Upgrade - 579: The 2025 September Event Draft

Episode Date: September 1, 2025

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Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 From Relay, this is Upgrade, episode 579 for September 1st, 2025. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, Seltrios, Claude, and Delete Me. My name is Mike Hurley, and I am joined by my draft competitor. Mr. Jason Snell. Hello, Jason Snell. Hello, Mike. The summer of fun is fading into the distance of one final sunset and instead out comes the marching band because it's draft time.
Starting point is 00:00:36 So we're recording this on U.S. Labor Day, right? And my understanding is Labor Day is actually the end of the summer. Is that correct? I would say notionally it is the end of the summer. In America, I think Memorial Day to Labor Day is seen as the summer. So that's great that we're actually recording this episode on the day in which summer has ended. Put your white pants away. everybody okay good news
Starting point is 00:01:01 can't wear you that linen suit anymore I guess not I have a snow talk question for you Jason Snow okay how is the summer of fun this one comes from me oh pretty good I mean do you mean my summer do you mean the upgrade summer of fun
Starting point is 00:01:16 whatever you want I'm happy I wish you know doing a lot of those fun topics it takes a lot I'm very happy that people liked the weird sounds of the summer thing that we did that was good because that was fun to put together. Yeah, it's nice. It's weird for me because this is the thing. It's weird for me because I'm sorry not to talk about the weather, but, you know, it's like we're having a heat wave
Starting point is 00:01:41 right now and like it's been really warm for the last couple of weeks. And this is our, we're just getting into the real good summer weather here the next month, which I know seems weird to people, but that's just how it is here. So for me, the summer continues. But, and also like the iPhone event is part of that process, and now the St. Jude campaign is part of that process. And there's a whole thing that goes on. So, but, you know, summer is, summer is nice. Summer is good. And I'm happy to, um, you know, went to a ball game, sat out in the sun. It was a hot day. We sweated and watched a baseball game. That's pretty summery. I like it. So yeah, it's been pretty good. How about you? How was your summer of fun? I would say the summer of fun content wise was
Starting point is 00:02:22 was good. I liked the special weird stuff that we did. It was one of those summers though where there was like a lot of news and a lot of it wasn't fun, you know? Yeah, that's true. That happens sometimes. We had one of the least fun segments we've ever done during this summer of fun. So that was something. But it happens. You know, it happens. This has happened before. Like, it just, sometimes it just goes that way. My summer feels like it didn't really exist because I have been in like baby mode for six months. You know what I mean? So it's like the days, the days are very similar. We were supposed to take a little vacation of it, because I helped my back, we didn't do that. Right. We did have, we went to a family of
Starting point is 00:03:02 barbecue over the weekend. That was nice. We'll make up for it next time around, you know? Good. Good, good, good, good. But now it's September. Indeed, it is September. There's no getting away from that. I, Jason, would like to pregame a little bit. We're doing the draft today. I want to do a bit of pregame analysis. A little tailgating going on here. I guess, yeah, I guess is we're doing a little tailgating. Casey has provided us with a TV with other drafts on it that we can watch while we sit here and roast some sausage.
Starting point is 00:03:33 We have like 20 iPods and they're playing all of the other prediction games across all the other time podcasts. I love it. Great. That's happening in the background while Casey is grilling some meat on a grill. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's grilling. So the iPhone event was announced as we expected it would be and it is going to be on September 9th. at the Steve Jobs Theater.
Starting point is 00:03:57 I just wanted to see, before we draft, like, what's your vibe about the iPhone event? I want to get a vibe check from you. Are you interested, excited, nonplussed about this year? How are you feeling? You know, here's what I'm excited about. I'm excited about new things. And I think the last few iPhone events
Starting point is 00:04:17 have been kind of iterations on old things. And, like, it's very important. And so it's important. So we cover it, but like it's not the same as covering something new and interesting. So whenever there's something new, that's what I kind of attach and get excited about. So if there are new AirPods, that's exciting. If there's Apple watches that do something new, which I'm not sure there will be, that would be exciting.
Starting point is 00:04:41 But that iPhone Air, which seems to be a real product, like a totally new take on the iPhone that looks like no iPhone before. And also the thought that this begins a cycle where, Apple every year for the next few years is going to have a weird and wild new iPhone, the likes of which hasn't been seen before. That is exciting to me. So I guess what I'm saying is the iPhone, and I don't know if you feel this way, but like one of the problems with the iPhone event is that it's so important, but it's also kind of a grind because it's vital, but I haven't, it's been a few years since I've had a genuinely exciting iPhone moment. I think that's true
Starting point is 00:05:18 of everybody. Like the iPhone's been kind of motoring along for a little while. And now we've gotten to the point where we may be entering another one of those sites. So I'm, you know, also it's, it's a signifier for me, and I think for you, like, this is also a high season for us in terms of everything we do. And so there's a little, I always have a little trepidation. I'm like, I'm at the top of the slide, right? Like the top of the roller coaster, that's how I feel today is that, is that we are about to go over to the other side and plunge downward. And then, you know, gravity takes over and, you know, you're going to be buffeted and there may be, you may get wet. Like, you know, you know, you know, you know,
Starting point is 00:05:54 There's some splashing that's going to go on. Yeah. And then, and that's just, that's September. So that's sort of how I feel. How do you feel? Yeah, I mean, I think I already mentioned this on connected, but we were texting over the weekend, I think it was, and you were saying, like, some of this kind of stuff, like, it's like, stress, you know, it's like a lot going on at this time.
Starting point is 00:06:14 Yeah. And my kind of feeling about this is like, you know this time is coming. And then it happens and you're like, oh, I thought I was ready, but like, I'm, actually not ready, because it is really, really busy. And like, but it's, it's, it's, some of it is busyness that we, that is, that is happening and some of it is business that we are creating. But like that, of course, there is a reason for that is is because this is the high season. This is, this is it. This is the big time. This is the annual release of the most, arguably the most important consumer products in the world. And we just
Starting point is 00:06:45 so happen to cover it every year, you know, like it. That's right. This is, this is just what happens. And so, like, it becomes pretty intense. I agree. that it's always a lot of work and the amount of work doesn't particularly change but it's always way easier and more fun when we are given good things to talk about and I am so excited for next week
Starting point is 00:07:09 because it's new stuff like the as you said the air but also like just the general look of the iPhone it's about to change potentially quite significantly what does that bring like there's going to be fallout from that which will be interesting to talk about. I mean, if they do new cases,
Starting point is 00:07:27 last time, we've got a bunch of content out of just cases. There is the potential for a pretty good season, like a good fall. There is excitement with all of the, you know, I mean, one of the reasons that my enthusiasm is a little muted
Starting point is 00:07:44 is just because it is also the OS releases, which means I got a text from Federico over the weekend and part of it was just like, you know, here we go. review time right like so that's in there too uh we've got our fundraising stuff that we're doing there's just a lot of work happening and all happens at once and it has to happen at once and but you're right the after a long summer of chewing on w wdc announcements and betas it is nice to be tossed something fresh which is new actual new products that do new things uh and we can talk about
Starting point is 00:08:21 them in detail and that that what a look I think I think we do our best stuff when there's new stuff to talk about I mean I know that seems obvious but what I'm saying is I don't look we do a good job parsing the rumors in the rumor round up we do but I feel like if I could if every episode was about something new that came out that would be our best life right yeah like that would be peak us and it can't be that way right this is just like how people complain like i almost did there about like well you know apple this year the iphone's kind of like last year it's like you can't do a brand new revolutionary product every year right like it's impossible it's impossible i wrote a piece in mac world about tim cook's uh uh whatever it is anniversary of
Starting point is 00:09:11 being named CEO and um and one of the criticisms is you know when step back when steve was here And it's like, it's just not true. Back when Steve was here, they were not doing a brand new revolutionary product every year. That was not possible, but people don't care. They just want to be entertained.
Starting point is 00:09:27 And so, like, sure, you know, that is true, but at the same time, you can't get, you can't get away from the fact that there are ones that are, years that are new feeling
Starting point is 00:09:37 and years that are kind of slightly nuanced, new feeling. And when there's pure, fresh new stuff, that's the most exciting thing. And if, but similarly, though,
Starting point is 00:09:48 an absolutely brand new iPhone in the aggregate will get less exciting I suppose you would just be used to the fact that that happens alright it's shaped like a star now yeah you know okay it's an oval all right it's only so much all right
Starting point is 00:10:02 this one floats fine great I'm excited I'm really excited we'll talk a little bit at the show about kind of what our plans are but I could just say we have no idea but there'll be an episode on Tuesday we have we have I'm just giving you the plans we don't know there will be an episode on Tuesday
Starting point is 00:10:17 We literally, when will it be? We don't know. How will it be? We don't know. Not sure. But there will be. Somehow. There will be.
Starting point is 00:10:24 Somewhere. Yep. Before we get into the draft, I would like to take a moment to talk about our campaign supporting St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. It is September. September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. And it is an opportunity for us to come together in the fight against childhood cancer. And for the seventh year in a row, the relay community is rallying to support St. Jude. because together we can make a big impact.
Starting point is 00:10:51 And we have. We've made a huge impact together in the last seven years. The relay community has raised over $4 million for supporting the life-saving work of St. Jude and supporting the kids of St. Jude. We have fundraising gold to $700,000 this year, which seems massive. But last year, we raised a million. So, like, this is what we do, gang, and we're at $30,000 raised so far. Can I – I just want to tell you a little data point. It was Child Cancer, Childhood Cancer Awareness Day at the ballpark yesterday, which is, it's really sweet.
Starting point is 00:11:23 They put up all the photos of the ballplayers are replaced by drawings by cancer patients of the ballplayers. Love it. It's adorable. I just want to say this in a positive way about everybody involved, because that's what this is about. But I will say, the Giants President of Baseball Operations, who's their former catcher, future Hall of Famer, three-time world champion Buster Posey, his foundation is to stop childhood. pediatric cancer. He is in this fight with us. He's working with UC San Francisco instead of St. Jude. Kind of makes sense being a San Francisco icon to work with UCSF. It's right next to the ballpark, and they have a lot of people doing great work down there. I just want to point out,
Starting point is 00:12:00 a future Hall of Famer beloved by the city of San Francisco in a place that it's got millions of people coming to that ballpark every year. His foundation has earned $6 million. dollars. The nerds who listen to Relay and Associated have raised $4 million. I'm going to say that that is we are Hall of Famers is what I'm saying. We are Hall of Famers. That is like, and again, they've raised more money than us and it's all very impressive and I love that they're doing that. But I'm just saying, I had that moment of realization where I was like, you know, all the power and fame of Buster Posey and the giants behind this whole thing. And Relay's like.
Starting point is 00:12:41 in the ballpark, with them. And that is down to our community and the power of our community. That we could even be, I was like, well, if Relay raised 4 million,
Starting point is 00:12:52 what's the number going to be for Buster Posey? It's going to be 15 million. It's going to be 25 million. And again, I don't know. Six million is a great number. But the fact that it's not
Starting point is 00:13:01 an order of magnitude greater than Relay, I think just shows you that, again, we are all Hall of Famers. That's what I'm saying. We have a very generous audience. I mean, I get,
Starting point is 00:13:11 I'm often struck by this, you know, like I see creators who have much, much larger audiences than us doing all kinds of charity fundraisers. And I'm always surprised at how close we tend to be to them. And it is because of the generosity. And I think it's, you know, it's for many reasons. Like, this message resonates with our audience, right? Because one of us was involved in this, right? So, like, part of it is we're closing ranks with, with Stephen Hack and his family. And people understand that.
Starting point is 00:13:40 And they get to see, and because we have such a close relationship with St. Jude, people get to see kind of like as close as possible the work that is done. So I want to give you some stats. We love stats around here. Did you know that an estimated 400,000 children around the world get cancer every year? In many countries, four out of five children who develop cancer will not survive. And this is largely due to a lack of access to quality care. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and all of us that really find that unacceptable.
Starting point is 00:14:09 because curing childhood cancer is a tremendous undertaking, so St. Jude needs our help. The generosity of donors everywhere supports cutting-edge research that saves lives and ensures that families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing, or food. Every child deserves a chance to live their best life and celebrate every moment. And when you support St. Jude, you can help make cures possible for kids of cancer, because together we can save more lives. And it is worldwide, right? So St. Jude is, you know, St. Jude's Research Hospital is located in Memphis and they treat
Starting point is 00:14:41 children there. But the efforts that they do in the treatment, they learn and they share that access, the access to knowledge worldwide. They are sharing drugs worldwide now to help cancer children. This is something you're going to hear us talk a lot more about over the month. And I just think it's incredible. But it really requires help from everyone. we are inviting the relay community to continue the incredible generosity that you've shown in the last seven years to once again make a donation to support the life-saving mission of St. Jude. Donors who make an individual gift of $60 or more will be eligible to redeem a digital bundle of campaign-themed warpapers, which, as always are incredible.
Starting point is 00:15:25 Amazing. And as well as a wonderful screensaver to, donors who make a gift of $100 or more can redeem a 2025 sticker pack, which features six all-new host stickers. including Jason. If you want a Jason Snell Snicker, that's the way to get it. Please go to St.Jord.
Starting point is 00:15:41 A snicker? Snicker. Snicker. I thought I got on away with that one. I really thought it's like a hi. He didn't hear me, but no, he did. Please go to St.Ju.org slash relay
Starting point is 00:15:52 where you can make a donation today. Check to see if your employer will match your gift by clicking the blue search employer donation button on the donation summary page. I'm going to give you some other stuff. If you know what a, what is it called
Starting point is 00:16:07 I don't know what it's called a donor advised fund if that means something to you yes we don't understand this donor advised funds if this means something to you go to st jude dot org slash relay
Starting point is 00:16:20 if you don't know what it means this is a way that people who have large sums of money can make large donations it's essentially what it is so if you have one of those we would like that money to give to the kids to st jude
Starting point is 00:16:33 so go to st jute Doorg slash really, where you'll learn more. And also, we're going to invite you to continue the incredible generosity that you've all shown us by becoming a community fundraiser of your own. So you can set up your own fundraiser for the overall community. It all goes into our total. And there are some incredible incentives available for different amounts raised, starting at just a dollar. And this can be you sign up and then you can go to the people in your life at your workplace, your friends, your family, your school. You can get them to donate to your campaign, which goes into our campaign.
Starting point is 00:17:04 get and you can redeem some incredible incentives if you fundraise that way. There's so much to learn. Of course, this is the beginning of the month, so we're going to tell you so much more throughout the month, include details of the podcastathon. But for now, go to st.jude.org slash relay. Help give them more tomorrows. Go to st.jude.org slash relay to donate or start your own fundraiser today. You know, I love it when the tagline gives me chills. And that one gave me chills because just get those kids more tomorrow's. That's where you're going to go. But that's enough of that. Let's get into some true competition. It's time to talk about the rules of the draft. Oh boy. There will be 10 rounds in today's game that is 20 overall picks. The draft will be split
Starting point is 00:17:52 into four categories. We have four iPhone picks, two Apple Watch picks, two other picks, and the first time we're doing two wild card picks where we can just pick anything from any category that we like. Right. The winner of the previous draft will get the first pick, that is me. The items that we will be drafting are chosen from a pre-determined list of choices that Jason and I have worked on together over the last few days. We have agreed that they could be verifiable on screen and not ridiculously obvious.
Starting point is 00:18:23 For an item to count, it must be clearly announced on stage or on a slide during the presentation. We will defer to Stephen Hackett for adjudication in case of a stalemate. there are no partial points awarded the points awarded on the episode are final and finalized during the scoring segment in the case of a tie there's a tie breaker question
Starting point is 00:18:46 the loser gets the pick of the tiebreaker question and the current winner has to choose the tends to be an over or under or who knows whatever Jason might pick the winner will then become draft champion and display the champion's pennant the loser becomes the draft challenger
Starting point is 00:19:02 and displays the challenger pennant You can find an interactive scorecard at Upgrade.Card. Thank you to our friend Zoe Knox. Friend of the show, Zoe Knox, pointing together the scorecards. You can buy your own draft tea. I'm wearing one today, but also hoodies, all kinds of stuff over at Upgrade Your Wardrobe.com. We have a selection of merchandise that you can buy all year round. The draft merch is a part of that.
Starting point is 00:19:28 The 2025 results so far, we've had two drafts this year. We had the paternity draft, which I won, and WWC, which I won. Continuing my winning streak. You know, there are young people out there listening to this who just think the Mike always wins the drafts. Children.
Starting point is 00:19:45 Children think Mike is always the winner. Here's the thing. I'm the Washington Generals of the drafts. It's reminding me I went and counted stuff. So in our September event, we've had nine, there nine September drafts over the course of upgrade history. You have won
Starting point is 00:20:00 six of those and I have won three. I won my three in a row. row. You won your six in a row. Yeah. So the draft. I know, streaky. It's a big, it's a big time when the, when the, when the, when the draft changes. It makes me wonder if having the first pick is really actually much more important than we think. Yeah. I mean, that's what everybody tells us, but I'm not so sure. I know what. I'm not so sure. Who could change the rules? I think I'm just drafting bad. I think that's what, I think that's what it is. Who could change the rules, you know? It can't be done. It can't be done. But we know that it can change hands, but we know that it can change hands, because it has. So it's possible. Yes. It's possible. It's possible. What's the tiebreaker? Tiebreaker is length of the video. Okay. Last year, the video was 90. Thank you to friend of the show again, Zoe, for this. She got us to the numbers at a last minute request. Oh, amazing. Because I was about to do some furious Googling.
Starting point is 00:20:56 It was 98 minutes and 50 seconds last year. It was 82.56 the previous year. It was 94.50. the previous year and then there were some short ones in 2020 and 2020 why was last year so long I don't know what happened it's all just a blur to me now
Starting point is 00:21:16 Apple Intelligence 22 was big too yeah I'm sure that was a reason for that I just not sure why like what happened yeah anyway so I'm going to pick the over under and I'm going to set the over under I was going to do straight up 90
Starting point is 00:21:35 but given the air I'm going to set it at 94 minutes and you can go over or under so we had iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max Apple Watch Series 10 Ultra 2 Airports 4 Ultra 2 again
Starting point is 00:21:53 I know and then I get like camera control and I guess some I'm just surprised like it just didn't I'm surprised looking at that list maybe they showed like a cartoon in the middle, I don't know, a trailer for severance. For me, 94 minutes,
Starting point is 00:22:09 if last year was an hour and 38, I feel like a new iPhone, like a new iPhone, that they're, I know, it's not just a little one, it's not just a big one, you know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:22:20 Like the mini and the plus, it's like, what about current iPhone, but different size? This is a brand new iPhone. It makes it feel like this isn't over. I feel like it's got to be around the same time.
Starting point is 00:22:33 last year, but we'll find out. So I'm going to go over 94 minutes. All right. Sounds good. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. The all-in-one website platform that is designed to help you stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just getting started or scaling your business, Squarespace will give you everything you need to claim your domain, showcase your offerings of a professional website, grow your brand,
Starting point is 00:22:58 and get paid all in one place. Squarespace makes it incredibly easy to get. started and to build a website that you have in your brain, but you just don't know how to create. This is the situation that I have been in so many times over the last 15 years. I just don't know how to go about making a website from scratch. I just don't know. But I know what I want it to look like. And this is what Squarespace makes so easy. They have these incredible tools to help you build your website. And they have a bunch of ways you can do it. Like you can use Blueprint AI, which is their AI enhanced website builder to let you quickly and easily build a site
Starting point is 00:23:32 that is bespoke to your business, you just input some basic information about your industry and goals, or you can choose from their template galleries that they have. They've all broken down into the types of websites or businesses you might want to create a website for. They're all professionally designed, award-winning templates. It's incredible. However you start, you're going to have beautiful design options, no experience required. And you can do so much with a Squarespace website. You can set up a store. You can set up all kinds of business like needs and requests can be fulfilled. like for example, consultations to events to experiences, you can showcase your offerings of a customizable website
Starting point is 00:24:08 that is designed to attract clients and grow your business. You can do built-in appointment scheduling, email marketing tools, and so much more. You can keep everything cohesive of on-brand invoices and get paid easily of online payments. Don't just take my word for it. Go to Squarespace.com slash upgrade. You can sign up for a free trial there.
Starting point is 00:24:26 And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code upgrade. You'll save 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain. That is Squarespace.com slash upgrade with the offer code upgrade to get 10% of your first purchase and show your support for the show. Our thanks to Squarespace for their support of this show and all of Relay. Okay, Mike, before we get started? Yeah. I was kind of assuming we would do this like our other drafts where you could pick in any order as long as you got four iPhone, two watch, two other and two from any category. In the document it's set that it's, we're going to pick four iPhones and two watches and two other, or,
Starting point is 00:25:01 right and then two wild cards what do you think well my my thought is that the wild card picks would be at the end and so like you can pick up anything so what were you thinking about like that you could just pick randomly
Starting point is 00:25:13 I was thinking of that maybe we'll talk about it for next time I really like the strategy where you can pick from any category at any time as long as you fulfill those basic oh like the WWDC draft yeah we could do that
Starting point is 00:25:25 I mean I have not at all prepared that for myself that way but we can do that If you want to do that, I'm up for it. I haven't prepared that either, but... Maybe we should do that from the next time. Okay. But I like that.
Starting point is 00:25:39 I do like that. If we're picking categorized, I like the extra level of strategy of having to pick from, you know, choosing which ones seem lighter and which ones seem heavier and all of that. Okay. But we could do that. I didn't specify that. Yeah, we can do that. I do think, though, we're just in it now.
Starting point is 00:25:55 We're just talking about the draft now. I think the problem with the iPhone event, and maybe this is, similar to WWC in some way. Is she just going to so heavily front load iPhone? Yeah, I know. You know? It's true. So I wouldn't be surprised if like if we did that like here you go, just pick them in any order. I'd probably pick like
Starting point is 00:26:14 three iPhone picks. So here's what I would say though about that. The counter would be if I think that there are some certainties later on I might pick them first. If like if I'm looking at other and I think wow, there's only two other that I even think are going to happen, I might want to grab those, which forces you to take
Starting point is 00:26:37 others that I don't think are going to happen. In exchange, though, you would be picking from the iPhone. It's an interesting strategy question, and I kind of like it because it's a little more strategic. I will say, one of the reasons we do this draft is because it's a vehicle for us to talk about what's going to happen at the Apple event. And if it's all mixed up, it's less good of a vehicle. That's true. That is true. So we're going to start with the iPhone picks. Let's start with the iPhone picks then. Sometimes, like, I was actually talking to Stephen about this today. Sometimes it is worth remembering that, like, we do this as a way to talk about what is going to happen, not just as, like, what is the best game?
Starting point is 00:27:15 Is it just a way for us to talk about predictions in a way that is more fun? Yeah, this is the reason that the draft scoring is not a bigger event the week after, like, the day of the iPhone event when we do it, or any other. event because we're not there to talk about the draft scoring we're there to talk about what happened right like and and using that's why we don't use the scoring to be a a way to talk about that like no because the it's just a it's a frame it's a fun game but it's like a frame for a discussion and I think the discussion is maybe better uh if we lock it in this way so we're going to do iPhone picks is what I'm I'm saying love it all right so my first round pick
Starting point is 00:27:57 I'm already I'm looking at my list here and I'm already second guess on myself but I think I'm going to do it because all right so there's been a bunch of different
Starting point is 00:28:08 like visual designs of what this iPhone might look like and some of the case kind of leaks will call them look one way and some look another but I'm going to kind of lock in something that I do think's going to happen which is iPhone pro models
Starting point is 00:28:23 feature aluminium on the back not just glass Okay. So for a long time... Currently it's just glass back there? Yeah. Currently it's all glass front and back, right? And early on and at some different points through the kind of like the quote-unquote case leaks,
Starting point is 00:28:42 there has been this design which is there is like a rectangle of glass which is kind of like the size and shape of the wallet, the MagSafe wallet, that is on the back of the phone. And the rest of the back is aluminium. Now, why would they do this? No idea. But I think they might, because it will look visually different and interesting. And I would actually personally quite like that.
Starting point is 00:29:06 Like, that would be along with a potential, maybe we'll talk about it at some point. Actually, I don't even know if we've actually got this as a pick because maybe it's just too obvious at this point. Like an edge-to-edge camera bar design, right, that we've seen time and time and time again. Yeah, it's not in there because it seems like it's certain, yeah. That will look different. But then why not just go the whole way, embrace it and do something different? and going back to aluminium on the back might do that. Plus, I'm sorry, one last thing.
Starting point is 00:29:29 The titanium was introduced as a way to reduce weight, right? If they are actually moving away from titanium and back to aluminium, it wouldn't be a good thing to make the phones heavier and I think replacing glass with aluminium in some form on the back
Starting point is 00:29:47 may help them keep the weight down. Yeah, that's a good point. I note just in case you missed it in the rules that I'll throw in here and we just alluded to it. If it's obvious, or we deem it obvious, we're not going to talk about it. Because what we don't want, while we want this to be a frame for what's going to be announced, what we don't want it to be is boring of, you know, list of things that are fundamental,
Starting point is 00:30:13 like that there is an iPhone air coming and that there's going to be a bar on the back because everybody, like, that's already been determined. So we're going to get a little more esoteric than that. We make a bunch of, like, even within the pixels, they're just like a bunch of assumptions, right, like that is going on here. But I thought that this one, they'll look like it for a point,
Starting point is 00:30:33 it looked like this was a lock, but then it stopped, like all of the design leaks and stuff stopped looking like this, right? Like, and they just went to a single color and it's like, is it all aluminium? Is it all glass? No, I think it will be this like two-tone,
Starting point is 00:30:48 colory thing that's going on there. Okay. Okay. I am going to go with an esoteric pick that I think we've all kind of taken for granted and forgotten about, but it's been in rumor roundup for like two years now. I think you're going for my second round pick, which is the Apple, the Apple C modem that is in the 16E will appear in another phone, which is probably the air. But this is Mark German's reports about Apple's planned rollout gradually of its own modem in various iPhones. The idea that that C modem's next appearance will probably be in an iPhone air, but that we'll see the C1 probably in something else. Because for all of our talk about Apple's challenges in building their own modem,
Starting point is 00:31:37 the fact is there's basically not been an issue with the 16E. It is a very functional phone that works well, even though it's got Apple's chip in it. My mom's 16E lost its e-Sim the other day, leading to extreme stress on my part as I tried to solve her SIM problem remotely. Thank goodness. How does that happen? I don't know. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:32:06 Thank goodness. She was on Wi-Fi, and she FaceTimed me, and I got to use iPhone screen sharing. And through screen sharing, I opened her AT&T app. and asked them what to do. And they said, just go to this part of the AT&T app, which was hard to find and ask for a new ESIM for that device, which is sent wirelessly over the internet to the device,
Starting point is 00:32:30 at which point I pressed, you know, install. And without breaking the signal, the Wi-Fi connection, the screen sharing, bloop, the cellular network came back. Amazing. So that made me, after the fact, I was like, is that the C1 doing that, or is that something else going on? Probably something else going on. Anyway, but generally, the C1 has been a success in that we haven't heard about it,
Starting point is 00:32:54 and I think it's going in that new iPhone. So I'm going to pick the C modem in another iPhone. As we gradually roll toward Apple completely getting away from Qualcomm modems to build their own modems. And, you know, this could be any C modem. Like, they may use this as a chance to revision, to revise it, I should say, I don't, I don't know. Could be a CB radio, anything. Yeah, maybe it would be fine, but maybe if you wanted to replace one of the existing phones, you wouldn't just swap in the C modem, right? Like, maybe it's doing things that you would need it to do to replace that.
Starting point is 00:33:30 But if you built a phone from the ground up, maybe it would work better. This is just another phone. They could put the C modem in all the low-end phones if they wanted to. I wonder, like I do wonder, will it find its way to 17? I don't know. It's an open question, but I do think that that's going to. to happen. I'm a believer in that one, so I'll pick that one. My second round pick,
Starting point is 00:33:54 I feel like this is one of these things that does feel like a bit of a given, but I think that the reason that we're, well, you can tell me if you disagree with it, as I say it, maybe you missed it in the thing. My thinking on it is that it is a little hard to believe, even though I know it's, I feel very confident it's going to happen, which is that the iPhone air has a single camera on the back. I did not
Starting point is 00:34:18 So I thought this was enough I didn't exit out because I thought it is an open question It sounds like They're only going to have One camera back there But I
Starting point is 00:34:29 You know Could they have two? Would they do that? Maybe I'm fine with it I thought that was a In fact I was unsure enough to not put it high On my list
Starting point is 00:34:38 Because I'm really not sure I believe it But I mean it's an easy Easy decision for them To make in some ways But They've been building to this right for a while in the way that they build the calling 48 megapixel cameras multiple cameras
Starting point is 00:34:53 yes and so I feel like yeah they're going to be able to talk about this in a way that makes it seem like you're getting as much as everybody else gets even though you're not and like essentially it is a I wouldn't even be surprised if they call it like something like a two camera system in a single lens so some some nonsense like that yes which I feel like they've kind of leaned into that kind of talk. And it's, as we've spoken about on the show, there, there is credence to what they're talking about, right, about like the way that the pictures are taken and the quality of the image and da-da-da-da-da. And it's more than just a zoom, right? Like, it's more than just pinch and zoom of your fingers, right? Like, there is more
Starting point is 00:35:35 going on there. So I feel like they've been laying the groundwork to the point where they could introduce a premium device of a single camera and it be of benefit. I'm wondering, now, I want to go look at the specs page for the E and I'm not sure how they talk about that camera. I'm just, I'm intrigued about that now. But I think that, yeah, they call it a
Starting point is 00:35:58 two in one camera system with a 48 megapixel fusion. So a similar thing there. So it will be interesting to me to see how they talk about this camera in such a way to make it feel like it makes sense on your expensive
Starting point is 00:36:14 farm, right? And And also, it will be interesting to me to talk about, I don't know if they're going to talk about, it probably won't, but you never know, like the challenges of trying to put more than a single camera in a phone so incredibly thin. I don't know if they go negative on it, but I expect maybe some talk about that afterwards.
Starting point is 00:36:34 Well, it's not negative if it's Apple's amazing technology that was able to create such a high quality camera in such a thin space, that sort of thing. And maybe even talking about like our camera, camera technology has gotten so good, it has allowed us to be able to do this, that kind of thing. So, yeah, the iPhone Air has a single camera on the back is my second one thing. Definitely vibes of like the, it's a, it's a 24 megapixel, you know, 2x zoom. Or this camera, this phone's got a 24 megapixel, 3X zoom and a 48 megapixel wide camera.
Starting point is 00:37:11 Are you getting it yet? It's one camera, but it's two cameras. That's a very Apple thing. for them to do. Yeah, I mean, Apple call it optical zoom on the E. That's what they call it. Yeah, I think that replaying the E conversation, again, for the air is a thing to look for it. But yours is simple. One camera on the back. But very different phone, right? Like a $600 phone compared to a, I don't know, $800, 900 phone. Like, TBD, yeah. It's a different conversation. So it's going to be interesting to see how they talk about it. Well, you are, you are zooming in, focusing in on key features of iPhone hardware.
Starting point is 00:37:49 Meanwhile, I have picked a modem chip, and now I pick something even more exciting, a case. The Apple introduces a replacement for fine woven cases, a replacement, a new woven perhaps of some sort, but basically something new that's not silicone. Yep. That is a new case design, you know, material. And we think this is going to be that tech woven thing that's been out there. I think that there's a very good chance of that. But yeah, let's do it. Let's move to the next stage of weird case discourse.
Starting point is 00:38:26 What we're talking about is like something that sits above the silicon, right? So they have the silicon case in the lineup. This is something on top of that. You need another material. They tried it with fine woven because they dumped leather. Fine woven didn't work. and so they're back with another another material
Starting point is 00:38:42 so replacement for fine woven cases is another way of saying cases in a different material but we all know what it means. Yep. I'm going to double down on cases. Let's do it.
Starting point is 00:38:56 iPhone cases featured lanyard attachments. Lanyard! This is such a weird one to me. So Jason, I don't know if you've seen this people wearing their phones. Have you seen this? um like it's it's a trend that has been you know it's been growing in popularity over the last few years so you get these kind of like phone straps and you connect the you can so in a case
Starting point is 00:39:22 and you connect it through where the charging port is which i always feel must be annoying right so like it it tends to be that's where the connection point is this would potentially make that a lot easier for people if they want to kind of wear their phones in this way maybe it would be like a like a lanyard of a little attachment points on it or something. I don't know how this is going to work. Like, you know, that wouldn't come off so easily. Maybe you just take the case off. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:39:47 But if I was Apple and I was seeing people doing that kind of stuff, I would say, well, I would like a piece of that action. And I've said this, it is a pick in the draft, but I don't think I'm not going to pick it. I think there is going to be charms. I think, I don't know if Apple will make them, but I think charms on an iPhone will become a big thing. If you can just, all the iPhone cases have these attachment points in them,
Starting point is 00:40:10 you just put little charms on them. Right. It becomes one of those things where Apple makes that available as a lanyard attachment, but people will do with it as they want. Yeah. Which is typical. Okay, I guess my hesitation here is if they talk about it or not, right? Like, they got to talk about it or show it on a slide.
Starting point is 00:40:29 Will they get into the lanyard on a case or not? They might not. But they might be visible. Oh, and it's got a fun landyard detachment now. Yeah, I could see them just glossing by it, but this might be a thing where they show the case and you're like, there it is. Right? Like you can see that there's two holes in the corner of that case. It could be. It could be. Okay, that's a good pick. They might, now you're saying, they might not talk about the cases at all, right? Like they might exist, but they might not talk about them. We'll have to wait and see. That's, that's right. It's not what you think. All right. I'm going to go with a, pivoting from modems and cases to measurement I am going to pick
Starting point is 00:41:15 that the iPhone Air is the thinnest iPhone ever but not as thin as the iPad Pro. Oh, interesting. Okay, so you're, what we're beating here, so the number to beat is,
Starting point is 00:41:31 I think, 5.1 millimeters on the iPad Pro M4. It's actually the thinnest product Apple has ever made thinner than any iPod, which is an unbelievable thing to imagine that the iPad Pro is thinner than the iPod Nano, but it is.
Starting point is 00:41:49 So that is an important number to be, I think, because I can imagine they probably would have wanted this to be the thinnest thing yet, but yeah, we'll find out. Yeah, I just don't think, I don't think they can but we'll see. It is the advantage the iPad Pro has is they've got the volume to put the battery
Starting point is 00:42:05 spread across, all that stuff spread across that huge area. There are a bunch of reports about this. It's unclear. It sounds like this is more like a five and a half millimeter thin product, in which case it doesn't meet the iPad Pro, but it does allow them to say it's the thinnest iPhone ever, and that's what I think they're going to claim. We should find out what the thinnest iPhone ever is.
Starting point is 00:42:28 Okay. That would be helpful, I think. Well, that's our research staff on that. It'd probably be good to know that in advance, but we can work that out. that data exists. Yeah. All right, my final pick in the traditional iPhone round. So all of these phones, we are assuming,
Starting point is 00:42:48 they have like this bar that's going across the back where the cameras live, right? Yeah. Why are they doing this? Unsure, right now, honestly, like, unsure. Especially, say, on the air, right? Like, what's going on? there, there's one camera. If it's going to be one camera, then what is going on up there?
Starting point is 00:43:11 So I figure, I would assume that it is, that there is technical reasons for doing it, and there are state reasons for doing it, and there are also future-proofing reasons for doing it. Like, this kind of new design style will make benefits in other ways. It will stop phone wobble, but I really don't think that's the thing that anybody cares about, in the sense of then Apple changing the way the iPhone looks. It will give it a new look. It will replicate what I think is the best part of the pixel phones. Is that look like that, you know, that that is a good look, I think. It's a nice way of doing the camera thing about the lump.
Starting point is 00:43:50 But like why, if Apple have done this, what could their engineering team benefit from? And so I'm going to say that the iPhone Pro Max has an increased zoom on the Tetraprism lens. Because if you have all that space up there, why not do something with it and it's going to be such a large area on the Pro Max give me something
Starting point is 00:44:13 okay I think that's good that was probably my next pick or at least it was one of the potentials I think that's good
Starting point is 00:44:23 who knows right yeah like I don't know if we've gotten clear rumors about that but that was one of the vague rumors last time too was they're doing something up there with the Zoom
Starting point is 00:44:32 and it turned out to not be what we thought it was not a periscope but it was this tetraprism thing instead. I think that's an interesting I think that's interesting,
Starting point is 00:44:44 very interesting. All right. Wow. I am left really wondering here what I'm going to do. Huh. Huh.
Starting point is 00:44:57 There are a lot of okay choices here, but not a lot that I love. I'm thinking about I'm just going to go with I don't love this one but I'm going to pick it
Starting point is 00:45:14 and I'm not going to tell you what I'm thinking about because we have miscellaneous later so I'm going to go with a thing that I had you explained to me so that we could talk about whether it was okay or not
Starting point is 00:45:26 which is the Apple logo on the iPhone is shifted and the idea here is the sensor bar this is the rumors there's a much debate about this the the apple logo is basically going to be shifted down to be centered in the space between the bar and the bottom of the phone instead of having the apple logo up by the bar which is where it would be if it was centered on the phone right
Starting point is 00:45:52 yes so you've got you're kind of going to like visual centering and actual centering like the logo is currently actually centered on the phone, but if you have this new kind of plane, which is created by the fact that you have like a, like a heading on the top of the phone, that you may actually want to center the Apple logo in the new pane, especially if we go back to my first pick, that new pain is a different material. Yeah. So like it would look super weird if the Apple logo sat at the top of a rectangle of glass rather than in the middle of that rectangle of glass.
Starting point is 00:46:35 And this is on any iPhone. We'll just say for the sake of this pick. This is just on the iPhone to shift it. It could be on any of them. Because it might just be the pros that have that look. I'll tell you what. I don't think Apple will do. If every phone has a bar,
Starting point is 00:46:50 every phone will have the Apple logo in the same place. We'll see. You know, the 17 might not have a bar. well then it might not get it it wouldn't it wouldn't get the change then yeah I think the iPhone 17 is is not going to be like that I think it's going to be old style
Starting point is 00:47:10 and the the the least from the case rumors is the 17 still has on the top yeah the domino and then the pros in the airs have a have a bar have the bar yeah okay well that that's that's what the pick is right yeah so we'll say we'll say the Apple logo on an iPhone is shifted
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Starting point is 00:49:28 apps or click the link in the show notes. Can you guess the name of the independent developer who made this app? I bet you can. Our thanks to sell trios for their support of this show and Relay. We move on now to the Apple Watch Picks. We've got two of these. Yeah, we do. I'm actually going to go with a software focused one because there was a rumor of this a while ago
Starting point is 00:49:52 and I had a slightly different take on it, but I do think it's something that Apple will do and why not do it now? Apple introduces a feature that scores your sleep or vitals. So you'll wake up in the morning and they'll say, hey, here's your score. This is becoming a thing that is more or more prevalent. The rumor said sleep, I think it will be vitals,
Starting point is 00:50:12 but I'm not going to pigeonhole myself like that. But you'll wake up in the morning and they'll be like, you scored 90 out of 100, and you can either feel good or bad about yourself, I guess. But there is, I'm being a bit flip, but these things are interesting. Like, so I've been, you know, I wear a whip band, I've been wearing on for a while, and it gives me a score on my sleep. That is a good top line thing. And then I can dig into it if I want to. And I think this would be a bit of an improvement over the vitals feature. So the vitals feature is just like a chart of a bunch of up and downs. But all of that stuff, you can collect together to give someone an overall picture of their health while they were sleeping. And this is one of them. You know. Why would they save this since this is just a watchOS feature?
Starting point is 00:51:01 Because why not? This won't be available to developers to do anything with. Right, and they can bulk up the watch. I think we heard when we talked about this rumor that people said that this actually is pretty common in a lot of sleep. People who are like being studied for sleep because they've got a sleep problem that there is that this score out of 100 is a thing that happens and that it's a pretty common concept. And so, yeah, that totally happened. So Sleep Plus Plus has one as a recovery score on it. Oh, good.
Starting point is 00:51:29 Good to get a plug in there. Available wherever you get your apps. Well, you're marketing, you're doing one job inside another job. I admire your skills. I like a Matrushka. That's it, right? Matrushka. And if you want to write down my ideas, I could tell you about a great notebook.
Starting point is 00:51:46 Would you like one? Oh, dear. I've got one on my desk. Thank you so much. I don't write in it, but I aspire to write it. It doesn't matter. They're just beautiful desk. objects, you know. They are beautiful objects. I am going to go with a hardware feature,
Starting point is 00:52:00 which is after all of this time where iPhones have been able to do, when you think about it, crazy idea of communicating with a satellite. But you know what doesn't communicate with the satellite is the Apple Watch. And so I am going to predict that the Apple Watch Ultra 3 gains texting or at least communication via satellite, right? The It may just be limited, like, with the iPhone initially, to emergencies. I don't know. But the idea of sending messages via satellite communication, a thing previously only available on iPhones will be available on the Ultra Apple Watch.
Starting point is 00:52:38 This is the thing that I had totally forgotten, wasn't available on any Apple Watch. I know, right? You think about it, and you're just like the emergency satellite thing is such a logical thing. Especially on the Ultra, like especially. Maybe it's maybe not so much on the regular, but like on the emergency. Ultra especially, it should be there. I think, yeah, this makes a lot of sense. And for people who are like, well, why would you do this? Because wouldn't you have an iPhone and all that? It's like, well, first off, you don't know, maybe you lose your iPhone, maybe your iPhone dies, something like that, having it there. Also, you know, some people do go, the whole point of the Ultra is that it's got the long battery life and it's rugged and all these things about it. And also, it's on your wrist. What if you're out for a hike and you need to communicate an emergency and the phone is back where you were staying and you didn't bring it with? you or it's at camp and you fall down a review i mean there's so many different scenarios plus it's the ultra like this is a brand feature for the ultra if there's ever a product that should
Starting point is 00:53:36 have a satellite fall back it's the ultra so i'm going to say ultra gains communication via satellite now my question is going to be this is this a cellular feature or is this on all ultra models because that would be really interesting right the idea that if you, like I, so I go out for a run, I have a cellular Apple Watch, I go out for a run. I think the Ultra is only cellular. Oh, is it only cellular? Okay. I think they are, they only offer one.
Starting point is 00:54:06 But like even, even if you weren't on a cellular plan or whatever, it doesn't matter, right? The idea that you can go out with your Apple Watch, and regardless of your connectivity, you get emergency satellite. I feel like it should do that. Yeah. Yeah. And that includes, like, if you have a fall, I mean, as long as you can kind of like, hold it up, like satellite TV.
Starting point is 00:54:24 It's so useful if you have a fall, to be honest. Maybe, though. It's like if you just go 10 millimeters over there. If you fall and your wrist falls in the right direction, you might be saved. Anyway, it feels like a very ultra- Ultra Apple Watch feature, and so I think maybe this is the time. All right, my second and last pick in the defined watch round is, so last year, the series 10, the screens got bigger. The Apple Watch Ultra was unchanged except color. I think that this year, the Ultra 3 will get a bigger screen. I think they'll do what they did. Because the Ultra as well,
Starting point is 00:55:03 especially, like, it really comes in from the body. And I think they could expand that screen out a little bit to kind of more flatten out the edges of the body a little bit. So, because you've got that like lip that goes up. They could kind of stretch that out and get a bigger screen on that thing. Oh, very nice. Very nice. nice um well i'm gonna my google doc is getting very weird here mike i am going to pick that the ultra three gets a new chip okay that's that's my that's my that's my pick it is dancing around in our document and looks like it's uh lined out even though nobody's picked it yet but i'm going to pick it ultra three gets a new chip now that's s what is it is it s 10 is currently yes i don't know the idea
Starting point is 00:55:49 Ultra 2 was two years ago. Ultra 3, new chip from the Ultra 2. That's the pick, is that it will be an update. I think that that is a natural. Now, if you're saying, Jason, that's obvious. It's a new watch. It must be a new chip. It's like, oh, but Apple sometimes does a new watch without a new chip.
Starting point is 00:56:06 Because they don't turn that chip over as much, but I think that they're going to do it this time. I think the Ultra 3 is going to be a really, I mean, we made three Ultra 3 picks here. I think the Ultra is a really interesting product. I think it was weird that they updated it after one, year with some minor changes and then let it go with just a new color in year three. But having waited two years, I think that Ultra3 is going to be a blockbuster, at least
Starting point is 00:56:32 as much of a blockbuster as an Apple Watch can be. And honestly, the Series 10 was such a blockbuster last year. That was such a huge upgrade for the series models. And I bought one because I was like, oh, yeah, that now is the time I'm going to do that. I bought one in Tennessee, in fact. I remember. where there's oxygen sensor rules are the same in Tennessee
Starting point is 00:56:53 as California though I wasn't trying to sneak something past Massimo or anything that's just where we were when they came out so yeah I think this is Ultra3's year to shine no there'll probably be a series 11 but like it feels to me like Ultra 3 gets the spotlight this time all right
Starting point is 00:57:11 let's get into our other picks round which are many things to pick anything else I am going to go AirPods Pro 3 have a new design Have a new design What will that design be
Starting point is 00:57:26 Not scored But I'm curious Shaped differently Yeah I think there will be some accommodations Based on whatever it is They put in them And there are some things
Starting point is 00:57:37 That they're going to put in them And I think that that could change The design up a little bit I also think that Apple Like to with the AirPods kind of a little bit of a status symbol as well.
Starting point is 00:57:50 Differentiate them somehow. Giving them something where they look visually different to the two. If the little stem gets shorter or... Just a new design. Maybe the shape changes a little bit.
Starting point is 00:58:02 I don't know. This is going to be, it's going to be an interesting argument. I feel like they probably are going to need to say it's got a new design. Because if it's just like a bulgy white blob like the current ones are and it doesn't look that different.
Starting point is 00:58:14 But it's like, We can't do the, like, zoom in and be like, ah, but the bulge is slightly different. It's like, no, that's not it. You're saying new design. There are two ways that this can be scored. It's either if Apple says we have a new design, or it is so strikingly different that we can't argue with fact, right? That's, like, one to two, right? That was a big, it looked a lot different.
Starting point is 00:58:37 Like, they looked a lot different. It's true. We'll see if it happens again. That's true. If the case is redesigned, does that count? why not let's do it okay all right just i i'm excited by it i mean when you asked me if i was excited for this event the first product i listed was the AirPods pro three yeah yeah i hope they come i hope that that isn't like an october announcement this is the perfect announcement for
Starting point is 00:58:59 it and it's such i would be surprised if they have them this year even if they're shipping them later you would talk about it now yeah talk about during the iPhone event it's a natural pair and i hope they do it i really hope they do it yeah okay i'm going to go with AirPods Pro 3 include some health monitoring sensor or sensors of some sort. So basically this is what you alluded to.
Starting point is 00:59:23 They may have to redesign this just because they are adding a temperature sensor or something. But I feel like Apple wants to extend monitoring of your health to other devices that you wear. This is the logical one
Starting point is 00:59:39 for that. It would allow non-Apple watch people to actually have trends of at least one thing. Maybe two things. There could be a pulse monitor too. Who knows? So anyway, I think they will try. There's been a lot of buzz about this, but nothing
Starting point is 00:59:54 I think definitive. I think they will try to put some sort of sensor in it. I think it's going to be heart rate. I was thinking, this is going to be my next pick. I was thinking about this today. Those beats headphones have heart rate sensors in them. Yeah. That's a good sign. The beats fit. And say Apple built
Starting point is 01:00:10 all the hooks for that. to work. And so it would make sense to just bring that technology to the AirPods. Even if it's just another tick box, you know, like it's like, oh, they also do this. Well, if you are exercising with your iPhone and not an Apple
Starting point is 01:00:28 watch, it is going to get you heart rate monitoring. Right? That would be great for me, right? Because I'm not wearing an apple watch right now. And then I would get the heart rate monitoring during exercise because I'm always got my AirPods in when I'm doing that. So that I would actually quite like this feature. It's what's something that I'm personally eager for. Okay. I'm glad you were rooting for me to get a point. I'm going to pick something that you asked
Starting point is 01:00:52 to be put into the document today, so I'm surprised you didn't pick it already. Yeah. AirPods improved audio quality as a microphone is mentioned. Yes. Well, I just, I feel like I was going to pick that next. So you picked it. That's fair. So the story is there's an there's an operating system, I guess, firmware update that they announced WWDC
Starting point is 01:01:15 about AirPods sounding way better as microphones. That there's a high quality microphone mode or whatever and you could record a podcast with them. Don't do that, but you could.
Starting point is 01:01:27 And it struck me this morning that whether or not they improve the hardware and this is one of my suspicions is it's possible also that the AirPods Pro 3 has an improved microphone that works with this feature in a way that we maybe didn't anticipate
Starting point is 01:01:46 to make it even better that they might claim, you know, studio quality microphones in your ears or whatever it is. I could imagine them pairing this with the, like, just to again talk about the new recording features on the iPhone and on iPad, right? Yeah, exactly. It's like a natural point to bring that up again. And that's what we're saying, this pick is literally they will mention during the presentation that AirPods have improved audio quality as microphones, which is that you get
Starting point is 01:02:15 this if there's nothing specific about the AirPods Pro 3, but they're just touting that great feature that they already announced to WWDC about it, because what better time to say it again than an iPhone event? No, I think that's a good, I think that's a good choice. Okay, well, that was, I had a couple that I was thinking of, including that one. I'm oh oh huh so tough here I have two that I like about AirPods Pro 3 and I don't know which one I'm going to pick I'm going to I'm going to go with following on from what they did with the new AirPods 4 which is funny but they did it and so I think they're going to do it again So my pick is going to be AirPods Pro 3 have improved noise canceling that Apple will refer to with an impossible to measure X amount of improvement that they'll say it's 2X better.
Starting point is 01:03:25 And we'll all go, what does that mean? And they will not explain themselves, but that's what they're going to say. The idea of like, okay, well, they improved the noise canceling and they put noise cancelling into the AirPods. and it's been a while since they did AirPods Pro surely they've got something sensors algorithms sample rate whatever
Starting point is 01:03:43 that makes the AirPods Pro even better at noise cancelling and I think when they do it they won't be able to help themselves they'll announce I don't know if it'll even have an X but they'll refer to the amount of improvement right
Starting point is 01:03:58 in a way that we all look like how does that get measured so anyway yeah Apple's AirPods Pro 3 has improved noise canceling. Yeah. I mean, that's really, bottom line is, yes, they're going to boast about better noise cancelling in AirPods Pro 3.
Starting point is 01:04:14 That's the basic pick. Yeah. But I do really want them to say, 2x. We can all be like, all right, what does that mean? No, we measured it somehow. We measured noise, and then we found there was less of it. And like, okay, I mean, I'm sure there's a way they can do it. I just found that I always find
Starting point is 01:04:33 that such a bizarre thing. It's like, it's 3x better. I'm like, okay, sure. You bamboozled me. I'll take it. I'll accept it. It's better. I believe it. I believe you. This episode is brought to you by Claude from Anthropic. Claude is a next generation AI system built by Anthropic and trained to be safe, accurate, and secure to help you do your best work. Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop are good enough. It's the collaborator to actually understand your entire workflow and thinks with you. you, not for you. Whether you're debugging code at midnight or strategizing your next business move, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter. It doesn't just give you answers,
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Starting point is 01:06:34 their support of this show and all of Relay. So we move now into our wild card picks. Yeah. Where we can go back and pick from anything. Anything goes. I'm picking one that I think is a little weird. Okay. But I'm going to pick it anyway.
Starting point is 01:06:55 I mean, weird and just like I just don't know if people are really, really care or are thinking about it. And it also feeds into a bigger conversation of where, does the iPhone Air fit in the lineup? Like actually where is it going to go? Yep. That is the thing I am most interested about for next week.
Starting point is 01:07:14 Like, how much does it cost? What features does it have? Like, what type of device is this thing? So my pick is that the iPhone Air will have an always-on display. Ooh. That is a feature which is just in the
Starting point is 01:07:30 pro phones right now. But I think is something we could see here. as I am saying that I realized that that might be a terrible pick to have made because this thing may have a smaller battery so maybe you wouldn't want to have an always on display but But it's luxury it's nice
Starting point is 01:07:46 Yeah I mean The Apple watch has an always on display I know it's a smaller display It's a smaller battery too I mean this is the Yes the most fascinating thing that will come Out of this event is the iPhone air And the most fascinating thing about the iPhone air
Starting point is 01:08:01 Is going to be what tradeoffs they made Yeah right Right? Right. Because they clearly had a goal, which is to make it thin and light. What other goals, you know, what was sacrificed and what was prioritized in order to reach that goal? What do they define as thin and light? What is acceptable battery life? What is acceptable camera quality? What is acceptable display? And we haven't even touched on it, but like what is acceptable price for that product? Is that a, is that a, because the iPhone plus is 890? I want to say. Is that right? I think so. I'm going to find out for you. I think it's $799, $899, $999, and $11.99 for those four.
Starting point is 01:08:46 I feel like whenever we do these episodes, I should just keep the iPhone compare page. Compare page, I know. Because I have now been to the iPhone compare page, I think, like, four times during today's episode. 899. 899. So the question is, was that the target to fill the, the place? plus spot? Or is this a $999 or a $1099, right? Are they, does this become part of Apple's creep upward in price? Do you want, in fact, do you want
Starting point is 01:09:16 your generic iPhone pro buyer to not be able to say, oh, I'll save $100 and get the cool new phone? Do you want to prevent that? Or is it really not a superpower phone and $899 is fine? We don't know what Apple's thinking there. I might talk about this on another podcast later this week. I
Starting point is 01:09:41 think that the iPhone Air will be more expensive than the Pro. That's what I think is going to happen. Yeah, I mean, that's probably what I would say as well.
Starting point is 01:09:54 That the price-wise it will go 17 Pro Air Pro Max. That's what I think is going to happen. Which would be a choice. And, And with my next pick, I will choose that the iPhone Air is more expensive than the iPhone Pro-based price.
Starting point is 01:10:10 Okay. Yeah, I wasn't going to do that for the draft, but I appreciate it. But the same reason, I think, like, look, certainly it would be easy for them to put it at $899, or equivalent. We should say $8.99 unless they raise all the prices because of, you know what.
Starting point is 01:10:29 I could do that. I, again, I feel like this is going to be an aspirational product, and they're not going to want, look, even if you could sell it for that price, doesn't it almost degrade the product a little bit to say it's thinner and lighter, but it's also cheaper, so it's really just a cheap iPhone, cheaper than the pro iPhone? I know it's not a pro iPhone. How about this? Would you be okay if I said same or higher price than the iPhone phone pro? Pro base price? Because maybe it's $9.99 the same price as the iPhone price. I think we're in the same area, which is like, well, this phone is not replacing
Starting point is 01:11:12 that price point. It's not replacing that price point, which is what I think people naturally assumed would be the case, right? And so this is why I think as well, we may see some features that have only been on pro phones
Starting point is 01:11:27 until now, because this phone may sit in a different spot than the one it is replacing, which I actually think would logically make sense because Apple's not seemed to have been successful in that price point. The point that I keep making on podcast is the last seven years has been an experiment by Apple to find out how much they can raise the price of iPhones, how elastic the pricing in iPhones is, how much willingness there is for people to pay lots of money for an iPhone, because the iPhone 10 was so much more expensive than the other iPhones.
Starting point is 01:12:02 And it worked, and it has continued to work. And you know, Tim Cook's Apple, they will continue to be in the lab, finding ways to extract more and more revenue from iPhone buyers. And I don't mean that in an evil way. I mean, like, you're like, hey, everybody loves an iPhone for $7.99. And you're like, well, what if we made a cooler iPhone for $10.99 or $11.99? And people are like, yeah, we love it. We'll spend that.
Starting point is 01:12:24 If you're going to give us value for that, we'll spend that. And so if you're on that path and you've got a brand new, newly. engineered phone, which, by the way, because it's newly engineered, the margins are going to be less on it to start. And you've had, also, let's just say, you've had no success that apparently at 899. Yeah. Or with the non-pro alternate, the mini and the plus, they're being replaced, it looks like. So why, why go back there? Yeah. And not, not make this thing seem cool. And I really do believe there's a danger if it's 899, that it seems like a lesser product, whereas if it's $9.99 or $10.99, you're going to, psychologically, you're going to have
Starting point is 01:13:07 buyers being like, oh, it's desirable. It's a special, cool, thin thing. Whereas if it's $8.99, you're like, yeah, it's just another, you know, it's just a thinner version of that low-end model. And that's not the message they want to send. So, yeah, okay, I've talked myself into it. Great. Thank you for your help in talking me into it. Anytime. I was wondering where I was going to go. I have some other picks. We will talk about the things we didn't pick and Upgrade Plus today. Go to getupgrayplus.com. Yes, please. I am going to make another iPhone pick.
Starting point is 01:13:35 All right. In February, Mark Goeman had a report about Apple trying to position the 17 Pro as like, hey, creators, stop using dedicated cameras. We've got the best camera. They're going to add features to either a new app or the camera app to enforce that. And so one of the things that I think that they might do is dual camera recording on the iPhone pro. This was very high on my list, actually. It might have been my next pick. This is the idea that you can record.
Starting point is 01:14:09 This has been possible with third-party software for a while now. Philmick did it. And Apple has shown it off before and promoted it. And this could be two of the back cameras. It could be front and back, but that you will be able to take two camera feeds at once and record them both. This would be a great feature for the iPhone in general.
Starting point is 01:14:31 I think people would really dig this. And I also think it would be a big whim of creators if they did do it. Because I think a lot of people would really enjoy this. It would make like reaction content, social media content, easier to produce if you can get your face and the thing you're looking at, be able to switch between them. I was going to say the, it's hard to believe that the creators of the Slofi have not already created a camera mode. where it records video of what you're looking at and you looking at it in a mode, right? A picture and picture, maybe editable later, but certainly like a me watching it mode.
Starting point is 01:15:17 And it's just not in there. Think of a FaceTime window where there's you and there's what you're looking at or in that case is the other person. Well, think of that as a high quality video being recorded one direction and also the other direction, but also that a composite is built where you're like, whoa, triple rainbow all the way, right? And you're like, you're amazed and the rainbows are there and everybody's really happy about it.
Starting point is 01:15:40 Like, if they're going to do slow fees, which again is a feature that they created, the slow-mo selfies that I feel like was essentially, well, we can do this. So let's gin this up. But like, if they built the technical infrastructure where they can get all that data recorded, which is the challenge is, right,
Starting point is 01:15:57 getting all that high-quality data off those sensors, at the same time and that is actually hard would they do that like that would be I can see it I can picture that part of the demo especially because the iPhone
Starting point is 01:16:11 is actually capable of it because there are apps to do it like you can do it like the iPhone has the power to do it and if Apple's gonna have done work like tidying I don't know if this will be a separate app
Starting point is 01:16:24 or if it would like maybe it's in final cut camera or something but Apple will make something that does your camera recording. Okay. Love it. Just to make this not all iPhone picks,
Starting point is 01:16:37 I'm going to go back to Apple Watch. And I'm going to pick a bummer pick to end. No new health sensors on the Apple Watch because everybody wants there to be glucose monitoring and blood pressure and all that. And someday those will come. But I just am really skeptical that they're going to be able to do any of that.
Starting point is 01:16:53 It's really hard. And I feel like Mark Herman has talked about, oh, they want to do this and they want to do that. He does that, but, like, I never feel like they actually do it. Like, when they do it, I feel like we know about it. And I just don't believe it. I think it's incredibly hard and that Apple desperately wants to do it. But I don't think they're going to be able to do it.
Starting point is 01:17:13 It just feels like I may be wrong, but I feel like in general, it's not the worst pick to just say, no new health sensors on Apple Watch. Eventually, they're going to get there, right? It's like you're saying, and I agree, like the rumors are talking about something that Apple is doing. but it's like a long time thing that they're trying to do and the level of the thing that they're doing may them require new approvals and all this kind of stuff like if they really want to get that blood glucose system done and get it done the way they want it's going to have to be like the heart rate sensor
Starting point is 01:17:48 right like they're going to need that thing fully approved by health regulatory bodies to have the kind of impact that it should have and that they would want it to have will be my assumption yeah we'll see i i'm i'm realizing now that i have air pods getting a sensor in the apple watch not getting a sensor funny funny old world is it getting a sensor that apple already really knows how to make right like exactly makes sense right like um it would be weird if if if the AirPods already had a heart rate sensor and then you made that big just like AirPods are going to get glucose monitoring but
Starting point is 01:18:22 another sensor all right we're now going to do another round this is not uh around in the draft. This is not for draft points. This is the St. Jude Challenge, which we instituted last year. And this is for podcastathon points. So in the podcastathon every year, which will be on September 19th from 12 to 12 Eastern, so 12 noon to 12 a.m. Eastern, 12 hour extravaganza that me and Jason will be out along with a selection of wonderful relay hosts. Stephen and I will be competing. And there will be very, various team games and all kinds of fun. But we also encourage some games to be played by us on
Starting point is 01:19:05 our various shows. And the same few times is one of them. So, oh, there is one draft point for the winner. Sorry, there is one draft point for the winner. I said there were no draft points. That's a lie. I just told a lie. I apologize. That's a lie. This will be adjudicated by a friend of the show Zoe Knox because Stephen can't be trusted if he's going to be gaining points on this. We have a set of phrases that could be said during the keynote. We have 10 total points each that we can allocate and bet on each of these things happening or being said. Our final total will be multiplied by 10 with Jason's score going to Stephen and me having my own score. I'm going to read to you the set of phrases that we have both input into the system and then Jason and I will
Starting point is 01:19:47 put our chips down on these phrases once I've read through them all. So as light as air, edge to edge, thinnest iPhone ever, most advanced camera ever, aerospace-grade aluminium, you'll forget it's in your pocket, world's most popular headphones, gorgeous colours, two-tone, and one more thing. I got a little giddy when I saw you add that one to the document. I enjoyed that a lot. So, all right, I'm going to put some chips down. What I'm going to do is, I'll tell you what you think, if you agree with me here, we'll put our points down, we'll settle them, and then we'll talk about maybe why we're choosing the things that we're choosing. So we're not going to influence each other. Sounds good. All right. So let me just do
Starting point is 01:20:44 all of mine and you can do all of yours. Should it maybe keep that easiest? So I'm going to put three points on edge to edge I'm going to put three points on thinnest iPhone ever I'm going to put one point on most advanced camera ever
Starting point is 01:21:03 one point on aerospace grade aluminium one point on world's most popular headphones and one point on two tone one point on two tone okay that's that's good all right i don't even have a plan here so i'm gonna say i love it i love i am going to say um four points on edge to edge wow four points on thinnest iPhone ever
Starting point is 01:21:39 uh i have two points left uh and uh two points on one more thing Do you think the iPhone Air might be a one more thing? I do. Wow. Yeah. That's cool. I like that. The last one more thing was the Vision Pro.
Starting point is 01:22:02 Yeah. And I think... No, no, it's a big deal. But imagine an event that begins with the Apple Watch and the AirPods. And then now here's the real deal. It's the iPhone. and it's the new iPhone 17 and it's the new iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max
Starting point is 01:22:20 and then there's one more thing a brand new iPhone, the iPhone air. Let me tell you, I love this. Let me say to you why I think it might not happen because next year is the fault. That's okay. You might want to wait for that. But maybe they do it two times in two years
Starting point is 01:22:36 because they've got new phones. It's just keep doing more things. More things. Every year, one more thing. Keep doing more things. All right, so I'm going to talk through mine here. so edge to edge I think could count in a bunch of places
Starting point is 01:22:50 right Apple Watch Apple Watch is sort of what I was thinking could be the camera bar thing they might say is edge to edge there is rumors of the iPhone 17 screen getting bigger that could say that's an edge to edge screen
Starting point is 01:23:06 there's a bunch of places they might say that sure dentist iPhone ever just talks for itself I think so most advanced camera ever the other rumor is that they're going to another rumor is that I really want them to do is they're going to put all 48 megapixel
Starting point is 01:23:19 sensors in the pro phones so they're all going to be higher quality sensors than we have now, which I think is fantastic because I really want that because of that gosh darn macro mode thing that they really want you to do. Aerospace grade aluminium. Usually good.
Starting point is 01:23:38 They love it. But also I think they're going to have to, not have to, I think they're going to want to hype up going back from titanium. It's such a big deal about titanium. And now we're going back to aluminium. You've got to sell it to me. And I think this would be one of the ways I'll sell it.
Starting point is 01:23:55 And I'll just throw in here two-tone, meaning the phone color, right? That will have two-tone colors and the phones. I think that will be another part of it. I think they definitely may describe it that way. And as I said, I've thrown in some points on one more thing because I think that that is a very strong possibility. If ever they're going to do it, this might be the time. to do it. Yep. Right, because they can do a normal, what they like to do is they do a normal
Starting point is 01:24:20 iPhone announcement. Here's the iPhone, you know, and here's the iPhone pro and Pro Max. Isn't it great? Yay. iPhones, yay. Oh, but wait. Boom. iPhone air. So that's why I think that might happen. I like it. It's fun. The St. Jude Challenge. It's great. It is done. This episode is brought to you by Delete Me. Delete Me makes it easy. quick and safe to remove your personal data online at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everybody vulnerable. With Delete Me, you can protect your personal privacy or the privacy of your business from doxing attacks before sensitive information can be exploited. And the New York Times Wirecutter recently named Delete Me their top
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Starting point is 01:25:37 they do more searches I love it and I get to see what's in progress when what's done and what they're monitoring for me. And it makes me feel, I just have that peace of mind because I know that Delete Me is in my, it's in my corner looking out for me and making sure that this stuff is taking care of. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me. Now at a special offer for a special discount offer for our listeners. Go to 20, get to 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to join DeleteMe.com slash Upgrade 20 and use the promo code Upgrade 20 at checkout.
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Starting point is 01:26:23 and the code upgrade 20. Our thanks to delete me for their support of this show and relay. We're going to finish out with some ask upgrade questions. Aaron writes in
Starting point is 01:26:37 and says in a bit of bad timing I need to replace my iPhone. I have an iPhone 12 Mini, whose camera has stopped focusing properly. It's been annoying, but I've been waiting for new iPhones. However, I have a trip to Scotland scheduled the week the iPhone 17 is rumored to come out. I can try and get my mini fixed beforehand, or maybe I just get a 16. If you're in my position, what would you do?
Starting point is 01:27:01 Ooh. I mean, I'd almost want to see about getting the phone fixed or borrowing somebody's phone. I mean, do you, Apple has a, like, a return policy. You could maybe, like, buy a phone ticket to Scotland and then return it. Yes, what I would do. And get a proper phone. Is that what you would do? Yeah.
Starting point is 01:27:21 It's a 30 day? I think it's 30 days. Check it. But that's what I would do. I mean, because at the end of the day, they're going to end up with more money out of you. You know, you kind of end up probably buying a phone that's a little bit more expensive. I would, I would do that. And I would imagine you could even just say to them like, hey, I bought this phone and
Starting point is 01:27:37 and a new one came out and I wanted that one and I want to return it. So my other. ideas are, yeah, borrow one from a friend, or depending on what you're interested in doing rent a camera for Scotland. Yeah, you can do that. And then it doesn't matter that your iPhone doesn't take pictures, right?
Starting point is 01:27:55 Because you have a camera with you, that would be another thing to try. But it's got to be, but you could also just go and get a an iPhone 16 days, but you know, you never know. 14 days. Here's what I would say too as well. Like, maybe you don't want what the 17 has. And so like you buy a 16. and you're like, I'm fine with this one.
Starting point is 01:28:13 Yeah, that's true. That's true. So you might be fine with it. But I would say, if this trip is important to you, just get a new iPhone. Like if you want to take pictures on an iPhone for some reason, right? Like, I agree with what Jason says. If it's just a camera, get another camera, wait to see what happens with the iPhone and then make your buying decision. Because you may, again, see the iPhone 17.
Starting point is 01:28:35 It'll be like, that's not really that much better than a 16. Get a 16. It'll be cheaper. And then get, you know, and then think about it later on. but yeah and if you can do it in the 14 day window then great yeah james says has there ever been an ios or macOS beta that made you have instant regrets for installing it i i don't know the version but there was a there was a macOS beta a few years ago that i installed and it was and i had to do it because i was writing about photos and the photos updates were big but i
Starting point is 01:29:08 installed it on my main computer and my memory of that is I ended up putting my server which is I think it might have been in this room with me but I bought I just found it because I was cleaning up my cables and I found it I bought this enormous USB extension cord or maybe it was just an enormous USB cord but like laughably long and I was like right I had to do podcasts for several months where my microphone was plugged into this very long extension cord that ran to the other side of the room where my server was, and then used screen sharing to control the server. And my podcast recordings happened on that computer while I looked at my computer that was running the beta.
Starting point is 01:29:59 So it was two computers at once. I don't know if you remember this. We used to do upgrade where I was like literally, I was talking to you through a different computer than the one. one I was looking at because the beta had broken everything I used. Because I remember I was really nervous that what if something's not working and then you would say, oh, I'm screen sharing in so I can check that it's still recording. It was just a horrible time.
Starting point is 01:30:24 It was not great. So that's my story. I'm going to pick. So you hear just people like, oh, iOS 7. No, everybody knew what was going to be going on with that. You know, like that was on a regret. iOS 13. I had to look this one.
Starting point is 01:30:38 up iOS 13 was so bad. This was the one that was so bad that the iPad never got the 13.0 released. Like it just never came out. Oh, right, right, right, right. And the point one came out a few days after the point O because they had to release the point O so it could go on the iPhone, right? Like it was like a thing that they released because it had to be on the iPhone. So it was put in the boxes. And then the point one came out like at the end of the week or something. I think you could still upgrade an iPhone to 13.0, I think. But I know that the iPad just never got it. And it just came with 0.1 because it was just a really, really coming in hot kind of iOS release.
Starting point is 01:31:24 Jacob asks, as we are leaving the summer of fun, I wonder if as Apple can become less quote unquote enjoyable to cover, what are some other tech or tech-adjacent areas that you'd like to branch upgrade out into covering? um i don't know i mean this is this is kind of my deal so yeah me too um and and i would say i would say apple apple has had some things around it that are less enjoyable to cover but i still find the products enjoyable to cover yep i agree and the they're the i think that they're interesting i think Apple. I read about, look, other companies are fine. They're fine. But Apple is doing some of the most interesting stuff in the world in terms of their products. Like, that's the truth of it. And, you know,
Starting point is 01:32:16 there are other companies that are doing other interesting things. But like Apple, like, read that Apple in China book, if you haven't. The fact is it made it clear to me that, you know, Apple isn't the only company doing this. They're doing it in maybe more areas and more important areas. But there are other companies that are pushing it forward, like Sony and Samsung and LG. But like Apple's whole MO when it comes to manufacturing is they envision a product and then they figure out how to make it. And they invent working with their manufacturing partners, they invent new methods in order to get them where they want to go. They build their own chips and work with TSM on the fabs that are coming online for TSM.
Starting point is 01:33:06 And I have no doubt that Apple as a key TSM partner is talking to them about what they would like to be able to achieve that TSM is keeping in their roadmap. Like Apple is a lot of tech companies and they don't want to talk about it because they're not proud of it. But a lot of tech companies, it's a matter of taking things off the shelf and assembling them in an interesting way. and Apple doesn't do that I mean they do that sometimes with some things but Apple has a drive to say like in that book they talk about like the gorilla glass stuff like the way that the gorilla glass is handled for making iPhones is a method that they basically invented the so much of the manufacturing of iPhones especially but of devices from Apple in general is Apple saying we want to do this thing and and the manufacturers are like well it's never been done. It's like, well, let's figure out how to do it then. And I'm just saying, just regardless of all the other distractions going on around Apple, I will say, I find them interesting to cover because they are, they still, even to this day, are striving to do things that other people have never done before. And, and that's really interesting and fun to talk about
Starting point is 01:34:19 and to cover. My experience in other like top line product categories, especially when I was an IDG, and I was also in charge of PC World, when we tried all sorts of things to find other tech communities, there's not a lot of tech communities that have the vibrance of the Apple community. And I think this is one of the reasons why. So I think the community, the products that I like, even if there are issues around it that bum us out, I think that they are, they're just so interested, interesting to cover and to talk about because of that they're trying stuff that nobody else is. We, you know, to answer Jacob's question,
Starting point is 01:34:57 you've already seen it like, I also pay attention to like e-readers because that's a category that I think is interesting that nobody seems to care about, but like a teeny tiny group. But I'll tell you what does happen is I get a text every week or two from somebody saying, hey, Jason, about e-readers.
Starting point is 01:35:11 I need to buy a new e-reader. What should I get? And I'm like, oh, let me tell you. And that's fun. I think that's a category that's interesting. I explored all those weird, you know, Android e-readers and we'll probably do so again.
Starting point is 01:35:23 That's a little tech category that is near and dear to my heart, but also kind of fun and weird and interesting sometimes, sometimes deadly boring, other times really interesting. And like, I used to be really big into like DVRs and TiVo and stuff like that. And I'm a lot less interested in it now because I'm all in on Apple TV. And then the other answer, you've already, I did a whole podcast about it. We do downstream now, right? Which is about streaming media tech and business and content. And I think that's a lot of fun. So, you know, honestly, there are a lot of areas you can already see in what I do that are the other areas I'm interested in.
Starting point is 01:35:59 But I still think Apple is sort of like number one in terms of doing stuff that's interesting. Yeah, I mean, similar, right? Like, if I find other interesting things in technology, I will bring them to my shows and I'll bring them to this show, right? Because it's just a thing that we do. And like, this show has changed over time based on new and weird and wonderful things that we find. And enjoyable and interesting are different, right? Like, I don't enjoy all of the things that we have to, that, I do not enjoy all the things that we feel like we should talk about, but I do find them interesting.
Starting point is 01:36:33 And so, like, that to me, like, as Apple is becoming more complicated politically and legislatively, I do still find those conversations to be intellectually engaging, sometimes more so than talking about a new iPhone. I don't find it to necessarily be like an enjoyable thing. Like I would, you know, sometimes you give me the choice. I would choose a new product over talking about the DMA. But I have found our coverage on that to be like just really interesting to think about. Like it's kind of like broadened my horizon a little bit into the types of things that we cover.
Starting point is 01:37:13 And we find out balance where we can. I mean, but yeah, I agree that it's core. I mean, I don't, I would be super surprised if we were ever just like, no, we're going to do something else now. Like, I just don't think that that's what we're going to do. And we can just keep doing what we have been doing, right? Where it's like, oh, don't like that they're doing this. I think they're wrong for doing this or that. I would do it differently.
Starting point is 01:37:37 If I was them, I think they're making mistakes. And still say, yeah, but I love this new iPhone. I think that's a balanced way to be. Right. I coming into covering Apple in the 90s met that I cover I was covering a company that made products I loved that was a disaster of a company. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:37:56 That was falling apart, making really bad decisions. And so I kind of have internalized that, right? It's like it's about the products. It's not about the company. Your job is not to defend the company. It is to explain the company. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:38:09 And, you know, sometimes that gets lost. But like one of the things we do here a lot is try to understand why they do what they do. It doesn't necessarily mean we endorse what they do, but we try to understand what they do. I think that's important because I do, I do get the sense, and as various incidents happen, I get the sense that a lot of people are like, why would they do that? And if we can offer an explanation, like, again, not a defense and explanation of like, this is their mindset. You don't have to like what they do, but here's why they did it. And I think that is helpful and informs whenever they do a new product or they don't do a new product and we can go, ah, like just
Starting point is 01:38:42 today, talking about the iPhone air. I feel like our conversation is elevated because we understand what they've been doing to ratchet up the average selling price of an iPhone over the last seven years, right? Yeah. Like that helps that analysis in a way. And, you know, I enjoy that. I'll tell you what I didn't enjoy. And this is, I'm going to mention another podcast here that we killed is download where Stephen Hackett and I were trying to cover general tech news. And again, part of that is the Apple, the Apple stuff is more fun in a lot of ways than a lot of these other areas.
Starting point is 01:39:15 where these companies are just trying to optimize and they're trying to steal all your data and ruin your privacy and optimize every dollar out of you one way or another. And we did that in a particular era, although Stephen and I text every now and then when there's a spate of stories about a subject for a couple of months and we're like,
Starting point is 01:39:31 well, if we didn't quit download, then we would have quit it now. And there's truth in that. It goes in cycles, but we were in a cycle. I feel like there's no way the two of you would be able to keep doing it in the AI world, like just talking about every model, every week. It's true, but what I would say is, um, we were doing that during the height of
Starting point is 01:39:52 Facebook. Every week, there was another thing about Facebook doing a terrible thing. And the answer to that is we have clear evidence of what happens when something becomes completely corrosive and non-enjoyable and neither Steven or I really love Facebook, right? So that was easier. They didn't make, I mean, maybe Instagram, but like didn't make products that we really loved. Um, but we stopped doing the podcast because it was so corrosive and awful because it's not fun to do that. And, you know, we had the, let's just put it this way. What if that was a wild success of a podcast that made us so much money that we could just do that and focus on it, that would be a really rough thing, right? Because now you're covering something that's brutal every week, but it's your
Starting point is 01:40:34 job. And we have the luxury of instead saying, we'll just stop doing this because it's a bummer and it's not a huge success for us. And kind of a blessing that it's not. Because otherwise, that becomes your job and I wouldn't want that to be my job. It's something that that much of a downer. And I've not, despite what's been going on with Apple, I have never really felt that way.
Starting point is 01:40:55 And that's because although those things are terrible, it does help that I like the products and I'm excited about the products that they use separate from the rest of it. Yeah. There's an upside. Like a genuine upside. That Facebook stuff, there was no upside. No.
Starting point is 01:41:10 I mean, and also like Apple, talking about Apple is also a conversation about so many small companies that are around the ecosystem that we like to talk about. You know, like developers and apps and experiences. You know, like something to book and what we talk about at the top.
Starting point is 01:41:28 One thing that I meant to mention is I'm really excited for iOS 26 to start seeing the interpretations of liquid glass. Like, I've got three apps right now, like three third-party apps that I'm using that I've got the that I'm finally seeing liquid glass updates for
Starting point is 01:41:51 like apps that I've used for a long time and they've, you know, I'm on the test flights for them and they've just pushed out their designs and I'm like, oh wow, these are completely different from each other. This is fascinating. Right. So like I'm really looking forward to seeing a lot of apps that I use frequently get their redesigns and see how
Starting point is 01:42:09 they interpret them. What they do, what they don't do, how they do this, how they do that um yeah and so like that that kind of stuff is also part of this overall conversation that we have uh every week last question tom asks do you both still use the camera control we're approaching a full year i'm curious to hear what your thoughts are i was going to say no but that's not actually true the thing is i don't i don't as i've said many times before use my iPhone a lot obviously I use it when I'm out and about and I'm taking pictures and all of that
Starting point is 01:42:43 I use it then and I realized yeah when I'm out and about and taking pictures I do use the camera camera control I don't use it like I have given up on the whole like little swiping and all of that kind of thing although my swipe is only between cameras which is not bad
Starting point is 01:42:58 I will occasionally do that but mostly it's just launch the launch the app and take pictures very intrigued to see if they change that with the phones coming out there's no change in 26 to the swiping stuff. But I use the camera control every single time I take a picture to open the camera.
Starting point is 01:43:18 And then I press the shutter button on the screen because I find the act of taking a picture with the camera control button to not be very satisfying. Yeah. I see that. So, but it's, it is my universal camera like opener from anywhere in the system, no matter what I'm doing and I really like that. I like having that as a thing that like at any point I can just oh I've opened the camera like I'm looking at something on my iPhone and I open the camera I think that that's really good and I like I like having that that kind of functionality as it
Starting point is 01:43:53 well. If you would like to send in a question for us for a future episode you've got follow up you've got feedback you'd like to give us you can always go to upgradefeedback.com Thanks to our members and support us in Upgrade Plus this week we're going to talk about some of the things we did not pick in the draft
Starting point is 01:44:13 so you can go to Get Upgradeplus.com to sign up and get that. If you want to find us on YouTube like if you want to see what the upgrade draft t-shirt looks like on me you can go to YouTube
Starting point is 01:44:23 search for the Upgrade podcast and you'll find us. I want to thank our sponsors one last time. That is Delete Me, Claude, Seltrios and Squarespace. What else? I want to thank you for listening
Starting point is 01:44:33 and also remind you that we will be streaming and live and releasing the episode as soon as we can after the event on Tuesday next week. So there will be an episode on Tuesday. We don't yet know when it will be similar to most years, really.
Starting point is 01:44:49 Right. But we will be recording on Tuesday because that's the game. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, for sure. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Upgrade. We'll be back next week. Until then, say goodbye, Jason Snell.
Starting point is 01:45:02 Goodbye, Mike Early. Thank you.

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