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ATP

449: An Unclean Mouse

 

00:00:00   but an unclean mouse is funnier and makes people wait longer.

00:00:02   (laughing)

00:00:03   - When you started out with it was gonna be a mouse update,

00:00:06   I was not expecting that it was gonna be

00:00:09   that good of an after show.

00:00:10   (laughing)

00:00:11   - That's true, that's very true.

00:00:12   - That was so much better than I expected. (laughing)

00:00:15   (electronic beeping)

00:00:17   - All right, let's do some pre-show.

00:00:18   Hey, you know what, it is still September,

00:00:20   which means it is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month,

00:00:23   and even though Relay FM and all of you

00:00:26   have absolutely done a phenomenal job

00:00:30   of raising money for St. Jude,

00:00:32   there's always more that can be done.

00:00:33   There's always more.

00:00:34   We are insatiable, just like rampant consumerism,

00:00:37   we are insatiable.

00:00:38   So hey, if you think that it would be crummy

00:00:41   for any child to die because of cancer,

00:00:45   which I think the three of us pretty much do,

00:00:47   you should go to stjude.org/atp,

00:00:49   S-T-J-U-D-E.org/atp,

00:00:52   and you should kick in a little bit of money,

00:00:54   and I will ask Marco in just a moment

00:00:56   to repeat his plea, given what week we are in this month,

00:01:00   but in general, it would be a great thing to do,

00:01:02   especially if you're American,

00:01:03   where our healthcare system is utterly broken,

00:01:06   to please donate a little bit of money.

00:01:08   Any amount of money is perfectly okay.

00:01:11   'Cause you know why?

00:01:12   Cancer kills more children under the age of 14

00:01:14   than any other disease.

00:01:15   Doctors from all 50 states and around the world,

00:01:18   hello, non-Americans, refer their patients to St. Jude

00:01:21   because they have the world's best survival rates

00:01:23   for some of the most aggressive childhood cancers.

00:01:25   St. Jude provides thousands of free consultations

00:01:28   for doctors treating children worldwide.

00:01:29   So again, non-Americans, this affects you too,

00:01:32   including kids in your community.

00:01:33   So, S-T-J-U-D-E.org/atp, if you please.

00:01:38   Marco, why is this the best possible week

00:01:42   to donate to St. Jude?

00:01:43   Could you remind me, please?

00:01:45   - Well, if you out there, listener,

00:01:47   have just ordered a new iPhone,

00:01:49   and for reasons I've ordered four, but I don't--

00:01:53   - Oh my God!

00:01:54   Spoiler alert!

00:01:55   - It's not, okay, so I ordered a brief diversion.

00:02:00   - No, no, no, no, no, lock it up, lock it up.

00:02:01   Concentrate on St. Jude, that's more important,

00:02:03   and then I promise you we will dig into this later.

00:02:06   - Okay, so listener, if you've ordered

00:02:08   between zero and four iPhones,

00:02:10   I urge you to take whatever you paid for,

00:02:16   say the sales tax, or the case, or the AppleCare,

00:02:22   or if you're generous, all of those.

00:02:24   Duplicate that amount and give that to St. Jude,

00:02:27   because what you've said, by spending that on sales tax,

00:02:30   or a case, or whatever, what you've said is,

00:02:33   this amount of money I can do without.

00:02:35   I didn't even think about it, really,

00:02:37   when planning this purchase.

00:02:38   I looked at Apple's price, it said like,

00:02:40   eight and nine or whatever, and I'm like,

00:02:41   that's what I'm gonna pay, even though at the end of the day

00:02:43   you're walking out of there like 1,200 bucks later, right?

00:02:45   Whatever that margin is, that you can kind of just spend

00:02:48   without too much of a hit to you,

00:02:52   give that to St. Jude if you can.

00:02:54   And I know not everyone's gonna have this,

00:02:55   I know not everyone has that much to spare,

00:02:58   but I also know a lot of you do.

00:03:00   A lot of you out there are fortunate enough

00:03:01   to have that much to spare.

00:03:03   So take what you can and give it to St. Jude.

00:03:05   And this will, I promise you, absolve you

00:03:09   of your consumerism guilt of having just bought

00:03:12   between zero and four iPhones.

00:03:14   So please, listeners, go out there, spend this money,

00:03:17   give this money to St. Jude.

00:03:18   It is the best thing you can do.

00:03:19   As we mentioned before, they also accept cryptocurrency,

00:03:23   and it's way better to give them cryptocurrency

00:03:25   than hold onto it yourself,

00:03:26   because they can turn it into real money.

00:03:29   - That can do things.

00:03:30   - We're gonna hear about this?

00:03:31   - Yeah, we are.

00:03:32   - They can turn it into real money

00:03:33   that is much more environmentally friendly and useful,

00:03:35   and that can actually help research and treat cancer.

00:03:39   That's much better than whatever it's doing

00:03:40   in your BitWallet or whatever.

00:03:42   So whether it's cryptocurrency or whether it's your iPhone

00:03:45   tax and case and AppleCare or whatever else,

00:03:47   please donate to St. Jude.

00:03:48   It is a fantastic cause, and you really,

00:03:52   it makes such a difference in people's lives,

00:03:54   way more of a difference than that iPhone's

00:03:56   gonna make for you.

00:03:57   So please donate if you can.

00:03:59   - Yeah, absolutely, and we should say,

00:04:01   at the time of recording, the fine, fine, fine folks

00:04:03   at 1Password are still the top donors.

00:04:05   I have dispatched some stickers to the 1Password folks.

00:04:08   I know some of them have been received,

00:04:10   so I know they were very happy about that.

00:04:12   - Did you have to give them 475 stickers or whatever?

00:04:14   - No, I did not.

00:04:15   I did not.

00:04:17   But they are leading the charge at nearly $27,000.

00:04:20   But hey, you know what?

00:04:21   It's still September.

00:04:22   It is, even though the podcastathon was last week,

00:04:24   which by the way, you should go watch the video,

00:04:25   it was excellent, but even though that's already done,

00:04:29   it is still September,

00:04:29   it's still Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

00:04:31   It's not like childhood cancer just disappears

00:04:33   in October, y'all.

00:04:34   It's still there.

00:04:35   So please, anyone who is willing and interested,

00:04:39   if you're, hey, if you have $26,922.05,

00:04:43   you could be the top donor.

00:04:44   It's a small, I can't even say it with a straight face.

00:04:47   It's a small price to pay,

00:04:48   but I will send you stickers if you so desire.

00:04:50   So please, S-T-J-U-D-E.org/ATP, if you please.

00:04:55   And speaking of 1Password, I should note that,

00:04:58   hey, if you are somewhat internet friendly

00:05:01   with the founders of 1Password,

00:05:03   you can get some bugs fixed real fast.

00:05:04   So I complained very gently

00:05:06   about how I couldn't drag documents onto the doc icon,

00:05:09   and that's either already fixed or coming soon.

00:05:12   I complained about the shaky, the,

00:05:15   oh, your password was wrong, shake, and that's been fixed.

00:05:17   So I'm feeling real good about this all of a sudden.

00:05:19   1Password 8 is working great now, which is very exciting.

00:05:22   - It would be kind of funny if after all this kerfuffle

00:05:27   about Electron and everything,

00:05:28   it would be kind of funny if 1Password ends up being

00:05:31   the nicest Electron app,

00:05:32   and all other Electron apps will use that as an example

00:05:35   of, hey, you know what, it's not so bad to use Electron,

00:05:37   'cause look at what they could do,

00:05:39   if they actually just ended up making a really good app.

00:05:41   - It is possible.

00:05:42   - It's just 500 megabytes and uses all your RAM.

00:05:45   - Yeah, a small price to pay.

00:05:46   - No, you know what, no, it's not.

00:05:47   That's the thing, like--

00:05:48   (laughing)

00:05:50   - I'm trying to be nice.

00:05:50   - That was sarcasm.

00:05:51   - I'm trying to be nice.

00:05:52   - I'm thinking it was serious.

00:05:53   - No, I know.

00:05:54   - I'm trying to be nice here.

00:05:55   - That's the one, like, okay.

00:05:55   I know that with a lot of care and attention,

00:05:59   you can make an Electron app that usability-wise is fine.

00:06:03   I wouldn't necessarily even say great,

00:06:05   but you can get to the point

00:06:06   where it's fine and nobody cares.

00:06:08   But what they do care about

00:06:09   is how incredibly heavy they still are

00:06:12   in startup time, memory usage, and disk space.

00:06:15   Those three are way worse than native apps most of the time.

00:06:18   And I really, ugh, it makes me sad that,

00:06:22   you know, like as a nerd,

00:06:23   like I actually still care about the size of my app.

00:06:27   My app is well under 10 megs,

00:06:29   depending on how the app thinning process

00:06:31   has gone on your phone or whatever.

00:06:33   Usually it's like, you know, five megs or less or something.

00:06:36   It depends on, you know, how it's happening.

00:06:37   But, like, I love having a small app.

00:06:40   I value that, my customers occasionally notice,

00:06:42   and when they do, they value it.

00:06:44   And it's so nice to know,

00:06:46   even though you're gonna be downloading

00:06:47   multiple gigs of podcasts with my app probably,

00:06:50   that at least the app itself is only like 10 megs.

00:06:52   And I take pride in that, and there are people who notice.

00:06:56   And I also take pride in the fact that

00:06:58   if you really are low on space,

00:07:00   or if you have a small device,

00:07:02   like small disk space device,

00:07:03   that I'm not gonna be making your problem much worse.

00:07:07   It seems like every app out there feels the need,

00:07:10   or feels rather, not the need,

00:07:11   but feels like it's an acceptable compromise

00:07:15   to take 300 megs of space on your phone

00:07:17   or your Mac or whatever.

00:07:18   And that, to me, that sucks.

00:07:20   That is greedy and unnecessary and sloppy.

00:07:23   And honestly, unprofessional.

00:07:26   And I wish that the electrons of the world

00:07:30   and the people who use it

00:07:32   would prioritize that a little bit more.

00:07:34   And one thing that I think would be,

00:07:38   one way to do this would be,

00:07:40   have a subset of Electron that doesn't use Chromium,

00:07:45   or Chrome, whatever the rendering blob is in the backend,

00:07:49   have one that uses the native renderer

00:07:52   on the platform it's running on.

00:07:54   So WebKit on Apple platforms,

00:07:56   whatever the Microsoft thing is on Microsoft platforms.

00:07:59   - Now you're gonna get all the people who are gonna say,

00:08:01   well we can't because WebKit doesn't implement

00:08:03   all of the progressive web application APIs

00:08:06   that we need for Electron.

00:08:07   - I get that, but they could make a wrapper API slash app.

00:08:11   Electron is not just a web browser,

00:08:13   it is a wrapper SDK, whatever.

00:08:16   So they could move that up the stack.

00:08:19   They could actually have a much lighter weight

00:08:24   like core rendering engine,

00:08:26   and still use web technology to make the app,

00:08:30   and just have a little bit more of a shim layer

00:08:32   on top of it.

00:08:33   And I think the benefits of that would pay off greatly.

00:08:35   And so I hope that kind of thing takes off,

00:08:37   because it looks like, look,

00:08:40   we're all gonna be talking about this forever,

00:08:41   but it looks like using web technologies

00:08:44   to make one code base for multiple platform native apps

00:08:47   is here to stay, and is going to be

00:08:49   an increasing part of our world going forward.

00:08:51   So if that's gonna be here to stay,

00:08:53   we might as well make better ones.

00:08:54   'Cause Electron is garbage,

00:08:56   and I respect the efforts of people like 1Password

00:08:58   who are trying to do a good job with it.

00:09:01   And I know Slack has put a lot of work into this as well.

00:09:04   I respect these companies that they're taking

00:09:06   this massive pile of crap,

00:09:10   and doing something good with it.

00:09:12   But I also hope that we're also putting, as an industry,

00:09:16   an equal or greater amount of effort

00:09:17   into reducing the size of that pile of crap

00:09:19   they have to deal with in the first place.

00:09:20   And so hopefully that moves forward.

00:09:22   Anyway, that's end for Ant, thank you.

00:09:24   - We got a URL in the chat from one of the 1Password folks.

00:09:28   So that's t-a-u-r-i dot studio.

00:09:31   And apparently it's, the slogan on the website is

00:09:33   build smaller, faster, and more secure desktop applications

00:09:36   with a web front end.

00:09:37   So maybe that is like a WebKit powered thing

00:09:39   that you're thinking about.

00:09:40   - Cool.

00:09:41   - 1Password folks seem enthusiastic about it.

00:09:43   You know, when you mentioned like application size,

00:09:44   I'm of two minds about that.

00:09:46   On the one hand, I do the whole thing like of, you know,

00:09:50   when I was a kid, I could get a candy for a nickel.

00:09:52   Like that immediately comes to mind when you talk about

00:09:54   my applications are small.

00:09:56   They're, you know, Overcast is under 10 megabytes.

00:09:58   And I think I have the operating system,

00:10:02   my applications and my documents

00:10:04   on a single 400K floppy disk.

00:10:07   The whole OS, the whole thing, plus Mac paint,

00:10:10   plus all my Mac paint documents, 400 kilobytes.

00:10:14   But yeah, different times.

00:10:15   But on the other side, in the modern era,

00:10:17   of all the sins of Electron, disk space,

00:10:21   I feel like is the lowest on the Mac.

00:10:23   Just because, yes, it's kind of ridiculous

00:10:25   that it's 259 megabytes for 1Password, right?

00:10:29   But in the grand scheme of things,

00:10:31   that is such a spec on even the smallest hard drive,

00:10:36   or SSD or whatever,

00:10:37   because people don't install 10,000 applications.

00:10:40   And for something like 1Password, where it is like,

00:10:42   this isn't just a random application.

00:10:44   This is like an essential application

00:10:46   that I use every day all the time, paying 250 megs,

00:10:51   even though yes, we know from a technical perspective,

00:10:53   it is wasteful.

00:10:54   Paying that price for it is the least of people's concerns.

00:10:57   RAM, much worse, because there is much less RAM.

00:10:59   And RAM, there's tons of contention for, right?

00:11:03   Because you could run all sorts of stuff,

00:11:04   and they all want RAM, and they're all in a way,

00:11:06   and you never quite have enough of it.

00:11:07   Whereas again, you're not gonna install

00:11:09   a whole jillion applications.

00:11:10   Or if you're gonna fill your SSD,

00:11:12   it's gonna be with media files and movies,

00:11:14   and one of those is four gigabytes.

00:11:16   Your stupid 250 megabyte application

00:11:18   is the drop in the bucket.

00:11:20   So I think RAM is a bigger deal.

00:11:22   And then of course, CPU.

00:11:23   CPU is perhaps the biggest deal,

00:11:25   'cause that burns your battery,

00:11:26   that makes your computer feel slower, right?

00:11:28   So in addressing the sins of Electron,

00:11:31   I would probably tackle them CPU first, memory second,

00:11:34   and disk a distant third.

00:11:36   But I agree that they all need to be addressed,

00:11:37   'cause it is kind of silly.

00:11:39   - We are sponsored this week by Stripe.

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00:13:33   Thank you so much to Stripe for sponsoring our show.

00:13:36   (upbeat music)

00:13:39   - Speaking of things from big donors,

00:13:42   one of the side perks of being the biggest donor even

00:13:45   but for a moment is that I will be much more likely

00:13:47   to include your feedback in a future episode.

00:13:50   And this is from the anonymous troll,

00:13:52   self-declared anonymous troll from, I don't know,

00:13:56   it was one of the first big donations subsequent

00:13:59   to the ATP donations.

00:14:01   This was with regard to the satellite capabilities

00:14:03   that were coming in the iPhone 13 but never landed,

00:14:06   which clearly means they abandoned ship.

00:14:08   It was not a rumor at all, right?

00:14:10   'Cause they would never get that wrong.

00:14:12   But anyways, I was lamenting on ATP a few weeks back.

00:14:17   I guess it was before the event that,

00:14:19   hey, the satellite phone I used many years ago,

00:14:22   the antenna was massive, the phone was massive

00:14:25   and the antenna was massive.

00:14:26   And the anonymous troll pointed out,

00:14:28   hey, there's these things that you can get

00:14:29   that are basically sat phones for consumers

00:14:33   and even more than that, kind of like pagers, if you will.

00:14:36   So there's this thing called the Garmin inReach.

00:14:39   And if you look at it,

00:14:42   there's still a big fat antenna by iPhone standards,

00:14:44   but compared to what I was envisioning,

00:14:46   it is way tiny, super duper tiny, the antenna specifically,

00:14:49   the rest of the devices, about the size you would expect.

00:14:52   But what's cool about this is you can send emails

00:14:54   and text messages and whatnot,

00:14:55   basically anywhere in the world.

00:14:57   And I was looking into it just out of curiosity

00:14:59   and you can get a one and done month service for 15 bucks,

00:15:02   which I don't think is terrible.

00:15:04   I did love, I didn't write it down here in the show notes,

00:15:07   but I did love that they were saying something like,

00:15:09   when you send an email, it can take up to two minutes

00:15:11   to actually connect and send.

00:15:12   Which I mean, granted, it's dialing freaking space,

00:15:16   but at the same time, I thought that was quite funny.

00:15:19   It uses the Iridium satellite network.

00:15:21   And actually a friend of mine,

00:15:23   who Marco has met many years ago,

00:15:25   does this sort, is in a tangential,

00:15:28   like telecommunications space to satellite stuff.

00:15:31   And I was discussing with him

00:15:32   that there are apparently

00:15:33   several different satellite networks

00:15:35   that do this sort of thing.

00:15:36   The one that Garmin uses is Iridium, which is 485 miles up.

00:15:39   And I just thought this was a delightful fun fact.

00:15:42   And I believe I'm reading from Wikipedia here.

00:15:44   I didn't cite the source.

00:15:45   That was my own fault, I'm sorry.

00:15:46   But anyways, due to the shape

00:15:48   of the original Iridium satellite's reflective antennas,

00:15:50   the first generation satellites focused sunlight

00:15:53   on a small area of the Earth's surface

00:15:55   in an incidental manner.

00:15:56   This resulted in a phenomenon called Iridium flares,

00:15:59   whereby the satellite momentarily appeared

00:16:01   as one of the brightest objects in the night sky

00:16:03   and could be seen even during daylight.

00:16:05   - Oh, God.

00:16:06   - I just think that's the wildest story.

00:16:09   I think that's so, well, it's not delightful,

00:16:11   but so delightful.

00:16:12   - At least it wasn't like starting fires,

00:16:14   like a big magnifying glass on the Earth.

00:16:15   - Right?

00:16:16   - If it was, do you think they would tell you?

00:16:18   - Probably not, probably not.

00:16:19   - They'd be like, well, they can't prove that it was us,

00:16:21   so just tell them there's a light flare.

00:16:23   - No. (laughs)

00:16:24   Anyway, I just thought that was super interesting.

00:16:26   And again, it's not really relevant in terms of the iPhone,

00:16:29   but, or at least not this year anyways,

00:16:31   but I was impressed how small the device,

00:16:34   again, compared to what I was envisioning,

00:16:36   and especially the antenna was.

00:16:38   So I thought that was cool.

00:16:40   So every once in a while, I will read something

00:16:42   in the show notes that I know nobody can see,

00:16:44   but I assure you it's there,

00:16:46   and it will make me literally laugh out loud.

00:16:48   And I was looking through the show notes earlier today,

00:16:50   as I try to remember to do,

00:16:51   to kind of get myself prepared

00:16:52   for what we're gonna talk about.

00:16:54   And there's a section of follow-up,

00:16:56   and this entire episode is likely to be follow-up.

00:16:58   It's Jon's favorite episode.

00:16:59   But anyway, the section of follow-up is labeled iPhone,

00:17:01   and the first bullet is as follows.

00:17:04   Thick iPhone is thicc, T-H-I-C-C.

00:17:07   And the best part about this is,

00:17:09   I'm pretty sure this was Jon Syracuse's work.

00:17:11   So Jon, was it you that wrote T-H-I-C-C?

00:17:14   Because that is the most delightful thing

00:17:16   I've seen in a while.

00:17:17   - It was me.

00:17:18   - Can I ask you something, first of all?

00:17:19   When did the two of you first learn that word?

00:17:22   - I don't know, a year or two ago?

00:17:24   - Yeah, many years ago.

00:17:25   - I don't know, not many years ago for me.

00:17:27   - Yeah, mine was like, I can tell you exactly when it was.

00:17:30   It was 2019 at WBC.

00:17:31   I don't wanna say why, 'cause it's not nice,

00:17:35   but that's when I learned the word.

00:17:37   But I'm wondering, do you consider the word thicc

00:17:41   with two Cs, if somebody called you that,

00:17:43   is that a compliment?

00:17:45   - Sure, I'd take it as a compliment, why not?

00:17:47   (laughing)

00:17:48   It's all kind of, it's the kind of thing you can decide.

00:17:50   You can decide whether you think that's a compliment,

00:17:52   and I'm gonna say yes.

00:17:53   I don't think anyone would ever call me that,

00:17:55   but if they did, I would try to take it as a compliment.

00:17:56   - You of all people absolutely not.

00:17:58   - No, I don't think you'd ever get that, Jon.

00:17:59   This is never gonna be a problem you're gonna have.

00:18:00   - I mean, I think they would just call me thicc,

00:18:02   as in thicc in the head,

00:18:03   and I wouldn't take that as a compliment,

00:18:05   but it's kinda hard to know how they're spelling it

00:18:06   when they say it out loud.

00:18:08   - Anyway, I just, I love, I love, I love so much

00:18:11   that you wrote thicc iPhone is thicc.

00:18:13   (laughing)

00:18:14   Makes me so happy.

00:18:15   - Yeah, so Jon, tell me about this.

00:18:18   - Thus begins the avalanche of follow-up,

00:18:20   because we did the Apple event show

00:18:24   the same day as the event,

00:18:25   and so there's a lot of things we didn't know,

00:18:26   and now we know them, and soon you will know them too.

00:18:29   So, the thickness of the phone.

00:18:32   We talked about the camera bump,

00:18:35   and the little plateau, the little camera mesa,

00:18:38   and all the other fretting about that.

00:18:40   A bunch of people have some good science in this now,

00:18:43   so we'll start with Ryan Jones,

00:18:44   who did a tweet with a graph of all iPhones

00:18:47   from the original on that shows

00:18:50   the thickness of the phone body,

00:18:52   the thickness of the rear camera plateau,

00:18:54   and the thickness of the rear camera turret, right?

00:18:57   In different colors in a stacked bar graph.

00:18:59   So like the first three phones,

00:19:00   it's just blue for the phone body,

00:19:02   'cause there was no camera bump, right?

00:19:03   And then you get up to the six,

00:19:04   and that's the first one with a bump,

00:19:05   but it doesn't have a mesa or a plateau,

00:19:08   it just has the turret, right?

00:19:10   And by the time you get up to the 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max,

00:19:12   there's blue for the body, red for the plateau,

00:19:16   and then pinkish for the camera turret.

00:19:19   So you get to see the overall thickness

00:19:21   of the thickest part,

00:19:22   and also how much of each phone's thickness

00:19:25   is made up by the plateau and the turret or whatever.

00:19:27   Really gives a good perspective on the phone.

00:19:29   You can see how dramatically the phones got skinnier,

00:19:32   down to the, basically the five,

00:19:35   and then they slowly got thicker,

00:19:37   and then they started to get thicker in increments,

00:19:39   and they got thicker and thicker,

00:19:39   and there's still, you know,

00:19:40   there was a couple little dips here,

00:19:41   but anyway, it's a good, check out the graph.

00:19:43   We'll put the link in the show notes,

00:19:44   and Mark will probably make it the chapter arc.

00:19:47   Bottom line is that the,

00:19:49   if measured at the thickest point,

00:19:51   which is of course the camera,

00:19:53   the 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max are the thickest iPhones

00:19:57   since the five, basically.

00:20:01   Actually more than that.

00:20:02   Thickest iPhone since the 3G, I think.

00:20:04   Yeah, that's a big camera bump.

00:20:07   Does any, we don't, none of us have our phones yet, right?

00:20:09   - No, no, as a matter of fact-- - As a matter of fact, no.

00:20:12   - No, don't even.

00:20:13   I would really love to just be in Louisville, Kentucky

00:20:16   right now because both our phones,

00:20:19   spoiler alert, both our phones are now sitting in Louisville

00:20:22   as with probably most Americans' iPhones,

00:20:24   and I really wish I could just kinda swanter on down there

00:20:26   and be like, "Hey guys, you wanna help me out?"

00:20:28   But no, none of us have our phones,

00:20:29   not until, in my case, probably late Friday.

00:20:33   I don't know, Marco, well you probably won't get yours

00:20:35   until after the weekend, right?

00:20:36   - I'm mostly gonna get mine

00:20:37   after it arrives on a boat on Saturday.

00:20:40   - Oh, okay, there you go.

00:20:41   - But yeah.

00:20:42   I do think though, do you think,

00:20:44   I mean, having none of us actually handle these phones yet,

00:20:47   do you think this is a worthy trade-off of,

00:20:51   do you think it's worth making the phone thicker,

00:20:54   however many Cs you spell that with,

00:20:56   for the camera?

00:20:58   Even though the phone body itself is not super thick,

00:21:02   but for the camera to continue to get larger

00:21:04   and protrude out, do you think it's worth it?

00:21:07   'Cause I gotta say, I do.

00:21:10   To me, this is like,

00:21:11   I mean again, not having handled these yet,

00:21:13   I think this is absolutely worth it.

00:21:16   And even though this one has gotten so much thicker

00:21:19   that even in a case,

00:21:22   the reviewers who have Apple's cases,

00:21:25   even in a case, it doesn't sit flat on a surface anymore.

00:21:28   'Cause the lens has protruded so far.

00:21:30   - It's not even close.

00:21:31   Yeah, we knew that was gonna be the case.

00:21:33   The only chance it had was that the bump was gonna be so big

00:21:36   that it itself would be a stabilizing factor.

00:21:38   Like for example, imagine the camera bump

00:21:40   went the full width of the phone,

00:21:41   then it would lay stable, not flat,

00:21:43   but it would lay stable at least.

00:21:44   This isn't quite wide enough to do that either from reports.

00:21:48   - Yeah, but still, I'm very happy to see,

00:21:52   when it comes to camera lens and optics

00:21:56   and sensor size and everything else,

00:21:59   it really is limited by how much physical size

00:22:02   you're willing to give something,

00:22:03   and depth is one of the key limits.

00:22:05   Like when you're dealing with these optics,

00:22:07   that's why a lot of Android phones

00:22:08   that have these super zoom things,

00:22:10   they have to use a periscope kind of arrangement

00:22:12   to turn the optics to the side

00:22:14   to just achieve more depth,

00:22:15   to get longer zooms and everything.

00:22:17   For this, Apple's not doing that yet, if ever,

00:22:20   but they're achieving more depth, larger, wider apertures,

00:22:26   larger sensors, and to do that, you need size.

00:22:30   Simple as that.

00:22:31   And so Apple could have said,

00:22:33   "Well, in order to preserve our ultra-thin,

00:22:35   "ultra-light design language for our products,

00:22:38   "we're just not gonna make the cameras bigger,

00:22:41   "beyond a certain limit,

00:22:42   "'cause they would stick out too far."

00:22:43   And instead, they're not saying that.

00:22:45   Instead, they're saying, "You know what?

00:22:46   "No, the camera is so important to people, and to us,

00:22:49   "and to the sales of these devices,

00:22:51   "that we are gonna let it stick out,

00:22:53   "even to a somewhat ridiculous level."

00:22:56   Where it's almost doubling the thickness of the phone

00:22:58   at this point, but it's like,

00:23:00   we're gonna let the camera stick out to a ridiculous level,

00:23:03   because it's that important.

00:23:05   And even though it violates our principles

00:23:08   of perfect physical design in certain ways,

00:23:12   this is important enough to break those expectations.

00:23:15   And so frankly, I am happy that Apple makes that decision.

00:23:18   In this case, if you want a thinner, lighter,

00:23:23   you know, shallower-depth phone in general,

00:23:24   that doesn't have as much of a camera mount

00:23:26   sticking out of the back of it,

00:23:27   you can get the non-Pro ones.

00:23:29   There's two options for you, they're both great.

00:23:31   And if you want the best camera ever,

00:23:33   well, you're gonna have to spend some depth,

00:23:35   and they give you that option.

00:23:36   And that's great, too, and I'm really happy to see

00:23:39   that that's an option.

00:23:41   While I'm ranting about this, by the way,

00:23:43   I wanna do some quick follow-up.

00:23:44   I had it a little bit further down,

00:23:45   but I'll move it up here.

00:23:47   We got a number of people writing in to school us

00:23:51   on lens optics, things, 'cause we had said things

00:23:56   in the event episode about how the apertures

00:24:01   have gotten bigger in certain places,

00:24:02   they've gotten smaller in others,

00:24:04   and I was using that as a measure of quality, image quality.

00:24:09   And a number of people wrote in to tell me

00:24:10   all sorts of stuff, and let me tell you,

00:24:13   about half of you are comically wrong.

00:24:15   It's very easy to learn a little bit about optics

00:24:19   and about lenses, 'cause you bought an SLR once,

00:24:22   and you think you understand everything.

00:24:23   I know, I've been there.

00:24:25   My understanding of this is only slightly higher than you

00:24:29   in certain areas, you half of these people out there,

00:24:32   and I'll let you self-select and decide

00:24:33   which half you're in, but I don't know

00:24:36   that much about it either.

00:24:37   What I do know, though, is that optical quality

00:24:42   has a lot to do with how much light you let in.

00:24:46   And so while, yes, it is possible to have very high quality,

00:24:50   say, f/2.8 lenses, as honestly, almost every professional

00:24:55   working photographer is almost always shooting a lens

00:24:58   that is no faster than f/2.8, 'cause it's almost always

00:25:00   a 24 to 70 or a 70 to 200, like almost all

00:25:03   pro photographers are using those two lenses

00:25:05   most of the time.

00:25:06   So obviously I know that it is possible

00:25:08   to have high quality lenses that are f/2.8.

00:25:11   I also know that both the f numbers and the equivalent optics

00:25:16   and the equivalent background blur amounts

00:25:20   also change with sensor size.

00:25:24   That's why if you compare what f/2.8 looks like

00:25:28   on a full-frame camera, if you compare it up

00:25:31   to what that looks like on a medium format,

00:25:34   or if you compare it down to what looks like

00:25:35   on a crop sensor or down to, say, a phone,

00:25:38   they all look different, because that number

00:25:42   is not the only number that matters.

00:25:43   That number is actually derived from other numbers,

00:25:46   and it all matters, all these numbers mean things.

00:25:50   And so if you think this is gonna work on the phone numbers,

00:25:53   the way it works on your SLR, I'm sorry, but it doesn't.

00:25:56   It's a different, it's a whole different scene here.

00:25:59   And then it's also different because the way

00:26:02   optical quality is achieved, we're not maximizing

00:26:06   all 12 megapixels most of the time.

00:26:08   These lenses do not resolve that sharply,

00:26:11   I would imagine ever, let alone most of the time,

00:26:15   and if they did, they would probably require

00:26:16   a ton of light to do so.

00:26:18   So there's also all sorts of software processing

00:26:22   that's going on here, and the way you give

00:26:24   that software processing more to work with

00:26:26   is by giving it more light and by having those,

00:26:29   having bigger sensor pixels and everything else.

00:26:30   So this is a very complicated issue,

00:26:33   but when I said the f/2.8 aperture of the 77 millimeter

00:26:38   equivalent 3x optical lens on the Pro,

00:26:41   when I'm expressing concern about that not being

00:26:44   a ton of light coming in, that concern is warranted,

00:26:48   and I guarantee you when we see those images,

00:26:50   we will see, and I think the reviews do somewhat

00:26:52   back this up, we will see that in medium to low light,

00:26:55   you're not gonna get what you really want

00:26:58   out of that 3x lens.

00:27:00   That being said, I am really looking forward

00:27:03   to having it anyway because that's a lot of reach,

00:27:06   and based on both the reviews and common sense,

00:27:08   when you give it a good amount of light, it looks great.

00:27:11   So it's gonna be great, but do a little research

00:27:15   before you make assumptions about SLR camera lens

00:27:18   equivalents, especially in regard to aperture

00:27:21   because it does not work the same way.

00:27:23   But more light coming in is better,

00:27:25   and so the f/2.8 equivalent 3x lens

00:27:29   is not gonna produce as good images as that 1x lens

00:27:32   with its whatever it is, f/1.6, whatever it is, I forgot,

00:27:35   but it's not gonna be as good as that

00:27:38   because it's not letting in nearly as much light,

00:27:39   and you're gonna have to do a lot more ISO hiking

00:27:42   to get acceptable shutter speeds for stopping motion.

00:27:46   It's gonna be a whole thing.

00:27:47   As you know, SLR people, as you know,

00:27:52   you have to really crank up the ISO

00:27:53   and then do more noise reduction to capture stuff

00:27:57   with smaller apertures.

00:27:58   So anyway, all that is to say, it's complicated,

00:28:02   and the 3x lens is not gonna be as good

00:28:03   as you think necessarily, but it's still gonna be great

00:28:05   to have it, and I'm looking forward to it.

00:28:07   - To drive that point home, I just put a picture

00:28:09   in both the chat and our Slack

00:28:10   if you wanna take a look at it.

00:28:11   This is a picture where you will see,

00:28:13   I think what most people recognize as background blur.

00:28:16   This photograph was taken at f/2.8 on an APS-C size sensor.

00:28:21   It's not even a full-frame sensor.

00:28:23   Try taking a picture at f/2.8 with your iPhone

00:28:26   when you get it, you will not get these results.

00:28:29   (laughing)

00:28:30   - No, and this also, I mean, this looks like it's awfully,

00:28:33   I mean, to get that amount of separation at f/2.8,

00:28:35   I'm gonna eyeball this and just say it's probably

00:28:36   something like a 90 millimeter equivalent maybe?

00:28:40   - Yeah, very close, very close.

00:28:42   It is, I think if I'm reading the metadata

00:28:45   in the Glass app correctly, it is 62 millimeters,

00:28:48   but that's on APS-C, so it's 93 millimeters full-frame.

00:28:52   - Yes, all right. - That's very impressive.

00:28:55   Just a quick aside related to this,

00:28:57   I think we might've brought this up on the show

00:28:59   a couple of months back,

00:29:00   but there's an individual whose name

00:29:02   I will absolutely butcher,

00:29:03   and I will not even try to pronounce it,

00:29:05   but this person has written or created

00:29:09   some really phenomenal interactive animated web pages.

00:29:12   One is about cameras and lenses and how they work and so on,

00:29:16   and another is about the internal combustion engine.

00:29:18   Both of these are very, very long and involved

00:29:21   and fascinating and well worth your time.

00:29:23   So if you wanna learn more about how cameras and lenses work

00:29:26   or internal combustion engines,

00:29:28   we'll put links in the show notes

00:29:28   because they are very, very, very well done.

00:29:31   - All right, we need to talk more about phone thickness

00:29:33   because believe it or not,

00:29:34   we're not even done with that first item.

00:29:35   - Oh yeah, well, and actually to answer Marco's question,

00:29:37   which was, you know--

00:29:39   - Oh, that's right, I haven't answered his question, too.

00:29:41   - I'm the chief derailleur-in-chief.

00:29:42   - Yeah, we're never gonna get through this episode.

00:29:44   Oh my gosh.

00:29:45   Anyways, your question was basically

00:29:48   is this increased thickness worth it,

00:29:50   specifically with regard to the camera,

00:29:53   and you know, I was thinking about it as you were talking,

00:29:55   and early on, when anyone would agree

00:29:59   that iPhone cameras were improving but were not great,

00:30:04   you know, this is, I couldn't put my finger on exactly

00:30:07   when I feel like they moved from garbage

00:30:10   to at least passable, and then from passable to good,

00:30:14   I would say has only been in the last two,

00:30:16   maybe four years, tops, but anyway--

00:30:18   - When did they add autofocus?

00:30:20   Was that like the iPhone 4 or 4S?

00:30:23   - I don't recall.

00:30:23   - I would say that was a huge jump.

00:30:26   - Yeah, I mean, it's been better every year,

00:30:28   but certainly, you know, you look at early Instagram pictures

00:30:31   which granted, you know, Instagram butchered them

00:30:32   in its own ways, but even the source

00:30:34   of an Instagram picture of that era,

00:30:35   you know, a 3G, 3GS, et cetera,

00:30:37   they were not great photographs, but anyways,

00:30:40   in my personal opinion, their iPhone photos

00:30:44   are pretty darn good.

00:30:45   They're not perfect, but they're pretty darn good,

00:30:47   especially if you're not trying to do something

00:30:48   super computational like portrait mode or whatever.

00:30:50   Anyway, so with that in mind, now that the camera,

00:30:54   or cameras, I guess I should say,

00:30:56   are very, very, very good,

00:30:58   I think it is worth the increased thickness.

00:31:00   I am okay with my thick boy iPhone

00:31:02   (laughs)

00:31:04   if it's for either battery life, actually,

00:31:06   is another thing, battery life or for improved camera,

00:31:10   I don't know, fidelity, quality, whatever.

00:31:12   If it was thicker for other silly reasons,

00:31:15   like, I don't know, just to make up a BS idea,

00:31:17   like what if the taptic engine was like super thick

00:31:21   and they said, well, screw it,

00:31:22   we really want this super fancy taptic engine,

00:31:24   now we gotta make everything big too.

00:31:26   That would not be worth it to me,

00:31:27   that juice is not worth the squeeze,

00:31:28   but if you tell me I gotta make this camera plateau

00:31:30   with, I love camera turret as well,

00:31:32   the plateau with the turrets on top,

00:31:36   you know, again, not having handled these,

00:31:38   I think that juice is worth the squeeze,

00:31:40   I think that is worth it to me,

00:31:42   because as much as I do love having what I call

00:31:45   a big camera, which is actually not that big a camera,

00:31:47   I do love having it, but it's unwieldy

00:31:49   and I don't have it with me all the time

00:31:51   and we've made this point a zillion times on this show

00:31:53   and we're not the only ones to make it,

00:31:54   but, you know, having an iPhone or any phone

00:31:57   that shoots decent pictures in your pocket always

00:32:00   is amazing if you have pets, if you have kids,

00:32:02   or if you're just like documenting your life

00:32:04   even without either of those things.

00:32:06   So yeah, I think it's absolutely worth it,

00:32:07   especially these days when the cameras

00:32:09   are getting so darn good.

00:32:10   Jon, what's your two cents?

00:32:11   - So I agree that it's worth it

00:32:13   for the line of cameras they put out this year,

00:32:15   because it separates the pro from the regular

00:32:17   and like Marco said, if you don't like that big lump,

00:32:19   you have a choice.

00:32:20   The other one that is in most other ways

00:32:23   just as good a phone has a slimmer camera

00:32:26   and still the slimmer camera is also better

00:32:28   than it was last year, like the One X camera

00:32:30   has a bigger aperture, right?

00:32:32   So, and they have sensor shift and all that, right?

00:32:34   So it's great for this lineup, they made the right choice.

00:32:37   As I said in the last show, again,

00:32:40   still never having handled these phones,

00:32:42   my wife's phone is on the way, she got the 13 Pro.

00:32:46   I think their problem, Apple's problem,

00:32:49   they have two problems here.

00:32:49   One is I think they're at the natural end of the design

00:32:53   of putting the cameras in the upper left corner

00:32:55   of the phone, they need to revisit that,

00:32:56   especially on the 13 Pro, the camera plateau

00:33:00   is more than half the width of the phone,

00:33:02   it is no longer in the corner in any sense,

00:33:04   it is just, it is on the back of the phone, that's true,

00:33:07   and it's not centered, that's true,

00:33:09   but it's not really in the corner,

00:33:10   so they need to revisit that.

00:33:11   And the second problem they have is,

00:33:13   if they follow a typical Apple pattern

00:33:15   of passing this down the line,

00:33:17   this big giant plateau starts to become a problem

00:33:21   when it filters down and you no longer have

00:33:24   a slim camera choice, and to that end,

00:33:26   Marco briefly alluded to this

00:33:28   when we were talking about this before,

00:33:30   the rumors are that the iPhone 14 will go

00:33:32   with an internal periscoped system,

00:33:35   like that they can't, they're not gonna make it any thicker,

00:33:37   that like if you need to get thicker than this,

00:33:39   we need to do a periscope,

00:33:40   and people are wondering what that looks like,

00:33:41   like a periscope on a submarine

00:33:42   where you're looking into this little tube

00:33:45   and then there's a tube vertically,

00:33:46   and then it goes out the top,

00:33:48   imagine that big vertical tube in a submarine periscope

00:33:50   is laying down inside your phone,

00:33:52   it's to be able to get more distance

00:33:53   between the sensor and the place where the light comes in,

00:33:56   and rather than getting more distance

00:33:58   by making this plateau taller and taller,

00:34:00   they get distance by laying it down

00:34:02   and using a series of mirrors inside the phone.

00:34:05   Who knows, we're year out,

00:34:06   are year out rumors worth anything,

00:34:08   it's hard enough to get the rumors

00:34:09   when you're six months out,

00:34:11   but for what it's worth,

00:34:13   the year out rumors about the iPhone 14

00:34:15   show it with a flat back,

00:34:17   and the only way you're gonna get a flat back on a phone,

00:34:20   on the top end Apple phone,

00:34:21   is if they do periscope stuff,

00:34:22   'cause it's not like they're gonna say,

00:34:23   oh, we changed our mind,

00:34:24   we're going back to crappy cameras,

00:34:26   like they're not gonna do that,

00:34:27   so that's a possibility

00:34:29   in terms of where do they go from here,

00:34:31   they've maxed out the plateau,

00:34:32   but I think the problem is like,

00:34:34   if that happens, like okay,

00:34:36   and then the iPhone 14 Pro has a flat back

00:34:38   and they're all periscope lenses,

00:34:40   I don't wanna see this giant lump wandering down the line

00:34:44   and just becoming like,

00:34:45   'cause I don't want it to feel like punishment

00:34:47   to get the cheaper phone,

00:34:48   like oh, I get the cheaper phone

00:34:49   and it's got this giant ugly camera bump,

00:34:50   the new ones have better cameras

00:34:52   and they're flat on the back, right?

00:34:53   Because getting the current 13 non-Pro

00:34:56   doesn't feel like a punishment,

00:34:58   because it's got a good camera,

00:34:59   it's better than last year's camera

00:35:00   in a bunch of important ways,

00:35:02   and it's slimmer,

00:35:03   so it's a compromise that makes more sense to me,

00:35:05   and by the way, the final bit in here,

00:35:07   Adrian Weckler had a photograph,

00:35:09   I'm not sure if he took this photo

00:35:10   or if it's from Apple's website,

00:35:11   but it shows, I think, what is this,

00:35:14   the 13 Pro versus the 12 Pro side by side,

00:35:18   and you can see that of course, yes,

00:35:20   the 13 Pro camera bump is bigger than 12 Pro,

00:35:22   we knew that already,

00:35:23   but also the 13 Pro itself,

00:35:24   the body is a little bit thicker as well.

00:35:27   That's true of almost all the phones this year,

00:35:29   they're marginally thicker,

00:35:31   the body part is marginally thicker than the other ones,

00:35:34   and that's a move that I can get behind,

00:35:36   because it gives you more room for more battery,

00:35:38   maybe more room for that 120 hertz screen,

00:35:40   who knows, whatever they need more room for,

00:35:42   by all means, yes, please,

00:35:43   take the extra half a millimeter,

00:35:45   nobody will notice, nobody will care,

00:35:47   and yes, the phone gets a little bit heavier or whatever,

00:35:49   but the battery life is well worth it,

00:35:51   so to answer Mark's question again,

00:35:53   yeah, totally worth it this year,

00:35:54   but I worry about the future,

00:35:55   and I really do hope that they come up

00:35:57   with some kind of solution,

00:35:58   it doesn't have to be Periscope,

00:35:59   they could decide the solution is

00:36:01   instead of having a camera lump,

00:36:02   we'll have a camera top half of the phone,

00:36:04   which like I said, lots of Android phones

00:36:05   do that right now,

00:36:06   and I think that's perfectly fine too,

00:36:07   like where your phone will have a thick half

00:36:09   and a thin half,

00:36:11   that will lay flat, not flat,

00:36:12   but that will lay stably on a table,

00:36:14   and it gives you even more room to work with,

00:36:16   who knows what they could do with all that space,

00:36:17   so I say go for it.

00:36:19   - Moving right along, the folks at Halide,

00:36:22   I think that's how you pronounce it,

00:36:24   I might have that wrong,

00:36:25   but anyways, it's a really good third party camera app,

00:36:28   they put together a evolution of the iPhone camera bumps

00:36:32   on Twitter, which we will link to,

00:36:34   which was very well done,

00:36:35   and unsurprisingly very thoughtfully designed,

00:36:38   and it's worth taking a look at,

00:36:39   I thought it was pretty cool.

00:36:40   - Yeah, it's like a monochrome line art

00:36:41   that I assume is to scale showing the evolution

00:36:44   of the camera bumps,

00:36:44   'cause the iPhone 6 was the first one

00:36:46   to have a camera that stuck out from the phone at all

00:36:49   in any way, and you could see how it went

00:36:50   from one little thing sticking out,

00:36:52   to two, to two vertically, to a giant square,

00:36:54   to a giant square that looked like a stove,

00:36:56   and like, you know, you could see,

00:36:57   (laughing)

00:36:58   yeah, things are getting,

00:37:00   you know, you're getting more and more circles,

00:37:02   'cause the LiDAR sensor is there,

00:37:03   and the flash is on the little plateau, yeah.

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00:39:15   - All right, moving right along and away from the cameras,

00:39:22   Jeff Hackworth writes, "As expected, the iPhone 13 devices

00:39:25   have the same screen sizes and safe areas

00:39:26   as the equivalently named iPhone 12.

00:39:29   The notch is narrower and a tiny bit taller,

00:39:31   but the safe areas were far enough away

00:39:33   for the safe areas to remain unchanged."

00:39:36   So the safe areas, this is parts of the screen

00:39:39   that Apple says, "Hey, you probably don't wanna put stuff

00:39:42   there because it's up in the horns, if you will,

00:39:45   or generally areas where you don't wanna put

00:39:47   your user interface, but you can do it

00:39:49   if you really, really want to."

00:39:50   And we had, not just the three of us, but in general,

00:39:53   the people had wondered, well,

00:39:54   are the safe areas gonna be different,

00:39:56   which would cause developers to potentially

00:39:58   have to rejigger their user interfaces,

00:40:00   and according to Jeff, no, that is not the case.

00:40:02   And there are some images in the tweet

00:40:04   which we will put in the show notes.

00:40:06   - Yeah, and to be clear, the system frameworks,

00:40:08   like the system navigation bars and everything,

00:40:10   they all automatically stay out of the safe areas,

00:40:13   and so you would only, this would actually only be a problem

00:40:17   if you would really heavily customize an interface

00:40:21   or interface controller to manually avoid the safe areas

00:40:25   and had hard-coded their values

00:40:27   instead of just calling the system and saying,

00:40:28   "Whatever the top safe area inside is,

00:40:30   move the bar down this amount,"

00:40:31   or "Add as much padding," whatever.

00:40:33   And not only do most apps not do that,

00:40:35   but it's really easy to code that correctly. (laughs)

00:40:40   To do it the wrong way is actually more work,

00:40:42   so most apps will have no problems whatsoever

00:40:45   and you won't even notice.

00:40:46   - All right, Robert Spivak writes,

00:40:47   "As a techie amateur photographer,

00:40:49   I think the ability to shoot in ProRes,

00:40:50   even at 30 frames per second, is awesome for a simple reason.

00:40:53   I can continue to learn about color grading

00:40:56   while actually being able to do it on a totally flat video

00:40:59   without buying a $1,000 external recorder

00:41:00   for my already multi-thousand dollar

00:41:02   quote-unquote big camera.

00:41:04   Corollary to your reality check on Hollywood and indie films

00:41:07   being shot on the iPhone,

00:41:08   it's not one guy with an iPhone running around,

00:41:10   it's an entire expensive film crew

00:41:11   with as many as 10, 20, or even 50 or more iPhones,

00:41:15   and they solve the problems of file transfer speed

00:41:19   and downtime using brute force.

00:41:21   Throw money at the problem, get more phones."

00:41:23   - Yeah, that's a typical movie production way to do it.

00:41:25   Like, oh, it takes long to get every other phone,

00:41:27   what are we gonna do?

00:41:28   50 phones and a bunch of people, done.

00:41:31   Yes, it will take hours to get the footage off,

00:41:34   but we have an intern for that

00:41:35   and another intern for another one,

00:41:36   another one just bring me a new,

00:41:37   for a refresh iPhone, refresh one terabyte iPhone.

00:41:40   The cost of that is nothing compared to the cost

00:41:42   of like one red camera.

00:41:43   The thing about ProRes being like,

00:41:46   oh, it doesn't seem like it's a worthwhile thing,

00:41:48   as a learning tool, that totally makes sense.

00:41:50   Like, what if you wanna learn about color grading?

00:41:52   What's the cheapest way you can do that?

00:41:53   Now, one of the cheapest and most convenient ways to do it

00:41:56   is actually with an iPhone.

00:41:57   You do have to use Apple's native editing apps,

00:42:01   because I don't think third-party ones

00:42:02   know about this whole,

00:42:04   well, I guess the ProRes is fine,

00:42:05   they don't know about the depth thing,

00:42:07   which I would argue that you shouldn't bother

00:42:09   trying to learn if you're into serious filmmaking,

00:42:11   'cause it's not really relevant.

00:42:12   But yeah, for color grading,

00:42:13   the fact that you've got a little tiny thing

00:42:14   that can shoot ProRes is kind of cool.

00:42:17   - All right, battery sizes are going up.

00:42:18   We've made a few mentions of this already,

00:42:20   and The Verge had a really nice chart

00:42:22   with the new phone, what the capacity is,

00:42:25   what its direct predecessor was,

00:42:27   and then what the increase in percent increase were.

00:42:29   So the 13 mini went up 9%,

00:42:32   the 13 went up 15%,

00:42:33   the 13 Pro 11%, 13 Pro Max, 18.5%.

00:42:38   Hoo boy.

00:42:39   - Those are some big batteries.

00:42:40   I mean, we're starting to see the results now,

00:42:42   like the reviews coming out.

00:42:44   But the battery increases are no joke.

00:42:47   And in particular, I wish I had pulled this stat,

00:42:49   I didn't get a chance to do it.

00:42:51   Gruber had in his review.

00:42:53   On the Pro phones, the 13 Pro and Pro Max

00:42:57   that have the high refresh displays,

00:43:00   they support ProMotion.

00:43:02   When ProMotion, well, when 120 hertz came to Android phones,

00:43:05   very often there was an option to turn it off

00:43:07   because it could really drain your battery

00:43:08   if you left on 120 hertz all the time, right?

00:43:11   And so like, oh, these Pro phones,

00:43:13   they've got 128 hertz 'cause it's a Pro feature,

00:43:15   but boy, I'm worried about battery life.

00:43:17   Well, as we discussed last time,

00:43:19   yes, they go up to 120 hertz,

00:43:20   but they also have variable refresh rate,

00:43:22   which can save you a lot of energy.

00:43:24   And the place where that shows up in dramatic fashion

00:43:26   is if you're, let's say,

00:43:28   sitting on public transportation

00:43:30   or a plane flight or something,

00:43:31   watching a movie on your iPhone.

00:43:33   Movies, most movies, unless you're Peter Jackson,

00:43:36   are at 24 or 30 frames per second.

00:43:39   And when you're watching a movie

00:43:41   with a frame rate like that,

00:43:43   the Pro phones will refresh the screen 30 times a second

00:43:47   instead of 60 or 120 or whatever.

00:43:49   Whereas if you watch it on the non-Pro phone

00:43:51   without ProMotion, they're at 60 hertz all the time.

00:43:54   So every single frame is being refreshed

00:43:56   onto the display twice pointlessly

00:43:57   because there's only 30 frames per second in the movie,

00:44:00   but your phone is like 60, 60,

00:44:01   you know, doing 60 frames per second.

00:44:03   And so the difference,

00:44:05   hopefully Casey has looked it up by now,

00:44:06   the difference in streaming video view time

00:44:10   for the 13 Pro against the 12 Pro is dramatic.

00:44:13   I think it might be double or close to double.

00:44:16   - It almost doubled it.

00:44:17   - Almost doubled your,

00:44:19   so if you're watching, it's like how many hours of movies

00:44:21   can I watch on this plane flying on my phone

00:44:22   before my battery's drained?

00:44:24   Almost doubling for an 11% battery size increase.

00:44:29   How do they do that?

00:44:30   Don't refresh the screen so much.

00:44:32   'Cause when you're watching video,

00:44:32   that's basically all you're doing.

00:44:34   It's like decompressing the video

00:44:36   and even doing the networking

00:44:37   is nothing for the A15 system on a chip.

00:44:40   It's not even, it's like ho-hum, it's like yawning, right?

00:44:43   (laughing)

00:44:44   Because they've got hardware decoders

00:44:45   for the codecs that are supported,

00:44:46   like it's extremely battery efficient.

00:44:48   The most expensive thing that you're doing

00:44:50   is running the screen and presumably playing audio.

00:44:54   And given that they're basically,

00:44:55   they can probably, it probably takes straightforwardly

00:44:58   half the energy to refresh at 30 frames per second

00:45:00   instead of 60 and everything else is a rounding error.

00:45:03   So if you're worried, I wanna get the Pro phone,

00:45:05   it's got all these cool features,

00:45:06   but it isn't gonna take a hit in battery life.

00:45:08   It's the opposite.

00:45:08   If you pay more for the Pro phone,

00:45:10   depending on what you're doing,

00:45:11   you may get dramatically better battery life

00:45:14   if you're really taking advantage of the screen refresh.

00:45:17   And as we said last week,

00:45:17   the same goes for if you're just looking at a webpage

00:45:20   and not scrolling.

00:45:21   It's refreshing at 10 hertz instead of 60.

00:45:24   That's a big battery savings.

00:45:26   - Yeah, so reading from Gruber's review,

00:45:28   the 13 mini went from 10 hours to 13.

00:45:31   The 13 went from 11 to 15, but here we go, buckle up.

00:45:36   The 13 Pro from 11 hours on the 12 Pro

00:45:39   to 20 hours on the 13 Pro.

00:45:43   And then the Pro Max goes from 12 hours on the 12 Pro Max

00:45:46   to 25 hours on the 13 Pro Max.

00:45:49   So you could sit there, hypothetically,

00:45:51   streaming Netflix or what have you

00:45:53   for 25 hours on one charge of your battery.

00:45:57   - Which is double what you could do with last year's phone.

00:46:00   - As long as you weren't using the built-in speakers,

00:46:01   'cause that's a huge drain.

00:46:03   - Yes, physically moving air really kills your battery.

00:46:06   Physically moving photons also kills your battery, apparently.

00:46:09   - Yeah, I feel like this is one of those areas

00:46:11   where as technology goes on,

00:46:14   it's harder to give useful battery life estimates

00:46:18   because it becomes increasingly about

00:46:22   picking up little efficiencies here and there,

00:46:24   and therefore the battery life of something

00:46:27   becomes much more dependent on what you're doing.

00:46:30   It'd be one thing if you were trying to measure

00:46:33   the battery life of a Game Gear.

00:46:35   Well, it's 10 minutes, whatever it is.

00:46:38   - If you're lucky.

00:46:39   - 10 minutes, there goes six AA batteries.

00:46:42   Was it six or eight?

00:46:44   - Atari Lynx was similar in battery life,

00:46:47   counted in seconds.

00:46:48   - I mean, why would anyone use Sega hardware?

00:46:50   It was all garbage.

00:46:51   - Anyway, so.

00:46:52   (laughing)

00:46:54   Moving on.

00:46:55   So back then, things were simpler.

00:46:59   Processors were always running at a fixed clock speed,

00:47:01   and it was like whatever you were doing,

00:47:04   the screen was always using the same amount of power

00:47:06   no matter what it was displaying, stuff like that.

00:47:08   And now, we've picked up all these efficiencies

00:47:11   as technology's gotten better and more complicated,

00:47:13   and so now, when you look at something like video playback,

00:47:15   well, that depends on a lot of things.

00:47:17   Is the codec being hardware accelerated?

00:47:20   That matters.

00:47:21   Part of the A15 changes over the A14

00:47:24   is they've added some more hardware acceleration for video.

00:47:28   Now, I don't know enough to know what that's for.

00:47:30   Some of it's probably for ProRes,

00:47:32   but what if some of it is for AV1

00:47:35   or whatever other codecs people are starting to use

00:47:38   that are not H.264, H.265,

00:47:41   then if Apple can hardware accelerate that,

00:47:43   then that'll improve the efficiency

00:47:45   and therefore battery life of whatever new services

00:47:48   or non-Apple services might be using that kind of stuff.

00:47:51   That maybe it'll help with YouTube,

00:47:53   maybe it'll help with Zoom, who knows?

00:47:55   So there's that kind of efficiency, hardware acceleration.

00:47:58   Then it's all right, well, is it now do we have

00:48:01   a lower frame rate than 60 hertz to display?

00:48:03   Then on the 13 Pros, now you can clock down the screen

00:48:07   and save some refresh, some screen refresh power there.

00:48:12   Also, these are OLED screens.

00:48:14   So if it's showing dark content versus light content,

00:48:17   you're gonna save some power there.

00:48:18   Like it's so dependent.

00:48:20   And also now, with the new promotion stuff,

00:48:23   the screen is refreshing in other apps

00:48:25   based on not only how much is changing on screen,

00:48:28   but also how often you are touching the screen.

00:48:30   Because when you're touching the screen,

00:48:31   it has to ramp up the refresh rate

00:48:33   to track your finger faster and have smooth motion

00:48:35   if you're scrolling through a list.

00:48:37   So again, it's gonna depend even more now

00:48:39   on how much are you touching the screen?

00:48:41   What are you watching?

00:48:41   Are you watching things that are constantly moving,

00:48:44   like video, or are you watching a scrolling text

00:48:47   or fixed image view, in which case it can have

00:48:50   more opportunities to save power?

00:48:51   So we're moving just further down this road

00:48:54   of the battery life is going to be increasingly

00:48:58   kind of like shrug emoji, just well,

00:49:01   just try it and see how it goes for you.

00:49:04   Because it's gonna depend so much on what you're doing.

00:49:07   And this is only increasing over time.

00:49:09   - Another thing people in chat room pointed out

00:49:11   is I'm not sure if the iPhone 13 Pro has this,

00:49:14   but I'm gonna assume it does.

00:49:16   The LTPO screens, low temperature,

00:49:18   - It does. - Polycrystalline

00:49:19   silicon screen.

00:49:20   My question is, okay, the 13 Pro has it.

00:49:23   Does the 13 have it too, or no?

00:49:25   - As far as we know, no.

00:49:27   That seems to be like the difference

00:49:29   between whether something can have promotion or not,

00:49:32   is whether it has the LPTO OLEDs.

00:49:34   - So anyway, if it's only in the Pro phones,

00:49:36   that is another sort of blanket across the board

00:49:38   power savings, because one of the advantages of LTPOs

00:49:42   takes less power to run the backplane

00:49:44   behind the screen or whatever.

00:49:45   So yeah, I feel like it makes sense to me

00:49:50   when the more expensive, fancier phone

00:49:54   has better things in it.

00:49:55   Like, I don't know, that sounds ridiculous, but like.

00:49:57   But yeah, if you pay more, you get the fancier screen,

00:49:59   and you get more battery life, and you get 120 hertz,

00:50:02   like, yeah, it is easier to explain what you're getting

00:50:07   with the 13 Pro versus the 13 than it was

00:50:09   with the 12 Pro versus the 12.

00:50:12   - I would also say, I will disagree with something

00:50:14   John said, you know, 15 hours ago,

00:50:16   at the beginning of this topic, which was,

00:50:18   you said that the gains on the batteries were substantial,

00:50:21   and I would say, honestly, the mini only going up 9%.

00:50:26   I don't think it's enough.

00:50:27   - But like you just said, it depends on what you're doing.

00:50:29   If you're watching movies on a plane, it's huge.

00:50:32   If yeah, if you're just browsing the web,

00:50:33   oh, it's a single digit percent.

00:50:36   But in terms of absolute time, Apple's estimates are like,

00:50:38   you get like one extra hour on the mini or something,

00:50:40   and it's like web browsing test.

00:50:43   One extra hour, that's significant.

00:50:45   - It is, but I think if the mini's battery life

00:50:48   was not enough for you before,

00:50:50   it's unlikely that this is going to make a difference.

00:50:52   - I'm mostly just setting aside the mini,

00:50:54   'cause nobody buys the phone,

00:50:54   and you're not even buying it again this year.

00:50:56   But for the big phones, you get like an extra two hours

00:50:59   or something or an extra one point,

00:51:00   like even just one extra hour on a phone,

00:51:03   it really makes a big difference in terms of making it,

00:51:06   like if you're, the difference between running out

00:51:09   and having an extra hour, if you're anywhere close

00:51:12   to making it through the day, is a huge difference.

00:51:14   And I think my 12 Pro battery life is great.

00:51:17   Granted, I don't really go anywhere, but I think it's great.

00:51:19   But when my phone is approaching zero,

00:51:21   if I'm out doing something, if at that moment I say,

00:51:25   what would you give for one extra hour?

00:51:26   I would say yes, I would pay for a new phone for that.

00:51:28   So if you're getting half an hour or 15 minutes or whatever,

00:51:31   but if you're getting double for watching Netflix

00:51:34   plus an extra hour in your average day

00:51:36   or an extra one point five hours or whatever,

00:51:39   I think it's pretty significant.

00:51:40   - Yeah, and for the record, if the mini was offered

00:51:43   with the Pro camera system,

00:51:44   I probably still would have gotten it.

00:51:47   - That would be hilariously lopsided.

00:51:49   - It would just be, it would be go across the entire back,

00:51:52   like just the whole width of the back.

00:51:53   - It would be 75% of the width.

00:51:55   That's what's so awkward about their design.

00:51:57   It's like you're not in the corner anymore.

00:51:59   Nobody puts these cameras in a corner.

00:52:00   - I finally get the reference.

00:52:02   - Hey, it's a good movie, isn't it?

00:52:04   You carried your watermelon.

00:52:05   - It's a decent movie.

00:52:06   I don't love it as much as everyone else does.

00:52:07   - A decent movie?

00:52:08   It's decent.

00:52:09   - You're such a hard critic.

00:52:11   - I've only seen it once and I actually,

00:52:14   I think Marco's right, it's fine.

00:52:16   - Well, you're both wrong, it's an amazing movie.

00:52:19   - I was just arguing with Snell

00:52:20   about real genius earlier tonight, so we can move on.

00:52:23   Hey, John, do you wanna run through this

00:52:25   like specs gobbledygook that's in the show notes?

00:52:28   - Yep, sure.

00:52:29   This is still an open question.

00:52:30   I didn't get any kind of confirmation of it

00:52:32   because phones still aren't quite in people's hands

00:52:34   or whatever, but there were some things

00:52:35   that I saw early on where someone's speculating

00:52:37   the 13 Pro's clocked higher than the 13

00:52:40   in terms of megahertz on the system on the chip.

00:52:43   Don't know, well, I guess we'll revisit that.

00:52:45   If anyone knows for sure, let us know,

00:52:46   but of course, probably by next week,

00:52:47   people will turn the thing open and let us know for sure.

00:52:50   One thing we do know is same as last year,

00:52:52   the 13 has four gigs of RAM and the 13 Pro has six.

00:52:55   It's exactly the same as it was with the 12, 12 Pro.

00:52:58   So another thing you get on the Pro is more RAM,

00:53:00   which is nice.

00:53:01   Apparently they come with dual eSIMs now,

00:53:04   which is important for people who want to be able to

00:53:07   not deal with a physical SIM

00:53:09   and have two eSIM thingies active.

00:53:11   Given the messed up situation with carriers in the US,

00:53:14   I'm not even sure if I can use the eSIM,

00:53:16   but I do like the idea of going to eSIMs.

00:53:18   Having a SIM card slot at all on the phones

00:53:21   when we have this eSIM technology seems to me

00:53:24   to be barbaric, but that's carriers for you.

00:53:28   - Hard disagree, because one of the things that I love

00:53:31   about just moving a SIM from one phone to another

00:53:33   is that generally speaking, I can A, handle it myself,

00:53:38   B, not have to rely on the carrier at all,

00:53:39   and C, don't get charged the completely stupid

00:53:43   like $25 to $50 upgrade fee every single year,

00:53:46   every other year, what have you.

00:53:47   - But you're just complaining about carriers there.

00:53:49   Like technologically speaking,

00:53:50   there's no reason any of that has to be true.

00:53:52   It is true, I agree with you,

00:53:53   but it's because carriers are evil and stupid,

00:53:55   but I want to live in a future where I don't have to have

00:53:58   the little magic plastic thingy with the metal things on it

00:54:00   and a tiny little slot and a tiny little paperclip tool

00:54:03   that comes with all of our phones.

00:54:04   So I really do hope that we get over this hurdle

00:54:07   and eventually, kind of like back when all our phones

00:54:09   were locked and everything, it took a long time

00:54:11   for us to get over that BS.

00:54:13   That was entirely carrier manufactured BS.

00:54:15   That's the type of stuff we can overcome

00:54:17   with policy changes over time,

00:54:19   or even just something as simple for the old folks

00:54:22   of having our phone numbers be portable.

00:54:24   That didn't used to be a thing, young kids.

00:54:27   It just became a thing because people complained, right?

00:54:30   So carrier BS, telecom carrier BS,

00:54:33   can with many, many decades eventually be overcome.

00:54:37   And having the technology in place to say,

00:54:39   "You know what, we don't need your little plastic card

00:54:41   "anymore, just change your policy so they're not stupid

00:54:43   "and we'll just do everything in eSIMS

00:54:44   "and everything will be automatic."

00:54:45   So we're not living there yet,

00:54:47   but I'm glad to see that dual eSIMS are supported.

00:54:50   And for people who live in the more civilized world,

00:54:52   I think dual eSIMS will already be a convenience for them.

00:54:55   Let's see, so lots of the reviews that are coming out now

00:54:58   have pointed out that on the 13 Pro,

00:55:01   the switching from the 1X camera to the macro lens,

00:55:05   when you're going really, really close to something,

00:55:07   is kind of jarring.

00:55:08   Like you look in the viewfinder

00:55:09   and the phone will automatically say,

00:55:11   "I know you have the 1X camera selected,

00:55:14   "but I'm gonna stop using that camera

00:55:15   "and I'm gonna switch to,"

00:55:16   what is it, the ultra-wide that does macro?

00:55:18   - Yes. - "I'm gonna switch

00:55:19   "to the ultra-wide and put it in macro mode."

00:55:21   So it switches cameras on you without you knowing

00:55:25   and without the UI reflecting that,

00:55:26   and what you see through the viewfinder

00:55:28   goes through this jarring transition where it's like,

00:55:30   "Ooh, oh, now you're looking through a different camera."

00:55:32   And the background jumps and it looks weird.

00:55:34   We'll put a link to a YouTube video

00:55:36   so you can see it in action.

00:55:37   But almost everybody who's reviewed the camera has said,

00:55:39   "That's kind of weird."

00:55:41   And it doesn't make for a pleasant experience,

00:55:43   and it basically reframes your shot a little bit too

00:55:45   while you're zooming in, and you can't control it.

00:55:47   It changes to the macro lens

00:55:50   when it thinks there's a thing too close to it.

00:55:53   So that's kind of crappy,

00:55:54   but already based on all these reviews,

00:55:56   Apple has said officially that they are going

00:55:58   to release a software update that lets you enable

00:56:00   or disable this auto switching.

00:56:01   So if you don't like the auto switching

00:56:03   and you just wanna control which camera it uses yourself,

00:56:05   you can turn that off.

00:56:06   And I think I probably will turn it off,

00:56:07   because if I want a macro shot, I know I want a macro shot,

00:56:10   I will enable it or go to the macro camera or whatever.

00:56:14   I don't like it trying to switch for me.

00:56:15   - Yeah, I think it depends for me on what is the behavior.

00:56:19   So if, assuming that the ultra wide lens

00:56:24   is always capable of focusing down to two centimeters,

00:56:26   which is great, if it's always able to do that,

00:56:28   and if you get close enough, it does it,

00:56:31   then if you have to switch over to the ultra wide

00:56:33   to have that close focus capability,

00:56:35   that would be kind of nice.

00:56:37   Because I saw the video clips of the people

00:56:39   who show what happens when it jumps over,

00:56:41   and it is, I would say it's inelegant.

00:56:44   And so if they can in the future do it

00:56:46   without that kind of jump, great.

00:56:49   If this is what we have to live with to get macro,

00:56:52   again, it's inelegant, but I'll live with it,

00:56:55   because macro focusing distances are very, very close.

00:56:58   It isn't just if you wanna take a picture

00:57:00   of a butterfly or whatever, it's also very useful

00:57:04   in everyday situations.

00:57:05   Scanning QR codes or magnifying text,

00:57:09   taking the picture of the label on the back

00:57:11   of your wifi router so you can then go type

00:57:13   in the password somewhere.

00:57:15   There's all sorts of useful little times like that

00:57:18   where having closer focusing distance will be very helpful.

00:57:22   And so if I have to tolerate the little jump,

00:57:24   yeah, it's inelegant, but I'll take it

00:57:26   because the utility is worth it.

00:57:28   But if there's ways to avoid that, even better.

00:57:30   - Yeah, I think that having an auto switch by default

00:57:32   is probably the correct default,

00:57:33   'cause people won't know about it otherwise.

00:57:36   What I'm mostly worried about is,

00:57:37   like, oh, my finger accidentally goes in front of the phone

00:57:40   and it thinks something is doing macro range

00:57:42   and switches, like sort of false starts

00:57:43   or sort of gear hunting in automatic transition parlance

00:57:48   where you're like, you're right at the edge of the distance

00:57:50   and it's like a macro, a 1X, macro, a 1X.

00:57:53   Like, it needs to be worked out a little bit.

00:57:56   And we'll have to see once we get the phones

00:57:58   if the auto switching is easy to trip up,

00:58:02   like by accidentally having something pass

00:58:04   in front of the lens and switch you to the macro,

00:58:06   which will just be a mess.

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00:59:21   (upbeat music)

00:59:24   - All right, tell me about A15 Performance.

00:59:26   - This is a big question.

00:59:28   The first one we have in the follow-up here

00:59:31   is in a very early article from Techmeme.

00:59:33   It's linking to a semi-analysis substack that says,

00:59:38   here's a quote from the thing,

00:59:39   "Apple, in a first, reported no CPU gains for the A15,

00:59:43   "likely because of the engineers' exodus

00:59:45   "to companies like Nuvia and Rivioos."

00:59:46   So this is a whole big story about how Apple

00:59:49   has this huge brain drain in their chip design staff.

00:59:53   Like, 100 people have left Apple's chip design place

00:59:55   to go work at other places or run their own startups,

00:59:57   which is a thing that has happened.

00:59:58   They've lost a lot of people,

00:59:59   because once you're extremely experienced

01:00:02   and know what you're doing,

01:00:04   the temptation to start your own company

01:00:05   and do your own thing is very real,

01:00:08   and that's Apple's challenge to overcome.

01:00:11   But apparently Apple has lost a lot of good people to that.

01:00:13   But the other part of the thing of saying,

01:00:16   "Apple, in a first, has reported no CPU gains."

01:00:19   Well, Apple didn't really, as we told you last week,

01:00:21   didn't really say much specifically about the A15.

01:00:24   They just compared it to chips

01:00:25   that are way slower than it,

01:00:26   and then we tried to do back-of-the-envelope math

01:00:27   to figure out how much faster the A15 is than the A14.

01:00:31   But this was the first story of like, no CPU gains, right?

01:00:34   Now that people have them, reviewers have them,

01:00:36   and they've been testing them a little bit,

01:00:37   we have some numbers.

01:00:39   So here's Ben Bajarin.

01:00:40   He has a big article about the A15 performance.

01:00:43   You can read about it.

01:00:44   He has some graphs.

01:00:45   One of them shows, "For the past five years,

01:00:47   "Apple has had an average of 19% GPU gains year over year,

01:00:51   "but for the A15, Apple has increased GPU performance

01:00:55   "by 52%."

01:00:56   So normally, it's like a 20% increase,

01:00:58   and this year it's a 50%.

01:00:59   And it's no surprise why, extra GPU core.

01:01:02   Like, GPUs are embarrassingly parallel.

01:01:04   If you want to make them go faster, you add more GPU.

01:01:07   Like, it's very easy to add more GPU.

01:01:09   And so they, it's not many more,

01:01:11   but a four-core GPU, and they went to a five-core.

01:01:13   But hey, big bump.

01:01:15   But on top of that, the A15 GPU also has new features.

01:01:20   It has an increased core count, which I just said.

01:01:21   It has increased F32 math rate per core,

01:01:25   lossy renderable textures

01:01:26   that save memory and storage bandwidth,

01:01:27   support for sparse depth and stencil textures,

01:01:30   and a new SIMD shuffle and fill instructions.

01:01:32   This is from Gokhan Avkaro-Gulari,

01:01:35   who gave me all this information about the GPU.

01:01:38   And Apple itself has a Tech Talk video.

01:01:42   Like, they put out these little videos.

01:01:43   They're kind of like miniature WWC videos.

01:01:44   They have a Tech Talk called

01:01:45   Metal Advances in A15 Bionic

01:01:48   that goes over a lot of these features.

01:01:49   So not only does the A15 have another GPU core,

01:01:53   going from four to five if you get the Pro phones,

01:01:56   although the non-Pro ones have five too.

01:01:57   One of them is just broken.

01:02:01   But GPU performance is basically

01:02:04   a double the normal year over year increase

01:02:06   for GPUs on the iPhone.

01:02:08   So that's all good news.

01:02:09   But what about the CPU?

01:02:10   So what Jason Snell says is,

01:02:12   "While the last four processor upgrades

01:02:14   have averaged a 20% speed boost in single core performance,

01:02:18   on my scorecard, the A15 is only about 11% faster

01:02:21   than the A14.

01:02:22   And multi-core performance,

01:02:23   the speed gains are even more meager,

01:02:24   about 4% compared to average gains

01:02:26   of around 22% every year for the past three years."

01:02:29   So the A15, much faster and better and bigger GPU,

01:02:34   you know, a very big GPU increase.

01:02:36   Single core, 11%, 10%, but still not zero.

01:02:41   And then multi-core only about 4%

01:02:44   because it has the same number of CPU cores.

01:02:47   So the A15 cores, the A15 is better than the A14.

01:02:52   A lot in GPU, not so much in CPU, but still it is better.

01:02:56   So the original tech meme story of no CPU gains,

01:02:59   not true at all, right?

01:03:01   If you want to see that in a graphical form,

01:03:04   MacRumors has a story about it.

01:03:07   And there is a graph from, who is this from?

01:03:09   This is Ben Bajarian's graph, I think,

01:03:10   showing single core percentage increase over time,

01:03:14   starting with the iPhone 5S.

01:03:16   And plus a little line graph showing you like

01:03:20   what the percentage increase is.

01:03:22   And yeah, this is a little bit of a down year,

01:03:24   but in the overall graph,

01:03:25   you can see their system on chips are still getting better.

01:03:28   And the final bit here from our friend DHH at Basecamp,

01:03:33   he did a tweet this afternoon,

01:03:36   "The fastest single core performance for JavaScript

01:03:39   "in any computer at any price is," drum roll please,

01:03:43   "the $499 iPad Mini with an A15."

01:03:47   - This is bananas.

01:03:47   - Now why is that?

01:03:48   We just got done saying, oh,

01:03:49   the A15 is only 10% faster than the A14.

01:03:52   Yeah, but the A14 was really fast.

01:03:55   The iPad, this is in one particular JavaScript benchmark,

01:03:57   you know, setting aside how representative this is.

01:03:59   Obviously, DHH cares about it because Basecamp has a web app

01:04:02   and they have like web apps like the Hey Email app

01:04:05   and everything.

01:04:06   So they care about JavaScript performance

01:04:06   and apparently they care about this one benchmark.

01:04:08   And in this one benchmark,

01:04:11   if you look at the number three fastest computer

01:04:13   is the MacBook M1 using Chrome,

01:04:16   the number two iPhone 13 Pro,

01:04:19   and the number one device, iPad Mini A15.

01:04:22   And this is not a list of Apple devices.

01:04:24   This is a list of like, at any price,

01:04:26   any computer thing that you can buy,

01:04:28   single core JavaScript performance.

01:04:30   If you go down, I forget where it is,

01:04:32   it's like how many items is this?

01:04:33   One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10,

01:04:35   11, 12, 13, 14, around.

01:04:37   Around item 16 or 17 is the first Android phone

01:04:40   with a score of 84.

01:04:41   The iPad Mini has a score of 245.

01:04:43   So yeah, the iPad Mini is the fastest single core

01:04:48   JavaScript performance device you can buy

01:04:49   at any price from anybody.

01:04:51   It's faster than the M1 MacBooks,

01:04:53   certainly faster than all the Intel ones.

01:04:54   If you look down, there are some Intel ones,

01:04:56   I guess, in the top 10.

01:04:57   The iMac 3.8, i7 has a score of 150.

01:05:01   Again, iPad Mini 245.

01:05:02   So is the A15 a good chip?

01:05:05   Yeah, it's pretty good.

01:05:06   Are the A15 cores good?

01:05:07   They seem pretty good.

01:05:08   If there's an M2 and it uses A15 cores,

01:05:10   that will be a good thing for everybody.

01:05:12   - Yeah, it's been interesting seeing more so

01:05:15   right after the event, all the kerfuffle about,

01:05:17   "Oh, Apple didn't make any improvements.

01:05:19   "What are they doing here?"

01:05:21   I hear the idea behind that,

01:05:26   but I can't help but wonder,

01:05:28   if you look at all the departures

01:05:32   that have supposedly happened from their chip team,

01:05:34   and then on top of that, we're still waiting

01:05:37   for what I would call the real MacBook Pros

01:05:40   and for potentially an iMac Pro

01:05:44   and a bunch of other Mac hardware.

01:05:47   And if it really is the same team now,

01:05:49   which I have to assume it is,

01:05:51   what if they just kind of cruised on the A15

01:05:53   and they really dedicated all of their time

01:05:56   on whatever's coming up for the MacBook Pro

01:05:59   that I'm going to Instabuy?

01:06:01   And obviously I won't know.

01:06:02   I can't know until we see what happens.

01:06:04   And I will never know if they're related events or not.

01:06:06   But if I were to wager a guess,

01:06:08   I think what's happening is that they're just trying

01:06:10   to put out the biggest fire, which is getting chips

01:06:13   for their forthcoming MacBook Pros.

01:06:16   - It's hard to know how they're prioritizing things internally

01:06:18   but I think the explanation for the A15's performance delta

01:06:21   of the A14 is as simple as saying that they knew

01:06:23   the A15 would be manufactured on the same process

01:06:26   as the A14.

01:06:26   And when you're on the same process,

01:06:27   when you don't have a shrink,

01:06:28   when your transistors don't get any smaller,

01:06:31   you are very limited, especially in a phone,

01:06:33   to what you can do.

01:06:35   Because the bottom line is you have a power envelope

01:06:39   and if you're at the same process size,

01:06:40   it's kind of the same power envelope.

01:06:42   So it's like, okay, do exactly what you did with the A14

01:06:44   but do it faster but use the same amount of power or less.

01:06:49   And you're like, well, if I have a shrink, I can do that.

01:06:51   That's the whole point of shrinks.

01:06:52   But if I don't have a shrink,

01:06:53   so if I could have done that,

01:06:54   I wouldn't think I would have done it on the A14.

01:06:56   So it's very difficult to eke out extra performance.

01:07:00   Not impossible 'cause you can see here they're doing it

01:07:01   but it's very difficult to eke out those huge,

01:07:03   oh, 30% faster this year, 20% faster

01:07:06   in single core performance without also having a shrink.

01:07:08   So why is the A15 only 10% faster

01:07:12   in single core than the A14?

01:07:14   'Cause it's also on five nanometer.

01:07:16   And what else are you gonna do

01:07:18   while staying within that power?

01:07:19   But as I was trying to emphasize with the iPad Mini thing,

01:07:22   like why is the iPad Mini on top?

01:07:24   Maybe it's clock tire, maybe thermal throttles less.

01:07:26   Like the iPad Mini is obviously a friendly

01:07:29   or thermal environment than the phone

01:07:31   just 'cause it's so much bigger

01:07:32   and there's so much room for heat to dissipate

01:07:34   and everything like that.

01:07:36   And it's not that much faster than the iPad.

01:07:38   So the scores are 245 for the iPad Mini

01:07:41   and 238 for the iPhone 13 Pro.

01:07:43   But the point is 10% faster than an A14 is phenomenal.

01:07:49   Is the, right?

01:07:50   It's not like, oh, it's only 10% faster.

01:07:52   Yeah, it's 10% faster.

01:07:53   Intel chips, if they got 10% faster year over year,

01:07:55   we used to celebrate because it was so rare.

01:07:57   So I'm not disappointed in the A15 performance.

01:08:01   In anything I'm excited about the possibility

01:08:03   of having A15 cores in an M2

01:08:06   in like next year's MacBook Air redesign

01:08:08   that we talked about a few shows back.

01:08:10   We shall see.

01:08:11   And then finally photographic styles, Jon.

01:08:13   - We didn't mention it all last week.

01:08:14   It's the thing where you can say like,

01:08:16   I like my photos to be contrasty

01:08:17   or I want them to be cool or warm or, you know,

01:08:20   it's kind of like applying a bunch of different settings

01:08:24   to all the photos you take,

01:08:26   which is a nice touch because iPhones take iPhone pictures.

01:08:29   Like it's very pervasive in the Apple world.

01:08:32   If you take a picture with your phone,

01:08:33   I see this all the time because I use Apple,

01:08:35   you know, I have an iPhone and I also use Apple photos.

01:08:37   If you take a picture with your iPhone

01:08:39   and then you load that picture up in Apple photos

01:08:42   and you click on the little like magic wand thing

01:08:45   that says just make my picture look nice, Apple.

01:08:47   And it's an iPhone picture.

01:08:49   It says it does what Fonzie does

01:08:50   in front of the mirror in Happy Days.

01:08:52   Neither one of you knows this reference.

01:08:53   There you go. - Hey.

01:08:55   - What Fonzie does in the intro to Happy Days

01:08:57   is he goes up to the mirror in the bathroom

01:09:00   and he's got his black plastic comb out of his back pocket.

01:09:03   - Yeah, and he comes here.

01:09:04   - He goes and puts his two hands up to,

01:09:05   he goes and puts his two hands up to his hair,

01:09:07   his greasy hair to like,

01:09:08   I'm gonna comb it with this black, my black plastic comb.

01:09:10   And he goes about to comb it and he looks in the mirror

01:09:12   and he says, ah, you know what, I already look great.

01:09:15   Hey, and he doesn't comb it.

01:09:16   That's exactly what Apple photos does.

01:09:18   When it sees you, you took a photo on iPhone,

01:09:20   it's like adjust your picture, hey, it's already great.

01:09:23   It doesn't do anything, it doesn't change anything.

01:09:25   I mean, maybe it, like, because it already,

01:09:27   whatever adjustment that little magic thing was gonna do,

01:09:30   your iPhone already did.

01:09:31   Your iPhone is very opinionated

01:09:33   on how it interprets the incredible mess of noise

01:09:35   that comes off the sensors from these cameras.

01:09:37   And that opinion has been like the way iPhone pictures look.

01:09:40   And photographic styles finally lets people

01:09:42   have some say in that and say,

01:09:44   I don't like the way they look.

01:09:46   I think they're too cool and I wish they were warmer.

01:09:48   I think they're too warm and I wish they were cooler.

01:09:50   I think they're too low contrast and I wish they were higher.

01:09:52   I'm not sure how flexible this feature is,

01:09:55   but literally doing anything to sort of be able to change

01:09:59   like across the board, how your pictures look,

01:10:02   I think is a good idea.

01:10:03   And I saw that picture, the thing I thought of Tiff,

01:10:05   because Tiff has her own personal photographic style.

01:10:08   If you've seen a lot of her photography,

01:10:10   you can pick it out.

01:10:11   Tiff does that manually because it's the Tiff style, right?

01:10:15   I don't think photographic styles can match the Tiff style.

01:10:17   I don't think there's any chance in hell

01:10:19   it could do what she wants to do to the pictures.

01:10:20   But in that vein of having a personal style

01:10:23   of how you want your pictures to look,

01:10:26   it's great that the phone is starting to go

01:10:28   in that direction for people who don't have

01:10:29   Tiff's photo retouching skills,

01:10:31   or maybe don't even know what their taste is,

01:10:33   but having three or four settings

01:10:35   they can flip through and say, oh, I like this.

01:10:36   And they just turn that on, and from that point on,

01:10:38   all their pictures are slightly warmer

01:10:40   and they're just happier with their camera.

01:10:42   So I think this is a good idea.

01:10:43   - Yeah, me too.

01:10:44   I am all for this feature.

01:10:46   I think this is great because I remember,

01:10:49   it was only a month or two ago when we had Friends visit

01:10:54   and I talked on the show about how one of them

01:10:56   is a really good photographer and was using her own camera,

01:10:58   like a standalone camera, and that I noticed

01:11:01   that the way it just rendered colors and contrast

01:11:04   was just different than the iPhone.

01:11:06   And it was, in addition to being a really nice camera,

01:11:08   it was also just refreshing to see a different balance

01:11:11   of choices there being made by that camera.

01:11:14   It was a refreshing change of pace from my photo library,

01:11:17   which is almost 100% iPhone pictures.

01:11:20   They stood out and it was cool and nice.

01:11:23   And so to be able to tweak this for yourself

01:11:26   and for your own photos just a little bit,

01:11:29   not, I wouldn't go too severe

01:11:32   with any of the adjustments here,

01:11:33   but to be able to just tweak things slightly

01:11:34   for your own preferences and to be able to change them

01:11:36   over time or change them for different settings,

01:11:40   I like that.

01:11:41   I really like that.

01:11:42   So this, I feel like, can reduce the amount of sameness

01:11:47   among whatever one sees and does and produces.

01:11:51   And that's always a welcome change, in my opinion.

01:11:54   One of the downsides of Apple making such great products

01:12:01   and taking over so much of certain industries

01:12:04   or certain demographics or at least everyone we know,

01:12:08   at least one of the downsides of that is that

01:12:11   everyone has the same stuff.

01:12:12   Everyone has the same silverish computer

01:12:17   with the Apple logo and the black keyboard.

01:12:19   And everyone has the same three or four models of iPhone,

01:12:23   that's pretty much what everybody has.

01:12:25   They all look similar, they're all similar colors,

01:12:28   they all do similar things.

01:12:30   And they're all great.

01:12:31   Everyone's wearing the same watch.

01:12:33   You know, it's like, they're all great,

01:12:35   but a little individuality would be nice

01:12:37   when things are that successful and that ubiquitous.

01:12:41   It's nice to be able to have individuality in some way.

01:12:43   This is why I'm always pushing for them

01:12:44   to have more colors in their products,

01:12:46   more custom watch faces, stuff like that.

01:12:49   Just individuality is always a good thing to have.

01:12:51   And as their stuff has taken over and gotten so popular,

01:12:55   individuality has often suffered just by nature.

01:12:58   So something like this where, okay,

01:13:00   now everyone isn't shooting the exact same iPhone pictures.

01:13:05   Everyone's pictures can look a little bit different

01:13:07   and still be good, not look wrong

01:13:09   or not look over-processed.

01:13:11   They can still be good just making different choices,

01:13:13   having different priorities, having different looks.

01:13:16   That I very much welcome.

01:13:18   - Yeah, I hard agree on that.

01:13:19   And I think that's why widgets were and remain so popular

01:13:22   is because it is, granted, it's not the same kind

01:13:24   of individuality you're talking about

01:13:26   in that it's not externally visible in the same way,

01:13:29   but it's customizing your software life to be more for you.

01:13:34   So yeah, I completely agree.

01:13:36   Last episode, we were speculating that the physical wallet

01:13:41   that you can attach magnetically to your iPhone,

01:13:44   that it has some sort of find my technology.

01:13:48   And we figured, oh, what happens is

01:13:49   when you disconnected from your phone,

01:13:50   your phone reports into the mothership that,

01:13:52   oh, I was at such and such a location

01:13:54   when it gets disconnected.

01:13:55   And Snell writes that the new iPhone 13 wallet

01:13:58   has an NFC chip inside to enable its find where,

01:14:00   detach from my phone feature.

01:14:02   Turns out you can use this feature with the iPhone 12 models.

01:14:04   The magic is in the NFC chip, not the phone.

01:14:07   And that was news to me, and that's pretty cool.

01:14:10   - Yep, he's got a whole article about it

01:14:12   giving more detail than just this tweet,

01:14:13   but yeah, it's just an NFC thing.

01:14:14   I will reiterate my anger that the solution

01:14:18   to the problem of a wallet that keeps falling off your phone

01:14:21   is to make it easier to find after it gets lost

01:14:23   rather than saying maybe we shouldn't have a wallet

01:14:25   that magnetically connects to the back of our phone.

01:14:27   Although on that front, some of the people who have

01:14:30   the new phones and the new wallet,

01:14:32   I'm not sure how they have them already,

01:14:33   maybe they're reviewers, but anyway,

01:14:34   there were some reports that everything is stronger there,

01:14:37   stronger magnets in the phone and in the wallet,

01:14:40   and it is harder to detach than it was.

01:14:42   Is it harder than it is to detach than a wallet case though?

01:14:45   I still don't think that's a great product.

01:14:48   - For what it's worth, our cases arrived yesterday,

01:14:52   I believe, I haven't opened either of them.

01:14:54   I actually think I'm going to return

01:14:55   the Apple leather case that I bought.

01:14:57   Oh, we should probably say what we purchased.

01:14:59   I guess we kind of obliquely did,

01:15:00   we never got to Marco's whole situation,

01:15:03   so maybe we can slot that in in a moment.

01:15:05   But I bought a 256 gig, what is it, Sierra Blue,

01:15:09   iPhone 13 Pro, Aaron got a 256 gig,

01:15:13   whatever the silver is, is that not champagne?

01:15:15   What's the silver this year?

01:15:17   - Starlight or whatever, was it?

01:15:18   - Yeah, there you go, thank you.

01:15:20   Got one of those.

01:15:21   She's got the, I forget the official term,

01:15:23   but basically a light pink silicone case,

01:15:26   silicon, silicone, I always get it wrong.

01:15:28   - Silicone. - And then like I said,

01:15:29   silicone, thank you.

01:15:30   And then I ordered the Apple black leather case,

01:15:33   but I don't know if I'm gonna actually even open it.

01:15:36   I've tried at the recommendation of Paul Kefasis.

01:15:38   What is it?

01:15:39   It's, shoot, I don't have it in front of me.

01:15:41   The, stalling for time, Nudiant,

01:15:44   which is a very funny word, N-U-D-I-E-N-T case.

01:15:47   I have not received it yet

01:15:48   and probably won't for another week or two,

01:15:49   but I'm gonna try that because it comes in a vaguely similar,

01:15:53   one of the options is a vaguely similar blue

01:15:55   to the Sierra blue.

01:15:56   John, you mentioned what Tina's getting.

01:15:58   Can you repeat that for me, please?

01:16:00   - She got a Sierra blue 13 pro 256.

01:16:05   - Excellent. - And she ordered,

01:16:07   she ordered two cases

01:16:08   'cause she likes to have different styles.

01:16:09   Unfortunately, she ordered two iPhone 13 cases.

01:16:11   So those had to be returned.

01:16:13   - Whoopsies.

01:16:14   - Be careful when you're ordering.

01:16:15   She showed them to me and said,

01:16:16   "These are the wrong cases, aren't they?"

01:16:17   I said, "They sure are."

01:16:19   So then she reordered, I believe they're both,

01:16:23   can I remember, I think they're both silicone.

01:16:24   She was picking based on color.

01:16:25   Whichever ones had the two case color she wanted,

01:16:28   she got two of those.

01:16:29   And we also got the little battery,

01:16:31   the Apple stick on battery pack thing,

01:16:32   which I told her she would be disappointed in

01:16:34   and she listens to ATP.

01:16:36   So- - Oh, it's not that bad.

01:16:38   - 'Cause you don't understand that the battery she has now,

01:16:40   it's gargantuan, it is bigger and it doesn't come off.

01:16:42   And I was trying to say, remember that episode?

01:16:45   It's not like you're gonna be able

01:16:46   to take this battery pack,

01:16:46   slap it on the back of your phone for five minutes

01:16:48   and get a bunch of charge and then take it off.

01:16:50   It's gonna be on there all the time

01:16:52   and it's smaller than your current battery.

01:16:53   So be prepared to be disappointed, but she's gonna try it.

01:16:56   So that's what she's got.

01:16:57   I mean, she could just stop poking Manning all the time.

01:16:59   That would also be a solution.

01:17:01   - She was angry about Apple is another thing.

01:17:03   I think we mentioned on the show

01:17:04   this stupid policy that Apple has.

01:17:06   She ordered all this stuff all at once

01:17:08   in like one big pre-order thing.

01:17:09   But then of course she had to return the two 13 cases.

01:17:11   So she just went to the physical store

01:17:12   to return the 15 cases.

01:17:14   About they're like, oh, you can't return that

01:17:16   until your entire order has arrived, right?

01:17:19   - What? - Like you can't return it

01:17:21   to the physical store because the phone

01:17:24   hasn't gotten there yet, so we can't do it

01:17:25   because the order hasn't, so she ended up,

01:17:28   like she had to leave the store

01:17:29   without giving them back the cases

01:17:30   and then get like a shipping label from Apple and send.

01:17:33   It was annoying.

01:17:34   Like they have that policy of like,

01:17:35   they address, maybe it was someone who wrote into us

01:17:38   saying they address your order as an entire thing.

01:17:40   It's not like you can piecemeal mess

01:17:42   with individual parts of it,

01:17:43   especially if some of it hasn't arrived.

01:17:45   So that was a little bit annoying.

01:17:46   She came back from the Apple store kind of angry about that.

01:17:48   But anyway. - That understandably,

01:17:50   yeah, seriously. - Wow.

01:17:51   - All right, Marco, how did you end up

01:17:53   with between zero and four iPhones?

01:17:56   What is happening over there?

01:17:57   - It isn't that interesting of a story.

01:17:58   So basically, so iPhone ordering time

01:18:02   is during the time that I have to drop my kid off at school.

01:18:05   And so I dropped him off, I went outside,

01:18:09   and before I could get home, it turned eight o'clock,

01:18:11   so I just stopped in front of the school

01:18:13   and took out my phone and just, and I had,

01:18:16   and Tiff was at home doing work stuff,

01:18:19   so I didn't want to disturb her.

01:18:20   So I was tasked with the annual commitment

01:18:25   of ordering two phones, the big phone for her

01:18:28   and the little bit less big phone for me.

01:18:31   So I opened up my phone at the right time

01:18:33   and the pre-approvals are just not there

01:18:35   because, oh well, it's--

01:18:37   - And you know, they were hard to find.

01:18:39   When my wife was trying to do her order,

01:18:42   she handed me her phone and she launched the Apple store app,

01:18:44   she handed me her phone and said,

01:18:45   "Where the heck are my orders?"

01:18:46   And I was like, "Uh, uh, tap," and I found them.

01:18:48   I don't, I actually don't even remember where they were,

01:18:50   but it's not obvious.

01:18:51   - I think they were supposed to show up

01:18:53   in like the landing page, but that was only,

01:18:56   I think, after the pre-orders had opened,

01:18:58   and of course, because Apple stinks at web services,

01:19:00   it didn't really work for a lot of people,

01:19:01   including me, if I remember right.

01:19:02   And you had to go, I'm doing this off the top of my head,

01:19:04   you had to go into the store app

01:19:06   and then one of the tabs at the bottom

01:19:09   will end up putting your profile

01:19:12   as a button in the upper right-hand corner,

01:19:13   like a picture of your profile or whatever.

01:19:15   And if you drill into that,

01:19:17   then you scroll a ways

01:19:20   and you can finally find your stupid pre pre-orders.

01:19:23   You would think they would put it front and center,

01:19:25   since obviously time is of the essence.

01:19:26   Obviously they're trying to get you to spend money.

01:19:29   The information architects at Apple,

01:19:31   I would love to have a sit down with them

01:19:32   over a lot of alcohol because, oh my gosh.

01:19:36   - That's not an information architecture problem.

01:19:37   I think it's probably like a,

01:19:38   why does nothing work on the store on launch day?

01:19:41   'Cause everything is all slammed.

01:19:43   And so I bet it wasn't supposed to work that way,

01:19:45   but in practice it did and I had to furiously

01:19:48   tap around on the app before I could

01:19:51   re-materialize her pre-order.

01:19:53   Oh, and by the way, speaking of the pre-order thing,

01:19:56   just to remind everyone that DTK discount that I have,

01:19:59   that I fought to get back,

01:20:01   didn't even try to use it with this

01:20:03   'cause I have no idea how that would mess with the pre-order.

01:20:06   - Well, I'll get to that.

01:20:07   - Okay.

01:20:08   - Oh, here we go, here we go.

01:20:10   - All right, so I'm standing in front of the school

01:20:12   just trying to order things on my phone

01:20:14   through the Apple Store app.

01:20:15   'Cause I know, first of all,

01:20:17   I'm trying to order an iPhone Pro

01:20:18   and an iPhone Pro Max at launch time,

01:20:20   and we both wanted the new blue color.

01:20:23   And I knew, odds are, if something's gonna sell out first,

01:20:27   it's gonna be that blue Max followed by the blue Pro.

01:20:30   Those are gonna be the ones that sell out first.

01:20:31   So I was rushing, I'm like, all right, you know what?

01:20:33   My pre-orders aren't even here, fine.

01:20:35   I'll just go through and order new.

01:20:36   So first, order mine, because hey, order is privilege.

01:20:40   (laughing)

01:20:41   First, order mine.

01:20:43   And again, we're not talking about multi-item carts here.

01:20:46   No case, just order the phone.

01:20:48   Boom, boom, boom, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, yes, go.

01:20:50   Oh, God, I forgot to agree to the terms.

01:20:52   Fine, agree to the terms, go.

01:20:53   Okay, oh, Apple Pay failed, try again, okay, it works.

01:20:56   Okay, now go back, order TIFFs.

01:20:57   Again, start over.

01:20:59   Throw the fork away.

01:21:01   Do everything again, tap, tap, tap, yes.

01:21:02   Now I want the Max, whenever else.

01:21:04   Now, in that rush, I was able to get two phones

01:21:08   with day one delivery.

01:21:09   Great, so all right, get on my bike, ride home.

01:21:13   After I'm home, now I'm like, all right.

01:21:15   What I actually want is not two fresh phones

01:21:19   that have no idea about AT&T and everything else.

01:21:21   What I want is for one of those TIFFs phone

01:21:25   to be a trade-in to replace her existing one.

01:21:28   So now it's like, all right, now I got my definite

01:21:31   day one orders in.

01:21:32   Now that I'm home, 10 minutes later, let me try,

01:21:36   can I place a second order with TIFFs phone

01:21:38   that's like a replace this phone on my account

01:21:40   kind of order so the trade-in is easier to deal with,

01:21:43   and then I can cancel the first order.

01:21:45   So that goes through, but there's a weird,

01:21:47   and again, even 10 minutes later, surprisingly,

01:21:51   the Max, in the nice blue color, was still available

01:21:54   for day one delivery.

01:21:55   Great, okay, lucked out.

01:21:57   So from TIFFs phone, we placed a second order

01:22:00   that's gonna be like the one that we hopefully keep.

01:22:02   That's great, okay.

01:22:03   Got the trade-in, got everything set up properly

01:22:05   on her phone through her Apple Store app, okay.

01:22:08   I don't wanna cancel the first order until like 24 hours

01:22:12   from now, just to make sure this actually

01:22:14   is gonna go through.

01:22:15   Then I thought, well, look at my luck.

01:22:19   I actually have Apple gift cards to spend,

01:22:22   and my phone, now like 15, 20 minutes later,

01:22:25   my phone is still available for day one delivery.

01:22:28   - Oh my gosh.

01:22:29   - So I went and created a new order for my phone as well

01:22:33   using my DTK discount, 'cause I figure this is clearly,

01:22:36   so I went to my MacBook Air, like, you know,

01:22:38   doing it all like in the computer way,

01:22:40   like through the web store, which is totally different

01:22:42   than the app backend.

01:22:44   So I'm like, all right, so I use my DTK discount

01:22:46   to order myself a phone and got $500 off, that's fantastic.

01:22:50   You know, so now I have four orders.

01:22:53   But I didn't want to cancel those first two

01:22:56   until, you know, the next morning.

01:22:59   This is last Friday.

01:23:00   I knew it was a few days away from shipping,

01:23:02   it should be fine.

01:23:03   Well, these orders went almost immediately

01:23:06   into the like preparing to ship status.

01:23:09   And you can't cancel phones in the preparing to ship status.

01:23:13   - And by the way, I would remind you

01:23:14   that you also can't cancel or shouldn't cancel that phone

01:23:17   that you use the DTK discount for,

01:23:18   because then you will lose the discount.

01:23:20   - Exactly, so I'm not gonna cancel that one regardless,

01:23:22   but I can't anyway, 'cause they all went almost immediately

01:23:25   into preparing for ship.

01:23:26   You can't cancel that without contacting support.

01:23:28   So all right, so I contacted the web support and everything,

01:23:31   and it's, you know, well, we can try to put in requests,

01:23:35   but we really are just initiating returns.

01:23:38   So you might actually receive these,

01:23:41   and then you have to immediately return them,

01:23:42   or they might catch the return in the shipping process

01:23:46   and just never ship it in the first place.

01:23:48   So I still have four orders total,

01:23:51   all of which say preparing to ship,

01:23:52   and all of which say delivers Friday.

01:23:55   - Yeah, don't get those mixed up

01:23:56   when they arrive at your house,

01:23:57   because it may not be obvious which one of your phones

01:23:59   is the one that has DTK, and again,

01:24:01   I will emphasize you do not want to return the wrong one.

01:24:03   - Yeah, I know, from your horror story,

01:24:05   I heard that, so I'm like, all right,

01:24:06   so I know, hopefully I'll be receiving exactly two phones,

01:24:09   and it will work itself out,

01:24:11   but if not, it will be some logistics, but anyway.

01:24:15   - I didn't use my DTK discount for two reasons.

01:24:18   One is I didn't know how to do it from the app,

01:24:20   which is where we have that staged pre-order.

01:24:21   That's why you did it on the web, I imagine,

01:24:23   because the whole DTK discount is this weird thing,

01:24:25   and they want you to go to a URL

01:24:26   and add a thing to your cart.

01:24:27   Maybe you can do it from the app,

01:24:28   but I didn't want to risk it in the rush.

01:24:29   And the second thing is, because this is my wife's phone,

01:24:32   she ordered it from her existing phone that it's replacing,

01:24:34   just like you do with TIFFs,

01:24:35   just because it makes everything more convenient.

01:24:37   But the code thing, I'm like, is that tied to my Apple ID?

01:24:41   Is that tied to my account?

01:24:43   Too many questions, and we do have,

01:24:45   she's gonna get a watch too.

01:24:46   So we're gonna use it with the watch,

01:24:47   'cause I'm gonna buy the watch, quote unquote, for her.

01:24:50   I'll buy it through my Apple ID,

01:24:51   because the watch doesn't really matter.

01:24:53   Anyone can buy the watch.

01:24:54   It's not screwed up by carrier crap.

01:24:57   So I do still plan to use the DTK thing.

01:25:00   It is still burning a hole in my pocket,

01:25:02   but I'm going to use it very carefully and deliberately,

01:25:03   and currently the plan is to use it on a watch.

01:25:06   - I will also echo Casey's complaint

01:25:09   about the leather case this year.

01:25:12   So normally, okay, I've been caseless Casey-less

01:25:15   for my Mini, 'cause it's wonderful,

01:25:17   and I love the aluminum sides and the tacky glass back

01:25:21   of the non-pro phones.

01:25:22   - You love dropping them on the ground, you may know.

01:25:23   - Only a couple times.

01:25:24   But this time I'm like, all right,

01:25:27   I'm getting a bigger phone now.

01:25:29   It has the fingerprint sides and the slippery back,

01:25:32   because pro, I guess.

01:25:34   So all right, I might as well go back to the land of cases.

01:25:37   And when I use cases, my favorite cases have always

01:25:39   been the Apple leather cases.

01:25:41   I wish I liked the silicone,

01:25:43   because silicone cases are more practical.

01:25:46   - So much better colors, so much better colors, and cheaper.

01:25:49   - Way better colors, I'll get to that.

01:25:50   But yeah, so yeah, like 10 bucks cheaper,

01:25:52   20 bucks cheaper, and they, you know,

01:25:54   I live in a place with a lot of water,

01:25:57   and surfaces that are always wet.

01:25:59   And you know, having leather cases,

01:26:01   I always will develop like, you know,

01:26:03   spots on the leather from this one time I set it down

01:26:05   on a drop of water on a wet counter, or something like that,

01:26:08   and then it stains it forever or whatever.

01:26:10   So I would like the more practical material of silicone.

01:26:13   The only problem is, I hate having the silicone case

01:26:16   go in and out of jeans pockets.

01:26:17   - Yep.

01:26:18   - Because it just, it catches and it pulls

01:26:20   the whole pocket liner out, like, it's just not a good.

01:26:23   But this time, I look at the colors that are available

01:26:25   for my blue phone, and the case colors Apple offers

01:26:30   for the leather case this year are tan, gray, green,

01:26:35   and two shades of purple.

01:26:37   - So bad.

01:26:38   - There's no blue, like what?

01:26:40   So I guess blue is a popular enough color

01:26:45   to offer the only reasonable color of your pro phone

01:26:48   that's not like a shade of black or white that's blue,

01:26:52   but not popular enough to offer a blue leather case.

01:26:56   - So ridiculous.

01:26:58   - And of course, you know, previous years cases

01:27:00   won't fit it, so I ordered the,

01:27:03   I can't bear any of these leather colors.

01:27:05   I ordered the silicone, like whatever the bird blue was,

01:27:09   it looked pretty good, but I'm gonna try silicone

01:27:12   to see if I can get used to it, but I'm not hopeful.

01:27:15   - Yeah, I'm curious, I'm very curious to hear

01:27:17   how that goes for you, because I agree wholeheartedly

01:27:20   that the silicone cases are much better colors,

01:27:24   they're much cheaper.

01:27:26   I think they don't feel quite as heavy,

01:27:30   but not in a physical sense, like, I don't know,

01:27:32   they just feel more slimming, but it's just, I don't know,

01:27:36   they're not for me, generally speaking,

01:27:38   for all the reasons that you enumerated.

01:27:40   So I'm curious to see how my Nudiant case turns out.

01:27:43   Again, I think I'm not gonna get it for another week or two

01:27:45   or something like that, so I'm briefly going to be caseless,

01:27:46   caseless, which if it's anything like my 11 Pro,

01:27:49   it means I will shatter the back within that

01:27:52   before I actually get the case that I've ordered for it.

01:27:54   But nevertheless, I have AppleCare,

01:27:57   so it shouldn't be a problem.

01:27:58   But yeah, I wish they had better options

01:28:02   for the leather cases, and that they were cheaper.

01:28:04   - Yeah, but I also ordered the Nudiant case, by the way.

01:28:07   - No lip at the bottom of your third-party case?

01:28:09   - No, it completely encapsulates the bottom,

01:28:11   which means it's not a John Sirkisa-approved case.

01:28:13   - That's the main reason to buy a third-party one,

01:28:15   is you don't have to deal with that.

01:28:16   Although the fact that it does cover everything,

01:28:17   I know it seems weird that they sell this blue phone

01:28:20   and don't have a blue case, but honestly,

01:28:22   if you put any of those leather cases on the phone,

01:28:24   you basically don't see the color of the phone anymore.

01:28:27   - Right, and that's the thing,

01:28:28   is I wanna show off the color of the phone,

01:28:29   and yes, I am aware that clear cases exist,

01:28:32   but any of the clear cases I've ever seen

01:28:34   are always gross, icky plastic.

01:28:36   - No, it's like that clear keyboard.

01:28:38   Do you remember the Apple keyboard

01:28:39   that was clear on the bottom?

01:28:40   - Yeah, the breadcrumb keyboard.

01:28:42   - Mm-hmm, not good, not good.

01:28:45   And it happens with phone cases, too.

01:28:47   - And you're right that yes,

01:28:49   only the camera mountain really shrines through,

01:28:50   so that's all you really see.

01:28:51   But one thing I love about Apple's website

01:28:54   is that when you look at their case pages,

01:28:57   they show you a picture of every color of phone

01:29:00   that's available for it,

01:29:01   so you can see how every color will look

01:29:04   in whatever color case you're looking at.

01:29:06   Pick the blue phone and go to the different colors

01:29:08   and tell me, do any of those colors look good

01:29:11   on the blue phone?

01:29:13   I'm gonna go with no.

01:29:14   I don't think literally any of the iPhone 13 Pro

01:29:18   leather cases look good on blue.

01:29:21   The only one that looks remotely good, I think,

01:29:23   is the Midnight, which is the gray with,

01:29:26   there's a slight bluish tint, but it's basically gray.

01:29:29   - Yeah, that's what I ordered.

01:29:30   - I don't want a gray, I mean, yeah,

01:29:32   if I'm gonna order one,

01:29:33   that's the one I'm probably gonna get,

01:29:33   but I don't want a gray phone.

01:29:36   Like, I want a blue phone.

01:29:38   And to John's point, whatever color case you get

01:29:41   does basically become the color of your phone,

01:29:43   with the exception of the camera mountain.

01:29:45   So I don't want a beige, green, gray,

01:29:49   or purple or purple phone.

01:29:50   I want a blue phone.

01:29:52   And why?

01:29:53   It's so ridiculous.

01:29:55   So anyway, I'm also gonna explore the third party market.

01:29:57   I did order one of those Nudian cases, thanks Paul.

01:30:00   And we'll see what we can find.

01:30:02   But what's probably gonna happen is we're gonna have

01:30:04   four different cases, none of which I love,

01:30:07   but go with my zero to four phones.

01:30:09   - Yeah, it's a shame because,

01:30:11   is the Apple Silicon cases in all other ways?

01:30:13   'Cause I bought, remember, on my 12 Pro,

01:30:16   I bought the Apple Silicon case for it to begin with.

01:30:18   I loved it, everything about it was great,

01:30:20   except of course it had a lip on the bottom.

01:30:22   And I wanted to try it, say maybe it's not a deal breaker

01:30:24   before me, I tried it for a while,

01:30:25   it turns out it was a deal breaker,

01:30:26   I got a third party case.

01:30:27   By the way, people are asking,

01:30:28   my third party case is still holding up fine,

01:30:30   it was incredibly cheap.

01:30:32   A bunch of people asked me for the link,

01:30:33   it's been in past show notes or whatever.

01:30:35   But yeah, I'm happy with it so far.

01:30:37   It's just annoying to have to find a third party case.

01:30:39   I think I bought like three third party cases

01:30:40   before I landed on this one.

01:30:42   - Yours was the CINA case, S-E-N-A, right?

01:30:44   - No, mine is the Olixar something or other.

01:30:47   It was incredibly cheap.

01:30:48   I'll find the link for the show notes again.

01:30:51   But yeah, the Apple Silhou case is like,

01:30:53   for setting aside the grippiness thing,

01:30:55   which is its own factor,

01:30:56   I know if that's your deal killer, then that's what it is.

01:30:58   But like, the fit and finish,

01:31:01   the fact that the buttons line up,

01:31:02   the buttons are even with each other,

01:31:03   things that you don't really think about

01:31:05   until you buy a third party case and realize,

01:31:06   wait a second, this thing doesn't fit right.

01:31:08   Or one button sticks out more than the other,

01:31:10   or it's crooked, or it feels weird.

01:31:12   Doesn't happen with the Apple cases.

01:31:13   The Apple cases in general are really good.

01:31:15   So that's why it pains me when I have the lip,

01:31:17   and in Marco's case, it pains him

01:31:19   that they don't have the colors that he likes.

01:31:21   - All right, so we've got iPad stuff to discuss.

01:31:23   Neil Hughes writes, "You mentioned that the 2021

01:31:26   low-end iPad has started using a Lightning to USB-C cable,

01:31:30   i.e. USB-C at the power brick end.

01:31:32   A member of my family got the previous generation iPad

01:31:34   here in the UK, and that also had this cable.

01:31:37   So the switch must've happened at least a year ago."

01:31:39   That is news to me.

01:31:40   I did not know that.

01:31:41   - Or it could just be in the UK.

01:31:42   They have wacky stuff over there.

01:31:43   - I mean, have you seen the size of the ridiculous plugs?

01:31:46   Please don't at me.

01:31:46   Please don't at me.

01:31:47   I know they're safe or whatever.

01:31:48   I don't care.

01:31:49   They're ridiculous.

01:31:50   - Oh, they're safe and ridiculous.

01:31:52   - They're safe and ridiculous.

01:31:53   - And deadly when they're on the floor face up.

01:31:55   - Yeah.

01:31:56   - Yeah, can you imagine that?

01:31:57   Ready?

01:31:58   We're gonna really tick off all the UK people.

01:32:00   That would be almost as bad as stepping on Legos.

01:32:04   - Wow.

01:32:05   - They love that so much.

01:32:06   - Is that a UK thing, the pedantry about Lego bricks

01:32:09   and whatever?

01:32:10   - I hear it vehemently from UK people.

01:32:14   - No, you don't.

01:32:14   You hear it vehemently, but that's fine.

01:32:16   - Well, fine.

01:32:17   - Okay.

01:32:17   But I'm not even gonna go there.

01:32:20   But anyways, anytime I've ever been corrected about Legos,

01:32:23   it's always been from someone from the UK.

01:32:25   Anyway, the UK, that's like not Europe, right?

01:32:29   Oh my God, I'm such a jerk.

01:32:29   Anyway, moving on.

01:32:30   - Oh wow.

01:32:31   Oh wow.

01:32:32   (laughing)

01:32:33   - The iPad mini does not support the,

01:32:37   what is it, millimeter wave?

01:32:38   Is that right?

01:32:39   The millimeter wave 5G stuff, which is news to me.

01:32:42   I did not know that either.

01:32:44   So this is the, I guess it's sort of kind of,

01:32:47   it's not wifi, but it's of a similar distance of coverage

01:32:51   as like a wifi-based station,

01:32:53   but it is preposterously, absurdly, ridiculously fast.

01:32:57   And apparently the iPad mini doesn't support it.

01:33:00   - Yeah, this next item about the iPad mini,

01:33:02   I'm not sure, this is earlier than the previous item

01:33:05   about the benchmarks.

01:33:06   I'm not sure how to square it with the benchmarks

01:33:07   according to this MacRumors story here.

01:33:11   Both the A13 and the iPad mini are equipped with the A15,

01:33:14   but benchmark results reveal that the chip is downclocked

01:33:16   to 2.9 gigahertz in the iPad mini compared to 3.2 gigahertz

01:33:20   in all the iPhone 13 models.

01:33:21   Conceivably that could still be true

01:33:23   and the benchmark differences due to thermal throttling.

01:33:25   But as we just saw running that JavaScript benchmark,

01:33:28   the iPad mini is the tops in the entire world,

01:33:31   also beating the iPhone.

01:33:33   So clock speed stuff, we've got to wait for these devices

01:33:38   to be added in more people's hands

01:33:39   and for the particular techie reviewers

01:33:40   to look at the clock speed and see how it changes over time

01:33:43   in running benchmarks and all that other stuff.

01:33:44   So I'm not sure what to make of this,

01:33:47   but Apple could help us here by giving specs

01:33:52   like the clock speed and some obscure webpage,

01:33:54   but Apple doesn't bother,

01:33:55   so we'd have to figure it out ourselves eventually.

01:33:57   - Yeah, again, this is an area where it's complicated

01:34:00   'cause it's so much about thermals

01:34:02   and different thermal states and charge levels

01:34:05   and charge states and whatever gigahertz rating

01:34:09   is reported on a benchmark for a processor

01:34:12   that does not officially report its speed

01:34:13   like in its model name.

01:34:15   That's just whatever speed it was running at right then.

01:34:18   But they change speeds.

01:34:20   They go up and down like frequently.

01:34:22   They're constantly fluctuating to optimize for power

01:34:26   and heat needs and everything else.

01:34:27   So I wouldn't put any weight into whatever Geekbench reports

01:34:32   for one particular run of the benchmark

01:34:35   'cause you could run the benchmark twice in a row

01:34:36   and get two different clock speeds.

01:34:38   - Quick aside, I was preparing the next section

01:34:41   of the show notes and I was typing

01:34:43   golf swing ampersand tennis serve speed.

01:34:46   Do you wanna guess what I typed

01:34:47   instead of an ampersand just now?

01:34:48   - Why don't you write the word and?

01:34:50   What do you have against the word and?

01:34:52   I was watching "Why the Last Man"

01:34:54   and "The Monkees" named ampersand

01:34:56   and every time I see it, I think of you.

01:34:57   (laughing)

01:34:58   - Oh, thank you.

01:35:00   That makes me oh so happy.

01:35:01   So yeah, the Apple Watch Series 7,

01:35:03   actually, let me give you a clean edit there.

01:35:05   The Apple Watch Series 7,

01:35:06   it is apparently going to track and I guess report

01:35:09   golf swing speed ampersand tennis serve speed.

01:35:13   (laughing)

01:35:14   - This was in the event, the in the event video

01:35:16   and we just didn't get a chance to talk about it

01:35:18   and I think we should because, so here's the deal.

01:35:21   I don't know much about golf,

01:35:22   so I'm not gonna comment on that, right?

01:35:24   But I do know a lot about tennis

01:35:25   and here's the thing with trying to register

01:35:29   tennis serve speed with a thing that's on your wrist.

01:35:33   It's going to be a wild guess

01:35:36   because the way tennis serves,

01:35:40   the way serving in tennis works,

01:35:41   especially when you're trying to serve fast,

01:35:43   is it's all about the wrist snap

01:35:45   and the wrist snap is to get the head of the racket

01:35:49   moving as fast as possible

01:35:50   and the racket is like a lever

01:35:51   because you're holding one end of it

01:35:53   and the head is way out there at the other end.

01:35:54   So if you move your hand this much,

01:35:56   the very, very tip of the racket

01:35:58   or the head of the racket moves more

01:36:00   because it's the end of a stick essentially, right?

01:36:02   That's what makes your serve go fast.

01:36:04   But your watch is attached to your wrist,

01:36:07   not the head of the racket.

01:36:09   So how the hell do you know how fast

01:36:10   the racket head was moving

01:36:12   by measuring what happens on your wrist?

01:36:14   You can't, you just have to do some sort of multiplier.

01:36:17   Like well, most amateur tennis players

01:36:19   have a crappy wrist snap and their racket head speed

01:36:21   is X percent faster than their actual wrist speed,

01:36:24   therefore this is how fast your serve was.

01:36:26   Eh, sorry, no, I don't see this as,

01:36:28   it's not the fault of the watch,

01:36:30   it's just because it's attached to your wrist

01:36:33   and it's not even attached like to your hand,

01:36:34   at least your hand moves in relation to your wrist,

01:36:36   it's attached to your wrist.

01:36:38   When I say you snap your wrist,

01:36:39   it really means that your hand,

01:36:41   which is at the end of your wrist,

01:36:42   is the thing that snaps forward,

01:36:44   but your watch isn't on that part.

01:36:46   So I don't understand how that could possibly work,

01:36:48   unless you're a really bad tennis server

01:36:49   and you do not snap your wrist,

01:36:50   but you totally should, you have to pronate.

01:36:53   Have to pronate.

01:36:53   If you're not pronating when you're serving,

01:36:55   you're either a senior citizen

01:36:56   or you're not serving very fast.

01:36:58   So work on your kind of service speed,

01:37:00   but don't expect the watch type or anything.

01:37:02   In terms of golf swing,

01:37:03   I feel like we need to have Tiff on to say,

01:37:05   so what about golf?

01:37:06   Is the speed that your wrist moves

01:37:09   directly translatable to the speed that you hit a golf ball?

01:37:12   I don't know, 'cause I don't know how wrists work

01:37:14   in relation to golf, but in tennis,

01:37:16   I give this a big thumbs down.

01:37:18   - Being an expert in neither thing or sports ever,

01:37:21   I would expect golf to be a little bit easier to measure,

01:37:24   because aren't your hands generally in a straighter alignment

01:37:27   as you're striking the ball?

01:37:28   - I believe so.

01:37:29   - I don't know.

01:37:30   Well, what I do know is that golf clubs are a long stick

01:37:32   and that the part that hits the ball is at the end

01:37:34   that your hands are at the other end.

01:37:35   And so I think there has to be

01:37:37   some kind of lever action there.

01:37:39   And so I don't think there is a direct linear relationship

01:37:42   between the speed of your wrist

01:37:43   and the rack up at the end of the golf club.

01:37:45   But for all I know, it is a more predictable relationship.

01:37:48   So Tiff was excited about this feature

01:37:50   when she saw it in the video.

01:37:51   I think she tweeted about it.

01:37:52   So I mean, I think it's her duty for the show

01:37:55   to have to go out to a driving range

01:37:56   that has actual like radar measurement or something

01:37:59   and try it with the new Apple Watch or new watchOS

01:38:02   or whatever, and see if you get readings

01:38:06   that are remotely meaningful.

01:38:08   - The Apple Watch Series 7, as per Mac rumors,

01:38:11   includes faster charging, which we knew,

01:38:13   claiming that it can charge to 80% in just 45 minutes,

01:38:16   and that eight minutes of fast charging

01:38:17   will provide sufficient battery life

01:38:19   for eight hours of sleep trapping,

01:38:21   which I believe we also knew.

01:38:22   To support the new fast charging,

01:38:23   Apple will be offering a new one meter USB-C

01:38:25   magnetic fast charging cable.

01:38:27   - Now what does that mean?

01:38:28   Does that mean you get these new fast charging speeds

01:38:31   with the new cable, or is it, oh, you get a new cable,

01:38:34   but it's like, I don't understand this.

01:38:37   It's a Mac rumor story.

01:38:38   I can't tell if they have any information

01:38:40   or they're just trying to say, oh, it comes with a cable.

01:38:42   - Right, because as I mentioned,

01:38:43   Apple has sold a USB-C Apple Watch cable for some time.

01:38:46   I believe it's a third of a meter or a half a meter.

01:38:49   And it was used to charge your Apple Watch

01:38:52   from your USB-C only MacBook Pro since 2016.

01:38:55   They've sold this for a while.

01:38:57   Does that cable do it too, or just the new one?

01:39:00   Who knows?

01:39:01   - And additionally for Mac rumors,

01:39:04   on the connectivity front,

01:39:05   the Series 7 includes the same Bluetooth 5.0 protocol

01:39:08   as the Series 6, but unlike the Series 6,

01:39:10   the new Apple Watch Series 7

01:39:11   also has built-in support for Baidu,

01:39:13   China's satellite navigation system.

01:39:16   - So these are like the small differences in the Apple Watch,

01:39:19   and here comes the big one that we speculated

01:39:22   about last week.

01:39:22   So, oh, they didn't say anything about the system on a chip

01:39:24   in the Apple Watch Series 7.

01:39:26   What do you think it might be?

01:39:26   And then Marco was saying,

01:39:28   well, it might not be the big upgrade.

01:39:29   And I said, well, what if it is literally the same system

01:39:32   on a chip as the Series 6?

01:39:34   And then Marco said, oh yeah, they did that.

01:39:35   They've done that before.

01:39:36   They did it in the Series 1 and 2,

01:39:37   and they did that between the 4 and 5.

01:39:39   And so according to whatever these are,

01:39:42   part numbers or CPU identifiers

01:39:46   as posted by Steve Trouton Smith,

01:39:49   his tweet says, "There is a reason Apple didn't talk

01:39:51   about the Apple Watch Series 7 CPU this year,

01:39:53   and that's because it's exactly the same

01:39:54   as last year's Series 6.

01:39:55   In fact, it doesn't even get a new model number.

01:39:57   It is effectively just a chassis tweak."

01:39:59   And he says, "Same as Series 1 and 2 and 4 and 5."

01:40:02   So we just went through a bunch of things

01:40:05   that like the Watch Series 7 does have different internals,

01:40:08   'cause it's got these different radio frequency band

01:40:10   for China's satellite thing.

01:40:11   It's got faster charging

01:40:13   and different charging characteristics,

01:40:14   and it's probably got a bunch of other stuff in there

01:40:16   that's different too.

01:40:17   But as far as we can tell right now,

01:40:19   the actual system on a chip,

01:40:21   plus or minus the storage and maybe even the RAM,

01:40:24   but the actual system on a chip

01:40:25   is reporting the same part number as far as we can tell.

01:40:28   Again, until people have these watches,

01:40:30   we don't know for sure, and they're coming,

01:40:32   what is it, later this fall or whatever,

01:40:33   so we don't even know when they're here.

01:40:35   - December 20th.

01:40:36   - Yeah, all signs are currently pointing to the Series 7

01:40:40   having the same system on a chip

01:40:42   in terms of CPU, GPU, or all that other stuff

01:40:45   as the Series 6.

01:40:46   - Yeah, and when you first hear this,

01:40:49   it's kind of a bummer in the sense that

01:40:51   it does seem like the Series 7

01:40:53   is actually a very minor update.

01:40:56   And honestly, I think I'm gonna buy it

01:40:59   just because I wanna know what those screens look like,

01:41:02   and I can kind of excuse that

01:41:04   from a development perspective

01:41:05   of I do develop Apple Watch stuff,

01:41:08   and so I kinda need to know how my complications

01:41:11   and interfaces look.

01:41:12   - Plus you wanna measure your golf swing.

01:41:14   - Exactly, all the golfing I do all the time.

01:41:17   This does seem like it's a very minor update,

01:41:19   and I almost wonder,

01:41:20   we've all obviously been complaining about

01:41:23   how the Series 3 is still around

01:41:25   and at the exact same price,

01:41:27   and the SE that was introduced last year

01:41:29   did not fall in price at all,

01:41:31   and so there's actually kind of not much movement at all

01:41:35   on the watch this year,

01:41:37   with the exception of, yeah,

01:41:38   they made the screen different and better,

01:41:42   and it charges faster.

01:41:44   But it seems like there's basically nothing else

01:41:47   about the Series 7,

01:41:49   and so I kinda wonder if maybe all these things are related

01:41:51   that maybe they just couldn't get

01:41:54   the next generation of watch hardware,

01:41:57   it just didn't make it for this year.

01:42:00   That's what it seems,

01:42:01   and maybe that's why they couldn't drop the prices

01:42:03   on the Series 3 or SE either.

01:42:05   Maybe it's all related.

01:42:06   Maybe they expected to make a certain amount of progress

01:42:09   in the watch hardware, in the guts, the internals,

01:42:12   and they just didn't make it, and that's it.

01:42:15   - Well, I just point to the process size again.

01:42:18   It's the same process size, I think, as the Series 6,

01:42:21   and within, especially on the watch,

01:42:23   within the same process size, what are you gonna do?

01:42:25   Do the same thing you did last time,

01:42:26   but make it better and faster?

01:42:28   It's really hard.

01:42:28   The power envelope of the watch is so demanding.

01:42:32   It's like, we already did this.

01:42:33   We made the Series 6.

01:42:34   It's the best five-nanometer watch chip that we can make.

01:42:37   If you say, can you make another five-nanometer watch chip

01:42:40   for next year's watch?

01:42:41   It's like, what do you think we're gonna do?

01:42:43   If we had thought of something,

01:42:44   we would've done it last year.

01:42:44   It's very difficult.

01:42:45   On the phone, you can afford to say,

01:42:46   well, we'll add another GPU core.

01:42:48   We'll put a bigger battery.

01:42:49   All those things are basically off the table with the watch.

01:42:52   There's not much room in there for a bigger battery

01:42:54   without physically changing the size of the watch.

01:42:57   It's not like you're gonna add a GPU core.

01:42:58   It's not like that you're gonna clock it higher.

01:43:00   The amount, it's just so constrained

01:43:03   that it does not shock me that, without a process shrink,

01:43:06   you may find yourself in a situation where your best bet

01:43:10   is to leave the system on a chip,

01:43:12   which Mark, you said last week,

01:43:14   seemed like it was fast enough,

01:43:15   leave that alone and improve the watch in areas

01:43:17   that people will actually feel.

01:43:19   'Cause would someone feel a 10% single-core CPU increase

01:43:22   from a Series 7 system on a chip?

01:43:24   No.

01:43:24   But will they feel, oh, I can charge for a full eight hours

01:43:28   after sitting eight minutes on the charger?

01:43:30   Yeah, 'cause that'll let people

01:43:31   do sleep tracking and stuff, right?

01:43:33   And charging to 80% in 45 minutes,

01:43:35   those are changes people will notice.

01:43:36   So I think Apple did the right thing.

01:43:37   And the screen thing, oh, the only difference is the screen.

01:43:39   That's one of the biggest changes in a watch in years.

01:43:42   Like the fact, like I said,

01:43:45   that the screen really fills the entire watch face

01:43:47   and it gives you more data and more information display

01:43:50   for the same physical size watch,

01:43:51   plus potentially a thicker crystal for more durability.

01:43:55   Those are all good changes, right?

01:43:56   I don't think that, you know,

01:43:58   this is the reason my wife was getting another watch.

01:43:59   You will be able to tell if you put it next to a six,

01:44:02   you'll say, oh, the seven has a bigger screen,

01:44:04   but it's the same size.

01:44:05   Thumbs up, and it's also brighter.

01:44:06   The always-on screen is brighter.

01:44:08   Like everything about it is better.

01:44:10   The fact that the system on a chip hasn't changed

01:44:13   or like the overall shape hasn't changed

01:44:15   are two things that I think most people

01:44:16   who have a watch don't care about.

01:44:18   They don't care how fast the system on a chip is.

01:44:19   They just care about the attributes of the thing.

01:44:22   Charging display, you know, functionality,

01:44:24   and all those things are essentially improved.

01:44:26   So I still think this is a pretty good watch.

01:44:28   And I'm actually excited to see what the screen looks like

01:44:30   and what the new watch faces look like

01:44:33   given the, you know, more area and more pixels to work with.

01:44:36   So I actually looked up some real-time follow-up here.

01:44:38   I actually looked up, 'cause I remember

01:44:40   there was one other time when the watch

01:44:42   didn't really upgrade the CPU between generations.

01:44:45   And I looked it up, which one it was,

01:44:47   and I was right last week.

01:44:48   It was the Series 4 and Series 5.

01:44:51   They used the same processor.

01:44:54   The Series 5 did add a compass,

01:44:56   but that's, you know, the actual like computing part

01:45:00   of the processor is, as far as we can tell, the same.

01:45:03   So it's interesting then that Series 4 and 5,

01:45:06   that's one processor, now Series 6 and 7,

01:45:09   that's the next processor.

01:45:10   Maybe they're just on a two-year cycle for this.

01:45:13   And maybe that's fine, 'cause as John was just saying,

01:45:16   like the, you know, when the watch was earlier,

01:45:19   it really, you know, I would say until

01:45:20   that Series 4 and 5 processor, it was so ungodly slow

01:45:24   to do pretty much anything.

01:45:25   It was brutal as a developer

01:45:27   and not that much better as a user.

01:45:30   And, you know, ever since that Series 4 and 5 processor,

01:45:33   things have been more tolerable.

01:45:35   They've been pretty much fine as a user,

01:45:37   and as developers, it's been getting a lot better.

01:45:40   And, you know, as I mentioned last week,

01:45:42   like most of the time that I'm like waiting

01:45:44   for the watch to do something as a developer,

01:45:47   usually it doesn't seem to be processor throttled things.

01:45:50   Like that's not the bottleneck.

01:45:51   There's other bottlenecks,

01:45:52   but it doesn't seem to be the processor speed.

01:45:54   So if they're on a two-year cycle here,

01:45:57   this might not have been anything going wrong.

01:46:00   This might have just been what they planned to do all along,

01:46:02   that Series 6 and 7 are gonna use the same chip.

01:46:05   And maybe Series 8 and 9 will use the next chip.

01:46:07   You know, maybe there's a two-year cycle for chips now

01:46:10   for the watch, and that's basically fine.

01:46:13   - Yeah, I mean, you know, Series 8 is not going

01:46:16   to do probably anything with it unless there's a shrink,

01:46:18   which is going to be like the three-nanometer processes

01:46:20   coming along, but like you're kind of,

01:46:22   with the watch, you're really beholden

01:46:23   to transistor shrinks, because otherwise, again,

01:46:27   unless you're gonna decide to make different trade-offs

01:46:28   and like make it slower or redistribute your transistors

01:46:32   to be more GPU and less CPU or vice versa,

01:46:34   you're just moving things around.

01:46:36   Like your power envelope is the same.

01:46:37   To actually get any appreciable increase in performance,

01:46:40   you need to have a shrink, 'cause then you can have

01:46:42   more transistors for the same power budget.

01:46:44   - Yeah, I mean, really, the only reason why this

01:46:47   really hasn't come up before on the watch is that

01:46:49   the Series 4 to 5 also, you know,

01:46:52   the CPU didn't change in that transition,

01:46:54   but the Series 5 was the one that added the always-on screen

01:46:57   and that dramatically improves what it's like

01:46:59   to wear the Apple Watch.

01:47:01   And so there was something else to motivate upgrades

01:47:03   for people who were really itching to see like,

01:47:05   what are they gonna change, what are they gonna change?

01:47:06   Whereas this year, a little bit faster charging

01:47:10   and a bigger, brighter screen.

01:47:12   - I think the bigger, brighter screen is a big feature.

01:47:15   I may be able to see it in person to see who it is,

01:47:16   but like that is one of the most attractive things to me,

01:47:20   because it's like finally getting rid of all those borders,

01:47:23   you know, and just saying, now I can use the whole thing

01:47:26   for watch faces.

01:47:27   Maybe it doesn't make a difference,

01:47:28   maybe one extra complication, maybe you don't care,

01:47:31   maybe you have a sparse watch face

01:47:32   and it makes no difference,

01:47:33   but it just feels better to me to be finally say,

01:47:36   okay, now that we have a quote, unquote,

01:47:38   true edge-to-edge display, whatever you wanna say,

01:47:41   that is now-- - Well, I mean,

01:47:42   you still don't have that, but. (laughs)

01:47:44   - It's close enough now that you can say fine,

01:47:46   especially with the big, especially with the curved display

01:47:49   where it's like, well, you're, you know,

01:47:51   because of the curve, it's already kind of warping

01:47:52   at the edges anyway, so it's as big as you could

01:47:55   reasonably put in this design.

01:47:56   And once you go to flat, then you can maybe

01:47:58   eke out another millimeter or two on the sides,

01:48:00   but anyway, we'll see, my wife's gonna get one,

01:48:03   I'll look at it, see how it is.

01:48:04   - Yeah, that's kinda how I am about it too.

01:48:05   Like, I'm not super excited about the watch this year,

01:48:09   but maybe it's 'cause I haven't seen the screen yet.

01:48:11   You know, maybe when you see it in person, it's amazing.

01:48:14   And that's why I feel like I have to get it, you know,

01:48:17   for design purposes and for, you know,

01:48:19   tech curiosity purposes, but--

01:48:21   - Yeah, maybe get four of them.

01:48:22   (laughs)

01:48:23   - I'll get between zero and four.

01:48:24   - Sounds like a plan.

01:48:26   All right, and then finally for this week,

01:48:28   iOS 15 is not going to be a compulsory upgrade,

01:48:32   and apparently Apple has committed to continuing

01:48:35   to provide security updates for iOS 14

01:48:37   for at least a pretty good time.

01:48:39   - So this is interesting.

01:48:40   I noticed this when I upgrade all my devices to iOS 15,

01:48:42   which by the way, I did, and it has been fine, everybody,

01:48:44   in case you're scared of iOS 15, it's fine.

01:48:47   When I upgraded, I went to do, you know, software update,

01:48:49   and a little thing spun, and it was like, you know,

01:48:52   your OS is up to date, 14.8.

01:48:54   I'm like, oh, I guess, like, I gotta wait

01:48:55   for the CDN to refresh, 'cause I was doing it

01:48:57   fresh on Monday, but then I looked down lower on the screen

01:48:59   and at the very bottom of the screen on my phone,

01:49:02   there was a thing that said, oh, and by the way,

01:49:04   iOS 15 also exists, are you interested in that?

01:49:07   And boy, what a change.

01:49:09   What a change from the old way that Apple used to do things,

01:49:11   which was like, a new iOS is out,

01:49:12   everybody has to upgrade now, in fact,

01:49:15   we're gonna do it while you sleep, you have no choice,

01:49:17   get the new OS, which always struck me as a very courageous,

01:49:21   let's say, in Phil Schiller's big strategy,

01:49:24   especially when the .0s weren't that big,

01:49:27   but like, but here, and I was like,

01:49:29   oh, this is an interesting UI change,

01:49:30   maybe a reaction to people complaining

01:49:32   about being forced to upgrade,

01:49:33   because it literally puts the text at the top of the,

01:49:35   the main center part of the screen that says,

01:49:37   you are using iOS 14.8, which is the latest version,

01:49:41   like, it's not beating around the bush.

01:49:42   If you just glance at that screen and read the text,

01:49:44   you'll be like, oh, I'm up to date,

01:49:46   I've got the latest OS, I'm fine.

01:49:48   How many people would even notice

01:49:50   that at the literal bottom of the screen,

01:49:52   there's a tiny, skinny little banner,

01:49:53   way smaller than anything ever advertising

01:49:55   Apple Music or Apple TV+, that says,

01:49:58   oh, iOS 15, in case you're interested, you can get that.

01:50:01   So yeah, I'm excited to see Apple

01:50:05   changing their stance on this,

01:50:06   and it's ironic that they did it this year,

01:50:09   in which 15.0 seems to be incredibly solid,

01:50:12   like, I haven't had a single problem or complaint

01:50:15   other than my AirPods still doing this stupid connecting

01:50:17   thing, but it was doing that with 14.8 too,

01:50:18   so I don't know what the hell to blame here.

01:50:20   But other than that--

01:50:21   - Auto switching, blame auto switching, that's it.

01:50:23   Turn off auto switching, it fixes AirPods.

01:50:26   - But then I use auto, every time I use auto switching,

01:50:28   now I think of Marco and say, Marco wants me

01:50:30   to turn this off, why would I do that?

01:50:31   I love auto switching.

01:50:32   - Good, you should, I should infect your brain.

01:50:34   It doesn't work, it causes bugs, just turn it off.

01:50:36   - But it does, I'm just saying I use auto switching.

01:50:39   Every time I successfully auto switch, which happens a lot,

01:50:42   I say, look at that, I didn't have to do anything,

01:50:44   and it auto switched, this is why I have this feature.

01:50:46   Anyway, it's getting bad.

01:50:47   iOS 15 seems to be really solid for me,

01:50:50   but this year they seem to be not pushing it,

01:50:52   and I wonder if it's gonna be the type of thing

01:50:54   like after a month or two or six months,

01:50:56   will they switch that policy and make that screen

01:50:58   more prominently suggest to you that perhaps 14.8

01:51:01   isn't the latest and greatest version?

01:51:02   Because it isn't, 15.0 is out now,

01:51:04   but it says you're all up to date,

01:51:07   which is not technically true, but anyway,

01:51:09   I applaud this new policy, I applaud the new UI

01:51:12   being less pushy about this, but I do think eventually

01:51:14   Apple has to stop telling people that 14.x

01:51:18   is all up to date because it's not.

01:51:21   Thanks to our sponsors this week, Stripe,

01:51:23   Sanity.io, and Jamf Now, and thanks to our members

01:51:26   who support us directly, you can join at atp.fm/join.

01:51:30   We will talk to you next week.

01:51:32   ♪ Now the show is over ♪

01:51:37   ♪ They didn't even mean to begin ♪

01:51:40   ♪ 'Cause it was accidental ♪

01:51:43   ♪ Oh, it was accidental ♪

01:51:46   ♪ John didn't do any research ♪

01:51:48   ♪ Marco and Casey wouldn't let him ♪

01:51:51   ♪ 'Cause it was accidental ♪

01:51:52   ♪ It was accidental ♪

01:51:54   ♪ It was accidental ♪

01:51:55   ♪ Accidental ♪

01:51:56   ♪ And you can find the show notes at atp.fm ♪

01:52:01   ♪ And if you're into Twitter ♪

01:52:04   ♪ You can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S ♪

01:52:09   ♪ So that's Casey Liss M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M ♪

01:52:15   ♪ Auntie Marco Arment ♪

01:52:17   ♪ S-I-R-A-C ♪

01:52:20   ♪ U-S-A-C-R-A-C-U-S-A ♪

01:52:22   ♪ It's accidental ♪

01:52:24   ♪ Accidental ♪

01:52:26   ♪ They didn't mean to ♪

01:52:28   ♪ Accidental ♪

01:52:29   ♪ Accidental ♪

01:52:30   ♪ Tech podcast ♪

01:52:32   ♪ So long ♪

01:52:34   - I'm talking about my bad mouse pad again.

01:52:37   - Oh yeah, I forgot about that.

01:52:40   - Absolutely.

01:52:41   All right, so here's the problem.

01:52:42   I was thinking about this.

01:52:42   Why does this keep coming up?

01:52:45   - It's like the boring practical realities

01:52:48   of the physical world.

01:52:50   When I was talking about my debugging last time,

01:52:51   I was like, oh, I got this mouse pad.

01:52:53   I thought it was the mouse pad,

01:52:54   but then it turns out it must be the cable.

01:52:56   Then I tried a bunch of different cables.

01:52:57   Like doing the experiment, like as a programmer,

01:53:00   you, God, I really hope, as most working programmers

01:53:04   eventually learn to become good at debugging.

01:53:06   Some don't, and I know sometimes I work with those people

01:53:09   and I tear my hair out,

01:53:10   but I would think most of the good ones,

01:53:12   you learn what debugging is, right?

01:53:14   But the problem in the physical world,

01:53:15   in particular in the case of the mouse,

01:53:17   is like, oh, but the physical world stinks

01:53:19   and there's no undo button and you can't copy and paste.

01:53:22   And so in the example of my mouse,

01:53:26   I might use my mouse in wired mode

01:53:28   for a variety of reasons discussed in the past, but I do.

01:53:31   And the wire is routed underneath my desks

01:53:33   and I have these little fasteners

01:53:34   that make a little channel for it.

01:53:36   And the long, skinny, very thin mouse cord USB thing

01:53:41   snakes up through the little channels

01:53:43   and goes around the desk

01:53:44   and comes out a little hole in the desk

01:53:46   and goes into the hub and everything is all arranged just so.

01:53:48   And if I wanna do the real debugging

01:53:50   that I know I should be doing,

01:53:52   I have to rip all that out, right?

01:53:55   Because you have to eliminate variables,

01:53:57   you have to test your theories, like, is it the cable?

01:54:00   Is it because the cable is routed here?

01:54:01   Is it because the cable is kinked?

01:54:03   Is it because the cable is touching a metal thing?

01:54:04   Like you have to do that.

01:54:06   If you really wanna do an apples to apples comparison

01:54:08   and eliminate variables,

01:54:10   you have to start ripping apart the physical world.

01:54:12   I'm like, I don't wanna crawl under my desk and do that.

01:54:14   I don't wanna take that,

01:54:16   I don't wanna disconnect those fasteners.

01:54:18   You know, I don't wanna remove that little piece of tape.

01:54:20   Like it's just everything is set up the way I want it.

01:54:22   So I didn't, I wouldn't.

01:54:23   I would do as much testing as I could

01:54:25   without tearing stuff apart.

01:54:26   And so I was doing not a great job of debugging.

01:54:29   Last time I thought I had determined that it was the wire

01:54:32   because I tried a shorter wire

01:54:34   and you know, the shorter USB cable worked

01:54:36   but the longer one didn't.

01:54:38   I took out the longer one, the new one from the attic

01:54:41   and tried that and that one worked fine

01:54:42   but just there were too many variables.

01:54:44   And so after we had that last show where I talked about it,

01:54:48   I had to do more testing 'cause it was still annoying me.

01:54:50   And so I finally did the thing, another physical world thing.

01:54:53   I finally went up to the attic

01:54:54   and opened up my brand new replacement mouse

01:54:56   'cause I had a backup mouse for this one, right?

01:54:58   I opened it up, break the seal, open that package,

01:55:01   take out the back of the brand new backup replacement mouse.

01:55:04   And I said, with this in hand,

01:55:06   I can finally do a variable eliminating test

01:55:10   which is unplug my mouse from the cable, put it aside,

01:55:15   take the brand new mouse

01:55:17   and plug it right back into that same cable.

01:55:18   So now the only variable that's changing is the mouse.

01:55:20   So now I can finally test,

01:55:21   is it something wonky with the mouse?

01:55:23   And the answer is yes, something wonky is with the mouse

01:55:25   because when I plug the brand new mouse into that setup,

01:55:28   everything's fine.

01:55:29   Unplug it, plug the old mouse back in,

01:55:32   unresponsive, jumpy mess.

01:55:34   So all that testing that I did, yes, it's true

01:55:36   that if you take the quote unquote broken mouse

01:55:39   and connect it to a shorter cable

01:55:40   or connect it directly to the Mac

01:55:41   or do all sorts of other things,

01:55:43   yes, it also works in those scenarios,

01:55:45   but I don't care about those scenarios.

01:55:46   That's not how I use my mouse.

01:55:47   This test determines, look, this model of mouse

01:55:52   of which I have two copies right here, exactly the same,

01:55:54   should work in this scenario and does work in this scenario

01:55:57   with this new one I just brought from my attic,

01:55:59   but this old one that I've been using since 2019 or whatever

01:56:02   doesn't work, so I'm like, finally, all right, that's it.

01:56:05   This mouse, bad mouse.

01:56:07   The mouse is bad, the mouse pad is not bad,

01:56:09   the cord is not bad, the hub is not bad,

01:56:12   the Mac is not bad, the mouse is bad.

01:56:15   So then I had to embark on a process that let me appreciate,

01:56:20   I mean, I guess we complain about Apple on the show,

01:56:23   but having to deal with companies other than Apple,

01:56:26   going in with your Apple expectations

01:56:28   really lets you appreciate Apple.

01:56:30   I just talked about returning stuff.

01:56:32   My wife was complaining that she couldn't return

01:56:33   a partially ordered thing,

01:56:34   but that's kind of like an edge case.

01:56:35   In general, if you have an Apple product

01:56:37   and you want to return it,

01:56:39   or it breaks and you want to get a warranty repair,

01:56:41   that's a straightforward process.

01:56:42   You call somebody, say you had an Apple mouse

01:56:45   and it stopped working and it was under warranty.

01:56:46   You just call Apple and be like, I got a mouse,

01:56:49   came with my computer, still under warranty,

01:56:51   mouse doesn't work.

01:56:52   And they're like, okay, we'll replace that for you.

01:56:54   Return it to us, bring it in, do a cross shipping thing,

01:56:57   lots of different options, right?

01:56:59   So easy.

01:57:00   What if you have a Microsoft mouse

01:57:02   and you want to do the same thing?

01:57:04   I didn't even know where to begin,

01:57:05   so I go to the Microsoft website

01:57:06   where you can buy these things

01:57:08   and try to find somewhere on that website

01:57:11   that says like warranty repair, support.

01:57:13   As hard as it is to find things at apple.com,

01:57:16   I found it much harder to find things on the Microsoft site.

01:57:18   Eventually I found some series of links

01:57:20   that led me down some tunnel of like

01:57:22   trying to send me to support articles

01:57:24   or make me talk to tech chat.

01:57:26   I'm like, no, just, it's warranty repair.

01:57:28   I have broken hardware.

01:57:29   I want you to give me new hardware

01:57:31   because it's still under warranty or whatever.

01:57:32   Or tell me it's not under warranty, either way.

01:57:34   That's what I want to do.

01:57:36   And it was like, is your product a Surface Book,

01:57:38   a Surface Studio Pro or other?

01:57:41   I'm like, what?

01:57:42   Like the whole process thought

01:57:44   I had some kind of Surface product.

01:57:45   And it's like, well, it's a Microsoft Precision mouse?

01:57:48   But it's like, have you heard of this Microsoft?

01:57:50   This is your product.

01:57:51   And their website had no idea that this product existed

01:57:53   or didn't know anything about it.

01:57:54   And so I eventually fight my way through

01:57:56   to some godforsaken chat thing

01:57:59   where I'm talking with a human

01:58:01   who's talking with 800 other people at the same time

01:58:03   and sending me canned responses.

01:58:05   And I'm like, got a mouse.

01:58:07   Like I have everything ready.

01:58:08   I can tell you the serial number.

01:58:09   I can tell when I bought it.

01:58:10   You know, I can tell you how old it is.

01:58:12   I can tell you what's wrong with it.

01:58:14   And they required so much information

01:58:19   and supporting evidence to process this claim.

01:58:22   You would think I was trying to return like,

01:58:24   you know, a hundred thousand dollar car.

01:58:26   - A Mac Pro.

01:58:27   - Yeah, no, Apple would take this Mac Pro back

01:58:29   with way less hassle.

01:58:30   They'd be like, oh, your Mac Pro doesn't work.

01:58:31   Doesn't turn on? Sure.

01:58:32   Send it back.

01:58:33   It's in one warranty.

01:58:34   Well, you know, like they wanted me

01:58:36   to have my original receipt,

01:58:38   the date that I bought it,

01:58:40   a photo of the mouse top and bottom,

01:58:44   a video of the mouse not working,

01:58:48   a video of them.

01:58:51   I have never in my life had to record video

01:58:54   to demonstrate a problem for any product repair.

01:58:57   This is a mouse people.

01:58:58   This is a sub $100 mouse.

01:59:00   - Isn't this like well under,

01:59:01   isn't this like a $40 mouse or something?

01:59:05   - It's like, it's $90 or whatever, something like that.

01:59:07   - But still like, is it worth someone's time

01:59:09   at Microsoft to review this stuff?

01:59:11   - Yeah, I was like, are you kidding me?

01:59:14   And so they say this in the chat,

01:59:15   they're like, after this is me after going through,

01:59:17   like, here's what I did, here's what I did to debug.

01:59:19   Like I'm, you know, doing the chat thing of like,

01:59:20   look, before you even ask any questions,

01:59:21   let me tell you what I went through

01:59:23   and prove to you with a series of statements

01:59:24   that presumably you'll believe

01:59:25   that the mouse has problems, right?

01:59:27   And when I said, I started off with them,

01:59:29   I said, look, I have an identical brand new

01:59:32   just opened today mouse right out of the box

01:59:34   of the exact same model.

01:59:36   And I told them, if I unplug this mouse

01:59:37   and plug the other one in, it works.

01:59:39   And then I swap them and it doesn't work.

01:59:41   And they're like, thank you for doing that.

01:59:42   That really narrows down the problem.

01:59:43   Like, oh yes, it definitely does.

01:59:45   I just didn't want to have to have some BS story of like,

01:59:47   are you sure your mouse doesn't work?

01:59:48   Have you tried rebooting?

01:59:49   Have you installed new drivers in Windows?

01:59:50   I'm like, I'm not using Windows.

01:59:52   So they were on board with the fact that like,

01:59:55   I quickly got them on board with the idea

01:59:57   that this mouse is broken.

01:59:58   Like this is the ultimate test is literally the same mouse

02:00:01   just in the same scenario, just plug and unplug, right?

02:00:04   But then they said, okay, all you need to do

02:00:06   is this huge bullet list of things,

02:00:08   including recording a video.

02:00:09   And then they throw this out.

02:00:11   I'm like, you've got to be kidding me.

02:00:12   I'm like, whatever, I'm going to do this.

02:00:14   I'm getting, they're taking the stupid mouse back, right?

02:00:16   I get like, you know, two iPhone photographs

02:00:20   into like taking pictures of my mouse.

02:00:21   So the top and the bottom and the person says,

02:00:24   are you still there?

02:00:25   Like how long do you think the average person takes

02:00:27   to compile this evidence?

02:00:29   Is there someone doing this faster than me?

02:00:31   Is there someone?

02:00:31   I was doing the thing, you know the thing

02:00:34   where you can do a photo capture on your Mac

02:00:36   with your phone, you know that feature?

02:00:38   - Continuity camera, I believe it's called.

02:00:40   - Yeah, I wasn't even doing air dropping it to myself.

02:00:42   I was doing it in the most efficient way possible.

02:00:44   I'm on the second picture and they're like,

02:00:45   are you still there?

02:00:46   Are you doing it?

02:00:47   I'm like, you've got to be kidding me.

02:00:49   Give me five minutes to record a freaking video of my,

02:00:53   and so I had to get a video.

02:00:54   I'm holding the camera with one hand

02:00:57   and I have to make sure the mouse is in the shot

02:00:59   and I have to make sure my giant Pro Display XDR

02:01:02   is in the shot and that you can see the cursor

02:01:04   and I have to narrate and say, see, this is the new mouse.

02:01:07   Watch as I move my hand right to left,

02:01:08   the cursor moves right to left

02:01:10   and then cut, disconnect mouse, put the old one.

02:01:12   Here's the old mouse.

02:01:13   See how I move the mouse right to left

02:01:15   but see how the cursor doesn't move

02:01:17   or moves only a little tiny bit?

02:01:19   That's the bad mouse.

02:01:21   Anyway, eventually, and then they're, you know,

02:01:23   sending me a shipping label

02:01:25   and I shipped the old mouse back

02:01:27   and they eventually replaced it

02:01:29   and today I got the replacement.

02:01:31   I'm kind of, speaking of sending things,

02:01:34   I'll put this in the Slack channel for us.

02:01:37   Anyway, they sent it back in a box

02:01:38   that's big enough to hold like a record player.

02:01:40   Like that's how big the box was.

02:01:42   Huge, huge box.

02:01:45   Inside that box, of course, was a smaller box

02:01:46   because we all know how this goes, right?

02:01:48   Inside the box was a smaller box,

02:01:50   about the size of a mouse box.

02:01:51   Inside the smaller box was a bunch of bubble wrap

02:01:55   with no tape or fasteners of any kind,

02:01:58   just a bunch of bubble wrap

02:01:59   and then loosely nestled in that bunch of bubble wrap,

02:02:02   a bare mouse.

02:02:03   A bare mouse.

02:02:05   - What?

02:02:07   - That was absolutely not new.

02:02:09   It was dirty and scuffed and I'm like,

02:02:12   is this somebody else's mouse?

02:02:13   Did I get somebody else's mouse?

02:02:14   The first thing I looked was--

02:02:15   - You absolutely did.

02:02:16   - Yeah, the first thing I looked is

02:02:17   did I get my own mouse back

02:02:18   and I compared the serial numbers

02:02:19   and no, they did not send me my own mouse back, right?

02:02:22   But it is in worse condition than the mouse I sent them

02:02:25   in terms of like dirt and scuff marks or whatever

02:02:28   and I was kind of grossed out.

02:02:29   I did test it.

02:02:30   I did disconnect this mouse and put it in and it works.

02:02:32   But I said, you know what?

02:02:33   I don't wanna use the skeevy

02:02:35   like someone else has used this mouse mouse.

02:02:37   So I put that one in the attic

02:02:38   and I'm just using the new one for now.

02:02:40   (laughing)

02:02:41   - Oh my gosh.

02:02:42   - 'Cause when you get something replaced from Apple,

02:02:45   like we talked about this before on the show,

02:02:47   they basically say if you get a refurb,

02:02:48   essentially everything you touch is brand new,

02:02:50   the case is brand new, like everything's brand new

02:02:52   or at the very least they clean it.

02:02:53   This mouse was not clean.

02:02:55   This is an unclean mouse.

02:02:57   Like you would not look at this.

02:02:58   You would look at this and you would think

02:03:00   the person who uses this eats like potato chips

02:03:02   while they use their computer, right?

02:03:03   It had scuffs and like watermarks and like just,

02:03:07   it was yucky.

02:03:08   So if I, you know, it's still my backup mouse

02:03:11   and if I ever need to use it,

02:03:12   I'll have to like give it like a thorough cleaning,

02:03:14   you know, with some kind of like computer cleaner stuff

02:03:16   'cause I just don't even wanna touch it.

02:03:17   But Microsoft, come on.

02:03:19   I make you a video and have the,

02:03:22   bring up all this paperwork and do all this stuff

02:03:25   and you give me all this big hassle

02:03:26   and take a long time for me to ship the thing back

02:03:28   and I get a dirty mouse in return.

02:03:30   Not great.

02:03:31   Oh, and by the way, by the way, one more thing.

02:03:33   When you do this process of sending your thing,

02:03:36   the person gets off the phone with you and say,

02:03:37   "Okay, we'll email you a shipping label."

02:03:39   I get the email with the shipping label instructions

02:03:41   and it's like in big, scary, bold text.

02:03:43   Make sure the serial number on your return

02:03:46   matches the serial number of the product you're returning,

02:03:49   otherwise we will not process your return.

02:03:51   I was like, well guess what?

02:03:52   You stupid customer support person never even asked me

02:03:54   what my serial number was,

02:03:55   so how the hell is it gonna match?

02:03:57   And I look at my little shipping label email

02:03:59   and it has a serial number listed.

02:04:02   What serial number is it?

02:04:03   I don't even know.

02:04:04   It's not even in the same form as my serial number,

02:04:05   but it says, yeah, your return is for item serial number 75.

02:04:08   I'm like, where did you get the number from?

02:04:10   I never gave you a serial number

02:04:11   and it doesn't even look like the serial number.

02:04:13   I mean, it did the return anyway,

02:04:14   but it's like their whole return process was like,

02:04:16   so you're returning a Surface Book Pro, right?

02:04:19   Like, no, I'm not, stop trying to help me,

02:04:21   I'm returning a, like, terrible process.

02:04:24   So much worse than Apple.

02:04:26   - So my theory, which I think is backed up

02:04:29   by almost everything you've said,

02:04:31   is that you are the first person

02:04:34   who has ever tried to return a mouse to Microsoft.

02:04:36   Like literally no--

02:04:38   - Where did the dirty mouse come from then?

02:04:40   Someone else's mouse.

02:04:42   - Their office.

02:04:43   They went to somewhere in Redmond.

02:04:45   The reason why the person didn't know

02:04:48   how long it would take you to capture

02:04:49   these videos and pictures--

02:04:51   - The video of your mouse not working.

02:04:52   - Is because literally no one,

02:04:53   like they were just following a script

02:04:55   and literally they've never done this before.

02:04:57   - Everyone bails at that point.

02:04:59   - Yeah, no, but like, I bet the support person,

02:05:02   you might be the first time

02:05:03   they've ever had to deal with this.

02:05:05   Because most people would not go through

02:05:07   this amount of ridiculousness for a flaky,

02:05:10   you know, $90 mouse.

02:05:12   They would just think, well, I guess my mouse died

02:05:14   after a long time of use and they would,

02:05:16   you know, replace it with whatever they could find.

02:05:17   - It wasn't that long.

02:05:19   - How long was it?

02:05:19   - Less than a year.

02:05:20   I mean, yeah, I bought,

02:05:21   I got it with my Mac Pro, right, so whatever.

02:05:23   - Yeah, I mean, that's not great.

02:05:25   But like, you have to,

02:05:27   this has to be something

02:05:29   that they don't deal with very often.

02:05:30   And it seems like every part of this was just like,

02:05:34   eh, whatever, figure something out.

02:05:36   Like on their end.

02:05:36   - Someone in the chat asked if the serial number

02:05:38   on the return matches the serial number

02:05:40   of the mouse that you sent to me.

02:05:41   No, no it does not.

02:05:42   It's not even in the same form.

02:05:43   It doesn't even have the same number of digits.

02:05:45   Like it's, their return system is so,

02:05:48   the website is so tailored to like six products

02:05:51   that I think you're gonna return,

02:05:52   none of which are this mouse.

02:05:54   - This is one of those things too,

02:05:55   like I haven't dealt with Microsoft directly like this,

02:05:58   but I know, you know,

02:06:00   from other manufacturers and everything,

02:06:02   this is one of those areas that Apple does pretty well.

02:06:05   Like at warranty repair and replacement,

02:06:08   returns are super easy from the web store

02:06:11   or the in-person store.

02:06:12   And like this is one of those areas like,

02:06:15   Google has always been pretty poor at this.

02:06:17   Like whenever Google has tried to make their own phones,

02:06:20   one of the areas that they usually fall down

02:06:22   with the Pixel phones is Google's infrastructure

02:06:25   for customer support and retail support

02:06:28   is generally pretty terrible.

02:06:30   And I feel like Apple doesn't get enough credit

02:06:32   for how good they are at all that stuff.

02:06:35   That like, you know, whatever you,

02:06:37   if you're comparing phones

02:06:38   and you see some feature checklist,

02:06:40   usually one of the things that is not on those checklists

02:06:43   that compare, oh, this time,

02:06:45   Google's innovating Apple or whatever,

02:06:47   usually those checklists don't contain like,

02:06:48   all right, when I have a problem,

02:06:50   how easy is it to deal with?

02:06:51   And Apple's pretty good at that

02:06:54   and a lot of these other companies really aren't.

02:06:57   - Yeah, and the sad thing is it's just a policy choice.

02:06:59   Like just take people's word for it.

02:07:01   When they say their thing is broken,

02:07:02   yeah, a lot of time they're gonna be wrong

02:07:03   and they're gonna send you back a perfectly working device.

02:07:05   Just deal with that, eat it, sell it as refurb, right?

02:07:08   Like Apple basically, for the most part,

02:07:10   if you have a broken thing and they say,

02:07:12   oh, well, why do you think it's broken?

02:07:14   And you explain it to them, they're like,

02:07:15   okay, great, well, we'll get you a new one of those.

02:07:17   Like again, if it's under warranty or whatever,

02:07:18   like they don't spend time,

02:07:20   like there's no incentive for anyone involved

02:07:23   in this process to give you a hard time

02:07:25   or to ask for video evidence

02:07:26   or to spend an extra hour on the phone with you to say,

02:07:29   are you sure it's broken?

02:07:30   Maybe it's just your cable.

02:07:31   And that means that Apple, like I said,

02:07:33   I'm sure gets a bunch of crap returned to them

02:07:35   as quote unquote broken that is perfectly fine.

02:07:38   But Apple knows that the right thing to do is like,

02:07:41   just take it,

02:07:41   just take their perfectly good working returns.

02:07:44   It is much better for everyone involved

02:07:47   to get that person off the phone and happy and satisfied

02:07:49   and just let them return their perfectly good working device

02:07:51   'cause they didn't realize that they had an on switch

02:07:53   or something like, just do that.

02:07:56   And Microsoft does not understand that

02:07:58   or whatever company they have that they're doing support

02:07:59   doesn't understand that.

02:08:00   Apparently they're incentivized to not, like Marco said,

02:08:03   to not let anyone ever return anything,

02:08:04   to put as many hurdles in front of them as possible.

02:08:07   And even though I came fully prepared with like,

02:08:09   look, I have the ultimate test

02:08:10   that none of your customers ever,

02:08:11   because I think I am the first person to say,

02:08:13   you know how I know it's broken?

02:08:14   'Cause I bought a second one

02:08:16   and that one works and this one doesn't.

02:08:18   And the only thing I changed was the mouse,

02:08:20   everything else, the cable, the hub,

02:08:21   I just unplugged that one, plug this one in.

02:08:23   It's perfect test, right?

02:08:25   And so like, okay, well, yeah.

02:08:26   And I really don't think other people buy the second mouse

02:08:29   to do that.

02:08:30   So maybe that's the only reason

02:08:31   I got through that first part of the thing

02:08:33   and they pulled out the big guns after that

02:08:34   and had me make a video.

02:08:36   (laughing)

02:08:38   Should have bought myself a ring light

02:08:39   so I could have had good lighting on the video.

02:08:41   Oh my God.

02:08:42   Someone in Microsoft has this video of my angry voice saying,

02:08:46   see how I'm moving the mouse back and forth?

02:08:48   See how the cursor is not moving?

02:08:49   [beeping]