It's Apple event day and that means we're here to dissect and share our reactions to the new iPhones 15, the new Apple watches and more here on Mac Geek Gap 999, the super palindromic expialidocious edition for Tuesday, September 12th, 2023. Music. Greetings folks, and welcome to Mac Geek Gab, the show where we usually answer your questions and and share your tips and share some cool stuff found.
But today we are doing things a little differently because of course there was an Apple event earlier on this wonderful September 12th. And so we are here to talk about it and do all of those things. Sponsors for this episode include piavpn.com slash mgg where you can go to save 82%, off of their great VPN service plus like four free months. So we'll talk about that in a little bit. And then also BB at it at barebones.com.
So we'll talk about both of those things in a little while for now here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton. And here in Longbond, Colorado, I'm Jeff Gamet. Thanks for joining me here on this Jeff Gamet. This is, I know we've had you on for several Apple event reaction episodes. And so it seemed perfectly fitting to have you here for this one. Well, when you asked if I could be on, there was no hesitation.
It was, I couldn't type yes fast enough because of course I want to be here with you doing this. Yeah, it's great. Pete was unable to make it today. So it is just the two of us for those of you listening at home. It's also an interesting episode for us. It is Mac Geek Cab 999, right? It is the last of the triple digits. It is the one of the most palindromic episodes.
We've ever had because it's all the same number, right? But what's cool is we actually get three, two palindromic episodes in the next three weeks because this one, right? Because 1,001 is coming up. You got it. Yeah, yeah, I know. Yeah, it's kind of crazy. So. It's very cool. Congratulations. Thanks, thanks. Yeah, it's, um, it's... For a lot of reasons, it's good to have you here for this particular episode. You and I, many times over the years, have dissected Apple events together.
Either on this show or on Daily Observations, which was a show that you and I worked together to create, when we were running the Mac Observer.
So, it's, yeah, this feels very natural and very good. and it's a special episode you were you know you were around when Mac Ecap started so you know it's oh my god I'm old yeah same yeah oh sorry sorry but in a good way yeah exactly exactly all right I think I want to just dive right in here and as always I never feel any obligation to go in the exact same order that Apple did for their event. Of course, they started with watches and, uh, and you
know, because of course they did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's fine. Uh, but you know, I like to look at the things that sort of matter to us and, and go and craft our own little path through. We're not here to regurgitate what Apple said in its entirety. We're not
here to just, just summarize the event because you get to watch it. And there are other people out there summarizing the event, what we do is we dissect and share our reactions to the things that we react to, which means that there might be some stuff that we don't cover and that's okay. But I want to start with the iPhones 15. So as typical, two different models, the 15.
Two different families of iPhone, the 15, the 15 pro, and then there are the standard and max sizes in each of those 6.1 and 6.7 inches. I want to jump around here when... So. In terms of the sizes, they sound like the same sizes that we've had for a little while. They do. They do. However, as often happens over the last week or so, I've been receiving shipments from various third-party vendors of cases, for the new, what's called up until today, 2023 6.1-inch iPhone, right?
Pro, iPhone Pro, which is an important distinction. And as always, I take my existing current, then current gen iPhone Pro, so my 14 Pro, and I put it in the cases to see, did the buttons move? Whatever, right? Because it's the same size, 6.1, 6.1. And with cases from all of the vendors I've received, which are multiple and they are very reputable vendors, vendors, I don't know if I'm supposed to share their names yet so I won't, but my iPhone 14 Pro did not fit into the case with the 15 Pro.
It was my 14 Pro was a little too tall. And I didn't understand that until today. In fact, I thought when the first one showed up that maybe one vendor had made a mistake. But when they both were like this, I realized, no, there's something going on. And jumping around, I think it is because the 15 pro, uh, when Apple was announcing that it is titanium, they said, and that makes the, uh, that allows us to make the, the, uh, case for the, for the phone.
Not the, not the case that you'd put around the phone, but the, the shell of the phone, the frame, the frame a little bit thinner. And it was like, ah, ding, ding, ding. Yes. So no, your 14 pro case would probably cause the iPhone 15 pro to swim a little bit in it and fall out. And so you probably don't want to do that. This seems like a great third party opportunity for in-case bumpers. Oh yeah. You think people will sell, you know, adapto kits to make your 14 pro case work with the 15 pro?
I don't think so. I think they want to sell you a new case. Yeah, they want to sell you a new case. But I could see the company that's like, man, we just don't have the infrastructure to make cases, but we can take adhesive silicone strips, and we can die cut the crap out of those all day long. I don't think it's going to happen, but I mean, it could. As you say that, this is a perfect opportunity for a cottage industry, right?
It's a low priced, should be a low priced item that can be made, like you said, die cut or even potentially 3D printed. Although, you know, maybe it's simpler to just do the die cutting, like you said. But yeah, I could see that. Like the, all of the various continuity camera mounts that just come and go on Amazon. You know, you buy one today and then in a few days, like that same one isn't there, but something very similar to it is. I could see something like this showing up, sure.
Yeah, yeah. My guess is it would screw up your MagSafe connector. Depending on that I don't line up right yeah the thickness It's it for me where it felt like it was too big was on the height of the phone like the the long Edge of the phone from the top to the bottom, but we'll see so I, Wanted to share that but that's certainly not the most important thing to to spend all of our time on, Let's let's talk about the phones. What what was What jumped out to you on the iPhones 15 or 15 Pro?
I'll start with the 15s. Okay. And first thing was when for the 15 line, they said thinner bezels. Yes. And that was actually a point where I thought, well, maybe cases aren't going to work.
When they started talking about the changes they're making to the frame there, so you have the more contoured edges, they're doing the etching for texturing for better grip, they talked about the new strong coating on the display surface, just all the things that they were talking about going down the line, about making it more comfortable in your hand and making it more grippy. And what that tells me is that Apple really, really would love us to not put cases on our iPhones.
I had the same feeling as I was, yes, like, and this is true, like, Apple really doesn't, want us to put cases on our iPhones. I think that's especially true now of the 15 Pro, or may land better with the 15 Pro being made of titanium. People saying, well, A, titanium,
super strong, like, and B, gorgeous. Like, maybe I just want to, and maybe it feels good or feels, It feels good or not feels good or feels good or feels safer in one's hand If if like you said it's been it's been edged the other thing, That I noticed as they were talking about these so the the iPhone 15, right?
The It's got the an OLED display Right. This is the non pro model right OLED display goes all the way up to 2,000 nits if you're running HDR 1600 nits, like it's got this whole new matte finish. It's got the ceramic shield on the glass. The cameras on the 15, regular 15, are quite impressive. 48 megapixel main camera, a telephoto using the center 12 megapixels of the camera. It's got auto portrait mode, which I have been seeing on my iPhone 14 Pro with the iOS 17 betas.
I have seen it jump into portrait mode. So I think that we all might get that, or at least some of us might get that. All the night mode enhancements. And as they were going through that, and there's some other things I want to talk about too, and maybe we'll even come back to some of those that I just glossed over. But as they were talking about that, My feeling was this is, they're describing a pro iPhone here.
They are selling this to pro customers. In fact, they even said something like very early on. They said, this is going to be a hit with our pro users. Yes, you're right. They did say that. And so that's interesting to me. And it's interesting for a lot of reasons. One, the big one is, amongst the people that I talk to regularly, many of whom are nerds like us, who almost always buy a new phone every year, even though we really don't need to,
a lot of folks were like, I don't know if this is the year that I'm skipping a phone. Like, I don't know that I need a new phone. You know, the economy isn't as rockin' as it has been for a
a while. Right. You know and so it's much softer economically you know people are, more conservative with their dollars and a little more risk-averse and so this was an interesting, given that backdrop in my own head, I thought it was really interesting that one of the first things they said was, this is gonna be a hit with our pro users. Cause it's like, hmm. What you're doing is setting up my hypothesis. Which is?
Which is, yeah, the economy is not as good. People are a little more risk averse with spending. Spending, but there's a lot of people that really, really wanted the iPhone 14 Pro. So Apple says, let's give them the iPhone 14 Pro at a more affordable price. And they just change out the outer shell on it, essentially. Essentially, right. And then sell it at a lower price. There we go. Now you have the iPhone 15, but it's basically the iPhone 14 Pro.
It's basically, you're right. The camera is only two cameras, not three. Like it, you know, it's essentially the iPhone 14 Pro but it's a better camera than I would have expected in the non-pro model. And- I agree. Yeah. And when they started rattling off camera specs, I was quite surprised because I felt like I was listening to the pro iPhone camera specs.
Yep. Yep. Same. I was actually sitting there with my wife and my daughter. It was the first time I had company watching an Apple event that wasn't like you, while we were sitting next to each other somewhere in California, right? Yeah, good times. Good times. Yeah, exactly. But for the couch, usually I am left alone in the living room, but my daughter's home from Italy, and so she was there with me. And it was really interesting
because we were able to have some conversation. And then, of course, we had conversation in our MacGeeGab discord room too. And there was a lot of this like, well, what's the differentiator going to be? And we'll get to that. Maybe. I mean, we will address what Apple says the differentiator is, whether that is a differentiator that matters to you or me is going to be interesting. But, um, but yeah, I, I, it, it, it is interesting.
I, switching gears for a second, I was super and like I am super impressed and happy that the. Emergency SOS that we got starting last year carries over, you know, to the iPhone 15 and 15 pro, Not only is it uh, and they have the find my via satellite so that well,
Yes, find my via satellite. They also have like we'll come rescue you Uh, if you're dying in the woods or whatever, but now there's roadside assistance through triple a in the united states So, this has moved from, it's not just for I'm dying in the woods, it's now for my car died in the woods, right? That you can use this SOS for not just calls that you would make to 911 here in the United States. I was not surprised to see this feature at all. Okay.
And the reason being is because I get how people are. What to first responders qualifies as a real SOS emergency and what qualifies to the average person as a real emergency are not the same thing. So you being stuck, lost, on a back road, out of gas, to you as an average user, this is my time to do emergency SOS because, because, holy crap, I'm lost at night, I don't have gas in my car, but for first responders, that's a triple A call.
Correct. So, of course, it makes sense. You don't call 911 when your car is stuck in the woods, usually. I mean, there might be a scenario where you would, but... You would be surprised. Okay, maybe people do, yes. But this is great because it will probably also cut down on those 911 calls that don't need to be 911 calls. Right, yeah, exactly, yeah. Also, calling 911 in those situations, well, it's easy to bag on people for doing that.
You're lost somewhere, back country, you don't know what city, what county you're in. Fair. So what phone number, non-emergency phone number would you call anyhow? So giving people the AAA thing, you've just solved that problem. You don't need to understand what jurisdiction you're in. All you need to know is that your iPhone can get AAA up there to give you gas, to tow your car, to whatever it is that you need AAA for. Yeah. Yeah. It makes sense. It makes sense. Yeah, yeah.
I have a hypothesis why this didn't happen last year. And I think it's because Apple didn't want to roll out everything at once and then have something break in a horrible way. So, try the most important part, let's save lives. Yeah. Yeah. And that's working well. Yes, we've seen where the problems are, which accounts for the second part. Right. Which is... Yeah, sort out the system. It doesn't really matter what you're using it for. You get to learn whether the system works, right?
Right. Right. Yep. And my guess is that the roadside assistance will get used a lot. And I'm betting AAA is going to see a nice little boost in subscriptions. I liked that you can, if you already have a AAA subscription, this is included. And if you don't, you can get a just via your phone, you know, via your iPhone roadside assistance subscription, presumably priced somewhat differently, although I don't know what the difference is. So maybe it's just a AAA subscription, which is fine.
Like that's fine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's fascinating. So I, yeah, I'm, I'm, so we've got this camera in there, which I, I find fascinating. Even the front camera has true depth and auto-focus. Um, yeah, it, it's a, it's a, that's an interesting, the, the, the iPhone 15 is a compelling, compelling. Product even for us, for me as a, I've only ever bought a pro except that one time I bought the XR, which interestingly was the last time the economy was kind of soft.
Oh, interesting. Yeah, I'm with you. I've always been a by the pro model ever since the pro models were a thing. And I'm looking at this and I'm thinking, I need to actually really go through the specs and my needs and figure out what phone is the appropriate purchase for me. I agree. I agree. Yeah. I am very happy that both iPhones 15 now have ultra wide band. In the Bluetooth chip, right? So that this now allows for find my friends to use the same sort
of precision finding tracking that you get with AirPods, right? Where it narrows you down to a thing. One other thing along those lines that I believe will come with the iOS and Apple or tvOS 17 is that our Apple TV remotes or Apple TV 4K remotes have an ultra wideband chip in them to be tracked like an AirTag and hopefully now it will be enabled even though we've had this in our possession for a long time. This is criminal that it hasn't been activated. It's especially
criminal. And when I say it's especially criminal, it's like, it makes me want to commit criminal acts when I am looking for my remote, knowing that I have all the technology there, except the software to help me find it. Yeah, I am. I am so with you. I have refrained from committing any criminal acts, Jeff, I just want to make that clear. I laud you for your self-control. I appreciate that, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Alright, so oh and and by the way USB-C connector I know we we all kind of knew that that was coming, but I'm kind of I kind of like it Apple, Like they did they set us up for this the right way. Because we have USB-C on our iPads and our laptops and we have MagSafe as well for our phones and so, It it's the least amount. It's the least worst time to do this. I think, Yeah, it's the least worst time to do this. For me, I was thinking about it. Oh, man, what am I going to do about chargers?
Blah, blah, blah. Wait, except in my car, I just put my iPhone on a wireless charger. Ah, right, the car. So in my car, I don't need to change out anything other than the cable. Right. So I'll just throw a USB-A to C cable in there. because that's it, that's all you need to do, yeah. And that'll be fine.
I think there, no, better way to say this, what I need to do when I have a moment, which we have not had yet, is to go through all of the USB-C specs for the standard and the pro phones, because I've had this nagging thing in the back of my mind for a while now, but ever since I accepted that, yeah, Apple actually is going to do USB-C instead of skipping it and doing something else. I've been thinking that they will have two versions of the spec. The one for the standard
phone and the high power version for the pro phones. Which they do in terms of speeds. At least in terms of... So we already know that? Yeah, they, well, in a sense, they talked about once they got into the iPhone 15 Pro land, they said, and the iPhone 15 Pro with the right cable will do 10 gig transfers. Okay, so I was probably typing something quirky on Mastodon at the time and missed that. Okay, so that confirms the hypothesis.
Now it can be a theory that I had, which is that there will be different specs on the standard versus pro phone. Is that enough to make someone feel like they need to go to pro? If you're transferring large chunks of data wired to or from, more likely, from your phone, then you would want that fast speed. One thing that they showed, I mean, of course, taking 4K video off of the phone or whatever, of course. They also showed a scenario where someone was using the phone wired to a Mac and taking
pictures that were going directly to the Mac, not even being saved on the phone. Which was cool. When you need the 10 gig cable for that too. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That would make sense. Yeah. We did, just while we're talking about cables, a lesson that we learned recently here on the show, which I will reiterate, is that in our tests, and I want to make it very clear that I am not saying the specs are the same because they're not the same, but in our tests here.
USB 4.0 40 gigabit cables, work Interchangeably with Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4 40 gigabit cables in, so much as a USB for 40 gig cable 40 gig cable will connect to a Thunderbolt device including a Thunderbolt dock and, Act like it is Thunderbolt now. I know that the Thunderbolt stuff is held to a tighter standard in terms of the the, you know, you have to have to have it reviewed by the, by, you know, Intel and Apple and the Thunderbolt consortium or whatever.
You don't have to do that with a USB 4 cable, or you can do it with the USB consortium, but you don't have to. But as far as just doing it, you know, the USB 4 40 gig cables, which are less than half the price of a Thunderbolt 4 cable will work just fine in our tests. That's good, good Intel. Yeah, now if I were relying on this for a professional workflow, I'd probably just spend the extra money and pay the Thunderbolt tax. But- Well, sure, it's also a business expense at that point. Dingo.
Yeah. But for throwing things in my travel bag that A, are gonna get beat up and B, I need to have work with all the devices that I have, those USB 4 cables are my go-to now cause I can just replace them when they start to flake out, and I'm not treating them like they're, you know, flexible gold or something, so. Do you have a favorite brand? I'm asking, not even for a friend, I'm asking for me.
Yeah, there's notes. I will find the episode where we recently talked about it and I will link it here. I listed the cables that I bought, but I intentionally bought some cables of brands that like we've never heard of before. I bought OWC and Cable Matters, right? And those all worked as they were supposed to. And then also I bought like, you know, the cheapest Amazon would sell me cable and that also worked, so. Okay. Yeah. That's...
That's actually awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, of course, Thunderbolt five was just announced as someone in our live discord chat as Brian Monroe in our chat tells me. So that'll change everything maybe, or maybe not because you can get USB four to go way faster than 40 gigs. So maybe it's all still the same in terms of the cables. Devices are different. I'm only talking about cables here, but, but anyway, so like for my car, I might wind up buying just some, some cables that'll do anything.
And that way, if I need to like connect my Mac to a monitor, it's like, well, I know that this cable's capable of that. And I'm good. And yeah. And keep in mind when Intel announces new Thunderbolt, that doesn't mean they announced that something, and I haven't read any of the stuff on Thunderbolt 5 yet, but just because Intel announces it doesn't mean that it's available for products today. Oh gosh, no, no. Or this year. It'll be quite some time, I would imagine, yes. Yeah.
What else about the iPhone 15 Pro? What other differentiators did you notice? One of the things that, okay, I just have to address it because it's a thing for me. Yeah. And it's getting rid of the mute toggle, physical toggle switch, replacing it with the action button. There are so many reasons why this makes sense. And yet, I wish it hadn't happened. Because the toggle switch was put on the first iPhone
and has been there on every iPhone ever since because it needs to be that. And I remember Steve Jobs standing on stage and saying, you don't need to go through all this weird stuff of what's the right button push or right sequence to make your phone mute, when you need it to stop making sound, you need it to stop making sound. Flip the switch and it's done. Also, you can feel in your pocket, even if it's toggle the switch back and forth, to
know if your phone is on mute or not. You never have to look at it. Replacing it with an action button, while giving us all of these new features, which will be very cool, takes away that core functionality of your phone being a phone in that sense. Even though I'm certain—no, I'm not certain. I was going to say, even though I'm certain, I will adapt to the way it works. I don't know. For me, that switch is something I use multiple times every single day,
and I am not exaggerating that at all. And the fact that I know the sound state of my phone without ever having to look at it is a key thing for me. And with the action button, you will lose that. That is true. You won't be able to just feel your phone with your thumb in your pocket and know Is it muted or is it not muted? I will give you that. I wonder if you are in the majority or the minority, my, my guess.
And this is, I guess I'm in the minority. I think you were in a very, very small minority. Yeah. In terms of this, because I think most people leave their phone ringer on mute a hundred percent of the time or near 99% of the time, except those. Rare scenarios where it's like, no, I need to know, like there's an important phone call, whatever. But other than that, I think most people just keep their phones in that muted state and therefore that switch becomes all but useless.
Yes, and I agree. If that's the case, then I need to suck it up and move on. Even if it's not the case, you still need to suck it up, Jeff. Yes, yes, this is true. I just like it less. No, I get you. Okay, so we've hit on, we've touched on one of the things and that's USB 3 speeds, 10 gig USB speeds, just to be very specific. That's one differentiator between the 15 Pro and the 15. Another of course is the chip. The 15 has the- A 17 Pro chip. Correct.
That's right. Yes. Um, it seems a little faster. The neural engine is a lot faster. Uh, double the speed. If I, if my notes are correct, uh, the GPU is 20% faster. The CPU is 10% faster. One of the big benefits of the faster neural engine. And it comes to both the non and pro version, is that more of the Siri things happen on device. And so you're able to do more, especially things with health and all that. So like, that's fine, but that's not a differentiator. that's a nice feature.
Their whole thing, other than like really high-end photography or videography, seemed to be, if you play games, the 15 Pro is the best handheld game device you could buy. I thought that was so weird that that was the angle. Yeah. What a niche use. I mean, you're really pushing, other than, oh, but you don't get titanium, and you don't get an always on screen, which is kind of a bummer because the 15 has the OLED screen, it's got the same A16 Bionic chip
as the 14 Pro, like it should be able to do always on. I have a hypothesis on this. It doesn't. Yeah, go ahead. Okay, so when you look at what we get in the 15 line, not the Pro line, it's basically the 14 Pro. Yes. So then you go to the pro line and you have the 15 pro and the 15 pro max. So what sets the 15 pro apart for most users? Exactly. It's the 15 pro max that's different. But only a little bit, right? It's got the 5X zoom instead of 3X zoom, but that's it, right?
Yes, but it's also the one that lets you do the spatial videos. I think, okay, so we haven't talked about this, but there is a way to do spatial videos. I thought that was the both pro models could do spatial videos. Oh, if it's both pro models, then that totally knocks my... Someone will correct me if I'm, will tell us which one of us remembered it correctly. Yeah, I thought it was just the Max. I didn't think so. I thought it was both pro models. You turn it in portrait mode, sorry,
you turn it in landscape mode. In landscape mode. And then the two cameras at the top now take a stereo video that can then become a spatial video. Yeah. Right. Totally targeting Vision Pro. Right, yeah. You can't watch it on the phone. I mean, you could watch it, but it's going to be 2D, but then you could go watch it on a Vision Pro. So in order to take advantage of that, you need to spend the extra cash in addition to the 15 Pro on the Vision Pro, so. But it's smart because.
If you want people to use Vision Pro, giving them the ability to make content that they can look at on the Vision Pro is important. Yeah. All right. So, assuming for a moment. I think that is correct, because I have the, I take little screenshots as we're doing the thing.
And if you're watching the video, you'll be able to see this is a screenshot I grabbed from the keynote that is this, that when they show, like they're at the end of the segment on the 15 pro, they put up this screen, this screen that shows all of the features in like a little grid and it's, it's laid out nicely. And this is for both pro models that it talks about. And it says wifi 6E, by the way, that, you know, that non-announcement. So there you go.
It shows USB 3. It shows 5X telephoto. And on that, it specifically says on the Pro Max. On the Pro Max, right. But then, right next to that, it says spatial video without a distinction. Okay. Well, then, in that case, this causes, I think, a product lineup problem for Apple. Yeah. For the 12 Pro, not 12 Pro Max. The 12? You're talking a 15 Pro. Yeah. Okay. See, here's the funny thing. There's a 12 Pro Max sitting on my desk right now
now, in front of me. Okay, the 15, yes, the 15, the 15 Pro versus the 15, because the 15 is basically last year's Pro model in a different case. Yeah. Unless you need the cameras. If you know, being able to do 24, 28, 35 millimeter spatial video. Yeah. Where does the 6.1 inch 12-15 Pro fit into the mix anymore? It almost doesn't make sense for me. If you're going to go pro, it's feeling to me like at this point, you need to go pro max. And if you're not going pro max, then go with the standard.
Yes. Yes. Yeah, that's interesting. That's, yeah, it's crazy, like, yeah. I am looking here at the screenshot that I grabbed for the non-Pro 15, and I don't see Wi-Fi 6E, nor do I see Thread on it, which are both on the spec sheet for the other one, for the Pro, so maybe that's a differentiator, I don't know. It's, I'm going to speculate it's a differentiator because if they basically took the 14 Pro and put it in a different body, then your manufacturing costs will be lower for the newer phone.
Oh, maybe. I'm looking at tech specs on Apple's website here and we will see if in fact there is truly a differentiator here. So let's get to the wireless section of Apple's tech specs, video recording, true depth camera, face ID, Apple Pay, Apple Card, cellular and wireless. So we get Wi-Fi 6 on the 15, Wi-Fi 6E on the 15 Pro. And no thread on the regular 15. So yeah, that is a differentiator. Yeah, and I'm looking at MacTracker. And the specs that I'm seeing for the 14 pro. Yes.
It's basically the same as the 15. What I just, what I just read. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So I have a question for both of us. I'll ask it to you first. Will you be buying a new iPhone this year? And if so, if you had to make the decision right now and you reserve the right to change your mind between now and whenever you order, you don't have to like lock this in stone, but if you had to make the decision right now, which one would it What would it be?
It would actually be a really tough call for me between the 6.1 inch 15 and the 6.1 inch 15 Pro. And honestly, the thing that's making it a tougher decision for me, it's not the wifi, it's not the thread, it's not better bandwidth on USB-C, it's what's in the cameras, and am I likely to use the camera features in the 15 Pro? And regardless, I'm getting better cameras than I have in my 12 Pro today. So- Okay, fair, yeah. So a 15 is a very enticing price point right now.
I agree, I agree. So here's, I will answer the same question. I have a 14 pro that I use as my daily driver. If I am going to buy a new phone, I don't know if I'm going to buy a new phone because the 15 makes no sense for me. I would essentially be getting the same phone, essentially, that I currently have. I would have to spend some amount of cash on it, whether I trade my 14 in or hand it down through the family system that we have, right?
But I would be spending some amount of money to get the same phone with slightly less features because the 14 Pro will do the standby mode where you put it on its side. I mean, all the phones will do that, that run iOS 17, but my 14 Pro has an always on screen. The 15 does not. So for me, it's the always on screen that is the differentiator there. There's no reason for me to get a 15. It would be the 15 Pro, which is spending even more money, obviously. It's a $200 Delta there.
And do I really want the titanium? The answer is yes, obviously. Will I do this? Probably, but I'm also due for a new Apple Watch this year. I have a series five. And I have an eight. So we'll talk about Apple Watches in a minute. But, so I don't, I don't, like it's a hard, I'm hard pressed. If I'm going to buy a new phone, it will be the 15 Pro. I don't know if I am going to be buying a new phone or not. Time will tell.
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All right, before we get to the Apple watches, I wanted to share something that I saw on Apple's website because all these new phones that we just talked about will be running iOS 17 as their baseline, and many of our phones will be able to upgrade to iOS 17. And that day will be September 18th, which I believe is Monday the 18th. So that is- I was off by a day on my prediction. I was predicting the 19th. Got it. Yeah. So it'll be the 18th, which is fine. It's all good.
Dave, have you seen anything that says if iPadOS 17 is dropping on the 18th as well? Because I know that it's another two weeks before we get macOS Wine Country. Um, good question. I just looked and iPadOS 17 also comes on the 18th. Okay. Yeah. And, and we think that Mac OS is also coming Monday? No, it's two weeks later, I believe. Let's see. Um, Apple has not given us a date for this, so I would not say half. Oh, have they? Yes, and I think it's two weeks later.
All right. And I'm sorry, I don't— It was it was one of the screenshots that I saw someone pop up. And on one of my social medias, probably came from the footnotes here, maybe. Yeah, I'm looking at the footnotes on the page. Or it might have been it from the press releases, but it's like it's coming two weeks later, which is much earlier than we have previously seen. I'm not seeing it on the page for Macalus. If I find it on...
Oh, wait, I'm on Ventura here. This is why I can't find it. Oh, yeah, you are. Are. Yeah, you need to go to wine country. Yes. I need to go to wine country. Yes. Okay. Well, I'll look for it while we, while we chit chat here. I bet someone that's watching live is looking it up right now. They are. You're right. It is September 26th. A hundred percent correct. Yep. Thank you. And thanks to Ben in the, in the chat too. Thank you, Yep. All right.
Two on nine twenty six. Okay. Thanks for looking up the iPadOS thing for me and as if my fingers won't work so I couldn't type it myself. Yeah. No, but this is what we do here. So let's talk. Let's talk Apple Watches. I'm excited about what Apple's doing here. I mean, the S9 SIP, right, is way faster than the Series 8, right, the 60% faster CPU, now that's got that four core neural engine in there so that Siri requests can also happen locally on the watch, which- Holy crap.
Right, like, it's like, yeah, how powerful does this thing need to be? What are they planning with this? I... the watch has always felt over-engineered. To me and and the evidence i will share for that is i'm dave and i'm a nerd.
I have only ever owned two apple watches i owned a series zero which i still own and it still runs arrived on release day and i own a series five last year i bought a series eight and i wound up not even taking it out of the box until i gave it to my dad and helped him take it out of the box Um, it just, I didn't, I didn't need it. I have the always on screen, which was a big deal to me. Uh, but once I got that, it was like, well, do I need another watch? I don't, I don't know.
So they last a long time is what I'm saying. I am due for one though. So, and I went from the four to the eight. Okay. All right. And, and, uh, honestly, my reason for doing that, that, it was a family thing. I really wanted a watch on my dad's wrist that had fall detection. Yes. And it had been several years since I got a new watch, and I thought, this is my opportunity. I'll get my new watch, and then I'll put my Series 4 on my dad's wrist, you know, as fall detection. Yep.
And I'm glad I did on every level. And I'm not a watch wearer yet. Because I needed to try one out back in our TMO days when the Series Zero came out. I've been wearing an Apple Watch ever since. Yeah. A lot of people, that's true for a lot of people. The Apple Watch made a lot of folks watch wearers who had never been watch wearers. That's right.
Yeah. And I have, I always have a hypothesis. Here's my hypothesis on why our Apple watches seem way over-engineered and why Apple is talking more and more about Siri on device, both with the watch and the phone. I think that this painfully over-long time frame we're going through where Siri feels incredibly stagnant. Is going to change. But Apple needs to have all of these other elements in place before that happens. You are 100% right.
In that I agree with you. I can't say that you're right because I don't know that you're right, But but but you also know that I'm right. Yeah, that's it because it's the whole I mean They've fallen terribly far behind with with in the voice assistant world and that's going to get leapfrogged as voice assistants and. You know large language model chat things like chat GPT become one right as soon as Because the Amazon A-Lady is essentially a voice interface to chat GPT or something like it.
Siri is going to feel like you're talking to a parrot. Like it'll be like, Oh, you remember when we used to play with Eliza on our Apple twos? Exactly. Yeah, I do. It'll be, it'll feel like that. So do I. Yeah. Yeah. But I think Apple is setting us up for a huge leap forward with Siri. And when it happens, we will be both frustrated and excited. Frustrated because why did we have to go so long with what feels like an inferior product. Voice assistant tools are offering us.
Jeff, you just spent 99 cents for me and you're gonna spend it for you too unless you have already paid it. Did you know that Eliza exists in the Mac App Store and it looks like you're playing it on an Apple II? Were you aware of this? I'm looking it up right now. Eliza. Yup, 99 cents. On the Mac apps. There it is. Oh my God, they even have the dual floppy drives sitting there in the icon and bye. Yep, there it is.
So anyway, I just went to put it in the show notes and the first thing that came up for Eliza was the Mac app store. I'm like, why is it showing me that? Like that doesn't make any sense. And it turns out it makes good sense, yeah. It's downloading even as we speak. So everyone go get Eliza so that you can get your practice in for using Siri up until we get the big change, whenever that comes.
This is interesting to me, because... I have noticed, it has not been intentional, although my guess is you folks listening might have noticed, the last few episodes have included what I will call nostalgia segments. Um, Pete has asked me questions, maybe Pete's doing it intentionally, but, where we've sort of gone down memory lane a little bit here and there.
I only thought about it this past weekend when I was like, oh, you know, we are coming up to show a thousand, like, Maybe that's why I'm feeling more nostalgic or maybe that's why Pete's leading me that way. You just introduced today's nostalgia segment and so I... I'm channeling my inner Pete for you. I appreciate that. Yeah, I'll make sure Pete knows. But, um, yeah, interesting. So, anyway, back to the Apple Watch, out of the nostalgia here.
I'm terrible with the nostalgia. Like, in moments I embrace it, but then I really just kind of want to move forward. Because that's how I am. I'm impatient.
Um, I, I like this watch. I like, I love how Apple has yet again, taken something from accessibility that people have used and sort of like found ways to make part of their lives, people that don't need it for the, it's intended accessibility used people that are regularly abled instead of differently abled, using some feature and then Apple just brings it to the forefront. And of course, I'm talking about what we used to call assistive touch, I believe, and is now the double tap.
Double tap. Yeah. To me, that's the killer feature on the new Apple Watch. But... Is it only on the new watch? Like, will we get it with the new watch OS on older watches? Cause they can do it. I thought it was just... I think you're right. So I think the assistive touch version, of course that stays. Yes. But then the additional things that it does, that will be just on the Apple Watch 9, which tells me that they've probably refined the sensor. I'm sure they have.
Like, yes, it always involves that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think this is great. And if you didn't see it in the keynote, it's a thing where you, on your watch wearing hand, you tap your forefinger and thumb together twice and can cause the watch to do some different things, which is cool. Yeah. It's very cool. And watching the types of things they were doing, I'm like, oh, I want this right now.
Yeah. Taking pictures when you're using the camera remote, answering or hanging up calls, muting things. Yeah. So they said, they did say something interesting. They said available next month. So I don't think this is because the watch you can get, if you were to order the watch, you can order it today and it would arrive next week, which is not next month, right? That's September 22nd that it would arrive. So when they said this
is next month, I think this is coming in, you know, watchOS 10.1. By the way, watchOS 10.0 is also released on Monday the 18th with everything else. So, yeah. So interesting. I don't know. I don't know. What else about the new watch? What are we, uh, new bands, right? They've got their, what are they calling their vegan leather thing? Fine woven, I think. Well, yeah, they're, yeah. Fine woven. Okay. So when they announced the, we are getting away from, from leather for all of our products.
I turned to my office manager who was napping on the couch beside me. This would be my cat. Yes, of course. And I said, well, goodbye Hermes. Because the Hermes leather bands have already been pulled from sale. That happened like yesterday. Oh, interesting. But they have new, they have four new Hermes bands. Right. And then they announced the new bands, which are not leather. Right.
And I was like, oh, okay, well, that makes sense. But I was thinking, yeah, if you're going to go with Hermes, you want leather bands. And three of the bands that they're making now, I look at and think, okay, those are nice. And I feel like there's kind of a Hermes thing going on, but then there's the one that's the, the kind of siliconey kind of one, the plasticky one. Yep.
And that does not feel like a Hermes product to me at all. You know, I'm curious to see what it looks like. Uh, it like on a watch, because it might, be like, you know, it might wind up being like one of those things that Hermes creates. And then and it becomes iconic because they created it.
It redefines what we think of when we think Air Mace, like a Birkin bag, or you know what, I don't think these watch bands are gonna be like, in quite as short supply as a Birkin bag, but you know, that sort of thing. I only learned about Birkin bags this week, and it's because my 23 year old daughter is home and she's obsessed with fashion, so that's a no. Yeah, my nieces taught me all about Birkin bags. Okay, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, it is a new thing. And now, you know, it's- Welcome to the club, Dave. Exactly. Yep. I'll put a link in the show notes if anybody actually cares to research Birkenbags. I can't believe we talked about Birkenbags on the show. I'll have to let Scott know. Dave, I'm on. We could go anywhere. I know. The bands that, the Fine Woven, which is Apple's, you know, different thing. I thought those were interesting. I'm curious to touch one and see what it feels like.
Yep, me too. I want to see the Nike bands. The Nike bands look cool, especially like the recycled one with the flex of thing. Like those look fun. Yeah. When they did that or when they showed those, my first thought was, okay, so this concept is working well. And for those of you that are listening, I'm holding up my wrist and I have this year's Pride band on, and it has the little sprinkles in it for the colors. Oh, it's got little sprinkles that is similar to what's going on.
Each watch band is unique because they just kind of dump them in. So you get a random pattern on each watch. That's what they're doing with the Nike bands. Just different, just different flex. I like it. Yeah. Yeah. No, the Nike bands look cool. I'm, I'm excited about those. He, the sport loop band, they made a big deal about how the sport loop band now uses 83% recycled yarn. And my first thought was what about the Amazon knockoffs? Like, are they also going to use 83% recycled yarn?
My, I have a theory. I would love to hear your theory. My theory is a hundred percent yes, because those Amazon knockoffs are made in the same factory. I think, I think it's, you know, they sell out the front door to Apple for 10 hours of the day. And then for 14 hours of the day, they sell out the backdoor to an Amazon distributor. That totally makes sense. I love this theory. I am completely on board. It's how it works. It's the culture of that industry over there.
That's how I ended up with a really good travel mic. And it was because you had discovered, it was like Alibaba had some Behringer mic where they didn't silkscreen the logo on. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And I still travel with that. It's an awesome mic. So thanks for that. Yeah, you're welcome. Yeah, yeah. Um, so I'm, I'm excited about the, I like what they're doing with the watch. I like, I'm the chip in it makes a big difference to me.
I, before we answer our, would we buy one question this year? I want to talk about the ultra. Uh, because I think that's, that's part of this, this question, because chances are we wouldn't buy two watches, although we're nerds and I accept that. So, uh, let's, let's talk about the ultra, right? The, um, it also has the same chip, right? The S9 chip in there, which means the on-device Siri, the double taps. It, both of them have ultra wide band, which makes the finding of things easier.
Both the finding of your watch and also the finding of things using your watch is now, as long as they all have ultra wide band, which is great. Um, the brightness of the Apple watch ultra two now goes up to 3000 nits. That's 50% more than even the, the regular Apple watch, which is super bright. Um, dual frequency GPS. They've got that. Um, they call it the modular ultra watch face that I, uh, it goes like edge to edge and has every gizmo and gadget you could possibly imagine on there.
I'm, I'm, uh, I've been tempted by the ultra. I put one on my wrist. I have, I know, I know, I think if I remember correctly, you are someone with, with small wrists as well. I think mine aren't quite as small as yours. Yeah, and I actually wear the smaller Apple watch. Right. And even though I could wear the bigger one, I don't like wearing watches. Right. So I want it to be as small and light as possible. Sure.
Well the new watch ultra is somewhat lighter because it's now 95% recycled titanium or or whatever, so like they said that it's a little lighter, Maybe I misunderstood that. But I'm tempted, I've worn the watch Ultra, it is chunky, but not too big for me. And I am also someone who wears mechanical watches, which are sort of naturally chunky, especially in an automatic, because it's got to have the little winding, you know, whatever they call it, the counterweight in there.
So I'm used to chunky watches, I like chunky watches, so the chunkiness of the Ultra does not bother me. And I'm toying with the idea of just going with the Ultra 2 this year, but I don't know. What about you? Is there anything about the Ultra you wanna talk about or do you wanna answer this question here? I'll blend it all together. First, I am completely the demographic for this watch.
Interesting. Just straight up because it's designed for people that do a lot of outdoor activities, end up in places where you're not going to have a cell signal. Places where you get weird weather changes, you have big altitude changes. It's like everything about this watch says, oh yeah, Jeff probably already owns one, and I don't. And the reason I don't is because this would be a secondary watch for me, and I can't justify having two watches, or two Apple watches,
because it's too big for what I want for daily use. That's fair, yeah. That said, holy crap, what they're doing with Ultra 2, do. I mean, this is a really, really cool watch. And the titanium, we should talk about titanium for a minute as someone that does a lot of outdoor stuff. If you haven't had side-by-side comparison between the regular thing, which is like stainless steel or aluminum or whatever, and then the titanium version, you don't get it. It's like, it feels like
it can't be real. Like it's magic, the difference with the titanium, because it's stronger and And it is so much lighter. So the whole titanium thing, to me, is very compelling. It's actually one of the things that's very compelling about the iPhone Pro, this year too. Titanium body. But the screen brightness, when you live in a place like I do, where you're higher altitude, you have more glare, it's just brighter in general. A brighter display makes a big difference.
And it has the dual GPS. So, if I'm interpreting that correctly... As someone that's done a lot of GPS stuff in the past, that means that it's acquiring two signals simultaneously? Yes, I believe that's correct. It's not just the one. And then, well, yeah, normally you would have, like what we've had traditionally in the watch, and I think some of the phones, although I believe it's changed over time, someone will clarify this for me, please.
But is that you'd get, you have one GPS receiver and then it also uses the cell tower triangulation to sort of be the secondary. Secondary location data point to give you accurate location data. As you point out, the watch Ultra is built for folks who are not near a cell signal. And so you need that, or that second GPS receiver now actually makes a big difference, so. Yes, and it's the setup for what I think is coming next for Apple Watch Ultra.
Okay, so with one signal, what it does is the watch gets a lock on a single satellite. And now it's tracking the position change of the satellite relative to you. And then it uses those different positions of the satellite to pinpoint your location. It's slower, not as accurate, but it's way better than not having anything, and it's still pretty accurate.
You get two, and now it's using the two satellites simultaneously to locate your position, and so you get much faster acquisition, and you have much higher accuracy. So, series three will add in the third, and that's your golden place for GPS. Because now you have three satellites to triangulate your position basically instantly, and now you get GPS altitude. Oh, you're totally right. Oh man, you are full of theories today and they are good theories, I like this.
I am so happy I can bring theories to you of all people today. I wanna debunk one of them, I think. Please. So you talked about titanium and I'm with you, it's lighter than many other metals that are used in many of these other things. So I went and looked at the specs for the iPhone. And the iPhone 15, the 6.1 inch iPhone 15 is 171 grams, okay? The 15 Pro, the titanium version is 187 grams. Well, thank you. Bigger battery.
Yeah, bigger battery. That's my guess. More cameras too, right? There's, yeah. And my guess is that that's where your extra weight is really coming from. I think you're probably right. And it would weigh significantly more if it wasn't an aluminum frame, or excuse me, a titanium frame. Yeah, fair. Yeah, no, yes, of course it would. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I am. You know, I'm in a different spot than you with the watch because I didn't buy one for me last year. So I am on a series five.
I am in a world where I could like I could buy a new watch and then also use my series five when I want. Right. Like, see, this is a totally legit way to do the upgrade and, uh, and I could do the same thing. My series eight is awesome. I have no need to replace it. You don't need.
Yeah. to supplement it, this would be the way to do it. And supplementing one year after you bought your most recent watch or four years after you bought your most recent watch are different economic, or at least different psychological. Games that we play with ourselves. Yes, they are. All right. I have one last thing to share before we take off here for this week. And that is that Apple mentioned this in the keynote, but they also put out a press release about it to make it very clear.
There is a new case that is included now with the AirPods Pro second generation, and that case now has USB-C. The mention we got of that in the keynote wasn't even really a mention, but it was there. And if you weren't paying attention, you wouldn't have seen it. Nope. Because they said you can use that same USB cable to charge and they listed off everything and, hey, check it out, there's an AirPods Pro case. There's an AirPods Pro case. And I'm like, I don't think that's how it is, but sure.
Okay. So yeah, there you go. That's- All right, so Dave, now the next question is, can you buy the case separately? Oh, I see. This is, let's see, shop accessories for AirPods. Hang on, let me pull this up for us all to see if you happen to be watching. So, uh, I am looking at accessories for AirPods, no, no, no, second-generation USB-C, it's right there for $249, but I don't see... No separate case. accessories, maybe?
Let me see, headphone accessories. I can buy a case for the case. I can buy a case for the case and another cushion for the case, wireless charging case for AirPods. Okay. And the answer, Jeff, is not that I can tell. Not today, Jeff. Not today. Yeah, that's probably the right answer is not today, but we shall see if in fact that comes around. So fun stuff. Thanks for doing this with us. I think we've dissected everything. Is there anything else on on your list before we say
goodbye to one another and everyone else? Super fast. I like that they're okay making it a big commercial and having fun. That's the way the keynote should be. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I thought the pacing of this one was much slower than what we've seen previously. And that's what told me, Oh, we're only getting like a watch and iPhone.
There is no, and by the way, we have more to talk about with the Vision Pro or whatever. It was like, no. They spent, obviously spent a lot of time talking about their Apple 2030 environmental movement. That was a big thing, yeah. That was a lot of time to do that whole, it was a nice way to sort of poke fun at themselves for their obsession with including this in keynotes to do the whole Mother Nature thing. That was cute.
And it was cute. And I thoroughly enjoyed that. They owned it. They're like, yep, we know we talk about this. Let's have some fun with it this time. Thank goodness. But that made it last way longer than just somebody throwing up a slide and saying, here's all the things we're doing. Thanks. Bye. Now on to the good stuff. But now people are going to be talking about Apple's environmental initiatives a lot more than they otherwise would have.
That's right. Oh, and, uh, one more, one more thing. iCloud plus adds a six terabyte and 12 terabyte plans to... Yes, I saw that. ...get a mix there. So that's good. That's good. You can buy, so listener Ben in our chat says you can buy a replacement AirPods case for, for $89 U.S. and perhaps that would be one with USBC. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That would be, if there is a path to it, and that should be the path to it, that's how you get there.
And I like that the iPhone Pro, I think it's only the iPhone Pro, can charge AirPods or Apple Watch from its USB-C port. Right. The charging of the watch, that's kind of nice. Yeah, that's a nice differentiator. Yeah. It is with USB-C, Ben confirms. So yes, you can buy an AirPods Pro 2 Gen 2 case with USB-C for 89 bucks to replace your one with lightning. Okay. Thanks for looking that up, Ben. Amazing. Thanks for hanging out with us, Jeff. Thank you so much for doing this with me. I love this.
Dave, thank you so much for having me. This is so much fun. Tell people where they can find you if that's not something that people would have already done. For those of you that haven't found me yet on social medias, Jay Gammett. Right now, mostly Mastodon and Instagram. Other shows I'm doing right now, most Tuesday evenings, that means later tonight, Chuck Drainer's Mac Voices Live. I bet we'll talk about some of the same things.
Thursdays on Dave Ginsburg's In Touch with iOS. Then on the British Tech Network, I'm hosting the big show on Thursdays, the Mac show on Fridays. And Dave, you remember this guy, Brian Chaffin? Yeah, Brian and I, we do a show called The Context Machine, and it's a pretty safe bet we will probably find something out of the keynote to talk about this week, too.
I am eager to hear how the two of you dissect this because my guess is it's going to be a very different set of angles than what you and I just went through here. I am certain it will be a very, we'll come in from a completely different angle. Yep. Fun stuff. Thanks for hanging out with us, folks. Thanks for checking out our sponsors, of course. You can find them at mackiekeb.com slash sponsors. Of course, paavpn.com slash mggandbarebones.com.
Thanks to Cashfly for providing all the bandwidth to get the show from us to you. And thanks to all of you for listening. 999 episodes, man. Congratulations. I know, thank you. It actually does mean a lot. It really does. It really does. It's kind of amazing. Jeff, do you have three words of advice to share with our friends before we say goodbye to the three digits? I do, in fact. Don't get caught. Music.