Shorts-Compatible Body Type
Marco:
So I had another one of my Razer gaming laptops have a significant problem.
Casey:
Oh, there's a surprise.
Marco:
Yeah, this is mine.
Marco:
So this is this is the one that gets the least use because it's mine.
Marco:
So, you know, it's only like when I'm playing family games like I don't really play by myself.
Marco:
It's I think five years old, something like that, maybe more, maybe six.
Marco:
It's it's it's it's not new.
Casey:
It's six years old and running Windows.
Casey:
So you've reinstalled Windows 12 times at this point.
Marco:
Well, never, because it's a gaming laptop, so I don't care how bad it gets.
Marco:
But we were in the middle of a family Minecraft game the other day, and it starts making a terrible sound.
Casey:
Don't love that.
Marco:
Yeah, it starts making a very, very bad sound, seemingly from one of the fans, and the whole laptop starts vibrating like crazy.
Marco:
So I'm like, okay, probably maybe a bearing...
John:
you know went bad in the fan or something um but it's like it's unusable and interestingly that's gotta be the only thing left inside a laptop that conceivably could make noise other than the speaker because there's no other moving parts in there right it's just the fans yeah just fans and i mean you know you could theoretically have like electronic you know whines and chirping yeah like buzz a buzzer or whine maybe or like i said the speakers could be going wonky and sending stuff but yeah the fans yeah sounds like a culprit
Marco:
In all fairness, we've now had in the three members of our family, I think we've had five Razer gaming laptops or four.
Marco:
This is the last one standing.
Marco:
They do not last under actual use by actual gamers.
Marco:
They're great for people like me who occasionally play games with their family but don't play like...
Marco:
a lot heavily every day um they they just they do not last and i i would love to say oh my god look at this pc laptop maker that sucks but the reality is like not only is razor i think the best pc laptop maker i've found so far um at least for this for this kind of pc uh but also like no laptop could stand up to the amount of stress that a heavy gaming load for you know every day for years puts on it
Marco:
Anyway, so I open it up, and of course, I see the battery is a little bit pillow-shaped.
Casey:
Oh, no.
Casey:
Your old friend.
Marco:
And it's subtle, but it's there.
Marco:
Like, it's definitely puffy.
John:
There should be no puffiness.
John:
Zero puffiness is the correct amount.
Marco:
Right, which I learned last time this came up, and I asked the audience, and everyone, including you, said it's supposed to be a flat rectangle, and it was very much not.
John:
What is it, John?
Casey:
Zero boobs?
John:
Zero boobs?
John:
Yeah, spicy ravioli, I believe, was the phrase that the internet sent Marco immediately upon him posting a picture of his bulging battery.
Marco:
In large quantities, I might add, as well.
Marco:
I got many of those.
Marco:
Anyway, so I've recognized this was the early stages of this problem, too.
Marco:
All right, so I take the battery out, and I'm looking at the fan.
Marco:
I tried just blowing some air through the fan.
Marco:
That didn't help anything at all.
Marco:
I'm like, okay, well...
Marco:
Fortunately, parts are so cheap now for PC laptop repair.
Marco:
I was able to go on Amazon.
Marco:
I just typed in the numbers off the battery and the numbers off the fan.
Marco:
Got a replacement of each from God knows what company.
Marco:
It was definitely not Razer, but some compatible third-party part for this five- or six-year-old laptop.
John:
And do they have to put an authorization on your credit card for $1,500 worth of tools in Pelican cases or no?
Marco:
No, surprisingly not.
Marco:
And it only took two of the screwdriver tips in my iFixit screwdriver kit.
John:
And to be fair to that repair program that I'm just making fun of as people will write in and tell us just to preempt them, we know that that's not the case for things that you can open with regular tools.
John:
And it's really only the case for the iPads and the phones, but it's still a funny joke.
John:
Anyway, continue.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
Well, also like, you know, for Apple, a lot of the repair process of their products involves like, you know, take the entire face off and then go in with 10 little clips.
Marco:
And, you know, like there's Apple's products are mostly comically unrepairable.
Marco:
But anyway, so this was I opened up the bottom, pulled the fan out.
Marco:
I got the new fan and battery today.
Marco:
Total cost of both.
Marco:
I think about $70.
Marco:
Oh, that's not bad.
Marco:
And it's fixed.
Marco:
I did it all today.
Marco:
It was no big deal.
Marco:
Both were super easy.
Marco:
You know, one little cable connected each one and just some screws and it's fixed and I'm happy.
Marco:
So I kind of wanted to put, you know, kind of shout out like, you know, first of all, hey, thanks Razer for, you know, making a pretty good gaming laptop as they go.
Marco:
They still, you know,
Marco:
again under heavy use you want a desktop but um you know for this it was nice and serviceable it was easy to fix popped in the new battery and it's great everything's fine the fans are great like i was i was very surprised i think you're grading on a curve here haven't you had well i was gonna say haven't you had mac laptops for more than five years maybe you haven't but i believe
John:
Both Casey and I have had Mac laptops for a long time.
John:
I think it's just a bad batch of batteries in that model that you got because to have two laptops in your house have bulging batteries after five years or less sounds like not good.
John:
If that was happening to Apple laptops, I don't think we would accept it as the quality.
John:
It's good that it was easy to repair, but...
John:
Still not great.
Marco:
Oh, yeah.
Marco:
No, that part, you know, that part's not amazing.
Marco:
But if it was an Apple laptop, I wouldn't have been able to fix it.
Marco:
And, you know, for this to have – and these – the ones that had the bulging batteries were not made in the same year.
Marco:
But they were both, you know, Razer 15-inch gaming laptops.
John:
That's even more concerning.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
Yes.
Marco:
So actually, yeah, you're right.
Marco:
I guess that probably means most of Razer's batteries maybe would have this problem after some amount of time.
Marco:
But I'm not happy that it had the problem, but I'm happy that it was very easy to fix.
Marco:
And now it seems like it's in perfectly working order.
Marco:
And you know, if this was an Apple product, the answer would have just been replace it.
John:
Yeah, probably.
John:
Or you could have done the, like, it is possible to, you know, go to iFixit and look up how to replace the battery, especially now that they're getting, hopefully they'll expand those like little things where you send electricity through it and the battery releases from the glue thing and everything.
John:
You know, I forget that that's expanded to laptops, but it is getting easier to do those kinds of repairs, but it's still much harder than the experience you had with the Razer laptop.
Casey:
It is September, which means it is time to participate in Relay for St.
Casey:
Jude.
Casey:
And so this is the time of year where we celebrate or at least recognize Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.
Casey:
And we do that by trying to raise money for St.
Casey:
Jude Children's Research Hospital.
Casey:
And it has come to time that it is time for the three of us
Casey:
to do our donations live on air.
Casey:
So I encourage all of you listening, and I demand the two of you co-hosts, if you'll go to stjude.org slash ATP, S-T-J-U-D-E dot org slash ATP, and you can click the Donate Now button and scroll a little bit to where you click it again.
Casey:
And now you are presented with some rewards, which I don't believe we talked about last week.
Casey:
If you donate at least $60, you get Relay Wallpapers and a Mac OS screensaver by a friend of the show, James Thompson.
Casey:
And if you donate at least $100, you get a sticker pack that has the stickers of the six hosts of the podcast-a-thon, of which yours truly is one of them, and also some sort of digital bundle that, to be honest, I'm not entirely sure what that is.
Casey:
So you will hopefully be leveraging Marco Offset, which we'll talk about in a moment, to get at least $160 worth of donations so you can get those perks, and you will then check out.
Casey:
And for each of us, we will be doing our customary $7,000, and we do that because we really want to show and lead by example that, hey, it is possible for you to spend some serious money on this charity, and we believe in this charity, and we hope that you do too.
Casey:
So I am filling that out as we speak.
Casey:
I am sure I am screwing something up because I always do.
Casey:
But I am going to vamp while I do that.
Marco:
I had to select pictures of motorcycles, but I got through.
Marco:
I made it.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
Hold on.
Casey:
Hold on.
Casey:
I'm not there yet.
Casey:
Goodness.
John:
You could have pre-flighted all this before we got on the air, you know.
John:
Right up to the last part where you're ready to click the button.
Casey:
I thought about it and then I didn't because I wanted to go through it with the listeners.
Marco:
Well, the last thing you want is like a session timeout right after.
Marco:
Right, exactly.
John:
Well, we'll see how this works out for me.
John:
I'm looking at a page right now and it doesn't look timed out, but I haven't clicked the button yet.
John:
What, did you fill it out like eight in the morning?
John:
Yeah, right.
John:
No, just like right when I sat down, I'd fill it out.
Casey:
All right, now I'm clicking through to payment.
John:
If you sign in, like we should all have accounts on the payment processor that you use.
John:
If you just sign in, it should have like your home address for the delivery of the sticker pack and stuff like that.
John:
Like that's all pre-filled.
Casey:
Select all images with cars.
Casey:
All right, I didn't get motorcycles.
John:
Oh, I didn't see.
John:
I didn't get that either.
John:
I'm clicking the button.
Casey:
All right, go, but I'm not there yet.
Casey:
I'm almost there.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
While that's thinking, because apparently, I don't know, maybe my credit card is bouncing as we speak, but no, there we go.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
We have done it as far as I can tell.
Casey:
So hopefully we will see that if we go back to stjude.org slash ATP, we will hopefully see that things are happening.
Casey:
Indeed they are.
Casey:
As we record, thanks to the three of us, we are now at $69,711 raised with a lifetime total of $4,132,251.90.
Casey:
Look at us go.
Casey:
Do we not have the leaderboard?
Casey:
There we do have the leaderboard and none of us are on it.
Casey:
So what are you going to do?
Casey:
I'm on it.
Casey:
We're all on it.
Casey:
Are we?
Casey:
Oh, I guess I got to reload then.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
Did Marco donate like $35,000 or something to show us up?
Marco:
I got to buy air conditioning.
John:
Yeah.
John:
So congratulations to you both.
John:
I intentionally tried.
John:
I was trying to let Casey win this year, but you know what?
John:
Marco has just got to go and ruin the whole game.
Yeah.
Casey:
So the top donors, Tiff and Marco Armin, $7,778.88.
Casey:
For Aaron and myself, $7,143.03.
Casey:
And John, not Tina, apparently, just John, is $7,027 even.
Casey:
So there you go.
Casey:
So thank you.
John:
I was trying to let Casey win.
John:
We got to let Casey win one year.
John:
I've won a whole bunch of years.
John:
And then last year, Marco was like, I'm just going to do $7,100 to just win the game.
John:
And he did.
John:
And I thought this year for sure.
John:
No, I thought last year, I thought I did $7,777.
John:
I thought you did 71 last year.
John:
I don't remember.
John:
And I was trying to let Casey win, and I was trying to let Casey win again this year.
John:
He's never going to win.
John:
We have to let Casey win one year.
Casey:
I actually did look at how much I donated last year because I didn't want to repeat it because my shtick is 143 for I love you in honor of Aaron.
Casey:
And then in this time, I did the three cents for the three, you know, Aaron and the two kids.
Casey:
But last year, I did $7,001.43.
Casey:
So I thought I was big spender this year.
Casey:
Apparently not.
John:
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
John:
I thought you were going to win this year, Casey.
John:
I was rooting for you.
John:
Well, thanks, John.
John:
There's no beating Marco.
John:
Also, you're just inflating our donations.
John:
So we'll add all this up.
John:
But anyway, this is the Marco.
John:
We'll talk about the Marco offset in a second.
John:
But this is the Mac Pro offset, even though those students buy Mac Pros.
Marco:
But now we can, guilt-free.
Marco:
That is true.
Marco:
You could, but I would not recommend it currently.
Casey:
So the total for ATP for this year, between the three of us, $21,948.91.
Casey:
And I'm very happy and proud of that.
Casey:
So let me spend a little time to remind you, what are we doing here?
Casey:
And I think one of the best ways I can do that is by reading a letter from a listener.
Casey:
And David wrote us, long-time listener, first-time St.
Casey:
Jude's contributor.
Casey:
In April, our nine-year-old was diagnosed with a very rare brain tumor, diffuse leptomeningeal...
Casey:
I think I got that close to right.
Casey:
We have great treatment at the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles, but the research being done at St.
Casey:
Jude on this type of tumor has led to a better prognosis for our son.
Casey:
Let me repeat that for emphasis.
Casey:
The research being done at St.
Casey:
Jude's on this type of tumor has led to a better prognosis for our son.
Casey:
We reached out to St.
Casey:
Jude, and they wisely said there's no reason to bring him here, or to Memphis, that is, unless there's a specific trial to get on, given that we are within 45 minutes of a world-class hospital.
Casey:
What I appreciate about St.
Casey:
Jude is that a number of their published papers are published under the Creative Commons share with attribution licenses.
Casey:
They also have a great resource of open data at pecan.stjude.cloud.
Casey:
That is a real URL.
Casey:
I have tried it.
Casey:
Even though I can't make heads or tails about this data, knowing that they openly share so much with the research community is wonderful.
Casey:
I couldn't agree more.
Casey:
So beyond all that, it's worth noting that this is the time where we try to all come together and achieve St.
Casey:
Jude's goal, which is that no child should die in the dawn of life.
Casey:
And I think that there's, I'm hard-pressed to find a better goal than that.
Casey:
And even better, perhaps, is their slogan for this year, perhaps forever, let's give these children more tomorrows, which is such a perfect slogan.
Casey:
St.
Casey:
Jude is a research hospital.
Casey:
They do, as David noted, share most, if not all, of their research with the medical community.
Casey:
They share it domestically.
Casey:
They share it internationally.
Casey:
And
Casey:
All of the treatments that they give when they do actually actively treat a child, they do this with no concern for the parents as to how they're going to get to Memphis, where they're going to stay, how are they going to pay for all this.
Casey:
It's all paid for by people like you who have donated money.
Casey:
And maybe you haven't donated $7,000.
Casey:
Maybe you've donated $14,000.
Casey:
Maybe you've donated $140,000.
Casey:
Maybe you've only donated $14,000.
Casey:
And you know what?
Casey:
I say only, but that's not only.
Casey:
That's excellent because $14,000 is better than zero.
Casey:
So now is the time of year where we are all probably going to be participating or many of us will be participating in conspicuous capitalism.
Casey:
And if you want to feel less guilty about that, and gosh darn it, you should, you can utilize the Marco Offset.
Casey:
Marco, can you describe the Marco Offset, please?
Marco:
I sure can.
Marco:
All right.
Marco:
So here's the thing.
Marco:
You want to buy the new iPhones and stuff that are about to be released next week or at least announced next week.
Marco:
So you're going to look at that and you're going to say, hey, I want that new sexy phone, watch, AirPods, whatever.
Marco:
But I have a working phone and it's fine.
Marco:
Or I need to buy a new phone because my phone actually is broken or terrible.
Marco:
But...
Marco:
I should be responsible and I should get the base model.
Marco:
I should get the regular iPhone 17 or 26, whatever it's going to be called or whatever.
Marco:
You can think that way, but we all know you're not going to.
Marco:
We all know that many of you out there, when you buy a new whatever or whatever's next week, we know that some of those are going to be discretionary purchases.
Marco:
And you know what?
Marco:
I say, that's fine.
Marco:
Live a little.
Marco:
You work hard for your money.
Marco:
You're probably a professional in some field.
Marco:
Why not?
Marco:
Treat yourself to a nice phone, AirPods, watch, strap, whatever.
Marco:
If you have that kind of discretionary money to make these kind of purchases, you can do so guilt-free by...
Marco:
assuaging your guilt with a donation to St.
Marco:
Jude.
Marco:
Now, how much should you donate?
Marco:
A good baseline is if you were able to do this discretionary tech purchase, you take the difference between the base price, the very cheapest amount you could have spent on the thing that you were looking at, so the price of the cheapest iPhone without sales tax, without shipping, without AppleCare, without a case, without storage upgrades, and then whatever you paid in total for your entire purchase –
Marco:
with all those things included, tax, case, whatever, you know, all the Apple care, all that stuff.
Marco:
You subtract those two, do the absolute values.
Marco:
I told you how to do it backwards.
Marco:
So take the absolute value of what I just told you and that'll fix it.
Marco:
And that's the Marco offset.
Marco:
That is the minimum donation that I suggest for your St.
Marco:
Jude donation this year or this month or this week.
Marco:
So if you spend $1,000 and the base price is $800, that's a $200 minimum suggested donation.
Marco:
That's how this works.
Marco:
So I suggest you do whatever you want after the event next year.
Marco:
Buy whatever you want.
Marco:
Get the good one.
Marco:
Upgrade to the Air Plus Max and get the 3TB option if you can.
Marco:
Get the chest strap with the Hermes leather.
Marco:
Get the AppleCare 3.com.
Marco:
Go all out.
Marco:
Blow it out.
Marco:
Get everything.
Marco:
And then make a nice donation to St.
Marco:
Jude.
Casey:
Exactly right.
Casey:
And so here's the thing.
Casey:
We are going to be doing a 12-hour telethon that we like to call the podcast-a-thon.
Casey:
We'll be doing that on Friday.
Casey:
the 19th of September, which is likely to be the day that iPhones come out.
Casey:
We will be doing it from noon until midnight, one true time zone.
Casey:
And we're encouraging and inviting the Relay and ATP communities to continue this incredible generosity that you've shown over the last seven years.
Casey:
And once again, make a donation to support the life-saving mission of St.
Casey:
Jude.
Casey:
Go to stjude.org slash ATP, S-T-J-U-D-E dot org slash ATP to make your donation today.
Casey:
You can also learn about employee matching, particularly if you're someone who works at an orchard.
Casey:
I hear that they're very easy to get employer matching.
Casey:
You can also set up a fundraiser of your own if you want to encourage others to donate.
Casey:
And like we talked about already, there's some awesome incentives.
Casey:
So please, let's give these children more tomorrows.
Casey:
Let's cure childhood cancer together because no child should die in the dawn of life.
Casey:
Thank you so much.
Casey:
All right, we'll do some follow-up.
Casey:
And I wanted to briefly talk about, I meant to bring this up a week or two back.
Casey:
I have thoughts about the compact iOS Safari controls.
Casey:
So if you recall, I think they floated this in iOS, major iOS version or two ago, and then they reneged.
Casey:
But it's back, baby.
Casey:
And so now by default, when you upgrade to iOS 26, if you look at Safari, your toolbar at the bottom is very different than it used to be.
Casey:
It's what they call compact.
Casey:
And the way that works is there's a back button on the left, a little itty-bitty, at least on my phone, a little itty-bitty URL bar in the middle that also has reload and extension buttons within it, and then an ellipsis on the right-hand side.
Casey:
I tried this for about a week, and I absolutely hated it immediately.
Casey:
And the reason I hate it is I think what Marco brought up a little while ago, in that you can't easily get to your other tabs.
Casey:
It's like two tabs or three tabs or something like that.
Casey:
I forget exactly how many it was, but it was too many.
Casey:
Two tabs, I believe.
Casey:
I didn't like it.
Casey:
Then somebody pointed out, and I think Marco might have brought up in the show, that what you can do is if you aim just so, you can drag the URL bar up and get to all your tabs.
Casey:
And I thought, okay, I'm going to stick with this.
Casey:
That's what I'm going to do.
Casey:
I still don't like it.
Casey:
So what I've decided is I'm going to go back to the bottom toolbar, which you get to by going into settings and then apps and then Safari.
Casey:
And then if you scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, there is a section called tabs and you can choose compact bottom or top, which is like the OG version of the Safari tabs.
Casey:
I dig the bottom option and that's what I'm doing.
Casey:
And I just wanted to call that to your attention because that is something that you'll probably want to change if you're anything like me.
Marco:
Yeah, I did try the compact one.
Marco:
When the betas first came out, I tried to live with it for, I think, a week or two.
Marco:
And I hated it so much because it was so cumbersome to go between tabs and closed tabs.
Marco:
The most common operations you do in Safari, I found, were too clunky.
Marco:
So I switched to bottom, the old style, all the buttons across the bottom.
Marco:
And, like, about two-thirds of the way through the summer, I switched back.
Marco:
I'm like, let me just try.
Marco:
Because, like, I do try generally to try to use my phone in a reasonably default state.
Marco:
And it's for multiple reasons.
Marco:
Like, sometimes it's just easier.
Marco:
Like, you know, the default state tends to get the most testing.
Marco:
It tends to have the fewest bugs.
Marco:
You know, because that's, like, the path that most Apple resources are devoted to.
Marco:
Most of their internal employees use the defaults.
Marco:
And so, like...
Marco:
I try to keep things on default for general computing happiness much of the time.
Marco:
But that one, I just couldn't bear it.
Marco:
I went back again, and I lasted, I think, a day before I switched back the second time.
Marco:
I was like, forget this.
Marco:
It's similar to the scroll direction on Macs.
Marco:
I still use the old scroll direction that all computers used to have.
Casey:
Oh, you monster.
Marco:
And when they first introduced the natural scroll direction, at first I was like, I better switch because I'm going to have to get used to this someday, and I don't want to be caught off guard by it, so I might as well switch now.
Marco:
And I think maybe even John Syracuse, I think, told me, like, why?
Marco:
Switch when you have to.
Marco:
Like...
Marco:
what might as well enjoy it now while you can the old way and so you know what i switched right back and i and i've been happy ever since doing it the old way and it's been fine and if i ever do need to switch okay fine i will but i haven't yet and that was i think over a decade ago and it's still fine i'll probably i'll probably write a non-sandbox mac app to change it back
John:
I'm pretty stuck in my ways there.
John:
Although I will echo what you said, like when they changed Safari from having the address bar at the top to having at the bottom, I left it that way for the same reason you just said.
John:
It's like, I would prefer to use it in the default mode and let me try this.
John:
Maybe I'll like it better.
John:
Phones are bigger.
John:
Like I understood, like, and it did take me a long time to get used to it, but I stuck with it because if I can stick with a new setting, I'm willing to give it a shot.
John:
And if it's about the same, I would prefer to use the default way.
John:
But natural scrolling is not about the same.
John:
It's terrible and I hate it.
John:
Oh, you're both wrong.
John:
I appreciate your wrong opinions.
John:
My address bar is on the bottom, still on the bottom in Safari.
John:
I will probably try the compact one just like you two did.
John:
And I'll see how it goes.
John:
But like I'm not for like, oh, you should never change your settings.
John:
Keep them the way they've always been.
John:
I'm always willing to try the new thing because who knows?
John:
It could be better.
John:
But sometimes for whatever reasons, it doesn't click with people.
John:
And so it sounds like compact is not clicking for you two.
Marco:
no it's just it's too much it's too many extra clicks and and people say like oh yeah you can swipe up but yeah but you know what there's a very common gesture where you swipe up from the bottom of the phone and it's a little hard like to get that exactly right every single time and they added the type to siri if you have that enabled yes double tapping on the little bar so there's a lot going on in that time that bottom one centimeter of the phone screen so it's kind of busy
Marco:
Yeah, exactly.
Marco:
And it's like, yes, if I ever am forced to use that mode, fine.
Marco:
I will get better at that gesture and distinguishing everything.
Marco:
Like, okay, but I'm currently not forced to, so I'm not going to.
Marco:
But I do wonder, like, you know, a lot of the liquid glass stuff...
Marco:
I feel like I need to not use things like the accessibility options for things like reduce transparency, reduce motion, bold text, increased contrast.
Marco:
I feel like I shouldn't use those because I make an app and I need my app to look and feel right in the default way.
Marco:
And so I should use the default way most of the time unless I'm doing accessibility testing.
Marco:
But...
Marco:
Man, I think I might change that policy with this release because as I was doing some of that testing, I was like, oh, actually, the way it looks with increased contrast is actually kind of cool.
Marco:
Or the way it looks with reduced transparency.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
Kind of cool.
Marco:
Not bad.
Marco:
Okay.
Marco:
So I think I might explore some of those options because it's rough out there.
Casey:
I still can't believe, and I knew it, but I still can't believe you two lunatics are on unnatural scrolling.
Casey:
It just boggles my mind.
John:
I mean, keep in mind that I'm not using a trackpad or a mouse that you swipe on.
John:
I've just got a mouse wheel.
John:
So using a wheel in the other mode is really weird.
Casey:
Oh, that, okay.
Casey:
That I will concede.
Casey:
Although now I want to make fun of you for using a mouse with a wheel, but that's me there or there.
John:
Mouse guy, what can I tell you?
Marco:
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Casey:
All right.
Casey:
Moving right along.
Casey:
This is perhaps my favorite topic of follow up.
Casey:
This is getting dirty corner.
Casey:
And so we got a lot of advice for those who are, let's say, athletically engaged.
Casey:
Well, and you don't want to fire off Siri.
Casey:
Alex Ogilvie writes, if the iPhone is face down, then by default, it stops listening for the activation phrase.
Casey:
This can be overridden in the accessibility settings.
John:
We had a lot of people who said that and I didn't go and confirm it myself.
John:
Some people were saying this used to be the case and maybe it's not or whatever.
John:
But this is first of all, this is only for the phone.
John:
So it doesn't help with the watch and we'll get to the watch in a second.
John:
It certainly doesn't help with the Mac because you can't really put those face down, although you can close the lid on your laptop if you want.
John:
But anyway, that's this is one option.
John:
Face down phone.
John:
Supposedly it will stop listening for the hell word.
Casey:
Indeed.
Casey:
Amory Meltzer writes, I use the phone's sleep focus mode in our quality time.
Casey:
Usually overlaps the default wind down schedule, but sometimes it's worth turning on manually.
Casey:
The screen won't wake on rays and is less bright if touched, while the dingus won't interrupt.
Casey:
I will note that depending on your specific indoor other activity, it's possible to trigger the watch's alert for a high heart rate while lying down.
Casey:
But at least it'll be silent.
Marco:
You probably shouldn't... Okay, well, I want to stay away from specific advice being given on this topic.
Marco:
However, the high heart rate warning is usually tied to a lack of motion, so it shouldn't come up that much.
Casey:
I have so many things and jokes I can say.
John:
There's a wide variety of indoor activities that could be going on, so let's just...
John:
Oh my god, this is so bad.
Casey:
We don't want to speculate on what goes on in people's... We might need a moratorium on this topic as much as it does make me giggle.
Marco:
Well, there's a lot more to go, so... I gotta say, I am really enjoying everyone's euphemisms, though.
Casey:
Indeed.
Casey:
Ryan writes, it's a simple fix for Siri's third wheeling that I've used since the feature came out.
Casey:
Theater mode.
Casey:
Theater mode disables accidental Siri activations.
Casey:
Further, if accidental taps are still a major issue for said listener, Waterlock will fix that, which I believe we brought up on a past show, I think.
Casey:
Um, maybe not, but anyway, uh, frenemy of the show, D Griffin Jones writes for silencing Siri at inopportune moments.
Casey:
I wrote an article aptly titled how to stop Siri from randomly activating all the damn time.
Casey:
And we will link to this cult of Mac article written by D Griffin Jones on the Apple watch.
Casey:
You not only need to disable Siri and Hey Siri, but you also need to disable race to speak, which listens for a potential command.
Casey:
Anytime the screen is active and doesn't need a trigger phrase at all.
Casey:
Also during intimate aerobics,
Casey:
It's possible the digital crown is being held down accidentally.
Casey:
You can go to the watch app and then Siri to disable race to speak, set listen for, set listen for to off and turn on press digital crown.
Casey:
Niv Ben Prath writes, intimate aerobics can be added directly to the health app.
Casey:
Not sure if there's an activity for it.
Casey:
Sure enough, there's a sexual activity section in the health app.
Casey:
That's what we're talking about?
Casey:
Oh my God.
Casey:
Yeah, who knew?
Casey:
And coming back to D. Griffin Jones, doing this tells the health app that intimate aerobics happened, but it does not add any calories to your rings.
Casey:
Womp womp.
John:
People really want credit.
Casey:
Shoot, I would.
Casey:
Anyways, all right.
Casey:
So then possibly the perfect topper, this perfect cap to all this, and I think we can put it to bed after this is Anonymous, who writes, a friend of mine just nearly had adult nap time prematurely terminated by an unwelcome visit from the local police.
Casey:
Apparently, his five-year-old son decided that an unsupervised phone was a perfect chance to dial 911.
Casey:
Ten times in a row.
Casey:
Why was the phone in the child's reach?
Casey:
After a notable incident where Siri attempted to initiate a menage a trois, it was decided that the phones and watches should be exiled to the top of the fridge during parental Olympics.
Casey:
But as all nerds know, unsupervised electronics are a powerful lure, and his son is definitely a little nerd.
Casey:
The child in question undertook Herculean or Herculean?
Casey:
I always get it wrong.
Casey:
Herculean.
Casey:
Herculean, there we go.
Casey:
Efforts of gymnastics to reach the top of the fridge, retrieve the phone, and engage in this admittedly rigorous 911 experimentation.
Casey:
My buddy and his wife are mortified but elated that the police didn't show up five minutes earlier.
Casey:
Incredible.
Casey:
Just incredible.
Casey:
And now we can put this to bed.
Casey:
Joseph Keeb writes with a suggestion for Ian Anderson's Ask ATP question, which was regarding resources for developing product sense.
Casey:
Joseph writes, the advisor mentor of a friend of mine who is a business school professor wrote this book, Productive Tensions by Christopher B. Bingham and Rory M. MacDonald, How Every Leader Can Tackle Innovation's Toughest Trade-Offs.
Casey:
And we'll put a link to the MIT press where this apparently can be found.
Casey:
When I was looking this up to grab the link, I was amused that Jobs got a call out in the blurb.
Casey:
Quote, should leaders aim for Steve Jobs' level genius, shower their projects with resources, or lean in to luck and embrace uncertainty?
Casey:
None of the above, say Christopher Bingham and Rory McDonald.
Casey:
I work or have worked in leadership roles of VC-backed startups, and this is one of the best things I've read in years.
John:
So I guess there are books on this topic.
John:
We just didn't know them.
John:
So thank you, Joseph, for sending one in.
Casey:
Exactly.
Casey:
So it is that time of year.
Casey:
It is one of my favorite segments to do on the show.
Casey:
It is something that Marco came up with, I want to say, three or four years ago, maybe.
Casey:
Marco, can you introduce this for us, please?
Marco:
Yes.
Marco:
As you all know, I have worked in so many big corporate jobs and I have managed so many people.
Marco:
I've been in so many hiring and supervising roles that I'm very familiar with the trappings of big company life and, of course, human resources, also one of my specialties.
Marco:
And one of the things that you often get at a big company when somebody is quitting, you might have an exit interview and you might say, hey, you know,
Marco:
We just want to know, in retrospect, how did this go for you?
Marco:
How could we improve maybe?
Marco:
What do you think we can do better for future people who work here?
Marco:
Or why did you choose to leave?
Marco:
Things like that.
John:
Are we going to make the iPhone 16 sign a non-disparagement agreement?
Marco:
So, as Casey mentioned, a few years back, I started having us do exit interviews right before the new iPhone is introduced for the outgoing model.
Marco:
So, you know, most people are so focused on whatever is the new one coming that we don't really talk about like, hey, like a few months or years into owning something.
Marco:
Like, how was it in retrospect?
Marco:
Right.
Marco:
That's what this segment is.
Marco:
So on the eve of the iPhone 16 lineup getting replaced, Casey and I have – John, you don't have one, right?
Marco:
I do.
John:
I've got a 16 Pro.
Marco:
That's right.
Marco:
Okay.
Marco:
I lose track of your phone years.
Marco:
Same.
John:
Even number.
Marco:
Okay.
Marco:
So we all have iPhone 16s Pro.
Marco:
And so how have they been?
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
I think for me, mine has been pretty good, although it has not been perfect.
Casey:
This past weekend, we went back to our neighborhood pool for the final time to do Labor Day, which is when most pools in America tend to shut down.
Casey:
And so I spent all day outside on what was not an exceedingly warm day, but it was a sunny day.
Casey:
And the same thing that has plagued iPhones for the last two or three years, or potentially even more, plagues my iPhone 16 Pro.
Casey:
It is better in the 16 Pro than it has been, but it's still not great.
Casey:
And what that is, is if you use your phone in direct sunlight for more than about 30 seconds, it goes from very bright to slightly bright to I can see it to is it on to, oh no, it's useless.
Casey:
And this all happens in the span of one to two minutes.
Casey:
And it used to be almost instant that it jumped from, yes, I can see, oh no, nevermind, to
Casey:
But it's now gotten to the point that it takes a couple of minutes.
Casey:
But that is my number one far and away gripe with my phone is that if I try to use it in the summer outside in direct sunlight, it is nigh impossible to use it for more than just a couple of minutes.
Casey:
And I've understood...
Casey:
that this can also affect video capture.
Casey:
And I've not personally witnessed this, but my understanding is if the thing gets too hot, it will also be unable to or unwilling perhaps to record high frame rate video.
Casey:
It just drives me bananas.
Casey:
I have a couple other minor things to whine about and then some complimentary things to say.
Casey:
But Marco, as someone who lives at the beach in the summer, do you also find this to be a problem?
Marco:
Um, I find it to be a problem lots of places, lots of times.
Marco:
I mean, even just in the car, um, you know, anywhere that you are outside.
Marco:
I mean, even like, you know, on walks, you know, if I'm outside in the summertime, if I'm using my phone, um, you know, if I'm like, you know, looking stuff up or reading something on the walk, I mean like I'm, I'm going to face this problem.
Marco:
Um, certainly as I'm, if, if I like, you know, take the train in the summer and I have, I'm using my phone just sitting next to me on the seat just for tethering.
Marco:
That will often make the phone go into the high thermal level thresholds and start backing off the screen or not charging past 75% or 80% or whatever.
Marco:
All summer, whenever I take the train or the ferry somewhere...
Marco:
are you bringing your fan of course i am i have and it's it's i mean this is a ridiculous thing so i plug in two cables to my macbook pro um one cable goes to the fan that has the the thermoelectric peltier element in it so i have like the peltier fan which is an absurd way to keep a phone cool because it's so insanely wasteful
Marco:
power but it does work and then i have a second cable plugged into the phone to keep itself charged while i'm using it as my you know tethering modem for like an entire train or ferry ride and so it does work it destroys the laptop battery to be powering both these things especially that it's you know after like you know an hour on the train or something like it takes away like a quarter or a third of the macbook's battery and
Marco:
But but it's it does work and nothing else does.
Marco:
If you don't use the cooling fan in that configuration, the phone will keep tethering, but it will not charge itself.
Marco:
At least, you know, it won't go past like 75 or 80 percent.
Marco:
And that's just sitting on the seat next to me, not even being actively used.
Marco:
Like so the screen of the phone is off.
Marco:
And it still can't keep itself from being warm if any internal parts are being used.
Marco:
So I would say absolutely the iPhone 16 Pro has horrendous thermals.
Marco:
Now, we'll talk about this in a little bit.
Marco:
The 17 Pro is rumored to have this vapor chamber thing that we talked about last week.
Marco:
But I don't think that's going to help this particular problem in isolation.
Marco:
Because what you're doing...
Marco:
The iPhone 16 Pro is generating a lot of heat, and it needs pretty active cooling to keep itself from doing that.
Marco:
The vapor chamber does not make the phone generate less heat.
Marco:
It just is possibly a more effective way to move the heat off of the SoC into something that will dissipate it, like the back casing of the phone or whatever.
Marco:
It's somehow dissipate the heat into some larger mass or the air.
Marco:
That's the point.
Marco:
So it can move the heat better, which helps.
Marco:
You do need the heat to be moved.
Marco:
But the way to solve this problem is to have the phone create less heat in the first place.
Marco:
Because if you're just moving the heat to the case more effectively, the 16 Pro is already very hot in your hand.
Marco:
So that might not be the main problem there.
Marco:
The main problem might just be it's making too much heat.
Marco:
And phones, unless you have my ridiculous fan kind of thing, phones don't have active cooling.
Marco:
There's no fan blowing air.
Marco:
So you're just dependent on radiating the heat out of the case into the air.
Marco:
One major problem with that, though, is cases.
Marco:
People will stick another case around their phone pretty commonly, and that acts as a giant insulator of heat.
Marco:
So I think the biggest – the best way to solve this kind of problem is not to increase the cooling system inside the phone because all you can do is move the heat faster outside, but there's nowhere for it to go for most people with cases around their phones.
Marco:
So the better solution to this is to have chips that don't use that much power.
Marco:
That is ultimately the solution that we actually need is lower thermal peaks of these guts in these phones.
John:
I mean, they're always trying to increase the process density and have them use less power and all that stuff.
John:
And we've been on three nanometer for a while and will continue to be.
John:
So there hasn't been any changes for the past few years.
John:
But I will say that moving the heat is actually a really important part because I'm not sure about the screen, but for the SOC itself, the big problem has been for a decade now.
John:
Not so much the total amount, but how concentrated it is in some very tiny areas on the SOC.
John:
So merely moving it one centimeter away from where it originated can help the SOC not have to throttle down because it's not so much the total amount of heat, it's the fact that it's all concentrated around this tiny region of the SOC where the GPU is when you're playing a game or something.
John:
So moving it, even just a little tiny bit, actually is a huge win for sustained throughput on the SOC.
John:
I don't know why the screens are going off.
John:
I would imagine that has to do with the screen itself and nothing to do with like, I don't think the first of all, I don't think the vapor chamber thing is supposed to be cooling the screen.
John:
I don't know if the screen is the thing gets hot.
John:
Is it the display controller?
John:
Like, I don't know.
John:
I don't know what the deal is with the screen.
John:
But for the SoC, I think it's very much like it has been for many years now, which is concentrated areas of heat.
John:
If you could just disperse that or move it like an inch away, that lets you not have to throttle the SoC as much.
John:
Anyway, we'll see.
John:
It's not like Apple's the first person to put a vapor chamber cooler on a phone.
John:
Android phones have had them for ages now.
John:
And apparently they are useful, and having an aluminum case will also help.
John:
But Casey had said that the 16 Pro was better than his predecessor phones for the screen dimming, although it was still unacceptable.
John:
So it seems like they're moving in the right direction.
John:
I can't imagine the vapor chamber hurting.
John:
I also can't imagine the much larger volume of aluminum in the new phones hurting.
John:
But again, we'll talk about that when we get to the phones.
John:
But yeah, the trend...
John:
seems to be in the right direction i personally on my 16 pro i don't know if i just don't use it in the sun as much as you do i think the main factor because marco mentioned the car is like you know when i use it on like dog walks and stuff mostly it's in my pocket playing podcast occasionally i take it out to change tracks or answer a phone call or something like that um
John:
I guess I'm not in direct sunlight long enough for it to matter.
John:
I do take my phone to the beach.
John:
I have used it at the beach, but at the beach, I'm under a beach umbrella, so it's also fine there.
John:
But in the car, my non-fancy car has a phone mount, a MagSafe phone mount clipped to the ventilation thing, and in the summertime, the air conditioner is blowing literally directly on the back of my phone.
John:
So I don't need a Peltier cooler.
John:
My entire car's air conditioner is blasting cold air.
John:
My phone is cold when I take it off the MagSafe mount.
John:
From the air conditioner blasting on it.
John:
So maybe that's why I don't have the problem in the car.
John:
But yeah, like I would imagine advances and further advances in screen technology to make the screen take less power helping like the whole thing of letting the screen go down to one hertz and having these the new OLED screen technology, all that is probably helping.
John:
But I just I honestly just don't know what it is that's causing the screen to dim.
John:
if it's heat from the screen itself, if it's from the display controller and the SOC, or it's from something else, or it's just total, like Marco was saying, total heat inside the phone because the sun is beating down on the whole thing and there's nowhere, it gets like heat soaked, essentially.
John:
I'm not entirely sure, but I'm sure people will be pointing thermal cameras at the new iPhones to let us know, but it seems like, I mean, I'm not, put it this way, Casey, if we had not had any rumors of the new iPhone having vapor chamber, this still would have been your main complaint about the 16 Pro, right?
Casey:
Yeah, I think so.
John:
So it's just, I mean, it's just, it's not a new problem.
John:
It's just more relevant this year because we think at the Apple event, Apple will finally talk about something that might address this factor.
John:
But yeah.
Casey:
I mean, I've been, I've been fussing about this for the last several years.
Casey:
And, and I think that I will continue to fuss about it until it gets better.
Casey:
You know, the whining will continue until morale improves or whatever.
Casey:
Which
John:
Chatroom asks whether the thermals on the non-pro are better.
John:
I would have to imagine so just because the non-pro chip is less powerful, less power hungry.
John:
But I don't have I don't actually have a 16 non-pro.
John:
My kids have non-pro phones.
John:
In my experience, they have been cooler than the pro phones that my wife and I have always had.
John:
But maybe that varies from year to year.
Casey:
Moving on from whining about thermals, I would say that generally speaking, I really, really do like this phone.
Casey:
The battery life on mine is not stellar, but I have a strong suspicion that that's a software issue.
Casey:
Like I'm running something or, you know, so there's something backgrounded that's run amok or something like that.
Casey:
I really don't think that's a phone problem.
John:
Did you check the battery thing, if that's your suspicion?
Casey:
I've glanced at it from here and there, and there's nothing obvious that jumps out at me.
Casey:
I should probably just reset my phone or whatever.
Casey:
I'll do that one day, but today's not that day.
John:
I mean, I feel like if there was something run away, I think we're past the days where things could be eating your battery and have no visibility whatsoever, except for in rare cases, but who knows?
Casey:
Yeah, I don't know.
Casey:
But again, that's a half-hearted complaint at most.
Casey:
But other than that, I mean, I really, really, really like this phone.
Casey:
I like the camera control a lot, and I think I'm also stealing what was said on upgrade, but I like the camera control a lot, and I would not want to give it up.
Casey:
However...
Casey:
almost the only way I use it is as an activation for the camera app and as a shutter.
Casey:
I do use it a fair bit for a shutter.
Casey:
And I absolutely, that is the way I get into the camera on my phone as I mash on the camera control button.
Casey:
But the amount of times I've done that like press and slide dance, I thought I was going to do that all the time.
Casey:
It's way too finicky for my tastes.
Casey:
And so I do it almost never.
Casey:
But that being said, if you took away the button in its entirety, I would be very sad.
Casey:
If it was just a literal button and not the whole slidey apparatus, I think that would be fine.
Casey:
And I really, really do like the camera control button.
Casey:
And I also like having the action button.
Casey:
I have set, and I think it was Marco that gave me this idea, I have the action button set to flashlight because I'm old and it's incredibly convenient and
Casey:
And now that I have the camera control button for the camera, I don't need to use the action button for the camera anymore.
Casey:
So I freaking love this setup.
Casey:
I really, truly do.
Casey:
There's no sarcasm there.
Casey:
And I'm really happy with that.
Casey:
Additionally, accepting the time when this fell out of my pocket from waist height in Aaron's car, which is 100% my fault.
Casey:
And I would never expect a phone to survive that fall without a case on it.
Casey:
This has been extremely...
Casey:
robust, extremely durable.
Casey:
Again, I'm really happy with it.
Casey:
I think the camera system is great.
Casey:
I'm sure it can be better in some ways.
Casey:
I don't get as bothered by the macro switchover as Mike does, which doesn't mean he's wrong.
Casey:
It's just, I don't, I'm not nearly as bothered by it as he is.
Casey:
All in all, I really, really, really like this phone.
Casey:
I like the look of the natural titanium.
Casey:
I am a little scared about them going back to aluminum.
Casey:
I'm not sure if that's going to be better or worse, but I really, really enjoy this phone quite a bit and I'm very, very happy with it.
Marco:
marco thoughts um you know so similar you know we we talked about the heat and i i am far less optimistic than john about whether the vapor chamber will solve the problems because i think frankly that the problem is not the soc overheating and throttling i think the problem is the entire phone decides we have too much heat in here start start shutting things down well one of the problems is the if like for example you're a gamer
John:
You will see that the SoC will throttle when you play games for a certain number of minutes.
John:
Like I said, I don't think the vapor chamber is going to help with the screen because I don't even know what's causing that.
John:
It's probably just heat soak with the whole phone.
John:
That is my theory.
John:
Even though you may not care about the SoC throttling if you're like an iPhone gamer or something and your frame rates die after two minutes into playing, you'll probably care.
John:
Although, honestly, those gamers should probably get your little fan thing.
Marco:
Oh, they should absolutely get my little fan thing.
Marco:
I'm pretty sure everyone who buys my little fan thing is a gamer except me.
Marco:
No one else is, you know, tethering on a ferry.
Marco:
It's pretty much just me.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
So anyway, and I think I think it's just overall like when you see the screen dimming and regular use out in the summertime, I think that's just the phone is too hot.
Marco:
And it's trying to conserve, it's trying to rescue its thermal state by doing things like, hey, let's dim the screen, not because the screen can't operate in hot temperatures, but because having the backlight this bright is generating heat that we can get rid of.
John:
There's no backlight.
Marco:
Oh, right.
Marco:
It's OLED.
Marco:
Well, whatever.
John:
I mean, there kind of is in each pixel.
John:
But anyway, whatever.
Marco:
Well, yeah, fair.
Marco:
But yeah, the generation of the light in the display is creating heat.
John:
Yeah, because OLEDs do generate heat.
John:
They're not magic.
John:
Yes.
John:
The brighter you make them, the more heat there is.
John:
That's one of the things that contributes to burn it.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
So as for the rest of the 16 Pro, you know, look, all iPhones are pretty good most of the time these days.
Marco:
And so...
Marco:
These are very minor complaints in the grand scheme of things.
Marco:
I do wish the phone was, I wouldn't say thinner, but I do wish the phone was lighter.
Marco:
The phones are not as heavy as the, I believe, was it the... The ones with the steel band?
Marco:
Yeah, like those were heavier, but this phone is still, it's still a heavy phone.
Marco:
And like, I don't notice it as much in the winter months when I'm wearing like, you know, jeans, but you certainly notice it when you're wearing shorts in the summertime.
Marco:
And I know shorts are a compromise in lots of ways.
Marco:
They certainly are not attractive.
Marco:
They certainly are not as functional in certain ways.
Marco:
However, I expect comfort from at least my phone.
Marco:
Like if I'm going to look stupid wearing shorts, at least my phone can feel good in my pocket.
John:
What do you have against shorts?
John:
Shorts are fine.
Marco:
They're not.
Marco:
It's impossible to look good wearing shorts, especially if you are short yourself.
John:
All right.
John:
Well, anyway, I also sort of rate the quality of my shorts.
John:
It's how well they stand up to a phone being in one of the front pockets.
John:
Because some of my shorts, just like the waistband isn't up to the task and it kind of like tugs it down.
John:
But other ones hold firm.
John:
And also to Casey's point about dropping his thing out of his pocket, I do want a pocket that can completely swallow the phone.
John:
And yes, I know this is way worse for women's shorts.
Marco:
oh yeah i mean yeah women's clothing in general is generally not made to have pockets that are useful at all or even exist but uh and you to be fair you have a more uh shorts compatible body type than i do um when when you are when you are yourself not super long-legged uh shorts are unflattering to say the least now at least i will i will cede to you on this fashion thing this is not something that had ever occurred to me
Marco:
Yeah, like at least in recent years, shorts have gotten shorter by fashion.
Marco:
And so, look, fellow short men out there, get the shortest shorts you can tolerate fashion-wise because they will make your legs look less short.
Marco:
And for God's sake, don't get cargo anything ever.
Marco:
Get rid of cargo and shorten them and they will look less stupid.
Marco:
However, shorts always look a little bit stupid.
Marco:
But anyway, what I'm looking for out of the 17 is basically what I didn't get out of the 16.
Marco:
I want weight savings basically in the phone.
Marco:
So it's not such a brick flopping around in my pocket.
Marco:
Now, ideally...
Marco:
It would also help with those thermal issues.
Marco:
And ideally, I know this is kind of competing with those other things, I would love a better telephoto camera.
Marco:
I really don't like the 5X camera, but I am not – as I waffle about whether I should get the Air, we'll see what happens with whatever they announce next week.
Marco:
But I checked.
Marco:
I took 414 pictures with the 5X camera in the past year.
Marco:
That's not nothing.
Marco:
And when I look at those pictures on my Mac, like on a big screen, they're terrible.
Marco:
They're not good pictures.
Marco:
They're so much lower quality than what I get out of the One X lens.
Marco:
It's night and day difference.
Marco:
The One X pictures are pretty respectable.
Marco:
The 5X pictures, they only look good when they're small.
Marco:
If you even just show them full screen on an iPhone, it's pretty rough, and they certainly don't stand up to full screen on anything larger.
John:
But here's the actual comparison, though, for the 5X, which is why it exists.
John:
uh what it's competing against is the thing that we all see where someone is their their kid is up on stage playing the clarinet and they bring up their phone on the one and only 1x camera or whatever and what do they do they pinch to zoom until they do a digital zoom of like 20x and then they take a picture and compared to that the 5x looks amazing yeah this is erin every time and it drives me absolutely
John:
right on the iphone does the right thing i believe it will switch to the 5x camera but like that's what the 5x is competing against it's competing against purely digital zoom from a way farther away like zoom distance and so i agree the 5x doesn't look good but i do think it looks better than a 2x than the old 2x pinch to zoom to five does it look better than the old 3x pinch to zoom to five maybe probably still
John:
But I just see so many people who, I don't know, they just don't care about what the pictures look like after the fact, but who just zoom an insane distance by pinching on their phone.
John:
And then they'll take that picture.
John:
I'm like, you might as well just take a picture of a Monet because that's what you're getting.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
Yes.
Marco:
I mean, and granted, like...
Marco:
I'm happy to have it when I do want it.
Marco:
And what I mainly like the 5X for, like the functionality, I like just being able to have that kind of reach of like, if something's really far away and I want to get an okay picture of it, that's great.
Marco:
But what I really like the 5X for is the different perspective it can offer on things.
Marco:
By being a longer lens, it treats angles and background compression differently, very differently than the 1X lens does.
Marco:
And so it's not that I object to...
Marco:
Having that reach, I just wish it was – I wish I had fewer compromises.
Marco:
So I am overall happy with the camera system in terms of the reach it has.
Marco:
But there's obvious room for improvement.
Marco:
Like for instance, what if I want something that's about 4X of a perspective?
Marco:
I have no good option right now because the 5X lens is too far zoomed in for that.
John:
Just take nine 5X pictures and stitch them together.
Yeah.
Marco:
And so what I have to do if I want that is just do a 4X digital zoom basically on the 1X, which that starts to be pretty rough on the quality as well.
Marco:
So we've heard different rumors about maybe doing some kind of different combination of focal lengths, maybe having similar to how right now they have the...
Marco:
The 1x lens, they simulate a 2x by center cropping it that is not horrendous.
Marco:
It's not good, but it's not horrendous.
Marco:
So I know there's been some rumors that maybe they'll change the wide to like a 3.5 and then simulate a 7 by doing the same trick on that.
Marco:
I think that kind of thing would ultimately be better than what we have now with the one and five, basically, and nothing in between.
Marco:
But we'll see.
Marco:
So anyway, back to the... This is a song about the iPhone 16.
Marco:
It's been fine, except for the thermals.
Marco:
That's been really bad.
Marco:
But otherwise, it's been a perfectly fine phone.
Marco:
I don't have a lot of criticism about it.
Marco:
As usual, it's all about the cameras for me.
Marco:
And...
Marco:
I still don't love the default iPhone photo rendering.
Marco:
But, you know, we have so many apps now to do things like, you know, we have Obscura, we have Halide, we have the built-in photo styles in the iPhone camera app.
Marco:
So, like, that can get away from a lot of that stuff for you.
Marco:
So, I don't know.
Marco:
I think the iPhone 16 has been a perfectly serviceable phone.
Marco:
It's been perfectly fine.
Marco:
But I'm looking forward to a lot of what's rumored about the 17 line.
Casey:
Yeah, I'm trying not to jump ahead myself, but I am extremely intrigued by this rumored 17 Air until the rumors say, oh, but it'll only have one lens.
Casey:
Ooh, and I know you were saying this earlier, but I don't know if that's a trade-off I'm willing to make.
Casey:
We shall see, and I don't know.
Casey:
But in general, like I said, I very much like this phone.
Casey:
Marco, you seem a little bit blasé about it.
Casey:
John, what is your exit interview?
Yeah.
John:
Yeah, to start, I'll just say that like, so I keep my phones for two years, so I'm going to continue using this phone for one more year.
John:
So this is just the midway point in the life of my phone.
John:
And I have to say, like I always say for the past many years, that it's a good phone.
John:
Like we take it for granted that every year Apple will come out with an iPhone that will be good.
John:
And just this thing has performed the job that it needed to as a phone for me.
John:
Pretty much problem-free.
John:
It does all this stuff.
John:
It's better than my previous phone.
John:
And, you know, as someone who is a much bigger fan of the Mac, I don't take that for granted anymore.
John:
So, you know, I think we all basically agree, like, iPhone, it's a good phone.
John:
We're picking nits here, but, like, in general, it's doing its job.
John:
For the specifics of the 16...
John:
I had double-checked this before we came on the show of, like, the camera control.
John:
I'm like, that was introduced on the 16 Pro, right?
John:
Like, that didn't do this before?
John:
Because the camera control is so strange, like, in the history of... I totally forgot to mention the camera control.
John:
In the history of the Apple things, because, I mean, we said this when it came out, and I'll say a year after it's come out, and you basically said the same thing, Casey...
John:
our position on it hasn't changed because it is just as strange as it was then.
John:
They introduced the camera control as a new button on the phone, which is a rare thing anyway.
John:
And it has so many things that you could do with it.
John:
And this was the version 1.0.
John:
That's why I had to check, like, was it really the 16 Pro that introduced the camera control?
John:
Because it's got so many functions.
John:
And the other thing, the other thing that boggles my mind in a good way, basically, is that they introduced the camera control with a million functions
John:
And the OS came pretty quickly after release of the hardware with a million options that you could remove or disable those million functions if you didn't want them.
John:
And kind of like Casey, what I came down to after a year of use on the camera control is...
John:
i don't want to use almost all the functions that it provides but i will say that it is well sized and positioned to be a better shutter control essentially for the camera and that is the only thing i use the camera control for it's a touch sensitive button it's pressure sensitive you can do half presses you can swipe i don't use any of that and i slowly disabled those features as i found that i wasn't using them because i wouldn't use them but then i would accidentally activate them and then i would go into settings and disable it
John:
repeat until it is like the world's most expensive single digital button press button that i use to launch the camera app and to activate the shutter occasionally on the camera app which i don't think is particularly a success of the feature so i kind of agree with apple trying to take some cost out of that there surely apple has usage numbers how many people are using the swipey thing how many people using the half press versus how many people are just mashing on that button to get to the camera
John:
So I wonder how long that button will remain as fancy as it is, even though the rumors have it out to the 18.
John:
Still retaining all its functionality, but I want to give Apple kudos for launching a very complicated hardware thing with a million features and also providing the software to turn off those features individually, which is so un-Apple-like because normally they introduce something simple and then build on it over years and the software lags behind.
John:
And that wasn't the case with the camera control.
John:
I generally think it's a failed experiment, except for the most important part, which is...
John:
Should the phone have a big button in that position?
John:
And I think the answer is yes.
Marco:
Yeah, like that's about how I use it as well.
Marco:
Like I turned off all of the actual dynamic features of it.
Marco:
It is a button that opens the camera app.
Marco:
I don't even use it as a shutter.
Marco:
It's just a button that opens the camera app.
John:
I'd use it as a shutter occasionally sometimes, especially if I'm like trying to take pictures when the dog is doing something cute and I only have like one hand free or whatever.
John:
I want to get it at a weird angle.
John:
Like I'm not as good as the kids are with like, you know, the kid grip where they have the phone basically like between their pinky and their pointer finger where their thumb presses the onscreen shutter button.
John:
Have you seen kids do that?
John:
It's very precarious.
John:
But anyway, kids have just like we have like save for web clause for people who old school Photoshop people.
John:
Kids have the ability to point a phone camera at something and press the onscreen shutter button in positions that I could never do it.
John:
So I very often use the shutter button, especially like when I'm doing like left handed or something to get cute pictures of the dog or someone or something like that.
John:
Anyway.
John:
I yeah, it's weird, but I'm I'm glad my phone has it.
John:
The case situation was a problem.
John:
Like, you know, I finally found a case with the pass through camera control leather and blah, blah, blah.
John:
And I'll have it for the next year.
John:
That's great.
John:
I didn't like it when it was just a big hole there.
John:
I do accidentally press it more than I thought I would.
John:
But whatever whatever they've done with the accidental presses, the accidental presses basically end up being not harmful to me.
John:
I'm still taking more inadvertent screenshots than I am taking inadvertent camera shots with the camera control button.
John:
I think this is also my first film with the action button.
John:
And I went back and forth on what that was going to be for a while.
John:
I had it launching the camera, but the camera control took over that.
John:
So now, as I've said in past shows, I launched the Whole Foods app with it because I live within walking distance of the Whole Foods.
John:
And to bring up the little QR code so Amazon can track everything you buy, I use the action button for that.
John:
And, you know, I could live without the action button.
John:
It's fine.
John:
But I found a use for it that is handy for me.
John:
In terms of battery life, I tried an experiment with this phone.
John:
This is the first phone that I've owned that had this feature because I think my previous hardware, the OS, didn't support this.
John:
But when I got the phone, if you go back and listen to that episode, I put it on 80% charge limit.
John:
in, like, the battery settings.
John:
Oh.
John:
Which I don't charge my phone to more than 80%.
John:
You can, of course, override that on a 24-hour basis or whatever and, like, do that.
John:
I did override it once or twice when I was, like, going on, like, long trips or whatever.
John:
I can't even remember what I overrode it for.
John:
But a few times I did override it and say I want 100%.
John:
I think it was maybe when I was flying.
John:
I want 100% because I'm going to go to the airport and do all that stuff and I'm not going to be charging.
John:
So I think that's the only time I've done it is when I've done airport trips.
John:
But every other time I've just been charging to 80%.
John:
Um, and this is the first time at the one year mark that, uh, Apple's iOS battery health thing says my battery health is 100% or maximum charge, 100% or whatever.
John:
Um, I've never had that before.
John:
Maximum capacity, 100%, cycle count, 204, which is low, maybe...
John:
for a phone that I've owned for a year.
John:
The way I'm able to get away with 80% charge, I don't think most people could get away with it.
John:
But the reason I have is I work from home.
John:
When I'm in the shower, I put my phone on the charger.
John:
When I'm making dinner in the kitchen, I put my phone on the charger.
John:
Like I'm always near chargers.
John:
And when I know my phone is not going to be on me,
John:
I put it on put it onto one of the plug it into one of the many charters I don't do mag safe charging at all except in the car so all that contributes to I've never had to worry about battery life that the battery is just it's it seems to be infinite but it's mostly because of the way I'm living but I will say that um
John:
Treating my battery this way, only ever charging it to 80% and maintaining the battery life is probably going to make this a better hand-me-down phone to some kids someday than, for example, my wife's phones where she plays Pokemon Go and slaughters the battery every single day.
Casey:
Is she still traveling with like 17 battery packs and 13 different phones?
John:
Yes.
John:
She did mention, by the way, she has an iPhone 16 non-pro for work, but she doesn't really use it enough to comment on it.
John:
But she does say it doesn't get as hot as her 15 pro.
John:
She'll be getting a new phone this year, so we'll see how that goes.
John:
So anyway, I don't think the 16 Pro has some amazing battery or anything, but I'm glad that it supports the 80% battery limit, which, again, my previous two-year-old phone did not.
John:
And I would say that if you think...
John:
your sort of charging regime can support this, do it because it will just make your, like on the days when I did need to go to 100%, it was like infinite battery.
John:
It was like the extra 20% was just waiting there for me to use it.
John:
It's, it's better for the battery not to charge it to full.
John:
It's better for the battery not to drain it to full.
John:
Um,
John:
so yeah um but otherwise i'm i've been happy with it uh i think i'll be perfectly happy with it for another year i kind of feel like i know for the past two years i've been complaining about the camera mesa and i think they should solve the problem and this year they've solved they're going to solve it in a weird way that i don't really approve of but at least they did something different so i do feel like the 16 pro is kind of the end of the old design of trying to pretend that the cameras are in the corner um
John:
and the the cameras do keep getting a little bit bigger uh but anyway i think i'll be happy to keep this one and i'm hoping the 18 is a more i'm not going to say a more radical departure than the new phones that are coming out soon but maybe a different departure but uh but yeah overall i've been happy with it and will continue to be happy with it for the next year
John:
do you think the kid that gets the phone handed down to them will appreciate at all your battery discipline i mean maybe because a lot of times we've handed down phones to the kids like in the old days we would get the battery replaced back when that was cheap to do like when we handed down like the iphone 5 to some kid or something we got a fresh battery at the apple store before we handed it down to them because the battery was just so dead they were so the battery was just so tiny back when the phones were tiny like that
John:
Uh, and they'd definitely appreciate it.
John:
My daughter, she's got an iPhone 12 and the battery life is so bad on that phone.
John:
I mean, she's had it.
John:
She's had it for four years of high school, right?
John:
Um, I think so that how far back the iPhone 12 was.
John:
Anyway, she's getting a 17, but they're not out yet.
John:
So she's still using her iPhone 12 and her battery life is so terrible.
John:
And also her charging discipline is so terrible that it combines to her phone is constantly like running out of power.
John:
So new phones are coming to the Syracuse household, uh, very soon.
John:
Just not for me.
Casey:
So I'm sorry, both girls will be getting new phones, but neither... My son will be getting a new phone, too, as part of his... I don't even remember what it's for.
John:
I think it was like a delayed Christmas present for him.
John:
So yeah, we're getting two iPhone 17s for the kids and a 17 Pro for my wife, if that's what they end up being called.
John:
Anyway, that's the plan right now.
Casey:
Is in neither Alex nor Kate has any desire for a pro phone?
John:
No, my daughter explicitly does not want, she doesn't know their pro phones, but she explicitly said, Hey, you'll get a new phone.
John:
You know, you've, you've had this one for high school.
John:
It's time for your college phone.
John:
You use this phone for four years of college.
John:
And she said, I do not want one of those phones that has like the three cameras on the back.
John:
She doesn't even know their pro.
John:
She doesn't know anything about them.
John:
She just knows that she does not want that many cameras on the back of the phone.
John:
On account of what?
John:
Don't worry.
John:
You weren't getting that one anyway.
Yeah.
John:
what is that an aesthetic thing is that yes i just it just offends her to have that much crap on the back of the she sees our phones like her parents have always had the pro phones and she she just doesn't like it i mean that's fair i i'm just very surprised by that and also that i mean she doesn't know this either but like obviously the non-pro phones come in much more fun colors her current iphone 12 is purple and she really likes it yeah yeah sad times
Casey:
Man, I will rejoice if the pro phones actually get decent colors this year, which they won't.
John:
Nope, not this year.
Casey:
Man, that would be incredible.
John:
There might be a bronze one that's kind of orangish.
Marco:
Yeah, that's the thing.
Marco:
There's the rumors of the quote orange color, but knowing Apple and knowing the kind of thing, I just think there's very little chance it's going to be a good orange.
Marco:
I'm an orange snob.
Marco:
There's good oranges.
Marco:
There's bad oranges.
Marco:
I think this is going to be like a copper brownish.
John:
Yeah, it's like a vague copper bronze thing.
John:
Colors are the hardest to predict.
John:
They have all these fake models, but colors, it's so hard to nail them if you haven't actually seen the phones.
John:
Put it this way, the other Pro colors that are rumored are all exactly what you expect them to look like.
John:
Just...
Marco:
you know grayish colors with a tiny hint of something and the bronzes one is the the most bold i can't imagine them making three very muted things and then one really bright orange one no i i mean again if they do like if they make if if it's a good orange hey i would love that i'll eat my hat but it doesn't seem likely it seems much more likely that it's going to be like a brown shiny shiny brown
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Casey:
So let's move on to our event preview and let's talk iPhones 17, maybe.
Casey:
What do we think?
Casey:
Is that going to be the name?
John:
Lots of people think it might be 26.
John:
I remember this is again, this is the type of thing that's not going to leak because they're probably not going to leak because, you know, it's easy to keep under wraps until the last minute.
John:
I think we've all just been assuming it's going to be 17, but I wouldn't be offended if it was 26.
John:
It would make perfect sense to me.
John:
It just doesn't... I think the odds are slightly in favor of being 17, but I don't care either way.
Casey:
I also think 17.
Marco:
I would love if they switched over to 26 naming for everything.
Marco:
That would make a lot of things easier.
John:
I think it would be easier for everybody.
Marco:
Yeah, but I don't think they're going to.
Marco:
I think there's like they can do it for the OS is like that's that's a big deal by itself.
Marco:
That helps a lot with all of our like if available statements in our code.
Marco:
But I don't think they're I think the iPhone branding is it's so it's so much bigger than all of these other terms for everything else they do in terms of like the public impact, what people think of it, how much it matters, like how familiar people are with the numbering scheme.
Marco:
Like I don't think they're going to change it.
John:
I think it's like 5149 in favor of 17, but we'll find out.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
So the rumors say that it's going to have an A19 and all of the A19 systems on chip, system on chips, whatever, will be built on the N3P process.
Casey:
John, can you remind me exactly what N3P is and where that stacks in the lineup?
Casey:
Yeah.
John:
In the list of three nanometer processes from TSMC, N3P was like the last one in the list when they first came out with it.
John:
And it was originally described as the one that's like for high performance CPUs and stuff.
John:
But basically it's now, if you look on their website, it says, this is our best three nanometer thing.
John:
It's for high performance.
John:
It's for lower power.
John:
It's just, it's the latest, greatest, best one.
John:
These will be the first phone chips built in that process, I believe.
John:
And so that bodes well for performance and all the other things.
John:
So, you know, that's good.
John:
Thumbs up.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
Allegedly 12 gigs of RAM, up from 8.
Casey:
It will allegedly, on at least the iPhone 17, we're not sure about the Pros, will have the C1 cellular modem or an equivalent thereof.
Casey:
That's Apple's homegrown in-house cellular modem that's in the 17-y.
Casey:
Or no, 16-y.
Casey:
I'm sorry, 16-y.
Casey:
It will potentially have ProMotion and the same screen as the iPhone 16 Pro.
John:
there is some debate as to whether or not it will have an always on screen that's the interesting thing about the rumor that it will have 120 hertz and basically people are saying like either they'll have the exact same screen as 16 pro or like the same type of screen or the equivalent performance screen but there's a question mark about whether it'll be always on not because the screen can't do it but maybe just as a differentiator or as a simplification of the display driver or whatever so that's one thing to watch for the the
John:
in in these in this in these preview notes i pull these from mac rumors and various other sources we'll link to the mac rumors roundup of stuff i put question marks after the ones not that the ones that don't have question marks aren't questioned because we won't know for sure until next week right but i'm the ones i put question marks after are even more questionable let's put it that way so always on screen is like maybe i don't know
John:
But the other stuff is more solid than the always-on screen.
John:
So I think 12 gigs of rang C1, ProMotion A19, that's a pretty good bet for the non-pro phone.
Marco:
It will be interesting to see – so there's this rumor that they're going to split up the iPhone releases in the future wave so that basically the rumor is that –
Marco:
This year, they're all coming out.
Marco:
The 17, 17 Pro, 17 Air, they're all coming out at the same time.
Marco:
But the rumor is that for the 18 series next year, that only the Pro and Air will come out in the fall.
Marco:
And then the non-Pro iPhone 18 and the 18e will come out in the spring together.
John:
and so therefore if that is true the 17 as the like base base model regular series phone has to actually last a year and a half this time not not just one year and it looks like it's set to do that like 12 gigs of ram like that's you know they could have left it at eight because the aid is quote unquote enough for apple intelligence but like a19 on n3p and the c1 cell modem and promotion like if you had to pick one like non-pro phone to last a year and a half this is a pretty good one
Marco:
yeah um apparently in the new google pixel phones they talked about this that like they bumped up the ram in the new pixel phones specifically so they can keep the on-device llms in memory which makes them respond a lot faster obviously like if you don't have to like load in these multi-gig local models into ram every time you're using them if they're already loaded in ram then you can they can respond more quickly to things um
Marco:
For the iPhones this year to be rumored to go up from 8 gigs to 12 gigs seemingly across the whole line, that could be for a similar reason.
Marco:
Like that could be like the local models can be both, you know, bigger to begin with maybe, but also you can keep more of them loaded in RAM all the time.
Marco:
And therefore, again, you're responding faster when you're using it.
Marco:
It will actually probably use less total power to invoke the LLM.
Marco:
If it's already loaded, you're saving some power there.
Marco:
So that could be the reason for this.
Marco:
And if so, that's a pretty good reason.
John:
What do the Pixels have now?
John:
I mean, Android phones have always had way more RAM, but also their OS takes more RAM.
John:
Are they up to like 16, 24?
John:
I don't even know what that is.
Marco:
I think it actually is 12 or 16.
Marco:
It's somewhere near this.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Yeah.
John:
No, more RAM.
John:
We all thank Apple Intelligence for finally giving all of our devices more RAM.
Yeah.
Marco:
Well, but it's a trade-off.
Marco:
You know, RAM takes power, too.
Marco:
Like, so, you know, you don't want to give it a device that is this power prioritizing, say.
Marco:
You don't want to give it way more RAM than it needs, even setting aside cost concerns, just because just keeping RAM on takes power.
Marco:
So, you know, you want to size it right for the application.
Marco:
But, you know, certainly if you're going to have a whole bunch of phone features that use large AI models that need to be loaded into RAM to work...
Casey:
it is probably going to benefit you to have a whole bunch of ram that you can just keep a lot of them loaded all the time all right and then allegedly eight hundred dollars no increase at all no price increase from the 16 the 17 pro 17 pro and max they will get an a19 pro with 12 gigs of ram again up from eight a qualcomm cell modem they will be eight and three quarters millimeters thick up from eight and one quarter millimeter thick or no i'm sorry that's not three quarters what is that uh seven eight eight point seven two five instead of eight point two five
Casey:
I can't remember what fraction that is.
John:
Again, these mock-up models that all the YouTubers have had for months are down to the millimeter because they're for a case manufacturer.
John:
So it's getting a little bit thicker, presumably for that new case and the battery and all that other stuff.
John:
Qualcomm cell modem, because the Qualcomm cell modem still has better performance.
John:
It has the millimeter wave band and yada yada.
John:
Like the Apple C1 is not...
John:
is not a competition for the Qualcomm highest-end modems.
John:
Maybe the C2 will be, but the C1 is not.
John:
So the low-end phone gets a C1, and the rumor is that the high-end phones will continue to get the Qualcomm one, which is fine because that's what our current phones have, and until Apple can match that feature set, they have no choice.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
And then there will be an aluminum unibody case and camera bump with a glass insert on the back and the antenna will be around the camera mesa.
John:
I should put a question mark on that one because that's still speculation because the mockups don't have that.
John:
But one of the ideas is that they found a new place to route, you know, the little camera lines, the little plastic stripes that are on the edges of the thing.
John:
Those will still be there.
John:
But also, supposedly, they're going to route an antenna line around the aluminum camera mesa.
John:
on the back of it without having seen any real phones and only seeing the case mock-ups you can't tell if that's true or not so there's a question mark on that one but it would be a really clever idea i just wonder how manufacturable it is this ultimately like the this rumored change of using a lot more aluminum in the casing and less glass on the back surface we talked about a little bit in past episodes i i hope
Marco:
This works out the way that I think it will, which should result in just generally – I think it will look a lot nicer first of all.
Marco:
But that should be way better for weight and thermal conductivity rather.
John:
It does have some downsides though.
John:
Yeah.
John:
two i can think of well has one more upside which is i think it will be more rigid because it's a unibody essentially instead of like a band a ring you know what i mean so it should be more torsionally rigid by by having essentially the whole top of the phone be like you know it's carved out of a giant block of aluminum so and it connects on the back and all the sides so that's good but the downside is the supposed easy repair ability where you get in from the front or the back
John:
think i mean i don't know how that glass insert is going to come off maybe it's just like glue and they can unglue it but it seems like to get to certain things like say the cameras you're going to have to go through the screen which is kind of like the bad old days where you had to do every repair from one direction and if you were doing the thing that is closest to that direction whether it's the front or the back fine but if you're doing the thing that's farthest you got to pull everything out so i'll see what iFixit has to say about this but
John:
If you look at this aluminum case, you can see it's a giant full-size opening on the screen side and a smaller opening on the backside because the camera may serve as part of the aluminum unibody.
John:
And yeah, I agree that it should help with weight and definitely with heat distribution.
John:
but repairability we'll see and also you know durability should probably be better yeah it's harder to break the glass when you hit the top corner because there's no glass there anymore except for the cameras i guess well right and also like think of how many times people break the back glass on their phone that will be a lot less likely probably under this kind of structure and people who break the break the back glass and don't get it fixed this will be more tenable because at least the crack will never extend to the edge because it's like again the glass insert area is inset from but like
John:
half a centimeter from all the edges that it's on i'm really curious to see i'm assuming that glass thing is just glued down and you can get in there with like a one of those little glue removal like heat gun things and it will come off with a suction cup or something but you know isn't i i thought most repairs went in through the front these days anyway isn't like wasn't the whole reason the whole thing with the new the whole thing with the new design that premiered with the iphone 14 is they made it so you could go in from either side depending on which side is closer to the thing you want to repair and that was a big boon for repairability but uh this is kind of
John:
backsliding a little bit on that because the cameras are closest to the back but you sure as hell can't get to them from the back because that's the solid piece of aluminum around them all right they're allegedly as we briefly discussed earlier will be vapor chamber cooling and my understanding of that is there's i think a little bit of liquid is that right in the device it's like a refrigerant it's the thing that changes phase isn't this what used to be called heat pipes no it's a little bit different than heat pipes oh
Casey:
Either way, allegedly that will help thermals, which as the three of us, particularly Marco and I talked about, would be great.
Casey:
There may be reduced reflection from the screen.
Casey:
Not a full-on matte screen, but maybe a little bit better.
John:
Yeah, there's a vague rumor about better reflection handling as seen on recent Android phones.
John:
We'll see if that turns out to be true.
John:
It's got a question mark.
Marco:
I would love a nanotexture option on the phone.
Marco:
that's not a rumor i know it's not um but just for the record like now that i have nanotexture on my new laptop i don't think i'll ever not get it if it's offered like unless it's something if it's a situation like the ipad pro where like you can get it on the ipad pro if you get the terabyte model it's like i'm probably never going to be able to justify that but uh it might come it might come down to the other models eventually we'll see
Casey:
be like it i when it's reasonably available i think i will get nanotexture on everything i can get it on now yeah i don't blame you uh there may be a new 48 megapixel 8x telephoto maybe or um i also saw some rumblings that um you know i'm sorry it's the next line that john provided for me uh five
Casey:
5 to 8x moving lens element zoom, potentially on the max only.
Casey:
So this is that you would actually have a little bit of the lens internally moving about in order to provide a varying amount of zoom.
Casey:
And again, maybe in the max phones only.
John:
because you need room it's a periscope thing and the thing it'll be moving will be moving like sideways within the phone and the max just has much more room for stuff to go sideways inside it the 48 megapixel like part of the improvement to the telephoto is the increased number of pixels behind it but then also it's 8x so if you crop in the idea is like you said marco like it would be 8x optically on the regular pro phone but you could crop in crop into 16 or would it be 4x and you're cropping to 8
John:
No, I think it's 8x.
John:
And like you said, the other the other lens, you'd be able to to to crop into 5x on like the you said might be like 3.5x or whatever.
John:
The camera stuff is also hard to nail down.
John:
But the 8x telephoto is pretty strongly rumored.
John:
And this this moving element zoom in the max only is definitely a question mark.
Casey:
The Pro phone will allegedly be $50 more, so $1,050.
Casey:
The Pro Max would be, again, $50 more to $1,250.
Casey:
But maybe you get 256 gigs of base storage, which would be nice.
John:
On the Pro, that should be under the Pro.
John:
The Pro Max already has 256 base, but I believe the rumor is that the plain old Pro will go to 256 base, which, you know, you can't get that much additional storage for $50 extra, so...
John:
The pro will be the bargain of the bunch here, but it's good that the prices don't seem to be moving too much.
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Casey:
And then we move on to the potential iPhone Air.
John:
Yeah, we should talk about that name before we continue.
John:
We've just been calling it iPhone Air.
John:
We were calling it iPhone Slim for a while.
John:
Before it was going to be slim, we called it the Ultra because it was going to be the fancier phone.
John:
And then once the rumors solidified and everyone got those...
John:
little you know 3d printed models or machined models it was clear that the selling point of the zone would be that it's thin so everybody started calling it the air just because that's the name that makes the most sense doesn't mean it's the name apple will use so what else could this be called uh if not air and i think slim is not apple steven hackett says ultra but it wouldn't i don't think they would use ultra i don't i don't think it is ultra but that makes me think but if you think it's a dumb name apple would use it then that's true
Marco:
Well, I think they would reserve ultra for a future, like large, like maybe that's what the folding one will be called next year.
John:
The 20th anniversary one.
John:
I don't know.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
Like it'd be something that would, that would be slotted above the pro max.
Marco:
And I don't think this is going to have that.
John:
What else?
John:
They're not going to call it the iPhone slim.
Marco:
No, I think air is very likely to be used.
John:
Especially as they use it for the iPad, where it's really weird because it was not the skinniest iPad.
Marco:
Well, I think when it was released, it was.
John:
Was it?
Marco:
Remember?
Marco:
Because like, okay, you had the iPad, the iPad 2, and then a few other unnamed.
Marco:
And then the iPad Air was a much thinner, lighter design when it came out.
Marco:
Wasn't that the first one that shrunk the left and right bezels to be not the same as the top and bottom?
Marco:
Yeah.
John:
No, I will have to check whether the Air was actually Airy on the iPad.
John:
But either way, there's precedent on the iPad for them using the name, whether or not it currently makes sense in the current lineup.
John:
So everyone assumes it's going to be called iPhone Air, but I'm not as confident in this name simply because it makes too much sense.
John:
Yeah, how about iPhone Min?
Casey:
Yeah, right.
Casey:
I don't think that's happening.
Casey:
uh yeah i don't know if not the uh if not the air i honestly don't have a clue um i think air is such an obvious answer which to your point maybe it means it's never going to be the answer but i'm not sure what else they would use if i had to put money i'd have to put it on air because honestly i can't think of anything either but stephen haggard seems real convinced it's going to be ultra i just don't think that's it
Marco:
But yeah, I do think we should never underestimate the weirdness of Apple's naming choices.
John:
I'll put it this way.
John:
It shouldn't be called Ultra.
John:
And I really hope it's not.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
So anyway, whatever this thing is, the Air or otherwise, it's maybe going to have an A19 Pro.
John:
Yeah, this rumor keeps going back and forth.
John:
I said in the last episode, no, no Pro Chip in the Air.
John:
But now they're like, maybe Pro Chip with GPU core disabled?
Yeah.
John:
So I don't know how to nail this one down.
John:
Obviously, Apple has choices here.
John:
I think the only choice they don't have is to have a full-fledged, full-speed Pro chip in there because it's too skinny and they can't get the heat out.
John:
So they could put a Pro chip in there with parts of it disabled.
John:
They could downclock it or they could put a plane A19.
John:
Uh, I'm starting to believe the pro with stuff disabled rumor just because they're going to have pro with stuff that doesn't work.
John:
Uh, and they got to put some of them in the studio display too later in the year or next year.
John:
And they're going to put some of them in the iPhone air, but we'll see.
John:
That's another thing to look for.
John:
Does the air get a hobbled pro chip or does it get the plane?
John:
A 19.
Casey:
Does it get 12 gigs of RAM?
Casey:
We think it does.
Casey:
And we also think it's going to have the C1 cellular modem.
Casey:
It'll be between the Pro and the Pro Max in size in terms of width and height.
Casey:
But it will be a scant five and a half millimeters thick, or so we think.
Casey:
And that's about three millimeters less than the iPhone 17 Pro.
Casey:
The iPhone Air 17 Air will allegedly cost about $950, which is $50 more than the iPhone 16 Plus.
John:
Yeah, no more Plus phones is the rumor this year.
John:
So the Air basically replaces them in the lineup as, not really replaces them because it's whatever, but it's, yeah.
Marco:
I bought a Plus as one of my test devices.
Marco:
It's the only one I have ever seen in the wild.
John:
Apple's just too good at upselling people.
John:
They put these phones in their line that make perfect sense and make the line uniform and even it out.
John:
Then the entire machinery of Apple's brand and marketing and value and deal pushes people away from
John:
products like the plus even though it's a perfectly serviceable product and it fits in the line she's like well but if i'm spending this much anyway maybe i should just get the pro max and i guess that's what people do when they want a giant phone do you think is the 13 inch ipad air selling any better than the iphone plus has been selling
Marco:
I don't know.
John:
Again, you would hope so.
John:
Because it's like, what if I just want a big screen but don't need all the profile?
John:
It makes perfect sense.
John:
It kind of annoys me that they're taking it out of the line because you know my old deal of like, not everything has to be your best-selling product.
John:
But whatever.
John:
I mean, they're diversifying the iPhone line this year in a different way that they hadn't before.
John:
This Air thing is slotting in in a weird way because it's not just a different size or a different power.
John:
It's a whole...
John:
its balance of features it's a whole different deal like part of the reason it has a c1 cell modem is because for power concerns right there's i didn't put this in here but there's rumors back and forth about what battery technology they're going to be using and that really influences how optimistic people are about the battery life they're like well if they use the same battery technology as the other phones it's going to suck because the battery's going to be tiny but what if it's their first silicon carbon battery and the new technology will make it better and it's like well why don't they use those good batteries the other phones too
John:
So we'll see what the battery story is and if they tout any new battery chemistry in the Air or the other iPhones.
Marco:
Well, also, you know, keep in mind, the rumor is that it will have the C1 submodem.
Marco:
That's going to be probably much more efficient than the Qualcomm modem in the Pro.
John:
Yeah, that's what I just said.
John:
Like, that's part of the reason they're doing that.
John:
Part of it is pricing and power from the Qualcomm thing, but also part of it is you got to have the lowest power stuff in there.
John:
Which is why the rumor of A19 Pro versus A19 keeps going back and forth.
John:
You're like, well, why would they put the Pro in it?
John:
The battery life is so precious.
Marco:
Yeah, we'll see.
Marco:
I mean, I think I'm probably going to end up buying the Air, honestly.
Marco:
I don't know that I will end up being happy with that decision over the entire year to come.
Marco:
I think it's a risk.
Marco:
But it sounds really interesting, and I don't necessarily think that what they are doing here is killing the plus.
Marco:
I think it's more like they are taking the plus in a different direction.
Marco:
This is very similar in specs, limits, and pricing, probably, to where the plus sat in the lineup before.
Marco:
Yeah.
John:
Well, but see, I don't, the Plus had a bigger, the Plus was like the 13 inch iPad Air.
John:
It was like, I want a bigger screen, but I don't care about all the other crap.
John:
But the Air is like, I want a bigger screen, but oh, but you can't get the Pro Max size screen.
John:
You've got to get something that's in between the Pro and the Max.
John:
And you're like, okay, fine.
John:
I can live with that.
John:
Oh, and by the way, also we're hurting your battery life.
John:
Whereas the Plus used to have great battery life because it was real big and it didn't have the Pro SoC in it.
John:
Had great battery life.
John:
The Air totally is not filling that role in the lineup anymore.
John:
The Air is the worst battery life of any iPhone.
John:
Probably.
Casey:
What camera system are we getting on the air?
John:
I think I didn't put that in here because I didn't look up the details of it.
John:
I think it's basically you just get like the one X camera from the 17.
John:
But we'll see.
John:
But anyway, there's no exciting camera rumors about the air.
John:
It's just like you get one.
John:
You get one.
John:
That's clear.
John:
You're just getting one camera.
John:
And it's probably going to be the regular one X camera from either the pro or the non pro if they're not the same this year.
Marco:
Which is interesting, too.
Marco:
The rumors are that there will be only one camera, which also means no 0.5 ultra-wide.
Marco:
That's right.
Marco:
And if we don't have the 0.5 ultra-wide, with the camera system as we know it, that means no macro, no 3D anything, like, you know, no...
Marco:
vision pro 3d videos like spatial video like there's like that would actually be a significant uh feature limitation to only to not even have the wide it's the sacrifice for the thickness because again like the space that they save by not having those cameras they shove more battery up there
Marco:
Yeah, so we'll see.
Marco:
I mean, I think it's going to be a really interesting phone to try.
Marco:
And I think they're going to make some big splashes with it.
Marco:
We'll see.
John:
And before I move on from the phones, because this is the last one, I have to say that...
John:
Even though obviously I'm not against the multi cameras in the back, like my daughter is the plane 17, like the plane 16, but even more so is so clearly the best looking phone in the lineup because the back of the air looks weird and awkward with that thing.
John:
The back of the pro looks miserable this year.
John:
Back of the non-pro, it's got two cameras vertically with, you know, purple and green cases and everything.
John:
It is the most attractive phone if you care about that sort of thing, which I surprisingly I kind of do.
John:
Not enough for me to get a non-pro because I need the cameras more.
John:
But boy, I wish I could have a camera that looked like the 16 or the 17 on the back.
John:
And the Air, you think like, oh, isn't the Air going to be the looker?
John:
But they, you know, it's got one camera, but it's got a full length pixel style camera mesa on the back.
John:
And I think it is ugly.
John:
honestly i think all the camera mesas are ugly like i don't think i think with all the mesa designs i think they are all hideous but 17 is the best or the 16 is the best yeah probably especially with like on the on the 16 where it had like the the glass like the fade of the deep color of the 16 sort of fading up in the camera mesa they did it it's it's slimming it's like when you do like a whatever i don't know the makeup terms like the highlighter along the bridge of your nose for makeup and everything to make your nose look smaller i love that you think we would know that
Casey:
right some someone in the chat room will know yeah definitely are you sure our chat room yes people know things about makeup i i know things about makeup i just don't know the right words that's all right we'll figure it out another time i don't know i i'm intrigued by the air uh i don't think i would want it as my for the next year phone although i am i really think that one of the three of us should grab one of these so you know i'm gonna get one yeah that's probably true
Marco:
Again, I don't care that much about thinness.
Marco:
I think it's going to feel amazing because it's going to be lighter.
Marco:
I think that's really what's going to get me about it.
Casey:
I know we talked about this just a little while ago on this very episode, but I am surprised by how off-putting you find the weight of these phones to be.
Casey:
They're pulling his shorts down.
Casey:
i mean i guess they're they're not light i'm not trying to say that they're light i'm not trying to say that it's unreasonable for you to be put off by this but i i'm i'm just not nearly as did you ever use a mini casey did you get a mini one year i forget no i did not oh the mini was great i get where he's coming from like because i go into my attic occasionally and pick up like old old iphone 6 or like an old ipod touch and it's like they weigh nothing
John:
And it really, these bricks that we carry around with us, like the functionality is important enough for us to do it.
John:
And I prefer the battery life that I get from the brick than I would otherwise.
John:
But if I could snap my fingers and have something that weighed as much as an old iPod touch, but it had all these feature size and battery life, I would do it in a second.
John:
So...
John:
And especially since the phones have been kind of getting heavier as they got bigger again, I think those were the correct trade-offs for the pro phones.
John:
And I still think it's the correct trade-offs, but I get where Marco's coming from with the weight.
John:
I wouldn't trade it for all my cameras, but I can see why somebody would.
John:
The battery life is the only big question mark in my mind, because if your phone doesn't last all day, it doesn't matter how much you enjoy it when you're using it.
Casey:
Yeah, we'll see what happens.
Casey:
I don't know.
Casey:
I am definitely intrigued by the air or whatever it ends up being called.
Casey:
Like I said, I don't suspect I'm going to actually commit to it.
Casey:
And I hope that Marco does at least long enough for us to talk about it on the show.
Casey:
And then if you return it, so be it.
Casey:
But I am definitely intrigued for sure.
Casey:
There are allegedly some other things coming on, what is it, Tuesday?
Casey:
So we will allegedly be getting AirPods Pro 3, which I have been waiting for for so long, except now I've got basically a brand new AirPods Pro 2.
Casey:
But you're getting them anyway.
Casey:
I probably will because I'm a fool.
Marco:
But anyways, there's nothing wrong with having multiple pairs of the headphones you use most often.
John:
You'll be passing them down to your kids soon enough, too.
Marco:
Yeah, they definitely want, like, your earwax.
Marco:
Well, no, you get new tips, man.
Marco:
You get new tips.
Casey:
And also, I don't think they would care that much.
John:
Just wait until you see what they look like after they use them for a while.
Casey:
Yeah, gross.
Casey:
So anyway, so AirPods Pro 3, new smaller case without any buttons whatsoever, which is similar to the AirPods 4.
Casey:
Is that what you're rocking now, John, the AirPods 4?
John:
Yeah, it's got, like, a capacitive button, which I think is kind of a downgrade because, honestly, how are people supposed to figure that out?
John:
It's not like,
John:
the tiny instruction booklet people just throw away or never look at but yeah there's there is still a capacitive button that does the same thing as the press in button but now it's not a real button i mean in all fairness no one knows how the button works anyway even when it's a real button yeah it's true yeah it's better for the case less grit can get in there it makes it simpler so on and so forth but what they mean by smaller case um is smaller than the current uh airpods pro 2 case which is still pretty big
Marco:
Yeah, any reduction in case size, especially thickness, I would very much welcome.
Marco:
Because the way it is right now, you can put it in a pocket, but it's not graceful.
Marco:
I mean, getting back to our shorts discussion, there's pretty much no way to have an AirPods Pro case in your pants pocket and have it look reasonable at all.
John:
Another weird thing is I found that I don't know if this is just my daughter or a trend among kids, but she has always asked for and gotten cases for her AirPod cases.
John:
I guess it's just to make them look nicer, like because they're just boring and white.
John:
So she gets like brightly colored ones or with patterns on them.
John:
And recently the case I got her came with like a carabiner thing attached to it.
John:
And I just assumed she would just take that off and ignore it.
John:
But she's like, no, leave it on.
John:
It's cool.
John:
So her AirPods case have always been even bigger than they would be because they have, you know, a thin silicone, cheap silicone case around them with like pretty flowers on it or whatever.
John:
And then a carabiner attached to it.
Casey:
So anyways, there's going to be a better sound, better noise cancellation and potentially heart rate monitoring.
Yeah.
Casey:
We'll see.
Casey:
That's the rumor.
John:
We'll see.
Casey:
Apple Watch Series 11 will have the S11 chip, which will basically be the same as the S10.
John:
I can't believe Apple keeps getting away with that.
John:
I don't know how many years they've done it in a row.
John:
They've just increased the number, but have the SoC be basically unchanged.
John:
Yeah, I believe there were three years in a row where it was the same processor in each Apple Watch.
John:
And then they changed it, and now we're back to like, well, it's going to be the same.
John:
I mean, not that it matters.
John:
It's fine, but it's just they don't feel the need to put the pedal to the metal in terms of like every year.
John:
you know uh ramping it up i think the only time it's going to change is like when when they go to two nanometer or something and even maybe not that year maybe that year after they go to two nanometer then the s 12 or 13 is the first two nanometer one and they do the change and then there's the same soc three years in a row it's fine it's just funny and weird
Casey:
We will potentially be getting 5G cellular on the Apple Watch Series 11 and maybe blood pressure monitoring.
Casey:
I would be very surprised if that happens, but it would be great if it did.
John:
All the health stuff is always such a big question mark because there's just so many things that are rumored and there's so much about shipping them that has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with regulatory environment and whether Apple feels like they should do it or whatever.
John:
So...
John:
take all of the potential health things with the grain itself.
John:
But if it doesn't have something like that, the only new feature would be S11, which, whether people know it or not, is not that big of a change from an S10, and instead of just LTE cellular doing 5G.
Marco:
Keep in mind, the track record of Apple Watch rumors is terrible.
Marco:
In either direction, whenever like nothing is predicted, sometimes we get something pretty cool.
Marco:
And then sometimes we have like predictions of, say, a case redesign or a new strap, you know, straight or mechanism or whatever.
Marco:
And like those almost never pan out.
Marco:
The rumor mill for Apple Watch is very weak.
John:
Especially for things like these health features, which even if these were true, the rumors don't even say that this would require different hardware.
John:
So you can't even verify or negate them by looking at the hardware because all these are like, well, we'd use the existing sensors that are already there.
John:
We just figured out some way to use those sensors to get this information in some weird way.
John:
Or maybe we haven't.
John:
And it doesn't even change the harbor.
John:
The case rumors and stuff like that, it's like, it's clear that it's just, we'll be able to tell whether that's true or not.
John:
And lo and behold, they haven't been.
John:
And the strap rumors.
John:
But the health monitoring rumors are so hard because a lot of it is just like software that either is or isn't ready to synthesize sensor data to come up with a number.
Yeah.
Casey:
Apple Watch SE will have the S11.
John:
Maybe.
Casey:
Maybe.
Casey:
New sleep apnea detection?
Casey:
Maybe.
John:
And which is just a feature that the non-SE watches have had, but the rumor is that the SE will get it this year.
Casey:
And maybe new 1.6-inch and 1.8-inch display sizes.
Casey:
What is that in terms of millimeters, you know, 40, 44, et cetera?
John:
I forget, but I would say see Marco's earlier comments about the rumors of watch hardware.
John:
Yeah, bigger.
John:
What this is saying is that the SE hasn't been updated in a while.
John:
And so this, I forget what number they're on.
John:
Is this the SE4 or whatever?
John:
But like that this would be a change.
John:
That's why the S11 is like, it would be a new Apple Watch SE that, you know, tries to keep up with the other watches.
John:
So if it had an S11, that would be something.
John:
It would say like it has the exact same SoC as the plain series 11.
John:
So it will keep for three years when they don't change it.
John:
And it will get some of the previous features that the non-SE watches had, like sleep apnea detection.
John:
And if it's a new size, I don't know why it would be a new size, but who the hell knows?
Marco:
Yeah, and what I'm hoping, like, you know, it sounds like this is going to be a pretty boring year for Apple Watch updates, if all these rumors or lack thereof are actually correct.
John:
These are the most exciting rumors we've got.
Marco:
Yeah, and this is, like, there's not a lot here.
Marco:
So what I'm hoping for, you know...
Marco:
The Apple Watch hardware itself, it's not that interesting most of the time, but they can usually do fun things like maybe a new case material, like a new kind of metal or a new finish on the case, maybe a new color of metal on the case, maybe some new strap type that like, oh, now we have the titanium loop combo or some kind of –
Marco:
Other way to have some nice little updates here that don't require necessarily the constant march of exciting hardware, which they don't really tend to deliver.
Marco:
But there's lots of other things that matter in watches.
Marco:
And if you can – this is at the end of the day, it is a computer, but it's also jewelry and fashion.
Marco:
And so if you can make some excitement there in those other areas, which they usually are pretty good at, then that's a way to make this interesting in other ways.
Casey:
The Apple Watch Ultra 3, we don't know squat, except that maybe it'll get satellite connectivity.
John:
And that may be the only thing that's different about it.
John:
I mean, presumably the S11 or whatever, but it'll look the same as the current Apple Watch Ultra.
John:
As Marco said, maybe it'll come in some new color or something, maybe not.
John:
But the whole idea is satellite connectivity.
John:
And I think what they're saying by that, I didn't put the details in here, but not just the thing where you can SOS or whatever, but where you can actually use it to send data or whatever, which is...
John:
A feature that is popular on other non-Apple Watches, and the Apple Watch Ultra is lagging behind its competitors in this area, so maybe it will get satellite connectivity from more than just absolute last resort SOS.
John:
We shall see.
Marco:
I will say, for whatever it's worth on the fun new strap front...
Marco:
Um, all summer I changed out my Apple watch strap for, um, I forget what it's called, but there's, there's an ultra version of the Milanese loop that is made of titanium and it has a latch that keeps it in place.
John:
Like it keeps the fit size that you set instead of the little magnets thing and just a loop.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
And I've been wearing this not I don't wear an ultra, but I've been wearing this on my regular like, you know, big sized regular Apple Watch all summer long.
Marco:
And not only does it look very good, but it has functioned so much better than any other metal Apple Watch strap I've ever had.
Marco:
Because you can set the set point clasp, you can unbutton it and set it wherever you want.
Marco:
So you have free range.
Marco:
So unlike the link bracelet, which doesn't have any kind of micro-adjustment, you have infinite micro-adjustment on how you're setting it.
Marco:
But every time you put it on, it goes back to where you previously set it.
Marco:
So it's not like you have to every morning try to get it right again with the regular Milanese.
Marco:
And
Marco:
Compared to the regular Milanese, this one doesn't pinch arm hairs at all.
Marco:
I don't know why.
Marco:
I don't know how they're managing to do it.
Marco:
It's just like a different physical mechanic.
Marco:
I don't know.
Marco:
Somehow, it doesn't pinch any arm hairs at all.
Casey:
I think John's arms would like a word.
Marco:
I mean, look, I'm no John with my arm hair, but I'm not that bald.
Marco:
I don't know.
Marco:
I think I have a standard amount of man arm hair.
John:
Maybe they just changed, like you said, at the microscopic level, the way the little rings or whatever interlink with each other.
John:
So maybe...
Marco:
Whatever it is, this titanium mesh thing, I love this band.
Marco:
It's fantastic.
Marco:
And even without an ultra, as I was saying, as long as you have the big size watch, because they don't make it in the small size, but as long as you have the big size watch, this band works really well.
Casey:
Hmm.
Casey:
That's cool.
Casey:
Uh, then apparently we will be getting, and I believe we talked about this a week or two ago, we will be maybe getting tech woven and or liquid silicone cases.
Casey:
Uh, and they may have lanyard or perhaps cross body straps.
Uh,
John:
Marco mentioned that earlier.
John:
You can see pictures of it in the Mac rumor story.
John:
I still don't quite understand how the cross body strap will work.
John:
It's got like magnets in the end that connect the little things together, but I don't quite know where the phone part.
John:
Anyway, I wish they had showed this on a person.
John:
Show me how a person uses this.
John:
To carry a phone.
Casey:
Have you never seen like a crossbody phone strap?
John:
I don't think I've seen one in real life and I would love to see one like sort of mocked up here, but it's just, yeah, I mean, I guess, I guess if this is, I think this is, this is a thing that like younger than us people do that we don't understand.
John:
Like I'm sure this is not, yeah.
John:
or for all i know it's also the thing that retired people will be using or something i don't know but we'll find out i mean obviously it's a big enough trend for apple for it to be on apple's radar again if this rumor is to be believed whether or not apple makes these other people do make them and so that's why people think apple might make one and you have you can see the pictures and these what it looks to me like is like a dog leash but you know that's just where my mind goes when i see something like this wow
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
And then I have been instructed to ask you, and I think these are great questions that John put in the show notes.
Casey:
What are we most looking forward to?
Casey:
I will finish up.
Casey:
So let's start with John, please.
John:
Strangely enough, I think I am most looking forward to the plain iPhone 17s.
John:
And to swap my answer to the next question that we're going to get to, as I said earlier...
John:
getting 17s for my kids and like i said i i don't like how the pros look this year i don't like the fact that they kind of left the three cameras the same way they were but extended the mesa across the phone like i feel like it is not the uh the recognition of the reality of cameras that i was asking for when i said stop pretending they're in the corner they're like fine now they're not in the corner it's like well they're still just i don't like it i don't like the way it looks on on the air but
John:
when it's got one camera that's got the pixel thing, the, the, it looks just like the pixel phones.
John:
I think they're ugly and not a good design.
John:
So I'm glad I'm not getting one.
John:
And, uh, I'm glad my kids are getting the plane 17 because I think it's the looker of the group.
John:
And I'm hoping that,
John:
that the 17 will be a great phone for both of them.
John:
First of all, this is probably the last phone I'm going to be buying for my son because hopefully someday he will graduate and get a job or go to graduate school or whatever.
John:
But, you know, the parent gravy train is ending after four years of college.
John:
And so this will probably be the last phone we buy for him.
John:
And it's this is going to be my daughter's college phone that she's going to hopefully use for all four years of college.
John:
And it will come with a pretty good processor in the A19 built on TSMC's N3P process, the best three nanometer one after many years of various three nanometer process, 12 gigs of RAM, thanks to Apple intelligence up from eight, the low power Apple cell modem, ProMotion.
John:
That sounds like a great... I hope it has really good battery life with the A19 on N3P and the C1 cell modem and maybe a promotion that doesn't include the always-on screen.
John:
She would probably use that anyway.
John:
So I'm actually the most excited about the Plane 17 because I feel like it will be like...
John:
the perfection of this particular form, kind of like, I feel like the 16 pros was the kind of the perfection of this form before they changed it again.
John:
But the 17 hasn't changed.
John:
It looks just like the 16, but it'll be, it should be better in all possible ways with a couple of specs, particularly bumped up, particularly the Ram and the cell modem and taking less power and promotion.
John:
So yeah,
John:
That's what I'm most excited about.
John:
And also, I think it'll become one of the most fun colors, and I'm interested to see which colors my kids will pick.
John:
I'm sure my son will pick black or gray or something, but my daughter will pick something fun.
John:
So there you go.
John:
That's my pick for the event.
John:
I'm excited about the 17.
John:
Marco.
Marco:
Wow.
Marco:
I mean, I've covered most of this already.
Marco:
I can't wait to see the air.
Marco:
That's really – and I think even if it turns out not to be perfect in every way for me,
Marco:
I'm just looking forward to what have they done that is different here?
Marco:
Obviously, there's going to be major trade-offs, but maybe they'll be worth it when you pick the thing up and you're like, oh my god, I have to have this.
Marco:
Whenever they've introduced a new form factor of something...
Marco:
There's always trade-offs.
Marco:
If it's small, the trade-offs usually are compute power or battery or features, whatever it is.
Marco:
You look at when they first introduced the MacBook Air or the 12-inch MacBook.
Marco:
These came in with very big trade-offs.
Marco:
But you would pick the thing up and be like, oh my god, I have to have this.
Marco:
And you would oftentimes put up with those trade-offs.
Marco:
Almost every trade-off that we've said is probably likely with the iPhone Air also applied to the iPhone mini.
Marco:
But I used an iPhone mini for a year and loved it.
Marco:
Even though, yeah, I missed the zoom camera.
Marco:
Yeah, I missed having the bigger battery.
Marco:
But I did love it for that year because it was something different and it felt delightful in my hand.
Marco:
That's what I'm expecting and hoping the iPhone, quote, Air to be.
Marco:
I think it's going to be really nice in like physical ways.
Marco:
And maybe in the technical specs, it won't be as nice.
Marco:
But that might be a worthy tradeoff for a lot of people and possibly myself included.
Marco:
So that I'm very much looking forward to because it's something really new and it looks like they are trying something really extreme with it.
Casey:
And that could be really nice.
Casey:
Oh, and you're looking to buy which one?
Marco:
The only thing that I think that would kick me up to the Pro is if it's a really good orange.
Marco:
But again, I don't have high hopes.
Marco:
I just, yeah, I don't see it happening.
Marco:
If it is, great.
Marco:
And if for some reason the colors really suck on the air.
Marco:
But I don't think that will end up being the case.
John:
I think the rumor is the colors aren't exciting on the air.
John:
So like when it came down to choose, what should the air be like?
John:
It's kind of between the pro and the non-pro.
John:
It seems like they're leaning more towards the pro.
John:
But again, color rumors are the hardest to nail down.
John:
So there's still hope for you.
Marco:
Yeah, like I will say, I've seen the rumored colors and the air colors did not look interesting.
Marco:
But yeah, we'll see what that orange turns out to be.
Casey:
For me, I think I'm most excited to see the Air and the new AirPods Pro.
Casey:
I sincerely doubt I will be buying an Air, although you bet I'm going to have to go to the Apple Store and touch one and fondle one and see what I think.
Casey:
I suspect I will be getting a iPhone 17 Pro or perhaps iPhone 26 Pro, but I think it'll be an iPhone 17 Pro.
Casey:
And we'll see what happens from there.
Casey:
I don't know.
Casey:
I feel like...
Casey:
As much as I enjoy the iPhone 16 Pro, we very much are approaching the one true form of the slab of glass that does things.
Casey:
And I'm really looking forward to the air to see, like Marco was saying, you know, what are they doing differently this time?
Casey:
How are they changing things?
Casey:
What is this trading off in order to get incredibly thin?
Casey:
And I'm just excited to see something that looks a bit different, even if I don't necessarily think it fits my needs well.
Casey:
So that's what I think will happen.
Casey:
And we'll see how it goes on Tuesday.
Casey:
I know we usually cover this at the end of the show, but since we're here now, our intention is to record on the 10th on Wednesday, just as you would expect.
Casey:
So we are not doing any crazy scheduling changes or anything like that.
Casey:
So you will have a bootleg late on Wednesday the 10th and a released episode, depending on how late Marco wants to stay up, more likely than not sometime on Thursday the 11th.
Marco:
All right.
Marco:
Thank you to our sponsors this week, Squarespace, Factor, and Quince.
Marco:
And thank you to our members who support us directly.
Marco:
You can join us at atp.fm slash join.
Marco:
One of the many perks of membership, besides funding our ridiculous iPhone habits, one of the many other perks is ATP Overtime, our weekly bonus topic.
Marco:
This week on ATP Overtime, we're going to be talking about how the U.S.
Marco:
government is buying 10% of Intel?
Marco:
Which, okay.
Marco:
We're going to talk about that in overtime.
Marco:
I think there's a lot there.
Marco:
So anyway, join us, atp.fm slash join for all of our overtimes and many other things.
Marco:
Thank you for listening, everybody, and we'll talk to you next week.
Marco:
Now the show is over.
Marco:
They didn't even mean to begin.
Marco:
Cause it was accidental.
Marco:
Oh, it was accidental.
Marco:
John didn't do any research.
Marco:
Marco and Casey wouldn't let him.
Marco:
Cause it was accidental.
Marco:
Oh, it was accidental.
John:
And you can find the show notes at ATP.FM.
John:
And if you're into mastodon, you can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S.
Marco:
So that's Casey Liss, M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-E-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-E-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-E-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-E-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-E-N-S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A-C-R-A-C-U-S-A-C-U-S-A-C-U-S-A-C-U-S-A-C-U-S-A-C-U-S-A-C-U-S-A-C-U-S-A
Casey:
Are you guys excited about the new Tiny Remarkable tablet?
John:
I saw that.
John:
I saved that.
John:
I was going to put that in the notes for next week's show, but I assume you saw it.
John:
I was wondering if you would be excited about it because it seemed like you kind of appreciated the bigger screen.
John:
I know you're a fan of the product, but I was wondering if you would find the screen too small, but it sounds like you're excited about it.
Marco:
So coincidentally, I actually just like two weeks ago, or last week even, upgraded to the bigger size Remarkable, the Remarkable Paper Pro.
Marco:
And then they announced this a few days ago.
Marco:
They literally announced the event that they were going to have another release at the day after I threw away the box.
Yeah.
Marco:
of the Remarkable Paper Pro.
Marco:
But so what they release, or yeah, it's now its end release.
Marco:
What they release is the Remarkable Paper Pro Move, which has at least one too many words in the product name.
Marco:
But it's basically, it's almost an iPad mini sized Remarkable Paper Pro.
Marco:
It's actually like, it's skinnier and taller than a lot of E-Ink tablets or tablets in general.
Marco:
It's like a big phone.
Marco:
yeah almost um like it's you ever see like a reporter notebook style it's kind of like that that kind of aspect ratio and style it's like a a tall skinny uh note-taking thing um and what's interesting is it is it uses the same uh color e-ink screen as the big remarkable actually at a higher resolution um but you know we'll see how that goes
Marco:
Early reviews are out on YouTube from people who had advanced units, and they seem pretty positive.
Marco:
I don't think it's right for me, although I'll probably have one in two weeks.
Marco:
You know!
Marco:
I don't think it's right for me.
Marco:
However, there's other products in the category that I was a little bit interested in.
Marco:
There's two or three major ones that I see all over Amazon.
Marco:
There's one from a company that makes like –
Marco:
AI Note or something like that is the brand or something like that.
Marco:
And then there's a company called Viwoods that makes a really compelling small one that I actually bought earlier this summer.
Marco:
I ended up returning because I didn't really love the software on it.
Marco:
But
Marco:
There is this whole category of E-Ink note-taking things, and I did my little YouTube video earlier in the year about comparing the Remarkable 2 to the Supernote Manta, the 10.5-inch class ones.
Marco:
And the reason I ended up upgrading to their Markable Paper Pro just last week was basically because I liked having more screen space, and
Marco:
And I wanted a backlight and some of the kind of more modern advances that they had made with the Paper Pro.
Marco:
And just in terms of things like everyday life benefits, things like the dramatically improved design for the case and how it wraps around the pen and how the pen attaches and what the pen does.
Marco:
Even simple things like on the Pro compared to the two, the Pro will wake up
Marco:
When you open the case or it'll wake up when you take the pen off the side, which is really like the, like there's little quality of life improvements like that, that, that makes the pro really nice of an upgrade over the, over the remarkable two.
Marco:
Cause you know, the two is like five years old.
Marco:
And the Pro came out about a year ago.
Marco:
And so now this new one, the Pro Move, is basically all of the features of the Pro, but tiny and skinny.
Marco:
And that is awesome if you need something tiny.
Marco:
I don't think I do.
Marco:
The only time I really take it out is if I'm meeting with somebody or I will bring it to therapy so I can take notes about what I'm talking about and feeling.
Marco:
And so it is nice to have something portable, but the reality is...
Marco:
My hands aren't so full that I can't just bring the big one, so it's fine.
John:
You can put it in your other pocket to balance it out with the shorts so they can pull down evenly.
Marco:
Yeah, and it's not like the new ProMove.
Marco:
It's not so small that it would fit in a pocket, really.
Marco:
Maybe like a big winter jacket pocket, but it's not fitting in your pants pocket.
John:
It keeps looking like an iPhone Pro Max to me, but I guess it is bigger than that.
Marco:
no it's it's it's roughly ipad mini class it's like 7.3 versus what is the pro max 6.6 or something yeah but there's there's a big a big bezel difference yeah and and a big aspect ratio difference yeah you're right this has a big chin on the bottom too yeah exactly
Marco:
So anyway, it looks really, really good for a very specialized market, and I don't think I'm in that market.
Marco:
But I do really enjoy the Remarkable line.
Marco:
Whenever I have tried anything else besides the Remarkable line to fill this note-taking e-ink tablet kind of thing –
Marco:
I am always incredibly disappointed by the software on everyone else's tablets.
Marco:
Remarkable is incredibly Apple-like in the best way.
Marco:
They don't necessarily tackle every feature.
Marco:
They don't address every market.
Marco:
but their software is really good.
Marco:
It's a really nice overall integrated experience.
Marco:
The hardware is nice.
Marco:
The software is nice.
Marco:
The technical side, like the battery life is great.
Marco:
The sync service is very reliable.
Marco:
The feature set, like everything just kind of works.
Marco:
And whenever I've tried any of the other ones,
Marco:
There have been features that I've liked about the other ones, but the software is always just full of paper cuts, or it's too slow, or the battery life is terrible, or the sink is terrible.
Marco:
Ultimately, overall, I'm very much a remarkable fan, but I don't think I necessarily need this new one.
Marco:
But what I still hope to eventually be released, and what I was hoping this event would be, but it wasn't,
Marco:
I want a Remarkable 3, a still black and white screen, 300 DPI, just like the Carta screens that are on most of their competitors now, because they're still like the Paper Pro and the Remarkable 2 are like 220 something DPI, I think.
Marco:
And the new move is 260 something, 264, I think.
Marco:
But all their competitors are 300.
Marco:
And it really does make a difference.
Marco:
The text looks way sharper on a Super Note or a Kindle Scribe compared to the Remarkables.
Marco:
So I would love higher resolution.
Marco:
But otherwise, I would love for them to just bring all of the little quality of life improvements they've learned over time that are in the Pro and the ProMove.
Marco:
Bring those to a mid-sized black and white high-res tablet.
Marco:
I think that would be killer.
Marco:
I would love that.
John:
Seems like your dreams of black and white are going to be the ones that are thwarted because if even this little thing has their color system, I feel like any Remarkable 3 has got to be color, right?
Marco:
That's my fear, but the color screens do bring significant trade-offs.
Marco:
It dramatically changes how much refreshing they have to do.
Marco:
The refreshes are slower.
Marco:
The only thing I really don't like about the Remarkable Pro compared to the 2 is the undo speed is significantly slower on the Pro versus the 2 because the way the color screen has to refresh to undo to erase something, it takes longer and it's different.
Marco:
Undo is very laggy on the Pro screen, whereas on the 2 it's really not.
Marco:
So, yeah, I would love a future nice black and white.
Marco:
Black and white with a light would be ideal.
Marco:
And that's why I tried the ViWoods Mini, because the ViWoods Mini does offer that.
Marco:
It just has software that was not for me, like most things.
Marco:
But overall, the ViWoods Mini was a great experience of like, oh, I would kind of maybe enjoy something like this, but I want remarkable software.
Marco:
Anyway, so...
Marco:
I love what Remarkable does.
Marco:
I am finding increasing uses for the tablet.
Marco:
I'm very glad I have it.
Marco:
I even briefly, of course, I thought to myself, I would really love to write my own note-taking software.
Marco:
Of course, because it's me.
Marco:
And I'm not going to learn Android, so screw that.
Marco:
But I thought, how bad would it be if I just use an iPad for this purpose?
Marco:
If I just write an iPad app and I tried...
Marco:
I tried using an iPad for note-taking on my desk to replace the Remarkable for a couple of days, a few weeks ago, and it's so much worse.
Marco:
And I'm not even talking about just the feel of the screen, which is incredibly worse.
Marco:
It's not even close.
Marco:
The feel of writing with the Apple Pencil on an iPad, even with a paper-style screen protector or without, no matter how you're doing it,
Marco:
It's night and day different compared to an e-ink tablet.
Marco:
The e-ink tablets, they feel way better.
Marco:
The pens are way better.
Marco:
The draw distance is way smaller.
Marco:
Everything about them is better feeling in terms of actual note-taking.
Marco:
But also just all the software is totally wrong.
Marco:
I looked around the app store trying to find what...
Marco:
What iPad app comes the closest to a Remarkable-style note-taking UI?
Marco:
And it's a rough space out there.
Marco:
There is nothing good.
Marco:
The reason why Remarkable fits me so well is because they seem to have similar values as I do in terms of quality, like a small feature set done very well.
Marco:
All of the iPad note-taking apps don't do that.
Marco:
They're all like, we're going to be everything to you.
Marco:
We want to, we're going to have like, you know, audio recording, AI transcription, AI everything, you know, import documents and take notes on other sheets.
Marco:
And it's like, oh, I don't want any of that.
Marco:
I want like a fancy notebook.
Marco:
That's, that's what I want here.
Marco:
Like I want a notebook that's dynamic because it's a computer and that's what the tablets offer.
Marco:
And I was not able to find something like that on the iPad.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
So even setting aside the hardware problems that make it a lot less ideal for this purpose, the software situation is dire.
Marco:
It's terrible.
Marco:
So someday maybe I'll write my own, but that's not going to happen anytime soon.