Upgrade - 636: Opening a Book Backward

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

From Relay, this is Upgrade, episode 636 for September 9th, 2026. It is a Wednesday because we just watched the Apple event. This episode is brought to you by Keeper Squarespace and Factor. My name is Mike Hurley and I am joined by Jason Snell. Hi, Jason. Happy Wednesday, Mike. Happy Wednesday indeed. I surprised myself by looking at the date.

Yeah, as we're recording this, the Apple event has basically just finished like 20 minutes ago or something like that. And so we're coming hot off the presses. I have a lot of notes. I'm not sure that these notes make logical sense, but we'll work it out. And I've got product pages in front of me. But no one wants to hear about any of this. Because I have a Snow Talk question.

It comes from me, and I want to know, Jason. What did you think of the opening video for the iPhone event? So we sort of are getting right into it with Snell Talk. That's interesting. I wasn't sure because I'm thinking, you know, we just shot on iPhone. and it starts to feel like one of those videos where there's the Indiana Jones-like guy

walking away from the fire. I'm like, it's like those videos they do about cinematic mode. But then it turns out that it's this thing about like, oh, but we could start this way. This would be a great opening scene. And this would be a great opening shot. And, you know, there's the samurai running through the forest

and the getaway driver. And then Tim Cook does the voiceover. And what a great pivot that was. I love that part. you know, disappearing into Apple Park. And he says, it's your main character. And Tim Cook appears and goes,

oh, it's not me. That's your guy and points behind him. I'm not your guy. That's your guy. That's your guy. There are many ways to do something like this wrong. Right?

Many. So many. And I think it was really, I think it was quite heartwarming, actually, I think, as a moment to be like, you know,

he's here. It's a cameo. It's fun. He's the guy you know. Actually, I'm not the guy you're looking for. You know? These are not the CEOs you're looking for. That's the one over there. And Tornis, he's being an action hero walking in the background. I thought it was pretty sweet. Yeah, I think this is the right. They nailed the tone here, which is you don't want it to be too jokey. Yeah. But also having it be a little bit light. And just having it be like, ah, you're surprised that it's me, but you shouldn't be because I'm not who I'm talking about. It was a good setup. It was well scripted. good performance by Tim Cook there going out on a high dramatically. I thought that was really good. Historically, not great when it comes to the performances. Also, I think it's worth, you know, like, there are lots of people watching the iPhone event that do not know that Tim Cook is not the CEO of Apple anymore. So Tim is going to say, oh, no, it's not me.

You got to talk to that guy. And then John Turnus does his thing where he says, I'm honored to be representing everybody here, which is a good, again, you don't want to do too much of that, but I think having that actual passing of the baton there is the right thing to do. And they hit the tone right. Yeah, and I liked that in doing it that way, Turner didn't have to do the kind of like, thanks Tim kind of thing. Like, I think they were able to kind of avoid that by having the baton pass rather than him just showing up and being like, I'm the new. CEO, I loved him. You know, like, it's not really, I mean, and by the way, hello was the opening.

Oh yeah, hello. He says hello, which I think is good because, you know, I was talking to, I think I was talking to a dinner about this because she was asking like, do you think you'll say good morning? And I was like, no. And I was like also, I believe this to be the case.

Jobs used to say good morning, right? And then Tim Cook started saying it and he made it like a caricature thing of himself. He did. He went over the top with it. But Steve Jobs, that was, yeah, that was my memory when I wrote my piece after Steve died.

Yeah. One of the things I said I would miss is I really liked settling in an announcement. Apple event and all the tension and all the anticipation and all of that. And then before you saw him, you heard him. Because as he was walking on stage, Steve would always be like, Good morning. And then, yes, it became a good morning, Tim Cook kind of thing. But like, it's fine. It's, it's, there are other references in here that he made instead. Oh, yeah. We'll get to that in a minute. All right. If you would like to open the show with a snow talk of your own,

if you don't have access to the show document like me, you can go to Upgrade Feedback.com sending your Snell Talk question for a future episode. Let's start out by assessing the result of the draft. So last week we played our game, which we played before every keynote, where we take a look at what we think might happen. We make our predictions. Should we run through this real quick? Yeah, let's run through it. All right. So my picks. iPhones powered by new two nanometer chip, yes. Correct. iPhone folding iPhone supports split view yes they said the words iPhone folding iPhone uses touch ID button only

we will talk about all of this in more detail Apple will make specific boast about on device AI performance on A20 that was kind of a no brainer but like oh it's great for AI it's got two neural engines Johnny would not stop talking about it like everyone was talking about it it's like I don't think that many people are doing on device AI

with third-party LLMs on their iPhones. But if they want to, they can. Just wait. It's going to, yeah, you're going to be... Anyway, Apple doesn't mention anything about base model iPhone 18's not being announced. It's like, what are you even talking about? We didn't announce those.

New satellite connectivity features on iPhone. There were no new... This is never going to happen. This is never going to happen. No new features. Folding iPhone comes in monochrome colors, white, silver, black, gray. I'm going to give me this.

because what is the color of the night sky? It's black. It's another word for black. It's like space gray. It's bluey. But darker is night sky. I'm happy with this. I mean, if I really wanted to argue, it's kind of bluey.

It's kind of, but not a night sky. I mean, night sky. It could have called it dark blue, but it's night skies. I mean, what color is space, but black? I'll give it. It's not gray. I'll tell you. I've on Pro model, I took the 200 price increase over.

over the previous generation, it was not. It was 100. So in our iPhone category, I have me down as six out of eight. Should we run through my iPhone category? Yes, please. Right. One iPhone color contains the word blue.

No, it contains the color blue, but not the word. Glacier. Apple brands defaulting iPhone display. It had a brand, but not a unique one. Not a new brand, no. Not a special brand. It's not a folding whatever.

It's just a regular old whatever. Okay. Apple introduces new features for apps running on the folding iPhones internal display. Oh, boy, did they. Oh, wow. Oh, boy, did they. Real quick, by the way, we're going to pause. As is tradition now, underscore David Smith is over in the corner,

currently downloading the GM of iOS 27. Nice. Underscombe is next to me. When they're starting to show, all the UI's changes, he's like, oh, my God. Because developers, I mean, I'm sure developers are happy they've got a month because the simulator is needed now because the tab bars and the toolbars are in completely different places.

It's unbelievable. Yeah, it's wild stuff. Apple makes specific claim about that there's essentially no crease on the folding phone. They did. Yeah, they did. They talked about a crease several times. One new photo-related OS feature is added.

Yep. Yeah, well, it's. Claim of improved iPhone battery life. I got that. Mm-hmm. Folding iPhone is the thinnest Apple device ever. It isn't. It's the finished iPhone,

but it missed out by 0.1 millimeter. on the iPad Pro. And the iPhone Pro models, I said they would start between 100 and 10099, and it's 100 more for the stock price. 100. So that puts us at 6 to you and 5 to me.

Exactly. For the iPhone. Brings us to the other picks. Apple Watch Series 12, I said it had a ceramic option. Yes, it did. I'm so happy for you. It has a new chip.

It does. And the Ultra 4 was announced. It was. however, the new home pods and the home pad product, it's going to be a different event for home products. This was not the day. Not the day. And so I got three out of five there.

How'd you do? John Turner has a major role in unveiling at least one product. He did. And he had a role in all of them, which was interesting. They did the thing that I think we spoke about this. They're like passing backwards and forwards, like much more. And he was much more like vocal. previously unseen watch faces

there are a couple no home pad device the Apple watch did have enhanced Siri AI support and watch Series 12 adds a new workout feature we went backwards and forwards on this one but this is one of those scenarios

where it doesn't matter because either Jason wins 9-8 or it's 9-980 and he wins the tie so congratulations Jason thank you super close I retain the title they're always close

they're always close I don't think they're always close I had some real clangers back in the day. We had a lot of tiebreakers and stuff like that. Yeah, I think it's not a new workout feature because the feature you're thinking of isn't in a workout. It's a different feature that will tell you my, that's the, I like to call it the, my Apple Watch told me that I couldn't work today,

so I'm not going to come into work today, boss kind of feature. You're not ready for it. Just stay home. I see your argument. But I can also argue that the iPhone is blue. But nevertheless, we're not going to. Nevertheless, it doesn't matter. It's a worst a tie and at best a win for Jason.

And it was a short video, so I get the Ender. The Under wins. That is what happens when there is a whole product category that we thought would exist and didn't exist in this event, which is the case. I mean, it was way under. That's true. That's true. And we also, oh, we're going to talk in Upgrade Plus about the St. Jude Challenge. We did a game called the St. Jude Challenge.

We do this with the iPhone events. And speaking of, Jason, what an incredible segue. I want to take a quick moment to let everybody know that we are raising funds. We're fundraising as we always do for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital during September because it is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. So we're asking our community to come together to support the life-saving work of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. I want to talk a little bit about why we do this and what some of the, some of the money that everyone's raising, what it is going towards. So St. Jude recently established a

partnership to increase worldwide access to pediatric radiotherapy. So while St. Jude is based in Memphis, Tennessee, which is where Stephen Hackett lives and Stephen's family has seen the effects of the treatment at St. Jude, they are focused on helping childhood cancer survival worldwide. So St. Jude is going to be investing $4.5 million over three years to help the International Atomic Energy Agency expand access to pediatric radiotherapy in low and middle-income countries, also known as LMICs. A key contributor to lower survival rates in LMICs is limited access to clinical imaging. Without such access, children face delays or errors in diagnosis. This partnership will focus on creating materials to train specialists, radiation oncologists,

radiotherapy technicians and medical physicists to improve this diagnostic gap. This effort highlights St. Jude's commitment to ensuring children everywhere have access to diagnostics and treatment. This is just one of, I mean, St. Jude is so close to our hearts, but I love the more that I've learned about this incredible institution and how far and wide their work reaches, the more and more proud I am to say that we have raised. I mean, we are actually getting incredibly close right now to a lifetime fundraising total of $5 million that we have raised since 2019. I am so proud every year of just how engaged our community is.

It really means the world to all of us. I'm so thankful for it. And I want everybody to go and find out more and they can donate today. Please go to st.jude.org slash relay. There's a few things you can do. You can find out more about some incentives that you can unlock for giving your own donations. So there are some rewards that are available to you. There's also information about how you can create a fundraiser of your own.

By signing up and registering to fundraise, you can donate through your own fundraiser. You can also encourage your friends, your family, your co-workers, there's only it too. This can spread the impact you're able to have for the kids of St. Jude. And there are some really wonderful incentives this year, which you should also go and see all of the information, including information about employer matching, so your employer may match your donation, and it can double your donation, and so much more.

It's all available at st.jude.org slash relay. Please go there, donate, find out more, and start a fundraiser today because more cures, more hopes means more tomorrows. St.jude.org slash relay. Thank you. Before we start talking about some products, Jason, I want to get some kind of like top level reactions from you.

So this is John Tannis' first keynote, a CEO of Apple. How do you think he did? I think it did fine. I mean, it's all pre-recorded. So if he didn't do fine, they didn't use that tick and then got him to do it. I thought it was good. I think he is present. I think he is bringing, you know, the weight of being a knowledgeable kind of hardware guy.

And then also, I think the most important thing, was that he did some very executive level commenting right at the very beginning, right? So the first thing he does after he says hello and how gratefully is to be representing Apple is place the iPhone in the context of Apple strategy. And that is a CEO job, right? That is the CEO job to say, why do we think the iPhone is so important? In doing so, by the way, he made, I feel like, like it must be intentional by everybody's part.

It has to be intentional. He is recasting a classic Steve Jobs approach to Apple's product philosophy, which is the intelligent personal hub, which is hearkening back to the digital hub strategy that Steve Jobs talked about, you know, 25, 26 years ago. I've been thinking about that a lot because we are doing of course our other podcast Design in California. We are currently releasing episodes about the 1990s

OS transition, but our series after that is about the iPod. And so I was doing a lot of research about the origins of the iPod, including, of course, Steve Jobs and the digital hub strategy. Because that's the whole idea

that your Mac is at the center and all these other digital devices are out there. So you shoot video. or you take pictures and you bring them into your Mac and your Mac is at the center of your life. Obviously, that was a very, you know, year 2000 kind of thing. But that hub strategy and using that word to talk about this intelligent personal hub that is, what would be the perfect one is the way John Turner's cast said.

And he lists a bunch of attributes. And, you know, it's, it's, I liked it because I try to make this a very similar argument, which is why I think the smartphone isn't going anywhere, even in an AI era. It's all of these reasons. It's that you want to have something that's always with you that's connected to the internet at high speed. It's got a powerful processor.

It's got a nice screen because we do like looking at things on the screen. It's got cameras and speakers and microphones, and that you, since it's going to be in your pocket, it needs to last all day. And that's what he lays out for even in a world of AI and all sorts of accessories that you want your smartphone at the center of it. And of course, he says, because he's the CEO of Apple, of course, the iPhone is the best of those. But like, it's hard not to get away from thinking those of us who've been around watching it for a while thinking that this is a nod to Steve Jobs and the Digital Hub strategy for the 2020s. Yeah, because, you know, in the early 2000s, it was about.

you have all these other physical devices for different capabilities in your life. You need one place to be able to manage and use the information and have that at the center. And the 2020s version of this is you have digital assets that are spread all over the web in different clouds, etc., etc. And you need one device to manage them. And this is absolutely them coming out strong to be like, all these are AI devices you're hearing about? don't worry about it. We make the best device for everything.

It's the iPhone. What are you mad? Why would you consider anything else? You know, you also mentioned, like, he also said intersection,

the intersection of, like, capability and context, which I also believe is going back to the intersection of creative, is it the creative, liberal arts and technology, right?

Yeah, you got there. I got there. I mean, look. Creative is a couple blocks down. It's, yeah, you know, there's been lots of memes

on this. over the years, so it's hard to remember. But I, like you, I absolutely believe, I mean, and it's bookended, right? So he says he has personal hub and the intersection at the start, and he has one more thing at the end. Like, if you want any more hints as to the way they are trying to paint John Turnus, you don't need them. Like, they want you to think this guy is a product guy.

And I think, you know, we're obviously going to talk about the iPhone duo in a minute. But like the way the iPhone duo was presented as an, like, they are presented. presenting it as a series of technological and product breakthroughs. That is how they are presenting this. Yes. They are doing this on purpose. They want you to know who he is. And like,

you know, this is all the stuff that we've been talking about leading up to this point. They chose this moment carefully of when John Ternus would be stepping into the shoes. And I think that this keynote includes actually lots of big product stuff. And I think that's clear. This is not an accident. No, not at all. This is not an accident.

This is part of the transition plan. Yeah. Is to have these products ready in this moment for John Ternus to introduce. It's all part of the same story. Did you have any more thoughts about the presentation or the order of things? I was struck by how light everything was by and large. Usually we spend quite a lot of time in darkness. Yeah.

There was Jaws. You know, Jaws was in L.A. at sunset, and so he got into the darkness. But most, because he likes the darkness, I guess. but mostly not I think you like the advantage of having something like the iPhone duo in your presentation

is it gives you the power to put the iPhone pro at the start which is great to kick it off with your most important product to be able to just like first thing out the gate we're going to talk first off the entire context put down by John Turnus is this is about the iPhone

which really says a lot but it's not wrong it's like well AirPods attached to your iPhone Apple Watch works with your iPhone and is sending health data to your iPhone so it's all in the context of the iPhone but to go out with the iPhone Pro as your initial product is coming at it from a position of strength so I appreciated that and you can do that

when you've got one more thing at the end which is an entirely new iPhone the likes of which we haven't seen before so I think that that was the ordering made sense if you've got those in your pocket you could do it that way the other only other kind of production point I wanted to say is okay so in the pandemic they switched from doing live events to doing these video events and they've evolved over time and they've tried a whole bunch of different formats

I think they've learned what they like what they don't like and this time I think they I think there was a note somebody had about how Apple event videos felt static and almost lonely because so often it would be a person in a setting all by themselves. It's Johnny Sruji alone in the lab. It's Jeff Williams

standing on a promontory on the Pacific coast somewhere talking about the Apple Watch all alone on a boulder or something, right? But not this. And then they actually hung a lantern on it to use a

showbiz phrase when they went to the back lot, the studio back lot. But even before they get there, everywhere at Apple Park where people are presenting and elsewhere, there are people in the background. Apple Park is not empty except for the presenter, which I understand if you're doing a secret Apple product video, having extras in the background is not something you want to do when you get started. But they've been doing it long enough now that I think totally, they're like, no, I want people in the background working while I talk. I wanted to feel lived in like we're all hard at work doing this. And then that extended to the other scenes where there would be,

even if you're in a cafe, even if you're outside, there's like most of them, not all of them, but most of them, there were people around. It was a populated scene. I think that was an interesting style choice for them. And then my favorite bit is when they go to the studio back lot, that's when they got wacky, but they got wacky in a really,

I mean, I wouldn't say subtle, but if you're focused on the content, you're not even going to pay too much attention to it. But like, they're giving the presentations, and it was multiple people's Cyan, Dran, Dran, and some other people at the studio back lot. Like, people in astronaut costumes go by on a golf cart.

And then you see a guy dressed like a Roman soldier, And then later, there's like a squad of Roman soldiers who walk past in the background, along with somebody who looks like a European kind of like 17th century European dandy type figure. All of that's going on the background. Then there's the conversation that's happening in the rain where the presenter has got an umbrella. And then she steps forward and hands the umbrella to somebody because it's a fake rainstorm with a camera there. and there's a scene of people in trench coats having a conversation in the rain. And so it's all on the studio back lot, right?

But like at the same time, that is not content, it's color, but what they're trying to do is say, this presentation is happening in a world that has action happening around it. And that was clearly like a watchword for them. And I appreciate that they made the effort,

and I like it. Yes, the studio backlot was a little bit, silly, but I immediately noticed like, oh, there's people working at Apple Park. And that's better. It's better to have people at Apple Park in the background. It's sending a message, but also it just makes it more, I mean, let's be honest. Sometimes you got to wonder, is this how Johnny Sruji lives? Is he in a basement chip lab that's mostly dark and completely empty except for him? It's a tragic existence for Johnny Srujee. Hey, look, you don't get to be chief hardware officer for nothing. You know, sometimes you're going to make the sacrifices.

Well, if he's down there, other people should be down there working too, right? So that's what they did. So that's my other showbiz note is just that they made an effort this time to make the whole thing seem more lived in. And I thought that was maybe whoever gave them that note and made that decision, that was a good note and a good decision. This episode is brought to you in part by Keeper Security. We're always switching devices. I mean, now on another phones, laptops, work computers. Every time you're stuck typing in variations of passwords, you can barely remember.

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so they know that we sent you. That is keeperssecurity.com slash upgrade pod. Our thanks to Keepa Security for their support of this show and all of Relay. iPhone Duo. Let's start out. The name.

Great. Great name. Love the name. Yep. I didn't like Fold. You know I didn't want Ultra. iPhone Duo. it makes perfect sense.

It's two iPhones. It's the right name. I did. It was, I'm just going to, very minor victory lap here. This is the name that I picked when we were picking in Appgrade Plus last week.

I said, Spoilers. Let's say iPhone Duo. Yeah, I'm just saying. I picked it. So I like it. I think it's better, I didn't like Ultra.

I didn't like fold. I like the idea. It's got two screens. I like the idea that the internal screen is sort of two of the outside screen, if you want to think of it that way,

that you can run two apps in it. Like, it's got a lot of that. Plus, it's got the history. They used to make a laptop called the Powerbook Duo back in the day, and this is a little like that, plucking a word from Apple history and then re-spinning it for the modern age. Yeah, I like it as a name. I think it's a good, good, good, good.

And it leaves Ultra in reserve for a true Ultra iPhone. Yeah. Later. I don't even really know where to start with this. I guess maybe we should just start by talking about the hardware, like how it looks and how it seems to function. I mean, we've seen versions of this phone in 3D prints. We've seen renders. We've seen all kinds of stuff over time.

But I think it's one of these things where, you know, when you see it in its full glory, you see people unfolding it, using it. You see the, you know, the people using it in staged environments. You see people using it in labs, et cetera. It looks beautiful, right? I think that it is a very good looking phone. It is an odd phone, you know? Yeah.

It's really different. The outside screen, the corner radius is different, one side to the other, right? Like there's some peculiarity to it. Yeah, they specifically, in fact, reference the shape of a passport. Yeah. Which I think is interesting, because that is about right. the they specifically reference the feel of an iPad on the inside even though it's not an iPad it feels like that it's a slightly it's not a four by three it's like a 4.2 by three it's it's it's close to uh and not every

ipad is is four by three but the original was like it is a little bit wider than a four by three but um but not a lot and it's got that vibe i i think one of the things that's going to be interesting and i think is going to take some getting used to is It does look a little odd, not just in that it is a very different shape for an iPhone when it's closed. But because of the hinge, when it's closed, and they leaned into it, they said it's asymmetric, which for them is a big deal. But in the design presentation where Molly, the designer was talking about it, it's asymmetric in that when it's open, it's an Apple product that you'd expect with curved edges. When it's closed, two of the edges, the non-binding edge, non-hinge edge are curved. But the internal ones are not.

They're straight. They're right angles because it's a hinge. And that's how hinges work. And you need it to be there when you open it up. So it's going to feel it looks really different. It feels really different. I mean, people can get used to all sorts of things. But like it's, it's fascinating that it, you can see here.

Simultaneously, Apple is being driven out of its comfort zone by some of the facts of a folding phone. But at the same time, also Apple, you can see where. Apple took its stands and said, this is what we're going to do that we're not going to compromise on. And they, you know, you get to see that. You,

now I've never used a folding phone for any length of time, and you have. So I don't know if you've got any thoughts just about this category and how this thing kind of fits into it. Yeah, I mean, I think I'll say like the idea of the outward screen. I've used devices that do both things.

I've used devices that do what Apple is doing where you curve one end and do like a sharp corner on the other. I've used devices where they just curve all corners. and you just end up with like a weird bezel on one side. There's like a little bump. Yeah, it's a decision that you can make. And they have made this decision. I think by and large, it's best to have the most screen you can have,

even if it's not that much more. And I think they've obviously made some changes to iOS, which seem to make the kind of the side where the rounded edge is, is kind of like less information and more access for things. I wonder if there's a left-handed mode for this far. Yeah, so we will see, and I'm sure somebody's asking, of course, we're doing this right after, but they made a point of saying in the video that it's usable in all orientations. Yeah. And I read that to be, as somebody who is right-handed but holds my phone in my left hand, putting all of the controls on the far right side, as they've done with the software, it doesn't work for me.

No. But I kind of assume that if I flip the phone over, it will all flip over. It would be very odd to unfold it though, right? Because you would unfold it and then you'd have to flip it back over again, which is not terrible, but like it's an odd, it would be an odd way to use it. If it's all orientations, then you would open it that way. You would just open it from the other direction and it would be in that orientation, right? I mean, I think that's the idea here. it turned around so the phone is upside down, right? So then the controls are on the left side.

Yes. When you open it, you're looking at the back of the phone. You'd then have to turn it back around again. You bring the front part forward no matter what. Oh yeah. Yeah, you're opening a book backwards. Yeah, no, I get it. Yeah, I know. Yeah, and that's it. You're opening a book backwards. That's it. But I get it. But I think what they imply is that it doesn't matter. That should be the way it works. Now my brain has come around to accurate physics. I agree with you. And that would be nice, actually.

And like an iPad, right? iPads, they respect all orientations. Exactly. And the iPhone has been very much not that kind of a device, where it's sort of like it's either upwards, it's on its side, and that's about it. And with the iPhone duo, a name that we have to

lodge in our brains now, they're saying free rotation. Like do, you know, and we should say the implications of this are greater than just what we assume is if you want to hold it this direction or that direction, it'll work. It's also, they showed it when it's open. You can obviously do it in any orientation. And then there are more orientations than just that. Yes.

Because there is laying it down like a tent so it's got standby on the front. or laying it down on its narrow side slightly open, so it's got two slightly open internal display faces showing. Which you can also use standby on that, look on the inside. Exactly. Or laying it flat like a laptop also works. So there's lots of different, like they showed that in a little tent configuration, not only does it show you your standby widgets on the front,

but it'll do like a little glow effect on the inside screen. So you get this kind of like glow in the background. While we're talking about this, how sick is that opening animation? Where it looks like you're looking through the phone? Like, I- gasped when they opened that phone the first phone. That's the most Apple thing you could possibly imagine. And I'm reminded that the code Spelunkers were saying how, you know,

it's measuring specific degree of angle of the hinge. Yeah. And this is why, right? It's because Apple wants to know exactly so that it can have this illusion that as you open the phone or close the phone, there's this illusion of continuity between the internal and external display. Yeah. It's like,

other phone manufacturers have done some kind of like animated wallpaper, right? Where like when you open it, you're like a butterfly in the front and you open it and then inside the butterflies flap in its wings or whatever, this is like years ahead, right? And this is just because this is the stuff of Apple really super cares about. Right. Like this is the stuff that they are very, very focused on. They're going to sweat. And they have absolutely done the job.

Well, yeah. Anytime you do a product like this, you could probably write up on a whiteboard like 80 things that are going to have to be decided about how this is going to work. Because the ramifications of having two surfaces and like what happens when you go from surface one to surface two. And they had to deal with it. This is actually kind of funny when you think about it. like this is a major set of features for iOS 27, right? Like, it's actually kind of huge because they have to implement things that have just not been implemented on iOS. And some of the things they can pick up from the iPad, but there's a lot of stuff that's just there is no precedent for this stuff. And they've just got to figure it out.

And again, not ideally, not punt on it, but say, okay, let's make it really good. How do we do that? What's a good? Like, because you could totally open it up and then like the, then the screen pop. up as I you know from the front yeah and you're like okay that one went off and this one went on and they're like you know not they're not going to do that they're going to drive both displays and

they're going to have them work together and the both displays will run the other thing is both displays will run a different time so they're like you could do selfies which allowed them to create like a selfie mode um you can do like face times where you can have both cameras inside and outside going or both screens inside and outside going or the kit kid kid mode when you're asking a kid I called it I'm so happy they stole it they like got Snoopy animating on the front screen. It's like, oh, I'm so happy that they added that future. So, so that is, there's a lot of ramifications once you've got two displays and sensors

on the inside and the outside or either side of a, of an open phone. And like, there's just, it's wild. There's a lot of, a lot going on here. This is the thing. Like, there is, there's no world in which we will touch on all of these things today. I mean, especially because we won't really be able to until we've used one, which is unfortunately quite a way away. But I'm just so happy about how hard they have gone with iOS to make iOS really work with the hardware.

You've got just new stuff going on. There was an easy way to do this and there was a complicated way to do this. And I think they have taken the complicated path where it's saying there are so many components here that you've seen maybe in different places with the iPhone. So things like standby and stuff like that. But we're just giving you a bunch of things that you can try out now. And I'm very, very excited to be able to experience this, right? Like, even the split screen, right? So you can do a split screen.

You can do one half of each app. I think you could do a bit of free resizing, but it can do some snapping as well. You can pair apps together, which is a thing we never have gotten on an iPad OS. There is also like a portrait. split screen where it takes up different sizes of the... Because people are going to say I think there was a period where you could pair

your apps together in the old multitasking. It was like a late stage iPad multitasking thing where you could pair apps together, yeah. You could make like a permanent pair? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I have a vague memory of that. I think the larger issue here too for iOS is

this is a bespoke implementation for the iPhone Duo, but make no mistake, a bunch of these features will end up in iOS 28. Right? Like, some of this stuff is a real trial where they'll be like,

oh, this is a better UI element. We should just put this in 28. Things like the little combined status bar thing. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. That's a new, I mean, the moment I saw it, I thought that feels like something that's not going to just live on this phone forever, right?

the tap to reveal status bar thing. It just doesn't, yeah, for sure. And some of the other, the widgets and the customizability and all that, it feels like a lot of that stuff is, is, you know, they build it for this. And then they're like, well, this is great. Why would we not use this on all our iPhones? And then they build it for everything else too.

Camera story is kind of what we expected. You know, you've got the two cameras on the outside, the fusion main camera, which has the two times telephoto, the ultra-wide, 12 megapixel status. stage front camera, but then, I think, the unexpected part, an underscreen FaceTime camera on the inside. Yeah. Bold.

Yeah. So it looks like, and they didn't shy away from it, it sure looks like you can see it. So it's still there, but it's not a punchout. There are some pixels there, but you can still tell that that's the camera area, but it doesn't totally wipe it out. And then when it's taking a picture, those pixels go off, and then you've got a camera space there. and it looks like a camera cut out.

But it is the first time that they've tried to do something like this. Because it's interesting. Some of Apple's competitors here went down this road and then backed off. And so it seemed like the age of the underscreen camera was dead. But I'm very intrigued that they are doing this.

I find it interesting that they are just calling it under display FaceTime camera, which tells me it's not a great camera, but for a FaceTime call, totally fine, right? Yeah, exactly. It's like, yeah, what do you want?

This is the best we could do here. And then they added a bunch of, you know, we mentioned it, a couple of these things already, but like even a smart take where you can, you know, everybody poses and it will take the image for you, right? That kind of thing. Again, they've added a bunch of stuff.

Implications of once you've got a phone that can stand itself at an angle and you can see it and all of those things, you've got to do something like this. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the hardware, you know, they focus,

a lot on this. This is one of the, I think the, I think the rarer times where Apple talks about a bunch of things which you could say would be wrong with a product like this in a way to try and talk about why theirs is good, right? They spoke about distracting creases. They spent a lot of time focusing on durability because it is expected that these devices are less durable. Right. There was a lot of focus on that, you know, talking about how the, how the whole frame is reinforced and different areas are reinforced in the frame. Eight layers that slide separately and we then we three-d print a custom layer based on a scan of the actual device as it's being built.

That detail to me was fascinating. So there is a, I don't remember which phone this was. I think it was an oppo phone that did this. They had a phone maybe last year that did this. And when I heard about that technology, I was like, that feels like a very appelly thing to do. And it was one of these things where I wondered if, I was reading Apple in China at the time, and I was wondering, is this one of these technologies that Apple's been working on? And then somebody else also started using it because now it exists. I mean, it could be, it might not be the case,

but it felt to me very much like a thing Apple would do. They used to do a few things, right? They use AI models to match hinges and housings that they think will fit best together. And then there's a bunch of 3D component printing that is going on to make sure everything, fits as well as possible to eliminate a crease as much as they can. I mean, this is what you want to hear in a device like this, as well as, like, I think the, they talk about the durability to screens and then the confidence of this thing's going to have Apple Pencil inside and outside. It's like, all right. This is, there's a level of this that is what took you so long because these folding

phones have been out for a while. And so what they're doing is they're not just boasting about their technological prowess, but they're also answering the question, what took them so long? And, you know, in the end, it allows them to send the message, which is, well, there really couldn't have been a folding iPhone before now because our standards are so high. And, you know, that's a, I get it. That's a marketing message. But there's also truth to that. Like, in reality, why is this year that the folding phone is happening? Why is the iPhone duo coming out next month? And the answer is, they got to the point where they felt they could ship a product in at least some volume, how much volume TBD,

but at least some volume that they felt was up to their standards. And that includes coming up with all of these new techniques, new to Apple, certainly, in order to get the manufacturing to get to the point where it reaches that quality. Oh, and it's a nanotexture finish. Oh, you kidding me? That's going to look so good. Like for reading and stuff.

Like, it's going to be, I think that this inside screen is going to be really, really nice. Oh, it does have a dynamic island still on the inside screen, which is funny. Right, like it will pop up when it's needed, but then otherwise there'll just be nothing there, I guess, which is a, I've seen that fun. You mentioned Apple Pencil. I mean, we've been talking for a long time about would they take Apple Pencil and put it on a big iPhone or something like that? And they held it for this, but the USBC Apple Pencil, so the one that doesn't do the magnetic charging, because there's no where to do that on this device, that will work. It's very funny, right?

It's like later this year with a software update, it will work, which is like, it's just not, they're not promising that it'll work out of the box, but that they will enable it. And that's great, because it's another way that this becomes, uh, if not an iPad,

it picks up more of Apple's advantages for having built the iPad. And it's another selling point for, this device where someone may want, is comparison shopping, and they're like, oh, I could take notes on this? Yeah. Like, it's just like another thing where someone's going to be like, oh, yeah. Flip it vertically, get out your pencil and, um, and start writing. Touch ID. Yeah. I mean, the way they sell the touch ID, right? Touch ID and watch unlock. They put those together. The way they sell that. The way they sell that. What is the most secure way to open this device? Like, there are other ways, Josh. Like, we know of one of them. Like, there's another way.

Like, I understand what you're trying to do, but don't try to set it like, like, oh, you can do multiple fingers? I was like, oh, really? Can you do that with touch ID jaws? Oh, man, I didn't know. Remember? It is what it's going to be. Look, but there is MagSafe charging. So, like, we didn't lose everything.

They didn't mention it, but there's an FAQ on their website. It's not just even Chi charging. It's MagSafe charging. So it's there. I saw several people responded when I found that and said they probably didn't put in the video because it looks weird. Yeah. It probably does. I just don't want to, let's not talk about it.

Let's not show it. But it's there. It's there. And also they wanted to boast, this was the, all of the phones got this charging, fast charging update. And they wanted to boast about how fast their charging is. So that's, um, that's what they did. And they said this thing's got two batteries in it, obviously. Two batteries and work together.

It will get all day battery, which are now saying 24 hours on a charge with a new battery benchmark model, which are calling real usage model, which thank you, Apple. For doing this. I appreciate it. Our friends in the performance marketing group at Apple have been hard at work trying to come up with a test that kind of models how people actually use their devices, which is good because playing a video for 48 hours is not how people use their devices. So the idea would be, you know, I mean, it's what I do all the time. I can't speak for everyone. I just turn on a live stream of that, of that like waterhole in Africa where the hippos are. Well, Jason, if you were live streaming, it's a lot of.

it's only 37 hours rather than 44. You're right, you're right, you're right. You know this as someone who does this? You know this? So it is, so they seem to have built without any detail, of course, but they'll disclose some details probably. A model that's based on essentially real world usage stats about how long a normal average day with an iPhone

stresses when's the screen off and on, you know, how often is it used, How much is it doing? Would you like me to be very boring and read to you from the footnote about this test? Bore me, man, bore me. The profile is based on the median usage values across iPhone users and reflects a combination of passive and active use and a variety of applications, including but not limited to messaging, photos, music, social media, video streaming, games, web browsing, and navigation. That's what it says.

Yeah. Well, I mean, the purpose, look, obviously, Apple wants to impress you with their number, but they also want to impress you with their improvement over the previous year. Yeah. So by creating this test, it allows them, um, so I guess they're not super motivated to make it,

uh, entirely fake. Uh, but at the same time, I'm sure everybody else, you know, it's not going to make them look bad. Let's just put it that way.

But I'm, if they're going to quote a number, I would rather have a number that is at least plausibly based on real world usage. So thank you, Apple, indeed for that. But yeah, 24 hours per charge when using both screens equally. Not bad. Not bad.

Talking about hardware, quarks and stuff. No action button. RIP. I guess no camera control. I haven't checked that, but there's no action button. I would assume, you know, yeah, it's funny. We're not even talking about the buttons here. I also wanted to say we were talking about the displays and how they're just, you know, not branded or anything.

The Johnny Sruji segment. It has camera control. It has camera control. It does have camera control. Thank goodness. What are we doing? That's the wrong one. The wrong button.

The Johnny Sruji is now the chief hardware officer. Yeah. And so he comes out in this video and the first thing he does is he talks about displays, which is amazing because he's the chip guy. And that's a moment where it's like, yeah, not anymore. Oh, yeah. Good point. I didn't think about that.

That display. That's new for him where he's talking about, oh, our display and a nanotexture finish and all that. That's not a Johnny Sruji thing, except. Now it is a Johnny Shrews thing. Yeah. He did that. Yeah, that's, that's, I didn't, I'm very used to him giving me lots of very intense detail.

I didn't think that it was not about chips. Some other notes, C2. So it's E-SIM only. It uses the C-2. We have the new C-2 chip. This is second generation, Apple, modem chip. So this is E-Sim only worldwide, which I think the air was as well, right? So that was the other.

Yeah, but not like for, yeah. Again, not the pro because there's some markets where they just can't do that. A millimeter wave support in the U.S., which I think is a new for the C series. It is. Yeah. And, you know, they boast a little, Johnny boasts a little bit about because it's all integrated together. There's all sorts of stuff we can do and we can make our connections better and all of those things. Yeah, analyze the connections and all of that. But again, it's all in on the C2.

It's like there's a next generation Apple phone. Every next generation Apple phone just goes to the C2. It's the ones where you're like, there's markets where we really need to sell the iPhone Pro, and they're going to be resistant to ESIM only. So for those markets, we'll make it available. And that I assume from that that either the iPhone Pro, I mean, did they say, I mean, I assume it's just got a Qualcomm mode a minute or, you know, although there's a rumor that like some markets, maybe the ESIM only model is a C2 and the east and the with sim slot is a Qualcomm.

I guess we'll have to find out when we get there. Anyway, it's a, it's a very impressive piece of hardware. And then in true Apple style, it is the story of the hardware and the software working together. Craig Federigi appears in a phone launch because he needs to explain that they did a load of software things. Because once you have this kind of a device, you can't just punt the software. you have to build a bunch of bespoke software to go with the hardware for it to make sense. So like the split view,

second window, they use the example of having two Safari windows open. Yes, that's a very good, very good use case. You know, easy ways to swap apps, tap the divider to lock those two apps together,

which is really smart, really smart. I just, yeah, I can't wait. Oh, all the way. Also, always useful to find out. what apps get mentioned. I like that flighty was a,

a live activity mention, but I want to notice that a lot of their apps that they mentioned, like Zoom and Slack, I mean, it's kind of like the iPad, but on an iPhone, but still it's good. It's companies that are working on adopting

the new APIs. And also recognizing that this device is probably going to be used by a lot of people that want something to get their work done. Exactly. Yeah. So Zoom and then Slack and the detail mention was fun. But I just, again, you noticed it, I'm sure. Prominent mention of Netflix.

Yes, I did notice this. And also promoting a feature of Netflix that nobody uses, which is their short feature, which is extra fascinating because that is the benefit that Netflix get from this. And that was, that was, uh, what John,

was that John Ternus? I think it was. Yeah, I think that was time. So I don't know. I had a moment where I, where I lean forward a little bit, or maybe it was Craig,

but like I leaned forward a little bit and thought to myself, hmm, like, I mean, Apple and Netflix are not, not like openly warring. They have their moments where they're, where they work together and the moments when they don't.

But I did, it just makes me wonder if maybe the, the, The relationship with Netflix is thawing. I mean, I think it's probably been a really long time since they got mentioned in a keynote. Yeah. Prominent mentions of Netflix.

And they showed later, they show a Netflix video playing, I think it's a Netflix video, maybe it's Apple TV, with video controls on the bottom when it's folded into that laptop-like configuration. Anyway, so just they showed off the Netflix stuff that nobody uses, but they're doing a solid for Netflix there, basically. So one thing that I'd be intrigued in and I didn't seem a lot on the website and I don't

remember it from the, like, you know, is like how the keyboard works. I know I saw like landscape all the way, landscape split, but I wonder if you can do like one side, you know, like I would like one sided swipe typing or whatever, you know, like I have on the iPad. But we're fine. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Because I don't, I would, I don't want to be typing two-handed with this thing all the time. I don't think. Like I don't, I don't do that on an ice. bad. Like I do like swipe typing with the little floaty keyboard. I hope that they have that in there. I mean, look, the iPhone duo is such a huge product. We're going to be talking about it for weeks. Oh, the price, I guess. Good news. Yeah, I know. It doesn't come out. It's pre-order on October 16th,

released on October 23rd. I personally am really happy about this because as a person who produces a weekly show about Apple News, splitting these releases. by a significant period of time is great, because we'll focus on the pro phones, then we will focus on the duo. I'm pleased about that, that we're not going to have this clash, right, that we're going to have to try and review

all these phones in the same episode, which would just be a nightmare, so I'm pretty pleased about that. Yeah, but it is six weeks of waiting for all of us. And starting at 1999, they did it. They got it under two grand. Yeah, I saw Mark German broke this last night, and I saw a bit of analysis

that suggested they're probably eating more on the margin than they wanted, but I think this is the this is the price that they wanted to sell this at. And I know I've, a lot of other people are like, oh my God, a $2,000 phone. This is ridiculous. And like, yeah, I mean, it was always going to be a $2,000 phone. It was always going to be a $2,000 phone, I think. I think that it's still a $2,000 phone. I was asked this question earlier today. I did an interview right before we started. And you can say is an MPI. You should say it was an B. It's impressive. You say you don't. It's impressive. You say you were on NPR today. It's fun. I mean, but I wasn't.

Maybe they'll use some of my clips somewhere. And then it's very funny, by the way, when you're on NPR, people who only, people come out of the woodwork are like, oh, I heard you on NPR. And I'm like, ah, that's one of my NPR listeners out there that just perked up when they heard my voice. It's funny. Anyway, he said, is this an unexpected price? And my answer was six months ago? No. Today, yes.

Because we all kind of expect everything is more expensive. And I think they really, really, really, and I know it's psychological, but like having it not start at 2,000 something. Yeah. It is important to Apple. That number is a one at the beginning. And the number starts with one. It's the last one that's available before you get to two, but it starts with a one.

Of course, you can go to two terabytes and then pay more than three grand for it. But, you know, be that as a man. Still less than a Vision Pro, but like a dollar. Or like maybe. it's the same price actually. But hey, Jason, let me tell you, you can lease that two terabyte for just $92.81 and $81 a month for 24 months. Aren't we surprised even a little bit about the fact that all of these phones were also mentioned as having a lovely low, low lease price. And trade-ins, trade-ins, trade-ins.

And trade-ins. And we've got to get you into a trade-in today. I felt like being back on an analyst call because that's always what they say on the earnings calls. is, look, this is why we do trade-ins. We do financing because we want the iPhones must flow. We will find ways to reach people and make them affordable. And there are carrier deals, trade-ins, you know, and now they've got the lease option. It will be interesting to see as well what are the deals that carriers are going to offer for this phone.

Because it's very expensive. but they're going to want to offer deals. I don't think they're going to be giving it away, but they will want to offer deals as well. So there are ways, but they have to emphasize it because it's all expensive. Is a price you can get to very easily of an 18 Pro Max?

It's true. You do not have to go very far up the ladder to get to that level. To get to $2,000. We're not talking in like a world where carriers will be like, that's too much for our blood. They're used to selling this, right? Like, this is a normal price for a phone now, but it's just not a normal starting price for a phone.

But I would expect Apple sells quite a lot of phones that cost $2,000. Upgradions will know that ever since the iPhone 10 came out, part of the narrative that I've been telling is that Apple realized they could charge more for the iPhone. And they've added more affordable iPhones, but they've also added more expensive iPhones. Remember, what we think of as the iPhone base, not the pro, is kind of price like the iPhone used to be. But then the iPhone 10 came out and it cost $1,000.

Yeah. Like, oh. And that price has crept up. And what Apple has learned so far, as far as I can tell, as far as any of us can tell, is that for some people, we have not yet found the price that Apple could charge for a phone that people won't pay. Yep. And if you're Apple, optimally, if somebody, if some portion of your audience is willing to give you $2,000 for a phone, phone, you don't say, I'm sorry, 1,200 is as high as it goes. You say, uh, here you go, sir,

$2,000 phone. Please give me that money now. And that, you know, this might be it. Although I really feel, okay, I feel like a lot of the narrative is going to be, wow, this is an expensive phone. And how well is it going to sell? And we know that at 2%. 2% of the global smartphone market as folding phones, it's tiny. It's tiny. It's way tinier than the percent market share of an iPhone Air or an iPhone Mini. It's tiny. I think it will go up because of Apple and because even like Apple shining on this category will sell more Android folding phones too. This is the Apple effect. But I think we need to not just look at the price because of that. This isn't just about them being expensive. It is about being expensive, but not just. This is a weird phone. It's lacking

that camera. It's a different shape. How do you use it? Do you really want it? You know, is it better to just buy an iPhone on an iPad mini or whatever? Like, there's so many other arguments about it because it's not like an iPhone you've had before. And it's wider and it's thicker and it's all of these other things that like it's not going to be for everybody. Even if it was the same price as an iPhone pro, it's not going to be for everybody. It's going to be a niche product. Now the question is, is this technology sort of the phone of the future? And I think in some ways it is because what we've learned over the years since the iPhone 6 and since before that when Samsung learned it, people like big screens.

The big screens don't fit in your pocket. So ultimately you do need a folding phone so that you can have a big screen that fits in your pocket because you folded it. And so I do think that this is the future of a lot of phones, but not. Not yet, right? For now, it is cutting edge and interesting and has a use case, but it's very expensive, and it's weird. And like, I really firmly believe there are a lot of people who wouldn't buy this phone for any price because it's just not what they want. They want a more traditional iPhone. It's going to be too small and too big or both, right?

Too small, too big, too thick. All the wrong. It's the anti-Goldilocks, right? It's just wrong in all measures for those people. I mean, good news. Apple sells many other iPhones for you. But it will be interesting to watch who does gravitate toward this and how they feel about it. But just to keep that in mind that when we talk about the iPhone error being a flop in iPhone terms,

because it's got a small market, small percentage of Apple's iPhone market, pulling phones traditionally are way smaller than that, even. So what's going to happen? I don't know. It's not going to be, I mean, get ready. They're going to be a lot of, oh, they're not, put it this way, they're not going to sell that many of them. Yeah.

But they're also going to sell everyone they make. Yeah. And that's just the nature of this product. It's hard for them to make it. Their volumes are going to be, they're going to struggle with volumes. And some people are going to want them, but how many? We'll see.

We'll see. Do you? I mean, like, do you want it? I mean, I know we'll get it. But do you see this phone? You're like, I want this phone? Yeah. Yeah.

I do too. It's because I'm an iPad primary. Yeah. And I like the idea that this might be able, like I don't even sleep. I know so many people sleep with the iPhone next to them. And I don't. I sleep with an iPad next to me. Yeah.

Because my iPad is what I am reading before I go to bed. Not my iPhone. My iPhone is parked on a charger in the kitchen. But I could, could, you know, could I? I'm going to rephrase that as a question. Could I use this? as my iPad and my iPhone that's with me all the time. It's not the same as my iPad.

I've got a big iPad Pro, but like, would it be fulfilling? And then also I can like put it on my nightstand as a little clock. Maybe. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah.

I, so I do want it, but, you know, what I really want to do is I want to, you know, see the reviews and hopefully try one out and write a review and find out. Because there are probably lots of,

gotchas. Like, it doesn't really do this. And if this is what you want, you know, and it doesn't really compare to the iPad because this, like, there's going to be a lot of those. And we just don't know what they are yet. Yeah. But I am super intrigued by it as somebody who uses the iPhone and the iPad. And I think about traveling. Like, I just went, I was, I was in Oregon over Labor Day weekend. And, you know, I only brought the iPad. But I had that thought, too, of like, does this change? If I use this, does this change my travel? Because I bring my iPad everywhere I go. Would I not? Would I just bring my phone and maybe my laptop if I have to do laptop work, would that be enough to just bring my phone on a trip because it's basically an iPad at that point? I don't know. Maybe.

I'm intrigued by that. So maybe. Yeah, I know I want this phone because I am fascinated by it. And I'm so excited to use it. Like it looks really exciting and fun and new, like really new. Like, if you're an iPhone, phone user, right? I cannot tell if I want this phone as my daily phone. For me, I absolutely know I will only be able to make that decision after I use it. Because there are things that I would actively be giving up that I'm excited about. There's stuff that the pro phone gets this year, which we can talk about a minute, that I'm really excited for. But also, like, this phone is heavy. It's heavier than a Pro Max and it's going to feel weird in my hand. And it's like, how am I going to feel about the outside screen? We spent a lot of time talking about the inside screen, but the outside screen is

going to be the one you use most. What does that actually feel like to use? Right. And so like, you know, this might be an incredible device, but do I want it in my pocket every day? Right. No way of knowing. No way. Until we use it. This episode is, brought to you by our friends over at 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 a business, Squarespace would give you everything you need to claim your domain, showcase your offerings of a professional website, grow your brand and get paid all in one place. One of the things I love about Squarespace is how it scales with you. So for people who may be setting up

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slash upgrade with a code upgrade that is 50% off your first purchase and to show your support for the show. Our thanks to Squarespace for the support of this show and all of Relay. We also have the pro iPhones. They exist. So we had the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max. The colors for these phones. We have four. There are four.

We have burgundy, glacial, silver and black. I don't remember the names of the silver and black. So I'm just going to say silver on black until I check. Deep black. Deep black. Silly me. And silver. What is it?

Just like shallow silver? Like what? Okay. time. I it's a shame. For me, it's a shame. I adore the orange, the cosmic orange. I do not like you for the burgundy or the glacier. I don't like it. For me this year, I think I'm going to go to silver. I have a silver Macbock Air.

Love the silver Macbock Air. I think silver will be the color for me this year. Are you a burgundy boy? I want to, oh no. I want to see Glacier. Yeah. Because I like a blue. It might be nice. It looks like it's a visible blue. A blue you can see and not a blue where Apple tells you it's blue.

And you go, okay. Yeah. Also, I've over the years had a lot of black phones. So a deep black. Also funny, it felt like Apple was kind of running away from black iPhones for a while. Yeah. But they ran to it this year. Deep black.

Here it is. They picked up all the black that they missed out last time and they've added it in. And it made it deeper. So Glacier I want to see because I could see myself having a blue phone. I like that if it's a nice blue. With a name like Glacier, I'm not sure it is. And then Deep Black would be my other preference. Burgundy, I mean, I'd like to see it.

I think it's interesting because, you know, it's a, that's an interesting shade. But again, I mark my words, cosmic orange is going to be like a comeback phone. Yeah. They're going to bring it back in a year or two on something. thing and everybody's going to go, oh, it's back. It's an old timer, right?

Like, that is a great color. Maybe they didn't know how popular it would be, right? When they announced it initially. We still don't know, but it sure seems like it's popular. I think it was pretty popular, but maybe I'm biased. But yeah, I dig the silver phone anyway. And they got rid of the two-tone. They're color matching the two, the aluminum glass.

Oh, that's a bummer. I missed that. I don't like that. I like the two-tone. Yep. They're going the other way. They're going to match them. That's a shame.

What? You know, I was going to say, why have the glass? I know there are many really good reasons. Not just the color as why they had the glass. But that for me is a shame because I love the two-tone look. But yeah, I'll be going silver this year. But it's not all about the colors. They spent a lot of time in the 18 Pro going over Siri AI again, which makes sense.

They showed some very simple. third party integrations. They showed lots of apps that will be able to work. We just have to wait and say. What, next, is it next week? iOS 27 is out? I don't know. You tell me. Yeah, I can find the information out. I think so. I think it's next week. But I'll double check that. But yes, and then I guess we'll start to see what is the third party situation in Syria AI. Like, how does it actually work? But I did, I enjoyed the demo that they did. because I think it was very helpful to show many more practical things that Syria AI is capable of, and even what we saw at WWC.

I think it's needed here so people can understand what's coming. I thought it was a pretty good demo of that. But we didn't talk about the A20 Pro when we were talking about the iPhone Duo, but they spent a little bit more time talking about it here. And we get a sense for what the A20. We got the sense what the A20 would be based upon the M7, right, that we learned about a couple of weeks ago. It is a six-core CPU with two supercores and four efficiency cores. They say it is a desktop class supercore, a seven-core GPU, two neural engines,

an increased memory bandwidth. It is the widest memory interface shipped on an iPhone, apparently. And then that silicon is pushed right up against the vapor chamber. So this is a new design they have for the vapor chamber. They're using the packaging technology to put the RAM and the processors and everything in this package that is then connected directly to the vapor chamber, which they say improves performance because that improves cooling and they have a whole new thermal design and three times the surface area of the vapor chamber. There's more stainless and then graphite and then there's nanotwin. copper material. Oh, that's my favorite kind of copper.

To move heat away from the display while also providing strength. But look, I was struck by this section of just them talking about how they engineer these products kind of holistically. Like they are providing strength to make the phone not bend using a material that also is moving heat away from the display. They're building the chip packaging and attaching it to the vapor chamber, which is a much larger vapor chamber. And the goal there is to improve sustained performance, which it does. Because ultimately, they're trying to prevent that chip from having to clock down because it got too hot. So, great. And they, you know, 40% improvement, giant leaps in improvements.

You know, they seem very, they seem very focused on this right now, right? That, like, we only got the vapor chamber last year. And for them to have already done a lot of additional work on it, this is clearly something that is important to them with the iPhone now of allowing them to get performance. They clearly see it as an increasing benefit and an increasing need for performance, high sustained performance in the iPhone, gaming, AI, this kind of stuff.

It seems that they're putting a lot of effort into that with the thermals. I mean, you know, we spoke about it on this show. It was getting really bad. Like, these phones were getting uncomfortable to hold. Right. And so I am happy that they've done this. Like, I think it's just right.

16 was really hot. 17 is a lot better. I imagine this will be a lot better. Yeah, the other way to view this, of course, is that Apple has the chip powers to drive this and then boast about it. And the question, I mean, this is why they, I think they're really excited about,

obviously they're excited about gaming on the iPhone they always have been because it's something that takes advantage of their chip powers. AI now is another thing they can point to. Now, how many on-device AI things are happening on phone, that will require two banks of neural engines plus GPU accelerators on this chip. I don't know. But like it's what Apple can do.

This is the part they can do is they can make their phone really fast. And then also alternately making it more efficient, which is also important for them, right? It's to say, yes, but also it's the best battery life we've ever had. They did the new design. And if you're in the e-sim-only model, which has a little tiny bit more. battery, you get the best battery life of any iPhone. And like that that real world test again, they're quoting in a real world test 24 hours per charge of an 18 pro and 30 hours on a pro max, which is a wild number. That is a wild number, 24 hours of battery life on an iPhone.

And also the, what did I say, the 18 pro, the battery life was as much as the 17. Pro Max. Yeah. That's really cool. Mm-hmm. Like, I'm very, very down with that. Like, that's really good. I'm very happy with that.

Yeah. And they listed off. Like, this is a combination of the chip and also the software and, like, it's, and the battery and figuring out how they all work together. And then the battery life emerges from that. Yeah. Yeah, it's really very interesting stuff. And what is 50% charge in 15 minutes on a wired charger?

Like they're doing some faster charging stuff. So these are all good things, right? And they're just like, oh, yes, this is all good stuff. Yeah, if you're getting on an airplane and you only have five minutes to plug it in, you'll be able to watch a movie on the flight. Yeah. That's basically their argument here. Yeah.

Yeah. So it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. Yeah. You should talk about the camera. Let's talk about it. We have the variable, first variable aperture. physical aperture control on an iPhone ever with,

like, laser cut blades thinner than a human hair. Yeah, I don't know what to do with that. Those lasers. Did they do a James Bond thing with John Ternus at the end? I think they did, right? Where like it was John Ternus and then it did the kind of the aperture thing. A little aperture? Maybe.

I think they were, I don't know why they did that. It looked like that to me. I hope that's what they're going close. Again, they're boasting here about the impressive technology that's required to do a physical aperture. It's a moving part, right? It's a moving part on a device that has no moving parts. But this is what you need to do for the physics of light. So now they've got that, you know, rotor mechanism.

And it allows them to, the key thing here is it allows them to let in lots and lots of light when they want to, which leads to positive things like night mode captures being faster. but also it allows them to close the aperture when they need to to block the light and also to create other photographic effects. So you end up with the software being or the user, but the user or the software being able to control that aperture in order to get the desired effect. And, you know, there's a lot, as we got into it, the pro controls, which is that thing that had been rumored is like, are they going to build a whole app? And the answer is no, they're going to build this whole pro control system where you can customize your apps and you've got control over more stuff and have a histogram. This is what Mark German was talking about, right? This was the thing that he was talking about a long time ago.

And this is what supposedly Apple hired Sebastian DeWitt, who did Halyde. Right. To work on some of this stuff too, because this is pro camera features inside the camera app. a histogram, you can adjust the aperture, you can change the shutter speed. That was a thing I really liked is like, if you want to have motion trails or stuff like that, you can change the shutter speed in the camera app, which I don't think you could do in a camera app before. I think you needed an advanced app for that. So that'll be the challenge here is that those advanced camera apps are going to be a little challenged by this.

But at the same time, what I would say is the people who want to use the full features of the camera will probably want to use an advanced camera app instead of this. So, you know, there's always more room out on the edges for those. But I was impressed that Apple is adding in a whole load of that stuff. And then photographic styles, they increased as well.

Yeah, I'm happy about this. With texture and grain, so you can personalize your photographic style even more now. I just want them to keep working on that feature because I really like that feature. And I like a little bit of grain in my photos too. So I'm pleased that they did this.

Nice. I feel like at this point, I'm not going to need to use a photo editor at all on my phone. Because, like, I've used VSCO. I've used dark room. Like, I've used these apps over time. And photographic styles has reduced the amount of time that I use these types of editing tools. Because I really like the, you have a slightly tweaked gold, is the color preset, slightly tweaked it.

If I could add a little grain in there, Like, I will be very happy. I don't know if I'd use that all the time, but I like being able to add some of that in and play around with in the photographic styles, which is a feature that I really like. I want to just touch on the aperture again. It just is like, I'm really intrigued to see what it looks like from my photos.

It's like, because again, it's like they show off the example images and like, this was taken at this. And it's like, I don't, I have no concept of what you're showing me. me. It's like, look how impressive this image is. It's like, I agree that's a good image, like what you're showing me. You know, like these, these look good, but what would they have been otherwise? And I'm, you know, it's like I feel like so many times over the years there have been like the biggest leap in the camera. And then we get it and we're like, I mean, yeah, it's a little bit better. Like, but they're, it's not huge. And it does feel like every time that they have done

stuff around lighting, the amount of light that can go into an image, it has made a big improvement. So my hope is that that is what we're going to see here. I was happy to hear like a few little little bit of the night mode getting improved. That made me excited. Like faster and better, brilliant, because I quite like that. And ultimately, you have more control over depth of field because of the aperture. So there'll be some degree of that that is going on. And I'm going to be intrigued to see, like, without the pro controls, how much control do I get? Right? How automatic is it? What do they, how simple is it? You know, like, how much benefit do I get without digging into the big stuff? My, my imagine is that there'll be a, you know, fully functional auto setting that does just what an auto setting on a film

camera would do. We're just going to adjust the aperture based on how much light it senses. And, and, you know, that's how that's going to work. Can we, speaking, which. New photo features. Yeah. Apple reference image was announced today. Yes. In the midst of a phone launch, they announced this new system whereby they literally sign their photo data

from the sensor at a pixel level and then use private cloud compute to generate a signed, unalterable image that lives with your photo that you can edit so that you can always provide the signed photo as evidence of that this was not an artificially manipulated photo. Interesting. Interesting. I mean, they're supporting synth ID as well, which is just, you know, a tag if something was AI generated. But, and the way they're doing it is,

it's not that you can't edit your photo. But by putting them together, what it's saying is if you adjust the, you know, you crop it and you adjust the contrast and the colors and all of that because you're a news photographer. But perhaps your employer wants also to have the evidence of, I don't know how this is going to work. The evidence that this is a real photo and not something that I generated, Apple is basically providing iPhone photographers with the ability to do that and say, here is the evidence that this is a real photo. This is a cryptographically signed original that is unaltered. That's interesting.

It is interesting. The thing that you've suggested is great, right? That people who are camera professionals will be able to have... This is how they sold the feature is. This is a very specific feature that is how do I prove that this photo is real? And the answer is, this is how.

But like, kind of what I want is what about everyone? You know what I mean? Well, I think the answer is Apple did this. And I don't know enough about the background here to know if there's somebody who's trying to work on a standard here or not. Yeah. So this could be part of a larger thing or it could be Apple just laying their cards

down and saying everybody else should do this too, some version of this. Which it's an interesting take, right? Of like, how do I know that this photo? You could end up in a place where any photo you see, you could say, show me the original and verify that this is real. And if it showed you something that had been cryptographically verified, then you would know that it was a real image. That could be great, but, you know, Apple isn't changing the world today. They're changing the output of their iPhone. But I think it is an interesting attempt to reinforce that this is the, you know,

by getting down to the pixel level on the sensor, proving that this is a photo that was actually captured. There were two video features that I was excited about. one is that you can add cinematic mode effects to videos after you shoot them brilliant right it's like I don't want to be choosing a mode but maybe I would be able to make a video better right by adding some of these effects and also smart focus tracking with on device AI so you can set out track this person and it will track them keep them in focus if they leave and come back it still tracks them that's cool that's cool feature now.

Sure. You can have three live activities viewable once. Fun. Cool, right? Like, that's nice. And I expect that that will also work on the duo

because the dynamic island is... I don't know. I don't know what the geometry of that is. I'm not going to assume that. Especially the inside one, though, because there isn't one until you need it. It's just software.

So it's all software. The 18 Pro starts at 1199. So it is $100 more at the starting price. It goes up to 2 terabytes and it goes way up, right? Like it keeps on going. An 18 Pro Max at 2,499. So that 2 terabyte model, they're making more money

as it goes up in storage, which you'd expect. I saw while we were recording in the live chat, people were saying that the older phones got more expensive? Yeah, $100. All the other phones are $100 more expensive to today.

This was the price increase day for the iPhone. Okay. I mean... I think it's 100 for all of them. Yeah. I don't know if I expected that

at this point, but if you're going to do it, do it now, right? So... Yeah. Very interesting stuff. Pre-order is on Saturday, and they're available

on the 18th of 7th. temper. Okay. This episode is brought to you by Factor. Summer is in full swing. You know what that means? Travel. I know that when I travel, it can, not even just to travel itself, the before and after, things become very busy. Times, if I swap in time zones, the jet lag can really affect my eating. And these kinds of things, it can be really tricky for me to get into good habits because I'm like super stress and the good news is Factor makes it really easy to

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There's something about it. It's just, it doesn't matter where it's from. And she'll do it with Factor because I think it's not reheated. I think that it's, I think they've like not cooked it all the way so that it cooks again at the end. I don't know. These are just our theories. But like it's, it is a cut above. And that is one of the reasons that when we get Factor Meals in, my wife steals them and takes them to work.

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ALS.com. Upgrade 50 off at factomiles.com. See website for details. Our thanks to Factor for their support of this show and all of Relay. All right. Before we move on, important category to mention. Okay.

Accessories. Ah, okay. So they're still making Techwoven a thing. That's exciting. Yep. Okay. I mean, Finewoven has become tech woven. we're still weaving.

There's no new, there's no new woven. Um, but more importantly, I think one of our draft picks that we didn't do is a new accessory of some sort is introduced. Yeah. It's a shame because there was,

there is a new wrist strap. Yep. For iPhone and the AirPods Pro case as well. So instead of just the existing strap. Yeah, that's a good use. There is, there is now a wrist strap. Mm-hmm.

So you can take that case and then put the, instead of using the connectors for the cross-body strap, you can use a wrist strap, or you can loop it around the little AirPods Pro case and do it there too.

That's a new, I guess that also means you could use the cross-body strap kind of with an AirPods Pro. I don't think so. I don't think it works that way. Because it's the two sides, right? Yeah, yeah.

I don't think it's the same. There is an iPhone Duo case that is two pieces for the two sides of it, That was my question last time, was how do you do a folding phone case? And the answer is two pieces. And there is the iPhone Duo folio case, which has a kickstand, which I think is a first for Apple, a kickstand. Now, I'm not a fan of the kickstand case.

I have my reasons. My reasons are mostly the kickstands are bad for laps. They're unstable in a lap. Yeah. However, I thought the duo folio case actually looked okay. The idea that you might want to have it be like on a table. Yeah, I thought it was okay. I don't know if I would want one,

but I think it's an interesting use of a kickstand. The weird thing about this case, to me, though, is that you cover the front of the phone as well. I don't know. You do. It's like a... Oh, yeah. It covers your...

Well, it's like a book. It's a folio. so you have to open it up to see the front of the phone too. You just treat it like a book then. How does that case work? I don't know. It's weird. We'll find out. I can't wait to try it.

Because I guess the duo case is two pieces. I think it's, I think the folio case is magnetic so you can open the folio up. But you're right. It is kind of just treating it like it's a book. You never need to see the other screen. I don't understand how this case works. Like what happens when you open the book?

front part. Where does it go? This is fascinating. Around back. I don't know. It's a mystery. I need to know more. Surely there are hands-on events happening right now and people are showing off these things. But yeah, that is a really weird phone case. Anyway, so stay tuned for that. Shout out to those who love kickstands because Apple's kicking it a little bit.

They're making a stand and they're kicking it. All right. Should we talk about the Apple Watch? We should. All right. So we've got the Apple Watch Series 12 and the Apple Watch Ultra 4. I guess the biggest thing that's gone on here is they've redone what they're calling the health sensing system. So this is all of the different sensors on the back of the Apple Watch that are tracking a bunch of things,

which is essentially allowing them to take heart rate information all day now. All the time. All the time. Yeah. That's the big thing here. Yeah, you get the sense that they increase the surface for the ECG. which is probably good. But the big story here is that they're monitoring your heart rate all the time

instead of just like just when you're doing a workout. And then I think it was like when you're doing a workout or there was a sample that would happen every so often. But now it's just all the time every five seconds. And then they're also measuring heart rate variability more often as well, which allows them to claim it's the most accurate heart sensing and a wearable. So that's a big, it's a big upgrade. So we didn't get new sensors, we got better sensors, which I think that's good.

I get the feeling like the sensor stack on the Apple Watch was kind of built up over time and that this was like their redesign of it to get all of this stuff to be more efficient. Yeah. With this is a few things going on, right? As you said, like they're going to display this information in new ways. They have a new heart rate kind of view in the hot app. HRV is now in the vitals app and there's a new daytime view of the vitals app

as well as the nighttime view because they're taking the information more and then all of this is flowing into a new readiness score this is something that is in all of the fitness apps and wearables now and you know it's sleep plus plus has a readiness score and it's taking in how you've slept overnight and also it will update throughout the day

so it's kind of like your readiness at any point it'll give you a score of up to 10 and it kind of gives you information about how you should be dealing with your fitness. But there was a bunch of other bits that I thought were interesting. So there's a whole new health app design which is coming later this year,

which I found really interesting. And it's redesigned. It's got a bunch of Apple Intelligence, powered insights and stuff like that. But they're also doing health age. So this is like, how old does your body act compared to your age? Right.

longevity, which is like this wheel, which is summarizing a bunch of key areas about your health, I don't like that phrase longevity. Right. But, you know. You will die soon. And they also have, I think this is really cool, a test, I reckon, to calibrate your cardio fitness score. Because I've heard from including underscores says that some of the cardio fitness stuff

from the Apple Watch can be quite off compared to other devices. So it's a test you can do for cardio fitness, which I expect then calibrates it. as well. But that test looked really cool. I thought that the overall health kind of package and part of the Apple Watch presentation, much stronger than previous years. Yeah.

Because it's the combination of hardware and software. They've been missing the hardware stuff for a long time. And the updated health app, right? Yeah. Which they really are leaning into that and talking about that in the in the Apple Watch made sense. But like that's

that's a correct me if I'm wrong, that's a new health app that's not in the iOS 27 betas. It is not in the betas. It's coming later this year. Yeah, yeah. So that's interesting. That's something that they held back because they, I think, wanted to have all of this other stuff that they were going to put in there. And I'm happy. I've been asking for a long time on this show, right? That I wanted Apple to do a better job of taking all the information that they have and putting it together in a way that makes sense. They're adding a bunch of features that bring them to parity of competitors and Apple intelligence powered stuff. It's like great. Like it's something I'm tracking.

How is it going? Give me information about that. Draw pieces of information together. Show me them in new ways. Like I am very keen to try this out and see how it compares to apps that I use like athletic, which I think does a really good job of this stuff. And I wonder how it will compare. Like I think this is really, I think this is really good. And I, you know, I moved from, I was using a wood band and went to athletic because I felt like whoop was way too athlete focused. Athletic is kind of for everyone and I expect Apple's health app will be even more so

in that regard. So very interesting. I think the stuff they're doing but that wasn't all. I mean, okay. No, no, no. This is the, this gets my vote for the most surprising and weirdest feature.

Yeah, you know exactly what I was. entire event. And they, they did a folding iPhone people. Yeah. And yet, they added a bunch of AI features to the Apple Watch. Not surprising. There's a draft pick. Not surprising at all.

And they had sound recognition, which is a nice feature. So that's on the watch, even if your phone's not around. If you can't hear or can't hear well and there's an alarm, it'll put a thing on your watch. This says, I hear an alarm. That's cool. But they added live rewind where, if someone, somebody says something and you missed it, it's like the Apple Watch, or sorry, Apple TV,

where you back up and they give you captions, except in real life. But unless that person leaves, couldn't you just ask them to repeat themselves? But instead you're like, no, no, no, I'm just going to rewind on my Apple Watch for 15 seconds. Social awkwardness. You know, I got it. I got it. Social awkwardness. But that means that it's, it's recording and transcribing, or it's recording a window temporarily in a, in a secure area that is not, you know, kept for 15 second buffer. You're putting a 15 second buffer on your conversation. So that's interesting.

But again, that's not the weirdest part. The weirdest part. 15 seconds is not enough time, maybe. Right. Like, I agree.

If you actually want to make this useful, but you've got to start somewhere. I agree. But then there's Siri recap. Unbelievable. Friends, Siri Recap is like a, is like that pendant.

It's like, yeah. It's like literally, if you want, Siri will listen on your Apple Watch to your whole conversation as you have it and generate meeting notes. It's a meeting,

it's meeting notes for life. And yet they're like, oh, oh, oh, always on. It can, well, they're like, no,

no, you can make it so it's only when you're at work and never, never at night, or you can turn it on and off from the control center. Yes, that's a good idea.

Um, and it, and they, they make a point of saying, it can't be recorded or stored. It doesn't identify speakers. It can't be accessed. They're obviously,

taking this, throwing the audio data away, but transcribing it and generating a document out of it. Okay. But still, I did not expect Apple to just drop a feature like this where it's like, hey, guess what? Now you can do meeting notes for your entire life on your Apple Watch. And just leave it on. It's a bold strategy, cotton. Yeah, let's see how it works out for them. Now, look, I'm going to say, I am very intrigued to try this. Like, I, because I, like, really want to see, what is Apple's version of this kind of thing? Like, what is it doing? How does it really work?

You know, you could tell with the, you might say, the amount of, of caveats that they give, right? Yes. That, like, you could turn it off. End to ending Christmas. It doesn't store anything. We don't know anything. It's like, they know how people will react to this. Yeah.

But I am fascinating. by the fact that they've decided to make the Apple watch an AI wearable. Like they've done it. Like, okay. Like, I want to see what on earth this looks like. So, and they said it was,

the information is in the Siri app, right? I think. Yeah. Like it has like the recap is in the Siri app when you're watching phone. Yeah, I mean, this is one of these things. it's like, just got to see it, you know? Like, got to see it.

Because I understand on the face of it, there are going to be a lot of people who are like, what on earth is that? Well, I am like, I want to see this? Like, what are you doing? Like, yeah, fascinating thing to just throw out there. I never would have imagined it in the way that they did it. Like, I imagine them doing something like this,

not with the Apple Watch. I don't know why, but I don't think I would have expected the Apple Watch as the place where we first see something like this. But maybe it's a better device than the AirPods, right? Like you actually do have it on all the time, right? Right. Yep. Yeah. Really interesting.

Like, I don't really know what to make of it. Apparently there's a secure exclave. I don't. We have enclaves and exclaves. I don't know what that means. What does that mean? That's not new, but they're, they're, they're different. different.

Yeah. They're different. One's on the inside, one's on the inside. You got it. Okay, cool. I didn't get it. I said the thing.

I don't really know what it means. But that's cool. I'm pleased that that's the thing. Their series 12 comes in gray, black, gold and bronze aluminum. Golden natural titanium, white and blue ceramic. I'm so happy.

Now, the white ceramic is not as white as the previous ceramics. It's kind of more maybe ivory colored. I am very keen. I have already ordered one. So... There we go. Yeah.

I can't wait. I'm very excited about it. It's the wash that I want. The one bummer. So the original ceramic came with a white sport band with a ceramic pin instead of the metal pin. This one does not. You just choose your band.

I think that's a shame. I'm sad about that. I would like the ceramic pin. Maybe I could try and find one on eBay or something. You don't still have your ceramic Apple Watch? I sold it. With band? I sold it.

And I wanted to keep the band, but that felt a bit mean to the person buying it. You know, it's like, I'm going to get rid of it. So I will see if I can try and find one, but otherwise, I would just get by it. I mean, to be honest, I like other bands more than the sport.

bands these days anyway. So I have it, but I'll probably use a different band. There's a lot of other band colors. I want to see what they look like with that thing. I'll check it out in an Apple store at some point. The Ultra4 has a larger battery, two-day battery life, 18 hours in a workout mode, 45 hours in the extended workout mode. The Apple Watches, I think, the prices have stayed the same. I think so? Yeah. 399 and 799 to start. There were also AirPods. I don't know if you have much to say on that. It's cool that now all AirPods do noise cancellation.

Right. There's a new higher cost one, which is actually less of a higher cost. So they're 129 and 149. I think they used to be 129 and 179. And they all do ANC. The high-end one is volume adjustment, volume adjustment on the stems, which is the first time on the non-prone. AirPods.

Battery life is better and has the wireless charging case. Yeah. But you get ANC even on the 129 AirPods now. And I mean, they said it's 50% better at Norris reduction,

which is great because that's the whole point of having noise cancellation on AirPods. It's nice because there are now more options, right? And great. Right, like it's like a thing. And the AirPods thing was done

in the train station in L.A. and when I was talking about extras earlier, there's a ticket kiosk and there are people lined up to buy tickets and the person who's selling them the tickets looks like they're out of a, like a movie from the 40s. It's like a guy with a hat

and like a little uniform. Interesting. And I thought that was hilarious. Huh. Okay. Just details. I love that they have all of these extras in these scenes. It's amazing.

Yeah. It felt a little bit more alive. Yep. So that's it. Is that all? I think that's all. Obviously, there's going to be more other than the next couple of weeks.

September 18th release for everything, basically, except the Duo. iPhone Duo, which would be in October then, which you're right. From a, I want to see it now. I'm disappointed. From A, we have more time to process the other products and then also think about and learn about the iPhone Duo.

It is nice to have that time and not be a total avalanche in the next. week and a half. And I think it's a kindness to develop us too. Also true, because this is a big UI change. Yeah. Because, you know, people were like, oh, we'll just prepare for the way they're showing us with a screen mirroring. It's like, yes, but what if also

all of these buttons move? Is that, ah, yeah, okay. So I'm pleased that there is a little bit more time, right? Like people can get their apps submitted for 27, and then they can start working on this as well. but it's going to be interested to see that all unfolds, pun intended. Breaking news. Breaking news. Breaking news.

Breaking news. It's possible that the sand sport band comes with a ceramic band. This just in from Peotor in the chat. It's possible. That's the one I ordered.

Oh. Because that's the best looking band combination. Sand sport band. Sand sport band. Well, report back. You can be our ceramic watch course. responded here. I mean, I'll say it doesn't say it. Like, if that is the case, I don't, I didn't find

anywhere where it said it. Um, maybe it's color matched at least. Yeah, I mean, or it could just be doing a reflection. Like, you know, it's like, it's hard to know. Report back. I mean, I will. September 18th. I absolutely will report back. I'm very excited. Please do. Before we go, I want to mention, uh, thank you so much to everybody that's reached out about designed in California. Um, I cannot remember a time where I got so many positive messages about a new project. It really has been wonderful. I think the greatest series of compliments that we have received is members who didn't want to listen to all of it, but did. And so people have listened to the entire series already if they're a member of Back the Kickstarter or signed up otherwise.

And so I'm really pleased about that. Now, this week's episode, which is already out, we released it a day early because, at the Apple event this year, because at this week, sorry, because the show will be coming out on Wednesdays. It sees the entrance of Jean-Louis Gassé to the story that we're telling of Apple's Mac OS crisis, leading to the potential acquisition of Gassay's company B. So you can check that out,

and designed in California at real.fm slash designed. We haven't mentioned this, I don't think on the show yet, so I'm going to mention it very clearly and put some links in the show notes. There is a YouTube version of the show for video, wonderful edit. matches the audio edit exactly, so that's great. And we also have an Instagram account where I'm sharing some clips and behind the scenes stuff and all those kinds of things. Both of these, the usernames, are designed in CA, which reads Designed Inca.

Which is how I read it in my head a lot, but it's designed in CA. So if you want to follow along, there you can. Okay, so we have from the Newsroom Post, further breaking news. from Nathan. What? A stunning new ceramic version of the Apple Watch is available in pearl white and night blue finishes. Sand and navy blue sport bands that come with ceramic versions of the Apple Watch Series 12

feature a ceramic pin and tuck closure designed to perfectly match the case. Ladies and gentlemen, we did it. All right. I'm so pleased. Wow, what a relief. This story that we've been worried about for the last four minutes has been resolved. Hooray. Hooray indeed.

All right, but that will do it for this week's episode. If you would like to send us your feedback, your follow-up, ask upgrade questions maybe as the week goes on, things you want to hear our thoughts on on next week's episode. I'm sure it will be one of the what we missed episodes, as we always do because there's always things. Please go to Upgradefeedback.com, and you can send that in. I want to thank our members of supporters of Upgrade Plus.

This week, we're going to score the St. Jude Challenge. and tell you who wins the points for the St. Jude there, by the way, St. Jude.org slash relays, where you can go and donate to help support the kids of St. Jude. If you want to find this show on YouTube, search for the upgrade podcast. I'd like to thank our sponsors. That is Keeper Squarespace and Factor. But most of all, I want to thank you for listening. Until next time, say goodbye, Jason Snow. We'll be back in only five days.

Hoor-oh, yes, yeah. We'll be back soon.