114: More Nits, Less Leather, and Oh Say Can You USB-C

(upbeat music)

- Welcome to In the News for September the 15th, 2023.

I am Brett Burney from appsinlaw.com.

- This is Jeff Richardson from iPhone JD.

Hey Brett.

- It's been a week, Jeff.

It has been a week.

First though, we do wanna say quickly,

we are thrilled to welcome back our sponsor,

returning sponsor, I should even say,

Sanebox, S-A-N-E-B-O-X.

We'll talk a little bit more about them in a little bit,

but thrilled to have them back.

And thank you, SaneBox for working with us.

And now on to a little bit of news

that happened this past week, Jeff.

- Just a little bit, my goodness.

- On Tuesday, this past Tuesday,

which would be September the 12th,

we experienced an Apple event

and there were some announcements,

things that I think we expected and looked forward to.

Maybe just a few things kind of between the lines

that we didn't really expect

and maybe a little bit of surprises.

I will tell you, I wasn't completely bowled over

with everything, Jeff, but there were some important stuff.

And maybe just because I expected some of these things

because otherwise there were some amazing announcements

starting with the new iPhone 15 and 15 Pro.

Really excellent, titanium for the win.

- Yeah, you know, let me just start by addressing

the first thing you said, you know,

is it an exciting announcement or not?

The reality is that the iPhone has been around for so long

that every once in a while, I mean, like years ago,

we had the iPhone 10 with the brand new, you know,

edge to edge screen.

That was an exciting announcement,

but it's been around enough that I, you know,

I don't think I've seen this reaction before, you know,

people are like, oh, well, you know, it doesn't suddenly,

you know, fly you to the moon.

So it's not, this is what the iPhone does is they come up

with incremental improvements year after year.

Most people don't upgrade every year,

but when you do get around to upgrading,

you suddenly get to take advantage of a couple of years

of improvements.

And it's a big step up from your old phone to a new phone.

So, so with that in mind, I actually think that there's some nice improvements this year.

Many of them have leaked, which is the other thing.

So it wasn't a surprise.

I mean, one of the biggest changes for the pro line is to have this titanium casing,

which we had all heard was going to be coming.

And what the one thing that was perhaps a surprise to me is we knew that the advantage

of titanium is that it is lighter while still being durable.

But I was excited to hear from the people that were actually there on Tuesday in Cupertino

for the announcement because they got to actually hold them in their hands.

And they said, you know what?

It really makes a difference.

Like, if you can really tell almost more so than the family, it's literally nine or 10%

lighter, but people say it even feels more than that.

You know, I mean, that's because surface area or something like that.

And so I thought that was really interesting that it's, it's, it's going to feel lighter

in your pocket.

And, and that's good.

And it was frankly one of the, I mean, not to bury the lead, but this morning they started

taking pre-orders at five o'clock Pacific time.

7 o'clock central where I live and I bought an iPhone. I bought the iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Oh, Max. They're going to the Max.

So here's the thing. I, the reason I decided to do it because I've been on the edge is I actually

got, this is a surprise to you, Brett. I actually got a package from Apple yesterday and it was a

It was a big surprise to me, but I actually have an iPhone 15 Pro Max case.

Nice reveal, by the way, for people that are just listening.

He did it from the bottom and I thought, wait a minute, wait, that looks like an iPhone,

but it's just a case you sneaker.

Apple started selling these on Tuesday and it actually showed up yesterday on Thursday.

And so I've been holding this thing in my hand.

And in fact, if I, for folks that are watching on video, if I put my old iPhone pro into

this, you can sort of see it's a little hard to see from the edges, but like how much bigger

it is.

It is a little bit bigger, a little bit wider, and it's a little bit longer.

But part of the reason I decided to make the jump, well, the main reasons were because

of the new features, which we'll discuss in a second, but it was the fact that it was

going to be lighter.

And so I figured that if I'm going to ever make the jump from a pro to a pro max a year

like this, where it's switching to titanium, it won't be as much of a weight increase to

go to the longer model.

So that was part of the logic for me.

I will tell you though, I, I, the other part of it was and I had an opportunity to talk

to Jason Snell earlier this week, and I mentioned that and he said that the weight is not the

big issue.

He said, the big issue is actually the size in your hand, that when you have these bigger

phones, you cut them in your hand and how much of the screen can you reach with your

thumb as you hold it in one hand.

And it's so much harder with the max models.

Now Jason prefers the mini.

So he comes from a perspective of really liking smaller phones.

And so I was sort of playing around with this, with this case yesterday afternoon and the

case.

Okay.

I have been sort of seeing what does it feel like?

And I was realizing that, you know, even with my current iPhone pro, I can't reach the entire

thing with my thumb, of course.

And you often have to put the iPhone in the other hand and touch it.

Right.

Right.

Right.

I think it's going to be okay.

We'll see.

But the reason to make it is because there's a big new feature.

Well, first of all, I've always been curious about having a max phone just to see more

words on the screen.

You know, when you're using that as a device,

it's a little bit more like an iPad than an iPhone.

So I've always been curious about it,

but it has this new telephoto lens,

which is really interesting.

- Yeah.

- It has the, there's so many camera improvements

that I want to talk about,

but the main difference between the Pro and the Pro Max

is instead of a 3X telephoto lens,

you have a 5X telephoto lens.

- Yeah, okay.

- So when I'm recording my daughter.

- I want to get to that.

I want to get to that in just a minute, Chuck.

But I just want to say quickly a couple of things on this.

the titanium, you know, to be clear,

even though I said at the beginning

that it may not have been as exciting,

Apple is gonna get my money.

Like I'm definitely upgrading

from my iPhone 14 Pro to the 15 Pro.

And that really just underscores your comment there

because even though it is fairly incremental upgrades

or changes, I'm there.

The titanium, honestly, to be,

that is one of the biggest things that I was excited about

specifically from the weight aspect

because I have an iPhone 14 Pro, Jeff.

My wife has an iPhone 12, not a pro, just a 12.

Jeff, when I picked that thing up, her iPhone 12,

I'm like, is this a feather?

Like, honestly, it is so much lighter than mine.

And if the kids, my daughter also has a 12.

If she picks up my iPhone 14 Pro, she's like,

oh my goodness, this is like picking up a brick.

This is insane.

You know, I don't think about it all that much

because I'm not comparing them.

But if it is this much, it's like I've seen Jason Snell

mostly and others that pick up.

And even though it's just 10%, 90, 10% lighter,

I'm like, give it.

I'm like, that to me is amazing.

Now, quickly, you alluded to this just a little bit.

There is a slightly different size to the iPhone 15 Pro

from the 14 Pro, right?

To where one of the thoughts that I always have in this is,

wait a minute, are my current iPhone 14 Pro cases

gonna fit on the 15 Pro?

and I don't think they're gonna fit as snugly anymore.

Okay.

- And the reason for that, Brett,

is because it's a good thing.

There is a smaller bezel.

You know what Apple would prefer in a perfect world,

it would be a complete screen to screen bezel.

You know, the screen would go from edge to edge.

There would be no bezel at all.

The bezel on the 15 Pro is smaller than the 14 Pro.

And with a smaller bezel,

Apple could have done two things.

They could have made the display size a little bit bigger.

So like the size of the device would be the same

and the display would be bigger.

But instead what they opted to do

was keep the display size exactly the same

and use the smaller bezel to bring in the sides a tiny bit

and bring in the top.

Now it's a tiny difference.

I mean, we're talking,

you really don't have to have one on top of the other

to see it, but it is enough that cases are not going to work

or anything else that you may have.

I'm trying to think of what else besides a case

people might own that's like form fitted

for the actual width or the height.

That's gonna change.

- I think it's mostly the cases.

But I'm talking about not just the cases

you and I talk about,

'cause again, Apple will get more money from me

just for an Apple case 'cause I really have enjoyed those.

But some people have the 12 South book book

or they have like wallets that you see that they fit in.

I think some of that, I mean, you could try it and see,

but I like that snug fit on there

and that's gonna be interesting.

Just real quickly, one of the stories you linked to

just before we move on, on the titanium side,

this was my favorite post from Dr. Dring,

who's an engineer.

And I don't know that if I ever even thought about this,

But apparently some people like Dr.

Drang did in the sense that if it's titanium, is that, is that going to pose a

health issue?

Uh, but I'm very thankful that Dr.

Drang, uh, informs us the titanium is T I six, a L four V.

It's the garden variety eggs.

Well, it's the garden variety alloy.

He says, of course it's a great material, but not exotic in any way.

Not that I would even know Jeff, but here's, here's the thing that sets me at ease apart

from many aerospace applications.

Very nice.

It's also used in medical implants.

So you know that the skin contact

with the titanium won't be a problem.

Thank you, Dr. Drang, that puts me at ease.

- And again, you've been using titanium

on your Ultra for a while, right?

So you know that it's okay to have skin contact and stuff.

- Lots of skin contact,

'cause I wear this thing all the time.

Okay, just wanted to say that about titanium.

Moving on, you were getting ready to talk about-

- Let's, yeah, let's talk about the camera,

'cause that's what we're starting to talk about.

And I'll circle back around to the telephoto lens,

but what makes me really excited about this

is the way that they are using the camera that they have.

When I, the 14 that I got last year,

when I did my review of it,

I took some pictures that were sort of looking

at some things that were far away outside.

- I remember, I'm gonna bring it up.

- I showed the difference between looking at it

with the, I guess what we're doing, the 13, right?

Yeah, look at the one that's got the top of it,

that one right there that's got the top.

You can see, compare those two,

the difference between a 12 megapixel image

and a 48 megapixel picture image,

you can see a lot more detail.

And for years now,

the iPhone's default camera has been 12 megapixels.

And so for folks watching the video right now,

where you can go look at the old post,

I mean, that's a clear night and day difference

between 12 and 48.

But the problem is, as a practical matter,

for the last year that I've had my iPhone 14 Pro,

I haven't used 48 megapixel very often

because you have to go into the raw mode

and dealing with raw pictures is a little bit more of a pain.

And so what I really wanted to just have it was built into the normal iPhone mode, which

used to be JPEG and it's now something called a heaf, but heaf easily translates into JPEG.

So it's a more, it's a more reasonable file size, unlike raw pictures, which are just

so ridiculously huge.

And so what Apple has done this year is two things.

First of all, no longer is the default 12 megapixel.

Now on all of the new iPhones, 15s, including, including just the regular ones, non-pro ones,

it's now 24 megapixel.

They're still using a 48 megapixel camera, but they are basically down sampling that

to 24 so that the file sizes aren't quite as big.

And if you have a really good 48 megapixel image, you can get a fantastic 24 megapixel

image from it just by sort of taking the best of every other pixel or however they put it

together.

And so you get the, what should be excellent quality 24 megapixel images.

So all the new iPhones are going to appreciate that.

And then of course, if you want to turn on the mode and you can make this your default

mode for always, you can stay, you know what?

I'm okay with bigger file sizes.

Take up more space in the phone.

That's fine.

I want to have 48 be my default all the time.

And if you turn that on and I'm going to have to play around and see how much of a difference

I see in real life.

But the end result is instead of your default pictures being 12, your default pictures will

be 48 megapixels with all of the other special sauce that Apple uses to make pictures look

good.

So the potential is you can have like a lot more detail in these pictures so that in the

future, you know, when you're looking at these things years from now on even larger and larger

screen TVs and everything else, you know, it the end result is that your memories will

be sharper and better.

So I'm very much excited about that.

So that's what the certainty is, those are going to be larger pictures, right?

Well, which I know is something else that you you mentioned at the bottom of your post

here, not only are you getting the max, but you're maxing out a little bit more on the

storage space on there, because you know that these pictures are going to be a little bit

bigger. Yeah. And not just pictures, but videos too, for the same reason. So, and that takes

up so much space. So I decided to, instead of getting the 256 to get the 512, I recommend

that most people get 256. I think it's enough space for most people. And whenever people

ask me, I say, you know, try not the, the, the one 28 is a little small for, you know,

if you're going to use it a lot, but 256 a great, perfect size, but I decided to go a

little bit bigger with 512 and we'll see if that ends up being overkill or not.

You know, I'll let you know a year from now if it's too much space. Um, you're a good

- Yeah, Ben Lovejoy at 9to5Mac is doing the same thing.

You linked to his story as well.

Just because again, it's the camera.

So, you talked about the bigger size.

I've done a Mac size before and I just did not enjoy it.

I'm going to get the 15 pro regular, normal size,

normal hand size, I guess.

But I am probably going to bump it up

just like to what we were talking about to the storage,

just because I've been 256 as well, just like you,

but I probably will get a little bit more.

But I don't get the 5X telephoto,

which I think you're going to talk about here as well.

- Yeah, you get the 3X.

- I don't get that in a regular pro.

- Which is still nice.

But, and so here's the question that I have,

if we're getting closer to the action,

and this is why I'm really excited to try this new lens.

And, you know, I think about things like,

you know, my daughter's playing basketball or something

and you want to get tight in.

Right now, because I'm sitting in the stands,

there's a limit to how tight I can get.

I can use a digital zoom to get tighter,

but then it's going to be blurry.

So being able to move into a 5X,

which is the equivalent of like 120 millimeter

for folks that think about regular telephoto lenses

on like SLR cameras,

that's going to be a nice zoom

that I'm really looking forward to using.

Now, here's something that I had not thought about

until earlier this week.

Like I said, I was talking to Jason Settle

on this panel thing that he was on.

And he says, here's the question that he has.

So the regular camera,

you've got the three cameras in the Pro.

The regular camera we know is this 48 megapixel camera, right?

- Right, right.

- The change between that regular camera

and a 5X telephoto is actually pretty substantial,

which means that when you start using the 5X camera,

well, that's gonna be great 'cause it's an optical zoom.

But what if you're taking a picture

that's not 5X zoomed in,

but instead is like a 4X or a 3X?

With the, well, 3X on an iPhone Pro is gonna be fine

because that's what their telephoto is made for.

But if you're trying to get about a 3X on the Pro Max,

it's gonna have to be sort of interpolating that

from the regular camera,

which means it's gonna be a certain degree of digital zoom.

Now, they're gonna probably have some blending

between the center part of the image

that maybe they could use the 5X for,

but the end result is,

is it possible that if you wanted to take

a 3X zoom picture,

you're actually gonna get a much better result

on the Pro versus the Pro Max?

I don't know.

And in everyday use, am I gonna find that 3X zoom

is the sweet spot or am I gonna actually prefer 5X zoom?

You know, these are all interesting questions

that none of us will know until we have them in our hands.

It shows that there's no one easy answer.

There's no one, this is absolutely

the best option type thing.

So I'm very, very curious to start trying this

and I will soon, but it'll be interesting

to have some new stuff.

And then, so on top of all of that,

Apple just to sort of finish the story,

they've done all sorts of little nips and tucks

to make the images better.

It's better at low light.

It's better at a million different things.

So, you know, every year the cameras get better,

you know, naturally, just through their science.

- Not just in the software, but then the hardware as well.

The Apple's made up word of the day was Tetra Prism.

I don't know if it's made up or not.

I've just never heard that.

We have been talking about like a periscope lens

that we have seen in some Android phones,

but Apple did not say that word at all this past Tuesday,

but they did say Tetra Prism, as you quote here,

to bounce the light off of a couple of right angles inside the hardware, like mirrors inside,

right, to achieve this effect.

Interesting stuff there.

Yeah.

So instead of having a longer periscope, I guess tetra means four, right?

So it's going to be bouncing off four times to take up a little bit less space, but still

get the illusion of a long, longer chamber to get that telephoto image on the end.

Again, this is just in the pro max.

This is not on the pro.

Right.

Okay.

- Camera improvements as usual.

What else do we, it's an upgraded processor.

Like it's going to be faster, better, faster, speedier.

- Yeah, and just to pause on that,

it uses a three nanometer processor.

I mean, I'm not a chip designer and you're not either, Brett,

but in the industry, three nanometer has,

I'm told that that has long been sort of like a Holy grail

of can we actually get there?

Intel's not there yet, but Apple is.

They now are in the iPhone and you have to,

we're going to soon get there on the computer chips as well. So this is supposedly a big deal.

The reason that it's better to have a smaller chip is that everything's closer to each other.

So the communications within the chip can be even faster. So we'll see in real life how much we see

from an A17 Pro, but not only should things be speedy, faster, but it also enables more

sophisticated computations, which allows for features that weren't even possible before,

like some of those photography features and some of the new things that Siri is going to be able

to do and stuff like that. So, um, so it's always about responsiveness. Yeah. It's always about

responsiveness for me, Jeff. Like, honestly, you know, if we do things day after day, like opening

up my Safari browser, I get to the point where I don't care about any animations. I don't care

about, you know, like what it, what it looks like is it pulls up or I just wanted to as quickly as

possible, get to the tasks that I want to do. And I think if I were a chip processor engineer,

I would have nerded out on the fact that they were talking about this, this three nanometer.

Uh, they kind of just, well, I don't want to say buried it, but you know, it's like

for the public facing aspect of September of this past Tuesday, the vast majority of the public

isn't going to care about all the techie nerdy stuff, right? They just want it to know that it's

going to be faster, but you're right. I don't want to bury that aspect because it just seems,

but at this point, not only does it seem like this is the next evolution, I almost,

I'm just expecting Apple to completely run away

with this from the technology standpoint.

I mean, truly, they just seem with Apple Silicon,

we don't even know because it's not an open aspect,

like maybe we could see some of the aspects

in Intel or AMD or whatever,

but Apple just seems to be running away with this.

And it's pretty amazing that it's continuing on on that.

Oh, one of the other things quickly,

we didn't even talk about on the camera.

We talked about more of the pictures, the image,

but like the spatial video aspect,

I think was it Jason Snell that said this,

like the new Apple iPhone 15 Pro can record spatial video

that you can't even look at on the actual iPhone.

I mean, you can see it,

but you won't see the entire spatialization of the video

because that of course will be reserved

primarily for the Vision Pro

when that comes out next year.

- I mean, it's interesting.

When you think about the two cameras

on the back of your iPhone,

they're really pretty close to each other, right?

I mean, there may be a half an inch apart, maybe an hour.

They're not that far apart.

Is that gonna be far apart enough

to actually capture a 3D image?

Apparently Apple thinks the answer is yes,

but I love the idea.

Spatial video is one of those features

that when the Apple Vision Pro headset comes out next year,

people say that it is, everyone that has tried it

has says, you don't know, like you,

seriously, this is really, really, really good.

Looking at your home videos in 3D

makes them so much more lifelike.

So, and of course you can take those

while you're wearing the headset,

but then you look like a dork

'cause you're wearing a headset

when you're interacting with your family.

So, but using an iPhone to take pictures

makes so much more sense.

So I think it's great that they brought this feature

to the iPhone.

I hope it works well.

I also love the idea that you can start taking

these spatial videos with your iPhone now,

even if it's gonna be five years, you know, even longer

before you even own a Vision Pro.

Because as I said in my article, it's akin to,

I remember when my kids were really young,

I bought some of the first HD video cameras.

They use tape, you know, they were aggravated with,

it wasn't part of my phone, it was something separate.

But I knew at the time that I was preserving memories

that the kids are never gonna be one years old again, right?

And so, you wanna, you want,

and as I look back at those home videos now,

I'm so happy that I wasn't recording them in VHSC

or something like that.

Because when I look at my older videos

from the nineties and the eighties,

gosh, they just look so bad on a big TV,

on a modern 4K, 60 inch television,

they really look pixelated.

So it's always nice to future-proof things

by taking advantage of these new technologies today,

so that when you look at stuff 10 years from now,

you'll be like, oh, I'm so glad that I got

that birthday party in 3D.

- Let's talk buttons.

Buttons on the iPhone haven't changed very much at all.

- Really? - In fact,

some of the buttons haven't even changed since 2007, right?

I think the first, some of the first iPhones had

what I usually call like the mute switch

or the silent switch, right?

That little clicker on the side.

I mean, that's been around for decades now, right?

I mean, a long time.

Yeah, and so we've never seen that really used

for anything else other than it's a very quick

and convenient way to silence your phone quickly.

But if you get an iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max,

that button is not, it's gonna be a button now,

not a switch anymore.

- And more importantly-

- I wanna see what this is gonna be like.

I don't know yet.

And I heard people talking about it,

but it's gonna be interesting.

- And I love that you'll be able to assign

different functions to it because-

- Yes.

- I talked to so many people that keep their iPhone

in the silent mode all the time.

They don't want their phone ringing while they're at work.

They don't, you know, let it vibrate

and I'll decide if I pick it up or not.

And I'm the same way.

So I don't use that switch very often,

but you know, why not have something put there

that I would use a lot?

And so now it's a button that you press in or not.

You hold it down the button for a second

and you can control what happens

when you hold down the button.

And there's really endless options

because although Apple has some built-in things

like turning the flashlight on or taking a picture

or something like that,

you can also connect it to a shortcut

and use the shortcut app to do just about anything.

So if you wanna say like, you know,

in my home, every time I press this button,

I want the lights in my living room to go on or off.

You could do that if you wanted to or whatever function you wanted.

So I think that's really cool that you can decide what you do with the action

button.

You Brett have an action button on your Apple watch ultra, but there's one of the

complaints I've heard.

And I think I've heard you say this too, is that there's only a few different

things you can connect it to.

So a lot of people just connect it to the flashlight, which is fine, but you know,

right.

To be more exciting.

Um, but with the iPhone, you'll be able to connect it to.

Endless things.

So it's, it's sort of like a, you know, who knows what the future will be.

I'm sure people are going to come up with all sorts of neat usages that I will read

about.

I'm like, oh, I'm going to try that too.

So I love it.

Exactly.

It's a great idea.

I do like having that immediate switch.

And I got to tell you, that's going to be some muscle memory that will have to be retrained

a lot because I constantly switch that off and on probably every day, you know, depending

on what I don't like mine being silent all the time, but I'm exactly I hear the same

thing, Jeff.

Most people just leave it on.

So my wife does that.

She has it always on silence.

So you never hear it.

And she has an Apple Watch,

so she can get some of the notifications that way.

But yeah, it'll be interesting.

I have to confess,

I don't really use the action button

on my Apple Watch all that much.

And again, I think it's not because I don't like it

or because I have that complaint necessarily,

I'm probably just not used to it.

Like I have to intentionally think about,

"Hey, I've got that action button.

I can use that to turn on the flashlight."

Other than going to the home screen on my Apple Watch

and flipping up and going to the flashlight that way.

Like that's the way I've always done it.

And it really is just more of a muscle memory

than anything else.

Okay, so I think we've covered most of the big things

on the iPhone.

Although I know there's always many, many more,

but one of the last things-

Yeah, go ahead.

- We've been talking about the Pro the whole time,

but let's just say that if you don't get the Pro line,

the iPhone 15, it actually has a number of new features.

Many of them are things that were on the Pro last year

that are now part of the main line, like the same processor

and some of those other features, the dynamic island.

So they may not be as exciting to me and you, Brett,

because we've been using these features for a year,

but if you're a non-pro user,

I just want to say that the new iPhone 15,

it's got a lot to offer too,

and I'll just leave it at that.

- Yeah, I completely agree.

In fact, I thought about that because we,

I think most people listening to us probably do tend to like,

hey, we'll pay a few extra hundred extra dollars

to get the pro just because we like to have

all those extra features.

But that is a huge thing.

I'm so used to the dynamic island now.

That's one of the things that just,

has just been fully integrated into my life.

Like I can't imagine using an iPhone

without a dynamic island now.

And I used to get used to that because of iPhone 14 Pro,

but when I go to my wife's phone, I'm like,

why can't I get quick access to that?

Like I can't even imagine not having that.

But you're right, the fact that that now

is going to be available in the iPhone 15 non-pro model,

that was huge and I'm thrilled.

Most of the, the thing is the vast majority of people

listening to us would probably get along just fine

with a non-pro iPhone.

But if you do want to upgrade,

you know, that's what most people do.

That said exactly what you said,

that the iPhone 15 non-pro is going to really be

an amazing device in and of itself.

That's great.

Okay, last thing quickly that we talked about and predicted

along with everybody else, not like we had a crystal ball,

USB-C.

So this was the first iPhone that has gone now

from the lightning port for charging to USB-C.

And if I'm not mistaking, this is not just pro,

this is all the 15 models.

Is that correct, Jeff?

- Correct.

- Okay, so get ready, buckle up.

You're gonna have to probably be buying some new cables

to charge your phone.

- Yeah, it looks like Apple is,

and you say this is not just the pro, this is the iPhone,

and it's not even just the iPhones.

Apple is apparently ditching lightning

across the entire line.

So you can no longer buy a new iPhone.

You can still buy the old iPhones

'cause they're not changing what they've already made.

So if you go back and go into the Apple store

and spend less money to get an iPhone 13,

of course it's gonna have lightning.

But for any new product that they sell,

whether it's be the new phones,

we'll talk in a second about new AirPods Pro.

I mean, they have moved completely to USB-C.

And we know that they're partially doing it,

maybe even largely doing it

because the European Union said

all new phones starting next year have to use USB-C. But it does mean that there's all sorts

of implications. I mean, you've just brought up this article from the New York Times from

Brian H. Chen where he says that the nice thing about USB-C is you don't have to pay

the Lightning tax. If a third party sells you a Lightning cable, if you go to a company like

Anker, because Lightning is an Apple-owned standard, they have to pay some money to Apple

for the license. Whereas USB-C is an open standard, so anybody, I mean, you and I, Brett,

We could start Jeff and Brett's USB-C store and start making our own cables.

And then the question is going to be, are we making high quality products or are we making

things as cheap as possible to try to get sales at the low end? And this is what this article

warns against is you can go on Amazon right now and you can get a USB-C cable for like four or

five bucks, but the quality is going to be incredibly questionable. And if it's, you hate

to use, I always get nervous if you're in like a hotel and you see a charging thing, you're like,

like, gosh, I don't know if this is a high quality thing or if it's going to cause my

iPhone to short out.

And so he's just warning, you know, now, you know, good news is you can get lots more options,

but you know, you get what you pay for.

So get something that's going to be a decent quality from a company that you can trust.

Apple, of course, would be happy to sell USB cables, but they're always super, super expensive.

They always work great because the quality is fantastic.

But I often find that for things like cables, you can find a third party company that's

trustworthy and get something that has more features for less money.

So, so it's a brave new world we're going to be in with USBC and it's going to

mean that you need new chargers. I mean, I was thinking right next to my bed,

right? I have a place where I charge my iPhone every night with a lightning charger. So I'm

going to have to change that when I get the new phone. So it is going to be some changes,

but I think in the long run, it's going to be better.

So I could not find where this might or may not be confirmed, but are the new iPhones going to

to ship with a USB-C cable in the box?

Do you know at all?

- I think the answer is yes.

That you're gonna get a USB-C to USB-C cable.

You're not gonna get the charging brick.

So just like before,

you're gonna have to get your own USB-C charging brick

if you don't have it.

But I think they're gonna have a cable.

However, the cable that they're shipping

is going to be a 2.0 quality cable,

which means for charging it's fine.

It's going to be fine for charging, but for the purposes of speed, if you're connecting

it to a computer and you want to transfer like a video, it's going to be the same speed

as lightning, which is 480 max megabits per second or whatever.

Whereas one of the advantages of the pro is that it can support the USB three standard,

which supports up to 10 gigabits per second transfer speed.

So it's like 20 times faster.

And so this is, and I've mentioned this last week that I was excited about USB-C because

when I take high definition videos with my iPhone and I want to move them onto my Mac

at home so I can edit them in Final Cut Pro, it takes, I mean, I usually have to wait until

the next day and let the videos transfer overnight because if I record in and I try to transfer

them, it just takes so, so long.

But if you have a cable that supports 3.0 speed, the 10 gigabits per second speed, then

you can actually transfer so much faster.

And I actually went ahead and bought one of those, Brad.

Apple doesn't sell one right now.

They used to.

What they sell right now is a USB 4 cable, and it's like 70 bucks.

So it's a little overkill for the new iPhones because it goes so much faster.

I found one, there's a company called Plugable, which is a reputable company.

They have all sorts of testing and stuff like that.

And they had one on Amazon for 12 bucks

and it looked like a good enough one that's got the speed.

And so that way I'm gonna have this hooked up

to my computer at home.

And if I want to transfer videos, I figured for 12 bucks,

you know, that's worth it to just transfer videos

at a high speed.

Now, the one that I purchased maxes out at 10 gigabits.

So it's fine for this year's iPhone Pro.

Next year, I mean, who knows, this is just speculation.

Maybe next year's iPhones will go up

to 20 gigabits per second on the pro models.

And if they do, well then this cable

is gonna be limiting me to 10,

but I figured for at least 12 bucks for a year,

a dollar a month, that's fine.

I don't mind spending that.

So it gets complicated.

- Well, thanks for explaining that.

- Every USB-C cable is not the same.

You need to read the box closely.

What speeds does it have?

What power delivery does it support?

Is it a reputable company?

Is it gonna fry my phone?

It does put a lot more onus on the consumer,

whereas in the old world,

where everything had to be certified by Apple for lightning,

At least you knew that if you bought an Apple certified,

you know, made for iPhone cable,

you knew it was going to be good quality.

- Well, I'm glad you explained all this.

And this was a great article from Brian Chen

at the New York Times, like you mentioned,

just because, I mean, we've talked about this many times,

you get what you pay for.

So it's just really, first of all, the quality of it, right?

And he even goes into a little bit of the detail

of like the circuitry that's inside the USB-C.

And he says, not all USB-C cables are created equal.

But I think there's a quality standpoint.

And then what you've already just been quickly describing,

which just made my head hurt, well, before you explained it,

was like the different speeds of the USB-C cables, right?

It's like you said, the 2.0,

which apparently is fine for charging,

but if you want to have high speed file transfer,

then you need a USB-C 3.0.

With this one you purchased, they even say,

oh, it's USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type C.

It's so confusing.

Even my wife is like, she goes USB,

And I'm like, well, what is it, USB-A or C?

'Cause it's to your point.

It's like, she goes, I need a charging brick.

And I'm like, okay, what do you need?

USB-A or C?

She's like, I don't know, it's USB.

I need a USB cable.

You're like, most people aren't gonna take the time.

They just want something that works.

And that's why I was asking here.

I think overall, in fact, I'm fairly confident.

Overall, this was a very good move, Jeff.

Whether regardless of why Apple did it,

I think they just, mostly it is that European ruling.

But I think overall, it's gonna be fine.

We're gonna have some speed bumps as we go through this,

for people figuring this out.

But again, it's nothing like we've seen in the past.

The lightning cable was ultimately a very good move

for Apple to get away from that huge 30 pin connector

that we know now.

And I think going to USBC is going to open up,

I think a lot of awesome opportunities,

just because it's a little bit more

of an open standard on this.

But just know, if nothing else,

just make sure you know you're gonna have to pay

a little bit extra for the lightning cables.

Don't get the $3, $3.99 cables,

as you check out of 7-Eleven with the Slurpee or something.

It's like, you need to get something from Apple store

or something like that.

Woo, okay, but the last thing quickly,

you already alluded to this,

and we talked about this at least a couple of weeks ago,

is there are still some lightning cable devices

that I use every single darn day, Jeff.

And I was wondering, is Apple going to get rid of them?

And the answer is yes.

I wish they would have just upgraded them,

but they're just stopping selling the MagSafe battery pack,

which you and I both very much enjoy.

I carry that with me constantly,

and I probably still will,

and still carry a lightning cable just for that.

But also another product I use, it's a MagSafe Duo.

In fact, I leave that next to my bedside table

and use it constantly.

Use as a lightning cable.

I will probably still carry a lightning cable

just to have access to that as well.

But curiously, if you don't have one already,

you ain't gonna get one now,

unless you can find one used somewhere.

- Maybe in the future, six months, a year down the road,

Apple will bring them back and add some new feature

and it'll support USB-C.

But for at least now, you can't buy them from Apple anymore.

- Well, this even underscores,

I don't know if I've heard this from a whole lot of people,

but one of the rumors was that if Apple doesn't go to USB-C,

maybe they'll just go full wireless.

And that is still an option.

And I am still trying to invest a little bit more

into the wireless options for charging my phone.

And so here you will link to a story on the verge

about Qi, which is Q-I, right?

But we say Qi and the Qi 2 standard.

I don't think it's quite ready to roll out yet,

but some suspect that the iPhone 15 is gonna support

Qi 2 charging, maybe.

It should be coming, I think.

- I haven't seen if Apple's officially stated this

or if it's just articles like the verge that are seeing it,

but it must be something that Apple officially stated.

But again, the word official is in quotes

because I don't think the Qi 2 standard is announced yet.

The one thing that I know about Qi 2

is that the existing Qi standard has a problem

because if you don't put your device

on top of the charging stand at the right angle,

you might think it's being charged, but it's actually not.

And that's the big advantage of MagSafe.

MagSafe has those magnets.

So you know it's charging

because the magnets align it to the exact,

And you can hear it snap in place.

So you know, it's a good thing.

And Apple, it's such a good thing

that Apple took the MagSafe thing

that it developed and invented

and it donated it to the Qi consortium.

So one of the advantages of Qi 2

is that it will support something that

for all intents and purposes is MagSafe.

They won't use the word MagSafe,

but it'll be the same thing that we already know and love.

There may be some other new things about Qi 2 too.

I haven't heard of like the transfer speeds faster

or something like that,

but whatever it is, apparently the new iPhone 15s

are going to support that.

And the main reason I say,

this is more of a future-proofing thing.

You know, whether it's six months away or a year away,

at some point we will see products

that advertise that they are Qi 2,

and they will unmistakably be regular

than the current Qi products.

The nice thing is this iPhone will be ready for it

when that day comes.

So you'll have more options in the future, which is good.

- Okay, lots on the iPhone.

And I think deservedly so.

That was what Apple's meant to log on.

- And we haven't even touched all the features yet,

but let's move on.

- No, but we'll weave them in a little bit more

as we go through, but why don't we move

to one of the other announcements?

I'm only hesitating because it's like, really?

Like I thought we were gonna get a little bit more

on the Apple Watch.

There is a new model, well, two new models, right?

The Series 9 and also the Apple Watch Ultra 2.

You had a good post that you already went through

and highlighted some of the things

that they announced on Tuesday, Jeff.

- Yeah, in fact, just to jump to the end,

I own an iPhone, the Apple watch series seven.

I did not upgrade last year to the series eight

because there were some nice improvements for me.

It's like, it wasn't enough to justify buying it.

And I just assumed that two years later this year

I would buy the iPhone series nine, but I'm not going to,

even though it's got some nice new features.

- Really?

Oh, I didn't get that far.

- I'm still loving my iPhone seven

and the new features are nice,

but I think I'm going to wait one more year.

And I will admit that I am biased

something that is perhaps unrealistic, which is never trust rumors, Brett, don't trust rumors

because they may all be wrong. There were rumors this year that the iPhone Pro Max was going to be

substantially more expensive than past years. No, it's the same as ever. But there is a rumor

that next year when the Apple Watch 10 comes out, that the number 10 is sort of a milestone.

And so maybe there will be more radical design change. Now, Mark Gurman at Bloomberg has

has speculated about this, who knows?

So part of me is feeling like rather than get a new Apple watch, you're going to wait.

Maybe if I wait just one more year, you know, it'll be a really good upgrade.

But regardless, the reason I have thought about it is although I've heard some

people say that the, the series nine is not a huge improvement, but you know, it

really does have some nice new features in it.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, it's got the nice new processor.

So it's going to be faster.

They don't upgrade the processor every year for the Apple watch.

The original Apple watches you, you and I both remember Brett, they were really

slow. And so, you know, to the point where you could not really do some things with them,

they were so darn slow. I feel like when Apple came out with the original Apple watch,

they probably should have waited another year to get them a little bit faster, but whatever.

But nowadays Apple watches are more or less fast enough. It's even faster with a series nine.

And with that faster processor, it allows them to do more things that they really couldn't do

effectively before. Like for example, have this new gesture that if you're using, you know,

an alert on your screen and your other hand's busy, you've got something in your other hand,

you can just do this, this double tap with your hand that has the Apple watch on your arm.

And it will interpret that as something similar to if you're on a computer, you know how, if you hit

the return key, it just automatically presses the default button. It's the same idea. It'll

press the default button, whether that be playing music or answering the phone or whatever it is.

And we have all had situations where you've got something in your right hand, you see something

in your Apple watch and you end up saying,

well, I hate to do this, but I'm gonna use my nose

and I'm gonna test with my nose

because it's the only thing I have free.

We've all done it before, but with this new gesture,

you know, you won't be able to do that.

So a brand new gesture, that's pretty cool.

A faster process.

- Well, well, I don't, that's okay.

I take Umbrage with a brand new gesture, Jeff.

Here's the thing.

And you've heard, you've seen this too, right?

So this gesture theoretically, I mean, it has been,

actually we've talked about this.

Apple has used this gesture and a few others

in the accessibility settings of the Apple Watch.

As soon as I saw this Jeff,

and Apple was touting this as like,

this amazing new way that you can interact

with your Apple Watch.

I'm like, wait a minute, you've already had that in there.

In fact, it has been amazing for people

that do need those accessibility features.

Now, granted, I haven't turned it on and I don't use that,

but you can do like a fist, right?

And it'll recognize if you clench your fist,

it has that recognize of like the double tap

with your finger and your thumb.

Now, I don't know anybody specifically, personally,

that actually uses that a whole lot,

but that has been in there.

And the difference is, I saw the video from Marques,

he was just saying that, you know,

it's a little bit more responsive.

I mean, maybe with the newest processor,

it can just recognize that, you know,

a hand gesture a little bit quicker.

But I kept looking at it like, wait a minute,

that's not brand new Apple, you've already done that.

But for whatever reason,

They wanted to bring this forward

as kind of a front facing feature

that they're gonna support now.

- I hear what you're saying, but I disagree.

Because on the old Apple watches

to enable the accessibility feature,

you have to put your Apple watch

into the entire accessibility mode.

And for people that have a special need for it,

that's great.

But if all you want to do is just click

the most obvious button by doing the double tap,

that is not a feature that works

with the old accessibility feature.

Now I agree that the gesture is the same

and you know that Apple has taken advantage

of watching how this feature has been used

for the last couple of years.

- Sure, of course.

- And that's what made them decide

as Marcus Brownlee says in his video

that with the new processor,

it needed a little bit more oomph to get it of reliability.

So it's, but it's not just that it's gonna be more reliable

because of the processor,

it's also that it's integrated into the system

so that everybody, even people that don't have

all the other accessibility features turned on

can use it because you can't literally go back in time or you can't literally take an

older watch and turn on the accessibility setting and get the exact same feature that

you get with the series nine.

So the other thing I was going to mention is in terms of the brightness that it now,

you know, one of the cool things about your watch, Brett, is that your Apple watch retro

goes up to 2000 nits and you tell me, but I understand that makes a big difference when

you're outside, right?

Huge.

Yeah.

I've never had an issue as I used to with the older watches that I would look at it

in the sunshine and not be able to see it with this Apple watch ultra.

I've never had an issue and I have been in like some very sunny climbs

and it has been fantastic to be able to see that exactly when I needed it.

So wouldn't it be nice if the, you know, us mere mortals

that just have a normal Apple watch, if we had the same feature

and with the series nine, you do get that you get the 2000 nits on the series nine.

So, you know, there's some other things to like the ultra wide band

ship and stuff like that.

But just those things that we've talked about,

you know, a much brighter screen for when you're outside.

- Yeah, more nips. - The faster processor

and a new gesture, hey, I mean,

those are nice improvements.

- Not bad, not bad. - And if you add that

to the improvements that Apple had last year

and the year before, and you know,

you're upgrading from an Apple Watch

that's a couple of years old,

you put it all together and it's a pretty big upgrade,

even though I, I myself agree

that this is not a huge upgrade year

because, you know, put my money where my mouth is,

I'm not gonna buy one yet,

but I am envious of these new features.

I would love to have the brighter Apple Watch, so.

- Yeah, well, you're putting your money

where the rumors are, it sounds like, Jeff.

But I gotta tell you, I think you're onto something.

You mentioned earlier on like the iPhone X, right?

The 10th anniversary of the,

or the 10th version of the iPhone

and how different that that was.

I do think we've got something coming probably with,

because I remember we even talked about

the fact that Apple with these Apple watches

may change the actual band connectors

so that they can get more room.

I mean, I almost kind of liken that

to like the 30 pin connector going to lightning, right?

It's like the bands are fantastic because we can,

I could use the, I think I'm still using the watch band

that I had with my first Apple watch.

So I can still use it even with my Apple watch ultra.

But I feel like those days are numbered

and I feel like maybe they weren't quite ready

to go this year, but next year, I think you're right.

I think we're gonna see kind of a new design,

hopefully even thinner, probably lighter

for the Apple watch next year.

So for what it's worth,

I think you're doing a good job on that.

Just one last thing quickly, I wanted to mention

that Marques Brownlee talked about this as well and others

that Siri will now operate locally on the Apple Watch.

I think that's a pretty huge thing, Jeff,

because I feel like now it's hit or miss.

If I have my Apple Watch on,

and I usually will put it really close to my mouth

and invoke she who shall not be named,

but it sometimes will work

and sometimes won't work on there.

And sometimes my iPhone does it instead,

even if it's in the other room, for crying out loud.

And I have to wait and see, did it actually hear what I said?

Is it going to do what I asked to do?

And even Marques was talking about the fact that

now that Siri is running, probably because

of the newer processor, it's running on the Apple Watch

itself, that it's going to be a little bit more responsive.

- Yeah, that's a nice change.

You don't have to wait for it to go to the network

and interpret what you said.

It will be able to do that on device.

So, so yeah, another, another big change.

And so then all of these new changes that we're talking

about are also coming to the Apple Watch Ultra 2.

And Brett, I'd like to get your take on this

because you use the ultra, you know how awesome the ultra is.

Everybody I know that has one loves them.

- Yep. I do. - You know, all of these new features

we talked about, the double tap, the better Siri,

the faster processor.

I think it makes the Ultra 2 better.

And I particularly would prefer,

would like to hear your thoughts on,

we just talked about the brightness.

This new Apple Watch Ultra 2 goes up to 3000 nits.

That's the brightest screen that Apple has made.

- That's a lot more nits.

- So what do you think?

I mean, what do you think about all these features?

I keep going back when I saw it on Tuesday, Jeff,

I'm like, that's not enough.

Like, that's not enough to push me over.

Like, I'm so happy with the Apple Watch Ultra.

Like, it's almost become, you know,

I will take it off my hand maybe for 40 minutes a day

just to charge it up.

But otherwise I have it on all the time and I love it.

You know, it's almost like,

why would I upgrade my 14 Pro to a 15 Pro

and it's just some incremental type of an upgrades,

but yet I'm not gonna do Apple Watch One,

Ultra One to Ultra Two, it's just incremental upgrades.

But I just, it's not enough.

I don't feel like it's not quite enough on there.

Everything stays almost exactly the same.

There's no new colors even, right?

It's all the same titanium, but I just, I love it.

I probably would miss like the Siri thing

we were just talking about

that it won't run locally on there.

You know, I'm sure I would enjoy the additional nits

So that it would even be brighter than it already is,

but it's not enough.

It's not enough, Jeff.

I don't think I'm gonna do it this year.

I'm gonna wait.

- It would have been weird if Apple had added

those new features to the Series 9

and not added them to the Ultra,

because the Ultra is the best Apple Watch they sell.

So if there's somebody who has not yet purchased an Ultra,

they will get to take advantage of all the things

that you love from what you bought last year,

plus some of these additional features too.

The one thing that I'm really curious about

is the brighter screen.

I mean, as you said, Brett, you you've been outside on a really sunny day and with 2000

nits, you've been able to see the screen.

I guess with 3000 nits, it just becomes even easier to see the screen in a super brighty

day.

I guess Apple wouldn't have done it if it wasn't a, a, a, an appreciable increase.

So that an appreciable improvement.

So there must be circumstances in which it really does make a difference.

But then again, maybe it's on such edge cases, it would have to be such a sunny day that

maybe the difference between 2000 and 3000 isn't that big.

That's something I'm a little curious to hear

what people that review them actually say,

is it a difference?

But again, you're not gonna get an Apple Watch Ultra 2,

but in a couple of years when they have the Ultra 3

or the Ultra 4, eventually you will upgrade.

And whenever you do, it'll be nice for you

to take advantage of all these new features.

- While the improvements for the Series 9

and the Apple Watch Ultra 2 aren't enough to get us

to go to the new watch,

The biggest announcement on Apple watch from, from Apple, uh, was you're not

going to be able to have leather bands anymore.

Well, I guess you can, but you ain't going to get it from Apple.

Uh, this was a little bit bizarre.

We can just quickly go into this.

Cause you linked to the mother nature video that Apple showed during the event,

which I got to tell you, I know a lot of people have panned Apple, you know,

for having this show and I'm not going to ruin the video.

It's really, I thought it was amazing.

I mean, it's the first time that I've seen really Tim cook involved in some

kind of a fun little video in that way.

But the entire idea was just really to underscore,

I thought fairly effectively,

Apple's commitment to the environment.

And I mean, there's all kinds of things wrapped up in that,

you know, they're going away from, you know,

it's all electricity, all their store is electricity now,

you know, but one of the things that they emphasized was

they're getting rid of leather in the Apple watch bands

that they're selling,

even though I think they're still available now.

I'm not really sure how that's going to go,

but I thought that was interesting

how they spent a long time on this.

- Yeah, the environmental video first,

you and I were both watching the keynote at the same time.

And when the video started, I texted you and I said,

this is just way too corny, but I have to admit.

I have to admit that I have changed my mind.

That it was a fun way for Apple to show off

what they're doing for the environment

without being too preachy of, you know,

let me give you a PowerPoint of the 10 things

we've done differently.

It was a fun way to do it.

So when I watched the video a second time, I'm like, you know what?

I actually think that was a good way to do it.

And then as for leather, I mean, Apple is doing things across their product

line and leather is the same way.

Not only do they, are they not going to sell leather watch bands?

They're also not going to sell leather iPhone cases and they've replaced it

with this new thing called, uh, the, uh, now I'm blanking on the name of it.

What's it called?

It's called fine woven fine woven.

I have it in my hand because this new, uh, case that I purchased normally

this would have been the leather case.

Right.

But this year they're not selling the leather case.

So I'm actually holding it right now, a fine woven case.

And I'll tell you, it feels pretty good.

You know, it's this sort of mesh technology.

If somebody had given this to me

and didn't tell me what the substance was,

I would have probably guessed that it was leather

because it's not a hundred percent the same as my regular,

the case that I bought last year, but it's pretty close.

- Is it like a pleather feel?

Is it pleather or?

- It's not pleather.

I know what pleather is.

It feels, it feels soft.

It feels, it feels sturdy.

Um, I'm sure it's more washable as a result.

Um, it, it feels good.

And now this is a little bit safer because it's part of a case.

I know that.

So it's probably got something inside of it to give it the stiffness.

If it was part of an Apple watch band, of course it would be more flexible.

But, um, although I haven't touched any of the new, uh, fine, well, uh, fine

woven Apple watch bands based upon the case that I'm holding in my hand right

now, I suspect that they'll actually be nice.

So I say, and again, you don't have necessarily being a vegan, you can still enjoy your hamburger,

but the idea is that by not using leather, just the tax and the environment and carbon emissions

and everything that's associated with getting to that leather product, it's just better to

use something that's made of fabric. And so why not make that change too? So I'm actually, I mean,

since what I'm holding right now feels so good, I'm in favor of that change. But as you say,

other companies won't necessarily do the same thing. So Apple will sell you an Hermes watch

band, but the only Hermes watch bands that you can buy from Apple are the non-leather ones.

But if you go to Hermes itself, they are happy to sell you their multi-thousand dollar and incredibly

well-designed and very fashionable, but also very expensive leather bands.

Interesting. Okay. Well, we'll leave the video to other folks watching. And then of course,

Apple has a huge press release on here about their unveiling its carbon neutral products.

And again, you know, I, yeah, I mean, it was a marketing piece, a little bit of fluff in there

and what Apple is doing. But on the other hand, you know, they're one of the biggest companies

that are really pushing the things that they're doing. And certainly I applaud on that.

Yeah, no, I don't want to get in a soapbox, but when we greenhouse gas and everything else,

we need to do something. And companies like Apple that have the resources to do something about it,

it would be just as easy for them to not do this and to spend the extra money into shareholder

profit. But instead they're saying, "You know what? This matters to us. And I hope that other

people follow their lead and don't just do it because they're forced to do it, but instead do

it because it's the right thing to do for our kids and our grandkids to have a better planet."

So I mean, of course, whenever somebody toots their own horn about it, people are going to say,

"Oh, it's just marketing." And I guess there is a marketing aspect of it. It's just like

Apple makes their phones, privacy is important to Apple because it's important, but then they

also use it as a selling point too. But that doesn't take away from the fact that it's also

important to respect privacy. And so kudos to Apple for doing this. Okay, enough said.

My favorite part is Tim Cook was rehearsing on how to welcome mother nature to the Cupertino

campus. You would not think that Tim Cook would be an actor in a comedic video.

He did good. And yet, he pulls it off. He actually does pull it off.

- The stare down, the stare down, I mean, come on.

- He makes fun of the fact that he doesn't have

a sense of humor, or at least that's his persona.

- Right, right, right.

- It's worth watching the video if you haven't seen it yet.

- Okay, so with the iPhones going to USB-C,

we already talked about the fact that Apple

is now gonna stop selling the MagSafe battery,

the MagSafe charger that uses lightning cables.

So it sounds like they're gonna stop selling

the AirPods Pro because the charging case

of the AirPods Pro has lightning, but no, in fact

this was kind of buried in the announcement on September 12th

and I gotta tell you, this may worry me a little bit.

I'm not really sure what I think about this

because silently, deftly, I would even say

Apple released a brand new AirPods Pro version two

that has a couple of slight improvements.

We'll talk about that.

But the biggest thing is the charging case

is now USB-C.

It looks exactly the same as my AirPods Pro

with the lightning,

except that it's not a lightning charging port

in the bottom anymore, it's USB-C.

I can't just buy a brand new USB-C charging case

for my current AirPods Pro, Jeff.

I would have to go and buy the entire set again

for $250 on this.

I'm not really sure what Apple is doing here.

I think that they're future-proofing

and preparing for what's to come,

But this makes me a little upset, a little frustrated.

- Apple, a company that has doing so many things right,

this confuses me.

Don't get me wrong.

I agree that they should have AirPod Pros

that work with USB-C, they should.

- Right, agreed.

- I'm in support of that.

But why didn't they call this the third generation?

This is the part that I don't understand.

Because if they called it the third generation AirPods Pro,

then people would say,

"Oh, okay, the difference between the second and the third

is you get USB-C."

And as you alluded to Brett, there's other features too.

Like, you know, if you're going to get getting

an Apple Vision Pro headset next year

and you want to take full advantage of the sound

when you wear AirPods,

instead of just letting the Vision Pro headset

has built-in speakers that are just right next to yours.

So if you want to wear AirPods,

this is the one that you have to get.

And so Apple has two products out there

with the exact same name, AirPods Pro second generation,

but there's completely different products,

USB-C versus lightning works with the Vision Pro versus doesn't work with the Vision Pro.

Apple, why are you doing this to us?

Give the darn thing a new name or put a plus at the end of it or put a check or do something

to let people know that these are different products.

I don't understand the naming convention.

So I guess somebody at Apple thought that this made sense for some reason.

And I hope that somebody explains it to me and then I'll be like, oh, this makes sense

because right now this makes no sense.

Again, not the product itself.

I'm happy to see the product,

but just give it a different name.

Don't call it the same thing.

- Okay, so this, the official name,

'cause this is on Apple's website right now,

AirPods Pro second generation

with MagSafe charging case, parentheses, USB-C.

- I guess the USB-C is the new part.

- That's the new part, I guess.

I know, I know.

- Call it the third generation.

Call it the second and a half generation.

Do something like that.

That's just bizarre.

- So interestingly, they do not sell now

the lightning version of it, right?

They did stop selling the lightning version,

but they just kind of silently threw in this USB-C version.

And I'm in full agreement, Jeff.

I'm glad that they did it, but I already have AirPods Pro.

I'm happy with them.

Like, why can't I just get the case?

Like, I would just want to have a case

because I'm not going to go and buy brand new ones,

I don't think.

I probably will at some point very soon.

But it's like, I don't want to buy them new

because I have perfectly good AirPods Pro.

I love them.

I use them every day.

be using them too if you hadn't forgotten them

at your house today.

(laughing)

- That's why I got the courage, yeah.

- Exactly.

So now it's the USB-C,

and the only way that I can get the USB-C charging cable

is to buy a brand new pair of AirPods Pro.

And again, I love them so much.

I probably will do this very soon,

but it's like, why are you having to do this?

But I see.

Now, to be fair, not only the upgrade for the Vision Pro,

which is kind of the future proofing of it,

but now the AirPods Pro have additional

IP54 rated dust resistance

for both the earbuds and the charging case.

I like that.

I don't know if it's quite enough to get me

to upgrade immediately, but okay.

Anyway, I feel like this is gonna be

the most frustrating thing

that people are gonna be talking about on there.

Other than the fact that if you do have a USB-C charging

case for your AirPods Pro and you have an iPhone 15 Pro,

you can actually charge your charging case

for the AirPods Pro from your iPhone.

Am I correct in that?

Is that, I think they showed the slide about that,

that you could have a USB-C cable from your iPhone

to your AirPods Pro charging case,

and it would charge the charging case.

So it's like, well, what do I want less?

Do I want less battery on my AirPods

or less battery on my iPhone?

I feel like I have to pick,

what way I want to both to be charged.

But anyway, I guess in a pinch,

that could be a nice thing to do if you needed to.

Okay, wow, I know this has been a long,

but not only were we gonna have new hardware by next week,

because by next Friday, right,

your shipment should be arriving, am I correct?

Yeah, it could be there.

Next Monday, September the 18th,

is when Apple is gonna release iOS 17.

So even if you have a current iPhone,

you're not gonna get the newest iPhone,

you will be able to download iOS 17 for your iPhone

and iPadOS 17 for your iPad.

We don't have to talk too much about this, Jeff,

'cause I know we've been talking about it quite a bit,

but I'm glad to know it's coming as soon as Monday.

- Can't wait to play with it.

Look forward to talking with you about it next week.

So that's all I have to say.

- That's all we have to say about that.

Where are you at segment?

Real quick, we got a neat one.

This was really interesting story here.

We've talked about how great it is for the iPhone 14 Pro

to be able to dial emergency services through satellite,

But I've never heard of an emergency, but dial situation.

And it sounds like that's exactly what happened.

This was a really a great story here from John Cook on a geeky, uh, that I, I

really want everybody to go and read just simply because it's interesting in the

fact that, uh, where he was and where they were going at the time.

And it sounds like Jeff, he just threw his iPhone 14 pro into his backpack, right?

He, I don't, I don't think he turned it off.

He left it on.

Uh, but he just put it in his backpack cause they were hiking, right?

They were having fun in the outdoors.

But somehow, some way, he says,

and here he hasn't been able to figure out,

that the iPhone called emergency services.

It somehow felt that somebody was in danger.

And sure enough, they had law enforcement out there,

they had a helicopter flying around trying to find him.

And it just so happened, he thought about,

could it have been my iPhone?

And it was.

And he only found out by taking it out of his backpack

and looking it up.

he had to apologize profusely to the emergency personnel that came out for him.

You know, he calls, he calls us a butt dial, which is what we often call it, but he didn't

actually sit on his phone and make it happen. What he thinks he did. And again, he's not sure

how it happens because this person, you know, he totally understands how iPhones work and stuff.

He knows, right.

You know, he works for one of these sites, so he understands it, but he says that he thinks

that he was just trying to turn off his phone, which you can often do by pressing the buttons

on the side and he thinks that he just triggered emergency services by pressing it with the same

without realizing it. And then he just stuck it into his little fanny pack that he was using as

he hiked around. And then next thing you know, it's calling emergency services. So none of us

want to be in this situation. You mentioned just now that the satellite feature was with the 14

pro. It's actually on all four models of the 14. It's on all four models of the 15 as well. So

there's even more iPhones that are out there in the wild. This S satellite SOS service can be a

lifesaver. We've talked about that many times, but it might just like anything else, it can also

have false alarms if you trigger it by accident. So it is just something to be careful about.

I thought it was interesting that the Rangers or whichever emergency folks he was talking to,

he actually asked them afterwards, he's like, "Do false alarms like what I did happen very often?"

And they responded that they do happen sometimes, but not very much. And that they thought that

considering the number of times that they were able to rescue someone who needed help,

It was worth it to have just a few circumstances in which somebody made a mistake.

Now, he said, hopefully, that won't increase over time because you can imagine if you get

too many false alarms, well, then it would be like the chicken little problem. But

it just shows you that be careful that you've got a lot of power in your hand

to call emergency services. So just be cognizant of it should you ever be in a situation where

you trigger it by accident. And what did he say here? I'm trying to figure out what did he

ultimately come to as the solution. Oh, he said he turns the iPhone off completely, right? Which

isn't ideal because you want to be able to, you know, to get emergency calls or something if you

need them. But he said, if you're going to put it maybe in your backpack or something like that,

that it would, he turns it off completely, which means that the satellite call would not have

happened or it won't happen once the phone is off. But then you got to remember to turn that off,

right? It's not like everybody's going to be able to do that every single time. Right?

- Right.

- Yeah, interesting.

All right, we all know about the health aspects

of vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin D,

just we didn't know that there was vitamin AirPods.

As much as we like our AirPods,

I saw this story the other day,

and thank you to this nice young lady here

that was very transparent in her TikTok video

saying that she had her AirPods in her hand apparently.

I don't know if she had vitamins in the other hand.

- She did, yeah.

her vitamins and she inadvertently popped the air pod into her mouth and swallowed it

even though she admits that it was a little difficult getting it down.

She had to drink a little extra water but she took her air pod as a vitamin instead

of the actual vitamins.

Apparently everything came out okay.

It turns out okay at the very end because she tried to talk, she called around to several

doctors like what should you do? And how do they say it here? Most people just say that

it, that things need to run their course as it were, but it turns out, okay.

Let it pass naturally was the advice. I mean, you know, we, we laugh at this, you know,

there, but for the grace of God, I hopefully this never happens to me, but I could, I could

almost imagine doing something silly like this. I know. It's nice. I think she was out

walking right. And she had her, you know, she met a friend and so, you know, you take

your air pod out and you have it in your hand and you just don't think about it, but wow,

you gotta think about it,

but apparently she turned out okay.

So even if it does happen to you,

things will turn out okay.

All right, a quick message from our sponsor, SaneBox.

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All right, so we're going to cheat just a little bit on this week, Jeff, just because

'cause there was so much,

but we're gonna select our favorite announcement

from the past Apple event week here.

And I will tell you mine has to do

with the Apple Watch Ultra.

I will tell you the thing that got me the most excited

when I was watching about the watch section

or segment that they were talking about, Jeff,

was they finally are now going to release

a new Apple Watch face called the Modular Ultra.

So when the Apple Watch Ultra came out,

it was a bigger screen, obviously,

and they had a very specific watch face.

I'm blanking on the name that they had it there now.

It was called a Altimeter.

Anyway, it was a new watch face that came out

just for the Apple Watch

because it took better advantage of that bigger screen.

Now I don't use that watch face very much,

but one of the things that was really cool on it

is that not only could you have it in the colorful aspect,

But if you, on this particular watch face,

if you spun the digital crown a little bit,

it would go into an all bright red.

In fact, I think this story that you linked to here has it.

Yeah, there it is.

So everything would go to this red,

which is almost like a red light in the nighttime, right?

So it just, it was just very cool and very effective

'cause I used it even on some hikes that I went and did.

But I wanted more, I wanted more for my watch face.

And when I saw this, they were talking about it.

Apple was talking about this

as if this was a new watch face

only for the Apple watch ultra two,

but this is a story from Leander Kainey,

of course, a cult of Mac.

And he has verified for me very happily

that this modular ultra is also gonna be available

on the first Apple watch ultra.

And I am almost ready to upgrade to iOS 17.

I'm gonna write a few more days

'cause I can do that now.

Just so that I can get this in the new,

let's see, this will be watchOS 10, I believe.

- It's good.

I can think I can put up to eight different complications

on the watch face, Jeff.

That's amazing.

I cannot wait.

I'm almost at the risk of like too much information.

I'm gonna get confused,

but I'm willing to take the hit on that.

Like I wanna see it.

I cannot wait for the new Apple watch face

called Modular Ultra.

I'll report next week how that goes.

- Look forward to hearing it.

So for my tip today, I'm gonna change my mind, Brad.

I was gonna focus on the button on the iPhone Pro,

But we, you and I have already talked about the action button.

So I'm going to talk about something different that we haven't mentioned yet.

One of the new features of all of the new iPhones, um, not only this year's, but I

think this actually worked well last year's too.

If you have a phone that supports satellite SOS, it will also now support

satellite, I'll call it satellite help.

It's not necessarily an emergency.

I don't need you to send the ambulance, but what if you have, you know, a flat

tire or you're out in the middle of nowhere and you're running a gas or

something crazy like that.

And so if you are out of cell phone service range,

you might think, oh, you know, I'm just completely SOL.

What am I gonna do?

How can I contact anybody?

But if you're in the middle of nowhere,

but you can see the sky on top of you,

that's okay because your phone can talk to satellites

and you can use it to say,

I'm not having an emergency

that I need to have an ambulance,

but I do need some assistance.

And you click on some buttons saying like,

what is your problem?

I'm locked out.

I ran out of gas.

I have a flat tire.

My car doesn't start, my car is stuck.

And it will connect you to AAA,

which this is only in the United States,

the American Automobile Association.

AAA offers roadside assistance

that they can come help you out.

If you are already a AAA member,

well, then this works out great.

They just come out and get you

just as if you called them on a regular phone.

If you're not currently a AAA member, that's okay too,

because they will also offer like a pay per use.

And I haven't heard all the details about it.

And I suspect that they'll say,

okay, you're not a AAA member. So for us to come out and fix your flat tire, or for us to come out

and help your vehicle start, it's going to cost X amount of dollars. But I tell you what, if you're

in the middle of nowhere, outside of range, um, worth it, probably worth it. And so I love that

this is a feature on the phones. I love that this was going to be a feature, you know, when my kids

get phones that support this on my kids phones too, because much like emergency services on your

watch, on your, on your iPhone or anything else, you hope that you never get into the situation

where you need it. But if you do, you're so happy to have it. And that's what we always say about

the life-saving services. But now, even for things that are not necessarily life-saving services,

like a flat tire, it's nice to know that you can get help when you're out there.

So I mean, this was a complete surprise. I heard no rumor that this feature was coming out at all.

And when Apple described this on Tuesday, I'm like, you know what? I feel I have more peace of

mind knowing that this is out there. If I never use it, great. But if I ever do need it, it's

It's going to be fantastic.

It's right there.

I love it.

I love it.

- I think they even showed the AAA logo on Tuesday, right?

I mean, they talked about this

and it's been a lot of time on it,

but I'm glad that you selected this

and talked a little bit more

because it didn't reverberate with me as much

that this was going to be like,

it's like an OnStar service, right?

Like the old OnStar from the cars that now I can use this,

but not just as an excellular call,

like it's through satellite,

which I am really appreciating the fact now

that Apple is going more and more to the satellite.

There was either a story from you

or somebody that I was seeing

that they are investing even more with like what SpaceX

and I forget the satellite company's name now,

but they're like that Apple is investing a lot more

into those satellites so that they can use

more percentage of even the bandwidth.

So to me, the fact that they have the emergency,

that was like one of the first shots across the bow, right?

Now that they're incorporating roadside assistance

into the satellite, who knows where they're gonna be going

next, Jeff.

I mean, this is just amazing that they're continuing

to push this far.

I feel like they should have just purchased AAA, right?

That could have been triple Apple then at that point.

I mean, something like that.

I mean, maybe they will at some point.

- Well, let me answer your question, Brett.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, please.

- My hope is that we get to a point in the future

that they have enough satellite bandwidth that they say,

even if you're in the middle of nowhere,

you can still text with friends and family.

That's what I would love to see.

You know, if I'm hiking, I'm off-

But I do want to send a text just to let my parents know everything's fine.

I'll see y'all next week.

Something like that.

That would be nice.

But again, Apple has to have the additional satellite bandwidth to support text messaging.

I hope that that comes in the future.

It probably won't include videos or photo support.

It'll probably be like old style, you know, SMS with just text, but that would be okay though.

So if Apple gets there in the next couple of years, I would be really happy.

But for now we have roadside assistance, which is cool.

Okay.

I know that was a lot.

We'll have more to talk about, but thanks for staying with us, everybody.

If you want to get a little more information about SaneBox,

sanebox.com/inthenews, we thank them for sponsoring.

Jeff, always good and fun to talk with you, especially after an Apple

announcement, and I know we'll have more to talk next week.

Thanks, Brett.

Bye bye everybody.