The Stand Is Your Hand
Marco:
Unfortunately, my bell is broken.
Marco:
Here, I'll show you.
Casey:
Is that an euphemism?
Marco:
I wish.
Marco:
No.
Marco:
So this is just hitting the top, and you can see it's kind of rattly.
Marco:
I can loosen it a little bit.
Marco:
See, it gets all rattly.
Marco:
I took it apart earlier to try to figure it out, but I think the transport to and from the beach is finally what killed it after... I mean, I got this bell in... Jeez, I mean, when was the file system ding in the keynote?
Casey:
Oh, I know forever ago.
Casey:
I mean, this show has been going effectively forever.
Casey:
It's a miracle we haven't been kicked off the internet.
Marco:
It was in San Francisco, which is how we know.
Marco:
Hey, John, we're live.
Marco:
Skype is not my friend.
Ha ha ha!
John:
So, are you recording?
John:
Because we are.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Yeah, I think I have everything sorted out.
John:
I don't know.
Casey:
Oh, that's not ominous at all.
John:
Oh, great.
John:
Do I sound okay?
Marco:
Yeah, you sound okay.
Marco:
I mean, from here, yeah.
John:
Whatever.
Casey:
Okay, so this is one of the most popular slash important shows of the year because we're going to recap the Apple event that happened yesterday as we record.
Casey:
But this is also one of the most important shows of the year because even though ATP is not officially part of RelayFM, we are basically part of RelayFM.
Casey:
And because of that, we are jumping on the RelayFM bandwagon for St.
Casey:
Jude.
Casey:
So September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.
Casey:
And our dear friend Stephen Hackett, who is one of the co-founders of RelayFM, his eldest son has battled childhood cancer for his entire young life.
Casey:
And thankfully for their entire family, they live in Memphis, Tennessee, which is where St.
Casey:
Jude is.
Casey:
And St.
Casey:
Jude is a children's research hospital that has helped push the
Casey:
the overall childhood cancer survival rate from 20% to more than 80% in 50 years.
Casey:
And the thing is that they don't charge the families that see them a dime.
Casey:
And that often includes flying the families to Memphis, and not in a FedEx box, mind you.
Casey:
They actually put them in a regular plane and fly them to Memphis to get treatment in some cases.
Casey:
It is incredible the things that St.
Casey:
Jude does, and it does it by...
Casey:
just depending on donations from people like the three of us and like you, our beloved listeners.
Casey:
So Relay has decided that last year, what was the goal?
Casey:
Like 50 grand, I think, or something like that, that they tried to raise in September.
Casey:
It was something along those lines.
Casey:
And this year Relay is pushing for $75,000 raised in the month of September.
Casey:
As we record this, they are $75 shy of $60,000.
Casey:
So I expect by the end of this recording, I would like to see that $60,000 number hit, please, those of us who are listening live.
Casey:
That being said, they're trying to get $75,000.
Casey:
If you listen to this entire program and then drop $1,000-plus on a new iPhone, you can send $10 to St.
Casey:
Jude, maybe $50, maybe $100, maybe even another $1,000.
Casey:
So any amount will help.
Casey:
And this is near and dear to all three of our hearts.
Casey:
We really would appreciate it if you could scrape together any amount of money and please give it to St.
Casey:
Jude.
Casey:
So you can go to—and how fancy is this—
Casey:
You can go to stjude.org slash ATP.
Casey:
That's S-T-J-U-D-E dot org slash ATP.
Casey:
And we will get lumped in with the relay money, except we will, I guess, be somewhat special because it's somehow attributed to us as well.
Casey:
Who knows?
Casey:
It's not a competition because all that matters is we get these kids' money.
Casey:
Or the doctors, I should say.
Casey:
So anyways, stjude.org slash ATP.
Casey:
Please, if you're buying a $1,000 plus iPhone, I bet you can afford $10,000.
Casey:
for childhood cancer.
Casey:
Or perhaps if you're buying a $5 to $10 Starbucks coffee like Marco does every day, I bet you could just skip the coffee one day and go to stju.org slash ATP.
Marco:
I'm going to go even further.
Marco:
I'm going to say, you know, and I think, first of all, man, I was so mad when I heard...
Marco:
john's pitch for this on rectus this oh i haven't heard it i haven't heard it was so good and i was so frustrated that i didn't think of it and that he did it before we got a chance to um but you know as john loves i will summarize him poorly uh the the gist of it was was you know basically like you know there's it's hard to even imagine for those of us who have not
Marco:
been faced with having one of our children have cancer.
Marco:
That's a horrible thing to put a family and a child through.
Marco:
And the amazing thing about St.
Marco:
Jude, as you touched on a minute ago, Casey, is that they treat children with cancer, but they don't charge the families any money.
Marco:
They pay for it with things like this.
Marco:
And to have this horrible thing that you have to deal with as a family, to also have a financial burden on top of that is horrendous.
Marco:
It's the reality of our American medical system, unfortunately, that you have to be faced with massive financial ruin in order to get your kid life-saving treatment, but that's the reality we live in.
Marco:
So to have something like St.
Marco:
Jude where –
Marco:
And you're fighting through this horrible time, and they just take away this giant concern that you would otherwise have to deal with.
Marco:
That is such a big deal.
Marco:
It's so life-changing and so just merciful and graceful for the people who have to go through this.
Marco:
It is incredibly meaningful.
Marco:
And so we are about to talk for two hours about…
Marco:
how amazing it is that these $1,000 plus products, by the way, multiple $1,000 plus products that we're in, are 20% better than they were last year and how we're all going to upgrade to them.
Marco:
Even though we don't need them, our phones work fine and we're going to upgrade anyway.
Marco:
And I have a feeling, based on our listenership, a large portion of you out there are in a similar situation where a large portion of you out there are going to replace
Marco:
a phone or a watch that doesn't really need to be replaced it still works but the new shiny just came out and you're going to go buy it and that's great i'm one of you i'm going to go buy it too but i'm going to say don't give them ten dollars if you're one of these people who can afford to replace a perfectly working phone because the new one is shiny and better give them
Marco:
I honestly think give them a minimum of $100.
Marco:
You can do it.
Marco:
If you're listening to this show, you are disproportionately likely to be one of these people.
Marco:
And look, if you can't afford it, I understand.
Marco:
That's fine.
Marco:
I understand completely.
Marco:
But many of our listeners can.
Marco:
I know that.
Marco:
And so if you can afford a new phone or a new watch next week or whenever these things ship or whenever you get your hands on them, you can probably afford $100 to St.
Marco:
Jude.
Marco:
So I'm going to say throw in at least $100.
Marco:
That's my command to our audience.
John:
Your command.
Casey:
Very commandeering.
John:
I thought Casey's pitch was much better than any of mine.
John:
I took two attempts to do it on Rectives.
John:
I tried to do it one week and then the second week I came back and tried to do it again.
John:
I think you two have covered it well.
John:
We'd like to see this number go up.
John:
Please give generously.
John:
Indeed.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
With that out of the way, I have a little bit of follow-up with regard to SiriusXM, which I know everyone... There's no follow-up on Apple event shows.
John:
What are you doing?
Casey:
No, come on.
Casey:
It's brief.
Casey:
It'll be quick.
John:
No, Casey.
Marco:
John just said no follow-up.
John:
Don't touch it.
Casey:
We never do it on event shows.
Casey:
That's true.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
I'm walking away.
Casey:
I'm walking away.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
We'll save for next week.
John:
I don't know why.
John:
What even made you think you were doing it?
John:
Are you just leaving it there?
John:
next week.
Casey:
What were you thinking, KCG?
Casey:
It's so little.
John:
We've only been doing this show for seven years.
John:
We don't do follow-up events.
Casey:
Oh, my God.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
Fine.
Casey:
What was it about it?
John:
Let me look.
Casey:
It was funny.
Casey:
It was funny.
Casey:
That's why I wanted to do it.
Casey:
Too bad.
Marco:
I can't do it.
Marco:
Seven years.
Casey:
You're going to have to wait.
Casey:
You're going to have to wait, listeners.
Casey:
Let it be known.
Casey:
This is going to be a funny anecdote.
Casey:
You're going to have to wait a week.
Casey:
Okay.
Casey:
So there was an Apple event, guys.
Casey:
And I...
Casey:
I think I liked it, but I don't think I'm supposed to if you read the New York Times.
Casey:
That article was terrible.
Casey:
I thought it was a pretty good event.
Casey:
Like, yeah, the game demo stank.
Casey:
And I'd like to obviously just get an overview real quick.
Casey:
The game demo is whatever.
Casey:
Not really for me.
Casey:
I thought that the retail update being at the end was a little weird, but ultimately probably for the best, especially since it was quick.
Casey:
The hardware seems real good.
Casey:
Again, we'll dive into more detail in just a moment.
Casey:
I have already spent hundreds of dollars on new Apple Watches for Aaron and myself because we're both rocking Series 3 watches.
Casey:
We both like our watches, but we are both ready for new watches.
Casey:
So we are already like almost $1,000 in the hole on watches, and we haven't even bought phones yet.
Casey:
So this is going to be a very expensive fall for the Liss family.
Casey:
We are also on iPhone Xs.
Casey:
We did not get any new hardware last year.
Casey:
because we were good little boys and girls who had just quit their jobs so anyway point is i thought the event was pretty good i liked that it wasn't two plus hours it also makes me think that maybe some things were missed but you know that's okay i thought it was mostly paced reasonably well and i thought it was pretty good all told marco let's start with you just overall you know macro level impressions
Marco:
I mean, there's things that I'm going to nitpick, like the game demos.
Marco:
We'll get to that in a few minutes.
Marco:
But ultimately, I think the complainants in the press are being unreasonable for the most part.
Marco:
And or they are acting like aspects of this are new when they're not new.
Marco:
Apple did two major product revisions here, you know, the iPhone and the watch.
Marco:
And the iPad was minor, but, you know, they did two major product revisions here.
Marco:
The iPhone was about the same magnitude of update that it usually is.
Marco:
Not earth-shattering, but good.
Marco:
You know, there are some nice improvements, nice, you know, iterative improvements and, you know, things that we're all going to want.
Marco:
So that's good.
Marco:
And the watch...
Marco:
While it didn't have a ton of improvements, it had one really big one, so that's really good, and that really big one was something that we didn't think we would get for a long time, if ever.
Marco:
I would say overall, product-wise, it was actually a pretty straight-down-the-middle decent keynote.
Marco:
I don't know what everyone's complaining about product-wise, except that everyone's saying, oh, they should have done more or should have been more.
Marco:
These products are boring or whatever.
Marco:
But you know what?
Marco:
These are mature product categories for the most part now.
Marco:
You don't get a ton of earth-shattering change anymore.
Marco:
You get occasional earth-shattering stuff, which people, by the way, promptly forget about and then expect it again the next time and every time after that.
Marco:
But this was...
Marco:
I think a solid down-the-middle event.
Marco:
It was not great.
Marco:
It was not bad.
Marco:
It was right down the middle.
Marco:
It was fine.
Marco:
The problem, though, is that people expect Santa Claus every event and every year.
Marco:
Every year is not going to be the original iPhone keynote.
Marco:
Every year is not going to be the original or some big innovative thing.
Marco:
There might be this weird AR thing later, but we'll see where that goes.
Marco:
But on the other hand, I think where the complaints are valid, the events really are pretty low on personality and humanity.
Marco:
You can see how incredibly scripted and rehearsed and rigid they are.
Marco:
They really feel more and more just like commercials by boring people as the years go on.
Marco:
I think that is a totally valid criticism of these events.
Marco:
They really do just feel like commercials and they're slow and the formula is kind of stale and they are super painful at times when certain people maybe aren't the best presenters and it's super awkward or you're sitting through some boring demo.
Marco:
Those are all valid complaints that really make them feel like dull corporate event meetings.
Marco:
And with one exception, which I'll get to in a moment, this has really been happening for such a long time now that I don't know why you would start complaining about it now.
Marco:
The events have been heading in this direction for years.
Marco:
They've been for years going towards boring, long, formulaic commercials by boring people on the stage.
Marco:
Anybody who's criticizing that now, you haven't been paying attention.
Marco:
However, there is this one aspect.
Marco:
It kind of makes me uneasy.
Marco:
I don't know when this started.
Marco:
I don't know if it's a difference in seating or if it's a difference in how the audience is miked and mixed with the audio.
Marco:
But in recent events...
Marco:
Apple has been basically packing the seats with retail employees.
Marco:
I don't know how exactly it works, but not everyone in these events is press.
Marco:
There's a large number of retail employees that get to sit in the audience.
Marco:
Apple retail employees are trained and selected for how much they cheer for everybody and make everyone feel good when you're coming into the store and all that stuff.
Marco:
And people – the WBDC staff was also very much significantly augmented by retail employees who themselves were, again, like selected for like how much they would cheer for everyone.
Marco:
And that's why like they would cheer for you walking down the stairs and cheer for you going into sessions and everything.
Marco:
At the events, you have what seems like similar selection of retail employees where they are just incredibly happy and applauding hugely, like outrageously strongly at everything and everyone on stage.
Marco:
And because they're retail employees, it's like, well, it doesn't feel genuine.
Marco:
It feels like they're plants in the audience.
Marco:
And I know some of them really are genuinely excited, I'm sure.
Marco:
But because they are retail employees and because they are cheering so loudly and because they're cheering for their bosses who were on stage, it feels disingenuous.
Marco:
And that part of the way these audiences and the way the sound is mixed and wherever they're sitting, whatever it is, whatever is making this so prevalent, it's kind of creepy to me.
Marco:
It makes it seem like I'm at almost like a cult event.
Marco:
And I know that's like a touchy word for Apple fans because people who aren't Apple fans accuse us of being in a cult just by liking Apple stuff.
Marco:
But it really does feel kind of like a cult event when you have a large number of people...
Marco:
just screaming and yelling with massive applause for things that maybe don't fully deserve that level of enthusiasm.
Marco:
And it just feels kind of fake and forced and corporate and weird.
Marco:
So I would hope that they can somehow adjust that balance, turn that down a little bit, bring that in a little bit, because that is strange to me.
Marco:
It kind of sours the attitude of the event because it seems...
Marco:
fake and and there's enough enthusiasm that's genuine for apple products even among the press who are there there's enough enthusiasm they don't need to stack the audience they don't need to have people who are going to be artificially seeming outrageously applauding over everything you know just because you know it's their boss on stage they don't need that so much they need to turn that down because let the product speak for themselves let the people speak for themselves it's a bit much
Casey:
John?
John:
I thought it was kind of above average keynote as far as these things go.
John:
I agree that I don't see any particular change from this one from the next one.
John:
There's such a thing as fatigue and there's news cycles and these things come and go and there's backlash and there's backlash to the backlash and there's all those sorts of things.
John:
But based on the substance of the presentation, both the substance and the presentation style...
John:
There was nothing new in this.
John:
They say things like this all the time.
John:
They have product announcements like this all the time.
John:
There was nothing particularly awful about this presentation.
John:
Maybe nothing particularly sterling either, but it was fine.
John:
And as Marco pointed out, I think the actual things that were announced, we had one very surprising good thing, and everything else was okay and what we expected.
John:
So I personally don't have any real issue with it.
John:
As for the applauding and stuff, that's also not new.
John:
I don't mind it because I think...
John:
if you if you don't intentionally have not having plans if you don't have apple employees in the audience who you know are going to cheer it's not like they're being commanded to cheer you know they're going to cheer because they're cheering for themselves and their colleagues and yes sometimes their bosses but uh if you don't have them there and if it's a press event and an event that doesn't have the public
John:
There will be substantially less applause, not because the press never applause because some of them do, but because they're all typing like they're all doing things, you know, since they're preoccupied.
John:
Right.
John:
And if you have a presentation where they announce something that is really good, but everyone in the audience is too busy to applaud, it sounds bad.
John:
Like they're putting on a show.
John:
OK.
John:
And part of the show is the applause track and the applause sign.
John:
Like there's a real reason this is a thing in show business.
John:
It's just something that needs to be there so that people watching at home alone feel like Apple is not bombing on stage.
John:
So I understand the need to do it.
John:
I do agree, though, that maybe it has been amped up to a degree where...
John:
They're applauding very loudly for things that don't really warrant even any applause.
John:
So they need to find a middle ground.
John:
But again, that's not new either.
John:
Go look at the last presentation and the presentation before that.
John:
For the past several years, there's been substantial unwarranted applause at many phases of the presentation.
John:
And honestly, it doesn't bother me that much.
John:
I think it's fine.
John:
I'm used to them.
John:
I can understand why it would be off-putting to somebody else.
John:
But...
John:
All that said, speaking of Reconcilable Differences, the show I just recorded about that, Merlin had, maybe Casey will know this expression, Merlin had a feeling.
John:
Merlin felt a certain way.
John:
Merlin felt a way.
John:
What is that expression, Casey?
Casey:
I have no idea.
John:
You're my last hope because you know all the weird kid expressions.
John:
Anyway.
John:
I try to try to get on the show and Merlin doesn't know either.
John:
Merlin had some strong feelings, uh, in reaction to the, uh, presentation and we talked about them at length.
John:
He was very, it was very emotional about them, but I feel like that's, that's the, that's the frame, the proper frame for all this stuff.
John:
It's like, look, if you watch this presentation and feel bad about it in some way, uh,
John:
Most of that is probably based on you and not the presentation.
John:
The presentations haven't changed.
John:
Maybe something in you has changed.
John:
Maybe your tastes have changed.
John:
Maybe you have fatigue.
John:
Maybe you think differently about it.
John:
Maybe the place you're in that day or the place you're in your life.
John:
That's all perfectly valid.
John:
I just feel like the takes that are written in the opposite direction, that somehow Apple is either A, doing something terribly wrong, or B, doing something worse or different than they did before.
John:
I don't see that I don't think what they're doing is terribly wrong I mean maybe they're not putting on a great show but it's an okay show and I don't think it's particularly different so overall I thought the event was fine I understand people having strong reactions to it positive or negative and that's their reaction to have my reaction was fairly neutral though so you had all the feels is that what you're looking for
John:
No, I didn't.
John:
I was like, you know.
Casey:
No, I'm saying the phrase, the phrasing.
Casey:
No, I know that one.
John:
It wasn't feels.
John:
We couldn't.
John:
We tried.
John:
You'll hear it on our videos if you listen.
John:
There's we tried to figure it out and we couldn't figure it out.
Casey:
Joe Steele and Jelly were trying to pinch in and help.
Casey:
And I got I'm sure once I eventually hear it, I'm going to think myself an idiot for not thinking of it.
Casey:
But that's OK.
Casey:
Marco, tell me about game demos.
John:
That's not Marco's item.
Casey:
Come on.
Casey:
Hold on.
Casey:
Hold on.
Casey:
I want to hear the negative Ned version because I'm going to agree with probably every word of it, and then I'm hoping that you can give us, John, the more optimistic take.
John:
No, I wrote the negative thing that is at the top of the... All right, go ahead.
Casey:
Sorry, John.
Casey:
For the record, listeners, what it reads in the show notes is, quote, why Apple's game demos are bad, quote.
John:
I should have signed it, I guess.
Casey:
I thought it was obvious that you were right there.
Casey:
Why, John?
Casey:
What?
Casey:
With love, John C. Anyway, I guess I'll take this then.
Marco:
Feel free, Marco.
Marco:
I mean, the game demos, I mean, look, again, we were all complaining about it.
Marco:
I don't know why they led with the game demo.
Marco:
I mean, I guess I know why because they wanted to push Apple Arcade.
Marco:
But I have never seen a game demo that was remotely engaging that I thought looked fun at all.
Marco:
And it made me want to go buy the game.
Marco:
Not once.
Marco:
The problem is, you have people on stage who are not used to it, so they're nervous, and they're demoing something which is incredibly risky, and it does sometimes go wrong, because that's just the nature of these things, right?
Marco:
So they're super nervous, things could break at any moment, and
Marco:
You can tell the whole thing is super, super rehearsed and canned.
Marco:
Every single line that people say is scripted.
Marco:
They try to make it sound like it's not, but it is.
Marco:
And so it just comes off sounding really fake and forced.
Marco:
It just falls flat for me.
Marco:
And then the problem is...
Marco:
You can't demo a game in this way in any kind of large corporate media event and make it look fun.
Marco:
You just can't.
Marco:
The games that people actually play on their phones are the ones that either trick them into being fun or the ones that are actually fun.
Marco:
And
Marco:
I don't see a lot of people ever playing the games that get demoed on stage with these big, rich graphics that you've got to sit there and play for hours.
Marco:
That's not what I find fun on a phone.
Marco:
And I don't think that's what most people find fun on a phone.
Marco:
What most people play on their phone are different kinds of games.
Marco:
They're more casual.
Marco:
They're more in and out in a minute or less.
Marco:
They're more things that don't have cutting edge graphics.
Marco:
It's a lot of games that are just basic 2D, basic movement animations that can be easily cross-platform and stuff like that.
Marco:
It's not these big 3D cutting edge games.
Marco:
But also, anybody can make games with good graphics these days.
Marco:
There's a billion games out there.
Marco:
The App Store and Apple and the world at large outside of Apple, there is no shortage of games.
Marco:
What there is always demand for and seemingly a shortage of is great games.
Marco:
And these games usually aren't great games.
Marco:
They're just like mediocre, like, here, look at this graphic.
Marco:
Here's a dragon.
Marco:
Woo!
Marco:
But yeah, is it fun?
Marco:
And there's no way to really demo, is it fun, on stage.
Marco:
And so you end up seeing, woo, graphics, who cares, really?
Marco:
We're not here for the graphics of the games.
Marco:
No one is playing phone games for their graphics.
Marco:
Even the really good ones, I know they're up there trying to show off metal and the GPUs and everything, but you know what, even the really good games...
Marco:
No one cares because no one plays phone or iPad games because they have amazing graphics.
Marco:
People play these games because they're fun and they're on the thing that's always with them.
Marco:
So the demos are trying to sell us on things we don't care about in a way that seems super disingenuous and is very boring and is never what we want the presentation to grind to a halt to see.
Marco:
And on top of that, the thing that's really important about a game, which is like whether it's fun or not, is almost never apparent.
Marco:
And I would say largely that all applies for me.
Marco:
That all applies to everything we've seen so far about Apple Arcade.
Marco:
In Apple Arcade, I know this is moving on slightly, but Apple Arcade, to me, has the exact same problem so far, which is, great, I can pay $5 a month for 100 games.
Marco:
That sounds awesome, but I don't want 100 games.
Marco:
I want three great ones.
Marco:
And I don't know if out of those 100 games, if I'm going to find three great ones, or what they are, or how I would even find them.
Marco:
So until it launches, and until people start talking about a couple of games that are super good in it,
Marco:
I have a hard time getting excited about it because like, you know what?
Marco:
I have a Nintendo Switch.
Marco:
There's hundreds of games on that too.
Marco:
I already have a phone.
Marco:
There's millions of games probably.
Marco:
There's hundreds of thousands of games at least on the App Store already.
Marco:
Many of them are free or very low cost.
Marco:
I could buy lots of them for $5 a month total.
Marco:
I already have lots of them on the phone.
Marco:
I never play because most of them aren't fun.
Marco:
The App Store is full of...
Marco:
Simple, not very fun, non-noteworthy games.
Marco:
And there's a few gems.
Marco:
There's a few real standouts.
Marco:
I don't care about Apple Arcade unless and until it has those few standouts for me.
Marco:
Because I don't want 100 mediocre games that make good two-second demos.
Marco:
I want those three great games that wouldn't be otherwise available to me.
Marco:
I want those.
Marco:
And so until we get those, it's really hard to get excited about it.
John:
john tell me why apple's game demos are bad thank you casey i think i will um i differ a little bit on marco but not in the fact that apple's game demos are bad and this is this is again not a new thing apple's been doing game demos forever they have been bad the whole time they continue to be bad
John:
And people getting... Maybe this is, again, fatigue just coming to a head because we've seen so many bad demos that in this particular one people are getting all up in arms.
John:
But you could have had this exact same conversation for name the bad game demo.
John:
I'm going to set aside the Anki Drive thing because that was a physical real-world thing.
John:
So at least you got to see people on stage with physical objects, sort of.
John:
Anyway, this is like so many other things related to Apple and games where they seem not to be aware that other people have figured this out.
John:
So...
John:
games and showing on a big stage in front of an audience including lots of press to try to show people games in an enticing way is something that happens all the time successfully not by apple but the rest of the gaming industry does this all the time and it's not a big mystery e3 happens every year you know or pax or any other gaming expos uh tgs right and like there are tons of places where this happens if apple would just go to one of them and say how did
John:
they do it their whole conference is about games and the audience seems excited when they show games how do they do that because it never happens for us we show games and the audience is like and then the apple retail is cheering or whatever but like what what happens what's and i don't understand what why they can't figure that out but there there are a few fairly simple uh rules and there are things uh that are not in their favor first of all show your games to an audience that cares about games
John:
Now, I know it's hard when it's press, because in theory, the press cares about whatever you have to say.
John:
And if you're going to be talking about games, they care about games or whatever.
John:
But all those things I just described are gaming conferences.
John:
You can be pretty sure that the people in the audience there are interested in games, whether they be press or the general public or whatever.
John:
So you have to do that.
John:
Second is, when you show someone a game, when you're having a demo of a game, it's very much like demos for movies or television shows, which we'll get to a little bit.
John:
You have to...
John:
you have to show them something that's going to entice them when it comes to games there's a couple of broad categories that you can do one and these are the obvious ones uh if it's a ip that uh they already like if it's a franchise if it's a sequel um if everybody loved the first game in this series you're showing them the second game in the series uh they're primed to like that it's part of the reason why we're excited about the iphone because we like the previous iphone and we assume the next one's going to be good so we're all ready to see what's the next iphone uh you know
John:
the second thing is if you're going to have a uh a product from a creator that people know i know it's weird because apple is the only creator in here but like a game expo or like at a gaming conference if there's a director or a publisher that you really like the latest game from kojima from miyamoto right like people will be excited about that because it's the person making the game or the company the next bungee game or whatever right
John:
Again, Apple has no track record of being a great publisher of games or a great contributor to games anyway, except for that they run the store that has had some good games on it, but not that many, proportionally, percentage-wise.
John:
The next thing you can do is wow the audience with something they've never seen before.
John:
Yes, that includes amazing graphics or things that were not technically possible before.
John:
What are the odds of Apple doing that on a phone platform?
John:
Pretty slim.
John:
I mean, Apple loves to say, look what this amazing thing you can have on a phone.
John:
Okay, maybe, sure.
John:
But that's not how game demos work.
John:
No one does a game demo and say, isn't this the best looking game you've ever seen on the Wii?
John:
It's like, yeah, this is the best looking game on the Wii, but it's not impressive.
John:
We're not impressed by this Wii game because overall, you're not showing us something we haven't seen before.
John:
Every other console has better graphics than this or whatever.
John:
And in that same category is show a gameplay innovation that's never been seen before.
John:
You've never seen a first person shooter.
John:
And all of a sudden, you know, a first person shooter comes along.
John:
You're like, wow, I've never seen a game where it looks like you're actually like looking through your eyes and running down a hallway.
John:
I've never seen anything like that before.
John:
That will entice the audience to be interested in what you have to show.
John:
Some very interesting kind of gameplay or some kind of twist.
John:
And even those little games that Marco was talking about, like casual games, if you have a clever twist on those that actually works as a pitch, that's a place where Apple could show, here's something you've never seen before.
John:
Think back on all the game demos that you've seen Apple do.
John:
Have they fallen into any of these categories?
John:
An established IP, a franchise, a creator that you love, incredibly impressive graphics and absolute values, not just for a phone, gameplay innovations?
John:
They strike out on all of these, and they wonder why we show these games and no one is enticed by them.
John:
And by the way, they're showing it to an audience who is not necessarily primed to love games.
John:
They're just blanks across the board.
John:
They have no checks in any of those checkboxes.
John:
There's no way these game demos are going to be successful.
John:
You need to wow people, you need to impress people, you need to entice people, you need to grab people, and they just don't do any of those things.
John:
And if you go to E3, right, and when they used to have the big three conferences, it would...
John:
Everyone's excited to see what Nintendo's doing next because Nintendo is an established creator that everyone knows Nintendo makes good games.
John:
In particular, maybe they're looking for the next Zelda game because they loved all the other Zelda games.
John:
Or maybe there's a new Miyamoto game because they love Miyamoto and they show the game.
John:
Or they show a new kind of gameplay of a Super Mario Galaxy where you're on a planet and we've never seen a platformer like that before.
John:
Or an open world Zelda game which has never existed before.
John:
Amazing new graphics on the PS7 or Xbox...
John:
1280 or whatever you know what i mean like these are all tried and true ways that you get audiences excited for games that apple never does a single one of them and i don't know what they're expecting it's like they expect a participation medal we have a game and it's on our phone and it uses modern 3d graphics you can't tell if it's fun it's not an established franchise that you care about you're not a gaming audience it doesn't wow you with innovative gameplay or graphics but please applaud you know i mean it's not
John:
It's not the end of the world.
John:
Like, mostly we just roll our eyes at the game demos and just, you know, go look at something else or see what people are tweeting about.
John:
Because, again, it doesn't engage us.
John:
I'm a gamer.
John:
Like, I'm ready to be shown something impressive.
John:
But they just almost never do it.
John:
I think the closest they came to getting me was when they had Jenova Chen talk about Sky.
John:
But that was such a bare presentation.
John:
Let's think of this.
John:
What's one time, let's see if you guys can remember back this far, where there was a successful enticing game demo at an Apple event?
John:
It might have been before your time.
John:
I can't think of a single one.
Casey:
Oh, what about, did they demo the Halo that wasn't Halo at any Apple event?
John:
It was absolutely Halo.
John:
Halo was the most successful game demo that has ever been done at an Apple press conference.
John:
It has a sad story after that, but at the time, like, and why did it work, okay?
John:
Was it to an audience of people who love games?
John:
Not really, but it was Macworld, so at least the public was there.
John:
And, you know, there's some people who are into games in the audience, so it's not entirely, you know, unfamiliar, the audience.
John:
Was it a franchise or a creator that they knew?
John:
Not a franchise because it was a new franchise at the time, but was it a creator they knew?
John:
It was Bungie.
John:
And who is Bungie?
John:
The savior of Mac gaming, makers of Marathon and Myth and other games that Mac users love because they were a game developer that actually paid attention to the Mac and made great games.
John:
And so this developer, who the audience already loves if they know anything about games, specifically Mac fans love this developer, comes on stage and shows a game that has graphics that were okay for the time, but innovative gameplay.
John:
Look at that Jeep.
John:
Did you see how the Jeep went over the hill?
John:
And it's also a first-person game, and you can get in vehicles, and the aliens look cool, and there was really good music.
John:
Successful game demo.
John:
Congratulations.
John:
You did one successful game demo in like three decades.
Wow.
John:
I mean, they also did a Quake 3, I think.
John:
We were excited that Quake 3 was on the Mac, but that was more of a narrow thing.
John:
But it can be done
John:
But repeatedly showing phone games like it's not going to wow anybody's into games.
John:
Now, all that said, I'm not saying they should never have game demos because you do have to show here's what Apple Arcade has to offer.
John:
And where I differ from Marco is that the reason Apple Arcade is appealing is because, you know, like are any of those hundred games good?
John:
You don't have to pay for all hundred.
John:
You pay the flat fee and you can find the better one.
John:
Whereas if you're looking at the millions of stores in the App Store and you don't have word of mouth, you have to buy them to find out or find out which one is a bad free to play mechanic or whatever.
John:
But they have to show here are the games that we have.
John:
And what they want to show is this.
John:
The games that are in Apple Arcade are high-quality, competently made games.
John:
But you don't have to show an in-depth demo with the developers of the game showing you the gameplay and that stilted way to do that.
John:
But we do need to see, what do I get?
John:
What do I get for my $5 a month for my whole family?
John:
And Apple needs to say, you get these games, which, you know, they look like good, high-quality, interesting games.
John:
And what they should show is, we have a game like this.
John:
We have a card game.
John:
We have a racing game.
John:
And just, you know, show all the games with little pieces of them.
John:
But you don't have time to go into depth on any of them.
John:
But you want people to understand, if I pay this money, I will get good games.
John:
And if they were a little bit more savvy, they would emphasize what I think is the main selling point of Apple Arcade, but they rarely talk about when they bring it up to a larger audience, which is that...
John:
They're not exploitive free to play games.
John:
There's no in-app purchases.
John:
It's a, it's a game that we couldn't cause to be created because of the incentives we created over there.
John:
So we have an entirely different set of incentives over here, which is going to make these games substantially different than those games.
John:
Uh,
John:
you know like a lot of the things that annoy you about those other games on our app store which is probably why apple doesn't talk about it don't exist in these games and i kind of understand why they don't want to emphasize that but i think if and when people start actually using the service they will notice that difference and feel more comfortable letting their kids play any of those hundreds of games for the flat fee knowing that they're not going to be exploited or accidentally spend three thousand dollars on dino eggs or whatever the hell they're getting
John:
Anyway, we spent too long on games.
John:
So did Apple.
John:
Yeah, exactly.
John:
There's no reason to bash on Apple particularly about games now.
John:
You could do this at any time.
John:
Feel free to replay this segment anytime in the past or future.
Marco:
We are sponsored this week by Mack Weldon.
Marco:
Better than whatever you're wearing right now.
Marco:
Mack Weldon is a premium men's essentials brand.
Marco:
They believe in smart design, premium fabrics, and simple shopping.
Marco:
The basics of this are great.
Marco:
I'll tell you right now.
Marco:
The website is great.
Marco:
Everything is straightforward and honest.
Marco:
It's a nice website, nice shopping, fast shipping, easy returns.
Marco:
All that's great.
Marco:
Let me tell you for the rest of this ad about the clothing.
Marco:
I actually sought them out as a sponsor.
Marco:
I really wanted them to be a sponsor because I myself had fallen in love with Mack Weldon clothes.
Marco:
I'm right now I'm wearing, uh, their socks, their underwear and their, and their t-shirt.
Marco:
They're at the Pima cotton shirt.
Marco:
Now all summer, I wore the silver line, the silver t-shirts, uh, because they are naturally antimicrobial and they help basically they help you not stink.
Marco:
No matter what you do in the summertime, if you're wearing one of those silver t-shirts, you won't stink.
Marco:
It's really magical.
Marco:
And now, as I transition to the fall, I'm switching more into their long-sleeve Pima tees, their warm-knit sweatshirt, a bunch of other stuff, a lot of my favorites.
Marco:
I'm wearing Mack Weldon clothing every day, usually multiple pieces a day, because it's just really good.
Marco:
I've bought almost all this with my own money.
Marco:
I have now replaced almost all of my wardrobe with Mack Weldon clothes for the types of things they make.
Marco:
It's just great, high-quality materials, high-quality construction, and it just works great.
Marco:
It fits great.
Marco:
I have had to return a few things, and they made it super easy, you know, just for random little fit reasons.
Marco:
It's just wonderful buying from Mack Weldon.
Marco:
I strongly recommend that you check them out.
Marco:
This is why I sought them out as a sponsor.
Marco:
I really want to be able to say this.
Marco:
Honestly, I wear this stuff all the time, and I just love it.
Marco:
They even have a cool deal where if you buy a pair of underwear and you don't like it,
Marco:
They will refund you, but you get to keep it.
Marco:
They don't want your used underwear bag.
Marco:
You get to keep it.
Marco:
See for yourself all this great stuff at macweldon.com and enter code ATP at checkout to get 20% off your first order.
Marco:
Once again, this is macweldon, M-A-C-K-W-E-L-D-O-N, macweldon.com.
Marco:
Code ATP for 20% off your first order.
Marco:
Thank you so much to Mac Weldon for clothing me and for sponsoring the show.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
You know, I forgot to mention the opening video, which I thought was really good with like the art of all the different Apple products kind of morphing into each other.
Casey:
I effectively am brand new to Apple compared to, you know, the old man in the room.
Casey:
And I thought that was great.
Casey:
And I recognize a lot of stuff that I didn't even own.
Casey:
And I thought it was awesome.
Casey:
Marco, John, what did you guys think?
Casey:
Let me start again with Marco, since you probably have less emotional attachment like I do to a lot of this.
Casey:
Marco, what did you think of that opening video?
Marco:
I liked it.
Marco:
My main issue with all the videos they do now is similar to what I was saying earlier.
Marco:
They just seem so boring and corporate.
Marco:
It's like, here's some art.
Marco:
It's fun.
Marco:
Look at how happy we all are about our products and services.
Marco:
I like the ones with a little bit more personality, but Apple has a hard time showing
Marco:
interesting personality in their videos these days without it coming across as weird or cheesy like they i think they're they're going through kind of a rough time of like the the attitude that they present to the world trying to appear not like the world's like biggest richest corporation that they are uh and trying to appear like friendly and human without it being
Marco:
you know fake and saccharine um so this opening video with you know little rainbow like line art and stuff about their products it was nice it was fun i think it set expectations that weren't met uh that we were going to see some kind of rainbow involvement in the products and that didn't happen uh but you know as as was rumored but we'll see what happens later john
John:
Yeah, those things are fine and cute, but I think this video was perfectly fine.
John:
But in the past, they have had these intro videos not just be passive eye candy to make you appreciate the company and its products and then go into the presentation, but they've...
John:
they've been like the start of the message.
John:
You know, there's been a theme to the presentation.
John:
It's like, we're going to pitch you on some particular thing.
John:
Think of the iOS 7 one.
John:
Remember that whole presentation?
John:
That was not just a cool looking video.
John:
It was also part of the pitch.
John:
It was preparing you for what was to come was to say, we are doing a particular thing starting now.
John:
And here's how we think about it.
John:
Here's what we're going to show you.
John:
Here's our new attitude or angle on this particular thing.
John:
those are the best movies.
John:
So yes, they're beautifully done and they're nice or whatever, but it's like sort of the intro paragraph to the essay that is the presentation.
John:
And this one was just like a frilly cover page.
John:
It's like, yep, Apple, fun, okay.
John:
And I think that's perfectly fine.
John:
You don't really have to have the pitch, but because we've had the ones that have more portent, we've had things in the past that have led into the presentation, it's natural for us longtime fans to
John:
Yeah.
Casey:
Fair enough.
Casey:
I can't say I disagree.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
So we saw Apple Arcade, five bucks for an entire family, one month free trial, which comes out on the 19th, I believe, which is a Thursday, oddly.
Casey:
And in 150 countries, which is good.
Casey:
We've talked a lot about games and it sounds like most of us don't care about
John:
I would say the $5 price is about what people were thinking, and I think it's a good deal.
John:
If you want to have a bunch of games where you don't have to worry about your kids getting sucked into some seedy underbelly of games on the platform, it's a great idea to spend $5 and let them give it a try, and maybe all the games will stink, but I bet there'll be some good ones in there, so I think the...
John:
i'm probably gonna sign up for it i mean i think i will probably unsign up for it fairly quickly but i do want to i do want to see because i don't play a lot of games on ios but i do want to actually see the game so pay five bucks try out as many games as you can tolerate and then unsubscribe uh but for everyone else i think this is uh a pretty as many people have said of all the services apple offers despite their complete inability to demo games on stage this one looks like it has the highest chance of being worth the five dollars to a fairly large number of people
Marco:
Yeah, and again, I don't want to end on too down of a note on it.
Marco:
I think it is a great price and a great setup and a great set of rules and value proposition for a gaming service, but none of that will matter if all the games are mediocre.
Marco:
What I want to know is, what's the first game on Apple Arcade that I really got to play?
Marco:
And I'm going to wait until somebody else tells me that before I actually jump in.
John:
And it's not just you because it's a family thing.
John:
What's the first game that your kid's going to play?
John:
That's another place where I differ.
John:
No one cares about impressive graphics and games.
John:
When I see my cousins play games on their iPads, they all love to play what I think are these garbagey games because they have super cool graphics of a motorbike or a jet plane.
John:
There's lots of vehicle or driving games or side-scrollers with huge explosions.
John:
No, they're not particularly impressive graphics when it comes to young children and pre-teens who want to play something on their iPad.
John:
They're absolutely drawn to spectacle graphics.
John:
Yeah.
John:
there is a certain novelty and shininess and they don't care that the gameplay is bad and they'll just think it's cool to you know maybe they'll get sucked into one or maybe they'll just get it and play it but that's what they're drawn to so i don't i don't entirely discount the sort of mediocre game with reasonably cool graphics and and it's a it's a bit of a slight to say anybody can have good graphics because like technically yes but artistically someone has to make all that art and it's hard to make good art and some of the things they show do have good art it's just not going to impress someone who's wants to be wowed by a game demo but
John:
uh you know a seven-year-old kid uh left to their own devices they're not going to watch this presentation but they are going to go to apple arcade and just say i like the icon of that game i'm going to download it oh this looks cool and i'm going to play with it and they will have a good time despite the fact that the game will never appear appeal to any of us
Casey:
Indeed.
Casey:
Apple TV Plus, they showed us a trailer for the show CSEE, which is about a future where nobody in the world can see anything, but apparently... I get it.
Casey:
Yeah, exactly.
Casey:
Then two kids are born that can.
Casey:
This had a very children of men feel to it to me, which is a compliment.
Casey:
I like that they called out that they actually consulted with blind and low vision cast crew and consultants, etc.
Casey:
First shows will be available November 1, 100 plus countries, $5 a month for the entire family.
Casey:
And you use it with the Apple TV app on iPhone, iPad and presumably the Mac question mark.
Casey:
Um, and then what's interesting is if you buy any new physical device, well, not any, but you know what I mean?
Casey:
Like iPhone, iPad, et cetera, you get a year of free Apple TV plus, which as with so much with Apple in retrospect, seems obvious that I never would have guessed it leading into the event though.
Casey:
And I think that's a really, really solid plan because honestly, nothing I've seen yet on Apple TV plus is really revving my engine, but I would certainly give it a shot if it's free for a year.
John:
So there's some questions about this deal.
John:
First is, and I haven't, sorry, I haven't had time to look this up, but you get a year free if you buy an iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV.
John:
Okay, so if I buy a new iPhone every year, do I essentially never have to pay for Apple TV Plus?
Marco:
So on Upgrade, Jason and Mike were going through, I think Jason was looking at the terms, and there's a limit of one of these trials per Apple ID family unit.
Marco:
forever yeah so like if you the way he was grabbing it sounds like it might be implemented as a regular uh app store recurring subscription where i think if you don't cancel i think you get charged uh it's like after a year so that's that's a thing
Marco:
But it seems to, the way he was describing it, that it was basically applying it to either your Apple ID, if you're an individual, or if you're in an Apple ID family, then it applies to your family.
Marco:
And so if it works that way, like App Store trial subscriptions, then you only get one, and that's it.
John:
And the other way they can handle this, regardless of what the rules are, is they can just discontinue this year-free trial next year.
John:
Sure, yeah.
John:
So anyway, this whole scheme, it makes sense from their perspective, but the whole structure of Apple TV+, them giving the free trial and pricing it at $5 a month,
John:
We always knew this was going to be the case.
John:
We know what shows they're going to have.
John:
They have that whole big thing with Oprah and Steven Spielberg.
John:
We kind of know all the shows.
John:
They have a limited number of shows.
John:
They apparently don't have anything else.
John:
It's not like they bought Friends for $100 million and they don't have this giant back catalog of movies that you can watch for free.
John:
They're not Netflix, right?
John:
They're not even Hulu with that number of shows.
John:
They have a limited number of boutique shows.
John:
They're much more like HBO, right?
John:
But they have no track record.
John:
They have no sort of shows that everyone knows they're going to want.
John:
They have stars, and they have things made by creators that you may know, but there's a lot of doubt.
John:
And so before anyone has actually seen any of these shows, before any customers have seen them, they have to get you in the door somehow.
John:
And they've...
John:
i think correctly decided that on the strength of our shows we can't get enough people to sign up for this because they haven't seen the shows yet so how do i get over the hurdle like and they're also like not confident that oh well no one's seen them yet but boy once people see the first two episodes of c it's going to be the next game of thrones and everybody's going to tell all their friends oh my god you've got to get this service
John:
They don't have that confidence.
John:
I think they're right enough to have that confidence.
John:
They're probably not going to get a smash hit right out of the gate.
John:
So, year free trial.
John:
That gives Apple a year to find one or two hit shows or to turn one or two of their shows.
John:
It starts off shaky, but it finds its legs, right?
John:
It gives them a chance to do that.
John:
It gets the numbers up because, hey, you're going to get it for free or whatever.
John:
And because they're recurring and it's only $5 a month, maybe people will drift into next year and still keep paying for it or if they're into a particular show.
John:
it's it's not a strength move but i think it's the right thing for apple to do because they're not in a position of strength and that that c trailer i was looking forward to that show that was not a good trailer like i think apple does know how to make a good trailer for a tv show but what they showed did not give me high hopes for that particular program but hey they can't all be hits so you know i'm i'm absolutely going to uh well i'm gonna get apple tea for free because my wife is buying all the things this year um
John:
But yeah, I'm going to try a whole bunch of these shows because I actually am interested in them.
John:
And because I have subscribed to every streaming service in the entire world, I will probably continue to pay for it next year.
Marco:
I feel similarly about Apple TV Plus as I do about Apple Arcade, which is the pricing seems fine.
Marco:
The terms and the metrics and everything all sound fine.
Marco:
I will care when there's a hit.
Marco:
And if there isn't a hit, I'm not going to buy it and subscribe to it just for the sake of maybe it'll get better.
Marco:
When there's a hit that I start hearing that I have to see, that's when I'll jump in.
John:
And these monthly things are great.
John:
I subscribe to CBS long enough to watch Star Trek and then I unsubscribe.
John:
And then the new season comes out and I subscribe and I watch Star Trek and then I unsubscribe.
John:
It's not a particularly bad model.
John:
Managing it on an Apple device is not that hard.
John:
I can watch it on my television.
John:
I can watch it on my iPad.
John:
It's cheaper for me to subscribe to CVS All Access or whatever it's called for one month than it would be for me to try to, like, rent it or buy it all from iTunes or any of the other past things.
John:
So...
John:
you know yeah apple apple should just keep trying to make good shows and if they get a hit or two people will subscribe and watch a show and unsubscribe and it's on apple to keep making good shows it's exactly what hbo has to do which is the closest analog you know game of thrones ends why are people still watching oh it turns out succession is pretty good like the hbo finds a way to keep me watching anyway so that's what apple's got to do indeed
Casey:
all righty so let's move on let's talk about ipad when i think we can make this probably pretty quick famous last words seventh generation ipad with touch id it lingers on a 10.2 inch display uh it is a new resolution we were not sure about that when we were writing the show notes if i if i did my research correctly it is 2160 by 1620 instead of 2048 by 1536 so just a little bit bigger
Casey:
It has a Generation 1 Apple Pencil, a 3.7-inch, my goodness, 3.7 times wider viewing angle, and an A10 Fusion, which is from 2016, and that's from the iPhone 7.
Casey:
Is that right?
Marco:
Right, because it isn't the A10X, which was the iPad version with the bigger GPU.
Marco:
It's just the A10, which is what they usually, you know, that isn't unusual.
Marco:
Usually on the lower-end iPad models, they don't usually give the X version of the chip that has the bigger, bigger GPU.
Marco:
They just do the regular, like, phone version of the chip.
John:
the minis like that and usually the low-end ones are as well but yeah a10 you know the a10 was a fine chip when it came out it it's getting a little old but you know for the products that are super low in the lineup uh that's fine i guess yeah i think it's uh you know i'm that's the part that's most disappointing about this model but it's not that disappointing because the a10 like just thinking of again uh people who i see kids i see playing with ipads and stuff like you'd want to get your kid the cheapest ipad but they eventually want the bigger one usually uh
John:
This can play most of the games that young kids would be into playing.
John:
You know they can't play the super-duper cutting-edge graphics, but the App Store is not filled with games like the App Store.
John:
Anyone who puts something in the App Store and spends that money making a game wants to target a wide audience.
John:
So an A10 can play all those games, and aside from games, there's no reason they need anything stronger.
John:
It would be better if it had an A11 or an X or something like that, but overall, like...
John:
this is you know this is the cheap ipad the cheap cheap ipad this is the best cheap cheap ipad i think they've ever had because it has almost all of the features that you care about albeit in lesser form uh as the you know the pro models pencil support but not not as good smart connector support but doesn't have the newest keyboard thing you know doesn't have face id but no one cares about that it's got a screen and it's bigger it's not as nice as the other screens but it's still nicer than it was
John:
I would have no problem recommending this as a good big iPad to get for anybody who knows they're not going to be particularly demanding and they're not into the pencil.
John:
The pencil is where I kind of draw the line of like, look, if you're going to use the pencil all the time, there's no need for you to go through fumbling with that round thing.
Yeah.
John:
well there is a need if you can't afford the much more expensive pro thing that's the thing it's so much more expensive to get the ipad pro yeah maybe you get a case with a little slot to put the pencil in i guess yeah and i mean if anything like like this this new cheap ipad i think really takes a lot of the wind out of the sales of the ipad air which is that the kind of mid-priced model which is not that much better than it yeah when they do that lineup i'm like why is that why is that still there and it's so clearly not long for this world or going to be upgraded
Marco:
We are sponsored this week by Fracture, who prints your photos in vivid color directly onto glass.
Marco:
Visit FractureMe.com slash ATP for a special discount on your first order.
Marco:
Almost all of us take photos and we share them online, but very few of those photos ever end up getting printed, and even few of them end up getting displayed anywhere ever again.
Marco:
You see it on the social timeline, and then it falls off the timeline after, what, a day?
Marco:
And you never see it again.
Marco:
Let Fracture help you focus on those moments that mean the most in your life by turning your favorite digital memories into meaningful photo decor.
Marco:
Fracture prints are these amazing edge-to-edge pieces of glass.
Marco:
The photo is printed.
Marco:
It's a very thin piece of glass, so it's very lightweight.
Marco:
You don't have to worry about it crashing down and taking your wall out with it.
Marco:
It's a very lightweight, thin, sheeted glass.
Marco:
On the back of the glass, shining through the front, is the photo print.
Marco:
It is kind of like one cohesive unit.
Marco:
You don't see any edges.
Marco:
You don't see any seams.
Marco:
There's no border.
Marco:
There's no frame.
Marco:
It is its own totally standalone piece of art that goes edge to edge, and the photo is right there on the glass, and it just looks amazing in any decor.
Marco:
They also make amazing, thoughtful, unique gifts for almost anyone.
Marco:
I have them all over my house.
Marco:
People love them.
Marco:
They compliment me on the time.
Marco:
And we've given them as gifts a lot to people and they are always very well received.
Marco:
You can feel good about them too.
Marco:
They're handmade in Gainesville, Florida from U.S.
Marco:
source materials in a carbon neutral factory.
Marco:
They're all checked for quality by real humans.
Marco:
They're a green company.
Marco:
It's amazing.
Marco:
See for yourself at FractureMe.com slash ATP.
Marco:
That'll get you a special discount on your first Fracture order.
Marco:
They will ask you after purchase a one-question survey.
Marco:
Where'd you hear about us?
Marco:
Just make sure to tell them you heard about them here on ATP.
Marco:
So once again, go to FractureMe.com slash ATP for a special discount on your first Fracture order and make sure to tell them you came from ATP.
Marco:
Thank you so much to Fracture for sponsoring our show.
Casey:
Moving on to the watch.
Casey:
That video punched me right in the feels.
Casey:
Just so good.
Casey:
I don't say that sarcastically.
Casey:
I really mean it.
Casey:
I thought that video was great.
John:
Speaking of what is modern Apple's face to the world, their big cooperation, and what is their message or whatever, one thing that Apple has been fairly on message about and I think good about is that in the Tim Cook era, the message to Apple to the world about its products, the strongest one that is coherent is...
John:
here are the real people that use our products and the value they derive from them in their lives right and obviously that's the world's most generic pitch for a thing but they make really good videos showing real people being genuine on camera about things that have happened in their life that are tangentially related to apple products because they have to work in the apple product but i think they do it in a way that we buy it we say this isn't it's not like where they're you know burger can get someone to say i saw my kid born and i had a burger king burger next to me like that's not
John:
connected there's no there's no connection right there but like like this video with the apple watch i had a health issue and apple watch participated in my health crisis in in a positive way like is the connection is clear the people are clear they're really well done videos
John:
you know it's hitting casey in the feels this is good advertising it is well done advertising and apple does these things a lot and we see them and we feel like they're genuine and we say yeah okay i see that i see the benefit you're pitching i believe that there is a connection and i believe because of the way you made your products they have made these people's lives better in this way total success they do these all the time uh and
John:
they're not getting old to me.
John:
I'm not so jaded that I don't believe that they're real.
John:
Now, on the other hand, you could say, okay, that's fine, but what about, and then put on a giant pile of other things, all the way up to and including the keyboard that we all hate or whatever.
John:
But for the moments while you're watching those videos, because they do a good job, we're all like, yep, you did it.
John:
Yep, good job.
John:
We believe you.
John:
We like you.
John:
This is one of the things we like with Apple.
John:
And I would fall into that category also.
John:
what you just we just mentioned about the ipad the whole uh environmental stuff that they keep doing with their little checklist that gets longer and now they're adding 100 recycled aluminum and everything people roll their eyes at that i don't roll my eyes at it could they be better of course they can always be better but they stubbornly insist to continue to put that in their presentations i think they're hoping hey why don't you ask every other tech company why they don't do all these things
John:
Like, you know, whatever they are, BPA free, lead free, you know, what percentage of recycling, how much renewable energy do they use?
John:
Obviously, Apple is bragging, trying to say that they're, you know, a better company than other people, but they're doing these things.
John:
It costs them more money to do these things than it would otherwise, like in the short term, right?
John:
These are positive things that Apple's doing.
John:
They keep hammering on them.
John:
It's been a very consistent message.
John:
It's much more boring than the videos that hit you in the feels.
John:
But I feel like it is another consistent message out of Tim Cook's Apple.
John:
It's a positive message.
John:
And despite the fact that we see it over and over and over again, I say keep putting it up on the slides because it's something that the world needs to see.
Casey:
Yep, agreed.
Casey:
Following that, they had a woman whose name I did not catch.
Casey:
In fact, most of the presenters, I did not catch their names, and I apologize for that.
Marco:
Wait, I actually did.
Marco:
Can I make a quick little thing about this?
Marco:
I don't know what this was about.
Marco:
So yeah, so Apple Arcade, the presenter was introduced simply as Anne.
Marco:
There were a whole bunch of people brought up on stage only with first name and no title.
Marco:
And I feel like that was a little bit odd.
John:
Yeah, I agree.
John:
Maybe they just don't care that much about the consistency.
John:
But titles would be great because, okay, we know the person's first name and maybe their last name and they're presenting, but who are they?
John:
Are they an engineering manager?
John:
Are they a director?
John:
Are they a marketing executive?
John:
Who are they in relation to this product?
John:
I think that would help frame the presentation.
John:
But as usual, everyone who presented, I thought, did such a good job that it didn't even occur to me to think about what kind of job they did.
John:
Again, setting aside the non-Apple employees, those poor people from game studios who are up there trying to,
Marco:
demo their games when they're already set up to fail but the apple people apple people are all great yeah i agree going back a moment just to the to the last name thing and the titles i think another way that that matters is in realizing and recognizing diversity you know we we've been talking about diversity everyone's been talking about diversity in in tech companies and tech presentations for years now and apple is getting a lot better at it
Marco:
Uh, but one of the ways that it helps is if you can tell what, whether the person on stage has like a, a really strong position in that product or not.
Marco:
Like, you know, John was saying like, you know, you could tell like, are they an engineer?
Marco:
Are they a marketing person?
Marco:
Are they in charge of a lot of things?
Marco:
Are they, are they, you know,
Marco:
Just somebody they hired to do a demo?
Marco:
Like, you don't know, right?
Marco:
A title gives legitimacy.
Marco:
A title says, if you're seeing a kind of person up there that you don't usually see in the board of, you know, the panel of, like, bland white guys up there, it means a lot more if they also tell you, this person's the product manager on this product, right?
Marco:
Or something like that, right?
Marco:
They lend legitimacy to these people to say, not only here's somebody named Anne, but no, here's Anne and she's like the boss of this division.
Marco:
Like that's a lot better.
Casey:
What was the woman who does the iMac?
Casey:
Wasn't that a good example of them saying?
Casey:
Yes.
John:
Yeah.
John:
She was the product manager for the whole iMac industry.
John:
Exactly.
John:
And interestingly, that's not her only job, like we found out later with all the interviews with her.
John:
She doesn't just oversee the iMac.
John:
She oversees a bunch of stuff.
John:
But she was presented in the presentation pointedly as the iMac.
John:
She's in charge of it.
John:
And they didn't have to mention, oh, and by the way, also these other things, right?
John:
So it immediately gave her legitimacy.
John:
By the way, that's Colleen Novielli is her name.
Casey:
Yes, thank you.
John:
It immediately gave her legitimacy to speak authoritatively, to Margo's point of seeing the title, whether it's like director, vice president, those words carry weight.
John:
Worldwide Director of Product Marketing.
John:
We all know who that is, right?
John:
We put worldwide in front of things.
John:
It sounds so much more impressive.
Casey:
So anyway, so after that video that punched me in the feels, we had one of the women who was on stage, whose, again, name escapes me, and I'm sorry, who did the new health studies, which I was excited to see the Apple hearing study, which is largely about the watch.
Marco:
Her name given was Sambal, but no last name, no title.
Casey:
Wonderful.
Casey:
The Apple Hearing Study, which is because, you know, the watch can obviously hear your environment.
Casey:
The thing that I was most excited about and impressed by was the Apple Women's Health Study, which includes infertility, which is near and dear to my heart, and osteoporosis, and the Apple Heart and Movement Study.
Casey:
So I don't think we need to talk too much about these, but I think these are all really great examples of, yeah, you know, Apple can do some really navel-gazy, really, you know,
Casey:
It's really selfish stuff, but I feel like these health studies, from everything I can tell as a non-doctor, really do seem like Apple genuinely trying to improve the world.
Casey:
And they may or may not make a dent on the universe, if you will, but I do think that they're doing the right thing here, and I am all on board for them continuing to go down this path.
John:
Yeah, then we had another topic that we'll probably actually talk about another day of exactly how Apple is currently trying to address the healthcare market and how they could best address it.
John:
But right now, this is what they're doing with these, you know, they have devices that can participate in healthcare in various ways, and they are pursuing...
John:
sort of the, I don't want to say the obvious things, but like, look, they made a watch, they intentionally put a bunch of health sensors in it, they can record data, then they can sort of alert based on that data.
John:
And the fact they have these devices that are attached to people that can do things for you makes it the perfect tool for like, you know, widespread studies where they need lots of participants.
John:
And Apple's like, we've got lots of customers.
John:
We can actually help there.
John:
You don't have to get, recruit a bunch of people and get them to do some weird thing.
John:
If we can just gather data from people who already have Apple watches, you know, that's great.
Casey:
Yep.
Casey:
So, speaking of Apple Watches, now we're getting into the meat of the show.
Casey:
The new Apple Watch Series 5.
Casey:
The highlight feature here, which has gotten us to the point that Marco has already bought himself an Apple Watch and he has sworn off his mechanical BS from 1812.
Casey:
The display is always on.
Casey:
Marco, how excited are you?
Marco:
Finally, I can see the mediocre watch faces all the time.
John:
I can't believe you can be negative about that.
What?
John:
finally what do you mean finally nobody expected always on watch display this year this is this is the standout announcement of the entire presentation which is this alone puts this presentation above average that's why i didn't just say it's average no i i completely agree like in all in all seriousness
Marco:
this is a really huge upgrade to the watch that I didn't think we were ready for yet.
Marco:
Like, I didn't think we were there battery life-wise to do this.
Marco:
And, you know, none of us have these yet.
Marco:
We don't know what the trade-offs really are yet.
Marco:
We'll find out.
Marco:
Maybe there's some kind of weird thing, but it seemed that they really pulled it off.
Marco:
And, you know, even though the Apple Watch is mostly not for me,
Marco:
And this was one of the huge reasons why I didn't like it.
Marco:
That every time I'd glance at it, it would just be a black rectangle and I'd have to twist my arm in a weird way a lot of times.
Marco:
And a lot of times it just wouldn't work.
Marco:
It's funny.
Marco:
So I do usually wear it during workouts.
Marco:
And one of the pictures they showed was somebody holding a plank.
Marco:
And I have actually been doing that exact thing, wearing a watch, wanting to see what's on the screen and not being able to.
Marco:
I can't rotate my wrist at that moment.
Marco:
I guess I'll just micro-targeted advertising just to you.
Marco:
Yeah, right.
Casey:
It applies to me too, but yes, I agree.
Marco:
Actually, it's a huge upgrade.
Marco:
That will...
Marco:
I don't know how great it is yet, but that will dramatically change what it's like to wear the watch.
Marco:
That's a huge, huge deal.
Marco:
And there's lots of details to work out, lots of design...
Marco:
issues and questions one of the biggest things i want to know is like what's it like to be in a room with a bunch of these things you know like if you're if you're like in a room and a bunch of people have watches is it going to be distracting like is it or have they tweaked the brightness algorithms enough so that you're it doesn't seem like you're in like a sports bar full of little tiny tvs on everybody's wrists you know it is dimmer
John:
It is dimmer in the ambient mode.
John:
I'm assuming mostly to save battery, but as far as I would tell from the people taking pictures of the thing, there is like a dim mode, which is kind of the always-on display, and then there's I'm interacting with it, which is a higher brightness.
Marco:
Right, and the dim mode also simplifies what's on screen.
Marco:
So any watch face that has a white background, it switches it to black, so it uses fewer pixels and saves energy.
Marco:
It also removes the animated seconds hand from the analog faces, so it doesn't have to keep updating the screen at 60 hertz.
Marco:
Like they said, they can slide on their refresh rate to...
Marco:
What they said, one hertz, which is one hertz in reality.
Marco:
The unit is not called hertz if it's only one.
Marco:
But anyway, so that's a huge deal.
Marco:
All the tech going into that, all the advancement, the battery optimization, adjusting all the watch faces to support this.
Marco:
i do think that this is probably the nail in the coffin for any hope of there ever being third-party watch faces because this is the kind of thing that apple really you know if there were third-party watch faces they basically couldn't have done this or they would have had to put weird restrictions on them or things like that and i can see them just wanting to keep that control for themselves forever and
Marco:
And that's unfortunate for me because I really want third-party watch faces.
Marco:
One of the reasons why the Apple Watch is not currently my favorite is because I don't really love any of the faces right now.
Marco:
I have minor or major problems with almost all of them.
Marco:
And so it's not really for me, but for everyone who it is for...
Marco:
this is a massive upgrade.
Marco:
I'll also say, you know, otherwise, like, we didn't get a lot of other detail about, like, what else is different about it, but, like, that alone, I don't think I'm going to get one, because I don't use my Series 4 enough, and for my purposes of, like, you know, developing the app, the Series 4 is probably fine.
Marco:
Like, I don't even, my app doesn't even have a meaningful complication, so I can't even say, like, oh, I have to test my complication on the new always-on screen.
Marco:
Like, no, I really don't.
Marco:
But...
Marco:
Anyway, it looks like a really good upgrade.
Marco:
And if I were an everyday Apple Watch wearer, I would seriously consider it because of how incredibly different that the screen thing will make it as just an overall experience.
Marco:
As for the finishes, by the way, before I forget, people ask me a lot about watch stuff and the watch finishes.
Marco:
I love that they introduced titanium.
Marco:
I love that they brought back white ceramic.
Marco:
The white ceramic, I can tell you, is fantastic.
Marco:
I don't love with these new ones that they've made the crown black on it.
Marco:
It's kind of a weird contrast with the white.
Marco:
I don't love that.
Marco:
But otherwise, in the pictures so far, the titanium really looks fantastic.
Marco:
The one thing, though, and the hands-on people who were there say that it was noticeably lighter as well, which is nice.
Marco:
The one thing that I will say, though, is that I would strongly suggest anybody who was on the fence about which one of these to get or who was interested in the titanium, maybe...
Marco:
wait until you can see it in person because it's a very different finish.
Marco:
It is a brushed, it's like a horizontally brushed finish.
Marco:
It looks like on the titanium from the pictures, which the steel models are polished.
Marco:
So they're, you know, high polish, like mirror finish.
Marco:
And then the aluminum models have that kind of like sandblasted look.
Marco:
So titanium being like a brushed finish is a very different look.
Marco:
And I don't know how that will appear or not in person.
Marco:
Like,
Marco:
I haven't ordered one yet, in part because I'm trying to rationalize myself out of it, but also in part because I can't decide which one to order.
Marco:
I think, off the top of my head, I think the light-colored titanium is probably going to look the best.
Marco:
But until I see it in person, I wouldn't make that call.
Marco:
And I would suggest to you, our dear listeners, you might not want to either because these things can look very different in person.
Casey:
So I am extremely stoked to receive mine.
Casey:
As I've said earlier, Aaron and I both ordered new ones.
Casey:
I finally took the plunge on the smaller watch.
Casey:
I'm rolling a, what is it?
Casey:
42 millimeter series three.
Casey:
I have little teeny tiny wrists.
Casey:
So I went for the 40 millimeter series five cellular again, because I do love having it when I go running.
Casey:
I am super pumped.
Casey:
I want the titanium really badly, but it's something that I don't see sticking around for a long time.
Casey:
I don't,
Casey:
can't justify the cost you know i'll probably keep this watch for a year or two hopefully two if all as much as i like to snark on marco i can't appreciate it an honest to goodness mechanical watch and if this was a mechanical watch that i was keeping forever i probably would do the uh 700 or whatever it is titanium but no i just went uh whatever the cheapo one was well with cellular uh the sport model with cellular and aaron got the non-cellular one
Casey:
And I'm really excited about it.
Casey:
Also worth noting that you can choose, I think for the first time, right?
Casey:
Yeah, this is huge.
Casey:
You can choose any watch case with any band.
Casey:
It used to be that if you got a sport watch, you could only get like sport bands or a subset of the available bands.
Casey:
Now you could get the cheapo watch with the link bracelet or whatever the most expensive band of the day is.
Casey:
And I think that's really great.
Casey:
And I did their little online configurator thing to use car parlance, which was good.
Casey:
And it let you kind of visualize what you were going to get.
Casey:
I have a feeling this is going to be really great in stores.
Casey:
I'm a little curious how the packaging is going to be for this, especially if you buy this in store.
Casey:
Do they hand you two different boxes?
Casey:
Do they have an infinite array of combinations in the back?
Casey:
I would assume not.
Casey:
I'm curious to see how this works out.
Casey:
Do you buy a Series 4?
Casey:
No, no, no, no, no, no.
Casey:
I'm still rocking the three.
Marco:
Because the Series 4, the packaging for the Series 4 was separated.
Marco:
It was like there was there was like a very thin outer box.
Marco:
But inside that box were two totally separate boxes.
Marco:
One had the strap and one had the watch.
Marco:
And then you had to assemble it after the fact.
Marco:
So it seemed almost like they were kind of preparing for it with the series four and maybe just didn't, you know, didn't get it all together in time or whatever.
Marco:
But, but yeah, like it was already, it's already been separate for a year.
Marco:
Like in the packaging and everything, they were just bundled together with like a thin black outer box.
Casey:
That is some quality RTFU.
Casey:
Thank you.
Casey:
So anyway, I am really stoked to get these.
Casey:
I am really stoked to have always-on watch face.
Casey:
It doesn't bother me as much as I think it bothers you, Marco, but it definitely bothers me.
Casey:
I'm not sitting here and saying it's a non-issue.
Casey:
It's an issue, and I am excited.
Casey:
I'm really excited to have this on my wrist.
Casey:
I really honestly am.
Casey:
The GPS starts at $400.
Casey:
Cellular starts at $500.
Casey:
And also, you know, we haven't touched on this yet, and we're going to touch on it more in a minute.
Casey:
I am not even kidding when I tell you possibly my favorite announcements of this entire event were the means by which I can throw piles of cash at Apple.
Casey:
Because literally as soon as the event was over, I ordered two Apple Watches.
Casey:
I didn't have to wake up at midnight or three in the morning or anything like that.
Casey:
The keynote was over.
Casey:
I went to the Apple website and I bought myself two Apple Watches.
Casey:
I bought the family two Apple Watches.
Casey:
That was awesome.
Casey:
It was incredible.
Casey:
There was nothing to worry about.
Marco:
I wish I would have had a choice.
Marco:
Like, if I would have known which titanium I was interested in, if any, I might have already ordered one.
Casey:
Yeah, you know, and we're going to get on a deep tangent, which we don't have time for.
Casey:
But I would like to just say, if you're not going to let us order something...
Casey:
Yeah, yeah, I get it.
Casey:
And either that day or the next day, I can go to my local Apple store and see these in person so I can figure out what I want.
Casey:
Like, this is the firstest of first world problems.
Casey:
But if you're going to give us that delay, then put the damn devices in the store so we can see them.
Casey:
That would make it so much nicer.
Marco:
Yeah, that would be amazing.
Casey:
Finally, the Series 3 persists.
Casey:
It is $200 for a GPS model.
Casey:
I don't think they have cellular models of the Series 3 anymore, but that is the cheapo watch.
Casey:
And you know what?
Casey:
$200 for a not that old Apple watch?
Casey:
I don't think that's a bad deal.
Casey:
I think that's pretty good all in all.
Marco:
Yeah, that's a great, I mean, the Series 3, yes, it is now two years old, but it's also still fine.
Casey:
Yeah, mine feels good.
Casey:
I mean, granted, I don't really have a lot to compare to, but I haven't felt like it's slow in the same way my Series 0 absolutely did at this point in its life.
Marco:
No, I mean, the Series 0 was ungodly slow on day one.
Casey:
Fair, fair, fair.
Marco:
The Series 1 and 2, which are the same watch, confusingly, but the Series 1 and 2 were faster in the sense they were less slow.
Marco:
The Series 3 was the one that made a massive jump forward in performance.
Marco:
For them to keep that one around is totally fine.
Marco:
I would have preferred the Series 4 as a developer.
Marco:
I would have preferred that one to be the one that sticks around longer because it has the different screen shape with the rounded corners and everything.
Marco:
And that would mean that all the old square screens I could stop supporting a few years earlier than I now have to support them.
Marco:
But that's fine.
Marco:
We can deal with that.
Marco:
I do wonder why the Series 4 wasn't the one kept around.
Casey:
Yeah.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
uh and either instead of or in addition to the series three like why you have two hundred dollars for the series three and then four hundred dollars for the series five okay what yeah what what happened to the series to the series four it seemed totally fine we have two of them in our house they're wonderful like i don't know but oh well
Casey:
Oh, and a real-time follow-up, the cellular Series 3 is available, and that is $300, as you would expect.
John:
I wonder if the Series 4 is a manufacturing line thing, because the Series 5 is basically, as far as I can tell, physically identical on the outside in terms of dimensions and everything as the Series 4.
John:
So maybe there's some share.
John:
That's a good point.
John:
Maybe they're not at volumes where that matters.
John:
I don't know.
John:
The Series 3 price for $200 is a... Oh, God, my phone is activating again.
John:
This has become...
John:
Oh, you said series three.
John:
This has been a problem recently.
John:
I don't know.
John:
Something about, anyway.
John:
Yeah, my home, I started playing music during the keynote because of something they said on screen.
John:
Yeah, this has been happening to me during podcasts.
John:
I just turn off the feature.
John:
I so rarely use it.
John:
Anyway, I feel like there's sort of a line.
John:
There's two lines here.
John:
One is the, you know, the curved display on the Series 4, like this dividing line between the old Apple Watches and the new, just visually.
John:
And now with the always-on display, there's a second, perhaps even darker line, depending on how much of an impact that has on people.
John:
And speaking of the always-on display, I don't think that puts a nail in any kind of coffin for custom watch faces, that custom watch faces are still totally a thing that Apple could do.
John:
If you made one, you'd have to deal with always-on display the same way your apps deal with dark mode.
John:
Like, it's just a thing that you would have to deal with.
John:
Doesn't mean they're ever going to do it, but I don't think always-on display changes the odds one way or the other.
John:
And I feel like as time goes on, the odds slowly increase.
John:
I always just think about third-party keyboards.
John:
Like...
John:
eventually you start running out of features to add and you're like, you know what?
John:
Okay, fine.
John:
Watch faces.
John:
And, and really if I had to pitch them, I'd say, don't put that one off.
John:
Don't leave it until you're scraping bottle in the barrel.
John:
Cause it's another, like you love app stores, don't you?
John:
Like you love to sell things.
John:
Uh, people will sell watch faces and you'll get a cut and it will work out great for you.
John:
Like, I don't understand what, you know, maybe they just haven't gotten around to it.
John:
I don't know if there's any actual resistance, but if I had to pitch them, I'd say, look, I know this is lower priority and you should definitely work on the other stuff like cellular and always on display first.
John:
Um,
John:
But eventually, I hope you do get to that.
John:
And I do like this, these set of models.
John:
I like that all the different materials are coming back.
John:
But I share Marco's trepidation about the titanium because just based on the pictures, you can't tell anything.
John:
You have to see it in person to see whether you're going to hate it or like it.
Marco:
We are sponsored this week by Squarespace.
Marco:
Start building your website today at squarespace.com slash ATP.
Marco:
Enter offer code ATP at checkout to get 10% off.
Marco:
Make your next move with a beautiful website from Squarespace.
Marco:
Squarespace makes it just really, really stupidly easy, embarrassingly easy.
Marco:
It's amazing how easy it is to make websites with Squarespace.
Marco:
It used to be way harder.
Marco:
If you made websites like I did throughout the 90s and the early 2000s and everything, it was a lot of work.
Marco:
It was a full-time job just to be the kind of person who made websites.
Marco:
With Squarespace, you can get websites that are not only as good, but way better than all the stuff I used to make as my full-time job.
Marco:
And you get it done in like an hour.
Marco:
And your whole site's done.
Marco:
It's incredible.
Marco:
Squarespace sites, they look professional.
Marco:
They function professionally.
Marco:
And they can look amazing regardless of your skill level.
Marco:
You don't need to be a coder.
Marco:
There's no coding required.
Marco:
All this is backed by intuitive, easy-to-use tools.
Marco:
You can even get a free domain if you sign up for a whole year.
Marco:
See for yourself just how amazing and easy it is to start a free trial site on Squarespace.
Marco:
Build the site you want to build.
Marco:
No credit card is required for that trial, so you can just build it without giving them a dime.
Marco:
See how it works.
Marco:
See if you like it.
Marco:
Play with it.
Marco:
Tweet the colors.
Marco:
Move the layout around.
Marco:
Put some of your content in.
Marco:
It's just amazing how quickly you're just done.
Marco:
And it looks great, and it works great on all devices, and you can move on to your actual business or your hobby or whatever it is you're making the site for.
Marco:
So start that free trial today at squarespace.com slash ATP.
Marco:
When you decide to sign up for Squarespace, make sure to go back there, squarespace.com slash ATP, and use offer code ATP to get 10% off your first purchase.
Marco:
That's squarespace.com slash ATP, code ATP.
Marco:
Thank you so much to Squarespace for sponsoring our show.
Marco:
Make your next move with a beautiful website from Squarespace.
Casey:
The iPhone 11.
Casey:
Now, this gets a little weird.
Casey:
So last year, this, I guess last year, you had the XS, the XS Max, and the XR.
Casey:
The iPhone 11 replaces the XR, which is what we all expected, but when we were listening to it in the keynote, I got my wires crossed a couple times.
Casey:
The iPhone 11, this is the replacement for the XR, has an 813 anodized aluminum and glass.
Casey:
Seems like no writing on the back of it.
Casey:
They touted several times toughest glass ever in a smartphone, including a glass camera bump, which they talked about for a while.
Casey:
Six colors, purple, white, yellow, green, black, and product red.
Casey:
It remains at 6.1 inches.
Casey:
It has haptic touch, spatial audio, a U1 chip with directional airdrop.
Casey:
They did not release any sort of Apple Tile yet.
Casey:
30% better face ID, including better angles.
Casey:
And it has two cameras instead of the one from the XR last year.
Casey:
It has the wide camera, which is F1.8, and the ultra-wide camera, which is F2.something or other.
Casey:
They also are introducing night mode across the iPhone line.
Casey:
This is like night sight or whatever Google calls it.
Casey:
This one deserves a finally.
Casey:
Yeah, that sounds great.
Casey:
And I'm really anxious to try this.
Casey:
They did a video demo of old muscle cars on salt flats, which I was definitely there for.
Casey:
Loved it.
Casey:
Oh, I should go back a half step.
Casey:
I'm sorry.
Casey:
Night mode, from what I've gathered, does have a live preview, which Android does not do.
Casey:
I have not verified that, but I have heard rumblings that that's the case.
John:
Yeah, I saw a video of it being done.
John:
It does show something on the screen.
John:
The other thing that I saw, I think it was the MKBHD video.
John:
You can't turn on night mode.
John:
It automatically turns on when the light gets dimmed.
John:
So in the Apple room, you have to put your hand over the phone to trip the sensors to make it think it's dark.
John:
But once you did that, you could see a live view of the palm of his hand in the thing.
John:
It wasn't a great demo, but those two features are weird.
John:
Apple wouldn't actually have a night mode switch
John:
it would only go on automatically.
John:
I wonder if it's going to make people not realize.
John:
It doesn't go on automatically.
John:
What happens is UI appears.
John:
UI to turn on night mode appears, but it only appears on the screen when it is dark enough that it is a valid thing to do.
John:
It's a little strange.
John:
I think it's great.
Marco:
If it was something that you had to go specifically turn on that would work totally differently, I feel like people wouldn't know about it.
John:
But you do have to turn it on.
John:
You have to notice that a new UI blob has appeared on the screen and you have to tap it to turn on night
John:
mode.
John:
I don't know.
John:
I'm not sure it'll work itself out.
John:
The camera UI, despite it being a little bit wonky, it's so frequently used that people eventually figure it out.
John:
I hope people figure it out.
John:
I'm still kind of amazed, and I think we've all seen this in years past, of when they rejiggered the camera UI and people would be like...
John:
touching or swiping on the individual words to change modes not realizing that you could essentially swipe on the entire screen or the whole bottom of the screen to change modes like it's not an obvious ui it's apple snapchat basically where there's lots of there's lots of non-obvious ways you can interact with it but the obvious way will work so it's a friendly it's fairly friendly ui but the obvious way is also harder than the non-obvious way which is like you don't realize it but you can swipe anywhere and you can just jab over here and get this control and
John:
Anyway, they've continued to advance that UI, and I think it looks a little bit nicer than it did, but I'm wondering if they're straining against the limits of what you can do in a camera UI.
Casey:
Indeed.
Casey:
Extended dynamic range video at 4K at 60 frames a second.
Marco:
I love that.
Marco:
Before you go past that, I love that.
Marco:
So this is what this means.
Marco:
A lot of people missed this last year.
Marco:
When the iPhone XS and XS Max generation and XR, when those were introduced last year,
Marco:
They added a feature, so I believe it was the X that first added 4K60, but then the XS and XS Max and XR, when you were shooting at only 30 frames a second, the sensor was still taking 60 frames a second video, and what it would do would be it would alternate between a high exposure and a low exposure with every frame it captured, and then merge them live into basically almost like an HDR, what they're calling extended dynamic range.
Marco:
merged into a video that had more dynamic range because it's basically doing exposure bracketing live with every two frames that it was shooting to take the 4K60 sensor and make 30 frames a second video.
Marco:
This wouldn't happen, because it couldn't, if you were shooting at 4K60.
Marco:
I like to shoot 4K60 because it looks lifelike, and I have all the resolution, and it's wonderful.
Marco:
And I know it doesn't look right for cinematic purposes, but for home videos, it looks amazing because it looks like you're really there, and I love it.
Marco:
And so I love shooting 4K60, but I was always torn between, should I go change it and toggle it off when I'm shooting video in the sunset?
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
when I want more dynamic range, you know?
Marco:
And because you had to choose with the 10S generation, you had to choose, like, do I want 60 frames a second or do I want nice dynamic range?
Marco:
And with the 11 generation now, they have removed the need to make that choice.
Marco:
it seems like what I'm... I'm guessing the way it's implemented, I'm guessing the sensor is just running at 4K 120 the whole time and outputting 4K 60.
Marco:
But whatever it is, you can now do 4K 60 with the extended dynamic range.
Marco:
However they're doing it, they didn't really say how this was achieved, but the way they were talking about it makes it sound like that's what this is.
Marco:
And so that's a great thing for me because in the same way that when 4K 60 finally came out with the 10...
Marco:
I no longer had to choose with every video.
Marco:
Do I want high resolution or high frame rate?
Marco:
I can have both.
Marco:
Now with the 11, I don't have to choose.
Marco:
Do I want good dynamic range or do I want 4K 60?
Marco:
Now I can have both.
Marco:
And that's really cool.
Casey:
Yeah, I'm super excited for this because I'm rocking an iPhone 10, as is Aaron.
Casey:
You know, it seemed imprudent last year to have just quit my job and then spend a whole bunch of money on hardware.
Casey:
But now that I know I am not yet in the poorhouse, I'm going to put myself in the poorhouse with all of this new Apple hardware.
John:
Well, you're not getting an 11, right?
Casey:
Yeah, absolutely.
John:
You get an 11 Pro, right?
Casey:
Oh, I'm sorry.
Casey:
You're confusing yourself again.
Casey:
I am.
Casey:
I'm telling you.
Casey:
I don't know what my deal is.
Marco:
Can we take a moment to appreciate what Apple has done here?
Marco:
This is really something.
Marco:
When the X came out, it was like, this is the phone that you should get if you care about iPhones.
Marco:
This is amazing.
Marco:
There used to only be one new phone every year that you would want to get.
Marco:
It came in two sizes for a while, but there was one...
Marco:
good flagship iPhone that came out every year.
Marco:
And then when, when the 10 came out, they had this weird thing with the 10 and the eight.
Marco:
And then with the, when the 10 S came out, they had the thing with the weird thing with the tennis and then the 10 R and the 10 R and the eight were both kind of like, here's the low end one.
Marco:
That's the afterthought.
Marco:
After we spent all the attention on the nice big new one, people don't like buying the afterthought.
Marco:
It isn't, it isn't a great feeling to go into the store and be like, well, there's the one I actually want, but it's too expensive.
Marco:
So I'm going to buy the cheap one.
Marco:
Um,
Marco:
Apple had to make the cheap one sound good again.
Marco:
And what they did here, I think was masterful in like, it isn't some like secondary name.
Marco:
It isn't like the iPhone special, the iPhone C, like, you know, nothing like that.
Marco:
Like it's, it's just, this is the iPhone 11.
Marco:
There's also the Pro over there, but this is the iPhone 11.
Marco:
And it is the new XR.
Marco:
It is the new, I say cheap, but you know, it's lower end, I guess.
Marco:
It's the less expensive phone.
Marco:
It's the phone that's at the price that the expensive phones used to be.
Marco:
But they really very hard positioned the 11 as this is the regular one.
Marco:
This is the one you should probably buy.
Marco:
And I think that's really smart because it reflects what the market really wanted, which is like, okay, you made these super expensive ones at the high end.
Marco:
That's nice for the nerds and the rich people, but for everyone else, we don't really want our phone to cost that much.
Marco:
We'd rather have this other one.
Marco:
So they marketed the 11 series in such a way that doesn't make all those buyers feel bad about what they're going to buy.
Marco:
It makes the 11 the default choice instead of trying to make the expensive one the default and then having people say, ooh, that's too expensive.
Marco:
Cut it down for me.
Marco:
Now it's like we're going to come in at the quote regular price of the $700-ish range that these now sit at again and say, all right, the 11 is the default phone.
Marco:
Nobody should feel bad about choosing the 11.
Marco:
It's great.
Marco:
It's the new iPhone, period.
Marco:
And also we have these other ones over here.
John:
But the 11 is the new iPhone, period.
John:
I think they did a pretty good job with the XR and XS.
John:
Obviously, the 8 also ran silly.
John:
It was so clear that it was the lesser phone.
John:
But the XR and the XS, both of them are modified.
John:
Neither is just the X. They both have a letter.
John:
Obviously, the letter is one earlier in the alphabet for the lesser phone.
John:
But the important thing about them...
John:
was that they had essentially the same system on a chip.
John:
There wasn't a last year's CPU-GPU combo.
John:
It was lesser, so it could be lower priced, and it had one letter or less, but the insides didn't make you feel like you were buying an iPhone 8.
John:
And I think that experiment of having them both be...
John:
equally adorned they both had a letter after them was to figure out you know because the aid is like or whatever you know we know the deal with the aid and it was it totally looked different didn't have the you know had touch id and all that stuff or that's not much of an experiment this experiment was which one will people actually buy and i think the consensus is that the 10r sold really really well and so that gives them the confidence to do this move this time it's like all right
John:
No more suffixes.
John:
And the completely unadorned one is the default, and that's the XR.
John:
Why?
John:
Because we know people love that phone.
John:
We know because they bought tons of XRs, right?
John:
And the same strategy.
John:
It doesn't have a lesser system on a chip.
John:
It's got the A13, right?
John:
It has one fewer camera, LCD instead of all.
John:
It's the XR formula all over again.
John:
It has just graduated to now.
John:
Now there is a distinction in games.
John:
One name is unadorned, and the one that's unadorned is not the fancy one.
John:
It's the slightly less fancy one, so...
John:
i think like it's trial run and then 10r was just to see what you know because for all we knew the 10r could have been a dud and it was like oh no everyone wants the 10s because the world like magically detects that that one's better or it could have even been the people prefer the 10s because it's a smaller size which is a thing a lot of people forget but it is but maybe they like the bigger one and i feel like the people have spoken with their wallets and what they've said is we love the 10r and so now it gets to be the iphone 11 and i think that's fine even though i think it's slightly too big for me
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
We also should mention that it has the return of the quick take camera, which I'm sure John has thoughts about.
Casey:
That is when you take video, it used to be that to do a burst, you would tap and hold on the shutter and it would just click, click, click, click, click, click and generate a mile long burst, which if you have small kids, you know, happens all the time.
Casey:
now instead if you tap and hold you'll get a video which i think is really great actually and nobody really knew if burst mode died or not but apparently i believe it's if you swipe left you get burst mode so you tap and hold and swipe left or something snapchat oh yeah you're not wrong uh but yeah quick take is back john you excited
John:
Yeah, I think I missed that.
John:
Did they actually intercap it just like the digital camera?
John:
I don't know.
John:
In the notes, it's not intercap.
John:
But yeah, they can reuse names.
John:
No one remembers the Quick Take cameras.
John:
Come on.
John:
And they weren't good anyway, so it's fine.
Casey:
Fair enough.
Casey:
They also said faster face ID, Wi-Fi 6, whatever that means, and it starts at $700.
Casey:
This is a really compelling phone.
Casey:
And I got to tell you, my mom has a XR.
Casey:
And I think you said it a minute ago, John, it's a little too big for me.
Casey:
I'm not entirely in love with the XS slash 11 Pro regular size version.
Casey:
I think that's even a little too big for me, too.
Casey:
But it works.
Casey:
The XR is definitely too big for me.
Casey:
But that said, what a great and compelling phone for any normal person who doesn't like setting money on fire.
Casey:
I really think that, as you guys had talked about earlier, this is the correct default choice.
Casey:
And only if you really, really, really have needs, including setting money on fire, should you even consider the 11 Pro.
John:
It's $100 less, right?
John:
The XR started at $799 and this starts at $699?
Casey:
Oh, yeah.
Casey:
Ben Thompson had a really great piece on that.
John:
Yeah, it actually is cheaper.
John:
Yeah, so it is a rare thing that happens.
John:
About this phone, the back of the XR was also glass, right?
John:
But this has the glass with the much larger camera bump to fit all the extra cameras.
John:
It's kind of weird that the iPhone 11 gets the same size camera bump even though it has one fewer camera in it.
John:
But anyway...
John:
um that whole idea of like carving out the glass on the back to handle the bump is i think a they're coming with more and more clever ways of sort of minimizing the the facial blemish that is the camera bump right so like you you want it's going to be there it's like it's like my nose like it's going to be there but makeup you can minimize it right if you want to um
John:
I think that is successful, at least in the pictures.
John:
We'll see how successful it is in real life.
John:
But the other thing about this sort of milled from a single thick piece of glass back that I thought they fumbled in the presentation was that their video, I think this was the 11, their video for it was showing the 11 getting chucked into people's purses and getting things spilled on it and falling off of tables and all sorts of stuff that was talking about the durability.
John:
but they didn't they didn't like they didn't back that up as part of the presentation yeah they mentioned toughest glass whatever but like it was just sort of a drive-by like is the pitch that the iphone 11 is substantially more durable than the 10r how much more durable and why i think that would be a great pitch because people break their phones all the time especially ones that are made of glass and they could lean into this and say yeah we continue making them out of glass and you know why
John:
because it's incredibly tough and this phone is even tougher than before and like put some numbers behind it but they didn't they were just they just went with the advertising thing of like look if we show you the phone being jostled and dropped or like again put in the purse with a bunch of other stuff like your keys and whatever that are scratching up against it is it more scratch resistant is it going to get scratched up is it more scratch resistant than these similar glass phones like what are you what are you trying to say here like they made that video but then they didn't back it up
John:
uh i'm hoping that the truth is that it is more durable than the 10r was i think glass is pretty good in terms of scratch resistance is why they make the screen out of it and making the back out of it is a good idea i have no idea how it's going to do in terms of shattering like they they showed it being dropped by a little robot but they didn't put any numbers behind it and i felt like that was a missed opportunity um because
John:
I think the 11 is a great phone.
John:
I think it has all the things.
John:
I think it looks nice and fancy.
John:
I think the things that it's missing are things that most people probably don't care about and probably shouldn't care about.
John:
And I think despite it being a size that Casey and I are not into, it's probably the right size for most people because people seem to like really big phones.
John:
Setting aside the always angry and untapped world of people who want smaller phones, this iPhone 11 looks like a great phone.
Casey:
Yeah, I really agree.
John:
We'll get to the Pro in a second, but honestly, for the 11 and the 11 Pro, I think these are very impressive phones.
John:
And I like the colors of the XR better, but I'm happy to see them change up the color scheme from year to year.
John:
If they want to go for a more pale pastel thing with, you know, the frosty camera bump and the glossy back on the 11, you know, fine.
John:
That's good for this year.
John:
We'll change up next year.
Casey:
Yeah, I don't think the colors are quite as good.
Casey:
I agree with you there.
Casey:
But I do like that there are a bunch of colors for these phones.
Casey:
And I do wish, even as someone who has literally never bought any phone other than black for himself, I do wish that the most fancy models had more colors, which we'll talk about basically right now.
Casey:
Okay, iPhone 11 Pro, this is what I will be getting.
Casey:
The line that I copied down in the notes, which I think is verbatim, this is from Phil Schiller.
Casey:
This is for people who want the best product made, even if we are not a pro, which I don't really care for the pro name because I think it means so many different things in so many different cases to Apple.
Casey:
But I thought that was a pretty good way to pitch it.
Casey:
So I'm kind of on board with that.
Casey:
Most of this is the same with the 11.
Casey:
The difference is the color.
John:
It's not the same with the 11.
John:
It's the same with the XS.
Casey:
Well, sure.
John:
This is another source of confusion.
John:
Some people were adamant that the iPhone 11 Pro was the same size as the XR because they're close enough and it's hard to see in pictures.
John:
So the XR is more or less the same size and shape as the iPhone 11, and the XS is more or less the same size and shape as the 11 Pro.
John:
This will all be much easier next year with the 12s when we presumably go into a more sane numbering scheme.
John:
Yeah.
John:
But yeah, the construction of this phone is very much like the XS.
John:
The thing that they share, I guess, is the frosted glass back.
Casey:
Yeah, what I was trying to say is all the features are more like the 11, but that was very ambiguous of me.
Casey:
Yes, this is physically far more like the XS.
Casey:
but the feature set is you know almost exactly the same as the 11 so the difference between the 11 and the 11 pro uh the color which extends into the camera camera bump on the 11 pro midnight green space gray silver and gold i don't really on my list of favorite colors you know green is not high up on this list but man how do you feel about midnight green it's not regular green
John:
who had green on the bingo card like if you had to like if you had to pick like all right on the high-end phones they're going to introduce one new color what's it going to be who the hell would have ever picked dark green so i think someone what i had heard this is that this is a popular color in china so obviously we don't know that but if that i maybe someone who knew us more about uh the current phone scene in china or chinese culture could have predicted that
John:
because usually there's usually one phone that's like the china color like that's like what is what is popular with the country with like billions of people in it it totally makes sense for them to cater to that and when something is inexplicable to us in the u.s i think maybe it's something you know and i don't know if that's true we'll find out and you know someone will send us follow-up or whatever but once i heard that i'm like oh that makes total sense
John:
This is not for you.
Casey:
So I've heard from people that have seen it in person that it is very similar to British Racing Green, which a lot of people even outside Britain have.
Casey:
Hey, I'm being told this from people who have seen it.
Casey:
People even outside Britain have a lot of affinity for that.
Casey:
I got to tell you, I'm a little worried about the pre-orders being sold out of green immediately because, oh my God, I want the green.
Casey:
I am not even kidding.
Casey:
This will be the worst time.
John:
I've been trying to talk my wife out
John:
of the green let me tell you why right it's not that i don't ruin this for me it's not that i have anything against the green but maybe maybe it doesn't apply to you but here so i mentioned this in the notes and this is true of the 11 and the 11 pro that the color is basically what we're talking about the color is on the back because the front has no color it's like an edge edge screen and then you know the color is basically the back and the sides the back case thing all right
John:
And on both of these phones, because it's a single piece of glass that they shave down to make the camera bump, the camera bump is the same color as the rest of the back of the phone.
John:
If you're going to put a case on this and you choose midnight green, now you kind of have to deal with the fact that there's going to be a fairly large square on the back of your phone that's going to be substantially midnight green.
John:
And that's not a neutral color.
John:
Now, I know the green is very subtle and it barely looks green, but I'm just saying from a fashion perspective, getting your phone in a neutral color, it's a lot easier to accessorize.
John:
My wife has multiple cases.
John:
She's got a red case.
John:
She's got a purple case.
John:
She's got a peach case.
John:
If you get a silver phone or a black phone, you can put any of those colors on it and it goes.
John:
If you get a midnight green phone, as much as you may love that peach case, how do you feel with a pale green lump sticking out of it?
Casey:
in the car okay first of all if i were to get a case for this which i might go back to being caseless casey list we'll see what happens if i if i go with a case for this it will either be the clear case or a black leather case where i don't think that'll be neutral with the case you don't have i guess if you don't want to accessorize with uh fun cases and you're just going to get a neutral case then i suppose then you're just left with a kind of an ugly green phone but okay
Casey:
see but i i think it looks having never seen it in person apple i would love to go to the store tomorrow and see it hint hint uh but having not seen it in person it looks really good to me and so i will be ordering uh midnight green for myself unless it's sold out instantly like jet black was in which case i'll just get black like i always or space gray as i always do having not seen these in person
John:
I'm always attracted to the white one that's not white.
John:
Whatever they call it, silver.
John:
But it always looks white in Apple's photos.
John:
What do they call it?
John:
They call it silver.
John:
Silver, yeah.
John:
They have made white phones in the past.
John:
The iPhone 4 was white and everything.
John:
I kind of like that look, and I almost bought my XS.
John:
in that color but the 10s like the silver was kind of like i don't know like uncooked shrimp color like it was just kind of like pale translucent grayish and i couldn't pull the trigger on it but the in apple's publicity shots once again the silver looks really cool and white i'll have to see what it looks like i'm not getting this funny why i care but but that that's that's the phone that stood out to me but i do definitely also want to see them in person because i want to feel the uh
John:
the frosted glass we're getting reports that it that it feels good from the people who are there uh but it's kind of you know i'm thinking of marco and his grippy uh polished iphone 7 that he used without a case i don't know how i can imagine matt being more slippery than that grippy one but i guess we'll all have to just you know hold them and find out
Casey:
Yeah, I'm really looking forward to this.
Marco:
A few things.
Marco:
Number one, I did get the silver slash white one for the XS and the X before that.
Marco:
And I like it a lot.
Marco:
The reason I got in the first place on the X is that it was a combination of factors.
Marco:
Number one was that I like the shiny silver band around the sides better than like the black band on the space gray one.
Marco:
And I also just think like the space gray 10 series phones just look really just like here's a blob of black.
Marco:
Like the front is black.
Marco:
The sides are black.
Marco:
The back is black.
Marco:
It's all just a big blob of black.
Marco:
And I feel like this industrial design looks better when you have the contrast of that shiny edge to the black screen to a light back.
Marco:
I just think it looks better that way.
Marco:
That being said...
Marco:
I will say to, you know, to Casey, I encourage you to get the green.
Marco:
Go bold.
Marco:
Get the new color because, look.
John:
It's not a bold green, though.
John:
I know.
Marco:
It really isn't.
Marco:
I mean, if you want to go bold, get the 10R, actually.
Marco:
It's much, much more bold.
Marco:
I don't mean the 11.
Marco:
I mean the 10R.
Marco:
But anyway, we nerds, look, again, I'm one of you here.
Marco:
Like, I'm speaking with you, not at you.
Marco:
we tend to default to just black everything.
Marco:
We're obsessed with black.
Marco:
Black mode, dark mode, black shirts, black cars, all this stuff, black everything, black phones, black iPads.
Marco:
In the last couple of years, I started buying the light ones again.
Marco:
And I kind of like it.
Marco:
I feel like I'm tired of black.
Marco:
There's too much black everywhere.
Marco:
Everything I am as a nerd, it's always black.
Marco:
I bought a red car a few years ago.
Marco:
I love it.
Marco:
Now I'm buying white phones.
Marco:
I love those.
Marco:
I look at the MacBook Air and I'm like, wow, the global looks pretty good.
Casey:
It's like,
Marco:
let's not go too far i encourage you all out there from from from casey to the audience john you're hopeless but from from casey to the audience i was making the exact same pitch i'm not hopeless i encourage all of you get a color don't just get black just mix it up sometime get the gold if you like the gold you know who knows just everything in your entire life doesn't have to be black i i understand as a nerd
Marco:
as a fashion challenge nerd especially that black is a safe choice you can buy black and you can know i'm never gonna have a mismatched case color like what john was just talking about i'm never gonna have a fashion faux pas i'm never gonna mismatch black goes with everything yes but but yeah but there was
John:
was it was a way for you to be able to get a bold colored case because that's how people accessorize and express themselves so you can get a bright purple or green or yellow and you and you can get multiple cases which is the thing my wife does she has multiple cases and they're all very bright colors and she uses them all i'm saying if you get a neutral phone you are free to express yourself with the boldest possible colors whereas if you get a green phone some of those bold colors are going to look gross with your cool case
John:
That's fair.
Marco:
I would say if your move is to let the case be your color, I would say either go with silver, which is the one I have, the white phone, because then you have the nice neutral silver band, and the little bit of it that you see poking at the bottom of most cases looks nicer.
Or...
Marco:
Or get gold because the gold matches cases in a cool, different way.
Marco:
Not every color case will look good with it.
John:
It's more limiting than neutral, but it's much better than green in terms of you can accessorize with gold because she's got a gold watch and she has lots of bands and lots of bands do look good with the gold watch.
John:
Yeah, yeah.
Marco:
So, yeah, I would just encourage you all, get some color.
Marco:
If you're going to get a case, as most people will, which is – it's funny.
Marco:
We all have so much focus on the colors here, but the reality is 99.9% of these phones are going to go right into cases and never see the light of day.
Marco:
I've been back on my XS ever since I switched from shorts to pants for the last couple of weeks.
Marco:
I've been back into caseless mode.
Marco:
In shorts, it just slides out too easily of the pockets, but in pants, I can do it.
Marco:
I've been caseless for a little while now, and I like it a lot.
Marco:
I'm looking around the world.
Marco:
I'm noticing how many other phones with no cases do I see in the world?
Marco:
I swear, it's close to zero.
Marco:
It might be zero.
Marco:
I'm looking around like...
Marco:
unless I'm hanging out with John Gruber or an Apple staffer, there's like, there's no case.
Marco:
No one is using phones without cases out there.
Marco:
Uh, effectively no one, you know, it might be more than zero, but it's not, it's basically zero.
Marco:
And so actually what matters more is like, what color case do you put on it?
Marco:
Uh, and, uh,
Marco:
most people aren't even using Apple's cases, and most non-Apple cases cover the bottom of the phone as well, and just have little cutouts for the speakers.
Marco:
Yeah, those are the worst.
John:
I do see a lot more clear cases, though.
John:
Have you seen a lot more clear cases?
John:
Not just Apple, but Android phones and everything.
John:
I see more clear cases, and I'm glad Apple's getting in on that, because that's the way to have your cake and eat it, too.
John:
Make a bold phone color, and then put a clear case on it.
John:
You can let your bold color show.
John:
I think it dims the bold color a little bit, as opposed to having a very bright case.
John:
I have to give this pitch for
John:
Apple's silicone cases in very bright colors, they look amazing.
John:
There's still the aging factor in that some of them, if you get a white one, it's going to look amazing for the first week and then not so much after that.
John:
But the really strong purple and really bright red, those things look great.
Marco:
And I would also say to all of you nerds out there, when you do select a case...
Marco:
Don't just get the black Apple case.
Casey:
That's what I do every year.
Marco:
I know, but you're missing out.
Marco:
Like having a brightly colored phone is fun and we all deserve to have some fun sometimes.
Casey:
Indeed.
Casey:
So I am all in on the midnight green.
Casey:
Marco, what are you going to be doing?
Casey:
Because you will be buying one of these.
Marco:
I'm going white again slash silver.
Marco:
For all the reasons I like it a lot.
Marco:
I respect the green as a choice.
Marco:
It's not for me.
Marco:
And for most of the pictures, the green looks very similar to the space gray, like in like how dark and relatively unsaturated it is.
Marco:
And from what people are saying who are in the hands-on, basically they say the similar thing of it's very similar to Space Gray.
Marco:
And so for all the same reasons I don't want Space Gray, I don't want the green either.
Marco:
I would love – I really hope someday they make a product red high-end phone because I think the red XR looked fantastic.
Marco:
And I haven't seen the Red 11 yet, but it probably also looks fantastic.
Marco:
I would love a red phone.
Marco:
Red is my color.
Marco:
If I'm going to have a color, it's going to be red.
Marco:
But unfortunately, it's not available.
Casey:
So these come in two models, the iPhone 11 Pro, the 5.8-inch and 6.5-inch, which is called the Pro Max.
Casey:
Again, I don't love these names, but I understand them.
Casey:
We talked about that a lot last episode, so I don't think there's too much to go into here.
Casey:
No 3D Touch, which bums me out.
Casey:
I might be the only person that uses 3D Touch and likes it a lot for peak and pop, among other things.
Casey:
So we'll see what this whole haptic touch thing is all about.
Casey:
I know a lot of you have lived with it already, but I have not.
Marco:
It's a long press.
Casey:
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure it'll be fine.
Casey:
I'm bummed about not being able to move the cursor quite so easily on the keyboard, or maybe I just don't understand it yet.
Casey:
We'll see what happens when I get the phone.
Marco:
Well, I think you long press the space bar now, right?
Casey:
Yeah, something like that.
Marco:
I mean, and honestly, I think that's fine.
Marco:
3D Touch has always been a little problematic.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
Not only, you know, people always, like, try to speculate.
Marco:
Like, what do normal people think?
Marco:
What can normal people understand and not understand?
Marco:
But I don't even need to go there.
Marco:
I had a hard time with 3D Touch all the time.
Marco:
I so often accidentally invoke it or can't get it to invoke right.
Marco:
And it interferes with so many things.
Marco:
It interferes with like, you know, holding down for long press menus on links in Safari.
Marco:
It interferes with moving icons in jiggle mode.
Marco:
Like there's so much around the OS and in apps that 3D Touch just gets in the way or delays.
Marco:
And so many invocations of 3D Touch for me over the years have been accidental or have failed.
Marco:
I can't even imagine what normal people are going through if I, as a fairly dexterous expert on how these platforms work, even I mess it up tons of the time.
Marco:
I can't even imagine how the rest of the iPhone population does with it.
Marco:
So I think removing it...
Marco:
is probably the right call.
Marco:
And that they probably found like, you know what, most people aren't using this, or at least they aren't intentionally using this, and they don't understand it, and it's too error prone, and it gets in the way, and it makes conflicts, and it makes everything actually harder to use for most of the time.
Marco:
So I think it's the right move to remove 3D touch.
Marco:
It was a cool idea.
Marco:
It was fun as a few little shortcuts here and there.
Marco:
Ultimately, we're probably not going to miss it much.
Casey:
I think even I won't miss it.
Casey:
I think I'll get used to the new world, but sitting here now, I feel like I'm going to miss it and that, and it just bums me out.
John:
But I would like to hear the tell all book about the decision because we know there's also a technical aspect of this.
John:
Like it's like you need sensors to do, to do like the, the, you know, the pressure sensitivity.
John:
Right.
John:
And,
John:
Apparently, it was hard to put them on the iPads because the screen would flex or whatever.
John:
So there is that angle of it.
John:
But, you know, at the Marcos point, there's also the metrics.
John:
I'm sure they measure how much people use 3D touch.
John:
And, you know, I've not seen people using it that much.
John:
So I bet it didn't get much usage.
John:
And it was an engineering...
John:
not difficulty but another thing you had to deal with engineering wise and it was potentially a semi-permanent difference between iPads and iPhones so all that combines to say no but I would love to know what the ratio is like was it mostly an engineering decision about sensors on the screen or was it mostly that nobody's using it and the reason I'm thinking about that is because I think about you know Marco just explained like the reasoning of why you would think it was good to get rid of it I'm thinking about the touch bar
John:
How many people use the touch bar and how easy is it to use and what benefits does it provide?
John:
Because Apple could go the other way and say, not enough people are using 3D touch.
John:
We need to push it harder.
John:
We need to revise the APIs.
John:
We need to integrate it into more parts of the system because we need to let people know how awesome 3D touch is and then we need to get them to use it more.
John:
That's not the approach they took with 3D touch.
John:
kind of the approach to stick with the touch bar which is it's going to be in our laptops you're just going to deal with it and we're going to still tell you that you need to support it in your apps albeit in a slightly more half-hearted way than they've done with other technologies so i was wondering like how do they decide which of their technologies are taking off what criteria they use to decide we're going to keep pushing this we think it has legs we think it's just a matter of education or we're just going to back off and say a combination of factors tells us that we're you know the 3d touch experiment has ended and it's going away now
Casey:
I think it's a combination of three things, right?
Casey:
It's that nobody uses it.
Casey:
It's the inconsistency between iPhone and iPad, like you said.
Casey:
And it is a sensor that adds both thickness and cost.
Casey:
And I think the three of those things put together would cause any, you know, any smart engineering team to say, is this really worth it?
John:
I could say the same thing about the touch bar.
Casey:
Yeah, well, fair, fair.
Casey:
But I would bet you the usage of the touch bar is far higher than the usage of 3D Touch, which pains me because I love 3D Touch, but again, I think I'm the only one.
John:
Yeah, I think you're right.
John:
I mean, for one thing, you can see it.
John:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John:
You know, that helps a lot.
John:
Think about how much more accidental usage it gets.
John:
People brushing it with their fingers and activating Siri because they don't know how to customize it to get rid of that stupid thing.
Yeah.
Casey:
All right, so the 11 Pros have spatial audio, and I am happy to announce that to match your forthcoming monitors, gentlemen, you have Super Retina XDR.
John:
This is one case where Apple's marketing just totally threw me for a loop in the moment.
John:
I took it too seriously, and I shouldn't have.
John:
Sometimes the marketing terms mean something, and sometimes they don't.
John:
They even, I think, made reference to the Mac Pro display, and it's like,
John:
what what do you mean like at first i thought so it's not oled anymore because everything about the big cinema display xdr thing is all about like controlling advanced control of a dynamic backlight with clever gating of that backlight to provide high contrast but control over that leak it like it's all about lcd technology oh let's don't have a backlight
John:
So what are you even talking about?
John:
I'm like, oh, my God, they got rid of the OLED.
John:
Maybe the liquid retina display on the XR was so good that the flagship phone now has an LCD.
John:
And they're saying it's XDR technology.
John:
Because here's the thing about the cinema display XDR.
John:
That technology works.
John:
It's used in reference displays.
John:
It's increasingly used in televisions that are in the planning stages or very high-end televisions that you could buy now.
John:
It actually has advantages over OLED.
John:
But it's also really hot, really thick and really expensive.
John:
I'm like, but they couldn't have put that in a phone.
John:
But the reason I entertained it at all is like, oh, my God, they found a way to take the technology from the Cinema Display XDR and squish it into a phone.
John:
And now it's like the best of both.
John:
No, it's just an OLED screen.
John:
They just put the letters on the end of it because it's the same letters they used before.
John:
XDR means nothing.
John:
It doesn't mean XR, XDR.
John:
It doesn't mean X-Doctor.
John:
It's just a marketing thing for a better OLED than they had last year, which is fine.
John:
But boy, I was definitely thrown for a loop for a period there during this presentation.
Marco:
But there is one consistent part of it.
Marco:
The iPhone 11 Pro does not come with a stand.
Yeah.
Casey:
the stand is your hand well done all right so this super retina xdr uh it does not have promotion it's 1200 nits p3 wide color hdr 10 dolby vision dolby atmos it's oled uh and it's apparently very uh durable but we don't really know in what ways they again mention the durability like oh it's the most durable screen you made no i bet it is
Marco:
They did run that whole video, that little ad for the phone, and durability was a huge focus of that.
Marco:
I thought it was interesting how little they actually talked about durability.
John:
Yeah, so it's the same thing with the 11.
John:
I felt like there was a disconnect.
John:
They had the content, they had the media for it, but they didn't have the spoken pitch.
John:
they didn't they didn't even say you know how much more durable twice as durable 10 times as durable the typical apple thing would be to find one particular test like in our drop test it's it could be dropped from twice as high and not mention any other tests like what about your bend test what about your twist test what about your crush test like just pick one test that it does better on and give us a number and we'll you know anyway we'll all find out when we use these phones i've i'm not a phone breaker so i don't know how durable the 10s is compared to any past phones uh but
John:
These things will go out into the real world and we'll find out.
John:
I'm hoping that, you know, when they say it's more durable, I'm sure that's pretty, you know, net net of all the things they do to test their phones, that this one is more durable.
John:
But in various times, they have changed the characteristics.
John:
We talked about it with the screen.
John:
Like if you make the screen softer, it's less likely to shatter, but more likely to get fine scratches on it.
John:
And they've swung that needle in various directions.
John:
Does this change the equation?
John:
Is this going more towards a harder screen that shatters more or going even farther in the softer screen that nicks but doesn't shatter?
John:
I don't know.
John:
We'll all find out when we get them in our hands.
John:
But Apple was not very forthcoming.
John:
The reason it frustrated me is this is a fruitful avenue for advertising.
John:
This is a thing that resonates with users.
John:
Everybody drops their phones.
John:
Everybody breaks them like...
Casey:
apple should be leaning on this heavily they just need to have a stronger pitch than a vague it's pretty durable like it's not it's not strong all right so much better performance particularly in machine learning and way better low power design i really did like and no joke the like mini wwdc engineering session about how they got this low power design i thought it was really really really cool and
Casey:
I don't know.
Casey:
I was going to breeze past this, but I assume, John, you're going to have some thoughts about it.
John:
What they were saying was sort of like a high-level version of all the same talks that Intel and all the other desktop chip manufacturers have been doing for years, albeit in a more advanced form, I'm sure, of like, this is how you make chips power efficient.
John:
You've got to only use the parts of it that you're using and only run them as fast as they need to run, and it's very complicated.
John:
Like,
John:
the desktop thing went from like we run the whole chip at the same speed all the time forever as a starting point and then it was like okay but now we occasionally slow the whole chip down and speed the whole chip up and now we can speed up and slow down two different sections of the chip and just keep getting finer and finer and finer grained and their explanation is like this is the state of the art like at a very low level we are just barely giving power to
John:
things that we need to run right now and clocking them just as high as they need to be clocked and it's all fiendishly complicated and like i think the summary thing to say here and i've seen i've seen some people waffling on this and i understand how people are waffling apple has the best system on a chips of any phone manufacturer they have had the best ones for years and years they are dominating the industry in such an embarrassing ridiculous way that it's not even a question if anybody says oh i kind of believe apple's claims they have the best chips are you kidding me
John:
These chips in their phones are so far ahead of anybody else in the industry, it's not even funny, that, I mean, you can lose your lead, just look at Intel, but for now, let's just say that Apple is, at the very least, maintaining their lead, which is substantial, if not extending it, so...
Marco:
you know good chips as always uh there's a fast charger in the box which is the 18 watt version and is is this the exact same one that comes with the ipad pro so it's usbc i believe so i mean it's it has the same specs it looks the same so it's probably the same one it is it is probably the 18 watt power charger that came with the ipad pro as of this past fall has a usbc to lightning cable uh which is you know finally right like
Marco:
I'm disappointed that the entire phone isn't USB-C, as we discussed last episode, but I'm at least very happy they took this baby step towards it.
Marco:
The 18-watt charger is a substantial step up from the 5-watt charger and even the 10-watt iPad ones.
Marco:
You do need USB-C, I believe, to reach those.
Marco:
I don't think the USB-A specs allow that much power, at least not without going to the weird fast-charged Qualcomm things, maybe, I don't know.
Marco:
But the regular ones don't.
Marco:
So that's probably why they want USB-C.
Marco:
I'm just happy.
Marco:
The faster we can get to a USB-C world in the charging area, the better, because it really is way better than A for that.
Marco:
I wish the whole phone wouldn't see, but oh well.
Marco:
11 doesn't get it which is kind of disappointing right only the pro which i mean it's kind of a stupid little thing to be different uh if i'm honest like it's it's not i don't think it's a significant cost difference uh it's might be some kind of weird market segmentation thing i don't know it just it's kind of a weird thing
Casey:
Nevertheless, I am excited for it.
Casey:
No reverse wireless charging.
Casey:
We had heard lots of rumors he'd be able to either charge AirPods or charge even another phone from your phone.
Casey:
Turns out that didn't ship.
Casey:
There's rumors that we heard that it got pulled at the last minute.
Casey:
I have no idea if that's true or not, but, you know, it is what it is.
Marco:
that see i don't even care about that either like that yeah i don't either usually the last thing i want to do is give up some of my phone's battery life yeah like i don't know a lot of people who go around with so much extra phone battery life all the time that they're willing to charge other devices with their phone even low power things i would use it of course you would but no normal human
John:
I've got excess power in my phone.
John:
And I very often, I carry sort of a combination.
John:
I carry my AirPods and my phone with me kind of in the same pocket.
John:
And sometimes I'll put the phone down and I'll take the AirPods out and put them in the case.
John:
And I put the AirPod case on the back of my phone, which is face down.
John:
But they don't charge.
John:
But they could.
John:
Because the battery in the AirPod case is so tiny.
John:
I know it's not like the Apple Pencil, but it's close.
John:
Like, yes, it would take power from my phone.
John:
But I've got a square to spare for that little guy.
Casey:
Wow.
Casey:
I agree with you, Marco.
Casey:
I don't think I would use this for AirPods because my AirPods are extremely rarely that discharged.
Casey:
I could see myself using this in a pinch with another phone.
Casey:
Like let's say I'm out with Erin and her phone is at 20% and mine's at 80% or something like that.
Casey:
I could see maybe doing a phone-to-phone transfer, if you will, a juice transfusion, I guess, between the two.
Casey:
But I don't think I would use this for much else.
Casey:
But, you know, it doesn't bump me out that it's not there, but I'm sure I'd like it if it was.
Marco:
Like, think about the practical side of it, too.
Marco:
Like, there's a number of issues with bidirectional charging.
Marco:
Like, I think this is why it's kind of a gimmick so far in the Android world, and it's not really, you know, taking off.
Marco:
First of all, Qi charging is not very efficient.
Marco:
So it's not like, you know, if you have the same phone, and yours is at 80%, and your wife's is at 40%, and you put them together, they're not going to meet in the middle.
Marco:
you're going to spend a lot more of yours to charge hers up a little bit because it's not anywhere near 100% efficient in the transfer or the battery itself charging itself.
Marco:
All these processes have losses, especially the chi part of it.
Marco:
That's a pretty big loss on that.
Marco:
It's inefficient.
Marco:
It's also slow.
Marco:
And during the part that it's charging, like for the most part, it's going to immobilize both of the things that are involved here.
Marco:
So like if you imagine the scenario of like, oh, my watch is low for the day.
Marco:
I will charge my watch with my phone.
Marco:
Okay, well, you've got to set the phone down, set the watch exactly across the back of it, make sure it's exactly centered, let it charge, and then you have no phone and no watch for the next, what, 20 minutes?
Marco:
It's going to take a while to give it a meaningful charge that will actually get you very far through the day, right?
Marco:
Similar thing, like if you look at AirPods.
Marco:
I mean, AirPods are a little bit better in that you can at least charge the case while they're in your ears, like John was saying.
Marco:
But still, like...
Marco:
How many people are going to want their phone to be totally incapacitated and face down on whatever surface while it is losing quite a bit of its battery to inefficiently and slowly charge something else?
Marco:
It just sounds not that good, and that alone could be why they seem to have pulled it.
Marco:
It doesn't seem like it's that useful in practice.
John:
yeah i don't know why whether it was pulled or whether it was never there to begin with because it's just a rumor but it seems to me that it's the type of feature that they could actually enable with software like they could actually the hardware could be there for it and they could just either never enable it and like so fine we never get it but if they decide oh
John:
it's a thing we can do.
John:
They could enable it in a point update.
John:
It could be one of the things that got pulled from .0, or they could just never end up doing it.
John:
I don't think phone-to-phone was ever in the cards, but it's for the AirPods.
John:
The battery is very small.
John:
People put it on the back of their phone already, but I don't care that it wasn't there.
John:
It was widely rumored, and it's the type of thing where
John:
Kind of like the U1, which we haven't talked about too much.
John:
They didn't talk about the U1 at all, but it's on their slides.
John:
They didn't introduce the tile thing that keeps track of your stuff.
John:
But they basically shipped the hardware for it and apparently shipped most of the software for it.
John:
But it's not an announced product or feature at this point.
John:
So the reverse wireless charging, I'm binning into that same thing of like...
John:
You don't know that they didn't ship everything except for the software, so stay tuned, I suppose.
Casey:
Pro cameras.
Casey:
Three cameras in a peculiar-looking camera bump.
Casey:
I'm not as deeply offended as some are by the look of this.
Casey:
It does not look good, the camera bump, I don't think.
Marco:
it doesn't look as good as the old one but it's growing on me it's more of a camera plateau anyway it's true i think it's fine like who cares it's fine it's okay we're all gonna get used to it like every every time the camera bump has changed we've there there have been a certain number of us who've been like oh it's so ugly i can't believe they did that who could live with that ugly unsightly camera bump and then like a week later we all forget about it and we all have the phone and it's fine
John:
yeah odd numbers are problematic though like when they go to forward it will really look like uh the stove top that we all wanted it to be what they really need to do is start making they really they'll they'll screw up that symmetry or not screw up but like there is an opportunity to make the circles not all the same size i know that like that aesthetically that's not great but optically there may be opportunity for that to happen anyway like we should just resign to the fact that the back of our phones is going to increasingly look like the uh what are they the sentinels from the matrix with a million mechanical eyes
John:
yeah yeah they should start making little face arrangements with them yeah like a little like smile on the back hey i'm your camera well you do have to kind of like like that's why the bump is the same on the like the packaging wise it's good to be able to kind of say here is the camera cluster because there's also it's not just the cameras there's also the little flash thingy and the microphone and you have to find some place to put all this stuff but uh
John:
But yeah, the 11, it looks a little spare.
John:
It's like, really?
John:
The same size bump as the Pro, but one fewer camera?
John:
You got a lot of empty space there.
John:
Anyway, but it's fine.
Casey:
So there are three cameras wide, which is 26mm f1.8, telephoto 52mm f2, and ultrawide f2.4, which has 120 degree field of view.
Casey:
13mm, by the way.
Casey:
Oh, sorry.
Casey:
So I have sitting here now, I have mixed feelings about this.
Casey:
I bet you anything that as soon as I get this, I'm going to think it's amazing.
Casey:
But sitting here now, I feel like if I were to ask for another lens on my camera, it would not be ultra wide.
Casey:
It would be more zoom.
Casey:
Because if anything, I want to get closer to what I'm trying to photograph, not back.
Casey:
further away from it.
Marco:
Is this not more zoomed?
Marco:
The zoom and the now middle one are exactly the same.
Marco:
And now the only thing that's been added is that the wide is now added.
Marco:
But the other two are exactly the same that they were before.
John:
Are they literally exactly the same camera and sensor?
Marco:
Or just the same focal length?
Marco:
That's a good question.
Marco:
They didn't talk much about it.
John:
No, they did not.
Marco:
They said something about like, you know, they said some statement that made it sound like it's a minor improvement on the main sensor.
John:
Well, the front one is a different camera.
John:
Because it has a different... Well, actually, I can't even say that definitively.
John:
The front one now captures more pixels than it did before.
John:
I'm assuming it's also a different camera mechanism.
John:
But the back ones, I don't know.
Marco:
I mean, they're probably all revised sensors of some kind.
Marco:
But it seemed like... Oh, and the telephoto has a wider aperture now.
Marco:
It's now f2.0.
Marco:
I forget what it was before, but it was not that wide before.
Marco:
So it was like...
Marco:
they've been improved, but it seems like they haven't been improved in massive ways.
Marco:
The main thing is the software changes, things like the night mode, the extended dynamic range of video, stuff like that.
Marco:
That's very new.
Marco:
And then also now the ultra-wide
John:
uh which which is interesting and the deep fusion this is like so i think apple's got a team obviously that does their computation photography stuff and there's sort of one glamour feature each year of this like portrait mode as an example and they seem to be on a cadence that's like three months off of of the september apple it's like
John:
just can we just shift like i know it's hard to give them a time machine or some kind of stasis capsule because they're they're the cool computation photography thing is always like coming later it's like oh you just missed it you just missed it and they're going to keep just missing it if they take a year to work on the next anyway um that deep fusion thing looked pretty cool i'm much more excited about that than i am for portrait mode which i basically never use and i'm not a fan of because this is just straight up like when you take a picture with this
John:
you it shouldn't jump out at you if it jumps out at you that we did anything weird to the picture uh we've not done our job it's kind of like hdr where sometimes if you're in the know you can kind of tell an hdr picture but the deep fusion thing is i think trying to be even more subtle it's like it's just going to look like a better exposed picture with more detail and you're not going to know how we did it and the answer is how we did it was we used all three of our cameras and we took a bazillion pictures and we mushed them all together and hopefully as far as you're concerned you just got one great picture and you don't have to know how it happened and that's
John:
That's the dream we all want from our phone cameras, which can't physically be as good as a quote-unquote real camera, but computationally, they can try to make up for it.
Marco:
Yeah, and there's all sorts of tricks to do now.
Marco:
I think one of the biggest parts of the camera story of all three of these new phones is just how much smarter they're able to be with the software now.
Marco:
And some of the under-the-hood changes that aren't... It's hard to really explain.
Marco:
So, for instance, like they were saying about... There was that wonderful demo from Phil McPro where you're actually shooting for multiple cameras at once.
Marco:
There was a part that Phil, I think, was saying about how...
Marco:
when you're zooming between the cameras, all the lenses are always activated.
Marco:
They're already primed for autofocus and auto-exposure and white balance and everything, so that when it switches between two cameras as you're zooming, you don't see the change.
Marco:
It doesn't jump in.
Marco:
It's already there.
Marco:
it seems like they are actually just running all three cameras all the time whenever any one of them is open.
John:
That's how deep fusion things.
John:
It's like nine images before you press the shutter.
John:
It's just all cameras are all constantly recording pictures into this giant rolling buffer.
John:
Right.
Marco:
And when you look at something like that and the whole thing earlier about the extended dynamic range in video where it seems like they're probably going to be shooting 120 frames a second at 4K,
Marco:
from all three cameras at the same time.
Marco:
This is an incredible feat of camera sensor bandwidth and then the image signal processor.
Marco:
The pipeline that they have here of just dumping out so much pixel data from these cameras all the time, that they're operating at least, dumping out all this picture data and then the amount of processing it has to do in real time
Marco:
in a phone is amazing like that that to me is like the biggest part of this story is all this kind of like under the hood stuff that like most people wouldn't even know why that's impressive but even if you know the slightest little bit about how any of this works you're like wait a minute
Marco:
that means they're reading all three sensors dumping off like 4k 120 of all of them and processing all of that live like it's crazy and it's it's really you know quite something else to think about like all that they're doing here to achieve this so like and i think that's why they went into a little bit like why they called out some of the things like how the cameras are all active as you zoom like they they want to call that out because like otherwise we'd never know this stuff or we'd never think about this stuff and we wouldn't appreciate it but like if you're if you're a
Marco:
like a camera nerd or like just a data processing nerd.
Marco:
And you hear this, you're like, whoa, that's actually, that's pretty impressive.
Marco:
So in real terms, like, it's just going to mean the camera is more invisible.
Marco:
Like,
Marco:
We are not going to constantly be hit over the head as users of these cameras, how awesome they are.
Marco:
It's just going to work nicely.
Marco:
And we are going to have zero appreciation for all this work and tech that are going into it as we're using it.
Marco:
But it's just going to be nicer.
Marco:
And that, I think, that's why...
Marco:
Every year I tell myself, maybe I shouldn't get the new phone.
Marco:
It's so wasteful.
Marco:
My phone is fine.
Marco:
And then every year they get me with the camera stuff.
Marco:
They always get me with the camera stuff.
Marco:
And this is one of those years.
Marco:
By the way, they also say Face ID is faster and works from more angles and further distance away, which that would probably have gotten me alone.
Marco:
But the fact is, these camera improvements, even though, as we just said, it sounds like the actual sensors themselves on the previous two cameras aren't that different.
Marco:
Although, someone in the chat reported that the...
Marco:
the telephoto before was f2.4 now it's f2.0 that's a pretty big uh increase in light coming into it so the telephoto before like the telephoto was noticeably worse picture wise before now that difference should be a lot smaller um so the telephoto is f2.0 the wide is f1.8 so it's close i believe that's a half stop down something like that so
Marco:
It's now significantly better on the telephoto end.
Marco:
And you have this new ultra wide, which again, like Casey, if I had a choice of where to get more zoom range, I would have picked more telephoto zoom range for sure.
Marco:
I would use that a lot more.
Marco:
I want more reach so I can take pictures of things further away from me.
Marco:
However, I will use the ultra-wide.
Marco:
And especially as I think Jason was saying on Upgrade, that rumored feature about how you'll be able to crop after the fact did actually seem to ship.
Marco:
You'll be able to reverse crop out from a wide shot into an ultra-wide for some period of time.
Marco:
All the time, I take pictures where...
Marco:
oh, I accidentally cut off somebody's feet or something.
Marco:
Like, and it looks a little bit wrong.
Marco:
It's like, oh, if I just had a little bit more width, I could fix this picture.
Marco:
This could be a much better picture.
Marco:
And so I will actually probably use that a lot.
Marco:
Again, I would have preferred telephoto, but that's still pretty cool.
Marco:
So anyway, all this stuff, like, this is a massive camera update.
Marco:
Even if you just get the 11 and you don't have the telephoto, it's still a pretty impressive camera update.
Marco:
And the telephoto just adds to it on the Pro.
Marco:
Like, it's just, I think it's great.
Marco:
And that unquestionably makes me ignore all my guilt about buying a new phone every year.
Marco:
I just, nope, I'm buying it.
Marco:
I need these camera updates.
Casey:
I also am really amped to get a better camera because I didn't get the XS that I've mentioned a couple times.
Casey:
And I always slightly regretted it because the cameras were better.
Casey:
And the more cool camera tech that Apple introduces...
Casey:
the less excited I am about picking up my quote-unquote big camera.
Casey:
And the reason I still pick up my big camera is because the zoom is much better and because the bokeh, however you pronounce it, is also much better.
Casey:
And I don't feel like it would serve anyone for us to go on another tangent about portrait mode.
Casey:
But what I will say is, even leaving bokeh aside...
Casey:
All of the pictures that my iPhone takes and has taken for years and years and years now are automatically geotagged.
Casey:
And over time, they're getting better at doing auto aperture setting, auto exposure setting.
Casey:
I'll be able to do this.
Casey:
What was it?
Casey:
Night Sight.
Casey:
Is that right?
Casey:
Where, you know, it'll brighten up.
Casey:
It's not right.
John:
That's the good name that Google took.
John:
It's Night Trap.
Casey:
Well, in any case, whatever they call it, whatever they call it, I'll be able to see in the dark now.
Casey:
This computational photography stuff is just getting to the point that it is utterly bananas.
Casey:
What did Phil say?
Casey:
Computational photography, mad science.
Casey:
And it's true.
Casey:
And there's going to come a time, I would guess, in the next couple of years where I might decide subconsciously, yeah, I might not get the perfect bokeh, bokeh, whatever that I want from my phone.
Casey:
But everything else will be so much better that I might just stop picking up my big camera, which stinks because there's some tea ceremony or whatever we joked about for my vinyl.
Casey:
There's some tea ceremony stuff with the big camera that I still appreciate.
John:
Of course there is.
Casey:
Of course there is.
Casey:
There's so much there's so much about the cameras on these phones that are it's just preposterous.
Casey:
And, you know, the YouTuber that hasn't quite died completely within me, but is mostly dead within me, you know, was looking at this filmic demo.
Casey:
And just my jaw hit the floor.
Casey:
It was it looked incredible.
Casey:
Oh, my goodness.
Casey:
How cool would it be to get basically two or maybe even three simultaneous cameras shot all at once so I can ping pong between the wide and the not so wide shots?
Casey:
All of that looked amazing.
Casey:
And by the way, quick aside, the filmic employee.
Casey:
That was off to the right of the screen, which I think is stage left.
Casey:
So it doesn't matter.
Casey:
Anyway, the guy was on the right as you watch the video or watch the keynote.
Casey:
I thought he was the most polished by far of the non Apple presenters.
Casey:
I thought he was great.
Casey:
But anyways, all of this camera stuff is getting me to the point that even though I love having a big camera and I love the pictures that come off of it, you know, I just came back from the beach for a week and that some of those pictures that I was able to take are just truly phenomenal.
Casey:
But there were a lot of pictures that I didn't get because the light wasn't good enough or because it was too dark or whatever the case may be.
Casey:
Or maybe I'm just not a good enough photographer.
Casey:
But so much of this, I think, might be able to be fixed or even synthetically with some of this computational photography mad science.
Casey:
And I am...
Casey:
In some ways, I wonder if these improvements are the improvements that will make the most difference in my life.
Casey:
I think if you look at what does an iPhone do for Casey Liss, number one, it lets me communicate with people.
Casey:
But number two, it lets me document my life and my children's lives in a way that is getting ever more impressive with every year.
Casey:
And I think all of us, myself especially, lose sight of that and how important that is and how incredible that is.
Casey:
And this is not even to get started on the Apple Watch and all the health benefits it's had in my life as well.
Casey:
But just the camera stuff on the iPhone is incredible.
Casey:
And I'm really, really looking forward to getting this three camera setup and seeing what I can do with it.
John:
So Marco mentioned before that the cameras are recording all these images all the time, and then the caveat, well, of course, when the cameras are on, meaning when the camera app is launched.
John:
And that made me think about this other angle of these phones.
John:
You mentioned the Yuan before, and also I mentioned the A13, the matrix math unit or whatever.
John:
We've had a topic in the notes that we haven't gotten to because there's been more pressing stuff, but I think we'll get to eventually about the AR stuff.
John:
So...
John:
I feel like these phones are at the point now, and I think there were some rumors about this potentially being features that's used, where even when you're not in the camera app, for the purposes of orienting the phone for its ultra-wideband near-field communication with things, all the different sensors that are in this phone, it's got a GPS, it's got a gyroscope, it's got this ultra-wideband thing, it's got a bunch of cameras, it's got accelerometers in it,
John:
And the new matrix math thing, which is, yes, I'm sure useful for lots of other things, but also would be useful for dealing with orientation and telemetry for a head-mounted display.
John:
This is another situation where I feel like the hardware for lots of stuff that has not been announced has nevertheless shipped.
John:
When we get these iPhone 11s, they are...
John:
ready and capable to do AR both with and without a head-mounted display in a much more sophisticated way than even just their predecessors, down to potentially constantly pulling in camera data to help orient.
John:
The one feature I think they ship with this is the people we're playing with in the demo room is if you airdrop to somebody,
John:
And they have another one of these fancy iPhones that the phones kind of know where they are and where they're pointing in relation to each other by, you know, fusing together all their various sensors, including especially the new U1, which is the extra bit that they didn't have before.
John:
And so you can kind of point your phone at somebody to airdrop to them and point at a different person.
John:
I don't know how it works.
John:
I didn't see anyone demonstrating this.
John:
But...
John:
this is another reason the 11 i don't i yeah it's in both of them right the u1 is in both of them and the camera like the the 11 and 11 pro are interesting to me from an ar perspective even though apple didn't announce any ar stuff or any ar headset and they didn't announce their tile replacement they didn't announce any of that stuff but they kind of shipped it as well like even people were pulling apart the headers saying like all the head mounted display stuff is actually shipping in the ios 13 gm like they didn't even remove it it's like
John:
There's frameworks, there's APIs, there's starboard, which, you know, is kind of a play on springboard.
John:
It's like kind of the environment that controls the head-and-mounted displays.
John:
The theory is that star stands for stereo AR.
John:
Oh.
John:
It's, yeah, like, it's a very strange situation, but, like, there is another shoe that has to drop.
John:
Maybe it won't even drop this year, but...
John:
It's kind of like buying a Tesla where you think it's going to be automatic self-driving.
John:
If you get an iPhone 11, it might be totally ready to do super-duper head-mounted AR in a way that previous phones could not do.
John:
Or maybe not.
John:
We'll see.
Casey:
It's a really good point, John.
Casey:
I am interested in a way I don't think I ever have been before in what software updates will come to these devices over the next year or two.
Casey:
Because as you said...
Casey:
we don't know, but it stands to reason that a lot of software updates could come to these that enable things that we didn't even realize that the hardware had.
John:
Just setting aside the things they announced, like the, whatever that was, the deep fusion mode, which they said they're going to do, iCloud shared folders, and all the other stuff that got punted out of 13.0, and we should mention that, by the way, the ship dates for the OS stuff, what was it, I think I had at the bottom, oh, iOS 13 is coming September 19th, but
John:
I'm not sure if that's to everybody.
John:
I think they said the iPads will only come with 13.1.
John:
Anyway, 13.1 is supposedly coming the 30th.
John:
13.0 is coming the 19th.
John:
Those are the announced dates for those two point releases.
John:
What hardware you get and what OS it will ship with and what OS will be available by the time you get it, we'll see.
John:
But we've talked about this before.
John:
This is going to be a weird staggered release, and 13.0 is probably going to be a short-lived OS in the hearts and minds and hopefully devices of all the people out there.
Casey:
Let's see what else for these.
Casey:
I was looking at what model to buy because every year we always have the dance of, do you get the AT&T one?
Casey:
Do you get the T-Mobile one?
Casey:
There are A2160 and A2161.
Casey:
I was looking through the tech details of the LTE bands and this and that and the other thing.
Casey:
There's a difference, but darned if I know where this is.
Casey:
I looked at all the FDDLTE bands, all the TDLTE bands, the CDMA bands, et cetera, et cetera.
Casey:
I don't know what the difference is.
Casey:
So out of pure curiosity, I would like to know if there's any empirical difference between 2160 and 2161.
Casey:
There must be if there's two models, but write me on Twitter if you can tell the difference.
Casey:
There will be clear cases for all three models of phones.
Casey:
The 11 Pro starts at $1,000.
Casey:
The 11 Pro Max starts at $1,100.
Casey:
So I am – I'm moved to tears.
Casey:
Pre-order start at 8 a.m.
Casey:
one true time zone.
Marco:
Yes.
Marco:
We should play We Are the Champions for this.
Casey:
I know.
Casey:
Seriously.
Casey:
I am being a little bit facetious when I'm clapping and all that.
Casey:
But no, really and truly, the West Coast has had – what was it?
Casey:
Midnight West Coast time for a decade plus –
Casey:
finally if there was ever a time for me to use finally finally this coming friday at the slightly unfortunate time of 5 a.m pacific but the delightful time of 8 a.m one true time zone that is when we will be doing pre-orders now of course i'm going to regret this when i don't get my green because everyone else is going to be awake at that point doing their pre-orders but sitting here now i am overjoyed
Casey:
that finally, at a reasonable time for the East Coast, we can do our pre-orders.
Casey:
I am so very excited.
Casey:
Thank you, Apple.
Casey:
This is great news.
Casey:
Finally, on the presentation, Deirdre came up for the retail update.
Casey:
We already talked about the Apple Watch Studios, as they call it.
Casey:
They talked a bit about Apple trade-in.
Casey:
So they said that the 11 Pro could be as cheap as $600 with an iPhone X trade-in.
Casey:
I put a pretty bad gouge in my screen when I was at the beach by accident.
Casey:
And so I probably would have kept this phone anyway, just because I'd like to have a relatively modern backup.
Casey:
but as soon as i said to them oh yeah there's a kind of big gouge in the screen during the trade-in like uh mock-up or rough draft or you know whatever uh they were basically like oh yeah that's that's worth nothing have fun um like in the movie where you go into like the big biker bar where you aren't one of the people who goes there and like the record scratches everyone turns and looks at you like that's like oh yeah it's my phone is great but yeah the screen is damaged oh
Casey:
nope that's it it's all over all over um and then they said so these will ship on the 20th of december which is the same time as the watches that is uh next friday as we record uh they also made mention that they're doing monthly payments for the uh for the new phones which does not appear to be the iphone upgrade program mind you this is just a straight up monthly payment
Casey:
And they also made mention in the retail section that the Apple Fifth Avenue Cube reopens on that same day.
Casey:
We already talked about the iOS release schedule.
Casey:
One other thing I wanted to quickly mention is that I was looking at the iPhone X Pro website on my iPad.
11 Pro?
Casey:
Sorry.
Casey:
God, I am a disaster.
Casey:
This is a rough naming transition here.
Casey:
It really is.
Marco:
It's pronounced X Pro.
Casey:
The iPhone X Pro.
Casey:
I was looking at the 11 Pro website on my iPad Pro, and they had a little link for button or whatever for look at it in AR.
Casey:
I thought, well, I don't know what I'm going to discover by this, but yeah, let me look at it in AR.
Casey:
And so I was sitting on my living room floor.
Casey:
And I waved my iPad around, and thankfully Erin wasn't paying attention because she would have looked at me like a crazy person.
Casey:
But eventually an iPhone 11 Pro showed up on my living room floor.
Casey:
And I know this is old news to everyone else, but that thing looked incredibly real.
Casey:
And just for grins, I held up my iPhone X next to it, and they were basically identically sized, which is exactly what it should be.
Casey:
It was extremely, extremely cool.
Casey:
I was very impressed.
John:
Yeah, it's like the demos when we were at WWDC and saw the Mac Pro demos and everything.
John:
The thing they added that finally sort of got it over the line of looking close to real is the lighting.
John:
I don't know which particular thing.
John:
Some form of...
John:
mostly faked, quote-unquote, faked global illumination because they can't do the real thing.
John:
But having some kind of global illumination where it reflects the environment back onto the device and there's sort of an ambient diffuse light, like, it places the element in its...
John:
environment much more convincingly than the old ones which just look like you're drawing like a 3D rendered thing that has no awareness that it's on a green carpet or something and that that little bit plus a little bit of extra ambient fake game derived bounce lighting I forget what the branding they put on this their reality composer or whatever like there's
John:
They have frameworks for this.
John:
It's, you know, established game tech.
John:
But using it in AR really gives a big boost to AR to make it more convincing and more sort of like, it's a thing that regular people will notice.
John:
They're just like, oh, it's cool.
John:
It's like there's a phone there.
John:
But it's a big step up.
John:
And I think that's what you're seeing.
John:
It's like, I didn't realize AR was as good.
John:
It's the magic of slightly better lighting.
Marco:
Thanks to our sponsors this week, Mack Weldon, Squarespace, and Fracture, and we will see you next week.
Marco:
Now the show is over.
John:
They didn't even mean to begin because it was accidental.
Casey:
Oh, it was accidental.
Casey:
John didn't do any research.
Marco:
Marco and Casey wouldn't let him.
Marco:
Cause it was accidental.
Marco:
It was accidental.
John:
And you can find the show notes at ATP.FM.
John:
And if you're into Twitter.
Marco:
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-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-N-S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A Syracuse It's accidental They didn't mean to Accidental Tech Podcast So long
Casey:
Do we want to have an after show?
Casey:
Because this ran damn long.
Marco:
Oh, my God.
Marco:
This was so long.
Marco:
A lot of stuff to talk about.
Casey:
I feel like we haven't had a real long one in a real long time, though.
John:
So give us a pass.
John:
That makes it okay.
John:
I could trim it a little bit.
John:
Plus, we had the St.
John:
Jude thing.
John:
It all went over.
John:
By the way, good job, everyone in St.
John:
Jude.
John:
We crossed 60K.
John:
Nice.
John:
What are we up to now?
John:
We are up to 61, 231.
John:
Good job.
Casey:
Well done, live people.
Casey:
That's awesome.
John:
Let's assume it was all you and not other people.
Casey:
Yeah, fair point, fair point.
Casey:
But still, well done, live people.
Casey:
You make us proud.
Marco:
And non-live people, let's kick their butts.
Marco:
Kick live people's butts.
Marco:
Let's really blow this out.
Marco:
Because live people are great, but they are few.
Marco:
Yeah, there's a heck of a lot more non-live people than there are live people.
John:
This was in my record of show notes for the episode I just recorded, and I forgot to mention it, so I'll mention it here.
John:
Actually, you touched on it at the beginning, right?
John:
So we have our own URL, stjude.org slash ATP.
John:
Everyone has their own URL on Relay.
John:
It's like stjude.org slash name of the show or abbreviation for the show, right?
John:
And those are all the URLs we're giving.
John:
But I haven't heard anyone discuss, and I started thinking, does this mean someone is tracking how much money comes from each show?
John:
Is this a competition?
John:
What do you win if you send the most money to the thing?
John:
It hasn't been gamified, but yet we look at the URLs and we know there must be tracking for it.
John:
So I feel like there's this competitive element that is unspoken, but I'm speaking it now.
Marco:
someone could be tracking this someone should be tracking this and that means it's a game that we can win and here's the thing listeners let me tell you for them for to make up the difference right now to make to just push them over the goal right now it would you know i told you earlier listeners that i want you to really consider giving at least a hundred dollars do you know how many how many of you need to give a hundred dollars to push them over the limit
Marco:
0.1 percent of you that's all it will take so as long as more than 0.1 percent of all of you give them at least a hundred dollars they're going to hit their goal they're going to blow past their goal so let's that should be a minimum bar like that's the least we can do we can do even better than that