Welcome to In the News for July 31st, 2026, the last day of July.

I feel like the summer is just fading away, Jeff.

I am Brett Burney from Appsinlaw.com.

And this is Jeff Richardson from iPhoneJD.

Hey, Brett.

Hello.

The last day of July.

It's been a fun month.

And boy, Apple held something in their pocket to throw it at us this last week in July.

How about an Apple upgrade program?

We talked a little bit about this, I think, last week, right, that there were some rumors at that point that Apple was going to have a leasing program, although I think they're officially calling this the Apple Upgrade Program.

It is a way that you can lease products.

I've got several thoughts on this.

Last week, I don't know that I was very warm on this because they're partnering with a company called Klarna, which is well known for like, what is it, buy now, pay later.

But I got to tell you, over this last week, some of these are the details have rolled out.

I'm getting a little, I guess now I was cooler last week.

I'm a little warmer about it this week now.

Yeah, you and I are in the exact same boat.

I have now, now that I've gone through the details and looked at it, I think this is a really good deal.

Let me begin by saying that Klarma, you know, people have mixed emotions about that company.

It's going to, I really have a sense that it's going to be in the background.

You're not going to really pay attention.

And when people use the program, the fact that Kalarma handles it in the background is not going to really change anything.

I think that you can treat this as an Apple program, and that's good.

But just on the high level, I actually think this is a good deal.

This is a good deal.

And although it might not be the best deal for everybody, I think for a lot of people it makes sense.

I remember many years ago, Brett, I was buying a car, and my wife and I were trying to figure out how we were going to pay for it.

And they were running a special through the company, I think it was a Honda car, and Honda had a special that it was 0% financing.

And my wife and I were joking, well, hey, that's free money.

If it's 0% financing, we might as well stretch it out over a couple of years because it doesn't cost us anything.

And that's what this is too.

This is no fee, no interest, 0% financing.

And so if you're going to purchase an iPhone that costs, let's just say, $1,000, you know, for ease of math, you know, one choice is you pay $1,000 today.

And if you've got the cash, that's fine.

And that means it's yours and you do what you want with it, you know, forever and ever.

That's fine.

Another choice would be you can use the program through Apple's credit card to pay it off over 12 months.

So just divide up $1,000 by 12 months.

And that's a good program, too, because there's no interest.

There's no fees, whatever.

And then at the end of 12 months, you pay for it in full and you didn't have to come out with the cash outlay up front.

You can just take it out of your paycheck for the next 12 months.

But this program is another way to go.

Because it is a lease, you don't own it at the end with an asterisk because you can buy it.

But it is a way to have lower monthly payments over a – depending upon the product, it can be 12 or 24.

Or for some products, it's 24 to 36.

But the idea is that you're just going to pay for it over time.

And at the end of the lease, you know, let's just say that you do a two-year lease for an iPhone.

At the end of the two years, the money that you spent every single month will not total what the cost of the product is.

But whatever the difference is between what you've paid so far, let's say you've paid $600 so far.

And so, you know, what's left off your purchase price, $400.

You can just pay that last $400 over the next six months.

So if it's a 24-month one, then it would give you 24 plus six.

It would be 30 months.

So for the last six months, you could pay it off or you could pay it off up front if you want.

You could say, okay, now my two-year, my one-year, my three-year lease is over.

I'm just going to pay the difference.

And then it's yours.

And so at the end of the day, you haven't paid a penny more than you would have paid up front.

And you have had the advantage of being able to stretch things out over time.

And we're not paying any interest.

You're not paying any fees.

So that sounds pretty good, you know, just to, you know, why not hold on to your money a little bit longer because, you know, the value of money.

You can do more with your money than, you know, Apple.

I actually see a lot of advantages to this.

And just to, there's a million permutations here to think about.

But if you, for example, get a new iPhone every year or every two years, either one of those things, typically iPhones cost the same from year to year to year.

Now, I know this year is different because Apple is going to raise prices.

They've already had that because of the very high cost of ramp.

But if you look back historically, you know, whatever the $1,000 iPhone was, there has been a $999.

You know, there has been a $1,000 or $1,200, whatever it is, iPhone every single year.

And so if you just decide, we know that Apple's going to come out with a new iPhone every year.

Let's say I'm going to do the 12-month program.

I'm going to pay whatever it is a month.

And I haven't done the math in front of me.

But whatever it is a month, you know, I'm going to pay that for the next 12 months.

And then at the end of that 12 months, I'm just going to give you this iPhone back and then redo the program for the next iPhone, which is going to cost the exact same, which means my monthly payments are the same.

And I can just keep doing that forever, essentially.

And without me paying anything more every month, I end up getting a new iPhone every year.

I actually think that that's going to be a big advantage to people that want to do this.

Now, I will say like a couple of caveats because this is a lease and because you don't own the product, it does mean that if something happens to the product, you have an issue.

Let me give you an example.

One of my big questions.

Sometimes I see people walking around with an iPhone and there have been times when it's been my own son walking around with an iPhone that's got a crack on the screen.

And I'm like, oh, you haven't got a crack on the screen.

And they're like, yeah, it doesn't bother me.

It still works.

It's not whatever. And so, but regardless, if you have like a nick or a scratch or something like that on the screen, if it doesn't bother you, you may say, I don't really care for me. But keep in mind that because this is a lease, at the end of the lease, when you turn it back, they will care. And so you will then either have to buy it outright. But again, you would have had to buy it outright from the beginning anyway. So you're no worse than you would have been if you had bought it from the outset. Or this is a reason why, because it's a lease, it's a reason why it may make sense for you to also pay for the AppleCare program.

But you and I have talked about AppleCare or the AppleCare One, which is extra.

But the AppleCare or the AppleCare One program is a pretty good deal anyway, depending upon which device you're getting.

I mean, there's nice reasons to have AppleCare just in case something happens.

They fix things like that.

And so you might want to get AppleCare because you're on this lease.

But again, maybe not.

I mean, it's up to you.

And again, if you have that crack on the screen and at the end of the one year or the two year, they're not going to take it back because of the crack.

That's not a problem.

You can just pay whatever the payoff price is.

And again, you're not paying a dollar more than you would have paid from the beginning because it's just the full purchase price.

So before I keep talking, I have a couple other caveats on like other things that might give you better deals.

But what have I missed or what are your thoughts about the program in general?

I think it's a really good deal.

I feel like there's just a lot to kind of grok here a little bit.

This was an excellent article that you linked to from Julie Clover, 20 things to know before leasing.

Because I just have so many questions, more specifically even on what is something is damaged on there.

You know, on one hand, I feel like leasing is just a fancy word for renting.

I mean, I can't get over this idea that I'm renting this phone.

And you talked about this last week as well.

I remember because so many of us have just gotten into this routine where maybe we'll pass down a phone.

You know, after we're done with it, we'll give it to a family member.

You know, we'll maybe resell it or we'll trade it in.

We've been, you and I have been trading in the old devices.

And again, I don't necessarily know quite yet.

I haven't done all the calculations myself.

I don't know that that's a better or worse deal or whatever.

But the more that I learn about this on their leasing side, fancy word for renting, I feel like that's just a mental block.

Because, you know, do I own this phone right now?

No, I'm still making payments on it.

I mean, you know, I think we'll get to this in a moment because I'm using the Apple credit card.

So I'm really renting it as well, even though people are like, well, do I own my car?

I mean I did own the car, but I'm still making payments on it.

So those arguments there are both ways.

But anyway, this Julie Clover article I thought was good.

Maybe just some of the basics we'll run through quickly.

U.S. only.

This is for unlocked phones.

And I think John Gruber or somebody pointed this out that it's unlocked.

So you can use the phone with any carrier that you want to as long as it's one of the big three, right?

AT&T, Verizon, or T-Mobile, which is just interesting to kind of lock that down.

The leasing, you know, I say leasing is a fancy term for rent.

I understand, obviously, at the end of that lease term, which you did a good job of explaining,

Jeff, that you have the option that you can buy that.

You know, we talked about this last time.

What if there are missed payments?

If you miss a payment, the rumor last week that we had was that Apple would put your

phone in something called restrictive mode, or they would lock it down. And that has been put down

by Apple specifically. They reached out to journalists and said, that is not how it's

going to work. And, but so now if you miss a payment, it's either just rolled into your next

month payment. There's no late fees, which that's incredible. Yeah. In fact, let's just talk about

that. If for some reason, you know, let's just say you're supposed to pay a hundred dollars a month.

If you miss a month because you made a mistake or whatever, it just rolls over to the next month.

So like if I was supposed to pay $100 in August and I miss, I just pay $200 in September.

Now, if you miss three, it's, you know, she calls it a three strike program.

If you miss three payments in a row, well, then karma is going to take action and, you

know, it's going to mess up your credit and everything else.

But I mean, of course, that makes sense if you miss three payments in a row.

But the simple fact that you've got one strike and two strike that you're okay, you know,

maybe you make a mistake because sometimes that happens.

I actually had this happen not too long ago.

So I'm dealing with my dad's estate and there was a payment and I missed it, but it was a utility payment and I just paid it the next month and it was totally fine.

It was a mistake.

Or if you actually have like a month that like I'm totally short this month.

I don't have the payment this month, but I will be there next month.

It's nice that you have the flexibility on it.

And I think that's really nice.

Very nice.

And again, no fees for missing – no late fees for missing a payment.

Right, right, right.

There is that termination clause in there.

Missing a payment could also impact your credit score.

That's nothing new.

I mean, this is all the same with anything else that you might lease on there.

Okay, just real quick, can we cover the AppleCare Plus again?

Because one of the big headlines out of this is, hey, you can start, get a phone for $17.99 a month.

Now, that's the 17E, right?

But that's the headline.

That's the cheapest one.

Because that's the cheapest one.

Exactly. But you and I and most folks aren't going to go for the cheapest one, at least a lot that are listening to this.

So if you want the 17 Pro, you start not at $17.99 a month. It's $31.99 a month. Now that's for 24 months.

That's not bad. $32.

It's not bad. And in fact, I think I was looking, I think I'm paying $34.64 a month on my Apple credit card, right?

So that's a $24 payment as well. So I looked in there because I wanted to see the installments,

what they call the installments on your Apple credit card on my wallet.

So that's a few bucks less.

But when we get back to the if you add on that AppleCare Plus, because if I'm renting a phone, Jeff, like that's I'm more nervous that I'm going to have a net or something in there.

So it's like how could you how could you not get AppleCare Plus on top of this lease?

And she's saying here, Julie's saying that that's going to be an additional $9.99 to $13.99 per month.

Or, as you mentioned, you could get Apple Care One, which is $20 that covers three devices.

So that's, you know, you could, I guess, $20 divided by three if you have three devices that you're leasing at the same time, an iPhone, an iPad, and an Apple Watch maybe on that.

But then it's actually not a bad deal, right?

$20 a month.

It's not, but I mean it does start adding up.

That's the point that I'm getting to.

It's like it does start adding up.

So even though the headline is $17.99 a month, are you kidding me?

That's fantastic.

But you're not going to be paying that.

You're going to be paying probably something closer to $30, $31.99 a month.

And then on top of that, maybe another $10 for that AppleCare Plus, which I think at this point, what I know so far, Jeff, I would tell people do not do this upgrade program, the leasing program, without AppleCare.

You should consider that strongly on there.

Yeah.

But, you know, I'm just thinking like Netflix.

If you get the Netflix plan, you know, I have Netflix premium because it's got the highest quality and stuff like that.

You know, I'm paying, I think it's, just to go to a quick internet search, it looks like I'm paying $27 a month for Netflix, okay?

For basically the same price that I'm paying for Netflix every month, I could be getting an iPhone 17, which is a perfectly good phone, right?

My wife uses that.

And what is the iPhone 17, that page that you were on?

I think it's like maybe $20.

Yeah, yeah, here it is.

$22.99.

So for less than what I'm paying for Netflix, I can get an iPhone 17.

And if somebody asked me, would I get more value out of having a month worth of an iPhone versus a month worth of Netflix?

Not even a comparison.

So, you know, and again, people always make this analogy of, you know, it's less than the cost of a price of a cup of coffee every week.

You know, considering that's a cup of coffee can be, you know, can be 10 bucks every time you get it.

So, depending upon what you get on it.

So, I know that you could do that forever.

But at the same time, I think that they are fair comparisons.

You know, a lot of people that otherwise would not consider getting a new iPad, consider getting a new Mac.

And again, we should emphasize that.

Unlike the old program, this is not just iPhones.

It's not every single Mac model.

For example, it's not the Mac Neo, which is the cheapest one.

But maybe they'll add that in the future.

It's not every single model of all the different products.

But for most of them, you know, especially the mid to high level Macs and iPads and stuff like that, it's also not the cheapest iPad.

But for most of the models that I would recommend to people, you know, MacBook Air, iPad Air, it does apply.

And maybe you're like, gosh, I don't have $1,500 right now, but I can swing, you know, $20 a month or whatever it is.

And you're not paying a fee.

You're not paying interest.

That is a really good thing.

That's amazing.

And I'm sorry.

I'm going to interject real quick.

I think I just saw this.

If I click through one of these select items, right, lease your iPhone 17 Pro from $31.99 a month for 24 months.

But look over here, Jeff.

They still may take a trade-in on top of that.

Wait, so I can do a trade-in and the lease?

Would that bring that down?

Wow.

And the way it works is they apply the trade-in value.

I think it's over the entire course of the lease.

So instead of paying $32 a month, you pay $30 a month or $29 a month because they're giving you some value for your trade-in.

And so it's nice that it's not either or.

You don't have to either use the Apple upgrade program or do a trade-in.

It's nice that you have a choice of them.

Okay.

And then another – I'm sorry.

I keep interrupting you.

Another quick pricing thing here.

So this is $31.99 a month for 24 months.

So this is what I was trying to look at down here.

If you scroll down, that's 24.

If you select a 12-month lease term for the iPhone 17 Pro, it goes from $31.99 a month to $45.99 a month.

Now, that makes sense.

I'm not saying that that's anything wrong with that.

But it's like, again, you just need to factor in all of these little issues, you know, caveats that you might be thinking.

Because I think I would go for the 12-month, right, Jeff?

Wouldn't you?

Yeah.

I mean, I'm going to ask you initially, you know, before we move on to anything else, ultimately what you think you might decide you might do here.

But I would do a 12-month, I think.

So it's not $31.99 a month.

Now it's $45.99 a month.

Plus the AppleCare on top of that.

I'd probably do AppleCare one.

But it's just like that starts adding up on there too.

Again, I still think right now overall it's probably going to be a pretty good deal,

but I would go for 12 months because I know that I would want to upgrade in a year's time.

Yeah.

Why would you not use the program?

This is what I'm thinking of.

One reason not to use the program is the price that you're paying over time is the MSRP.

Now, historically, Apple doesn't have a lot of discounts,

and so pretty much everybody pays the price.

But we know that recently there are ways to pay less than the MSRP.

For example, Amazon will often shave a small amount off.

Now, it may only be $5, $10, $0.99 in some cases, but you should at least look into that option.

Carrier options.

Carriers that want you to stay with the carrier for a long period of time, or if you're switching carriers, they may offer you a good deal as a come on.

Switch from Verizon to AT&T or vice versa and we will give you an even better price because we also want you to pay for our cellular service every month.

So you might be able to get a better deal that way because you may decide I don't care that I'm going to be with AT&T for the next three years.

And if you're going to give me some value for me staying there, which is something I would have done anyway, why not?

So that's another thing.

And then there's other discounts too like educational discounts.

I don't think this applies to the educational discounts that some people can get.

If you're a student in school, if you have a friend that works for Apple, employee discounts, you know, there's other ways that you can get discounts.

But if you were going to pay the MSRP anyway, and I'll give you an example.

Every year when I buy a new iPhone, because I'm buying it the day that it comes out, there's no debt.

There's no discounts yet.

There's no sales yet.

Right.

You know, because so I'm always for you, mister.

I'm always paying full price.

And even though I have this mental block against a lease, like you said, but I'm like, you

know what?

I want the flexibility of owning my device because I might pass it off to my son or my

daughter later or because I might want to trade it in.

Even then, even then, there's no prepayment penalty.

I was just going to point that out.

Yes.

Incredible.

If I decide six months in, you know what?

I actually think I just want to own this. I don't want to be on this Apple lease anymore.

I just pay the difference. And instead of paying it this September when the new iPhone comes out,

I pay it next April, next May, whenever I decide to do it. I've been able to hold on to my money

for that period of time. And then I pay it off and there's no penalty. There's no interest.

If you lease a car, you typically have a fee for paying it off early, do you not?

Right. And this is the, you know, and plus when you lease a car, you know, there's issues there too because you have to have insurance.

And, you know, car leases, they make you pay for something called like gap insurance if you pay it off.

You know, if you're in a situation where you're underwater and you owe more for whatever, it gets complicated.

But Apple doesn't have anything like that here.

So, like, and this is, I'm saying this out loud, Brett, that I know I'm going to have a, I'm going to have a block in my head of the key management program.

because I've been paying outright for my iPhone ever since when I get my first iPhone, 2008.

That's a long time.

Many, many, many, many years.

I've just paid for it in full.

But this is the first year that I'm going to have to listen to my own advice and tell myself,

you know what?

Maybe there's no point in paying it out in full.

Why not do this program?

And then whenever I'm done with it, whether it's two months in, six months in,

or heck, maybe I just hold on into it and for next year.

And then I say, okay, you have it back.

I did a 12-month one, and now I'm going to get the next phone.

Right.

And look at the bottom of Julie's article here.

Here's something else.

Klarna, which, of course, you said the company that's going to be kind of overseeing this or doing the logistics.

Klarna doesn't accept some credit cards like American Express, Chase, and Capital One.

But other credit cards like the Apple credit card can be used for the Apple upgrade payments to Klarna.

So instead of –

I always use my Apple card anyway.

I do too.

That's what I'm getting to.

So wait a minute.

I'm doing the least.

Yeah.

Did you get, you're going to ask the same question.

Do you still get that 3%?

Okay.

I was literally on my way into work this morning.

I was listening to a podcast and somebody said that it looks like I'm only getting the 1% of the credit card.

But then somebody else said, oh no, that's a bug, but they need to fix it.

So that's one.

I don't know the full answer.

But assuming that you do get your full 3%, well then, you know, you'll get the same 3% over the two years, three years that you pay.

it off. So that's the thing. Yeah. I mean, normally I like using my Amex card for things

because I get points and stuff like that. But for Apple products, I never use my Amex card. I always

use my Apple card because it's a discount. So if you haven't, now, if you don't have an Apple card,

this might be, you know, if you don't use an Apple card, if you only use your Chase card or your Amex

card or your Capital One card, well, yeah, this is a reason that this particular program may not

work for you. But heck, the flip side is maybe this is a good reason for you to get an Apple card,

You know, because it's not a bad card to have in the next card.

No annual fee.

It's an amazing card.

Anyway, we can talk about credit cards another day.

But I just saw that at the bottom of Julie's article here.

It's like there seems to be additional ticks in that pro column for me, Jeff.

Like I'm keeping going there.

Okay, so I want to know, Mr. iPhone JD, is this – I mean I can already tell you're seriously considering it.

We've got a few months maybe because I don't think you and I are going to be doing this anytime soon.

We both have our iPhone 7.

Well, but I'm going to probably get a new iPhone in September.

Come September.

Six weeks away.

I mean, we're not that far from it.

Not that far.

And, you know, it's actually, I'm glad that this program is so good because, as we discussed earlier, this is the year that Apple has already raised the prices of many of its products because of the, you know, unprecedented.

I think Tim Cook called it this week in one of his interviews.

It's like a hundred year flood, you know, when it comes to RAM prices.

So they've done the unthinkable and raised prices.

And this fall when the new iPhones come out, they have made it clear they are going to be raising prices.

And so normally that would be it really is a shame that I'm used to paying X.

I'm used to paying $1,000.

I'm used to paying $1,500, whatever your number is.

This could be the first year that you need to add $200 onto that X.

So the $1,500 iPhone is going to actually cost me $1,700 this year.

That's a pain.

But with this program, the bad news is it's more expensive.

But the good news is, is you now have a very reasonable way to stretch off that slightly higher price over time.

And instead of paying $1,700, you pay whatever it is, I don't know, 50 bucks a month or something like that.

And then that just makes it easier to stomach that price increase.

So it's good timing.

It's good timing to have this program now.

Two last thoughts quickly on this.

Maybe I'll do the timing on this first since you just brought that up.

Apple doesn't do things without thinking them through.

And just like you said, we're six weeks away from the new iPhone and potentially not just the new iPhone 18, but the new foldable iPhone.

Do you think that they are doing this maybe to help kind of soften some of that blow?

Like in other words, oh, $2,300 iPhone foldable.

Who's going to get that?

But we have the Apple upgrade program.

It won't hurt that bad.

And you can just lease it instead of buying it outright.

Right. I just feel like that could be a factor of somewhere in there.

This is, I mean, people over time, car dealers, you know, everybody over time is like, pay no attention to that sticker price.

Just pay attention to the fact that you're going to pay 200 bucks a month because you can afford that for your car.

And yeah, I do think that that's funny.

And again, you may say, oh, you know, we know what they're doing.

But I mean, this is life. I mean, of course we know what we're doing.

I mean, you know, this is it.

And you're right. It does make a more expensive purchase more palatable.

And, you know, another one is, you know, famously, the people that work at Apple stores do not work on commission, which is nice because they don't have an economic incentive to upsell you.

So, like, instead of getting the iPhone Air, you know, what would it do for me to talk you into getting an iPhone Pro today?

It doesn't, you know.

How can we get you in this?

Right.

They are usually very good about giving you whatever is good for you because they don't have any, you know, it doesn't help them to sell more of one product versus another.

But at the same time, if you're trying to decide, do I get the low end or the mid end or do I get the mid end or the high end?

You know, when you do the math and you say, well, the overall cost is going to be $200 more.

But since I'm going to pay for it every month and it's going to only cost me $4 extra a month, you know, then you're like, well, maybe I will get the nicer Apple Watch.

Maybe I will get the nicer iPhone.

And I do think that that's part of Apple's incentive.

But again, it's not just like it helps Apple.

It helps you, too.

You get a better Apple Watch.

That's true.

You get a better – you get an iPad that has a little bit more storage space on it, which you might actually be valuing 18 months from now when you need that extra storage space.

You want that extra memory.

So I really think this is a win-win.

I'm also going to point out they called this the Apple Upgrade Program.

They didn't call this the Apple Lease Program and maybe for many reasons.

But the point that I'm getting to is you and I have talked many times about how, especially with iPads, people don't tend to upgrade them as often, Jeff.

And Apple tracks all of this.

They know because the iPads just work.

And, you know, you and I upgrade phones every year if we can just because that's what we do.

I know that you do specifically.

But, Jeff, most of the people we know do not, right?

And so I just – I feel like this is such an interesting, sly way that Apple is encouraging those upgrades because that's going to look fantastic on a bottom line.

Now, again, I'm not pointing fingers.

I'm just saying it's brilliant the way they've done that, and I think that's why you and I are probably a little happy with some of these issues like late fees.

Like, I mean, you know that Apple has been putting the thumb down on Klarna because I would think if I was Klarna, I'd want to have late fees, especially on iPhone devices.

but I feel like Apple has probably gone to bat for the users because they know this is going to help

ultimately in the long run of some of making those upgrades because this thing to your point you were

just saying why not get the best uh the iPad because you know you can upgrade it like you're

just going to pay for a month you're already going to be paying monthly anyway for this iPhone might

as well get something a little bit better treat yourself a little bit and then at the end of 12

months 24 months you are guaranteed you can just roll it over into a new a new car a new phone a

new iPad. It's going to be good. Anyway, I just wanted to point that out. I agree. That is the

intent. When your period of time is over, the program works great if you just give it back and

get a new one. Give it back, get a new one. And that way you're getting new devices perhaps more

quickly than you would have, which is nice for Apple, but it's also nice for you because it means

you have newer devices. Why wouldn't you do that? Yeah. All right. Well, we'll be talking about this

a lot more because like you, I think I am seriously considering it as something for the upcoming next

couple of months. Now, we just talked a whole lot about how Apple is doing, making some good

decisions with the Apple upgrade program. We talked last week or maybe a couple of weeks ago

about something where we don't think Apple is making some of the best decisions. Well,

I don't want to speak for you. I'll talk for myself. We talked about this John Gruber article

about how Apple, mostly it was centered around the idea that Apple is going to include ads

in Apple Maps. And I went off on a tangent because I don't like seeing so many ads in my Apple News

because I pay for Apple News Plus through Apple One. And I'm like, I don't want to see those ads.

And then, of course, they raised the price on Apple One. They were announcing that they're

raising the price. And it's like, OK, but if I'm paying more, then I truly don't want to see some

of the ads in there because I'm paying more. Anyway, it looks like that there were some,

You know, people talking about this, maybe a little bit more backlash, not just from me as well.

Great article that you linked to, though, from Jason Snell, comparing it to how hotels offer really nice soap.

And maybe Apple should offer some very nice soap as well.

Yeah.

Here's what's going on here.

Some of the more influential people in the Apple media world, people like Jason Snell, who is very well-known, former editor of Macworld.

people like John Gruber, who is perhaps the most well-known Apple pundit in the world,

I think they're realizing that John Ternus, not that he necessarily reads their websites every day,

but I think that things filter up to him.

And they know that, you know, as I put in my article today,

whenever there's a leadership change in any organization, that's an opportunity to change other things,

you know, because the new leader isn't beholden to the old ideas.

It's their opportunity to put their mark on things.

And so I think that, you know, the reason these articles are coming out, and I mean, the John Gruber one specifically says it, the title is John Ternus should reverse Apple slide down the advertising slippery slope.

You know, they're very transparent in what they want.

You know, wouldn't it be nice if one of the things that John Ternus did as part of his new leadership is to reverse the course on icky ads?

Again, you and I talked about how in Apple News Plus, as good as the service is, the ads are horrible.

They are repetitive.

They are often AI-generated images.

They are often for companies that you and I could care less about.

And it's like, seriously, I got to look at this?

And we don't know what the Maps ads are going to look like yet because that hasn't started yet.

That's coming soon.

But if the Maps ads are also icky and annoying, that's going to decrease the quality of the product.

And already in the App Store, at first the App Store would have one ad.

And now when you do a search, the App Store has two ads.

And sometimes they are for casino companies and things that just like I don't want to see this.

Bordering on icky for sure.

Right.

Like I don't want to see them.

You know, I wonder, and this was Jason and John's point, what incremental value does Apple get from those ads?

They're getting something.

Somebody's paying for those ads, right?

Something.

But whatever that dollar amount is, yes, it's giving you some short-term profit, but what is the long-term cost to you?

What is it doing to decrease the quality of your brand?

And as Jason said in his article, when he goes to the nicer hotel, it has the nicer soap.

And yes, it costs more for the nicer soap, but the hotel is opposed to like, you go to

like a budget hotel and you get the tiny little thin bar of soap that, you know, almost falls

apart and, you know, sticks to the wrapper and everything else.

You know, the nicer soap is part of the nicer experience.

And yeah, it's penny wise, pound foolish.

I mean, the hotel could have saved, you know, 15 cents by giving you the cheaper soap, but

they're going to spend a little bit more because you feel better about the experience.

And there's a limit, right?

I mean, the hotel can't afford to do everything.

And, you know, different tiers of hotels, as you pay more, you get more.

But Apple has always billed itself as the high-quality program.

And I thought it was interesting that this week John Gruber pulled up that old line from many, many, many years ago when Apple first started using Intel processors for Macs.

There was a reporter that asked Steve Jobs, are you going to have the Intel inside stickers on Macs?

And at the time, I think a lot of people rolled their eyes because they're like, of course, that's a stupid question.

But it actually wasn't a stupid question because Apple could have gotten some money from Intel for putting those stickers in there.

Right. I'm sure that Intel would have paid more or given them more of a discount on getting the processes, whatever.

And Apple is like, no, that's just ugly. That's not us.

We don't put stickers everywhere.

The back of my iPhone doesn't even have – it just has the Apple logo, right?

They try to keep as many words as possible.

Apple for years has fought to like all those FCC requirement words that people have.

For a long time, they were in like very, very fine print, and they've now gotten permission to actually put them inside the settings app so that there's nothing – unlike many electronics that have all those words in the back, they have nothing.

And so Apple has tried to have a higher quality product that looks better.

And everything that they're doing with Maps, Apple News, with ads, Apple News, Apple Maps, Apple App Store, and wherever else they're going to be putting ads, it just seems like it's sliding towards a place that Apple shouldn't be.

So I agree with all these people.

I think they're smart to be writing these articles right now as John Ternus is taking over because I'm hoping that he or somebody within his sphere of influence is suing these articles and thinking about it.

And, you know, there are some people that work at Apple on ads, and I'm sure they're upset because they want to get as many ads sold as possible.

But even they need to think about the big picture.

You know, ads are not inherently a bad thing.

As you and I discussed recently, I used to buy, you know, computer magazines because I loved looking at the ads because it was interesting to see all the ads in it.

Good ads are not a problem.

I mean, heck, there are people that watch the Super Bowl every year specifically for the ads because it's some of the funniest, nicest ads ever.

And people pay big bucks for that.

So there are circumstances in which ads are okay, but there are other circumstances in which they're not.

And what we have seen so far from Apple's experience with advertising, it's not great.

It's not great.

I love this comparison to the physical products.

And you did a great job even more so than the stickers there because you're right.

I remember the days when there used to be all of that fine print on there.

And it just – I mean it wasn't like it was in the way.

It didn't hurt anything.

But, yeah, just subconsciously it just – it feels a little more luxurious.

It feels a little more quality-like.

Thank you.

That's the word, yeah.

And now they're doing such a good job.

They've done such a good job on the physical products.

It's like, yeah, it's kind of the same thing in the software.

So I just had never really thought about it that much.

And to your point also, even with the ads, to be honest with you, I don't even – I would be okay if there was just maybe one or two sprinkled in because exactly what you said when I searched in the app store, the first thing that comes up is usually sponsored.

And they still say sponsored up there somewhere in there.

But Jeff, I've just trained myself just to completely ignore whatever that first one is.

So you know what?

I don't mind.

If they want to put an ad up there, that's okay.

Some people will click on it, I'm sure, and there will be maybe dribbles of some kind of revenue coming in that way.

I get it.

But it's like, yeah, for people like us that are maybe a little bit more serious in using some of these platforms.

Yeah.

Anyway, we'll see.

So now we're just kind of waiting, right?

We're going to – everybody's sort of waiting to see what Ternus is going to do.

I feel like it's on his shoulders a little bit.

And it won't be overnight.

I mean I think that this is a topic, Brett, that we'll have to revisit like a year from now.

Yes, I think you're right.

And then we'll start to see what has happened.

Let's mark our calendar.

At the end of July, 2027, you and I will take a look.

Have Apple ads gotten better or gotten worse?

It'll be interesting to see.

Let's do a where you at segment.

I thought this was so great.

You talked about your daughter going to college today.

So it's funny because my daughter has been going now for,

I guess she's going to be in her fourth year, third year.

But everything you talked about here, I did a few years ago.

To help keep track of her items, you purchased some Find My products.

You got some Apple AirTags.

I got one for my daughter's purse.

I think I got one maybe for her car.

I think I got one for her backpack as she was going to go.

Then you said you got you.

I know we've talked about that.

Yuppie SmartTrack card.

That's almost like a credit card.

Yes.

Is that right?

And that could go in the purse as well.

It's funny because I even expanded it beyond the fact that a lot of times our daughter doesn't even text us when maybe she's leaving a party or something.

Just over the years, we haven't had to because she shares her location with us through the Find My on the iPhone.

And just putting all of that together when I saw your little post today, I was like, yeah, that is important.

It is good to make sure that you have some of those.

Take advantage of all of that, especially the AirTags.

So important to have.

My daughter told me a couple of times that it was just helpful to know if she had forgotten her backpack or where it was.

You know, no emergencies have happened, but just having that comfort level on there is great. And I mean, those are great little things to send off the kids to college with.

Yeah. I mean, when I graduated from high school, gosh, what was that? 1987, long time ago now. One of my graduation presents from my parents was luggage. And it may not have seemed like one of the most sexy presents at the time, but I used it a lot because when I was in college, I was in college in Atlanta at Emory. And so I was flying back and forth a lot from New Orleans to Atlanta.

Yeah. And and then from then on, I mean, from then on in my life, I started doing a lot more travel and having my own luggage was nice.

And so fast forward to yesterday, we just showed up the delivery from UPS was my daughter had also picked out some new luggage.

She actually picked up some really cool luggage. It's got all cool to it.

Forget the name of the company. It was I mean, the funny thing is she found it on on Instagram and you're like, oh, it's an Instagram ad.

And yeah, but but it actually it looks really nice. And the reviews of it are actually pretty good.

Is it like smart luggage?

Is it like – does it have –

It does have like a little – it's got a place that you can put your own battery pack inside of it.

Your charger.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I like those.

And then you can have it charged to the outside.

Yeah.

It's also got a really cool – in fact, I'll find the name of it real quick and mention it in a second because it looks like a cool thing.

It's got a cool handle on it, like really nice wheels.

For her.

Good job.

But my point is that she's now got some good luggage that she's going to be using for the next, who knows, five, ten years.

And so we're going to want to have some AirTags on it just in case when you're traveling and stuff like that.

And I mentioned it today, not only – I mean I mentioned it because it's always – these are evergreen things to purchase.

But when the brand new AirTags, the second generation, they came out earlier this year, right?

Right.

When they first came out, they were $100 for four.

But you could get the old first generations for a little bit cheaper because they were clearing out stock.

Like $60 or something?

Yeah.

Yeah, maybe eventually.

And so you can get a nice discount on it.

And there's not – look, there's not huge differences between the second generation AirTag and the first generation.

I mean, all things the same.

They're a little bit nicer.

They have a little bit better range and some other little features, and they're a little bit louder if you're trying to find them.

But they're pretty close.

And so like for my daughter, I was originally like, should I just get the older ones and save a little bit of money or should I get the new ones?

And then I saw that on Amazon right now.

They're $10 off.

And so look, they're cheap.

Oh, no question.

For $89, whatever incremental price difference, even as we're talking, they're still 10% off.

Yeah, $89.

That's great.

That's a nice price.

You get four of them.

That other card that I mentioned was really cheap.

It's less than $20.

This was a very inexpensive way for her to be able to track her wallet.

She's just going to be out and about more.

Yeah, there you go, less than $17 for the UFI SmartTrack card.

That works with Find My.

You can use the UFI app independently, but you can just treat it like any one of your other Find My devices.

And it's so thin, it's like the size of two or three credit cards that it just slips into a wallet.

And so, you know, it doesn't have – not that an AirTag is very big, but it doesn't even have the bulk of an AirTag.

So anyway, whether you have a child that's going off to college too or you're just ready in your own life, you know, AirTags, nothing new.

I mean you and I have talked about AirTags for years because they're so nice.

But, you know, it's good prices now, nice time to get them.

You had another story that fits beautifully within our Where You At segment.

Daughters overjoyed as Apple Watch gift saves their father's life.

This is a story in Apple insider William Gallagher.

A man in Cincinnati apparently was like taking the trash down the driveway and fell, just collapsed.

And he says he just kind of blinked his eyes open after apparently a few minutes or so.

And as he was getting himself backed up, he heard the sirens coming down the street.

because he had fallen.

He couldn't get up.

He'd fallen and couldn't get up.

But his Apple Watch contacted emergency services

and had them on the way as he was coming to, I guess.

And he definitely ascribes the fact that the Apple Watch

basically saved his life.

He had a blood clot in his lungs, I think.

Is that ultimately what was causing some issues here

that hadn't been found before?

So, man, what – yet, again, another fantastic story from the Apple Watch.

Yeah.

I mean this was in your state.

It's a dangerous state you live in.

I know.

No, I mean the joke is that we report on this every other week.

It happens everywhere around the world, of course.

And it's just – and especially now that you know you can get that Apple Watch for a very small monthly fee through the Apple Upgrade program, you might as well give your dad an Apple Watch just in case something happens.

So I was reading in here, and I just got to say, this hit me pretty hard.

This gentleman had not turned on the fall detection feature on the Apple Watch, Jeff, but he is aged over 55, so it was enabled automatically.

Now, I went and did another search on this because July 1st was my birthday this past month, and guess what age I turned?

I turned 55, Jeff.

I had no idea that Apple decided that at age 55, people, I guess I'm more at risk of falling, and they turn on fall detection automatically for me.

In fact, I went and found this page on Apple support, and at the very bottom here, it says, if you entered your age when you set up your Apple Watch or in the health app and you were age 55 and over, this feature turns on automatically.

And I'm like, man, thanks.

The Apple, you know, not only do I know that I'm getting old, but it's like the Apple watch just has to rub it in.

Now, of course, if it saves my life because I collapse and fall somewhere, I'm going to be very happy and I'll be in the topic of one of our Where You At segments.

But I just didn't know that it did that automatically.

And I guess, you know, thank you, Apple, for determining that, you know, I am now elderly enough that I need to have that turned on.

But I just didn't know.

For elderly people like you, Brett, you might want to have that.

Exactly.

Have you signed up for AARP yet, by the way?

Yes. Well, you know, that's coming.

It's all it's apparently at this point, once you turn 55, it just all falls into place.

OK, now. OK, I'm going to come back at you.

You don't have to say your age, but I don't think you're 55 quite yet.

So you're coming, my friend. You're coming.

I am already there. I'm older than you, Brett.

So yes, you are. I knew this.

OK, well, let's move on from that, shall we?

We've talked about iOS 27.

That is going to be coming out in maybe the next few weeks.

We're not exactly sure, but the public betas have been available now.

Of course, the developer betas have been out.

We are excited to see iOS 27.

We, such as you and I, the normal people, are not running any of the betas right now for iOS 27

because we don't want to put them on devices we rely on all the time, Jeff.

But you reported that iOS 26.6 is now available on your devices.

and amongst the small little updates and tweaks and security patches and stuff that Apple always

includes, there is the capability in iOS 26.6 that is preparing your devices for iOS 27. And we

talked about this in the sense that with the new Siri AI capabilities, and if it's being available

then to look at your calendar, your emails, your text messages, it has to index all of that

information on the back end, that takes time. So this sounds brilliant in the sense that with iOS

26.6, some of that indexing is already starting to happen. In the back end, you're not, it's not

going to, you know, hopefully it's not going to, you know, interfere with anything that you're

doing. But I feel like that's just brilliant. I downloaded it this morning. It's 15 gigs download,

by the way. So it's big. So don't do this over your cellular plan or anything. But I went ahead

and downloaded and upgraded mine today because like I would love to make sure that it's prepared

and ready to go from day one when I do get iOS 27. Yeah, this is just such a good idea. You know,

every night while your iPhone is charging and stuff like that, it can just be indexing everything on

there, indexing your emails, your messages, your notes, everything else. And so when you upgrade

your phone to iOS 27, I'm guessing that's going to be sometime in September. You won't have to wait

because once the, you know, the index is going to take a long time to do

because it's all being done on device, which is good, right?

Because this is a privacy thing.

So we want this to all happen on device

so that it's not sending any of your personal information out

into the cloud or anything like that.

So it's a good thing that it happens on device, but it just takes time.

And when people downloaded the beta,

when it first came out after WWDC in June,

you know, many of them were saying that it took about a week

or two weeks for it to happen.

A long time.

So now this is great.

So everybody can, you know, who knows?

If you download iOS 26.6 today, well, then you'll have more than enough time.

But even if you wait a couple of weeks for it to come out, I mean, the idea is that sometime in the next month, you'll have enough time.

It'll do the index.

And then when you upgrade, because the index is already there, AI, you know, the improved

AI that's coming out this fall is going to be able to take advantage of that index to

immediately, you know, when you ask questions about something for which the answer could

be found in your text messages or in your emails or your notes or something like that,

your calendar, it will already have that index.

It will already be ready to go.

And I love it.

Now, keep in mind that if you buy a new iPhone this fall, well, then you're starting from

scratch.

So what's going to happen for me is because this happens to me every year.

So iOS 27 is going to come out.

I'm going to install it.

I will already have that index.

And so for probably about a week or so, I will take advantage of Siri being full featured.

And then when I get my new iPhone, which if you get them on the day that they're announced, you often get them about a week later.

And so my guess is that a week later, I'll get my new iPhone.

And then because the index is not transferred from device to device.

I'm pretty sure – well, let me put it in this.

I wonder if they're working on that.

I think you're right.

Because when you upgrade from one iPhone to another, in theory –

It has to index it again.

It moves everything over.

But I'm fairly certain that from past years, unless they're doing something different this year, which would be good if they are, but unless they're doing something different, after you get a new device, you're going to have to get a brand new index.

And I think it's inevitable because new device, things are different.

I really do think you're going to have to wait.

I think you're right.

At least the day that I get iOS 27, because that will probably be before I get a new iPhone.

I assume that I get a new iPhone this year, I presume I will.

You'll at least be able to use it immediately.

So I just think this is such a smart, no-brainer thing.

Why not do it?

It's going to give everybody a better experience whenever they do upgrade.

This is just so smart.

They're obviously thinking about this because when I saw this, I'm like, this is brilliant because when people do get iOS 27, what is the first thing they're going to do as soon as they upgrade?

They're going to test out the series.

So if it's not ready yet and if it says, oh, we can't do this yet, it's indexing, well, you know, that's just going to be egg on face, right?

It's like people are just going to have this idea like Apple is like it's not even working.

It's like how can I use this?

So from that aspect, I think it's brilliant.

So if they're thinking about it from that standpoint, Jeff, maybe there's got to be a way for that index because you're right.

I don't want to upgrade and wait a week for it to index everything.

Yeah, okay.

Time will tell.

But I'm very encouraged that they're thinking about it so much so that they had this new upgrade.

And, yeah, it's worth doing.

We've talked about a company called 12 South many times throughout our illustrious podcast, Jeff.

We're big fans of this small company that has very expensive products, but they're very expensive for good reason.

I remember we talked about a 12 South valet several weeks ago, maybe about a year ago or so.

And it's a beautiful, beautiful piece of machine.

It's like a little, I mean, I call it a ballet.

It's like where you would throw your keys, you know, you would put some things out of your pocket.

It's a tray.

It's like a leather tray.

A little tray.

Thank you.

That looks nice.

Yes.

I remember the last one looked phenomenal.

But the big hit on it was that you could lay your iPhone on and it would do wireless charging.

But it was so slow.

Like they did not upgrade the wireless charging.

And it looks like they have remedied that now with a new version of the 12 South Valet.

Yeah.

So, well, actually, the new one is – there is a new version of the Valet, which is faster.

But the big headline story here is they have a second product called the Valet Mini.

And it is smaller and less expensive.

And so – and it may be big enough.

So, I mean, it will hold less than the tray if you're going to toss in your keys and your wallet.

I mean, I'm imagining this like on a kitchen counter or maybe in your entranceway or maybe in your living room.

But it's just – you can just have it just sitting there and it's just a place to put down your iPhone and to put your other stuff.

But the idea is instead of your iPhone just sitting there, it's sitting there and it's charging.

Charging.

So why not top it off?

It looks like everyone – I remember the reviews of the original Valet and the reviews of this one too.

They say it's really nice.

Like it's a nice leather finish.

It has like these replaceable edges on it that you can buy new ones for like $5.

And they have all these different colors.

So like the picture you're showing now is black on black, but you could have like a black tray with like a, you know, a brown or a yellow or red or whatever you want.

You can have different colors and stuff like that.

It's, you know, scroll down to the very bottom.

The prices are, it's well over $100.

It's $100 and –

I thought it was $129 is what you said.

Okay, $129 for this one.

And then if you get the bigger one, like the original one, which is now updated with the faster charging, it's even more expensive.

It's $180.

So it's either $130 or $180 depending upon the size.

So look, it's not cheap.

This is a more luxury item.

And again, I haven't tried one myself, but I have used other products from 12 South.

And 12 South is known as a company that puts design up front and they have quality.

So if this seems like something you would like, you want a nice looking tray for your kitchen,

your living room, whatever that you can use, people that come over could use, it's nice.

And even like because it has power, it's going to have to have a power cord coming out of the bottom of it.

But it's nicely designed that it's got this little thing.

Yeah, he's got a picture here.

You have a picture underneath it.

You could have the cord coming out any one of the four sides.

So if it makes more sense for the cord to come out the short side or this side or that side.

So you can adjust it.

So like they have tried to make this as nice as possible.

And again, I don't know that I have a place for this in my life, in my house.

But if I did, it would be something to consider.

well if $129.99

is too rich for your blood

on an iPhone accessory

how about one that costs $12.99

Ed Hardy from Cult of Mac

got an iPhone accessory as a joke

but now he loves it

what is it you say

how about a fan

a fan that you can plug into your iPhone

and I just like Ed Hardy

obviously we followed Ed for so long

and it's a USB-C phone fan

plug it into the bottom

hey when you need

I mean, I can imagine in New Orleans, you probably need this.

I know you guys have been a little warm down there.

I thought at first it was like a fan to cool your iPhone.

No, no, no.

This is a fan to cool your face.

This is like blowing air out towards you as you're using it.

And I guess the idea is you're sitting there in your backyard and you plug this thing to the bottom of your iPhone and it directs some nice air towards your face.

I think the best thing you can say about it is that he says he bought it as a joke so that he can make fun of it.

And then he surprisingly found that it actually works pretty well and given the price.

Now, I will tell you, if you – do you see – like if you scroll down, when I linked to it last night on Amazon, I almost didn't link to it because when I put the link in there, Amazon told me that – it gave me a warning that more people – like click on the buy from Amazon button.

See what comes up.

It gave me a little warning at the top that this is a product that people return.

You're not getting the warning, but I did.

Oh, I know what you're talking about.

I've seen that.

Yeah.

People do a lot of returns.

And so maybe that's why you're not seeing it.

Again, it costs $13.

So it's, you know, whatever.

It's got good reviews.

It does have some five-star reviews, but whatever.

Some people buy it.

So for $13, maybe it doesn't work.

So I'm not necessarily encouraging to get it.

But hey, you know, if you're living in hot weather.

Well, okay.

But how about the idea?

I'll tell you this, and my wife won't mind this just because we've talked about it.

In fact, I like how in the Amazon description they say, gifts for women.

Now, I've already admitted how old I am, 55.

So my wife is not too far behind me.

I would just say, Jeff, that at a certain point, and God bless him, in a woman's life,

there are times when having a little extra fan, a little extra air is an excellent, excellent thing.

I didn't get this one, but I've done exactly this.

I've had some other little fans, USB-C fans.

You can just plug it to your iPhone.

And let me just say, that has come in and saved my wife several times when it just is kind of a little unbearable.

So having this, the only issue that we found with some of these fans is that they're a little too loud.

And, in fact, I looked down at the bottom of Ed Hardy's review here.

Oh, yeah.

There are some different speeds on here.

And I think he said even at the lowest speed that you can still, you know, he wishes that it was a bit quieter.

I mean, these are tiny little things.

There's not light that's going to keep it quiet.

But, I mean, I remember specifically she would pull it out if we're sitting in church for a while, right?

We're sitting there.

The air isn't on, and there's a lot of people in there.

She would just love to have this fan on there, and it's just been so helpful as she's walking around.

But it's like you kind of want it to be quiet, right?

You don't want something buzzing while you're sitting in church, you know, that kind of a thing.

But anyway, that could be helpful.

I'm just pointing out there like that was I got some brownie points getting that for my wife who it just come in to be extremely handy in certain points of her life.

I will say this.

You and I love talking about high technology and cutting edge stuff.

Fans are not cutting edge technology.

But I will tell you a number of years ago, I forget if it was for Christmas or Father's Day or something like that.

My kids got me.

I mean, this is almost like something you would see from the sharper image.

It was like it's a fan.

It's a standalone fan that has a place of pure water in it.

And so it's a misting fan.

And so the fan, it will like sort of oscillate back and forth.

And it has the mist to sort of cool you down.

And I have no – and it's rechargeable.

Like you recharge it using USB-C.

But it's got a battery inside of it.

And I will admit there have been many times that I will go – I did this not too long ago.

I was just – I was hanging out in my backyard and I was just doing some stuff.

And I was just sitting there in the rocking chair.

And I was like, you know what?

it's a little hot out here in this New Orleans summer.

And so I just set up that little fan with my mister.

And, you know, it just made things a little bit more pleasant.

And so, again, nobody needs the Jeff Richardson review that, you know, fan technology.

Oh, I think we need that review, Jeff.

We need that review.

Fans are good.

And so maybe, just like Ed Hardy was pleasantly surprised by this,

maybe this is not a bad thing to have.

I think I'm going to buy this fan for you.

Send it to you, Jeff, and you're going to review it in iPhone JD.

Steve. Let's end our content.

Well, I guess this could a little bit be in the show,

but I remember last week we talked about Ted Lasso.

Is it season four is coming out.

This is the one with next week women's soccer team.

And they have, I guess it was a teaser last week that you linked to this week.

It is the official Ted Lasso season four trailer.

And it's not like there's any spoilers or anything.

It's just fun to kind of see the old, you know,

couple of the old actors together again and uh you know beard coach coach beard and you know ted

lasso just talked it just it just made me feel good to watch the whole thing that's what ted lasso

is ted lasso is a feel-good show that's why as we discussed recently it was such a perfect show for

the pandemic when it came out originally when the first season came out you know it's going to make

you laugh it's going to make you feel good yeah there's going to be some drama but you know it's

going to all resolve at the end and um i think we can all use a little ted lasso in his life i'm

in our life. I'm very excited for this season to start up again next season. I know that my wife

and I will be watching it and, um, and, and it will be good. What is it next? August 5th, right?

Is that, yeah. August 5th. Yeah. And hopefully Apple TV will, uh, be working, right? I think

we didn't talk about this, but you said, what was it? Last Sunday, you were going to go and watch

the Apple TV show lucky, but there was no play button. Like there was some kind of an outage

on there. I feel like it was resolved pretty quickly. I didn't get affected by it, but you did.

You had to sit on the couch and not watch anything apparently for a little bit. Yeah, it was actually

frustrating. And like, I just assumed it was me. It's like, why can't I play it? And like, I thought,

like I quit the app and then like I restarted my Apple TV because I'm like, surely this is on me

because of course, you know, the Apple TV service is not going to be down. Apple TV wouldn't be out.

Right. And yet it was down for a period of time. And so we ended up switching over to Netflix and

watching a different show.

So, you know, good for Netflix and bad for Apple TV.

And then it happened again this week.

So hopefully they got this worked out because a lot of people, in fact, I said it's next

Friday, but if Ted Lasso is, is August 5th?

Is that the date that you said?

August 5th.

Yep.

Okay.

So it actually, the first one comes out on, that's Wednesday, I guess.

Oh, Wednesday.

Okay.

So even sooner.

But a lot of people are going to be streaming Ted Lasso Apple.

That's right.

So get your servers ready.

We don't want any outages.

Let's get everything lined up.

Okay.

In the know.

In the know.

I guess I had Apple Watches on my mind.

And actually, tomorrow, I'm going on this hike with some friends of ours, mine, that we go on hikes.

It's called the Mammoth March, Jeff.

This is like a 20-mile hike that we've done before.

But I love it.

We have a good time doing it.

But here's one of the things.

Obviously, as I go on these hikes, I want to track the hike on my Apple Watch, right?

I mean, we end up getting like 35,000 steps or something crazy.

Oh, my goodness.

Yeah, it's insane.

But I like to track it.

Now, here's the thing, though.

When I wear my Apple Watch on my left wrist, like what I would think most people would do, right?

I know my son has it on his right.

If you're right-handed, yeah.

Exactly.

But I wear mine on my left wrist, and I have the digital crown that is basically pointed to my hand, right?

I feel like that's sort of the standard, traditional way that people would wear it.

Now, that works out fine for 99% of my life.

When I go on hikes, though, I typically use like trekking poles.

So I'm having something in my hands and I'm moving my hands around.

And I have found that as I'm walking that my hand or what do you call that little bone that like kind of sticks out right at your wrist there?

It will sometimes hit my digital crown.

And if I'm tracking like a hike or if I'm doing a workout, like I start a hiking workout when I start that, that somehow, you know, when I'm moving my hand like this, either my wrist bone or my hand sometime will fold back on the watch and it'll hit that digital crown.

And what happens?

It'll take me out of the workout.

It's like somehow it'll stop that workout or something will go on.

And it infuriates me because I got to get credit for all these steps, Jeff.

So one of the things that I do when I go on a hike like this is I change the orientation of the digital crown.

So it's a simple tip.

I think we've talked about this before, but it's a simple thing that I do.

So I go into the settings app on the Apple Watch.

I go down to general, and then I tap orientation.

Now, there's two things you can do here in the orientation.

First, you can basically say, are you wearing it on the left or the right wrist?

So somehow that changes it.

I don't change that part.

But below there, it says the orientation of the digital crown.

Do you want it on the right side or do you want it on the left side?

I tap it.

I put it on the left side.

So then what I have to do when I look at it like this, then the face is basically upside down.

Right?

So I take the Apple Watch off.

I flip it around and put it back on.

Now my digital crown is pointing towards my elbow as opposed to pointing towards my hand.

Again, very simple thing.

I know some people, especially if you move your watch around a little bit, that you'll do this.

But I find that works out great because now I am in no danger of triggering a press on my Apple, on the digital crown or even like the bottom button there.

Now, again, I have an Apple Watch Ultra, so my digital crown and button kind of stick out a little bit more maybe than – or just – it has a little bit of – a little more rise on the case there than maybe a regular Apple Watch would.

But I just do that.

I have to try to remember that every time because so many times I've just triggered it or I've hit – inadvertently hit that digital crown and gotten out of whatever system that I was in, and it would stop my workout.

and just changing that.

And then at the end of the day, I just change it back.

And it's just really easy to do.

Sometimes I will even flip my Apple Watch strap around,

but most of the time I just take it off, flip it around,

and then put it back on, and it works out great.

So that's my little tip.

Think about, and sometimes that if you want to change the digital crown,

the vast majority of the time people just leave it exactly the way they have it,

and so do I.

But for certain circumstances like that, I do like to turn that around

and think about I want to just switch it around.

okay so i have some questions for you i don't do 35 000 step hikes every other day like you do

um i may have done 35 000 steps over the course of the last decade i'd have to think about that

but um when you um but i have had situations from time to time it hasn't happened very often

where because i was sort of moving my arm my wrist or whatever i have accidentally triggered i don't

even because i can't make it happen right now but i know i have done that so i will think about if

there's ever circumstances where it might happen for me if I switch around. You, unlike me, you have

the Apple Watch Ultra. And on your Apple Watch, on what is normally the left side of your watch,

you have the action button. So when you flip your watch, as you've just described, now your action

button is at your top right, the same place that the digital crown would normally be. Correct.

Yes, you're right. But do you have the danger of accidentally hitting your action button?

or does that not happen because of the way it's placed or the shape of it or something like that?

Exactly what you just said, the second part here.

So here, we just went to the Apple Watch.

You see on the side here with the digital crown, you see that raised portion over there?

I don't know if I can turn this around to show it.

But the short answer is I do not have the same problem because of the way that that action button over here on that other side.

Scroll down.

There must be a picture of the action button somewhere.

Yeah, maybe here is a little bit.

Can you see this?

Let me see if I can zoom in.

You see the way that it's embedded down there.

Yeah, it's flat.

It's embedded.

So I just don't have that same.

Exactly.

It's almost like it's like embedded in there just a little bit.

And so when I flip that around, there's just no danger.

I mean, I'd have to really, you know, kind of jam something in there to do it.

But you can just see the way that the digital crown and the bottom.

It sticks out more.

It sticks out a little bit more.

And in fact, that digital crown goes above and below the case just a little bit too.

So sometimes it's not even just a full punch.

It's just that whatever bone or my wrist hits it, it just activates it that way.

Yeah.

So that's good.

That's a great tip.

And I have to think about that if I'm ever in a situation where I might be triggering it accidentally.

I could totally see how if you've got like a hiking stick in your hand, that might be a time where you can do it.

So that's a good tip.

Yeah, because I've always known that this was an option to flip it over.

But I wasn't exactly sure why you would want to take advantage of it.

And now you've just explained why.

That's very cool.

The only thing is that it takes me a long time to get to the setting.

And maybe I should put it like in my stack or something because, you know, we talked about this.

To get there, you got to go to the settings app.

Well, the only way to go to the settings app is to go and scroll through your entire list of apps, which I typically hit the digital crown.

And then, of course, you start at the very top with A.

I've got mine in a list.

I don't have the beehive of mine.

So I've got to scroll all the way down, find settings, tap on settings.

Then you got to scroll down a little bit and find general.

You tap on general.

Then you got to tap on orientation.

And the two options there, it asks you, do you wear your wrist?

Do you wear the watch on your left wrist or your right wrist?

I always leave it on the right because that's just what I do.

And then below that is digital crown.

Do you want the digital crown on the left or do you want it on the right?

And that's what I tap as I just switch that around.

And then at the end of the hike, I switch it back

because I don't like having it necessarily on the other side.

I like it to be the way that I expected.

But for that hike or for some kind, you know, frankly,

even sometimes I'll tell you this, if I'm doing like a push-up,

Like that's another area where, you know, my hand is like pushing up against the Apple Watch.

And in some cases it will trigger that as well.

And so I just like, you know, some people say, well, just move your Apple Watch up.

And sometimes I will move it up and down the wrist a little bit.

But the way where my Apple Watch sits, sometimes I will just hit it.

Again, it's not all the time, but for some of those exercises, I do like to move that around.

You know what would be nice is Apple lets you use the shortcuts app to do a lot of things on your devices.

and I just did a search while you were talking.

There is not currently a shortcut on the Apple Watch

to switch orientation,

but that's totally something that they could add in the future.

And if they did, then you're right.

Then you could put like a little,

like you could put a button on your screen

and you just tap the button

and it automatically does it for you.

You know, Apple, if you're listening,

because I'm pretty sure that John Ternus

listens to this podcast every week.

Absolutely.

John, why don't you talk to your team

about adding that feature?

So, okay, well, that's a good tip.

And I have to admit, that was more interesting than I thought it would be when you first put it on here.

Good.

So I'll have to think about that.

Since you were talking about the digital crown, I have a less interesting tip, but I just want to share it.

For the last couple of months, we have been talking about some of the cool things that you can do with an Apple Watch without even using the trigger words of, hey, you know who.

Just like putting it up close to your mouth and just talking to it.

And in fact, a couple of weeks ago, we shared one from our friend Jim Nesit, and he had suggested some other things.

But I will tell you that as much as I love that tip and I use it all the time, sometimes it's a little finicky.

Sometimes when I put my watch up to my face and I say a word, sometimes it doesn't work.

It usually does work.

But the one thing that always works, and this is just my tip, it's just to remember, is instead of using the trigger word of, hey, you know who, and instead of holding up your watch, if you just hold down on the digital crown for, you know, what is it, a second or two or whatever?

You just hold down a little bit and you will see the little Siri circle show up at the bottom that's ready to listen to you.

And it's fast and it's there and I do it.

And so I was just thinking about this last night.

Many times when I'm closing up my house at night, the lights are off and I'm the last one up and I'm walking through the house.

And I just want a little bit of a flashlight to see where I'm going.

And so I will hold up my Apple Watch and say to it the word flashlight and then it will turn on the flashlight.

But it does take a little time for it to happen.

Whereas if my other hand happens to be free and I'm not carrying anything, if I just hold down on the digital crown, then that gets into the mode where it's instantly listening to me.

I don't need to say anything else.

I can just say the word flashlight or whatever I want to say and get it done.

And, of course, I mean, again, this is not all that amazing of a tip.

You can do the same thing on your iPhone just by holding down the button on the side to trigger it.

But I find it particularly convenient and useful on the Apple Watch to just hold it down, whatever.

You know, another one I do a lot is my – we have like a garage.

We don't use it as a garage.

We use it as a storage area in the back of my house.

And as I'm walking back there, I have the lights there.

I have got like Lutron on them.

And so like normally the lights are off in my garage.

But I just want to turn on the lights as I'm walking back there.

I will either hold up my watch to my face or I will hold down the digital crown and just say, turn on the garage lights.

And then a second or two later, before I've even opened the door to get into the garage, all the lights are on.

And then as I'm done in there, as I'm leaving, I do the reverse, turn off the garage lights and it turns it off behind me.

And that way the lights are not on all week until they go out there again.

So anyway, it's something that perhaps you already know, but just as a reminder, holding down the digital crown is a good, fast, easy way to trigger Siri to give it a command.

So when you're doing those lights, did you press and hold the digital crown or do you just do the raise to speak on there?

It depends.

Okay, because I started doing the raise to speak a little bit more.

Raise to speak more space.

Yeah.

But sometimes it takes a second or more to get it, whereas I know that holding down the digital crown is always dependable.

So I go back and forth between the two of them.

It just depends.

It takes my other hand, though, to your brain.

That's the thing.

And if I'm holding something in the other hand.

Unless I guess maybe I could have my wrist.

If I could just maybe push my wrist down and hold it, press and hold it.

And oftentimes I will have something in my other hand because I'm carrying something to the garage.

And so in those circumstances, yes, I just hold it up and talk.

But if I don't have anything in my other hand.

It is a little finicky sometimes.

It is a little finicky on the raise.

Like sometimes I raise it up.

We talked about this.

I remember.

Sometimes I raise it up and it's like either I didn't raise it up hard enough or strong enough or purposeful enough.

And so it doesn't recognize that I'm doing a raise.

Like if you just do it really slow, it's not necessarily going to listen to you.

And you have to like – I then have to put it down and then raise it up again and kind of be a little more extraneous with my emotion there.

Anyway, that's a great tip, though, because I do use this.

And in fact, I know specifically my son does this quite a bit because when they use Siri, a lot of times, you know, I'll just say the word.

That's typically how I think about it.

But my son, at least, even on his iPhone, he'll press and hold that side button.

And that's sort of the same thing, right?

You can press and hold the side button on your iPhone there, and that will also initiate Siri.

So in the same way, I kind of think about it this way.

And it's just good to know that that's another way to do that.

Yeah.

Lots to talk about.

iOS 26.6.

I upgraded mine today.

I think that'd be good.

Maybe in the next couple of days or so, people can upgrade.

Get your devices ready for iOS 27.

Because, I mean, that could be within about a month or so, Jeff, I think.

And not just your iPhone.

You know, your iPad, too.

I just upgraded my iPad yesterday.

All your devices.

Your Apple Watch.

All your devices.

Yep.

Very good.

And we'll continue to talk about it.

We'll talk with you next week, Jeff.

Thanks.

Thanks, Brett.

Bye-bye, everybody.