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357: ‘Fluent Cupertinoese’, With Nilay Patel

 

00:00:00   I actually got to say last week, good to see you.

00:00:03   And now it's like what, every other month we see each other.

00:00:06   It's back.

00:00:07   - Yeah, it's great.

00:00:08   Hopefully we'll see each other in October at the next event.

00:00:10   Like, being in person at that event was,

00:00:14   I think Apple got a boost.

00:00:15   I think all of us like boosted our review scores.

00:00:18   Because we were just like happy to be together.

00:00:20   - I think so too.

00:00:21   What do you think?

00:00:22   So before we, let's just skip over

00:00:26   what is easily two hours of news if we talk real fast.

00:00:30   And of course I don't talk fast.

00:00:31   And just speculate about the future.

00:00:33   So Apple typically has an October event.

00:00:35   Sometimes they'll postpone it to like early November.

00:00:38   Everybody's expecting iPad Pros,

00:00:40   which are overdue for a refresh.

00:00:42   And some sort of Mac hardware now that the M2 debuted

00:00:45   with the MacBook Air at WWDC.

00:00:49   Do you think, in times past,

00:00:52   they've held these October events all over the country.

00:00:55   One time it was like at a Chicago Tech High School,

00:00:57   Brooklyn Academy of Music a couple of years ago,

00:01:00   which was a really fun show.

00:01:02   Do you think they're gonna do something like that?

00:01:03   Or you think with the COVID restrictions still in place,

00:01:05   it is 100% certain we're going back to Cupertino?

00:01:08   - I think we're going back to Cupertino.

00:01:11   I mean, I'm just assuming.

00:01:12   Like one, it was great to be in the theater.

00:01:15   They've started doing some additional security screening.

00:01:17   I think you pointed out one of your posts.

00:01:18   Like it's just easier.

00:01:21   And second, they haven't used that theater in like two years.

00:01:23   I think they're just excited to be home.

00:01:25   - I do too.

00:01:26   Well, and I also think that there's still,

00:01:28   I mean, like one of the things, and I don't blame them.

00:01:30   This is not a complaint.

00:01:31   And I might've complained if they had required us

00:01:35   to wear masks indoors for this event.

00:01:38   In fact, I would have,

00:01:39   'cause I think that would have been nonsense

00:01:40   given the current state of COVID.

00:01:42   But they didn't because I think they're on board,

00:01:44   but they did require all attendees to provide a test score

00:01:48   from the last 24 hours.

00:01:50   So they're still worried enough about COVID

00:01:52   that they're doing that.

00:01:53   So I can't see why they would take the chance

00:01:56   of planning an event off campus

00:02:00   if they still think COVID is enough of a, hmm,

00:02:04   you never know.

00:02:05   And when COVID has gone bad with new waves,

00:02:08   it goes bad quickly.

00:02:10   - Yeah.

00:02:11   I appreciated that they're still doing the test results.

00:02:13   Like that's what I need.

00:02:15   Like I'm with, no one was wearing a mask.

00:02:17   Maybe like a handful of people.

00:02:18   But I was like, you know what?

00:02:20   I know that Apple has taken it seriously enough

00:02:23   to require these test results.

00:02:25   So like, I'm going for it.

00:02:27   Like I'm hugging everybody.

00:02:28   Like that was great.

00:02:29   And I just appreciated that.

00:02:30   - Yeah, and they fixed the process from WWDC

00:02:33   where everybody who attended

00:02:34   also had to provide test results.

00:02:37   But the website they're using it,

00:02:39   I forget what the name of it is,

00:02:40   but it's like a third party provider

00:02:42   where you take a home, it's just a home test.

00:02:44   You don't need like one of the fancy go to a lab tests.

00:02:46   You just take the type of test

00:02:49   that the federal government sends everybody for free.

00:02:51   And you take the test within 24 hours,

00:02:54   take a picture of it and send it to them.

00:02:56   My first thought was, well,

00:02:57   how do you not just save a picture of a negative test

00:03:00   and just send that?

00:03:01   But there's QR codes on all the tests.

00:03:03   So each test has like a unique identifier

00:03:06   and the system can tell whether this one's ever been

00:03:09   submitted to a system before, something like that.

00:03:11   - Oh, I didn't know that.

00:03:12   I had no idea.

00:03:14   That's fascinating.

00:03:15   - Yeah, so there's something like that.

00:03:17   And at WWDC, the system kind of fell apart

00:03:19   where it was like, I couldn't submit it from my Mac.

00:03:24   And then I tried the next morning,

00:03:28   the morning of the WWDC keynote with the same test result

00:03:32   from my phone with the same picture and it worked,

00:03:36   but it didn't go green.

00:03:37   It went yellow.

00:03:39   It was like red means you haven't submitted a test

00:03:41   and green is it you're good.

00:03:42   And mine went yellow.

00:03:43   And I was like, well, I'm sure it will work out.

00:03:45   And then by the time I got to the check-in,

00:03:47   they were like, yeah, yeah, you're good.

00:03:49   So yeah, I'm glad they're doing the test thing too.

00:03:52   That's a good thing.

00:03:54   - I think it's the appropriate precaution for this level.

00:03:57   You're right, if it goes bad, it goes bad fast

00:03:59   and you gotta do all sorts of other stuff,

00:04:00   but it felt appropriate.

00:04:02   It also felt like everyone was just happy to be at work.

00:04:06   I mean, like fundamentally,

00:04:07   everyone in that building is at work.

00:04:09   Like we're working, we're trying to cover it,

00:04:12   they're working, they're trying to guide our coverage,

00:04:14   but like being able to work together is a delight.

00:04:17   And I thought that was great.

00:04:18   - It was funny with the security screening

00:04:20   'cause I came in with Joanna and Panzarino

00:04:22   and Joanna was really happy to see the security

00:04:25   and I had to agree with her that,

00:04:27   and I kind of put it in my coverage of the event

00:04:29   that it wasn't so much that the security

00:04:31   felt like an increased annoyance.

00:04:33   It actually sort of felt like, hey, it's kind of weird

00:04:36   that for all these years,

00:04:37   we were coming to these super high profile events

00:04:40   and they just kind of waved everybody in

00:04:42   after checking our IDs.

00:04:44   But of course I get pulled for additional screening

00:04:48   and Joanna's off to the side telling them

00:04:51   to look out for me, I'm dangerous.

00:04:53   (laughing)

00:04:54   - All the jokes you can't say at the TSA,

00:04:56   you can say at the Apple security checkpoint.

00:04:58   - Exactly. - That's great.

00:04:59   - She's like, you better scan him twice,

00:05:01   he's always hiding stuff in his pants.

00:05:02   (laughing)

00:05:04   - That's great, that's super funny.

00:05:05   - What did you think, and I,

00:05:07   this is the rare question I ask on this show

00:05:10   where I know a bit of the answer

00:05:12   'cause we talked in person.

00:05:14   But what did you think about the fact

00:05:15   that the actual keynote was entirely prerecorded

00:05:19   even though we were all together in the theater on the stage?

00:05:23   - I didn't love it.

00:05:25   I mean, I liked being in the theater.

00:05:27   I think you called out their screen.

00:05:28   That screen, by the way, is entirely new

00:05:30   since the last time we were in that theater.

00:05:32   It used to be a projector and now it's a micro LED.

00:05:35   I asked, of course I asked about it.

00:05:36   It's a micro LED screen.

00:05:37   It's like the industry leading micro LEDs

00:05:40   or mini LED, whichever one it is.

00:05:41   And so it's all new, it's completely shiny,

00:05:43   they've got the big Atmos system.

00:05:45   So that was all awesome and cool.

00:05:47   And then to watch a movie that is actually hard to cover

00:05:51   because the pacing is so fast.

00:05:54   So we live vlogged these things

00:05:56   and the pacing was insanely fast.

00:05:57   It's like, I've gotten to be a better, faster typist

00:06:01   in the past two years or so

00:06:03   just by covering these things at the speed.

00:06:05   And not having any of the,

00:06:08   like it just didn't, the anticipation doesn't build

00:06:13   'cause you kinda know how it's gonna go, right?

00:06:16   They're gonna show you a video,

00:06:17   you're gonna swoop around the Apple campus.

00:06:20   The person who's inevitably gonna,

00:06:22   Dan Riccio's gonna show you the Mac.

00:06:24   Like you just know all these characters in this way

00:06:26   and you kinda know the structure of them now

00:06:29   because they're movies and they've fallen into a,

00:06:32   just like any good movie falls into a structure,

00:06:34   they've fallen into a structure.

00:06:35   Whereas I think the live events had a little bit more

00:06:38   adrenaline, a little bit more chaos,

00:06:41   a little bit more surprise to them.

00:06:43   I don't think that they're the point.

00:06:45   Like I could just watch the keynote in my hotel room

00:06:48   and go to Apple Park and get what I need

00:06:50   out of the visit to Apple Park,

00:06:51   which is talking to people and holding the things

00:06:54   and going to briefings.

00:06:55   Like that's the important part.

00:06:57   But if you're gonna put us in the theater,

00:06:59   I would prefer a live show.

00:07:03   - I think I would personally,

00:07:04   but I also think they've made the right choice.

00:07:07   Like if I were on the team there making the decision,

00:07:12   it's like I see the trade-offs.

00:07:14   I think for them they're making the right choice,

00:07:16   but we are the ones who suffer.

00:07:18   And thematically, we could tie this in later,

00:07:21   it is sort of like the decision to go eSIM only

00:07:24   on the iPhones where you know who suffers the most?

00:07:27   People like me and you.

00:07:28   Because we're the ones who are trying to,

00:07:31   I mean literally just this week it would have been nicer.

00:07:33   I've got three iPhones in my possession, new ones to test.

00:07:37   It really would be nice to go back to the old way

00:07:39   of just 30 seconds with a paperclip

00:07:42   and my SIM is in a different iPhone.

00:07:44   And it's the same way.

00:07:45   I think that the experience for the media

00:07:47   in the Steve Jobs Theater is worse

00:07:50   because it's less drama,

00:07:51   it was always better to have the drama.

00:07:54   The pace, the faster pace is so much better

00:07:56   for the people at home.

00:07:57   It's more of a show.

00:07:58   But for us taking notes, the faster pace is worse.

00:08:02   And when we were home the last two years

00:08:05   watching these like everybody else at home,

00:08:08   what did we do as soon as the keynote was over?

00:08:10   I would rewind a bit and go back to the parts

00:08:14   where I felt like maybe it went too fast.

00:08:16   Whereas last week, what did we do after the keynote was over

00:08:20   we're immediately flushed into the hands-on area

00:08:24   and the pace is still super fast.

00:08:26   'Cause it's like, how do I get my hands on all this stuff?

00:08:28   How do I see this?

00:08:29   Oh, there's somebody to talk to, I wanna talk to them.

00:08:31   And you don't get to catch up and go back

00:08:34   to what flew by in the keynote until hours later.

00:08:38   - Yeah, I agree with you that on balance,

00:08:43   the audience is bigger on the internet

00:08:45   than can fit in that room.

00:08:46   That room was too small when they built it

00:08:47   'cause their events are just been getting bigger and bigger.

00:08:50   - The whole campus is too small.

00:08:52   Honestly, it was like they made this giant spaceship ring

00:08:56   and famously, it was one of the last things

00:08:58   Steve Jobs was involved with.

00:09:00   He's the one who made the presentation

00:09:01   to the Cupertino Town Hall and it sounded humongous.

00:09:04   And by the time it was finished,

00:09:06   Apple's head count had exploded past where it was in 2011.

00:09:11   I think if they could have replanned it,

00:09:13   the spaceship would have been even bigger.

00:09:15   (laughing)

00:09:16   - It's huge, just to be clear.

00:09:19   And it's also like in the middle of the neighborhood.

00:09:21   It's just truly one of the stranger experiences

00:09:24   you have driving out to it.

00:09:25   But yeah, the theater,

00:09:27   I remember the first time I walked into it,

00:09:29   someone said, "It's already too small for what we wanna do."

00:09:33   So I think they know their audience is bigger outside.

00:09:36   But the value for me going in person

00:09:39   is seeing you and gossiping with you for five minutes

00:09:41   and then talking to the executives

00:09:44   and being able to hold the product immediately

00:09:47   after it's announced is completely underrated.

00:09:49   Nothing on the internet looks like

00:09:51   it does in person in my opinion.

00:09:52   - Yeah, that's so true.

00:09:54   No, the colors are the main thing I,

00:09:57   one of the main things I missed.

00:09:58   It's talking to people face to face

00:10:00   is number one, the biggest thing.

00:10:01   Whether it's friendlies like you and Joanna and Panzarena

00:10:05   or Apple people, right?

00:10:07   And getting off the record three, four minutes

00:10:11   with Phil Schiller or Alan Dye or whoever else

00:10:15   and other people whose names,

00:10:17   people I know whose names listeners might not know.

00:10:19   But just getting little bits like that,

00:10:21   you cannot get that without the face to face.

00:10:24   - Yeah, there's just an element of

00:10:27   you ask different questions on Zoom briefings

00:10:31   than you would in person.

00:10:32   It's just like the stakes of every remote conversation

00:10:35   seem higher to me.

00:10:37   So in person, I was like, really, Dynamic Island?

00:10:40   Like tell me about this.

00:10:41   And then on a Zoom call or whatever,

00:10:43   it's like a very formal question.

00:10:44   And you do a different kind of journalism in person,

00:10:49   so I appreciate that.

00:10:50   - Yeah, I'm trying to think what else.

00:10:51   Oh, yeah, I was gonna say the second thing that I missed

00:10:54   other than face to face is seeing the color of things

00:10:57   in person. - Yes.

00:10:58   - I would almost say two extremes, right?

00:11:02   Where with the Apple Watch Ultra,

00:11:05   to see the orange, which I really love,

00:11:07   orange is one of my favorite colors.

00:11:09   And I think that they really nailed it.

00:11:12   I think it is just the perfect orange for this.

00:11:15   And then with the iPhone's 14 Pro,

00:11:18   they all still look gray.

00:11:20   Even in their perfectly lit hands-on area,

00:11:24   to my eyes, you could see like deep purple's purple.

00:11:27   But when I tried to take a photo of it,

00:11:29   the camera kept, my 13 Pro kept white balancing

00:11:33   to make it gray.

00:11:34   - That's fascinating.

00:11:37   At WWC, I had all but forgotten how to use my camera.

00:11:39   (laughing)

00:11:40   Like I was there with David Pierce and we're like,

00:11:42   oh, we are rusty.

00:11:43   We have no idea what we're doing.

00:11:44   We haven't used these things under pressure in two years.

00:11:47   So we were a little bit better this time.

00:11:49   But yeah, it's hard.

00:11:50   Apple's lighting is basically perfect.

00:11:53   It's hard to complain about.

00:11:54   But it's still capturing what your eyes see as color

00:11:59   and what the camera, it's a forever challenge.

00:12:03   It's actually one of my favorite sort of like

00:12:04   live tech journalism challenges is like,

00:12:07   getting a good photo under pressure is like fun.

00:12:11   I enjoy that piece of it.

00:12:13   - I am, luckily, I mean, it's both by design and by talent.

00:12:18   Don't really publish live photos from the event.

00:12:22   I love taking photos.

00:12:23   I'm an avid and I have always been avid

00:12:26   prosumer photographer.

00:12:27   But there's a reason I'm not a professional photographer.

00:12:30   I don't really have a talent for it.

00:12:31   And I'm blown away.

00:12:33   I try to take photos as though I might publish them.

00:12:37   And I see other people's photos of the exact same thing

00:12:41   in the exact same hands-on area that I was trying to take.

00:12:44   And theirs look great and are really cleverly framed.

00:12:47   And mine look like somebody's shoulder

00:12:49   is standing in front of me.

00:12:50   (laughing)

00:12:52   - One of my all time favorite moments

00:12:54   from a decade of doing this now,

00:12:56   which is an incredible thing to say,

00:12:58   is when the Palm Pre was announced at CES way back when.

00:13:02   This is like pre LTE era and the wifi was bad at CES.

00:13:07   And so I was in the trailer we had at CES

00:13:10   out in the parking lot.

00:13:11   And Paul Miller sprinted from the hall to our trailer

00:13:16   after having taken photos.

00:13:17   And he entered the trailer and he held his SD card

00:13:20   aloft in victory.

00:13:22   And we published the photos first

00:13:23   because he had sprinted back to our trailer

00:13:25   that had a hard connection with his SD card.

00:13:28   And that's like, that's what I mean.

00:13:29   That's the fun.

00:13:30   Like there's a competitive element to doing it.

00:13:33   Now, do I take photos nearly as good

00:13:35   as half of the YouTubers out there?

00:13:37   No, I do not.

00:13:38   But every day is an incremental improvement.

00:13:41   - I also continue to be blown away by the footage

00:13:44   that the really good YouTubers like Marques and Justine

00:13:48   get out of that hands-on scrum because it's chaos.

00:13:52   It is pure chaos.

00:13:55   And then you watch their videos afterwards.

00:13:57   And yeah, they shoot lots of B-roll afterwards.

00:14:00   They get some time when everybody's been cleared out

00:14:02   and they can set up.

00:14:03   But they have lots of footage that they've taken

00:14:05   during the scrum and it's so good.

00:14:09   - Yeah, it's good.

00:14:10   They have a secret.

00:14:11   We have been watching them for years

00:14:13   'cause we're already a team that's competitive with them too.

00:14:15   They wait.

00:14:16   - Yeah.

00:14:17   - They're just more patient than we are.

00:14:19   And all things, a little more time,

00:14:22   is like a 10x improvement.

00:14:24   - Yeah, yeah.

00:14:25   Yeah, and it's still, that's one thing that hasn't changed

00:14:27   is the need to publish.

00:14:30   And that initial scrum lasts and then everybody files out.

00:14:35   And that's my secret too is in the immediate aftermath

00:14:38   of the keynote, go look for people to talk to.

00:14:41   Don't try to get near the products 'cause it's chaos.

00:14:44   And you just wait half an hour and then all of a sudden

00:14:46   it's not that hard to get near any of the products.

00:14:49   - Yeah, that's exactly right.

00:14:50   It's like, oh, there's a secret to success here

00:14:52   and it's waiting for my impatient ass to get out of the way.

00:14:57   (both laughing)

00:14:58   - All right, let me take a break here.

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00:17:48   Let's talk the stuff that was actually announced, right?

00:17:53   iPhone 14s, the reviews all dropped.

00:17:57   Well, most of them dropped on Wednesday.

00:18:00   (laughing)

00:18:02   - Yeah, to make it clear,

00:18:04   I'm on this show because I texted Jon

00:18:06   and said, "Where's your review?"

00:18:08   - No, you said, "Are you reviewing the phone?"

00:18:10   (laughing)

00:18:12   - Yeah, did you just quit this year?

00:18:13   Are you just out?

00:18:14   (laughing)

00:18:16   - I had nothing to say.

00:18:18   - I'm looking at it now, it's like 20,000 words.

00:18:23   - It's actually longer than usual.

00:18:25   I knew it was gonna be longer than usual.

00:18:27   There's a couple of, number one,

00:18:32   I'm a slow writer and I'm always late,

00:18:34   and so it's my fault.

00:18:35   And if I had any sort of deadline,

00:18:39   ability to hit deadlines in my brain,

00:18:42   I still could have done it.

00:18:43   So it's on me, I'm not making excuses.

00:18:45   But they didn't give us the phones until the next day.

00:18:49   And traditionally, the day of the keynote,

00:18:52   then in the afternoon, the press briefing,

00:18:55   the one-on-one briefings where they hand reviewers

00:18:58   the kit you're going to get happen,

00:19:00   and then you can get started.

00:19:01   Well, those didn't happen until the next day.

00:19:04   And the event wasn't on a Tuesday, it was on a Wednesday,

00:19:07   'cause it happened in Labor Day week.

00:19:10   So everything got pushed back a week.

00:19:12   But they always launched the things on the next Friday.

00:19:17   That's set in stone and has never, ever, ever

00:19:20   been an exception to it, right?

00:19:21   Phones always come out on a Friday.

00:19:23   So effectively, to hit the embargo, we only had five days.

00:19:28   - Yeah.

00:19:29   - Which, a week for me, is really pushing it.

00:19:32   And I don't shoot video, but for me,

00:19:34   a week is really pushing it.

00:19:36   And it turns out, it took me a week.

00:19:38   (laughing)

00:19:40   - Well, so candidly for me, we just kinda dropped

00:19:43   the battery life testing.

00:19:44   But you can't do it.

00:19:46   Like, we were tracking it, but without that extra

00:19:50   couple days, the way you wanna do it is you just wanna

00:19:52   use the phone as normal for as long as you can.

00:19:55   But we were shooting videos and looking at photos.

00:19:57   We had to turn the brightness up and point a camera at it.

00:20:01   And it's like, all I can tell you is that I think

00:20:05   the battery runs down a little bit faster

00:20:06   on the Pro than usual.

00:20:07   I'll let you know in the future.

00:20:10   But that was very candidly the thing I had to just let go.

00:20:12   - Yeah.

00:20:13   I kind of put something similar in my review

00:20:16   where it was something, something to the effect of,

00:20:18   look, when I'm testing these phones,

00:20:20   I'm shooting way more video than I usually do,

00:20:23   taking more photos, and just using it more, right?

00:20:25   Because as opposed to in a normal week

00:20:29   where I might think, hey, I've been dicking around

00:20:31   on my phone too much, I should sit down at my Mac

00:20:33   and get to work, right, and work.

00:20:36   And I've got a sort of thing in the back of my head saying,

00:20:39   don't waste too much time on your phone.

00:20:41   When you're testing a new phone to try to develop

00:20:45   a fully formed opinion in five days to get a review

00:20:50   that you think is going to stand the test of time,

00:20:52   you're using the phone all the time.

00:20:54   You're trying to use the phone more.

00:20:56   So it's literally, I really think impossible

00:21:01   to simultaneously use a phone to review it

00:21:04   and gauge what's the actual battery life.

00:21:09   And the only way to gauge battery life, in my opinion,

00:21:12   is to just sort of use the phone in normal use

00:21:15   and then tell people, here's how the battery did.

00:21:18   Because how can you test it?

00:21:19   There's no test that simulates practical use.

00:21:22   And it's so complicated.

00:21:24   You can't run some kind of bench.

00:21:25   I know that's what Apple does, is they'll just play

00:21:29   streaming video until the battery runs dry

00:21:32   and say 22 hours of streaming video.

00:21:35   Or music playback, that's one of my favorites, right?

00:21:37   If you just let it play music on battery,

00:21:40   it'll last 63 hours.

00:21:41   I'm making these numbers up.

00:21:42   But how is that useful, right?

00:21:45   - So it's interesting that they have traditionally

00:21:48   used those sorts of metrics with MacBooks.

00:21:50   And I sort of get why.

00:21:53   It's just like, here's a thing you can do.

00:21:55   With phones, I mean, and this is something

00:21:59   we have chased for years, Apple has this set

00:22:01   of telemetry data that they have worked into

00:22:05   some sort of model where they can model

00:22:09   basically an average day of iPhone processor usage

00:22:12   and sensor usage and whatever usage

00:22:15   against the capacity of the battery.

00:22:17   I don't have access to this model,

00:22:19   so we just have to use the phones like normals and guess.

00:22:23   But Apple, the switch they've made, I think, this year

00:22:25   with, hey, it's this many hours of video playback,

00:22:29   like in the past, they would just say like 12 hours

00:22:32   of battery life or whatever it is.

00:22:33   'Cause they have a model, and that's why Apple's

00:22:36   traditionally better at underestimating

00:22:38   their own battery life, because they have the data

00:22:42   about iPhone usage that lets them do it

00:22:44   in a way that they kind of can't get with the Mac.

00:22:46   - Right.

00:22:47   - But this one's just a weird one.

00:22:50   - Yeah.

00:22:51   - Especially on the Pro, because of the always-on display.

00:22:53   - Yeah, right, and again, we've only got so much time.

00:22:57   Most of the time, we wanna spend using it.

00:22:59   I like to try to use it the way they intend you to use it,

00:23:02   and the way they intend you to use the new 14 Pros

00:23:05   is with the always-on display at its default setting.

00:23:09   And so any sort of determination of, well,

00:23:12   what happens if you turn off the always-on display

00:23:15   and just have it go off like all the other iPhones

00:23:19   in existence, does that actually give you

00:23:21   a day-to-day boost?

00:23:22   - Well, there's no possible way you could figure that out

00:23:24   in a week while you're simultaneously testing the phone.

00:23:27   It's not possible.

00:23:28   I mean, we'll find out, and it's just one of those things

00:23:30   where I didn't wanna worry about it,

00:23:32   'cause it's like, we'll be able to do it.

00:23:33   It's just, we won't have it.

00:23:35   You and I won't have it in this golden week

00:23:38   where we've got the new iPhones and nobody else does, right?

00:23:41   I mean, it's going to come out if battery life

00:23:43   actually suffers because of the always-on display.

00:23:46   - Yeah, my instinct is that it,

00:23:51   I mean, this is in your review too.

00:23:52   We're starting with the least interesting thing.

00:23:54   - I know, we really are.

00:23:55   - We're gonna build our way up to yonder.

00:23:56   But it's a really weird always-on display.

00:23:59   - No, I don't think it's the most,

00:24:00   to me, it's the second most interesting thing.

00:24:02   It's not the second most important thing,

00:24:04   but I called it super interesting,

00:24:06   'cause I think it is incredibly interesting.

00:24:09   So I think it's okay to start with it.

00:24:11   It's a wild always-on display.

00:24:13   I mean, the thing I wrote in my review is,

00:24:16   honestly, what did I say?

00:24:17   Microjolt, thousands of microjolts of panic all week long

00:24:22   every time I glance at it.

00:24:24   Because before my conscious brain can register,

00:24:26   yes, this is the new phone with an always-on display,

00:24:29   I immediately think, oh my god, my phone's broken.

00:24:32   Something's gone out of control

00:24:34   and the battery's ragingly depleted

00:24:36   because I haven't touched it in half an hour

00:24:38   and the screen is still fully on.

00:24:40   - Yeah, no, it's really weird.

00:24:42   So I was sitting next to Becca Farsacce,

00:24:44   our video director who was making the review with me,

00:24:47   and we both had them, and both of us, all day long,

00:24:51   were tapping on the screen,

00:24:52   'cause we were like, why is this on?

00:24:53   It's just strange.

00:24:54   I mean, Apple's late to the game here,

00:24:57   and Android phones have had this forever.

00:24:58   And mostly what Android phones mean by always-on

00:25:02   is mostly-off.

00:25:04   Like, the game they have played is they can drop,

00:25:06   they can turn off most of an OLED display, it goes to black,

00:25:09   and they can selectively light up some pixels

00:25:11   to show you a clock.

00:25:12   - Right, and maybe like a signal strength indicator,

00:25:14   like the status bar stays on or something like that,

00:25:17   but you get the date and the clock in ghosted-out white

00:25:20   on an OLED black, and it's--

00:25:22   - It looks fine, right?

00:25:24   And now there's like however many years of iteration,

00:25:26   seven years of iteration on Android.

00:25:28   So now there's customizations,

00:25:30   there's the different manufacturers have different looks,

00:25:32   the off-screen looks different than the lock screen.

00:25:34   It's a whole world, it's a whole ecosystem

00:25:37   of always-on displays.

00:25:38   And Apple's like, it's your lock screen, but dimmer.

00:25:41   (laughing)

00:25:48   - I actually dug out my old iPhone 5S and powered it on,

00:25:53   and I actually have a suspicion that the new phone

00:25:58   in always-on state is about as bright as like

00:26:02   (laughing)

00:26:03   a 10-year-old iPhone with sort of default brightness settings

00:26:06   It's that bright.

00:26:07   I'm not joking.

00:26:09   Like I wrote in my review,

00:26:10   if the phone sort of malfunctioned or broke

00:26:13   or like three years from now it was sort of flaking out,

00:26:16   and the maximum screen brightness was,

00:26:19   that I could ever get was about as bright as it gets

00:26:22   in always-on mode.

00:26:23   You could totally use the phone.

00:26:24   Like the way that people will use a phone

00:26:26   with a cracked screen that isn't all that cracked.

00:26:29   There's all sorts of ways your phone can get damaged

00:26:31   and people still use it.

00:26:32   I was in New York on Wednesday for an all afternoon meeting

00:26:36   that again, another reason my review was late,

00:26:39   but you know, my fault.

00:26:40   But it was interesting to travel with the phone,

00:26:42   but for reasons could not, had to happen this week,

00:26:45   even though ordinarily I'd go to extraordinary lengths

00:26:48   not to schedule anything during iPhone review week.

00:26:50   But I was on the train from Philly and I saw a guy

00:26:53   and I was like, whoa, that's a wild looking phone.

00:26:55   I think it was some kind of Android phone,

00:26:57   but he'd obviously, it wasn't cracked,

00:26:59   but about one third of the way over on his screen

00:27:04   while holding it in a regular up and down vertical format,

00:27:08   there was like this lightsaber bright vertical line

00:27:13   from the bottom to the top, perfectly straight,

00:27:15   maybe about 10 pixels wide.

00:27:18   Like the clearly the brightest the screen could possibly get

00:27:22   just permanently just, and I salute him.

00:27:25   And the guy obviously wasn't, he was well-dried,

00:27:28   had a full suit on and he's like, ah, fuck it.

00:27:30   And it's like sort of a cool look really.

00:27:32   - That's just his wallpaper look.

00:27:36   - No, I thought it was his wallpaper,

00:27:37   but then I saw him flicking around and it's like, oh shit,

00:27:40   man, it looked like a cool wallpaper.

00:27:42   And instead it's like,

00:27:44   that's just how his phone looks all the time.

00:27:46   But I swear if that's as bright as the iPhone 14 Pro

00:27:49   ever got, you could totally use this phone

00:27:52   except maybe in bright light.

00:27:54   But I have to say too, on the way home from New York

00:27:58   down to Philly, I was like, there's a five, yeah,

00:28:01   five o'clock, five to six Acela.

00:28:04   And around this time of year, the sun is getting lower

00:28:07   and it was a really nice day Wednesday.

00:28:09   So the sun was, and I happened to sit on the sunny side

00:28:13   of the train and super bright sunlight

00:28:18   streaming through the window of the train

00:28:21   onto the table desk.

00:28:23   I don't know what you call those things on the Acela.

00:28:25   I guess it's a table.

00:28:26   I'm typing on my MacBook Pro,

00:28:29   actually writing my review for squeezing another hour

00:28:32   of writing in with the phone sitting next to it.

00:28:36   And because the sun was so bright,

00:28:38   the phone detected that it was bright.

00:28:42   It is insane how bright the always on was

00:28:45   while it was bathed in the full rays

00:28:49   of mid September bright sunshine.

00:28:51   It was shocking.

00:28:53   - Yeah, yeah, I think they missed a trick with it.

00:28:56   I think it would have been better if it was more off.

00:28:59   And they allowed some of these,

00:29:00   there's a lot of new widgets.

00:29:02   Like the whole Dynamic Island

00:29:03   is basically a new widget system.

00:29:05   So I get there's only so many more widgets

00:29:07   they can demand of developers.

00:29:10   But there's a move here where they actually make it

00:29:13   more different than the lock screen

00:29:15   and that makes more sense.

00:29:16   And I think they just need to get there.

00:29:17   And what they will say is we didn't want to do

00:29:19   the always on the cover analysis doing so we did it our way.

00:29:21   And it's like, well, there's, you didn't,

00:29:24   it's sometimes it's fine to piggyback

00:29:26   on seven years of Android iteration.

00:29:29   And that whole huge market has landed on mostly

00:29:32   black and white for a reason.

00:29:34   - I do think we have this weird,

00:29:38   and it's been here forever, not forever,

00:29:41   but for as long as the iPhone Sam dominant era

00:29:46   of smartphones has existed, let's say 2010 onward.

00:29:51   This and it doesn't seem to be ending anytime soon

00:29:54   where Apple and the entire Android industry

00:29:59   are have this very strange relationship with each other.

00:30:03   And I know some people go nuts when I pointed out,

00:30:07   but it's like the Android side will at times

00:30:12   shamelessly copy from Apple.

00:30:14   There's a new Samsung Galaxy home app,

00:30:18   which you cannot believe when you see it

00:30:21   that it's not the iOS home app.

00:30:24   I mean, it's not just at a glance.

00:30:27   It's like you would actually have to get there

00:30:28   and like really look at the fonts to see,

00:30:30   oh, that's not San Francisco.

00:30:32   That's the Android font.

00:30:33   It is so cool.

00:30:35   It's one of the most preposterous ripoffs I've ever seen,

00:30:38   which is ridiculous because everybody thinks iOS

00:30:41   is home app stinks, right?

00:30:43   It's one of my least favorite interfaces

00:30:46   that Apple has ever come up with.

00:30:48   I, it boggles my mind that this is still the home interface

00:30:53   and yet Samsung copied it.

00:30:54   And then on the flip side, Apple seemed,

00:30:57   not that they haven't, there's certainly ideas

00:30:59   that were Android first that they've taken, right?

00:31:01   And notifications, iOS was way behind on like a notification.

00:31:06   They didn't even have a notification center

00:31:08   until after it was well-established on Android.

00:31:11   So there are ideas that have gone Android first.

00:31:15   I'm not saying that Apple doesn't take anything

00:31:17   that comes from Android and then do it,

00:31:19   but there are other times where it seems like

00:31:21   their pride keeps them from following something

00:31:25   that they didn't do first when they should.

00:31:28   - Yeah.

00:31:29   Yeah, and there's an element of that copying back and forth

00:31:31   is it's kind of just related to switching costs.

00:31:34   Like one of the reasons things tend to look

00:31:37   like the Apple way is 'cause asking someone

00:31:41   to think about a new way of turning on the light bulbs

00:31:43   in your house is too much.

00:31:46   So might as well just look like the phone you had before.

00:31:48   Like the amount you can gain by reinventing that

00:31:53   is very low compared to the amount of,

00:31:56   well, actually we need you to like Android notifications

00:31:58   overall are way different, right?

00:32:01   Apple is just like insistent that you're gonna think

00:32:03   about things their way even when the best way

00:32:06   has been kind of like I'm saying, relentlessly iterated on

00:32:09   in the biggest phone markets in the world

00:32:11   in China and India, right?

00:32:13   Like that's where Android phones are huge.

00:32:15   And there's ferocious competition

00:32:18   for the best always on display.

00:32:19   And you can just like boost it

00:32:20   and no one's gonna get mad at you.

00:32:22   (laughing)

00:32:24   - So the first thing, and I spent the most words on,

00:32:29   is just the fact that it really, and I think most people who,

00:32:33   obviously my site in particular is from people

00:32:36   who are fully permanently all in on the iOS side.

00:32:40   And the biggest lock-in is honestly just the way

00:32:43   that your mind is sort of as a human, right,

00:32:46   locks into the way the system works, right?

00:32:51   I remember at like sort of the peak

00:32:53   of Mac versus Windows competition.

00:32:56   And I would say it's epitomized by the era

00:33:00   when Adobe, Photoshop and Illustrator,

00:33:05   and like when InDesign was new,

00:33:09   and that those were really the only apps designers used.

00:33:12   And Adobe had really pulled off the very difficult feat

00:33:17   of complete parity between them.

00:33:20   And the Mac user interface nerd that I am combined with

00:33:25   at the time being a designer was annoyed by all the ways

00:33:28   that Adobe's previously gloriously Mac human interface,

00:33:33   consistent apps had sort of gone in a,

00:33:38   not in a Windows way, but the way that app,

00:33:41   big companies like Adobe that are trying

00:33:43   to pull off something like that

00:33:44   sort of developed their own language, right?

00:33:46   They developed an Adobe style of interface

00:33:50   that was on Mac and Windows.

00:33:52   - Kai's Power Tools is my favorite.

00:33:54   - Yeah, yeah, oh that's. (laughs)

00:33:57   - Just like what is happening here?

00:33:59   - I used to enjoy, we had it at the student newspaper

00:34:03   and we, I used to, I never used it.

00:34:05   I never did a damn thing with it

00:34:06   because obviously the stuff that Kai's Power Tools did

00:34:09   is not my style of design, but I loved firing it up

00:34:12   just to like, just to play with it 'cause it was glorious.

00:34:15   No, but it really was, and if your job was

00:34:19   using Photoshop and Illustrator and that's it,

00:34:22   you could have easily just switched from Mac to Windows

00:34:25   or vice versa because the Adobe tools

00:34:27   really were completely compatible,

00:34:28   but nobody did it because you just, one side or the other,

00:34:32   you were locked into the way the file system was organized

00:34:34   and stuff like that.

00:34:36   So my readers are obviously on the iOS side of things.

00:34:39   I think that they're gonna be like me

00:34:41   where obviously Apple's very late to the idea

00:34:44   of having an always-on iPhone display.

00:34:47   And for years, the longer you've been on the iPhone,

00:34:50   the more I think ingrained it is is the idea

00:34:53   that one of the top ways to preserve your battery

00:34:56   is to keep the screen off as much as you can

00:34:59   and going back further in time,

00:35:02   to keep the brightness a little dimmer

00:35:05   than you'd like it to be, and you could really eke out

00:35:07   a lot more all-day battery life

00:35:10   in the early era of smartphones.

00:35:13   By keeping the brightness,

00:35:14   this doesn't actually look great,

00:35:16   but you keep it easy enough to read

00:35:18   but not as bright as you'd really like it to be,

00:35:20   but you could definitely see,

00:35:23   oh, I get through all day now,

00:35:25   whereas when I had the brightness up where it looks best,

00:35:27   it's dead by eight o'clock.

00:35:29   So it's just ingrained in your habit as an iPhone user to,

00:35:33   if you're not using it, you want the screen off.

00:35:36   - Yeah. - It's driving me nuts

00:35:39   that the goddamn screen's always on.

00:35:41   So here's the other question,

00:35:43   the thing I wound up with in the review.

00:35:45   - You can turn it off.

00:35:46   - What is the purpose of the always-on display?

00:35:49   - Cynically, my answer is they need to add more stuff

00:35:53   to the iPhone every year,

00:35:55   and they finally got to the point

00:35:56   where this was on the list.

00:35:58   I don't think there's a point beyond it,

00:36:00   'cause they're not attracting Android switchers

00:36:03   because they've added an always-on display,

00:36:05   especially one like this.

00:36:07   - I think part of it is that,

00:36:09   and they wanted to do it their way,

00:36:11   and their way means showing off technically

00:36:14   in a way that nobody else can compete with, right?

00:36:17   I don't think there's a phone on the market

00:36:18   that could possibly, and like you said,

00:36:20   if there is a noticeable battery life detriment to this,

00:36:24   it's not so bad that we're not getting through a full day

00:36:26   with the iPhone 14 Pro, right?

00:36:28   I mean- - Yeah.

00:36:30   No, happily getting through a full day.

00:36:31   I would say that maybe they waited to add,

00:36:33   this is the non-clinical answer,

00:36:35   they needed to get to, what's it, the A16,

00:36:38   with its battery draw against the battery in this thing,

00:36:41   and they could finally add it in an acceptable rate

00:36:44   of power consumption, 'cause they got the chip

00:36:47   that's efficient enough to pull it off.

00:36:50   I'm sure that it's some mishmash of those things.

00:36:53   - Yeah, and the other thing, I don't understand it.

00:36:55   If I ever had the opportunity to pick somebody's brain

00:36:58   for an hour and have them explain it to me,

00:37:00   I understand how going from like a 60 hertz refresh

00:37:03   to 120 is technically difficult, right?

00:37:07   Higher frame rate is just,

00:37:09   you don't even have to understand how cameras work

00:37:12   or displays work.

00:37:14   Going faster is harder.

00:37:16   I've never quite understood why going to one hertz

00:37:20   is technically difficult, but I am to understand

00:37:23   that it's actually incredibly difficult,

00:37:26   that updating once per second is actually really, really hard

00:37:29   and that these displays are also very, very expensive

00:37:33   to produce.

00:37:34   It really does justify the price delta beyond,

00:37:40   marketing segmentation at just a pure cost

00:37:43   to produce these devices way, the display,

00:37:46   the promotion displays are really more expensive

00:37:49   than the ones in the iPhone 14 non-pro.

00:37:54   - Is that a one hertz difficulty

00:37:57   or is that a promotion from one to 120 hertz difficulty?

00:38:00   - I am to understand that, well,

00:38:01   'cause you have to have promotion to go to one hertz, right?

00:38:04   - Sure. - Right,

00:38:05   because nobody's gonna buy a display

00:38:06   that only updates it once a second.

00:38:08   (laughing)

00:38:10   Although I guess that's sort of like,

00:38:13   I guess that's like a Kindle.

00:38:15   - Yeah, it's like many e-ink displays,

00:38:17   but also Apple's very serious about screen time.

00:38:19   If they just locked you into once per second

00:38:21   for a couple hours a day,

00:38:23   I mean, how do you solve the social media problem?

00:38:24   - Yeah, that would be a good thing to do.

00:38:27   And if you have your kid set on a schedule like that,

00:38:29   you could be like, you know what?

00:38:30   You can use your phones and your devices

00:38:32   as much as you want after seven o'clock at night,

00:38:34   but it'll be at one hertz.

00:38:36   (laughing)

00:38:38   - Yeah, TikTok is effectively over-prepared.

00:38:40   - Yeah. (laughing)

00:38:43   TikTok at one frame per second.

00:38:45   (laughing)

00:38:46   Oh, that would be great.

00:38:48   Mine, yeah, and the promotion part,

00:38:51   the fact that it dynamically shifts

00:38:53   from 120 all the way down to one.

00:38:55   Also, apparently, well, of course,

00:38:56   I mean, that does sound technically difficult,

00:38:59   even as a total layperson not even understanding it.

00:39:01   You just think, yeah, that seems really wild,

00:39:04   especially if it's done in a way

00:39:05   that the user is never, ever, ever supposed to notice

00:39:08   and, in fact, I never, ever notice

00:39:10   that it always seems to be running at 120 to me.

00:39:13   Difficult to do and expensive to produce, I get it.

00:39:17   Here's my non-cynical answer

00:39:19   to what they think the purpose of the always-on display is,

00:39:23   which is these live activities, which aren't out yet.

00:39:28   So it really makes it a hard marketing sell at the moment.

00:39:34   It's, I guess, coming in Iowa 16.1

00:39:38   because the beta, the first beta for 16.1

00:39:41   came out like two days ago and now it's been there.

00:39:43   - Yeah, and they have been saying this year

00:39:45   and it's September, so it feels like it's gotta be

00:39:48   in this next round.

00:39:49   - Yeah, but on the other hand,

00:39:50   they usually get to at least the .2 by the end of the year,

00:39:54   if not the .3, right?

00:39:56   They've sort of, and I think to their credit,

00:39:59   I think it's actually worked out great,

00:40:01   even though it's badgering users to get to,

00:40:04   I mean, what's iOS 15 up to?

00:40:06   A 15.7, I think?

00:40:07   Maybe it's 15.6 or wherever it finished,

00:40:11   but they get six or seven of these point updates

00:40:15   out throughout the year, all the way up through the summer

00:40:18   while they're already working on the next year's thing

00:40:21   and break features apart into them.

00:40:23   So it's either coming out, I don't know,

00:40:25   next month or sometime this year,

00:40:28   but it does, if that's sort of the point,

00:40:30   and it makes sense that, okay, the hardware's the thing

00:40:34   that is set in motion two years,

00:40:38   at least two years in advance.

00:40:39   And they probably knew more than two years,

00:40:42   I guess three or four years ago,

00:40:44   that this would be the year when the iPhone 14 Pros

00:40:48   should have this always on display.

00:40:52   So that meant the software,

00:40:53   and if the reason is to show off these live activities

00:40:57   so that you could just leave your phone at the desk

00:40:59   and have the Packers game in a live activity

00:41:04   while you're doing something else,

00:41:06   and every time you glance at the phone,

00:41:08   the score is accurate and the time remaining is accurate

00:41:12   to within 15, 30 seconds or something like that,

00:41:15   it makes sense that they're coming out in the same year.

00:41:18   And I think it's just, it's sort of, ah,

00:41:21   unfortunately this feature and software

00:41:23   wasn't ready in time in September.

00:41:26   But is that even, no matter how useful these live activities

00:41:29   are going to prove once we have them,

00:41:31   and we don't have them yet, right?

00:41:32   None of, it's not even like Apple has them

00:41:35   and third parties have to wait till later this year.

00:41:38   The live activities API just isn't in iOS 16.

00:41:41   I still don't know if it's worth it, right?

00:41:44   I don't know.

00:41:45   Maybe that's just me though, that I don't,

00:41:47   if I was going to follow the game,

00:41:49   it wouldn't be by following it on my iPhone

00:41:53   while it's sitting on a table.

00:41:55   (laughing)

00:41:57   - Well, maybe, I mean, there's an element.

00:41:58   Do you do the thing where you flip your phone over

00:42:01   when you're like at a restaurant or you're talking to,

00:42:03   I do this all the time.

00:42:04   - I keep it in my pocket is what I do.

00:42:07   - So yeah, so I'm one of these people

00:42:09   that takes their phone out and then to indicate

00:42:11   that I'm actually paying attention here.

00:42:12   - Right.

00:42:13   - Live activities, by the way, to me overall

00:42:16   seems like the feature of iOS 16.

00:42:18   Like maybe the most important feature of iOS 16.

00:42:22   It's hard to evaluate.

00:42:23   But you know, the dynamic island is built on live activities.

00:42:27   The promise of that whole thing depends on that shipping

00:42:29   and developers using it.

00:42:31   So I could see a world where, yeah,

00:42:34   there's a game on that I want to pay attention to,

00:42:37   but I'm out and talking to someone

00:42:38   and instead of flipping my phone over,

00:42:39   the score is updating at one hertz.

00:42:41   - Yeah, but on the other hand,

00:42:42   you can see how you do it.

00:42:43   - Doesn't this defeat the purpose though

00:42:45   with the screen being so bright?

00:42:47   (laughing)

00:42:49   Right, so me and you go out to lunch or dinner

00:42:53   or something like that and you want to do your thing,

00:42:56   which I try to keep my phone in my pocket

00:42:58   in such social situations,

00:43:00   but you want to make it seem as though you're engaged,

00:43:04   you're present in the conversation at the table,

00:43:06   but you are watching the Packers

00:43:09   or trying to stay up to date,

00:43:10   'cause damn it, who the hell decided to have this dinner

00:43:13   when the Packers were on Thursday Night Football?

00:43:15   And there's your phone at this crazy brightness.

00:43:18   (laughing)

00:43:20   - Right, it would make more sense at black and white

00:43:22   than just the scores.

00:43:23   - Yeah, again, I think Apple wants you

00:43:27   to use your phone less.

00:43:28   I saw Tim Cook and Johnny Ivan learn pile jobs at Code,

00:43:32   and Kara is always saying,

00:43:34   the reason that journalists are here is to ask questions.

00:43:36   So I always go and ask questions.

00:43:37   And I was like, you guys are talking about

00:43:39   how much Steve Jobs hates social networks.

00:43:41   You make the phones of the social networks run on,

00:43:44   and he's like, yeah, we have screen time.

00:43:45   We want you to use your phone less.

00:43:46   And so I get it.

00:43:48   There's some element of this where the always on display

00:43:52   theoretically lets you use your phone less,

00:43:54   because the information is passively coming to you.

00:43:57   But it's so bright that it still feels like

00:43:59   it's actively coming to you.

00:44:00   - Yeah. (laughing)

00:44:03   I guess that's, we'll see.

00:44:04   I don't wanna pass judgment on the live activities

00:44:07   before I've used it, because it seems innovative

00:44:10   and new enough that one of those things

00:44:12   where my imagination of how little I might use it

00:44:14   is I might be missing the ballpark.

00:44:16   - Well, I think this is why we should start talking

00:44:18   about the island.

00:44:19   The point of the island is live activity.

00:44:21   Let's take a break though first before we do.

00:44:24   I gotta take care of some business here, Nely.

00:44:26   You see, you don't know anything about running

00:44:27   a internet publication.

00:44:30   (laughing)

00:44:31   - No, I don't make any money.

00:44:32   I just spend money.

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00:47:32   All right, Dynamic Island time.

00:47:34   (laughing)

00:47:35   - So it's why I'm here, man.

00:47:37   I'm playing with it right now

00:47:38   while you're reading these ads, just to--

00:47:40   - Oh, I love the Dynamic Island.

00:47:42   - It's pretty fun.

00:47:43   - I liked your take on it.

00:47:44   I think you're underestimating it already, though.

00:47:46   I think it's already so super useful.

00:47:48   I think you get it.

00:47:49   I'm not saying you're wrong.

00:47:51   I just still think you're ever so slightly missing

00:47:56   how genius it is.

00:47:57   - So okay, my take, just for the audience,

00:47:58   I mean, you should obviously go read my review.

00:48:00   Stop listening to this podcast, go read my review,

00:48:01   watch the video, it's great.

00:48:02   My take on it is basically connected

00:48:04   to my feelings about live activities,

00:48:06   that Apple's building this cool system

00:48:10   that will allow more apps to sort of talk to you ambiently.

00:48:13   And the Dynamic Island, it's the pinnacle of that system.

00:48:18   I mean, the tech behind it is cool.

00:48:21   The subpixel anti-aliasing is cool.

00:48:23   It really does look like a secondary display

00:48:26   on top of your display, unless you're in sunlight.

00:48:29   But fine, physics has some limits.

00:48:32   So I think that part's really cool.

00:48:34   I think as you experience it today,

00:48:39   it is like most of the things that you're doing on it

00:48:43   are things that you don't interact with.

00:48:44   - Like I disagree. - That to me is a good.

00:48:46   - All right.

00:48:47   - That's the road that has to be gone down.

00:48:49   - Let me say this though.

00:48:50   Let me just take a moment and no joke, no sarcasm

00:48:54   to tell people to go read Neelai's review.

00:48:57   But really, honestly, here's where I get

00:49:01   to undermine you slightly.

00:49:03   Go watch the video review because that's where you capture

00:49:08   the crazy subpixel anti-aliasing stuff that they're doing

00:49:13   to make it super smooth.

00:49:17   Even at like 460 pixels per inch on the display,

00:49:21   they're actually subpixel anti-aliasing

00:49:25   the round black corners of the Dynamic Island

00:49:28   to make them even smoother, which I wish,

00:49:31   oh, this is one of those times where I really wish

00:49:34   I had my eyes from 20 years ago.

00:49:38   'Cause I know I'd notice it.

00:49:40   And it's like, I'm too old,

00:49:41   my eyes have gone through too much shit.

00:49:43   Like I could see that it looks beautiful,

00:49:45   but I can't tell that they're doing that.

00:49:46   But I love that they're doing it.

00:49:48   (laughing)

00:49:49   - Well, Apple cares more about corners on displays

00:49:54   than any company in the history of the world, I think.

00:49:57   - No.

00:49:58   - So all on the LCD iPhones, when I saw those,

00:50:00   the liquid retina branding was just

00:50:02   that it was a round LCD display.

00:50:05   And they had built special little apertures

00:50:07   for the pixels in the corners to make them perfectly round.

00:50:10   That was a whole branding.

00:50:11   They branded the whole thing 'cause they were so proud of it.

00:50:14   They've done OLED subpixel anti-aliasing for years

00:50:18   on the static corners of the display.

00:50:21   And then the Island, they talked about it.

00:50:22   They have built the ability inside the A16

00:50:27   to now do that subpixel anti-aliasing

00:50:29   at 120 frames per second, 120 hertz.

00:50:32   So that is just cool.

00:50:34   Like I will appreciate that about Apple

00:50:36   more than anything, I always have.

00:50:38   Like they care about displays,

00:50:39   they care about this level of displays.

00:50:41   And so whenever I have a chance to like

00:50:44   point a macro lens at a screen, I'm gonna take it.

00:50:47   I'm always gonna take that shot.

00:50:49   Like give me the opportunity, I'll do it.

00:50:51   And so here it's cool.

00:50:52   It's like hard to see, like you have to really see it,

00:50:54   but no one else is doing this like this.

00:50:57   Even the rest of iOS, the anti-aliasing is abstracted out

00:51:02   to the sort of like the symbolic pixel level,

00:51:05   not the actual hardware subpixels.

00:51:07   - Right.

00:51:08   Yeah, and I think you nailed it exactly right

00:51:10   in your review where it's,

00:51:12   and it is exactly like the way they put

00:51:17   this inordinate attention into the actual round corners

00:51:20   of the display to go to the greatest possible length

00:51:25   that they can to make it seem like the display

00:51:29   actually has perfectly round corners,

00:51:32   which is not the way displays work and can't work, right?

00:51:35   There are no rounded, round cornered pixels up in a corner,

00:51:40   but they'll go to this length of actually going

00:51:43   to subpixel anti-aliasing,

00:51:45   even though the actual pixels are so tiny

00:51:48   to make the hardware display look like it actually

00:51:51   has the round corners that it's supposed to.

00:51:54   And in that exact same way,

00:51:55   they're doing subpixel anti-aliasing with the dynamic island

00:51:59   to make it seem like it's a hardware cutout

00:52:02   that grows and shrinks and has content.

00:52:05   - Yeah, I mean, it's cool.

00:52:07   It's just cool as hell.

00:52:09   Like I'm saying, I think the concept is there.

00:52:12   I think you are confident that a year from now

00:52:14   it will realize its promise and my nature,

00:52:18   I think at this point people have heard us talk about it,

00:52:20   I've had fun many years in a row,

00:52:21   my nature is let's wait and see.

00:52:23   Like you gotta ship the API, the developer's gotta use it.

00:52:26   We have to, Apple's gotta make sure that Uber

00:52:29   doesn't like stick ads in it.

00:52:30   Like there's a lot to come here.

00:52:33   And so I'm just more on the wait and see side of things.

00:52:36   - My take is that even if, I think the potential,

00:52:40   it still hasn't reached the full potential,

00:52:42   but where it is today,

00:52:44   where I've been using it for the last week,

00:52:46   even if it didn't get any better,

00:52:48   it's already something I would never wanna go without.

00:52:50   Here's my example.

00:52:52   I was in New York two days ago,

00:52:54   and I know my way around midtown,

00:52:57   but I had to meet some friend, a friend and some other people

00:53:02   and I just, I didn't wanna be late.

00:53:04   I had just enough time.

00:53:05   So I took the walking directions.

00:53:07   If I weren't testing the iPhone,

00:53:09   would I really have needed walking directions?

00:53:11   No, the numbers in Manhattan tell you where to go.

00:53:14   But I was like, you know what, let me do this.

00:53:16   Let me pretend like I need the walking direction.

00:53:18   So that's slightly, what's the word, constrained,

00:53:21   not constrained, but construed?

00:53:23   - Artificial, yeah.

00:53:24   - But I was listening to podcast in Overcast,

00:53:28   which has not been updated for the Dynamic Island

00:53:32   because the APIs, there are no APIs for the Dynamic Island

00:53:35   that are public yet, and Marco Arment obviously

00:53:38   didn't know about it beforehand.

00:53:39   So just using the regular version of Overcast

00:53:43   that had no idea the Dynamic Island existed,

00:53:46   but uses the now playing APIs in iOS,

00:53:49   and like a typical tech-obsessed,

00:53:53   short attention span person, while I'm walking

00:53:55   through Midtown Manhattan, I'm texting people

00:53:58   and tweeting and reading Twitter on my phone.

00:54:02   And I've got the live directions constantly up there

00:54:06   as the, I've got two things.

00:54:08   Now I'm actually using two things in the Dynamic Island.

00:54:12   The live directions get the left side.

00:54:16   When there's two things, one of them gets

00:54:18   the bigger chunk on the left side,

00:54:20   and the other one just gets a little circle

00:54:23   on the right side.

00:54:24   That was Overcast, and I also did, I really did,

00:54:28   this wasn't faked for the sense of dicking around

00:54:31   with the Dynamic Island.

00:54:33   While I'm crossing certain streets and stuff,

00:54:35   or something happens, or I got distracted

00:54:39   while I was texting somebody, and I wanted to go back

00:54:42   30 seconds in the podcast 'cause I actually sort of

00:54:44   wasn't paying attention there.

00:54:46   It just, there I am, long press on Overcast

00:54:48   in the Dynamic Island, the now playing,

00:54:51   actual playback controls come down,

00:54:54   I hit 30 seconds back, tap away, it goes back,

00:54:57   and I'm there, and there's no context switching.

00:55:00   I'm still, I never left messages.

00:55:03   I'm still there in the messages conversation

00:55:06   without leaving, it's no context switch.

00:55:08   And oh, the turn-by-turn wants me to turn left to go,

00:55:13   or turn right and go down Broadway.

00:55:16   It's really useful as is without live activities yet,

00:55:20   just with things like turn-by-turn, and the phone calls,

00:55:25   and the now playing, and the stuff

00:55:27   that already just goes there.

00:55:29   And it's, to me, a real triumph.

00:55:32   I've been skeptical about this whole movement towards,

00:55:36   which what I think is best described as declarative UI,

00:55:41   which is Swift U, and Swift UI is one example

00:55:43   of this movement towards declarative UI,

00:55:45   which is instead of designing everything to be pixel perfect,

00:55:50   and this is exactly what it's going to look like.

00:55:52   It'll have a white background,

00:55:54   and it will be exactly this size or this size.

00:55:58   Here's the three exact sizes it'll be,

00:56:00   and here's the exact layout.

00:56:02   You just declare where stuff will be.

00:56:04   This goes on the left, this goes on the right,

00:56:06   and this is, it's just sort of mid-size.

00:56:08   Everything, without ever having known about it,

00:56:12   the overcast playback controls look perfect,

00:56:15   even though on the lock screen,

00:56:17   which is what was known to be where now playing stuff,

00:56:22   like when you're listening to a podcast

00:56:23   and you can still control it from your lock screen now,

00:56:26   it has a white background, right?

00:56:28   So it's a total different color scheme.

00:56:30   No software, no software update necessary.

00:56:35   It already just works.

00:56:36   It's a terrific experience.

00:56:40   - Yeah, look, I'm not discounting

00:56:42   that it's a good experience.

00:56:44   I think what I'm saying is I think

00:56:47   the point of the iPhone is apps,

00:56:50   and when I am doing turn-by-turn directions,

00:56:54   I'm most often in a car where I probably

00:56:57   should not have another app open on my phone, right?

00:57:01   I give the whole screen to that thing,

00:57:03   and I did the walking directions test too,

00:57:05   and I was like, I shouldn't be using my phone like this.

00:57:09   That's actually how I felt in that moment.

00:57:11   I am contriving some sort of test to make this happen,

00:57:17   and the moment when you've got that many things going on,

00:57:22   it felt like the things that are available right now

00:57:25   do not rise to, I need to have these three things going on.

00:57:29   I could see, okay, there's a Packers game going on

00:57:33   that I need to pay attention to,

00:57:34   but I'm texting someone else,

00:57:36   and I've got a timer going 'cause I'm cooking.

00:57:40   I can imagine the situation in my head,

00:57:43   but I can't review it today.

00:57:45   - I really just think it's terrific,

00:57:48   but the flip side, and this is where I,

00:57:52   again, I haven't caught up 'cause I didn't publish

00:57:54   till super late last night.

00:57:55   I've read your review, I've read Joanna's.

00:57:57   Again, I'm not trying to toot my own horn.

00:58:00   Maybe I'm off in left field,

00:58:03   but I spent a lot of time in my review

00:58:05   talking about the fact that all of these cool things,

00:58:08   you can't do them, and you're not going to be able

00:58:11   to do them on any other phones

00:58:13   except the 14 Pro and Pro Max.

00:58:16   Not the 13 Pro.

00:58:18   If you bought a 13 Pro last year for 15 or $1,600,

00:58:22   you don't get it, and if you buy a brand new iPhone 14,

00:58:27   not Pro, this year, and you can get 'em,

00:58:31   I forget how much they cost with 512 megabytes.

00:58:33   They're like $1,400 or 1,300.

00:58:36   They're in the same, well into the same price range

00:58:38   as the Pro models with lower storage.

00:58:41   You don't get this at all.

00:58:43   You do get it on the lock screen, right?

00:58:46   You'll get live activities on the lock screen,

00:58:48   and you will get live activities

00:58:50   when whatever is providing the live activity

00:58:55   decides to send you an update,

00:58:57   and the best example of that is one

00:58:59   we're already familiar with is maps,

00:59:02   turn-by-turn directions, which has worked like that

00:59:05   for years already, where while you're using the phone

00:59:08   and maps wants you to turn left on whatever street,

00:59:13   it pops up at the top as a panel

00:59:17   and tells you to do that, but you don't tell maps,

00:59:20   "Hey, tell me what I'm doing again," and show that panel.

00:59:24   It comes up on its own, and you also can't keep it there.

00:59:28   It's fleeting.

00:59:30   I don't know what the timeout is,

00:59:31   but it's like five seconds or something like that,

00:59:33   and no matter what you do, it's going to disappear.

00:59:37   That's the experience every other iPhone is going to have,

00:59:41   where you either go to the lock screen to see these things,

00:59:45   or you wait for the thing to send you an update,

00:59:49   whereas iPhone 14 Pro users have them up there

00:59:53   in a dynamic island, and every time they want to expand

00:59:56   or compact them, it's up to them.

01:00:00   That is bananas to me, in a way.

01:00:02   I know why Apple did it this way.

01:00:04   I get it, but I can't remember in all my years

01:00:09   of using the Mac, there's never been something like that

01:00:12   on the Mac, where if you have a years-old Mac

01:00:17   but you're using the newest version of macOS,

01:00:20   it may not look as cool, but there's no major interaction

01:00:24   feature that only the users of the latest MacBook Pro get.

01:00:30   - I can think of one, but we all hated it.

01:00:31   It was the Touch Bar.

01:00:33   - Yeah, but even that wasn't,

01:00:34   that was, but that was literally hardware.

01:00:39   - That's true, that is true.

01:00:40   I guess that Apple wants to think of this as hardware,

01:00:42   so that's why my mind leaps to it.

01:00:43   - Yeah, the Touch Bar's a good example.

01:00:45   It's the closest they ever got with the Mac,

01:00:47   but it was literal hardware, and I'll just put it in

01:00:50   as an asterisk that I didn't hate it, I just didn't love it.

01:00:53   I was like the weirdo who was totally ambivalent about it.

01:00:57   - I was not.

01:00:58   Most of the guests, most of my regular guests

01:01:00   on this show are on your side.

01:01:03   So I always say it in a small voice,

01:01:06   'cause I feel so clearly on the wrong side

01:01:09   of people whose opinion I trust

01:01:10   that I suspect my ambivalence is wrong.

01:01:12   - I know some people love it, but not me.

01:01:14   Here's what I'll say, I think that's actually maybe fine.

01:01:16   So the genius of this whole island is that it is

01:01:20   an extension of live activities, which we have yet to see.

01:01:23   - But also now playing, also Call Kit, also--

01:01:25   - Yeah, but all that stuff is kind of rolling into it

01:01:28   from my understanding.

01:01:30   This is the stuff as it works now.

01:01:31   There's some incoming call stuff, right?

01:01:34   Call Kit can use it, but when live activities rolls out,

01:01:37   those apps will get a kind of, like third-party apps

01:01:39   will get a better version of incoming calls.

01:01:40   So they're basically taking all these alerts and indicators

01:01:43   that just sort of populate the top of your screen,

01:01:45   they're combining them with live activities,

01:01:47   and they're building this new alert system,

01:01:49   which I think is very smart.

01:01:51   I said this in the review, I love the name Dynamic Island

01:01:55   because everyone wants to say it, and then I get to--

01:01:57   - I do too.

01:01:59   - But then I get to just talk about the nature

01:02:02   and philosophy of smartphone alerts.

01:02:04   - Yes, yes.

01:02:05   - And I get to talk about that with you, Joanna,

01:02:10   and not so many other people, but now other people

01:02:12   are like Dynamic Island, and I'm like,

01:02:13   let me tell you about the nature and philosophy

01:02:15   of smartphone alerts.

01:02:15   So that's great for me, personally.

01:02:17   But developers have to buy into it, they've gotta use it.

01:02:22   And so if you build the live activity,

01:02:24   my understanding of it is you basically just have

01:02:28   to make one other view for the widget.

01:02:31   The actual logic of it, the API usage,

01:02:34   even most of the display is like the same.

01:02:38   You just have to build this other view

01:02:39   and then this other minimal view

01:02:41   where you go down to just the icon.

01:02:43   That's genius, right?

01:02:45   It's fundamentally genius that Apple's like leveraging it up

01:02:49   all the way to the island.

01:02:51   So I think a year from now, when the island comes

01:02:53   to the iPhone, regular iPhone 15, or even two years from now,

01:02:57   the massive users buy those--

01:02:59   - I don't know this, I'm not using any little birdie info.

01:03:03   I'm only speculating on how important this is

01:03:06   to the marketing behind the Pro.

01:03:09   It won't be next year.

01:03:10   - Sure, but by the time it does trickle down

01:03:13   to the mainstream phone, like the developer

01:03:16   and app ecosystem will be ready for the mass audience

01:03:21   to get immediate value.

01:03:22   Whereas right now, we're all kind of an early adopter stage

01:03:25   of how is everyone gonna use it?

01:03:27   Does this make any sense?

01:03:28   Let's tweet about it.

01:03:29   And I don't think that that makes sense

01:03:31   for the mass audience.

01:03:32   - Yeah, and the thing I'm wondering about is,

01:03:35   so I think there's two reasons that Apple has made this

01:03:39   an iPhone 14 Pro only feature.

01:03:42   Because, and I think I mentioned this in my review,

01:03:46   that it's not too hard to imagine how they could have turned

01:03:49   the notch into a dynamic peninsula.

01:03:53   And it wouldn't look as cool, but that they could do

01:03:56   something with the interface to put these same things

01:03:59   up there, and like when something's going on.

01:04:02   Like remember when the notch first came out,

01:04:04   and there were a lot of people, a lot of people,

01:04:07   it was very, super controversial.

01:04:08   Because the idea wasn't that you shouldn't make screens

01:04:12   that go edge to edge, it's that okay,

01:04:13   but if you've still gotta put the sensors up there,

01:04:16   and you're using OLED, which has these super black blacks

01:04:20   that really, except in really direct sunlight,

01:04:22   disguise, could disguise the notch.

01:04:26   That what Apple should have done is sort of draw

01:04:29   a black bar across the top, and then draw the nice

01:04:33   round corners, and just make it look like,

01:04:36   and then you could put the status stuff,

01:04:38   like your carrier name and your wifi signal,

01:04:41   and the time, put it up there in the black area,

01:04:45   but then the notch wouldn't look like a notch,

01:04:47   it would just look like the phone has a little black

01:04:51   forehead, and magically, this white text with the time

01:04:56   and the carrier and the signal strength could go up there.

01:04:59   Lot of people wish that Apple did that,

01:05:01   there used to be like a little temporary,

01:05:03   while people were really annoyed by the notch,

01:05:05   there was a cottage industry of apps to make wallpapers,

01:05:08   so that you could have a real wallpaper,

01:05:10   but the top of the wallpaper would be black,

01:05:12   so that you'd get that sort of faked.

01:05:15   You could imagine that Apple could do that in iOS 16

01:05:19   for the notched phones when dynamic island stuff

01:05:24   is happening on the notched phones,

01:05:27   and something would happen where the whole bar

01:05:29   would go black, and they'd draw some stuff on the left

01:05:32   and some stuff on the right, and you'd press and hold,

01:05:35   and it wouldn't look as cool.

01:05:37   And from a not talking about money perspective,

01:05:43   Apple being Apple, they're much more of a,

01:05:48   you either get the absolute best experience,

01:05:51   or you don't get it at all.

01:05:52   That's the Apple way of thinking,

01:05:54   and that's why dynamic island is only on the actual phone

01:05:57   that can do the dynamic island,

01:05:59   and you don't get any of these features

01:06:01   while you're not on the lock screen,

01:06:04   using the phone on all the other iPhones.

01:06:08   Now, talking about money, this is the thing,

01:06:12   all the commercials I saw watching football last weekend

01:06:15   for the iPhone 14 were about the dynamic island,

01:06:18   and I know they're gonna have a whole,

01:06:19   I already looked at their YouTube channel.

01:06:21   There are other commercials they've already launched,

01:06:24   and they're gonna sell other things,

01:06:25   and they're gonna make commercials

01:06:26   for the regular iPhone 14s.

01:06:28   Dynamic island is so cool

01:06:30   that they're making commercials about it,

01:06:32   like 60-second spots just about dynamic island.

01:06:35   They're using it, and my philosophy,

01:06:39   this is what I kind of tailed off my review,

01:06:42   is that it's not a coincidence

01:06:43   that it's debuting the same year

01:06:46   that they came out with the first non-pro phone

01:06:48   with the giant 6.7 screen,

01:06:51   'cause that used to be a thing that they would say,

01:06:54   "Oh, you want a giant screen?"

01:06:56   And everybody knows a lot of people

01:06:58   really love giant screen phones,

01:07:01   and they're like, "Oh, well, let me tell you

01:07:02   "about this year's iPhone, whatever the number is, pro,

01:07:06   "which starts at $1,100,

01:07:08   "because that's what you need to spend

01:07:10   "if you want it on iPhone."

01:07:12   Okay, now they've made it for all the iPhone 14,

01:07:16   and obviously next year, the iPhone 14 will still be here,

01:07:20   and it'll be $100 less,

01:07:21   and then I think two years from now,

01:07:23   they'll still keep the iPhone 14 Plus,

01:07:26   and you'll be able to get a 6.7-inch screen iPhone

01:07:29   for 700 bucks.

01:07:30   - Oh, that'll be fascinating.

01:07:31   - I don't know, we'll see.

01:07:33   Well, it'll definitely be here next year.

01:07:35   Will they keep it for two years?

01:07:37   I don't know, 'cause sometimes two years down the road,

01:07:39   they kind of spitefully only keep the smallest one

01:07:43   with the least amount of storage or something like that.

01:07:45   I wouldn't be surprised if they keep it for two years,

01:07:47   if they're just like, "For this number of years,

01:07:50   "we're gonna hold the max screen size

01:07:53   "as a pro-only feature, and starting in 2022,

01:07:57   "okay, max size screen, you're free.

01:08:00   "We're gonna call you Plus on the other phones,

01:08:02   "but now you're free,

01:08:03   "and we'll just let you propagate down the line,

01:08:05   "and we'll make as many people who want that size happy

01:08:08   "no matter what their budget is,

01:08:09   "as long as their budget meets the admittedly

01:08:12   "relatively high cost of even the iPhone SE, right,

01:08:16   "compared to the market overall."

01:08:19   - My most enduring theory of consumer electronics

01:08:21   is that big, cheap screens drive the world.

01:08:24   - Yes, definitely, right.

01:08:26   - If you just find the biggest, cheapest screen,

01:08:29   that's the thing most people wanna buy.

01:08:31   - Yeah, I guarantee you, if you and I just wandered into

01:08:35   with a Verge crew and shot a video

01:08:37   and talked to somebody in a Best Buy,

01:08:39   they'd be like, "Oh, yeah, yeah."

01:08:41   Everybody comes in and they're just like,

01:08:42   "Oh, give me the biggest, cheapest screen you got."

01:08:44   - Oh, yeah, no, this is especially true in TVs,

01:08:46   where it's like, do you want a 55-inch beautiful OLED,

01:08:49   or do you want the world's shittiest 85-inch TV?

01:08:52   And everyone's like, "The 85-inch TV."

01:08:54   - Yeah, they're like, "That shittiest 85-inch TV costs what?"

01:08:58   And they're like, "Oh, it's this."

01:08:59   And they're like, "Oh, give me that."

01:09:01   - Yeah, it's always like $500.

01:09:03   It's like, "Okay, fine."

01:09:05   And everyone buys that TV.

01:09:07   - But I think that it's true of laptops.

01:09:09   There's a reason that crap 15-inch Windows laptops

01:09:12   still sell numbers, 'cause they're just big and cheap.

01:09:15   And I think that has finally arrived

01:09:18   to the iPhone in some way.

01:09:19   I'm not saying it's crappy, but the iPhone 14 Plus

01:09:22   is just, I think, a recognition that the iPhone 13 Mini

01:09:26   was great and everyone loved it,

01:09:27   but what consumers really want

01:09:29   when they pull out their wallets is a big, cheap screen.

01:09:31   - Yep, yeah.

01:09:33   So I don't think it's a coincidence.

01:09:34   So they let go of this one thing,

01:09:36   which was a pro-only motivator,

01:09:39   and now they've got this new thing, the Dynamic Island.

01:09:42   And I don't think it's gonna be pro-only forever,

01:09:45   but I think it's going to be three years, maybe, maybe four.

01:09:49   - Yeah. - I don't know.

01:09:50   It could be, it really,

01:09:51   I could imagine it being four years.

01:09:52   - But I think when stuff hits that audience,

01:09:55   it has to be ready.

01:09:56   And I, my, you know, I think our title was like,

01:09:59   "It's the Early Adopter Island" or something.

01:10:00   Like, there's a lot of stuff in these pros

01:10:03   that are the beginnings of ideas,

01:10:06   whereas the 14 is like so complete,

01:10:09   it's just the 13 again.

01:10:10   And so I think when you hit that part of the market,

01:10:13   the ideas have to be finished,

01:10:15   everyone has to know what the limit,

01:10:16   like there's no room for error

01:10:19   because no one's coming on your podcast

01:10:21   to spend like two hours talking about

01:10:23   sub-pixel and aliasing.

01:10:24   Like, whereas I think in the pro market

01:10:27   and with that audience,

01:10:28   everyone keeps saying that the pre-orders

01:10:30   for the pro are higher than,

01:10:32   and it's like, yeah, they're pre, like,

01:10:33   definitionally early adopters.

01:10:36   - But let me interrupt you there.

01:10:37   I don't buy that at all.

01:10:39   Who the hell at this point knows anything

01:10:42   about the pre-orders outside Apple and Tim Cook's office?

01:10:45   I saw Ming-Chi Kuo's post about it,

01:10:48   and I don't know, I don't know him,

01:10:50   I've never met him, and I'm a fan.

01:10:52   You know, he obviously gets a lot of stuff right.

01:10:54   But his post about that was, I don't know,

01:10:57   I mean, he was high as a kite or something

01:10:59   'cause he even put stuff in that was nonsense.

01:11:02   He said, like, in his checks,

01:11:04   that the 14+ was going to be in wide availability

01:11:07   on launch day.

01:11:08   Apple told us at the keynote

01:11:10   it's not available till October 7th.

01:11:13   What the hell is he talking about?

01:11:15   We didn't even get them to review

01:11:16   because it's coming out so late, so much later.

01:11:19   Well, again, so late, October 7th is not that late.

01:11:23   But I'm saying, but you know and I know

01:11:25   that Apple does not seed review unit products more than,

01:11:29   almost never more than a week in advance of availability.

01:11:33   - And in this case, less than a week.

01:11:35   - And sometimes two weeks.

01:11:37   Not that I know anything about that,

01:11:38   (laughs)

01:11:40   but sometimes two weeks.

01:11:43   But in my experience, never more than two weeks,

01:11:46   except the one and only exception to that,

01:11:48   which I guess we can now talk about,

01:11:50   would be the original AirPods.

01:11:53   - Yeah. - Way back in like 2016.

01:11:55   - And they were like beta.

01:11:56   - Yeah, and they told us these are actually

01:12:00   last stage prototypes.

01:12:02   I guess prototypes may be the wrong word, pre-production.

01:12:05   These are last stage pre-production units.

01:12:09   And then when the actual AirPods shipped

01:12:11   like a month or six weeks later,

01:12:13   that was like the first and ever only review unit product

01:12:16   where they immediately called me and said,

01:12:19   "We would like you to send those back today.

01:12:21   "And we've got a box, we've got a FedEx guy

01:12:23   "coming to your house now to pick them up."

01:12:25   - Yeah, and it was a weird exception.

01:12:28   So the plus, Ming-Chi Kuo saying that the plus

01:12:32   was gonna be in wide availability on launch day,

01:12:34   which is today, the day you and I are talking,

01:12:37   is I don't know what the hell he's talking about.

01:12:39   But meanwhile, because Ming-Chi Kuo said it,

01:12:42   it's all over the world that the iPhone 14 regulars

01:12:48   are not in demand and the 14 Pro Max is in high demand

01:12:52   and 14 Pro is in medium demand.

01:12:53   And you look at his methodology, it's crazy.

01:12:56   His sources are clearly all in the supply chain

01:13:00   and he gets great information out of them.

01:13:02   I mean, nobody else is quite like Ming-Chi Kuo

01:13:05   in terms of information from the supply chain.

01:13:07   But in terms of knowing the launch day pre-orders,

01:13:10   whatever Apple is going to do to adjust

01:13:13   their supply chain orders hasn't happened yet.

01:13:17   So I think that's nonsense.

01:13:18   I don't think anybody outside Tim Cook's office

01:13:21   knows anything about which phones have been ordered

01:13:24   how many times.

01:13:25   - By that quote also, he reached, he was like,

01:13:28   he arrived at a conclusion that makes no sense to me.

01:13:30   He was like, this product segmentation strategy is a fail.

01:13:33   It's like, I have no idea.

01:13:34   - Well, he definitely has no idea.

01:13:36   - What are you doing?

01:13:37   But all I meant was the people citing that to me

01:13:41   is evidence that my big cheap screens theory is wrong.

01:13:44   It's like, no, no, no.

01:13:44   The early adopters are always gonna find it from all.

01:13:47   Even if you believe this or don't believe it,

01:13:50   nothing about pre-order data tells you what is gonna happen.

01:13:53   - Right.

01:13:54   It's definitionally early adopters.

01:13:56   - Who's buying a phone to actually go and pick up

01:14:00   on Friday the 16th so that they can have it

01:14:04   in the morning on the first day that it's available?

01:14:09   Who back 10 years ago was lined up outside

01:14:14   their local Apple store on Friday morning

01:14:18   at six in the morning, three hours before the store opened

01:14:21   so that they could get one?

01:14:22   - It's early adopters, and what are they gonna buy?

01:14:25   People like that aren't gonna buy a mid-range phone.

01:14:29   And then vice versa, who's going to be buying

01:14:33   a brand new iPhone 14 something next August?

01:14:38   Right?

01:14:40   - Yeah.

01:14:41   - It's the people who don't care.

01:14:42   And you could tell them.

01:14:43   You could say, hey, Apple's probably coming out

01:14:45   with new phones in two weeks, and they'd be like,

01:14:47   yeah, I don't need them.

01:14:48   I don't care.

01:14:50   And you know what they're gonna do?

01:14:51   They're gonna walk in the store,

01:14:52   and they're gonna say, yeah, I love a big phone.

01:14:54   And they're like, well, you can get the Pro Max,

01:14:56   and it's 1100, or the regular Pro Plus, or 14 Plus,

01:15:01   and it's 900, and they'll be like, 900?

01:15:05   Yeah, that's the one I want.

01:15:06   - Yeah, I mean, we'll see.

01:15:09   Like I said, my theory is on a long enough timeline,

01:15:13   the big, cheap screen always wins, right?

01:15:14   And it's just sort of true, and the screens

01:15:18   keep getting bigger and cheaper, so everyone's happy.

01:15:20   - I don't think, and I was, I'm not always right.

01:15:23   I was, my personal taste in relatively smaller phones,

01:15:27   and again, I never actually bought a Mini,

01:15:30   although I think I might have two years ago

01:15:32   if I were a little, if I had been younger,

01:15:34   and my eyes were better.

01:15:35   But I did buy, that was the year I did buy,

01:15:37   I didn't buy the Pro.

01:15:38   I bought the regular iPhone 12,

01:15:40   because I just thought the 12 Pro,

01:15:42   I wasn't impressed by the camera,

01:15:44   and thought in the fall of 2020,

01:15:47   I'm not going anywhere for a while.

01:15:48   We're locked, this COVID thing is clearly here all winter.

01:15:51   What do I need a camera for?

01:15:52   I'll buy the one that's lighter,

01:15:54   and that I think feels better in my hand.

01:15:56   I was, thought, ah, maybe I should just get the Mini,

01:15:59   but I really, it's like, ah, I'm almost 50.

01:16:03   I'm gonna, I need the bigger screen.

01:16:05   But to me, the 6.1 in size is a little too big.

01:16:09   But I get it.

01:16:11   My taste in smaller phones had me off the trail

01:16:16   of the Android side racing ahead to truly,

01:16:20   what we used to call 'em, phablets, right?

01:16:22   - Yep.

01:16:23   Yeah, I mean, I'm a Macs phone person,

01:16:25   and this thing's a phablet.

01:16:27   - Right.

01:16:28   - It's this close to being seven inches.

01:16:30   - Yeah, I was off, I was wrong about that, clearly.

01:16:33   And it's obvious in hindsight.

01:16:34   I remember the first time,

01:16:35   I had to do something in a Verizon store,

01:16:37   easily 10 years ago.

01:16:39   And it was before Apple had really big phones,

01:16:44   the plus ones, right?

01:16:45   So, and it came out in the Samsung trial,

01:16:48   like, wasn't it a Phil Schiller email

01:16:50   that people want big screen phones that we don't make,

01:16:54   something like that, you know?

01:16:55   - Yep, and Tim Cook was like, just do it, stop it.

01:16:58   - And the problem is, it's the,

01:17:01   and if you look at that email compared to when Apple

01:17:04   started shipping the bigger plus size phones,

01:17:08   that's all the proof you need

01:17:09   of how long it takes Apple to go from,

01:17:12   okay, we'll make this phone to it's September, here it is.

01:17:15   It's over two years.

01:17:16   They don't all, anytime you see a story that, you know,

01:17:19   like that Apple's making a major change

01:17:21   to next year's iPhone, it's complete nonsense.

01:17:25   It just can't work that way.

01:17:27   But I remember being in a Verizon store,

01:17:29   something to do with my SIM card, I don't know.

01:17:31   I was, I had something wrong with my account.

01:17:33   And I heard a customer shopping for an Android phone,

01:17:38   and her boyfriend was trying to talk her into one

01:17:43   that had a pen for something,

01:17:45   and she knew what she wanted.

01:17:48   She wanted, and she was a very small Asian woman,

01:17:51   and she had a tiny purse.

01:17:53   I remember looking at her purse thing,

01:17:54   how are you even gonna put that phone?

01:17:55   She went right to the one that was the biggest.

01:17:57   She was like, no, no, I want the,

01:17:58   I forget what model number it was.

01:18:00   But it was the Samsung something with the biggest screen.

01:18:04   And she's, and he was like, are you sure, that's huge?

01:18:06   And he was like trying to talk her out of it.

01:18:08   And she was like, nope, and sold,

01:18:10   here, take my credit card.

01:18:12   (laughing)

01:18:13   Meanwhile, she's got the phone and is out of the store,

01:18:16   and they're still dicking around

01:18:17   with my SIM card problem, of course.

01:18:21   But I just remember, and I just remember,

01:18:23   that was the moment, I remember the moment,

01:18:24   and I thought, you know what, I'm wrong about these phones.

01:18:28   People, all sorts of people want them,

01:18:30   including very small, short people

01:18:33   who carry very small purses.

01:18:35   - Yeah.

01:18:36   - They're gonna squeeze it into the purse and make it work.

01:18:39   - I bought my mama a Mac size phone.

01:18:40   She is herself a small Asian woman.

01:18:42   She loves it.

01:18:43   Can't get enough.

01:18:44   - Yeah, yeah.

01:18:45   So I think the 14 Plus is gonna sell like gangbusters,

01:18:47   and I think Apple knows it.

01:18:48   There's certain things that they never know.

01:18:51   I've talked to people over the years,

01:18:52   like Apple says, people think we know everything

01:18:54   and how many of each thing is gonna be sold,

01:18:57   and we're always surprised every year.

01:18:59   We're surprised by which colors are popular.

01:19:01   We're surprised by this and that.

01:19:04   But I think the one thing they know for sure

01:19:05   is the 14 Plus is gonna sell like gangbusters.

01:19:08   - Yeah, I think that's very odd.

01:19:11   - But anyway, back to the dynamic island.

01:19:13   Here's the thing.

01:19:14   No, but in terms of how they could have brought

01:19:16   some of the features to the other phones.

01:19:18   You mentioned in your review,

01:19:20   there are things that we've known for years.

01:19:22   They've been in iOS for years.

01:19:24   So like if you've got turn-by-turn directions

01:19:27   or anything location tracking,

01:19:28   you get a blue pill in the top left corner, right?

01:19:32   If you have a phone call going on, you get a green pill.

01:19:36   And if you tap the pill,

01:19:37   you jump to the app that's responsible for it, right?

01:19:40   So now that we have these things

01:19:43   and the dynamic island is out,

01:19:45   it's very clear that they could make it

01:19:48   so that you could long press the pill

01:19:50   and get the little widget thing

01:19:53   to appear right underneath it without the dynamic island.

01:19:56   This doesn't even...

01:19:57   The fact that they're not doing that

01:20:00   and they're not going to do that is,

01:20:03   let's call it what it is.

01:20:04   It's a software lock on the feature.

01:20:07   - Oh yeah, for sure.

01:20:08   By the way, do you think the long press to open the widget

01:20:11   and the tap to open the app is as backwards as I do?

01:20:13   - It did not.

01:20:14   This is one of my...

01:20:15   I have this in my notes to talk about on the podcast.

01:20:18   I'm glad you brought it up

01:20:19   so that I can't ignore my notes and forget it.

01:20:23   That did not occur to me at all,

01:20:25   but I was reading your review today

01:20:27   because when I'm late with my reviews,

01:20:29   I scrupulously avoid reading other people's reviews,

01:20:33   both because I need to finish mine

01:20:34   and it just seems like the right thing to do.

01:20:37   - Yeah, and then when you're done, when you publish,

01:20:39   you read everyone else's furiously.

01:20:40   - Right, and I read yours, and that was one of the things

01:20:44   I was like, oh, I'm so glad he's on my podcast today

01:20:46   because that is a really interesting idea, right?

01:20:51   So your idea is...

01:20:54   The way it works right now is that you tap a thing

01:20:58   in the dynamic island and it jumps you to that app.

01:21:00   So your podcast player's playing

01:21:03   and you've got the little thing up there,

01:21:04   the live waveforms, you tap it and you jump to Overcast

01:21:08   or you jump to Apple Podcasts or you jump to Spotify,

01:21:11   and if you long press, you get the player.

01:21:13   You're saying that should be reversed.

01:21:16   - I think it should absolutely be reversed.

01:21:17   If the idea of the island is that it's a hardware display

01:21:22   that floats over the top of iOS,

01:21:25   then you should use it more.

01:21:27   To me, a long press on a smartphone touchscreen

01:21:30   is effectively a right click,

01:21:33   and it's actually an even less discoverable right click.

01:21:36   So all the ads are like, the thing is moving.

01:21:42   Like, the ads are great, right?

01:21:43   But it's always opening and closing.

01:21:44   People are doing stuff with it, and the point of it is not,

01:21:47   oh, this is an app switcher with an animation on it.

01:21:51   The point of it is you're supposed to use it,

01:21:54   and the thing that drove me nuts was like,

01:21:55   oh, I wanna use it.

01:21:56   I just wanna open the thing and change the track

01:21:58   or I wanna see what the next name of the street is

01:22:01   instead of just 900 feet or whatever it is.

01:22:04   I wanna stop this timer.

01:22:05   And you have to click and hold.

01:22:08   And it's just like, oh, this is backwards.

01:22:10   Actually, what I wanna do is use the island,

01:22:13   and if I wanna open the app,

01:22:15   I will tell this phone that I wanna open the app in some way.

01:22:18   - I'm not 100% convinced,

01:22:22   but I'm over 50% convinced that you're right.

01:22:26   And--

01:22:27   - It should at least be a toggle.

01:22:28   They should at least let you choose.

01:22:30   - Yeah.

01:22:31   Yeah, I don't know.

01:22:34   I almost think, I'm like at least 55% convinced

01:22:38   that they shouldn't even be a toggle,

01:22:39   that you're just right, that tapping,

01:22:41   if the app support has something that supports,

01:22:45   I think everything that's in there does.

01:22:47   If it makes any sense to do it,

01:22:49   then it should just show the expanded view on a tap.

01:22:53   - Right, and if there's no expanded view,

01:22:56   like fine, kick me the app.

01:22:57   I will understand.

01:22:58   - Right, and your analogy to a right-click

01:23:00   in Mac or Windows is exactly right.

01:23:03   And my philosophy, and I actually think

01:23:06   everybody's Windows, the Windows guidelines,

01:23:08   the Mac guidelines, I think all recommend this.

01:23:11   And over the years, of course,

01:23:14   everybody can find examples of even software

01:23:17   from Apple and Microsoft that disobeys it.

01:23:19   But the rule's always been that

01:23:23   nothing should be in the right-click menu

01:23:25   that you can only get in the right-click menu.

01:23:27   There should be a way to do everything on the system

01:23:32   with just regular clicks by moving the mouse

01:23:36   somewhere on the screen to a visible element,

01:23:39   be it a menu or an icon or something,

01:23:42   and a regular click, and maybe it takes three clicks, right,

01:23:46   to go up to the menu and pull down the menu

01:23:48   and down to a thing.

01:23:50   You should never have to do a right-click

01:23:52   because that's not discoverable,

01:23:54   because lots of people never right-click anything.

01:23:57   And I do think it's a direct analogy to long pressing.

01:24:01   And for certain mice, obviously,

01:24:04   Apple mice don't have multiple buttons,

01:24:05   but at least with traditional mice,

01:24:08   the right-click button is a button

01:24:11   that a normal person can see, right,

01:24:14   and think, I don't know, what's that button do?

01:24:16   And then they kinda can figure it out.

01:24:18   Long press is even less discoverable than right-clicking

01:24:22   because it's, I'm not sure people know they can do it.

01:24:27   And I do, I get it, right?

01:24:29   And it's like, so you should be able to do it with a tap.

01:24:32   Right, so there is no way to just open the expanded view

01:24:36   with just a tap, but according to my theory

01:24:40   that like on a mouse system,

01:24:41   you should be able to do everything with a regular click.

01:24:44   You should be able to do everything with regular taps,

01:24:46   even if it requires multiple taps.

01:24:48   So let's say you actually want to,

01:24:52   you don't just want to open the little scoreboard thing

01:24:57   for the live activity you're watching.

01:24:59   You actually wanna switch to the ESPN app.

01:25:02   Well, you tap it once to show the widget in expanded view,

01:25:07   and then you'd tap again to go to the app, right?

01:25:11   Like it would be on,

01:25:12   like there'd be like an ESPN logo in the widget,

01:25:14   and you'd tap that to go to the app.

01:25:16   So you could still go to the app.

01:25:18   You would just have to tap and then tap,

01:25:20   which isn't that different than the long tap, right?

01:25:24   I think you're right, and if you just think like,

01:25:27   I just wanna open the expanded view, just tap it.

01:25:30   Tap it to expand it.

01:25:32   - Especially because Apple is inundating everybody

01:25:35   with marketing showing the thing happening all the time.

01:25:37   So it's like they're training users to expect a behavior.

01:25:42   - That they may not discover even.

01:25:45   - Right, and I obviously have like wandered around asking,

01:25:48   and the general vibe is we want it to be as simple

01:25:52   as possible, and the simplest thing to do is kick you

01:25:54   to the app, and it's like, actually I still think

01:25:57   that's backwards.

01:25:58   - Yeah, I do too, 'cause I actually think the simplest thing

01:26:01   that's possible is to open the mini app that's up there,

01:26:04   right, 'cause that's what these things are.

01:26:06   They're little mini apps.

01:26:07   I compared them in my review to the iTunes mini player,

01:26:12   and I loved the iTunes.

01:26:15   I still call it iTunes, but the music app mini player,

01:26:20   but over the years when I've been playing music on my Mac,

01:26:24   my controlling it has gone through the mini player

01:26:27   way more than iTunes, because you just leave

01:26:30   the mini player up, and it's wonderfully simple.

01:26:33   Now, and it forces the designer or designers of the app

01:26:38   to reduce the app to its purest core.

01:26:42   Fast forward, reverse, play, pause, next,

01:26:47   and what's playing right now.

01:26:50   That's the app.

01:26:52   That's the core, and yes, we want all these other features.

01:26:55   We want playlist management, and we want radio stations,

01:26:58   and we want subscription info, and go to your account info,

01:27:01   and buy new music, and all those other stuff,

01:27:04   but the core of the app is fast forward, reverse,

01:27:08   play, pause, next, and what's playing right now,

01:27:11   and that's the mini player,

01:27:12   and that's what these views do to all these apps.

01:27:15   So to me, that's the simplest thing possible.

01:27:17   Like, I've hailed a Lyft, and I'm waiting for it to show.

01:27:21   This is one of my, I can't wait for this to be in NowPlane,

01:27:24   'cause it, or a dynamic island,

01:27:27   'cause this is me all the time.

01:27:29   I hail an Uber or a Lyft, and it says,

01:27:34   of course they always lie, and they say,

01:27:36   "Oh, we could get you one, we'll get you one

01:27:38   "in four minutes," and I'm like, "Oh, that's great,"

01:27:41   but that's actually so quick,

01:27:43   I was actually gonna go to the bathroom,

01:27:44   I don't have my shoes on yet, well, I'll hail it,

01:27:46   and then it spins and spins, and then of course,

01:27:48   they're like, "Oh, it'll be nine minutes."

01:27:51   Right?

01:27:53   Well, what am I gonna do?

01:27:54   Now, I've already gone to the bathroom,

01:27:56   I put my shoes on already, 'cause I thought,

01:27:59   of course, got suckered again, Lucy and the football,

01:28:01   thinking that the car was gonna be here

01:28:03   in a couple minutes.

01:28:05   Well, I'm gonna dick around on my phone, of course, right?

01:28:08   And this is what I do, and then I'm on Twitter,

01:28:10   and then all of a sudden, I'm like, wait,

01:28:11   did I just spend 20 minutes on Twitter?

01:28:13   Is the car outside?

01:28:14   Did it already leave?

01:28:16   I love the idea that in the dynamic island,

01:28:18   I'll have a live update, and every time I'm waiting for it,

01:28:21   I can see it, but I don't wanna jump to the app

01:28:25   if I want more information, like to see what kind of car

01:28:27   is it, like that's, just let me tap it, right?

01:28:30   Just let me tap it and see, okay,

01:28:32   it's gonna be a red Tesla.

01:28:33   - Yeah, and here's the last four of the lights.

01:28:35   - Yeah, here's the last four of the lights.

01:28:36   - Which is the most important information

01:28:37   of the whole app.

01:28:38   - Right, just let me tap it,

01:28:39   and I don't want to, the last thing I wanna do

01:28:41   is go to Uber's giant app with ads in it and all this crap.

01:28:45   Just let me see their mini player.

01:28:48   - Why was my first question,

01:28:50   will Uber put ads in the dynamic island?

01:28:53   Like, there's a whole app review,

01:28:55   we're already like an hour and a half into it,

01:28:57   there's another hour and a half of an app review

01:28:59   for the dynamic island that is staring at us in the face.

01:29:02   Like, this is why I'm like at wait and see.

01:29:05   Is Uber gonna put the Uber Eats logo

01:29:08   in their dynamic island widget

01:29:10   and try to get you to buy the Uber subscription

01:29:13   in the dynamic island?

01:29:13   Like, I kinda wanna know what that relationship

01:29:17   between Apple and its developers and the,

01:29:20   like, when you say, like, when you reduce the app

01:29:23   to its core essence,

01:29:25   is the Instagram dynamic island widget

01:29:28   just gonna show you an ad for, like, Instagram shirts?

01:29:32   Like, I don't know.

01:29:33   - No, they're gonna make you watch a reel.

01:29:36   - Yeah, they're definitely gonna make you watch a reel

01:29:38   in the island.

01:29:39   - Like, I'm very curious to see how this plays out

01:29:41   with developers, 'cause that,

01:29:42   the concepts they showed from Lyft and Flighty

01:29:45   are like, genius.

01:29:47   I'm in the airport, I just need to know the gate changed,

01:29:50   just tell me the gate changed,

01:29:51   and like, I'll move on,

01:29:53   and I don't need to open the American Airlines app,

01:29:56   which is one of, like,

01:29:56   Apple should just kick that app out of the store.

01:29:58   If anyone from Apple's listening to me,

01:29:59   just kick, just boot American Airlines out,

01:30:02   make 'em start over.

01:30:04   So, you get this whole world

01:30:05   where there's all this sort of ambient information,

01:30:09   and like, you have to respect what it is

01:30:11   and not use it as a way to shove your app into the island.

01:30:15   And I think there's a,

01:30:17   this is why we might really adopt her.

01:30:19   It's like, we're gonna have to learn altogether

01:30:21   what works and what doesn't.

01:30:22   - So, I can be pretty cynical.

01:30:25   I can certainly be mean and sarcastic,

01:30:27   but I have to admit that there's a,

01:30:31   an optimist in me and excited by the opportunity designer

01:30:36   mindset in me that never,

01:30:40   you know, like, the way that,

01:30:42   the best example of all time is email,

01:30:45   and the way that the original designers of internet email

01:30:49   made it so simple and so, oh, you just,

01:30:52   it's just a text file that you put,

01:30:54   send over this port to a server,

01:30:57   and you just follow this format

01:30:59   where you just put a to and from and all this stuff,

01:31:02   and it goes out, and guess what?

01:31:05   It's totally ripe for incredible abuse,

01:31:09   and we're all getting hundreds of spam messages a day still,

01:31:14   to this day, and it'll never stop

01:31:16   because the people who designed email never really thought,

01:31:19   hey, wait, how could this be abused?

01:31:23   It did not occur to me to think, wait,

01:31:25   what are the things somebody could abuse

01:31:27   the dynamic island for?

01:31:28   - So did you ask Apple, will they be, are ads allowed?

01:31:32   Did you ask?

01:31:33   - Well, as you may know,

01:31:34   The Verge has a very strict background policy,

01:31:36   so I can't, unless they're gonna be on the record.

01:31:38   - You can't say what they said, and if they didn't--

01:31:42   Well, so you can say whether you asked, though.

01:31:44   - I did ask, I 100% asked, and I think,

01:31:48   I would characterize the response as,

01:31:51   oh boy, we're gonna have to wait and see,

01:31:53   like, right, like, they have app review,

01:31:55   they have a mechanism, they have some guidelines,

01:31:59   but no one has submitted apps yet.

01:32:01   Like, I don't know, like, is Spotify gonna put,

01:32:05   like, try to break the rules and get you to sign up

01:32:08   on the web in their island widget?

01:32:10   Like, we're just gonna have to find out,

01:32:12   'cause developers routinely push against rules,

01:32:15   Apple pushes back, and this is a way,

01:32:17   like, my joke about American Airlines is,

01:32:19   they're gonna, are they gonna stick the offer

01:32:21   for the American Airlines credit card in the island widget?

01:32:24   Like, maybe.

01:32:25   - Right, well, think about Spotify, right?

01:32:26   So Spotify, you're playing Spotify,

01:32:29   and now you're doing your stuff.

01:32:32   You're reading email, you're browsing the web,

01:32:34   you're doing messages, and the Spotify thing

01:32:38   is up there in the dynamic island, and there's an icon,

01:32:42   so if they can dynamically change that icon,

01:32:45   they could change it to, like, a Chipotle icon, right?

01:32:49   (both laughing)

01:32:50   - Right, I mean, I'm assuming that app review

01:32:53   will catch a bunch of this stuff, I'm assuming--

01:32:57   - Like, they could just sell the icon, right?

01:32:59   - They could, this is what I'm saying.

01:33:02   So, we've, you know, and I'm not saying

01:33:04   that all these companies are very nefarious,

01:33:05   I'm just saying that suddenly you have this ability

01:33:08   to ambiently push information at people,

01:33:11   and historically in the world,

01:33:13   that ability has been used for advertising.

01:33:15   (laughing)

01:33:17   - You're just listening to music,

01:33:19   but you've got a Wendy's logo up.

01:33:22   - Oh, no, but think about it this way,

01:33:23   you've got, so there's some prioritization happening

01:33:27   with these apps, you've only got two slots, right?

01:33:28   There's the big one, and then if you got two at once,

01:33:31   it turns into a little circle,

01:33:33   which is like the ultra-minimal view.

01:33:34   - Yeah, there's three sizes,

01:33:36   one is if it's the one and only thing,

01:33:38   then there's two sizes if there's two,

01:33:42   and then there's the expanded view, so four total sizes.

01:33:47   - Yeah, and so you can just see, like,

01:33:49   okay, there's an app that wants the island,

01:33:51   it's been deprioritized, and the internal priority ranking

01:33:55   of the apps is fascinating to me, right?

01:33:58   So as I've been testing it,

01:34:00   phone calls have the first priority,

01:34:02   if you have an active call, they always get the big slot.

01:34:04   The timer loses to everything all the time.

01:34:06   - Right.

01:34:07   - You can just, if you start a timer,

01:34:09   it'll just get pushed off the screen

01:34:10   if you start other things.

01:34:11   Turn by turn, I think, has priority too.

01:34:13   Like, it's just interesting to figure out

01:34:16   how Apple is ranking all these different uses of the island.

01:34:19   And as more live activities roll out, who knows, right?

01:34:22   Like, does a sports score supersede a phone call?

01:34:26   - Right.

01:34:27   - I don't know.

01:34:28   But just stipulating that I do not know

01:34:30   the answer to the ranking, you can just see a world

01:34:33   where, like, you have the Chipotle app on your phone,

01:34:37   and you haven't, like, force quit it.

01:34:39   So it's just, like, hanging out in the back,

01:34:41   and you, like, walk by a Chipotle,

01:34:44   and it pops up the island widget that's like,

01:34:46   "Do you want a burrito?"

01:34:48   (laughing)

01:34:50   I'm assuming that that is not possible.

01:34:53   I have no idea if it is or not.

01:34:55   - The other thing that kinda stinks to me

01:34:57   about the timer always getting secondary thing

01:34:59   is it just shows the timer icon.

01:35:01   It doesn't show the time.

01:35:03   Like--

01:35:03   - Yeah, it just shows you something.

01:35:05   - I don't understand why the timer doesn't switch

01:35:08   to showing you, like, if you've got five minutes,

01:35:11   30 seconds left, why doesn't it say 5.30?

01:35:13   And even if they don't wanna update every second,

01:35:15   even if it just updated every 10 seconds or something,

01:35:18   that would be better than just showing the timer icon.

01:35:20   - Yeah, or it's a circle.

01:35:21   Just have it count down and--

01:35:23   - Yeah, or, yeah, like show analog-style clock hands

01:35:26   or something.

01:35:27   - Yeah, again, this is what I mean.

01:35:29   Like, I just think we're, a year from now,

01:35:32   we will actually know.

01:35:34   And this is where my,

01:35:35   maybe I'm just even more cynical than you are,

01:35:37   but, like, that's where my cynicism is, is

01:35:39   I can see how it's useful now.

01:35:43   I don't know if you're like me,

01:35:45   but I, after a day with the first iPhone X,

01:35:49   I just stopped seeing the notch entirely.

01:35:51   It went away.

01:35:52   And I, last year on the 13 Pro,

01:35:54   they were like, "We made the notch smaller,"

01:35:55   and I was like, "What notch?"

01:35:56   - Yeah, yeah, yep, I thought the same thing.

01:35:58   And I was like, "Did they really?"

01:35:59   And then I, like, compared it,

01:36:00   and I was like, "Holy hell, they did.

01:36:02   "That actually is smaller."

01:36:03   - Right, so, but the island is not invisible.

01:36:06   They moved it down.

01:36:07   I run my phone in light mode,

01:36:09   so there's bright light above and below it,

01:36:12   so I see it, it is always moving.

01:36:14   So I'm just, like, looking at this thing a lot.

01:36:16   And I, the big trade to me is,

01:36:19   okay, well, now I have to see it.

01:36:21   Like, it's not just, like, this invisible thing on the phone

01:36:24   that, like, people complain about for sport on Twitter,

01:36:27   but is actually, like, barely visible.

01:36:29   It's a thing that I'm looking at.

01:36:31   It actually, it's lower on the screen.

01:36:32   Whenever I get stressed out, I shop for cars.

01:36:34   I rarely buy a car,

01:36:36   but it's been a very stressful couple weeks for me,

01:36:38   so I've been shopping for cars, like, every minute.

01:36:39   - Very odd stress reliever, but we all have our--

01:36:43   - Like, I'm just like, what if I owned, like,

01:36:45   a 1988 Mercedes, and I just, like, shop,

01:36:47   but, like, just, like, see if I can buy one.

01:36:49   I never buy them, but, so I've had, like,

01:36:50   the cars.com app, the top of it, the pictures of the car,

01:36:55   because the island is lower,

01:36:58   all the pictures of the car are cut off.

01:37:00   This is, like, they'll update the app,

01:37:01   and it's a tiny little personal experience,

01:37:04   but it just made me think, like,

01:37:05   the trade-off of value I am getting right now

01:37:08   for this thing being visible is not gonna be aligned

01:37:12   until the Packers game is in there,

01:37:15   until Flighty is in there, and I'm in the airport,

01:37:16   and I'm like, this is rad.

01:37:17   Like, there's just a ramp to utility

01:37:22   that has not been achieved yet,

01:37:24   and we'll just see, and I, like,

01:37:26   the off-ramps from utility are,

01:37:28   yeah, they're gonna stick ads in it.

01:37:29   - Can we intercede?

01:37:30   Can we complain about American Airlines?

01:37:32   (laughing)

01:37:34   Hey, their app is horrible.

01:37:36   Flighty is awesome.

01:37:37   If anybody out there, even if you only fly occasionally,

01:37:39   Flighty is so much more useful.

01:37:42   - My flight home from San Francisco last Friday

01:37:46   was supposed to be at, like, let's say 1 p.m.

01:37:48   It was, like, 1255 or something,

01:37:50   and at 1230, when we were already supposed

01:37:53   to have started boarding, they made an announcement

01:37:55   that we might be boarding 20 to 30 minutes late

01:37:58   'cause the mechanics are looking at an issue,

01:38:01   and I turned to the guy next to me and said,

01:38:02   we're not getting on this plane,

01:38:04   because if they thought we might have a 30,

01:38:08   even an hour delay while mechanics fixed something,

01:38:11   they would load us on the plane

01:38:12   and make us sit in our seats while they do it.

01:38:15   That's happened to me, you know, it's happened to everybody.

01:38:18   If they don't let you board the plane,

01:38:20   they don't think the plane's gonna take off,

01:38:21   and lo and behold, the plane never took off,

01:38:24   and we had to wait for another plane,

01:38:26   and it was, I don't know, five hours later

01:38:28   when a plane came, but my favorite part was

01:38:31   when the gate agent announced it, she said,

01:38:36   "Don't worry, it's a good plane this time."

01:38:39   Right over the PA system.

01:38:40   (laughing)

01:38:41   That's pretty good.

01:38:43   So when I was, so my week at the Apple event was ridiculous,

01:38:47   so I was home in Chicago for Labor Day,

01:38:49   and then I flew to LA for code,

01:38:51   and then I flew to the Apple event,

01:38:52   and then I flew back to LA, and then I flew to New York,

01:38:56   and just to make all that work,

01:38:58   I flew every major domestic airline.

01:39:01   - Wow.

01:39:02   - Just to arrange all the flights,

01:39:03   and actually, I was so worried about not making it

01:39:06   from code to Cupertino that I booked two flights

01:39:10   out of LA to CIFA, and I had competing

01:39:14   American and Delta flights.

01:39:16   So rarely do you directly compare the apps

01:39:19   of major airlines, but just that week, I flew them all.

01:39:24   I was at LAX three times in three days,

01:39:25   which I do not recommend, just not a good way

01:39:28   to spend your time, and so Delta has the best one, I think.

01:39:31   United is somewhere in the middle,

01:39:33   and then the American Airlines app is full

01:39:35   of the weirdest custom Sheets animations,

01:39:40   and they just are bouncing around.

01:39:42   Just kick 'em off the store, Apple.

01:39:44   Just be like, human interface, we run the store, all right?

01:39:47   You're gone.

01:39:48   Come back when you've done some system-level animations.

01:39:52   - I like how they spent so much time

01:39:54   putting beautiful wallpapers behind the background.

01:39:58   It's like the main thing about the American app,

01:40:01   Axes, though, it's the only app you'll ever use

01:40:03   on the phone, and it has a wallpaper,

01:40:05   and they show these beautiful locations

01:40:07   from around the world, and it's the only thing

01:40:09   that looks good in the app.

01:40:10   Who gives a shit?

01:40:11   Nobody's going to the American Airlines app

01:40:13   to see pictures of the islands of Maui.

01:40:17   - Yeah, yeah, it's, I don't think I'm saying

01:40:21   anything controversial or new to be like,

01:40:23   airline apps are bad.

01:40:24   I'm just saying that the island offers you

01:40:26   the opportunity to opt out of them,

01:40:28   but how long is it gonna take American

01:40:31   to build their island widget?

01:40:33   - I don't know, but I just opened the app,

01:40:35   and I'm looking at it now, and I would estimate

01:40:37   that two-thirds of the screen is an ad

01:40:41   for the city adventure.

01:40:43   - This is what I'm saying.

01:40:44   When you're like, the widget has to be

01:40:46   the purest representation of the app,

01:40:49   well, if you look at the app,

01:40:50   it's the purest representation of it

01:40:53   is a call to action to sign up for a credit card.

01:40:55   - It's, you know how it's sort of weird

01:40:59   that a computer company like Apple

01:41:01   and an online retailer like Amazon

01:41:04   are now major streaming networks and platforms, right?

01:41:07   It's, you know, we get it.

01:41:09   We're not gonna go there on this show.

01:41:10   There's too much to talk about,

01:41:11   but it's just sort of like, it's kind of weird, though,

01:41:13   that it's like two of the major streaming platforms

01:41:16   with some of the best, most talked about content

01:41:18   are a store and a computer company.

01:41:21   American Airlines is more like there's this,

01:41:23   there's a credit card company that now bought an airline.

01:41:28   - Yeah, oh, for sure.

01:41:30   - This just happened to run an airline.

01:41:32   - Yeah, this is like all the major airlines now.

01:41:34   You know, Sony in Japan is basically an insurance company

01:41:37   that happens to make TVs.

01:41:38   The end comes for you and you don't even know it happened.

01:41:42   You're like, oh, we're a financial services company.

01:41:44   - We were on vacation as a family in August

01:41:46   and on the flight home, and of course, we're a threesome,

01:41:49   or we were before my son went to college,

01:41:51   and now we're back to a twosome.

01:41:52   But so we had seats in first,

01:41:55   and guess who gets to sit by himself?

01:41:57   It's always me, right?

01:41:59   My son and my wife sit next to each other

01:42:01   and I sit by myself.

01:42:03   I saw the most amazing thing happen.

01:42:06   The guy next to me signed up for the American credit card.

01:42:10   - Oh my God. - On the flight.

01:42:11   I've never seen it. - That's great.

01:42:12   - All of my life.

01:42:14   - It finally worked.

01:42:15   That's the one, that's the one conversion they get a year

01:42:17   that justifies all of the ads.

01:42:19   - All of the miles I've ever flown.

01:42:22   - And they can't even track it, right?

01:42:24   They make the pilot say the announcement on every flight

01:42:27   and they don't even know that it worked one time.

01:42:29   - Here, I'm looking at my American app.

01:42:31   I have 308,000 miles, award miles.

01:42:35   That's how often I have flown on American.

01:42:37   And I saw a guy sign up for the credit card

01:42:40   right there on the flight.

01:42:41   Oh my God.

01:42:43   All right, let me take a break here

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01:44:14   And let's see, anything else on the iPhones?

01:44:16   How about the cameras?

01:44:17   That's certainly worth talking about.

01:44:18   - Yeah, I'll just, here's my,

01:44:20   this is, they have a new sensor.

01:44:22   I think it's 48 megapixels sensor on a pro.

01:44:24   And I think they are being too conservative with it.

01:44:29   And I think it looked, they can do more with it.

01:44:34   And right now they're just, they're in this weird corner

01:44:37   where they're doing a lot of noise reduction

01:44:40   and a lot of sharpening,

01:44:41   and they should stop it and let the sensor shine.

01:44:44   That's my hot tick.

01:44:47   - So again, I have not, as we record,

01:44:51   the closest red review is yours

01:44:53   because I knew you were gonna be in the show.

01:44:55   And I'm gonna tell you the truth, I'll admit it.

01:44:57   I always read your reviews, your first or second.

01:45:01   I was looking at your example photos,

01:45:04   and you had some example photos, and a good selection.

01:45:09   You had some where you compared the 14 Pro to the 13 Pro.

01:45:13   Some where you compared to the Pixel 6,

01:45:18   what's the best six pixel from last year?

01:45:21   Yeah, Pixel 6 Pro.

01:45:23   And some where you compared against the Samsung Galaxy 22,

01:45:28   whatever the last word of that phone is.

01:45:31   It's not that the iPhone looks bad,

01:45:35   but you're describing it as inconsistent

01:45:38   is exactly what I'm seeing.

01:45:40   Again, not bad.

01:45:44   And we're talking about all these phones

01:45:46   that are excellent cameras for phones.

01:45:48   Truly excellent, we live in a wonderful era.

01:45:50   But the iPhone seems a little all over the place.

01:45:53   I thought that the night shot comparison with the Pixel,

01:45:56   and like you said, they were very different.

01:45:59   I thought the iPhone one was much better.

01:46:01   That's more to my liking.

01:46:02   - Yeah, the iPhone's brighter and the Pixel is more even,

01:46:05   is like how I would put it.

01:46:07   - And I thought like the entrance to the bar

01:46:09   or restaurant, whatever it was,

01:46:11   just looked deeper and richer.

01:46:13   I thought the Pixel kinda blew that one,

01:46:15   but not in a bad way, but just not to my liking.

01:46:17   But then you had the shot across like a harbor

01:46:20   or a river or something.

01:46:22   And the iPhone's was just strange in my opinion.

01:46:25   Like it did really weird things with the sky

01:46:29   that almost looked like somebody

01:46:31   took like the smudge tool in Photoshop

01:46:35   and just ran it over the sky.

01:46:38   And I don't really understand what it did

01:46:40   with the reflection of the ferris wheel in the water.

01:46:43   - That was the one that got me.

01:46:44   I was like, "Ooh, we're doing too much."

01:46:47   - Yeah, and that's, yeah, it over sharpened.

01:46:50   There's a ferris wheel.

01:46:52   It's a neat shot and it's a good example

01:46:54   'cause it's nighttime, it's water.

01:46:56   There's a ferris wheel across the water

01:46:58   that's got all sorts of bright colored lights.

01:47:01   And where it really over sharpened to me

01:47:04   was on the reflection in the water.

01:47:07   It just did something weird where the Pixel,

01:47:09   it's like, "Yeah, that's what the shot should look like."

01:47:12   - Yeah, I think the last time I reviewed iPhone Pro

01:47:15   was the 12 Pro two years ago

01:47:18   and then Dieter did the 13s last year.

01:47:20   And so two years ago, I said,

01:47:23   "All these phones have started to look the same."

01:47:25   Like there was that moment where the Pixel

01:47:27   was really opinionated and super contrasty

01:47:30   and I loved those photos and the iPhone

01:47:33   did really like over HDR in the beginning

01:47:37   and everything was too like artificial looking.

01:47:41   And then Samsung was like another planet with colors.

01:47:43   It kinda still is.

01:47:44   - Yeah, no, but just as an aside,

01:47:47   I thought that that over, too heavy handed with the HDR

01:47:52   was very odd for Apple because Apple's taste

01:47:55   tends to run towards the natural in all cases.

01:47:58   And the HDR in a couple of years ago

01:48:02   was really odd because it looked unnatural.

01:48:05   - Yeah, it was just like, they were like,

01:48:07   "Shadows are gone.

01:48:08   In our world, there are no shadows."

01:48:10   And it was like, actually, hold on.

01:48:12   Right, and then Google was like,

01:48:13   "In our world, everything is very moody."

01:48:16   And then Samsung was like, "You're on drugs."

01:48:17   And those were their looks, right?

01:48:19   And it was like fine and like they were predictable.

01:48:21   And then a couple of years ago,

01:48:22   they all converged. - Not a lot of drugs,

01:48:24   but a little drugs.

01:48:25   - Yeah, just enough to have a good time, right?

01:48:27   And then so they all converged a couple of years ago

01:48:29   and then they're starting to diverge again.

01:48:32   And so last year, I think Dieter,

01:48:33   when he reviewed the 13 Pro,

01:48:34   he said, "This camera's incredibly confident.

01:48:37   It knows what it is.

01:48:38   It knows what kinds of pictures it wants to make.

01:48:40   And it just does it every single time."

01:48:42   And I think the 14 Pro is trying to make 13 Pro pictures

01:48:47   with a totally different sensor

01:48:50   and a totally different pathway.

01:48:53   And it's just getting lost.

01:48:55   And it should make the pictures it wants to make.

01:48:58   - That's a really good theory.

01:49:00   'Cause I have to say, and again,

01:49:02   one of the reasons I do it, I'm a one-person show.

01:49:06   There's only so much I can do in a week.

01:49:07   I knew, I kinda had the gist.

01:49:10   I had enough.

01:49:11   I was like, "I think I got the trail

01:49:12   of what I wanna write.

01:49:13   I know it's gonna be long.

01:49:15   I'm gonna have a hard time hitting a deadline.

01:49:16   I know I've got, actually,

01:49:18   I'm not gonna even be here on Wednesday.

01:49:19   So if I blow it and don't hit the Wednesday morning,

01:49:21   blah, blah, blah, I'm not gonna shoot a lot of photos."

01:49:23   And the other thing is,

01:49:24   even if I thought I had time to shoot the photos,

01:49:26   I'm not gonna do as good job as some people.

01:49:28   I'm not gonna do even as good job as you.

01:49:30   I'm certainly not gonna do Austin Mann type stuff.

01:49:33   Somebody else is gonna do it,

01:49:34   and I'll just link to them, right?

01:49:36   And we'll get back to that philosophy in a bit.

01:49:39   I'll just link to them.

01:49:40   But I did take some, of course I took some photos, right?

01:49:42   And of course I'm walking around with two phones in my pocket,

01:49:45   my 13 Pro and my 14 Pro.

01:49:47   And I took a lot of photos where I'm like,

01:49:49   "I don't see a difference."

01:49:50   And that's not a bad thing, right?

01:49:52   'Cause I've liked my 13 Pro,

01:49:54   but I'm seeing that sort of,

01:49:57   this is a way different sensor, way different sensor,

01:50:00   and I'm getting a lot of very similar shots.

01:50:04   But I think what you've stumbled upon

01:50:07   is in edge conditions, it can't reproduce the same output.

01:50:12   And they should just let this sensor be itself.

01:50:14   And if they come out different, let it,

01:50:16   it's a good sensor, it's a great sensor.

01:50:18   But it shouldn't look exactly the same

01:50:21   as the 13 Pro in every condition.

01:50:24   - The thing that kills me about that is,

01:50:27   so next year they'll let it be itself a little bit more.

01:50:29   You mentioned software locks earlier,

01:50:32   and I did not jump on it 'cause I wanted to bring it up

01:50:35   in this part of the conversation.

01:50:36   They're not gonna roll whatever updates happen next year

01:50:39   to this phone.

01:50:40   - Right.

01:50:41   - They're not gonna update this camera.

01:50:43   The camera on the iPhone is like this bizarrely fixed object.

01:50:47   - That changes crazily hardware year to hardware year.

01:50:51   - Yeah, right, but so that it's like,

01:50:53   they keep telling us that this is computational photography,

01:50:56   it's all defined in software.

01:50:58   And then every year they're like,

01:50:59   "And we have new hardware,

01:51:00   "and no further software changes will come to the camera."

01:51:03   And it's like, wait, hold up.

01:51:04   Like the 14 is basically the same phone as the 13, right?

01:51:09   It has the same 12 megapixel sensor,

01:51:12   it has the same lens, as far as we can tell.

01:51:14   Like everything seems the same.

01:51:16   - There's some changes.

01:51:17   - It has the same processor.

01:51:18   - Right.

01:51:19   - And you're not giving it like whatever deep fusion

01:51:22   is moving earlier in the pipeline to uncompressed images.

01:51:25   - Yeah, the photonic engine.

01:51:27   - And that's the real rebranding there, right?

01:51:29   They're just doing deep fusion.

01:51:30   By the way, I didn't know this.

01:51:31   Deep fusion occurs on mid and low light images only.

01:51:36   And smart HDR happens elsewhere in the pipeline,

01:51:40   mostly on bright images.

01:51:41   I had no idea this was true.

01:51:44   - Right, so this is the curious thing about photonic engine

01:51:48   being only on the 14 models, but it is on all 14.

01:51:51   It's not locked to pros.

01:51:53   It's all 14 models get photonic engine,

01:51:56   no other older iPhones get it.

01:51:58   But it's curious because the,

01:52:03   let's just say it even requires the fifth GPU core, right?

01:52:07   Like the sort of song and dance of how did the 14

01:52:10   get a chip upgrade from the 13 is when they're both on A15

01:52:15   is last year's iPhone 13's got a four core A15,

01:52:19   but last year's 13 pros got a five core GPU on the A15.

01:52:24   They were binning the GPUs.

01:52:27   And this year, the iPhone 14's as a year over year

01:52:32   comparison get the one extra GPU core.

01:52:37   And like I said in my review,

01:52:38   one extra GPU core makes it sound, who cares?

01:52:42   25% more GPU processing sounds pretty cool.

01:52:46   So a glass half full, glass half empty.

01:52:49   It's an upgrade.

01:52:50   It's obviously the smallest upgrade chip wise

01:52:53   ever in this era.

01:52:56   But now you see the pattern where next year

01:52:58   it'll get the 16 and the pros will get the 17.

01:53:01   And now they're one generation apart.

01:53:03   And there's no way to get there

01:53:06   without an awkward year like this one.

01:53:08   But so let's just say 13 pro,

01:53:11   not even talking regular 13 and the regular iPhone 14,

01:53:15   they both have the five GPU core A15 chip,

01:53:20   but the last year's 13 pro doesn't get photonic engine.

01:53:24   So I asked, if they both have the A15, same A15, why is that?

01:53:29   And I can't quote the answer,

01:53:31   but it is something to the effect of,

01:53:34   what I wanted to know,

01:53:34   is there something else hardware in the pipeline?

01:53:37   Is there some connection from the sensor to the image,

01:53:41   the ISP that is faster so that it can process the raw

01:53:46   instead of this, but only on the,

01:53:49   even though the A14 has the same A15 chip,

01:53:52   there's a pipeline to the sensor.

01:53:54   Is that the case or is this a software lock?

01:53:56   And the answer was something to the effect of,

01:53:58   our cameras and chips are designed to work together

01:54:03   and require unique updates.

01:54:06   - Right, they just like spun the wheel

01:54:08   and they're like, here's the boilerplate.

01:54:09   - Right.

01:54:10   - We're not gonna do the software update.

01:54:11   - It is, it was an answer that I honestly,

01:54:14   even though I speak fluent Cupertinoese,

01:54:18   I honestly don't know what, if they were,

01:54:23   I obviously did not get a yes or no,

01:54:25   and I didn't expect to get a yes or no,

01:54:27   but a lot of times I get an answer

01:54:29   that I know how to interpret as a yes or a no.

01:54:32   And this one is, I don't know.

01:54:36   I really don't, I kind of think yes,

01:54:38   that there's some hardware improvement to the pipeline.

01:54:43   I do think so, but I'm like 50, 60% thinking

01:54:49   there actually is a hardware aspect to it,

01:54:51   even though it's the same system on a chip,

01:54:54   but I don't know.

01:54:55   And I couldn't get an answer off the record either.

01:54:57   - Yeah, look, if I was a 13 Pro owner,

01:55:00   I'd be like, you have to tell me, right?

01:55:03   Let's just explain to me exactly why.

01:55:05   And then if I was a 14 Pro owner,

01:55:08   I would be like, I've got this new 48 megapixel sensor.

01:55:13   Apple can bin it into this quad pixel array

01:55:17   that captures more light,

01:55:19   or they can crop it to do this 2X zoom

01:55:22   and this action mode stuff.

01:55:23   Those are the beginnings of ideas.

01:55:26   So if I'm paying $1,100 for this phone,

01:55:30   am I gonna get more value out of the sensor in it over time?

01:55:34   The way that I get more value out of every other piece

01:55:37   of hardware on the phone, right?

01:55:39   The processor can do more things over time,

01:55:43   more apps are developed that use the sensors,

01:55:46   like all the stuff,

01:55:47   like the phones just get better over time.

01:55:49   - The dynamic island is going to have more content

01:55:51   later this year.

01:55:53   - Yeah, you'll be able to sign up for a credit card

01:55:54   directly from it, except this weird camera,

01:55:57   which Apple is telling us is a software masterpiece.

01:56:02   And it is, right?

01:56:03   They're doing all this processing,

01:56:04   they're capturing seven images at once,

01:56:06   they're layering them, all this stuff is happening,

01:56:09   but that is locked into place.

01:56:12   We've gone through how many computational photography

01:56:14   iPhones now?

01:56:15   The photos on the first day look basically the same

01:56:19   as the photos on the last day.

01:56:20   And to me, that's fundamentally bizarre,

01:56:24   and fine, it is what it is.

01:56:26   But if you're the 13th year owner this year,

01:56:27   you've gotta be wondering,

01:56:28   like I should be able to get this software update.

01:56:32   You have to tell me why I can't get it,

01:56:33   because it's an unlike Apple software lock

01:56:37   in a way that not being able to hold down on the pill

01:56:40   and get the dynamic island widget kind of isn't.

01:56:43   Sure, there's at least a reason for that.

01:56:44   We're reserving all of this for the island,

01:56:47   we want that to be a consistent experience,

01:56:49   we're doing hardware anti-aliasing that your phone can,

01:56:51   whatever it is.

01:56:52   So this one is just purely,

01:56:54   we're not gonna give you the software, or a reason.

01:56:57   And then I think on the 14 Pro,

01:57:00   because it's a little inconsistent,

01:57:02   you should have the expectation

01:57:04   that it will take software improvements over time.

01:57:07   - Let me put on my cynical hat and say that

01:57:09   it's what I was told in my can't quote them,

01:57:12   but got an answer on is the photonic engine hardware?

01:57:16   Is that why it's only on the 14?

01:57:18   Looking at the words of the answer,

01:57:22   I'm 60% leaning towards yes, there's hardware.

01:57:26   But the cynic in me says,

01:57:29   if it really was a hardware story,

01:57:31   they could just tell us that.

01:57:32   And they could say, yeah, our chip team

01:57:33   made this incredible pipeline adjustment

01:57:35   to read the data off the sensor faster.

01:57:37   And why wouldn't they just tell us that?

01:57:39   Like, yeah, our hardware,

01:57:40   'cause they like to brag about their hardware.

01:57:42   So the cynic in me says, sounds like a software lock.

01:57:46   - We have a great new sensor

01:57:47   that can pass data over the bus to the ISP in the A15,

01:57:51   even faster than before,

01:57:52   letting us do deep fusion or an uncompressed image.

01:57:55   Great, I'll buy it.

01:57:57   But the fact that they won't say is like--

01:57:59   - Yeah, and let me just clarify your thing too

01:58:02   about the photos, the modes of the camera,

01:58:04   like portrait mode is the best example,

01:58:07   do get software updates, right?

01:58:09   Like if you have a two or three year old iPhone,

01:58:12   your portrait mode photos look better today

01:58:15   than they did when you bought it,

01:58:16   because the portrait mode does go through software

01:58:20   that that improves and the camera app updates.

01:58:23   It's just the, if you just take a regular still photo

01:58:27   is the thing that doesn't seem to get improvements

01:58:30   once the hardware ships.

01:58:31   - But it's bizarre 'cause it's a software defined camera.

01:58:35   Like at its heart.

01:58:37   - You'd think so, right?

01:58:38   I think even night mode is one of those things

01:58:41   that does get improvements, right?

01:58:43   It's just though the pure simplest thing the camera can do,

01:58:47   take a shot and give me a 12 megapixel JPEG of it, right?

01:58:51   'Cause putting, like you said in your review,

01:58:54   99.8% of iPhone users have no reason to ever shoot RAW.

01:58:58   And of them, if they did,

01:59:03   they would think the camera was broken

01:59:04   because they'd look at the RAW image

01:59:06   and think this is the worst cell phone picture

01:59:08   I've taken since I was using a Nokia flip phone,

01:59:10   'cause that's what unprocessed RAW images look like.

01:59:12   - I will say that I had a great time shooting RAW

01:59:14   on this iPhone.

01:59:15   It's very slow.

01:59:16   - Yeah, I only did enough just to see if it's low.

01:59:21   And they have an option to shoot 12 megapixel RAW.

01:59:26   - Oh, I didn't see that.

01:59:27   - Ah, yeah.

01:59:28   - So pixel bend RAW is a thing.

01:59:30   - Something, here's another one.

01:59:32   I have this in my notes.

01:59:33   And I know I do this once a year

01:59:36   'cause I don't usually go to the camera settings in settings.

01:59:39   But I do it every time I review a phone.

01:59:41   And I know it's a whole separate argument

01:59:44   of how are the settings in the settings app organized?

01:59:49   What is that?

01:59:50   But look at how far down camera is.

01:59:53   It is bizarrely low.

01:59:57   - Yeah, it's not in the first grouping, right?

01:59:59   It's in the second grouping.

01:59:59   - No, go look at it right now.

02:00:04   - Yeah, I always look for it in the first grouping.

02:00:06   - I wish it were in the first grouping.

02:00:08   I wish that you could rearrange these.

02:00:09   - You're not even in the third grouping.

02:00:11   - No, it's the first grouping.

02:00:13   Then there's the notifications one.

02:00:14   Then there's, the one where I really think it should be

02:00:16   is like general control center, battery, blah, blah, blah.

02:00:19   - That's where I was.

02:00:20   - Then there's the big long one with all the apps,

02:00:21   mail, contacts, calendar, notes, reminders, voice, phone,

02:00:25   blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Safari, news, translate.

02:00:27   But nope, not there.

02:00:28   And then you go all the way down

02:00:30   and it's with music, TV, photos, camera, books.

02:00:33   I don't know what this group is.

02:00:34   - This is the sixth grouping I just counted.

02:00:35   - But anyway, go to camera and formats.

02:00:39   And then when you turn on Apple ProRAW.

02:00:41   - Oh, look at that.

02:00:42   - There's a thing that says ProRAW resolution

02:00:44   and you can change it from 48 to 12.

02:00:46   - All right, I did not shoot any ProRAW at 12.

02:00:51   I had a lot of fun shooting at 48.

02:00:52   When you hit the capture button, the shutter is still fast.

02:00:55   But it just takes a lot of time

02:00:56   to read all the data and process it.

02:00:59   And so it was like, I guess I would use this for landscapes.

02:01:03   Like if anyone's moving, I wanna take a bunch of frames.

02:01:05   - Well, Apple has a weird rule too.

02:01:07   And while we're talking about cameras

02:01:08   and philosophical differences with like the Pixel team

02:01:11   and other companies, not weird, but unique.

02:01:14   Apple has had a obvious unofficial,

02:01:17   but that I happen to know internally is an official rule.

02:01:21   They just don't talk about it publicly.

02:01:22   But everything the iPhone camera does has to happen live.

02:01:27   There can be no, nothing happens where you hit the shutter

02:01:30   and it takes a while to process, right?

02:01:33   And like the Pixel team doesn't quite,

02:01:35   it's not that the Pixel camera is known as being slow,

02:01:38   but like when Pixel had night mode originally,

02:01:42   it you'd take up night mode photo

02:01:44   and it would take a second or two

02:01:45   for the night mode processing to show up

02:01:48   in the thumbnail of the thing that you took.

02:01:50   Which I think most people think is fine, right?

02:01:53   I mean, if we used to wait, when I was a kid,

02:01:56   like two minutes for a Polaroid to develop,

02:01:59   sit there waving it in the air,

02:02:00   which of course did nothing,

02:02:01   but felt like you were doing something.

02:02:03   It's like hitting elevator buttons

02:02:04   or crosswalk buttons, right?

02:02:05   I want to cross the street,

02:02:06   I'll hit the button a couple of times.

02:02:07   But Apple only does stuff if it's like the rule,

02:02:10   it has to be instantaneous.

02:02:12   The way that these 48 megapixel RAWs take,

02:02:16   I don't know how long, I would call it a moment at least,

02:02:20   a pregnant pause to show up.

02:02:22   I think they've made an exception to it, right?

02:02:27   They knew they wanted to have a 48 megapixel sensor.

02:02:30   This was obviously set in stone hardware-wise years ago.

02:02:34   And I'm sure they tried to make it as fast as possible,

02:02:37   but there's no other way about it.

02:02:39   But if they didn't already offer RAW,

02:02:42   they wouldn't offer RAW this year because it takes so long.

02:02:46   I think the only reason there's this pause

02:02:48   is that they offered RAW

02:02:50   when they could do it seemingly instantaneously.

02:02:53   Now the RAW feature is in the system

02:02:56   and so they have to continue supporting it.

02:02:58   But now that they've added four times the pixels

02:03:01   to the sensor, they've put themselves in a position

02:03:04   that they unofficially would never want to be in

02:03:07   where it takes a pregnant pause

02:03:10   for a 48 megapixel RAW to be processed.

02:03:13   It is the longest thing that any photo does

02:03:16   in the camera app that I can remember using any iPhone ever.

02:03:20   But who cares?

02:03:22   It's for 90,

02:03:23   anybody who actually wants to shoot 48 megapixel RAW

02:03:26   is fine with it.

02:03:27   - They're gonna be just fine.

02:03:29   This is the one time where I'm like,

02:03:31   it's kinda weird that a Canon 5D outperforms the iPhone.

02:03:36   - Yeah, yeah, that is true.

02:03:38   - I think it never usually happens,

02:03:40   but you can just fire off 30 megapixel 5D images

02:03:44   at 100 frames a second or whatever, and it's fine.

02:03:47   It'll just handle them and send them to the memory card

02:03:49   and be done.

02:03:50   - Right, right, because of course the Canons

02:03:52   and the Sonys of the world with the real cameras

02:03:55   have all the glass advantages and the sensor size advantages

02:03:59   and all the things that come from physics

02:04:01   and all the things that come from decades

02:04:04   of building high-end professional glass and all this stuff.

02:04:07   But man, the one thing that Apple has is silicon.

02:04:11   - Yeah, and so it's weird, right?

02:04:13   'Cause what we're talking about here is bandwidth.

02:04:16   Fundamentally, it's slow,

02:04:18   'cause you're just moving the image off the sensor

02:04:20   to storage.

02:04:21   And those cameras are all just completely optimized

02:04:25   to do that as fast as possible.

02:04:27   And here is the one place where you're like,

02:04:29   oh, this is a general purpose computer

02:04:31   that is struggling with this one problem.

02:04:33   And usually with these cameras,

02:04:36   it's like this general purpose computer

02:04:38   is just totally outperforming these other cameras

02:04:41   unless you really know how to use them.

02:04:43   And it's like I can say to you,

02:04:46   I couldn't put it in the review

02:04:47   'cause it's such a wonky thought,

02:04:48   but it was like the whole time I was like,

02:04:49   I've got like a five-year-old 5D that is kicking

02:04:52   this thing's ass at shooting high megapixel images.

02:04:55   That's weird.

02:04:56   - Yeah, it's weird 'cause that's the thing

02:04:58   that Apple's always kicked ass at.

02:05:00   - Yeah.

02:05:01   - Let me think here, anything else with the camera?

02:05:03   The video looks amazing,

02:05:04   and that's the one area where Apple,

02:05:07   for whatever reason, I don't get it why so many years later,

02:05:11   Apple's video is so far ahead,

02:05:13   whereas on photography, I think arguably,

02:05:17   there's still the iPhone 14 Pro is still the best.

02:05:20   I think you can, but it is a great debate, right?

02:05:24   You can make the case for Samsung,

02:05:27   you can make the case for the Pixel,

02:05:28   and the new Pixel's coming out, I guess, next month.

02:05:31   That's a debate to be had, and it has been for years,

02:05:33   and like we just talked about half an hour ago,

02:05:36   it's ebbed and flowed in interesting ways.

02:05:39   But on video, it's undisputed.

02:05:41   Apple is so far ahead of everybody else, and I don't get it.

02:05:44   I don't get why they have, why,

02:05:46   I get why they pulled ahead,

02:05:47   but I don't get why nobody else has been able to catch up.

02:05:51   - I think that might just be down to the processing lead.

02:05:53   Everyone else is still kinda like,

02:05:55   whatever Qualcomm will give 'em.

02:05:56   But it's hard to know.

02:05:57   I will say that the one thing that caught me about

02:05:59   the difference between the Pro and the,

02:06:02   the 14 Pro and the regular 14.

02:06:04   So action mode is not that useful,

02:06:06   in the same way that cinematic mode

02:06:07   was not that useful last year.

02:06:08   It demands a lot of light, it's obviously its first year.

02:06:11   Cinematic mode has greatly improved this year.

02:06:13   But the way they're doing it

02:06:15   is they're cropping the sensor down,

02:06:17   and then recording the whole sensor,

02:06:20   and then moving that crop around to stabilize it.

02:06:24   - In between frames.

02:06:25   And this is another one where they're doing it live, right?

02:06:29   And if they would just let themselves

02:06:30   have five seconds of slack,

02:06:32   or not show it in the viewfinder live.

02:06:36   - There's something.

02:06:37   Or show a shittier preview, like whatever it is.

02:06:39   But the 48 megapixel sensor is way bigger.

02:06:42   So like theoretically, you have way more space to stabilize,

02:06:45   and they're not doing it.

02:06:46   - Mm.

02:06:47   - Right, and like maybe that's bandwidth,

02:06:48   maybe that's processing, there's a million reasons.

02:06:50   But it's strange that in some of these places,

02:06:53   they're kind of not using that sensor for all it can do.

02:06:55   It's just my opinion of it.

02:06:57   - Yeah, I wonder, I don't know.

02:06:58   But I mean, action mode,

02:07:00   if you ever have gotten on a rollercoaster,

02:07:02   and I don't know, I would recommend

02:07:04   putting a lanyard on your phone or something.

02:07:06   But if you've ever held your phone

02:07:07   while shooting something like that,

02:07:08   I think it's gonna be terrific.

02:07:09   Absolutely terrific, from what I've seen testing it.

02:07:12   But the fact that--

02:07:13   - Becca is our video director.

02:07:15   She did that part of the video review.

02:07:16   It's great, she has a great time reviewing these things.

02:07:19   And she was like, this looks basically like the 13 Pro.

02:07:21   That was her main takeaway.

02:07:23   - I think they know what they're doing,

02:07:24   and I'm not blaming them.

02:07:25   But it seems like with these camera mode features,

02:07:30   Apple is a little unusually aggressive

02:07:32   about shipping the feature a year ahead

02:07:36   of when it's really ready, right?

02:07:38   Like the first year of portrait mode

02:07:39   was really rough with hair and ears and--

02:07:44   - Oh, that was the one that really got me,

02:07:45   that Samsung is ahead of Apple in portrait mode.

02:07:47   - Yep, I saw that in your example.

02:07:49   And I was, you can't look at the side by side and deny it.

02:07:53   I have taken some amazing portrait fixers

02:07:56   with my iPhone over the last couple of years.

02:07:58   And it's great, but if we wanna get into,

02:08:02   and it's so much better than it was a few years ago.

02:08:04   And again, anybody listening who like a couple of years ago

02:08:08   tried portrait mode on an iPhone was like,

02:08:10   ah, no, gross gimmick, and hasn't looked at it since,

02:08:14   I really encourage you to try it again.

02:08:16   Even if you have an older, a slightly older iPhone,

02:08:18   but with the latest software.

02:08:20   It really is a lot better,

02:08:21   and it's actually useful and less gimmicky.

02:08:24   And I think it's good that they shipped when they did,

02:08:26   and I think it was like a forcing function

02:08:28   to make them improve all the tricky things it needs to do.

02:08:32   But yeah, your side by side example

02:08:34   with the Samsung Galaxy 22 was the hair around the guy

02:08:39   was clearly, clearly, honestly with the Samsung one,

02:08:42   I did, I zoomed in, I couldn't really see,

02:08:45   couldn't see a mistake.

02:08:46   - Yeah, they did a good job.

02:08:47   We have another one where it's just cut off outside,

02:08:51   like in bright sunlight, it just cut off the side

02:08:54   of our video producer, Mario's head.

02:08:55   And I was like, that's, we're beyond this now.

02:08:58   It was good, the portrait mode got good on the 12 Pro,

02:09:01   in my opinion, that's when I started using it all the time.

02:09:03   And I was like, we should, even the baby S22, not the Ultra,

02:09:06   the iPhone 14 version of the S22 outperforms

02:09:10   the iPhone 14 Pro, which is totally shocking to me.

02:09:13   - Yeah, yeah, that's what we're gonna do.

02:09:14   - By the way, I'm looking at these,

02:09:15   now I'm looking at these bar photos.

02:09:16   I know why we disagree.

02:09:18   I'm gonna describe a photo here.

02:09:20   See, iPhone does a better job of, you're right,

02:09:22   richer colors at night, and it has this kind of like

02:09:25   beautiful, natural vending.

02:09:27   The Pixel is more accurate because it lets the red light

02:09:30   bleed into the other parts of the,

02:09:32   the iPhone is color correcting too many things.

02:09:34   I forgot that this was my criticism.

02:09:38   I just looked at it again, I remember.

02:09:39   - All right, all right, but anybody who's wondering

02:09:41   what we're talking about, just go to the Verge review,

02:09:43   scroll down to the, it's the one that has the really

02:09:47   nifty slider you guys have, it looks like one photo,

02:09:50   and you can just slide the divider left and right

02:09:53   to go between the two pictures.

02:09:55   It's a picture from the outside of a bar,

02:09:58   sort of kitty corner to the entrance.

02:10:00   - It's a neon sign, so it's like one of those shots

02:10:02   that really shows off at night mode.

02:10:03   - Anything else on the camera?

02:10:05   - Any, no, I mean, fundamentally, you know,

02:10:08   I think these cameras are all really good now.

02:10:10   It's down to processing.

02:10:12   I will say this one thing, so I was talking about

02:10:14   these old cameras, so I was taking macro photos

02:10:16   of the sub-pixels to see if it was worth

02:10:19   shooting a video of.

02:10:20   I've got this ancient Canon, no, it's a,

02:10:23   I've got this ancient Nikon D7500 with my favorite lens

02:10:26   of all time, which is a 40 millimeter,

02:10:28   they call it a micro lens, and I love it,

02:10:30   and this, whatever, so I was sitting there,

02:10:32   and my kid's there, and I just took a photo

02:10:34   of my friend and my kid with my ancient D7500,

02:10:39   'cause I was taking photos of the screen,

02:10:41   and I looked at it, and I was like, oh, these photos

02:10:43   are still vastly superior to cell phone photos,

02:10:46   and so there's still a long way to go here.

02:10:48   Really nice glass on a dedicated camera with a big sensor,

02:10:53   it'll just kill these smartphones every day.

02:10:56   I still use my smartphone a thousand times more,

02:10:59   but I think we often forget that there's yet

02:11:02   a very long road to travel.

02:11:04   - My son Jonas is a freshman in college,

02:11:06   we just took him there, and so it's time

02:11:09   for family memories, and so we're,

02:11:11   it's the end of the summer, looking at lots of old photos,

02:11:15   and paying more attention to the photo widget in iOS

02:11:17   that surfaces old photos, and instead of just,

02:11:20   hey, that's one cool photo, letting me open it

02:11:23   and go through 18, 17, 16 year old photos.

02:11:27   Back then, in 2004, five, six, I was shooting

02:11:32   35 millimeter film with a Canon,

02:11:36   mostly with a 50 millimeter F1.4,

02:11:39   the famous Canon 50 millimeter prime,

02:11:42   and holy hell, looking at those photos,

02:11:46   are they, they're so frickin' good.

02:11:49   Oh my god, they are so buttery bokeh, right?

02:11:56   Like, oh shit, that's bokeh.

02:12:00   Oh, that's texture, it's, yeah, I know exactly what you mean.

02:12:04   And that's talking shooting onto film.

02:12:06   And again, film is beautiful, I'm not complaining,

02:12:08   but we tend to think that, oh, tech, tech, tech,

02:12:11   computational photography, but yeah, there's so far to go.

02:12:15   I had one more thing about, oh, here's one more thing

02:12:17   about the camera, I didn't mention it in my review,

02:12:19   'cause again, I didn't do a camera review,

02:12:21   I'll bet other people mentioned it.

02:12:23   One thing I noticed though with this new main camera,

02:12:26   with a bigger sensor, and because the sensor is bigger,

02:12:30   a very different lens, the minimum focal distance

02:12:35   of the main camera has grown by a couple of inches.

02:12:39   So-- - Yeah, and then it drops you

02:12:40   into that macro mode, it's crazy.

02:12:41   - Right, so there's, this thing they added last year,

02:12:46   anybody who has a 13 Pro knows what I'm talking about,

02:12:48   but when they added this macro mode,

02:12:50   and you're in 1x mode, when you go to macro mode,

02:12:53   it actually uses the ultra wide 0.5x,

02:12:56   'cause that's the lens that can focus at like two centimeters

02:13:00   and the transition is weird, but it kicks in way,

02:13:05   way further away from the subject now.

02:13:09   And it's, this is not good overall,

02:13:12   but there's, I understand the physics

02:13:14   of focal lengths and distances, but it's,

02:13:17   it is a trade-off in the other direction for having this,

02:13:21   overall better main camera, but macro,

02:13:25   the macro transition, not that macro's worse,

02:13:28   macro's probably better 'cause it seems like the ultra wide

02:13:30   is actually nicely, subtly improved this year,

02:13:33   but the transition, people are gonna notice that.

02:13:36   - Do you, and it's also the transition I think

02:13:38   is like half an inch too aggressive.

02:13:40   - Yeah, I think so too, yeah, there's something--

02:13:42   - 'Cause I have the indicator in settings,

02:13:45   you can do it so you can turn it off,

02:13:47   and it's like, oh, I don't need this right now.

02:13:48   - Yeah, that's another one where I would recommend

02:13:51   people go into settings, scroll, scroll, scroll,

02:13:54   scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll to camera

02:13:57   and turn on the thing that gives you manual macro control.

02:14:01   I think this is one of those things

02:14:03   where Apple wants it to be invisible

02:14:05   and they want you to think that magically

02:14:07   the 1X camera can just focus two centimeters away

02:14:10   and so that's why they don't put the little flower

02:14:13   macro thing up on the screen by default.

02:14:16   And in fact, when they shipped the 13 Pros last year,

02:14:18   they didn't even have it.

02:14:19   They had to add that into the camera app later

02:14:22   because everybody was complaining about it.

02:14:24   But they're so obsessed with making,

02:14:25   thinking that they can make it seem like magic,

02:14:28   but that's something that does not look,

02:14:29   that transition does not look like magic.

02:14:32   And when you really don't want macro, it's maddening,

02:14:35   but you can actually go into settings

02:14:37   and get a little button that'll show up on screen

02:14:39   when macro kicks in and tap it and turn it off

02:14:42   and then you'll get what you want.

02:14:44   Here's a little thing, just a side note.

02:14:46   I would talk about it, I don't wanna spend a lot of time

02:14:48   on the SIM card thing.

02:14:49   I think we both sort of agreed

02:14:50   that they made the right move for consumers in the US

02:14:52   and yeah, it's probably old, but it sucks for us.

02:14:55   But did you use, the phones they gave us

02:14:58   because for the last couple of years,

02:15:00   they've just been giving me at least review unit phones

02:15:03   that don't even have a SIM card,

02:15:04   don't have like a testing paid by Apple, Verizon account,

02:15:08   just unlocked phones with no SIM card

02:15:10   and they just assume I'm gonna put my SIM card in them.

02:15:13   Well, you can't do that now.

02:15:14   So all the three phones I got from Apple

02:15:17   had eSIMs already set up.

02:15:20   - No, mine didn't.

02:15:21   Or maybe there was a QR code in the box.

02:15:23   - No, I didn't even have a QR code.

02:15:25   They were just already, my iPhone boxes were not sealed.

02:15:29   It looked like they were,

02:15:30   but there was no seal to open the box,

02:15:32   but the phone still had the sticker on the front

02:15:35   and I got to peel it off and everything.

02:15:37   But I already had like three phones

02:15:40   with three different phone numbers on eSIMs on the phones.

02:15:43   And I did transfer my main account

02:15:47   to the one I spent the week with

02:15:48   and still am spending time with.

02:15:50   Because they did that for me, I got to test dual SIM support.

02:15:55   - I didn't get that.

02:15:57   Maybe our actual reviewers like Alison got it.

02:16:00   I just got the Pro Max.

02:16:02   That was the only phone I had.

02:16:03   She has all of them.

02:16:04   But I have an AT&T account, I have a Google Fi account.

02:16:06   So I actually, I just did my AT&T account

02:16:08   for my old phone over Bluetooth, which is seamless.

02:16:11   And then I added my Google Fi account on the web,

02:16:13   which is actually like kind of great.

02:16:16   Like Google Fi's weird and you gotta like go in

02:16:18   and add all these like APN numbers and stuff at the end.

02:16:20   But the actual like move the SIM over

02:16:24   is you just go to a page with a QR code

02:16:27   and you just like point the phone.

02:16:28   I didn't even get the QR code all the way in the frame.

02:16:31   We were trying to shoot it on video

02:16:33   and I was like, here I go.

02:16:35   And I got like halfway up and I was like,

02:16:36   it's done.

02:16:37   And back it was like, well, what the fuck?

02:16:39   Like, that's it.

02:16:41   Like it's pretty seamless.

02:16:43   - But here's my complaint.

02:16:44   My complaint is when you have dual SIMs activated,

02:16:47   the icon for the bars for the signal strength,

02:16:52   they look like exclamation marks.

02:16:54   - They kinda do.

02:16:56   - And so I just assumed, and I noticed it only after,

02:17:01   it was like a couple of days in of reviewing it

02:17:03   before I reset the phone and restored the other way

02:17:06   device to device instead of iCloud.

02:17:08   I like wiped the phone and restored again.

02:17:09   And I was like, this time I'll do it for real.

02:17:11   And they're like, do you wanna move your existing SIM card

02:17:14   from this device to device transfer over?

02:17:16   I was like, yes.

02:17:17   And I did.

02:17:18   And they're like, this will take a couple of minutes.

02:17:20   And of course it takes a couple of minutes

02:17:22   'cause anytime you deal with a carrier,

02:17:23   it's whatever activation means, God only knows.

02:17:27   But two minutes later they said success and it worked.

02:17:30   But I looked at the status bar and it's these bars

02:17:33   and they put the secondary SIM as like a little layer

02:17:36   beneath, but they look like the dots on exclamation marks.

02:17:39   And I assumed they were and that something was wrong.

02:17:42   And it was trying to tell me something's wrong.

02:17:44   'Cause I'd never done an eSIM before.

02:17:46   I'd never done a transfer.

02:17:47   I thought they were turned my bars into exclamation marks

02:17:50   as a warning that something was wrong.

02:17:53   And I spent five minutes trying to figure out

02:17:55   what was wrong 'cause it seemed to be working

02:17:58   until I figured out, oh, that's how they're showing me

02:18:00   I have dual SIMs.

02:18:01   They just made them look like exclamation marks.

02:18:04   - Yeah, and you can't, speaking of widgets,

02:18:06   like you bring down control center and then you're like,

02:18:09   oh, I got two carriers here.

02:18:11   Maybe I wanna do something with them

02:18:12   and you tap on it and nothing happens.

02:18:14   - Yeah.

02:18:15   - Like it's a very wonky thing to have two SIM cards

02:18:18   in your phone.

02:18:19   Like it's cool.

02:18:21   Like if you have a business line and a personal line,

02:18:23   it makes a lot of sense.

02:18:24   You can like take the calls in different ways.

02:18:27   The one thing I wanna do the most of all

02:18:30   is switch from one data plan to the other, right?

02:18:35   'Cause Google Fi is basically T-Mobile and I have AT&T

02:18:37   and like T-Mobile's just faster than AT&T in New York City.

02:18:42   So like I should just switch it over.

02:18:44   Even in Google Fi is LTE.

02:18:46   So T-Mobile LTE is faster than AT&T 5G in New York City.

02:18:49   And you have to like dive into settings and do it

02:18:50   or set it to auto and you have no idea what's gonna happen.

02:18:52   - Things you'll never get the company

02:18:54   that makes any cell phone to tell you

02:18:56   is how often LTE is better than 5G

02:18:58   in real world situations.

02:19:01   - Oh, I basically turn 5G off on my phone.

02:19:03   - Yeah.

02:19:04   (laughing)

02:19:06   It doesn't do anything.

02:19:07   I mean, who needs?

02:19:08   And when you do get the ultra wide

02:19:09   and it's three gigabytes per second download,

02:19:12   which is incredibly impressive technically,

02:19:14   what the hell are you doing that needs

02:19:15   three gigabytes per second download to a phone?

02:19:18   - Yeah, I did hear from some readers after it

02:19:21   'cause I was very mean to 5G in my review.

02:19:23   I got some emails from people who were like,

02:19:24   "Look, I live in the middle of nowhere

02:19:26   "and I've actually, they put up a mid band 5G tower here

02:19:31   "and now my Verizon 5G at my house

02:19:33   "is faster than my cable internet."

02:19:35   - Yeah, that's great.

02:19:36   - It's like that rules, like I'm super down with that.

02:19:38   That's like four people in the country.

02:19:40   - It was the same thing with the 3G to LTE transition.

02:19:43   Here in Philly, I know going to New York,

02:19:45   it actually is better to be on the older one

02:19:47   'cause that's the one that had the build out

02:19:49   and finally got signal strength

02:19:50   to go into buildings and stuff.

02:19:52   And it's like the practical beats,

02:19:53   the theoretical every time.

02:19:56   - Yeah, and it's also,

02:19:58   the carriers sell everybody 5G phones.

02:20:00   The 5G network is like immediately overloaded

02:20:02   and the LTE network is not.

02:20:04   - It'll be, 5G's gonna be fantastic

02:20:06   once they start talking to us about 6G.

02:20:09   - Yeah, that's about right.

02:20:10   - Which is always the case.

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02:23:00   Quick bonus before we talk The Verge,

02:23:03   we could talk about the other stuff

02:23:04   that was announced at the event.

02:23:07   There's the Apple Watch Series 8,

02:23:08   which I think is the most boring year-over-year update ever.

02:23:13   - Yeah, there's not a lot there.

02:23:14   - Crash detection and the temperature sensor,

02:23:17   which is at the moment really only used,

02:23:19   and again, not to underplay it,

02:23:21   it sounds like a great feature for people

02:23:23   who are trying to get pregnant

02:23:24   for the retrospective ovulation detection,

02:23:28   but otherwise doesn't seem to really do much.

02:23:32   - Yeah, I think Apple's in a weird spot

02:23:33   where they haven't gotten the things they would like

02:23:35   to get FDA approved yet.

02:23:37   So yeah, there's some apps and devices

02:23:39   that can predict, not just retrospectively.

02:23:42   So yeah, Apple needs to get there.

02:23:43   But yeah, that one to me, I think Victoria's review,

02:23:47   is like if you have an Apple Watch Series 3 by this one,

02:23:48   everything else you're gonna get with watchOS.

02:23:51   - Yeah, yeah.

02:23:52   And that's just the nature of devices, right?

02:23:54   You have these go-go years where there's low-hanging fruit

02:23:57   and you get amazing year-over-year improvements,

02:24:00   but calling it the Series 8, it's great.

02:24:03   Now, it's one thing I hate about the iPhone,

02:24:05   where they've had all those years

02:24:06   where they just added an S,

02:24:08   and so the iPhone 14 is not the 14th iPhone, right?

02:24:14   You have, I guess the A Series chips have the right number.

02:24:18   Like the A16 is the right number, maybe, I don't know.

02:24:22   But at least Series 8, the Apple Watch,

02:24:24   I don't have much to say about it.

02:24:25   But the other watch, wow.

02:24:28   - Yeah, I mean, we looked at it at the hands-on.

02:24:32   The one thing I did that made everybody mad

02:24:34   was I immediately tried to put my third-party band on it.

02:24:36   And I can confirm it works.

02:24:38   Third-party bands are a little weird.

02:24:39   But yeah, they've done it right.

02:24:41   The thing that gets me that I am eager to see,

02:24:44   they've added all the modes for the extreme sports,

02:24:48   but it's just a huge display, right?

02:24:50   And they haven't really changed WatchOS

02:24:55   to take advantage of this bigger display.

02:24:58   Like, it's just bigger.

02:24:59   And I don't know, we'll see.

02:25:02   - It seems in the way that,

02:25:04   and I know that they've tweaked the numbers scrupulously

02:25:09   over the years to the millimeter,

02:25:10   where it was originally 38 and 42,

02:25:13   and then 40 and 44, and now 41 and 45.

02:25:17   But there've been two sizes

02:25:19   of the regular Series Apple Watches,

02:25:21   the smaller one and the bigger one.

02:25:24   And they've always shown the same UI scaled,

02:25:28   and that has always seemed appropriate, right?

02:25:31   It's just smaller fonts, smaller hands,

02:25:33   smaller details for a smaller watch.

02:25:36   And that has always seemed to me appropriate.

02:25:40   My wife uses a smaller one, I use the bigger one.

02:25:43   And I've played around with both, and that's always seemed fine.

02:25:45   This one, the fact that almost everything they show

02:25:49   is really just the same thing scaled up even bigger

02:25:52   seems, from my first impressions, to be limited, right?

02:25:57   Like, if this were the only Apple Watch,

02:26:01   and it were this size,

02:26:03   wouldn't there be the ability to use it

02:26:06   more like a little mini Dick Tracy computer on your wrist?

02:26:09   - Yeah, we have a great start on our site

02:26:11   from The Vergecast, a director of audio production,

02:26:13   Andrew Murray now.

02:26:14   He's like, "Just let me watch TV on this thing."

02:26:16   - It, from the hands-on area,

02:26:18   it looks like you could credibly watch video on it, honestly.

02:26:22   - Like, why not let me just run YouTube TV

02:26:26   or the Apple TV app on it?

02:26:27   - Well, and I know that if I could just stream

02:26:30   a Packers game to it, I'd be great.

02:26:32   - Yeah, the aspect ratio of the Apple Watch

02:26:34   isn't quite like a phone, but it is vertical,

02:26:38   and so much video today, especially short-form video.

02:26:41   All the short-form video. - Instagram reels

02:26:42   on the Apple Watch, here we go.

02:26:44   - Yeah, so all the short-form video,

02:26:47   in fact, even this morning, I just read a story

02:26:49   on The Verge about how the growth

02:26:52   in the top 50 channels on YouTube

02:26:54   are all the growing areas of the top channels on YouTube

02:26:58   are in the short YouTube shorts.

02:27:01   - Yeah, boy, you could credibly watch that on this watch.

02:27:05   - Destroy the battery.

02:27:07   - Well, but it has a bigger battery.

02:27:10   They say it's like double the battery life,

02:27:12   so why not let us do those things,

02:27:13   and even if it turns this watch into half the battery life

02:27:18   that they're promising, 'cause you're dicking around

02:27:20   watching video on it all day,

02:27:21   you'd still get the one-day battery life

02:27:24   that the other Apple Watches have always promised.

02:27:27   The other thing that really struck me about,

02:27:30   there's the size, the screen is surprisingly bigger to me

02:27:35   than the other ones, and the fact that it's perfectly flat

02:27:41   is oddly surprising difference to me.

02:27:45   - I thought the edge would be taller.

02:27:48   - I thought so too, and in fact,

02:27:50   I didn't even think it was raised at all at first

02:27:53   until one of the Apple BlueShirt people

02:27:55   in the hands-on area said, "No, no, it is raised,"

02:27:58   and then I used my fingernail, and I could say,

02:28:00   "Oh yeah, it is," but it doesn't seem raised enough

02:28:03   to be protective in the way that I thought it would be

02:28:06   for rock climbing.

02:28:07   - Yeah, in the way that they're saying it is.

02:28:10   I wonder if there's cases for a regular Apple Watch.

02:28:12   I see 'em all the time.

02:28:13   - I feel bad for the people who wear them.

02:28:14   - The idea of putting a case on this one is ridiculous.

02:28:17   - I think people are going to put it in a case though.

02:28:20   I really do, and it's like somehow Apple's like,

02:28:23   ah, we just can't bring ourselves to really raise the ridge,

02:28:27   and I guess the other thing too

02:28:28   is that they do want this one big ultra watch

02:28:32   to appeal both to the people who actually want to take it

02:28:37   on extreme adventures and the people

02:28:41   who aren't gonna do anything extreme with it at all

02:28:43   but just like the look and idea

02:28:45   of this type of big chunky watch,

02:28:49   but in that case, you don't really want it,

02:28:51   but when you look, and I've spent the week

02:28:53   looking at lots of other Garmins and G-shocks,

02:28:56   and Coros apparently is really the brand,

02:28:59   I know everybody, I talk about Garmin all the time,

02:29:02   but Coros apparently is the brand

02:29:04   that really might be their number one competitor

02:29:06   for this action space, but if you look

02:29:08   at how raised the bezel is around those watches,

02:29:11   it's really protective.

02:29:13   I always go back famously.

02:29:15   You're probably too young.

02:29:16   I know you and Ben are about the same age,

02:29:19   just seven or eight years younger than me,

02:29:20   but I remember when the first Casio G-shocks came out,

02:29:24   and it was like, I don't know, 81, 82, 83,

02:29:28   somewhere around there, and of course,

02:29:29   they put the ads all over sports on TV,

02:29:32   so I saw the ad over and over and over again

02:29:35   watching sports as a kid, and it was,

02:29:37   they wrapped the G-shock around a hockey puck

02:29:40   and had a hockey player slap shot it into the goal

02:29:43   or into the goalie's mitt and then show

02:29:46   that the watch was perfectly fine after being slapshotted.

02:29:50   This does not look to me like you'd want to do that

02:29:52   with this watch.

02:29:53   No, not even a little bit.

02:29:54   I mean, just 'cause, yeah, G-shock's very plastic.

02:29:58   It was a fantastic, it's a commercial

02:30:01   that was indelible to me, 'cause I also thought

02:30:03   digital watches were super cool when I was a kid,

02:30:05   and I was allowed to buy a $22 Casio,

02:30:08   and it was the coolest thing in the world.

02:30:09   One of my favorite things as a kid

02:30:11   was a 20-something dollar Casio digital watch.

02:30:14   I wanted the G-shock, though, which was, I don't know,

02:30:17   100 bucks, and rightly so, aren't gonna buy a kid

02:30:20   a $100 watch, but I wanted it so bad,

02:30:22   'cause that seemed so cool, and it's like

02:30:24   the Volvo being driven off a building.

02:30:26   It's like a hockey slap shot of a watch

02:30:31   really seemed like, man, that's a demo.

02:30:33   I'm not saying that Apple should've

02:30:35   or that they botched it.

02:30:36   It's just not quite what I was expecting.

02:30:38   - Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of,

02:30:41   again, this is an early adopter special.

02:30:45   I think people are gonna be excited about it,

02:30:47   and I think we're a year away from knowing

02:30:49   how it's gonna work.

02:30:50   - I mean, the one app, which is very unlike Apple

02:30:53   to partner with a third party for a core capability

02:30:55   that they're advertising, but they're partnering

02:30:57   with this company to make Oceanic Plus,

02:30:59   the scuba diving app.

02:31:00   It's not out yet.

02:31:02   Apple's dependent on a third party to ship an app

02:31:05   to make its own diving band worth more.

02:31:09   - I spent a surprise, I didn't know that it wasn't out yet,

02:31:11   and while writing my review, I spent a surprising amount

02:31:14   of time trying to find that app,

02:31:16   'cause I thought it would be very easy to find.

02:31:18   (laughing)

02:31:19   - No, we'll see.

02:31:21   So there's a lot of this where it's,

02:31:23   what does a year of development, now that people have it

02:31:26   and their expectations will be real, look like?

02:31:29   'Cause my early impression is, well, I'm gonna buy

02:31:33   the shit out of this watch, it looks cool as hell.

02:31:35   I'm a sucker.

02:31:37   And I'm excited to have a longer battery life,

02:31:39   and I love a big screen.

02:31:40   - And you like a big, chunky watch, too.

02:31:42   - Yeah, I'm a big dude, a big, chunky watch works for me.

02:31:46   And it's like, is it gonna do any,

02:31:47   am I gonna look at two factor codes?

02:31:49   That's what I do with my watch.

02:31:51   They're just gonna be huge now.

02:31:52   - Well, you know what I love doing with my watch

02:31:53   is having my Mac when I'm at my desk

02:31:55   and I don't have touch ID,

02:31:56   'cause I use a standalone keyboard.

02:31:58   I love just having my Mac unlock.

02:32:00   That's my main Apple Watch use.

02:32:02   You know what else?

02:32:02   I'm gonna steal this from my friend, Austin Mann.

02:32:04   I know he has a review out with the phone.

02:32:06   I think he was in the Highlands of Scotland.

02:32:08   I haven't looked at it yet as a record,

02:32:10   but Austin gave me this idea at the hands-on area.

02:32:13   This is, again, the utility of bouncing into people

02:32:16   in the hands-on area after these keynotes,

02:32:19   is the Apple Watch Ultra,

02:32:21   one of the things it does that the other watches don't do

02:32:23   is you can turn the digital crown

02:32:25   and it turns the display into a,

02:32:28   no matter which watch face you're wearing,

02:32:29   it goes black and the only pixels are red

02:32:33   because that's the ones that disrupt your retinas the least

02:32:37   for nighttime viewing.

02:32:38   And Austin, of course, thought,

02:32:41   I wish I had that mode for the camera on the phone.

02:32:45   And it's like, oh, wouldn't that be cool, right?

02:32:48   So they do all this night mode stuff with the camera.

02:32:50   Wouldn't it be great if you could put the iPhone camera

02:32:52   into red pixels on a black background mode?

02:32:55   - That is really cool.

02:32:56   I have that mode in,

02:32:57   I don't remember what stargazing app I have,

02:32:59   but I have one of those cool iPhone apps

02:33:01   that you point at the sky and it tells you

02:33:02   where the stars are and finds the constellations for you.

02:33:05   And that has a red mode and it's actually super sick.

02:33:08   - AirPods Pro, I don't know what to say about them.

02:33:10   They're not out yet, but it seems like a great idea.

02:33:12   It's one of my favorite Apple products.

02:33:14   The Findable case and Findable earbuds

02:33:16   seems like a great idea.

02:33:17   I tend not to lose mine, but when I do,

02:33:19   every time I'm annoyed,

02:33:20   'cause I know how much stuff is Findable

02:33:23   in Apple's ecosystem now,

02:33:25   and the one thing I tend to misplace is not,

02:33:28   well, problem solved.

02:33:29   I will upgrade just for the Findability.

02:33:32   - Oh, wow, I did a round of questions about

02:33:35   while you're saying they have better audio quality,

02:33:37   like is it still Bluetooth?

02:33:39   Do you upgrade?

02:33:40   Are you doing some proprietary stuff with more bandwidth?

02:33:43   It's still Bluetooth, apparently.

02:33:44   - I think that-- - They're doing

02:33:46   codec improvements.

02:33:47   - Yeah, I don't ask about that,

02:33:48   'cause number one, my ears aren't great.

02:33:50   I've never really owned a pair of headphones

02:33:52   that I've really thought sounded bad,

02:33:54   and it's like as picky as I, I get it.

02:33:56   It's me, it's me, it's my ears, it's my taste,

02:33:59   because I'm the guy who really, really hates

02:34:01   and gets angry and blogs about the use of Arial

02:34:05   instead of Helvetica, knowing that 99% of people

02:34:09   cannot tell the difference between Arial and Helvetica.

02:34:12   So I get it, that other people can do,

02:34:14   what I can do with fonts,

02:34:16   other people can do with headphones.

02:34:17   I get it, I just don't, so I don't really care about that.

02:34:21   And I think uncompressed audio is a scam.

02:34:25   But, I mean, Apple definitely thinks that.

02:34:28   - Yeah, but I think it's a scam,

02:34:30   especially if you're playing it in earbuds,

02:34:32   not big, open-eared, over-the-head cans.

02:34:36   So I don't care, I don't care that the AirPods

02:34:39   don't support lossless audio, but I guess some people do.

02:34:44   - Yeah, and I think all this facial audio stuff

02:34:46   just makes no sense to me.

02:34:47   - I do think it's, speaking from things

02:34:50   that we could say from being there,

02:34:52   it's preposterous to me how many hundreds of pairs

02:34:55   of AirPods Pro they had in the hands-on area

02:34:58   for us to try. - Yes, it was amazing.

02:35:00   There are people with boxes.

02:35:02   - Just boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes of them.

02:35:05   And so, and they encourage you, they're begging you,

02:35:09   try them, please, and I'm like, ah,

02:35:10   and they're like, they're fresh, nobody's ever worn them.

02:35:13   And then you put 'em on and you try them,

02:35:16   and they're all, I don't even know how they do it,

02:35:18   they're all pre-paired to somebody's phone,

02:35:20   and they can play some music for you,

02:35:23   and you're like, yeah, this is great,

02:35:25   and I played with the volume, and it seems like

02:35:27   that touch swiping for volume up, volume down

02:35:30   seems pretty cool.

02:35:31   I like the way that only the ear you swipe on

02:35:34   gets the little bip bip bip as you go up and down.

02:35:37   So if you swipe on your right ear,

02:35:39   it's your right earbud only that makes the little bip.

02:35:42   And then you take 'em off and you hand them back

02:35:44   to the nice person, and somebody else puts 'em

02:35:46   in a different case and they take 'em away.

02:35:48   (laughing)

02:35:50   - Presumably to be cleaned.

02:35:51   - I didn't ask, I did not even ask,

02:35:53   but they emphasized that all the ones

02:35:55   that they were letting us try were not cleaned,

02:35:58   they were all factory fresh and had never touched human ears.

02:36:02   Now, did they throw them all away?

02:36:04   I sure hope not, because somebody would buy them, right,

02:36:07   after cleaning a spritz with some alcohol,

02:36:11   and who wouldn't wanna buy worn for 30 second AirPods Pro?

02:36:15   I don't know, I would love to know

02:36:16   what the hell they did with them,

02:36:17   but they were swearing up and down that every single pair,

02:36:22   and there were hundreds and hundreds of people there,

02:36:24   and they're encouraging everybody to try it.

02:36:26   It's ridiculous.

02:36:27   And of course the trays were custom designed.

02:36:30   - Yes.

02:36:32   They were, I mean, it was, I wish I had had more time

02:36:35   to just be like, I'm sure I'm all right about this.

02:36:37   - All right.

02:36:38   We gotta talk Verge redesign.

02:36:41   - Let's do it.

02:36:41   How many font criticisms do you have?

02:36:43   - (sighs) I'm gonna say this,

02:36:45   because of how busy I've been the last week.

02:36:47   Now, you were nice enough, you again, hands on time,

02:36:50   friends, you showed it to me last week in the hands on area.

02:36:55   - On a phone, mind you.

02:36:56   - Well, is it phone, here's my first question for you.

02:36:59   Was the phone the first target of the Verge redesign?

02:37:03   - Oh, easily, yeah, I think if you worked

02:37:06   at a large media company, everyone is deeply aware

02:37:10   of the statistics of mobile users versus desktop users.

02:37:12   The Verge is an outlier, right?

02:37:14   So we are, I think our numbers are basically 70% mobile,

02:37:18   25% desktop, 5% tablet, plus or minus one percentage,

02:37:23   depending on the month.

02:37:25   For the rest of the company, it's like 90/10.

02:37:27   - Really?

02:37:28   Wow. - Yeah.

02:37:29   This is like every media company.

02:37:30   - Wow, I'm out of touch, and my numbers are, (laughs)

02:37:35   well, I've been majority mobile though for years.

02:37:39   I mean, last time I looked,

02:37:40   I hardly ever look at my stats,

02:37:42   and of course it's ridiculous and preposterous

02:37:45   and embarrassing and we won't go into it

02:37:46   that even though even Daring Fireball is mobile first only,

02:37:50   it still doesn't have a mobile design

02:37:53   other than double tapping the main column to zoom it in.

02:37:55   - I like it, I don't think you should ever change it,

02:37:57   to be honest with you.

02:37:58   - Well-- - I don't know about that.

02:38:00   Never say never, right?

02:38:01   - But it works, but I get it.

02:38:03   But yeah, all right, so mobile first.

02:38:05   I don't hate the fonts.

02:38:06   I see that you're getting some hate for them.

02:38:08   But here's where I'm going with that,

02:38:10   is I've been so busy this week.

02:38:11   You were kind enough to show it to me last week,

02:38:13   kind enough to give me the basic idea of what you're doing,

02:38:16   which I love, of course, unsurprisingly,

02:38:19   but I haven't been reading enough.

02:38:21   I read more of The Verge this morning

02:38:23   in preparation for the show than I had

02:38:25   from when I first flew out to California until now

02:38:29   because I've been so busy.

02:38:31   And I'm of the opinion that you need some time

02:38:34   before you can pass judgment on typefaces and stuff.

02:38:37   I think the main typeface is fine though.

02:38:38   I don't know why people, I keep hearing people keep saying

02:38:41   I can't wait for Gruber to comment on the font

02:38:44   and The Verge redesign.

02:38:46   I don't quite get it.

02:38:47   I know the headline font is opinionated,

02:38:52   but the stuff for actual reading,

02:38:55   I don't see what the objection is.

02:38:57   I don't, am I missing something?

02:38:59   - I've been trying to suss it out.

02:39:01   So one, the idea, there's more than a little

02:39:03   daring fireball in this whole design.

02:39:05   Right, like Dieter and I are walking around being like,

02:39:07   fuck it, Gruber can just post to us on website

02:39:09   whenever he wants to, like why can't we?

02:39:10   So like, that's the heart of it.

02:39:13   Like why are we posting to Twitter instead of our own website

02:39:16   so we just wanted to build like a lighter weight thing

02:39:18   and then that, we think we should blow up The Verge

02:39:20   every few years.

02:39:21   That's just part of the DNA of the place.

02:39:23   Like we should be as much on the cutting edge,

02:39:25   we should be product, if we're gonna pass judgment

02:39:28   on products, we should run a product.

02:39:30   That's how I feel about it.

02:39:31   So like I think that builds empathy for me

02:39:33   and all the product managers in the world.

02:39:35   So yeah, you know, to me I'm trying to figure it out

02:39:37   and the main thing, people keep saying

02:39:40   there's too many fonts, there's only three.

02:39:42   (laughing)

02:39:42   - I didn't see too many fonts either, I did not

02:39:45   and that's a thing that always jumps out to me.

02:39:47   So I would say I agree.

02:39:49   - Yeah, there's Minooka, which is a really big

02:39:52   opinionated one that we're using pretty sparingly.

02:39:54   There's Polysans, which is just beautiful.

02:39:56   It's like hard to complain about it.

02:39:58   And there's FK Roman, which is just a nice serif.

02:40:00   I think we have lots of different weights going on

02:40:02   and like it's the first version.

02:40:05   We shipped the thing that was done enough to ship.

02:40:09   By next week we will be iterating on it.

02:40:12   Like everyone just needs a break.

02:40:13   We spent two years working on it, but really we spent

02:40:15   like 20 minutes sprinting it out the door, right?

02:40:18   So we're, and the last six months in particular

02:40:20   have been like a dead sprint.

02:40:22   So everyone just needed a break this week.

02:40:23   Ship it, we gotta see how it feels.

02:40:25   You were talking about the student newspaper.

02:40:26   Like there's this big, there's a weird spectrum of things

02:40:31   that I don't quite know how to describe.

02:40:32   But for editorial products or content products,

02:40:36   there's like PageMaker where, you know,

02:40:39   we run New York Magazine.

02:40:41   I don't even know what software they use

02:40:42   to lay out the print magazine, but New York Magazine

02:40:44   is part of Vox Media.

02:40:45   - I think I could say with certainty they use InDesign,

02:40:48   but I might be wrong.

02:40:49   - No, it's something else and I forget the name.

02:40:51   - Oh, is it really?

02:40:51   - Yeah, it's some piece of software that helps them

02:40:54   lay out the print product.

02:40:55   And like the writers submit word docs and then like

02:40:58   a designer lays out the print magazine

02:40:59   and that's the end of it.

02:41:00   And then way on the other end of the spectrum

02:41:02   is like YouTube, right?

02:41:05   And if you think there's too many fonts

02:41:06   in the Verge.com, like just open YouTube on your phone

02:41:10   and it's like Fonta Palooza 'cause all the thumbnails

02:41:12   are crazy.

02:41:13   And so like YouTube designs itself to just be filled in

02:41:16   by other people without any control.

02:41:19   The Verge product is like in the middle of that

02:41:23   in like a very real way because we have a product team

02:41:26   and designers that are opinionated and they wanna lay it out

02:41:29   and it wants to look right.

02:41:30   And then now they have handed it over to a hundred person

02:41:33   newsroom and an art team and a video team

02:41:37   that are just doing stuff.

02:41:38   And there's communication there but there's just no way,

02:41:43   there was no way for me personally to know

02:41:45   how it would really look until a hundred people

02:41:48   started publishing into it.

02:41:49   - Right, right.

02:41:50   - And so like sure, like it's a little,

02:41:52   it's not quite what we expected.

02:41:55   It does not look like the Figma mock that I have open

02:41:58   in the other tab.

02:41:59   We published into it for about six months in staging

02:42:03   but we weren't writing short posts 'cause I can't tell

02:42:06   a hundred person newsroom like published to nowhere.

02:42:09   - Right, yeah, you can't fake--

02:42:11   - It's just like a waste of time.

02:42:13   So we did it with a small group.

02:42:14   So we just like had these ideas and like most of them

02:42:17   are playing out the way we think they are,

02:42:19   some of them are not.

02:42:20   Do I wish we shipped light mode right away?

02:42:21   Of course I do.

02:42:22   Do it like, do I think we should delineate some of these

02:42:24   links a little bit better?

02:42:26   Yeah, I do.

02:42:27   Like if you sat with something for six months,

02:42:30   you forget that not everyone understands it the way

02:42:33   that you see it.

02:42:35   And so like I think some of the criticism is perfectly

02:42:38   on point.

02:42:38   We can make the product explain itself better.

02:42:41   But fundamentally, am I thrilled that I just like linked out

02:42:46   to that story you're talking about, YouTube channels

02:42:48   and like where the growth is coming?

02:42:50   I read that story in Tube Builder once a week.

02:42:53   Here's the top 50.

02:42:54   - Yeah.

02:42:55   - And there's no reason for me to write a Verge article

02:42:57   about it.

02:42:58   - Yep, nope.

02:42:59   - But now I can just like link to them and like show our

02:43:02   massive audience, hey, here's this resource that I think

02:43:06   about all the time.

02:43:07   And I think that's like, that's the best of the internet.

02:43:10   Like that's how it should work.

02:43:11   We linked to Wired today.

02:43:14   I know and love and trust a lot of journalists at Wired.

02:43:17   There's no reason that we should just pretend they don't

02:43:20   exist.

02:43:21   And so like, that's the best of during Fireball.

02:43:23   It's like, that's where we came from at Engadget.

02:43:25   We were a link blog for a long time.

02:43:27   We should just keep doing it.

02:43:29   Like we should bring that back.

02:43:31   And the biggest victory to me is like for a couple minutes

02:43:36   in 2022, everyone argued about a desktop homepage.

02:43:40   Like I did it.

02:43:42   Like, I don't feel bad about it.

02:43:45   Like no one else has argued about a desktop homepage

02:43:47   like this in a very long time.

02:43:48   So I'm happy to just make everybody consider,

02:43:52   oh, there's a lot of value to these kinds of pages

02:43:54   and these kinds of experiences as opposed to if you work

02:43:58   in publishing, everyone's like,

02:43:59   what's your discord strategy?

02:44:01   And it's like, I don't know, somebody else runs that shit.

02:44:03   Like not me.

02:44:05   - I told you some of this in person,

02:44:06   but I have to repeat it because we weren't recording

02:44:10   when you showed it to me.

02:44:11   But I of course love it.

02:44:14   I love the philosophy.

02:44:16   I don't, I don't even, but I don't, I don't, I know, I get,

02:44:19   I've always gotten the verge, I think very well.

02:44:22   Ever since you guys were jumped out of Engadget

02:44:25   and what was the temporary site called?

02:44:27   - This is my next.

02:44:28   - Yeah, this is my next, right.

02:44:30   I should have remembered that 'cause I actually listened

02:44:32   to you on Ben's podcast at Stratechery

02:44:35   where that even came up.

02:44:37   And I know it wasn't like a name you abandoned.

02:44:40   It was a placeholder name while you built the real thing,

02:44:42   which was great though.

02:44:43   But that's the mentality that you guys have had all along,

02:44:46   which is let's not wait until we get the thing

02:44:49   we really want to build going,

02:44:51   let's get something else up so we can keep publishing.

02:44:54   And that mentality is still, that's the verge.

02:44:57   And it's great.

02:44:59   But this is so much better because,

02:45:03   and I know you said, I don't want to repeat it all,

02:45:05   but I guess I think it's a paid podcast at Stratechery.

02:45:08   So I guess we can steal it.

02:45:09   - But he's your business partner, man.

02:45:12   (both laughing)

02:45:15   - He won't mind.