342: The Opposite of Con
04 Sep 2019Apple’s probably pretty busy, so we designed the iPhone 11 for them.
Episode Description:
- Casey, DMB, and Sirius XM
- Follow-up:
- Drawbacks to Apple using opt-in privacy
- Apple card activation videos
- Credit cards advertising based on the weight of the cards
- Kerf bespoke Apple Card cases (via The Kavalier)
- Apple September Event
- Post-show: The Summer of Marco
Sponsored by:
Chapters
- School ruins everything
- Sirius XM
- Sponsor: Hover
- Privacy opt-in drawbacks
- Card weight competition 🖼️
- Apple Card cases 🖼️
- iPhone 11 wish list
- Sponsor: Eero (code ATP)
- We design the iPhone 11
- Event predictions
- Sponsor: Away (code ATP)
- Event predictions, cont’d.
- Ending theme
- Summer of Marco
School ruins everything
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Well godspeed with your move back to reality i’m sorry your summer of fun is over.
⏹️ ▶️ John Just discussing i was discussing today we’re out getting dinner the two people i know who do
⏹️ ▶️ John these weird. End of august beginning of september quote unquote summer vacations summer is over
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but it’s still hot. And if you can get there right after the peak time ends when no one
⏹️ ▶️ Marco else is there it’s kinda nice
⏹️ ▶️ John just doesn’t feel like summer anymore for me like once we get into this time it’s like. the grass is all yellow
⏹️ ▶️ John and the tomatoes are probably gone through like you’ve even passed that part and sometimes it actually
⏹️ ▶️ John is cool. Such a John way of saying that.
⏹️ ▶️ John a summer vacation I want it to be like I even get kind of annoyed when my Long Island vacation ends up being like
⏹️ ▶️ John you know creeping into August I’m like July man like July 4th like the heart of summer ridiculous
⏹️ ▶️ John heat barbecues constant blazing Sun like that’s what I want but.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco You don’t think August is like the peak of summer?
⏹️ ▶️ John August is the dog days of summer. And yeah, I think it’s fine, but I want it to be like in the nicest middle
⏹️ ▶️ John part, the middle is part of summer, the summery is part of summer. Because August is the dog days and June is early when
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s still cold. And September is practically fall. So, but. Well,
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey but remember,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey for me, like we do have preschool that that kind of delineates the end of summer,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey but but we don’t have like a regular all day school school. So next year.
⏹️ ▶️ John And then you’ll be stuck with the rest of the suckers who have kids and into the school schedules.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Exactly. As usual, school ruins everything.
Sirius XM
⏹️ ▶️ Casey At 11 o’clock, the next Friday Night Concert
⏹️ ▶️ Casey series for the Dave Matthews Band will be aired on Sirius XM. And so what that means
⏹️ ▶️ Casey is I would like to record said concert because unlike Fish, who gets it in
⏹️ ▶️ Casey this capacity anyway, the only way to get good recordings of Dave Matthews is by
⏹️ ▶️ Casey acquiring them when Sirius XM airs them.
⏹️ ▶️ John Does that does Sirius broadcast that like over the web? Is that how you’re is it better
⏹️ ▶️ John quality than than Sirius radio? Which is like recording a concert over a telephone
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a fair question and I want to argue with you in order to defend my honor But
⏹️ ▶️ Casey your point is 100% fair that Sirius XM I
⏹️ ▶️ Casey actually like the programming a fair bit which is weird because I really hate like traditional radio I just it’s
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the same six songs over and over again but I think because you can have 305 channels or whatever. I actually do like
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the programming on XM, but holy smokes the audio quality
⏹️ ▶️ Casey over the air is Terrible. Oh my god It’s terrible and the only reason
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that We can that that we is in the list family can even stream from the web is because they had a pretty
⏹️ ▶️ Casey darn good deal month or two ago where you can get the years worth
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of service for something like five or six bucks a month and And I’ve heard
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that you can get them cheaper from time to time, but that was the cheapest that I had seen. Now, Marco’s
⏹️ ▶️ Casey horror stories, I believe it was Marco, maybe it was you, John, it’s always John. So I’ll just, okay, let me rephrase. John’s
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John horror stories.
⏹️ ▶️ John never had satellite radio.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Okay, good, this is the one time I got it right. I don’t have fancy cars, remember? You have
⏹️ ▶️ John fancy enough cars for satellite radio, though. Do I? I don’t think any of them has been an option.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like this century? Yeah, I mean, I got my first XM standalone radio
⏹️ ▶️ Marco at the end of college, and then I had it for a while after that, and I haven’t had it in probably, geez, probably
⏹️ ▶️ Marco about 10 years now. But I was big into satellite radio at the time. You know, this was before
⏹️ ▶️ Marco cell phones and data streaming became as easy and widespread as they are now.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It was great for a time. That time has passed.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey So, right, so here’s the thing. So I do like the programming. I have zero defense for the audio
⏹️ ▶️ Casey quality. And I’ve never actually listened, like, I’ve never paid attention to the couple of recordings I’ve
⏹️ ▶️ Casey made like this to see if the audio quality is better over the web. I totally understand your question, John. I don’t have
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a good answer for you. But I cannot agree more that the audio quality over the air is
⏹️ ▶️ Casey atrocious. And like I was starting to say, the only reason we paid for it is because Aaron really likes it. And so
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it’s like an early, I mean, it was either a anniversary gift or an early birthday gift, one or the other. I
⏹️ ▶️ Casey got her a year’s worth of service in her car. And with that comes, you know, a login so that you
⏹️ ▶️ Casey can listen online. And also because of Marco’s horror stories, and
⏹️ ▶️ Casey again, I’ll attribute John because it’s always John, even in this time it wasn’t John, apparently I’m sure it’s somehow still John.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Anyway, someone had told me, probably John, that cancelling service
⏹️ ▶️ Casey is just impossible. impossible. This was me. And so I thought it was you.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you have to call them like it’s that kind of, it’s the same, it’s like canceling Comcast, you know, like we get, you get the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco people online who are like, well, like how about we give you a deal and they just make it as hard as possible to cancel.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Like, and of course
⏹️ ▶️ Marco do it online. And it’s just, and then, and then after you cancel, they end up sending you
⏹️ ▶️ Marco solicitations in the mail for like three years later, come back, renew today. And all these, all this like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco misleading stuff. It’s just a scammy operation. It’s a shame,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco because I do like the idea of satellite radio. I mean, again, I do think it’s past its time. And right now,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they should be more like a radio streaming service now, which I think, I mean, Sirius has always had really
⏹️ ▶️ Marco terrible adoption of actual technology, like modern
⏹️ ▶️ Marco apps, streaming. They have come very poorly and very late to all of those things.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco They are very much not a tech company, which is a shame because they are, whether
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they like it or not, they are in the tech business. And the audio quality has always been a big challenge for them as well. I’m
⏹️ ▶️ Marco pretty sure it has to be better online than it is over the satellites because the satellites
⏹️ ▶️ Marco are using an ancient codec. I figure exactly, it’s some codec no one’s heard of. It isn’t just like MP3
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or something. But whatever codec they’re using, it was like whatever they
⏹️ ▶️ Marco launched the satellites with 10, 15 years ago, whenever it was, and it was both XMs and Sirius’s satellites,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and they were different, and they merged them, I don’t know. But anyway, uh, the codecs that they use for the satellite
⏹️ ▶️ Marco broadcast are very low bit rate and they realize that like, you know, they only have a finite
⏹️ ▶️ Marco amount of satellite bandwidth that they can use, but they realized years ago that if they added more
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and more channels with like certain celebrity tie ins and various things like that, they would have more to market
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and more to get more subscribers in. So they just would compress channels more and more and more
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and allocate fewer and fewer bits to each channel. So
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John they’re just
⏹️ ▶️ Marco lowering the bitrate, lowering,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John so it’s actually,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco not only is the over-the-air quality not very good, but it’s actually gotten worse over time.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And it’s a mess. So whatever you’re streaming online, modern devices
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and web browsers probably aren’t even capable of built-in decoding
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of whatever crappy low-bitrate
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John code that they’re using for the satellites.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So if they’re just streaming AAC or MP3 streams, it’s gotta be better than whenever they’re broadcasting.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I would assume so, I haven’t looked into it. I totally understand what you’re saying, I haven’t looked into it, but here’s the thing. So having heard Marco
⏹️ ▶️ Casey slash John’s horror stories about canceling XM, I thought to myself, you know what you should do is you
⏹️ ▶️ Casey should use one of those temporary, or not temporary, like custom credit card numbers with
⏹️ ▶️ Casey an expiration. So that this way, if you have problems canceling in a year,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the credit card that you gave them, it’s gonna disappear in a year, no problem.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And I was talking to somebody, maybe it was Marco, maybe it was somebody else, who quickly pointed out to me, oh no, no, no, no, no, it’s not
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that easy. what they’ll end up doing is throwing you to collections and taking all of your money if
⏹️ ▶️ Casey at all possible because just because you have an expired credit card is not good enough reason to not charge you
⏹️ ▶️ Casey tons of money and interest, which I didn’t think of. So here it was, I thought I was really smart, and
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it turns out I’m not so smart.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco No, you cannot get away from them. They will, and they will, I’m telling you, they will hound you with junk mail for the next decade.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Well, that was happening already because when we bought the cars, our mailing address was sent to
⏹️ ▶️ Casey them, but they didn’t have like an email address at the time. They didn’t have like a phone number at the time, but now
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco don’t remember what I gave them.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey That’s all they need. Yeah, now they at least have an email. I don’t recall if they have a phone number, but yes, you are absolutely right. We would get like weekly or
⏹️ ▶️ Casey fortnightly at best mailings from them in snail mail saying, please, please,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey for the love of God, come back, please. This time it was cheap enough that we did. And again, it was
⏹️ ▶️ Casey for Aaron and I have some perks. The funny thing about all this is just between
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the three of us, my car’s birthday in terms or adoption anniversary,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey if you will, is today, actually. I’ve had the car for exactly a year and my car still gets XM,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey but I don’t pay for it. Apparently it’s kind of a known secret. Don’t tell anyone.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey This is just for the two of you. It’s apparently a known secret that some to all Volkswagens
⏹️ ▶️ Casey just kind of ignore the cancellation signal, the serious sense. And
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I haven’t necessarily called attention to this, although I am now a paying subscriber anyway.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey But my car is still getting Sirius XM a year on, and I think I was only supposed to get it for like three months.
⏹️ ▶️ John So I’m in the Honda like build your accord thing, and I don’t see any satellite radio options.
⏹️ ▶️ John I go to the Sirius site and say, you know, check if it’s available in your car. And I put in the make model of your my car
⏹️ ▶️ John and then their helpful website says the following services may be available for the vehicle listed
⏹️ ▶️ John above. Maybe why even have a form if you just like you need to tell me if it is or it isn’t. So
⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t see it in the sources list. I see Pandora, of all things, in the sources list on my car, but I do not
⏹️ ▶️ John see Sirius or any other stuff. And I don’t see it as an option. Maybe it’s just standard. I don’t
⏹️ ▶️ John see it anywhere on the website.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I would think it’s standard. I concur with what Marco was saying earlier. Pretty much any car built in the last 10 to 15 years,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I thought, had the equipment, whether or not it had a subscription come with it or anything.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, I do have to pay for something extra or something. If I got the subscription, how would I tune it? How
⏹️ ▶️ John do how would I make it play in my car?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco The radio, you go to like, there’s like an activation thing, like you like, you like navigate on the radio to some screen that gives like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a serial number or something. And then like, you like tell them over the phone. It’s it’s a crazy thing.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Well, I didn’t have to, I did not have to call them in order to register Aaron’s car, but I will have to call
⏹️ ▶️ Casey them in 11 months or however long it is when the the good deal
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I have expires and then they ratchet it up to like 15 or 20 bucks a month. Like whatever the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey standard prices is absurd for how awful the service is.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey But at five bucks a month for something that makes my wife happy, I feel like I’m good with that.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, and I do feel like, you know, if there’s ever a place for it, cars, you know, cars were always like the strongest
⏹️ ▶️ Marco place for it. I would use, like, I would actually get like little home radios and like little docking stations
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and have these little antennas. Like, I had this whole setup, but, you know, that was, again, that was like, you
⏹️ ▶️ Marco know, 19 years ago. You know, now it’s, things are a little bit different now,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and I think it wouldn’t surprise me if, maybe John’s issue might be,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco maybe Honda stopped even offering it, because now satellite radio
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is so dated and proving less and less necessary. Tesla doesn’t offer it at
⏹️ ▶️ Marco all, which doesn’t surprise me. They also don’t offer cassette decks. Yeah, it’s not an option, because you need to have
⏹️ ▶️ Marco an antenna. There has to be a satellite antenna on the car to receive the signal. It has GPS though. It’s,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco well yeah, but like, you know, there’s like more hardware required in the car to be able to receive
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, Casey signal. Sure,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco sure. And so, if you have like a low uptake rate, I can see why you just might not include it.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And it’s, I have a feeling, I would guess, it’s probably more popular with like older people
⏹️ ▶️ Marco than younger people. So if you have a car that sells mostly to like tech forward young people, like a Tesla might,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco then I would imagine it would, you know, your uptake rate would be so
⏹️ ▶️ Marco low, it is even worth building the hardware in the first place. Because now, basically, streaming
⏹️ ▶️ Marco music services on smartphones remove most of the need for satellite radio.
⏹️ ▶️ John So I’m looking, I’m still Googling for, like I’m entering questions like, can Honda Accord use SiriusXM? That’s like,
⏹️ ▶️ John I’m typing into Google. First of all, as I’m typing into autocompletes, can Honda Accord, what do you think the autocomplete
⏹️ ▶️ John was before I typed the rest of it? Oh, God. Shot web? Go fast? No,
⏹️ ▶️ John seriously, don’t make joke answers. Like, can Honda Accord, what are people Googling for? Like it was the number one
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey completion in the address bar of a car. Oh
⏹️ ▶️ John God, I don’t have the faintest idea. CarPlay? I would not have guessed this, but that’s a good, CarPlay was a good guess,
⏹️ ▶️ John but it was CanHondaAccordTow. Interesting. Anyway,
⏹️ ▶️ John so I, you know, CanHondaAccord, you serious? Because I’m number one hit. Someone asking basically that question.
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s on a web bulletin board, so you know it’s gonna be good on an Accord forum. First reply.
⏹️ ▶️ John So, not judging, I mean, you want what you want, but do you have a smartphone?
⏹️ ▶️ John Oh, people won’t answer the question. Yeah. Anyway, it looks like you can do it.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I would be stunned if your car didn’t support it, John, but again, I don’t think you’re really missing much in
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John the game. I’m
⏹️ ▶️ John never going to get it. I’m just, I was just curious. Cause I like, I didn’t see the logos. I don’t see any of it. And like I said, I see Pandora
⏹️ ▶️ John of all things. So there’s obviously some kind of deal with it. And I’m looking at the 2019 Accord, which they
⏹️ ▶️ John say supports Android auto and CarPlay and all this other good stuff, but I did not see Sirius anywhere. So
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s fading apparently. Anyway, now you’re gonna record a concert over it. I honestly, I would assume
⏹️ ▶️ John because it’s over the web that they wouldn’t like send the signal to the satellite and then catch it from the satellite and then broadcast
⏹️ ▶️ John it on a website that you’d be getting like a better quality feed, but I suppose you’ll find out. I
⏹️ ▶️ Casey think I do, but we’ll see what happens.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco If I were a person who would ever download a bootleg of something that broadcast on SiriusXM,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John know already that the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco RIP broadcasts that people tend to post to various truck depots are higher
⏹️ ▶️ Marco quality than what is broadcast over the air.
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Privacy opt-in drawbacks
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⏹️ ▶️ Casey Let’s move on to follow up first and foremost. By the time this posts, it’s
⏹️ ▶️ Casey probably going to be too late, but happy birthday, Erin, because her birthday as we record this is tomorrow, the last day
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of August. Moving on, Apple privacy opt-in drawbacks. We had talked last
⏹️ ▶️ Casey episode about how Apple was going to have you opt into certain
⏹️ ▶️ Casey things and how we wish you could opt in, you know, we wish you could,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey instead of having to opt out, be able to opt into other things. And some people pointed out some drawbacks
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to kind of this whole approach that we had asked for. So, John, can you perhaps re-summarize
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and then tell me what this is all about?
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, lots of people were saying, you know, here are a bunch of reasons why they wouldn’t make something opt-in,
⏹️ ▶️ John that you’d be opted in by default, and you can just opt out. And we were complaining about that for the, what was
⏹️ ▶️ John it, for the transcripts?
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco I don’t remember.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, because the new Siri policy thing is that you need to now opt in for audio grading,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but that transcripts are always available for grading by Apple employees, and there is no
⏹️ ▶️ Marco opt-out. Well, you just turn off Siri. Well, there is no opt-out.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, anyway, what we were asking for is for everything to be opt-in, and then most of the feedback we
⏹️ ▶️ John were getting is like, here’s why everything can’t be opt in. Like, here’s why they have to default to opt you into at least the transcripts
⏹️ ▶️ John or something. And some of the reasons were like, self selection bias of the people who choose to actually opt in
⏹️ ▶️ John are not representative of the whole insufficient populations. If you’re in a very small country and not a lot of people are
⏹️ ▶️ John speaking your language, maybe not enough people from your country would opt in and that you also need positive results
⏹️ ▶️ John so you can’t just send them the mistakes you need to send them the good ones and people would be more inclined to send them the times when
⏹️ ▶️ John Syria messed up. I’m not, you know, I listed a bunch of
⏹️ ▶️ John these just say there are a bunch of options, but I feel like the, the larger point is
⏹️ ▶️ John that in any situation where there are privacy concerns, there’s very likely going
⏹️ ▶️ John to be trade-offs. Uh, so it’s the, the wrong attitude is to say, well, we
⏹️ ▶️ John would make it friendly for privacy, but Apple can’t do that because there are some drawbacks. Yeah. There’s
⏹️ ▶️ John going to be some drawbacks, right? This is the, this is the balance. We’re not saying you should just make it opt in and it’ll
⏹️ ▶️ John be a universal good. you will lose out on things. So we talked about this in the past, about how it may be more
⏹️ ▶️ John difficult for Apple to do certain features because they don’t collect every single thing and put it in a big server and grind over
⏹️ ▶️ John it with these giant processes. And you know, like that privacy does make their job
⏹️ ▶️ John more difficult. And I think this is the case as well, but that’s their pitch. Their pitch is that we
⏹️ ▶️ John protect your privacy to the maximum degree possible. And there are drawbacks
⏹️ ▶️ John to it and there will be drawbacks to it. So, I mean, that’s my position anyway, that
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s their job to make the trade off that the other companies won’t. And I feel like if we, like the consumer
⏹️ ▶️ John attitude that if you can think of any possible reason why it would be better for them to just universally collect it, then
⏹️ ▶️ John obviously they can’t and shouldn’t or won’t do it. All of those things, can’t, shouldn’t and won’t are like
⏹️ ▶️ John wrong for the wrong reason. Like can’t as in like, oh, it’s an impossibility. That’s, you know, we’re really lost if people think, well,
⏹️ ▶️ John they can’t do it. They need everyone to submit to it without,
⏹️ ▶️ John you know, without any bias because otherwise a sample set would be biased. They just can’t. Won’t is,
⏹️ ▶️ John I wish they would, but they won’t because they want all our data. And shouldn’t, I don’t even know that attitude, is like that they should
⏹️ ▶️ John collect their baby beans information. But all of them are sort of either cynical
⏹️ ▶️ John or giving in to the status quo as the only
⏹️ ▶️ John way things can possibly be. So yep, there are drawbacks. And Apple should eat them to
⏹️ ▶️ John make to preserve our privacy to a larger degree.
Card weight competition
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Frank Hertz writes in, the same day that I heard you all talk about credit card weight, this came
⏹️ ▶️ Casey in the mail. And this is an advertisement for a MasterCard Black Card. And the kind
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of the hero phrase, the title of the advertisement is Heavyweight Champ. And it literally
⏹️ ▶️ Casey has a graph, card weight versus the competition. MasterCard Black Card, which is what it’s advertising, 22
⏹️ ▶️ Casey grams. American Express Platinum Card, 18 grams. Chase Sapphire Reserve, 13 grams, and City Prestige
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Card, 12 grams. That is kind of preposterous.
⏹️ ▶️ John Sotnia, not only, as we said in the last show, is weight the dominant factor, like in their focus groups,
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s like they’re saying the quiet part loud. Like, they’re sending you an actual advertisement,
⏹️ ▶️ John pitching you on the thing. I mean, I guess they make some sense. Like, if they do a focus group and they decide, like, the most important thing about
⏹️ ▶️ John cars is reliability, of course they would advertise their reliability. But usually when it turns out that the most important things
⏹️ ▶️ John to consumers is, I don’t know, irrational or like strange or quirky
⏹️ ▶️ John or like not really connected in any way with any of the ostensible performance characteristics of
⏹️ ▶️ John the of the product, it seems weird to advertise it to people. So like it’s a
⏹️ ▶️ John bar chart for crying out loud. Like
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey is this like an
⏹️ ▶️ John arms race? Are they going to make them out of tungsten? Are they going to be tiny black holes that is pushed into a card
⏹️ ▶️ John shape i don’t understand i don’t want to see how this race continues sort of the gillette five blades
⏹️ ▶️ John style, like what do we end up with?
Apple Card cases
⏹️ ▶️ Casey All righty, and then finally, late breaking news from
⏹️ ▶️ Casey my friend who runs the YouTube channel Cavalier with a K. John
⏹️ ▶️ Casey writes in that you can get a bespoke case, other John, you John, for your
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Apple Card. And this is a company called Kerf, K-E-R-F, and
⏹️ ▶️ Casey they have four different wood species and engraving options for your
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Apple Card case that will run you 40 to 50 to $120 for figured walnut.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey So if you would like a $120 sleeve for your beloved
⏹️ ▶️ Casey titanium Apple card, you freaking nerd, then I am happy to report, Curf has you covered.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Can you imagine being behind somebody in line at a checkout
⏹️ ▶️ Marco take this object, this wonderful $50 or whatever wood case
⏹️ ▶️ Marco sleeve, and they pull out of it their fine, untouched, unblemished white
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Apple card. you would probably not think kind things about that person. Well,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John here’s the thing. Would
⏹️ ▶️ John it be untouched and beautiful? Because wood is not, I mean, I wouldn’t want the card
⏹️ ▶️ John rubbing against or rattling against wood. And I’m sure it’s not rough, I’m sure it’s smooth wood, but if you’re gonna try
⏹️ ▶️ John to protect the card, I’m not sure wood is doing that job. And as many people pointed out, and as we discussed, like,
⏹️ ▶️ John we don’t actually know what the wear and tear on this card will be, but like someone said, I got my
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple, my physical Apple card, and its beauty lasted until its first
⏹️ ▶️ John swipe through a gas station card reader. Came out with a bunch of black streaks on it. It’s like, I mean,
⏹️ ▶️ John it has a mag stripe on the back. It has a chip in it. At some point, presumably with this
⏹️ ▶️ John physical card with literally no numbers printed on it, you’re gonna have to shove it into some filthy
⏹️ ▶️ John slot or, you know, whatever, reader that a million
⏹️ ▶️ John other cards have been through that has never been cleaned and it’s going to mess up your card. So no matter how
⏹️ ▶️ John carefully you preserve it in a case, unless you don’t ever use it, it’s probably going to look
⏹️ ▶️ John gross. And the question is, how gross? Is it going to look any grosser than your other cards? I looked at my other cards in my wallet, by the way, and
⏹️ ▶️ John I’m pretty amazed at how my one other metal card, it’s very dark, I don’t know if it’s black, but it’s
⏹️ ▶️ John a very dark color. It’s held up pretty well. If there’s crap all over it, I can’t see it because it’s so dark.
⏹️ ▶️ John And then my other cards just mostly look like a mess.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I guess to avoid some inevitable follow up, the popular vinyl skin company, Dbrand,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco did announce a couple days ago Apple Card skins for I think like five bucks or something like that. Does it
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco I think they
⏹️ ▶️ Marco have a cutout. I’m not sure, I didn’t look too closely.
⏹️ ▶️ John I wouldn’t want to stick that in one of those chip readers and have it get stuck because they don’t expect your card to be a
⏹️ ▶️ John millimeter thicker. Let’s just all use Apple Pay and not
⏹️ ▶️ John use physical cards, how about that?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Or just use the card like you would use any other card and you know it’s gonna get banged up and it’s fine. Like, credit cards
⏹️ ▶️ Marco get banged up, it’s no big
⏹️ ▶️ John deal. Yeah, although, like, the thing about metal cards, like, the reason I’ve always thought plastic cards were smarter
⏹️ ▶️ John is, like, it’s harder to crimp plastic. I don’t know how hard it is to crimp titanium, but the other
⏹️ ▶️ John metals, like, I have, you know, whatever, my aluminum card, and I’m always like, hmm, I could crimp this. If I actually step on it or something, like,
⏹️ ▶️ John it will stay bent, whereas the plastic card will spring back from a lot.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I can’t believe how much we’ve ended up talking about a credit card. It’s so boring. I’m sorry to the world.
⏹️ ▶️ John I mean, as far as credit cards go, it’s I mean, I’m not going to say is about as exciting as
⏹️ ▶️ John they can get, but it’s close. I mean, how could it be more exciting? I suppose it could be made
⏹️ ▶️ John of a precious metal or have gemstones in it. But like it’s a credit card like what? There’s not a lot of
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s such a standardized size and shape and function. There’s not a lot they can actually do with it. But I think
⏹️ ▶️ John this is I mean, it’s the most interesting credit card I own. Maybe you have fancier cards than me. I’m not going to actually use it or carry
⏹️ ▶️ John it, but I still own it.
iPhone 11 wish list
⏹️ ▶️ Casey All right, let’s move on. The story of the last 24 hours as we record this
⏹️ ▶️ Casey is the Apple event invite as expected. It is going to be September
⏹️ ▶️ Casey 10th. That is a Tuesday, is that right? That we will be learning about
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the new iPhones and maybe some other things, maybe not.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey This will be at 10 o’clock, bananas West Coast time, which is one o’clock, one true time zone.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And this is, of Of course, by invitation only. And because we are a podcast and not a print publication,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey none of us got invites. Not that I’m bitter. However, what is interesting is the logo
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that was shown on the invites. This is almost a six colors logo.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And as the certified old person, the podcast, John, how did that make you feel?
⏹️ ▶️ John So these, these images on these logos, uh, regardless of whether they have anything to do
⏹️ ▶️ John with what’s announced. One thing we can say about them is that Apple has over the many, many years, sell very free to
⏹️ ▶️ John indulge its creativity. You see very creative stuff in
⏹️ ▶️ John these invites. Like they’re not precious, they’re not carefully controlled. Very often
⏹️ ▶️ John the images are, you know, very interesting ideas or twists on either the
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple logo or just, you know, abstract artwork or various blobs. There was that one time where they sent like 60 or 80
⏹️ ▶️ John or maybe it was 200 different images to people. sort of, you know, not everyone got the same invitation
⏹️ ▶️ John image, you know, so they must have people doing this artwork and saying, you know, like do whatever you want.
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s fun. It’s a one time invitation. You’re not defining our corporate branding for the next 20 years.
⏹️ ▶️ John Just do something fun. So this image here is an apple logo and
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s made up of a bunch of different colors. Uh, and it is,
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s playful in that it’s not, first of all, it’s not like the colored Apple logo as in stripes.
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s kind of like, looks kind of like a vaguely tinted water
⏹️ ▶️ John or ice or plastic kind of flowing into these slushy sloshy shapes. Like
⏹️ ▶️ John they’re not hard stripes. They’re not all the same size. They’re kind of like, remember
⏹️ ▶️ John the wavy blue background on like a Mac OS X public beta and like 10.0 and stuff. Remember that
⏹️ ▶️ John desktop background that was like blue with stripey things on it? Kate and I weren’t alive back then. Yeah, anyway,
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s like that. It’s not all the colors of the Apple logo
⏹️ ▶️ John and they’re not in the right order. So it’s playful in that way. It’s like, hey, it’s kind
⏹️ ▶️ John of, we’re evoking the rainbow logo, but obviously it’s very playful and abstract and weird with
⏹️ ▶️ John this flowy stuff. And we’re not even keeping the colors or the order the same or even omitting a color
⏹️ ▶️ John entirely, all right? So it could just be a fun thing, but if we’re gonna say that this
⏹️ ▶️ John logo gives the hint of anything. The impression that I got
⏹️ ▶️ John upon seeing this, and say, if this thing has any connection to what they announced, I didn’t
⏹️ ▶️ John immediately think, aha, this means they’re gonna have rainbow Apple logos on the phones. I mean, maybe they will, maybe they won’t, but that’s not what it made me
⏹️ ▶️ John think. What it made me think is, they aren’t going to introduce at least one model of phone that you will be
⏹️ ▶️ John able to get in green, blue, yellow, red, and purple. That’s what it made me think. Doesn’t mean
⏹️ ▶️ John that, it could just be someone having fun with an Apple logo, because like I said, they do all sorts of wacky things. you go back through the
⏹️ ▶️ John invites, you say, Did this invite image have anything to do with the announcement? And you’re like, other than it,
⏹️ ▶️ John obviously, saying that it’s an Apple event? No, it had absolutely nothing to do with it. But given all
⏹️ ▶️ John the rumors, and of course, Apple knows about the rumors, too. They could just be, you know, tweaking
⏹️ ▶️ John us or being like, you know, we’re gonna trick you into thinking there’s a rainbow thing. But they could also introduce phones in all these colors.
⏹️ ▶️ John I think it’s super weird that they omitted a color. That’s the thing I can’t get over. Because if you’re gonna do an arty thing,
⏹️ ▶️ John and maybe you want to rearrange them, as I said, said, whatever we talked about the Apple logo, part of it is that it’s the
⏹️ ▶️ John rainbow colors in the wrong order. So it’s kind of like a it’s on message to take
⏹️ ▶️ John the colors and put them even in a different order. Now that like the old Apple logo order is now the new orthodox and
⏹️ ▶️ John we’re defying that. But to omit a color omitting a color makes me think they just decided they didn’t
⏹️ ▶️ John work going to make an orange phone and they’re going to make phones that one of the phones maybe like the 10 are successor
⏹️ ▶️ John and all these colors. But those are my thoughts. What do you think? Does this have anything to do with what they announced?
⏹️ ▶️ John Or did you just look at this and think, another silly Apple invite logo?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I don’t think it has anything to do with it. I mean, as you said, like the Apple invitation artwork and logos
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and themes and even like even the phrasing they use every single time, we all
⏹️ ▶️ Marco try to read into them whatever we want to read into them from the latest rumors of that or the latest wish list of what we want
⏹️ ▶️ Marco them to announce. And the reality is they almost never have any significant
⏹️ ▶️ Marco connection to what gets announced.
⏹️ ▶️ John And sometimes they do just enough to keep us going, right? Just barely enough to say, well, you can’t dismiss it
⏹️ ▶️ John out of hand because, you know, one or two times it did. Yeah,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but it’s just it’s so rare that I don’t it’s not even worth really thinking about. Like, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it’s it’s almost like gambling. It’s like, like, the wins are so rare that we probably shouldn’t
⏹️ ▶️ John on. And the other the other thing is, like I said, Apple knows what all the rumors are. And Apple knows
⏹️ ▶️ John probably what it will be making people think. can have fun with that and just, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ John tweak us to say, if we send this, they’re totally going to think we’re doing rainbow Apple logos on our phones or not, but send it anyway,
⏹️ ▶️ John because it’s not made in a vacuum, right?
⏹️ ▶️ John Casey, do you think we’re getting phones in these colors?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey So my job on the show seems to be to hedge about everything and
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that has the advantage of, you know, when I hedge, well, you know, I wasn’t sure. There’s no frickin
⏹️ ▶️ Casey way we’re getting all these colors on this phone, which of course, that now this will be the one time when I didn’t hedge
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that I should have. But
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John I don’t think it’s— MARK
⏹️ ▶️ Casey MIRCHANDANI I’m taking a bold, brave stance. CORY DOCTOROW I am taking the bold, brave stance that no,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey we will not be getting these colors on the new phones. I will be both embarrassed and find it quite funny if I’m wrong about this. But no, I agree
⏹️ ▶️ Casey with Marco. It has almost never been even a
⏹️ ▶️ Casey vaguely defined line between the event artwork and what’s being presented.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey At best, it’s like a circuitous route that really doesn’t make sense unless you have a tinfoil
⏹️ ▶️ Casey hat on where you can get from A to B. And I will be flabbergasted if
⏹️ ▶️ Casey this actually is an indication of like available colors or something like that. The only thing that gives me pause
⏹️ ▶️ Casey is that it is five colors and not six, like you said, John. But like that seems an odd omission, but
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I still don’t think that this is going, that this
⏹️ ▶️ Casey is indicating colors. most maybe a material
⏹️ ▶️ Casey like this. This smells a little bit like the IMAX of way back when, you know, like the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey bond bond bond bond bond. I don’t care which one it is.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John I’m sorry. You’re thinking of
⏹️ ▶️ John the lifesavers max probably were the four of the first multicolored ones. And what were the ones after that? Uh, fall
⏹️ ▶️ John colors. Uh, yeah, there was the fall colors ones like sage and my memory’s going
⏹️ ▶️ John bad, but there was, yeah, the only, the only one that was Bondi was the very first one. Bondi.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John Australia. The Australians
⏹️ ▶️ John want us to say Bondi. We all say Bondi because we’re not Australian and we don’t know how to say things.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I thought it was the other way around. I thought they wanted us to say Bondi. No,
⏹️ ▶️ John they want us to say
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Bondi. I thought it was Bondi Beach.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Either way, they call McDonald’s Macca’s and breakfast brekkie. They have no room to talk.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, but like their country mostly functions and they have like health care and stuff. So we can’t really talk right now.
⏹️ ▶️ John But isn’t that where most of the poisonous spiders in the world live?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yes. So here’s the thing. They have a lot of poisonous spiders, but they don’t have 17 guns per person.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey So I think I’d still take
⏹️ ▶️ John that. Yeah, no, I’m not saying it’s the wrong trade-off.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey Anyway, an Australian
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco in the chat room
⏹️ ▶️ John says that I’m right and they want us to say Bondi. But the problem is we’re not going to because we’re a bunch of ignorant Americans
⏹️ ▶️ John who imprinted on Bondi before we knew how to pronounce it.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I mean, it’s our computer. Can’t we say how it’s pronounced? Yeah,
⏹️ ▶️ John well, we say Jaguar, right? Because Steve told us to.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Anyway, I don’t think that this is the case, but I think it could be interesting
⏹️ ▶️ Casey if for some reason Apple decided to ditch glass or somehow like tint glass.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Again, I don’t think that would happen, but it would be kind of interesting. Like leaving aside the likelihood of it, I think it would be kind of
⏹️ ▶️ Casey cool to have like a tinted glass, whether it’s these colors or other colors. I think it would be
⏹️ ▶️ Casey neat to see some sort of playfulness or whimsy as we’ve been banging on
⏹️ ▶️ Casey about on the show for several months now. Some whimsy come to the iPhone. And you know,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey something I’ve been thinking about is what, and I guess I’m kind of jumping into the next subject,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey but what do we expect from this event? And I ask that not only is it the obvious
⏹️ ▶️ Casey question, but what I mean by that is we seem to be getting ever closer to
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the naked robotic core, copyright 20 something John Syracuse, wherein we
⏹️ ▶️ Casey really don’t have that many physical changes left to be made. I mean, the obvious things are like a
⏹️ ▶️ Casey smaller notch or perhaps, you know, cribbing from Android where it’s, where they put the little like hole in the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey corner of the display or what have you. So maybe, maybe ditch
⏹️ ▶️ Casey lightning for USB-C, maybe. I would be on board with that by the way, but I don’t think it’s happening.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey But I mean, what else is left from a purely physical sense?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey What is left to be done to the iPhone? I mean, yeah, you can obviously rejigger sizes, you can rejigger
⏹️ ▶️ Casey screen resolutions. You could even go from LCD to OLED as we had in the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey last couple of years. But in terms of like the look, the external look and shape
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of the phone, like what else is left to be done? Fellas.
⏹️ ▶️ John Getting rid of the, uh, sensor bar as they call it, like that’s somewhere on the
⏹️ ▶️ John and then part of that is depending on how they get rid of it, either they get rid of it by shrinking this stuff so small that it can
⏹️ ▶️ John fit inside the little curve that goes off to the edge. Or that means camera under the screen
⏹️ ▶️ John and other various technology like that. And I would lump into that the possibility of other sensors under the
⏹️ ▶️ John screen, whether it be a fingerprint sensor or otherwise unlikely. But once you’re putting stuff under the screen,
⏹️ ▶️ John uh, like the camera and the IR blaster and all other stuff that comes up, I don’t know that
⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t think that’s even possible yet for some of those things. I see a lot of Android phones with the camera cutouts
⏹️ ▶️ John and the screen around them. I don’t think Apple would go that route. I think they’re waiting for it completely under Android phones do
⏹️ ▶️ John have fingerprint sensors under the screen, but they’re not as good as the ones that are out of the screen. So I feel like that’s the
⏹️ ▶️ John one obvious thing I I can think of is finishing the job of making the all screen
⏹️ ▶️ John phone. But I’m not holding my breath that anytime soon. The cameras on the back at this
⏹️ ▶️ John rate, you know, speaking of July five blade problem,
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco how many cameras are going to be on the back of it?
⏹️ ▶️ John Like we’re creeping up on the light field cameras that have like a million cameras and they make this giant composite picture
⏹️ ▶️ John of it. But sort of the computational photography and multiple different cameras combining to give a
⏹️ ▶️ John picture that one like the physical limitations of how much light you can put to those tiny little
⏹️ ▶️ John lenses and how deep the phone is aren’t going to change or get any better. But the computation home
⏹️ ▶️ John photography stuff seems to get better and better. So is there some future where a much larger
⏹️ ▶️ John portion of the back of the phone is used for photography to do some amazing computational photography? I can kind
⏹️ ▶️ John of see that happening. Um, and then after that, I mean, maybe at that point will,
⏹️ ▶️ John depending on how the whole glasses business goes at a certain point, holding a thing in your hand and looking
⏹️ ▶️ John at it will be to quote back to the future to like a baby’s toy. Maybe it will all be alive
⏹️ ▶️ John for that. Maybe we won’t. Again, it depends on how the glasses stuff goes. If it doesn’t catch on, if the tech isn’t there,
⏹️ ▶️ John if the only person wearing weird electronic glasses is Marco with his Bose stereo
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco things, then
⏹️ ▶️ John excuse me, my AR glasses. You mean your AR glasses? That’s right. You’re you’re an early adopter.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, that’s that’s my road map for the next 10 to 15 years. That’s
⏹️ ▶️ John that’s what comes to mind for me anyway.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Marco? Everything I want from the iPhone seems to be things
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that everyone keeps saying are not going to happen anytime soon.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco as? It’s USB-C. Me
⏹️ ▶️ John too. Oh, I forgot about that, yeah.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, USB-C and in-screen fingerprint sensor, in addition to Face ID. Because
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I want to be able to say, whichever one recognizes me first, just go.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco Yeah, that’s why
⏹️ ▶️ John I was suggesting a fingerprint on the screen. Not replacing Face ID, but assuming they can get Face ID on the screen,
⏹️ ▶️ John also having fingerprints though.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, and of course, you know, I could, I would always welcome any kind of camera improvement that could
⏹️ ▶️ Marco get it closer to what like bigger standalone cameras can do. So things like, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco any kind of optical zoom, I really appreciate. Unfortunately, like the remission of this new
⏹️ ▶️ Marco third lens being a wide angle lens instead of a, like a, a bigger telephoto, seem like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they’re going in the opposite direction for now, but that’s fine. There’s value to that as well. But yeah, anything like, you know, giving
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the camera a further reach in the telephoto area, giving it better low light performance,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that’s all very welcome improvements for me. But otherwise, if we’re kind of doing our
⏹️ ▶️ Marco exit interview of the iPhone XS, as usual, I’m pretty happy
⏹️ ▶️ Marco with the phone where it is, with the exception of those bigger things that I don’t think we’re getting.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I also, I started using Instagram a lot more this summer, and so my battery life is destroyed.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco The battery is just terrible if you use
⏹️ ▶️ John Instagram regularly. From the stories, you mean, not from the taking picture part, right?
⏹️ ▶️ John from browsing it. Oh, I thought you meant like taking Instagrams, like taking video, essentially. That
⏹️ ▶️ Marco too, but you’re capturing video for a story for at most 15 seconds, that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John The big draw is like having-
⏹️ ▶️ John But you do that like nine times and we get nine little 15 second things.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, but still, compared to just fetching all the video over the network
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that you’re watching and keeping the screen on as you scroll through stuff. And of course, I’m sure it’s doing
⏹️ ▶️ Marco crazy Facebook garbage in the background. So the reality is, yeah. I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco finally realized why people who use Instagram, their phones are always at 20%. Like, yeah,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it turns out the batteries aren’t big enough. But also going in the complete
⏹️ ▶️ Marco opposite direction, right after I wished for things that would
⏹️ ▶️ Marco make it heavier, the iPhone XS is too heavy. It’s a very dense,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco heavy phone. Like as I mentioned earlier this summer when I did my iPhone SE experiment, the iPhone
⏹️ ▶️ Marco SE feels fantastic, not only because it’s smaller, but also it’s a lot less dense because
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it doesn’t have the glass on both sides. Ever since we got the glass on both sides returning,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that made the phones very dense. Like the same thing happened with the iPhone 4, which was the first one with glass on both sides. The 4
⏹️ ▶️ Marco felt very dense, very heavy. And I remember when the 5 came out thinking, wow, this thing is light.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Like the 5 was a larger phone than the 4, but it was significantly lighter, and I think a big part
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of that was that they dropped the glass in the back in favor for a metal back. And then, you know, now, you
⏹️ ▶️ Marco know, once we went further into the line with the 10 series, we returned to glass backs,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and they got really heavy again. Like, and they did also get bigger, but.
⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t know if that’s because of the glass back, though. Like, I Googled this while you were talking and trying to figure out, is glass
⏹️ ▶️ John more or less dense than aluminum? Or, like, is it thicker because it’s glass and the aluminum can be thinner?
⏹️ ▶️ John And Google’s inconclusive. One of the match I found said the density of glass varies with each
⏹️ ▶️ John type. And it can be less dense than aluminum or more dense than iron. So
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that’s not helpful. I’m sure the answer really is it depends on how they use it.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, and how thick it is and what particular glass they use. But there’s no arguing that
⏹️ ▶️ John the XS and X are heavy phones. That much is clear. But the density
⏹️ ▶️ John could be. I mean, it has a much larger battery than the 5S. I feel like of all the
⏹️ ▶️ John things that in the phone that weigh a lot, I guess there’s the case and number two
⏹️ ▶️ John is probably the battery, right? Because it’s mostly
⏹️ ▶️ Marco battery in there. I would imagine, yeah, like by weight allocation, like the screen
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and the battery are probably the two heaviest things in there. After the case, right? Well, the screen includes the front
⏹️ ▶️ Marco case, I’m saying. All right,
⏹️ ▶️ John yeah, all right. But then what is it? Are they stainless steel around the rim? Like that’s a big stainless
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And stainless steel is obviously heavier than like aluminum or like titanium could be, but I don’t think that’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco enough metal to make a big weight difference there. I could be wrong. But, anyway, I would like the phone
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to get lighter. Anything that can make it lighter. And then finally, another thing that I don’t think they’re going to do,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I would love to make it more grippable in my hand. So whether that’s something like adopting the straight sides,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like the old SE and 5 series, like the new iPad Pros, some kind
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of case shape or materials change. With the Jet Black
⏹️ ▶️ Marco iPhone 7, I actually have it right here, I never used a case with it because the Jet Black finish was
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a little bit tacky, like it gripped in a better way than what the regular
⏹️ ▶️ Marco bar of soap metal did from the other finishes. And I never got, that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco feeling never returned with the X migration. And I would love to
⏹️ ▶️ Marco have some kind of materials or shape change to the case to make it just
⏹️ ▶️ Marco feel better in your hand if you choose not to use a case on it. Because right now I use a case because I don’t like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the way the phone feels without one anymore. And it just makes it even bigger and even bulkier and even heavier.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And it just makes it even worse in the pocket and everything. So just something to make the phone a
⏹️ ▶️ Marco little more grippy, hopefully a little bit lighter weight. But yet also, please give me more battery
⏹️ ▶️ Marco life and give me more, you know, heavy camera stuff. And USB-C. The weight
⏹️ ▶️ John stuff, we’ve talked about that before with Apple hardware. Usually when we’re doing some show, we’re like speculating like
⏹️ ▶️ John future hardware for insert Apple product here and carbon fiber almost always comes up as
⏹️ ▶️ John a thing that we talk about, but it never actually appears in any Apple products. I’m guessing, especially
⏹️ ▶️ John for things like the phone, it’s about manufacturability because all I hear from the audio industry is what a pain in the butt it is to deal with carbon
⏹️ ▶️ John fiber in any form whatsoever, except for fake dash inserts, right? If you want to be actually
⏹️ ▶️ John structural or whatever, it’s either expensive or time consuming or error prone to manufacture. And if you’re
⏹️ ▶️ John making a bazillion of things like the iPhone machining, aluminum or stainless steel or something
⏹️ ▶️ John that Apple’s really, really good at it is easier. But if you’re looking to save weight and if you want
⏹️ ▶️ John to keep that big heavy battery that we all want after you just complained about battery life and you got to shave
⏹️ ▶️ John weight somewhere you’re not going to make the screen plastic. So it’s like well all the other
⏹️ ▶️ John stuff can we make it out of carbon fiber would it be lighter than stainless steel? Yes the answer is yes it would be lighter than stainless
⏹️ ▶️ John steel for sure. So I’m I always have to have that out there as like make
⏹️ ▶️ John the whole back and the rim of the case out of stainless steel, keep the screen glass and keep the giant battery,
⏹️ ▶️ John I think that would be a lighter phone, but it would also be more expensive and difficult and error prone to manufacture and maybe
⏹️ ▶️ John not as good as what they’re currently doing in some way. But I would throw that in the 10 to 15 year
⏹️ ▶️ John timeline that a new material for the iPhone, which is a very conservative
⏹️ ▶️ John product, may eventually be something like carbon fiber. Unfortunately, kind of like the old
⏹️ ▶️ John thing with the battery life and thinness, if they use carbon fiber, it
⏹️ ▶️ John may not be to get a lighter phone, it may be to allow them to keep the weight the same while
⏹️ ▶️ John increasing something else, whether it be size or like, you know, making their battery out of tungsten or whatever
⏹️ ▶️ John the hell, whatever the hell, end up taking a heavier and they’ve got to like make that weight back because I
⏹️ ▶️ John think I think you’re right that it is a heavy phone and should be lighter, but I’m not sure how
⏹️ ▶️ John phone weight rates. You know, we just got off the credit card thing. What if unfortunately most people
⏹️ ▶️ John associate a heavy, dense phone with one that feels expensive and good and we and they’re actually advertising how much their
⏹️ ▶️ John phone weighs. I don’t think it’s gonna happen but stranger things have happened. I mean stereo equipment in the 70s where they put you know
⏹️ ▶️ John lead weights inside them to make things seem more
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco expensive and apparently now it’s
⏹️ ▶️ John happening with credit cards. So yeah, right. Don’t think our is, funs are immune!
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⏹️ ▶️ Casey If you were designing the iPhone that we’ll see in a little over
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a week, and you only had the ability to change one thing, so
⏹️ ▶️ Casey you could either make the camera better, or you can make it USB-C,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey or you can make the battery life better. And this is a magical world where you can just wave your magic wand
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and one thing will get better with no drawbacks anywhere else. I can already tell this question is driving John nuts.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey But anyway, you wave your magic wand, you can make one thing better, what would it be? And I’m torn.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey My initial reaction is I think I really would like USB-C because I don’t feel like my battery is that terrible.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey But then again, I’m two years on in my iPhone 10, it does get charged on and off throughout
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the day. And it is sometimes a little bit rough at the end of the day, again, two years
⏹️ ▶️ Casey on. So I think in top four style, my answer would be a better,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a longer lasting battery with my honorable mention being USBC.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Marco, because I’m not prepared for John to belittle my question here, what would
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I know this might seem really stupid. I’m gonna say USBC. Because
⏹️ ▶️ Marco if I think about like, if I think about like what difference will this make in my life over the next year? Like how much,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you know, if I’m having the new iPhone every year, what will actually make a really big
⏹️ ▶️ Marco difference in my life? And if the phone still is the same shape and still feels
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like butter and still is the same density, it’s just gonna feel exactly the same as
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it has for the last year. It’s not making my life any worse if I don’t get that.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But USB-C would solve a really big annoyance for me. Right now, I have gone USB-C
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on as much as I possibly can for the cables and the chargers and the batteries
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and the devices that I carry with me when I travel and that are going around our house, with the one
⏹️ ▶️ Marco big exception that I still need frickin’ lightning cables everywhere. So I have to have
⏹️ ▶️ Marco two different cable types everywhere and two different charger type things.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I just want USB-C everywhere and I’m almost there and the biggest holdout for devices in
⏹️ ▶️ Marco my house are lightning devices. And I already got my iPad converted over, So
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that’s one family gone. Next, we need the iPhone to go, and that would be a big one. If
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I can get my iPhone to no longer need lightning, and presumably I’d also upgrade Tiff’s iPhone,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and so the only lightning device left would be like Adam’s iPad Mini, I can deal with that.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But to have none of the phones need lightning anymore, I could just have USB-C everywhere, I could simplify
⏹️ ▶️ Marco my travel setup, I would never have the wrong cable in my hand, that would actually be a
⏹️ ▶️ Marco pretty substantial everyday life improvement.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Now, what is your current charging strategy, both on the go and at home?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And I’m asking this genuinely because, for example, I use a Qi charger at the bedside table,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and generally speaking, that’s the only place my phone gets charged when I’m in the house.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey But when I travel, I don’t bother bringing a Qi charger with me and I use Lightning. And I agree that
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that alone is enough for me to give a USBC an honorable mention because I would really
⏹️ ▶️ Casey love my travel setup to be more heavily dedicated around USB-C. So
⏹️ ▶️ Casey what is your home and travel situation? How do you charge your phone? Are you using Qi at all,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey or is it all lightning all the time?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I’m using Qi at the bedside table, as you do. And actually, and TIFF isn’t.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco One of the problems that we have, we’ve gone through a whole bunch of different setups, and one of the problems with Qi, obviously, is you
⏹️ ▶️ Marco have these big, nice pad kind of things, but if you miss by a little bit, or if
⏹️ ▶️ Marco your phone gets knocked a little bit off center, then you wake up in the morning and your phone’s not charged.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And that’s no good. So we’ve gone back and forth. So right now, she has a dock,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and docks are their own set of annoyances and limitations and everything. There’s no great solution here.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So either way, she is gonna be there regardless, and a dock can be
⏹️ ▶️ Marco easily modified to be a USB-C dock if there was a need for that. So that wouldn’t change that.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco what it would really help is like, around the house we have a few charging stations.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I have a charging cable between two couch cushions, you can reach in and pull out a charging cable and plug in your
⏹️ ▶️ Marco phone. And so charging couch, great innovation by the way, I strongly recommend it. We have by the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco kitchen counter, there’s an area where we can plug in all of our stuff. And then when I travel,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco obviously I bring a couple of USB-C bricks, and right now I use C to Lightning cables,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but then I have to swap them out to have a C to C cable. And I’m using C on the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco source end so I can get fast charging. And I also have one of those multi-head cables
⏹️ ▶️ Marco so I can charge the handful of micro USB devices. But then those are slow,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and you gotta have those little duck head things on the end of it that are clumsy. And so I could just get rid of so much garbage and crap
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and annoyance if I could go USB-C everywhere. And the iPhone is the biggest holdout
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for me. Everything else now, my headphones are now USB-C. Everything else is USB-C now, except frickin’
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah. All right, John, what would you do if you could wave your magic wand?
⏹️ ▶️ John First about your question, I think it was, you know, all things being pretty
⏹️ ▶️ John good, Casey question, because you removed a bunch of ambiguity. Like my question, when you first
⏹️ ▶️ John phrased it, I’m like, that doesn’t make any sense. There’s too many different ways this could go. But then you clarified, and you said, you
⏹️ ▶️ John know, other things aren’t modified, it’s waving a magic wand, like the intent of the question was clear, the parameters were clear, so good job.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco Is this the first
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John time John has ever
⏹️ ▶️ Marco approved of a question?
⏹️ ▶️ John so. If you want to get picky about
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey it, you can say, No, I do
⏹️ ▶️ John not. Sure. I’m going to do it anyway.
⏹️ ▶️ John I approved of a question, but by doing so, I’m still contradicting Casey, who predicted that I
⏹️ ▶️ John would say it was a bad question. So I’m still being contrary.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Well, 342 episodes in, I am pleased to report, listeners, that I finally asked a question
⏹️ ▶️ Casey in such a way that John can’t belittle me but
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John so much. John.
⏹️ ▶️ John But then said that I would, which was wrong.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John know, you can’t win them all. All right,
⏹️ ▶️ John John, tell me what you did. On the USB-C thing, aside from me not being as uniformity obsessed
⏹️ ▶️ John as Marco clearly is about his life and connectors, I actually kind of like
⏹️ ▶️ John the the tininess and lightweightness of light. And despite the fact that my children destroy every one of my
⏹️ ▶️ John lightning cables because they’re monsters, I can’t have a single nice thing. They use my lightning cable next to my bedside for
⏹️ ▶️ John crying out loud. They come
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco into my room, they sit on my
⏹️ ▶️ John bed, They connect their iPad to one of my bedside perfect lightning cables. And then
⏹️ ▶️ John stretch it out and use their device while it’s plugged in and bend it at like a 90 degree angle and put tension
⏹️ ▶️ John on it. And then I come back and I’m like, why are my cables all mangled and crimped? Children, they’re monsters.
⏹️ ▶️ John still like lightning. I still like the little I like it. The connector is small. The cables are lightweight.
⏹️ ▶️ John So that’s not going to be my choice, although, you know, I’m still all on board for USB three, but of all the things that I
⏹️ ▶️ John could pick, I’m not going to pick that one. Battery life wise, I use Instagram, obviously
⏹️ ▶️ John not as much as Marco, I guess, but I use it regularly every day as one of my social
⏹️ ▶️ John apps that I launch periodically to see what has gone on. And my
⏹️ ▶️ John battery life, my XS is ridiculously good. Like very often it will be the
⏹️ ▶️ John end of the day and I’m plugging in at night after what I think is a full day of using the phone a lot
⏹️ ▶️ John like, you know, looking at Instagram and Twitter and taking calls and, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ John using Slack on my phone. Who knows what that’s doing? Like, I’m not leaving my phone on my desk all day.
⏹️ ▶️ John Like I’m picking it up and using it. And it has more than half charge at the end of the day. So maybe, obviously I’m a light
⏹️ ▶️ John user, but I’ve been very impressed with the battery life. So I’m not picking that as my thing. What
⏹️ ▶️ John I’m going to pick is the camera. Cause I feel like even if I was having, well, I mean the battery life, if
⏹️ ▶️ John I was having problems with that, I would have picked it. But like things like connector uniformity and other things that are sort of quality of life surrounding
⏹️ ▶️ John influences. Uh, you know, two years from now, I’m not going to care that
⏹️ ▶️ John my life was slightly more convenient because of the connectors. But when I look at the pictures that I took then, if I could have like less noise in the
⏹️ ▶️ John dark ones or get a shot that otherwise I wouldn’t be able to get, uh, that’s, that’s my choice. I mean,
⏹️ ▶️ John that is what Apple’s doing in addition to a bunch of other stuff. But camera is my pick.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, I think that’s fair. I think the problem for me with the cameras is that the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey thing I want most is to be able to not carry
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a proper camera with me when I really care about the pictures. And for
⏹️ ▶️ Casey me, what I want to be able to see, because I’m still obsessed with it five years on is bokeh, bokeh, however
⏹️ ▶️ Casey you pronounce it, you know, that background blurriness. And yes, I’m aware that portrait mode exists, but
⏹️ ▶️ Casey even to me, a not terribly discerning individual who frequents Taco Bell from time to time,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey just to emphasize how not discerning I can be, I still can see
⏹️ ▶️ Casey some of the issues with portrait mode. Now I’m no Joe Steel. I can’t pick out every little pixel by pixel problem,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey but I can see problems with it. And it’s actually, in my experience, and I guess because I just don’t do it very
⏹️ ▶️ Casey often, I find it kind of difficult to frame a shot in such a way that I’m the correct distance
⏹️ ▶️ Casey from the subject and that it is able to figure out the background or the portions of the background
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that I want to be blurred. Yes, I’m aware I can go in after the fact and fiddle with that. But the whole idea
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of having the iPhone and having this computational photography is that I shouldn’t have
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to think about that. And yes, I’m aware it’s early on. But I guess all of that is to say
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I feel like my phone, my X, takes pretty darn good pictures. I would
⏹️ ▶️ Casey certainly like better nighttime performance. But I don’t think that the X is a bad
⏹️ ▶️ Casey camera. And from all reports, the XS was considerably better. But the thing that I really, really
⏹️ ▶️ Casey want from the camera is something that physics says I can’t have. And that’s that
⏹️ ▶️ Casey really shallow depth of field with a really nice background blur. But if there was a mechanism by
⏹️ ▶️ Casey which I could have that tomorrow, like if I could have actual
⏹️ ▶️ Casey legitimate real bokeh, but I had to go to the 10S or 11 Max,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey which no part of me wants the big canned phone. I don’t want to join the plus slash max
⏹️ ▶️ Casey club. I do not care for the size of those phones, but if I could get like legitimate,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey actual in-lens bokeh, you know, shallow depth of field, et cetera, which I know is probably impossible,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey but if I could, that would be enough to entice me to do the unthinkable, which is go big
⏹️ ▶️ Casey phone. And so that’s again, I mean, I, I would welcome an improved camera,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey but I don’t feel like I’m dying for it as much as I’m dying for like the days of yore when we had five day
⏹️ ▶️ Casey long batteries. Anything else about the event? Is that all we’re expecting? Are we going to see watches,
⏹️ ▶️ John We weren’t talking about what we were expecting. We were talking about
⏹️ ▶️ John Well, we have one more show where we can actually do
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco predictions.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, I mean, to be fair, like, I expect almost nothing that I actually just said.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, yeah. This is just your question of like what one thing would we add. But we have one more show before the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco right? No. Yeah, because we’re recording after the event.
⏹️ ▶️ John goodness all right well then we should talk about any other predictions
⏹️ ▶️ John and expectations for the event.
Event predictions
⏹️ ▶️ John I mean, to, you know, to clear these out, basically, like the
⏹️ ▶️ John I’m assuming we’re all more or less on the same page in terms of the widely rumored things that we agree that they’ll
⏹️ ▶️ John probably be there. You know, the phone with two cameras, a successor model to
⏹️ ▶️ John the the 10, 10 S and 10 are the pro name like all the
⏹️ ▶️ John highly rumored things seem. I mean, I feel like the camera thing is basically
⏹️ ▶️ John confirmed by parts leaks at this point. So three cameras and a weird square thing, we’re all agreed on, right?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, pretty much. I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco any kind of hardware feature like that, it seems pretty sure from
⏹️ ▶️ John all the leaks. And the fact that the size and shape of the phone is the same, it’s not wider or thinner or
⏹️ ▶️ John smaller, it’s basically more or less the same as our current XSs, at least for
⏹️ ▶️ John that model. I haven’t seen the rumors of the XR replacement. What do we think of the names, the rumor
⏹️ ▶️ John that the expensive ones will have Pro in the name and maybe the non-expensive
⏹️ ▶️ John ones will just be called iPhone 11 or something.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I’m going with the XR replacement, the less expensive
⏹️ ▶️ Marco one, I’m going with iPhone 11. For the high-end ones, I’m going with iPhone 11 Pro
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for both sizes, and then just having a screen size modifier on certain
⏹️ ▶️ Marco documentation. So the same way the iPad Pro, the iPad Pro is not named iPad Pro
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and iPad Pro Max. They’re both named iPad Pro, it just comes in two screen sizes. That’s what I think
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is gonna happen here. iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro, and the Pro happens to have two screen
⏹️ ▶️ John I totally agree with that, which makes me think Apple won’t do it.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco They definitely won’t do it.
⏹️ ▶️ John too much sense, and it is logical, it is reasonable, it’s a way out of their naming
⏹️ ▶️ John jam, and they’re like, well, that means they won’t do it, because it makes too much sense.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco They definitely won’t do it. They never name things the way that we think they will or should.
⏹️ ▶️ John I mean, if I had to modify that and say, well, how will Apple screw that up? I’m gonna say like, I
⏹️ ▶️ John think that’s what they should do and I think there’s a high chance they will do it, but I think the way they can screw it
⏹️ ▶️ John up enough to make it more plausible for modern Apple is to call the big one the iPhone 11 Pro
⏹️ ▶️ John is a terrible name and I’m like, well, that maybe means they’ll do it, but no, I’m gonna agree with Marco.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco They could go even crazier than that. For modern Apple, they could call the big one iPhone 12 Pro. Like, and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John it could be identical. Like, who
⏹️ ▶️ Marco knows? And they could do like, you know, iPhone XII. from.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, but but anyway, as you know, I agree with Marco, if I had to pick one naming scheme, that’s the one that’s the one I’m going
⏹️ ▶️ John to pick both as the one I think they should do and as the one I think they have a slightly higher chance of actually doing.
⏹️ ▶️ John But the larger point, I think the pro modifier, it’s smart to bring that to the phone
⏹️ ▶️ John just as you’re kind of running out of numbers.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I agree with everything you both said. I don’t think I really care for pro
⏹️ ▶️ Casey in this context. I agree. It’s the right answer. Full stop. I 100% agree it’s the right answer, but I don’t know.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I just feel like pro when it comes to a computer and I’ll even include the iPad
⏹️ ▶️ Casey in this, pro when it comes to a computer makes more sense to me and just feels
⏹️ ▶️ Casey right, pro when it comes to a phone just kind of feels wrong to me, but given the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey world in which we’re playing here, I completely agree that pro is the right answer in this case, and I’m not even
⏹️ ▶️ Casey sure what I would use if not pro to be honest with you, but
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I don’t know, just Pro feels a little weird.
⏹️ ▶️ John I get what you’re saying, Casey, because it doesn’t feel right to me either, but it feels right for Apple.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco Because like Apple
⏹️ ▶️ John does in the recent past half decade or so have a tiny little bit of
⏹️ ▶️ John a consistency hobgoblin going on there. Like, you know
⏹️ ▶️ John how they made all the OS names conform to the same ugly thing, right? And
⏹️ ▶️ John I agree, Pro doesn’t seem right, but they’re so obsessed with it. like the Mac Pro, the iPad
⏹️ ▶️ John Pro, the iMac Pro, the MacBook Pro, like it’s just everywhere. And it seems like kind of like
⏹️ ▶️ John getting all the OSs to conform to the thing, even though I think Pro in the larger world
⏹️ ▶️ John is not a good modifier for phone. In the Apple world, it is the obvious modifier for the
⏹️ ▶️ John most expensive phone. And given that they’re gonna cost like 1600 bucks or whatever, like, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ John it seems weird to me as well, but I feel like it is the irresistible force of Pro. Like
⏹️ ▶️ John nothing has been going in the opposite direction everything has been going pro. I feel like the iMac Pro really sealed the deal because
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s like, all right, they’re doing pro everywhere. Like there is no escaping pro.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think also, I mean, you know, if you look at the way they use pro on the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco other products, fits perfectly with what they did when they introduced the iPhone 10. You know,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they use pro to indicate like, you know, it isn’t about professionals, that’s all garbage.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It’s about like, the pro models are the bigger, best, and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco most expensive models that have the most features. It’s the opposite of con. Kind of,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John Yeah, exactly. And so,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like, you know, so, you know, with the iPad Pro, they introduced higher end features that helped it, you know, skyrocket
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in price above the regular line. Then they kind of brought the regular line down a little bit, but anyway, you know, that kind of happened with the iPad
⏹️ ▶️ Marco line. And with the iPhone 10, they basically did that. They introduced this
⏹️ ▶️ Marco new higher tier iPhone at a significantly higher price than previous iPhones.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and that got even higher with the next version. And they just didn’t name it Pro.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But if you look at what they did, it’s exactly the same thing that would have earned it that name based on their
⏹️ ▶️ Marco previous patterns. And so they could just now have realized, like, okay, actually,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco we do wanna call this the Pro, and just unify that convention across their product lines. It makes perfect sense.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And it doesn’t matter, like, there’s nothing about professionals. It doesn’t matter. It’s just like how they
⏹️ ▶️ Marco use Pro to indicate the high-end models that are more expensive and have all the best features.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, that’s a really good way of looking at it. I don’t know, I just wish there was a better name for it. I really,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey you know, somebody mentioned in the chat, iPhone Air, I really kind of want that to be a thing. I don’t know what I want
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it to look like other than to be, you know, like, I guess what I want is, I
⏹️ ▶️ Casey want the Motorola Razr of iPhones. Now, ultimately, I think I’d hate it because it would probably
⏹️ ▶️ Casey be underpowered, it would probably have a five-minute long battery, but man, do you remember, Well, maybe you guys didn’t.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey loved, yeah, well, I loved the Motorola RAZR. I thought that thing was
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the coolest phone in the entire world. And I feel like we have one floating around the house. And every
⏹️ ▶️ Casey time I pick it up, I still think to myself, man, that’s a cool phone. Like, obviously I would never use it
⏹️ ▶️ Casey today, but man, that’s a cool phone. And I don’t know, I think an iPhone Air would
⏹️ ▶️ Casey be pretty neat. Don’t expect it though.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, I don’t think they have, They have not yet diversified the iPhone line to that degree. The iPhone line has
⏹️ ▶️ John become more and more diverse over time, but I feel like there’s not, they haven’t done that next expansion. If there was
⏹️ ▶️ John a next expansion, I think there would be room for either an Air variant or a big, chunky, super battery
⏹️ ▶️ John one that we’ve talked about on past shows. But I don’t think this is the year they’re gonna do that. Because they
⏹️ ▶️ John have the different sizes, they have the new model and the old model, they have the pro and non-pro. The next expansion
⏹️ ▶️ John would be the really, really skinny, light one and the really, really fat, chunky, big one. either
⏹️ ▶️ John one or the other or both. But honestly, I feel like the diversity that they have in the iPhone line now, with the exception of them
⏹️ ▶️ John not having any good answers for the smaller phone, they may not ever go beyond
⏹️ ▶️ John the current diversity. Like I can see them having the 10, the big one, the
⏹️ ▶️ John 10R, and an SE size phone that isn’t crappy that they update, and that’s probably sufficient to cover most of the market
⏹️ ▶️ John for a long time anyway.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I do wish they would come up with something smaller. Like it’s because like the- That they update.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco yes, they do
⏹️ ▶️ John have something smaller. It’s just not, you
⏹️ ▶️ Marco know, yeah, like it’s funny, you know, when I, when I look at, um, overcast stats
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for like, you know, like I, I report back as part of my totally in house analytics, I report back, um,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco some, uh, a handful of device stats, like screen resolution and stuff like that. And what’s interesting is
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that the combination of 4.7 inch phones
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is still more in use among overcast people than the combination of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of 10 10 10s max and 10 our screen sizes.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It seems and if you read into some of Apple’s marketing recently, it kind of seems like maybe
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the new phones aren’t taking off as much as Apple thought they would. That’s why they keep having to run commercials
⏹️ ▶️ Marco about how good face ID is compared to touch ID. because like they shouldn’t have to run
⏹️ ▶️ Marco this now as we’re on the eve of the third face ID generation of phones
⏹️ ▶️ Marco coming out. But I think a lot of people really like the old size
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and shape and mechanics of having the home button, having touch ID. A lot of people hold onto those phones and didn’t
⏹️ ▶️ Marco upgrade to the XR, which is what Apple wanted them to do this past year.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And there is still a large contingent of people who use that 4.7 size. and the 5.5 previous
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Max size to some degree also. But the 4.7 is really sticking around strongly.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Like a lot of the previous Plus phone, the 5.5, a lot of those people moved
⏹️ ▶️ Marco up to the 10 series. But that 4.7 size, the 6, 7, and 8, those
⏹️ ▶️ Marco are really popular still.
⏹️ ▶️ John I think part of the reason of their popularity is that the, those, and I know this from
⏹️ ▶️ John my own family, a lot of those phones from that era, because if you were
⏹️ ▶️ John to graph the curve like phone performance and features and usability, we passed some threshold
⏹️ ▶️ John where now the one or two or even three year old iPhones are still actually pretty good phones. I mean,
⏹️ ▶️ John my son is using an iPhone six, uh, which, and he’s fine with it, right?
⏹️ ▶️ John I have family members to be fair. That is not still
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a pretty good phone.
⏹️ ▶️ John know. But, but I’m saying like the, the thing that’s attractive about those phones is the fact that they’re older and you can get them cheap
⏹️ ▶️ John used. And when you get them cheap used, it’s still an iPhone And it’s not a terrible phone.
⏹️ ▶️ John Obviously, it’s not as good as the new ones, but assuming that people haven’t upgraded the OS too far,
⏹️ ▶️ John especially if it’s on an older version of the OS, they’re surprisingly good. We passed the point,
⏹️ ▶️ John that wasn’t true in the beginning of the iPhone. If you had a three-year-old iPhone, it was just unusable garbage, right? But now,
⏹️ ▶️ John a two or three-year-old phone, that is much, it’s like the cheapest way to get into an iPhone. And I think people
⏹️ ▶️ John buy them and have good experiences with them. They’re like you with your used
⏹️ ▶️ John SE, or your used Apple Watch. Like, you can get an older one for a lot less money
⏹️ ▶️ John that is better than its price would suggest. And I think that’s a big motivator for why
⏹️ ▶️ John you’re seeing the usage of all sorts of old phones. Because if you want to get an iPhone and don’t want to pay the honestly
⏹️ ▶️ John ridiculous prices that we all pay for the brand new ones, you can get an okay iPhone and be okay with it and
⏹️ ▶️ John feel like you are living the iPhone life without having to spend 1500 bucks. Yeah, that is fair.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I mean, like I’m still blown away by the fact that I was able to get this iPhone SE
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for, it was like $116. Like, a nice dinner costs more than that.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John And I was just. It’s
⏹️ ▶️ John not 15 times worse than your XS, right?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Not even close. Like, it was surprisingly functional. I could still, I mean, it’s off right now because I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco didn’t want to buzz into it on the show, but like, I could still just, you know, pick it up and switch to it. And the only
⏹️ ▶️ Marco major things I noticed after, you know, I feel cramped screen-wise and typing-wise for
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the first hour of using it, but then I get used to it. And the only thing I noticed after that is like, wow, this camera
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is kind of old and horrible and Touch ID is first gen, so it’s not that fast, but
⏹️ ▶️ Marco still like, for $116, it was a really good buy. And
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it is very hard to justify the brand
⏹️ ▶️ John new ones. And again, for my family’s usage, the competition is the $50 Android phone.
⏹️ ▶️ John That’s the comparison point there is like, $50 Android phone, do I wanna pay three times as much for
⏹️ ▶️ John a used iPhone? Boy, that’s a hard sell, but when you get one, you’re like, oh, I do kind of like this new iPhone. I paid three times as much,
⏹️ ▶️ John it was $150, but it’s actually pretty nice. And that I think is the, whereas
⏹️ ▶️ John before, A, you either couldn’t get one for $150, or B, if you got one for $150, it would be worse than the $50 Android
⏹️ ▶️ Casey right, so any other thoughts on the phones specifically?
⏹️ ▶️ John I’m still rooting strongly for colors, not because of the advertisement thing or the invitation
⏹️ ▶️ John but just in general, because I mean, the XR comes in colors and I hope that they continue that trend. I would love to see
⏹️ ▶️ John fancy colors on the quote unquote pro models or whatever they end up calling them. But at the very least, I really hope
⏹️ ▶️ John they continue with the R equivalent series to do colors. Because I think colors on phone
⏹️ ▶️ John are a great idea. And I think the prevalence of clear cases shows that
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s a viable way to sell people colored phones that will actually be visible to the world in some way.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I agree with that. I don’t know that I would select a color, to be honest with
⏹️ ▶️ Casey you. But I’m sad that I don’t get the option by having a 10 or 10S or an 11 Pro
⏹️ ▶️ Casey or whatever we’re going to call the next one. I completely would
⏹️ ▶️ Casey at least consider and possibly even pick up a colored phone. Like this blue XR looks
⏹️ ▶️ Casey real nice on screen. I don’t recall having seen one in person, but on screen it looks great.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, I really like the colors of the XR like this past year.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And I always regret that, or I always rather, I’m sad that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the high-end phone doesn’t come in fun colors anymore. I mean, it kind of never did, I guess. But like,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the couple of times that Apple has introduced fun colors, you know, the 5C and then the XR, and all the iPod
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Touch and all the iPod lines before it, like, Apple introduces awesome, fun colors all the time,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but it’s never on the high-end phone, which is the one I actually want for other reasons. I wish they would give us
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that option. Like, I understand various marketing reasons why they might not, but like,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco doesn’t it make sense that if we’re willing to pay the most, we should have the most options? I don’t know. So
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I wish that there was more personality available. And if
⏹️ ▶️ Marco we’re finally gonna get that in some way this year, whether it’s through a rainbow logo or color options, whatever, I very
⏹️ ▶️ Marco much welcome that.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, you gotta wait for the iPhone Pro edition, which will be like very expensive cars where you essentially get
⏹️ ▶️ John to choose every material color on the interior of your Rolls Royce, right? So you go into a special room, and they’d
⏹️ ▶️ John be like, what color would you like this part to be?
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco What color would you
⏹️ ▶️ John like the frame around the connector to be? But the phone will cost $30,000, and you have to wait six
⏹️ ▶️ John months to get it. That would be less
⏹️ ▶️ Casey awesome. Look at the, right after I bought my car, just barely, or just exactly
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a year ago, actually, right after I bought my car, Volkswagen announced their Spectrum program, which apparently was a total
⏹️ ▶️ Casey disaster, but in theory, it let you choose any through, any of 40 different colors
⏹️ ▶️ Casey for a Volkswagen Golf R, And it was like $2,500 extra, I think, or something like that.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Now, as I understand it, actually getting a dealer to be able to get one for you apparently was impossible
⏹️ ▶️ Casey because Volkswagen, I guess, made it difficult. But in theory, I could have gotten a really hideous pink
⏹️ ▶️ Casey for my car instead of the really lovely blue I ended up with.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I agree with you guys. I think colors would be great. Out of curiosity, do you think that the reason we don’t get
⏹️ ▶️ Casey colors in the pro phones, for lack of a better term for it, is
⏹️ ▶️ Casey because manufacturing 11 gazillion of them for day one would be too difficult, because I don’t think
⏹️ ▶️ Casey like that the 5C or the XR were ever expected to ship on day
⏹️ ▶️ Casey one in the quarter, even day days one through 20 in the quantities that the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey iPhone 11 Pro or whatever will be are expected to ship on day one. Do you think it’s just that they couldn’t
⏹️ ▶️ John don’t think so. They already do have space gray or the other boring color
⏹️ ▶️ John Like they It’s not that the it’s the fact that there are options if they’re going to have two to three options Which
⏹️ ▶️ John they have done in the past and apparently they’re okay with They don’t the two to three options don’t have to
⏹️ ▶️ John be Black gray and silver like you can pick three
⏹️ ▶️ John colors have black and then two fun colors or something like sure sure sure You know and but but I do think
⏹️ ▶️ John in general having lots of color choices on day one for the first phone They’re probably
⏹️ ▶️ John a little bit of a little bit shy about like there There have been periods of time where they were
⏹️ ▶️ John worse at fulfilling the colors where you couldn’t get the color that you want. I mean, I think the seven was kind of like that. You can get the shiny
⏹️ ▶️ John black or, you know, the ones that are more difficult to manufacture. So there is that motivation is there.
⏹️ ▶️ John But within the limits of the cosmetic choices they offer,
⏹️ ▶️ John being more fun with them wouldn’t induce any new. I guess I think
⏹️ ▶️ John it wouldn’t induce any new issues. I may be wrong because it could be like because the colors are also similar, that people
⏹️ ▶️ John will settle for a for a different color, whereas if the colors are very vibrant, they won’t, no one’s gonna want, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ John I won’t accept the yellow one. Like if you don’t have the black one, I’m not gonna get a yellow one, I’ll just come back
⏹️ ▶️ John later, versus, oh, you don’t have the black one, I’ll get the silver one, it’s fine. Oh, one
⏹️ ▶️ John more thought about the top-end phone, the Pro, whatever it’s called.
⏹️ ▶️ John What do, the current year, it’s like, and we discovered this, retroactively rediscovered this
⏹️ ▶️ John when we were looking at our phone capacities, that they just offered it in 64 and 256. to
⏹️ ▶️ John go along with the if they do the pro branding or similar what do we think about only offering it in
⏹️ ▶️ John the biggest size like not even offering a 64 again as another way to drive up the price
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I don’t think they would do that because they already have driven up the base price
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you know to whatever it is like $300 whatever it is if they only had it like you know in
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like the 512 say or whatever whatever the biggest one would be they would have to either take a a lower margin
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on that one, or raise that base price even further to like, you know, 1500 or 1600
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or $1,700. And I think they would probably lose too many sales if they did that. So I’m guessing they keep it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in as the function that serves today of having multiple storage, which is an easy upsell where they
⏹️ ▶️ Marco can pocket a ton of profit on this optional upsell, but that it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco still keeps the entry price only slightly incredibly ridiculous instead of truly
⏹️ ▶️ Marco incredibly ridiculous.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Well, and let’s, let’s refresh our memory. So the 10 S it’s 64 gigs for a thousand
⏹️ ▶️ Casey bucks. It’s 256 gigs for 1150 and five 12 for 1350.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey So there are actually three, I think you had said John too, but there are three different storage.
⏹️ ▶️ John that’s right. I’d forgot about the five 12. I didn’t even realize they went up that high.
⏹️ ▶️ John All right. So that makes me think they’re definitely not going to, I mean, they could consolidate to two, maybe. Like anchoring only
⏹️ ▶️ John works if you have more than one point. Right. and so the whole price anchoring thing. I can see
⏹️ ▶️ John them dropping to two, but I mean, I think they’ll,
⏹️ ▶️ John the thing is it’s kind of like 64, as we discussed, passes that threshold for current
⏹️ ▶️ John everything, the current camera capabilities, the current usage of our phones, to be
⏹️ ▶️ John a reasonable amount for most people. So that being the anchor point
⏹️ ▶️ John makes sense. I wonder, I would love to see what their upsells were, because obviously I’m sure they got a lot of
⏹️ ▶️ John upsells to 256 because for all the people who know 64x2 small for them, they get 256, which apparently
⏹️ ▶️ John is a lot, right? But the 512 upsell, how well did that work? I mean,
⏹️ ▶️ John like how many people are buying five? Like what would you, I guess if you took tons and tons of 4K video,
⏹️ ▶️ John maybe they sell it to vloggers or something. I don’t, I don’t even know. Yeah, it was just a thought.
⏹️ ▶️ John I probably think, I think they’ll probably keep the things the same. I wouldn’t be surprised if they brought it down two options, but maintaining three is
⏹️ ▶️ John about the same. But like I think it in the context of our earlier discussion many months or weeks ago about,
⏹️ ▶️ John uh, configurability of max, like how many different options you have and if, you know, they’re removing the Ram option
⏹️ ▶️ John and what if there was only one hard drive option, one of those only one CBU option just sort of to the point of like decreasing
⏹️ ▶️ John the number of possible variants and making Apple’s lives easier and making the choice for the consumer easier if there was
⏹️ ▶️ John some sort of sweet spot where they can remove a choice and still keep most people happy. But
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⏹️ ▶️ Casey right, are we going to see watches at this event? My
⏹️ ▶️ Casey gut says yes, but I’m not terribly confident that that’s the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey case. And honestly, I’ll be darned what to expect from it. The watch has been
⏹️ ▶️ Casey on lockdown in terms of weeks. I don’t know what’s going to come.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, I mean, with the exception of that marketing image that leaked last year, that showed the new watch with the infograph
⏹️ ▶️ Marco face, with the exception of that, I don’t think watches have really ever leaked in meaningful ways.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I guess it’s a smaller team, probably smaller production volumes and fewer chances to leak, I guess.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But yeah, so we’ve heard, as far as I can tell, we’ve heard nothing credible about watches this year.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I will say that same analytics mechanism I have, as many app developers
⏹️ ▶️ Marco do, you’ll start of seeing devices like iPhone 12,1, iPhone 12,2,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you start seeing those being reported in your analytics. And so you kind of realize like, oh, assuming these are real, like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco somebody is testing new devices, they’re probably coming soon. And I have been seeing
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the new iPhone model numbers being reported. I have also started seeing Apple Watch
⏹️ ▶️ Marco model numbers being reported. Interestingly, I have not seen any iPad
⏹️ ▶️ Marco new models being reported in my analytics, which I guess we’ll get to that in a few minutes.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But there have been no iPad reports. There have been regular frequent watch
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and phone reports for the last couple of months. So I am expecting a watch, a series
⏹️ ▶️ Marco five watch, just based on that alone. And you know, it seems like, you know, they’re on
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a pretty good cycle. It’s as far as I would guess, it seems like the watches sell a lot
⏹️ ▶️ Marco around holidays. And so it would be wise and make total sense for
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Apple to make sure they have a new watch going into the holiday season, if at all possible.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Looks like they’ve done the last couple of years and it’s worked out very well for them as far as we can tell. So
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I do think they’re gonna up the watch. I don’t know what else they could add to it that would be like substantially,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco significantly awesome that they’re also likely to do. We actually did an episode of Under the Radar a couple of weeks ago
⏹️ ▶️ Marco where David and I basically like, And we were like, assuming that Apple has
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a year worth of progress and they can choose to spend this technological progress somehow,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco do they make the battery bigger? Do they make the screen stay always on? Do they let apps
⏹️ ▶️ Marco run in the background? What do they do? We did this whole episode about how we would spend this battery surplus.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco With the watch, it’s such a young platform that even just boring, quote, boring
⏹️ ▶️ Marco year-to-year updates actually could be pretty significant to it. So things like, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco if they actually can update the system on a chip and make it a little bit faster and a little bit more power
⏹️ ▶️ Marco efficient, there, it’s such a young thing that like one year upgrade could make
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that like 30% more power efficient or like 50% fast. Like you’re still seeing those like,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you know, multi-digit percentages of gains being had here every single
⏹️ ▶️ Marco year, like as they develop new technology. So even just a quote boring update to the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco watch would actually probably be significant enough to be interesting.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, I’m on board with that.
⏹️ ▶️ John I expect series five as well. I haven’t been following any of this, but I’m just, you know, and I don’t have any
⏹️ ▶️ John statistics. I haven’t looked at any rumors, but I believe what Marco is saying, and I think there will totally be a series five. I think
⏹️ ▶️ John a boring update is perfectly fine. If I had to spend the technological
⏹️ ▶️ John progress, I think this is not the year that we get always on display, although that’s always out there
⏹️ ▶️ John in the on the timeline, but maybe not this year. I would probably spend it
⏹️ ▶️ John thinking of like I don’t wear a watch, but lots of people in my family do. And the thing that I wish was improved about them
⏹️ ▶️ John was just the general sort of power and reliability of their wireless communication. Like
⏹️ ▶️ John very often one of my kids will be wearing a watch as their only smart device and I want to get their location or I
⏹️ ▶️ John want to be able to call them or they’ll want to text or something like that. And it works like they have some of the cellular watches
⏹️ ▶️ John it mostly works but in many situations where the phone would be
⏹️ ▶️ John able to do whatever we’re trying to do whether it be you know do a voice
⏹️ ▶️ John call or send a text message or get GPS location and the watch struggles takes a long time or
⏹️ ▶️ John can’t get a signal at all because it’s a smaller device that has less power its transmitter is less
⏹️ ▶️ John powerful than the phones I assume I mean that’s that’s what it certainly seems like to me and it stands to reason given the size
⏹️ ▶️ John of batteries so if I had to spend some of that they get a faster SoC that takes less power I
⏹️ ▶️ John would hope that the faster SoC would let the thing do race to sleep so it could preserve power
⏹️ ▶️ John further by doing whatever the watch has to do faster. I wouldn’t spend it on letting the watch
⏹️ ▶️ John do more stuff in the background I would spend it on you know be better about being a phone
⏹️ ▶️ John or a Wi-Fi thing or use Wi-Fi more often or be more powerfully send signals because that’s what I want out of
⏹️ ▶️ John the watch I want it to be a reliable tag on my children so I can find where they are and so they can communicate with
⏹️ ▶️ Marco That’s actually really good though. I like that reasoning because ultimately, many
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of my problems with the watch, both as a user and especially as a developer, are that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it can do a lot of things. It can do tons of things, but it’s so aggressive
⏹️ ▶️ Marco about power management that it does a lot of those things pretty poorly or has extremely
⏹️ ▶️ Marco small limits on what apps can do, what the hardware can do,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco as you mentioned, like how long it stays connected to Wi-Fi or especially cellular. It’s incredibly
⏹️ ▶️ Marco unreliable on cellular because it just tries to turn that radio off as fast as possible and stay connected as little as
⏹️ ▶️ Marco possible. And if they can get enough power savings to
⏹️ ▶️ Marco raise that budget for all that stuff, it could make the whole watch experience significantly
⏹️ ▶️ Marco better in a number of areas, both at the API level, like what apps are allowed to do and for how long and how frequently,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and just things like it’ll stay connected to your Wi-Fi better.
⏹️ ▶️ John So I’m assuming we also all saw the rumors about the titanium model and what was the other material?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and ceramic. Yeah, they had ceramic before in the series, I believe, two and three, right?
⏹️ ▶️ John It was the white ceramic?
⏹️ ▶️ John it was like a grayish ceramic, I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco forget. First it was just white, I think that was the series two, and then when the series three
⏹️ ▶️ Marco came out I believe that’s when they added in addition to the white they had a dark gray option
⏹️ ▶️ Marco which I actually I don’t think I ever saw the dark gray in person it didn’t look great in pictures I actually own the white one briefly
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and it was awesome it was a really cool like I guess I love the look of like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco my standard Apple watch is the the stainless steel model with the white sport band
⏹️ ▶️ Marco aka the Stephen Hackett setup or at least the former Stephen Hackett setup I really enjoy that look I think it’s a
⏹️ ▶️ Marco very nice like clean look and the white ceramic kind of just took it to the next level. It’s just,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it was really cool. The only problem is that the white ceramic comes with an off-white strap.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I don’t know. Anyway, ceramic is an awesome watch material. People worry about, like,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you know, they think it’s like a dinner plate and they worry about it shattering. And ceramic that is
⏹️ ▶️ Marco used for watches can and does shatter, but it takes a hell of an impact to do it. Like,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you basically would have to, like, drop it, like, from full height onto, like, a concrete floor
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to actually like chip it or crack it meaningfully. You have to really abuse it hard to
⏹️ ▶️ Marco break it in most reasonable use. And the advantage of ceramic is that it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is very hard to scratch. So it ends up looking really nice the whole time. It’s a very nice
⏹️ ▶️ Marco material to make watches out of. Titanium is in most ways similar to steel
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in like how it can be worked to make a watch. Lots of watches are made out of titanium, you know, at all price
⏹️ ▶️ Marco points and it’s a really nice material. It’s very lightweight and you know if you’re thinking
⏹️ ▶️ Marco about like the old power books that were titanium it’s a totally different beast because not only was that a long time ago and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco we know how to work it better now and there’s different grades, different alloys, but also the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco old power books were painted and the paint flaking off was the problem. When you use
⏹️ ▶️ Marco titanium in jewelry like in a watch you don’t paint it you like polish it and so it’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it wouldn’t be doing that kind of thing at all. So those are both really nice options. I don’t know what the heck they’re going to charge
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for them. But you know, charge like for this for the ceramic, they it was, I believe, $1,200 for
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the ceramic version of the Apple Watch at a time when the steel one was like six or $700. So like,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it’s probably going to be in that ballpark again, like, you know, somewhere around, I would guess, you know, 12 to $1,500
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for both of those options.
⏹️ ▶️ John My expectation is that the series five will look pretty much exactly like the series 4
⏹️ ▶️ John other than the materials changes, which makes me think that they will definitely,
⏹️ ▶️ John I mean I’m sure we all agree that they’ll keep the series 4 around in some way, maybe with reduced options
⏹️ ▶️ John in the normal way that they do where they keep the old model around but then you can’t get all the different options that you could, mostly because
⏹️ ▶️ John the series 4 will still be a really good watch because I don’t expect the series 5 to be radically different in
⏹️ ▶️ John any way that is immediately detectable like between the 3 and the 4 there was like a huge difference in terms of the screen with with
⏹️ ▶️ John the rounded corners and all the other stuff. So I feel like this is kind of like the S generation. I know they don’t do that on watches,
⏹️ ▶️ John but this feels like the S generation of watch. And I, you know, my wife has the four and
⏹️ ▶️ John I see her use it all the time and I think she’s still happy with it and I still think it’s a really good watch. So,
⏹️ ▶️ John uh, the five I’m, I’m wondering how they’re going to sort of induce
⏹️ ▶️ John demand on the five. I suppose the new materials help and the fact that if you’re shopping for a present, you’re just going to get the most recent watch,
⏹️ ▶️ John right? Uh, but other than that, I guess it’s the with the S phones. Like, why would I get this instead of the old one? Well, this
⏹️ ▶️ John one’s a little bit better. That’s apparently reason enough. But that’s what I think the 5 is going to be.
⏹️ ▶️ John I’ll be surprised if the 5 is a shocking watch in some way.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey No new sensors of any kind that you can think
⏹️ ▶️ John of? Again, I haven’t been keeping up with the rumors, but I don’t think so.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I mean, I don’t think so either. I was just curious if you had any thoughts or expectations or anything.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I mean, it could be a really boring update, you know, in most ways, but like, if the Series 5 is just like,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you know, faster, better materials, new colors, whatever else, then maybe they keep the Series 4 around
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for less money, because the Series 4 raised the price, you know, noticeably. And this is the kind of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco market where it would be significantly beneficial to their sales if
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they could achieve lower price points, you know, with older models than they’ve done it before. So that kind of thing would
⏹️ ▶️ Marco help them tremendously.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, fair point. All right, so we agree no iPads then? I mean, Marco, you had said that.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I agree with you, Marco. John, any thoughts on iPads this event?
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, I don’t know. iPads are weird in that for whatever reason, I can
⏹️ ▶️ John never keep it in my mind what kind of cadence they’re on. Perhaps it’s because they’re not on a regular
⏹️ ▶️ John cadence. I honestly don’t know. But
⏹️ ▶️ John phone and watch seems like more than enough for an event. iPads in October if they were going to come at all seems
⏹️ ▶️ John reasonable to me. But on the other hand, I look at the existing iPad line and I think, aren’t we due
⏹️ ▶️ John for an iPad refresh? Again, I’m so bad at keeping up with the timeline of the iPads. It’s not because I’m not
⏹️ ▶️ John interested, by the way. I’m very interested in new iPads. I just can’t get… The
⏹️ ▶️ John cadence doesn’t sort of settle in in my mind of when I actually should expect iPads. I actually have to go to the internet and Google
⏹️ ▶️ John for things and try to find the release dates. Am I right in thinking
⏹️ ▶️ John that they’ve been oddly spaced, or am
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco I just not able to have them?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, so the last iPads came out last October at the Brooklyn event that Casey and I were at. The
⏹️ ▶️ Marco one before that was the 10.5, and that had come out at WWDC
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the year before. So it was like 14 or 15 months, something like that. And I think before
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that it was like 18 months. So they’re not quite every year. So it wouldn’t surprise
⏹️ ▶️ Marco me, at the soonest, I think we would see it at maybe an October event. Like, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco cause this, this September event, like in recent years, there hasn’t been just one event in the fall. There’s been two.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And so this event is probably, if I had to guess, probably going to be focused only
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on iOS 13, new iPhones and new watches. And then I’m guessing
⏹️ ▶️ Marco sometime later in the fall, there is a second event that will be for the MacBook Pro
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and maybe, and as you know, the Mac Pro that would ship, the MacBook Pro, and then maybe
⏹️ ▶️ Marco iPads if they’re ready, Or if it’s just MacBook Pros, they might not
⏹️ ▶️ Marco even do it at an event. They might just have, like if it’s just the 16-inch and they don’t have anything else ready yet, maybe that would just be like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a press demo kind of thing. Who knows?
⏹️ ▶️ John I really hope they do an event for that. I mean, I can understand why they might not, but it’s so important to
⏹️ ▶️ John us, I think it deserves
⏹️ ▶️ Casey an event. Well, plus, couldn’t they just staple it on the side of a media event? And by media, I mean like their Apple
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John it’s called. It’s called
⏹️ ▶️ John don’t think they’re gonna mix Apple TV Plus with a MacBook
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Oh, I forgot about all the streaming services. Oh no, that’s gonna
⏹️ ▶️ John miss everything up. Services they could do in September. Like they’re just announcing pricing or
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco something. That’s true. They’re not pricing whatever
⏹️ ▶️ John they just decide. Like Disney, everyone else has already gone, right? If they were waiting for everyone else to go so they could
⏹️ ▶️ John find out like what they’re up against, which apparently they’re up against a lot with Disney, who is offering deep discounts,
⏹️ ▶️ John then it’s time. But anyway, that can be in any event. But it would feel really weird to have an event that
⏹️ ▶️ John was like Apple TV plus announcements plus MacBook Pros plus iPads.
⏹️ ▶️ John Like I don’t know how you do that second fall event. I agree with Marco that I think this first fall event, phones
⏹️ ▶️ John and watches sounds like it and they could, they held, they could shove an Apple TV Plus pricing in there as well.
⏹️ ▶️ John But like the reason I’m getting a little antsy about the iPads, now that you tell me that the spacing was weird, it makes me feel better
⏹️ ▶️ John that I’m not, you know, misremembering things. But like
⏹️ ▶️ John once the A13 comes out in all the fancy new iPhones, Now we’re into another
⏹️ ▶️ John non-updated pro situation. Like if you’re serious about these iPads being iPad pros, you can’t let them
⏹️ ▶️ John languish for six months not getting the A13. They’ve got to get the A13. Otherwise, what’s the point in having
⏹️ ▶️ John a pro if you’re not gonna update it?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, there have been iPad updates in recent years in the spring. And it’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco been the lower end models, but maybe they’re not afraid to just delay this
⏹️ ▶️ Marco one a little bit, push it into the spring, and then they could have one event where they update a bunch of the iPads.
⏹️ ▶️ John And especially since we expect, or at least I expect, the new iPads to be, again, an S generation
⏹️ ▶️ John type of thing where it’ll be another one in the current case design with the flat edges and everything. It’ll just have the
⏹️ ▶️ John A13 and it’ll be better in various ways. But otherwise, it’s not gonna be the big radical change like the current
⏹️ ▶️ John iPad Pros were. So it’s all the more reason, I think, well, come on, get on with it. Just, you know, upgrade the internals and
⏹️ ▶️ John give us the one with the A13 sooner rather than later. So that’s, you know, we all agree it’s not this event
⏹️ ▶️ John apparently, but I hope that we don’t have to wait for the spring for it.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, I agree with you. Are we getting a lot of services chatter since I brought it up? Are we getting
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a lot of services chatter at this event? Oh,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I forgot about that. You know they’re gonna hammer that in like crazy. It’s gonna be really obnoxious probably.
⏹️ ▶️ John Like we still have the other shoe that still needs to drop here. You know, we talked about Apple TV Plus and how everyone else has announced
⏹️ ▶️ John their pricing or you know, a lot of people have. But there’s also the other lingering thing
⏹️ ▶️ John that’s out there and it’s also part of the whole stuff that Disney’s done is, will they, won’t they unbundle
⏹️ ▶️ John stuff? We talked about it forever, Apple Prime, blah, blah, blah. Other competitors are
⏹️ ▶️ John doing it. Apple has a lot of services. At a certain point, when you get a certain number of services, the opportunity
⏹️ ▶️ John to bundle them in a package for less than they would cost individually comes up. And thus far, Apple has not
⏹️ ▶️ John announced anything about that. So I’m in any kind of services stuff,
⏹️ ▶️ John I’m not just looking for, oh, I wonder what Apple TV Plus is gonna cost, I’m looking for bundle. I want that sweet bundle.
⏹️ ▶️ John I mean, did you see what Disney said? That Disney’s doing a thing where if you sign up for three year, like basically if you do a contract,
⏹️ ▶️ John if you’re willing to pay for three years, you get it at a lower rate, which is exactly how the cable companies do all this
⏹️ ▶️ John stuff. Like everything old is new again.
⏹️ ▶️ John was. Yeah, I expect bundles to be coming back. I think Apple should have one. And
⏹️ ▶️ John since pricing stuff, you can wait until like the last minute because it’s just a number on
⏹️ ▶️ John a spreadsheet somewhere or whatever, I really hope whenever Apple starts announcing more stuff
⏹️ ▶️ John about services, a bundle is mentioned.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I would love to see that, but I don’t think we will, because
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Apple, for all their wonderful qualities, they really
⏹️ ▶️ Marco don’t care ever to compete on price with anybody ever. Like, the last
⏹️ ▶️ Marco time Apple competed well on price against its competitors, I think, was the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco iPod line. They just don’t seem to care, and it seems like as time goes on, they care
⏹️ ▶️ Marco even less and less and less. They only serve the high end,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and they just lose the low end willingly. And I don’t think that’s gonna be any different here. You know,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco we’ve been, you know, bugging them for years to do things like, you know, raise the free iCloud storage
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and stuff like that, and they just don’t, because they just don’t care.
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s not that they don’t care like they obviously care a lot about. Like they’re they’re very aware of what their
⏹️ ▶️ John competitors are priced at. But like the formula that that all goes through, like the machine that the inputs go through, like
⏹️ ▶️ John they’re very I think all the inputs are there. They know what everyone else charges. They know what all the high end Android phones cost.
⏹️ ▶️ John They know what all the competing PCs and stuff costs. But the machine they go into includes
⏹️ ▶️ John as one of its inputs the fact that pricing is a signal and Apple wants to send the signal that they are the best and
⏹️ ▶️ John they’re the most premium brand. And so what comes out the other end is continued
⏹️ ▶️ John high prices, because that is part of Apple’s signal. But I don’t think they’re entirely ignorant because they do
⏹️ ▶️ John adjust prices to reflect changes in the market. It’s just that they’re never
⏹️ ▶️ John going to be well, because they did this. We have to do it. But like notice that I was saying bundle. I wasn’t
⏹️ ▶️ John saying a bundle that has a price close to Disney’s bundle, just just a bundle
⏹️ ▶️ John period. And I feel like if everyone else is doing a bundle and like, here’s the thing, it in the same
⏹️ ▶️ John way that they find ways to get you to step up to the next model. A bundle is a way
⏹️ ▶️ John for you to actually pay more than you would before because you wouldn’t have bought, like you’re interested
⏹️ ▶️ John in one, maybe one and a half services, but the bundle makes it seem like such a deal
⏹️ ▶️ John to get three and you never would have bought three individually. So I feel like they could do that math and end up with a bundle
⏹️ ▶️ John that is not as cheap as other people’s bundles, but nevertheless drives Apple customers to actually pay
⏹️ ▶️ John more than they would have otherwise. That’s the magic of bundling. So that’s what I’m looking for. Not for them to be price competitive,
⏹️ ▶️ John but for them to find, for them to use that tool as a way to get us to pay even
⏹️ ▶️ John more money than we would have for their services.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And I completely agree. And I’m not saying that they won’t
⏹️ ▶️ Marco be price competitive individually. I know they won’t. That’s a foreclosure.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But I think even the idea to create a bundle is the kind of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco admitting defeat in a certain way or admitting… Or devaluing their services. Yeah, in a certain way
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that I don’t think they’re going to do, or at least they won’t do it until it’s way too late. You know, like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that’s, it’s, it’s not their style to come out with something very price competitive in 2019. But like
⏹️ ▶️ John I said, the bundle doesn’t have to be price competitive. The bundle can continue to be not price competitive, but it will still
⏹️ ▶️ John be a bundle. Like it will, it will be a discount over buying them individually, which still ends up being more than
⏹️ ▶️ Marco else. I think even creating a bundle is kind of like acknowledging that they have a weakness in the market
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that they need to use a bundle to get around. I don’t think they’re even going to do that.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, I mean, if you like I said, the other way to frame it is it’s a way like giving you a 64
⏹️ ▶️ John and a 256 here to get more money out of than you otherwise spend because you don’t want the 64 because it’s
⏹️ ▶️ John too small, but you see the other option for 256. Now you end up spending more than you would have otherwise. That’s
⏹️ ▶️ John that’s the way I’m seeing I see your perspective as well that it is a way to say, oh, other people have bundles, therefore we have
⏹️ ▶️ John to have one. We don’t want to be even a follower in that way, despite the fact that our numbers are different. But
⏹️ ▶️ John the other way is, is this actually a way to get people to pay more money, just like the 64
⏹️ ▶️ John to 256 jump on the phone storage?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey What’s interesting, as I hear you guys, you know, kind of theorize what’s going to happen,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I started thinking to myself, well, what are we going to see services wise next week? And,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and the more I think about it, I don’t know, if I were
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Apple, if I would feel terribly confident going into this event. Just hear me out for a second.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey If these iPhone 11s look about the same as the iPhone XS,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and if they act about the same as the XS. So I’m thinking, you know, we were probably going to get another
⏹️ ▶️ Casey lens in the camera. We’re going to have a faster processor. But by and large,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey there’s no like really marquee feature. I mean, okay, yeah, the camera
⏹️ ▶️ Casey could be but just hear me out on this. You know, there’s no marquee feature that says, oh my gosh, this is a big change,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey like touch ID to face ID kind of change. The press is going to just shrug
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and say, oh, it looks like the iPhone from the last two years, who cares? I don’t know
⏹️ ▶️ Casey if I were Apple, if I’m feeling terribly confident about this iPhone 11, this
⏹️ ▶️ Casey evolutionary rather than revolutionary iPhone 11, and then
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I can’t imagine coming in that same event and saying, oh, by the way, we’re going to charge at least as much, if not more,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Disney for less stuff. So the more I think about it, the more I think
⏹️ ▶️ Casey they’re going to build up the services stuff, like I think Marco had said. You know,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey they’re absolutely going to talk about it for sure, but I don’t think we’re going to see pricing yet. I think there’ll be a separate event
⏹️ ▶️ Casey in October or thereabouts when we hear about pricing and get more details about the services. Maybe
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a bundle, I’d be surprised. I think I come close to Marco’s perspective on this than John’s,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey but again, I see both sides. I don’t think we’re going to see a whole lot about
⏹️ ▶️ Casey services in this event. The only ace in the hole, though, is what if there’s some sort
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of hardware on the phone that’s specifically good for games and then we could maybe lean heavily
⏹️ ▶️ Casey into Apple Arcade. I’m not sure what that hardware would be, to be honest. A D-pad? Yeah, a D-pad.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey There it is. A lightning-thorn D-pad. That’s what
⏹️ ▶️ John be. You know that camera on the back that’s a big square? It’s actually a D-pad, too. It tilts.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco A D-pad on the back. out like like that old iPad or the old iPad touch hook. Remember that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, Casey Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I
⏹️ ▶️ Casey forgot about that. Yeah. But I don’t know. I just I don’t see them. I can’t see
⏹️ ▶️ Casey them letting this event go by without talking services. And I’m not trying to say that that’s what you guys were saying. But
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I really think they’re just gonna try to, you know, just spark the hype machine
⏹️ ▶️ Casey one more time and kind of leave it at that.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, I mean, that’s probably the more likely option because I think the phone and the watches and iOS 13 are
⏹️ ▶️ John plenty for this event because the phone event is called the phone event because it’s like who cares it’s the phone
⏹️ ▶️ John and then some other stuff uh so I think that would be fine but you know I don’t know like the
⏹️ ▶️ John main thing arguing against a bundle I feel like is what are you going to bundle it with
⏹️ ▶️ John like I don’t I’m not sure they have enough stuff that are desirable that a bundle actually works as
⏹️ ▶️ John designed because Apple Music plus Apple TV plus, is that attractive enough to do a bundle? Just two things?
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco So maybe bundles. And
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey Arcade. iCloud. iCloud, Arcade.
⏹️ ▶️ John No, that’s just us talking. Like, of course, we can think of things that we’d like to bundle. Like, we want, you know, Apple Prime, bundle
⏹️ ▶️ John all the things. They’re not gonna do that. I feel like if they’re gonna do a bundle at all, it would have to
⏹️ ▶️ John be like three media-ish services that make sense together
⏹️ ▶️ John that are already desirable enough to make it work. Despite the fact that we all want them to bundle everything because we’re all in an Apple
⏹️ ▶️ John and it’d be like, I want to have one bill for all the Apple things. I think that is
⏹️ ▶️ John far, much farther off in the distance and maybe not ever going to happen. So yeah, I would,
⏹️ ▶️ John I would be fine with them. You know, I get in cases right about the bad PR of the inevitable bad PR
⏹️ ▶️ John of their pricing unless they shock us all by undercutting Disney which they won’t. They won’t. Like, so
⏹️ ▶️ John yeah, do the other announcements, talk about this stuff and maybe, you know, maybe talk up one of the
⏹️ ▶️ John other services like Apple Arcade or something. They could do a long segment on that and not mention anything about
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple TV Plus and just continue to have that lurking out there for a future fall event or something.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So one thought, I mean, first of all, I think you guys are nuts. I think there’s no way that they don’t use
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the draw of the iPhone event to push the services. There’s no way.
⏹️ ▶️ John Right, but we’re saying that they can announce a price. We’re all agreeing that they’re gonna hype it up and be like, everybody loves services, they’re
⏹️ ▶️ John great, Apple TV Plus is coming, and look at this new trailer for the shows, but like, what is the price?
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey Like, what’s the problem?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey To refine my previous statement, What I’m trying to say is there will be hype for
⏹️ ▶️ Casey sure, but I don’t think we’re going to get any more actionable. It’s not the right word, but like
⏹️ ▶️ Casey tangible information from this event. We’ll see trailers, we’ll get hype, but we’re not going to
⏹️ ▶️ Casey have any more information about pricing. I don’t think maybe we’ll get specific release
⏹️ ▶️ Casey dates because we don’t have a specific release date. Right. Um, but I don’t think we’re going to get
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a lot in, in the sense of this is the exact lineup for Apple TV plus this is exactly
⏹️ ▶️ Casey when it will launch. this is exactly how much it’s gonna cost.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, yeah, I mean, you’re probably right about that because it does seem like a lot of this stuff is launching in like, you know, November,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or like, you know, later in the fall. So I guess I could see that, but, yeah,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the reality is, like, they are pushing so hard on services now. It is so important
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to them. They are pushing for so much growth and so much revenue and so much success in that area and launching all these
⏹️ ▶️ Marco new services that, you know, service promos are gonna be the new game demos
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in Apple events. There’s gonna be too many of them. We’re all gonna be like, oh my God, kill me. It’s gonna be everyone’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco bathroom break time during the keynote because it’s just gonna be so just dragging on with more and more services
⏹️ ▶️ Marco push and services promotion. So there’s no way that they’re gonna be light on it. They are
⏹️ ▶️ Marco gonna hammer it into us until we are so tired of hearing about it, even if the services aren’t ready yet. I did,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco though, just have a crazy thought. As John was saying, what would they bundle in? It isn’t just Apple Music and Apple
⏹️ ▶️ Marco TV. Not only do we also have Apple Arcade and Apple News Plus, whatever their weird magazine thing is.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco You know, so there’s already like those core services right there of just the new things they launched. But what if they did something
⏹️ ▶️ Marco even crazier? What if they, you know, whether they bundle in iCloud storage or not, I think they should,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco what if they tied it into the iPhone upgrade program? And you could actually just like pay
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a slightly higher iPhone upgrade program rate and you get all these Apple services. Like the fact is like,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they are pushing so hard on services that tying it in
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a strong way to the iPhone, which is like their biggest asset, is not out
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of the question. In fact, I fully expect them to do it. I think they are gonna push way harder on services
⏹️ ▶️ Marco than any of us would predict. The only thing holding them back, I think, is that it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco seems like their backend systems for like billing and subscription management and everything are
⏹️ ▶️ Marco so primitive and archaic. I don’t even know if their backend is capable
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of selling a bundle. But if it is, and that’s a really
⏹️ ▶️ Marco big if, I fully expect them to do all sorts of crazy stuff. Things that we
⏹️ ▶️ Marco would never have predicted. Things like tying it into an iPhone purchase at the time of purchase,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco stuff like that. They’re gonna push really hard on this.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, that does make sense.
⏹️ ▶️ John So, no Macs. Just to clarify. Nope. No Macs on September 10th.
⏹️ ▶️ John They should announce the price of the wheels on the Mac Pro.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John The only thing is,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like waiting until later in the fall, if they don’t have Macs at this event, And if they are debuting
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a brand new design with the 16-inch this fall, I don’t think
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they would have an event just for that, but it also doesn’t seem like iPads are
⏹️ ▶️ Marco ready yet. And I can’t see them having an event that is later in the fall of like, we’re
⏹️ ▶️ Marco gonna tell you again about a few TV shows and here’s a MacBook Pro. It just seems like a weird combo.
⏹️ ▶️ John I thought we’d seen the latest rumors on the 16-inch that the date was later than we thought and it wasn’t gonna be until 2020.
⏹️ ▶️ John I forget what the, I’m losing
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco track of. They’ve gone back and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco forth a lot. It’s been all over the map. But I think the most recent rumors are sooner
⏹️ ▶️ Marco rather than later, like not like
⏹️ ▶️ John this fall. See if you had a overcast out for the Mac, you’d have all sorts of stats on weird Mac showing up. Yeah.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco All right, well, thank you to our sponsors this week. Hover Eero away and we will talk to you next
Ending theme
⏹️ ▶️ John If you’re into Twitter, you can follow them
⏹️ ▶️ Marco at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S So that’s Casey Liss,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-E-N-T Marco Armin,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A-C-R-A-Q-U-S-A
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s accidental, they
⏹️ ▶️ John didn’t mean to Accidental, tech podcast so long
Summer of Marco
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So I finally went in the ocean.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yay! And you’re not dead,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco right? As far as I can tell I’m not
⏹️ ▶️ John dead. Good! You had been in before. Last time we discussed that you had described various experiences
⏹️ ▶️ John and what you did and didn’t like about being in the ocean. So what threshold have you crossed? What sort of
⏹️ ▶️ John metric for yourself had you set that you have now achieved?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So previous to today I had been in the ocean only in the sense of like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco waiting kind of like up to maybe maybe like my chest, but never
⏹️ ▶️ Marco getting past the breakers, never swimming off my feet,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco stuff like that. And today, I finally did it. Today, wow,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it’s saving it to the last minute, huh? Yeah, yeah. We haven’t gone to the beach that much this summer. So
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John our rental this year-
⏹️ ▶️ Marco You go to the beach every day. I see your Instagram stories. Yeah, at night. Yeah, because they don’t allow dogs
⏹️ ▶️ Marco during the day. You’re allowed to swim at night. Yeah, I’m gonna swim in the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco You know, you’re there in the dark with no lifeguards.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John Yeah, that’s not gonna
⏹️ ▶️ John happen. So that’s that’s the question when you when you did Today, did you have a buddy?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yes, not only were there tons of people and lifeguards around but it was also finally
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a green flag day Which means like the lowest level of waves and Tiff came out with me
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Good, so I refused to go without a buddy for my very first time. So where’s the Instagram story
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of that? Well, it turns out it’s kind of hard to hold a phone while you’re you know
⏹️ ▶️ John You’re not gonna hold it. Someone else will be holding and filming you. Filming. I’m sold.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey No, the reason that it wasn’t filmed was because it wasn’t sunset.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, right. We needed a more dramatic battery. It’s not up to TIFF standards. Anyway, continue.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, so there’s not much to say. This was a big fear for me
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for a long time. And this year, as I learned to swim finally, like as an adult,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco this was kind of like one of the last big things to do. we didn’t have a lot of beach days this
⏹️ ▶️ Marco summer because the rental this year had a pool, so we just kept going to the pool instead. So we didn’t
⏹️ ▶️ Marco have that, and I hate putting on the full body sunscreen and everything. I just, I don’t like that at all. So
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I tend to avoid beach days. But I did finally do it, and it was
⏹️ ▶️ Marco fine. It was terrifying. I knew you would laugh at me, John, because
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I wore goggles during it, and I quickly learned that you can’t see anything, but I figured like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a like it would I would feel better underwater with goggles like I thought maybe I’d be able to see the surface
⏹️ ▶️ Marco so I’d at least have some orientation
⏹️ ▶️ Marco turns out nope can’t see crap in the Atlantic like
⏹️ ▶️ John I’m gonna tell you what I tell my kids one of whom still is like
⏹️ ▶️ John you and wants to wear the goggles the other one does not your eyes are waterproof
⏹️ ▶️ Marco yeah but are they salt and sand proof yeah
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s fine oh I mean it’s way better than chlorine oh yeah this is a problem there’s actually a problem for me speaking
⏹️ ▶️ John of ocean stuff I I instinctively open my eyes underwater. I’ve always opened my eyes underwater
⏹️ ▶️ John from the time I learned to swim in the Long Island Sound. One of the things my swimming teacher did when I was, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ John four years old or whatever, when I was learning how to swim in the sound was she would give me the task to go under
⏹️ ▶️ John the water and find rocks of various colors. So she said, get me a black rock, get me a gray rock, get me a green rock.
⏹️ ▶️ John So I always open my eyes and never wear goggles. This is bad if you’re wearing contacts.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco I’m wearing contacts to the
⏹️ ▶️ John beach just because it’s, you know, it’s better. You can’t go go in the ocean with your glasses on you’ll lose them, which I have done.
⏹️ ▶️ John And also if you’re putting your eye up to the electronic viewfinder of your camera, it’s better not to have glasses getting
⏹️ ▶️ John in the way of everything. So wear contacts and then I go in the ocean and I open my eyes and they wash out of my eyes. Which
⏹️ ▶️ John is fine, they’re daily wear, like, you know, they’re disposable. So it’s, you know, but anyway, the ocean claimed a contact this year.
⏹️ ▶️ John But yeah, you can open your eyes underwater and it’s better than opening them with chlorine because your eyes won’t sting of chlorine when you’re done.
⏹️ ▶️ John Salt water is very much like your tears. Different salinity, I’m sure, but it’s actually fairly friendly.
⏹️ ▶️ John And yeah, you actually can see things, but no, don’t expect to like it’s not going to be like
⏹️ ▶️ John a pool. Don’t expect to see things to that degree.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, I mean, I couldn’t even see the surface like the few times I went under like I couldn’t even see like which I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco mean, I knew which direction was up because the waves weren’t that big. I just kind of, you know, felt and kept track of it.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But like it was very hard to see anything.
⏹️ ▶️ John So did you did you have this experience, which is I think one of the sort of key experiences
⏹️ ▶️ John of swimming in the ocean, going past the breakers, although it is more pronounced when the waves
⏹️ ▶️ John are big, is that the intimidating surf that you’ve been dealing with and
⏹️ ▶️ John worried about, once you get past it, you’re like, oh, once you’re past it,
⏹️ ▶️ John nothing doing out here. It’s calm. And yeah, my feet are off the ground, but I don’t have to worry about a wave squishing
⏹️ ▶️ John me anymore. And in general, I can hang out here basically indefinitely and have conversations while looking in at the shore
⏹️ ▶️ John as the breakers crush the other plebs who are out in front of them.” Did you have that
⏹️ ▶️ John experience? Was it calming to get past
⏹️ ▶️ Marco them? I think I came fairly close to what you’re saying. I did get past—I mean, the waves were very
⏹️ ▶️ Marco low today. There was like—in the previous attempts, one of the ways that I had gotten my
⏹️ ▶️ Marco butt handed to me was on taller wave days,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco not going under a wave that I was supposed to go under. So this time there were no waves
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that were so big that you were supposed to go under them. I went under a couple anyway just to see what it was like, but like that’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco when I couldn’t see anything, but it was fine. So I was able to get past them fairly easily. They were just the kind that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco make you bob up and down. So able to get past them very easily and then I was out in the water. And
⏹️ ▶️ Marco this, since I’ve learned, you know, I started taking the swimming lessons this past spring.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco This was the first time I had been in water I couldn’t stand in because the swimming lesson pool
⏹️ ▶️ Marco didn’t have a deep end. My gym pool doesn’t have a deep end, and the beach
⏹️ ▶️ Marco rental pool doesn’t have a deep end. So I had actually never been in water I couldn’t stand in.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Never in your life? Never without a flotation device.
⏹️ ▶️ John Whoa, that’s… See, I would not have let you… If I knew this fact, I would not have cleared
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco you to do it for today, for your ocean
⏹️ ▶️ John day. Well, when else am I going to do it? Well, even if you can technically stand, you can lift
⏹️ ▶️ John your feet off the ground and practice treading water, which I’m assuming
⏹️ ▶️ Marco right? Yeah, I mean, I’ve been doing that in the pool for, you know, all summer. Like it’s like four and a half feet deep. It’s not,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you know, you can’t
⏹️ ▶️ John Right, but all right, so that’s the, you need to be able to tread water, and in particular, if you want to crank
⏹️ ▶️ John your way up in this, it would be nice to be able to tread water without using your legs.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, actually, so I don’t know how much this matters. Naturally, I did Wikipedia research on treading
⏹️ ▶️ Marco water before actually trying it, and apparently there’s this like egg beater technique where you
⏹️ ▶️ Marco only use your legs, and it is apparently like the most efficient way to do it.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, no, either one. I’m just saying, get to the point where you don’t need every single
⏹️ ▶️ John one of your limbs at full capacity to successfully tread water, because that means you’re on this hairline between death and
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco treading water.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Right. I mean, the good thing is, you were right that there is noticeably increased buoyancy in the ocean.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So that helped a lot. But ultimately, yeah, I was able to go out there and float around
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for a few minutes until I got tired, and then I went back in. And then
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I did a second pass a little while later back in it was I mean it was really cold so
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that’s another problem but
⏹️ ▶️ John was it really cold it’s august it’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco probably 68 degrees that’s exactly what it was and that’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John really cool that’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to you yes you should try the pacific sometime yeah anyway so yes i basically i did it twice and then
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like similar to how like a couple years ago i i went I went on my first
⏹️ ▶️ Marco ski trip since high school. And I went down like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco one giant hill one time and I stopped because I could feel like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco my knees were getting a little bit shaky and I’m like, if I go again, I’m probably going to hurt myself very badly.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Similarly, after like two passes of floating in the ocean for a little while, I stopped because I could
⏹️ ▶️ Marco feel myself getting weak and I’m like, you know what, this is gonna be a problem. Like, it was pretty hard to walk out of the ocean
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the second time. So I’m like, yeah, I think my legs are done for now. Because like, kind of similar
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to the first time I played golf, which was so far the only time I’ve played golf, when
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you’re really bad at playing golf, it takes you a lot more physical effort than the people who are good
⏹️ ▶️ Marco at playing golf. Because you have to make a lot more swings and do a lot more walking because you’re terrible at golf. So similarly,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco when you are pretty bad at treading water, it takes a lot of effort to do it. Because
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you’re very inefficient, compared to people who are more experienced. So I was out there
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for a total between the two times of maybe 10 minutes. And that was enough for me. I was done. I considered it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a check mark thing I did. I’m proud of myself. And I’ll do it again sometime.
⏹️ ▶️ John Well, that’s good. I mean, yeah, in addition to being inefficient is also the stress, right? I mean, you just end up expending
⏹️ ▶️ John more energy. And just you end up getting so best to get up before
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you’re tired. Yeah, I mean, it was a very terrifying experience to begin this process because it was so new
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and foreign and intimidating for me. So certainly there was some like, you know, adrenaline come down happening as well.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And I never got to the point where where you keep telling me that I’m supposed to be very relaxed. None of it was relaxing,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but it was interesting. And I did eventually reach like a equilibrium, you know, for
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a little while. So that was that was that was fine.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah. I mean, the part of the treading water thing and like the either doing with only feet or only hands is to get to the point
⏹️ ▶️ John where like at least half of your body is relaxed when you’re doing it, to sort of get in that place where you’re
⏹️ ▶️ John not flailing for your life constantly. And like you realize, oh, I actually can expend less effort in
⏹️ ▶️ John a slightly more efficient way. And I’ll stay up, especially again with the increased buoyancy. The only other thing I would have
⏹️ ▶️ John suggested that you would have tried instead of going out there and hanging out for a long time is to do a short
⏹️ ▶️ John lap parallel to the beach once or twice, because that’s what you’re doing in the pool, right? Swimming a little bit, even though it’s not quite big enough for
⏹️ ▶️ John laps, like just swim a little bit sideways just to see that’s the thing that you can do, that you can sort of travel
⏹️ ▶️ John places without going, you know, parallel to the shore. So right. It is like a big infinite pool.
⏹️ ▶️ John You know, you said your pool’s not big enough. Well, this is plenty big. You don’t even have to turn around. You can just do one
⏹️ ▶️ John long lap the length of the beach from one flag to the other, wherever the lifeguards say this lifeguard
⏹️ ▶️ John zone and then come in, which is a skill that you need when there’s a riptide anyway, because you won’t be able to come straight back
⏹️ ▶️ John in. But well, baby steps.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, right. Yeah, it’s like, you know, as I as I do this more, that’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the kind of thing I would attempt.
⏹️ ▶️ John All right, well, I think this has been a successful summer of Marco. Summer
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco of fun, summer of not drowning.
⏹️ ▶️ John Summer of ocean. I don’t know what is the summer of, but it’s summer of something. Yeah, this is worth celebrating. This is good
⏹️ ▶️ John news. We need next time we need video or have someone fly the drone out over you. While
⏹️ ▶️ John you’re doing it. Oh, God.
⏹️ ▶️ John swoop in with dramatic music. We want high production values now that we missed out on this initial