The Talk Show

00:00:00 ◼   ► - Ah, it's the end of a busy week, Joanna.

00:00:02 ◼   ► - I have no idea what you're talking about.

00:00:05 ◼   ► - You didn't even do Apple Watch, did you?

00:00:07 ◼   ► Or did I-- - No, no.

00:00:08 ◼   ► - I was gonna say, 'cause if you did, I missed it.

00:00:10 ◼   ► And on the most incompetent podcast shows of all time.

00:00:13 ◼   ► - No, I physically could not do it.

00:00:17 ◼   ► Physically, it would not be possible with what I did.

00:00:20 ◼   ► - And I, I'm not gonna say I phoned it in,

00:00:23 ◼   ► but it was like a grand relief to me

00:00:26 ◼   ► that to me, my take of the Apple Watch Series 5

00:00:29 ◼   ► was very, very simple.

00:00:31 ◼   ► And now that we have like some technical information,

00:00:34 ◼   ► like developers have hooked it up to Xcode

00:00:36 ◼   ► and found out the CPU and GPU are the same, et cetera,

00:00:39 ◼   ► that it really is, it's the last year's Apple Watch

00:00:43 ◼   ► with the always on screen, which to me is a huge, huge deal,

00:00:47 ◼   ► and the compass, which is not as huge a deal.

00:00:51 ◼   ► - 'Cause you're usually lost in downtown Philadelphia.

00:00:55 ◼   ► - Well, I wrote in my review

00:00:57 ◼   ► that I don't think I've ever needed a compass in my life.

00:00:59 ◼   ► I've never been a Boy Scout type.

00:01:02 ◼   ► But I realized that for walking direction,

00:01:06 ◼   ► so I did go back and add a sentence in the next day

00:01:09 ◼   ► in my review that it should be a huge boon

00:01:12 ◼   ► for walking directions.

00:01:14 ◼   ► But, you know. - Yeah, I see that.

00:01:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I, you know, and that makes sense, right?

00:01:20 ◼   ► It's like sometimes it's like, I don't know,

00:01:23 ◼   ► you get into a city you're not familiar with.

00:01:26 ◼   ► I mean, I'm pretty familiar with New York even,

00:01:27 ◼   ► but every once in a while I'll come out

00:01:29 ◼   ► building in New York. And if it's like noon, and there's no

00:01:32 ◼   ► sun to guide by, it's like, wait, wait, which way is like

00:01:34 ◼   ► uptown downtown? Where the hell am I?

00:01:36 ◼   ► You know, I actually haven't even thought about that. Like,

00:01:38 ◼   ► it really would help me to know which is west and east. Yeah.

00:01:41 ◼   ► When I come out of a subway station, and I'm like, walk a

00:01:44 ◼   ► block across and like, why is this not Fifth Avenue? Right.

00:01:47 ◼   ► Fifth Avenue,

00:01:48 ◼   ► right. Or for me, like, downtown, like, I'm way more

00:01:52 ◼   ► familiar with Midtown, because I'm just, you know, I'm like,

00:01:55 ◼   ► touristy app. My familiarity with New York is very

00:01:58 ◼   ► touristy, you know, like stay in a midtown hotel and go to a Yankees game or go see museums

00:02:03 ◼   ► or whatever. Like when I go downtown, like where Apple has stuff now, like at that big

00:02:08 ◼   ► mansion where they sometimes hold events, it the streets aren't quite so grid like,

00:02:13 ◼   ► you know, there's diagonal streets running around and you get off the subway and I do

00:02:17 ◼   ► get spun around sometimes like what, what, where's East West? What's so the watch would

00:02:22 ◼   ► definitely the compass would definitely help with that. So I don't want to belittle it,

00:02:25 ◼   ► but it really was a pretty easy review for me.

00:02:27 ◼   ► It's like the always on screen makes,

00:02:29 ◼   ► it's like a huge game changer.

00:02:31 ◼   ► Sign me up, I'm buying one.

00:02:33 ◼   ► - You're buying one from a series four to this?

00:02:35 ◼   ► - No, I didn't buy series four last year.

00:02:36 ◼   ► - Okay, so my big take is that like,

00:02:38 ◼   ► I mean, it's not really big take,

00:02:39 ◼   ► it's just like, like you said,

00:02:41 ◼   ► it's the same thing as a series four.

00:02:42 ◼   ► If you had a series four,

00:02:43 ◼   ► there's no reason to upgrade here.

00:02:44 ◼   ► Though it is really cool that you have this screen

00:02:46 ◼   ► that's always on and probably should have, you know,

00:02:48 ◼   ► you wish it was there from the start, like you wrote.

00:02:51 ◼   ► But I think if you've got a series three or series two,

00:02:55 ◼   ► Certainly, in your upgrading,

00:02:57 ◼   ► this is gonna make a ton of sense.

00:02:59 ◼   ► - The other thing that Apple told me

00:03:00 ◼   ► when they briefed me on it was that the compass

00:03:03 ◼   ► should help with indoor navigation,

00:03:06 ◼   ► like when you're in a train station

00:03:09 ◼   ► or how they have airports mapped out now.

00:03:12 ◼   ► And so instead of just sort of getting you that GPS,

00:03:15 ◼   ► you're within 10 meters or five meters or whatever,

00:03:18 ◼   ► and it's like all they know is you're in Terminal C,

00:03:21 ◼   ► somewhere in the middle.

00:03:23 ◼   ► Now they can tell you turn left

00:03:24 ◼   ► and you'll see the coffee place you're looking for

00:03:27 ◼   ► or whatever.

00:03:28 ◼   ► I don't know, but that's not a huge deal.

00:03:30 ◼   ► I would never tell anybody to upgrade the watch

00:03:32 ◼   ► just for the compass.

00:03:33 ◼   ► They're always on screen is a big deal.

00:03:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I loved how you wrote

00:03:37 ◼   ► like this was the thing you had always wanted.

00:03:39 ◼   ► And I think for me, there are some of these

00:03:42 ◼   ► still little remaining things

00:03:43 ◼   ► that like they're the things I've always wanted

00:03:45 ◼   ► that Apple just hasn't done.

00:03:46 ◼   ► I mean, sleep tracking for me was a huge disappointment

00:03:48 ◼   ► at the event when they didn't announce that.

00:03:51 ◼   ► And I know we were tweeting about it before

00:03:53 ◼   ► when you were suggesting some of the apps

00:03:55 ◼   ► and I've been using some of the apps and they're not bad.

00:03:57 ◼   ► They're really not bad, but like they're not Apple.

00:04:00 ◼   ► - It's not the same thing as having it built in.

00:04:02 ◼   ► That's very true.

00:04:04 ◼   ► I'm curious about that rumor too.

00:04:06 ◼   ► And it's funny the rumors this year,

00:04:08 ◼   ► there were a lot of busts and some of them,

00:04:12 ◼   ► like the tile tracker thing, that's probably not a bust.

00:04:15 ◼   ► That's probably just coming soon.

00:04:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think that's like a month or two delayed.

00:04:20 ◼   ► - But I think the sleep tracking thing,

00:04:22 ◼   ► I don't think that's gonna come in a software update.

00:04:24 ◼   ► I think if they were gonna do it, they would do it.

00:04:26 ◼   ► And using the Series 5 watch with the always-on display,

00:04:31 ◼   ► and the battery life is probably a little bit less

00:04:35 ◼   ► than I was getting with my Series 3.

00:04:39 ◼   ► So my personal Apple watches that I've bought,

00:04:44 ◼   ► John Gruber has bought and used and owned,

00:04:46 ◼   ► are the original, way back in 2015.

00:04:49 ◼   ► I didn't buy a Series 2.

00:04:51 ◼   ► Then I bought a Series 3 when they added the cellular, which I still like having.

00:04:59 ◼   ► It's like I like the peace of mind, but I almost never use.

00:05:01 ◼   ► And every time I look – I'm one of those people.

00:05:03 ◼   ► I do look at my Verizon bill every month and I'm like, "Why is this $240?"

00:05:07 ◼   ► And I'm like, "Oh, well, I guess so."

00:05:09 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:05:10 ◼   ► Rebekah Demirel: You've just been paying for it?

00:05:11 ◼   ► Tom Bilyeu: Yeah, like 10 bucks a month.

00:05:12 ◼   ► It's like I never use it or like I use it like once a year.

00:05:16 ◼   ► It's a lot of money to spend for like one time a year.

00:05:18 ◼   ► But I kind of like the peace of mind that I could just run out and if I needed to make

00:05:22 ◼   ► a call or something, I could do it.

00:05:24 ◼   ► I probably exaggerated a little bit there.

00:05:26 ◼   ► I probably used it more than once a year, but I probably don't use it $120 a year

00:05:32 ◼   ► enough.

00:05:33 ◼   ► But I skipped series four last year.

00:05:35 ◼   ► I really like the way series four looked last year, but I didn't like it enough to upgrade

00:05:40 ◼   ► year over year.

00:05:42 ◼   ► And now I bought the series five.

00:05:43 ◼   ► So I will say, and I'm doing the sleep tracking thing with the third-party apps too.

00:05:47 ◼   ► so I wear it when I go to sleep.

00:05:49 ◼   ► I will say battery life is a little bit less

00:05:53 ◼   ► than my series three was getting.

00:05:56 ◼   ► So keeping the screen on in a low power mode every day.

00:06:01 ◼   ► Usually when I wake up in the morning for the last week,

00:06:03 ◼   ► I'm around 15 to 20% on the watch.

00:06:07 ◼   ► And I've got a, you know, I could charge it while I shower.

00:06:10 ◼   ► I usually charge it, I have a charger in the kitchen.

00:06:12 ◼   ► I charge it while I make coffee, get my day started.

00:06:15 ◼   ► And usually, I need a little bit over an hour.

00:06:18 ◼   ► I've gotta find some time during the day

00:06:19 ◼   ► to get the watch back up and then put it back on,

00:06:22 ◼   ► keep it on all day.

00:06:23 ◼   ► And then with my Series 3 that I had been wearing

00:06:26 ◼   ► for a long time, usually I was more at like 30 to 40%

00:06:30 ◼   ► when I wake up in the morning.

00:06:32 ◼   ► But that's a trade-off I'm willing to make

00:06:34 ◼   ► for the always-on display.

00:06:35 ◼   ► That is a very fair trade-off 'cause I really love it.

00:06:38 ◼   ► But given that I'm only waking up with 17% in the morning,

00:06:43 ◼   ► morning. And you kind of it's not that easy to find an eye if

00:06:49 ◼   ► you if you want to wear your watch all day and you want to

00:06:51 ◼   ► track your stand time and all that stuff. It's not that easy

00:06:54 ◼   ► to find an hour to an hour and a half to charge it throughout

00:06:58 ◼   ► the day. So I can kind of see why Apple didn't do sleep

00:07:00 ◼   ► tracking.

00:07:01 ◼   ► Well, so I've had I've been I bought the series for last year

00:07:05 ◼   ► and I have tried sleep tracking a couple of nights similar kind

00:07:10 ◼   ► of percentage to you. I think I wake up with probably like

00:07:12 ◼   ► closer to 20 or 30%? Is that what you said on the

00:07:15 ◼   ► now I get I usually wake up with more like 30 to 40. But I've got

00:07:20 ◼   ► the 40 you know, the the larger 42 millimeter size and I'm

00:07:24 ◼   ► guessing you have the 38 or the 40 millimeter now. And and I

00:07:29 ◼   ► find that that it's that makes sense. So I find it takes

00:07:32 ◼   ► shorter charging time, like I'm good at an hour, right? It's

00:07:35 ◼   ► like, great. And then the the other big thing that I'm sort of

00:07:41 ◼   ► thinking through is that, well, two things.

00:07:44 ◼   ► One, I'm going through the settings right now,

00:07:46 ◼   ► and Apple told me this would be possible.

00:07:48 ◼   ► Can you turn off the always on display?

00:07:52 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:07:53 ◼   ► - Where is that?

00:07:54 ◼   ► - So in the watch, you go to settings.

00:07:58 ◼   ► I think you can do it right on the watch.

00:08:00 ◼   ► Settings.

00:08:00 ◼   ► - My watch is upstairs.

00:08:02 ◼   ► - All right, sorry. - I'm in the app.

00:08:03 ◼   ► - I'll talk you through it.

00:08:04 ◼   ► Settings.

00:08:07 ◼   ► display and brightness and always on, on.

00:08:12 ◼   ► And you can type always on and turn it off.

00:08:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm on the phone right now.

00:08:18 ◼   ► - But you can definitely do it.

00:08:19 ◼   ► As a tip to those listening,

00:08:22 ◼   ► in that same section for the always on display,

00:08:26 ◼   ► there is also a preference which is off by default

00:08:30 ◼   ► called hide sensitive complications.

00:08:33 ◼   ► Sensitive complications contain data

00:08:35 ◼   ► such as your calendar appointments, mail messages, heart rate.

00:08:39 ◼   ► And if you turn that on, then those won't be visible in the always on mode either.

00:08:44 ◼   ► But that is off by default.

00:08:46 ◼   ► So like let's say you have a – let's just say the calendar complication.

00:08:51 ◼   ► If you're like holding the wrist strap on the subway, somebody who looks at your watch

00:08:55 ◼   ► in theory might be able to see your next calendar appointment.

00:08:58 ◼   ► But you can turn that off.

00:09:00 ◼   ► That's been like one of the top questions that I've been asked from daring firewall

00:09:04 ◼   ► readers people are very concerned about, rightly so about the privacy implications of the always

00:09:09 ◼   ► on display.

00:09:10 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't have that much.

00:09:12 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't really.

00:09:13 ◼   ► But but my thought is, is well, first of all, I want to try this. I'm gonna try no, turning

00:09:19 ◼   ► off always on on and seeing how the battery life goes, because you could see one turning

00:09:26 ◼   ► it off when you're sleeping, or turning it off in general, like I like it a lot, but

00:09:30 ◼   ► I don't find that like it's a it's a game. It's yeah, I

00:09:33 ◼   ► Don't know. I'm kind of mixed like there's only a couple times in the day where I look at it

00:09:37 ◼   ► I'm like, okay, that's nice that I didn't have to shake my arm really hard to see this

00:09:40 ◼   ► Were you a wristwatch wearer before Apple watch?

00:09:44 ◼   ► Not in the like immediate years before but I grew up wearing watches. I think that's where I watch it

00:09:51 ◼   ► I think that's the big factor

00:09:53 ◼   ► like I've always had a I've had a watch on my left wrist since I was like 14 or 15 so like

00:10:00 ◼   ► It's like I even said in my review this week,

00:10:03 ◼   ► looking back at my original Apple Watch review,

00:10:05 ◼   ► I spent several hundred words complaining

00:10:08 ◼   ► about the lack of an Always On display

00:10:10 ◼   ► and all the scenarios where I was annoyed by it.

00:10:13 ◼   ► - It's just muscle memory.

00:10:15 ◼   ► As I've been wearing it this week,

00:10:16 ◼   ► I'm like, oh yeah, right, I don't need to tap it

00:10:18 ◼   ► or I don't need to touch the side

00:10:20 ◼   ► or I don't need to shake my arm.

00:10:22 ◼   ► I feel like it's now muscle memory

00:10:24 ◼   ► to try to turn that screen on.

00:10:27 ◼   ► The funny one for me is wearing it to sleep now,

00:10:31 ◼   ► which I've been doing for months.

00:10:32 ◼   ► It never really wakes up for me in bed,

00:10:36 ◼   ► like my Series 3, right?

00:10:38 ◼   ► This is not the new, you know,

00:10:39 ◼   ► the one I've been wearing for months.

00:10:41 ◼   ► So I go to bed with it, it's dark,

00:10:43 ◼   ► it's the middle of the night, I wake up,

00:10:44 ◼   ► and I'm just like, "Ah, how close to the morning is it?"

00:10:46 ◼   ► And I look at the watch, it doesn't turn on,

00:10:48 ◼   ► and there's not really anything I can do to make it turn on,

00:10:50 ◼   ► and I do the same thing every time.

00:10:52 ◼   ► I bring it up and tap it with my nose.

00:10:54 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:10:56 ◼   ► And then it wakes up.

00:10:57 ◼   ► Because the other thing is like in the middle of the night

00:10:59 ◼   ► without contacts or glasses on,

00:11:00 ◼   ► I really do kind of have to hold it close to see it.

00:11:02 ◼   ► So I bring it up, tap my nose,

00:11:04 ◼   ► and then I can check the time.

00:11:05 ◼   ► It is so nice not to have to do that anymore.

00:11:09 ◼   ► - That was one of the best A heads.

00:11:11 ◼   ► We have these front page stories at the journal

00:11:13 ◼   ► that are kind of quirky and funny.

00:11:15 ◼   ► One of the best A heads ever written was one of our,

00:11:17 ◼   ► our old Apple reporter now works at the Times,

00:11:19 ◼   ► Dai wrote about how people were using their nose

00:11:22 ◼   ► and tapping the Apple watches like in,

00:11:25 ◼   ► when they were in airports and no hands were free.

00:11:27 ◼   ► So yeah, I mean.

00:11:30 ◼   ► - That is a great story.

00:11:31 ◼   ► I remember when he wrote that.

00:11:32 ◼   ► 'Cause there's a lot of people

00:11:37 ◼   ► who don't have an Apple Watch,

00:11:38 ◼   ► they're like, "What a bunch of goofs."

00:11:39 ◼   ► And then there's all the people with Apple Watches

00:11:41 ◼   ► who are like, "Yeah, me too!"

00:11:42 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:11:43 ◼   ► Right?

00:11:44 ◼   ► - I used to do it all the time when walking the dog

00:11:46 ◼   ► and holding a coffee or something.

00:11:47 ◼   ► - Oh, definitely. - All the time.

00:11:48 ◼   ► I'd be like, "I look ridiculous on the street."

00:11:51 ◼   ► So yeah, I'm generally just feeling

00:11:53 ◼   ► like the sleep tracking would be that like final health

00:11:57 ◼   ► feature that I'd be into.

00:11:58 ◼   ► Sometimes I'm not really fully sure why I want it so badly

00:12:01 ◼   ► 'cause when I do track my sleep, I'm like,

00:12:02 ◼   ► don't learn a ton, but it does make me feel better.

00:12:05 ◼   ► But yeah, I mean, I don't know.

00:12:07 ◼   ► A lot of it too feels like this,

00:12:09 ◼   ► I think you sort of wrote this,

00:12:11 ◼   ► that this is the time that the watch has hit its stride.

00:12:16 ◼   ► This is it, right?

00:12:18 ◼   ► Like sort of when the iPhone hit its stride

00:12:20 ◼   ► and like this is what it was supposed to be.

00:12:22 ◼   ► And I kind of feel that way.

00:12:23 ◼   ► felt that way reviewing the series for last year. I just said this is this is the time

00:12:26 ◼   ► I have very little complaints now about this. And if you had been holding off, now's the

00:12:31 ◼   ► time to buy one is to try one to buy it for somebody as a gift. I don't I'm sure there

00:12:36 ◼   ► are more things they will do in these next generations. But this kind of feels like this

00:12:41 ◼   ► is what it was meant to be. Yeah. Some of the things I can think of, it's not a bad

00:12:45 ◼   ► idea for riffing on the on the show is what else Alright, so I say it's hit it's right.

00:12:50 ◼   ► That doesn't mean it's done.

00:12:51 ◼   ► Just like my ballpark estimation for when the iPhone hit its stride was probably like

00:12:56 ◼   ► the iPhone 4S I said or so.

00:13:00 ◼   ► That's probably what I would say.

00:13:02 ◼   ► Maybe even the iPhone 4.

00:13:03 ◼   ► The iPhone 4 is the asterisk because of the whole antenna gate thing.

00:13:08 ◼   ► And the big thing is put aside whether antenna gate was a real technical problem or not.

00:13:15 ◼   ► The reason it stands out was that the phone was still AT&T only, right?

00:13:22 ◼   ► At least in the US.

00:13:24 ◼   ► And that was solved with the 4S because they came out with the Verizon one like six months

00:13:29 ◼   ► in between.

00:13:30 ◼   ► And by the 4S, that's why I say that's when the iPhone really hit its stride because

00:13:34 ◼   ► then with the 4S, they were on both types of cellular networks, the CDMA and whatever

00:13:42 ◼   ► the other one is, GSM.

00:13:43 ◼   ► - GSM. - GSM, yeah.

00:13:45 ◼   ► - And to me, that was a huge part of saying,

00:13:48 ◼   ► hey, this thing is sort of fundamentally done, right?

00:13:50 ◼   ► Because that was a huge missing hole is,

00:13:53 ◼   ► like if you live in somewhere with crummy Verizon

00:13:56 ◼   ► or AT&T coverage, it's a real problem.

00:13:59 ◼   ► Or if you live in a country that doesn't have,

00:14:02 ◼   ► or I guess GSM was more worldwide,

00:14:05 ◼   ► so that wasn't as much of a problem.

00:14:06 ◼   ► But anyway, it was definitely necessary

00:14:09 ◼   ► to get Verizon support, at least here in the US.

00:14:11 ◼   ► So that's why I say the 4S.

00:14:13 ◼   ► That doesn't mean the iPhone 4S was done.

00:14:15 ◼   ► I mean, we've seen an awful lot of improvements

00:14:18 ◼   ► from the iPhone 4S, and I'm sure we'll see

00:14:21 ◼   ► a lot of improvements for the watch,

00:14:22 ◼   ► but I just feel like the big ones,

00:14:25 ◼   ► the big, ah, here's what I wish I could do are done.

00:14:27 ◼   ► But what else are we looking to see

00:14:29 ◼   ► in the future from Apple Watch?

00:14:30 ◼   ► One of them I can think of is I'd still like to see it

00:14:33 ◼   ► become more independent from the iPhone

00:14:36 ◼   ► so that both for first-party stuff

00:14:39 ◼   ► and especially third-party, like it is still,

00:14:42 ◼   ► And it's like poor Marco Arment making his podcast player,

00:14:46 ◼   ► I think is going insane and has been going insane for years,

00:14:51 ◼   ► trying to get a good watch app so that you can go out

00:14:54 ◼   ► with AirPods and your Apple Watch

00:14:57 ◼   ► and just listen to podcasts.

00:14:58 ◼   ► And if you have the cellular one,

00:15:00 ◼   ► since you're, like I was just saying,

00:15:02 ◼   ► since you're paying good money to have that cellular thing,

00:15:04 ◼   ► wouldn't it be nice to be able to download podcasts

00:15:06 ◼   ► right to your watch?

00:15:07 ◼   ► And none of that stuff really works well at the moment.

00:15:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, I still struggle with just running

00:15:13 ◼   ► with the watch and AirPods.

00:15:14 ◼   ► The syncing, the Bluetooth, all of it,

00:15:17 ◼   ► it's still, it's kind of annoying.

00:15:19 ◼   ► I do it, but I build in another 10 minutes

00:15:23 ◼   ► to get ready for a run.

00:15:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly, exactly.

00:15:26 ◼   ► - It's a warmup.

00:15:28 ◼   ► - You have to be prepared for the fact that--

00:15:30 ◼   ► - I'm gonna make a warmup video.

00:15:32 ◼   ► A warmup with your Apple Watch running video

00:15:35 ◼   ► with Joanna Stern.

00:15:36 ◼   ► And you just, that's the warmup.

00:15:38 ◼   ► You're just pairing, you do some stretching as you're pairing.

00:15:42 ◼   ► - You just have to be prepared for absolutely nothing

00:15:44 ◼   ► to be ready for you to leave.

00:15:46 ◼   ► - No, nothing's ever ready.

00:15:48 ◼   ► I'm like, okay.

00:15:49 ◼   ► And then I'm like, you know what?

00:15:50 ◼   ► I'm just gonna run with my giant iPhone.

00:15:52 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:15:53 ◼   ► So there's one I can think of.

00:15:57 ◼   ► I'm trying to think, what else?

00:15:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I'm still super bought in

00:16:02 ◼   ► with this as a health device.

00:16:04 ◼   ► And I had mixed reactions to the video.

00:16:07 ◼   ► I talked about this in the live blog,

00:16:08 ◼   ► the video that they played at the event.

00:16:10 ◼   ► And there was actually been more chatter about it

00:16:13 ◼   ► on Twitter the next day about people crying

00:16:17 ◼   ► during that video.

00:16:18 ◼   ► And I even said, I will admit,

00:16:20 ◼   ► I felt like crying during this video.

00:16:22 ◼   ► And actually you described the video

00:16:25 ◼   ► 'cause I feel like I'll cry if I just describe it.

00:16:27 ◼   ► - Well, it was really interesting in a couple of ways,

00:16:32 ◼   ► but it was Tim Cook introduced it.

00:16:36 ◼   ► and he was just talking about the people

00:16:38 ◼   ► who've reached out to Apple,

00:16:41 ◼   ► I guess not just in the last year,

00:16:43 ◼   ► 'cause it wasn't just people with EKG monitoring,

00:16:48 ◼   ► which is new to Series 4, it was other health problems too.

00:16:52 ◼   ► But people who had incidents where wearing an Apple Watch,

00:16:57 ◼   ► it may or may not have saved their lives,

00:17:00 ◼   ► or at the very least, helped them in an emergency situation.

00:17:04 ◼   ► There was a woman who said,

00:17:05 ◼   ► hey, her watch all of a sudden said her heartbeat was

00:17:07 ◼   ► irregular. And she was like, Oh, that's weird. And then it like,

00:17:09 ◼   ► said it again. And she like, got her husband to take her to the

00:17:13 ◼   ► emergency room. And they're like, Oh, yeah, you were about

00:17:15 ◼   ► to die. And it's it, but it was told first person. And it was

00:17:19 ◼   ► people who I guess we're sending these videos to Apple, but a lot

00:17:22 ◼   ► of them are just shot on FaceTime. You know, like,

00:17:25 ◼   ► people know, I mean, I figure what happened, and I actually

00:17:27 ◼   ► thought a lot about this during things that Apple got notes, and

00:17:30 ◼   ► then Apple called them the producers of this video who are

00:17:34 ◼   ► are very good producers that was just watching it.

00:17:36 ◼   ► I was like, wow, this is a really well produced video

00:17:38 ◼   ► down to like the music track changes.

00:17:41 ◼   ► Ben probably got in touch with them

00:17:43 ◼   ► and asked them to recount those moments.

00:17:45 ◼   ► 'Cause like, it was that clever moment where the pregnant,

00:17:49 ◼   ► she was pregnant, but the baby gets handed to her

00:17:52 ◼   ► and that kind of like had to be somewhat staged.

00:17:54 ◼   ► And then the husband is going out to go mow the lawn

00:17:57 ◼   ► or whatnot.

00:17:58 ◼   ► Anyway, my reason for bringing this up is that,

00:18:01 ◼   ► well, too, there was this reaction from some people,

00:18:03 ◼   ► I think it was Charlie Wurzel in Times who wrote that,

00:18:06 ◼   ► you know, they should stop these events.

00:18:07 ◼   ► And then somebody said there was some bloggers crying

00:18:10 ◼   ► or somebody cried and I felt somewhat, I don't know,

00:18:14 ◼   ► not ashamed that I cried, but I mean,

00:18:17 ◼   ► I didn't wanna publicly admit that I cried anyway.

00:18:20 ◼   ► But it was this very emotional video.

00:18:22 ◼   ► And I thought to myself, one, it really hits home for me

00:18:25 ◼   ► because I have heard from so many readers in the last year

00:18:28 ◼   ► since doing my Apple Watch Series 4 review

00:18:31 ◼   ► about the falling feature.

00:18:32 ◼   ► I have tons of emails from elderly readers saying,

00:18:37 ◼   ► I bought this and I'm so happy that you tested this

00:18:40 ◼   ► 'cause now I can feel a little bit more certain

00:18:41 ◼   ► about buying it for this feature.

00:18:44 ◼   ► I have people who have written to me saying,

00:18:46 ◼   ► I did fall and it did catch it

00:18:47 ◼   ► and I could text someone to tell them that I fell.

00:18:50 ◼   ► So that's one reason.

00:18:51 ◼   ► And then the second reason I had sort of

00:18:53 ◼   ► just this reaction was too, it's like,

00:18:56 ◼   ► it's always odd that Apple,

00:18:57 ◼   ► it's odd when a company is sort of selling

00:19:00 ◼   ► something that's life or death, right?

00:19:02 ◼   ► And I think for me, I had this reaction like,

00:19:05 ◼   ► so you buy the Apple Watch or you die?

00:19:07 ◼   ► Like, is that what Apple's saying here?

00:19:09 ◼   ► Like, is that like, you know, the marketing play here?

00:19:13 ◼   ► And it was done really,

00:19:15 ◼   ► I think it was done really tactfully, the video.

00:19:18 ◼   ► And I'm not sure they actually would play it on TV

00:19:22 ◼   ► as like a commercial spot.

00:19:24 ◼   ► I'm sure it's on their YouTube channel.

00:19:26 ◼   ► But it definitely just got me this like,

00:19:28 ◼   ► it's a little bit of an icky place to be

00:19:30 ◼   ► when selling gadgets, right?

00:19:31 ◼   ► Like, is it, it's also a liability for them

00:19:34 ◼   ► if like somebody buys one and it doesn't save their life,

00:19:37 ◼   ► but it's also like this other weird thing,

00:19:38 ◼   ► it's like spend $200 more on the more expensive version

00:19:41 ◼   ► 'cause it'll save your life.

00:19:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, it is touchy.

00:19:45 ◼   ► I talked to somebody at Apple about it last year

00:19:48 ◼   ► when series four came out

00:19:50 ◼   ► and it was sort of a delicate balance to present it on stage

00:19:55 ◼   ► because they had like some typical Apple,

00:19:58 ◼   ► here's a video we wanna show you

00:19:59 ◼   ► and they showed an older woman,

00:20:03 ◼   ► clearly you could surmise she was the grandmother,

00:20:06 ◼   ► and she was in her kitchen using a stool

00:20:09 ◼   ► to reach a high shelf, and then her grandson

00:20:11 ◼   ► was ramming around the house coming by,

00:20:15 ◼   ► and you could see she was worried

00:20:16 ◼   ► he might kick the stool out from under her or something.

00:20:19 ◼   ► But they didn't show that.

00:20:21 ◼   ► They didn't show her having a fall.

00:20:23 ◼   ► It was like they just showed a scenario

00:20:25 ◼   ► where somebody might fall.

00:20:27 ◼   ► And then when they actually showed the falls,

00:20:29 ◼   ► and they were like, and I think it was Jeff Williams

00:20:31 ◼   ► who was doing the narrate, you know, the stage presence,

00:20:35 ◼   ► was saying, you know, and there's different ways to fall.

00:20:37 ◼   ► You can fall forward, you can fall backward,

00:20:39 ◼   ► and it's totally different algorithms to detect those falls.

00:20:43 ◼   ► They showed stick figures falling on the screen, right?

00:20:46 ◼   ► Like, so like, rather than show the unpleasantness

00:20:49 ◼   ► of hiring, like you did in your video.

00:20:52 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:20:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, I watched that, believe me,

00:20:54 ◼   ► I've watched that section of the presentation,

00:20:56 ◼   ► like 50 times, so many times to get that video right.

00:21:00 ◼   ► - Right, every time it came to something unpleasant,

00:21:02 ◼   ► like actually showing a fall,

00:21:04 ◼   ► they would go to like stick figures or illustrations

00:21:07 ◼   ► rather than show actual human beings fall.

00:21:10 ◼   ► 'Cause it's a hard thing to sell.

00:21:11 ◼   ► You don't wanna, it always reminds me of the old commercial

00:21:16 ◼   ► that ran, I don't know if you're too young or not.

00:21:18 ◼   ► Remember the, "I've fallen and I can't get up."

00:21:20 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:21:21 ◼   ► I watched a lot of those too.

00:21:22 ◼   ► I watched a lot of those for that video.

00:21:25 ◼   ► - The cats are so funny.

00:21:27 ◼   ► - That was, for those of you who are too young

00:21:29 ◼   ► or don't remember, or maybe it's a US-centric thing,

00:21:32 ◼   ► but at some point in the late '80s,

00:21:35 ◼   ► maybe probably early '90s,

00:21:36 ◼   ► there was a commercial that ran all the time.

00:21:40 ◼   ► It was very famous. - So good.

00:21:42 ◼   ► - But it was for, I think it was called Medic Alert.

00:21:44 ◼   ► It was, so it was a, you know,

00:21:45 ◼   ► it probably wasn't a bad idea.

00:21:47 ◼   ► It was a electronic gadget that you could get

00:21:51 ◼   ► for an elderly person in your life,

00:21:53 ◼   ► and they would wear it around their neck like a necklace.

00:21:55 ◼   ► And if something bad happened, like they fell,

00:21:58 ◼   ► there was a button they could hold

00:22:00 ◼   ► and it would call emergency services.

00:22:03 ◼   ► But it was a really cheese ball commercial.

00:22:07 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:22:09 ◼   ► But there was this old lady and she falls

00:22:13 ◼   ► and she just says, "I've fallen and I can't get up."

00:22:17 ◼   ► 'Cause her son wasn't a good son

00:22:19 ◼   ► and didn't buy her a medical alert bracelet.

00:22:22 ◼   ► There's so many of these on YouTube, it's so funny.

00:22:25 ◼   ► - All right, I will link to them in the show notes

00:22:27 ◼   ► and everybody can have a laugh.

00:22:28 ◼   ► But anyway, yeah, and we can talk about that.

00:22:31 ◼   ► I think it was Jack Nickus from the Times

00:22:34 ◼   ► who had the sort of snarky comment about some,

00:22:39 ◼   ► I think he called her a blogger sitting next to him.

00:22:45 ◼   ► And it was in the context of Charlie Worzel's accusation

00:22:48 ◼   ► that Apple bloggers are cheering throughout these Apple events.

00:22:54 ◼   ► I was on Neelai's show.

00:22:55 ◼   ► I don't think it's out yet.

00:22:56 ◼   ► I don't think it comes out till next week,

00:22:57 ◼   ► but we talked about it.

00:22:58 ◼   ► But we can talk about it here, too.

00:23:02 ◼   ► I think that's such a--

00:23:04 ◼   ► I get why people think that, because there

00:23:07 ◼   ► is lots of applause during these Apple events.

00:23:09 ◼   ► But the thing that people don't understand--

00:23:10 ◼   ► and it's a reasonable misunderstanding--

00:23:12 ◼   ► is that these events, especially the ones at the Steve Jobs

00:23:16 ◼   ► theater and the smaller venues like that.

00:23:19 ◼   ► And the Steve Jobs Theater, in the grand scheme of things,

00:23:21 ◼   ► is a pretty small venue.

00:23:24 ◼   ► The percentage of people who are in that event who

00:23:27 ◼   ► are from the media is a lot smaller than most people think.

00:23:31 ◼   ► And the percentage who are English-speaking media

00:23:33 ◼   ► is really small, because there's a ton of Asian language

00:23:38 ◼   ► journalists there now.

00:23:40 ◼   ► The percentage of people at that event

00:23:41 ◼   ► who are English-speaking journalists,

00:23:43 ◼   ► whether you want to call them bloggers,

00:23:45 ◼   ► whether they write for the Wall Street Journal or the Times or whatever.

00:23:49 ◼   ► It's really small.

00:23:50 ◼   ► There's a ton—a lot of them—a lot of the people there, especially up front, are

00:23:53 ◼   ► Apple employees and invited guests who are not journalists.

00:23:58 ◼   ► They're just VIPs who are friends of the company or friends of people there.

00:24:05 ◼   ► And the people you hear clapping the loudest and the ones who are closest to the stage

00:24:08 ◼   ► are those Apple employees and VIPs.

00:24:10 ◼   ► It's really not the journalists.

00:24:12 ◼   ► And it's, you know, I'm not gonna say I've never clapped.

00:24:14 ◼   ► Like every once in a while, there'll be a, you know,

00:24:17 ◼   ► like I would clap for the, if I had been there,

00:24:20 ◼   ► I would have clapped for the people

00:24:23 ◼   ► getting their lives saved.

00:24:25 ◼   ► I mean, you know, I've got a heart.

00:24:26 ◼   ► I don't clap.

00:24:29 ◼   ► - I don't know, Jon, Jon.

00:24:30 ◼   ► I clapped and it was when they announced

00:24:32 ◼   ► the 18 watt charger.

00:24:34 ◼   ► - See, yeah, exactly.

00:24:35 ◼   ► - So, I mean, I've got a heart and I'm not sure.

00:24:40 ◼   ► I mean, if anyone has a heart, they're clapping

00:24:43 ◼   ► when they announce an 18 watt charger

00:24:44 ◼   ► after so many years of a five watt charger.

00:24:47 ◼   ► - I can see that, right.

00:24:48 ◼   ► So I forget.

00:24:50 ◼   ► - I mean, I really didn't actually clap,

00:24:52 ◼   ► but I was enthusiastic.

00:24:54 ◼   ► I was very enthusiastic.

00:24:56 ◼   ► I sometimes mumble to myself.

00:24:59 ◼   ► Like usually when I'm there with somebody else

00:25:01 ◼   ► who I'm from the journal,

00:25:03 ◼   ► and we usually sit next to each other and we're live blogging,

00:25:05 ◼   ► I mumble a lot of things to myself.

00:25:06 ◼   ► And so that was definitely a like, holy shit, finally.

00:25:10 ◼   ► I would have clapped for the SF camera font.

00:25:13 ◼   ► - Right, okay, so there we go.

00:25:16 ◼   ► - But the thing I found funny about Charlie Warzel's sort of,

00:25:20 ◼   ► and Charlie Warzel, who I'm a big fan of,

00:25:22 ◼   ► and does good work, and this year has been

00:25:25 ◼   ► on a very good beat of sort of covering privacy-related

00:25:29 ◼   ► issues from a consumer perspective for the Times.

00:25:33 ◼   ► So I'm a fan of his work, but Charlie wasn't there.

00:25:36 ◼   ► Charlie is not a reporter or a gadget reviewer.

00:25:39 ◼   ► So whatever he observed of it was remotely watching the video, you know, at home or at

00:25:45 ◼   ► the office or whatever.

00:25:51 ◼   ► Something to the effect of, you know, the laptop-lit screens of the Apple bloggers and

00:25:57 ◼   ► that these are the people who are applauding at all of these things and that it's unseemly

00:26:01 ◼   ► or whatever.

00:26:02 ◼   ► And it's like that sentence doesn't even make any sense.

00:26:04 ◼   ► You don't even have to be there to think about it because the reason that their screens are

00:26:07 ◼   ► laptop lit, which is true for an awful lot of the journalists who are there. Their screens

00:26:12 ◼   ► are laptop lit because they're either live blogging or taking notes because they have

00:26:17 ◼   ► to file a story very shortly after the end of the event. Everybody there is working.

00:26:22 ◼   ► It is hard to pay attention to everything and observe, because Apple makes a point,

00:26:27 ◼   ► "Oh, that's interesting. That's something to write about. I've got to take some notes."

00:26:32 ◼   ► And in the meantime, they're going on.

00:26:34 ◼   ► - They've moved on. - They've moved on.

00:26:37 ◼   ► And so nobody has time to clap.

00:26:38 ◼   ► Even if you went in and it was your first time

00:26:41 ◼   ► as a credentialed media correspondent

00:26:44 ◼   ► and you're excited to be at an Apple event

00:26:46 ◼   ► and you plan to clap, you don't have time

00:26:49 ◼   ► if you're live blogging or taking notes.

00:26:52 ◼   ► It really is not the case

00:26:55 ◼   ► that the journalists clap at these things.

00:26:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I think the, I mean,

00:27:02 ◼   ► I don't know how many new press they're allowing in now too.

00:27:07 ◼   ► I mean, presumably some new publications, et cetera,

00:27:10 ◼   ► but a lot of us have been going for years

00:27:12 ◼   ► and it's, you know, the day doesn't really ever

00:27:16 ◼   ► get any easier.

00:27:17 ◼   ► - No, if anything, it's harder because they've expanded

00:27:22 ◼   ► the number of post-event briefings and, you know,

00:27:25 ◼   ► in the old days, they would only brief like, you know,

00:27:28 ◼   ► I'll just say a brief like Walt, Pogue, and Ed Begg

00:27:31 ◼   ► from USA Today and that was it.

00:27:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean like the anxiety might be a little bit less

00:27:36 ◼   ► just because you've done it a little,

00:27:38 ◼   ► for me at least it's like maybe the anxiety

00:27:39 ◼   ► is a little less, I've done it so many times,

00:27:41 ◼   ► but it's still, it's a grueling day

00:27:44 ◼   ► and you just, there's a lot to write,

00:27:48 ◼   ► there's a lot to sort of just try to like clear your mind

00:27:51 ◼   ► of some of the marketing hype on stage.

00:27:54 ◼   ► That's usually the hardest thing for me

00:27:55 ◼   ► is just to take it like to clear and say,

00:27:57 ◼   ► what is actually gonna be important here.

00:27:59 ◼   ► I've done a better job also over the years

00:28:02 ◼   ► just to say, I'm not gonna write something today,

00:28:03 ◼   ► I'm gonna just save thoughts for the review

00:28:05 ◼   ► after I actually test these devices.

00:28:09 ◼   ► But this was the first year,

00:28:10 ◼   ► I mean, there was part of what Charlie wrote,

00:28:12 ◼   ► which I sort of felt, yeah, why did I come to this?

00:28:15 ◼   ► You actually didn't go,

00:28:16 ◼   ► 'cause you didn't have to travel, but you couldn't travel.

00:28:19 ◼   ► But I kind of felt like they could have done some briefings

00:28:23 ◼   ► on some of this stuff and maybe been as effective

00:28:26 ◼   ► as getting the message across to journalists.

00:28:29 ◼   ► But you're right in the sense that they don't do

00:28:30 ◼   ► these events just for journalists.

00:28:32 ◼   ► - Right, and primarily they don't.

00:28:35 ◼   ► The primary audience is not the media.

00:28:37 ◼   ► These are not press events.

00:28:38 ◼   ► And I realize that people think that they are,

00:28:43 ◼   ► and most companies when they hold such events,

00:28:45 ◼   ► they are more like press events,

00:28:47 ◼   ► depending on the size of the company.

00:28:49 ◼   ► Like Samsung's events are, I've never been to one,

00:28:51 ◼   ► but they're clearly held in cavernous rooms

00:28:55 ◼   ► and they're stocked with hundreds and hundreds

00:28:57 ◼   ► of Samsung fans from around the world

00:28:59 ◼   ► to get that excitement.

00:29:00 ◼   ► But I was at a T-Mobile event a couple of years,

00:29:03 ◼   ► I forget why, but it was real small.

00:29:05 ◼   ► There were only like 50 people there

00:29:07 ◼   ► and they were all media.

00:29:09 ◼   ► That's a press event.

00:29:10 ◼   ► A press event usually has like a Q&A,

00:29:12 ◼   ► you get to talk on the record with people from the company

00:29:15 ◼   ► and it's not all off the record.

00:29:17 ◼   ► The Apple events are meant for people

00:29:21 ◼   ► who are enthusiastic Apple users who watch from home

00:29:25 ◼   ► and tens of millions, literally.

00:29:27 ◼   ► I mean, this is no exaggeration.

00:29:28 ◼   ► Like, I think it's hard to kind of comprehend

00:29:32 ◼   ► how many people watch these videos from home

00:29:37 ◼   ► 'cause it just, you know, 20 years ago,

00:29:40 ◼   ► I mean, Apple nerds still were very excited

00:29:43 ◼   ► for keynotes 15, 20 years ago,

00:29:44 ◼   ► but the number of people who that encompasses

00:29:48 ◼   ► is just dwarfed in today's world.

00:29:51 ◼   ► I mean, the view counts on the YouTube versions

00:29:53 ◼   ► of these videos are just off the charts,

00:29:55 ◼   ► and it doesn't count the video that Apple hosts itself

00:29:58 ◼   ► on Apple.com and like when you go to the Apple TV app

00:30:02 ◼   ► if you wanna watch there or wherever.

00:30:05 ◼   ► I mean, so tens of millions of people,

00:30:06 ◼   ► no exaggeration, watch these, and that's Apple's target.

00:30:09 ◼   ► And what they wanna do, and you can totally understand

00:30:12 ◼   ► their perspective, is they want to tell the story

00:30:15 ◼   ► of these new products themselves.

00:30:17 ◼   ► here's the things we want you to understand about it.

00:30:20 ◼   ► It's very hard to comprehend how important that is to Apple.

00:30:27 ◼   ► So that's why Apple still does it,

00:30:28 ◼   ► even for a year where,

00:30:31 ◼   ► in terms of helping the world know

00:30:35 ◼   ► what's the main point of these phones,

00:30:37 ◼   ► they really could have said,

00:30:39 ◼   ► the camera's a lot better,

00:30:40 ◼   ► here's a bunch of sample photos showing how it's better.

00:30:44 ◼   ► they come in new colors and the battery life is a lot longer.

00:30:49 ◼   ► - Right.

00:30:49 ◼   ► - I mean, I'm not trying to belittle it.

00:30:51 ◼   ► I mean, I gave it a glowing review,

00:30:53 ◼   ► you gave it a glowing review,

00:30:55 ◼   ► Nilay gave it, in my opinion,

00:30:57 ◼   ► probably the strongest review that The Verge

00:31:00 ◼   ► has ever given to an iPhone in recent years.

00:31:03 ◼   ► These are great products and we'll get into the details

00:31:06 ◼   ► as this show goes on, but basically,

00:31:08 ◼   ► it didn't have to be an event, just for us,

00:31:11 ◼   ► if it was for us.

00:31:12 ◼   ► - No, no, good, and I'm really happy that you agree with that

00:31:14 ◼   ► 'cause I was struggling that day, like,

00:31:16 ◼   ► why did we come here?

00:31:17 ◼   ► What did I like?

00:31:19 ◼   ► You know, and I did take that bigger picture,

00:31:21 ◼   ► especially like, given that this is the first year

00:31:23 ◼   ► they streamed it on YouTube, right?

00:31:25 ◼   ► They are very clearly trying to make this a moment

00:31:28 ◼   ► where Apple can talk directly to consumers,

00:31:31 ◼   ► directly to the people who love their products,

00:31:34 ◼   ► the people who are interested in their products,

00:31:38 ◼   ► to the broader industry who creates things

00:31:40 ◼   ► for their products.

00:31:41 ◼   ► So yeah, I think maybe it was really self-centered

00:31:44 ◼   ► And I just was like, why did they make this event for me?

00:31:47 ◼   ► Like, why just me?

00:31:49 ◼   ► - Hey, let me take a break and thank our first sponsor.

00:31:52 ◼   ► It's our good friends at Squarespace.

00:31:54 ◼   ► Make your next move with your own website at Squarespace.

00:31:58 ◼   ► Maybe you've already got a website.

00:31:59 ◼   ► Maybe it's old, it's outdated.

00:32:01 ◼   ► Maybe you know somebody who needs a website

00:32:04 ◼   ► and you don't wanna be on the hook for doing all the work,

00:32:09 ◼   ► keeping it up to date.

00:32:11 ◼   ► Do it on Squarespace.

00:32:12 ◼   ► And I'm telling you, anything you need on a website,

00:32:15 ◼   ► you can do at Squarespace.

00:32:17 ◼   ► A portfolio, like if you're a designer

00:32:19 ◼   ► and you wanna have a site like that.

00:32:21 ◼   ► A blog, host a podcast, and not just get it set up,

00:32:25 ◼   ► but as you post new content, blog updates,

00:32:28 ◼   ► new episodes of a podcast, all goes through Squarespace.

00:32:32 ◼   ► It's not like, oh, you set up Squarespace,

00:32:33 ◼   ► but then you gotta set up WordPress

00:32:35 ◼   ► or something like that to get a blog going.

00:32:36 ◼   ► No, you can do it all.

00:32:37 ◼   ► Squarespace has all of that built in.

00:32:40 ◼   ► They have a ton of professionally designed templates

00:32:45 ◼   ► to start with for the design.

00:32:47 ◼   ► And all of them work great.

00:32:50 ◼   ► They're responsive designs, so they work great.

00:32:52 ◼   ► They scale to phones, to tablets, to giant 27-inch iMacs.

00:32:56 ◼   ► And you can customize them to the nth degree

00:33:00 ◼   ► to make the branding look like your company,

00:33:05 ◼   ► your personal brand, the way you want it to look,

00:33:07 ◼   ► a restaurant or something like that, make it look like that.

00:33:10 ◼   ► All of that you can do through Squarespace.

00:33:12 ◼   ► Everything looks professionally designed.

00:33:14 ◼   ► Everything is really easy and WYSIWYG.

00:33:16 ◼   ► You just do it right there in the browser

00:33:18 ◼   ► and you wanna move something from the left to the right,

00:33:20 ◼   ► you just drag it from the left to the right

00:33:22 ◼   ► and no coding required.

00:33:24 ◼   ► You can do everything from the domain names

00:33:26 ◼   ► to content updates.

00:33:28 ◼   ► And best of all, you can start with a free trial

00:33:31 ◼   ► at squarespace.com/talkshow.

00:33:33 ◼   ► Just try it, see how easy it is, see how far you can get

00:33:37 ◼   ► before you give them a nickel.

00:33:39 ◼   ► And then when you do sign up and you start to pay,

00:33:41 ◼   ► just remember, go to squarespace.com/talkshow

00:33:45 ◼   ► and use the offer code talk show.

00:33:47 ◼   ► Know the just plain old talk show

00:33:50 ◼   ► and you get 10% off your first purchase.

00:33:53 ◼   ► My thanks to Squarespace for their long time

00:33:56 ◼   ► and continuing support of this podcast.

00:33:58 ◼   ► I was not there this year, but I've been to a couple

00:34:03 ◼   ► at the Steve Jobs Theater and it is--

00:34:05 ◼   ► - The wifi was great.

00:34:06 ◼   ► The wifi was great, yeah.

00:34:08 ◼   ► They, they've, you know what I think they really,

00:34:10 ◼   ► I feel like they, they, they flex those muscles the most

00:34:14 ◼   ► at WWDC because the WWDC keynote,

00:34:18 ◼   ► unlike the Steve Dobbs Theater,

00:34:20 ◼   ► is truly in like an arena sized room.

00:34:23 ◼   ► It's massive, you know,

00:34:24 ◼   ► there's like 5,000 people in the room.

00:34:27 ◼   ► And if they can keep wifi up then,

00:34:29 ◼   ► then they can definitely keep it up

00:34:31 ◼   ► for a bunch of live blogging, you know,

00:34:33 ◼   ► a hundred live blogging journalists.

00:34:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, it's like the wifi's the thing

00:34:37 ◼   ► you complain about when you really,

00:34:40 ◼   ► I mean, I just complain endlessly when it's bad,

00:34:43 ◼   ► but then when it's good, I forget to say how good it is.

00:34:46 ◼   ► So it was really good.

00:34:48 ◼   ► - Do you, were you at the event years ago?

00:34:50 ◼   ► I mean, obviously it's, you know, probably like 10,

00:34:54 ◼   ► by definition, it's like 10 years ago

00:34:56 ◼   ► or close to 10 years ago when Steve Jobs interrupted

00:34:59 ◼   ► the keynote because their Wi-Fi

00:35:02 ◼   ► for the demos on stage was broken.

00:35:05 ◼   ► Do you remember what product announcement it was?

00:35:08 ◼   ► I don't remember.

00:35:09 ◼   ► I'll have to put it in the show notes.

00:35:11 ◼   ► But there was a keynote.

00:35:12 ◼   ► It was probably a Mac World Expo keynote.

00:35:14 ◼   ► I don't think it was WWDC.

00:35:16 ◼   ► But they had tried to demo something

00:35:18 ◼   ► on stage that required Wi-Fi.

00:35:20 ◼   ► And the demo failed.

00:35:22 ◼   ► And they tried again.

00:35:25 ◼   ► And Jobs, in addition to being so good on stage in so many ways,

00:35:30 ◼   ► he was also good at dealing with the demo failure on stage.

00:35:34 ◼   ► And he handled it gracefully and turned it into a joke and then handed over the segment

00:35:38 ◼   ► to somebody else for the next part of the thing and was off stage.

00:35:42 ◼   ► And you can only imagine his fury backstage.

00:35:45 ◼   ► And he came back on stage and said something to the effect of, "I talked to my tech people

00:35:49 ◼   ► and they figured out why this failed.

00:35:51 ◼   ► You people..."

00:35:52 ◼   ► And he looks at the media section.

00:35:55 ◼   ► He said, "There's 337 cellular networks."

00:35:59 ◼   ► And this was long enough ago where the – you remember those things you'd buy like a little

00:36:03 ◼   ► portable cellular hotspot?

00:36:05 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:36:06 ◼   ► You weren't tethered through your phone.

00:36:08 ◼   ► It was like a dedicated device.

00:36:09 ◼   ► Oh, yeah.

00:36:10 ◼   ► I would show up to events with like two of those sometimes.

00:36:12 ◼   ► Right.

00:36:13 ◼   ► Or like if it was a publication like I guess at the time in Gadget or whatever.

00:36:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:36:20 ◼   ► There were three or four people there.

00:36:21 ◼   ► You guys would have one that the whole team could share.

00:36:23 ◼   ► But in jobs – No, no.

00:36:24 ◼   ► We would all have our own.

00:36:25 ◼   ► Well, that's – Because we were so worried.

00:36:27 ◼   ► we would bring multiple networks.

00:36:31 ◼   ► We'd bring like one from Verizon, one from AT&T,

00:36:33 ◼   ► one for T-Mobile or whatever sprint at the time

00:36:36 ◼   ► because we were worried that we wouldn't have,

00:36:38 ◼   ► one of the networks could be saturated in the room.

00:36:41 ◼   ► - Well, that's why there were 300 of them, I guess.

00:36:44 ◼   ► And Jobs, I was like, so if you want this to go on,

00:36:46 ◼   ► you wanna see the demo, turn them off.

00:36:48 ◼   ► I want everybody to turn them off.

00:36:50 ◼   ► I want everybody to shut your laptop.

00:36:51 ◼   ► If somebody next to you has their laptop open,

00:36:54 ◼   ► give them a hard time, make them shut it down.

00:36:56 ◼   ► and everybody in the, some of the people

00:36:58 ◼   ► in the media section did it, but most didn't.

00:37:01 ◼   ► Everybody just sort of--

00:37:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, I would've been like, no.

00:37:03 ◼   ► - Just kept plowing ahead, and the demo did work then,

00:37:07 ◼   ► so I don't know if that was actually the problem or not,

00:37:09 ◼   ► but it was a very uncomfortable moment,

00:37:10 ◼   ► and it's kind of hard to imagine that happening today

00:37:14 ◼   ► because they've just gotten so much more,

00:37:19 ◼   ► it's just hard to imagine a modern Apple keynote

00:37:22 ◼   ► going ad-libbed like that, right?

00:37:25 ◼   ► - It's so true.

00:37:26 ◼   ► It actually would be very funny to imagine.

00:37:29 ◼   ► Like they don't have their teleprompter to read

00:37:31 ◼   ► and they're like, it's got a...

00:37:33 ◼   ► Pro Focus Pickle something.

00:37:37 ◼   ► Focus Pixels.

00:37:39 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:37:40 ◼   ► - It was, and it was, you know,

00:37:42 ◼   ► and you know, Jobs, everybody knew,

00:37:44 ◼   ► you didn't have to wait for his biography to come out.

00:37:46 ◼   ► Everybody knew that he had famously, you know,

00:37:47 ◼   ► in private, has a, you know, could have a bad temper.

00:37:51 ◼   ► Could be irascible.

00:37:54 ◼   ► His on stage demeanor was always pleasant

00:37:57 ◼   ► and he had something to sell and he's in public.

00:38:00 ◼   ► But it was like a moment where we in the real world

00:38:03 ◼   ► could sort of see angry Steve.

00:38:05 ◼   ► It was, I will put it in the show notes,

00:38:09 ◼   ► it's not worth looking up now mid show.

00:38:12 ◼   ► But it was, and in hindsight, boy, that really sticks out

00:38:15 ◼   ► as boy, it was a different era for Apple back then.

00:38:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, but you also do hear,

00:38:20 ◼   ► I mean, just kind of in passing

00:38:22 ◼   ► when you talk to the executives

00:38:23 ◼   ► and you hear the executives talking before

00:38:25 ◼   ► or after the keynote that they practice so much

00:38:30 ◼   ► and they think so, they've got heavy edits going into this.

00:38:35 ◼   ► The first thing that I sometimes ask actually

00:38:37 ◼   ► after when we go to meet with some of the executives

00:38:39 ◼   ► is what's the number one thing

00:38:40 ◼   ► you couldn't have talked about on stage that you wanted to?

00:38:43 ◼   ► I actually ask that always after WWDC

00:38:47 ◼   ► because to me, some of the most interesting features

00:38:49 ◼   ► that come in iOS, they don't talk about.

00:38:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, I should remember to ask that question.

00:38:56 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:38:57 ◼   ► - No, and it actually puts them on the spot

00:39:00 ◼   ► 'cause they're like, "Oh, I think it was in the one draft

00:39:03 ◼   ► that we had this, but then we had to cut it for timing."

00:39:05 ◼   ► I mean, like it is a very heavily edited show

00:39:09 ◼   ► and they practice, God, I mean,

00:39:11 ◼   ► also I tend to sometimes work on some stories

00:39:14 ◼   ► going into some of this stuff.

00:39:15 ◼   ► And if you wanna get in touch with executives

00:39:16 ◼   ► or you wanna get in touch with someone from PR

00:39:19 ◼   ► answer questions or get statements. They're like, No,

00:39:21 ◼   ► no, everyone here is focused 100% on the on the show, or on

00:39:25 ◼   ► the presentation. Yeah. So

00:39:27 ◼   ► there was a link to it, I think shortly after the event, but

00:39:33 ◼   ► there was somebody had an interesting, I forget where they

00:39:36 ◼   ► posted it, but it was somebody who used to work on, I think,

00:39:39 ◼   ► guitar hero, or one of those games in the early era of the

00:39:43 ◼   ► iPhone. And it was like, what is it like to demo at an Apple

00:39:48 ◼   ► keynote as like a third party invited company up there.

00:39:52 ◼   ► And I've heard this before from other people who were invited that Apple calls you and

00:39:58 ◼   ► gets – doesn't quite tell you that that's what they're thinking, but that you might

00:40:03 ◼   ► be in the keynote, but you can kind of read between the lines.

00:40:06 ◼   ► And then they want you to fly to Cupertino and then they sign – you sign an NDA and

00:40:10 ◼   ► like sign your life away and then you go into like a – you go into like an isolation chamber

00:40:16 ◼   ► for days because they might have you demo your software, whether it's an app or a

00:40:24 ◼   ► game or whatever, but you're actually using the new hardware.

00:40:27 ◼   ► So now you've seen this secret new hardware so that they've got you in rooms without

00:40:32 ◼   ► Wi-Fi and stuff like that.

00:40:34 ◼   ► But you don't know if you're actually going to be on stage.

00:40:36 ◼   ► You go to these rehearsals and you rehearse and you rehearse and you rehearse and you

00:40:41 ◼   ► You don't really find out until like sometimes the night before, sometimes the morning of

00:40:46 ◼   ► whether you're actually going to make the cut and be one of the demos on stage.

00:40:50 ◼   ► So there's, you know, usually who knows how, but we don't really know how many times because

00:40:55 ◼   ► everybody signs NDA's and I guess they want to stick to them and they want to stay in

00:40:58 ◼   ► Apple's good graces because they work for these companies that partner with them.

00:41:02 ◼   ► But you could probably, there's a very high likelihood that every one of these keynotes,

00:41:07 ◼   ► There's some number of people backstage who've spent the last week rehearsing and didn't

00:41:12 ◼   ► even get to come on stage.

00:41:13 ◼   ► That's another short documentary I want to watch.

00:41:17 ◼   ► I would love to.

00:41:18 ◼   ► You know, the sorrow, the sorrow that those people feel, the deep sorrow when they're

00:41:22 ◼   ► like, "Oh no, sorry, you're not going to be on stage."

00:41:25 ◼   ► But the story of this guy demoing the game was so funny because, to paraphrase it, it

00:41:31 ◼   ► was like he was nervous and his hands were sticky.

00:41:36 ◼   ► his hands were sweaty. It's like he wasn't doing a good job with the with the iPhone.

00:41:40 ◼   ► And he was like practicing during the keynote. You know, like the keynotes going on, he's

00:41:44 ◼   ► getting ready to go on and he's practicing the game. And it's like you, it was I think

00:41:50 ◼   ► it was guitar, but whatever the game is, you'd finish a level and get like, one through five

00:41:54 ◼   ► stars. And he only got four stars, even though he worked for the company. And someone for

00:41:58 ◼   ► Apple came up and said, Steve would like you to get five stars. And then it was like, Apple

00:42:07 ◼   ► isn't really a four star company.

00:42:09 ◼   ► The poor guys like I can't.

00:42:13 ◼   ► Yeah, but for whatever reason, and this, this gets to last week's event. For whatever reason,

00:42:20 ◼   ► when Apple demos things like games, they really do play, they have the people play them live

00:42:25 ◼   ► live on stage and they always have done this. They did it last week. And I kind of think

00:42:31 ◼   ► that's a little weird and I don't think it is a great use of time. I thought that that

00:42:38 ◼   ► Frogger demo during the event was bizarrely long. And is Frogger really? And now that

00:42:46 ◼   ► Apple Arcade is out and we see all these titles, it doesn't seem to me like anybody, you know,

00:42:51 ◼   ► I haven't spent any time with that. I haven't even signed up for Apple Arcade yet. I've

00:42:54 ◼   ► too busy with other stuff.

00:42:57 ◼   ► But I have been following people's initial reactions

00:42:59 ◼   ► now that if you've upgraded to iOS 13,

00:43:02 ◼   ► you can sign up for Apple Arcade.

00:43:03 ◼   ► And people are saying, here's the initial batch of games

00:43:07 ◼   ► and what's exciting.

00:43:08 ◼   ► I haven't seen anybody saying anything about Frogger yet.

00:43:11 ◼   ► Meanwhile, in the actual keynote,

00:43:14 ◼   ► they spent what seemed to me like it wasn't 10 minutes.

00:43:17 ◼   ► But watching it felt like 10 minutes of somebody

00:43:21 ◼   ► playing Frogger.

00:43:23 ◼   ► I felt like that, hey, hey, here's what you can be excited

00:43:27 ◼   ► about with Apple Arcade would have been a lot better if it was

00:43:30 ◼   ► a tightly edited edited video of here's here's one minute of the

00:43:35 ◼   ► best of what's going to be on Apple Arcade and just show a

00:43:38 ◼   ► video. I don't know why they make people play games live on

00:43:41 ◼   ► stage. It's that's, it's just not compelling to me.

00:43:45 ◼   ► But for my sake, I hope they do not cut the demo times down,

00:43:49 ◼   ► because it gives me a time to break and rest and write.

00:43:52 ◼   ► Not that I'm not paying attention during the demos.

00:43:56 ◼   ► I'm not paying attention to the demos, honestly.

00:43:58 ◼   ► I'm never paying attention much during the demos.

00:44:00 ◼   ► I'm like, "Oh, okay, a moment.

00:44:01 ◼   ► I can write down what I need to do."

00:44:02 ◼   ► Like, you know, I'm like, "Okay, let me take,

00:44:03 ◼   ► what just happened there?"

00:44:05 ◼   ► - That is a good point.

00:44:06 ◼   ► - So please, I think the demos are built in, again, for me.

00:44:11 ◼   ► The entire event is about me.

00:44:14 ◼   ► Apple, if you listen to this,

00:44:16 ◼   ► continue to do these things for me.

00:44:17 ◼   ► Good wifi for me, the demos built in for me.

00:44:21 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:44:23 ◼   ► The ones that I always think of,

00:44:24 ◼   ► 'cause they do it all the time,

00:44:25 ◼   ► is they wanna show off the graphical prowess

00:44:29 ◼   ► of an iOS device, right?

00:44:31 ◼   ► Whether it's the iPhone or whether it's the iPad.

00:44:32 ◼   ► And so they'll have somebody come out

00:44:34 ◼   ► from some game developer

00:44:35 ◼   ► and have some kind of 3D first person hyper-rendered game

00:44:40 ◼   ► where there's a hero with a sword.

00:44:43 ◼   ► And it's like, for all I know,

00:44:46 ◼   ► they keep showing the same thing over and over again,

00:44:47 ◼   ► 'cause that's exactly when I go heads down

00:44:49 ◼   ► and start writing notes.

00:44:51 ◼   ► and go back over the last five minutes.

00:44:53 ◼   ► 'Cause they take forever and I have no interest in it.

00:44:58 ◼   ► It's like, I get it, it looks visually impressive

00:45:01 ◼   ► and you're getting 60 frames per second with this thing,

00:45:03 ◼   ► but I don't need to watch this as it happens.

00:45:06 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:45:07 ◼   ► - It's always some guy with a sword slashing at a demon

00:45:11 ◼   ► or a monster, a dragon or something, I don't know, who cares?

00:45:15 ◼   ► - And then there's like a few moments built in

00:45:16 ◼   ► to how they got to use Apple's tools and it's great.

00:45:18 ◼   ► It's great, it's a great rest moment for me.

00:45:20 ◼   ► So yeah.

00:45:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, I don't care.

00:45:24 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:45:27 ◼   ► What about the actual iPhones?

00:45:29 ◼   ► I guess we should talk about them.

00:45:31 ◼   ► - I guess we should.

00:45:31 ◼   ► I've just been so deep with these iPhones all week.

00:45:36 ◼   ► It's funny, last night, my son, I'd barely been home

00:45:39 ◼   ► and when I have been home, I'm like testing cameras.

00:45:42 ◼   ► And last night before he's going to bed, he just says,

00:45:46 ◼   ► what did he say?

00:45:49 ◼   ► dark, dark, dark. And he's screaming at me, you know, lights out, lights out dark. And I'm like,

00:45:55 ◼   ► what? And he's like, looking at the phone, he says more phones. And I'm putting it to sleep. And I'm

00:46:02 ◼   ► like, you're right, we we did do test photography. And here are two nights ago, I took like, I turned

00:46:07 ◼   ► out the lights, I took a picture of him with him and the dog with five different phones, Pixel,

00:46:12 ◼   ► to the iPhones, Samsung phone. And he just keeps now asking every time he sees the iPhone.

00:46:19 ◼   ► He actually I tweeted it. He said, Yeah, dark or something. Lights off, lights off, lights off.

00:46:27 ◼   ► That's just a glimpse into like how my life goes for this week. And every time he sees me now,

00:46:35 ◼   ► like he's like, Mommy working, Mommy working. And I'm like, this is just killer. Yeah, in the dark,

00:46:40 ◼   ► In the dark is what he said in the dark in the dark and he turned off the lights and yeah

00:46:45 ◼   ► So he's a good tester. Yeah

00:46:47 ◼   ► So have you been continuing to test after the initial the reviews dropped on Tuesday morning?

00:46:53 ◼   ► You have you been continuing to test like the camera and stuff like that

00:46:56 ◼   ► No, but it's always for me

00:46:59 ◼   ► like after the pressure of the reviews over what phone I choose to use as my main phone is like the tests for me and

00:47:08 ◼   ► Like last year after all was said and done

00:47:10 ◼   ► I was I ended up using the 10s for a couple weeks then tilt the 10 R came out and then

00:47:15 ◼   ► Use the 10 R loaner phone and then ended up buying 10 R. Yeah, and this year it's like automatically back to the 11

00:47:21 ◼   ► Yeah, well 11 big or 11 small

00:47:24 ◼   ► Just 11 did I've been 11 no pro. Oh

00:47:27 ◼   ► So it like the the new 10 are thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and I was shocked about it because I was really torn during the review testing

00:47:36 ◼   ► Was I gonna get was I really did I think I need to go to the 11 Pro or was I gonna just get

00:47:41 ◼   ► The 11 or not not upgrade the 10 R

00:47:45 ◼   ► because I'm thinking I'm gonna give the 10 R to my wife and then buy a new one this year and just get myself into the

00:47:51 ◼   ► Upgrade program because I just need to do that. Probably it it is a phenomenal

00:47:56 ◼   ► phone and it is if anything Apple's

00:48:01 ◼   ► base model pricing

00:48:04 ◼   ► - It just surprises how much of a value

00:48:06 ◼   ► the regular iPhone 11 is.

00:48:08 ◼   ► Because my recommendation for anybody

00:48:11 ◼   ► would be not to buy the base model.

00:48:14 ◼   ► 64 gigabytes is just not enough storage.

00:48:18 ◼   ► And I look, it's like one of the ways,

00:48:20 ◼   ► one of the things I do with family members

00:48:22 ◼   ► and my wife is I like to, you know,

00:48:24 ◼   ► I'll see like, hey, how much storage

00:48:26 ◼   ► does a typical person use?

00:48:28 ◼   ► Like what is my mom's phone?

00:48:30 ◼   ► Like my mom, you know, got one,

00:48:31 ◼   ► has had one iPhone in her entire life.

00:48:33 ◼   ► I forget how many years old it is now.

00:48:35 ◼   ► It's maybe like three years old.

00:48:37 ◼   ► I don't know, she didn't want one until like three years.

00:48:39 ◼   ► She didn't want one until she got hooked on iMessage

00:48:42 ◼   ► on her iPad and then she's like,

00:48:43 ◼   ► "Would I get that on my phone?"

00:48:44 ◼   ► And I was like, "Yes."

00:48:45 ◼   ► And she's like, "I need that."

00:48:46 ◼   ► And I was like, "All right."

00:48:47 ◼   ► 64 gigabytes is just not a good value.

00:48:51 ◼   ► And with the 11, you can spend just 50 bucks more

00:48:55 ◼   ► and get one with 128 gigabytes,

00:48:58 ◼   ► which is plenty for most people.

00:49:00 ◼   ► Like just looking at like my wife's phone

00:49:03 ◼   ► and other people's phones, it seems like 64 is pretty tight

00:49:05 ◼   ► just with photos, right?

00:49:07 ◼   ► Like photos and iMessage attachments

00:49:08 ◼   ► take up most of the space, and 128 is plenty.

00:49:12 ◼   ► Like it just seems like typical iPhone users

00:49:14 ◼   ► often have somewhere around 64 gigabytes of stuff stored.

00:49:17 ◼   ► And so if you have 128 on the device,

00:49:19 ◼   ► you have plenty of room, 50 bucks.

00:49:22 ◼   ► But if you-- - Yeah, I didn't even

00:49:23 ◼   ► make that point, I should have made this point.

00:49:25 ◼   ► - If you, I don't think I examined it enough.

00:49:28 ◼   ► And if you, and then on, but on the catch

00:49:33 ◼   ► is that if you go with a Pro,

00:49:36 ◼   ► there is no 128 gigabyte option.

00:49:38 ◼   ► You have to go all the way to 256

00:49:41 ◼   ► and it's $150 over the base model.

00:49:44 ◼   ► So to me, the phones that most people should be looking at

00:49:48 ◼   ► are the 256 gigabyte models if you're looking at a Pro.

00:49:52 ◼   ► And the, because, not because you need 256,

00:49:56 ◼   ► but because 64 is not enough and there is no 128,

00:50:00 ◼   ► and the 128 is perfect for just about anybody.

00:50:03 ◼   ► Just go check your settings, general iPhone storage,

00:50:06 ◼   ► and if you're over 128, well, then look at something bigger.

00:50:09 ◼   ► But you're probably well under, get that one.

00:50:12 ◼   ► It's only 50 bucks more.

00:50:13 ◼   ► And that's a $400 price difference

00:50:16 ◼   ► between the 128 gigabyte iPhone 11

00:50:21 ◼   ► and the 256 11 Pro, 400 bucks.

00:50:24 ◼   ► - I did not even think about this.

00:50:25 ◼   ► I mean, first of all, I do think that for some people,

00:50:28 ◼   ► 64 is enough.

00:50:29 ◼   ► - If it is. - Especially if you're playing

00:50:31 ◼   ► for iCloud.

00:50:32 ◼   ► If you're playing for iCloud photo, you're probably okay

00:50:35 ◼   ► if you're like the average person

00:50:36 ◼   ► who doesn't take a million photos.

00:50:37 ◼   ► I take a million photos.

00:50:39 ◼   ► So I need to- - It's easy to find out.

00:50:40 ◼   ► Check your settings.

00:50:41 ◼   ► And if you're well under 64, then go get the 64.

00:50:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, but the 128, you're right, is $750.

00:50:49 ◼   ► And then versus the Pro, which I would need to go up to-

00:50:55 ◼   ► - 1150. - 1150.

00:50:58 ◼   ► - That's a lot of money.

00:50:59 ◼   ► I mean, it's literally more than a 50% difference

00:51:04 ◼   ► because $800 versus 1200 would be exactly 1.5 times as much

00:51:09 ◼   ► but 1150 is actually more than 1.5 times as much as the 750.

00:51:15 ◼   ► It's such a great value.

00:51:17 ◼   ► And it's got the same great regular camera

00:51:23 ◼   ► And most people I know only shoot with the regular camera.

00:51:25 ◼   ► I know people, I was talking to,

00:51:27 ◼   ► chatting with a guy who works at Apple,

00:51:29 ◼   ► literally worked at Apple as an engineer, very smart,

00:51:32 ◼   ► recently left and he's just been a friend,

00:51:36 ◼   ► you know, like an iMessage friend for years.

00:51:39 ◼   ► He literally didn't realize his iPhone XS had two cameras.

00:51:43 ◼   ► And I was like, what did you think?

00:51:45 ◼   ► What he didn't realize, he just, you know,

00:51:47 ◼   ► he knew it could zoom,

00:51:48 ◼   ► but he didn't really realize that it was two cameras.

00:51:50 ◼   ► and this is somebody who worked at Apple.

00:51:52 ◼   ► I looked at my wife's, I did like a thing where I,

00:51:59 ◼   ► with her permission, I went in and looked at my wife's

00:52:01 ◼   ► photos that she's taken with her 10S over the last,

00:52:07 ◼   ► and 10, she had a 10 two years ago.

00:52:09 ◼   ► So she's had two years with a camera with dual lenses

00:52:11 ◼   ► and I look through her photos and she never uses anything

00:52:15 ◼   ► other than the 1X lens.

00:52:17 ◼   ► - And the Y, yeah.

00:52:18 ◼   ► - I mean, there might be like one or two

00:52:19 ◼   ► - My bigger question is like, what were you worried

00:52:22 ◼   ► you were gonna find that I wanna ask that on the podcast?

00:52:24 ◼   ► - I wasn't worried.

00:52:25 ◼   ► I just, you know, it's, you know,

00:52:28 ◼   ► - Privacy, privacy. - Just being polite.

00:52:29 ◼   ► Yeah, it's respect.

00:52:30 ◼   ► It's respect for, you know.

00:52:32 ◼   ► - It just turned out there was just all these photos

00:52:34 ◼   ► of you sleeping.

00:52:34 ◼   ► - Yeah. (laughs)

00:52:37 ◼   ► - Shot at 1X.

00:52:39 ◼   ► Only shot at 1X.

00:52:40 ◼   ► Why no zoom?

00:52:41 ◼   ► Why no zoom there?

00:52:42 ◼   ► - So I really think that not having the telephoto

00:52:44 ◼   ► is not a big deal for most people.

00:52:47 ◼   ► And if you're only zooming in a little,

00:52:49 ◼   ► like the equivalent of 2x, the digital zoom

00:52:54 ◼   ► is so good these days.

00:52:56 ◼   ► I think that in a lot of lighting conditions,

00:52:58 ◼   ► it would be very hard, you know, like,

00:53:00 ◼   ► Neelay could tell, 'cause Neelay has razor sharp eyes

00:53:03 ◼   ► and really, really is keenly aware of like,

00:53:06 ◼   ► the 100% level pixel, you know, noise and stuff like that.

00:53:10 ◼   ► But for most people, especially if you're only looking

00:53:12 ◼   ► at your pictures on your phone,

00:53:13 ◼   ► doing this without the optical zoom

00:53:15 ◼   ► of having a telephoto lens,

00:53:16 ◼   ► just pinching out a little bit to zoom in a little bit,

00:53:19 ◼   ► will look just fine.

00:53:21 ◼   ► It's a great camera for most people.

00:53:23 ◼   ► I think the screen is just terrific.

00:53:27 ◼   ► Neelay and I talked about this.

00:53:29 ◼   ► I actually think that at nighttime,

00:53:30 ◼   ► the color of the LCD iPhone 11 display

00:53:35 ◼   ► looks better than the Pro.

00:53:39 ◼   ► I really do.

00:53:40 ◼   ► I think it does whites better,

00:53:42 ◼   ► 'cause OLED has the weird, the way that OLED works

00:53:46 ◼   ► with the sub-pixels is really, really strange.

00:53:49 ◼   ► And it's why for years before Apple had an OLED screen

00:53:53 ◼   ► and the early years of Android phones with OLED screens

00:53:56 ◼   ► had really wacky colors.

00:53:58 ◼   ► I mean, it was like really vibrant

00:54:01 ◼   ► and almost neon colored stuff

00:54:03 ◼   ► that wasn't supposed to be neon colored

00:54:04 ◼   ► 'cause OLED is weird.

00:54:06 ◼   ► Whereas the LCD, it's just RGB,

00:54:08 ◼   ► red, green, blue for every pixel.

00:54:11 ◼   ► I actually think at nighttime that the iPhone 11 screen

00:54:14 ◼   ► for a white background, which is what a lot of people do.

00:54:17 ◼   ► You're using messages if you're not in dark mode.

00:54:20 ◼   ► You're reading email, you're doing stuff like that

00:54:23 ◼   ► with a white background.

00:54:24 ◼   ► I think it looks better.

00:54:26 ◼   ► It's a great value.

00:54:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, now also that you put together

00:54:30 ◼   ► that pricing thought for me,

00:54:32 ◼   ► like am I really gonna pay that much more

00:54:34 ◼   ► for the telephoto lens?

00:54:36 ◼   ► - I did, because I'm an idiot, but--

00:54:38 ◼   ► - I know, you're you, you know?

00:54:40 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:54:42 ◼   ► But I really do mean it sincerely.

00:54:45 ◼   ► And I think it's even stronger than last year.

00:54:47 ◼   ► Like last year there was a strong consensus

00:54:48 ◼   ► among reviewers that, hey, the XR is the iPhone,

00:54:52 ◼   ► the new iPhone for most people.

00:54:54 ◼   ► I think it's even stronger this year

00:54:55 ◼   ► that the iPhone 11 is the iPhone for most people.

00:54:57 ◼   ► And I think just calling it the iPhone 11 on Apple's part

00:55:01 ◼   ► shows that they agree.

00:55:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think that's the question for me

00:55:04 ◼   ► is am I most people?

00:55:05 ◼   ► And I think I am.

00:55:06 ◼   ► I think I've just realized I'm most people.

00:55:09 ◼   ► - Yeah. (laughs)

00:55:10 ◼   ► - I mean, also the battery life.

00:55:11 ◼   ► For me, when I did this,

00:55:12 ◼   ► just tried to do as much battery life testing as I could,

00:55:15 ◼   ► I think the order I really do feel certain is,

00:55:19 ◼   ► is you get the most with the Max,

00:55:21 ◼   ► then you step down a little bit to the 11,

00:55:23 ◼   ► and you get like, maybe it's an hour or hour and a half,

00:55:27 ◼   ► maybe two hours shy of what you would get from the Max,

00:55:30 ◼   ► and then below that is the Pro.

00:55:32 ◼   ► And so even though I like having the telephoto on the Pro

00:55:36 ◼   ► and the smaller size of the Pro or the 11 Pro,

00:55:39 ◼   ► I think I'm still better with the longer battery life

00:55:42 ◼   ► of the 11.

00:55:43 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:55:45 ◼   ► Let me take another break here

00:55:46 ◼   ► and thank our next sponsor and circuit friends at Linode.

00:55:48 ◼   ► L-I-N-O-D-E.

00:55:50 ◼   ► Looks like line-ode, but it's pronounced Linode

00:55:52 ◼   ► because they specialize in Linux server hosting.

00:55:56 ◼   ► Look, you can build it on Linode.

00:55:58 ◼   ► Dedicated CPUs, distributed applications,

00:56:01 ◼   ► hosted services, websites,

00:56:03 ◼   ► anything you need to build that you require a server,

00:56:06 ◼   ► you could do it at Linode.

00:56:08 ◼   ► Everything they offer features native SSD storage.

00:56:12 ◼   ► All of their data centers around the world--

00:56:14 ◼   ► and they have like 11 or 12 of them now--

00:56:17 ◼   ► feature 40 gigabit networks and industry leading processors.

00:56:22 ◼   ► And they have additional data centers opening all the time.

00:56:26 ◼   ► They've just opened in Mumbai, India.

00:56:28 ◼   ► They have one in Toronto that opened earlier this year.

00:56:31 ◼   ► That's important not just for you and your team.

00:56:34 ◼   ► If you're in Canada, you want to be closer to your server

00:56:37 ◼   ► to get lower latency and stuff like that.

00:56:38 ◼   ► Sometimes it's even a legal requirement where maybe the country you're in or the business you're in needs to host the

00:56:44 ◼   ► data within the country that you're in so having these

00:56:48 ◼   ► 11 or 12 data centers around the world is a big deal

00:56:51 ◼   ► And here's the thing you pay for what you use with hourly billing across all plans and add-on services

00:56:57 ◼   ► So if you only need a burst

00:56:58 ◼   ► Let's say you have a big product announcement or it's a new version of something coming out

00:57:02 ◼   ► You have a day where you're gonna have excessive traffic. You can pay more to get more bandwidth, etc

00:57:08 ◼   ► ramp up to more processors on the day you need it and then go back down to what you normally need automatically

00:57:13 ◼   ► Really really convenient

00:57:16 ◼   ► And they have a new cloud manager that Lenard has written featuring an improved user interface at cloud

00:57:22 ◼   ► Leno calm you can go check it out

00:57:24 ◼   ► it's open source even and

00:57:27 ◼   ► Really, it's just people. I know who use Linode and and developers, and I'm a customer, too

00:57:33 ◼   ► I'm a customer and I would tell people to use it even if they weren't sponsoring the show

00:57:37 ◼   ► That's how much I like this company.

00:57:40 ◼   ► Headquartered right here in Philadelphia, by the way.

00:57:42 ◼   ► Their headquarters is actually the building

00:57:46 ◼   ► that used to be the house where the real world Philadelphia

00:57:49 ◼   ► was shot, just a little behind the scenes stuff.

00:57:52 ◼   ► Anyway, for listeners of the show,

00:57:53 ◼   ► if you need web hosting and you're interested

00:57:55 ◼   ► in trying this out, they've got a phenomenal deal for you.

00:57:59 ◼   ► Use the promo code, talk show 2019, all one word, no space.

00:58:03 ◼   ► talk show 2019 and you get $20 a credit. Their hosting starts at just five bucks a month and

00:58:10 ◼   ► the five bucks a month plan is totally credible, very usable for a lot of things. So you can get

00:58:16 ◼   ► four months of free service right off the bat just by going to linode.com/thetalkshow. That's

00:58:22 ◼   ► at the URL linode.com/thetalkshow and use that code talk show 2019 when you sign up, get $20

00:58:30 ◼   ► of credit, four months of free service. Unbelievable. So my thanks to Linode. Great web hosting

00:58:36 ◼   ► service. I'm a happy customer. Go check them out.

00:58:40 ◼   ► I might use Linode. It's a really great company. Do you ever watch

00:58:44 ◼   ► The Real World? I never watched. I told Amy this though. She used to be on MTV.

00:58:49 ◼   ► Yeah, the MTV. Of course I did. You didn't watch? Where were you? Where were you in the

00:58:53 ◼   ► 90s? I don't know. I guess I watched in the early

00:58:55 ◼   ► years. I watched a series or two. And then I did watch the Philadelphia one for a couple

00:59:00 ◼   ► shows until I got annoyed by all the cast members. But anyway, that's where Linode is,

00:59:04 ◼   ► their headquarters is a big old grand mansion type building where the real world Philadelphia

00:59:10 ◼   ► kids used to live. They're probably like all my age. They're probably all 50 years old

00:59:15 ◼   ► now.

00:59:16 ◼   ► Marie-Claire I'm like, what does Linode have to do with

00:59:18 ◼   ► the real world? I'm like, did one of the founders end up where they…

00:59:22 ◼   ► Dave Asprey No, they took over the building. It was the

00:59:24 ◼   ► that's their head Philadelphia. Yeah, their Philadelphia headquarters is the building

00:59:28 ◼   ► is that I'd say a weird building in old—we call it old city Philadelphia. Old city meaning

00:59:33 ◼   ► it's—that's like the part of the city that was vibrant back when the Declaration of Independence

00:59:38 ◼   ► was written, et cetera, et cetera. They have a big old grand building down there that looked like

00:59:43 ◼   ► a mansion when the real world kids lived there. And now it's an office for a vibrant web hosting

00:59:48 ◼   ► company. Yeah, I mean, I definitely—I watched San Francisco, New Orleans, Hawaii. I can't remember.

00:59:57 ◼   ► Did I watch Philadelphia? I need to go back and see what that was

00:59:59 ◼   ► anyway

01:00:01 ◼   ► Anyway iPhones iPhones so your review you did

01:00:06 ◼   ► You always of course have to do video because that's part of the that's part of the that's part of the

01:00:12 ◼   ► Part of the job at the Wall Street Journal

01:00:14 ◼   ► You have a you have a column to write and then it goes in the newspaper goes on a website

01:00:18 ◼   ► But you actually wrote two reviews this year, which I thought was really interesting and you know

01:00:22 ◼   ► I'm sure it would made it all all the easier for you

01:00:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, you know, I was struggling too

01:00:29 ◼   ► because I thought I wanted to make,

01:00:31 ◼   ► I wanted to write one piece with sort of that angle

01:00:33 ◼   ► of the second piece, which was really from, I mean,

01:00:36 ◼   ► I haven't actually gotten to the final count yet,

01:00:39 ◼   ► but I think we're closing on like,

01:00:41 ◼   ► near 400, 500 reader emails.

01:00:44 ◼   ► - Wow.

01:00:44 ◼   ► - Which is always amazing

01:00:47 ◼   ► because people really think they can just write to me

01:00:49 ◼   ► and I can write back and give everyone personal tech advice,

01:00:52 ◼   ► which I wish I could.

01:00:55 ◼   ► But so many people this year seem to be writing in

01:00:57 ◼   ► about iPhone 6s and iPhone 7s or iPhone 6s,

01:01:01 ◼   ► I would really just kind of say the 6 model

01:01:03 ◼   ► and the 7 model are one.

01:01:05 ◼   ► And I was like, okay, so this year,

01:01:07 ◼   ► I'm not gonna do a review.

01:01:08 ◼   ► I'm just gonna, I'm gonna do a review,

01:01:10 ◼   ► but I'm gonna contextualize it this way,

01:01:12 ◼   ► that like, if you're upgrading after three years,

01:01:14 ◼   ► here's what you're getting,

01:01:15 ◼   ► here's how to decide on these.

01:01:17 ◼   ► But then I realized as I was writing that

01:01:19 ◼   ► or trying to write that,

01:01:20 ◼   ► that I was sort of leaving out a lot of the guts

01:01:22 ◼   ► of what people may wanna know.

01:01:23 ◼   ► if they do want to upgrade from a year before, you know, probably

01:01:28 ◼   ► much more of your listeners or readers or maybe they're in the

01:01:31 ◼   ► one or two year range. So I decided to write these two

01:01:34 ◼   ► pieces.

01:01:35 ◼   ► I thought that it was interesting. I thought both were

01:01:38 ◼   ► interesting. And I thought that your technique with the because

01:01:43 ◼   ► one of the things and again, I say this every year, I don't

01:01:46 ◼   ► mean to complain, because this week, iPhone week is one of the

01:01:50 ◼   ► highlights of my year professionally. I enjoy it. It's like playoff time for people in

01:01:55 ◼   ► our business. I know people are – I get – my iPhone reviews are some of the most

01:02:03 ◼   ► read things I write all year long. I enjoy doing it. It's a privilege to do it. If

01:02:08 ◼   ► you would have told me 20 years ago, 15 years ago that, "Hey, you're going to get to

01:02:13 ◼   ► write reviews of the most anticipated Apple product of the year a week before they come

01:02:18 ◼   ► out, I would have been like, wow, that sounds that's terrific. That's exactly where I want

01:02:22 ◼   ► to be, you know, it's a thrill. So I don't, I want to preface all of this. But getting

01:02:27 ◼   ► the same way, yeah, getting three iPhones at once. And being told, you know, that everybody's

01:02:33 ◼   ► reviews are going to come up in six days. It's like, it is hard. It's, I mean, it is

01:02:41 ◼   ► even harder when you really think about how much has changed from last year, you know,

01:02:46 ◼   ► being able to say, okay, I wanna focus on these changes,

01:02:49 ◼   ► but I also need to contextualize for people

01:02:52 ◼   ► who may not care about these camera updates

01:02:55 ◼   ► or may not care about these processor updates

01:02:58 ◼   ► what they should do.

01:02:59 ◼   ► And no, I'm in the same boat.

01:03:02 ◼   ► And like, I always, like,

01:03:05 ◼   ► it's always an exhausting couple of days.

01:03:07 ◼   ► Like there's truly no sleep.

01:03:08 ◼   ► There's truly no time for anything outside of making videos,

01:03:12 ◼   ► writing, testing, battery testing,

01:03:14 ◼   ► taking photos of anything that moves, even stationary object.

01:03:17 ◼   ► I just I'm like a nuts. I'm just a complete crazy person. To the

01:03:22 ◼   ► point where actually, I am working with a new video

01:03:24 ◼   ► producer this year. And he's like, sort of, maybe we should

01:03:26 ◼   ► just capture you doing this stuff. And I was like, No, I

01:03:29 ◼   ► don't, I don't want anyone to see me like, he's like, let's

01:03:32 ◼   ► just capture you know, you're making these phone calls, you

01:03:34 ◼   ► do it this way. No, I don't want anyone to see me like this.

01:03:38 ◼   ► One of the ways I took the same shortcut last year is I, I

01:03:43 ◼   ► evaluated I knew that they were supposed to be the same last year's 10s 10s max

01:03:48 ◼   ► this year's 11 Pro and the 11 Pro max are supposed to be the same phone same

01:03:54 ◼   ► processor same screen technology same exact three cameras and same three

01:04:00 ◼   ► camera sensors everything is the same except for the very obvious difference

01:04:05 ◼   ► that one is bigger than the other it has a bigger screen and therefore has a

01:04:09 ◼   ► a bigger battery. So because I was so camera focused in my reviews, I did set up all the

01:04:16 ◼   ► phones and I verified that yes, these cameras are identical. If I take the same photo from

01:04:21 ◼   ► the same setup with any of these three lenses, I cannot tell the difference. Okay. So I put

01:04:26 ◼   ► the max aside from that point forward because I didn't do extensive battery testing. I was

01:04:34 ◼   ► mostly focused on the camera. So why bother shooting with that third one when it's going

01:04:38 ◼   ► to be exactly the same.

01:04:39 ◼   ► So I mostly focused on the 11 and 11 Pro,

01:04:43 ◼   ► and then comparing it to last year's phone.

01:04:45 ◼   ► But you, with the battery focus,

01:04:48 ◼   ► the lead of your review is,

01:04:50 ◼   ► like I wrote when I linked to you yesterday,

01:04:52 ◼   ► it entertains me, and this is why I like reading

01:04:55 ◼   ► other people's reviews and love reading your reviews,

01:04:57 ◼   ► is that you and I sort of had the inverse review,

01:04:59 ◼   ► where you were like, look, the battery life is better,

01:05:02 ◼   ► and as icing on the cake, the cameras are better.

01:05:04 ◼   ► And my take was, hey, the cameras are so much better,

01:05:06 ◼   ► And as icing on the cake, the battery life is better.

01:05:09 ◼   ► - Which are both very good takes.

01:05:11 ◼   ► I mean, I'm right, obviously.

01:05:13 ◼   ► And you are wrong.

01:05:14 ◼   ► - Well, you're probably right

01:05:16 ◼   ► in terms of applicability to more people.

01:05:19 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, Neil and I had this fight too.

01:05:23 ◼   ► Like, his big thing is you can't buy better pictures

01:05:26 ◼   ► after the fact, right?

01:05:28 ◼   ► Like, we didn't actually talk about this,

01:05:30 ◼   ► but like he's like, you can do other things

01:05:31 ◼   ► to save the battery life, right?

01:05:33 ◼   ► You can do other things, you can buy chargers,

01:05:35 ◼   ► You can keep charging, you can do all these things.

01:05:37 ◼   ► But cameras like, and we talk about taking photos

01:05:39 ◼   ► of our kids all the time, and he's obsessed

01:05:41 ◼   ► with taking great photos of his daughter

01:05:43 ◼   ► and they're amazing photos.

01:05:44 ◼   ► And I'm always happy when he comes over

01:05:46 ◼   ► and takes photos of my son, 'cause it's like,

01:05:47 ◼   ► these are amazing photos that I just, you know,

01:05:49 ◼   ► just take photos of with my, not crappy camera on my phone,

01:05:52 ◼   ► but it's the one that I have with me, right?

01:05:55 ◼   ► And so you can't throw money at that.

01:05:56 ◼   ► So yeah, everyone should buy a better phone

01:05:59 ◼   ► with a better camera.

01:06:00 ◼   ► And they shouldn't, you know, do things,

01:06:02 ◼   ► have to go out of their way to take better photos.

01:06:05 ◼   ► And I hear that, but I also hear the fact that like,

01:06:07 ◼   ► I see, I don't know, everyone walking around

01:06:10 ◼   ► with a battery pack in their pocket

01:06:13 ◼   ► and have a lightning cord on them,

01:06:15 ◼   ► or you can pretty much know that anywhere you go,

01:06:17 ◼   ► you can find a lightning cord because people

01:06:18 ◼   ► are drowning out of battery life.

01:06:23 ◼   ► And so, I mean, for me, and also, you know, it's funny,

01:06:25 ◼   ► I read back my iPhone 6s review, which was, you know,

01:06:29 ◼   ► for me, probably a career maker,

01:06:31 ◼   ► or it was a highlight of one of the bigger highlights

01:06:33 ◼   ► of something I've written in my career

01:06:34 ◼   ► because it got a lot of notice at the time

01:06:37 ◼   ► 'cause this was supposed to be an S update

01:06:39 ◼   ► and just a simple spec update for Apple.

01:06:42 ◼   ► And I kind of took that moment to write about

01:06:44 ◼   ► how Apple wasn't addressing some of the biggest issues

01:06:46 ◼   ► we were having with our phones.

01:06:48 ◼   ► And the number one thing I said in that review,

01:06:50 ◼   ► three years, what was it?

01:06:51 ◼   ► That's three years ago, was battery life.

01:06:55 ◼   ► That there had been no improvements to battery life

01:06:57 ◼   ► in the last number of years

01:06:59 ◼   ► and that the phones were getting thinner,

01:07:00 ◼   ► but Apple hadn't been adding battery life.

01:07:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it's funny, it's very clear

01:07:06 ◼   ► when you listen to the way Apple talks about battery life,

01:07:09 ◼   ► which is always, it's funny, it's a hard thing to measure.

01:07:13 ◼   ► There is no way to put one number on it.

01:07:15 ◼   ► And if you were gonna put one number on it,

01:07:18 ◼   ► people put on the milliamp hours,

01:07:21 ◼   ► the actual technical specification of the battery.

01:07:24 ◼   ► But that doesn't tell you the story, right?

01:07:27 ◼   ► You can't just say Apple's phone has a 3,133 milliamp-hour battery,

01:07:34 ◼   ► and here's a Samsung phone with a 3,600 milliamp-hour.

01:07:39 ◼   ► So therefore, the Samsung one has a better battery.

01:07:41 ◼   ► Well, it does have a bigger battery, but that

01:07:43 ◼   ► doesn't mean you're going to get better battery life.

01:07:44 ◼   ► You have to use it.

01:07:45 ◼   ► And you can't-- you know, like, Apple does these things now

01:07:48 ◼   ► where they have, like, audio playback.

01:07:50 ◼   ► Eli and I were laughing about it, because, like, the audio playback

01:07:53 ◼   ► is, like, 65 hours.

01:07:55 ◼   ► And it's like, who is just like,

01:07:58 ◼   ► I'm gonna set up my iPhone, play some music

01:08:00 ◼   ► and just let it go, not plugged in for 65 consecutive hours.

01:08:05 ◼   ► But it is a measurement, you know,

01:08:07 ◼   ► and they do video playback, streaming video.

01:08:09 ◼   ► So it's like you can get 17 or 18 hours

01:08:11 ◼   ► of continuous Netflix video playback.

01:08:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, and actually I had to change.

01:08:17 ◼   ► So I've been doing battery testing for like,

01:08:19 ◼   ► I don't know, 10, 15 years now

01:08:21 ◼   ► because of when I used to test laptops.

01:08:23 ◼   ► And I went through many, many years of using

01:08:26 ◼   ► video rundown tests or even streaming audio tests.

01:08:29 ◼   ► And then there were times where I had worked with engineers

01:08:31 ◼   ► to create web surfing tests.

01:08:35 ◼   ► When I was at the Verge, I worked with an engineer.

01:08:37 ◼   ► It was like, when we first started the Verge,

01:08:39 ◼   ► my big thing was like,

01:08:40 ◼   ► I'm gonna make our own industry battery test.

01:08:43 ◼   ► And Neelai or Josh Sapolsky at the time said,

01:08:46 ◼   ► okay, fine, here's some money, go hire a engineer.

01:08:48 ◼   ► We made this site, it would cycle through different websites.

01:08:52 ◼   ► I was obsessed with it and it didn't,

01:08:54 ◼   ► it had a lot of issues, it would always crash.

01:08:57 ◼   ► I mean, battery life testing is one of the worst things

01:08:59 ◼   ► as a reviewer.

01:09:01 ◼   ► And that's why this year I kind of just said,

01:09:03 ◼   ► I'm gonna go through my normal routine,

01:09:05 ◼   ► which each of these phones, I got to do each day

01:09:08 ◼   ► and I did two days with the 11.

01:09:10 ◼   ► No, I did two days with the 11 Pro

01:09:14 ◼   ► because that was the one I was really trying to figure out

01:09:17 ◼   ► how much better did this thing get.

01:09:19 ◼   ► And yeah, I mean, look,

01:09:22 ◼   ► Part of me feels like Apple's,

01:09:23 ◼   ► and I said this in the piece,

01:09:24 ◼   ► they've admitted that they needed to do better there.

01:09:27 ◼   ► They're slightly thicker.

01:09:28 ◼   ► I mean, you really wouldn't even really be able

01:09:30 ◼   ► to tell the difference, but they're talking about it too.

01:09:33 ◼   ► Part of me also wonders how much of this is just

01:09:37 ◼   ► to preempt next year when they likely do add 5G

01:09:40 ◼   ► and that does likely take somewhat of a hit at battery.

01:09:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, I wonder.

01:09:43 ◼   ► Well, I loved your approach.

01:09:46 ◼   ► So basically for people, if they haven't read

01:09:48 ◼   ► your main iPhone 11 review,

01:09:51 ◼   ► and shame on you if you haven't read Joanna's review.

01:09:53 ◼   ► - Or watch the video, please just watch the video.

01:09:55 ◼   ► More video views, please.

01:09:56 ◼   ► - But it's a brilliant technique,

01:09:59 ◼   ► and it parlays or it builds on the trust you have

01:10:03 ◼   ► with your readers, because ideally what you would wanna do

01:10:06 ◼   ► is what you said you'd like tried to build at The Verge,

01:10:08 ◼   ► and build like a scientific rig where you could do,

01:10:11 ◼   ► somebody could say, here's what we did.

01:10:13 ◼   ► We did these 26 steps.

01:10:15 ◼   ► If you do the same 26 steps,

01:10:17 ◼   ► you'll get the same results, right?

01:10:18 ◼   ► That's science, right?

01:10:19 ◼   ► that you're supposed to have reproducible results.

01:10:22 ◼   ► It just, that's not a good way to test phone battery life

01:10:26 ◼   ► in the real world.

01:10:27 ◼   ► So what you did was you set up all three new phones

01:10:29 ◼   ► and went through a typical work day with the same commute

01:10:33 ◼   ► and going into, I guess you went into

01:10:36 ◼   ► the Wall Street Journal office every day.

01:10:38 ◼   ► And Manhattan remains a battery killer.

01:10:41 ◼   ► I had to go, 'cause I didn't go to California this year,

01:10:43 ◼   ► I had to go to New York to get the review units.

01:10:46 ◼   ► And it was a real quick trip.

01:10:47 ◼   ► I was like, I went up early in the morning on the train,

01:10:49 ◼   ► my briefing with Apple, got the phones, and I was back on a train to Philadelphia by like

01:10:53 ◼   ► 1230. I was looking at my iPhone XS, my real phone at the time, and I was like, "Holy

01:11:01 ◼   ► crap, I'm at 50%!" I wasn't on the phone. I was just talking to people at Apple. I was

01:11:08 ◼   ► like, "My God, Manhattan is a battery killer." So you went through your typical day with

01:11:12 ◼   ► all three phones and just recorded, "Here's when I came home and went to bed. Here's

01:11:16 ◼   ► was left. I think that's useful. And I think that's a it's more

01:11:20 ◼   ► useful to real people to find out how these things hold up in

01:11:23 ◼   ► the real world. But you can't reproduce it. You can't say I'm

01:11:26 ◼   ► going to I'll reproduce Joanna's results and live a day as

01:11:30 ◼   ► Joanna Stern. Well, you can't do that, right?

01:11:33 ◼   ► I mean, I did do I did do the battery, the video rundown

01:11:37 ◼   ► tests, I did end up using, I used to use this video on

01:11:41 ◼   ► Netflix, that was 11 hours long, and I would run that down. I did

01:11:46 ◼   ► I could find the same video on YouTube.

01:11:48 ◼   ► So I did do that test just to see the gap

01:11:51 ◼   ► between last year's model and this year's model

01:11:53 ◼   ► and to also see, just give it a benchmark

01:11:55 ◼   ► from each of these phones around the same test

01:11:58 ◼   ► under the same conditions, what are the gaps between them?

01:12:01 ◼   ► So we could kind of see like, yes,

01:12:03 ◼   ► the Max really does get the most battery life.

01:12:05 ◼   ► It ran for 14 and a half hours.

01:12:07 ◼   ► The 11 ran for 12 or 13 and a half hours or 13 hours.

01:12:11 ◼   ► And then the 11 Pro ran a little bit less.

01:12:14 ◼   ► So I still think that's a worthy test

01:12:16 ◼   ► and no one, I don't think most, no one's gonna do that.

01:12:18 ◼   ► I mean, like, I just do that because I feel like,

01:12:22 ◼   ► let me just add some more testing.

01:12:23 ◼   ► I just do that to make my life more of a living hell,

01:12:25 ◼   ► honestly. (laughing)

01:12:27 ◼   ► There's no real reason I do it otherwise

01:12:29 ◼   ► than just to hate myself.

01:12:31 ◼   ► - But I think you're right to go back to the iPhone 6S.

01:12:34 ◼   ► I think you were right and nailed it

01:12:36 ◼   ► when you wrote that review that up until that point,

01:12:40 ◼   ► it was very clear that what Apple was doing every year

01:12:43 ◼   ► was saying, "Our battery life is good enough."

01:12:46 ◼   ► It was like 10 hours or something.

01:12:48 ◼   ► It was like 10 hours of X, I don't know, video.

01:12:51 ◼   ► So they say 10 hours of video playback.

01:12:53 ◼   ► And it was very clear that year after year,

01:12:55 ◼   ► they were saying, "Well, 10 hours of video playback,

01:12:58 ◼   ► that's our goal."

01:13:01 ◼   ► And then the team would like,

01:13:02 ◼   ► "So let's see how thin we can make a new iPhone

01:13:04 ◼   ► that still gets 10 hours of battery life

01:13:07 ◼   ► and see if we can make it lighter

01:13:09 ◼   ► and still get 10 hours of battery life year after year."

01:13:12 ◼   ► And I really think, I think you called them out on it,

01:13:14 ◼   ► and in hindsight, you were very much right.

01:13:16 ◼   ► And I think Apple clearly internally had a,

01:13:18 ◼   ► "Hey, I think we've got the wrong,

01:13:20 ◼   ► "this holding onto this amount of battery life is wrong.

01:13:23 ◼   ► "We need to improve battery life."

01:13:25 ◼   ► People are using these phones more and more.

01:13:27 ◼   ► And the interesting thing is that I think the 6S

01:13:30 ◼   ► is the thinnest iPhone that was ever made.

01:13:33 ◼   ► If not, it was the 6, it's very close.

01:13:35 ◼   ► But somewhere around the iPhone 6, year after year,

01:13:38 ◼   ► or at least not counting the S generations

01:13:42 ◼   ► that were the same thickness,

01:13:43 ◼   ► the phones got thinner and thinner and thinner.

01:13:46 ◼   ► And then from the 6 forward,

01:13:48 ◼   ► they've gotten thicker every time they changed the hardware.

01:13:52 ◼   ► The 7 was slightly thicker.

01:13:54 ◼   ► I mean, every time it's gotten thicker, it's been slight.

01:13:58 ◼   ► But you add that up over a couple of generations

01:14:01 ◼   ► and the phones this year are actually quite a bit thicker

01:14:04 ◼   ► than an iPhone 6.

01:14:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I think it was very telling

01:14:08 ◼   ► as I also remember thinking,

01:14:09 ◼   ► okay, maybe I'm onto something with calling them out on this.

01:14:13 ◼   ► When they, it was 2015, same thing,

01:14:16 ◼   ► same year as the 6S released,

01:14:17 ◼   ► it was the first year they released the smart battery case.

01:14:20 ◼   ► And I thought that was a big admission too,

01:14:22 ◼   ► that we know that people are strapping giant batteries

01:14:26 ◼   ► to the back of our phones

01:14:28 ◼   ► because we're not giving them enough here.

01:14:31 ◼   ► And I mean, that's what I said last year

01:14:32 ◼   ► in the 10R review, this was the first year

01:14:35 ◼   ► that I thought they designed a battery of an iPhone

01:14:38 ◼   ► that could keep up with us.

01:14:39 ◼   ► Though, I mean, the Plus models had been doing

01:14:41 ◼   ► quite a bit of that for a while,

01:14:43 ◼   ► but between the XR last year and the Max,

01:14:46 ◼   ► it was like, this is the first year

01:14:48 ◼   ► that there were phones that could keep up with a heavy user.

01:14:51 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:14:52 ◼   ► I think, and I wrote about this in my review,

01:14:55 ◼   ► one of the changes this year

01:14:58 ◼   ► is that they've dropped 3D Touch across the board.

01:15:03 ◼   ► And last year, the iPhone XR was already,

01:15:07 ◼   ► where all of this year's phones are,

01:15:09 ◼   ► already didn't have 3D Touch

01:15:12 ◼   ► and used what they now call Haptic Touch instead.

01:15:15 ◼   ► I think that's one of the reasons

01:15:18 ◼   ► why the XR got so much better battery life

01:15:20 ◼   ► than the XS and XS Max last year,

01:15:24 ◼   ► was that it was already had a bigger battery

01:15:27 ◼   ► and the LCD screen is lower,

01:15:31 ◼   ► uses less power than the OLED screens.

01:15:34 ◼   ► - So you're thinking is that because the chip inside

01:15:37 ◼   ► that was enabling the 3D or the layer on the screen.

01:15:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's the layer.

01:15:40 ◼   ► It's the layer, removing that layer.

01:15:43 ◼   ► And nobody at Apple,

01:15:45 ◼   ► I mean, nobody told me anything on the record,

01:15:48 ◼   ► but off the record in my briefings,

01:15:50 ◼   ► I wasn't told, hey, getting rid of 3D Touch

01:15:55 ◼   ► allowed us to make the battery thicker.

01:15:57 ◼   ► But reading between the lines, that's what I heard,

01:15:59 ◼   ► is getting, you know,

01:16:01 ◼   ► I really do think that like the,

01:16:03 ◼   ► I'm sure they're out by now, the eye, I didn't look,

01:16:05 ◼   ► but the iFixit teardown.

01:16:06 ◼   ► I do think that the battery definitely got to use up

01:16:10 ◼   ► some of the volume that the 3D Touch,

01:16:12 ◼   ► 'cause it was, it was a full layer underneath the screen,

01:16:16 ◼   ► corner to corner, because you could do 3D Touch presses

01:16:19 ◼   ► anywhere on the screen, and it was a full layer.

01:16:22 ◼   ► I don't know how thin it was.

01:16:23 ◼   ► It was probably, I'm sure if you took it apart and said,

01:16:26 ◼   ► "Here's the actual 3D Touch layer,

01:16:28 ◼   ► "it probably looks like a sheet of paper."

01:16:31 ◼   ► It's like, well, that didn't take up much space.

01:16:33 ◼   ► But every single little bit of volume matters

01:16:36 ◼   ► in these phones, they're so densely packed with components.

01:16:40 ◼   ► And I think the evidence is there

01:16:43 ◼   ► that going from the XR to the 11 this year,

01:16:47 ◼   ► in Apple's measurements, you get one hour

01:16:49 ◼   ► of extra battery life, which is a good year-over-year change.

01:16:52 ◼   ► But the pros are, yeah, the pros get four to five hours

01:16:56 ◼   ► of extra battery life, and I really think

01:16:59 ◼   ► that removing 3D Touch was a big part of that.

01:17:02 ◼   ► That they, you know, and kudos to Apple,

01:17:06 ◼   ► I think for being willing, I'm not gonna call it a mistake,

01:17:09 ◼   ► but they were willing to go back and rethink

01:17:13 ◼   ► how we're gonna do these long presses and force presses.

01:17:17 ◼   ► And sure, in and of itself, 3D touch is definitely better

01:17:20 ◼   ► than the haptic touch, but the trade-off

01:17:22 ◼   ► for extra battery life, I think,

01:17:23 ◼   ► is absolutely the right trade-off to make.

01:17:26 ◼   ► - And funny enough, they introduced that in the 6S.

01:17:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, yeah, which put the 6S even further back,

01:17:35 ◼   ► I guess from where it could be battery life wise.

01:17:38 ◼   ► - Obviously, the funny thing in this all too

01:17:40 ◼   ► has been that I've heard from so many success owners

01:17:43 ◼   ► who have been so happy with their phones.

01:17:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm curious about that.

01:17:47 ◼   ► And it's, you know, and I try to emphasize it.

01:17:51 ◼   ► I know my audience at Daring Fireball

01:17:53 ◼   ► is definitely the enthusiast crowd.

01:17:55 ◼   ► And so you're right.

01:17:57 ◼   ► I'm sure there are way more people

01:17:58 ◼   ► who are on the annual upgrade plan

01:18:01 ◼   ► and do get new iPhones every year,

01:18:02 ◼   ► or at least get them every two years.

01:18:04 ◼   ► And the journal audience is obviously truly mainstream.

01:18:08 ◼   ► I mean, it's this massive newspaper

01:18:11 ◼   ► that is popular all across the country, if not the world,

01:18:14 ◼   ► and you're gonna get people from all sorts of levels

01:18:17 ◼   ► of technical acumen, and you're gonna get a lot of people

01:18:19 ◼   ► who are just using an iPhone 6 or 6S,

01:18:23 ◼   ► and just because that's what normal people do.

01:18:25 ◼   ► They use their phones until they break.

01:18:28 ◼   ► - Right, as I said in my piece,

01:18:31 ◼   ► Sir Upgrades a lot, those are your readers,

01:18:33 ◼   ► And I think I have some of those readers,

01:18:36 ◼   ► but I also have a lot of these, as I said,

01:18:38 ◼   ► sort of Sixers who were just like coming out of the woodwork

01:18:41 ◼   ► and not sure what to do about, you know,

01:18:43 ◼   ► well, I think the main thing for them

01:18:45 ◼   ► is that their phones are old and they're falling,

01:18:47 ◼   ► you know, it's time to upgrade,

01:18:49 ◼   ► but also they're not gonna get iOS 13.

01:18:51 ◼   ► - Right.

01:18:53 ◼   ► - Which to me is a reason to upgrade to a new phone.

01:18:56 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:18:58 ◼   ► Yeah, and there's a lot of things that won't work

01:18:59 ◼   ► without iOS 13.

01:19:01 ◼   ► I mean, it's still not out.

01:19:04 ◼   ► I guess we should talk about the disaster of the iOS 13

01:19:07 ◼   ► rollout before we wrap the show.

01:19:09 ◼   ► But there's features that you need to-- like the shared

01:19:14 ◼   ► folders in iCloud Drive and stuff like that only work

01:19:16 ◼   ► if you're up on the latest version.

01:19:18 ◼   ► Yeah, and for me, it's always security updates.

01:19:24 ◼   ► Yeah, security.

01:19:26 ◼   ► I wrote a big piece about sign in with Apple.

01:19:28 ◼   ► I think it's a reason, it is the reason to upgrade.

01:19:32 ◼   ► - Also the new emoji.

01:19:33 ◼   ► And everybody agrees, it sounds funny,

01:19:35 ◼   ► but everybody seems to agree

01:19:37 ◼   ► that it really is a big motivator for normal people

01:19:39 ◼   ► to keep their iPhones up to date

01:19:41 ◼   ► is to get the latest emoji set.

01:19:43 ◼   ► - I actually believe that might be the biggest reason.

01:19:46 ◼   ► - I do too. - I have never thought of that,

01:19:47 ◼   ► but you'll end up with the little box

01:19:49 ◼   ► and you'll have no idea what somebody's trying to say to you.

01:19:52 ◼   ► - Right, and somebody will, you'll say, what is that?

01:19:54 ◼   ► And then they'll tell you,

01:19:55 ◼   ► and it sounds like a fun emoji to have,

01:19:57 ◼   ► And then you want it, right?

01:19:59 ◼   ► Oh, I want that.

01:20:00 ◼   ► Why don't I--

01:20:02 ◼   ► - That's actually a very funny story.

01:20:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, security researchers,

01:20:06 ◼   ► I follow a couple of them on Twitter.

01:20:07 ◼   ► They're deadly serious people for the most part.

01:20:11 ◼   ► Some of them are rather humorless, really.

01:20:13 ◼   ► It's just the mentality of being a security researcher.

01:20:16 ◼   ► They absolutely believe that it's a great,

01:20:19 ◼   ► it's a boon to security

01:20:22 ◼   ► because it really does motivate people to,

01:20:27 ◼   ► it, you know, effectively it's like good hygiene for your phone, keep it up to date with the

01:20:31 ◼   ► software updates. Well, the emoji is what makes people want to do it.

01:20:34 ◼   ► Rebekah: It's amazing.

01:20:36 ◼   ► Adam: Especially like teenagers because, you know, they probably – most of them probably

01:20:39 ◼   ► don't even type anything other than emoji.

01:20:42 ◼   ► Rebekah Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the iOS 13 rollout has been a disaster in my opinion.

01:20:50 ◼   ► Adam Well, let's hold off on that. Let's hold

01:20:52 ◼   ► off on that. The other thing I want to talk about and I don't want to, you know, badmouth

01:20:56 ◼   ► off of a fellow member of our tribe.

01:20:59 ◼   ► But I thought the other thing that was really interesting

01:21:01 ◼   ► about your second review, your,

01:21:04 ◼   ► here's a iPhone 11 review for those with older iPhones,

01:21:08 ◼   ► was a fascinating contrast to Brian Chen's New York Times,

01:21:13 ◼   ► his only review of the 11s,

01:21:14 ◼   ► which I wrote about it during Fireball.

01:21:18 ◼   ► I thought it was a terrible review.

01:21:20 ◼   ► 'Cause I don't think it was helpful.

01:21:21 ◼   ► I thought that he, again, you know,

01:21:25 ◼   ► I'm not asking you to slag on Brian here on the podcast other than – let me do it.

01:21:30 ◼   ► But I thought his review was terrible because I really don't think it was helpful to people

01:21:34 ◼   ► with older reviews and saying things like, "Hey, these new phones take great pictures

01:21:39 ◼   ► in low light and maybe your success takes terrible pictures in low light, but you could

01:21:44 ◼   ► just turn on the flash."

01:21:47 ◼   ► I called it technical malpractice.

01:21:48 ◼   ► Like that's terrible advice.

01:21:50 ◼   ► Like really, I think a great premise for a mainstream tech columnist would be a column

01:21:55 ◼   ► like how to get good pictures in low light with your existing camera without using the

01:21:59 ◼   ► flash because the flash is terrible.

01:22:01 ◼   ► Thank you for these great column ideas here.

01:22:05 ◼   ► Yeah, that would be a great column idea, in my opinion, how to get good pictures in low

01:22:10 ◼   ► light, you know, balance, you know, keep your hands still, etc, etc.

01:22:15 ◼   ► And your column was your second review of the phones was exactly this basically the

01:22:20 ◼   ► same premise.

01:22:21 ◼   ► You're somebody with an older phone and you might want to hang on to her or maybe not.

01:22:24 ◼   ► Here's how to evaluate whether now's the time to upgrade.

01:22:27 ◼   ► And yours was like entirely helpful.

01:22:29 ◼   ► It was like here's how you can make a rational judgment like that's that to me is our job

01:22:34 ◼   ► as reviewers.

01:22:35 ◼   ► You know your audience and write to the audience and you know like I said my audience is a

01:22:39 ◼   ► little different than yours in some ways but know your audience and my goal is look I've

01:22:44 ◼   ► got this phone before any of you do, let me try to help you understand it. Here's what's

01:22:49 ◼   ► new. Here's what's interesting. Here's what's good. Here's what's bad. Here's what's missing.

01:22:53 ◼   ► Here's, you know, maybe why you don't want it. But I want you to understand it. And I

01:22:58 ◼   ► yeah, and, and I had the, I mean, it was it was very helpful to have this body of emails,

01:23:06 ◼   ► which my editor Wilson helped me kind of go through, he went through many of them, and

01:23:11 ◼   ► We sort of organized them based on issues people had

01:23:15 ◼   ► with the new phones, why they were upgrading,

01:23:17 ◼   ► what they were scared of.

01:23:18 ◼   ► I mean, I have so many people very scared of Face ID.

01:23:21 ◼   ► It was very interesting.

01:23:23 ◼   ► - That's what I wanted to, I just about to ask you that.

01:23:25 ◼   ► Yeah, so how many people, I have this theory that,

01:23:29 ◼   ► so I forget if it was, I think it was last year.

01:23:32 ◼   ► It was last year when both of the new phones.

01:23:36 ◼   ► So two years ago, the iPhone X came out with the,

01:23:38 ◼   ► you know, Face ID, no home button.

01:23:40 ◼   ► and they go hand in hand. Last year, both of the new phones had

01:23:46 ◼   ► no home button face ID. And there was this. And I don't get

01:23:50 ◼   ► into the finance stuff with Apple as much, you know, you and

01:23:52 ◼   ► I like to talk about the products, the software and the

01:23:55 ◼   ► hardware. But there, you know, there was this hiccup where it

01:23:57 ◼   ► seemed like the first quarter of sales of new iPhones was a bit

01:24:01 ◼   ► disappointing, less than Apple expected less than analysts

01:24:03 ◼   ► expected. And the stock took a hit in January when they had to

01:24:06 ◼   ► announce this. My one of my theories, I can't prove it. I

01:24:09 ◼   ► I don't know how you ever could prove it,

01:24:10 ◼   ► but one of my theories is that there's so many people

01:24:13 ◼   ► out there who are spooked by the change.

01:24:18 ◼   ► They're used to having a home button.

01:24:22 ◼   ► You click the home button and that's how you go back

01:24:25 ◼   ► to the home screen and they're used to touch ID

01:24:27 ◼   ► and face ID seems a little scarier

01:24:30 ◼   ► and maybe like maybe it wouldn't work

01:24:32 ◼   ► or maybe there's a privacy thing to be spooked about.

01:24:34 ◼   ► It somehow seems a little weirder to people

01:24:38 ◼   ► than a fingerprint reader,

01:24:41 ◼   ► that I think that sales were hurt by that.

01:24:42 ◼   ► I really do think that there was X number

01:24:45 ◼   ► of million people out there out of hundreds of millions

01:24:47 ◼   ► who might buy an iPhone who put it off.

01:24:49 ◼   ► So I'm curious to hear what the readers

01:24:52 ◼   ► of the journal were writing about that.

01:24:54 ◼   ► - I mean, I've gotten,

01:24:55 ◼   ► I'm looking through a lot of the emails now.

01:24:57 ◼   ► I mean, there's a lot of confusion from people.

01:24:59 ◼   ► They don't really quite understand

01:25:00 ◼   ► that they can use Face ID to get into apps

01:25:03 ◼   ► and things like that.

01:25:04 ◼   ► So there's that.

01:25:05 ◼   ► Some people are just scared of it.

01:25:06 ◼   ► They don't wanna use their face to log in.

01:25:09 ◼   ► They prefer the fingerprint sensor.

01:25:11 ◼   ► Face ID for scanning, this person saying,

01:25:15 ◼   ► would the face scan work automatically

01:25:17 ◼   ► in the fingerprint scan's place?

01:25:19 ◼   ► I like the fingerprint access,

01:25:22 ◼   ► and obviously the 11 doesn't have this.

01:25:23 ◼   ► Does facial recognition also work to get into apps?

01:25:26 ◼   ► - Right, see? - I mean, just a lot

01:25:27 ◼   ► of confusion around a lot of it, but also some,

01:25:29 ◼   ► I mean, there was one here,

01:25:31 ◼   ► I was really hoping for fingerprint unlock

01:25:34 ◼   ► on the new phones.

01:25:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, see?

01:25:36 ◼   ► want to easily unlock with my thumb, I guess I'll keep

01:25:38 ◼   ► waiting. Yeah, I see you're gonna be waiting for a long

01:25:41 ◼   ► time. I think. I mean, though there's rumors that they'll put

01:25:44 ◼   ► it in the screen.

01:25:45 ◼   ► Yeah, but that's a weird rumor. And I wonder whether it would be

01:25:49 ◼   ► an alternative to face ID or like in addition to face ID,

01:25:53 ◼   ► like, hey, if you want extra security, you could use both.

01:25:56 ◼   ► Yeah. When do you expect Apple Apple spell drawing to offer in

01:26:01 ◼   ► in screen fingerprint scanning? I have two phones and I need to

01:26:03 ◼   ► upgrade but I'll wait I don't like face ID see ya see you're

01:26:08 ◼   ► you're you're proving my theory. I know I know this has been a

01:26:11 ◼   ► theory since last year. I mean, not a theory I heard from I

01:26:13 ◼   ► mean, if I really go back, you know, I searched fingerprint

01:26:16 ◼   ► scanner in my inbox here and I'm going all the way back to 2000

01:26:19 ◼   ► Well, these are probably from 2017 I organize all my reader

01:26:25 ◼   ► emails into a file and try to

01:26:26 ◼   ► and apples in a weird position where I don't know that you can

01:26:32 ◼   ► make a fun commercial that let's just say you could come up with a script for a 30 second

01:26:36 ◼   ► TV commercial that that helps convince people that face ID is something they can trust and

01:26:41 ◼   ► they will like the the other problem that Apple has is they still sell older iPhones

01:26:48 ◼   ► that have the touch ID they can't really slag on touch ID because they still sell iPhone

01:26:54 ◼   ► eight and yeah, I mean, I recommended iPhone eight to these people. I don't think that's

01:26:58 ◼   ► a bad recommendation, especially since like, you know, they'll they'll they're going to

01:27:03 ◼   ► continue to update with iOS for a number of years out on that. Why not? Did I actually

01:27:08 ◼   ► keep in the line? Like you should stockpile them if you're really that worried? I don't

01:27:11 ◼   ► think you did. But maybe. Yeah, get a couple spares. Yeah, get a couple spares as I feel

01:27:19 ◼   ► like this phone's going away. I mean, the other big thing, let me type in se. So many

01:27:23 ◼   ► people emailing about the smaller size. So many people I

01:27:28 ◼   ► mean, oh, yeah, look at it just this last couple of weeks of

01:27:31 ◼   ► scrolling down and so many when I search for se in my inbox. You

01:27:37 ◼   ► know, they upgrade the smaller phone. I love the se my hands

01:27:41 ◼   ► are small. I

01:27:43 ◼   ► that's unfortunate. I even I get that because I don't think

01:27:48 ◼   ► that's just that has nothing to do with your nerdiness. It's

01:27:53 ◼   ► It's people, you know, and there are definitely, I know people who are, you know, super nerds and,

01:27:58 ◼   ► you know, developers who just love the SE size for that one handedness and, you know, compactness

01:28:06 ◼   ► and size in your pocket and etc, etc. The rumors that they might do an SE like mid cycle update

01:28:13 ◼   ► this year don't, are going to disappoint those people because the rumors are that it's going to

01:28:18 ◼   ► to be like an iPhone 8 size device with, I guess, the A13 chip and probably a better

01:28:25 ◼   ► camera and something.

01:28:26 ◼   ► Rebekah Demirel They should do that for these people.

01:28:28 ◼   ► They will still sell…

01:28:29 ◼   ► Michael Scott Yeah, but that's – I don't think that's

01:28:30 ◼   ► small enough to please the SE people though, right?

01:28:33 ◼   ► So like the iPhone…

01:28:34 ◼   ► Rebekah Demirel I mean this was an email from a – I'm

01:28:35 ◼   ► quite tempted by the new 11 but it's huge.

01:28:37 ◼   ► My priority is a better camera and I've even toyed with getting a Samsung and leaving

01:28:41 ◼   ► the Apple family.

01:28:42 ◼   ► Should I just go to an 8 or should I wait until they may update the SE?

01:28:45 ◼   ► Michael Scott I don't think Samsung makes a smaller phone

01:28:48 ◼   ► Samsung's phones are all huge. No, well that the new Galaxy s 10. He is that what it's called? Oh,

01:28:56 ◼   ► yeah, it's about the same size as an eight. Yeah. And the pixel the smaller pixels are,

01:29:04 ◼   ► are smaller and definitely lighter. They're gonna write this woman back. She's very nice.

01:29:09 ◼   ► But I think the people who really want so nice people who really want that se sized phone,

01:29:14 ◼   ► though I think are out of luck.

01:29:17 ◼   ► I don't know what Apple is thinking on that front because it really does seem like demand

01:29:20 ◼   ► is out there.

01:29:21 ◼   ► When the SE did come out two or three years ago, whenever that was, they were in short

01:29:26 ◼   ► supply for months and there was a quarterly analyst call where Tim Cook even admitted

01:29:32 ◼   ► that SE demand had outstripped their expectations and so they were going to catch up soon.

01:29:39 ◼   ► you know, yes, for the debut quarter, you couldn't get one.

01:29:44 ◼   ► You know, you had to order it and wait 10 days

01:29:47 ◼   ► for it to show up.

01:29:48 ◼   ► - I bet they do.

01:29:49 ◼   ► I mean, the interesting thing you're saying

01:29:51 ◼   ► about the eight makes sense.

01:29:54 ◼   ► Maybe they could cut it down a little bit.

01:29:56 ◼   ► I mean, I don't know.

01:29:59 ◼   ► - I don't know what they're gonna do,

01:30:00 ◼   ► but I think people, there's definitely demand.

01:30:03 ◼   ► I mean, whether there's enough demand

01:30:04 ◼   ► to justify it on Apple's part, I don't know,

01:30:06 ◼   ► but there are definitely people

01:30:07 ◼   ► who really want something the physical size of an SE.

01:30:11 ◼   ► I mean, I'm sure they'd love it

01:30:12 ◼   ► if it went corner to corner with the display

01:30:14 ◼   ► and you could get a bigger display

01:30:16 ◼   ► by getting rid of the chin and forehead,

01:30:18 ◼   ► but they really want that physical size

01:30:20 ◼   ► that is the size basically of an iPhone 5S SE.

01:30:25 ◼   ► - Well, for the 15 people in my inbox, they should make it.

01:30:29 ◼   ► I mean, this is 15 in the last,

01:30:30 ◼   ► since September 11th have written about the SE.

01:30:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, there you go. - Which is not that many,

01:30:35 ◼   ► but they're all like pretty lengthy emails.

01:30:37 ◼   ► - Tim Cook, if you're listening,

01:30:39 ◼   ► you can sell 15 of these things.

01:30:41 ◼   ► - 15 to these Wall Street Journal readers.

01:30:44 ◼   ► It's pretty good, it's a pretty good deal.

01:30:48 ◼   ► - All right, let me take a break here

01:30:49 ◼   ► and thank our third and final sponsor.

01:30:50 ◼   ► And then we can go into the,

01:30:51 ◼   ► we can finish up without after worrying

01:30:53 ◼   ► about another sponsor break.

01:30:54 ◼   ► Hey, this is another company that I love.

01:30:57 ◼   ► Longtime sponsor of the show, Fracture.

01:31:00 ◼   ► Fracture is where you go with your photos,

01:31:03 ◼   ► talking about photos of kids and dogs and stuff like that.

01:31:06 ◼   ► Hey, get 'em off your tiny little phone screen.

01:31:09 ◼   ► Print them out, put 'em on something

01:31:11 ◼   ► you can hang on the wall.

01:31:13 ◼   ► And guess what, fracture is the best way I know to do it.

01:31:16 ◼   ► Because what fracture does is they take,

01:31:18 ◼   ► you send 'em your photos, you pick a size,

01:31:21 ◼   ► and they print your photos directly on glass.

01:31:24 ◼   ► Corner to corner, you don't need a frame.

01:31:27 ◼   ► It's just corner to corner, edge to edge,

01:31:31 ◼   ► right on the glass, looks like it's right

01:31:33 ◼   ► on the surface of the glass.

01:31:34 ◼   ► It's amazing, it looks so much better.

01:31:36 ◼   ► I don't know how to explain it unless you've seen it

01:31:38 ◼   ► in person, a fracture print.

01:31:40 ◼   ► It looks so much better than a printout on a piece of paper

01:31:45 ◼   ► that is put behind a piece of glass.

01:31:47 ◼   ► I don't know how, I don't know why.

01:31:49 ◼   ► I think it's a lot like the visual effect

01:31:51 ◼   ► of when they first started putting the screens laminated

01:31:55 ◼   ► right on the iPhone and getting rid of that air gap

01:31:58 ◼   ► between the touch and the glass and the pixels behind it.

01:32:01 ◼   ► It just looks amazing.

01:32:03 ◼   ► These are great.

01:32:04 ◼   ► They are fantastic gifts for anybody in your family.

01:32:07 ◼   ► Everybody loves getting pictures.

01:32:10 ◼   ► And everything you need to use them comes in the box.

01:32:13 ◼   ► If you wanna hang them on the wall,

01:32:14 ◼   ► if you wanna prop them up on a mantle or your desk

01:32:17 ◼   ► or something like that, everything comes in the box.

01:32:19 ◼   ► They are fantastic.

01:32:21 ◼   ► They are made, handmade, in Gainesville, Florida

01:32:26 ◼   ► from US source materials.

01:32:28 ◼   ► And they are a green company, Fracture,

01:32:31 ◼   ► operating a carbon neutral factory down there in Florida.

01:32:35 ◼   ► Really great people, great company, and a fantastic product.

01:32:39 ◼   ► Everybody I know who's ever gotten fracture prints

01:32:41 ◼   ► is like, "Why did I wait so long?

01:32:43 ◼   ► "These are great.

01:32:44 ◼   ► "Why didn't you tell me about them?"

01:32:45 ◼   ► And I'm like, "Hey, if you listen to my show,

01:32:46 ◼   ► "I've been telling you about them for years."

01:32:48 ◼   ► They are fantastic.

01:32:50 ◼   ► They have a special offer for listeners of the show.

01:32:53 ◼   ► Go to fracture.me, that's their website, fracture.me,