Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► Hello and welcome to Connected episode 569. It's made possible by our sponsors Ecamm and Factor. I heard that nice in the background. Don't think I didn't hear it. I heard it. It wasn't for you. It was for them. Do you guys realize people listen to these phone calls we do each week? Terrible. It's weird. If anything.

00:00:27 ◼   ► My name is Stephen Hackett and I have the pleasure of being joined by Mr. Mike Hurley.

00:00:31 ◼   ► This episode is brought to you by Ecamm and Factor.

00:00:34 ◼   ► I said that.

00:00:35 ◼   ► No, I think I interrupted you. And I'm also very happy to be joined by the reigning, defending Ricky

00:00:42 ◼   ► Benjamin champion, Federico Buttigie.

00:00:44 ◼   ► Hi. Yes, this episode is brought to you by Ecamm and Factor.

00:00:47 ◼   ► That's really good of them. Thank you.

00:00:49 ◼   ► Yeah, thank you.

00:00:50 ◼   ► Three times.

00:00:50 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:00:51 ◼   ► We have some important follow-up to address before we begin the episode of the show.

00:00:57 ◼   ► This is maybe the most important news of the week.

00:00:58 ◼   ► Years in the making.

00:01:00 ◼   ► Eight years.

00:01:01 ◼   ► After eight years of rumors, Spotify is actually rolling out lossless playback to its customer

00:01:07 ◼   ► base.

00:01:08 ◼   ► All premium subscribers are going to get it over the next two months.

00:01:12 ◼   ► No longer is Spotify Hi-Fi a thing, which is what they originally called it.

00:01:17 ◼   ► The problem was in the intervening eight years, all of their competitors just gave it away

00:01:21 ◼   ► for free.

00:01:22 ◼   ► So I think their opportunity of trying to charge people for it isn't going to work.

00:01:26 ◼   ► I'm going to read something from The Verge, from Terrence O'Brien at The Verge.

00:01:30 ◼   ► Spotify's lossless option tops out at 24-bit, 44.1 kilohertz flack, Apple Music title, and

00:01:39 ◼   ► Kubo, Kubo, Kubo, Kubo, Kubo, Kubo, all offer high-res flack support up to 24-bit, 192 kilohertz.

00:01:50 ◼   ► That sounds like a big difference.

00:01:51 ◼   ► Is that right, Federico?

00:01:52 ◼   ► Yeah, so you're basically looking at high-res lossless in the other platforms.

00:01:57 ◼   ► So if you have the right equipment, you can push things even further.

00:02:00 ◼   ► So is it like...

00:02:02 ◼   ► No, don't make it...

00:02:05 ◼   ► Come on.

00:02:06 ◼   ► Yeah, even less lossless?

00:02:08 ◼   ► Less lossless?

00:02:09 ◼   ► It's like going from 4K-like to actual 4K.

00:02:14 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:02:16 ◼   ► No, hey, look, I get it, right?

00:02:17 ◼   ► Like, Stephen will notice, just had conversations about some audio and a thing.

00:02:22 ◼   ► Recently, and I can tell compression on my own voice, like, when, like, the sample rate

00:02:28 ◼   ► is changed.

00:02:29 ◼   ► So, like, I can hear it.

00:02:31 ◼   ► Can you hear that kind of stuff, Stephen?

00:02:32 ◼   ► If your voice is, like, compressed, do you hear it?

00:02:34 ◼   ► Yes, and those examples that we were working with, I could hear it.

00:02:38 ◼   ► I think I'm a little less picky than you are about it.

00:02:41 ◼   ► Yes.

00:02:42 ◼   ► But I definitely can hear compression, I think, more than the average people.

00:02:51 ◼   ► I don't know how I am if I'm as sensitive of others' voices as I am my own, because I just

00:02:56 ◼   ► know what I sound like in audio, like, very intensely, you know?

00:03:01 ◼   ► So, yeah, I can hear it.

00:03:04 ◼   ► And, you know, I've listened to Federico's lossless environments, and there's, like, things that

00:03:09 ◼   ► you hear in the music that just you would never heard before.

00:03:12 ◼   ► It's like, it's there.

00:03:13 ◼   ► It's there.

00:03:14 ◼   ► But, I don't know.

00:03:16 ◼   ► This kind of stuff is like, okay, everybody has it.

00:03:18 ◼   ► But, like, who can actually listen to this?

00:03:20 ◼   ► How would you listen to this on an iPhone?

00:03:23 ◼   ► What would you have to do?

00:03:25 ◼   ► You can get one of those.

00:03:26 ◼   ► You don't even need to spend a lot of money.

00:03:29 ◼   ► Get one of those external USB DACs.

00:03:33 ◼   ► You can get them for, like, less than $100.

00:03:35 ◼   ► Apple should make one of those.

00:03:37 ◼   ► Yeah, for sure.

00:03:38 ◼   ► They really should.

00:03:39 ◼   ► A little throwback to a previous Ricky's.

00:03:42 ◼   ► As is the usual way of us talking about things after an event, it's all going to be outboard

00:03:46 ◼   ► or upside down and inside out.

00:03:48 ◼   ► I'm surprised.

00:03:49 ◼   ► I am actually surprised that there doesn't appear to have been any real change with AirPods

00:03:53 ◼   ► and, like, higher res audio.

00:03:56 ◼   ► I don't know how feasible something like that is, but I think we're all just expecting it

00:04:01 ◼   ► was going to happen at some point, right?

00:04:03 ◼   ► And we have another version of AirPods Pro, and that doesn't appear to have happened, right?

00:04:09 ◼   ► Like, I don't think they have support for any kind of lossless.

00:04:13 ◼   ► I mean, remember there were those interviews at one point when Apple rolled out Lossless

00:04:17 ◼   ► and they were referencing, like, oh, you know what the way Bluetooth is right now?

00:04:22 ◼   ► You know, like that kind of thing.

00:04:24 ◼   ► Like, oh, who could tell what happens in the future?

00:04:26 ◼   ► But they didn't seem to have done anything.

00:04:28 ◼   ► It'd be nice, though.

00:04:30 ◼   ► Yeah, so, I mean, I don't particularly care about Spotify getting Lossless because I switched

00:04:35 ◼   ► back to Apple Music a month ago after your Spotify, so...

00:04:39 ◼   ► Well, that's a different conversation.

00:04:40 ◼   ► I mean, good for them to finally have it, especially not charging extra, so that's nice.

00:04:46 ◼   ► They just don't have a choice, really, do they?

00:04:48 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:04:48 ◼   ► I just don't really think they have an opportunity to do it.

00:04:52 ◼   ► So, all of the operating systems are out next week?

00:04:57 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:04:58 ◼   ► Yeah, Monday.

00:04:59 ◼   ► Yeah?

00:04:59 ◼   ► Mac OS 2 is also out?

00:05:01 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:05:03 ◼   ► Yes.

00:05:03 ◼   ► Okay.

00:05:04 ◼   ► On Monday.

00:05:04 ◼   ► So, review time, review, update, Federico.

00:05:08 ◼   ► How's it going?

00:05:08 ◼   ► Okay.

00:05:09 ◼   ► It's finished.

00:05:10 ◼   ► Okay.

00:05:11 ◼   ► The content is all there.

00:05:13 ◼   ► I have, I mean, I've obviously written the whole thing.

00:05:18 ◼   ► I have read the whole thing twice, and it's now going through my editor.

00:05:24 ◼   ► So, there's going to be multiple rounds of that, and this weekend, starting tonight slash

00:05:31 ◼   ► tomorrow morning, I'll start sending the draft to close friends.

00:05:34 ◼   ► Not family, because my family doesn't care about reading.

00:05:38 ◼   ► So, not friends and family, just friends.

00:05:42 ◼   ► And I'm doing the screenshots.

00:05:43 ◼   ► I'm doing the images.

00:05:44 ◼   ► So, today, tomorrow, Saturday, it's going to be screenshots and video recordings.

00:05:50 ◼   ► And, you know, packaging all, everything up.

00:05:54 ◼   ► You know, the perks, which I know what I'm going to do already.

00:05:59 ◼   ► Just, you know, got to put together the marketing material, an episode of app stories.

00:06:04 ◼   ► I double-checked the list of things that I wanted to check by the release candidate, like

00:06:09 ◼   ► some bugs that needed to be fixed.

00:06:13 ◼   ► I have my, this is going to be something that I will share in the making of story.

00:06:18 ◼   ► I got my custom Vibe-coded compiler for the draft, all working with Markdown and the Max

00:06:28 ◼   ► Stories syntax.

00:06:29 ◼   ► I look forward to reading the conclusion first in chapter four seconds.

00:06:33 ◼   ► No, no, no, no.

00:06:35 ◼   ► It's all, it's all, it's all correct.

00:06:37 ◼   ► I tested everything multiple, multiple times.

00:06:40 ◼   ► Yeah, no, it's, it's good.

00:06:43 ◼   ► I'm a little tired and a little sleep deprived.

00:06:46 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:06:46 ◼   ► But I will be ready in time, which I, and I'm honestly very proud that I, after the note-taking

00:06:58 ◼   ► process starts in June, but like the actual work, I've been able to compress it.

00:07:03 ◼   ► down to two weeks and like to the day almost by the time it goes out on Monday.

00:07:10 ◼   ► So pretty happy with my, with my performance.

00:07:13 ◼   ► And yeah, that's it's gonna be bigger than last year as a, as a story.

00:07:21 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:07:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:07:22 ◼   ► Remind me last year, did, did it include iPadOS or was that separate?

00:07:29 ◼   ► Yes, yes, yes, yes.

00:07:30 ◼   ► It did.

00:07:30 ◼   ► It did.

00:07:30 ◼   ► It did.

00:07:31 ◼   ► I mean, I'm not surprised though, between iPadOS and Liquid Gloss, like it feels like this

00:07:35 ◼   ► is a year where there will be more.

00:07:36 ◼   ► It's basically just eyeballing it, but those two chapters alone are almost the length of

00:07:46 ◼   ► last year's review.

00:07:48 ◼   ► So, yeah.

00:07:49 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:07:50 ◼   ► Very cool.

00:07:51 ◼   ► Well, I'm pleased.

00:07:51 ◼   ► I'm looking forward to it.

00:07:52 ◼   ► Thank you.

00:07:53 ◼   ► Thank you.

00:07:53 ◼   ► Me too.

00:07:54 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:07:55 ◼   ► I cannot wait.

00:07:56 ◼   ► And we're going to have on Mac Stories, all the other reviews, well, except to tvOS.

00:08:01 ◼   ► We're going to have macOS, watchOS and visionOS.

00:08:06 ◼   ► So, it's going to be a busy week on the site.

00:08:08 ◼   ► VisionOS 2.

00:08:09 ◼   ► Devon is taking care of that.

00:08:11 ◼   ► And we got a whole bunch of third-party apps to cover.

00:08:16 ◼   ► So, it's going to be a busy month.

00:08:19 ◼   ► Good season though.

00:08:20 ◼   ► It's my favorite time of the year.

00:08:23 ◼   ► Possibly more than WWDC.

00:08:25 ◼   ► It flip-flops to me, depending on what's going on, you know.

00:08:28 ◼   ► It depends.

00:08:29 ◼   ► Yes, it depends.

00:08:30 ◼   ► But it's up there in the top three.

00:08:34 ◼   ► You know, I don't even know.

00:08:36 ◼   ► Is there a third time of the year for Apple season beyond September?

00:08:40 ◼   ► It used to be the spring, but now that's kind of gone.

00:08:44 ◼   ► I think that's it.

00:08:46 ◼   ► It's a dual holiday system now.

00:08:47 ◼   ► It's a dual holiday, yeah.

00:08:50 ◼   ► I have a holiday though to talk about.

00:08:52 ◼   ► Okay.

00:08:53 ◼   ► It's September.

00:08:54 ◼   ► September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

00:08:58 ◼   ► You probably knew that because we've talked about this.

00:09:01 ◼   ► It's 2019.

00:09:01 ◼   ► Since 2019, all of you out there,

00:09:04 ◼   ► the Relay community together,

00:09:06 ◼   ► we have raised over $4.3 million for St. Jude,

00:09:12 ◼   ► which is unbelievable.

00:09:14 ◼   ► As of this recording, we are at $260,000 for the year.

00:09:18 ◼   ► Why do we do this?

00:09:19 ◼   ► Why is this important?

00:09:21 ◼   ► Well, St. Jude does amazing work for children

00:09:27 ◼   ► and their families facing pediatric cancer and other catastrophic disease.

00:09:32 ◼   ► St. Jude happens, just happens to be in my backyard.

00:09:35 ◼   ► And that was an amazing gift when our son went through pediatric cancer.

00:09:40 ◼   ► St. Jude works around the world.

00:09:42 ◼   ► Just in April, a couple of months ago, St. Jude announced that childhood cancer medicines have

00:09:49 ◼   ► been delivered to five countries, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Ecuador, Nepal, and Zambia.

00:09:56 ◼   ► This is part of St. Jude's Global Platform for Access to Childhood Cancer Medicines,

00:10:02 ◼   ► or as I like to call it, G-P-A-C-C-M.

00:10:06 ◼   ► I don't know if that's what they call it, but...

00:10:08 ◼   ► I think there's a reason that they go with Global Platform for Access to Childhood Cancer Medicines.

00:10:14 ◼   ► Look, they workshopped the name, but the work is incredible.

00:10:18 ◼   ► This is a collaboration between St. Jude, the World Health Organization, and other global partners.

00:10:23 ◼   ► These children would not have access to this medicine without this partnership.

00:10:31 ◼   ► The initiative aims to reach more than 120,000 children in 50 countries, 5-0, 50 countries in the next seven years.

00:10:42 ◼   ► That's incredible.

00:10:44 ◼   ► St. Jude's Global Reach is something that all of us find inspiring.

00:10:49 ◼   ► They are helping kids who would not have access to this health care otherwise.

00:10:53 ◼   ► And this is made possible because people like us donate.

00:10:59 ◼   ► So we are inviting you to continue the incredible generosity you've shown over the last seven years.

00:11:04 ◼   ► And once again, make a donation to support the life-saving mission of St. Jude.

00:11:09 ◼   ► You can do that by clicking the link in the show notes.

00:11:11 ◼   ► It's the top link this week.

00:11:13 ◼   ► Or going to stjude.org slash relay.

00:11:17 ◼   ► You can donate there.

00:11:19 ◼   ► You can register to create a fundraiser.

00:11:21 ◼   ► But I'd also encourage you to check out...

00:11:24 ◼   ► There's a yellow section, like halfway down the page,

00:11:26 ◼   ► that has information about donor-advised fund giving as well as employer-matching gifts.

00:11:33 ◼   ► Thousands of companies match their employees' donations to St. Jude.

00:11:37 ◼   ► And you can now request to have your donation matched and have the employer match apply to our campaign.

00:11:42 ◼   ► All the information is on the page.

00:11:45 ◼   ► It's really simple to do.

00:11:47 ◼   ► And it's a great way to see your money go even farther.

00:11:51 ◼   ► So check that out.

00:11:51 ◼   ► Lots of companies have this.

00:11:54 ◼   ► Big, small, medium.

00:11:55 ◼   ► Everywhere.

00:11:55 ◼   ► Donors making an individual gift of $60 or more will be eligible to redeem a digital bundle of campaign-themed wallpapers and a macOS screensaver.

00:12:05 ◼   ► And donors making a gift of $100 or more can redeem the sticker pack featuring six all-new host stickers.

00:12:12 ◼   ► All six of us have really cool artwork this year.

00:12:14 ◼   ► Please go to stjude.org slash relay where you can make a donation today.

00:12:21 ◼   ► Mike, in the pro show, we talked about you coming to Memphis this weekend.

00:12:26 ◼   ► You're going to be part of the podcast-a-thon, which is next Friday, September 19th.

00:12:31 ◼   ► You want to talk a little bit about that?

00:12:33 ◼   ► Yeah, so we're going to be streaming live from the St. Jude campus from 12 p.m. to 12 a.m. U.S. Eastern time.

00:12:40 ◼   ► So we're going to be live for 12 hours over on YouTube.

00:12:43 ◼   ► There's a link in the show notes to the YouTube link.

00:12:46 ◼   ► You can go there and you can set a notification.

00:12:48 ◼   ► You can ring the bell and you'll find out when we're streaming live.

00:12:51 ◼   ► We'd love it if you came and hung out with us.

00:12:54 ◼   ► We've got tons of games and fun activities and embarrassing things.

00:12:58 ◼   ► There's going to be six of us this year, right?

00:13:00 ◼   ► Six hosts are going to be as part of the 12 hours where we're going to be hanging out, having fun.

00:13:07 ◼   ► We'd love it if you came by and hung out with us.

00:13:10 ◼   ► It's always a fun time.

00:13:11 ◼   ► We always have a great time and we know that you'll enjoy it.

00:13:14 ◼   ► So that is on Friday, September 19th from 12 to 12 U.S. Eastern time.

00:13:20 ◼   ► That's right.

00:13:21 ◼   ► So please go to stjude.org slash relay to donate or start your own fundraiser today.

00:13:28 ◼   ► Together, we can help give families facing childhood cancer more tomorrows.

00:13:33 ◼   ► I want to mention one last thing.

00:13:36 ◼   ► So we've had some milestones this year that will unlock baby pictures of some relay hosts.

00:13:44 ◼   ► I have a link in the show notes to John Syracuse and David Sparks baby pictures on the relay Instagram.

00:13:50 ◼   ► They're amazing.

00:13:52 ◼   ► I've got to say, especially Syracuse's.

00:13:54 ◼   ► He went hard and provided, I would say, six iconic photos.

00:13:59 ◼   ► I think there's five, but there's six iconic photos.

00:14:01 ◼   ► I didn't count correctly.

00:14:03 ◼   ► Six or seven iconic photos.

00:14:05 ◼   ► The first two, especially, when I saw them, I don't think I could have been any happier.

00:14:10 ◼   ► And so I appreciate John sharing this with us.

00:14:14 ◼   ► Especially the second one is, yes.

00:14:16 ◼   ► It's like, it's obviously John, but also I can't believe it is.

00:14:20 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:14:21 ◼   ► It's incredible.

00:14:22 ◼   ► So there's more.

00:14:25 ◼   ► Trust me.

00:14:26 ◼   ► Oh boy, there's more.

00:14:27 ◼   ► So you'll be seeing those posts throughout the month.

00:14:33 ◼   ► So this week, we are judging our picks from Apple's September event.

00:14:37 ◼   ► We're going to start with the Rickies, which is what we do first.

00:14:42 ◼   ► The Rickies is a game connected hosts play before Apple keynotes in the beginning of a new year,

00:14:48 ◼   ► trying to predict future events.

00:14:50 ◼   ► It's made up of three rounds.

00:14:52 ◼   ► Each host makes two regular picks, followed by a risky pick.

00:14:55 ◼   ► There are two types of Rickies.

00:14:57 ◼   ► Today, we are playing the Keynote Rickies.

00:15:00 ◼   ► The Keynote Rickies winner is named the Keynote Chairman.

00:15:02 ◼   ► This position is held until the next Keynote.

00:15:05 ◼   ► Hosts should be introduced at the top of each episode, according to their current titles.

00:15:09 ◼   ► You may have heard Federico introduced, you know, the last couple of months as Ricky Benchman.

00:15:14 ◼   ► That's because he's won both, well, he's basically won everything.

00:15:18 ◼   ► He's mopping up this year.

00:15:21 ◼   ► If you have the annual and the Keynote Rickies, you're the Benchman.

00:15:25 ◼   ► After the Rickies, we'll play a different game called the Flexies, but that will come in its own time.

00:15:30 ◼   ► Please stand for the reading of the rules.

00:15:32 ◼   ► Each host gets to make two regular picks.

00:15:42 ◼   ► Hosts can be granted a bonus regular pick for any previously incorrect pick that has now come true from the last three corresponding games.

00:15:50 ◼   ► A previously incorrect pick may be used only once.

00:15:54 ◼   ► Correct regular picks are awarded one point.

00:15:57 ◼   ► The language used for regular picks must be finalized and agreed upon during recording, and no partial points may be awarded.

00:16:03 ◼   ► Risky picks have a more complex scoring system.

00:16:07 ◼   ► Each host must make a pick with three supporting details.

00:16:11 ◼   ► If you get all three of your details correct, you earn two points.

00:16:14 ◼   ► Two correct, one point, one correct, zero points.

00:16:17 ◼   ► And if you get all three details wrong, you lose a point.

00:16:22 ◼   ► That's a sad day.

00:16:23 ◼   ► It's coming for me later.

00:16:25 ◼   ► Points.

00:16:27 ◼   ► Why would you spoil it?

00:16:28 ◼   ► Why would you spoil it?

00:16:28 ◼   ► Cut that, Jim.

00:16:29 ◼   ► Points are only awarded based on details, not the overall pick.

00:16:35 ◼   ► Picks must have been proved as risky by the other two hosts before the start of the game.

00:16:38 ◼   ► Picks for keynote rookies cannot be reused by the host who made them for the next keynote.

00:16:43 ◼   ► For keynote rookies, the scoring window starts when the live stream begins and closes when the picks are scored, which is literally now.

00:16:50 ◼   ► Any information used in scoring must be publicly verifiable at the time of recording.

00:16:57 ◼   ► All hosts are allowed to reuse picks previously made by others.

00:17:00 ◼   ► In the scoring must be completed during recording.

00:17:04 ◼   ► It cannot be modified once an episode is complete.

00:17:06 ◼   ► In the event of a tie, dice by a peacock must be used in relay mode to pick a winner.

00:17:11 ◼   ► In the case of a three-way tie, hosts make their calls at the same time, and the flipping will continue until a winner is named.

00:17:18 ◼   ► Speaking of flipping, Jason Snell previously had a lifetime ban on flipping any coins in relation to the rookies, but we're proud of Jason.

00:17:25 ◼   ► He went back to school, and after graduating CoinFlip University during the 2024 podcast-a-thon, he can now flip a coin, albeit under direct supervision.

00:17:35 ◼   ► The order of picks is set by the previous performance.

00:17:38 ◼   ► The winner of the previous associated game goes first, that is Federico.

00:17:42 ◼   ► The previous loser goes last, that was me.

00:17:45 ◼   ► Winners will be recognized during the closing ceremonies.

00:17:48 ◼   ► Past results can be seen at rookies.co and rookies.net.

00:17:53 ◼   ► These sites also have pages about managing your own scorekeeping at home.

00:17:56 ◼   ► You may be seated.

00:17:58 ◼   ► Okay.

00:18:01 ◼   ► Round one, Federico.

00:18:03 ◼   ► Round one.

00:18:06 ◼   ► Apple introduces a new, thin iPhone model.

00:18:09 ◼   ► It rules.

00:18:12 ◼   ► It looks pretty cool.

00:18:13 ◼   ► It looks so good.

00:18:14 ◼   ► And it's going to be a problem for me, because I think we're going to talk about this later or not.

00:18:24 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:18:24 ◼   ► We can talk about it now, and we can just wrap it up later on.

00:18:28 ◼   ► I am very torn about what to do here, because I really, I think the iPhone Air is speaking to me.

00:18:37 ◼   ► It's giving, I was actually talking with Brandon, my co-host and MPC about this.

00:18:43 ◼   ► Like, it's giving me all the same vibes and all the same feelings that I last felt with the iPhone X in 2017.

00:18:49 ◼   ► Like, it's futuristic, cool-looking, brand-new, really new, like, all-new tech kind of feeling of a phone.

00:18:58 ◼   ► My only problem is the telephoto camera on the Pro.

00:19:03 ◼   ► Like, I don't even love the look of the iPhone Pro this year.

00:19:08 ◼   ► You know, it looks very, I don't know, industrial, ragged, almost.

00:19:14 ◼   ► Yeah, I love it.

00:19:15 ◼   ► I love it.

00:19:16 ◼   ► I know, I can see what you're saying.

00:19:18 ◼   ► I personally really like it.

00:19:20 ◼   ► But visually, I do prefer the Air more.

00:19:22 ◼   ► Like, I think the Air is a better looking phone.

00:19:23 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:19:24 ◼   ► Yeah, and I think it's, I've seen this sentiment, actually, going around, you know, with a bunch of people.

00:19:30 ◼   ► Like, the iPhone 17 Pros, they kind of look like the, it's the iPhone version of the Apple Watch Ultra, in some ways.

00:19:38 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:19:39 ◼   ► Like, it's very big, industrial, you know, thick camera bump and all of that.

00:19:44 ◼   ► It's in your face.

00:19:44 ◼   ► Like...

00:19:45 ◼   ► Really, very much so.

00:19:47 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:19:47 ◼   ► But everything else, I think I love the iPhone Air.

00:19:51 ◼   ► Got ProMotion, got the A19 Pro.

00:19:54 ◼   ► I don't care about the one less core in the GPU.

00:19:59 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:20:01 ◼   ► It's very cool-looking and new and different.

00:20:04 ◼   ► And it's going to shake up the lineup the same way that the iPhone X did years ago.

00:20:10 ◼   ► So, I'm very torn about what to do.

00:20:13 ◼   ► Because at the same time, I've mentioned this many, many times, I really love the telephoto camera for taking pictures of my dogs.

00:20:20 ◼   ► And I don't really buy...

00:20:22 ◼   ► I mean, does anybody really buy into Apple's own thing?

00:20:25 ◼   ► Oh, it's one lens, but you're actually getting a bunch more.

00:20:28 ◼   ► Like, that is not how, why.

00:20:31 ◼   ► It's not a lens.

00:20:32 ◼   ► Like, a lens is a physical object.

00:20:34 ◼   ► Right, but I buy what they're saying.

00:20:36 ◼   ► That it is just the middle portion of the frame.

00:20:40 ◼   ► It's cropping.

00:20:41 ◼   ► And it's a lower resolution image.

00:20:42 ◼   ► It's cropping.

00:20:44 ◼   ► They say it's not.

00:20:45 ◼   ► So, I'm just going to take the word for it.

00:20:47 ◼   ► I mean, how many lenses do you see in the back of the iPhone Air when you look?

00:20:51 ◼   ► Seven.

00:20:52 ◼   ► But that's just my problem.

00:20:53 ◼   ► You see one lens?

00:20:55 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, I don't know, though, man.

00:20:58 ◼   ► Like, I'm not going to pretend to know how this works.

00:21:01 ◼   ► Like, I take at their word what they're saying.

00:21:03 ◼   ► And Jason seems to buy it.

00:21:05 ◼   ► So, I just go along with what Jason says.

00:21:07 ◼   ► I mean, if you turn your iPhone around, how many lenses do you see right now?

00:21:10 ◼   ► In the physical realm.

00:21:13 ◼   ► How many do you see?

00:21:14 ◼   ► Those are lenses.

00:21:15 ◼   ► Four.

00:21:15 ◼   ► Everything else is cropping.

00:21:17 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know.

00:21:19 ◼   ► I'm not smart enough to try and have this argument.

00:21:22 ◼   ► Oh, Jason's in the Discord.

00:21:26 ◼   ► The 2X looks fine.

00:21:30 ◼   ► Like, I think it looks fine.

00:21:31 ◼   ► Right?

00:21:32 ◼   ► Because I take photos currently at the 2X or 3X, whatever it is.

00:21:38 ◼   ► Right?

00:21:38 ◼   ► One of them is, yeah, the 2X.

00:21:40 ◼   ► And it looks fine.

00:21:41 ◼   ► Like, I use it quite a lot on my iPhone 16 Pro.

00:21:44 ◼   ► And it's fine.

00:21:45 ◼   ► So, do you not ever use the 2X on your 16 Pro?

00:21:48 ◼   ► No, never.

00:21:50 ◼   ► Why?

00:21:52 ◼   ► Yeah, I've done a bunch.

00:21:53 ◼   ► It's fine.

00:21:54 ◼   ► Totally fine.

00:21:55 ◼   ► It looks great.

00:21:56 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know.

00:21:59 ◼   ► I prefer the 5.

00:22:00 ◼   ► The 5 is too close a lot of the time for what I need.

00:22:04 ◼   ► Like, I actually don't like the 5.

00:22:06 ◼   ► I wish they didn't go with the 5.

00:22:08 ◼   ► But usually my dogs are doing something funny.

00:22:11 ◼   ► And if I get too close, I'm going to disturb them.

00:22:15 ◼   ► And they're going to, like, I don't know, wake up or something.

00:22:18 ◼   ► Whereas from a distance, I can take a picture with the 5X and it's great.

00:22:21 ◼   ► I am excited about the fact that the 17 Pro has a 4X rather than a 5X.

00:22:28 ◼   ► That is good.

00:22:29 ◼   ► So, like, getting that a little closer.

00:22:31 ◼   ► I'm excited about that.

00:22:34 ◼   ► Yeah, I think, though, the bigger question is just, like, battery life on the air.

00:22:43 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, that's, you know, you slap on that bad boy of the MagSafe battery and you're going to be fine.

00:22:50 ◼   ► No, but it undoes the whole point, right?

00:22:52 ◼   ► Well, temporarily undoes it.

00:22:55 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:22:55 ◼   ► Well, but it's not temporary if you're doing it every day.

00:22:58 ◼   ► You know?

00:22:58 ◼   ► It's just like it doesn't.

00:23:00 ◼   ► If, like, every day you're finding yourself slapping on the bad boy, then, like, it kind of undoes the point of the skinny phone.

00:23:09 ◼   ► I would be in the same position that you are in if I hadn't made a decision that I was going to buy it as a testing iPhone.

00:23:17 ◼   ► And that's just how I'm answering that for myself and getting out of it.

00:23:22 ◼   ► Because I adore the look of that phone.

00:23:25 ◼   ► It's super cool.

00:23:26 ◼   ► It's also, it's just interesting.

00:23:28 ◼   ► Like, I really wonder.

00:23:29 ◼   ► It feels like they kind of did, the only place they significantly compromised are the cameras, it seems.

00:23:35 ◼   ► Like, that seems like the only significant compromise.

00:23:38 ◼   ► Like, Apple's quoted battery life specs are not that different.

00:23:43 ◼   ► So, but, like, it's, yeah, you've gone down to literally one camera.

00:23:48 ◼   ► It's a shame they couldn't put a second camera on it, right?

00:23:51 ◼   ► Like, any second camera would have helped, I think, make it a bit more of a selling point for people.

00:23:57 ◼   ► Because it's an expensive phone to just don't put one camera.

00:24:01 ◼   ► Because their quoted battery life, again, who knows, the quoted battery life of the iPhone Air, which is their video playback stat, is the same as the 16 Pro.

00:24:10 ◼   ► It's also 27 hours.

00:24:13 ◼   ► Well, see, also, like, the thermals.

00:24:16 ◼   ► Like, what's it going to be?

00:24:17 ◼   ► Like, I have a theory, which is potentially a silly theory, that the thermals in the air will be fine and potentially even great because of the better heat dissipation in the camera module.

00:24:33 ◼   ► Yeah, because that's where all the phone guts are, are in the plateau.

00:24:38 ◼   ► Well, yeah, it will be fine until you touch the iconic plateau.

00:24:41 ◼   ► Iconic plateau.

00:24:42 ◼   ► And your finger catches on fire, right?

00:24:45 ◼   ► Like, that's going to be the problem.

00:24:46 ◼   ► But, yes, like, you're right.

00:24:48 ◼   ► The body of the phone, where you're holding it, is probably going to be okay.

00:24:52 ◼   ► I saw someone repost this somewhere, but I thought it was funny, of, like, the kind of, like, the dissonance in the Apple event, where it's like, we're going with titanium for strength in this phone.

00:25:03 ◼   ► It's like, we're going with aluminium for this phone.

00:25:06 ◼   ► And the thermals are better.

00:25:07 ◼   ► It's like a really, like, a funny, like, they kind of put themselves in this situation where they have, like, oh, one camera is totally fine.

00:25:15 ◼   ► And then, like, three cameras, totally fine.

00:25:17 ◼   ► Like, I understand how you get there, but it is funny to be, like, selling each material and the change of that material.

00:25:28 ◼   ► And, like, I find it funny.

00:25:29 ◼   ► It's like, are you changing your mind every 30 minutes in this presentation?

00:25:33 ◼   ► See, I don't think there's as much dissonance in the materials conversation as you're saying, because they spent a lot of time on the Pro talking about how it's, like, a unibody structure, and that is new for a phone.

00:25:46 ◼   ► They could have unibody-ed it out of titanium, though, right?

00:25:48 ◼   ► They could have.

00:25:49 ◼   ► They didn't, for whatever reason.

00:25:50 ◼   ► My guess is...

00:25:51 ◼   ► Because it would have been so expensive.

00:25:53 ◼   ► It would have been really expensive.

00:25:54 ◼   ► And the phone is heavier, even despite it being aluminium and not titanium.

00:26:00 ◼   ► I'm so bummed out about this.

00:26:02 ◼   ► I wish it were not...

00:26:04 ◼   ► That's fine.

00:26:05 ◼   ► That's fine.

00:26:06 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:26:07 ◼   ► I hadn't...

00:26:07 ◼   ► Like, I looked this up from my blog.

00:26:10 ◼   ► I didn't really pay attention to the fact that since the first titanium phone, the phone has got heavier.

00:26:17 ◼   ► So, like, the 15 Pro was at 187 grams.

00:26:19 ◼   ► The 16 Pro went up to 199 grams.

00:26:22 ◼   ► And then the 17 Pro is 204.

00:26:24 ◼   ► So, it's actually a smaller jump from between 17 to 16, and it was 16 to 15.

00:26:30 ◼   ► And my thought is it's, like, the camera, the camera module, like, the Tetra Prism stuff may have made it heavier.

00:26:36 ◼   ► I don't know what it could have been.

00:26:38 ◼   ► But it is funny that the phone got heavier and heavier over time.

00:26:42 ◼   ► They're trapped in the Tetra Prism.

00:26:47 ◼   ► Of their own design.

00:26:48 ◼   ► Oh, my God.

00:26:49 ◼   ► All right.

00:26:50 ◼   ► So, Federico, you got your point.

00:26:51 ◼   ► New thin iPhone model.

00:26:53 ◼   ► It looks sick.

00:26:54 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:26:55 ◼   ► We'll see how it is in the real world.

00:26:56 ◼   ► Mike, you're up.

00:26:57 ◼   ► Apple has a new case option to replace fine woven.

00:27:02 ◼   ► And, Federico, you got one, right?

00:27:04 ◼   ► I am using it right now.

00:27:06 ◼   ► I am touching it right now.

00:27:07 ◼   ► My 16 Pro Max is inside it.

00:27:10 ◼   ► That's weird.

00:27:10 ◼   ► It fits kind of perfectly, honestly.

00:27:13 ◼   ► It doesn't play the animation.

00:27:15 ◼   ► When you attach the case, it doesn't show you the fancy animation on the lock screen.

00:27:20 ◼   ► Because, obviously, the data is not compatible between these cases for the 17 Pro and my 16 Pro.

00:27:26 ◼   ► But the buttons work.

00:27:28 ◼   ► They feel nice.

00:27:29 ◼   ► And I can tell you, this material, I think I really like it.

00:27:33 ◼   ► I think they have done it.

00:27:35 ◼   ► They have found a suitable replacement for leather that is very different.

00:27:40 ◼   ► It doesn't pretend to look or feel like leather.

00:27:43 ◼   ► It's something completely new.

00:27:44 ◼   ► I tried to scratch my keys on the case this morning.

00:27:48 ◼   ► I don't see the scratches.

00:27:50 ◼   ► And it's got a different type of premium feel to it.

00:27:56 ◼   ► I really like the texture.

00:27:57 ◼   ► And I really like the sides of the phone.

00:28:02 ◼   ► Is it plastic?

00:28:04 ◼   ► Is it a polymer?

00:28:06 ◼   ► I have no idea.

00:28:07 ◼   ► It looks different from your images.

00:28:10 ◼   ► I don't know what it is.

00:28:12 ◼   ► But it looks like a different material.

00:28:13 ◼   ► So, even the edges of the case, they have a slight texture.

00:28:18 ◼   ► They're not smooth.

00:28:21 ◼   ► They have a bit of a texture going on, which I appreciate.

00:28:23 ◼   ► It's a good case.

00:28:25 ◼   ► That's what I would say.

00:28:26 ◼   ► And I'm using it now.

00:28:27 ◼   ► I like the look of the case.

00:28:29 ◼   ► I don't particularly like the colors that they have for those cases.

00:28:34 ◼   ► The brown one is cool.

00:28:35 ◼   ► This one that I have.

00:28:37 ◼   ► Brown, dark orange, whatever you want to call it.

00:28:40 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:28:40 ◼   ► I don't know the English name, honestly.

00:28:43 ◼   ► I would say that it's probably the best.

00:28:45 ◼   ► I still don't particularly like it.

00:28:48 ◼   ► Sienna, they call it, which is fun.

00:28:51 ◼   ► Oh, yeah.

00:28:51 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:28:51 ◼   ► It's Terra di Siena in Italian.

00:28:53 ◼   ► The green one's not too bad either.

00:28:55 ◼   ► Actually, I'll overtrack that.

00:28:56 ◼   ► The green one's not too bad.

00:28:57 ◼   ► But, yeah, I think that this is maybe just like because of the way they're doing it.

00:29:02 ◼   ► Like maybe their color options are a little bit different.

00:29:04 ◼   ► Have you threaded anything through the lanyard holes yet?

00:29:07 ◼   ► So I was actually thinking about this.

00:29:12 ◼   ► What I could do, because this morning I also got as a test.

00:29:15 ◼   ► I'm going to return these, I think.

00:29:17 ◼   ► I also got the Beats case.

00:29:19 ◼   ► Have you seen the Beats cases with the lanyards and the kickstand built in?

00:29:23 ◼   ► I have not seen that.

00:29:24 ◼   ► You have not seen this.

00:29:26 ◼   ► So Beats has new cases for the 17 Pro line.

00:29:30 ◼   ► Man, it's so funny that this keeps happening now.

00:29:32 ◼   ► Yes.

00:29:33 ◼   ► So one of them, one of them, try and look it up on the Apple Store because I'm going to struggle to describe what it is.

00:29:38 ◼   ► One of them has a lanyard attachment in the bottom right, but like off to the vertical side, not at the bottom, bottom like the Apple cases.

00:29:49 ◼   ► It's got this short strap attached to it, like this short lanyard thing.

00:29:57 ◼   ► At the end of it, there's like a small plastic capsule thing.

00:30:05 ◼   ► Please try and find the photos because I'm really struggling here.

00:30:09 ◼   ► This tiny piece of plastic, you can pull it open and I'm going to send you a picture.

00:30:16 ◼   ► I've found it.

00:30:17 ◼   ► So this is when, okay, you can pull it open.

00:30:20 ◼   ► See that thing on the left side of the picture?

00:30:23 ◼   ► This is absolutely genius.

00:30:26 ◼   ► You can pull it open.

00:30:28 ◼   ► You place it on a surface and in that sort of like divot that opens, you place your phone in landscape mode and it becomes a kickstand.

00:30:38 ◼   ► This is unbelievably clever design.

00:30:41 ◼   ► Like this is really clever.

00:30:43 ◼   ► So you can use it, you can use the lanyard to sort of like, I don't know, you know, keep it in your hand more securely.

00:30:51 ◼   ► Oh, it's literally called the kickstand case.

00:30:53 ◼   ► Yeah, the kickstand case.

00:30:55 ◼   ► No wonder you like it.

00:30:56 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:30:58 ◼   ► So I could try and undo this thread here and, oh, it's very tight actually.

00:31:07 ◼   ► The tolerances might be for that specific case.

00:31:09 ◼   ► You're actually right.

00:31:11 ◼   ► I cannot undo it.

00:31:13 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:31:14 ◼   ► I meant more the kickstand thing.

00:31:16 ◼   ► You could probably undo that thing if you tried really hard.

00:31:19 ◼   ► No, no.

00:31:20 ◼   ► Well, I see a picture of it without the lanyard thing.

00:31:24 ◼   ► Like it is removable.

00:31:25 ◼   ► It might just be really hard to remove.

00:31:26 ◼   ► How?

00:31:26 ◼   ► I think it's one thing I'm happy about with the fine woven cases and only some of the Beats cases.

00:31:32 ◼   ► I don't know why.

00:31:33 ◼   ► that they do actually have the little sapphire thing for the camera control.

00:31:37 ◼   ► So some of those leaks were wrong that showed that it was a cutout for camera control.

00:31:44 ◼   ► I think that that should be the thing that Apple has to do.

00:31:48 ◼   ► All right.

00:31:49 ◼   ► Stephen, you put a link in the show notes here.

00:31:51 ◼   ► There is a piece of paper inside of the fine woven case box which says,

00:31:56 ◼   ► the tack woven case is made from a woven textile to protect your iPhone.

00:31:59 ◼   ► The material may show wear over time.

00:32:01 ◼   ► Interaction with MagSafe accessories will leave slight imprints.

00:32:04 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:32:05 ◼   ► The imprint thing is not a surprise to me.

00:32:07 ◼   ► I mean, even my black leather Nomad case that I've been using most of the year has a slight indention where the MagSafe puck goes on.

00:32:15 ◼   ► But I'm very excited, Federico, that you so far are giving it a thumbs up.

00:32:20 ◼   ► I ordered one as well just to be able to talk about it and see what it was like.

00:32:23 ◼   ► Mine gets here today.

00:32:26 ◼   ► But I think, I said this on NPU, they don't want to repeat what happened last time.

00:32:34 ◼   ► So I would imagine that this one has gone through more rigorous testing maybe.

00:32:38 ◼   ► And similarly now they put a disclaimer in the box so they can just be like, well, we told you.

00:32:43 ◼   ► Like from a legal standpoint, ah, we said this would happen.

00:32:45 ◼   ► So leave us alone.

00:32:46 ◼   ► Okay.

00:32:48 ◼   ► So y'all each have a point.

00:32:50 ◼   ► Congratulations.

00:32:50 ◼   ► Thank you.

00:32:52 ◼   ► My next pick is about a phone.

00:32:54 ◼   ► Especially like scoring a point in round one, typically a very easy thing to do.

00:32:59 ◼   ► Wow.

00:33:00 ◼   ► My next pick is about a phone that barely got mentioned, which I want to ask y'all about.

00:33:04 ◼   ► The iPhone Pro and Pro Max have different camera systems.

00:33:08 ◼   ► They do not.

00:33:10 ◼   ► They are the same, which is great.

00:33:11 ◼   ► Then you're just picking between screen size and price.

00:33:15 ◼   ► The Pro Max, barely even shown, barely even talked about.

00:33:20 ◼   ► What's that about?

00:33:21 ◼   ► I didn't see it at all.

00:33:23 ◼   ► Like, Underscore was here watching it together and I was like, oh, are they going to show the Pro Max now?

00:33:28 ◼   ► And then the event ended.

00:33:29 ◼   ► And I was like, oh, okay.

00:33:31 ◼   ► Well, yeah, I don't know what's going on there.

00:33:33 ◼   ► I think maybe, I don't know, one or two things are happening.

00:33:38 ◼   ► One, they just consider the phones to be some alike this year.

00:33:42 ◼   ► There's no point separating them.

00:33:43 ◼   ► Kind of like the 17 and 17 plus before it.

00:33:46 ◼   ► Like, there wasn't really a lot shown.

00:33:48 ◼   ► Do you remember they did this with the Apple Watch Series 10, too?

00:33:52 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:33:53 ◼   ► Where they were like, here's the Apple Watch.

00:33:55 ◼   ► And they just never referenced the smaller size.

00:33:57 ◼   ► They just never spoke about it.

00:33:58 ◼   ► There were blog posts like, oh, there's only one size.

00:34:01 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:34:01 ◼   ► And so, I figure maybe they're just in the thing of like, if we have two products that are basically the same, there's not really much point showing them unless there's some difference.

00:34:11 ◼   ► Especially if you're already, you know, you've got like four iPhones now.

00:34:17 ◼   ► Or, this is the last time we see the Pro Max, it's replaced by the Fold next year.

00:34:21 ◼   ► That's my upper.

00:34:21 ◼   ► That is what I was going to ask.

00:34:23 ◼   ► Like, is this 3D chess?

00:34:26 ◼   ► So, in a year, we're going to have the iPhone, the Air, the Pro, and the Fold.

00:34:34 ◼   ► I don't think so, realistically, because I think the Pro Max sells really, really well.

00:34:38 ◼   ► And I don't think you would one-to-one replace those customers to become Fold customers.

00:34:44 ◼   ► It's going to be a lot more expensive.

00:34:46 ◼   ► Like, the Fold opens another price point.

00:34:48 ◼   ► And it's essentially a different product.

00:34:50 ◼   ► Like, I want a big iPhone.

00:34:52 ◼   ► It's not necessarily the same as I want a folding.

00:34:55 ◼   ► You know what?

00:34:55 ◼   ► I just don't necessarily think they're the same overlap of customer.

00:34:58 ◼   ► Like, I don't want the big iPhone.

00:35:01 ◼   ► I do want the folding iPhone.

00:35:03 ◼   ► So, people move up and down.

00:35:04 ◼   ► I think it's just a thing of, like, there just wasn't anything to say.

00:35:10 ◼   ► And they chose the numbers that they chose whenever they wanted to use them.

00:35:14 ◼   ► You know, so they quoted the battery life of the Pro Max, right?

00:35:17 ◼   ► Sure.

00:35:17 ◼   ► Like, the number they showed on screen.

00:35:19 ◼   ► And outside of that, they didn't really have much to say about it, I expect.

00:35:23 ◼   ► Because I don't think there's any difference between them except the battery life.

00:35:26 ◼   ► Don't seem to be.

00:35:27 ◼   ► So, that's not a point for me.

00:35:33 ◼   ► The Pro Max does have the honor of the first $2,000 iPhone.

00:35:40 ◼   ► Yeah, 2 terabytes.

00:35:41 ◼   ► That's bananas.

00:35:43 ◼   ► Think how many rounds of Angry Birds I could save on my phone.

00:35:47 ◼   ► You know?

00:35:47 ◼   ► Or, you know, whatever.

00:35:49 ◼   ► Shoot a movie or something.

00:35:51 ◼   ► If they put more RAM in it, would you buy it, Federico?

00:35:53 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:35:56 ◼   ► Yeah?

00:35:58 ◼   ► You'd take the more RAM?

00:35:59 ◼   ► Because you did that with an iPad, right?

00:36:00 ◼   ► You bought the 1 terabyte iPad Pro because it had more RAM in it?

00:36:03 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:36:04 ◼   ► I did.

00:36:04 ◼   ► I did.

00:36:06 ◼   ► No, if only because of, like, local large language models.

00:36:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:36:11 ◼   ► That would be interesting, I think.

00:36:13 ◼   ► I don't know if that is the case, though.

00:36:16 ◼   ► I think they seem to be...

00:36:17 ◼   ► Oh, here's a thing, actually.

00:36:19 ◼   ► Are they talking...

00:36:20 ◼   ► Did they talk about the RAM in these phones at all?

00:36:22 ◼   ► Because they did last time.

00:36:23 ◼   ► They did not give numbers.

00:36:25 ◼   ► I think they said more.

00:36:28 ◼   ► Well, we'll talk about that later.

00:36:30 ◼   ► Okay.

00:36:30 ◼   ► Ah, yes.

00:36:31 ◼   ► Sorry, sorry, sorry.

00:36:32 ◼   ► Good point.

00:36:32 ◼   ► Good point.

00:36:32 ◼   ► Good point.

00:36:33 ◼   ► Good point.

00:36:33 ◼   ► So, at the end of round one, Federico and I have one point.

00:36:39 ◼   ► Steven has zero.

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00:38:40 ◼   ► All right, that brings us to round two.

00:38:42 ◼   ► I said the Pro iPhones have a wider, rectangular-ish camera bar on the back.

00:38:50 ◼   ► They do.

00:38:52 ◼   ► They do.

00:38:52 ◼   ► And it's as we expected.

00:38:55 ◼   ► I mean, love it or hate it.

00:38:58 ◼   ► I don't think I like it.

00:39:00 ◼   ► It's very tall and chunky, and I don't know.

00:39:04 ◼   ► It's not clear to me why it's so big when they're not doing what they did with the iPhone Air,

00:39:12 ◼   ► which is actually the whole computer is in there.

00:39:15 ◼   ► Here, it's just, I don't know, it's bigger.

00:39:18 ◼   ► I think in the Air, right, it's one camera plus all the computer parts.

00:39:22 ◼   ► And this one is three cameras plus the Tetra Prism.

00:39:25 ◼   ► That probably fills up the majority of it.

00:39:27 ◼   ► But that was also the case before.

00:39:29 ◼   ► Right.

00:39:32 ◼   ► And interestingly, the 17 does not pick up this design.

00:39:36 ◼   ► Like, the phone's look, the 17 looks really different than the others.

00:39:41 ◼   ► The 17 effectively looks like the 16, which is not a bad thing.

00:39:44 ◼   ► It's a good-looking phone.

00:39:45 ◼   ► But I would suspect at some point it will pick up the iconic plateau to match.

00:39:53 ◼   ► And also, speaking of that, speaking of that, how correct were we compared to other podcasts

00:40:00 ◼   ► to plant or stake in the ground and say, plateau is the better name.

00:40:07 ◼   ► If you have to use an alternative name to camera bump, go with plateau.

00:40:11 ◼   ► Well, more than anything, we would, we, I don't know if plateau was like the thing that everybody

00:40:17 ◼   ► knew it was, that we ended up finding those technical drawings, right?

00:40:20 ◼   ► Which referenced plateau.

00:40:21 ◼   ► And I think Apple had ever really named it in such a way before.

00:40:26 ◼   ► But now it is the iconic plateau.

00:40:29 ◼   ► But then they listened to Connected and they were like, you know what?

00:40:31 ◼   ► The boys are right.

00:40:32 ◼   ► Might as well just also call it the iconic plateau.

00:40:35 ◼   ► Although they probably were like, oh, can't call it Great Plateau, which is probably what

00:40:40 ◼   ► they wanted to call it after, after, after us, after our recommendation.

00:40:43 ◼   ► So we'll call it iconic.

00:40:45 ◼   ► Is it anyway?

00:40:47 ◼   ► Is it, I don't know if it's iconic.

00:40:49 ◼   ► Is it iconic?

00:40:50 ◼   ► I don't think it is iconic.

00:40:51 ◼   ► Is it, is it, I, it's like, like, because it's like, it's having the plateau is like, it's

00:40:59 ◼   ► an unfortunate consequence, right?

00:41:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:41:02 ◼   ► It's like, it's like, if I don't, it's like, if I don't exercise and, and, and, and I sit

00:41:12 ◼   ► too much and my leg or my knee is bothering me, it's like, oh, look at me going with my iconic

00:41:19 ◼   ► limp.

00:41:19 ◼   ► You know?

00:41:20 ◼   ► It's like, no, it's not iconic.

00:41:23 ◼   ► It's, it's not, it's not, it's like a, a door on a house, right?

00:41:31 ◼   ► Like most, almost every house has a door on it.

00:41:34 ◼   ► It's like, oh, look at my iconic door.

00:41:36 ◼   ► It's like, no, it's just like a door, like all your neighbor's doors.

00:41:38 ◼   ► Cause, cause every phone has had a plateau.

00:41:43 ◼   ► I mean, Jason's in the chat room talking about how it's, you know, the plateau was there before

00:41:47 ◼   ► now it's just bigger.

00:41:48 ◼   ► That's, it's everywhere.

00:41:51 ◼   ► All, all these, almost all these phones have this because as they've gotten thinner and

00:41:55 ◼   ► the cameras have gotten better, those two things are at odds.

00:41:59 ◼   ► And so I, it feels like Apple's like planning, uh, they think they're planting a flag on the

00:42:05 ◼   ► moon, but really they're just planting a flag where all the other flags are.

00:42:09 ◼   ► Like if any phone company had an iconic plateau is Google because they took it.

00:42:20 ◼   ► And made it a design thing where Apple have been trying to minimize the, the plateau.

00:42:27 ◼   ► I think like they were just trying to keep it as small as they could over time.

00:42:32 ◼   ► But the Google were like, no, we're going to make this like a whole thing.

00:42:35 ◼   ► Like we're going to, we're going to, we're going to make this more than it needs to be.

00:42:39 ◼   ► So we can actually turn it into a design thing.

00:42:41 ◼   ► I mean, look, sometimes true innovation lies in your knowledge of the English dictionary.

00:42:48 ◼   ► And in this case, you know, props to Apple for coming up with a silly description that makes

00:42:53 ◼   ► them sound unique.

00:42:55 ◼   ► And now we call, now we're all, we're all going to call it the iconic plateau now.

00:42:58 ◼   ► So who wins really, you know, at the end of the day.

00:43:01 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:43:01 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:43:02 ◼   ► I would say I am in that mode where this now makes my current phone feel old.

00:43:08 ◼   ► I've hit that point.

00:43:09 ◼   ► Um, because I've seen so many images of this phone over the last couple of days that now

00:43:15 ◼   ► I'm like, ugh, look at this, look at this uniconic plateau.

00:43:19 ◼   ► What did that for me was I saw something on blue sky and it was like every iPhone since

00:43:24 ◼   ► the 11 pro on like on its back.

00:43:27 ◼   ► It was like, oh, this is all just the same thing.

00:43:30 ◼   ► Uh, yeah.

00:43:31 ◼   ► Oh, I saw that image as well.

00:43:33 ◼   ► I think when it started, then it progressively gets bigger and bigger and bigger over generations

00:43:38 ◼   ► until now it's almost reached a, it's a logical conclusion, which is it takes up the whole

00:43:43 ◼   ► top area of the phone.

00:43:45 ◼   ► It's iconic conclusion.

00:43:46 ◼   ► Really?

00:43:47 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:43:48 ◼   ► Yep.

00:43:48 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:43:48 ◼   ► Anyway, I get a point.

00:43:51 ◼   ► You do.

00:43:51 ◼   ► My round two pick is the Apple watch ultra finally goes to three.

00:43:57 ◼   ► Yeah, boy.

00:43:58 ◼   ► Which it, which it did.

00:43:59 ◼   ► Nice.

00:44:00 ◼   ► It's got 5G.

00:44:01 ◼   ► Did you know that it has 5G?

00:44:02 ◼   ► 5G.

00:44:03 ◼   ► So excited.

00:44:03 ◼   ► So excited.

00:44:05 ◼   ► Well, you probably wouldn't necessarily know because they didn't mention the chipset.

00:44:10 ◼   ► They said it had 5G.

00:44:13 ◼   ► They said it has 5G.

00:44:15 ◼   ► Which they did for the other two, Apple.

00:44:18 ◼   ► A very, very confusing scenario.

00:44:19 ◼   ► Has 5G.

00:44:20 ◼   ► But it got me a, it got me a draft win.

00:44:22 ◼   ► So I'm not going to come back.

00:44:23 ◼   ► The, I had, I had a thought because I noticed that too.

00:44:28 ◼   ► And you meant, we, we mentioned it in a couple of the places with like the pro and pro max.

00:44:32 ◼   ► Well, Apple will like say a feature like that, like the improved anti-reflective coding,

00:44:37 ◼   ► which we're going to come to later.

00:44:39 ◼   ► Like that is on all the phones.

00:44:40 ◼   ► They only mentioned it in one context.

00:44:42 ◼   ► It's really the same problem they have at WBDC, which I've railed against for years.

00:44:46 ◼   ► Of like breaking these, like they, it's awkward and strange.

00:44:50 ◼   ► Like they need a section of like, here's where all these things are the same.

00:44:55 ◼   ► And they've done that on the website.

00:44:57 ◼   ► If you go to these new iPhone webpages and hit the explore button, there's a whole page called shared features.

00:45:03 ◼   ► And it talks about, well, obviously at first liquid glass and Apple intelligence, but then eventually it gets to features.

00:45:10 ◼   ► And they need, I think they just need to be, eventually, eventually gets to features.

00:45:17 ◼   ► Yeah, sorry.

00:45:17 ◼   ► That was, that was harsh.

00:45:18 ◼   ► I think they need, I think in their rush to make these events as tight and fast as possible, they leave room for this confusion.

00:45:29 ◼   ► Just like they did with the Apple watch sizes.

00:45:31 ◼   ► Like we mentioned a second ago.

00:45:32 ◼   ► And I just, I don't know what they do about that, but it feels this year, like it felt like it, for the first time, it crept into the iPhone announcement.

00:45:40 ◼   ► And that struck me as a little bit, a little bit weird.

00:45:42 ◼   ► Because there's all things, like there's the, the dual camera recording thing was something they spoke about for the 16 and mentioned not once more.

00:45:51 ◼   ► But not only do other phones get it, older phones get it too, I think.

00:45:55 ◼   ► No, I'm thinking of something else, the hypertension.

00:45:57 ◼   ► You're thinking of hypertension with the watch.

00:45:58 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm thinking of hypertension.

00:45:59 ◼   ► But the, the, like new, all of the phones got the dual camera recording, but they only mentioned it for the 16.

00:46:05 ◼   ► It's weird.

00:46:07 ◼   ► Yeah, super weird.

00:46:08 ◼   ► So anyways, Apple watch ultra three.

00:46:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:46:13 ◼   ► Slightly larger screen and like a handful of pixels bigger.

00:46:18 ◼   ► It's very, very slightly bigger.

00:46:20 ◼   ► 5G, same finishes.

00:46:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:46:25 ◼   ► I mean, also it, it gets up to date on a few things.

00:46:29 ◼   ► Because there were some sensors that had been added to the other Apple watches that weren't in the ultra one and also the ultra two, I think.

00:46:40 ◼   ► Right.

00:46:40 ◼   ► So like if ultra one uses, oh, there wasn't an ultra, there wasn't technically an ultra two, was there?

00:46:46 ◼   ► The ultra two was just, it's black now.

00:46:48 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:46:49 ◼   ► No, no, no.

00:46:49 ◼   ► There was an ultra, there was an ultra two.

00:46:51 ◼   ► And instead of a three, we got a black ultra two.

00:46:54 ◼   ► That's it.

00:46:54 ◼   ► And I have the ultra two.

00:46:55 ◼   ► So the ultra two and the series 10 both had the additional gesture stuff and a couple other things.

00:47:02 ◼   ► The difference was the two lasted two years.

00:47:06 ◼   ► The ultra two doesn't have the wrist flick.

00:47:08 ◼   ► Okay.

00:47:09 ◼   ► But it has the tap your finger and thumb together.

00:47:11 ◼   ► It has the double tap.

00:47:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:47:12 ◼   ► And so there are some, there are bits and bobs here and there that are being added.

00:47:18 ◼   ► And it's a, it's a nicer upgrade if you're coming from the one to the three, because there are more things that are carried along, but it's less of an upgrade than I thought it was going to be, to be honest.

00:47:29 ◼   ► I was expecting it to be a little bit more than this, but you both are Apple watch ultra one users.

00:47:36 ◼   ► Are you enticed by the ultra two, which now comes in black to start?

00:47:44 ◼   ► I am holding off on a watch upgrade because I were at the end of the beta season and my Apple watch is on my dresser and I'm taking a little bit of a break.

00:47:55 ◼   ► So I will upgrade to the three, but you know, probably mid cycle.

00:47:59 ◼   ► What about you, Federico?

00:48:00 ◼   ► I got it.

00:48:03 ◼   ► Okay.

00:48:05 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:48:05 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:48:06 ◼   ► It was a, it was a bad time and like immediately after the keynote.

00:48:12 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

00:48:14 ◼   ► Cause the watch went on the media pre-order, right?

00:48:16 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:48:17 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:48:17 ◼   ► And the AirPods pro three, like immediately.

00:48:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:48:19 ◼   ► I expected from the AirPods, but I forget that I do with the watches.

00:48:22 ◼   ► Yeah, they do.

00:48:23 ◼   ► They do.

00:48:23 ◼   ► Okay.

00:48:25 ◼   ► My pick also had a three in it.

00:48:28 ◼   ► Apple announces AirPods pro three.

00:48:32 ◼   ► Uh, this is how they, they let off the world's most popular headphones, better active noise cancellation, better battery life in the buds, but the case offers less battery life.

00:48:44 ◼   ► Uh, if you look at the tech specs and of course the live translation.

00:48:48 ◼   ► Now that is coming to previous AirPods pro as well, but not in the EU, uh, the live translation is not launching in the EU yet.

00:48:58 ◼   ► I think the, the most interesting thing here though is AirPods pro becoming a health sensor, right?

00:49:05 ◼   ► We saw that with those beats headphones earlier in the year where they added the heart rate monitor.

00:49:09 ◼   ► They've added that to AirPods pro three developers can see that like that information comes in like Apple health, uh, Apple watch health information comes in.

00:49:19 ◼   ► What I think is interesting and I, I didn't really foresee is that they have now with that and like the, the motion and your phone tying all that together, you can now track a bunch of workouts with AirPods pro three without an Apple watch, not all the workouts.

00:49:36 ◼   ► It's a subset of them, but they are making ground in the AirPods pro becoming a health device, which, you know, we've talked about for years, right?

00:49:47 ◼   ► And anything that you have on your person for, you know, any period of time, but especially in working out, which I mean, they highlighted it's an opportunity for more data collection and going into health.

00:49:58 ◼   ► And I think that that's really interesting and compelling.

00:50:01 ◼   ► And if you don't wear an Apple watch, but you do want some of these advanced fitness tracking features, uh, the AirPods pro kind of offer you a way into that ecosystem without purchasing a watch.

00:50:14 ◼   ► Um, and some of those workouts are available without anything.

00:50:17 ◼   ► Um, you can just start them in the fitness app.

00:50:19 ◼   ► You don't need to have any heart rate monitor on at all.

00:50:22 ◼   ► Um, they don't do as much obviously, but they're available to you.

00:50:26 ◼   ► Um, I'm, I'm a little bit bummed out about the fact that you have to start the workouts manually.

00:50:31 ◼   ► Um, I, I hope that in the future, like with the Apple watch, that you'll get an automatic detection of heart rate going up and down and asking you,

00:50:42 ◼   ► are you working out right?

00:50:43 ◼   ► That kind of thing.

00:50:44 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:50:44 ◼   ► Um, cause I don't know.

00:50:45 ◼   ► I just, I find that to be like a, like I'm going out on a walk.

00:50:48 ◼   ► It's like, all right, here's my phone.

00:50:50 ◼   ► Press the button.

00:50:51 ◼   ► You know, like, here we go.

00:50:52 ◼   ► Like it's, I don't know.

00:50:53 ◼   ► I don't know why, but I find it to be strange, but this is a cool feature.

00:50:57 ◼   ► Like again, it doesn't seem to be benefiting.

00:51:01 ◼   ► You don't seem to get any of the like other health stuff that you get with the Apple watch's heart rate sensor.

00:51:08 ◼   ► It seems to be just for workouts right now.

00:51:11 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:51:11 ◼   ► Um, it'll be interesting to see how that changes over time or if it changes over time.

00:51:16 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:51:17 ◼   ► That may just come down to battery preservation.

00:51:21 ◼   ► Uh, they got to be careful with that on the AirPods, right?

00:51:24 ◼   ► They're super tiny, but yeah, I think this is just the beginning.

00:51:27 ◼   ► And I think as time goes on, we will see AirPods become more aware of you and what's going on in terms of health.

00:51:37 ◼   ► Uh, the same thing, like when I look at that iPad, that iPhone air, excuse me, uh, very clearly a whole computer in that small of a space has interesting ramifications for other things.

00:51:48 ◼   ► Right.

00:51:48 ◼   ► Like vision pro or glasses or something like I, I, I feel like Apple's hardware this year in particular is like really pointing the way kind of down the road.

00:51:59 ◼   ► The, the, the battery specs says eight hours of listening on a single charge with noise cancellation enabled six and a half hours listening time on a single charge of heart rate sensing during workouts.

00:52:11 ◼   ► I got to say, if, if that means that you can leave it on for a total of six and a half hours, if it's not like averaging it, I would take that personally one and a half hour battery life difference to have my heart rate being constantly monitored by my AirPods.

00:52:27 ◼   ► But maybe that's just me.

00:52:28 ◼   ► Okay.

00:52:31 ◼   ► So the end of round two, you each have two points and I'm finally on the board with one point.

00:52:37 ◼   ► Congrats.

00:52:39 ◼   ► I got to make it up next time.

00:52:40 ◼   ► And then in the next round, it's all going to change.

00:52:43 ◼   ► You know, here we go.

00:52:44 ◼   ► Things are happening.

00:52:45 ◼   ► All right, Federico lay your risky on us.

00:52:50 ◼   ► Okay.

00:52:51 ◼   ► The opening statement of my risky was the iPhone, the new iPhone 17 pro devices have additional.

00:52:57 ◼   ► Apple intelligence features.

00:52:58 ◼   ► Condition number one, they have more RAM than other iPhones and can run on device models faster.

00:53:04 ◼   ► Condition number two, the 17 pros can run the 7 billion version of Apple foundation model on device.

00:53:10 ◼   ► Condition number three, the 17 pros get new image and or camera related AI features.

00:53:17 ◼   ► Now, by my counting and research, and I have double checked the transcript on YouTube again,

00:53:25 ◼   ► I get two out of three conditions correct.

00:53:29 ◼   ► Number one, they have more RAM than other iPhones and can run on device models faster.

00:53:34 ◼   ► Apple mentioned the increased memory bandwidth and mentioned these are the fastest iPhones for running on device generative models.

00:53:43 ◼   ► The increased RAM is also confirmed by Geekbench benchmarks that are going live since yesterday because of reviewers getting their phones.

00:53:56 ◼   ► And they're showing these devices having 12 gigabytes of RAM.

00:53:59 ◼   ► Condition number two is not correct because they haven't mentioned this anywhere.

00:54:06 ◼   ► I cannot find any detail mentioning what kind of Apple foundation model gets downloaded on the 17 pros.

00:54:13 ◼   ► Maybe it's the sort of detail that will come out in reviews, we'll see.

00:54:17 ◼   ► But condition number three is also correct in that they introduced the new selfie camera and the new selfie features as powered by AI.

00:54:29 ◼   ► And the 17 pros having also the center stage selfie camera then also get this AI powered.

00:54:38 ◼   ► And there's a conversation to be had about whether that is truly or not AI powered.

00:54:44 ◼   ► They said it, so it's fine.

00:54:45 ◼   ► I just don't buy it.

00:54:46 ◼   ► Like, I just don't buy it.

00:54:48 ◼   ► That is an Apple intelligence model making this?

00:54:51 ◼   ► In a couple of places, they said machine learning instead of AI.

00:54:55 ◼   ► In a couple of places, they did.

00:54:56 ◼   ► Instead of AI.

00:54:57 ◼   ► In this case, they said it's an AI powered, what did they say?

00:55:02 ◼   ► Person recognition, scene recognition, something like that.

00:55:05 ◼   ► Look, it could be a small, I told you during the keynote, it could be a small vision model that is, you know, like they do have, one of the things they're doing in iOS 26, here's a bit of a technical breakdown because I wrote about this in my review.

00:55:17 ◼   ► They are using these highly specialized, they're calling them grounding models that basically classify things before passing the actual file or text to a bigger model.

00:55:30 ◼   ► For example, they have a grounding model in visual intelligence that before you actually do stuff with visual intelligence, the grounding model, it's a small, specialized model.

00:55:41 ◼   ► That tells, that sort of kicks in first and says, do I think, for example, do I think there's a date in this image or do I think this screenshot is showing you a whole bunch of text?

00:55:54 ◼   ► That small grounding model kicks in first, passes its response to the system.

00:56:00 ◼   ► Then, if you want to summarize the text or if you want to do something with the object recognized, it uses the other bigger, slower Apple intelligence model.

00:56:11 ◼   ► So they're doing this sort of thing.

00:56:13 ◼   ► They may be doing that sort of thing in the camera as well, where they have a small, very quick, very efficient grounding model that says, oh, am I seeing a person now in real time?

00:56:22 ◼   ► Maybe I need to zoom out the camera.

00:56:24 ◼   ► They may be doing that sort of thing.

00:56:26 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:56:27 ◼   ► That is my only interpretation.

00:56:29 ◼   ► Or, or, there's a tiny pigeon inside each iPhone.

00:56:34 ◼   ► Sure.

00:56:35 ◼   ► And they're out there looking and they peck the sensor and it turns.

00:56:38 ◼   ► Tiny, tiny pigeon.

00:56:39 ◼   ► Tiny pigeon.

00:56:40 ◼   ► Oh, that's crazy.

00:56:41 ◼   ► Like a pigeon guided missiles.

00:56:43 ◼   ► We talked about that on a genius like 10 years ago.

00:56:45 ◼   ► They call him Little Pidgey.

00:56:47 ◼   ► Little Pidgey.

00:56:48 ◼   ► Little Pidgey.

00:56:48 ◼   ► Little Pidgey.

00:56:49 ◼   ► I'm not arguing with you, but like, I just don't buy it.

00:56:53 ◼   ► Like, you know what?

00:56:54 ◼   ► Yeah, I know, I know.

00:56:55 ◼   ► I just, I just, I think that this is just a way to get AI in the presentation.

00:57:00 ◼   ► I just, anyway, like, just to jump out a second.

00:57:05 ◼   ► I think the, um, the selfie thing is amazing.

00:57:09 ◼   ► I think it is very clever and is going to be, I think that the new selfie camera will literally

00:57:17 ◼   ► sell iPhones like on its own because it's going to demo so well, right?

00:57:22 ◼   ► That someone will have the new phone and you'll be getting into a photo and it will do its thing

00:57:27 ◼   ► where it's changing and like people are like, oh, wow, how's it doing that?

00:57:29 ◼   ► It's like, oh, well, I got the new iPhone 17.

00:57:31 ◼   ► Like, I think it will sell iPhones.

00:57:33 ◼   ► I think people are going to like it a lot.

00:57:34 ◼   ► I'm excited about it.

00:57:35 ◼   ► I think it's a really good feature.

00:57:39 ◼   ► Um, good job, man.

00:57:41 ◼   ► Well, thank you.

00:57:43 ◼   ► Thank you.

00:57:44 ◼   ► Uh, this is, there is a funny thing here, right?

00:57:46 ◼   ► Right.

00:57:46 ◼   ► Like, um, your conditions are more correct than your overall pick.

00:57:52 ◼   ► That's which is, I'm not arguing.

00:57:53 ◼   ► It is just like a funny thing, right?

00:57:56 ◼   ► Of like, this is just how the rickies are.

00:57:58 ◼   ► Really, it's the three other picks that are important.

00:58:00 ◼   ► It's the three picks that are scored that are important.

00:58:02 ◼   ► Well, I mean, that's really getting ready to happen to you.

00:58:04 ◼   ► So.

00:58:05 ◼   ► Yes.

00:58:05 ◼   ► Where my, uh, my risky is Apple announces the iPhone Air, which is correct.

00:58:11 ◼   ► But I had three conditions.

00:58:14 ◼   ► Uh, condition one, it weighs between 146 to 148 grams.

00:58:20 ◼   ► The answer was, it's 165 grams.

00:58:23 ◼   ► Really, I wished I would have just said it will not weigh 145 grams, which was all of the rumors.

00:58:29 ◼   ► And it's like 20 grams have it in the rumors.

00:58:31 ◼   ► But I don't know if you would have accepted that anyway.

00:58:33 ◼   ► Um, it does not have the worst quoted battery life of the 17 line, equal or better than the 17.

00:58:39 ◼   ► It has 27 hours on the air versus 30 hours on the 17.

00:58:43 ◼   ► And it is more expensive than the Pro.

00:58:45 ◼   ► It is $999 versus 1099.

00:58:50 ◼   ► So it's more expensive than the Plus, but the Pro also got more expensive.

00:58:55 ◼   ► Uh, and so, uh, all of those are wrong.

00:58:58 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:58:59 ◼   ► Well, the phones, I don't want to talk about pricing for a second.

00:59:02 ◼   ► The phones are, the starting price is higher, but Apple is like, oh, the price is an increase

00:59:08 ◼   ► for the storage because 256 is now the base, which I think is a good move.

00:59:12 ◼   ► But with that, like came that old price as the starting price.

00:59:16 ◼   ► It's a little confusing.

00:59:17 ◼   ► Yeah, but come on.

00:59:18 ◼   ► But that isn't the reason.

00:59:20 ◼   ► They want to put the prices up, so they put the storage up.

00:59:22 ◼   ► They didn't want to put the storage up, so they put the prices up.

00:59:25 ◼   ► Right.

00:59:25 ◼   ► Um, I'm sorry, buddy.

00:59:28 ◼   ► That's, that's...

00:59:30 ◼   ► Hey, look, I was swinging.

00:59:31 ◼   ► You know, I knew what I was doing.

00:59:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:59:33 ◼   ► I was going for all risk, potentially no reward.

00:59:36 ◼   ► And that's where I ended up.

00:59:37 ◼   ► Well, uh, speaking of that phenomenon.

00:59:41 ◼   ► Yeah, at least mine was influenced to some kind of ground of thought.

00:59:44 ◼   ► At least, at least, yeah, at least Mike's risky existed in the physical world as a possibility.

00:59:53 ◼   ► That we could all conceive of.

00:59:55 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:59:56 ◼   ► The iPhone Pro and Pro Max come in a unique finish.

01:00:00 ◼   ► It refracts slash reflects light.

01:00:02 ◼   ► It has a rainbow effect as light passes over it.

01:00:06 ◼   ► Apple calls the finish glass.

01:00:09 ◼   ► And it is also funny because, like, technically, the iPhone Pro and Pro Max do come in a unique finish.

01:00:14 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:00:15 ◼   ► Um, but it is none of these things.

01:00:17 ◼   ► Which is called, which is called orange.

01:00:18 ◼   ► Cosmic orange.

01:00:20 ◼   ► Cosmic even.

01:00:21 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:00:22 ◼   ► I was just thinking that it, it's all aluminum.

01:00:24 ◼   ► Like, that's a, that is anodized aluminum is a unique finish compared to the other phones,

01:00:29 ◼   ► which none of those phones are in, uh, have anodized aluminum.

01:00:32 ◼   ► Uh, so, yeah.

01:00:34 ◼   ► Um.

01:00:35 ◼   ► Look, Steve, man, we told you.

01:00:37 ◼   ► I know.

01:00:37 ◼   ► Right?

01:00:37 ◼   ► I know.

01:00:38 ◼   ► Look, it was one of those things.

01:00:39 ◼   ► It just, it was happening and I was caught up in the moment.

01:00:42 ◼   ► Right?

01:00:42 ◼   ► Like, I get excited.

01:00:44 ◼   ► I see.

01:00:45 ◼   ► You weren't.

01:00:45 ◼   ► You, you had been thinking about it for days.

01:00:48 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:00:48 ◼   ► I see.

01:00:49 ◼   ► What was the moment?

01:00:50 ◼   ► The moment was, was a 72 hour period.

01:00:53 ◼   ► Okay.

01:00:53 ◼   ► Wow.

01:00:54 ◼   ► You know, you get, you get swept up because you think if I get this right, I'm going to

01:00:58 ◼   ► go down into history again.

01:01:00 ◼   ► So you, like I did, like I did when a dream told me that one of the first Apple Silicon

01:01:07 ◼   ► machines was going to be the Mac mini.

01:01:08 ◼   ► And you know, this time.

01:01:12 ◼   ► You had been swept up for three days straight.

01:01:15 ◼   ► And at no point did you look at this pick and go, I don't know.

01:01:19 ◼   ► No, it was, it was swept up in the moment.

01:01:22 ◼   ► Swept up.

01:01:23 ◼   ► Three days.

01:01:23 ◼   ► Three days of sweeping.

01:01:25 ◼   ► Swept up.

01:01:25 ◼   ► Swept up.

01:01:26 ◼   ► That's a lot of moment.

01:01:28 ◼   ► It is.

01:01:29 ◼   ► Okay.

01:01:30 ◼   ► So for the Rickies, Federico, you have three total points.

01:01:36 ◼   ► Mike has a one total point and I have zero total points, which means you continue to be

01:01:46 ◼   ► the Ricky Benjamin.

01:01:47 ◼   ► No, hold on.

01:01:48 ◼   ► Thank you.

01:01:49 ◼   ► Yes.

01:01:49 ◼   ► But I believe I have three points.

01:01:51 ◼   ► Mike has two.

01:01:52 ◼   ► Oh no.

01:01:52 ◼   ► Mike loses a point.

01:01:53 ◼   ► He loses a point.

01:01:53 ◼   ► You're right.

01:01:54 ◼   ► You're right.

01:01:54 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:01:55 ◼   ► You're right.

01:01:55 ◼   ► Thank you.

01:01:56 ◼   ► I am happy to be confirmed.

01:01:59 ◼   ► Reconfirmed.

01:02:00 ◼   ► After all that, I got 10 points in the St. Jude.

01:02:04 ◼   ► This is not ideal.

01:02:05 ◼   ► It's not ideal for me.

01:02:07 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

01:02:07 ◼   ► I forgot we were, we were doing that.

01:02:09 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:02:09 ◼   ► What did I get?

01:02:10 ◼   ► Zero?

01:02:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:02:11 ◼   ► You got zero.

01:02:12 ◼   ► Federico, your, your, your performance in the quizzes has really screwed me.

01:02:16 ◼   ► I'm 110 points behind.

01:02:17 ◼   ► You can do it.

01:02:19 ◼   ► You can do it.

01:02:19 ◼   ► Thank you.

01:02:20 ◼   ► Oh, thank you so much.

01:02:21 ◼   ► That's, I really appreciate that.

01:02:22 ◼   ► Okay.

01:02:23 ◼   ► Congratulations.

01:02:28 ◼   ► Thank you.

01:02:29 ◼   ► Thank you.

01:02:29 ◼   ► This episode of Connected is brought to you by Factor.

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01:04:30 ◼   ► The Flexies is a game held after each edition of The Rickies.

01:04:34 ◼   ► It consists of a series of additional picks in relation to the upcoming Apple event or year.

01:04:39 ◼   ► Scoring is completed separately from the main game, but like The Rickies, the order of picks

01:04:44 ◼   ► is set by the results of the previous game, with ties being broken using dice by Peacock.

01:04:51 ◼   ► Please lie down as the rules are read.

01:04:53 ◼   ► Hosts must make a minimum of five Flexie picks.

01:05:04 ◼   ► Each correct pick is awarded with one point.

01:05:07 ◼   ► Wrong picks do not remove any points and no partial points may be awarded.

01:05:12 ◼   ► The winner is determined by comparing the percentage of correct Flexies made by each host.

01:05:18 ◼   ► The winner can use their chosen title as long as they are the winner.

01:05:21 ◼   ► Federico shall be named Prince Flexie and is known as King Flexie when having won both

01:05:26 ◼   ► the Kino and annual games.

01:05:27 ◼   ► Mike has chosen Duke of Flexington and uses the name Archduke Flexington when applicable.

01:05:33 ◼   ► I am the Attorney General of Flexie and I use the title Secretary of Deflex when necessary.

01:05:39 ◼   ► Loser of the Flexies must compensate the winner of the Flexies by donating to a charity of the

01:05:44 ◼   ► winner's choice.

01:05:45 ◼   ► The winner, the amount of donation is $25 per wrong Flexie made by the loser.

01:05:51 ◼   ► The money must be donated on air.

01:05:53 ◼   ► So, yeah, if you hold all four titles, you're allowed to choose your own nickname.

01:06:00 ◼   ► That has not happened in the history of the show.

01:06:02 ◼   ► But maybe one day you can please, please get up.

01:06:05 ◼   ► Get off the floor.

01:06:06 ◼   ► Come on, come back to the show.

01:06:09 ◼   ► Didn't I hold all of it once?

01:06:11 ◼   ► We just didn't know the name.

01:06:12 ◼   ► We didn't have, it was pre-rules.

01:06:14 ◼   ► It was pre-rules.

01:06:16 ◼   ► I think I called myself the Consolidated Champion.

01:06:18 ◼   ► I think so.

01:06:19 ◼   ► Which really feels like a corporate title.

01:06:23 ◼   ► Yes.

01:06:24 ◼   ► The Synergistic Champ.

01:06:26 ◼   ► That was me.

01:06:26 ◼   ► Synergistic Champion.

01:06:28 ◼   ► Yep, yep, the Champion of Synergy.

01:06:29 ◼   ► Okay, so I was the winner previously, so I get to go first.

01:06:34 ◼   ► I made nine picks.

01:06:36 ◼   ► The Apple Watch Series 3 has a larger screen than the Ultra 2.

01:06:41 ◼   ► Barely.

01:06:43 ◼   ► Barely.

01:06:44 ◼   ► Thank you, eight pixels, or whatever it is.

01:06:46 ◼   ► iOS 26 gets a release date of the week of September 15th.

01:06:51 ◼   ► It is indeed on September 15th, all of them, including Tahoe.

01:06:56 ◼   ► Apple releases a new external battery.

01:07:01 ◼   ► It's not what you think.

01:07:03 ◼   ► Only for the air, which is such a bummer.

01:07:06 ◼   ► I don't even understand how.

01:07:09 ◼   ► I think it's the height.

01:07:12 ◼   ► I think it's the height of the back.

01:07:14 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:07:14 ◼   ► It would work, though, right?

01:07:17 ◼   ► If they aligned it differently.

01:07:19 ◼   ► Like, if they made a different thing, it would work.

01:07:21 ◼   ► But I don't think it's going to fit.

01:07:22 ◼   ► I mean, I think...

01:07:23 ◼   ► Oh, I see.

01:07:24 ◼   ► Well, here's an idea.

01:07:26 ◼   ► Here's an idea.

01:07:26 ◼   ► Okay?

01:07:27 ◼   ► Which I am going to try, because I'm getting this battery on Monday.

01:07:30 ◼   ► What if you turn the battery sideways?

01:07:34 ◼   ► Oh.

01:07:35 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:07:35 ◼   ► Like the LG Wing.

01:07:38 ◼   ► Like the LG Wing.

01:07:40 ◼   ► I mean, MagSafe is MagSafe, right?

01:07:43 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:07:44 ◼   ► The attachment circle is a circle.

01:07:47 ◼   ► You can turn a circle around.

01:07:48 ◼   ► Yeah, and the circle is the only part where there's actually

01:07:50 ◼   ► the charging coil.

01:07:51 ◼   ► And then the little lozenge part is just for alignment.

01:07:56 ◼   ► Okay.

01:07:57 ◼   ► Federico, you got to report back on that next week.

01:08:00 ◼   ► I will.

01:08:01 ◼   ► I will.

01:08:01 ◼   ► On Monday, I'll show you an iPhone 16 Pro inside the tech woven case

01:08:06 ◼   ► with the MagSafe battery horizontal.

01:08:08 ◼   ► Watch it be iPhone 17 only.

01:08:10 ◼   ► Watch like the 16, not know what to do with it.

01:08:15 ◼   ► That would be, oh, see?

01:08:16 ◼   ► Might as well lock it in software.

01:08:18 ◼   ► You're right.

01:08:19 ◼   ► That's right.

01:08:19 ◼   ► Number four, Jaws introduces the pro iPhones in a dark setting.

01:08:24 ◼   ► I think I get this.

01:08:27 ◼   ► Was it a dark setting?

01:08:29 ◼   ► I think I get this.

01:08:31 ◼   ► It's an Apple store.

01:08:33 ◼   ► It's nighttime outside.

01:08:34 ◼   ► He's in a black jacket.

01:08:35 ◼   ► It's a dark setting.

01:08:36 ◼   ► With full-on inside lighting.

01:08:39 ◼   ► No, it's not even full-on lighting.

01:08:40 ◼   ► He's just like blasting him.

01:08:41 ◼   ► A hundred percent.

01:08:42 ◼   ► He's always lit, though.

01:08:43 ◼   ► They always show him.

01:08:45 ◼   ► Okay, okay.

01:08:46 ◼   ► He's lit by the moon, usually.

01:08:47 ◼   ► No, no.

01:08:49 ◼   ► This is a dark setting.

01:08:50 ◼   ► Chat, chat, do we think this is a dark setting?

01:08:53 ◼   ► What do you think, chat?

01:08:54 ◼   ► I like the statements now.

01:08:56 ◼   ► Fam.

01:08:57 ◼   ► Come on, chat.

01:08:59 ◼   ► What do we think?

01:08:59 ◼   ► Is this a dark setting?

01:09:00 ◼   ► It really doesn't look dark.

01:09:02 ◼   ► I mean, it's night.

01:09:03 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:04 ◼   ► It's night outside, but there's dark.

01:09:07 ◼   ► Wow.

01:09:08 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:09:08 ◼   ► That's overwhelmingly in my favor.

01:09:11 ◼   ► All right.

01:09:12 ◼   ► Okay.

01:09:13 ◼   ► Fine.

01:09:14 ◼   ► Thank you.

01:09:15 ◼   ► Got a Steven heads in the chat.

01:09:17 ◼   ► That's right.

01:09:17 ◼   ► Apple announces AirTax 2.

01:09:20 ◼   ► It did not.

01:09:22 ◼   ► That feels like it could still be coming.

01:09:24 ◼   ► So if I said a light setting, and it was Jaws in a box, and we were in the box with him,

01:09:29 ◼   ► then what happens?

01:09:30 ◼   ► But we all know it's daytime outside, but Jaws is inside of a couple of boxes.

01:09:34 ◼   ► You know what?

01:09:34 ◼   ► If that comes up.

01:09:35 ◼   ► He's not wrong, though.

01:09:37 ◼   ► If that comes up, and you predicted it, I think you win for the year.

01:09:40 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm going to predict it now.

01:09:42 ◼   ► All right?

01:09:43 ◼   ► That's my next one.

01:09:43 ◼   ► Jaws is in a box.

01:09:44 ◼   ► Jaws is in a box.

01:09:45 ◼   ► That's my next one.

01:09:46 ◼   ► The iPhone Air is the one more thing.

01:09:49 ◼   ► It was not.

01:09:51 ◼   ► It wasn't even at the end.

01:09:52 ◼   ► It was right in the middle.

01:09:52 ◼   ► There is an iPhone Pro that is orange by the eye.

01:09:56 ◼   ► That's correct.

01:09:58 ◼   ► The iPhone Pro, there's an iPhone Pro that is copper by the eye.

01:10:02 ◼   ► Not really.

01:10:04 ◼   ► The new iPhone Pro color is called copper.

01:10:06 ◼   ► The new iPhone Pro color is called copper.

01:10:07 ◼   ► It is not.

01:10:08 ◼   ► That puts me at 5 out of 9, or 55.6%.

01:10:15 ◼   ► I had 11 flexes.

01:10:23 ◼   ► I am enjoying seeing Apple nerds on social media lose their minds at the possibility that people

01:10:31 ◼   ► may be using a strap to hold their phones by their necks and bodies.

01:10:35 ◼   ► That is funny because sometimes I wonder if it's like, is it a European thing or is it that

01:10:41 ◼   ► these people never go outside?

01:10:43 ◼   ► I'm getting the impression from the media that this is not a thing in America.

01:10:49 ◼   ► As much as it is, we have, there's lots of fun wearing here and it seems like in Europe

01:10:55 ◼   ► and Asia, there's a lot of fun wearing too.

01:10:57 ◼   ► Added to the list of cool things missing in America.

01:11:00 ◼   ► Number two, AirTags 2 feature a new generation ultra wide band technology.

01:11:05 ◼   ► There were no AirTags 2.

01:11:06 ◼   ► Number three, Apple announces a partnership with Google for Gemini.

01:11:11 ◼   ► Nope, no Google to be seen.

01:11:13 ◼   ► Number four, all iPhones have a promotion display.

01:11:17 ◼   ► Yes.

01:11:18 ◼   ► It's pretty cool.

01:11:19 ◼   ► It is cool that they've done this finally.

01:11:21 ◼   ► And always on, which is also great.

01:11:24 ◼   ► Number five, some of the new iPhones have a redesigned thermal system.

01:11:31 ◼   ► Vapor chamber.

01:11:32 ◼   ► Now, you know, not an Apple innovation.

01:11:36 ◼   ► It's been happening for a long time in Android land.

01:11:39 ◼   ► But this is what we have.

01:11:41 ◼   ► I can't believe they said vapor chamber.

01:11:43 ◼   ► Vapor chamber.

01:11:44 ◼   ► They actually explained what vapor is.

01:11:46 ◼   ► Did you know that it's water?

01:11:48 ◼   ► It's water, but it's not wet.

01:11:49 ◼   ► I don't know what a chamber was.

01:11:50 ◼   ► It's water, but it's not what you think.

01:11:54 ◼   ► It's laser welded.

01:11:55 ◼   ► The animation made it seem like it's an ocean in there.

01:11:58 ◼   ► Like, it's going to like hear sloshing.

01:11:59 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:12:00 ◼   ► If you shake your phone really hard, you hear it like...

01:12:04 ◼   ► Oh, what if I get the phone that you can hear the boiling?

01:12:06 ◼   ► You know what, Stephen?

01:12:08 ◼   ► If you do, don't make a YouTube video.

01:12:10 ◼   ► Oh, no.

01:12:10 ◼   ► I learned my lesson last time.

01:12:11 ◼   ► No.

01:12:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:12:13 ◼   ► Number six.

01:12:14 ◼   ► All iPhones have an improved selfie camera.

01:12:18 ◼   ► Yes.

01:12:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:12:19 ◼   ► Center stage camera.

01:12:21 ◼   ► Number seven.

01:12:23 ◼   ► The back of the Pro iPhones looks different.

01:12:25 ◼   ► Which it does.

01:12:27 ◼   ► It does.

01:12:28 ◼   ► It does.

01:12:28 ◼   ► It does.

01:12:29 ◼   ► It does.

01:12:31 ◼   ► Number eight.

01:12:31 ◼   ► Shortcuts.

01:12:32 ◼   ► Use model action for AI is mentioned slash shown on screen.

01:12:36 ◼   ► No, they didn't.

01:12:38 ◼   ► They didn't show it off at all.

01:12:40 ◼   ► Number nine.

01:12:42 ◼   ► iOS 26 comes out on Monday, September 15th, which it is.

01:12:48 ◼   ► Number 10.

01:12:49 ◼   ► And I am so bummed that I didn't go with the most obvious option here.

01:12:54 ◼   ► The new iPhone Pro color is called Tangerine.

01:12:57 ◼   ► I should have just said orange.

01:12:59 ◼   ► But it's not called orange.

01:13:01 ◼   ► It's cosmic orange.

01:13:02 ◼   ► Well, I would have gotten the point if I had said orange.

01:13:06 ◼   ► I mean, if Stephen is getting the point for a dark setting that is not dark,

01:13:11 ◼   ► I would have gotten the point if I had said orange.

01:13:13 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:13:14 ◼   ► I don't know if you would have, but I like the Moxie.

01:13:19 ◼   ► He's getting the point for a guy sitting in an Apple store with lights on.

01:13:23 ◼   ► Hey, look, I'm on your side here.

01:13:25 ◼   ► Number 11.

01:13:28 ◼   ► The iPhone Air is introduced with a video that makes it appear from behind an iPhone 17 Pro laying flat on a surface.

01:13:34 ◼   ► No, it was just some dude holding the phone in a lab.

01:13:38 ◼   ► So there's that.

01:13:41 ◼   ► That puts me at 6 out of 11 flexes with a 54.5% ratio.

01:13:51 ◼   ► Oh, we're close.

01:13:52 ◼   ► Yeah, percentages.

01:13:54 ◼   ► All right.

01:13:55 ◼   ► So here we go.

01:13:56 ◼   ► My turn.

01:13:56 ◼   ► No iPhone color has the word orange in its name.

01:14:02 ◼   ► The iPhone line is called 17.

01:14:04 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:14:06 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:14:07 ◼   ► Okay, cool.

01:14:07 ◼   ► At least.

01:14:08 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:14:08 ◼   ► iPhone 17 Air has a promotion display.

01:14:11 ◼   ► I mean, there is no iPhone 17 Air.

01:14:14 ◼   ► No, the spirit is there.

01:14:17 ◼   ► The spirit is there.

01:14:18 ◼   ► Why is there not a number?

01:14:20 ◼   ► Well, I don't know, actually.

01:14:23 ◼   ► We'll see.

01:14:23 ◼   ► Because maybe it's not an annual thing.

01:14:26 ◼   ► Because maybe they finally want to break out of the numbers game.

01:14:29 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:14:29 ◼   ► iPhone Air bumper case.

01:14:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:14:33 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:14:34 ◼   ► Matt display for the pro iPhone.

01:14:37 ◼   ► I mean, like, who's Matt?

01:14:41 ◼   ► And what's he doing?

01:14:42 ◼   ► You know?

01:14:42 ◼   ► Like, what's happening?

01:14:43 ◼   ► You know, coffee?

01:14:44 ◼   ► Soft Matt.

01:14:45 ◼   ► Soft Matt.

01:14:46 ◼   ► New headband for the Vision Pro.

01:14:49 ◼   ► Did that happen?

01:14:49 ◼   ► Which Vision Pro?

01:14:50 ◼   ► Any of them.

01:14:52 ◼   ► Any of them.

01:14:53 ◼   ► No, I don't think that happened.

01:14:55 ◼   ► You know what?

01:14:56 ◼   ► I'm trying to, like, look at something now.

01:14:58 ◼   ► All right.

01:14:58 ◼   ► I'm going to have to do some Googling in a second for a pic later on.

01:15:03 ◼   ► iPhone 17 Air is pulled from an envelope.

01:15:05 ◼   ► Apple specifically calls out the blood oxygen features of the Apple Watch.

01:15:11 ◼   ► I can't believe they didn't do this.

01:15:13 ◼   ► Now, hold on.

01:15:14 ◼   ► They were on a slide.

01:15:16 ◼   ► Oh, yeah?

01:15:17 ◼   ► But you're saying specifically calls out.

01:15:19 ◼   ► I mean, if it's on a slide, that's a specific example.

01:15:21 ◼   ► That's not called out.

01:15:23 ◼   ► That's written out on the slide.

01:15:25 ◼   ► There is pieces of information they did not put on those slides.

01:15:28 ◼   ► Like, what are the chips on?

01:15:30 ◼   ► Mike, they were on one of those animations

01:15:32 ◼   ► with a bunch of features flying in.

01:15:34 ◼   ► Okay.

01:15:35 ◼   ► And one of them was blood oxygen.

01:15:37 ◼   ► You're saying specifically calls out.

01:15:39 ◼   ► Yeah, it's specifically on the screen called out by a visual.

01:15:43 ◼   ► Okay, Discord.

01:15:44 ◼   ► Does Mike get this or not?

01:15:46 ◼   ► Well, we haven't found it yet.

01:15:48 ◼   ► It was flying in with a bunch of other features in an animation.

01:15:53 ◼   ► The Jason Snell...

01:15:56 ◼   ► That's not a specific call out.

01:15:58 ◼   ► Yeah, it is.

01:15:59 ◼   ► It's really not.

01:16:00 ◼   ► Steven, there were lights on, and he was inside.

01:16:03 ◼   ► All right?

01:16:03 ◼   ► Yeah, but that's already settled.

01:16:05 ◼   ► To be fair.

01:16:05 ◼   ► No, no, no.

01:16:06 ◼   ► To be fair.

01:16:07 ◼   ► Well, hey, that's the point.

01:16:08 ◼   ► We better stop crying, Mike.

01:16:09 ◼   ► The Discord's on your side.

01:16:10 ◼   ► You're getting the point.

01:16:12 ◼   ► I'm just arguing with you.

01:16:13 ◼   ► There was a tear.

01:16:15 ◼   ► I hadn't yet started to cry, all right?

01:16:16 ◼   ► Leave me alone.

01:16:17 ◼   ► There were no tears.

01:16:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:16:18 ◼   ► This is a point.

01:16:19 ◼   ► This is a point.

01:16:20 ◼   ► Thank you.

01:16:20 ◼   ► Not that it really matters, but this is a point.

01:16:22 ◼   ► No, it does matter.

01:16:24 ◼   ► The 17 line is all made of aluminum.

01:16:26 ◼   ► Mm-mm.

01:16:29 ◼   ► Now, technically...

01:16:31 ◼   ► No, you got an iPhone 17 Air, so you can't split it both ways.

01:16:35 ◼   ► Yeah, I can.

01:16:36 ◼   ► Technically...

01:16:37 ◼   ► Hold on, hold on.

01:16:38 ◼   ► Now, technically...

01:16:39 ◼   ► I see what you mean.

01:16:40 ◼   ► Now, technically, all of the iPhones that have the number 17 in them...

01:16:45 ◼   ► No, no.

01:16:46 ◼   ► They are all made of aluminum.

01:16:48 ◼   ► You can have it, but I'm taking away number three, because there's no iPhone 17 Air.

01:16:52 ◼   ► No.

01:16:54 ◼   ► The iPhone 17 Air does have a promotion display, but also...

01:16:58 ◼   ► Also...

01:16:59 ◼   ► Also, the iPhone Air...

01:17:03 ◼   ► I mean, number three has the spirit correct.

01:17:06 ◼   ► Number nine has the technicality correct.

01:17:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:17:13 ◼   ► Those are two different things.

01:17:15 ◼   ► I need to do a quick Google to make sure of how much I want to fight on this, because I have a pic later on.

01:17:24 ◼   ► And I need to make sure...

01:17:26 ◼   ► Uh...

01:17:28 ◼   ► Okay.

01:17:29 ◼   ► Hold on.

01:17:30 ◼   ► I'm searching for a transcript right now.

01:17:33 ◼   ► Yeah, okay.

01:17:33 ◼   ► I'm not going to fight this, because...

01:17:35 ◼   ► If it's your last one, you're not getting that, so...

01:17:40 ◼   ► Because you put it in quotes.

01:17:41 ◼   ► I'll put you in quotes.

01:17:43 ◼   ► So, are we giving you this?

01:17:44 ◼   ► I don't know, man.

01:17:47 ◼   ► Who could tell anymore?

01:17:48 ◼   ► Does it even matter?

01:17:49 ◼   ► I'm just saying, they're all...

01:17:54 ◼   ► Yeah, all the phones that are the number 17, you know?

01:17:58 ◼   ► But look, Stephen...

01:17:58 ◼   ► It still doesn't make a difference, so...

01:18:00 ◼   ► No, so just give it to me, all right?

01:18:03 ◼   ► It doesn't make a difference, so...

01:18:07 ◼   ► It makes a difference, but, like...

01:18:10 ◼   ► In terms...

01:18:11 ◼   ► Monetarily speaking, it does, but...

01:18:13 ◼   ► It makes a difference.

01:18:14 ◼   ► So you're trying to get out of donating to some place.

01:18:18 ◼   ► Oh, I'm making donations.

01:18:19 ◼   ► Don't you worry about that, all right?

01:18:21 ◼   ► Like, this isn't my only donation I'll be making in this month.

01:18:23 ◼   ► Nor is it the first donation.

01:18:26 ◼   ► iOS26 comes out on Tuesday, September 16th.

01:18:29 ◼   ► No, it's Monday.

01:18:30 ◼   ► Well, not yet, right?

01:18:32 ◼   ► We don't know.

01:18:32 ◼   ► I'm not going to get the points, but I still might be right.

01:18:35 ◼   ► It's not the first time this has happened.

01:18:37 ◼   ► Sure, sure.

01:18:38 ◼   ► I mean, technically, you could also say...

01:18:40 ◼   ► I mean, the more effective argument to award yourself this incorrect point

01:18:44 ◼   ► would have been, well, if you consider Australia or Japan,

01:18:47 ◼   ► it's technically Tuesday when the OSes come out.

01:18:51 ◼   ► Probably.

01:18:53 ◼   ► Yeah, you know what?

01:18:54 ◼   ► You might be right, actually.

01:18:55 ◼   ► You might be right there.

01:18:56 ◼   ► But I'm just thinking in the, you know, like,

01:18:58 ◼   ► the inevitable we've released one of the OSes

01:19:01 ◼   ► and it just breaks all the devices that it touches.

01:19:03 ◼   ► Also that, also that.

01:19:04 ◼   ► Maybe, maybe that, but I doubt it.

01:19:06 ◼   ► No date for macOS Tahoe.

01:19:08 ◼   ► Incorrect.

01:19:09 ◼   ► The new iPhone color is called Rust.

01:19:12 ◼   ► There was no world in which I believed they were going to call it that,

01:19:14 ◼   ► but it was fun, and I was high at that moment.

01:19:16 ◼   ► Yeah, see?

01:19:17 ◼   ► You get swept away.

01:19:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:19:19 ◼   ► But only for a few minutes, not for 72 hours.

01:19:22 ◼   ► Tim Cook says iPhone 17 air before anyone else.

01:19:25 ◼   ► This was the thing I was Googling.

01:19:27 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:19:27 ◼   ► He did not say it.

01:19:29 ◼   ► Because it's not the name of the product.

01:19:31 ◼   ► Yeah, but he also didn't say iPhone air.

01:19:33 ◼   ► You see, my point was I was going to maybe take one pick away

01:19:38 ◼   ► to argue for two picks, but I didn't need to do that in the end.

01:19:42 ◼   ► Okay.

01:19:43 ◼   ► Well, that puts me at a glorious five picks,

01:19:47 ◼   ► the same amount as Steven.

01:19:48 ◼   ► Five correct picks, the exact same amount as Steven.

01:19:51 ◼   ► But out of 13.

01:19:52 ◼   ► That's so good.

01:19:54 ◼   ► That's so good.

01:19:54 ◼   ► Five picks.

01:19:55 ◼   ► 38.

01:19:56 ◼   ► Five picks for me.

01:19:57 ◼   ► Why do you keep saying the same amount as Steven?

01:19:59 ◼   ► 38.5%.

01:20:01 ◼   ► Because I have the same amount as Steven.

01:20:03 ◼   ► And I have five, and Steven has five.

01:20:06 ◼   ► So I think that's really good.

01:20:08 ◼   ► But you keep saying it.

01:20:09 ◼   ► It's kind of weird.

01:20:10 ◼   ► Yeah, because Steven wins technically,

01:20:13 ◼   ► and I have the same amount as him.

01:20:16 ◼   ► No.

01:20:17 ◼   ► And Federico lost, and he had the most.

01:20:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:20:21 ◼   ► All right?

01:20:21 ◼   ► You know, sometimes life isn't fair.

01:20:24 ◼   ► I also win, because I have the same amount.

01:20:27 ◼   ► You didn't.

01:20:27 ◼   ► You lost.

01:20:28 ◼   ► Is what I'm saying.

01:20:28 ◼   ► What we learned is that self-restraint sometimes pays off in this game.

01:20:32 ◼   ► Yeah, but in September, Steven, I like to give extra to the kids.

01:20:36 ◼   ► Okay.

01:20:37 ◼   ► Well, I am the winner.

01:20:38 ◼   ► That's where I want you to go.

01:20:39 ◼   ► I want you to go to stjude.org slash relay.

01:20:42 ◼   ► And you have $25 per wrong pick, and you have eight wrong picks.

01:20:50 ◼   ► So that's going to be a casual $200 to St. Jude.

01:20:54 ◼   ► Nice.

01:20:55 ◼   ► Nice.

01:20:56 ◼   ► Just why not?

01:20:57 ◼   ► I will be making a donation of $225.

01:21:00 ◼   ► Okay.

01:21:01 ◼   ► Just for the spirit of the stolen pick.

01:21:03 ◼   ► I just want the record to say that I had the same amount as Steven did.

01:21:09 ◼   ► It's very important for me.

01:21:12 ◼   ► Okay.

01:21:13 ◼   ► An interesting thing has happened here.

01:21:14 ◼   ► No winners changed hands, because Federico was already the keynote winner, and I was already

01:21:21 ◼   ► the keynote flexi winner.

01:21:22 ◼   ► I hate that.

01:21:23 ◼   ► I actually hate that.

01:21:24 ◼   ► Nothing changed.

01:21:25 ◼   ► Big fans of the status quo over here, you know?

01:21:27 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:21:27 ◼   ► We like it.

01:21:28 ◼   ► I'm not.

01:21:29 ◼   ► We like it.

01:21:29 ◼   ► In fact, not only did the winners not change, the losers didn't change, because I've lost

01:21:35 ◼   ► two keynote games in a row, and Mike has lost two flexis in a row.

01:21:39 ◼   ► Nice.

01:21:41 ◼   ► Literally nothing has changed.

01:21:43 ◼   ► So what we're saying is this whole thing was for nothing.

01:21:46 ◼   ► I mean, we get orange phones, so.

01:21:48 ◼   ► That's true.

01:21:50 ◼   ► Yeah, but the game.

01:21:51 ◼   ► Not like all of it.

01:21:53 ◼   ► It was also for my glory, for my personal glory.

01:21:56 ◼   ► That's true.

01:21:57 ◼   ► My ego is definitely bigger.

01:21:59 ◼   ► Steven, do any of my employers offer a matching donation?

01:22:02 ◼   ► I don't think so.

01:22:04 ◼   ► But most people do.

01:22:05 ◼   ► Most people do.

01:22:07 ◼   ► Most people do.

01:22:08 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:22:08 ◼   ► Mine do not.

01:22:09 ◼   ► But I would say, if you're out there listening, you should match Mike's donation.

01:22:13 ◼   ► It's a good way to do it.

01:22:14 ◼   ► If you think about it, I do work for you, the listener.

01:22:18 ◼   ► That's right.

01:22:19 ◼   ► So all tens of thousands of you, please donate.

01:22:22 ◼   ► Should donate $225.

01:22:24 ◼   ► That'd be awesome.

01:22:25 ◼   ► That would make a significant difference, wouldn't it?

01:22:29 ◼   ► It would.

01:22:30 ◼   ► Every dollar counts, Mike.

01:22:32 ◼   ► Every dollar.

01:22:32 ◼   ► Yes.

01:22:33 ◼   ► It absolutely does, Steven.

01:22:35 ◼   ► Okay, so that was the Rickies for September 2025.

01:22:39 ◼   ► Will we be back with this game in October?

01:22:42 ◼   ► Who knows?

01:22:43 ◼   ► Probably not.

01:22:44 ◼   ► But we'll see.

01:22:45 ◼   ► Oh, you don't think so?

01:22:46 ◼   ► I don't think so, because it seems like the M5 stuff isn't ready.

01:22:50 ◼   ► And then what's left?

01:22:52 ◼   ► Why isn't the M5 stuff ready?

01:22:55 ◼   ► That's what the reporting says, that the M5, at least the MacBook Pros, will be in the spring now.

01:23:00 ◼   ► And they've led with the MacBook Pros the last couple of times.

01:23:04 ◼   ► My donation is complete.

01:23:06 ◼   ► Thank you, sir.

01:23:07 ◼   ► That brings us to $259,609 as of my speaking.

01:23:14 ◼   ► $895 right now.

01:23:16 ◼   ► Somebody just matched me, I think.

01:23:18 ◼   ► I think I reloaded as your thing was coming in.

01:23:21 ◼   ► Right, right, right, right.

01:23:23 ◼   ► Yeah, because you're the first one on the little donation caterpillar going across the page.

01:23:27 ◼   ► Is that what that is?

01:23:29 ◼   ► It's what it's called.

01:23:30 ◼   ► Is that the technical term?

01:23:31 ◼   ► Donation caterpillar.

01:23:32 ◼   ► I don't think that's what it's called.

01:23:34 ◼   ► But if you match Mike, you can knock him off the front.

01:23:37 ◼   ► It's a newest donation to first donation.

01:23:40 ◼   ► That's how it works this year.

01:23:41 ◼   ► Anyways, no one needs to know that.

01:23:42 ◼   ► We did it.

01:23:45 ◼   ► We talked about our purchases, right?

01:23:46 ◼   ► So, Mike, you and I are in for orange phones.

01:23:49 ◼   ► Absolutely.

01:23:51 ◼   ► What else are you doing?

01:23:53 ◼   ► Well, I need the one terabyte now because I have officially passed 512 gigabytes of storage taken up on my phone.

01:24:00 ◼   ► So, it happened.

01:24:01 ◼   ► I went to one terabyte because I thought I would pass it, and I have passed it before the new phone came in.

01:24:06 ◼   ► So, that's cool.

01:24:10 ◼   ► I'm also going to get a Sky Blue iPhone Air.

01:24:12 ◼   ► Ooh.

01:24:13 ◼   ► That's my plan, anyway.

01:24:15 ◼   ► My plan is to get one of these.

01:24:16 ◼   ► I don't know how I'm going to do this yet, but this is my plan.

01:24:21 ◼   ► I am also just going to get the bumper case and the crossbody strap with that because I just want to see what that life's all about.

01:24:26 ◼   ► Sounds like fun.

01:24:27 ◼   ► Just to take on the haters?

01:24:28 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:24:29 ◼   ► I just want to swing my phone around, you know, like in view of the haters so they can see what that's happening.

01:24:36 ◼   ► And AirPods Pro 3 I will be ordering.

01:24:40 ◼   ► And also, the plan had been that Adina was going to get my 16 Pro,

01:24:46 ◼   ► but I have convinced her that we should just trade in her phone on my old phone and buy her a new phone.

01:24:53 ◼   ► So, we're going to do that.

01:24:54 ◼   ► So, we'll do that later, but she'll get a 17 Pro as well.

01:24:58 ◼   ► Okay.

01:24:59 ◼   ► Does she have feelings on the colors?

01:25:01 ◼   ► You didn't think to ask?

01:25:06 ◼   ► She didn't really get...

01:25:08 ◼   ► We were going through the features, not the colors.

01:25:10 ◼   ► Okay.

01:25:10 ◼   ► She has seen the colors and did not express anything specific.

01:25:15 ◼   ► Okay.

01:25:15 ◼   ► My expectation is she will want the blue one.

01:25:18 ◼   ► I think she'll want...

01:25:19 ◼   ► Because she is...

01:25:20 ◼   ► And her iPhone history is tend to go with like the color each year.

01:25:25 ◼   ► You know, like the extra...

01:25:26 ◼   ► Like the color that they do.

01:25:27 ◼   ► Right.

01:25:28 ◼   ► They tend to be muted, right?

01:25:29 ◼   ► So, she had like the green one and the blue one.

01:25:33 ◼   ► Like, what was it?

01:25:33 ◼   ► Sky blue?

01:25:34 ◼   ► Pacific blue or something like that?

01:25:35 ◼   ► Sienna blue?

01:25:36 ◼   ► Pacific blue, I think.

01:25:37 ◼   ► And then there was Sierra blue, which was like the light blue.

01:25:40 ◼   ► Sierra blue.

01:25:41 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:25:42 ◼   ► So, she tended to do that.

01:25:44 ◼   ► But I don't think she's going to want orange.

01:25:46 ◼   ► If she does, great.

01:25:47 ◼   ► But I don't think she's going to want an orange.

01:25:49 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:25:49 ◼   ► But she'll get a case anyway, so...

01:25:51 ◼   ► I always ask Mary about the colors.

01:25:53 ◼   ► And on the 17, she likes the lavender, which I figured she would.

01:25:59 ◼   ► But she really likes the sage and the blue.

01:26:01 ◼   ► So, I feel like the 17 is a big winner in my house.

01:26:03 ◼   ► No one is getting upgraded to a 17, at least right now.

01:26:06 ◼   ► But in the air, she's like, these are all boring.

01:26:09 ◼   ► These aren't colors.

01:26:10 ◼   ► And then when I showed her the iPhone 17 Pro, I specifically showed her the orange last.

01:26:15 ◼   ► Now, I told her there was going to be an orange one.

01:26:16 ◼   ► So, I showed her the silver and the blue, and then I showed her the orange.

01:26:19 ◼   ► And she said, congratulations.

01:26:21 ◼   ► They've made an orange one for you.

01:26:22 ◼   ► That's good.

01:26:23 ◼   ► That's a good thing.

01:26:24 ◼   ► So, see, I'm doing Cosmic Orange 17 Pro 512.

01:26:30 ◼   ► I passed a terabyte of storage with photos.

01:26:34 ◼   ► And so, I'm already living the thumbnails only on the device, and it's totally fine.

01:26:40 ◼   ► And then I'm doing AirPods Pro 3.

01:26:43 ◼   ► And no watch yet.

01:26:45 ◼   ► We'll see.

01:26:45 ◼   ► I do want to at least check out the iPhone Air.

01:26:48 ◼   ► But that, I think, may just be in the store if someone has one.

01:26:54 ◼   ► So, I can check out.

01:26:55 ◼   ► Oh, it's fine.

01:26:56 ◼   ► You'll see.

01:26:57 ◼   ► What happens is you'll see one, and then in two weeks' time, you will return your iPhone

01:27:01 ◼   ► and buy one of those.

01:27:03 ◼   ► See, I think if there weren't an orange Pro, I would have done the Air.

01:27:07 ◼   ► Like, I was pretty keen on trying it.

01:27:10 ◼   ► But the orange is really good.

01:27:14 ◼   ► And I feel like I should reward Apple for making a good decision with colors.

01:27:18 ◼   ► Okay.

01:27:19 ◼   ► You hear me, John Ternus?

01:27:23 ◼   ► I think that does it.

01:27:25 ◼   ► I think we've successfully covered it.

01:27:27 ◼   ► I mentioned before, I'm torn, and we'll see what happens tomorrow.

01:27:32 ◼   ► Oh, okay.

01:27:32 ◼   ► Okay.

01:27:33 ◼   ► We're not going to rehash it just for the completeness sake.

01:27:36 ◼   ► I think I know what's going to happen.

01:27:38 ◼   ► You really don't have long.

01:27:39 ◼   ► You have less time than Steven spent with his risky pick to make your decision.

01:27:43 ◼   ► I know.

01:27:44 ◼   ► I know.

01:27:44 ◼   ► I guess I'll get swept up tonight, and we'll see what happens if I'm...

01:27:48 ◼   ► Right now, where are you leaning?

01:27:50 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:27:51 ◼   ► I'll do some sweeping, and we'll see what happens tomorrow with the sweeping.

01:27:54 ◼   ► If I told you that pre-orders, they got it wrong, and pre-orders are opening in one minute,

01:27:58 ◼   ► what would you do?

01:27:59 ◼   ► Air.

01:28:00 ◼   ► Okay.

01:28:01 ◼   ► Oh.

01:28:01 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:28:03 ◼   ► Okay.

01:28:03 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:28:04 ◼   ► Federico, I think you should do the Air.

01:28:06 ◼   ► I think you should do the Air, too.

01:28:07 ◼   ► I think you should do the Air.

01:28:08 ◼   ► I think you're going to really...

01:28:10 ◼   ► I think that you will like that phone.

01:28:12 ◼   ► I think you will like that phone.

01:28:13 ◼   ► I think anyone that buys that will like that phone.

01:28:15 ◼   ► And I'm happy that I'm like, why not both?

01:28:19 ◼   ► Because I would be...

01:28:20 ◼   ► Yeah, you know, I kind of want to...

01:28:21 ◼   ► I think I want to have a phone with feelings again.

01:28:24 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:28:24 ◼   ► You know?

01:28:25 ◼   ► It looks awesome.

01:28:27 ◼   ► And I can't believe how few compromises it has.

01:28:33 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

01:28:34 ◼   ► Exactly.

01:28:35 ◼   ► The camera, I guess I'll try and make peace with it.

01:28:38 ◼   ► We'll see.

01:28:39 ◼   ► Okay.

01:28:41 ◼   ► Now we're done.

01:28:42 ◼   ► We've covered Federico being torn.

01:28:44 ◼   ► We're now at the end.

01:28:45 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

01:28:46 ◼   ► I'd like to thank our sponsors this week.

01:28:48 ◼   ► They are Ecamm and Factor.

01:28:50 ◼   ► I'd like to thank our members for supporting us directly.

01:28:54 ◼   ► If you want a longer ad-free version of the show

01:28:57 ◼   ► that we do each and every week,

01:28:58 ◼   ► you can sign up at getconnectedpro.co.

01:29:01 ◼   ► This week, we talked about Nintendo Direct

01:29:02 ◼   ► and flight recommendations.

01:29:04 ◼   ► Things for Mike to watch on his two cross-Atlantic flights

01:29:09 ◼   ► in the next 14 days or so.

01:29:11 ◼   ► If you want to find more of us,

01:29:15 ◼   ► you can find Mike.

01:29:16 ◼   ► You can check out his Orchid Cortex brand,

01:29:18 ◼   ► his writing at theenthusiast.net.

01:29:20 ◼   ► Of course, he hosts many shows on Relay.

01:29:23 ◼   ► You can find my writing at 512pixels.net,

01:29:26 ◼   ► and I co-host MacPowerUsers.

01:29:27 ◼   ► Federico is the man of the week next week

01:29:31 ◼   ► with his iOS 26 review

01:29:33 ◼   ► and everything else coming out of MacStories.

01:29:36 ◼   ► I can't wait.

01:29:37 ◼   ► Go to macstories.net.

01:29:38 ◼   ► Just make it your homepage now

01:29:40 ◼   ► so you're ready for Monday.

01:29:41 ◼   ► Is that fair?

01:29:42 ◼   ► That's absolutely fair.

01:29:45 ◼   ► Do people still have homepages?

01:29:46 ◼   ► People still have homepages.

01:29:49 ◼   ► What do y'all use for your homepage?

01:29:51 ◼   ► If you open a new tab...

01:29:52 ◼   ► Yahoo.com

01:29:53 ◼   ► Start page.

01:29:54 ◼   ► Mine is...

01:29:57 ◼   ► No, when I open a new tab,

01:29:59 ◼   ► I get the Safari start page.

01:30:01 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:30:01 ◼   ► Actually, when I'm using Comet on the Mac,

01:30:05 ◼   ► it's the whatever perplexity Comet homepage is.

01:30:09 ◼   ► Okay.

01:30:10 ◼   ► Steven, do you have something other than the start page?

01:30:13 ◼   ► No, I have the start page.

01:30:14 ◼   ► I just didn't know.

01:30:14 ◼   ► Okay.

01:30:15 ◼   ► I just didn't know what y'all were doing.

01:30:16 ◼   ► Can you even, like...

01:30:17 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:30:18 ◼   ► Not have that?

01:30:19 ◼   ► You used to be able to do, like...

01:30:21 ◼   ► I forget what it was.

01:30:22 ◼   ► There was some trick you could do, like,

01:30:23 ◼   ► something none in the homepage setting,

01:30:25 ◼   ► and then would literally open to an empty tab.

01:30:27 ◼   ► But I find the homepage pretty useful,

01:30:31 ◼   ► especially for the iCloud tabs.

01:30:32 ◼   ► So...

01:30:33 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:30:33 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:30:34 ◼   ► I'm doing that.

01:30:36 ◼   ► I'm glad we talked about that.

01:30:37 ◼   ► Sure.

01:30:38 ◼   ► That's good.

01:30:39 ◼   ► That's a good thing to cover at the end of the show.

01:30:42 ◼   ► As we talked about a couple times,

01:30:43 ◼   ► it's Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

01:30:45 ◼   ► It would mean a lot to all three of us

01:30:47 ◼   ► if you would point said browser

01:30:48 ◼   ► at stjude.org slash relay.

01:30:51 ◼   ► Please consider making a donation

01:30:52 ◼   ► to help save lives.

01:30:54 ◼   ► It's really important to us.

01:30:56 ◼   ► It's important to the world.

01:30:58 ◼   ► And join us on Friday, September 19th.

01:31:02 ◼   ► Again, there's a link in the show notes

01:31:03 ◼   ► for the 2025 podcast-a-thon.

01:31:06 ◼   ► I have some follow-up.

01:31:07 ◼   ► So you can choose if you want tabs

01:31:10 ◼   ► to be start page, homepage, empty page, same page.

01:31:13 ◼   ► It's just a setting in general Safari settings.

01:31:16 ◼   ► An empty page is just nothing.

01:31:19 ◼   ► And then, obviously, homepage,

01:31:20 ◼   ► it could be, like, you know...

01:31:23 ◼   ► Ricky's website or something.

01:31:25 ◼   ► Or MacStories, as I recommended.

01:31:27 ◼   ► Or the Wikipedia page for homepages.

01:31:30 ◼   ► Right.

01:31:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:31:32 ◼   ► Do you want to get it?

01:31:33 ◼   ► Or my Wikipedia page.

01:31:34 ◼   ► Or my...

01:31:37 ◼   ► I think that does it.

01:31:38 ◼   ► Until next week, guys.

01:31:39 ◼   ► Say goodbye.

01:31:40 ◼   ► Arrivederci.

01:31:42 ◼   ► Cheerio.

01:31:43 ◼   ► Bye, y'all.