work for us in the scorecard with not too much notice. So Zach, we appreciate you. But also, it will make sense when we score it next week.

This is essentially a keynote bingo at a very simple level, which is, while you're watching, listen for the word Periscope, listen for Aerospace Grade, listen for Bionic in the name of the new chip, and listen for the word Breakthrough. And if you have fun, you can score along with those,

because if they say Breakthrough, Mike is going to leap into the lead and uh you know we'll we'll we'll see we'll just see this one's gonna be hard i know the scoring of this is gonna be hard because it's like listening for words but hey we'll find out and this part is most gradients are gonna be listening you you all out there you listen listen for these words as you uh as you pay attention it'll be like a little you know if you're in europe and this is happening later in the evening drinking game maybe i mean drink responsibly everybody but yeah like if they say aerospace grade drink is what i'm saying it could be a drinking game for me but probably wouldn't be

great for the show for the show no probably not although you know it would be a that would be a drinking game for me, but probably wouldn't be great for the show. For the show? No, probably not. Although, you know, that would be a heck of a show, wouldn't it? Jason, I won the draft! All right, you can tune in to the Podcast-a-thon for St. Jude on Friday, September 22nd from noon U.S. Eastern Time to midnight U.S. Eastern Time at twitch.tv slash RelayFM. Jason Snell will also be there. In person. We'll be talking more about this as we roll

up towards the podcast-a-thon. And don't forget, you can go to stjude.org slash relay to find out more about all of this stuff. We actually have a running, we will have a running score board up there as well. And you'll also be able to find out more information about how you can donate to St. Jude Children's Research

Hospital. For next week's show, we're going to be kicking it usual school as we have. So Jason's going to be there in person. So we will be recording live on Tuesday, not on Monday, on Tuesday on iPhone event day. A couple of hours, most likely, after the event has wrapped up with the episode coming out a little bit later on that evening right yeah i'm gonna it looks like probably what's gonna happen is i will attend the event and go to the hands-on area and then i will it's it's actually what i did i think not last year did we do that did we do it in an Apple studio last year? Yes. In the fall? I'm not sure. So this is going back to like 2019.

Yeah. So we're going back to the classic old school, which is I'll do the hands-on event and then get in the car and drive home. And then in the meantime, Mike will have processed his thoughts about the whole thing. I'm read all the webpages. I'll use the car ride to process my thoughts and probably eat a sandwich. And then we'll do the show in the in the afternoon pacific time so you can uh we'll be posting about that on mastodon uh when we go live as always we are at upgrade relay there so you know we're not we're uh that's

that's a different one we are uh upgrade at relay.social. That's it. So many handles. We're going to have to simplify this at some point, but we haven't gotten there yet. Well, everybody needs to decide on it, right? We can't. Yeah. If we could decide on it, then Twitter would still be Twitter

and it wouldn't have gone the way it did. And then we wouldn't have to worry about any of this. It's also true. If you want to send us your feedback, follow-up and questions, if you have questions, depending on how much is announced, depends on whether we'll have an Ask Upgrade

for next week's episode, but you can still send in those questions and we'll get to them the following week. Go to upgradefeedback.com. You can check out Jason's work at sixcolors.com and hear him on the incomparable.com and here on RelayFM. You can listen to my shows here on RelayFM.

Check out my work at cortexbrand.com. We are upgrade at relayfm you can listen to my shows here on relay fm check out my work at cortex brand dot com we are upgrade at relay fm dot social mastodon jason is at jay snell on zeppelin dot flights and mike is at imike on mike dot social you can watch video clips of the show on mastodon but also on tiktok and instagram when we are at upgrade relay i think uh i think youtube i think we're we're reliably posting to YouTube now. Yeah, but it's more complicated because I don't think we have enough subscribers to actually have a name. So I'll put a link.

I'll put a link in the show notes to the YouTube channel. If you could go and subscribe to that, that would be good because then we could give that a URL. Thanks to our members and supporters of Upgrade Plus. We will be talking today in Upgrade Plus about what we didn't pick in the draft and some of the things that were left on our big, long document.

Thank you to our sponsors for this week's episode, TextExpander and Squarespace. And thank you for listening. Until next time, until next Tuesday, when there's a brand new iPhone, say goodbye, Justin Snow. Goodbye, everybody.