John’s Special Day
Casey:
I got to tell you, it was slightly refreshing not having to keep up with Twitter and the live stream, but man, screw Twitter.
Marco:
Yeah, can we talk about that for a second?
Marco:
We've always had so much fun using Twitter, basically live tweeting the event and seeing everyone's reactions and retweeting all the funny stuff and getting all these great comments from people and tweeting out little quips in real time about what's happening in the event.
Marco:
And Twitter is becoming a lot less of a fun place for lots of reasons.
Marco:
But one of them that's more recent is when they took away the streaming API from third-party clients a couple of months ago now, I think.
Marco:
It just sucks now.
Marco:
You can still do it.
Marco:
So you can either use Twitter's official apps, which are terrible, especially on the Mac, where there's really no good option.
Marco:
By the way, I know there's some WebView wrappers and stuff that wrap up the Twitter website.
Marco:
Those suck, too.
Marco:
sorry to the people who work those but it's just Twitter's website sucks so you know you're working with crap there so you know Twitter you know killed its own Mac app a while back now and so like and they made it so third party apps can't use streaming anymore and so what that means is you can still live tweet stuff on Twitter but you have to like go keep hitting refresh on the timeline like you know scrolling to the top and refreshing it and waiting and then seeing tweets pouring in big chunks instead of like you used to be able to just watch it kind of flow down as people were tweeting and everything
Marco:
And so it just is way more cumbersome now.
Marco:
It just kind of makes, it makes it a lot less fun and it just adds to the overall problem of just Twitter in general being a lot less fun these days.
Marco:
And I also noticed like there was a lot less traffic, like a lot fewer people were live tweeting it this year or making comments about it.
Marco:
It just seemed kind of like a ghost town and like about, I don't know, about halfway through, I just kind of, I kind of just gave up too.
Marco:
Like I just kind of stopped.
Marco:
It just wasn't fun on Twitter this time.
Marco:
I'm not sure I'm going to do it in the future.
Casey:
yeah i tried using tweet deck it was slightly better than just seeing it come in random chunks from tweet bot but only slightly and they compose the whole compose workflow in tweet deck is hilariously bad and is completely contrary to doing anything quickly and so yeah hot takes were just not hot this this year there were no hot takes and
Casey:
That made me sad because, I mean, as much as on the one side, I know several people at Apple.
Casey:
I know they work hard on this stuff.
Casey:
To throw out a hot take is kind of obnoxious on my part, but it's part of the fun, man.
Casey:
It's just kind of poke fun at it and have a blast just kind of making jokes, just like you said, Marco, and catching each other's jokes and playing off each other's jokes.
Casey:
And I don't know.
Casey:
I just always enjoyed that.
Casey:
And it wasn't always snarky, but a lot of times it was snarky.
Casey:
I mean, that's
Marco:
It's an event.
Marco:
It's almost like our sports games.
Marco:
People like me who don't have much sports affinity, this is our sports games.
Marco:
Similar to how people live blog and tweet and face...
Marco:
sports games like this is this is our version of that and this is like our community getting together to like have some fun and you know watch this event together and comment on it and you know yeah we're occasionally snarky but like it's mostly just in good fun and it's it's really this it used to be this fun event and now it's it's hard to have fun when it's like this white nazi platform that keeps making its apps worse i shouldn't laugh because it's so true you know it's not it's not so fun anymore
John:
trying to think about the if my the tweet volume was down i think it might have been i'm just comparing wwc in my head wwc like is one of the few times where very often i just i can't read all the tweets because there are so many during the keynote that and i'm usually not reading twitter much during the keynote itself that by the time it's over like twitter the twitter api only lets you go back so far so even though i'm a twitter completionist at a certain point it's like you can't you missed it like it's off the end of the thing it's like oh well
John:
Uh, but this time when I went back to read all the tweets that I was, I couldn't, I couldn't read Twitter during the thing.
John:
I tweeted a few times and, uh, bits and pieces, but I didn't, I couldn't actually read Twitter during the thing.
John:
It was too long or whatever.
John:
Anyway, I caught up on all the tweets that happened during the keynote.
John:
I'm already caught up on them.
John:
I read them all.
John:
They didn't go off the end.
John:
Even tweets that started before the event began are still in my timeline.
John:
So it just seems like that in the people that I follow, there were fewer tweets during this event than in the past.
John:
Definitely fewer than WWDC and I think probably fewer than most phone events.
John:
I have to also wonder how much of that was the fact that it's like every single thing leaked.
John:
Which I'm sure we'll talk about in a little bit.
Marco:
But still, this is the iPhone event.
Marco:
This is a big deal.
Marco:
This is not a small event that no one's watching.
Marco:
Even with a lot of things leaking, this is still a really big deal with tons of people.
Casey:
I really don't want to start on a down note, and then I brought up something that's a downer.
Casey:
So let's talk about something that makes at least one of us happy, usually three of us.
Casey:
Let's talk about some follow-up.
Casey:
John, I guess, tell us about some leaked images for Nokia phones.
John:
I can't even believe we're doing a follow-up on an event thing.
John:
We normally do no follow-up on event shows.
John:
Yeah, why are we doing this?
Casey:
Well, we only have a couple, and one of them is vindicating me, so we have to do it.
John:
Okay.
John:
Yeah, that explains it.
John:
This item is so interesting because I thought it was funny.
John:
The last show I did, I misquoted it because it's hard to do it on the fly, but I was doing a reference to the old article in The Onion.
John:
Where the headline is F everything, but they don't say F everything.
John:
We're doing five blades.
John:
The funny exaggeration of the war of adding blades to razors that later came to pass when many years later they actually did start selling razors with five blades.
John:
Um, so I said like F everything we're doing, uh, five cameras, apparently Nokia, uh, some sort of leak of a Nokia phone that actually has five cameras in the back of it, which isn't that ridiculous because there is that like light field cameras that use multiple cameras, but I don't think this is a light field camera.
John:
I think it's just literally five cameras.
John:
Uh, so it's pretty silly, but just like the, just like the razor blade thing, apparently someone is actually planning to do this because why not?
Casey:
But the most important piece of follow-up, which Marco will inevitably cut because he's a mean, mean, mean man, Phil has used the word Memoji during the keynote, and he called it Memoji.
Casey:
And I feel completely and utterly vindicated now.
John:
it's blow away it's breakthrough yeah oh that's just the team worked really hard on it i was excited by at a certain point there was an opportunity to say blow away like very early on there was an opportunity to say blow i really think this is and then it was an adjective coming and they didn't say blow away i'm like oh they finally broken the habit but not more than like 30 seconds later
Casey:
blow away so you just can't can't avoid it it's everywhere and and he used breakthrough the same way probably four or five times yeah however we did get a customer satisfaction instead of customer sat which i was very pleased by so see things are already on the up and up so all right we should probably just dive right in and talk about the september event oh i've left you a really clean edit point now you're definitely going to cut follow-up that's terrible oh man
Casey:
So the September event has happened, and we knew most of what was going to happen, which seems to be a common theme lately, which is too bad.
Casey:
Well... To some degree.
Marco:
I wouldn't necessarily say we knew most of it.
Marco:
I mean, we knew a lot of the stuff that was announced.
Marco:
We knew a lot of the hardware basics of, you know, here's the screen sizes of these new phones and watches that are coming out.
Marco:
But we didn't know a lot of the software stuff.
Marco:
i think kind of more importantly we didn't know what wasn't going to be announced this event because there was a whole lot of stuff like you know i read that comically long list last episode of like the things that we expect to happen this fall from apple and you know they made it through maybe a quarter of it in this event and we knew that was probably not going to happen all in one place but we didn't know like
John:
which quarter of this is going to happen during this event but we did though because they found time between the last show and this show to leak more stuff but they put up their sitemap early the sitemap early and on the sitemap were links and urls and stuff and from that you could surmise that if something doesn't appear in the sitemap it's not going to be announced and everyone did surmise that and said oh i guess no ipads today because there's no ipad so it confirmed the names which we had rumored before but now we got confirmed by all these the
John:
And we'll talk about the names a little later.
John:
But what we said last show, what the rumors were last show, those are the actual names confirmed by the sitemap.
John:
And we knew it was going to be released.
John:
Obviously, we were all expecting no Macs, but I was surprised to see no iPads because they weren't in the sitemap and they weren't in the keynote.
John:
Ditto for AirPods, AirPower, and all sorts of other stuff.
John:
So it amazes me how much...
John:
Apple unintentional Apple leaking is going on like no this is not like deep industrial espionage like they're putting things up on the public web too soon and it seems dumb but I'm sure they'll figure it out maybe next time they'll do better but
John:
this time uh we we got one last minute leak to confirm all the rumors before and for me to basically it was kind of disappointing to already know what was going to be announced and apple itself at the top of the show said we're going to talk about two products today not that we all didn't already know that from the sitemap but they just like double confirmed it to to manage expectations which i thought was smart and i do wonder if they added that in because they know how much actually leaked yeah
Casey:
So it all started, other than this web, the web map link or whatever it is, but it really started in my mind for, I don't know, it was maybe half an hour, less than that.
Casey:
No, it was 10 minutes before the show.
Casey:
Tim tweeted something very curious and everyone got really confused.
Casey:
He tweeted the following.
Casey:
It said, no, no.
Casey:
Who can get it here quickly?
Casey:
And we all were kind of cackling, thinking, oh, man, I guess he was trying to send a text message.
Casey:
You know, ha ha, old people, lol.
Casey:
And then the intro video happened, which was entirely about getting something to the keynote as quickly as possible.
Casey:
And his his tweet was deleted, was it not?
Casey:
Yeah, it's deleted.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
I love this.
Casey:
Everyone is going to write in and tell me how wrong I am and blah, blah, blah.
Casey:
So stupid.
Casey:
I think it was awesome.
Casey:
I think it was hilarious.
Casey:
And I definitely approve.
Marco:
It was a little stupid, but it was stupid in the dad humor way that Apple stuff usually is.
Marco:
So not stupid as like, oh, grown.
Marco:
I never want to think about that again, like the U2 finger touch.
Marco:
But it's more like, you know...
Marco:
Oh, that was kind of, you know, like a dumb, cheesy, but fun video for an intro to a corporate event.
Marco:
Like, it was fine.
Marco:
I thought it was kind of a funny gag that the deleted tweet was actually, you know, an intended thing here.
Marco:
Like, that to me was the best part.
Marco:
Right, yeah.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
The actual film itself, I thought, was a little cheesy, but, you know, otherwise fine.
Marco:
I think there was a very interesting part of it, though.
Marco:
I'm sure we'll get to the lack of air power later and the lack of air power probably holding up the update to AirPods.
Marco:
But turns out in the video, it sure looked like the lead character was saying, hey, Siri, into her AirPods.
Marco:
And, hey Siri, stop!
Marco:
Ah, jeez.
Marco:
Alexa, stop!
Marco:
She's saying it into her AirPods without tapping them first.
Marco:
And one of the rumored features of the new AirPod update is always listening, hey Siri.
Marco:
So, it seems like they made this video with the intention of releasing these new AirPods by now, and that didn't happen, and there was no mention of them at all.
John:
Whoops.
John:
Yeah, I thought deleting the tweet was the key part of that that was funny.
John:
There's only two things that I could possibly, like, that rubbed me a little bit the wrong way about the video.
John:
Not rubbed me the wrong way, but, like, how it could have been better.
John:
Well, the first is it didn't have anything to do with any of the stuff that was announced.
John:
There was no through line.
John:
There was no theme.
John:
There was no connection.
John:
It was just like, yes, during the presentations, the presenter uses a clicker, and this was a Mission Impossible thing.
John:
But nothing on the show, nothing in the event had to do with...
John:
the clicker or mission impossible or anything like that so yeah whatever um and what was the second thing i was going to complain about second is that i'm old and i forget things join the club john join the club it'll come back to me at some point in the show but anyway i i thought the oh here it is i got it that didn't take long uh the second thing is this like
John:
The videos look good and they spend time and money on them.
John:
Right.
John:
One of the things I tweeted when I saw the intro video was I think this is the first Apple intro video to include stunt work because the person like jumps over the like the railing of the stairs in one of the big Apple buildings.
John:
Right.
John:
Presumably onto a some kind of, you know, air mat that's off screen or whatever.
John:
A bunch of cardboard boxes.
John:
Stunt work.
John:
Like I was trying to look.
John:
Is that a stunt person or did they get the actor to actually do it?
John:
Anyway.
John:
expensive done well shot well shot on apple's campus you know it's just very interesting and a lot of money is spent and the dad humor part of it that mark always kind of groans at and rolls his eyes like oh you know they're it's not that funny whatever like like you can just see people in a room saying what are we going to do with the intro video for this one it's like what can you think of it's funny and someone's i know tim's clicker and we'll do a mission impossible thing yeah you know whatever but
John:
The whole point is there is a bunch of people gathered around to come up with an idea for an intro video that they're going to spend a ton of money on.
John:
And I'm not entirely sure that that money is well spent.
John:
Not that Apple doesn't have enough money.
John:
It's a silly complaint.
John:
It's like, well, what else are they going to spend it on?
John:
Are they hurting for cash?
John:
Is this really going to cause a problem of someone not going to get their bonus because they spent $2 million on an intro video that wasn't that funny?
John:
no probably not i'm mostly just thinking about the mental time and energy and maybe it's all the all the people doing it or like this is their job i don't know i think i'm just being a little bit sour about it but like overall i think this is one of their better interview videos and the video itself was extremely well done did not have any groaners in it the overall theme and execution were you know middle of the road and just fine and there was nothing embarrassing about it and you know it makes people smile a little bit at the beginning of the thing so i guess that's that's all you can ask for i just
John:
I keep making the bar higher and higher.
John:
It has to be, like, dramatic, meaningful, connected to the thing in the show, not cost so much money that I feel like they wasted it.
John:
Like, I don't know what I'm even looking for.
Casey:
I mean, I thought it was good.
Casey:
I enjoyed the video.
Casey:
I mean, yeah, it's dad jokey, but whatever.
Casey:
That's Apple these days.
Casey:
And I just thought that the brouhaha over Tim's tweet was tremendous.
Casey:
I loved it.
Casey:
That was the best.
Casey:
That was so well done.
Casey:
It really, really was.
Casey:
Especially, I mean, I could see somebody being like, well, that's kind of, insensitive isn't the word I'm looking for, but of poor taste, given all the leaks that have been happening recently.
Casey:
I think leaning into it a little bit, whether that was deliberate or not, I thought it was great.
Casey:
I loved it.
Marco:
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Casey:
So we started with the Apple Watch.
Casey:
And what was the gentleman's name that did it?
Casey:
Was it Jeff Williams?
Casey:
Is that right?
Casey:
Okay.
Casey:
You should know him.
Casey:
He's probably going to be the next CEO.
Casey:
It wouldn't surprise me.
Casey:
He was a little bit dry, I thought.
Casey:
I heard a lot of moaning about how boring he was.
Casey:
I didn't think he was that bad, but a little bit dry.
Casey:
But he did introduce something that I personally am super amped about.
Casey:
And I will just cut to the chase and say, of all the things announced today...
Casey:
I personally think the watch was the thing I am most excited for and most impressed by, which is really annoying because I was not planning on buying a watch this year.
Casey:
But it seems like I'm going to have to, especially since neither of you two numbskulls really believe in the Apple Watch anymore.
Casey:
But I love the look of this new Apple Watch.
Casey:
But I'm also deeply conflicted because...
Casey:
They have gotten bigger.
Casey:
The 48 millimeter is now, excuse me, the 38 millimeter is now 40 millimeter.
Casey:
The 42 millimeter is now 44 millimeter.
Casey:
And I have little tiny wrists.
Casey:
I did a little experiment earlier tonight and I took a piece of twine and wrapped it around my wrist and measured my wrist to be pretty much exactly seven inches around.
Marco:
Whoa, hold on, hold on.
Marco:
That is not a small wrist.
Casey:
That seems so tiny, like these little teeny tiny wrists.
Marco:
Okay.
Marco:
There's going to be a lot of joke potential here, and I'm just going to blow right past it.
Marco:
All right.
Marco:
Mine is 6.75, and that is considered pretty average, and I can wear a lot of very common watch sizes very comfortably.
Casey:
No way.
Casey:
Maybe my twine was stretched or something.
Casey:
I tried very hard, because admittedly, twine was not the best material to use, but it was the first thing I had around.
Marco:
So how does the 42 look on you now, the current model 42?
Casey:
See, if I remember, I will take a picture and put it in the show notes.
Casey:
I think I am on the bleeding edge of acceptable with my watch as it is right now.
Casey:
Like, I think it's fine, but I think I'm right on the edge.
Casey:
And so I am really worried about how this is going to look on a watch that's two millimeters bigger, which is kind of ridiculous because especially to an American, two millimeters is effectively nothing.
Casey:
Well, not in a watch size.
Casey:
But that's the thing, right?
Marco:
That's the thing.
Marco:
In a watch size, two millimeters is very significant.
Marco:
If you look at the previous ones, 38 and 42, that's four millimeters.
Marco:
Those are very different sizes visually.
Marco:
Think about this being literally just about half of that magnitude.
Marco:
It's a half step between those two, basically.
Marco:
On a watch, that's a pretty big deal.
Marco:
For me, a 2mm watch size increase, that's enough to make a difference between whether it fits my wrist or not.
Marco:
That's a very noticeable difference.
Casey:
Right, and that's why I'm super worried about it, and I'm not sure what to do.
Casey:
But we can kind of glaze past that for now.
Casey:
The reason I bring up that my wrist is 7 inches is because...
Casey:
If you look at the Apple Watch website, which I should have had handy, but I do not, so I will stall, and just say that when you go to buy one, it says, oh, this is designed to fit wrists of such and such a size.
Casey:
And whatever the sizing was, which I will find momentarily as I continue to stall, I landed directly in the middle of that, basically.
Casey:
To your point, Marco.
Marco:
Well, and, you know, the reality is like you're probably so it sounds like you and I have very similar sized wrists and there's some variation, like whether the top of your wrist is flat or not.
Marco:
So you can't go quite by circumference being the only thing that matters.
Marco:
But basically, you know, we're probably in the ballpark.
Marco:
And for me, the current 42 looks fine.
Marco:
But I really wouldn't want it to be bigger.
Marco:
Yep.
Marco:
I very well might, for my future watches, I might switch down to the new 40 size.
Marco:
And it's hard to compare watch sizes between different watch families, between different watch shapes in general.
Marco:
There's a couple of...
Marco:
kind of size classes common in watches 40 millimeter is probably the most common size class for most watches these days but you can't compare like if you wear a 40 of like a round watch maybe a 42 of a square watch might look similar you know like or if you wear like a 40 with one company's design that uses like long lugs and then you wear another one with a
Marco:
basically a thick margin like a big wide bezel around the face or one that has a thinner bezel around the face.
Marco:
Those all will like visually read differently and they will look different.
Marco:
They will land on your wrist differently.
Marco:
So this is the kind of thing that I strongly suggest is very similar to the first Apple Watch when it was first released because the sizes are now different.
Marco:
I suggest for anybody who's looking to buy one of these things,
Marco:
If at all possible, if you can wait, try them on in the store first before you pick a size because it's really hard to ever predict with just doing research ahead of time or just seeing pictures on the internet.
Marco:
It's really hard to ever predict how a watch will fit you, especially if you're kind of maybe between two sizes like we are here.
Marco:
So...
Marco:
I strongly suggest see these in person.
Marco:
Try them on in the store before you order one.
Marco:
If you can't do that, be ready to use a return policy if need be because you won't be able to guess very accurately how well these will fit because they're now a different size.
Casey:
Yeah, so the 40 millimeter watch, Apple says the band fits 130 to 190 millimeter wrists.
Casey:
The 44 millimeter is for 145 to 220.
Casey:
So the overlap is between 145 millimeters and 190 millimeters, according to Apple.
Casey:
Seven inches is 177.8 millimeters.
Casey:
So I am about 180 millimeters, which would be at the top end of what the 40 is supposed to be able to handle and toward the lower end, but a little more buffer on what the 44 is supposed to be able to handle.
Casey:
So, the reason that I'm doubly stressing about this is that not only do I have, you know, I've always had the bigger watches, which in and of itself, fine, if I have to go to the smaller size, whatever.
Casey:
But the good news to cut a little bit forward in the keynote is that the...
Casey:
bigger watch band the the existing 42 millimeter bands will fit the 44 millimeter watch if i understand how things played out correctly that is right and the existing 38 millimeter bands will fit the 40 millimeter watch
Casey:
But what happens if you or I, Marco, or whomever, decides to go from the big guy to the little guy?
Casey:
I would assume that ain't going to fly anymore.
Casey:
So all of my watch bands, which I don't have that many.
Casey:
I probably have four or five.
Casey:
And to be honest, only a couple are Apple Watch bands.
Casey:
The rest were like cheap Amazon knockoffs.
Casey:
But still, man, I don't want to have to rebuy all that stuff.
Casey:
And so I'm inclined to try to force myself to like the 44, but...
Casey:
But I am deeply worried in the first-worldiest of first-world problems that the 40 might be the better fit for me.
Marco:
Well, I mean, the reality is like you'd probably be okay with either of them.
Marco:
And the 44 will probably be fine.
Marco:
But again, it's worth seeing in person just in case.
Marco:
It also – it is thinner.
Marco:
And so we were speculating last week when we saw that leaked marketing image, which was totally real.
Marco:
We were speculating like, oh, it looks like it's way thinner.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
It's not way thinner.
Marco:
It is thinner, though.
Marco:
It's 0.7 millimeters thinner.
Marco:
And that is a noticeable savings.
Marco:
It's not going to dramatically change the way the watch looks or feels.
Marco:
It isn't a dramatic change, but it is a nice change.
Marco:
It's welcome.
Marco:
You still have the pretty big sensor bump on the back.
Marco:
They didn't quote a size or a depth for that.
Marco:
But the images make it look like it's about the same.
Marco:
So we probably don't have to worry about, like, you know, cheating by putting more back there or anything like that.
Marco:
So it does look like it is noticeably thinner.
Marco:
But it's still not a super thin watch as watches go.
Marco:
As smart watches go, I think it's doing pretty well.
Marco:
But that also, again, is like that's going to make it wear a little bit thicker or a little bit larger or a little bit differently compared to what you're used to in the past, maybe.
Marco:
So, again, you've got to try these in person if you can.
Marco:
So, yeah, we'll all know in, what, a week or two when they come out?
Marco:
We'll all know, like, roughly, you know, people who actually have these things and will be able to actually say, like, oh, it's very close to the old one or it's not very close to the old one.
Casey:
Now, Ben Beharin, I always get that wrong.
Casey:
Thank you.
Casey:
he actually was at the hands-on area and tweeted a picture of both watches on his wrist so the 44 further up his arm closer to the elbow which is a little bit i think um uh it's a little bit of like an optical illusion because his arm is a little bit bigger up there and then the what i believe to be the 42 millimeter in its standard position presumably that his that is his actual 42 millimeter watch and
Casey:
They don't look that different, but it's different enough that I'm worried.
Marco:
Also, I mentioned earlier, with certain watches, one of my favorite brands is Nomos.
Marco:
They're a pretty popular brand these days.
Marco:
Nomos watches, their millimeter size seems small compared to most of their watches.
Marco:
They have a very popular line that one of the sizes is 37.5 millimeters.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
but it has a very, very thin bezel.
Marco:
So it has like a very thin margin in CSS terms, basically.
Marco:
And when you look at that on a wrist, even though it's 37 and a half, it looks good on wrists that like a 40 millimeter watch usually looks good because the bezel is so thin.
Marco:
What you're looking at really is the dial and the size of a dial with a super thin bezel looks visually like a larger watch with a regular size bezel.
Marco:
That same effect looks like it's happening here, especially in Ben Maharin's tweet picture here, where even though the watch itself, the new watch, isn't that much bigger footprint-wise, effectively it has larger bezel because you're not seeing as much screen margin there.
Marco:
Like the stuff on the screen is going all the way to the edges.
Marco:
So visually, it's reading like a much larger watch.
Marco:
So looking at this picture, I would say that is substantially bigger than the old one, at least visually.
Marco:
Like it reads bigger.
Marco:
And that inspires me to maybe check out the smaller one.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
So the thing that is, is that I'm and we can maybe talk about this later.
Casey:
So no commentary from you guys necessary at the moment.
Casey:
But I presume I'm the only one who's going to try to get this on day one.
Casey:
And if that's the case.
Casey:
I would really like to order in advance, but I don't want to just flush $500, which we'll also talk about in a moment.
Casey:
I don't want to flush $500, so what do I do?
Casey:
I don't want to try to do it in-store on day one.
Casey:
So am I that guy, and I order one of each and just return the one I don't like, which is really wasteful, and I don't think it's a kind thing to do.
Casey:
It's certainly allowed, but it just seems wrong to me.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
i don't know what i'm gonna do but um i'm stressing about it and and this is again the i recognize this is the first worldiest of first world problems but i don't know man i wish there was better tools that you could like print out of a faux apple watch which somebody put together when the original one came out you know but it would be cool if apple did that you know like make a pdf that that you could print that that you could cut out really delicately and put on your wrist to see how it looks or somebody make that for me go to the store and try it on what are you doing
Casey:
Because, man, I wanted to be there that first day.
John:
You don't need to.
John:
Why do you need to have it on day one?
John:
You didn't even need to watch.
John:
You said I wasn't going to buy a watch, and all of a sudden you need to have it on day one.
John:
What's your hurry?
John:
Where you got to be?
Casey:
I got to talk about it on the show.
Casey:
You're welcome.
John:
hey i'm doing this for you it does look a lot better than the old one yeah so one of the things one of the things i put in there was a uh link to uh was it also ben maharan i don't remember some someone's tweet had a picture of the watches from the side showing the series three and the series four both in i assume the big size but viewing them on the side again to get the thickness thing you know so there is a measurable difference although i'm still not entirely sure what apple is measuring and
John:
whether they're measuring the lump they're not to the screen or or they're just measuring the metal part or they're not measuring the lump i assure you are they measuring the screen on top yes they're measuring the top to the top of the screen to the bottom of the case not counting the lump yeah all right well whatever they're measuring it's weird um so but in this side view again this is like
John:
less than a millimeter difference it's like 0.7 millimeters and you would think well that's so small you won't even notice it well so take a look at this image we'll put in the show notes in this tweet with them from the side um this is from a tweet where let me see if i get the back button finally we're saying that the difference is noticeable like you will notice it human beings will notice it guaranteed like you will not be confused if you gave these two watches that hey which one is thicker and
John:
and if you look at the watches like this is what was coming through in the pictures like the picture was at a weird angle whatever this is not a weird angle this is pretty much dead on sideways uh as another picture i also put in the show it's from apple's website showing just the series three from the side the trick is and i just measured this with like xscope the digital crowns are digital crowns are basically the same size between the phones you know at least in pixels in this image right
John:
And so the digital crown, you know, is a little bit taller than the metal part of the case in both the phones.
John:
But then look how much phone there is left below the digital crown in the Series 3 versus the Series 4.
John:
And again, look at the second picture in the show notes.
John:
There is a lot of case below the Series 3 crown.
John:
There is substantially less case below.
John:
below the series 4 crown is that where all 0.7 millimeters went away um so it's not i don't think the phone is as thin as i thought it was going to be but it is definitely noticeably thinner before anyone writes you you keep saying phone instead of watch i'm with you but just yes we all know we're talking about watches sorry
John:
Yeah, it's definitely noticeably thinner.
John:
I also think maybe the lump is thinner, too.
John:
If they don't give lump measurements, it's hard to tell.
John:
But, yeah, I feel like it will sit on your wrist in a different way.
John:
It remains to be seen.
John:
We'll have to go to the store and try it on.
John:
If I get one of these, and the prices are scaring me away, but if I do get one of these, I would definitely have to try it on because I'm in the same situation.
John:
I don't think I could get away with the big one.
John:
I think I might have to go down to the small one.
Marco:
And also, by the way, seeing this side-by-side with the Series 3, I think just reinforces how incredibly ugly the Series 3 was.
Marco:
I think we're going to look back on the Series 3 with its giant thick case and its huge ugly red dot as just a real low point of Apple design.
John:
well i the other thing is that i mean this is not a design thing this is more of a tech thing but this has happened with the phones over the years you can't go back to the one that had the little uh sharp edge square screen with huge borders around it like you didn't it's oled so it's you can't really tell where the screen ends but you look at them now and you're like what were they wasting all that space on the series zero through three watches for like the screen is just this little postage stamp in the middle of the thing whereas now the series four is like ah finally
John:
the screen can actually fill the face of the watch instead of being this tiny square that is in the middle of the thing.
John:
That's the bigger difference.
John:
The rounded corners, I suppose, also are a factor, but it just... Oh, God, let me tell you about those rounded corners as a developer.
John:
Yeah, I know, but it lets them fill every nook and... Because if you don't have them, you can't bring the screen to the edges.
John:
Otherwise, what do you do with the corners?
John:
You'd have this sharp-edged corner touching the rounded edge of your thing, and that's no good.
Marco:
yeah a few minutes using the simulator so far and i already immediately understand why the apple watch is not round because these rounded corners and i'm cutting into all my interfaces and everything looks terrible and i have to adjust everything basically padded inwards oh god
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
So let's talk about some of the features.
Casey:
I think the most interesting feature that I heard, other than the bigger screen and the new complications, but the thing that I perhaps expected the least...
Casey:
was the EKG slash ECG.
Casey:
I guess it's the same thing, just they use a different acronym for whatever reason.
Casey:
Basically, you can track your heartbeat or heart rhythm, I should say.
Casey:
So it's more than just how many times your heart is pumping, but it's the way in which it's pumping, the rhythm of it.
Casey:
And if I understood the keynote correctly, and I haven't had the time to go back and rewatch...
Marco:
there's a new sensor on the back there so there's an electrode or is it one or two electrodes it doesn't really matter some amount of electrodes it's like there's two on the back and then it also uses the digital crown as a third exactly that's why they had to get rid of the red dot they would have kept it but they needed the metal contact thank god for the dkg thank god for that in addition to all the other wonderful things it's gonna do it killed the red dot
Casey:
So so, yeah, I think this is super cool.
Casey:
I, to my knowledge, don't have any heart issues of any kind, but this is still awesome.
Casey:
And it can be super awesome for people who don't think they have heart issues.
Casey:
And in fact, there was a video which I don't they didn't play during the keynote and I'll have to dig up a link to it.
Casey:
But there's a video where they do kind of like a deer apple like they did last year with Kyle's the Gray.
Casey:
And fellow Relay co-host James T. Green was on it.
Casey:
But they talk about all these people who had like random heart issues that were unexpected and that the watch caught them.
Casey:
And this is the old watch before the EKG or whatever it is.
Casey:
So I think this is super cool.
Casey:
And what's perhaps even more interesting about it.
Casey:
Is that it's FDA approved as, you know, in whatever tier and I am so far out of my comfort zone right now, but whatever tier of EKG this is.
Casey:
So this is, I guess, like an EKG light or something like that.
Casey:
But the FDA has acknowledged it as the real deal, which makes me wonder, you know, I've heard rumblings of some insurance companies paying for Apple Watches for their their subscribers.
Casey:
in order to help them track their health and exercise and whatnot, well, this could make that an even more appealing thing.
Casey:
This could make it even more appealing for insurance companies to perhaps fund an Apple Watch.
Casey:
So maybe I should just wait on an Apple Watch to see if my sweet, sweet insurance provider that I'm paying a fortune for could maybe provide this for me, which would be interesting.
Casey:
But I just thought that was super cool, and I'm really, really excited about that.
Marco:
Yeah, I mean, I think to me, like the heart stuff on – so, you know, so last year they added the – I think it was last year when they added the notifications for if your heart rate was too high for what you appeared to be doing, which, you know, that already helped a bunch of people.
Marco:
This year they added a notification for your heart rate if it's too low for what you appear to be doing, like if it's suspiciously low.
Marco:
And then, you know, this this new ECG kind of sensor that allows him to do atrial fibrillation or AFib detection.
Marco:
That is the combination of these things.
Marco:
This is huge because, you know, heart problems like this, things like AFib are extremely common.
Marco:
Like lots of people have these things or might have these things or might have this happen to them.
Marco:
And so to have this built in is really cool.
Marco:
I mean, you know I'm – I'll call Apple out on anything dumb they do or anything that's overblown.
Marco:
This is not one of those things.
Marco:
This really is a really big deal, and it's really cool that they're doing this.
Marco:
And it does seem like – it isn't like a full-blown ECG like you could get in a lab or a doctor's office, but it's something.
Marco:
So it's like a simpler kind.
Marco:
The FDA approval appears to be a fairly –
Marco:
low class approval by what people are saying.
Marco:
Again, we don't know what we're talking about, so forgive us.
Marco:
And it also, notably, these features are only launching in the U.S.
Marco:
so far.
Marco:
They kind of blew by that quickly, but they said something in the keynote where it's only launching in the U.S.
Marco:
for these new heart features and launching in the rest of the world sometime.
Marco:
They didn't give a date for the rest of the world, but they said they were working on it.
Marco:
I'm guessing there's probably regulatory medical issues there.
Marco:
But...
Marco:
It is at least interesting they're doing this, and even if it turns out to be not as amazing as a full-blown version of these things would be, it's still on your wrist all the time on a device that you have anyway, and a device that is fairly affordable, too.
Marco:
So that's pretty good.
Marco:
This is not a small deal.
Marco:
This is a very big deal.
Marco:
And I think this is way more significant than things like the breathe face or the stand reminders.
Marco:
Like that's all kind of like fluff stuff.
Marco:
This is real stuff.
Marco:
This is the real deal that will actually save people's lives.
John:
And the affordability and the always on things like that's relative to the alternatives.
John:
The alternatives are maybe you go to a doctor and you get this measurement done like the real measurement done.
John:
But how often do you go to a doctor?
John:
Or maybe you have a machine in your house, a very expensive machine in your house that you use every day.
John:
It's still less frequent and requires more effort and is probably more expensive in the case of the big medical machine that you actually have in your house than a thing you just passively wear on your wrist.
John:
The stories that we all hear about this are not from people who know they have terrible heart problems and are on this complicated regime involving lots of checkups and stuff, but it's people who think they're perfectly fine or people who are developing heart problems who also just happen to have an Apple Watch that's on all the time, right?
John:
It's catching a new class of things where these people were never going to say, you know what, I think I should go to the doctor every month from now on just to check my heart.
John:
Because they don't know they have any problem, but they're just wearing this watch and maybe you can pick up something.
John:
So this is a new class of awareness.
John:
That's why they have the American Heart Association guy up there talking about stuff like...
John:
Doctors must love this because they know how difficult it is to get people to come into the office to to have enough appointments.
John:
Maybe they can't come in because their insurance doesn't pay for enough appointments.
John:
And if it was up to them, they would like to have them checked more often, like not that they need to see the doctor, but they need to get measured.
John:
And it's like if you could strap a device to them, oh, it's big and it's clunky and I don't want to have a medical device and I can't afford it and my insurance won't pay for it and blah, blah, blah.
John:
This is, you know, the problem is, of course, the Apple watch is still a multi hundred dollar watch that only rich people are going to wear and so on and so forth.
John:
But it's it's progress from, you know, the way the way technology works, unfortunately, from nobody having it to rich people having it to eventually hopefully this will be democratized over, you know, the next several years.
Oh.
Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
I wore them all last summer too because what's great about these, there's nothing to make your ears super sweaty.
Marco:
So they're great for outside in the summertime.
Marco:
They're great for exercising.
Marco:
If you do get super sweaty or if you get rained on, it doesn't matter.
Marco:
They're IP55 certified water resistant, so you don't have to worry about it.
Marco:
So they're very practical for rain and for sweat and for heat.
Marco:
But they're also very practical when you're doing pretty much anything outside, like walking or jogging or whatever, because you can hear the world around you.
Marco:
Because the way bone conduction headphones work is they don't block up your ears with some kind of thing protruding into them or some kind of big pad that sticks around them or on top of them.
Marco:
These little transducers rest next to your ears and they send tiny vibrations that you can't really feel, but you can hear them in your eardrums.
Marco:
And so you hear the sound being picked up by your eardrums that they're making, but you also hear the sound of the world around you.
Marco:
So it sounds to you as if you're not really wearing headphones, but you can still hear the sound that they add for podcasts or phone calls or whatever else.
Marco:
So it's great when you're outside and you want to be able to hear like if a car is going by or if you're doing errands around the house and you want to hear if someone's knocking on the door or something like that.
Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
They have, of course, built-in microphone for phone calls, and the quality is great.
Marco:
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Marco:
Like, they're so small, so compact.
Marco:
They can fit in a jeans pocket or a shorts pocket, and they are basically, they're like one ounce.
Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
I actually have two pairs of them because I wanted to have them in different places, paired to different devices.
Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
Real-time follow-up.
Marco:
I just looked at Casey's picture that you sent of your Apple Watch and your wrist.
Marco:
You should get the small one.
Casey:
No, don't tell me that.
Marco:
Sorry.
Marco:
You're right on the edge now, and if that gets slightly larger and the screen goes to the edge, it's going to look too big on you.
Marco:
Sorry.
Casey:
Don't tell me these things.
John:
What are you worried about?
John:
Like you said, you don't have one of the Darth Vader link bracelets or any of the super expensive things.
John:
You're fine.
Casey:
I know, but I don't know.
Casey:
It's an expensive watch.
Casey:
I don't want to spend... Oh, you don't need to buy a new watch.
John:
You should wear this one for another year.
Casey:
That's true.
Casey:
That's what I should do.
Marco:
Also, by the way, how big you wear your watch on your wrist is also a personal fashion decision.
Marco:
There's no law that says you have to be traditionally proportioned in what size watch.
Marco:
One of the reasons I think they're probably doing this, and admittedly, it is...
Marco:
slightly disappointing that they're making it a little bit bigger because it kind of it seems like it's kind of like a loss on the miniaturization angle but i think one of the reasons it does make sense to have a larger high-end model because the mass market for watches is up there in like the 44 45 46 millimeter range like that's people people like really big watches the apple watch actually looks kind of small and
Marco:
to a certain pretty large market.
Marco:
Like lots of people want big, big watches that are bigger than even the current 42.
Marco:
So I think that actually makes a lot of sense to go bigger on the big one.
Marco:
But I think what this is going to do is push a lot more people into the smaller one that were previously buying the big one.
John:
Yeah, the bigger one, they made this point about both of the watches, again, emphasizing the thickness.
John:
They all are bigger.
John:
You look at them, they're bigger, right?
John:
But the volume is less than the sizes they replace.
John:
So despite the fact that they're wider, because they're thinner, they more than make up for in their thinness, the increased size.
John:
And going bigger does make sense.
John:
mostly for men or people with very large wrists unfortunately like people love the 38 because lots of you know to get a smart watch of any kind they all tend to be very large because they've got little computers in there it's hard to make computers that small and the 38 was the smallest full-featured smart watch by far what if you have very small wrists now if you have very smallest you may have been pushed out of the market because you may find the 42 big so i still think i mean if we look at the phones you know there's
John:
It took us a little while to go from one phone to two phones to eventually three phones with the whole thing.
John:
And now we have various combinations of three phones with the five and the six size and the SE.
John:
And now the SE is gone and we got the other three sizes.
John:
But I definitely think there's actually room for three watch sizes.
John:
We're just not there yet because...
John:
Just as there was room for a bigger one, bigger than 42, there remains room for one that's smaller than 40, maybe even one that's smaller than 38 if they can get it down to there.
John:
Obviously, battery life is an issue, but I think the line is still maturing.
John:
This is the first new form factor, more or less, that the phone...
John:
The phone.
John:
I love calling it the phone that the watch is that the watch has ever had.
John:
You know, like I know they change thickness and they, you know, move things around and so on and so forth.
John:
But this is clearly a new form factor, new screen, new, you know, it's totally new.
John:
You won't confuse it with the other ones.
John:
Give this a couple of years, then I think it's time for them to introduce a third watch and rejigger the line because I'm thinking of my wife who has worn all the 38s and she's going to put on a 40.
John:
She has small wrists.
John:
I'm wondering if the 40 is going to seem a little too big.
John:
I'm sure she'll just deal with it, but it's kind of disappointing for the low end.
Marco:
Yeah, agreed.
Marco:
Also, let's pour one out for a lot of the things that are gone as of today.
Marco:
So, of course, the steel version of Watch Series 3 is gone, but that's no surprise.
Marco:
That happens every year.
Marco:
The edition is gone.
Marco:
There is no more product called Apple Watch Edition.
Marco:
No more product made of ceramic.
Marco:
Of course, the gold ones were killed a while ago.
John:
We forgot to mention, speaking of ceramic, all of the new Series 4 watches have ceramic backs.
John:
yeah that's true yeah it's like they learned from the down market editions that were ceramic that no one knows about except for marco because no one else pays attention to the edition after the gold ones right but they apparently made ceramic ones they made it in white and like dark gray or something maybe yeah well initially it was just white for series two and then series three it was white and kind of a medium gray that honestly i thought the medium gray looked really bad but that's just me
Marco:
um again this is all personal preference uh but the white i thought it was nice i actually briefly owned one um it was actually really nice in a lot of ways but nobody bought them i mean let's let's be honest yeah but they were way cheaper they were they were only like a couple hundred dollars more than the regular ones right instead of being thousands and thousands yeah like the gold was like you know starting at 10 or 15 000 um and as far as i know like zero people bought those uh the ceramic started at i think 1200 and
Marco:
uh and and that's that was right in line with like you know if you bought the steel with the link bracelet that was about a thousand or eleven hundred so like you know to have this be 1200 or 1300 like that was actually fairly reasonable and if you look now like what what's left in the lineup now um which i'm sure i'll mention in a second the pricing has all gone up uh so the steel is now a hundred dollars more than it was last year uh so and the aluminum i believe is 70 more is that right something like that
Marco:
uh but anyway the um so the steel is more so the steel is already pushing into the you know upper you know 600 to a thousand dollar territory or 700 to a thousand dollar territory and then the hermes versions are still around and they seem to basically be the new additions and so it's still the steel body that you know they have the steel body not like a special material
Marco:
that I think is smart.
Marco:
It's a little disappointing that they couldn't like, you know, make those higher end things work, but can't blame them because nobody was buying them.
Marco:
And it turns out, I mean, geez, I'm, I'm surprised the steel even still exists.
Marco:
Like you hardly ever even see the steel watch anywhere.
Marco:
You see tons of sport watches or I guess aluminum.
Marco:
Now they call them today.
Marco:
They even still call them sport.
Marco:
So you see tons of aluminum ones everywhere.
Marco:
Uh, but the steel you hardly ever see.
Casey:
Oh, no, they don't call them sport.
Casey:
You're right.
Casey:
I apologize.
Casey:
I was about to correct you.
Marco:
Yeah, the bands are called sport.
Casey:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marco:
Anyways, let's also pour one out for the nylon strap.
Marco:
Gone.
Marco:
No more nylon straps.
Marco:
They only have the sport loops now in the nylon category, which, honestly, it's fine.
Marco:
The sport loops are really nice, but the nylon bands were really nice and comfortable, too.
Marco:
They just took a while to dry if they got wet.
Marco:
Also, the classic buckle, the original leather one, that's gone.
Marco:
The smaller one, the modern buckle, is still there, only for the small size.
Marco:
But the classic buckle, which was honestly very, very nice, that's gone now.
Marco:
And the Link bracelets are a curious thing.
Marco:
I believe you can't buy a watch with it stock anymore.
Marco:
And if you look at the current collection, like the current bands, Link bracelets are not there.
Marco:
If you scroll down to the bottom of the page, there's a link that says, "'Explore bands from previous seasons.'"
Marco:
And if you click that, you can get a couple of the old sport bands, a couple of the old Nike bands, and then the two link bracelets.
Marco:
That suggests to me that if you want a link bracelet, I would act on that sooner rather than later because I bet those are actually being discontinued in just some kind of slow, painful way.
Marco:
um yeah so that's it so there's there's fewer choices now and they're more expensive but they do it appears to be pretty nice i don't know it's it is kind of annoying to see like you know a generation upon generation change where you have less choice and it costs more but that's kind of apple these days we shouldn't be that surprised
Casey:
And by the way, so last year I ordered a series three Apple watch and it ran me about $430, give or take a little, a little bit.
Casey:
And it is a cellular one.
Casey:
The 44 millimeter non-cellular is $430 with cellular.
Casey:
It's $530, which that's a lot of money.
Casey:
It is a lot, a lot, a lot of money.
John:
They got rid of the one watch band that I liked.
John:
I had to look up what the heck the classic leather whatever thing is, but now scrolling through the thing, it's the one I liked.
John:
Yeah, the leather one.
John:
Thanks a lot, Apple.
John:
That was just the normal leather watch strap as far as a non-watch person is concerned.
John:
Now they're all weird.
Marco:
Well, now you can buy the Hermes leather one for like $350 and it comes in orange.
Marco:
No thanks.
Marco:
I'll pass.
John:
or you can get one on amazon for like 10 bucks the ceramic back things though like other than you know they learned how to work with ceramic by making the ceramic edition watches so on and so forth it serves a functional purpose which was pointed out in the event that it's a radio transparent more more radio transparent than having a metal back on the thing so that supposedly helps with cellular reception of course your big water blob wrist is right there below it uh not really helping with radio signals but stuff gets in on the side as well so
John:
um i bet it's good for scratch resistance i suppose although who gets scratches on the underside of their watch but anyway the the radio things uh i was convinced that it is an improvement i'm hoping that it will be connected to cellular more than the other one was although that like you said on the previous show may have a lot more to do with power saving than with uh radio transparency of materials
Marco:
Yeah, it was really nice though.
Marco:
Like Jeff Williams actually called, I even wrote it down, he actually said on stage, it's even better for staying connected, which that sounds a lot like, yeah, you know what, the series three kind of sucked at this.
Marco:
Now we actually can stay connected because the series three really can't stay connected.
John:
And speaking of staying connected and battery stuff, they, as expected, touted the battery life as being the same.
John:
Despite the fact that the volume, the interior volume of these watches are less than their predecessors, they have the same battery life.
John:
Now, presumably, it's because the system on a chip takes less power.
John:
Did they mention that these are 7 nanometer?
John:
I assume they are.
John:
They bragged about it on the phone.
John:
They didn't.
John:
No, they didn't mention it at all.
John:
I don't know.
John:
We'll see what they are.
John:
If we have what they call it, S4 or something.
John:
Oh, the other interesting thing is a 64-bit CPU in a watch, which is pretty amazing.
John:
But apparently, according to tweets that have been bouncing around just before the show, 64-bit with 32-bit pointers, which is pretty weird.
John:
So strange stuff going on inside the watch there.
John:
Not that it really matters to most people because for the most part...
John:
you you know i don't know maybe maybe watch app developers it may affect them i'm sure there'll be something about a wwdc about being careful when you port 64 bit to remember that it's the the pointers are still 32 bit and there's some weirdness associated with that but anyway uh much more powerful i think
John:
They were showing the power of the probably the GPU.
John:
But anyway, showing it off with a lot of the effects that they have, like the particle effects on the heart during the heart thing.
John:
Not that that's a complicated effect, but like they have the vapor thing and the flames.
John:
Those might just be movies.
John:
I can't really tell if they're procedural or a GPU generator, just a bunch of movies.
John:
But the particles definitely weren't a movie.
John:
Being more willing to do GPU driven effects instead of just scrolling things around makes me think that this watch is actually significantly more powerful than its predecessors.
John:
I just don't know how that balances with the quote unquote same battery life.
John:
We'll have to wait for iFixit to tear this thing apart to find out does it actually have a smaller battery than before and they can afford it because the silicon is made in a smaller process.
John:
Or does the dress plane have a bigger battery because all the other parts are smaller and because there's more room inside there?
John:
So we need someone to crack one of these open.
John:
Maybe.
John:
There you go.
John:
That's something you can do for the show, Casey.
John:
Get a watch and break it open for us.
John:
Let us know what's going on inside there.
Casey:
I'll be sure to do that.
Casey:
A couple other quick hits on the watch.
Casey:
It has atrial fibrillation detection or AFib detection.
Casey:
It also has fall detection, which I thought was very fascinating.
Casey:
So particularly if you have someone in your life that's a
Casey:
And if the watch notices you've done a movement that makes it think you've fallen, it will detect that.
Casey:
And if you don't move for a minute following that fall, it will actually phone either 911 or your designated emergency contact.
Casey:
I wasn't entirely clear on who the destination of the call is.
Casey:
But one way or another, I thought that was interesting.
Casey:
Also, it's worth noting that these was it the cellular or maybe it was all Apple Watches got an additional hour of battery life on GPS, which was something that was interesting for me, although I never, you know, exercise more than about half an hour at a time.
Casey:
But the aforementioned Kyle's the Gray, who does like 94 hour marathon races, is very excited about that.
Casey:
And certainly anyone who does like a lot of cycling or running would presumably be happy about that.
Casey:
Obviously, there's more and better and more interesting complications.
Casey:
And we talked about how the bands are mostly compatible.
Casey:
But as a kind of summary, I'm going to quote Steve Sanofsky on Twitter.
Casey:
where he said the apple watch has gone from what is this for and there's no killer use case to a fundamental improvement in human health and safety in daily life imagine that and i just thought that was really well put uh you know especially if you are someone who is susceptible to falling or perhaps to a heart problem this could be a real life changer or even life saver and that's not her hyperbole like it really could save your life and
Casey:
And that's really super awesome.
Casey:
And certainly I think I've been more active on account of my Apple Watch than I was in any of the time before then, including when I was a little kid.
Casey:
So I am super amped to get one.
Casey:
I haven't exactly explained this to Aaron yet, but we'll figure it out.
Yeah.
John:
Well, you haven't made any big purchases lately, so she'll probably be fine with it.
Casey:
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Casey:
It should be no problem at all.
Casey:
But I am planning to have this in the house before the – I guess not before the next recording, but before the two weeks from now recording.
Casey:
Uh, it'd be that because I have walked into a store or because I have ordered it to be shipped to the home or ordered two of them to be shipped to the home.
Casey:
Who knows?
Casey:
But one way or another, I will hopefully have one sooner rather than later.
Casey:
Uh, Marco, are you planning to buy one?
Marco:
I honestly, I shouldn't because I would probably wear it like three times, uh,
Marco:
But on another level, I probably should because testing is pretty important and I just did a major update to my watch app.
Marco:
So I don't know.
Marco:
I'm not going to buy one immediately, but I'll probably end up with one at some point.
Marco:
A couple of the quick hits before we move on from this topic I wanted to mention.
Marco:
First of all, the gold stainless steel finish.
Marco:
I was right, John.
John:
Yeah, I was thrown off by the airbrushing and the dreamy, the dreamlike quality of all of Apple's product photos.
John:
Everything is in a mist of beauty.
Marco:
Yeah, and then secondly... Oh, and I would totally... If I wore the Apple Watch regularly, I would totally buy this because it looks like a really good update.
Marco:
So let's put that out there right now.
Marco:
The only reason I'm not jumping on it right now is that I don't wear my Apple Watch very much.
Marco:
But if I did, I would jump on this, no question.
Marco:
And also, one thing that I'm interested about...
Marco:
They say they totally re-engineered the digital crown, and now it has haptic feedback.
Marco:
Now, it does appear that it still moves, because they didn't say it haptics you when you click the button.
Marco:
It's not like a force crown, like a force touch, but it gives you haptic clicks when you scroll it.
Marco:
So that's cool.
Marco:
I like that a lot.
Marco:
I am curious if in part of this re-engineering of it, they fixed the incredibly common issue of the crown getting sticky.
Marco:
This has happened to every Apple Watch I have owned.
Marco:
Yep, yep, yep.
Marco:
Where after not that much use, the crown just sticks and you're supposed to like run it underwater and that fixes it for a little while and then it starts sticking again like a few weeks later.
Marco:
I really, really hope they have done something that will...
Marco:
somehow help that make that happen less often or make it you know fix itself or something like just something to improve the stickiness of the crown being such a common problem because you know because they said they read it on the whole thing so i really hope that that's that's in there somewhere what i assume the haptics work with uh is not that it feels like there's there's little stops or like clicks or whatever it's just that it moves exactly like it always did except for now there's a little thing that jolts
John:
the jolts the axle of the thing at intervals so as soon as you rotate through a certain number of degrees a little vibration thing goes tap like and it taps it makes you feel that vibration through the crown right so it's still actually a completely smooth thing but through kind of like they do with the the stuff when you scroll on phones and stuff like it's actually completely moving smoothly but putting the taps at little intervals makes it makes it kind of feel like there's you know little intervals
Casey:
Real time follow up from Jason Snell, who is one of the few people who has actually handled one of these.
Casey:
The crown really does move and move and it is smooth.
Casey:
The haptics are a bonus and apparently are optional and controlled in software.
John:
Yeah, I was thinking maybe I wouldn't want the haptics on like I'm kind of in the middle of the road on a lot of the haptic stuff.
John:
it seems neat sometimes but other times like i know i'm moving the crown like i don't know how to try it couldn't they have added this to all the watches in software because they all have tactic engines well that's the thing i don't think i don't think it is it is actually i'm assuming it's not using just like the same thing that that vibrates the whole watch i'm assuming there's some dedicated mechanism to just vibrate the crown when you're moving it could be wrong again we have to wait for ifix to tear it apart but that would be the thing to check like is it do you feel the shake in your wrist or do you only feel it in the finger that's turning the crown
John:
The other thing, a question I had for Jason to answer is our emissary in this event that he did answer was, and maybe it's on the Apple's website too, but I asked it during the keynote.
John:
Do they still have the difference in glass where the stainless ones have sapphire and the aluminum ones have the whatever ion X class stuff?
John:
And the answer is yes, that difference still exists, which is also kind of annoying because so many people buy the aluminum because it's cheaper.
John:
But maybe the trade off that you want to make is not the same.
John:
The one that Apple makes the trade off is that Sapphire resist scratches more, but it's more prone to shattering and aluminum, you know, scratches more easily, but bends more.
John:
So it's less prone to shattering.
John:
So it's probably the right trade off when it was called the Apple Watch Sport.
John:
But now it's just the less expensive one that's less shiny and the more expensive one that's more shiny.
John:
And with that, you get this trade-off whether you want it or not.
John:
It's still probably the right call if they have to have fixed screens, but it'd be nice to see them go to some sort of compromise like they do on the phones where they have to come up with some kind of compromise between scratch resistance and shatter resistance.
John:
And with the watch, they have two poles.
John:
They're not two extremes.
John:
I'm sure they're not that different from each other, but they're different enough
Marco:
that it doesn't you know maybe there's a happy medium there that will make everybody miserable i suppose i mean that's and that still remains i think one of the best reasons to get the steel because sapphire is really nice and and you know to be fair like there aren't a lot of watches in the world that give you a sapphire crystal for under 300 like that's that's pretty uncommon they exist i think but there's not a lot of them you know from a cost perspective that's totally reasonable but also like
Marco:
you know, they do need to still figure out some reason to charge almost twice as much for the steel.
Marco:
And so that's a pretty easy differentiator for them.
Marco:
And again, honestly, if I was wearing my Apple Watch regularly, I would definitely get this.
Marco:
I would probably get the small one.
Marco:
and i would definitely get steel because you know it's it there are actually downsides to the steel because the cost like it is heavier uh it is you don't feel the the haptics as much like the the vibration is weaker in it but it does just look so much nicer if you're if you're fine with the way the aluminum one looks fine great you can save a bunch of money
Marco:
uh but if you're like you know a watch nerd and you want your and you want your watch to look like good to you a lot of times that requires it to be a little bit shinier than that and and the steel really does look nice i really do think the the steel apple watch is just a nice design especially when paired with like a decent sport band or something it looks really nice so that's what i would go for if i was getting one is probably the probably the small one and almost certainly the steel
John:
That's why I bought the steel one for my first one, just because it looks good.
John:
That's it.
John:
And the thing about the beauty mist they put on these things, it's making me wonder about these watches because looking at their product shots of the steel, like the silver steel ones, they don't look as shiny as they used to.
John:
It's weird.
John:
Like, I mean, I know they're steel.
John:
It says it right there.
John:
It says it's steel.
John:
Their product shots, it looks less shiny.
John:
Like the specular highlights are like, you know,
John:
fuzzed out a little bit so i need i want to see this in person to make sure it's just because i have a series zero steel and i assume stainless steel is stainless steel like shiny is shiny is it is it actually less shiny or is it just their weird product shots so well i mean it can be polished differently but i think it's it's very unlikely that it has been i think it's much more likely this is just their photography style and it actually is shiny
John:
yeah i mean the pictures from people on who were there at the event i think it actually is shiny and it but it's it's very strange but i you know for a million reasons i need to see this in person and like not just casey i would encourage everybody like don't buy it sight unseen there's a reason they have stores that i know it's going to be crowded but like you just wait like you don't need to have us in day one just go there when you have time when you know when no one else is around and if you can find a time like that and
John:
try a bunch on see what sizes and colors and shapes and all the stuff like see see what appeals to you because there's no other way to tell even having owned the watch that i own i there's no way i would order one of these without trying it on first just too much has changed so sitting here now nothing for you then until you at least try them on and then what do you reckon you would get so you know with what you know today i i would get my current guess of what i would get is the stainless
Marco:
the small size and apparently i'll be forced to take whatever the hell band it comes with i'm always i'm partial to the way this the way the stainless looks on the white sport band i think is a really good look it's also called the stephen hackett uh but it's a really really good look yeah i don't know if i don't know if i can pull off the white band i was just thinking johnny ive when i see that
Casey:
I just don't get what's so great about the stainless.
Casey:
I'm not trying to say you're wrong.
John:
It's not that aesthetics.
John:
It's shiny.
John:
I like it.
John:
I like it because it's shiny.
John:
That's it.
John:
It's jewelry.
John:
It looks nice.
Casey:
I just – I don't – I can't envision the difference between the two.
Casey:
Again, I'm not trying to say you're wrong.
Casey:
I'm not trying to say that I'm right.
Casey:
It's just I've seen – I presumably have seen stainless steel watches.
Casey:
I've seen John's, and I've never –
Casey:
To my recollection, I've never noticed that they look anything different.
Casey:
And I guess it's, you know, another case of ignorance is list.
Casey:
And, and it's probably for the best that I don't know, because I'll save myself a pile of money, but I don't know.
Casey:
I just, I've never noticed the difference.
John:
And also the Sapphire, like I'm, I'm not wearing it during sporting things.
John:
The only time I wear it is, you know, so I, the scratch resistance also appeals to me.
John:
So it's a nice combination that it has the, it has the glass that I want.
John:
And it also has the appearance that I want.
John:
It just happens to be ridiculous, expensive, especially for someone who literally never wears a watch.
Casey:
or literally means figuratively all right anything else on the watch honestly i i think the watch was the more exciting part of the event than what we're going to talk about next oh absolutely i absolutely agree i could not be more excited about this i am i am really surprised because i did not expect that that there was gonna i mean i knew there was gonna be a new watch but i didn't expect it to be anything particularly you know monumental and oh man was i wrong because this looks super awesome
John:
Yeah, this is the watch's non-S-year.
John:
It's first non-S-year.
John:
All the other watch years have been S-years, basically, where they just take the same watch and they mess with it and change the internals and change the internals, and now this is the first all-new watch.
Marco:
We were sponsored this week by Molecule, a complete reinvention of the air purifier.
Marco:
Molecule actually destroys air pollutants at a molecular level.
Marco:
So unlike HEPA filters and other, you know, well-known air filter technology, Molecule uses photoelectrochemical oxidation, PECO.
Marco:
This is nanotechnology that actually eliminates allergens, mold, bacteria, viruses, even airborne chemicals like VOCs, which are way too small for things like HEPA filters to actually capture.
Marco:
Molecule actually does it.
Marco:
These claims have been tested and verified by third-party labs, including the University of Minnesota Particle Calibration Laboratory and
Marco:
and the University of South Florida Center for Biological Defense.
Marco:
And it really makes a meaningful impact for asthma and allergy sufferers.
Marco:
They did a study of foreign allergy sufferers presented at the American College of Asthma, Allergy, and Immunology, and Molecules Technology provided dramatic, statistically significant sustained symptom reduction within a week of use.
Marco:
One customer even said she was able to breathe through her nose for the first time in 15 years.
Marco:
And it's just beautiful.
Marco:
It has this nice white vent on top, aluminum tube down the sides.
Marco:
It's just a really nice piece of hardware.
Marco:
So it looks good.
Marco:
The technology works.
Marco:
The research is even backed by the EPA.
Marco:
So this is really the real deal here.
Marco:
It's been personally affected by people and verified by science.
Marco:
So see for yourself the Molecule Air Purifier.
Marco:
It's really pretty great.
Marco:
I have one.
Marco:
I'm using it now in the fall, and it's going to be really nice while all those dry leaves and all the milkweed blows around in the fall.
Marco:
It's going to be really nice.
Marco:
So go to Molecule.com.
Marco:
That's M-O-L-E-K-U-L-E.com.
Marco:
And at checkout, enter the code ATP, and you can get $75 off your first order.
Marco:
Once again, that's Molecule.com, M-O-L-E-K-U-L-E.com.
Marco:
And code ATP for $75 off your first order.
Marco:
Thank you so much to Molecule for sponsoring our show.
Casey:
There were also some other things announced.
Casey:
There were some iPhones.
Casey:
There's a new one and a new one in the middle of the other sizes.
Casey:
And that's basically it.
Casey:
So anything else before I ask ATP?
Marco:
I kid, I kid.
Marco:
I have some follow-up on my Anchor power brick situation.
Marco:
Oh, goodness.
Casey:
We will get to that.
Casey:
But all kidding aside, they announced three new phones.
Casey:
They have all of which...
Casey:
I'm trying not to be too negative, guys, but these names, these names are not working for me.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
I'm not digging it.
Casey:
And I guarantee I'm going to say the letter X a thousand times for the next year.
Casey:
And I've been pretty good about calling it an iPhone 10, but having two letters next to each other, as we discussed last episode, I'm done.
Casey:
I can't handle it.
Marco:
These names are the giant red dot year of iPhone names.
John:
Yes, yes, they really are.
John:
The naming scheme is terrible, but at least there's not two letters after them yet.
John:
Like what?
John:
Like car model years, like 500 SEL for the Mercedes.
John:
Like you can put two and three letters after you just, you know, the iPhone 10 and then series of letters.
John:
give him time we'll get there well no but it's the iphone 10s max is it not i mean how ridiculous is that i guess yeah that is actually pretty bad it's not the iphone 10s xl sel four-wheel drive all road m power with two thunderbolt three ports right i still think they're terrible yeah no i said todd viziri had a good uh tweet about this he was asking his wife who doesn't follow tech stuff and she showed her the website
John:
The fundamental problem of this naming is not that they're ugly or weird and we're not used to them.
John:
It's that a regular person looking at these names has no idea which one is the good one.
John:
Honestly, I'm not sure I know which one is the good one.
John:
We'll get to that.
John:
Yeah, but still, like, I mean, S is later in the alphabet than R. I mean, the numbers, presumably the bigger number is better.
John:
And the 10 is better than all the numbers because it's a big Roman numeral and they're just numbers and their numbers are all less than the amount 10.
John:
but s and r like you know i mean yeah we will talk about the the r which i think is the the was the star of the show and they they rightly put it last in the lineup uh but anyway the 10s we should start with that yeah so the 10s is like the 10 but a little bit better
Casey:
All right, moving on.
Marco:
That's about it.
Marco:
Oh, and now it comes in gold.
Marco:
No, so like, you know, like a summary of this thing, like, okay, there's a new system on a chip, like there is every year.
Marco:
It's still called the Bionic.
Marco:
Wasn't last year's called the Bionic also?
Casey:
That's correct.
Marco:
Yep, they reused it.
Marco:
So it's now 7 nanometer, which is really impressive.
Marco:
That's really good.
Marco:
So less power usage is what this means for, you know, similar things.
John:
And by the way, I think the reason they reused the name
John:
is because i mean maybe like when they said the name and it was a repeat it made me think maybe the people who design these chips have some influence on the naming because it shares the name because it is fundamentally very similar to the a11 from what we were told same number of cores same size cores they swapped out the gpu for an apple design gpu but it's not like
John:
where they would change the number or size of cores, that would get a new nickname.
John:
This is like the A11 Turbo with a new GPU and a better neural engine.
John:
So I'm wondering exactly how much different the actual CPU part of the A12 system on a chip is from the A11, other than being 7nm or whatever.
John:
So again, we'll have to wait for more people to crack these open and...
Marco:
benchmark them and see what's going on but the the most exciting things that are going on in the silicon seem not to be the cpu but the gpu and the neural whatever thing yeah and power usage yeah so yeah so i if i can summarize what's new about this it seems from what we know so far and again we haven't had hands-on time nobody nobody's had a review you know a long-term review none of us actually have these so maybe we'll find out more when they actually get in our hands
Marco:
But so far, it seems like the major differences are better speakers to make wider stereo sound, whatever that actually means in practice.
Marco:
It can now record stereo audio in videos, which is something that I, until that moment, never even realized that the audio in iPhone videos was mono.
Marco:
Same.
Marco:
I'm like, oh, wait a minute.
Same.
Marco:
Never thought about it for one second.
Marco:
So now it records stereo during video, which is nice, you know.
Marco:
The camera is slightly better.
Marco:
And it's slightly more water resistant.
Marco:
And it comes in gold.
Marco:
I honestly, I'm having a really hard time getting excited about any of that.
Marco:
You skipped a couple of extra things.
Marco:
It comes in a bigger size, which is nice.
Marco:
Well, yeah, we'll get to that.
Marco:
That to me is a separate.
Marco:
thing right the face time uh face time face id is faster i i presume they just said faster like how much faster is it is like i feel like if it was a lot faster they would have given us like a percentage or something they didn't though they just said faster and that that could just be from the processor being you know up to 50 faster like that's so that's you know it's it's nice in the sense that like you know if the 10 was still for sale which it isn't which is interesting but if the 10 was still for sale for like 100 bucks less and
Marco:
and I was choosing between the two, I'd get the better one.
Marco:
I'd get the XS because it is better.
Marco:
But I think this is going to be a real milestone for a lot of people like me who used to get every single phone every year.
Marco:
I honestly don't think I need to get this phone.
Marco:
And granted, it is ridiculous to buy a new $1,000 phone or even more these days every year.
Marco:
But still, a lot of people did it anyway.
Marco:
And honestly, this is not that compelling for one-year upgrades.
Marco:
But again, that probably doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things because most people don't upgrade every year.
Marco:
So I kind of see...
Marco:
I'm not saying Apple's doomed or anything, but just me personally, as one of those jerks who buys a phone every year, I have a hard time getting excited about this one.
John:
I think the people who buy the phone every year will mostly keep buying the phone every year, and everybody else will judge on whether it's a good phone.
John:
And it is a good phone, so I think they'll end up buying it.
John:
I think everything will be fine.
John:
But like I said last show, they really kind of...
John:
you know, used up a lot of their technical innovations on a single phone with the 10.
John:
And so there wasn't a lot of stuff left over to differentiate the S, mostly because the 10 was so good and had so much new stuff in it, like what is left.
John:
All they did...
John:
is just improve everything about the previous one and the improvements you know seem pretty good like in terms of s-class improvements the only one that i'm a little shaky on is the cpu and the system on a chip they did brag they didn't give numbers like 10x performance increase on core ml or something and the neural engine doing trillions of operations and stuff like that and that that could also be what's driving face id to be faster but they didn't do a lot of bragging about
John:
how much faster the gpu is and how much faster the cpu is the gpu they did one of those suspicious gpu things where they called out a few things that a gpu can do and said they're up to 50 faster like up to 50 faster tessellation like most people don't know what tessellation is and it may be an operation this gpu does better the key part was an apple design gpu this is apple's first completely apple design gpu in a
John:
out of the gate are they the world's best gpu designer maybe not like i'm sure it's better than the previous gpu but it makes me think that perhaps there are areas where the previous gpu was faster than the apple not tessellation obviously because they bragged about that one but what about all the other things like there were no big benchmarks lines showing the cpu and gpu so in that respect this phone may be
John:
less of a worthy s than previous ones but overall all that matters is is this a good phone and the answer is yes the 10 was a good phone and this is even better than the 10 and you know there is if if you are someone who buys every year but also needs some compelling reason to buy every year maybe this one is going to leave you a little bit cold but for everybody else in the world this is a great phone and i think they'll just do just fine with it
Marco:
And if you want to change screen size, then it's more interesting, you know, because now you have the 10S Max, which is a really bad name, but we'll get used to it.
Marco:
Could have been worse.
Marco:
Could have had two X's.
Marco:
10S Max.
Marco:
These names, I have to point this out.
Marco:
These names sound like Android phone names, don't they?
Marco:
Like, this sounds like the kind of names that we would make fun of Android people for launching like three or four years ago.
Casey:
Yep, I completely agree with you.
Marco:
But anyway, if you want to change screen sizes, though, this is interesting because they took the iPhone X, which is big, and made it bigger for $100 more, which is actually fairly reasonable.
Marco:
And so most people who are going to be, you know, single year upgraders on this, I think the way that can be justifiable is if you're going to the big one.
Marco:
That would make more sense because it's at least a lot more different than the iPhone X was.
Marco:
I don't plan to do that personally.
Marco:
It looks really big.
Marco:
But if you like really big phones, it looks pretty cool.
John:
And interestingly, they did not do anything, pointedly almost, did not do anything to make the big one better than the less big one.
John:
So the XS Max does not have a better camera.
John:
or better you know faster face time or a larger capacity memory option or even i think it doesn't even have that much uh better battery capacity like it is it doesn't have any particular thing to differentiate it they are the 10 the 10s and the 10s max it's like one has a bigger screen which i think is smart because it was always kind of annoying uh
John:
It was like kind of an accident of technology or it was annoying that the big one had the better of something because it would make people like Marco and other people who like didn't want a huge phone, but kind of wanted the best camera to be faced with this dilemma.
John:
No more dilemma here.
John:
Like they both have the same camera.
John:
Like you just pick based on size, which is the way it should be, which I think is showing the technology maturing.
John:
Uh, and, but it's also showing Apple's restraint in like, how can we get people to buy the $1,500 phone?
John:
Like, or, you know, it's $1,300 for the middle one almost, but $1,500 for the big one.
John:
Let's put something in the max differentiated.
John:
They resisted that.
John:
Like, I think just, I feel like they're,
John:
The mere existence of a 10-style large phone will be enough to drive people to the super expensive phone and should help their ASP.
John:
So they didn't feel the need to go the extra mile and say, and also, let's put something extra special fancy in the Macs.
Marco:
Yeah, and I really respect that.
Marco:
I totally expected... With the iPhone X, I had what I haven't had in years, which is I had the phone that was the size I wanted, but it was also the best phone.
Marco:
Yep.
Marco:
And I thought that was going to end today, and it didn't.
Marco:
The iPhone X, if you want the XS, if you want that size phone...
Marco:
that is still the best.
Marco:
It's just tied now instead of being the only best one.
Marco:
But that's great.
Marco:
I'm very, very happy about that.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
It really bummed me out that I couldn't have the cool picture stuff.
Casey:
And now everyone, well, you know, everyone with a iPhone XS gets them.
Casey:
And you can get a fake picture, you know, fake bokeh on the, well, doubly fake bokeh, I guess I should say, on the XR, which we'll talk about in a minute.
Casey:
But
Casey:
I am not sure what I'm going to do about the phone.
Casey:
Over the last few years, I've been on the annual cycle because I'm obnoxious.
Casey:
And I am the world's worst human when it comes to fear of missing out, which is why I will probably end up with a phone as well.
Casey:
But...
Casey:
I have, even after the event, I don't think I've ever been less enthusiastic.
Casey:
That's overly negative, but more tepid, I guess, about getting a new phone.
Casey:
And we'll see what happens.
Casey:
Like I said, I mean, every year I always say, oh, I'm not going to get it.
Casey:
And then I end up getting it.
Casey:
So I'm not going to do that again this year.
Casey:
But
Casey:
there's nothing that I feel like I can hang my hat on yet that makes me say, holy hell, I must have this phone.
Casey:
Now, if we get, you know, demo units or something like that, well, not we as in the three of us, but if, you know, if Jason gets a demo unit and he says, holy smokes, the face ID is eight times faster and it's so much better and this camera is actually better than they say, you know, of course, then I would be way more excited and interested.
Casey:
But sitting here now, and I think, Marco, you said it best, you know, they said it's better.
Casey:
and stuff because it's newer and better you know like there was there was little that that i think we can hang our hat on unless you want a half terabyte model or you want two sims which is not a very american thing but i know but i know is very big overseas uh when i was on stack trace and talked to uh gareme rambo about this he was saying that in brazil it's very very big
Casey:
So there are definitely perks, but not necessarily for me or maybe even for most Americans.
Casey:
And the pricing is roughly the same.
Casey:
Is that right?
Casey:
I didn't look at iPhone 10 pricing.
Casey:
Well, actually, wait, I sort of did.
Casey:
Yeah.
Marco:
The XS, I think, is the same as the X was, wasn't it?
Marco:
And then the XS Max is $100 more.
Marco:
One thing I actually am excited about is the smart HDR.
Marco:
I'm really curious to see how well that works.
Marco:
If that works well, that is a really big deal for me in my day-to-day life.
Marco:
I'm constantly having to do...
Marco:
careful manual adjustment of the exposure level of photos I'm taking where, like, there's bright light in the background or something like that.
Marco:
Like, that's a very common thing for me.
Marco:
So, if that's a really... If this really does improve it as much as the keynote made it seem, that could be a really big deal.
Marco:
Even that... Like...
Marco:
i i really want that but even that like i'm like do i want that a thousand dollars like is that is that how much i want that i i don't i don't know like i i really gotta i gotta play with this to see like if it's any good but that's it's it's not it's a great phone if you're if you are in the point of your upgrade cycle where you should get a new phone but if you're not i don't see how this is compelling enough so does that dynamic hdr thing only on the 10s and if it is only on the 10s series is it
Marco:
because they just want it to be isolated or because it requires some new hardware it appears from the way they were describing it it probably is not a camera hardware thing it might be in the sense that like you know maybe maybe they have to have the sensor like dump up dump a bunch of data off quickly like capture a bunch of full frames quickly
Marco:
But it's probably a processor thing.
Marco:
And it's probably the kind of thing that they could offer on the older phones, but they aren't for positioning and marketing reasons.
Marco:
Or maybe it would just be a little bit slower and they don't want to make it a little bit slower.
Marco:
Whatever the case, it does seem like it is a software, primarily software implemented feature.
Marco:
And I think it's also going to be on the XR because the XR really does not have a lot of differences from the XS.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
i would assume it is adjustable portrait mode thing it has that too right but so do you think that will be on the 10 i don't think so but you can already do it on the 10 with third-party apps you just can't do it with the built-in camera app as far as i know but that's why i'm wondering if that feature is gonna be backported to the 10
Marco:
Honestly, I would doubt it, just again for market segmentation and stuff like that reasons, but the image data from year 10 can do this too, and there's third-party apps that do it all the time.
Marco:
So that's not a huge deal.
Marco:
For me personally, I never use portrait mode because it never looks right.
Marco:
Maybe this new fancy whatever is going to be more accurate.
Marco:
The example pictures they gave did look good, but
Marco:
You know, we've been burning that before in the past.
Marco:
Like the example pictures always look good.
Marco:
And then you get the phone and you try to get a nice blurry picture of your kitty or dog and their ear falls off.
Marco:
We'll see how that goes in practice.
Casey:
Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more.
Casey:
I would love to ditch my big camera, which isn't even really that big.
Casey:
I have a Micro Four Thirds camera.
Casey:
And I love that camera.
Casey:
I love it, love it, love it, love it, love it.
Casey:
But I would love even more to be able to get reasonably similar photos out of the thing that is always on my person.
Casey:
And portrait mode, when it works well, does work, to my eyes anyway, exceptionally, exceptionally well.
Casey:
The
Casey:
are very few and far between and it falls down a lot and hopefully it's going to get better over time and being able to do the like uh the the adjustment of the aperture after the fact is super cool and yes i know that there are some apps like focus that would do that already but i don't know it just looks super cool to just be playing with an f-stop and maybe that's how focus works i haven't used focus in a while but to just adjust the f-stop after the fact is so neat and so cool and i'd love to see that ported to older phones although i agree with you it probably won't be
John:
It's like BMW's fake engine noise, though.
John:
You're not adjusting any f-stop.
John:
That's fair.
John:
You're adjusting a blur effect on a masked-out region of a picture.
John:
It's not quite the same thing.
John:
But I think the HDR, if it works, is the most important feature of the camera because if you look at pictures people take with their phones,
John:
Very often, the biggest problem has to do with exposure because they took a picture that just has too much dynamic range that the phone can't handle.
John:
So the sky is white because it's entirely blown out.
John:
Or the people in the foreground that you're supposed to see their faces on, they're all entirely in shadow.
John:
Challenging...
John:
lighting conditions people just take the picture and they don't care if this phone can auto magically say it looks to me like you're taking a picture that has way more dynamic range you can handle they already have auto hdr on the phones now but this seems like a step up from that of figuring out how to make those pictures read like it's not going to take a good picture and make it an amazing picture maybe like they show in the keynote look at these amazing pictures by professional photographers right it's going to take your garbage pictures and make them okay
John:
And that's what the camera should do because most people are taking garbage pictures.
John:
They're just like, hold my phone up, take a picture.
John:
You're supposed to just not care and the phone sorts it out.
John:
And those type of features, which are mostly software features, are where it really counts.
John:
And that will probably have the biggest effect on people's lives.
John:
you'll people will take pictures with their camera and then someone next to them will take a picture with some lesser camera they're an older iphone or you know an older android phone or whatever and those other pictures will just not come out at all and the iphone 10s will try mightily and get something reasonable out of it and you can actually see people's faces and it doesn't look entirely gross so thumbs up on on that although you mentioned the camera is only slightly improved do you remember i didn't there's one of the few specs that i didn't write down here
John:
Did they change the specifications for the camera in terms of the light gathering ability?
John:
They said the sensor didn't change size, but the pixels are bigger.
John:
They quantify that in any way?
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
It's a new sensor.
Marco:
It's not a bigger sensor or a higher resolution one, but it's new.
Marco:
And I think it's only on the...
Marco:
wide angle one.
Marco:
I think the telephoto slash 2x one I think is the same sensor or at least minorly improved but it's still 12 megapixel it's still the same sensor size as far as we know but each pixel is slightly larger
Marco:
And some people assume that means the sensor is bigger.
Marco:
It doesn't because there's like there's basically like there's overhead.
Marco:
There's like margins around pixels on sensors where you put other electronics or whatever.
Marco:
And so you can make those smaller.
Marco:
And occasionally those are made smaller.
Marco:
And it does it does mean that each pixel can gather more light, which gives you benefits of lower noise and everything else.
Marco:
So they said that these pixels are larger, and I think it was like 1.4 nanometers versus 1.2, something like that.
Marco:
It's that kind of gain.
Marco:
So it's a small gain, but welcome.
Marco:
And they also said the pixels are deeper.
Marco:
And I don't know the details of what that means or how that works.
Marco:
I know like a couple of years ago, Phil talked about how they had deep pixels now.
Marco:
And it's something about how the sensor works.
Marco:
Again, I don't know the details, but so the sensor seems to be similar, but a little bit better.
Marco:
So cool.
Marco:
That's nice.
Marco:
It does.
Marco:
It does only seem to apply to the wide sensor.
Marco:
It is nice that all three phones get that.
Marco:
That's great.
Marco:
Honestly, I'm a little disappointed.
Marco:
Now that I've had the 2X camera for the first time, because I never had the Plus phones that had it.
Marco:
Now that I had the 2X camera for the first time for the last year, I really want more reach.
Marco:
We have a 28mm lens and like a 45mm lens.
Marco:
In camera terms, that's not very far.
Marco:
I would love like the equivalent of like an 85 or something like that.
Marco:
Something that is more than just the 2X.
Marco:
Give me a 4X or whatever, you know, something like that.
Casey:
Why stop there?
Casey:
Why not add two more?
Marco:
I'm trying to be reasonable with what they actually might do.
Marco:
The camera bump is already big enough, so I'll give them any ideas.
Marco:
No, if anything, what they've shown is that it doesn't matter how big the camera bump is.
Marco:
You can make it bigger and no one cares.
Marco:
So the thing I want when I'm using my phone as a camera, the thing I want most often is more zoom range to reach something or to reframe something in a different way.
Marco:
If they did that, just optically...
Marco:
things like portraits would also look better.
Marco:
You'd have a better perspective on things like that.
Marco:
And also, you'd be able to reach further away things than you can get with your current one.
Marco:
And an 85mm or a 75mm is not that zoomed in.
Marco:
It's not like a super zoom or anything like that.
Marco:
But it would be a welcome change.
Marco:
And that is the one thing I really do
Marco:
want out of the camera that they haven't given us yet besides things like i would always love it to be like lower noise you know but that's never going to happen on a tiny little sense like that but uh among the things that are achievable i would love to get more zoom range
John:
A few other minor notes.
John:
The dual SIM with the eSIM, I was excited for the idea that there wouldn't be a SIM tray, but it turns out there still is a SIM tray.
John:
So they have an eSIM and a regular SIM, and apparently in the China model, they have two regular SIMs.
John:
As I mentioned before, the 512 gig size is new.
John:
There is no new USB-C charger, as in the part that plugs into the little square that plugs into the wall.
John:
Yeah, that was sad.
John:
Apparently, it's still rumored for the iPad, but who knows?
John:
Yeah, which is disappointing because that little 5-watt charger, it is overmatched by the 10 and surely overmatched by the 10S Max.
John:
You know, so that's a bummer.
Marco:
Like how long does it take to charge the 10S Max with the charger it comes with?
John:
yeah overnight like that's probably their you know their measurement um supposedly i don't know this for sure but supposedly no more lightning to headphone adapter in the box that's fine that's the time for that has passed like now if you don't have one of those adapters and you want to use your phone if you want to use wire headphones i'm sure you can go buy one for nine dollars and fine
John:
yeah i know it's just like it's just you know like i feel like there should be some counterbalance to that it's like no no more lighting the headphone adapter but every macbook comes with the power cord thing you know um yeah and and i think the gold the gold actually i usually don't like gold phones this is the first gold phone that i think actually looks good not that i would buy them because it's still not to my taste but i think it looks good so they were right to highlight that in the
John:
thing in the advertising.
John:
And as for purchasing, I couldn't even order the phone because even though it seems like I know exactly what I want, I am conflicted about white versus black.
John:
I didn't like the 10s white, but I had heard that this
John:
white might be different than the 10s white so now i gotta go to the store and look at that i gotta go to the store and look at the 10s look at the white 10s and see is it kind of that dishwater color that doesn't appeal to me in real life because in product shots it looks gleaming white and i would love it if it was gleaming white but in real life it looks like it looks like dishwater so that the 10 definitely does not the 10s
John:
maybe they made it wider so i have to check it out um this is all silly because it's going to be inside a case but still i care like i've had this jet black iphone 7 inside the case and it's probably pristine under there i hope um but i never see it spoiler so i'm gonna get i'm gonna get probably the 256 10s in either black or silver uh depending on what the back looks like
Marco:
Also, real follow-up.
Marco:
Last episode, I quickly mentioned how I was planning on buying an extra orange case right before the event because I was afraid that they would discontinue them during the event and that I'm probably going to have a phone that fits it for the next year and I wanted another one.
Marco:
I did exactly that, and they did discontinue it.
Marco:
So I stand by my awesome spare orange case strategy, which I now have sitting on my desk, and I'm pretty sure, I don't know for sure yet, but I think the XS will fit it.
Marco:
I don't think they changed the dimension of the camera bump or anything.
Casey:
Do we know, and I don't think we do, if there's that dichotomy between the AT&T and Verizon 10Ss?
Casey:
Because in years past, you kind of needed to specify up front if you're going to land on AT&T or Verizon, and this is a very American-centric issue, and I'm sorry.
Casey:
um because some of the bands were a little bit different and i'm looking at buying a 10s like you know i'm going i'm walking through the process right now and it says buy without a carrier sim free activate with any carrier later that implies to me that there's one skew for any carrier whereas in the past there's been a skew for at&t and a skew for verizon
Casey:
And I'd be curious to hear if that's still the case, if there's different ones or not.
Casey:
The chat room is being a little ambiguous because I'm not sure which phrasing of the question they're answering.
Marco:
People are saying like, no.
Marco:
What does that mean?
Casey:
Sam the Geek says that is not the case.
Casey:
So I'm taking that to mean you can buy whichever darn one you want this year and it doesn't really matter.
Marco:
I've also heard that they all have Intel modems now, which sucks for Qualcomm, but also hopefully Intel has worked out.
Marco:
I think my 10 has the Intel modem, and it's been fine.
Marco:
The first Intel modems that we're in, I believe the 7, those were awful.
Marco:
I had tons of problems with those, but I think since the 10 generation, I think they've been okay.
Yeah.
John:
And keep in mind, as we mentioned on past shows, the rumors, I think there's still just rumors, that Apple is building a team to build its own radio chips.
John:
It doesn't have to rely on Intel for that anymore.
John:
So it's a giant FU to Qualcomm.
John:
Not only are we not going to buy from you anymore, we're just going to make them ourselves, and Intel will be our rebound.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
What else about these before the XR?
Casey:
So, Marco, you're saying sitting here today anyway, definitely no – I almost said XS.
Casey:
Definitely no XS.
John:
You said XR like five times anyways.
Casey:
I know.
Casey:
Sorry.
Casey:
I'm trying to be good.
John:
And I'm calling to watch the phone.
Marco:
We're all over the place.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
I think Tiff's getting the XS Max because she's a plus user.
Marco:
So I think she's going to get the Max.
Marco:
Her ship has come in.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
But I –
Marco:
ask me in a few days i guess probably my next show i'll be like i'll be like yeah i got or you know buy whatever show it is he's got three of them now yeah it's gonna be like yeah i got it anyway yeah i feel like that's gonna be me but as i sit here right now i'm really not excited to spend 1100 on this right now for for what it is you can spend 500 because you get 500 if you turn in your 10 oh that's interesting
Marco:
Well, but I usually keep my phones for testing and stuff.
Marco:
Honestly, I probably don't need to do that anymore, or at least as much.
Marco:
Yeah, I don't think I need to have a X and a XS.
Marco:
Like, what are you testing there?
Marco:
Yeah, I guess that's true.
Casey:
That is an interesting proposition.
Marco:
Yeah, but even if I get a few hundred dollars for it on trade-in, is it worth $700 to get these upgrades?
Marco:
I don't think so.
Marco:
I might do it anyway, but I can't say it's worth it.
Casey:
Yeah, I feel like you spoke for me in answering that question.
Casey:
Again, the typical KCMO is to say, no, I'm not getting this.
Casey:
And then fast forward 12 seconds.
Casey:
Yep, I got it.
Casey:
But I don't know, man, like sitting here now, I'm not sure.
Casey:
and i i would generally this is where i would say no but i know myself now well enough to say i'm not sure which means i'll probably end up doing it but i agree with you that it would not it's not really worth it but i'm an idiot and i i spend too much money maybe tiff and i can be a one phone family let me help you out they're they just announced phones and watches
John:
But we all assume that there probably will be more products announced before the end of the year.
John:
Some of those products you may want to buy, for example, a new MacBook or a new laptop of some kind to replace your current 12-inch MacBook.
John:
Those are probably similar price to the phone you're thinking of getting.
John:
So maybe wait until all the products have been announced and decide, which do I want more?
John:
A new laptop, a new phone, a new watch?
John:
Because I feel like if you're feeling...
John:
Don't want to spend a lot of money buying all three of them before the end of the year after buying expensive cars.
John:
Maybe not the most responsible thing to do.
Casey:
Fair enough.
Casey:
I think I am pretty devoted to the watch.
Casey:
I will be surprised if I don't get a watch.
Casey:
I am, again, sitting here now.
Casey:
I'm saying no to the phone.
Casey:
I'll probably cave.
Casey:
um and then we'll see what happens with regard to computers but we should move on and talk about the xr which i keep or the i actually meant to say it god bless it the 10r the tenor uh that that is uh continually being called the xr it was the last real announcement of the keynote
Casey:
And I think it was the most interesting phone they announced today.
Casey:
It is on the surface, a iPhone 10 S, but with an LCD screen instead of OLED.
Casey:
Hey, what did, what did they call it?
Casey:
A super liquid.
Casey:
It's like a liquid.
Casey:
Right.
John:
They were bragging about the fact that they could bring an LCD to the edge because part of the, remember them showing when 10 came out and how they folded the OLED under to get it close to the edge.
John:
And you know, it's the thing that every manufacturer does, whatever.
John:
Like,
John:
and it's harder to do with an lcd and so they were proud of themselves for this and then they gave it a new name but it's just a very nice else from people who are there they say it's a very nice lcd screen like it is not as good as oled with the deep blacks but it's really nice yep so it gets the really nice lcd screen it does not have a two lens camera system although it seems to be able to fake it pretty darn well and we can talk about that a
Casey:
It does not have 3D touch.
Casey:
Interestingly, it has haptic touch, which I guess is them trying to fake what 3D touch is without actually having 3D touch.
Marco:
Yeah, that I'm very curious about.
Marco:
Yeah, me too.
Marco:
I want to know, so is it just that you do long presses and then it vibrates back at you?
Marco:
Yeah, that's what Jason said.
Marco:
It's that you long press and then it vibrates.
Marco:
like that honestly that's kind of interesting um that might be like you know we heard we heard the uh supply chain rumors a few weeks back that the next iphone wouldn't have 3d touch and that was probably rooted in this uh you know in retrospect the game of telephone like the the 10 to be clear the 10s has plain old press really hard on your phone screen 3d touch but the 10r does not
Marco:
But this, you know, this might be maybe future phones won't have it because if you can get close enough with just long press sensing and then a vibrate motor, as opposed to having to measure the pressure on the whole screen.
Marco:
Like, first of all, I want to know, like, do they bring this to the iPad?
Marco:
Maybe.
Casey:
Oh, that's an interesting point.
Marco:
What we always heard about the iPad, what we always heard about why it didn't have forced touch is that it's really hard to have the strain gauges or whatever it is that's measuring the deformation of the screen to measure pressure on the screen.
Marco:
But you don't have to measure pressure on the screen if you're doing this through this method.
Marco:
You can just do it in software with long presses.
John:
But how does this differentiate between an actual long tap?
Marco:
That's my question.
Marco:
Well, first of all, does it?
Marco:
And second of all, maybe it does it with like judging the basically like the size of the blob your finger makes on the screen.
John:
Contact patch change.
Marco:
Yeah, that's I guess it's a better term than the blob.
Marco:
But like, yeah, because like when you're pushing hard, you're going to have a larger contact patch than when you're not.
Marco:
And so maybe it does some kind of heuristic to figure that out in some some way they finally figured out how to do reliably or something like that.
John:
Use those neural whatevers in the thing, machine learning.
Marco:
There you go, yeah.
Marco:
Use your neural whatevers on my blob to figure out what I mean.
Marco:
3D Touch also, it was never that successful.
Marco:
It's not very widely used, at least intentionally.
Marco:
And it wouldn't be surprising if they decided to cut that feature at some point.
Marco:
But if they can manage to get kind of close to what it offered...
Marco:
without having the force sensitivity, that's fine.
Marco:
That's fine for most people.
John:
Yeah, 3D Touch was, I think, an important innovation in phone interface because it gave you another vector.
John:
It gave you basically the equivalent of right-click.
John:
You've already got all these different things that you can do.
John:
We need some other channel.
John:
And this was the channel.
John:
The channel was pressure sensitivity so that you could have a whole other class of interactions.
John:
The problem with it was...
John:
that this channel required force which is difficult for some people to do but even people who have more than enough strength to do it is often awkward people use their phones like it is a touch interface it is not a press interface right the whole point is that it's capacitive and not pressure sensitive and i've found in my experience at least that doing 3d touch even when i want to do it
John:
sometimes requires another adjustment of of my hands to get enough pressure on it and generally just seems awkward and not in keeping with the rest of the experience of like brushing your fingers across this magical screen like the way people use their phones just watch people out and you know in public using their phones it's all about just flick brush slide like very light touch stuff
John:
at no point do these people are they prepared to bear down on their phones and 3d touch as this new channel for input requires them to do that and so there's the hidden nature of it which is why no one knows it even exists but even if you know it exists it's often very awkward so i'm not saying that they're going to say 3d touch is a failed experiment and let's forget it because i'm not sure how this this equivalent uh to it works but
John:
And I think there is a need for another vector for input in addition to just touch, touch and hold and all sorts of other stuff.
John:
But it may be that 3D touches is not ideal.
John:
And then they can afford to both, you know, monetarily and sales numbers and like functionally.
John:
They can afford to not have it because...
John:
I bet so few people use, this is one of the metrics they probably write, so few people use 3D Touch that the lack of it on the XR, like nobody will care about it.
Casey:
Almost nobody will care about it.
Casey:
Yep, agreed.
Casey:
It also has more battery life than any of the phones, I believe.
Casey:
Is that right?
John:
Yes, it has the best battery life.
John:
This is where we get to the point where we argue that the XR is the best iPhone, right?
Yeah.
John:
it's certainly an interesting dilemma because you haven't gone through all the specs, but let's just cut to the chase and say everything about it is the same, except for the things we pointed out.
John:
There's one camera, but the one camera it has is the same exact as that camera in the other phones.
John:
It is not a lesser camera.
John:
This just doesn't have the two X camera, right?
John:
It's got true tone.
John:
It's got the 120 Hertz sensor, LCD instead of all, I've already covered that same exact processor.
John:
They didn't mention anything about it.
John:
Presumably the same clock speed, presumably the same memory.
John:
Uh,
John:
It is the the max, according to some tweets that are flying around.
John:
It has the same number of points as the max.
John:
So the size is physically in between.
John:
Oh, but it's got the same number of points as the max, according to some tweets I read.
John:
But it's two X instead of three X.
John:
but still but if it has the same then that means you can like fit more on screen if you're okay with it being a little bit smaller that's actually really interesting and it has the best battery life why what how could this one have the best battery life it's got the screen that takes more energy it's got lcd instead of oled and oled when the pixels aren't on they don't take any power how could it what magic technologies apple discovered to make the 10r have such great battery life
John:
They made it thicker.
John:
They made it thicker.
John:
It's the thickest one out of the new phones.
John:
This phone has, there's a size chart up of like, see what, you know, how the battery life compares.
John:
It has better battery life than the XS Max.
John:
It has, you know, what is it?
John:
Let's see.
John:
16 hours of video playback versus 15, 15 hours of internet use versus 13.
John:
Like it's slightly better, but still better than the giant phone and significantly better than the XS.
John:
So it's not, you know, specs wise, it's probably not the best phone, but I would have no problem recommending the XR to somebody who was looking at the XS but couldn't decide because like you'll get, bottom line, you'll get better battery life.
John:
It's a thicker phone, but you'll get better battery life.
Marco:
Yeah, and it's like, when you look at, it costs like two-thirds as much as a XS Max.
Marco:
You look at what you're getting from this thing, it's not bad.
Marco:
It's not a bad proposition.
Marco:
It also comes in all the best colors.
John:
Yeah.
John:
it comes in all the colors how many people even switch to the 2x camera that's another stat that apple probably has they say like even though we have this double camera system and it's great the percentage of people that that routinely switch between the zoomed in the not zoomed in camera versus the ones that just pinch and pinch and digital zoom like as i see that people doing other phones all the time as if they're you know getting closer and really they're just blowing the thing up and it's kind of pointless well to be fair but it is smart about that it does use the 2x sensor once you get you know to that point yeah yeah i suppose but like this the 10r is a great phone it is yeah it
John:
Apple has done the magic where they shoved all the prices up that it's now basically the old price for the best phone.
John:
So the prices just look good in comparison, but we're living in the now.
John:
And the now is the XS series and the X before it are super expensive.
John:
This one is like a return to three years ago.
John:
These were the old prices of the best phone that you could get.
John:
And I really... I can't get over the fact that it's like... It's a great size with, supposedly, the big resolution with better battery life and with the same internal, same system on the chip and the same single camera.
John:
And it comes in colors.
Marco:
Yeah, it really...
Marco:
We were trying to figure out in a couple of predictions episodes a few weeks back, what are they going to do to make this phone worse so that anybody buys the XS?
Marco:
And they basically didn't do anything to make this phone worse.
John:
They did a lot of things to make it just as good and some things to make it better, like the colors.
Marco:
Yeah, like, I gotta say, it's a very compelling option.
Marco:
I mean, it isn't out yet.
Marco:
It's gonna be, like, a month late, but still, like, a lot of people are gonna buy that phone.
Marco:
And I gotta give Apple, on one level, I gotta give them the credit of, like, wow, it's really nice that the phone that, you know, as you said, like,
Marco:
We're looking at this as the less expensive one.
Marco:
In reality, this is the price all iPhones used to be.
Marco:
But until last year, this was the expensive phone price point.
Marco:
But they're making quite a big statement with that.
Marco:
To me, the big question is when a buyer walks into the store and sees these three options...
Marco:
Who the hell's going to buy the XS?
Marco:
I honestly don't.
Marco:
The XS, I think, is going to have a hard time.
Marco:
I guess it's the small phone now.
John:
It's thinner, and it looks a little bit shinier.
John:
I think it will be clear in person in the store that it is the higher-end phone.
John:
But as soon as people start asking questions, if you don't already know which phone you want, and you're just in the Apple store, and you're like, well, which one is better, and you start asking questions about it,
John:
So it's got the same camera, but only one same CPU, better battery life, more, you know, it's, it's the in-between size.
John:
Like I'm trying to figure out like, will the, will the 10, which one will sell more?
John:
Like, are they going to sell more of the, the 10 S line or the, the 10 R line?
John:
I suppose they'll still sell more of this has line just because most people want the best phone.
John:
Right.
Casey:
I disagree.
Casey:
I think the XR is going to be the biggest seller.
Casey:
I really do.
Marco:
Yeah, I'm with you, Casey.
John:
Does Apple break that out usually, though, for us?
Marco:
Sometimes analysts try to derive it with average selling price and stuff like that.
Marco:
You can usually have some idea from that.
Marco:
No, I'm with Casey.
Marco:
I think the XR is almost certain to be the biggest seller here.
John:
Right.
John:
But the problem for this year is that there has never been a large 10 style phone.
John:
And now there is.
John:
And that's going to soak up a lot of, you know, a lot of the people who wanted a big phone and didn't want to buy the eight like that market of things.
John:
We'll see.
John:
They're not going to break it out for us.
Marco:
Well.
Marco:
that's why i think like the like the the 10s max has a market like that's going to be the cutting edge people people who want the biggest phone they can get and you know day one you know upgraders and everything they're going to mostly go like i think the 10s max is going to sell to a lot of them the 10r is going to sell to pretty much everybody else i don't know who buys the 10s it's you and me because yeah i do that's for one it is it's you and me but like who else like nobody
John:
Yeah, I mean, another clever, you know, we've complained about the names before, but the clever thing is putting this in the 10 family and giving it a letter R that is not clearly worse than S. It's just a different letter, right?
Marco:
It's just one letter.
Marco:
It's almost S. That's why it's so clever.
Marco:
It's just one letter before S. Yeah, it's like it's it's almost the tennis, right?
Marco:
Like, I think that's really clever.
John:
not for the sake of the 10s because i think again it makes the 10s look like why am i paying so much more for that but for the 10r it makes it look pretty good and there's going to be probably more 10rs in the store because you're going to display them in a bunch of different colors where you've just got the three to display on on the 10s yeah this is a super interesting model and like i really hope it does sell well because it will encourage apple to make thicker phones that have better battery life right
John:
uh like i can imagine a certain sort of you know counter movement after a few months these have been on sale of like people in the know saying that the 10s is supposedly the best phone but the 10r has better battery life so if you're a savvy consumer you'll just get the 10r people are all buying the 10r like we haven't seen the battery case situation yet
John:
Because last year, they haven't offered a battery case for the plus size.
John:
Am I correct?
Marco:
Yeah, that's right.
Marco:
They never have.
Marco:
To be fair, as the phones are getting this big, battery cases get increasingly unwieldy.
Marco:
And people buy them anyway.
Marco:
People do make them.
Marco:
People do buy them and use them.
Marco:
But not Apple, right?
Marco:
They get pretty big and pretty crazy at these sizes.
John:
Yeah, so the question is, will there be a battery case from Apple for the XR because it's the in-between size?
John:
Because, again, people being in the nose, the XR is the one to get because it has better battery life.
John:
That's a thing that can start circulating among people who have more than enough money and would normally buy the highest-end phone but don't want the big phone.
John:
The other wild card for the XR is...
John:
it may push people over the size limit because it is the in-between size you end up with the 10s just because like like me that i wish it was the size of the 7 and i'm certainly not going to go to a 10r despite the better battery life you know if i needed it which i really don't but um you want to get the smallest good phone you can and the 10r is still pretty big being in between the the s and the max
Casey:
Yep.
Casey:
Same.
Casey:
Completely agree.
Casey:
I think it's a combination of size and idiots like Marco and me who just want the best of the best of the best, sir, with honors.
John:
Uh, and the sizes are 64, 128 and 256 instead of 64, 256, 512.
John:
Uh, so there is a differentiator there.
John:
You have to do something to get the, you know, the price down, uh,
John:
but it's, you know, I, I think the one 28 for $800, this, if this was the, if we erase the 10 from existence and they just introduced this after, uh, the seven, uh, I guess we'd all be disappointed because it wasn't all that, but from a consumer perspective, you know, it's a great film.
John:
Like the other compromise people pointing out, like, uh,
John:
If you know where to look, it is slightly less premium.
John:
Obviously, in terms of build materials, in terms of how close the screen gets to the edge of the phone, it's less close than it is on the 10, right?
John:
And, you know, there's no shiny gold model.
John:
Like, aluminum is not as fancy as stainless steel.
John:
It's all there if you know where to look.
John:
But I think this is going to be a very popular phone with good reason.
John:
I think it's really good.
Marco:
In many ways, it's a lot like the aluminum versus steel watch.
Marco:
Like you pay a few hundred dollars more for the nice steel, you know, and it looks shinier and has a few, you know, a few little niceties.
Marco:
But for the most part, it's not that different.
Marco:
Like this, I think it's very similar here where like almost everyone is going to get the XR and is going to be very happy with it.
Casey:
and it does it has wireless charging like in case people are wondering like it's all all the same features that you know and love from the 10 it's super compelling and what was even more interesting to me was friend of the show steve trout and smith tweeted earlier that iphone 10r is the one to watch it's a sizable upgrade on the iphone 10 if you don't mind losing oled and 3x it looks like it's a plus layout model too which is what we were discussing earlier
Casey:
It's a really interesting, really, really, really interesting phone.
Casey:
And I think I'm on board with it.
Casey:
Like, not that it's my call anyway, but I think it's a good idea for Apple to do this.
Casey:
I think it moves kind of the whole stack forward, if you will.
Casey:
It makes everyone, it makes so many people get on the, you know, iPhone X train.
Casey:
but it's a very odd choice.
Casey:
And I think they're rolling the dice a little bit because it is so frigging good.
Casey:
And there's so little to differentiate it from the 10 S. And I think your analogy, Marco is really good that it's kind of like the stainless steel watch model.
Casey:
There's not that much.
Casey:
I mean, I think it's, it's, it's more obvious what the differences are.
Casey:
And I, and I think you would absolutely agree with me there, but, but it is, there's not a lot that differentiates the two and they discontinued the 10 and the S C.
Marco:
Yeah, I'm kind of surprised they really haven't shown any desire to replace the SE with anything.
Marco:
It's just too small now in this age of monster phones.
Marco:
Well, I don't think they would replace the SE with another phone of the same size.
Marco:
As much as the people who use the SE want that, and I've heard from all of them on Twitter today when I said I wanted to drop software support for it, they are all still responding to me.
Marco:
But the reality is I think...
Marco:
I think that market is just too small.
Marco:
I think not enough people want a phone of that size in this day and age anymore.
Marco:
But I don't know, what have they replaced that with exactly?
Marco:
I mean, now all of their current model phones are pretty damn big by comparison.
Marco:
And while that is what tends to sell...
Marco:
It does kind of leave a hole in the market.
Marco:
And granted, yeah, it was a decreasingly sized hole, I guess.
Marco:
But it does leave people who wanted a smaller phone with pretty much nothing.
Marco:
There are no Android phones of that size.
Marco:
They can't jump to Android.
Marco:
There's just nothing there.
Marco:
So it is worth pouring one out for the SE people.
Marco:
But I do think that...
Marco:
Really, I mean, they're kind of lucky it lasted this long.
Marco:
Because even the SE was fairly unexpected.
Marco:
It used to be just the 5S that you were stuck with.
Marco:
So that was kind of fun.
Marco:
But I think that train has sailed.
John:
Yeah, that's what trains do.
John:
They sail.
John:
I think the small phone will be back, though.
John:
Because of the timelines, it doesn't work out.
John:
So the SE is gone, right?
John:
But I think there will be, at some point in the future...
John:
a new phone from apple that is smaller in size than the 10 uh just because the se sold so well and apple was actually public in saying the se is selling way better than we thought it would right that the problem is that happened too late for them to like oh let's scratch all our plans and rejigger all of our phones to come out with a smaller one they don't they don't have they didn't have a plan for they just thought the se is a thing we'll do whatever
John:
We'll sell it, make some people happy, get rid of some old parts that we have because we can still make these things.
John:
Right.
John:
But it turned out to be a really big seller.
John:
I think it, you know, compared to what they expected.
John:
I think this has convinced Apple that there continues to be a market for a phone that's smaller than a 10.
John:
And I hope it's in the pipeline now.
John:
It just, you know, it wasn't in the cards for this year and probably not even for next year.
John:
But I look forward to a smaller, either a smaller 10 or a phone that slots in below the 10.
John:
I would not hold my breath on that.
John:
I'm holding my breath.
John:
I think within five years, Apple will sell a phone that is smaller than the 10.
Casey:
On an infinite timeline, Marco.
John:
I said five years.
John:
An infinite timeline for sure.
John:
But in the next five years, Apple will sell a new phone that is smaller than the 10.
John:
Width and height wise.
John:
I will take that bet.
John:
What do you want to bet?
John:
Five bucks?
John:
No, we got to do the Trading Places bet.
John:
A movie that you don't know because you're youngsters.
John:
Yep.
John:
Heard of it.
John:
$1.
John:
Okay, $1.
John:
I will take that bet.
John:
You got to put a calendar reminder in for five years from now.
Casey:
Some listener will hear this seven years from now and say, hey, did you ever pay so-and-so that dollar?
Casey:
All right, a couple of other quick hits.
Casey:
AirPower, what's going on there, man?
It's just
John:
gone it's there it's just been totally scrubbed from existence gone down the memory hole what do you mean air power they didn't because it's still it's still on the website they just changed it from available in 2018 to currently unavailable which is true it is currently unavailable it has never been available
Marco:
Yes, that has always been true.
Marco:
And I suspect it may always be true.
Marco:
Like, oh man, what a mess.
Marco:
So AirPower, yeah, announced a year ago for this year, for 2018, which itself was weird to announce it for, you know, the next entire year when there was no real pressure to announce something like that.
Marco:
Basically, it's a fancy Qi charging mat.
Marco:
And granted, it is a very fancy Qi charging mat, but still a Qi charging mat.
Marco:
And now it is...
Marco:
missing it very conspicuously missing when it was announced last year they mentioned that they're going to have like this new airpods case that could charge uh via the wireless charging on it the speculation you know up until today was well they you know it took it took them a while they appear to be having some problem with it so they were going to hold back the airpod update that had the always on hey siri and the improved water resistance i think they're going to hold that back
Marco:
And then, you know, the air power mat would launch at this fall event, probably.
Marco:
And new AirPods would launch with it and etc.
Marco:
And even the intro video, the Mission Impossible clicker video does appear to, you know, suggest that that was intended.
Marco:
And that just didn't happen.
Marco:
And I've heard rumblings here and there, as we all have.
Marco:
I think that like air power is just they were having a lot of trouble with it.
Marco:
Like they just can't get it.
Marco:
they can't finish it they can't get it right there's something wrong with whatever they're doing and we don't really know what's going on but it really does raise the raise two interesting questions of one why can't they get a charging mat right when you can you know buy more basic ones forever for like no money granted air power was trying to do a lot more but still uh and question number two why the heck was this pre-announced a year ago uh but it is
John:
really conspicuously absent now that not only did they not announce it today and not only is it still not available but they removed almost all reference to it on the website yeah the fact that it's still there at all makes me think that maybe like the same reason they announced it is like you know is it a thing that was planned and it wasn't ready in time for the keynote but there but the problem is but do you think you'll have it ready by next year it's like oh by next year sure it'll be ready by next year you can announce it for next year so it's optimism
John:
you know we we don't know we know it's not available now we know there are problems but they told us it'd probably be ready by next year and then it turned out to be more difficult and problematic so oh well but like yeah just optimism that's why probably it's still on the website like because they haven't they haven't decided to publicly can it yet they may still decide to publicly can it but obviously they haven't reached whatever that whatever is going to convince them we'll just forget it uh they haven't got there yet um as for the airpods uh
John:
I don't actually think the AirPod delay is connected to the mat just because there's no reason to delay a thing that charges wirelessly unless it only works with AirPower.
John:
I assume that the wireless AirPod case thing will work with all the other third-party chargers that people are charging their iPhone Xs on.
Marco:
like you don't need to wait for the mat for the airpods it would be nice it's a nice like i would not assume that it is a standard chi charging case i think it's an air power because like like the apple watch series 3 uh when it's funny people on twitter pointed this out earlier uh when the series 3 was announced its spec page says it was compatible with air power the series 3 is still for sale it no longer says that yeah
Marco:
but anyway um but series 3 it is not chi compatible it so air power was basically starting as chi and kind of extending it and so it you know like the phone can do air power and chi but the apple watch series 3 and i assume series 4 um were made just just to do whatever the air power matt was going to do for them and i believe the air pod case was probably the same way and this probably isn't a huge difference maybe it might just be like
Marco:
the size of the charging coil or something like that, like, or some kind of, you know, lower power version of it.
Marco:
So I don't, who knows what it is, but I would not assume that whatever the new AirPod case is, is compatible with standard Qi chargers.
John:
I would assume it is, simply because there's third-party things that you can strap onto your AirPod case right now, where the coil fits within the... It's on the outside instead of the inside, but the coil fits perfectly fine in there, and it charges on any Qi charging mat.
John:
It's not... Technologically, there's no reason why it can't work with Qi chargers, and because all their phones do, I assume the AirPod case will too.
John:
They could still be delaying it just because it makes a nice pairing, but it just seems to me that...
John:
like i don't know i mean the video is very convincing because the video is so clearly uh says hey siri without you know instead of double tapping it's not like without double it's instead of double tapping right because the double tap serves as the hey siri so yeah um i mean uh suppose that well i don't know it
John:
It's confusing, but I continue to hold out hope.
John:
I'm going to try to continue my streak of barely correctly predicting that Apple would not change the watch straps to say that Apple's AirPod case will also be plain old cheap compatible.
Marco:
So you want to place another dollar bet on whether air power will ever come out?
Marco:
No, you're going to bankrupt me.
John:
That will just be like the watch straps where I'm not particularly certain about it, but 51% certain.
John:
So you still believe air power will come out?
John:
No, I believe that the AirPod case will work with any Qi charger.
John:
Do you believe air power will come out?
John:
Or do you think it's totally done?
John:
At this point, I think it shouldn't come out.
John:
Because whatever problems they were having, like, maybe leave that as a third-party operator.
John:
Mostly because, like, here's the thing.
John:
Especially, especially if the AirPods only work with that mat,
John:
that mat is not the right product like it's big uh if you want to charge multiple products on a thing sure that's great but what if you don't want to charge multiple products if the only place that you can inductively charge your airpod thing is on a gigantic mat that also holds like a phone and a watch but maybe you don't have a watch or maybe you don't have that kind of phone or whatever it's
John:
It's not a great product.
John:
I want Apple to make good quality accessories.
John:
I think Apple should make a normal sized regular Qi charging mat that's of nice quality that your phone doesn't shake off of, right?
John:
Instead of us all going through the third party ones and trying to find the one that is the least bad.
John:
that's what apple should make straightforward just make a plain old g-charging thing no multi-device do that do it well graduate to the big aircraft carrier you can put lots of stuff on but it seems like they can't get the aircraft carrier to work from the pictures it looks like it's going to be slippery and your devices are going to slide off of it it looks like just a weird white lozenge that is just too large to fit into the places in my life at least where i would want an inductive charging mat
John:
So I'm not enthused about air power, and I think Apple should can that and make Wi-Fi routers.
Marco:
Oh, okay.
Marco:
Casey, do you think air power will ever come out?
Casey:
I am not confident, but I think it will.
Casey:
And I am only ever so slightly leaning in that direction.
Casey:
I think it will, and I think it will by the middle of next year.
Casey:
Based on zero facts, I'm just guessing.
Casey:
But I am not at all confident about that.
Marco:
I'm going to take the slightly less confident version of what you said.
Marco:
I don't think it's going to come out at all, but I'm not that confident in that.
Marco:
So if you're like 55% confident that it's going to come out, I'm like 45% confident it's going to come out.
Marco:
I'm on the no side, but I'm not 100% sure of that.
John:
And who is dying for this to come out?
John:
Is there someone who has a hole in their life that they've been reserving for this giant mat to charge?
John:
Everyone who wants an inductive charger has already bought one, and it hasn't been an Apple one, and they have a place in their life for it.
John:
Is someone saying, I'm annoyed by having these three inductive chargers, and I can't wait to replace them with one big mat?
John:
I suppose they're out there, but it's like, by waiting this long, it's just...
John:
This product is not that amazing.
John:
Even if it does come out, it's like, and it's finally out.
John:
Do you know anyone who has one?
John:
Does anyone care?
John:
I'm not enthused.
Marco:
It's going to be like $150.
Marco:
It's going to be very expensive.
Marco:
And it's going to only work with XYZ or whatever.
Marco:
It's like...
John:
i don't know i i don't i i think like you know renee richie will have one and he'll he'll take pictures on instagram and they'll look great and that'll be the only one we ever see yeah well so one last thing on charging uh also not mentioned but uh supposedly from someone at the show the 10s and 10r both charge faster inductively than the 10 supposedly
Casey:
Oh, interesting.
Casey:
I didn't know that.
John:
Does it give a wattage?
John:
I didn't give a quantified thing.
John:
This was from... Who was it from?
John:
I think it was from Gruber.
John:
I think Gruber said this, so I trust that he knows what he's talking about.
John:
No numbers on it, but that's something else to consider.
John:
Oh, and speaking of details like that, a couple of people in the chat room wanted us to know that the XS also has better cell radios with whatever the gigabit... Whatever thing they were bragging about about the better cell bandwidth stuff, that's only on the XS, not on the XR.
John:
But again, normal people won't care because it's fine.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
Anything else from the keynote?
Casey:
I'm sure there will be more that we will talk about at some juncture, but anything else for now?
John:
From the whole keynote?
John:
Yeah.
John:
I just wanted to clarify with you two, if you know.
John:
So they talked about HomePod and tvOS, but they didn't say anything we didn't already know, right?
John:
They were just saying, and now these things are going to be real, like on Monday or wherever the hell they're going to announce it.
John:
There was no new features announced, right?
Marco:
Not to my knowledge.
Marco:
Well, they were confirming rumors on the HomePod.
Marco:
They said multiple timer support, making and receiving phone calls initiated by the HomePod, searching for songs by lyrics, which I don't think was rumored by anybody, but they mentioned that as well.
Marco:
Also, the whole ping my iPhone or ping my Apple devices.
Marco:
That's pretty cool.
Marco:
That's useful.
John:
I tried to do that on my HomePod multiple times because I thought that they already had the feature.
John:
Now they announced it.
John:
I'm like, finally, I can stop asking my HomePod to do something and it will actually do it.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
We're going to be finding Tiff's phone a lot with the HomePod.
Marco:
That's really nice.
Casey:
Why not just use your Apple Watch to do that?
John:
I hope it does multiple people because I rarely lose my phone in the house, but other people in this house lose their devices very often.
Marco:
Yeah, I think Tim is getting a HomePod then, if it's only one person.
Marco:
But yeah, that to me, I'm actually more excited about the HomePod update, I think, than about the iPhone.
Marco:
What was the tvOS one?
Marco:
I forget about the tvOS update.
Marco:
Dolby Atmos, that's about it.
Marco:
And then Mojave is coming out.
Marco:
The Mac did get mentioned, which only messed up upgrades draft.
Marco:
It's coming out, I think, two weeks?
Marco:
Yeah, 24.
John:
Yeah, not delayed until October.
John:
People were pessimistic about Mojave based on the recent betas and like, oh, the Mac stuff's coming in October.
John:
Mojave were like, nope, they're not waiting.
John:
Mojave's coming with or without Macs.
Marco:
There is no relation between any recent version of macOS's release date and whether it was ready or not.
Marco:
They've released it no matter what.
Marco:
They'll release it in a horrible, buggy state, and they'll just say, all right, well, this is .0.
Marco:
It's done.
Marco:
Good luck.
Marco:
That doesn't really mean anything.
Marco:
I'm a little curious how that works out with any kind of Mac hardware releases.
Marco:
If the OS launches in two weeks...
Marco:
chances are either they're going to have a bunch of stuff in the os that people like yammer rainbow can find that point to new hardware uh which they probably won't do or the hardware is going to be delayed until like a 0.1 update but that could push it well into october maybe even november so i don't know i i'm not feeling good right now about our chances of getting meaningful mac hardware updates anytime soon
John:
I'm still optimistic.
John:
I think an October event where they ship in November is still in the cards for for non iOS things.
John:
I'm most disappointed, actually, overall in this, you know, is like that there are no iPads.
John:
I want I want there to be new iPads that match the notchy iPads or whatever, like iPads with Face ID.
John:
Like I want those.
John:
I don't know why they're not here.
John:
Make them here now, please.
Marco:
Yeah, that was also obviously a curious submission here, but I would guess that's a plausible fall event later on to have some kind of October thing where it is iPads and Macs.
Marco:
That's reasonable.
Marco:
We hope.
John:
Yeah, I'm optimistic for that.
John:
I'm looking forward to an October event.
John:
I was a little bit disappointed when I learned before the event that there were going to be no iPads.
John:
I didn't expect Macs, and now I'm looking forward...
John:
For a brief moment for this event, I was like, maybe they'll just announce everything, all those things that Marco listed.
John:
But, you know, that was just fantasizing.
John:
But, yeah, October event I'm really looking forward to.
John:
I want to see what they're doing with the Mac, and I want my iPads.
Marco:
Here's hoping.
Marco:
All right.
Marco:
Thanks to our sponsors this week, Betterment, Aftershocks, and Molecule.
Marco:
And we will talk to you next week.
John:
Now the show is over.
John:
They didn't even mean to begin because it was accidental.
John:
Oh, it was accidental.
Marco:
John didn't do any research.
Marco:
Marco and Casey wouldn't let him because it was accidental.
Marco:
It was accidental.
John:
And you can find the show notes at ATP.FM.
Marco:
And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S, so that's Casey Liss, M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-N-T, Marco Arment, S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A, Syracuse.
Marco:
It's accidental, they didn't mean it.
John:
in the show notes it says after show john's special day i would like to hear about this i didn't want to give it away by more precisely describing what i'm about to talk about because it would be easy to give away but now is the time that i need to uh discuss this topic even though we're not the the dates don't line up exactly
John:
Let me take you back.
John:
Picture it.
John:
Sicily, September 10th, 2008.
John:
A young boy with much more hair and fewer wrinkles decides to place an order for a Mac Pro.
John:
This Mac Pro comes with two 2.8 gigahertz quad-core Intel Xeon processors.
Casey:
It's been a decade?
John:
Oh, my God.
John:
Two gigabytes of RAM.
John:
Why would you get a computer with two gigabytes of RAM, which was even a little... This was back in the days when everyone would buy third-party RAM.
John:
NVIDIA GeForce 8800.
John:
uh no wi-fi uh two optical drives because why wouldn't you get two optical drives that's awesome um total price can you guess what the total price of this thing i didn't list all this but let me see what else we have a hard drive was 500 gig 7200 rpm um extended keyboard apple mighty mouse which was the current mouse at the time what is the total price of this mac pro
Marco:
All right, I'm going to guess off the top of my head roughly $3,200.
Marco:
Casey?
Casey:
I would say closer to $4,000.
Casey:
Are we doing Price is Right rules?
Casey:
No.
Casey:
Then $4,000.
John:
$2,479.
John:
Oh, wow.
John:
That's actually a lot cheaper than that.
John:
That's how cheap Pro Max used to be.
John:
This was a massive case that held four hard drives, had a replaceable GPU, had pretty good CPUs for the time, had a GeForce 8800 GT with 512 megs of VRAM.
John:
This was no slouch of a computer.
John:
Incredibly expandable.
John:
$2,400.
John:
And I also bought with it, this is where the pricing gets back to what you're going to predict, the Apple Cinema Display 23-inch, which was, guess...
John:
That was over $1,000, wasn't it?
John:
I think it was like $600, or no, $800, I think.
John:
$809.
John:
Wow, I'm way off.
Casey:
I am way off.
John:
And here I am today, more than 10 years later, sitting in front of that self-same 23-inch flat panel cinema display that I bought for $100.
John:
Looks as good as the day I got it.
John:
No dead pixels.
John:
beautiful uh monitor and my computer continues to chug along there it no longer has any of the original hard drives in it although it has four hard drives in it it has a couple of sticks of the original ram i think still it does not have the original gpu it has had multiple gpus in it i just wanted to take this time because september 10th 2008 was when it was ordered so this was we just passed the 10 year anniversary i don't know when it arrived at my house so i had to pick the order date
John:
My computer is 10 years old.
John:
Apple, please make me another one.
John:
That is fantastic.
Casey:
That is a special day.
Casey:
I am very happy for you, John.
Casey:
Can we please retire that computer now?
John:
Well, no, they haven't made a better one.
John:
The price is really the thing.
John:
I know it was 10 years ago, but $3,400 for a powerful, not bottom-of-the-line Mac Pro with a nice monitor, those days are gone.
Yeah.
Marco:
yeah still that's man those those were such a deal like i remember when the mac pro first came out like the first intel you know mac pro you could get one with only one processor if you wanted to really cut it down and you could get it for as low as i think like 1600 was the cheapest configuration you could get and and yeah like like the reasonable mid-range ones like you have you know they were like you know between 22 and 2600 usually and
Marco:
Like, I remember when it was a really big deal when they updated it.
Marco:
I think it was the 2010 model where, like, basically, like, with the Nehalem generation before that, and that was the 09 model, right, and the 10, like, the CPU prices went way up from Intel, and Apple passed that along and added some of their own wonderful inflation as well.
Marco:
So, like, right after you bought yours is when the prices really went very high, and they continued to get even higher after that.
John:
Yeah, yeah.
John:
Needless to say, this is the Mac that I have owned and used the longest.
John:
Well, not owned, because I still own my original Mac.
John:
But this is the Mac I have used the longest.
John:
And this Mac, Marco points out that it marks probably the best price performance, this sort of range, the best price performance that the Pro Macs ever had.
John:
But also, this was the peak of the dream.
John:
And the dream for my personal dream, the dream of many people was...
John:
To buy an Apple Macintosh computer and be able to run their operating system and their software, have the computer be really nice and, you know, like Apple quality, look nice, be reliable, high quality, you know, just all the fancy Apple stuff.
John:
And also be able to use that exact same computer to run Windows and or Linux, including the games that are on them.
John:
and have it be a reasonable gaming PC.
John:
Believe it or not, in 2008, this was a reasonable, not the best gaming PC, not a super monster gaming PC, but you can buy one machine, and it can do all of your computer stuff if your computer stuff that you care about is Windows, Linux, and Mac.
John:
a single machine officially supported by apple with boot camp like this time may never come again where there's no os or architecture disparity there's no situation where apple just literally does not make a machine that would be a passable like gaming pc because even you know the imac pro is probably as close as you can come but still most people would say it's not a passable gaming pc even booted into windows
John:
this was and it was expandable and flexible like it is a time that may never come again and it was a time that i had longed for my entire life because like i always had to have macs but you you want to play pc games and you don't want to if you don't want to buy a second pc you get like you never there was never a way to square it and then they went to intel and it was like the promise was there and then they made these the mac pro these giant tower machines with tons of cooling that obviously are super reliable because this thing is unkillable despite being hit by the vacuum cleaner many many times and
John:
it's sitting down there the quiet quietest the day i got it just doing its job still running lcap which is the latest os that will officially run on the thing i'm ready to retire don't get me wrong but i am extremely and my se 30 is still my favorite mac that i've ever had but i'm extremely proud of this machine it is one of the best apple purchases i've ever made and back on the previous show when you asked about the bang for the buck i would have said this but i wanted to save it for this show this is actually the best bang for the buck i ever got out of an apple purchase amazing computer kudos to this mac pro
Marco:
So I'm curious.
Marco:
First of all, I want to know how much you still use it.
Marco:
And then second of all, I'd love to hear you explain for us and the listeners, what is it like using a 10-year-old computer?
Marco:
What can't you do?
Marco:
What is totally fine?
Marco:
What's it like?
John:
So how often do I use it is I use it pretty much whenever I want to do computer stuff.
John:
Here's the only thing that keeps me away from it.
John:
It's not because it's old and slow and it's not because the monitor is small.
John:
This is what it is.
John:
And this may be surprising, but maybe not if you know me, um,
John:
So I sleep the computer at night.
John:
I never turn this off.
John:
I check what my uptime is.
John:
The only time I reboot is for OS updates, which no longer happen.
John:
When I go on vacation, I shut it down.
John:
I actually unplug it from the wall in case it's a lightning storm.
John:
uh but other than that i just i leave it on but i leave it asleep the reason i sit down at my wife's computer which is a 5k iMac is not because it is a better faster computer with a better screen part of it is because she has the photos library so i have to sit there to do photos but very often i'll use her computer to just look something up on the web why will i do that two reasons one is closer to the door to the room that the computers are in and two the main reason is
John:
waking my computer feels like a more significant event than waking hers waking my computer is that because you weren't sure if it's going to wake up no the fans spin up they hear the click of like whatever is clicking in there i don't know it's the optical drive the hard drive spin up because the spinning hard drive like it is a thing and it takes a little bit for the computer to be ready to do what i want and i feel bad about doing it
John:
And it heats up the room because this thing is a freaking heat exchanger.
John:
And, you know, it's great in the winter, not so good in the summer.
John:
So I will very frequently use her computer because waking her computer up, which is also on all the time, does not make any noise.
John:
Nothing spins.
John:
It is fairly instantly ready for me to do something, even if I have to switch account because it's in one of the kids accounts or something like that.
John:
you know switch to my account or whatever it's still faster and more pleasant and i honestly just i don't want to wait for the time and i feel guilty and it feels kind of like casey feels bad but like the auto stop start systems are constantly starting your car it doesn't feel that good and so that's part of this being a giant box with a bunch of fans it's part of this being from the pre-ssd era even though my main boot drive is an ssd it has three spinning hard drives in there which do need to spin up
John:
Um, so anyway, that's, that's why, that's why I use it less than I would.
John:
But that said, I do all of my podcasting with a computer.
John:
Anytime I need to sit down under my computer to do something serious.
John:
I did a bunch of programming recently, uh, you know, work stuff, unfortunately over the weekend, over the, uh, holiday weekend, I use my computer for all of that.
John:
It is my computer.
John:
It is my preferred computer.
John:
And this is where I want to do my stuff and every, all my junk is there.
John:
So I do use it.
John:
what is it like using it surprisingly i think about this sometimes like this is a 10 year old computer that's slower than my wife's phone probably slower than my phone like my word it doesn't feel slow obviously a part of that is the ssd without the ssd it would feel i wouldn't be able to use it like i would have to have gotten a computer because i can't handle it right but with an ssd in here
John:
it feels fine obviously you can't do any games on it anymore like even though it has a newer gpu in it like modern games are not going to cut it even at this low resolution but browsing the web using messages like text like it feels fine surprisingly fine maybe if i put high sierra on it or something or sierra for that matter maybe it would feel worse
John:
It doesn't feel fast, but it feels fine.
John:
The main things that make it feel slower are things like how long it takes to wake from sleep and hearing things spin up.
John:
And occasionally, this is an annoyance of a machine with four hard drives in it, which most Mac users no longer have to deal with.
John:
if you come to an open save dialog box and the spinning disks are spun down sometimes it has to wait for them to spin up before it will you know like beach ball while they spin up or something or lag while they spin up and it's like i don't want to pick anything from those drives anyway os i'm going to pick it from the ssd that doesn't need to be spun up don't delay me right those are the only times where it feels like there might be a little bit of lag but honestly it is amazingly okay because the things i do with it aren't that demanding um
John:
Like I'm not doing anything.
John:
I'm not compiling software.
John:
I'm not doing audio editing.
John:
I'm not denoising audio files.
John:
I'm not compressing things in handbrake.
John:
All those would be horrendous, right?
John:
But I don't do any of those things on this computer.
John:
So it's fine, surprisingly.
John:
So it's like, why do you need a new computer?
John:
It's like, well, you know, again, there are reasons I use my computer.
John:
And I would love to not look at the 23-inch screen anymore.
John:
I would love to have retina.
John:
Like many reasons.
John:
I want to move on.
John:
I want to buy a new computer.
John:
But this has held up amazingly well.
Casey:
I'm excited for you on your special day.
John:
Me too.
John:
And I'm excited for your Mac Pro because it's still alive, and that's shocking.
John:
Yeah.
John:
The best thing about it, I go in there occasionally because every once in a while it throws a dim, as in the old horse throwing a shoe.
John:
We've talked about this before, my analogy.
John:
Every once in a while the RAM does go bad.
John:
ram like i feel so bad because i like you know it's like other world computing uh ram for the most part third-party ones and i'll call them and say yeah i feel like yeah it's me again yeah uh can you send me more free replacement ram for my ancient computer it's like
John:
you still have that like they don't say that but i like i think i have replaced like i think i've gotten replacement ram that's gone bad put it in then that ram has gone bad then i've returned that and got a new ram and pretty soon that ram's gonna go bad it's like that's amazing yeah because like most most third-party ram comes with lifetime warranties yeah they'll just replace it forever for free because they just assume no one's gonna use a computer for 10 years yeah and it's not that often it's like once every three and a half years right you know it's yeah so it's
John:
yeah it's it's pretty amazing but everything else in it like it amazes me that the fans haven't died like because fans get noisy and weird and stuff right that the fan the fans in it haven't died like it is there's so much dust like the dust is is part of the thing now like you you see dust on you're like let me wipe that dust off and you wipe it and it doesn't move like the dust is welded to the inside of this thing and it's
John:
It is aging in amazing ways.
John:
The capacitors haven't died.
John:
It's been in this terrible room here where the temperature, especially since we don't have air conditioning, during the day, the temperature in this room is incredibly high and then it's freezing in the winter because we don't have the heat on high in this room.
John:
It has been in adverse conditions sitting under this desk for 10 years doing its job.
Casey:
Congratulations, John.
John:
Happy birthday, Mac.
Casey:
Sent with balloons.
Marco:
Which I can't display.
Marco:
Did you say that the watch can do that now?
John:
They showed it in the keynote.
John:
Someone got a message sent with lasers on their watch and my Mac just grumbled.