Upgrade - 476: Friends in the Couch Cushions

Episode Date: September 13, 2023

Jason's back from Cupertino and it's time to break down everything he saw at the September 2023 Apple media event: The new titanium-framed iPhone 15 Pro, the pastel iPhone 15, the DoubleTap-enabled Apple Watch, and... green leaves for some but not others?

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 476 for september 12th 2023 today's episode is brought to you by express vpn and fitbud my name is mike hurley and i'm joined by a man who's just returned from the steve jobs theater mr j Jason Snell. Hi, Jason. More driving through San Francisco. More all of that. Hi, Mike. How are you? Appreciate you getting in and out, in and out real fast so we can get our reactions and thoughts and from you some hands-on impressions from the iPhone event, iPhone slash Apple Watch event. But we will start this episode, Jason, as we always do, with a Snell Talk question. We had a number of listeners write in about this, and I'm going to take this question

from both Ron and Chris, who wanted to know, Jason, what sandwich did you have on your way home today? Now, I'm thinking there are two lineages for this question. One is that you referenced that you would uh be having a sandwich before we recorded and then also going back to wwdc where you were unhappy with the sandwich options provided that's that's true i did notice i i uh went past the food in the press area and it was also similarly kind of weird apple food um but i appreciate thegradians who picked up my little note about having a sandwich on my way back here. I do that.

There's a sandwich place. It's called Alotta's. It's near where Dan Frakes lives. Don't be creepy. And it's like a deli. And it's really good. And I go there. And generally, I get the hot roast beef sandwich because it's really good. And I eat there and generally I get the hot roast beef sandwich because it's

really good. And I eat it while I'm driving home. Yeah. I had a, a hamburger, a beef burger, cheeseburger. Not all of those.

One of those. It was the cheeseburger, cheeseburger and fries for dinner. Cheeseburger and fries. Whoa. All right. So you're, you're full of energy now.

I wouldn't say that, uh, necessarily. It's half past 10 at night right now for me i'm drinking a coke zero for a little bit hey zero buddies in the fridge i got the coke zero and i got a red ball and if i have a red ball now like it will get me through but it's not gonna be you'll regret it later good like the energy that it provides is like a very different type of energy that i try to avoid and we'll only really go for in certain circumstances um and i feel like i have

sufficient energy to get us through today's episode because i'm excited to talk to you about uh what was announced all right if you would like to send in a snow talk question of your own just go to upgradefeedback.com and you can send in a snow talk question for us to answer in a future episode of the show let's start out today's episode by looking at the draft results must we i would say yeah we really should yeah we did yeah we should you uh killed it you got nine out of ten correct in the main pick area and won the saint jude challenge which also means that it's six points for mike five points for steven you get one extra point in your challenge against steven um but to to briefly go through it yep because i

don't want to dwell on it for obvious reasons i wouldn't mind dwelling on it like at least a little bit uh well that's what i'm giving you is i'm just giving you just a bare amount of dwellage for you uh because i could just say well it's 10 it's 10 7 goodbye everybody and that would be it so in the iphone round you uh killed it you got all five right. USB-C, new camera, dynamic island on all models, new design touted for the pro phones, and a new color option on a pro phone. I got four out of five perfectly respectable. Titanium on a phone, three nanometer chip only in the high-end model. A pro phone with a new piece of software, a camera feature that other phones don't have. You had that whole 35, 22 millimeter, all the different millimeter equivalent toggles.

And it actually showed there's an indicator about what format it's shooting in as well that is not in the current builds of the OS. So there are a couple things going on there. Take it from me, the guy who has to update a book about photos. Oh, yeah. There's quite a lot for you actually as well, right? Yeah, there's a lot of stuff in there. Yeah, we'll get to update a book about photos. Oh, yeah. And I got the action button. It's quite a lot for you, actually, as well, right? Yeah, there's a lot of stuff in there. Yeah, we'll get to it. Yeah.

The action button as well, but I missed on the color-matched USB-C cables. I just thought that that would be a good thing. I'm surprised about that, to be honest, because there was so much smoke about this. Right? So I've come down personally that they were just photos of the USB-C cables of iMacs. From the iMacs. Yep. And they were just passed of the usbc cables from the imax and they were just passed off in uh apple watch so so you won that by one i took the apple watch by one unfortunately only worth two um i said no new health related sensors and new apple watch ultra hardware just adding a

color to the original apple watch ultra doesn't count. There was an Ultra 2. You said the Ultra will come in a different color option. Sadly. I can't believe this. Honestly, Mike, I was right on the fence of like, will I buy an Ultra 2? And I was sitting there thinking, show it in black, show it in black, show it in black. They didn't show it in black. I can't believe how little they actually added to this device.

Like that they did a version two and they seemingly added like not a lot to the Apple Watch Ultra and didn't add another color. Like that is really surprising to me. Maybe all of their vapor deposition machines for titanium were being used on iPhones and they couldn't. Maybe. Apply that to that. But you did get the Series 9 featuring a new system on the chip with more performance.

And that leaves us to my favorite section, the other picks. And my favorite section, did me wrong or I did it wrong because you got them right. AirPods Pro USB-C case, visit to the chip lab in the rainbow stage. Whereas I got the video of Apple devices

saving lives as shown. It was the first thing in in the event so i was very excited by that that was by the way that was a really good one that was like a it was a very effective one uh again like i feel like maybe the the tagline of it kind of pulled a little too hard in a way that wasn't necessary like of like it but they never thought they'd see. It's like, all right, no, we got that. Like you didn't need to like draw four underlines on the point. Remember last year, they had like a kid go back

to the scene of the plane crash she was in. Yeah. And I'm like, maybe don't do that. Anyway, what I got wrong is I thought they would mention one of those cool AirPods modes.

I thought they would have had a little more lip service to the AirPods. They didn't. They did show a mode mode but it was the mode for voice can for noise cancellation when you're on a call not the same i i'm not going to even argue for it that's not what i meant and similarly i said leonel messi appears his name appears but his face does not appear and i don't i did not intend for that choice to involve the text of his name i thought you would see him and uh we didn't see him and so

that that's enough for you to take it right there because that's too down to me with only one to play the saint jude challenge where we were trying to put points down on things said in this video. Aerospace grade was mentioned not in the context I expected, which was titanium, but for aluminum. Yes. Because I guess they've got like rover grade titanium, I guess. They do. They do have rover grade titanium. Mars interplanetary grade titanium.

So I got four and you got two for aerospace grade. You got four and I got one for breakthrough because they did say breakthrough. They did not name bionic in the name of the new chip. And that was enough to decide that one by one point to you, which means you will go up on Steven by one point in the St. Jude challenge and the final score there. 10 for Mike, seven for me.

I remain the challenger. And good news, everybody. I got the tiebreaker. This is the last bit that you really need. I've got to say, I do feel robbed from Apple for not getting four marks because they should have done a color in the Apple Watch Ultra.

Not just for the draft, but that should have happened and I could have got four marks. But I will say, I feel pretty good. About nine out of ten possible picks pretty good choice yeah in hindsight i just decided to go a little too entertaining with my other and uh that was not good i would i would much rather have lost this um 10-9 yeah honestly uh and been like oh it's just because the bionic name change and all that. But that's not,

I lost a fair and square all the way through. Steven and I did a little calculation there in the, in the Steve Jobs theater. And we agreed that by the most generous and least generous methods, you beat me. So. Yes. So it is.

So it is decided. I think I'm pretty, I feel pretty confident that I won won the year yeah i think so there might be another event but i'm not sure maybe maybe not but it won't matter because you're up to nothing um and uh yeah you might be you might be in line to be like the grand emperor of all relay fm keynote related games if you're find out i don't know i think there's gonna be a lot of coin flipping unconnected yeah i think that's what's gonna happen as there tends to be that's you need somebody to flip a

coin over there we have apps for that oh okay i'm available i'm sure you are sure you are uh you mentioned in a few a few times there about the saint jude challenge um and that is because throughout the month of September here at RelayFM, we are joining together with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, because September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. We have been raising money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital since 2019. We have raised, I mean, we started out before we started this year, we raised $2.2 million as a community. So far this year, we have raised over $260,000.

We are aiming for $2.5 million overall. So we're like nearly 90% of our fundraising goal that we set. And so we are so thankful for the support so far. But there is still a lot of September to go where you can donate and you can get involved. St. Jude won't stop their life-saving work until no child dies from cancer. So we're not going to stop throughout all the month of September. Because with your support, we'll be one step closer to that day. One cure closer.

One child closer. St. Jude is headquartered in Memphis. We're actually, I'm going to be in Memphis later on this week. Jason's going to be in Memphis next week. We're going to be there working on the podcast at the time, which I'll tell you about in a minute. But even though St. Jude is headquartered in Memphis, it has a global impact. St. Jude has treated children from all 50 states of the U.S. and all around the world. About 90% of children with cancer live in low- and middle-income countries.

About 90% of children with cancer live in low and middle income countries. This is why St. Jude have launched St. Jude Global to ensure that every child with cancer and other catastrophic diseases have access to quality care and treatment no matter where they live. Where you live in the world should not dictate your access to care. St. Jude Global shares knowledge, technology, and expertise of healthcare institutions around the world, researchers, and fundraisers too, to improve survival rates in their home countries. For example, they train the doctors and researchers of tomorrow, host conferences, and share skills, and help non-profit foundations raise awareness and build sustainable sources of revenue to support children in their countries of cancer and other blood disorders. Today, St. Jude collaborates with more than 280 partners in St. Jude Global, representing more than 70

countries and growing. That is amazing, the who of this research, but what they are doing this research for is to help children who are suffering with cancer. And who does not want to support that work? We don't want to see any children die of cancer. That is St. Jude's mission, and I think we can all agree with it. Because of the incredible and just overwhelming generosity of our community over the last five years, we have raised so much money, and we are so thankful for that. And we want your support this year as well, to support the life-saving mission of St. Jude. The fifth annual podcast-a-thon is fast approaching.

It is going to be live on Friday, September 22nd from 12 p.m. to 12 a.m. Eastern. That is 12 hours. We are doing 50% more for podcast-a-thon 5, but we need your help to raise as much money before that day, during that day, and after that day. You go to stjude.org slash relay. You can donate there yourself. You can sign up to fundraise. Fundraising makes an amazing difference. You're able to donate whatever you're able to donate. And that is incredible. But if you set up a fundraising campaign, you can make a donation to it, but you can also share it

with your friends, your family, your community, your colleagues. Ask them to make any amount of money. Any donation you're able to encourage somebody else to make after signing up for your own fundraiser is money that St. Jude would not have otherwise seen. So it is a way to make your money go even further. Please go and find out more about that at stjude.org. If you sign up for fundraising and you raise money there, we have some really cool exclusive RelayFam merchandise. You've got to go see it. StJude.org slash Relay. If you make a donation of your own, please click the blue search employer button on the donation summary page

to check if your employer offers a matching gift program, because again, this can make your money go even further. So that is StJude.org slash Relay to donate and find out more about fundraising. St. Jude won't stop until no child dies from cancer. With your support, we'll be one step closer to that day. One cure closer, one child closer. This month and every month, let's cure childhood cancer together. I had just a moment of serendipity there where, as I'm reading this, I saw Stephen's cursor in the St. Jude

Google Doc that we have which means he's probably also reading it on Mac Power users because I think they're also recording now. They're doing Mac Power users

right now. So me and Stephen just like we just joined forces in that moment to raise money for St. Jude. That's right. That's what happened.

It is the season. I have a B-Tales. It's the B-Tales. Woo hoo. B-Tales are back. I have some B-Tales. It's the B-Tales. Woo-hoo. B-Tales are back. I have some B-Tales for you. This is dates. This is dates more than anything else.

iOS and iPadOS, September 18th. So that's next Monday. Okay, sure. You know what we're talking about next week. WatchOS, September 18th. macOS, September 26th. Whoa, calm down. Apple, what are you doing only september no no no oh god you i didn't just give you this information did i uh yeah oh really oh i'm so sorry i'm so

sorry the burden uh that it falls upon me knowing that i have to turn the macOS review around in that short amount of time. I was hoping for more, but you know, I'll do it. I'm tough. I will say, developers, writers, developers, developers, writers, writers, writers. I'm sorry. I know this sucks for you.

Mike Hurley is just user of technology. I'm happy that macOS is coming so soon to iOS. It annoys me when it's like six weeks difference. Yes, when it's out of sync, it's the worst. Oh, I agree. I just... You just don't want to deal with it. I get it. I just don't... Well, yeah, that's just a lot of content in a short amount of time.

But think about how much time I'll have on my hands in October. Think about that. So much time. That's great. Great news, everybody. My October is clearing up because it's all in September. There's an iPhone in the middle there Great news, everybody. My October is clearing up. Because it's all in September. There's an iPhone in the middle there as well, Jason. You might have to do an iPhone review in the middle of all of that. I mean, maybe.

Oh, and by the way, you come into Memphis. Oh, boy, I feel bad for you right now. Release candidates are out now for all of this stuff. for you right now. Release candidates are out now for all of this stuff. I saw, so I watched the keynote today with CGP Grey and Underscore David Smith. They came over to Mega Studio and we hung out and watched

it together. And afterwards Underscore was trying to submit Widget Smith. He was just sitting there and trying to submit it and it wasn't working. But I think now developers are able to submit their apps, which is really helpful. I'm sure that there are some big stuff this year. I think now developers are able to submit their apps, which is really helpful. Right. I'm sure that, you know, there are some big stuff this year,

I think, like stuff like widgets and all that kind of stuff, and I'm sure people want to know that we're all good, you know, with the stuff. It's all submitted. Underscore has confirmed that it has been submitted, so that's good. Good luck to WidgetSmith. Good luck to all apps that have been submitted.

And I was actually quite surprised that Vision Pro got a couple of call-outs in the presentation, but one of them was talking about kind of how media and developers were all super excited, very happy, and underscoring again early next year for the Vision Pro. Yep.

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Our thanks to ExpressVPN for free. Our thanks to ExpressVPN for the support of this show and RelayFM. Let's start by talking about the iPhone 15 Pro. Go to the top. Let's do it. Yeah. This is, you know, obviously there's the most to say here. And there'll be things that we'll cover here. And there'll be things that we'll cover here. Maybe there'll be things that we just cover as part of the iPhone 15.

But the biggest thing, I expect probably the biggest thing, the thing that will probably make the most impact is if the new design feels like a new design. So considering you've seen and held these devices, can I get some impressions from you on this yeah it i don't know i wouldn't say that it looks different it doesn't look different um well i mean okay the colors look different and because they are doing this wait there are colors i had no idea that there were colors well well there's a sort of like slightly blue titanium and a slightly black titanium and a slightly more silvery gray titanium and a slightly grayer titanium.

Yeah. Just the names real quick. They're real pale. Black titanium, white titanium, blue titanium, natural titanium. It's just like, again, what is going on? I think white titanium was like a villain in Marvel Comics in the 90s. I'm going to Google it. No.

Was it White Tiger? White Titan? I don't know. White Tiger is a... Black Titanium was in the Super Friends in the 70s. Oh, see, I did a different version of that same joke.

That was Black Lightning. But yeah, it is... I mean, the blue titanium looks like Midnight, right? It looks like my Midnight MacBook Air. That's what it is. It is incredibly dark,, the blue titanium looks like midnight, right? It looks like my midnight MacBook Air. That's what it is. It is incredibly dark, but with a blue tint. That's what it looks like.

And the black one looks straight up like a black iPhone. And then there's the natural, which Stephen Hackett was really excited by, because it does look really good. It is metallic gray. There's no doubt about it, but it's a is uh metallic gray there's no doubt about it but it's a very nice metallic gray um and if you're excited about seeing a gray phone as steven hackett was then uh good on you um i don't think it looks very different at a glance you know what's different about it is pick one up because that is where it is very different really it is very different like i read all these stories about like it's it's you know 10 lighter five to ten percent lighter

whatever it was and it is it's 10 lighter i just picked it up and I have been using a 13 Pro for the last year, primarily. I picked it up and it's like, whoa, like so many things going on there. One, absolutely not a matter of trivia, right? Not like, oh yeah, it's lighter by a small number of grams and that no one will ever notice. No, it's like just immediately when you pick it up, you're like, ooh, this is a lot lighter. It feels much more pleasant to hold it than it does the 14 Pro,

which has that stainless steel frame and is much heavier. But on top of that, then you've got the edges. The edges are a little bit smoother, curvier. And so it's a little more pleasant to hold it in that way. So that's nice too. And, and that's when you, when you're holding it, the thing you might not notice at least at first, cause it's subtler, but it is absolutely there is it's also a little bit smaller. So it's, I think the lightness is the thing that is the primary thing you will notice. But I like the fact that Apple, when they used, as we have been talking about in the rumor roundup, they have a new process that they didn't talk about at all that allowed them to bring the edges of the screen in.

And what they've done, every time they've done something like that in the past, it feels like they've said, great, we can make the screen bigger. And I don't know if that's actually the case, but that's what it feels like. It's like Apple's priority was always make the screen bigger and and i don't know if that's actually the case but that's what it feels like is like apple's priority was always make the screen bigger and they made the they made the uh the computer or the in this case the phone smaller um what like they did on the ipad pro right i think the ipad pro was an was that it or did they make the screen bigger no they made it they made it smaller so it's it's it's a good choice because it means that the phone is smaller. But the lighter is the thing that I think is going to be the biggest change because it is appreciably, like palpably lighter. So I did some rough calculation and the 14 Pro is about 10% lighter

and the Pro Max is around 8% lighter. So, I mean, that doesn't, honestly, it doesn't mean anything unless you get an answer like what you've just given, right? That doesn't mean anything unless when you pick it up.

I looked at, like, what's the difference in grams, right? And the answer is, well, it's 30, what, 29 grams? So then I know 19 grams, 19 grams, not a lot of grams. That's 19 paperclips, right? But, um, it's, it's absolutely, you can tell if you're somebody who has used the previous model and you pick it up. Absolutely. You can tell that it's lighter. Um, it is a much more pleasant device to hold. I was not expecting that. I expected it to be sort of trivial.

I don't think at a glance, it's going to be easy to tell that it's an iPhone 15. And I wonder in the long run, if that is going to be the thing that limits its, you know, that Apple won't necessarily get a big sales spike like it often gets when it redesigns the phones, because it doesn't feel like a redesign. It really does. It's a materials change, but it really feels like a refinement of this existing design that's been around there for

a little while. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and it is that right. Like it definitely is that because it's the visuals. And I think maybe I don't know, maybe we're still even longer away from any significant change. Yeah, I don't know. I we're still even longer away from any significant change. Yeah, I don't know. I don't even know like how much can you really change now? Like I feel like it's... Well, when your design goal is to make it in some ways as featureless as possible.

Yeah. Right? Where you're like, we're taking the button off of it and like, I think that is sort of Apple's aesthetic is to make it less... I mean, they want it to be notable, but they also don't like having stuff on their stuff, right? They want to keep it less, I mean, they want it to be notable, but they, they also don't like, like having stuff on their stuff, right. They want to keep it super simple. So on that level,

yeah. I, I wonder how do you make an iPhone that looks like, Whoa, my God, that, that, well, like introducing interesting colors might be a way to do that, but that's not what they did here. So it feels very much like an iPhone Pro model, but I think it is definitely going in the right direction in terms of the way it feels to pick it up because it's lighter. And the titanium, titanium has got that kind of texture on it that I don't know if you can feel it, but you can see it and it's very pleasant it feels almost more like a natural material um right stainless is is polished and perfect until you get your fingers all over it and titanium has this has a texture to it that's really nice that i like can you feel the texture so i like it on the phone i don't think you can i don't think i didn't i couldn't feel the texture

the reason why i thought is because like i thought like see it, right? Be like, oh, look, this is going to be a brush texture. But then they PVD coat it. And I imagine that that would remove a lot of that texture. Exactly. It doesn't feel textured. And that's an important point because we had been talking on this show for a while about the fact that you can anodize titanium. That's not what they did. it's pvd coded which is a different process to get to the result of very restrained colors for this product hey you know maybe right we've ended up getting to where we

thought we were going to get but in a different path where it's like i don't know we'll find out from the material scientists now that i'm about to say this maybe you can't do as many color options with pvd and so like anodizing if they would have gone down that route could have added more but this this didn't you know you talking about this design i was catching up on my podcast backlog so and i was listening yesterday to the episode of the talk show that you did a few weeks ago i think it was now yeah um and one of the things that you and john were talking about a lot was the 25th iMac anniversary thing and you're making a lot of references to two of

you to like the beige and you know white plastic products that were around before and i kind of feel like metal texture right is that now right that like something looking like a metal texture, right? Is that now? Right? That like something looking like a metal texture, whether it being the aluminium of a Mac or the colours of these Pro phones or whatever, or there's always

exposed metal around the outsides or whatever. I kind of feel like that is where we are beginning to move towards if we haven't already stepped over the line where it's like that is just like the way a computer is supposed to look and maybe it's a little bit boring and i was thinking to myself like what is the imac moment i don't know but like i'm wondering if there'll even be one right like yeah is there is it possible for there to be an imac g3 moment to happen to computers again from a visual departure i really

don't know i don't know maybe it's like it needs a new device right like maybe that's what it needs maybe it's because obviously vision pro in it because it still looks like all apples are all other stuff but i don't know. Maybe it needs something completely new. Did you take action and click the action button? I did take action. I'm confused. I don't know if you can help me. Is this a physically moving switch?

It is. It is a button. So when I press that that button the button goes in it does do that okay it does do that and um if you press it in a normal sort of like press it doesn't do anything except bring up a little thing that's sort of like the you know the touch id q that points at the at the sensor and says touch here or the face id q that points at the sensor and says look here or whatever it's like that where it's actually it points at the sensor and says touch here or the face idq that points at the sensor and says look here or whatever it's like that where it's actually it points at the button and says press and hold to

do whatever it is to turn on or turn off or whatever so you're not going to be able to if you press it by accident um nothing happens you have to press and hold and then get a haptic and it's got the sort of like big, strong haptic for silent mode. It's like boot, boot, boot. And when you come off of silent mode to noise mode, it does a single boop haptic. But you can go to settings and there's a top level, I believe,

setting for action button now. And in that top level setting, you can set it to camera or flashlight. You can set it to focus mode, and you can pick a focus mode and then that button will turn that focus mode on and off. You can have it run a shortcut. You can have it run accessibility features. All of those items are in play. And with shortcuts open, that means basically you can do almost anything.

open that means basically you can do almost anything um but it's a press and hold that triggers it not a you know accidental in your pocket pressing of the button i am really intrigued to see how that feels in like long-term usage because like a press and hold like i know why they're doing it i understand how long i mean this is a stupid question are you holding it for a long time like it's the difference between tap and press does that make sense right it's sort of like you got a hold and it goes whereas if you if you tap it just goes hey uh don't tap me you got to press it that it like literally it pointing and saying, no, no, no. Don't do that. So it's just a little bit longer to get it, and then it responds.

It's not like hold it for three seconds or something. It's short, but it's not something that you're going to get by accidentally pressing it thinking it's the volume up. Weird. Weird. Do you know what you would put on this? I don't. I don't. I really don't know.

It might be camera. Yeah, I don't. I think maybe Do Not Disturb will be where I start. Because I'm going to leave my phone all sounds off always all the time anyway, because that's just how I live my life. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. The advantage of camera is that not only can you press and hold it to open the camera,

but then you can just use that button to do the shutter. Oh, can you? So would that work anyway? I don't know. Maybe. I didn't try that. But when it's set as his camera it absolutely is the shutter button too well that might be a nice nice thing to do with it a17 pro we were on the last episode

talking about gotta get rid of the bionic name doesn't make any sense anymore why we're calling chips bionic because that just name doesn't make any sense. And so what they've done, I think, is something that just feels more confusing, which is name the A17, the A17 Pro. Okay. Okay. It is confusing. All right. I have a lot of thoughts about this one.

Get ready. I'm in. I'm strapped in. On one level, I think this is a great choice because not only does Bionic not mean anything, but you're branding your chip with a pro just like you have an M1 and an M1 Pro. Now you have an A17 Pro. However, it all comes down to what are your intentions toward this product line apple what are your intentions because what i wonder is if next year the base model iphone will get a different chip i wonder if what this is saying is next year it's going to be the A18 Pro and the A18.

Rather than the A18 Pro and the A17 Pro, because it's weird if there's never a non-Pro for the A series. But I wonder if what they're doing is tipping their cards a little bit, that going forward, they're going to do with iPhone chips what they've done to Mac chips, which is have it be a flexible enough design that they can just have it be the same architecture, but one of them be a lesser version of it. That would be very different from what they're doing now. Why not just call the A16 Bionic the A17? Like, does it matter?

I guess you could, right? I don't think it matters. Like, why do we have, like, where's the regular A16? Oh, well, I mean, that's the other way. That's the other way to go is if the A16 bionic, I mean, yeah, you're right. But then it's weird because you're like, wait a second, the A17 is the A16 bionic? That's weird, right but but then it's weird because you're like the ace wait a second the a17 is the a16 bionic that's weird right to have two names for it yeah but like what happens

next year that's you think they're going to introduce every year two new chips i don't think they're going to do that i think they've shown they don't want to do that right like i can't imagine that from the a18 year they're like like, oh, here's an A18 and an A18 Pro. You say that, and I get it in the sense that they have not done it like this before, but this is how they do it on the Mac. This is how they do it on the Mac. They do three different versions,

four different versions of those Mac chips. And it gives me at least some pause to think that maybe what they've decided to do is keep all their new products going forward, not this year and last year with the iPhone, but going forward on the same chip generation and just have an A whatever and an A whatever Pro for the two iPhone models.

The only difference with the mac though is they don't introduce the chips at the same time i don't know if that makes a difference but that's the thing they don't do and like so i don't know so lots of questions lots of questions because about the that are just based on the name because i like the parallelism of it but i i and this year is fine but next year if there is an iphone 16 with an a17 pro chip in it and an iphone 16 pro with an a18 pro in it like i have to say what is the pro why not just call it the a18 then why does it have pro in it if you're if the only chip is pro why is it pro it the a18 then why does it have pro in it if you're if the only chip is pro why is it pro it doesn't it doesn't make any sense so it maybe that's where we'll end

up but i look at it and i think i could see a pathway as a person who's not a chip designer i could see a pathway forward where what they're doing here is auguring a change in their chip philosophy for the iPhone going forward, where there are two tiers. And maybe that would even go to iPads, too. I don't know. I don't know how that would work. I would expect, yeah, maybe. The thing is, I agree with you.

This seems like a perfectly viable process. I'm just not convinced they're going to do that. Well, right. Because it seems like they've made, in the past few years, some very particular decisions about what chips go where. this pro if there's no a 17 i don't know and and that you would be pro that next year you would presumably be putting a pro chip in your non-pro phone i don't like it i don't like that idea and so if that's the case this is a very weird decision um if they're they're planning something different um then okay like so be it that that would be it would certainly honestly from a marketing standpoint it would be better to have the both phones have an a18 next year instead of a 17 and an 18 they could just both be a18 uh and even if it i mean even if it was like the scandal was a18 is actually

a17 pro uh but but what if they bifurcate it what if it actually is a different chip um that they're making that's got you know newer cores on an older process or i i don't know what that would be or are they designing this chip so that it's got you know what we talked about about chip design where you're not physically like chopping the the wafer but you are designing one design and then the simpler chip only gets like part of that design and the more complex chip gets the whole design and they put in that whole space there's extra cpus or extra gpus or whatever like is that what's going on here so that next year the A18 could come out and there would just be more GPUs and cores and whatever else on the high-end one? Or is that completely ridiculous because in the end it's just a smartphone?

Why are you differentiating your chips at this level? I just don't know why you would just have pro this and pro that. It doesn't follow. So I don't know why you would just have pro this and pro that. It doesn't follow. So I don't know. I mean, guess what? Good news is we're all going to be debating this for a year and not knowing the answer. So this chip is 3 nanometers, which we were expecting. There's faster performance cores,

better performance per watt on the efficiency cores, two times neural engine. It supports USB 3 with an optional cable at 10 gigabits per second. Apple were very excited about the GPU. Pro class

they called it. 20% faster, six cores, improved efficiency, enables ray tracing, and they were very excited about the games what i will say um and i know that it seems hard sometimes to understand that people are playing like first-person shooter games on iphones but people do play first-person shooter games on iphones like it's a thing like people play Call of Duty on their phone, Fortnite on their phones. They do this stuff.

Not on iPhones, but Fortnite on phones exists. And they referenced a couple of console games that are coming to the iPhone, and I was very surprised about this. One of them, which is Assassin's Creed. The new Assassin's Creed game. I forgot the name of it. But it is a simpler Assassin's Creed game. Assassin's Creed game I forgot the name of it it is a simpler Assassin's Creed game

that is in it's design it's going back a little bit to what Mirage I think is the name it's going back to the origins of the game but it's coming out towards the end of this year on Playstation and Xbox so the fact that they are bringing it

to the iPhone and I'm assuming an fact that they are bringing it to the iphone and i'm assuming an upcoming ipad that's a surprise to me like we'll i will remain intrigued like i don't i don't play games that way but people do it'll be on the mac too right so you're getting all of apple's platforms by doing that presumably presumably. Yeah, because they're bringing Resident Evil Village, which is Apple's favorite game of all time. Well, right. I think it's won Game of the Year twice. It's won two design awards or something funny like that, Resident Evil Village.

But that's also coming to the iPhone along with the Resident Evil 4 remake, which came out earlier this year. Look, they are doing some interesting stuff. What does it say about a gaming strategy? I do not know, but they're doing some interesting stuff. What does it say about a gaming strategy? I do not know, but they're doing some interesting things. I don't know. So I lean forward at this moment for sure. I don't know whether the GPU cores in the Mac...

I think the GPU cores in the M-series processors have just been the same ones i don't think there's a new mac gpu right so no i'd have to look it up but i mean that was what i immediately thought here is this is actually really interesting for the mac because they said we're really proud of this new gpu core design we've gotten like well guess what that's the m3 mac gpu core design presumably right which means that they're talking about some pretty huge they seem very excited mac graphics power in the m3 generation too like they they seem very very excited about this right and they were talking again a lot of the smart sorry they were talking about how they're using a neural engine in comparison and how the else are things like ray tracing like this is what the serious graphics cards are doing um and so i am very intrigued to see

if and how apple are able to present an interesting case when it comes to gpus and like this could be the beginning of them being able to be much more competitive on gaming. Because I will tell you, the fact that they are pledging to bring games from this year to the iPhone, so they showed off a game called The Division Mobile. That's always going to have been a mobile game, right? But the Resident Evil game and the Assassin's Creeded game that is a surprise to me and so like i'm very intrigued to see what that ends up looking like but they seem very excited by the gpu uh let's talk about the cameras so there's a bunch of interesting stuff going on so like we got what

we were expecting right which is the optical zoom it's a 5x optical zoom tetra prism the word of the day is tetra prism that's so like this is that is their word instead of periscope and like realistically i think someone can correct me it's not like massively different i don't think from like they're doing things their own way but like it is what we've been talking about right of? Of like how Apple can create, they even spoke about it, the physical space inside of the larger phone to enable them to create this set of glass, which enables the light to bounce off and it gives them a five times optical zoom. It's a 120 millimeter focal length

and they've improved their optical image stabilization to help support this because that is another really important part of the process because if you are increasing the zoom any wobble will add for will reduce the quality of the image and i saw this go by on threads from sebastian dewitt that in um the five times zoom apple has has what Sebastian referred to as like a mini map that pops up on the top right-hand corner of the screen.

So you can see like, where are you aiming at in the overall image? Like Samsung does too. So you can kind of see like, if you're pointing your phone out, but now you're five times zoom and now you can't find the thing you're supposed to be zooming at,

you get kind of like a preview at the full frame so you could move it over to where it's supposed to be. So it's kind of just a preview at the full frame so you could move it over to where it's supposed to be. So this kind of just like helps you. But this is Apple's method of this. Five times, okay. Like, you know, people had said six. I kind of don't care between five and six.

The thing I am, I have some pause over is the, we now have 1X, 2X, 5X. That's a big jump and well okay so the other thing that's going on here is the 2x and this is a new photos feature the 2x is now you know you can zoom right between 2x and 5x and what it's doing is it's dynamically changing what part of the sensor it's using right the idea there is that um it's it's like going between um what 1x and 2x on the current phone so you've got this sort of like um you know how do we use the sensor and then we process the image. But I believe what happens when you tap on the 2X,

I think it is, is you get the like 24, 28, or 35 millimeter focal lengths, or maybe that's tapping on the 1X. I think it's on the 1X. I think it's on the 1X. Yeah, no, that's right. So they've got this, so what they're doing with all of this is they're,

they're doing this very odd thing where they are placing presets in the zoom into the 48 megapixel sensor essentially. So that instead of like zooming to a 1.4 X or whatever, you just say 35 millimeter or 28 millimeter or 24 millimeter and they it stops and they actually it like pops up and then it goes to the x equivalent after a after a second yeah um between two and five i don't i don't know i don't know what you've got anything other than cropping i i didn't say anything and there doesn't appear to be anything. And I feel like if they were doing anything fun,

there'd be a 3X in there as well. You know what I mean? I don't think there would just be those buttons. You're just going into super zoom mode. So we'll see how that plays out. I will say you touched on something. The thing I'm actually most excited about is Apple gave me exactly what I wanted,

which was stuff that that 48 megapixels sensor can do. That's new. So one is the focal length. That sounds cool. I'm intrigued to see what that's like. But there is now 48 megapixel heath. Yes. Right.

Yeah. So I can take a more usable 48 megapixel image if I want to. It doesn't have to just be raw. Yeah, exactly right. But the thing I am most excited about, super high resolution, 24 megapixel photos. Thank you. Yes, this is what I wanted, right?

I wanted something that was enabled by this larger sensor always. And I feel like this is what I was hoping for something i didn't know what it was but this i think is going to be that thing of like using the the the full data that it has available and being able to take a crop in and give me something that's like somewhere in the middle great like this i'm very excited about this so explain this to me. Is the idea here that you would, you're going to get a 24 megapixel image out, but it's using more of the sensor? The way I understood it,

from the way that they explained it, is that they are taking, you know how they take all the images that they're taking, right? They take like 7 million images per photo or whatever it is, right? But that they are taking information they take like 7 million images per photo or whatever it is right but that they are taking information from the 448 megapixel and laying that into the photonic engine so you will get a higher quality image but you're using in the pipeline you're using other parts of it to clean up that image and make it look the best it can be but that they are taking the 48 megapixel data and using that to create a higher quality image on the other side of it

at 24 megapixels 24 based on all 48 megapixels instead of saying nope we're gonna flatten this down to a 24 megapixel sensor and take a picture instead it's capturing some portion of the 48 megapixel image and then running it through the pipeline. Yeah. Can I read you from Apple's website? Yeah, sure. The new photonic engine combines the best pixels from a super high resolution image with another that is optimized for light capture. So you automatically get 24 megapixel photos. That's twice the resolution than before for everyday shots of extra detail so like the 48 megapixel photos are not really usable in most circumstances

because they need more light right but now they're able to take data from those images and process it into something that is the new default as well which is 24 megapixels but i'm also really happy that i can create a HEIF file of a 48 megapixel image, which I'm hoping will be easier to get to in the camera app to just enable me to take a simple image in the camera app without having to use a third party in situations where I could maybe take a nice landscape.

It looks to me, and this was just a glance I have to check, but it looks to me like what they've done is they've laid into the still photo area what used to just be in the video area, which is information about what's being captured so that you can then tap on it and change what you're capturing. That's what I want. I think that's what's in there. I saw something like that. I didn't get a chance to use it, but it sure looks like that's in there. How about this one?

We've gone so far with portrait mode that they are now using machine learning to detect, is this a thing that I can do portrait mode on? And if it is, you don't have to be in portrait mode. It's just going to capture depth data. Fantastic. Unless you make it a portrait. So basically everything is a portrait mode if it can be.

Well, it's cinematic mode, right? But in a way, it's like that function of cinematic mode where you can change the stuff around, but always all the time. The difference is between being in portrait mode and not being in portrait mode seems to be that if you're in portrait mode, you see the portrait effect in the background. And if you're not, you don't. But they still try to capture it. And if they capture it, then when you edit it later, you can make it portrait mode if you want to. And then

there's the adjustable depth of field thing where they'll say, no, no, no, I've got the whole texture map here. I want to be, I want to be back there and focus on that. Not on this thing that it was focused on in the foreground, even though, you know, obviously it's a phone camera image, it's all focus, but it will artfully blur the part that you want to artfully blur, even if it's the foreground instead of the background. So it's just, we've come a long way with the depth data that's being captured. Now they're just like, look, we're just going to capture it, right? Because you might want it later. And it's just not a problem. That's what what the heath format does is it enables all that depth data to ride along with the image and so they're just going to capture it

and great right like that is a kind of flexibility that i want and my hope would be here that i'll never need to choose to do portrait mode ever again right in theory or at least that's because i think if apple's machine learning can detect something it can detect a person right like i feel like if it can't do that at this point i don't know what's going on it's it's literally looking at depth data from the lidar scanner i imagine and saying yeah there's a there's enough here for me to capture and that there's some instances i'm not gonna bother yeah i think it's i think it's a good idea. But then also that you can, like if there were two people,

you could change who the focus was on, like all that kind of stuff. I think that is fantastic. I shouldn't have to make a choice, I feel like for that. Like it is machine learning, use the machine learning and it's doing it. And I think that's awesome.

Sounds like there's a new smart HDR system as well going on. They made a bunch of tweaks under the hood, it sounds like to the photographic pipeline. i'm really hoping that i'm good this is the year that i wanted last year camera wise like i they've shown me enough stuff here where i'm like i am intrigued about a lot of this and there are some things here that i really wanted now the five times optical zoom i still reserve a bit of judgment on but to be honest three times i think was too much in a lot of instances for me so i'll still have that like that pseudo 2x like the way that it works will be fine and then maybe i'll be able to take pictures

of things i could never take pictures of before because of the 5x zoom so maybe i'll benefit from that um and for pros uh 4k 60 pro res log encoding for color and spatial video capture for vision pro yeah so the 4k 60 they said it was if you're using a usb so you'll be able to do a usb 3 outboard recording device for video capture which is pretty wild as an idea and you'll be able to do that and then yeah we we speculated a lot about iphone being able to capture something for vision pro and those two camera lenses um it's the ultra wide i think and the and the and the regular domain uh that are being used here um but they are not very far apart but they are apart and apparently Apple has decided that it's,

you know, good enough for them to say, you can do spatial video capture. You're capturing a stereo video image. And that will be viewable on vision pro. I also wonder if at some point that's, that's one of these like next month kind of things. It's a later this year,

essentially. I wonder if there'll be some other methods of sort of like tilt the phone to have a little bit of a depth effect or something on that special video but it's also a vision pro feature with all of the sensors and ar kit and all that kind of stuff you could do something with that on the phone there must be some it's not going to be as affecting but you could at least play it back and see what you've shot in some kind of approximation for sure but i i feel like yeah you'll be able to tilt the camera or something and it'll sort of like extrapolate

something like that. I don't know. We'll see. So these phones, the Pro phones, like all the phones, got USB-C. On the Pro phones, they got USB 3 support, so 10 gigabit a second. With an optional cable not in the box, which I think is an interesting decision for a $1,000 phone

that it could have maybe just sprung for the usb cable for pros yeah um but yeah we mentioned that i realize now we mentioned that was part of the chip but that is part of the usbc story uh airpods pro got usbc but it doesn't appear that you can buy the case on its own which i am oh interesting disappointed about that's too bad really want to buy a new airpods pro but i do really want them to have usbc and maybe that's the decision that they're deciding to play with people like me. EarPods. The EarPods have been updated, so you can get USB-C EarPods.

Thank goodness. And there is a $30 lightning-to-USB-C adapter. Sure. Of course there is. Great. The 15 Pro starts at $999. The Pro Max starts at $1199, which is a higher

starting price. It's a higher starting price, but $256 is now the base. I think that's... It's not awesome, but it's fine, right? Like, it's fine. What they didn't do is raise the price and have the base price be the base storage.

They basically eliminated the lower storage tier. So you do have to go in at $1,199 and a $1,099. But what you're getting for $1,199 is what you got for $1,199 last year. So yeah, it's like better than expected, I would say. In that they didn't really, they raised the base, but not raised the price technically by spec.

So I haven't even dared to look at the pricing outside of America right now, because it's just been too much to look at. But I'm sure that it's more expensive. I was sitting with UK people who actually were surprised that the pricing in the UK was pretty decent. So maybe so. I don't know. So it's 256 256 512 and a terabyte on the promax i think they're still doing their one-to-one pounds to dollars conversion so yeah 11.99 this is hilarious to me the way that they have dealt with this because i was like hang on a terabyte was there before they just got rid of one of the options on the promax they didn't yeah there's not four there's just three now and yeah that's that that's three now. And that's pretty funny to me.

That's pretty funny to me. But you're paying a major tax as you always are because £1,199 is $1,500 for that Pro Max. But the VAT is fine

really. Like whatever. It's when it's over the 20% difference is when it kind of grinds my gears a bit. Economic headwinds must have, I don't know, died down. Who can tell?

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for 25% of your membership. Our thanks to Fitbod for their support of this show and RelayFM. Let's talk about the iPhone 15. So, you know, we've spoken about a bunch of things, but there are a couple of parts here. You know, one thing that I mentioned, the camera, it gets the 48 megapixel camera.

It has the 24 megapixel camera it has the 24 megapixel kind of like um high resolution default that's really good it has last year's it has last year's pro camera essentially in in that way it's got that 48 megapixel sensor and the 24 mp mode and uh yeah all those things so i'm very happy about that. It has, like the Profundive, I didn't mention it, Ultra Wideband Gen 2. Right. They're not calling it the U2 chip because they would have to pay Bono for that.

It works from up to three times further and has an integration with Find My, so you can use the precision finding for your friends, which I think is great. If you lose your friends in your couch cushions, you can find them now. Now you know exactly where they are on the couch cushions. That's super neat.

But the thing that we were expecting that they would do, they did. Dynamic Island. Dynamic Island. Yeah. Great. You know, people can go back and consult the record, but there were people who were saying, oh, Dynamic Island's a pro feature. They're not going to bring that to the regular phone next year.

And I remember saying very clearly, they will absolutely bring it to the regular phone next year because they don't want it to be the touch bar. They want it to be everywhere. They like this feature. They really like it. This is good. And they want everyone to have it. And so now with 15,

all the phones have the dynamic island, which I think will actually help that feature a lot because there will be many, many more phones. And ultimately, basically all the iPhones will have it. And that will also spur developers to do better with the dynamic Island. Mike, I have some hands on with the iPhone 15. Of course you do.

Very smooth. All those rough edges are, are, are worn out. It's, it feels really good in the hand because they, they took their kind of like red angles and just like, they're all super smoothed out. Now does feel really nice the colors everybody gets to have their own opinion

about colors i think they are really disappointing in that they are very pastel they're very pale um they're very you can say subtle and i know the one, the color on the back of the phone, people put cases on them. You don't see that anyway. The one part of the design that I think looks really cool is the, um, the raised glass camera bump area has this color infusion, they call it. And it's real. Like it doesn't look like a, like on the yellow phone, phone um which i spent the most time i've done it to the whole back of the glass right but maybe it's just more visible in that area

it's it's the for me it's in that little raised part that um is i had a very limited amount of time with this but the thing that struck me about it was they said it's the whole thing but maybe it shows more in certain it shows more because it's got that extra depth and it isn't so so the cup the glass doesn't appear to have color on the top of it and it doesn't appear to have be a a slab of colored glass if it makes sense it sort of looks like there's color in it. Oh, okay. I'm seeing some images here. I see what you mean. See what I mean?

That's a very cool look. Yeah, so that part of it I really like, and there's an argument to be made that since that's the part that people actually see, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Put the work in there work it's the most interesting part of those that said personal opinion i think that they're real real boring and that's all i mean what can i say i think they're real boring they're very in a way that they haven't been very pale pale color and that's what they've decided to go with so the color the colors are uh woke up and thought it was easter and they and dyed a few eggs light

pink and light yellow and that's what we got so not a fan of that but uh the color infusion thing on that on the on the camera square is uh it's actually striking it's very interesting looking and it feels great in the hand. And that thing, honestly, Mike, I know we've got a couple other things to talk about here that are in both, but we've saved them. At the end of,

before they go after the pro phone, at the end of the iPhone 15 segment, I thought to myself, that's a really good phone. Like that's a really good phone. And we know, knowing what was to come, I thought to myself

i increasingly feel the differentiation of these two product lines and feel like most people don't need the pro phone like we nerds do and anybody who cares about x y or z will do it but like 7.99 i got it i got a pr pitch which i guess i'm going to validate right now today from somebody who pointed out that they track iphone prices based on constant dollars so factoring in inflation and according to them this is the most favorable brand new like iPhone model. Most affordable since 2007. Since 2007. And that's because we've had a lot of inflation, but they've kept that price at $799. Huh.

Is that because of also the features in it or is it purely just based on? image pipeline, all those things. You don't get the big zoom camera, but you get all of those other things. You get the satellite. We haven't even mentioned, they did say they kicked the can another year about what will happen to all of last year's phones in two years. What are they going to have to pay to keep the satellite features, et cetera, et cetera. But they did add that roadside assistance feature in on top of that. All of that. And you get all of that, the dynamic island and it's $799 or $899 for the larger one. It's just like, it's a really good deal on a really good phone that is not a uh i got last year's model and it's kind of like it's not it's it's a yes it is sort of last year's model in ways but it's a it's a pretty good phone in its own right i just i just

wanted to say that that i i i was more impressed with the proposition of what the iPhone 15 is than I think I expected to be. I'm pleased and excited that they added the camera and the dynamic island. I think those two features are really, really good to be putting into this phone. Yeah, and the whole new pipeline that goes along with it, which I'm going to also say, well, wait a second. If that pipeline works on the 15 shouldn't it also be on the 14 pro in a software update and maybe it will maybe they will i don't know maybe that's a feature that the 24 megapixel and some of the other photo features that are not specific to the 15 pro will also be on the 14 pros it's the same chip i don't know i do not know uh still at

7.99 and 8.99 yeah they spent a deal quite a bit of time uh which i loved trying to like bang people over the head with the idea that the a bigger screen is better i thought it was very funny like there was quite a bit of like look how much more message you can read and look how much more website you can read you know it's just like. Or bigger text if you want bigger text. Yeah, we get it. All right, we get it. It's nice. Yeah, sure.

I thought that was very funny. Anything else on the iPhone 15? Like there were a bunch of features in this that we've already spoken about, right? Like USB-C is in there. There are things that are going on, but I think that's probably it for that, right? I think so. Okay? I think so.

Okay. I think so. Same availability, right? Yeah. For sale on Friday, arriving the following Friday. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Not that there's a ton much more to say about the Apple Watch.

Well, I've got a couple of things. I got to try DoubleTap. Okay. Tell me about that. I got to try double tap. Okay. Tell me about that. So they said, you know, they're using various sensors, including even the heart rate sensor to try and get a sense of when you're double tapping.

I tried it. They put a watch on me and they had me walk through a bunch of things. And it was sort of like with the Vision Pro. It was one of those things where I had to kind of learn the exact right gesture. So my default, when I imagined what I would be doing, was a little softer and a little faster than it wanted. And also one of the things that it's looking for when it's doing its machine learning is it's looking for a clear signal that you're double tapping and not just moving your hands around. And it helps if you're, they actually had me like put my arm down and then they called me, but they wanted my arm down so that I lifted up to look and see who was calling me. And then I double tapped and that worked. And so that, that suggests to me that, you know, part of the training here is it's a

lot easier for it to know that you're double tapping. If you're coming out of a gesture and you know, where you're picking up your watch and you're looking at it and you're like, aha, he just looked at the watch and now is he going to double tap? Um, but even without that, like looking at the watch face and double tapping to get to the widgets and then double tapping to scroll one by one through the widgets, I got the hang of it. It was, like I said, a little slower than I expected. And I was a little firmer with the double tap of my thumb and my index finger than I thought originally that I was going to be. was going to be. I think the Vision Pro is much more subtle about this because it can literally see your hand where as this has to intuit, the watch has to intuit this from its place on your

wrist. But I was able to get it working. And I think where it's going to shine is not in like scrolling through widgets. I think where it's going to shine is you got an alarm going and your hands are full or they showed like the guy with flour on his hands and stuff like that, where you can just go, you know, tap, tap, beats a nose tap any day to do a little finger tap um so i think it's i think it's a cool idea and once i got the hang of it it worked pretty well so i'm um i'm kind of into it i don't think it's enough for me to personally upgrade at this point but i think it's a great idea and the idea that this is basically going to be in every Apple Watch going forward over time and that they've been able to do something

that will have some nice value for people whose hands are full, who don't have access to both hands and can't navigate that thing. I think that's a, I think it's smart. So this is, I assume, an adaptation and refinement of the assistive touch features that they added, which enable for some of this stuff on previous watches. I think that's it.

They have refined this to the point where they are building it into the standard UI, and it's for everybody. That maybe it's prime time enough with the power of the S9 that they can do a much better job of detecting it so they're willing to roll it out. That the ML model has been improved and they feel better about it. One thing that it does do is when it detects it, it actually puts a little thing up that says I detected a double tap and then it does

the thing, which is interesting, right? They want you to know that what you're about to see is done because we think you double tapped with your fingers. And that's a choice they made. They didn't want it to be an invisible thing. They wanted the UI to say, yes, a double tap was received.

And then it does the thing that the double tap is supposed to do. So it's not quite instantaneous. It is sort of like the double tap icon lights up and then the and then the event happens and look obviously i was you know struck by like oh yeah i know that i know that i did that with the vision pro on i know what that means you know like i've experienced that gesture and i'm i'm guessing this is like oh this is like a standard gesture now it's going to be a standard gesture the apple watch does it vision pro does it right like this idea of pinching your your your thumb and finger together like that's what it's going to be and maybe this is

what it will be called on vision pro because i don't think they called it this idea i don't know i don't know i've got a wild idea too which is maybe future macs that have webcams in them will also be able to do remember you can do your thumbs up to get the fireworks and all that what if you can do a double tap and if it can see you you do a little double tap with your fingers and it pauses your music or whatever i track it on the mac baby let's go let's go they could try they could try some stuff like that it It's possible. The other thing I got to do was I got to touch the fine woven watch bands. Ah, yes. Yes, yes, yes.

So I expected, based on their description, for them to be more fabric-y at a glance. And they're not. Knowing what I know about Apple's watch band styles, I looked at them and thought, oh, those look like the leather bands. They're just not. They are a little more suede-y, but they're real close. Okay, cool. and leather cases for your iPhone. But with a brief visit of the fine woven fabric, it looked close enough that I think that for a lot of people, it will be a suitable replacement for the leather bands. We'll see how it goes.

But I thought they looked pretty good and did not look dramatically different than the leather bands that i've seen because i am a daily user and huge fan of the magnetic link and when there were rumors that the leather was going away i thought that that watch band was on its way out so i'm happy they and they kept the styles they just replaced it with the fine woven i'm not a huge fan of the colors but colors are colors it doesn't really. They'll do different colors. They come and go, right? They come and go,

and we'll change them. I bought, I refreshed my leather one. I got like a blue leather one a few months ago, so I wouldn't have bought a new one of these anyway. So maybe by the next time

that they refresh them color-wise, there might be a color for me in there. Maybe so. And I guess that's a good segue. Yeah, let's just, one last thing. So we'll just say like, yeah, Series 9 gets the S9 chip,

ultra wide band, so you can do the finding of the phone and the watch and they can do the precision finding together. Everybody finds everybody else, yeah. And they increased, they made some refinements to display, they increased the brightness.

Brighter. Brighter. That's a win. Apple Watch Ultra 2. Ultra 2. Gets all those same features. to display they increase the brightness brighter so yes that's a that's a win apple watch ultra two ultra two gets all those same features s9 ultra wide band and also a brighter display brighter a new watch face end of story which is just like yeah very surprised i mean i'm excited because i want an apple watch ultra right so like i'm buying an apple watch ultra um as steven texted me and said you should have just bought an apple watch Ultra, right? So like I'm buying an Apple Watch Ultra. As Stephen texted me and said, you should have just bought an Apple Watch Ultra already.

And I was like, yeah. Yeah, I guess so. I maybe waited for longer than I needed to. But, you know, my point still stands that like I'm going to wait it out. I have, Zach has asked if I've ordered one already. I have not because I will be in the US of A. And so I've yet to work out how to make that work best

for me when it comes to product ordering uh but yes i will be buying one of these i'm super excited about it uh because i'm ready and you know it apple did what i wanted like i'm not gonna have a gold but i will be able to get a natural titanium iphone pro max and a titanium apple watch ultra and i expect they probably match together pretty nicely i would expect so and but I will be able to get a natural titanium iPhone Pro Max and a titanium Apple Watch Ultra, and I expect they probably match together pretty nicely. I would expect so, yeah. And then I'll be happy. But yeah, I'm surprised that they did it, honestly.

I'm surprised that there is a new Apple Watch Ultra considering maybe it's just the S9. I don't know. Here's my theory. Keep in mind, they had to plan this out before the product even is out there. I think were like all right we're gonna do the ultra and then next year it's okay we got a we got the new system in the chip coming in you know new system in package sip they just called it sip um yeah i was like i was confused

about i was like system on a pip like what is the what is this i was very confused by this yes system in a potato it's a system in a potato powers itself so they before the ultra is released they have to decide what they're doing with the ultra 2 and i think that that's what they decided is look we're doing the s9 and ultra wideband and all these other things that are rolling into the series 9 so let's just rev the existing ultra in year two to do that and so it feels to me like apple moves slowly enough that they didn't know one way or another how the ultra was going to do in year one so they just committed to year two being a let it ride and get it up to speed with the existing because the last thing you want is your high-end ultra watch to be behind the series nine in terms of your brand new system and package

sorry software and potato that your uh seldom indigo punch bowl um it is you got to have it there so i i wonder if the ultra three will be the one where they're like hey everybody liked the ultra let's get it done right let's do something amazing but maybe they just didn't commit in year two they're like look all we're gonna do is put change the guts and otherwise just keep it the same it sure does seem like that's the way because like i am surprised about the fact that yeah but i might not just say yes i lost it whatever they've done it this is it apple watch ultra they don't have enough vapor they don't have enough vapor to deposit black on uh the titanium there it's all being used for the black iphone pro so yeah of all uh like there are many ways they could

have named it this is the one they went with apple watch ultra 2 that's the name i would have picked ultra 2 same i would have picked i think it's a good name i think it's a good name we don't need series series is for the basics and the ultra is now here and this is the ultra 2 do we need i just don't want anything else right like ultra 2 is great i don't want it to be ultra series 2 ultra series 9 ultra like fewer words please ultra 2 great stamp of approval from me i love it apple spent a bunch of time i would say at one point too much time talking about their 2030 carbon initiative program. So you know how sometimes you get inside a parenthesis and

then there's another parenthesis inside of it? Yeah. We're in the middle of the Apple Watch demo. I gotta say, man. And then there's a comedy sketch about Carbon Initiative? That video, I wanted to claw my face off.

I was, you know when you feel that like, what is it called? Like a secondhand embarrassment. What was that? Like, what was that? I gotta say, I'm going to disagree with you. And the reason is I don't want to see one more pat on the back. We're so great.

We really care video from Apple about how they're changing the world and they want to leave it better than they did and all that. And they have done so many of those videos still that, and I, well, and I'm sick of them. So here they're aware that that's what they're doing. And so they try to puncture it with some comedy. And you take it the way you like it.

I saw a bunch of people in various places while it was going on making comments about like, oh, Tim Cook has to act, but he's so wooden and it's so bad. And I'm like, no, no, no. The video knows that. That's why it's funny is they keep cutting back to Tim Cook. Every time they cut back to Tim Cook, it's a comedy line cook it's a every time they cut back to tim cook it's a comedy line because it's like oh right tim cook's in this video looking blankly off screen i so it worked for me in that in that way i think it was too long and i think some of the points were very strange

and i think i recognized one of the actors who was in it not octavia spencer one of the people who was an apple employee i think i was like i think i've seen her in something before but you know what yeah i think she was an elementary maybe uh i don't know there were there were a couple people there where i was like i these people seem sort of familiar but here's the thing i give them credit for trying to do something that was a little less obviously just so self-serious while also like literally basically doing a pitch for their carbon initiative um and saying that we're not kidding here i i can't wait for the first uh organization to come out and say that apple is still i mean they tried to head it off and say like no no when we plant trees we mean it because there's so much carbon offset that's BS, right? That it's just, it's not, it's, it's a, it's a fake way of, uh, of, uh, of saying that you're, uh, reducing carbon,

but you're really not. And Apple was trying to say, no, no, no, we, we mean it. We like good projects. Good. They said literally good carbon offsets not the bad kind the good kind it's like okay still somebody's gonna write a report about that and what they didn't say and the ways that they blunted some of the things but if you're gonna do this i i i'm glad that it wasn't a you know inspirational oh we're gonna change the world thing and it was more like yeah yeah everybody says this but do you really mean it was more like, yeah, yeah, everybody says this, but do you really mean it? And they're like, no, no, we really mean it. So that part is fine. I find it extremely curious that it was done in the context of the Apple watch. Although I understand that the Apple

watch is the series nine is that first fully carbon neutral product. It just seemed weird. Like we shifted gears and then we kind of like had to unshift for a while because there was the video. And then there were like Lisa Jackson's details about the Apple Watch on top of that. And I think the message is perfectly fine. I think they're saying, look, we are starting the process of shipping products that are fully carbon neutral because we are going to get to be this point in 2030 where we're completely carbon neutral. And any of us who've covered apple for a long time we've seen that right like we've seen what happens here which is they announce it and they start with a little bit they did that with the after greenpeace was

yelling at them they started what 2010 a little card where they would show what what was going into each product and like oh yeah we're going to do better and like that became a huge part of what they do and this feels a little like that which is like from now on it's all going to do better. And like that became a huge part of what they do. And this feels a little like that, which is like from now on, it's all going to be about what products get the little green leafs on them and are declared carbon neutral. And I think it's also funny that

one side effect of this is that if you buy the wrong Apple Watch band, you do not get green leafs. You get no leafs. No leafs for you. All right, let me just talk about what i didn't like about the video specifically please like i like the message and and that was good like i want them to talk about this stuff because i want to hear it like i want to hear what they're doing but like i thought the video sketch was too long

i didn't like the fact that there were a couple of apple employees and then some comedians so like there was like a real mismatch with the comedy um i i didn't and like what i think the thing that a lot of the jokes just didn't land for me i didn't find it particularly funny personally but the thing that frustrated me about it was like i know what you're saying about like you don't want to hear this like oh look how good we are but they literally wrote a sketch where Apple decided that Mother Nature was going to be impressed by them. So like, there is some like, that is so strange to me is like a saying. I guess what, yeah, I totally get it. I guess I preferred the tone because it was at least trying to be a little bit humorous. Yeah, yeah.

Not just ponderous, but it doesn't change the fact that they are patting themselves on the back. But then they just followed it up by recapping it all afterwards in the serious way anyway. So it's like, just do what I'm saying. Anyway, I liked to get this kind of detail. Even though it is funny, like as we say, right?

That if you get a specific type of watch band, then it's not good. I actually do like that they're being open about that. Like in the presentation, like if you get this one and this one, you're carbon neutral. But if you get this one, it's not, right? And I thought that was cool.

I also liked that. And I think those new Nike bands you to get this one it's not right and i thought it was cool uh i also liked that and i think i like those new nike bands with like the recycled color uh material inside of them look amazing i love those those looked really good they look so good uh so and yeah they're doing some stuff with ms2 um yeah you know like i'm happy for this uh i didn't i didn't really know much about this 2030 thing so i think they they chose the right time to talk about it um and i i like the carbon neutral thing like on the boxes like i think all that kind of cool and on the website so like they're like if you go to the apple watch bands

they they note which ones are carbon neutral um on on the website um i'm i'm a little bit intrigued because like some of the so like the fine woven one isn't and wasn't that just no fine woven fine woven is all just not being leather right it's it's the it's the we're not as bad as leather i think i don't remember us to mention this on this show i mentioned it on connected i know i mentioned it on one of them of like people were like oh uh leather is bad for the environment and but like there's a thing that i've been looking into it we're like if you're trying to make synthetic leathers it's not necessarily good for the environment like from a carbon perspective because it's like vinyl or something it's not and it's gonna have it's like special the special supple plastic that is the worst kind of plastic so they have kind of

proven to me a point of like a thing they wouldn't say which was like it's actually not good to just be killing animals for the leather right like which they didn't say that they didn't say that they didn't i thought they were gonna say off, the cows are not great for the environment. And secondly- But I think they didn't want to talk about the animals because there is no reason why now all of a sudden they won't have decided to stop killing all these- Right. They'd rather just talk about the environment.

And that's fine. I will also say, I love that they're using like recycled yarn in some of the bands that looks pretty nice i've got some socks that are made out of that but like just the recycled in general right the recycled cobalt like all of this stuff they're recycling more and more materials in all of the products than they have before so they are continuing like i it was a very like it was funny to me where it was like you know they do it they did like the whole thing like talking about this and tim was talking in their little garden about how great it is about the apple watch and the carbon neutral product and he's like and now the iphone

and that made me laugh because it was like oh boy is that your problem right like trying to make the iphone carbon neutral is going to be so hard. Yep. Yep. And something I was really intrigued about and I want to know more about and I want to see if I can find it is their shipping.

They talk a lot about shipping. Putting things on boats rather than planes because it's better. I'm like really intrigued again with the iPhone how they manage, how they will manage that part

because the reason you put things on planes is the supply chain thing because it gets there faster. Yes. And so that has got to be a big part about iPhone stock management is speed. Right.

I think what they're probably doing is trying to start production of all of these products sooner because the truth is you can ship them if you produce them in time. One of the reasons, now, yes, over the long run, you have to manage for demand and that can change. But in the short term, I think that the argument here is. That's a way to do it. It would have just surprised me if that was the way that they managed to do it. But yes, that is a way to do it it would have just surprised me if that was the way that they managed to do it but yes i think it's got to be some of it i think some of it has to be them looking at themselves in the

mirror and saying well one way we get closer to carbon neutral is we got to have more discipline on calling the hardware final earlier in the process so we can put them on those ships and not because i remember this happened a couple of years ago. It might've been when the pro was delayed, where they were talking about how everything was going on planes. And if you make them, because they make them in advance, if you make enough of them in advance and give yourself enough leave time, you can put them on a boat and they'll get across the ocean and then you can take care of it. But you have to do that work. And that will be less of an impact on the environment.

So maybe that's what they're doing is making the effort. That's how I read that statement was we are going to make more of an effort to ship more of our products on ships instead of on airplanes. And there will still be, yes, there will still be you order a Mac, you custom configure it, it's shipped on an airplane. But I think what they're really thinking is all the base models and the standard iPhone models where they're making many, many, many of them, millions of them in advance, that's the kind of thing where you're not going

in just-in-time analysis of your demand. You know you're gonna have demand pretty accurately. Just make them and put them on ships and do more of that in order to make the process less of a negative impact on the environment that's probably what they're up to yeah so i feel like that's it i think yeah that's the iphone app watch event for this i did i did not have the the uh carbon 2030 initiative thing

on my bingo card but there it was they they definitely were going to be that won't be the end of it right without those those little leaves the leaves are popping up here and there and if uh yeah if you get a certain kind of band no leaf for you good real-time follow-up from underscore on the from the like for the early for the update and environment page on apple's website nice uh an apple watch has 12 kilograms of carbon uh like it's carbon uh footprint for the ultra for the apple watch ultra yes the iphone 15 pro is 66 kilogram carbon footprint so it's roughly 5.5 times higher for the iphone it will be a lot maybe that that's going to be hard to do. Although, you know, one of the things that's going in their benefit here is that the electrification

of China is happening very fast and that helps them because that's the energy that they're using in their plants. So the more of that they can get and get access to the better. But yeah, it's, you know, it, 2030 is still a ways out. So they got time. They got time. Alright, that's it for this week's episode. We'll be back next week. I'm sure we'll be talking about the OS releases

because that's next week. Yes, I guess we will. Along with, yeah, along with any more information we find out between now and then about the about what was announced today. As always, there's a little tidbit, so I'm sure we'll be following up on those. That's release day.

And you'll be in Memphis, Tennessee. You'll be in the USA for that episode too. I'll be in the US of A. I'll be A-OK in the US of A. You can send your feedback, follow up, and send in your Ask Upgrade questions about anything that you've read about and also about iOS and iPadOS and watchOS

over at upgradefeedback.com and we'll get to as many of those as we can next time you can check out jason's work i'm sure there'll be lots of it at sixcolors.com and you can hear his shows at the incomparable.com and here on relay fm you can listen to me here on relay fm and check out my work at cortexbrand.com we are on social platforms you can find uh jason on mastod. He's at jsnl on zeppelin.flights. I am at imike. I am yke on mike.social. You'll find the show as upgrade at relayfm.social.

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support of this episode, and thank you for listening. Until next time, say goodbye, Jason Snow. Goodbye, everybody!