Upgrade - 527: The 2024 September Event Draft

Episode Date: September 2, 2024

The summer of fun is over. Welcome back to Upgrade. Now for the September draft for 2024. This is episode 527 for September 2nd, 2024. This episode is brought to you by ExpressVPN and Factor. My name is Mike Hurley and I have the pleasure of being joined by my co-host and my combatant, Jason Snow. Hi, Jason. I love the Upgrade Marching Band is here once again.

The pride of the Upgrade podcast. Led by Chris Breen. The pride of Relay. Yes, led by drum major Christopher Breen. It is the, you hear them every so often. They come, they're fully dressed they come in a bus they get out the uh upgrade marching band love to hear them love to hear them although it's always sad that when the summer goes away it sure is i have a snow talk question for you jason

so we are drafting today because the iphone event is next monday monday is an interesting day usually but it's next Monday. Are you ready for iPhone season? This question comes from me. Absolutely not. That's my answer. It just dawned on me last week that the way this works is when the iPhone hits,

lots of things happen, including the release of OSs. That means that if I've got to do my OS review final, that has to be done. I need to wrap up my book about photos, which they were still adding features to photos last week. And then the iPhone stuff happens. And really, that's the kickoff of what I think of as the busy season for us, where we're talking about that. And we'll probably have new Macs and maybe iPads and stuff in October. There's a lot to go on that usually kind of keeps us very busy until sometime in November, maybe. Except that one year where it was till the end of December. And I realized last week that I shouldn't look to September as the start because it already started last week.

So the stress level is rising. Do I feel ready? I don't. I feel unprepared. I feel like I've got too much to do and I feel unprepared for this draft as well. Oh, maybe that will be to my favor. Yeah, we'll see what happens. Or are you doing that thing where like if you

lose you could be like well i wasn't ready i i mean no okay doesn't matter in the end does it i don't know you tell me i don't know the penance is an important thing is a conspiracy is a collusion i don't know what as we say so many times we go from the summer of fun to the fall of content uh because there's a lot of it. There's going to be a lot of content coming your way over these next few weeks. So it kicks off now with the draft today. It does. It's stuck up on me too, I would say,

but I feel more prepared this year just in general for this period than I did last year. Last year was a disaster for me. I think similar to what you're going through right now. So I was at least a little bit more prepared and I am pretty excited for Monday, actually. I'm looking forward to it. So we'll see. So if you'd like to send in a Snell Talk question of your own, please send them in. Go to upgradefeedback.com and you can send in a Snell Talk to help us start a future episode of the show. September means some important stuff around these parts. It's not all iPhones. It's not all iOS's or macOS's, although macOS never really happens in September. It is also the time of year where

we as a community come together to raise money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital because September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. The Relay community is coming together once again to support the life-saving work of St. Jude. And we have now, collectively, over the last five years, this happened last week, basically on the day we launched the campaign last week, we have now, as a community, raised over $3 million

since we started this campaign in 2019, which is just an astronomical amount of money. And because of the incredible generosity of our community, Relay is actually, we were very excited to announce this, Relay is going to be recognized on a wall inside of the hospital that highlights corporations and organizations with their exceptional fundraising efforts for St. Jude. This wall is updated annually based on fundraising contributions. There's going to be a big unveiling later on in the year, and we'll be sharing photos of it.

So thank you all for, this is all for all of us, right? This is like the legacy of us all as a community that we have been honored in this way by St. Jude. So I think it's incredible. And St. Jude is incredibly important to us. One of the amazing things about St. Jude, incredibly important to us. One of the amazing things about St. Jude, as we said before, is a hospital and a research institution that takes care of children who are suffering from cancer and other life-threatening diseases. But one of the great

things that St. Jude does is their survivorship studies. These provide a greater understanding of the long-term effects of pediatric cancer treatment, and they help researchers develop new ways to minimize effects. And St. Jude Life is what it's called. It's a long-term follow-up study where St. Jude patients are brought back to the hospital every five years for an assessment. It helps researchers learn about the long-term health of a child and childhood cancer and its survivors so they can find ways to reduce treatment-related health conditions. St. Jude Life is one of the only data sets in the world with the ability to comprehensively represent racial and ethnic groups

that are often left out of childhood cancer survivorship. In April, scientists from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital announced the St. Jude Survivorship Portal, from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, announced the St. Jude Survivorship Portal, which is the first data portal for sharing, analyzing, and visualizing pediatric cancer survivorship data. This portal is a huge big data platform. It incorporates clinical and genomic information,

creating an unprecedented research system. It houses 1,600 phenotypic variables. How would you say this word, Jason? P-H-E-N-O-T-Y-P-I-C. Phenotypic. Phenotypic, thank you. Variables on 400 million genetic variants from over 7,700 childhood cancer survivors. That number is incredible

because that is like, do you think of how many children saved? That's this tiny portion of them and then they're able to use Ice Incredible. It also has half a billion clinical data points and hundreds of terabytes of genetic data. And you'd think, wow, this seems like a big effort. But this is the great thing about St. Jude.

That portal is free to use and open, with open access as a part of St. Jude Cloud. So this is something they offer to people all around the world to learn from the incredible work that they do. The Relay community has adopted this campaign as its own, and it's so easy for you as part of this community to get involved. If you hear things like this,

you hear us talking about this on our shows throughout the month, we want you to go to stjude.org slash relay because you can donate there and you can help support this life-saving work. But you can also register to create a fundraiser of your own and you can join us in raising money for St. Jude. After you sign up, you can share your fundraiser with your friends, your family, your co-workers. You can spread the word for this amazing mission and you can increase the amount that you as an individual can help contribute towards St. Jude. Folks who host their own fundraisers

also can earn some limited edition incentives. These years are better than ever. You can find all the details at stjude.org. So please go to stjude.org to donate today and create your own campaign. And of course, the podcast- the podcastathon is coming up it's going to be on september 20th jason's going to be in memphis again and we're going to be having a ton of fun this one is as always bigger and better than ever and i cannot wait for you to see that

and we'll have more information about that later i want to emphasize not longer just be clear bigger and better never longer than 12 hours, I think is what we learned. But yeah, I'm really looking forward to it. And we spend a lot of time talking about this throughout the month of September, and it is for a very, very good reason. So please go to stjude.org. It's time to read the rules for the draft.

Oh, I'll remain seated. You should. We have 10 rounds with 20 overall picks plus a bonus round that is returning, which we'll talk about a little later in the show.

The draft this year will be split into three distinct categories. iPhone picks, Apple Watch picks, and other picks. The winner of the previous draft will get first pick,

and that is Jason. The items that we are drafting, so the the specific things they are chosen from a predetermined list of choices that jason and i have worked on and we have agreed that they could be verifiable on screen as part of the presentation and not ridiculously obvious for an item to count it must either be clearly announced on stage or on a slide during the presentation stephen hackett will act as adjudicator in case of a scoring stalemate between the two of us.

There are no partial points awarded and the points awarded on the episode are final and finalized during the scoring segment. In the case of a tie, there is a tiebreaker question. The loser gets picked off said tiebreaker question.

The winner of the draft becomes draft champion and displays the champion pennant. The loser becomes draft challenger and displays the challenger pennantant. The loser becomes draft challenger and displays the challenger pennant. Currently, I am draft challenger. Jason is draft champion. You'll be able to play along with us next week using the wonderful interactive scorecard that is created by a friend of the show, Zach Knox. These are always available at upgrade.cards.

Upgrade.cards. You can buy your own draft t-shirt at UpgradeYourWardrobe.com. I have some results of this year and previous September events. So the 2024 results so far, we have one draft apiece. I won the May event and Jason won WWDC.

So Jason is the current winner. We have had eight total September events that we have drafted. Jason, you have won six of those. I have won two of those, but my last two are the last two years. So I am on a streak right now. So that's where we are

to this point. Tiebreaker time? Tiebreaker time. Okay. And we got in the habit of it being um it being me picking because i was i lost a bunch but i believe i get to set the over under this time i'm not gonna lie jason even though it's in the rules i actually never remember how this part works i know it doesn't matter and the the way it works is very complimentary because both sides have advantages and disadvantages.

The over-under is 80 minutes of runtime. You can decide is it going to be over or under. 80 minutes? Let's say 81 minutes. Oh, why would you do that?

Why would you do that? I'm going to add a little flavor to it. 81 minutes. You want me to do 82? I could do 82. If I keep doing this, will you go to 150? I'm going to say over 81 minutes. Alright, that's good. Let me take, do you want to know why I want to go with that?

Why? Apple intelligence. Yeah, I mean we've already seen it, but they can bring it back again. If you look at the runtimes of recent events, these streaming-only events, they are all around this. Sometimes they're more like 75 minutes. Sometimes they're more like 90 minutes. It's really kind of in there. You had set the over-under at 80 minutes thinking that I was going to pick it, and I was going to pick the over. So, therefore, 81. But I think it varies. We don't know, right? We just don't know. So it's a good tiebreaker.

Yeah, I think, I know what you mean. They showed it. I think they're going to use this as an opportunity to show it again. I think, yeah, I would expect Apple knows more people are paying attention to the iPhone event than WBC. Exactly. Everybody knows. Everybody should know. If you don't know, the iPhone event is hugely more watched than any other Apple event of the year. And therefore,

if there's any message Apple wants to get across, they can use the iPhone event as the vehicle to launch it. Yeah, we've said this many times. It is part of Coupet technology. If they have a product that they want people to know about, they launch said this many times. It is part of Cupertino-ology. If they have a product that they want people to know about, they launch it alongside the iPhone. Yeah, exactly.

That is a thing they do. Apple Watch, they did it with the iPad Pro. Yeah. That is just the way that they do things. We have a bonus round. We're going to do it now. It's called the St. Jude Challenge. So we brought this in last time

because one of the things that happens as part of the podcast-a-thon is we started this last year, we're continuing it this year. It is Mike versus Steven. We will be competing in a variety of games and activities during the podcast-a-thon and some things before.

And considering we have games here, why would we not contribute points towards this? So there are going to be points in the line for this round. There is also one draft point for the winner. It will be adjudicated by Upgrade Scorecard Keeper Zach Knox because

Stephen could benefit from this so we can't trust him. We have picked five phrases or words that could be said during the keynote and we have ten total points that we can bet on each of these things happening or being said. So we can place as many points as we want. Whoever gets the most points totaled wins the point for the draft. We'll also take that person's points,

multiplying them by 10 and add them to the St. Jude total for even me or Stephen. Does that make sense? Yeah. I'll add a little caveat here. Once we get to the end, if we want to adjust our point totals because we don't like it, then we can do that. Yeah. That is the sportspersonship of the draft. Yes, that's right. That's right. That's how we work around here. The first phrase of which we can assign any of our ten points to is next generation Siri. Next generation Siri. Not a phrase they've used. And yet, I don't know.

They want to get across that Siri is new. I'll put a point down. You helped me significantly here. Because I thought that they had used that phrase. I don't think they have. Whether they have or they haven't,

we shouldn't look it up now because, you know, DraftKraft. But I was going to put all of my 10 points on this at one point. I decided not to do that in the sake of the game. I'm going to redefine it. What's the phrase? I think the phrase is next generation in referring to Siri. Yeah, I think that's good.

I think that's good. I have one in a minute. I'm going to put two points down still, though. Oh, okay. Wow. Interesting. It's different to 10. It is.

Wow. All right. Good. Next. Emmy Awards. Emmy Awards. Mm-hmm. Emmy Awards Emmy Awards I'm going to put four four

Apple loves their awards they sure do and in July they scored 72 nominations for the Emmys so I'm sure they will want to talk about that. They do love a good award ceremony. I'm going to say two, though.

Because this is like, will they have... I mean, we'll find out what we think about that. If they don't have that segment, they're not going to talk about it. You know, like the Emmy award-winning iPhone is probably not going to come up. Maybe not. The next is RAM or memory in in relation to the iphone yes so and i want to state this now for like we have lots of potential picks that we can make that say ram but again if they say memory that's fine i think that's also fine because we know what

that means yes they're not going to refer to the storage as memory, right? Because they're not going to do that. They're much more technical than that. But they might think that memory is a much more friendly phrase, and that's fine. Yep. So how many points are you going to assign for RAM? Let's, again, reserve the right to change this later i'm going to say zero oh okay uh-oh uh i'm saying three okay i mean they haven't before but apple intelligence would

be a reason to do it and talking about the phones would be a reason to do it let's put a pin in that okay in that conversation for later on in the episode uh google gemini yeah okay i threw this in here because i think the question is will they have an announcement of another like at wwc they actually even mentioned google gemini as a possible thing but we've we've heard no reports of Apple and Google's negotiations about potentially bringing Google Gemini as a feed into Apple intelligence, just as chat GPT is. I do wonder if we will hear Apple mention Google Gemini, even if it's as a for example, but that would require a level of formality that I think is pretty powerful.

And I'm for, for now, again, we'll get to the end and I'll, I'll see what I'm thinking here, but for now I'm going to say zero. I'm going to say three. All right.

All right. You, you're, you thinking there's a, there's a real possibility. I think there's a possibility of a deal being done. Yeah, I do.

It goes back to reporting from a lot earlier in the year right that that apple were trying to make this work and craig federighi kept talking about them um and the rumors were that it would be before the end of the year they would do it and i actually think it would behoove them to have another partner than i agree before they launch it, I think. I agree. Maybe it will be somebody else, right? Maybe it will be Claude.

Maybe it will be something else. I don't know. It would be a good time to have it. Yeah. It should be a good time. I do think that the event, that Google's event where they showed off the pixels, they spent so much time showing off other phones

using Gemini that Google has a couple of things going on. One of them is they need to show that they are the future of search. And I think Gemini for them is a part of that. And I think it would be very beneficial for them

to be on the iPhone, to be into the iPhone. In our WWDC episode um we talked about how having chat gpt as a partner for apple sort of made sense because their competitor in the smartphone landscape google has gemini has its own ai system and that chat gpt open ai like they don't have their own operating system. They don't have that advantage. They've got like their deal with Microsoft for Windows, but on a phone, they don't have that. And so a deal with Apple, especially a deal where like no money is changing hands and they're just

providing it to Apple and all of that. Like I can see the reasons for that. It would be quite a coup for Google to say, we are on all smartphones, right? Like that would be really good. And Google, like Google and Apple have relationships. It would actually kind of make sense. And Apple is obviously approaching this as, you know, like a search engine, except even, you know, with, without maybe the connotations of the default search engine issues that they're having the idea of like, we don't care, care use your chat use whatever chatbot source you want and so if they have gemini in there i think that that makes that makes them feel good because they're like we had gemini we had chat gbt we got all we got all the great ones uh pick your poison whatever

and so it's good for google it's good for apple i i would say, yeah, it's bad for OpenAI because now their arch rival is on both smartphone platforms and that's harder for them, but too bad, right? So I think the real question is, has this deal been done? If they've done a deal and they've kept it quiet, if they've done the deal and they want to announce it, this is the perfect place to do it, right? Which is to say, not only all of this, but by the end of the year, not only ChatGPT, but also Google Gemini will be on the iPhone. But, you know, did they? Will they? The reason that I'm

confident this will happen at least at some point is it is very strange for an executive at Apple to say they want something publicly. I know, right? Yeah. They mentioned it by name. That is weird. Yes. They were not coy about it. Very specifically. And they didn't say a list I know, right? Yeah. They mentioned it by name. That is weird. Yes. They were not coy about it.

And they didn't say a list of things, right? No. It's not like he listed all of the popular... He just said, Google Gemini. Yeah.

So it was part of the talk show. So it would be very strange, I think, for them to say it if they didn't want it. And if they want it, why would Google not do it?

Like, realistically, why would Google not do it? And so I think there is a strong possibility that it will happen but not 10 points strong sure right the last phrase blow away blow away everybody's favorite i hate it i hate it too yeah i i hate it they used it last year oh yeah yeah i think so it's very upsetting well i have five points left so i guess they go here oh really i i i'm saying okay we're at the end now so we can we can we can rejigger if we want to here yeah i feel i feel happy with mine i feel happy with mine. I feel happy with mine. I'm going to... I'm going to put Blow Away down to four

and take Next Generation up to two. And otherwise, I'll leave them where they are. So I'll just give a rundown of that. Next Generation, in referring to Siri, Jason's put two points. I've put two points. Emmy Awards. Just basically, this is a reference of Emmys.

Like if Emmys are mentioned, Jason gets four points, I've put two points. Emmy Awards. Just basically this is a reference of Emmys. Like if Emmys are mentioned Jason gets four points. I get two. RAM or memory. I'm referring to the iPhone. Jason has zero points. I have three. Google Gemini. Jason has zero. I have three. And blow away. Jason has four. I have zero. I like that there are some

significant differences in here so it could create for some fun moments while we're watching the draft. And this will be one especially that we want you to help with. So, you know, once you've watched the event, share your scorecards

of us in Discord and on social media. Because this one I remember being particularly difficult to keep track of. This one's really hard. We need the community to mark these off because we don't necessarily hear every word. And remember, you can find a scorecard of your own by going to upgrade.cards, where you can see that. This episode is brought to you by ExpressVPN. How did you choose which internet service provider to use? The sad thing is many

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It's time for the first draft picks, the full-on draft picks. So we turn our attention to everybody's favorite, the iPhone. Jason, what is your first round iPhone pick? With the first pick in the Apple event draft, I choose faster A-series chips introduced. Very good. Very good. Yep.

Will there be new chips? Oh, yes, there will be. Why would there not be? There has to be. It's almost obvious. I should have almost even lined it out, but it's faster some of these are is you you gotta get on no no you gotta go all right so here's the thing there has to be it doesn't mean they will do it right so like i believe there has to be you believe there has to be especially because the iPhone 16 cannot run Apple intelligence. However, for all we know,

they're going to say Apple intelligence is a pro feature only. We don't look the likelihood of that near zero. And we're not updating our chips. They could do it, right? They could do it. But we know that we know that they've got the, the pro phones on the three nanometer process. They're trying to get off of,

which presumably means there will be a new chip generation announced and to answer the question what if there's only one chip and not two chips that's not what this pick is this pick is that there will be a faster a series chip yeah um it makes sense right that they will do this for obvious reasons uh i think they they should get them all uh up right so they can better support the features they didn't know they were going to be uh introducing i think when they when they created the chip that's in this 15 pro yeah is it the 17 pro a17 pro is that that chip is that what it's called oh i'm really bad at that i'm not b bad. It's called the Pro. I know it's Pro. A17 Pro.

I'm really bad at the numbers of the chips. I wish the numbers of the chips matched the phones, at least. I know. And the OS. I wish all the numbers were the same. It should be the year number. We said it before. Samsung, they worked it out. S24 or whatever.

That is perfect. Yep. Yeah, okay. This is good. Like that is perfect. Yep. They know. Yeah, okay. This is good. I reckon they'll do it. It was actually my second pick. And then I realized it should have been my first pick,

but I wouldn't have had it anyway. My first round pick is that the, it's actually a thing I can't believe is happening, but all of the rumors are pointing to it happening. The pro phones will be getting larger screens. Oh, pro phones getting larger screens interesting so the all of the case leaks and a lot of the rumors point towards the pro phones are getting bigger like physically bigger which i'm not thrilled about because that means they will

get heavier again like a little bit right um And I don't really want that to happen. Neither do I. This is coming from me. Neither do I actually want my screen to get any bigger than it currently is. Hmm. Yes. Would you like some breaking news, Jason, from me?

I would. I was going to share this with you here. I'm thinking about getting the smaller Pro phone. What? I know. I'm thinking about getting the smaller prog phone. What? I know. I need to think about it, but I think I'm going to do it. Why? What? Why? It's a two-prong thing

for me. Everybody remember that time when Mike just completely lost it during a draft one time? What's going on? I've been thinking about it because I want to work on my phone less. And so a smaller phone will force me to do that, I think. Where if I want to do something,

like look at a spreadsheet, I need to get a bigger screen and then I can decide if I want to do that in that moment i also adina has a smaller pro phone and i was like playing around with this weekend to try and get the feel of it it feels so good uh and like i could do everything with one hand yeah um and so yeah i also with the phone again i don't think i really want the bigger so i'm thinking about getting a smaller one so it's like i want to work less uh on my phone but i still want to have the features that i want this year it seems like a lot of the features will be matched up so i'm considering it that is a very good feeling phone which will also be getting a little bit

bigger anyway um and if it's going to get heavier i also don't really want that i'm willing to give it a try because yeah my thinking is the worst that happens is i get the smaller phone and use it for a few months and then sell it and buy the big one like that's the worst that could happen and then i'll lose a couple hundred dollars or whatever. You're bargaining now. I'm going to see. I'm thinking about it. It's not done yet.

Seriously. It's not done yet. It's not done yet. We'll see. Wow. Wow. It's also a function of how much I use my iPad. I'm turning into you a little bit.

Okay. Good. So we'll'll say you're growing all right my next pick is that the capture button is introduced darn it you know it sucks to pick second it was like it really sucks it does it does it does i don't know why we're giving the advantage to the person who won the last time instead of the person who lost the last it's been a jason it's been a really long time for me uh you're picking all my picks i know it's like if you make a basket and then you get the ball back right it's not yeah really fair it's very very much rumored i thought you were going to pick this when you said i i kind of don't believe it but i'm going to pick it because this is how i feel about the capture button the

idea here is that it's a it's rumored so strongly that i think it must exist and i kind of don't believe it, but I'm going to pick it because this is how I feel about the capture button. The idea here is that it's rumored so strongly that I think it must exist. And I kind of like the idea. After they already added the action button, to add a capture button seems kind of wild. But a lot of our arguments for the action button actually go even better for the capture button, which is it's a dedicated photography feature, physical feature on the phone, that lets you use your phone more like a camera when you're using your phone like a camera, which is all the time. So the idea that they would do that and they'd have a button completely dedicated to taking pictures, it makes sense. I remember when Apple didn't like buttons, but apparently Apple is back on the button train.

So capture button is introduced. like buttons but apparently apple is back on the button train so capture button is introduced i would dig this button especially if it is what is rumored right that you would you would press it it opens the camera you can lightly press it to focus press it harder to take the photo and you'll be able to swipe on it to do something whatever that might be changing modes yeah i think for me i would love that and i would especially love it because it would mean that i could remove the camera icon from my home screen because i know that's a thing in ios 18 but i don't think i would want to do it because i use that button but i would use the physical quote unquote physical button the passive button that

would be on the phone that's what i would more likely use because it's like dedicated for that. I think it's a good idea, honestly. And it's, but it's one of these things where it's like, why now? I know. It's weird. Well, I think, okay,

here's my overarching theory and we'll talk about this more next week, undoubtedly. But I think some of these features that we think, that's kind of weird. Why a capture button or why an action button? All of that. I think some of these features that we think, that's kind of weird. Why a capture button or why an action button?

All of that. I think one of the reasons is because Apple knows that this is the fifth year of basically the same design. And so they're really motivated late in a design cycle because there are rumors that there's going to be a dramatically redesigned at least one model next year. This is the kind of stuff you do, right? You add a lot of flair. You add a lot of bits. If you've got a new chip that's nice. If you've got Apple, you've got some software like Apple Intelligence.

You throw that in there. Maybe that person who's been saying, we should have a dedicated camera button for like 10 years. Finally, you're like, you know,immy this year you get your camera button the dedicated camera button is the third-party keyboards of the iphone hardware a little bit because we got to a point and they were like yeah you could just do third-party keyboards now why because the the person who has been arguing this for the last five years finally got what they wanted. We ran out of, well, yeah, exactly. And in the case of the iPhone design right now, let's be serious.

They've kind of run out of things they can do with it. Yeah. This is, it is, I mean, again, I don't love the discourse of like, oh, the iPhone is boring now. But yeah, I mean, smartphones aren't like they were in the early days. And this is the length of a design generation is much longer. And at the end of it, you start iterating around the edges and trying to find ways to make it different and interesting

so people want to buy your product. And those arguments that may be in year one or year two are like, we don't need to do that. We have a brand new phone design. We're fine. When you're in year five, you're like, yeah, maybe so. Maybe we should do that.

You know, the thing to remember is like we're maybe on the verge of like the iPhone 17 Slim, right? And then maybe the year after that, they use that idea to fold. Like, that's what you do. Exactly. You have to go wild with it. And they can't do that with the iPhone. Like the standard iPhone, they can't do that. To be clear, I think this is a good idea. I raved about this idea with the iPhone. Like the standard iPhone, they can't do that. To be clear, I think this is

a good idea. I raved about this idea with the action button too, the idea that you have a physical thing on your phone that does a thing in software. Because when we had cameras, like dedicated cameras and people who still use them, like there are buttons on them to do things like the shutter. And I mean, all of us see it, even if we're really great at it and we know what volume button will run the shutter and all of that stuff. Like people out in the world struggle with touchscreen controls in bright light on their phone when they're trying to hold it steady and get the right shot and then also touch the touchscreen control to take a picture. And if you can make it physically easier and everybody just knows that there's an easy way to take a picture. And if you can make it physically easier and everybody just

knows that there's an easy way to take a picture, it's better. Like bottom line, it's better. So I do think this is a smart feature. I think if it's got multiple modes, then it's extra smart. So like, yeah, bring it on. It's just, it's just seems weird to me because remember, there was a time when Apple was like, no, no, no. The goal is no buttons. And now we got, every year they're adding a button to this thing. The iPhone 25, it's just buttons. It's all buttons.

The entire rail is buttons. It's all buttons. It's all buttons, yeah. It's all buttons all around it. That's how you attach the cases, actually. You just push the buttons through the holes and you just button it up. Yeah.

The iPhone 5C case, all buttons in those holes. All buttons. Oops, all buttons. Yeah, oops, all up. Yeah. The iPhone 5C case, all buttons, nose holes, all buttons. Oops, all buttons. Yeah, oops, all buttons. Exactly. The new case thing, people are like, what's going to happen with fine woven? The answer is it's being replaced with a sweater, the iPhone sweater. It's knitted and you button it up and it's lovely.

It's like the iPhone sock is back. There are those cases where it's like bubble wrap right where they're like um the little bob you've seen those but it looks like bubble wrap you just push all the button the little uh buttons in my second round pick is that the five times zoom will be on both pro models okay all right this is a good pick because i think we all think and as somebody with the smaller phone i think having the the tetraprism thing come to the uh the smaller phone is a great step forward yeah my only question for you is but what if they increase the zoom on the big model

well you know we could call it Tetra Prism Zoom. I don't know. But I'm going to stick it at five. We're just going to stick it at that. Let's live with that. On both. 5X on both. I think this is the most likely scenario is that they don't upgrade the zoom

on the bigger model. They just bring the smaller model in line. It would have been a lot, I think, for them to do a year-on-year improvement of that lens style. Yeah, I know. And kind of unnecessarily, I think, to go further.

Yeah, all right. I mean, it's like, okay, so I get these review units. I was going around Memphis zooming in last year when we were there for the podcast. I'm zooming on stuff. That Pro Max model, that's amazing. I would love to have that zoom on my camera yeah on the smaller model and maybe you're maybe your model too maybe if it's the

one i go for maybe round three uh i'm going back to the capture button again because we had two capture button picks so i'm just going to double up on capture button capture button has multiple functions so for example uh press strength swiping those things we talked about the idea that not only does it bring up the camera or or take a picture but if you do a certain gesture it will do a focus or it will change modes so it's more than just you know whether it's a swipe or a tap or a pressure sensitivity that there will be an additional function it's not going to just be a call up the camera button my pick is something that i have honestly i i really desperately want them to do uh ultra wide lens improvements ultra wide lens improvements now i was thinking about taking this one and my question for you is what do you mean by this? Because there's changes to the lens, there's changes to the sensor,

right? There's a rumor about that the actual ultra-wide camera will get upgraded to 48. Yeah, that is what I mean. That's what I mean. So maybe we can just call it ultra-wide camera. Ultra-wide camera improvements. Great. Now, what motivates you here? So I have been very disappointed with a lot of photos that my iPhone 15 takes. And it's because with the 48 megapixel wide angle lens they put in, the focal distance on it is such that photos that you take that are of something close to you, it typically moves into the macro mode automatically and uses the ultra wide lens to take that photo. And so I find the majority of

my photos to be not good. Honestly, the colors are not good. It's literally downgrading you, right? Because the ultra wide is a downgrade. So you're taking with the best camera and then suddenly you're not taking with the best camera. And I would say probably the majority of photos that I take in my life are things that are closer to me. And so I have been. I take back what I said about the Zoom then. Yeah. Well, no, look, I like the Zoom as a utility to have. But you take a lot of pictures that end up forced into macro mode.

I get it. I took a picture of a piece of paper today, just a white piece of paper and it came out gray it's like this i don't understand what they're doing with the and so i actually then opened halide because they have that new feature called process zero where it like removes all the processing took the picture with that and edited it a little bit to bring up the color because it's a little bit desaturated. It looked so much better for what I wanted out of that.

Because the piece of paper looked like a white piece of paper. It didn't look like a piece of paper with a big gray splodge in the middle, which is what the default camera app made it look like. So I am very hopeful for the rumors because I'm basically

picking something I want, which is that they're going to put, the rumors, they're going to put the same 48 megapixel sensor in the ultra wide. And what I'm hoping is that that will increase the quality of images that are closer to me again.

Because the thing is, yes, you can turn off the quote unquote macro mode when it switches on, but then you don't get good, then things are out of focus. So it's like, I think it was a bit of a, I think the iPhone camera has been degraded. That's my kind of feeling after

a year of the iPhone 15. For the majority of things that I'm taking pictures of, it's worse than before. So I'm hoping for that improvement. Yeah, that's good. I think continuity camera uses the ultra-wide as well. If it was better, you could zoom in more. Yep. If it was 48,

you could zoom in more. Yep. It would could zoom in more yep and it would look better for continuity camera which would be nice you know that continuity camera feature where you can go in and like it on the mac and you can like move things and zoom in and out that's so good it's so good big fan of that all right with. With my next pick, I am going to pick Apple Intelligence. This is an iPhone feature. We put it in the iPhone feature. I think it counts. It's what everybody cares about about the new iPhone. It's going to be Apple Intelligence. Apple Intelligence features are given a date more specific than this fall. Right now, Apple Intelligence is coming this fall. And I think if they're trying to close the deal on people buying an iphone i think they need to say it's coming in october it's coming in november so

i'm gonna put a chip down here because they could just shine us all on and be like oh later this fall later this year but i'm gonna say they're gonna feel the need to be a little more specific also honestly it's in beta right now and it's not perfect but they could totally ship it which makes me feel like saying by the end of october or in october or early november and putting a stake in the ground so you go out and buy an iphone because it's just next month just next next month, the AI features will be there. And the longer the date is away and the vaguer they are about that date, I think the weaker their presentation is. So that would be my argument.

If I was inside at Apple, that would be my argument to be like, we need to be specific about Apple intelligence as specific as possible because otherwise you are selling a phone where its most interesting feature doesn't exist and will not exist for an unknown amount of time. So, yeah, that's what I'm thinking here.

Yeah, I'm going to double down on this one with you and say that if they don't give a more specific date would literally be to launch a public beta of 18.1 and say, Apple intelligence will be better available later this year to everyone or later this fall to everyone. But you, but it's in public beta now. So you can just go get it if you want it before then. They could try to play that game, but I wouldn't recommend it. If they do that, does that score you? No, I don't think so. If they play the beta game, I don't think so. I think they need to actually say when this thing is shipping. When is it out?

Yeah. Yeah, I agree. At a minimum, they need to do that but i actually they need to if look the reason they're going to spend so much time talking about this being the perfect phone for apple intelligence because like i was looking something up today uh on the macbook on the macbook pro product page right if you go to the macbook pro product page right now the very if it was on one of the pages somewhere it said oh here you go you go to the buy right go to macbook pro click buy it says built for apple intelligence yeah like it really wasn't like it genuinely was not it was not but like this iphone is the closest

to being that yeah yeah yeah yeah so they have to say when it's available i'm going to give a little more uh here about my pick which i'm going to say if they pitch it as you can just opt into a beta of apple intelligence on device and say when or say that that's available now, right? I think that that's what I'm saying here because I guess that's the other way they could do this is they could basically like be sneaky and say, well, Apple Intelligence is a beta

and you opt into it and it gets installed and all of that. That's always going to be the case. If it's not joined the public beta, but it's more like Apple Intelligence beta is available on phones, but we'll see. We'll see. I'm willing to be open, but what I'm not saying is available on phones. But we'll see. We'll see. I'm willing to be open. But what I'm not saying is

the beta doesn't make it a pick. Because they're going to launch this in beta because they'd be silly not to. But that is different to join the beta program, the iOS 18 beta program. Yes, I would argue that's the weak fallback. But, you know, it's not available for a while,

but you could be in the public beta if you wanted. It's not a great look. Maybe an easier way to say this is like they say when iOS 18.1 is coming out. That's actually what we're looking for. I guess. Maybe. I don't know.

It's Apple Intelligence. We'll get it. Sure. My fourth round pick is that there will be vertical camera lenses on the iPhone 16. Ah, oh yes, right. So this is the, you're going back to your case contacts.

Yes. Case leaks. I've been analyzing some imagery. The idea, so for people who don't understand this, there was a time, not too too long ago where instead of a big square camera terrace on the back of your iPhone, there were two little cameras in a little vertical kind of like rectangle. And the rumor is that the iPhone 16 is going to be like that, that the flash is going to be flush with the case flash flush outside of the little bump and the bump will just be the two cameras on the iPhone 16 and so it'll be smaller and vertical.

I think it would look nicer. And then also capable of shooting in stereo. Although I'm not actually sure that's as important as the thing is when they probably initially designed this phone but that's a conversation for another day maybe. But I think that's the thing is when they probably initially designed this phone but that's a conversation for another day maybe yeah uh but i think again like there will be a bunch of things that are doing to these phones to try and do the hey look at me i'm new um like there were rumors of the uh the frames

going shiny again rather than matte on the pro phones. And they do new colors, right? And this will be another of those, that on the regular iPhone, the back of the phone's going to look different. So indicating that it is the new phone. So I think we're likely to see that. What is your final pick in the iPhone round? Well, Mike, I'm out of the good picks now.

Okay. Now I'm struggling with things that I don't really believe like none of them do i really believe not very ted lasso like um i know it's not i need a i need a pep talk from from ted lasso which we might not get to this by the way actually but like apparently ted lasso might be coming back yeah that's gonna happen and yeah the money truck apparently has arrived at jason sudeikis's house and so um they can proceed with casting for a season four of ted lasso or a spinoff or whatever something continuation of the ted lasso expanded universe okay oh boy um let's i'm gonna just i'm sorry this is so boring i'm gonna go with increased screen

brightness on an iphone all right that one of the screens they claim is brighter than it was last year i don't love it valid but i think they do it right just say the screen is brighter and it might be i don't know which model but like one of the models will be like oh it's brighter so i have the final pick which means i have yeah the the ability to talk aloud uh my short list and really i feel like in general uh what i'm trying to do here is i'm going i'm not just going for the win i'm going for glory so i'm picking things that are boring i think love it um and i have two things that i'm i'm trying to settle on. One is Apple mentions RAM increases for the iPhone line.

Yep. The other is Apple mentions some Apple intelligence features that are not coming to the iPhone 16. So like that there are specific features for the 16 Pro.

Yeah. They're the two that I'm circling around. And like, let me talk about the RAM thing for a minute because I know there's like, when we mentioned it earlier,

there were people in the Discord that were like, is there a way they're going to do it? They've never done this before. They have never spoken about RAM

in an iPhone before. But now it matters. Now it matters and it matters to people that are paying attention. You need RAM now for AI.

I imagine this could be the first time where they talk about increasing it or they talk about how much that there is. Because I think it's going to be a story of all of their products as a way to show commitment to AI. Yes. So I can see it happening. I can see them not doing it, but I can see that this might be, if you're ever going to talk about memory in an iPhone, now is the time, right now. I would never ever have picked this before, right?

No. There is no draft in history where I would have even thought about it. No, they don't like to talk about it. They don't even, I mean, for years, they didn't even mention it on their tech specs. They do now, I think. But for years, they didn't even do it there

because they don't, they want you to think of an iphone as a a just a specless device it's literally just the model is all you need to know what model did you get and storage is part of it right because they want to upsell you on storage but computer specs like ram and processor speed and stuff like that they they don't want to talk about unless it serves them though and this is my counter argument is i mean cpu cores and gpu cores are pretty nerdy too and they do talk about them when they can boast about it so part of the story now maybe they boast about the memory now yeah i don't know this is a good one feeds weren't important until they were out in phones but now they're important. Like, AI

has made it important. And you're right. They spend way too much time during the iPhone presentation talking about how many GPU cores they have and the size of their neural engine, right? Exactly. You know what? I'm picking it. You've talked me into it. Apple mentions RAM or

memory increases for the iPhone line. Okay. Sounds good sounds good look are they gonna do it i don't know but if they do i feel real good about making this pick because i i genuinely think we're we're we have the potential for this to happen and it would be i think pretty monumental if they actually do it so i think it'd be fun. No, I think, I think this is a more likely scenario than the other one you were going to pick because, and we can talk about this more, maybe an upgrade plus when we often talk about things we didn't pick, but I'll just say here, the impression I get about Apple and Apple intelligence is, you know, usually when there's

an iOS announcement, they hold stuff back, right? They hold stuff back for the new phone. And so you would think, you would say, oh, obviously they've held some stuff back, some Apple intelligence stuff, that they're going to spring on us for the new phones. Obviously. Well, I don't think that's the case because I think that they shoveled everything they possibly could into the Apple intelligence announcement in order to make it look impressive and that that's all they've got. That's my opinion. My opinion is there's no surprise. It will be interesting to see what happens,

but my opinion is there's no surprise coming because this is all they got and that's it. We've seen more than they're going to put in the OS maybe before WWDC next year. So that's a very good point, right? Like they would love to have some stuff that was just for the, what I was thinking more, like I agree with you. What I was thinking more is like there was going to be some feature we'd seen

that is only in the pros, but I think that is maybe a stretch too far. I can't see that because they've already said that that'll work with the 15 pro. So it would have to work with the 15 pro and the 16 Pro, but not the 16. Which would be strange. There's too many circles in that Venn diagram, right? Yeah. To make that work. Yeah.

Which iPhone is right for you? Yep. It doesn't have this feature. It's not like they don't do things like this, right? Like software features that could run, like'll remember stage manager yeah my feeling is apple intelligence is one too important for the company and two too early for them to be withholding portions of it i think they the message they want to give is whatever new iPhone you buy this fall, you get Apple intelligence. And in fact, I am going to predict not a, not a draft pick, but I'm going to predict

that because they've got this whole private cloud compute thing that they're doing that for a little while here, you're going to be able to do everything that does Apple intelligence on all the devices that are compatible with it, because what they'll probably do is start having things. The way compatibility will work is there'll be some devices that are really fast that can execute on device. And then there are other devices that aren't capable and it'll execute in the cloud. And so the differentiation won't be, you can't do it. It'll be, it's slower because we have to go to the cloud. So I think that's my guess about how they're viewing Apple intelligence is it's a brand. If you're in, you're in. We're not going to tell you that Apple intelligence for some, but not for others. It's like you're in or you're out

with Apple intelligence. That's my guess about how they'll do it. Yeah. I think a lot of the like M1, M2 devices, the Macs and iPads, they're probably going to be relying on the cloud a little bit more than some of the more modern devices because they are also pretty much always connected, right? Because they're usually at home, those devices. Right. Although I would say a lot of those devices

are way more powerful than iPhones. So I don't know. The M1 Macs? Surely. Yeah. I mean, the M1 Macs are pretty good, but you're right. That's going to be one of the, it depends on the memory too. We'll see. We M1 Macs? Surely. Yeah. I mean, the M1 Macs are pretty good, but you're right. That's going to be one of the,

depends on the memory too. We'll see. We'll see how they handle it. They will just have the opportunity to offload that stuff more if they want to. Maybe. I don't know. Maybe.

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at factormeals.com slash upgrade50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month while your subscription is active. Our thanks to Factor for the support of this show and Relay. Let's do some Apple Watch picks. Oh boy. Apple Watch picks. This is tough. This is tough.

I'm going to, I think it starts easy though. I'm going to say Apple Watch gets a bigger screen. All right. Bigger screen. There are a lot of rumors out there that says it's just going to get bigger. It's going to get bigger. That's a thing they want to do. It's going to get bigger. I don't entirely understand

these watches getting bigger, but if we want to be specific and Apple Watch gets a larger screen, I don't know if it'll necessarily be all models. Ultra's not going to get bigger, probably. We're not playing the Rikis here. They're going to get bigger. That's right're not playing the rickies here you know they're going to get bigger it's fine that's right again gentlemen like um yes apple watch gets larger screen this is going to be interesting this one so my wife you know my wife

she loves her apple watch i know your wife yeah she's tiny she's tiny she's a very small person yes she's a very small person and she i think she cares more about upgrading her Apple Watch and her phone. She finds great value in it. And I just don't know what it's going to be like. Now, this is a pick that can come up, may come up. They are apparently going to be getting thinner. And I wonder if larger but thinner will still feel good in its own way, right?

That maybe it will balance out. I mean, you've bought some watches. I only have a small number of watches. I have my dad's Rolex and I have Apple watches and that's about it. But I was hearing Marco Arment talk about this a little bit on ATP. And he said that he thinks for most people the fear of size is a little overstated. Not only is the style more like that, but that when you actually think, oh, it's going to be huge, it's much larger. And then you see that the smaller model is a little bit bigger, but actually on the wrist, it's not that big a deal.

But it's all the details. Like you said, is it thinner? What's going on here to give it this new dimension? And is it unpleasant or not? But I think Adina will be a great test, right? Because she is a very small person and wants a small watch. I still believe that Casey Liss is not a small person and needs to get a bigger watch. But leave that aside.

He should, absolutely. But adina is a small person so i i can't wait to see what um yeah what she thinks of this because i the rumors out there of these size increases you and i have both been kind of baffled this is like who's asking for a much larger apple watch and and for the people who prefer the smaller watch like what is apple's apple does the market research we don't do that right apple seems to have some confidence if this rumor is true that people are going to like these watches that'll be an interesting thing to hear them pitch um so to agree with marco which i do like the fashion of watches is actually watches are bigger for for in in the small size and the big size you know like what will be considered small and big for

for people you know watch sizes tend to be bigger than apple watches the thing is that apple watches are so much thicker and like so that's why i think maybe if they made them thinner it would it would work maybe i'm just i'm really intrigued i mean it's fine for me i wear an apple ultra it doesn't bother me i like the big screen the thickness whatever like so i'm really intrigued to see what they do with that and how they message it and like what the what the reason is right like that's right like what why you know so's going to be really interesting. I'm going to make my first round pick to be a new watch face. I think it will go along with the fact that these watches are getting bigger, that they'll be like, we have this new watch face for you.

It's never a bad idea to pick a new watch face. Because they tend to do something that enables them to make a new face. This happens a lot if they make any kind of hardware change to the watches whether it's something inside or outside they have a new watch face that they that takes advantage of it like even when the screens went kind of like they got a bit bigger and went over the sides they had that watch face that like it was dripping over the side right like yeah they they do this kind of stuff a lot so i think if they i think that your first round pick

is actually my first round pick too. I think it's going to happen. And I think if they do do that, they will have a new watch face that goes along with it. Well, I'm playing to win. So I'm doubling down. Yep.

Apple watches are a new physical size. The screens are bigger. The watches are bigger. Which, well, they're not going to make them bigger without making the screens bigger, but they could make the screens bigger without making the watches bigger. I don't think they're going to do that, but they could do that. They could do that.

And also new physical size, if they just got thinner, that would actually count too. But we'll see. New size. New size Apple Watch. Okay. That's an interesting interpretation of those words. Physical size? Yeah. But I don't think that's's the case i think that they're going to get bigger i'm gonna i'm just putting all in on that weird rumor that they're bigger this year we'll see well all that weird rumor which is mostly

from mark german whose apple watch sources are terrible but you know apple watch picks are hard so there we go that's i that's what i'm doing all right so i'm basically my thing here is do i say do i double down on this and say they're going to get thinner or do i pick one of the other models just receiving any kind of update right that's the thing that i'm and like for me the se is the one that needs an update yes but i want to be Ultra is maybe the one they're most likely to update because they've done it twice. Yeah. And the Ultra, they're going to want to be up to date

with the new processor if they put one in, which I think they're due to do that. Maybe? Always hard to say with Apple Watch. I don't remember if they put a new processor in the last one. I think they did, didn't they? Because yeah, there were some features that are only on

the Ultra 2 because of the new processor. I'm basically like your therapist now. Right where I'm just going to turn all the questions back to you. I'm not going to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it. You've got to play to win. I'm basically like your therapist now where I'm just going to turn all the questions back to you I'm not going to go you've got a play to win I'm going to say that the I don't want to say that Apple Watch isn't going to get thinner

because it's a lot of we're quadrupling down on that point if there being a new watch so I'm going to say the Apple Watch SE is updated and what it's updated to we will leave as a mystery. That's a mystery for Monday. That's a classic Monday mystery.

But that's a good pick. I think it seems like it's the time. Now, we've been bitten by this before. Yep. But it seems like it's the time. That's a good, that's an exciting pick. I think Apple Watch Ultra is updated

would have been a more likely, but also super boring pick. Yeah. Because it seems like there'll probably be an Ultra 3. What will be new in it? I don't know. Something,

so that they can call it Ultra 3, but maybe not. Who knows? Yeah, I'm gonna, I do think they will do it, but they could skip it. They could. But I think the Apple Watch SE

most needs the update, so I'm going to stick with that. And our final round is other picks. Other. Oh, God. Other. Other. Other.

Other. This includes, like, we've got in here iPads, we've got Macs, we've got some stagecraft, which we have less of this time, because a lot of that was becoming too obvious, which is why I didn't include a lot of it. Rainbow stage? Yeah, probably going to be there. Yeah, I think at this point the rainbow stage has become obvious. You know, you can see it from the sky. Every time I fly into San Francisco airport, we go right past Apple Park. Oh, that's adorable.

And you can literally see the rainbow stage in the center of Apple Park. It's just right there. Yeah, it's great. New AirPods. That's my pick. New AirPods. A new AirPod model is unveiled, if you want to put it that way. Mm-hmm.

New AirPods. The way I intended this when I put this in, just for the sake, this replaces what's currently AirPods 2. That's what new, they are AirPods, right? Well, what I'm not saying is new AirPods Pro. I'm saying new AirPods. But what I'm also not picking is the item in our document, which is new entry-level AirPods,

because it's always dangerous to pick entry-level of anything with Apple, because new entry-level doesn't usually happen. Instead, it's old, becomes entry-level, right? But yeah, I'm thinking that's exactly right. Not new AirPods Pro, new AirPods. New lower-end models. So this would be AirPods fourth generation is what this product would be probably probably unless

they invent a new AirPods that goes in the middle somewhere but that's you know what we're thinking here that's this is what we're thinking is that they're going to make something with the the lower level of AirPods there's going to be change down there all right

I'm going to I'm going to adjust the pick then from what's written in the document. You can tell me if you like this, which is what I had previously said was new entry-level AirPods. I'm going to new AirPods to replace AirPods 2. That's what I'm talking about. Because at the moment,

you can go to Apple's website and buy new AirPods 2nd generation and AirPods 3rd generation. So that as a separate pick from new AirPods. Yeah. Okay. But this is what, so the way I had intended this when I wrote this in a document is if all they did

was replace the AirPods second generation, that's not your pick. Right? It's like I was trying to put these things in and mean how they are cool my my pick is basically there's new air there's they're going to be new airpods at the event right there'll be a new model of airpods at the event it's sort of how i was viewing it just the presence of a new airpods model of some sort at the event without any other details let's get rid of the entry-level pick then because okay i think we're talking across each other and it's

not going to be helpful i'm gonna say specific't pick it. I'm going to say specific iOS or iPadOS release day set. Yep. That's good. That was my other choice here. So they're going to say iOS comes out Friday. iOS comes out Thursday. iOS comes out next Tuesday, whatever it is. Yep.

I mean, the only question is always like, is that a specific thing that they need to say in the presentation or not? It's that stagecraft thing, right? Which is, do you mention it or does it just show up on the website later? I think that's always the question with release days. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. sometimes it does sometimes it doesn't sometimes it does sometimes it doesn't well i'm just going to counter you and say yeah you know what they've been doing the last uh last year and they're going to keep doing it is uh mac os 2 mac os will be part of that too oh really yeah wait did i do that in september not in the october event last year wow last year they dropped mac os the same time huh that'd be nice. Yeah, well, it's better than making Mac users

wait a month for the new features that are already for their emoji reactions or whatever. Yes. Yeah, that would be lovely. No, I think Mac OS is done.

I think they're both, they're all done. I think they're all going to ship simultaneously. That'd be great. I think. So I think that they'll say all of these OSs

are coming out next week or whatever. All right, I'm going back to airpods and i'm picking from my heart again uh-huh new airpods max yep they've got to do it if they're going to keep selling this product at some point they have to do this it still uses lightning and it doesn't have any of the airpods pro feature set now like the new feature set you can't do uh conversation detection it can't do the new gestures like the nodding and the shaking

that they're going to have it doesn't have adaptive transparency like at some point they need to do this otherwise stop selling it we're definitely in home pod territory with this thing right they have to update this product, and I'm hoping that it's going to be now. Because I am a fan of this product line for the very specific use cases I have, which is I'm on an airplane, and I love using my AirPods Max on an airplane.

A lot of the criticism of the AirPods Max is the price and some of the details around the sleep features and the case and the fact that it's old now but i will say people who have them seem to love them right i love mine yeah i think anyone that can get past the white which is a problem but if you can get past that it's a great set of headphones just great set of headphones and i really really want them to update this now so I'm hoping that they will along with my mention of the Emmy Awards earlier I'm going to say an Apple TV Plus trailer

or promo video is shown okay I'm just going to go with that that was my final pick I'm not super confident I'm glad to have sniped it from you but i'm not super confident i just feel feel like they want to boast why mike think of it this way why do they spend hundreds of millions of dollars on movies from auteur directors that nobody's going to see why do they spend hundreds of millions why do they spend $80 million before they shot a frame on the deals for Brad Pitt and

George Clooney for this Wolf's movie? That's just going to go to Apple TV plus. Why? If not to boast about it, why would you, why would you not like, this is why you were spending that money is in the iPhone event to take a moment to boast about all the amazing things you've got coming up this fall on Apple TV+. Why would you not do that? Let me tell you what I think we're going to get.

Okay. A trailer for the F1 movie. This is not my pick, but I think they'll do it. It could be. I feel like it's probably most likely going to be like a montage of what's amazing. Yeah, this will be pretty heavily featured in it, I think. That's coming up.

This is the most money they spent on the movie. But the Pitt and Clooney movie is coming soon, right? Sure, sure. So you throw that in there and you've got some other shows that are coming. Severance, Silo. Slow Horses. Slow Horses.

Which is that, the first episode of that dropped last week? When is Slow Horses? I think it's this week. Okay. I come from the future. I can reveal with, am I embargoed?

I don't know if I'm embargoed or not. Hold on. I've seen the first couple episodes of the new season of Slow Horses, and yeah, it's still great. I mean, I don't have any breaking news. It's still great. Hold on.

That's all I've got to say. Let me check. I think my embargo's in August, so I think the embargo is up for Slow Horses, even though it's still great that's all i got let me i think my embargo is in august so i think the embargo is up for slow horses even though it's not out yet um anyway it's good yeah still good there's no news there it's it's it's it's it's still good so i think that'll be probably what it is it's like a highlight of all the stars is the first episode the second episode's embargo is like okay well i can't tell you specifics about the second episode. Yeah.

But I can tell you that it's good. It's just still good. It's just still good. I can't wait. I have it all to watch too. Nice little perk we have there sometimes. Yeah. Every now and then.

Oh boy. There's a pick I almost mentioned. Or i almost did but i can't because it would just break my heart so i left it i don't know if that's where you want to go or not but there's one in here i'm like you know that's probably the case but i i can't be rooting for that on the day so i've got to leave it all right so here's where I am. Alright? I'm picking between new AirPods feature active noise cancellation, which is the Mark Gurman rumor. Yeah. I then have next to

each other, in case you picked one of them, Vision Pro mentioned or Vision Pro not mentioned? Indeed. And I was leaning toward not mentioned. Me too. But the thing is, the tricky thing about Vision Pro not mentioned. First off, Vision Pro not mentioned will hurt my heart, so I don't want to pick it. But, you is, the tricky thing about Vision Pro not mentioned. First off, Vision Pro not mentioned will hurt my heart. So I don't want to pick it. But, you know, they throw Vision Pro in almost as if there's somebody back there who's like, you got to mention the Vision Pro, right?

So I think it's a real almost 50-50 about like, does it get mentioned in passing? almost 50 50 about like does it get mentioned in passing it's not going to be a big thing but they may they may say they may even say oh and vision os2 are all coming out next week right they might do that because so they've done and i think they've done it a couple of times now and i think they're going to keep doing it maybe is like the vision pro has taken the spot of the like here's a store update like it's like the first thing they talk about it of the, like, here's a store update. Like it's like the first thing they talk about. Gotta mention it. We love Vision Pro and it's doing great.

And look how good this is. Yeah. I don't think they're going to do that. To save our hearts, my final pick is going to be Vision Pro Mentioned. Vision Pro Mentioned. Oh, we can root for it. I mean, I guess I'm sort of rooting against it,

but I'm not. I'm rooting for it. I want to root for it because i want them to talk about it i want them to do it and if they don't then i then then you don't get a point and that makes me happy too so i win either way i love it thank you for picking there is a conversation for later in the year yes trying to work out all the content yep in the fall of content. Because I think the issue that we're finding ourselves in is we are now in the alternate timeline. We swapped over. Right? Yeah.

We were on the spatial computing timeline. And now we're on the AI timeline. Now we're on the AI timeline. And I don't know what happens to the Vision Pro in the AI timeline. Yeah. happens to the Vision Pro in the AI timeline. The Vision Pro could have gotten all of the attention in the world when

Apple saw it as their next potential product area, but they now have another one, and another one that the rest of the world agrees on, where the rest of the world did not agree on AR VR, I think. I think other tech companies were agreeing,

because they were all trying to do the same thing like there was just a report the other day that meta have cancelled their expensive headset that they were working on now like they had a new expensive headset they're working on they cancelled it so i don't know we'll see yeah we'll see that's the. That's the draft. That's the draft. We did it. The draft is done. We did it. Next week, Apple Park. Yep. People will watch a video at Apple Park. Other people will watch the video elsewhere.

And then we will score it and break it all down. But that's, I can't believe it. We're here at the end of the Summer of Fun. Although I do have, I still have a Summer of Fun idea. Okay. That I may, you know, because in the Bay Area, September is summer. Okay. This is the best weather we get all year is in September.

So maybe there will be at some point a little leftover thing that I want to do from the Summer of Fun, but we'll go to it if the opportunity arises. So stay tuned for that one. Interesting. Okay. You too, Mike. Get ready. I look forward to finding out about it. Do you want to do some Ask Upgrade before we finish today?

I do. I do because I want to do some Ask Upgrade to round out the Summer of Fun. All right. So we have a selection of Ask Upgrades. Summer of Fun focused questions as our as our send off yes i'll do a rapid we'll do rapid fire this all right but i want to get through one of these many of these i want to get as many of these in as possible because people ask us questions summer themed and we should uh get to it let's see if we can do this caleb asks what

are your feelings about the neighborhood ice cream truck is the music creepy or is it just the trucks here in the midwest that are creepy do you have a favorite treat to get from the truck uh we very rarely have ice cream trucks in my neighborhood uh when they do it the the it's funny because the doppler shift means that the music kind of wavers as it's coming toward you or going away from you and it always seems kind of creepy because of that and sort of sad. But you know, the fact is when my, I grew up out in the country. So when,

when my kids were young and we heard the ice cream truck, uh, it was fun. It's fun. You go and get something. I don't have a favorite treat from the ice cream truck. Cause again, I have basically no experience with the ice cream truck because,

uh, I didn't grow up in a place that had them, you know, or we didn't have Halloween trick-or-treat. We didn't have any of the things that I have now living in the suburbs because I was out in the middle of nowhere. I don't know how the ice cream truck could be creepy, to be honest. The ice cream truck is ice cream.

When it's ice cream, creepy. It's not creepy. And I used to, when I was a kid, I used to love an ice lolly called a zap lolly. That was my favorite. Nice. Addy asks, do you or have you flown a kite? I got kites in my garage.

I haven't flown it in a while. But with the kids, we would go over to the park that's near here, and we flew the kites sometimes with them. But my real story here is when Lauren and I lived in Berkeley before we got married. So it's a long time ago now. It's 30 years ago now. We would take a kite and go to the subway on Shattuck and University Avenue and get sandwiches on a weekend day and then drive down to the Berkeley shore where there was a giant park with dogs and people flying kites. And there was always a breeze because it was across the bay from the Golden Gate Bridge and the Golden Gate like opening, right? And so there was always wind there and we would have our sandwiches and sit in the sun and fly kites. And it was great. That was a wonderful little time of my life that year that we lived together in Berkeley. So yes, love a kite i haven't flown one lately but uh they're great logan asks what is your go-to lawn chair do you have a preferred style or brand oh i really should have uh done a better job of this because i should have prepped for this i

think i actually use the wire cutter pick but it's it's very good um it is the coleman uh quad chair portable camping chair um which has like a little cooler pocket and it is kind of gross because it does it leaks and spiders get in there and stuff but the the coleman quad chair is uh that's my preferred under the tree working chair it's a chair, but it doesn't matter. It's great. You know what? When I saw that question, didn't think you'd have an answer for that.

I mean, I don't know why. Of course I do. But I wasn't expecting it. Yeah, it's very important. That's my summer workplace out there. So it's important to have a good one. But you have the IKEA thing, the Frozon. Yeah, but that's like a that's like a uh couch it's not really a lawn chair it's a couch i sit out on

the lawn in a camp chair under the under the the tree totally different context sure pat asks have you ever water skied or wakeboarded um the answer is have i complicated i have tried and i failed my balance is very bad i'm not a very good balance person and so when i was a kid we did have a boat you could do water skiing and we did water skiing and i tried it and i would just fall over i would just fall. I could not stay up on the water ski. And that was just a bad balance. That's the bottom line. So I've tried, but I failed. That's a shame.

Yeah. I've never done any of that. You ever water skied? No. I would, but I've never. Okay. Emmy asks, what was your favorite summer treat as a kid?

Oh, wow. Wow. Summer treat. I mean, we used to make, so I don't sound super dumb. I'm going to say we used to make popsicles out of just juice where we had a little plastic container and you put the juice in it and then you put the plastic things on top and you freeze it. And so you get like these really great juice popsicles. Those were great. Otter Pops, which are just popsicles in little plastic pouches.

Oh, I know those. In college, because once you're in college, you get permission to do all the things that your parents wouldn't let you do. But now you're in college, so you can do them. And in college one year, we bought a box of Otter Pops at Costco. So it was literally like 250 otter pops oh my god i i i still had those some of those otter pops survived for like years afterward where it's like oh still got some otter pops in here i mean they're frozen but those are great and then the other treat which is a dumb treat but i'm going to mention it

because it's the first thing that came to mind, is sun tea. I always loved, you put out a big jar of water with tea bags in it and it makes the sun bruise it and it makes tea and then you have iced tea. And that's a very summery thing for me. So, yeah. I loved slush puppies. The closest analog to this is Slurpee. Oh yeah, Slurpee is a great one. On a hot day, you get a Slurpee

and then you get the brain freeze. That is a treat. I never had Slurpees as a kid, so that's more of an adult summer treat for me, honestly. Lemon Lime Slurpees. And then when you grow up, you can have like Shave Ice instead. You know? The more the more adult

version of that sure benjamin asks his fellow bespectacle fellows uh what do you use to see when you go swimming at the beach or are you sighted enough to go without i bought some adjustment you know not like eye prescription but like with an adjustment on them, a set of goggles, swim goggles on Amazon. Because I was at one point standing in the water with my kids and a wave came and knocked my glasses off. And that was almost a very bad vacation, but Lauren found them in the sand and so it was saved. And so a couple of things. Now, I always travel with a backup set of glasses. And two, if I'm going to be going in the water, I put on the goggles because I can't see like super well, but I can see pretty well.

I can see where I'm going. I can see under the water. And even if I'm not going under the water, I can see when I'm in the water and they won't get washed off my head. So if you're going, consider that. Those exist. You can just go on Amazon even and get, you have to look at your prescription and then get the adjustment that's the closest and take your shot. My vision is okay enough that I don't need to worry about this. Nice. Taylor asks, when you're at the beach or pool or lake, what is your footwear of choice? Sandals, slides, water shoes?

What do you do? Great question. I just want to mention here that flip-flops, where you've got the little thing that you have to put between your toes, have always given me toe cramps. I hate those things. And I hate them. I hate them. So I have two answers here. I have some nice Te toe cramps. I hate those things. And I hate them. I hate them. So I have two answers here. I have some nice,

uh, Teva sandals. So, you know, you stick your foot in them and the thing goes over your foot and, and then you kind of velcro it on all that. And that's great. And then I actually do have a pair of swim shoes that I use if I'm going in

to a pool or into the, the, you know into the, the, you know, the, the water at the beach. Um, because I found that if I was hanging out with my kids in the pool and bouncing up and down on the bottom and all of that,

that, um, I rubbed my feet raw and would be, they would be painful and bloody afterward. So now I wear little water shoes when I'm in the water and they're great. Like neoprene with a little soul. And it means my feet don't get hurt. And that's nice.

But if I'm like just enjoying the beach and might get a little wet or whatever, the Teva sandals, they're great. I wear slides. All right. Because it doesn't cause me any pain. Jens asks what is your favorite cocktail and why is it less fancy than Mike's

it's less fancy than Mike's because I don't drink cocktails I don't really drink hard alcohol at all and so therefore I have no favorite my favorite cocktail is I mean by default what does that make it like a virgin something so no that's my answer sorry it's that sun tea from before.

What's your favorite cocktail? I'm a margarita man. I used to be a bourbon guy, but then I just, bourbon just doesn't make me feel good. And so I switched to tequila and margarita is my favorite. It's interesting,

bourbon doesn't make you feel good. You know what makes me feel good? Bustin'. Bustin'. Bustin'. Lindsay asks, did you ever go to summer camp? I did one time. I went to computer camp

in Solvang, California. Yep, I did. Learned more than I ever needed to know about Atari computers. I was an Apple, or was I an Apple II kid at that point? I might not have even been an Apple II kid. They didn't have the computers that I knew, but there were Atari computers there. And I learned some stuff, and it was the typical, absolutely typical, like right from the song story where I was incredibly, this was seventh grade, incredibly homesick at the beginning.

And by the end, I didn't want to leave. So yeah, one of those. You know, that's probably the way for a lot of those kinds of things, I imagine. Yeah. Oh yeah. That's how it goes. It's such a stereotype and it's absolutely the case that I was, here's the credit I'm going to give to summer camp. When I went off to college, I did not get horribly homesick because I went to summer camp and I worked through my feelings as a seventh grader. And so I was kind of over it and I was able to be more independent afterward. I knew that it was going to be fine. And that was a lesson learned at computer camp where I guess I also learned some things about writing like a text adventure or something i don't know it was it was a weird camp and finally uh michael asks the age-old off-arsed question on rare occasions jason has signed off after mike and you say goodbye jason snell with verbatim goodbye jason snell right so like i would say say goodbye jason snell and you say goodbye, Jason Snell. Right? So like I would say, say goodbye, Jason Snell.

And you say goodbye, Jason Snell. Sometimes. Exactly. Sometimes. Usually you just say goodbye, Mike, or goodbye or whatever. But sometimes you say goodbye, Jason Snell. It's true. What is it that makes you decide to do this? Whim.

There's no plan. It's a whim. You're feeling it. Sometimes it's a special episode and that makes you want to do it. I got feedback from somebody who said they can hear me pause as if I'm considering whether to say it or not.

That's true. I hear it too. And that is absolutely the case where I'm thinking not just about that, but if I have another kind of like different kind of sign off to do. But there's no rhyme or reason for it. It just sometimes it happens. I don't want to lean into it too much. By the way, for people who don't know, this is a classic old timey comedy bit. Burns and Allen. And if you remember George Burns, who was in a bunch of movies when he was a very, very old man. remember George Burns, who was in a bunch of movies when he was a very, very old man. Well, he was part of a comedy duo with his wife, Gracie. And Gracie Allen was the funny one. And George Burns was the straight man. And which is very funny to think of if you remember George Burns as a very old man with a cigar being God in Oh God, or know in the sunshine boys right i think he was in anyway um and their sign off was always say goodbye gracie goodbye gracie and so that's where it

comes from but it's yeah it's a whole time comedy bit and we have done it for probably 10 years now on the pan addicts as i say goodbye brad he says goodbye brad like that he just started doing it and that's just how it's been forever why not do it it's just a different thing but I don't want to do it every time

I want it to be like you can have it every now and then as a treat it's a treat it's a treat for all of us yeah like the summer was

if you would like to send in your feedback your follow up or your questions go to upgradefeedback.com we got so much feedback

about the icon tier list. We're going to have to just deal with it at a later time, right? Yeah, lots of people love the show. Lots of people had a lot of opinions. Lots of people had some interesting things to say, and I will hold them. We'll get to it at some point. I mean, there is that quiet week, right? There's the quiet

week when we know about the phones, but don't have the phones. Maybe we'll get to it then, but thank you to everybody that sends their feedback and their questions in every week at upgradefeedback.com. You can check out Jason at sixcolors.com and hear his podcasts

here on Relay and at theincomparable.com. You can hear my podcast here on Relay too and check out my work at cortexbrand.com. You can find us online. Jason is at jsnell.

I am at I'm Mike. I am Y-K-E. I forgot my own name there for a second. You can watch video clips of this show on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube where we are at Upgrade Relay. I'll give another shout out to Chip, our incredible

video editor who's put together some great graphics for the video version today. So hi if you're watching on YouTube and if you're not, go check it out because you can always see clips and full episodes there too. Thank you to our members who support us at Upgrade Plus. They get longer ad-free versions of the show each and every week. This time we're going to talk about some of the things that were in our list

that we did not pick. Thank you to our sponsors this week, the fine folks over at Factor and ExpressVPN. Please go to stjude.org slash relay and donate today and help us support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and their fight against childhood cancer. But most of all, thank you for listening. We'll be back next week after the iPhone event at some point. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell.

Goodbye, Gracie. Thank you.