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The Sad Reality of Apple’s iPhone 17 Announcement · In the Loop AI

0:03
Josh: Apple just concluded the Super Bowl of hardware events for the year.
0:07
Josh: This is their biggest event of the year.
0:08
Josh: They unveiled their new flagship devices, being the iPhone, the watches, and the AirPods.
0:12
Josh: It just concluded. There was a lot of very cool tech that I think I'm pretty stoked about.
0:16
Josh: EJS, we might be going to war on a few topics and things you might find interesting or not.
0:20
Josh: But before we do, I mean, I want to talk about the thing that they notably didn't
0:24
Josh: really announce or excluded a lot from this event, which is AI.
0:27
Josh: It felt like this was, and granted, this is a very hardware-focused episode,
0:31
Josh: a very hardware-focused announcement.
0:32
Josh: But last week when we covered Google's announcement, it was a mostly hardware
0:36
Josh: unveiling, but all of the software on top of it was enabled by AI.
0:42
Josh: And Apple really didn't seem to have a lot of the AI, but they did have some
0:45
Josh: interesting features. So I kind of want to jump in with those.
0:47
Josh: What was Apple's AI presence like, Ejaz, during this hardware unveiling episode?
0:52
Ejaaz: They released a new pair of AirPod Pro 3s, which do live AI translation.
0:58
Ejaaz: So you could be speaking Spanish right now, Josh, and I'd be hearing English in mine.
1:03
Ejaaz: In fact, there's a really cool demo that I want you to see right here.
1:06
Josh: When both people are wearing AirPods Pro.
1:11
Josh: I agree, yeah. Eu concordo, sim.
1:17
Josh: Vamos incluir as principais descobertas na apresentação de sexta-feira.
1:24
Josh: Definitely. The client will love that.
1:27
Josh: I'll let the strategy team know to prepare that immediately.
1:30
Ejaaz: So what you're watching here is basically two people having a conversation.
1:34
Ejaaz: They're both wearing, maybe kind of dystopianly, the AirPod Pro 3s.
1:39
Ejaaz: But they're able to communicate and converse with each other in a completely
1:44
Ejaaz: different setting, environment, and language, which I thought was just super cool.
1:47
Ejaaz: We saw Google release something similar to this, but that was over something
1:51
Ejaaz: more formal like Google Meets, right?
1:54
Ejaaz: So you have to set up a call and do this. This seems much more casual.
1:57
Ejaaz: And I also know, Josh, that you could wear the AirPods Pro 3 and speak to someone
2:04
Ejaaz: who isn't wearing this and the live translation will occur on your iPhone.
2:09
Ejaaz: So you can kind of like show them a kind of transcript of what you're trying
2:11
Ejaaz: to say and converse that way.
2:13
Ejaaz: But Josh, do you find this as cool as I did?
2:16
Josh: Yeah, okay. I found it cool when I saw it first unveiled by Google like six months ago.
2:19
Josh: But I do find this cool because it's built into the ecosystem that I use.
2:22
Josh: So in that extent, I'm very excited. AirPods, I think, are the device that I
2:27
Josh: do not leave home with. Like people always say phone while it keys.
2:30
Josh: For me, it's phone and AirPods. I adore them. I bring them everywhere.
2:33
Josh: Having an upgraded version that includes this live translation seems very cool.
2:37
Josh: I think it's important to note they were both wearing AirPods.
2:40
Josh: In the wild, most times when you converse with someone, it's going to be one-sided AirPods.
2:44
Josh: So they did have a feature where you can actually speak and it will listen and
2:47
Josh: then share the words on a screen so someone who's outside of the conversation
2:50
Josh: without AirPods can hear. For
2:52
Josh: me, Apple has largely lost my trust when it comes to software delivery.
2:56
Josh: So in this case, I need to see it to believe it. If it does work with low latency
3:00
Josh: like they demoed, this is incredible.
3:02
Josh: This would be such a cool feature where you can talk in near real time with
3:05
Josh: anyone in the world in any language.
3:07
Josh: And that's like a pretty remarkable thing from something so small that just sits in your ears.
3:10
Josh: I fear that that will not be the case and that this live demo is in a very controlled
3:15
Josh: environment and it is optimized for a perfect experience.
3:20
Josh: Noticeably, AirPods, I mean, And even the microphone quality of AirPods,
3:23
Josh: if you've ever tried to talk to someone, Ejaz on the phone, has been horrendous.
3:27
Josh: It leaves. It's amazing. It's an incredible demo for an incredible product.
3:31
Josh: These AirPods are awesome and I will absolutely be buying them.
3:34
Josh: But again, we'll test it. I'll believe it when I see it.
3:37
Ejaaz: Josh, buddy, did you have your coffee this morning? You've got your Duma hat
3:42
Ejaaz: on. You're meant to be the fanboy of this show.
3:45
Ejaaz: Okay, let me step into your shoes for a second and just say that it comes at
3:49
Ejaaz: the same price, which is a very un-Apple like thing.
3:52
Ejaaz: Normally they hike the price up hundreds of dollars for every single new model,
3:56
Ejaaz: but it's the same price, $249 and no 99 cents. They've just kept it rendered off there.
4:02
Ejaaz: Eight hours of battery life, built-in heart rate sensor, which is something new, Josh. I don't know.
4:08
Ejaaz: Does AirPod Pros 2 have a heart rate sensor?
4:13
Ejaaz: It's basically where my head is going here is I think they're starting to build
4:17
Ejaaz: a new kind of smart device and it's kind of starting with the AirPods,
4:20
Ejaaz: this live AI translation feature.
4:22
Ejaaz: Maybe they stick a camera on it in future versions maybe i'm being too much
4:25
Ejaaz: of a moon boy about this but i found that pretty cool and and maybe i'm being too hopeful but yeah.
4:30
Josh: Yeah health will be important i think if you're interested in the airpods the
4:34
Josh: only things that you care about are active noise cancellation is better it has
4:37
Josh: live translation um and it can read your pulse in the case that you don't have
4:40
Josh: a tracker like an apple watch or an aura ring and that's pretty much the only thing there so
4:45
Ejaaz: What are you excited about josh.
4:46
Josh: Yeah there's a ton of stuff i'm actually stoked for and it is all hardware related stuff.
4:50
Josh: They released a bunch in the iPhone department, which I think we can get into
4:53
Josh: right now, starting with the iPhone Air.
4:56
Josh: The iPhone Air is awesome. We have this really beautiful designed video that
5:00
Josh: shows the thinnest iPhone they've ever made,
5:02
Josh: Ijaz, one of the things that I got really excited about is for me,
5:06
Josh: this was the first time in a long time that Apple felt like they released a
5:09
Josh: very Apple-esque device.
5:10
Josh: It's new, it's innovative, it's different, it's beautiful. I think we see it
5:14
Josh: from the marketing video.
5:15
Josh: They tried to do like a knockoff Johnny Ive promo video where they had some
5:20
Josh: designer with a European accent start talking about it.
5:23
Josh: But I think the most remarkable thing about this phone is the design.
5:25
Josh: And the reason why I believe they made this phone, which I'm not sure you will
5:30
Josh: agree with nor know about Ijaz, but I do want to get into it in a second.
5:33
Josh: First, the actual hardware of the phone. I think, what, 85% of this phone is battery.
5:38
Josh: So the entire backside of the phone is basically a slab of glass with a battery
5:43
Josh: behind it and a back shell.
5:44
Josh: And all of the hardware, all of the compute, all of the camera sensors,
5:48
Josh: the microphones, the speakers, they're all found in this single array that exists
5:52
Josh: on top of the phone that they call the plateau.
5:54
Josh: The actual limitation of what made this as thin as it could be is the USB-C port.
5:59
Josh: The USB-C port is actually the thickest part of the phone. And they've kind
6:02
Josh: of run up against this, this like natural limitation of thinness.
6:05
Josh: And I just found this really inspiring to me because it's a new form factor
6:09
Josh: of a device that we've come to know and love for so long, but they've really
6:13
Josh: done an interesting job of stacking it all in this tiny, tiny little thing and
6:16
Josh: creating something that feels new. They use this polished titanium.
6:19
Josh: And then as I'm watching this, I'm thinking, well, why, why would they do this?
6:23
Josh: What's the reasoning to make a thin phone? Like no one really asked for a thin
6:26
Josh: phone. I'm stoked they did it. I think it's beautiful.
6:29
Josh: It's amazing. But I mean, if you ask the average person, what they want in a
6:32
Josh: new iPhone, they're going to tell you, well, I just kind of want better battery
6:34
Josh: life, maybe a little bit better cameras.
6:36
Josh: And in fact, this battery is 48% less than the iPhone 17 Pro Max.
6:42
Josh: So it's a significant hit to battery life. But what's interesting is this very
6:46
Josh: much feels like it was a product made for the manufacturers more than it was
6:50
Josh: made for the consumers. Because what?
6:52
Josh: There was a leak a few weeks ago where Apple was looking to make the iPhone Fold next year.
6:57
Josh: And in order to make the iPhone Fold next year, it requires a series of very
7:01
Josh: thin components, a very small components, a very compact tech to be able to
7:06
Josh: squeeze two very thin displays into a single piece of hardware that fits in your pocket.
7:11
Josh: So to me, this feels like this was a dry run, a short production run to get
7:16
Josh: the supply chain and manufacturer set up to create this next generation of thinner devices.
7:21
Josh: And when I also think about what we talk about frequently, Ejaz,
7:23
Josh: which is this next level of compute through augmented reality and ambient intelligence,
7:27
Josh: where computers kind of exist on your face in the form of glasses or the Vision
7:31
Josh: Pro goggles, I think you really need smaller components.
7:35
Josh: And this very much feels like a test for manufacturers to create smaller components
7:39
Josh: to fit in smaller, more confined spaces. Because if you look at the video on
7:42
Josh: the screen right now, it's gorgeous.
7:44
Josh: It's this tiny, thin little sliver. And then at the top, it has all the compute
7:47
Josh: in And to me, it's a remarkable phone.
7:49
Josh: Really beautiful. If I didn't care so much about cameras, this would be a no-brainer for me to buy.
7:53
Josh: I think it is an awesome show of Apple manufacturing strength, of design capability.
7:58
Josh: This is super cool. And if anyone asks me what they should buy,
8:01
Josh: if they don't care about photography, get this phone. It's awesome.
8:04
Josh: Did you have any takes when you watched this about what you thought about it?
8:07
Ejaaz: Okay, listen, as a professional Apple hater, I was super impressed by the engineering behind this.
8:15
Ejaaz: I mean, what we're showing on the screen here is nothing short of genius, right?
8:21
Ejaaz: So you've got the entire brain, body, limbs of a phone in the tiny little camera
8:30
Ejaaz: component of the top section of your phone.
8:32
Ejaaz: I would say that this is probably like, what, not more than 15% of the actual
8:36
Ejaaz: phone body and the rest is just clean, smooth, slick glass, as you said.
8:40
Ejaaz: And I kind of want to pick up on the point that you're making,
8:44
Ejaaz: which is, I think, over decades since the mobile phone was created.
8:49
Ejaaz: It's kind of been on a trend towards getting smaller, thinner,
8:54
Ejaaz: right, being able to fit into your pocket, being able to kind of like slide
8:57
Ejaaz: into your bag or handbag or whatever that might be.
9:00
Ejaaz: And I think this is like the first major leap that we've seen in a while,
9:04
Ejaaz: where we're kind of like taking a very aggressive move, right?
9:07
Ejaaz: You mentioned folded phones, right? Samsung's been doing that for God knows how long.
9:12
Ejaaz: But this is like, this feels like a net new thing.
9:15
Ejaaz: It feels like, as this tweet says, practice for whatever future hardware comes next.
9:20
Ejaaz: And you and I, Josh, have spoken about, or hypothesized rather,
9:24
Ejaaz: about what the new AI consumer hardware device is going to look like.
9:28
Ejaaz: Is it going to be a puck that sits in your pocket or on your table?
9:31
Ejaaz: Is it going to be a necklace?
9:32
Ejaaz: Is it going to be AirPods with cameras in it with sensors in it?
9:35
Ejaaz: We don't know, or is it going to be glasses? We don't know exactly what it's
9:38
Ejaaz: going to be. But I feel like this is kind of like a hint towards that future.
9:43
Ejaaz: And my personal take is I love that it's small. I love that it's tiny.
9:47
Ejaaz: And I love that it's going to be kind of like hidden in the background so that
9:50
Ejaaz: I can just continue doing what I do.
9:51
Ejaaz: Ironically, tech permeates so much of our life, but I kind of want a breather from it.
9:57
Ejaaz: I kind of want it to be subtle in the background. And I love the engineering that went into this.
10:02
Ejaaz: But like I said, I'm a professional Apple hater, Josh.
10:06
Ejaaz: So I kind of want to bring up two images for you. And OK, I don't know,
10:10
Ejaaz: just just get your take on this. Right. Does this look familiar to you, Josh?
10:14
Josh: Yeah, that was actually one of my favorite phones. I had this in college.
10:17
Josh: This was the iPhone 5S. Gorgeous, gorgeous device. Why? What's your point?
10:21
Josh: What do you what do you want to say?
10:22
Ejaaz: Listen, I'll just these little words here, you know, 33 percent lighter,
10:28
Ejaaz: you know, I'm I just want to point out, but listen, what's better than a picture?
10:32
Ejaaz: What's better than a picture is a video demo. Look at this.
10:35
Ejaaz: Look at the iPhone 6, Josh, compared to your fancy Air device that's,
10:40
Ejaaz: you know, whatever, half glass or blah, blah, blah. It's thinner.
10:43
Ejaaz: It's sleeker. It's cooler.
10:45
Ejaaz: Obviously, I'm jesting here. The phone that we're talking about in question,
10:50
Ejaaz: the iPhone Air, is so much more functioning performance than these phones.
10:54
Ejaaz: But I just want to point out, it's not the thinnest or smallest phone that Apple's ever created.
10:58
Ejaaz: So yeah, I just rest my case there. It is the thinnest. Oh, it is the thinnest.
11:03
Josh: Perhaps not the smallest. And yeah, I mean, to your point, the hardware they're
11:06
Josh: packing into this thing, the capability of this phone is equivalent to 100 iPhone
11:09
Josh: 6s. I mean, this thing is a monster.
11:11
Josh: And it all fits very neatly in this tiny little package. So actually,
11:14
Josh: when you look at the array of compute, between these two phones.
11:16
Josh: The iPhone 6 has this whole system on chip architecture that expands through
11:20
Josh: the entire vertical length of the phone, and it expands horizontally at the
11:24
Josh: top and bottom, leaving a small rectangular section for the battery.
11:27
Josh: This actually fits all of the compute, which is probably, I mean,
11:30
Josh: I'm not even exaggerating, at least 50 times the processing power of an iPhone
11:33
Josh: 6 into a tiny plateau that is a fraction of the size of the iPhone 6.
11:37
Josh: So, I mean, it's pretty, but this new phone is, it's running laps around the
11:43
Josh: old iPhone 6 and the iPhone 5.
11:44
Ejaaz: So one thing I keep hearing about, Josh, is this new kind of venting architecture
11:49
Ejaaz: that comes either through the chip or the phone device itself.
11:52
Ejaaz: Can you tell me a bit more about that?
11:54
Josh: Okay. So before we do that, let's introduce the phone that it's involved in,
11:57
Josh: which is actually the iPhone 17 Pro. This is the new flagship device. This is the new guy.
12:02
Josh: And before we do anything, Ejaz, oh my God, I actually had a meltdown last night.
12:07
Josh: I have to confess to you and the listeners, I had a mental breakdown halfway through this
12:11
Josh: Announcement episode because i saw them unveil this phone
12:14
Josh: and i saw it unveiled in three colorways none of
12:17
Josh: which are black and if you know me i
12:21
Josh: have all black everything the blackest of
12:23
Josh: blacks for everything i own is is my default and for the and in the case of
12:28
Josh: apple actually black has been the default color of pro whenever there's a macbook
12:32
Josh: pro they offer the black the apple watch ultra they offer the black the pro
12:37
Josh: models always get black and for this time for some reason they wanted to go
12:40
Josh: with orange, navy, and silver.
12:42
Josh: So I'm having an existential crisis, but that's not here nor there.
12:45
Josh: Whoever did that, you should be fired. Anyways, let's get into what makes this so special.
12:49
Josh: So one of the things you mentioned is the cooling, right? So the cooling is
12:52
Josh: really, really interesting. This is something I found super fascinating.
12:56
Josh: It's called vapor chamber cooling. And basically the way vapor chamber cooling
12:59
Josh: works is it has a small amount of liquid.
13:02
Josh: It's some sort of water that is tightly sealed inside of a metal ceramic packaging.
13:06
Josh: And what it does is the water actually just kind
13:09
Josh: of sits there and it's absorbed by this this porous
13:12
Josh: thing that kind of holds it right near the processor so if you're imagining
13:15
Josh: kind of like a sponge in a water bottle is is
13:18
Josh: a good way that i could describe this and the sponge holds the water and as
13:22
Josh: the chip heats up the sponge it kind of evaporates the water a little bit and
13:26
Josh: because water particles have way more surface area than solid metal it allows
13:30
Josh: it to dissipate the heat quite a bit so as this water evaporates from your sponge
13:34
Josh: in your bottle it moves to the far end of the bottle and it cools down.
13:38
Josh: So the further it gets away from the heat source, which in this case is the
13:40
Josh: chip, the cooler it gets.
13:42
Josh: And then when it cools down, it turns back into a liquid and it gets reabsorbed by the sponge.
13:46
Josh: So it's this kind of closed circuit system made for cooling hot devices.
13:51
Ejaaz: They've recreated the rain system in a phone.
13:54
Josh: That's insane. So this is not novel technology, but it is novel in the sense
13:59
Josh: that they were able to package this incredibly in a super small form factor
14:03
Josh: and squeeze it into a phone without really increasing the thickness very much at all.
14:06
Josh: And I mean, frequently, I have problems with overheating because I do a lot
14:10
Josh: of graphic intensive work on my phone. I do some video editing.
14:12
Josh: I do a lot of photo editing.
14:14
Josh: The phone frequently gets very, very hot and it overheats if I'm charging while I'm also working.
14:18
Josh: They did two things to help with
14:19
Josh: thermal cooling here. One is that vapor chamber that I just described.
14:22
Josh: But the second one is actually moving away from titanium to aluminum,
14:25
Josh: which is interesting because, Ejaz, if you remember just two years ago with
14:29
Josh: the iPhone 15 Pro announcement, the leading headline for the phone was titanium.
14:32
Josh: They were so proud of this new metal. It was very lightweight.
14:35
Josh: Weight. It was very Apple.
14:37
Josh: Very difficult to work with. And it turns out, it actually just like sucks at
14:42
Josh: thermal insulation and it is not as durable as aluminum and it's just expensive.
14:46
Josh: And yeah, okay, it's a little light, but it's not that impressive.
14:48
Josh: So what they did with this phone is they went back to aluminum.
14:51
Josh: Aluminum, I believe, has either a six or a 10 times multiple in its ability to dissipate heat.
14:57
Josh: So this combined with the vapor chamber will allow the phone to run hot for
15:01
Josh: a very long time without actually getting hot.
15:03
Josh: I think another thing that I noticed about this phone that we're kind of seeing
15:06
Josh: in this little demo here, is you'll notice that it's two-tone on the back.
15:10
Josh: So what they did here is they made a unibody aluminum casting.
15:13
Josh: So it's actually one solid piece, the entire phone, instead of multiple pieces.
15:18
Josh: And they placed this ceramic glass on the back to allow for wireless charging
15:21
Josh: and wireless communication that wouldn't work for aluminum.
15:24
Josh: So we're getting kind of the best of both worlds where we have aluminum,
15:27
Josh: which is more durable, it's better heat resistance, but it's not titanium.
15:33
Josh: And we also get the glass back. These were two interesting things did you have
15:37
Josh: any other interesting things that were noteworthy to you about the flagship phone?
15:41
Ejaaz: Well, interesting is questionable, but I kind of think it looks uglier than
15:45
Ejaaz: the previous phones that they've launched.
15:47
Josh: Don't love the design.
15:48
Ejaaz: That might be a controversial take. I don't like the two-tonedness.
15:52
Ejaaz: I kind of like hide that stuff away.
15:54
Ejaaz: Like I like the wireless charging, but like hide it away maybe.
15:57
Ejaaz: Also, orange is like such a bold color to go for.
16:00
Ejaaz: But one of the main things that is ugly, but I know contributes quite well to
16:05
Ejaaz: this phone's success, Josh, is that big camera hunk, which if I hold up my current
16:10
Ejaaz: phone right now, has just kind of expanded across the top of the phone.
16:15
Ejaaz: Tell me what I'm getting in exchange for that, because I'm expecting a sick camera.
16:20
Josh: Yeah, this is the reason why I'm actually going to be upgrading because I love
16:23
Josh: taking photos with my iPhone and I need the flagship camera.
16:27
Josh: Otherwise, I would absolutely buy a iPhone Air with no questions asked.
16:31
Josh: The cameras are better slightly, particularly with the telephoto and wide angle lens.
16:35
Josh: Now, what's cool is it has 348 megapixel camera arrays, which is the same as Google now.
16:40
Josh: And what that means is you're going to get really high quality on the wide angle lens in low light.
16:44
Josh: You're going to get amazing quality, as you always do on the 1X lens.
16:46
Josh: And for the telephoto lens, you actually get two lenses in one, which is pretty cool.
16:50
Josh: So for the wide angle, you get the 0.5 and the macro.
16:53
Josh: With the 1x zoom, you get 1x, 1.25 and 1.5.
16:57
Josh: Now you get 2x and you get 4x and 8x optical zoom with digital zoom up to 40 times.
17:05
Josh: So what this gives basically is you get another camera built into your phone.
17:08
Josh: So in the previous iPhones, you get a 0.5, 1, 1.25, 1.5, 2 and 5.
17:14
Josh: Now all those you keep but in
17:16
Josh: addition you get a eight times telephoto lens which is
17:19
Josh: pretty cool so you can reach out further you have better optical abilities
17:22
Josh: in low light because the sensors are a bit larger they're a
17:25
Josh: bit higher megapixel count and overall it's a solid upgrade there's a lot of
17:29
Josh: pro features that are good they shoot in pro res it has really good color grading
17:32
Josh: capabilities a lot of people aren't going to take advantage of that i think
17:35
Josh: if you are going from a 16 pro to a 17 pro the advantage is marginal i think
17:41
Josh: the big upgrade really is that optical zoom came out to eight times.
17:44
Josh: But when we're speaking of cameras, there is something that I really want to
17:46
Josh: mention because this to me feels like the most exciting upgrade in terms of
17:49
Josh: cameras, and that's on the front of the iPhone.
17:51
Josh: So the front of the iPhone got an upgrade in camera sensors.
17:54
Josh: And what they did is actually changed the shape of the camera sensor from rectangular to square.
17:59
Josh: Why is this important? Well, it is when you're holding a phone sideways,
18:03
Josh: you could picture kind of like a 16 by nine aspect ratio rectangular box.
18:07
Josh: So that means it's seeing the world through basically what you're looking at
18:10
Josh: right now, which is a display, and it's showing it horizontally.
18:13
Josh: If you were to extend that screen upwards and turn it into a square,
18:18
Josh: well, then it doesn't quite matter the orientation you're holding your phone
18:21
Josh: at because the sensor array is the same orientation regardless of the way that you tilt your phone.
18:26
Josh: So if you hold your phone vertically, it's the same as holding it horizontally
18:29
Josh: because the sensor is a square. It's not a rectangle.
18:32
Josh: And this is a big unlock because it allows you to shoot horizontal content while
18:37
Josh: holding the phone vertically.
18:38
Josh: And I think, I mean, this is kind of a, just it's a cute thing for people who
18:41
Josh: like to take selfies or who like to take vlogs and videos.
18:44
Josh: But I did find this interesting for just consumer applications because you never
18:47
Josh: really have to turn your phone again to shoot anything forward facing.
18:50
Josh: And what I love is they not only increased the resolution of the camera,
18:53
Josh: but they included stability in the front facing camera as well.
18:56
Josh: So if you ever did want to record a video or take a selfie or whatever,
18:59
Josh: it will not only be stable, but it can be captured while holding your phone vertically.
19:03
Josh: So that was a nice, cute little feature. I'm like, okay, I like that.
19:06
Josh: I never have to turn my phone to take a wide angle selfie because actually here's
19:09
Josh: another instance where there's AI, it will detect where the people are in the
19:13
Josh: image and it will automatically create a wide angle version.
19:16
Josh: If it detects people are on the sides of you that don't quite fit in the frame.
19:19
Josh: And this is also true in their FaceTime feature where it will track the location
19:22
Josh: of your head and kind of follow your head. So you don't really lose the framing.
19:26
Josh: So I thought that was interesting in terms of camera upgrades for the phone.
19:30
Josh: And I mean, not enough really to get someone to upgrade, but just fun upgrades
19:33
Josh: that you would kind of expect from a new flagship device like this.
19:36
Ejaaz: Yeah. I mean, that's what I was about to say. I love the engineering feats that
19:41
Ejaaz: they've achieved with this new phone, but I don't think it's good enough to
19:45
Ejaaz: convince me at least to upgrade or to buy a new phone.
19:49
Ejaaz: What I'm noticing here, Josh, and I'm curious if you think otherwise,
19:52
Ejaaz: in this flagship new phone, iPhone 17 Pro, it is a photographer's dream pretty
20:00
Ejaaz: much, right? It's fully functional.
20:02
Ejaaz: 48 megapixels is insane. I kind of think about the first cell phone I had and
20:07
Ejaaz: the camera that I had on that looked like a potato basically and it was so chunky and large.
20:12
Ejaaz: This is probably the best engineered mobile phone that is out there today.
20:16
Ejaaz: And I think that is super cool.
20:18
Ejaaz: And like you said, a lot of people who take selfies, which is a ton of people
20:22
Ejaaz: today, right, will benefit from this quite a bit.
20:25
Ejaaz: And it's performant as well for the price that you're paying.
20:28
Ejaaz: I think there's this adage of like Apple, like increasing the prices of all
20:32
Ejaaz: the devices, just kind of like inanely all the time.
20:35
Ejaaz: But you're kind of getting bang for your buck here, given that what this phone
20:39
Ejaaz: does, kind of stepping back for a second.
20:42
Ejaaz: I'm kind of maybe putting my AI hat back on in a way.
20:46
Ejaaz: I feel like they are kind of running out of ideas here, right?
20:51
Ejaaz: I would love to see some kind of Steve Jobs-esque type device creation or design applicability.
21:00
Ejaaz: And that could come either at the hardware level or that could come at the app design layer, right?
21:05
Ejaaz: Like we saw Google kind of like release a similar type of phone with 48 megapixels
21:09
Ejaaz: as well, as you said, but they had 20 different AI apps that kind of came on top of this.
21:14
Ejaaz: And not to make this all about like an AI thing, but I would love to see some
21:18
Ejaaz: of the ingenuity that they're spending and effort and money that they're spending
21:21
Ejaaz: on the hardware design to apply to the app layer as well.
21:25
Ejaaz: Otherwise, I think we're just going to end up plateauing, which I think we've
21:28
Ejaaz: kind of been doing over the last couple of years. I don't know, what do you think?
21:30
Josh: Yeah, there's definitely, there's a discrepancy at Apple currently between the
21:33
Josh: software and hardware stack.
21:34
Josh: I think the iPhone Air is a very respectable and really wonderful device.
21:40
Josh: It's something that I would rarely say that Steve would probably appreciate
21:44
Josh: this, but it really is. It's a remarkable feat of engineering and it's beautiful.
21:47
Josh: And I think the last time we really saw this was actually for the chips,
21:50
Josh: the M series chips, which really created a huge unlock in terms of what types
21:55
Josh: of devices were able to be made with Apple. So Apple Silicon as a technology is remarkable.
22:00
Josh: On the topic of Silicon, there is actually one other thing that I wanted to
22:02
Josh: mention to you, EJS, which I thought was interesting with the new Pro phone.
22:06
Josh: And that's their new A19 Pro chip. And what I heard, they snuck this in there
22:10
Josh: and it said that it features these new neural accelerators, what they call the neural engine.
22:15
Josh: And it's a series of cores inside
22:17
Josh: of this new processor that is built specifically for handling AI tasks.
22:22
Josh: Now, they mentioned that in passing. They didn't mention any uses of these new
22:27
Josh: neural cores, but they did mention that they're investing a lot of energy and,
22:30
Josh: I mean, space on this tiny little chip in these neural engines,
22:34
Josh: which are optimized for AI.
22:36
Josh: So you could kind of think of it, if you have like a mental model to think of
22:39
Josh: these, we have the CPUs, which is, you can think of it maybe like a chef.
22:43
Josh: The CPU is like the master chef. It does everything. It kind of can...
22:47
Josh: Attack any problem you have and then the gpu is kind of
22:49
Josh: like a line of sous chefs right like they're all kind of there to help that
22:52
Josh: cpu do a lot of the hard compute so they'll do the prep work they'll chop up
22:55
Josh: the vegetables and they'll hand it off to the cpu and it'll take care of everything
22:58
Josh: and then you can imagine the neural engine kind of like like a
23:01
Josh: robotic slicer where it's really good at
23:04
Josh: one thing so those vegetables that i mentioned it'll just slice slice
23:07
Josh: slice slice and it's amazing at that and that's what the neural core
23:10
Josh: is for the a19 pro chip so it's super efficient
23:13
Josh: because it uses this on-device sram it's
23:16
Josh: which is not slow but it's it's very fast and it's very power efficient and
23:20
Josh: they use lower precision math so i just we talk about quantized models sometimes
23:24
Josh: here um where they're kind of models that they lower the their lower precision
23:28
Josh: math which is kind of like 8-bit or 16-bit meaning they don't go all the way
23:33
Josh: but they get most of the efficiency at a much smaller
23:35
Ejaaz: Intelligence of the models.
23:37
Josh: Exactly and that's what they've kind of done here with these chips where they
23:40
Josh: use 8-bit, 16-bit, low precision math in order to do a lot more computing.
23:44
Josh: That's maybe 80% as good if they used a lot more data, but also significantly more efficient.
23:49
Josh: So they have now this infrastructure on device using these neural engines that
23:53
Josh: is significantly better than it was last year and like 10 times better than
23:56
Josh: it was two years ago with nothing to run on it.
23:59
Josh: And the fact that they're investing so much, I mean, they kind of have to,
24:02
Josh: but it leads me to wonder what type of AI are they planning to run on these
24:05
Josh: devices? because now they're juiced up and these phones can run local inference
24:08
Josh: like really freaking good, but they have no local inference currently to run.
24:13
Josh: So it leaves me with the question, who's going to fill that slot?
24:15
Josh: Because it's become apparent to me that Apple is not the company that is likely going to do it.
24:20
Josh: They're probably going to outsource this to someone or maybe we'll get a miracle
24:22
Josh: at WWDC next year. But that is one thing I want to mention.
24:25
Ejaaz: It's just the- Yeah, I don't know if I agree with you on that, Josh.
24:29
Ejaaz: So in my Moonboy thesis, which is tucked away in a dusty closet somewhere,
24:35
Ejaaz: for Apple to win this AI race,
24:38
Ejaaz: I think they're going to come in hard right at the end by having the most hyper-performant
24:43
Ejaaz: small device that fits into your hand or on your head or whatever it might look
24:46
Ejaaz: like and runs super-performant models locally, privately.
24:52
Josh: I pray that you're right.
24:54
Ejaaz: And I think they might pull it off, dude, because I, again, I want to hate on
24:59
Ejaaz: them, but they have so much cash that an outlandish acquisition isn't beneath
25:04
Ejaaz: them or isn't going to be surprising, I would say.
25:07
Ejaaz: I just think they're waiting patiently to see what kind of hardware companies
25:10
Ejaaz: kind of pop up with the actual gizmo or the architecture that they need or the
25:15
Ejaaz: model that they require.
25:17
Ejaaz: And then they're just going to come in and swoop in and get them.
25:20
Josh: I hope they do. I really hope you're right because they have all the infrastructure
25:23
Josh: now built to run local inference on these devices.
25:26
Josh: And like we mentioned, this is significant because the price per token drops down to zero dollars.
25:31
Josh: When you can run inference locally on a phone, the cost to serve that AI to
25:34
Josh: a consumer drops to zero because you don't have to interface with any cloud server.
25:38
Josh: So it's a really big deal in terms of cost efficiency.
25:41
Josh: And like we always talk about with Jevin's Paradox, the more tokens you have,
25:44
Josh: the more tokens we will generate.
25:46
Josh: And I think it's a win-win for everyone. If Apple can figure this the F out, I am praying for you.
25:50
Josh: Please do it you have it now in the chip make something happen deliver us some
25:54
Josh: awesome ai hardware that can run locally on our phone i think for me it was
25:56
Josh: a great upgrade this is what i'll be buying uh you just do you have any are
26:00
Josh: you going to be buying anything if you do what are you picking
26:03
Ejaaz: So i'm tempted to go for the air just because it looks so cool i want to kind
26:07
Ejaaz: of like see what that device looks like i want to feel it in my hands like it
26:11
Ejaaz: being kind of top heavy i'm just kind of like how is that going to feel i just
26:14
Ejaaz: think it's a really cool piece of engineering and I kind of want to own the
26:18
Ejaaz: first type of device that's like that.
26:20
Ejaaz: Oh, and I'm going to get the AirPods, the AirPods 3 because I want to be able
26:23
Ejaaz: to communicate with my Uber drivers and the bodega guys because they always
26:28
Ejaaz: crack jokes and I have no idea what they're saying.
26:30
Ejaaz: Are they making fun of me or are they laughing with me? I have no idea.
26:33
Josh: Nice. Yeah, I want the AirPods just because they're a remarkable little pocket
26:36
Josh: device that I take everywhere. And two times the active noise cancellation.
26:39
Josh: That's all I want. Just block more of the world.
26:42
Josh: That's great. I think, like, great job. I will be a purchaser.
26:46
Josh: So outside of the phones, there were a few other hardware announcements.
26:49
Josh: I mean, we did have the iPhone 17, which we didn't talk about.
26:51
Josh: It's another wonderful phone. They upgraded the display to 120 hertz,
26:55
Josh: which is a really nice refresh rate.
26:56
Josh: It's a great phone if you're on a budget and you want to buy something that's
26:59
Josh: a little less expensive.
27:00
Josh: Amazing device. in terms of watches they were
27:02
Josh: the most disappointing watch upgrades to date which really hurts my
27:05
Josh: soul because i have none on my wrist and i was hoping to get one and they
27:08
Josh: cannot convince me to shell out eight hundred dollars for this
27:11
Josh: behemoth of an apple watch ultra what they did with the apple watch ultra is
27:16
Josh: they extended the displays slightly they added the battery life a little bit
27:20
Josh: better they added i believe they added a 5g chip that has um direct to cell
27:24
Josh: connectivity also noted if you listen to our last episode about starlink this
27:29
Josh: device now will work with Starlink satellites,
27:31
Josh: where if you're in the middle of nowhere and you have an Apple Watch 11 or Apple Watch Ultra,
27:36
Josh: you can actually get data right to your wrist from anywhere in the world.
27:40
Josh: So that's a pretty interesting thing that these watches now enable.
27:42
Josh: It's been there for a little while, but the chip has just been improved a little bit.
27:45
Josh: I mean, the Apple Watch Series 11, this is actually a devastating upgrade.
27:48
Josh: They did not even upgrade the chip this year at EJS. It is just the same exact
27:52
Josh: hardware with a slightly more scratch-resistant screen.
27:55
Josh: So now your screen is now twice as scratch-resistant as last year,
27:59
Josh: which is the most underwhelming Apple Watch upgrade to date.
28:02
Josh: They have, um, hypertension,
28:05
Josh: Which seems interesting. I think it remains to be seen if it's actually accurate.
28:08
Josh: They included sleep scores to compete with companies like Whoop, Aura, and Aidsleep.
28:12
Josh: And I think that's kind of interesting to gamify sleep. I would like to see
28:15
Josh: them move more into that space.
28:17
Josh: But that's pretty much everything they announced last night.
28:20
Josh: They had some fun accessories.
28:21
Josh: They had a battery pack for the iPhone Air because the battery is a little smaller, so it extends it.
28:26
Josh: They added a like side leash to clamp onto your phone and walk around as a fashion
28:30
Josh: accessory. But I think that's pretty much it.
28:32
Josh: In terms of AI, to recap, I think live translation It's been around,
28:36
Josh: but it's Apple-fied. It's cool. We like that.
28:38
Josh: They added a ton of neural cores to the new phone with no real use of them yet.
28:43
Josh: So hopefully we'll get a use case soon.
28:45
Josh: And the new hardware, pretty good. I mean, I'm excited to get a new phone with
28:48
Josh: the new cameras, the new vertical, the square sensing camera on the front.
28:52
Josh: And then I think the iPhone Air, it's a lovely phone. It's a gorgeous phone.
28:56
Josh: And I loved it. And I think if no one's even interested, just go watch the release
29:00
Josh: video because they did a really great job.
29:01
Josh: It's just a really cool feat of engineering that I think is a testament to where will we be heading?
29:06
Josh: And it's a dry run for manufacturers to actually figure it out and create smaller
29:10
Josh: devices. I doubt we'll get an iPhone Air 2.
29:12
Josh: It's probably just a transitionary piece to get the manufacturing up to speed.
29:16
Josh: But I think that covers it. That is the Apple event.
29:18
Josh: It was a big event that was slightly underwhelming on the AI front.
29:23
Josh: But again, it's Apple. We will be patient. We will be suckers in their closed
29:28
Josh: wall ecosystem for at least one more year.
29:31
Josh: And I think that's a wrap. So, I mean, thank you guys for watching.
29:36
Josh: I hope you enjoyed. I am curious.
29:38
Josh: I would actually love, I want the comment section for this one,
29:40
Josh: if we could just chat about the phones.
29:42
Josh: Are you going to get one? If so, what are you going to get? If so,
29:45
Josh: what color are you going to get? I have no idea what color iPhone 17 Pro I'm
29:48
Josh: going to get because there's no black and I'm devastated.
29:51
Josh: So this is a serious point of contention in my life. Ejaz, what would you pick
29:54
Josh: if you had to pick a color, the navy, orange, or silver?
29:58
Josh: I think it's probably going to be navy. It's so lame. And you can't even cover
30:01
Josh: the back because the freaking camera array is so big.
30:04
Ejaaz: It's not even matte. Give me a matte option at least. Come on. Brutal.
30:09
Josh: Brutal. Okay, but that's the event. I hope everyone enjoyed.
30:12
Josh: Let us know what your take. Are you going to be upgrading, downgrading,
30:15
Josh: leaving the ecosystem happy, sad, upset that AI doesn't exist on this freaking
30:20
Josh: ecosystem, even though they're the most valuable company in the world,
30:23
Josh: but whatever, whatever it may be.
30:25
Josh: But I mean, EJs will probably get in the iPhone Air on 17 Pro Gang by next Friday.
30:29
Josh: We should have them in our pockets. So maybe we could chat a little bit more then.
30:32
Josh: But that is a wrap. Thank you so much for watching. If you have a friend that
30:35
Josh: is also interested in this technology who didn't know about vapor chambers or
30:38
Josh: who didn't know about neural engine cores, maybe you learned something.
30:41
Josh: Share it with them. Let them know about it. It's pretty interesting.
30:43
Josh: I think it's pretty cool.
30:45
Josh: And yeah, that's a wrap for this episode. So thank you guys so much for watching.
30:48
Josh: I really appreciate it. Don't forget, like, subscribe, all the good things.
30:51
Josh: And we will see you guys in the next episode.