Latest / He's Hot but Something's Off... / HHBSO 116: New iPhones, Apple Watches, and AirPods! Apple Event Recap

Transcript

HHBSO 116: New iPhones, Apple Watches, and AirPods! Apple Event Recap · He's Hot but Something's Off...

0:02
Hello and welcome to He's Hot but something is off.
0:07
I've got 20 topics I want to talk about and there's so much I
0:13
don't know it. I just have so many things I
0:16
want to talk about. But I'm going to put my ADHD
0:21
aside and today we are going to focus on the Apple event, which
0:27
was Tuesday morning. So every September, Apple does
0:32
an event. It's usually like this week in
0:35
September that Apple announces new iPhones and also sometimes
0:41
some other products like Apple Watch, Airpod, so on and so
0:46
forth. And it's been this time in
0:48
September every year. I think 2020 was the one year
0:52
because of COVID. I think they pushed it to
0:53
October or picked a slightly different type.
0:56
But it's basically a hyphen week and I talk about tech
1:00
occasionally on the podcast once in a while.
1:03
I gave y'all some advice on passwords and using a password
1:11
manager not that long ago. I think maybe a month or two
1:15
ago, I did an episode just above that.
1:17
Today we're going to talk about all the things that Apple
1:22
announced. But obviously I'm not going to
1:24
get super techie with like the technical details, the new
1:28
iPhones, Apple Watches. These are things that most
1:31
regular consumers might be interested in.
1:34
So we're going to talk about all the things that Apple announced
1:38
because most of you didn't watch the announcement events, but a
1:42
lot of you might be curious about, oh, Apple just announced
1:45
some new stuff. What is that new stuff?
1:47
And I also want to talk about if you were thinking about
1:51
upgrading, I'm going to, I love giving unsolicited advice.
1:55
Regular listeners of the podcast already know.
1:58
So I'm going to give my recommendation for is it is it
2:03
the year to upgrade? You know it, it used to be that
2:07
up until like four or five years ago, it was pretty easy to make
2:12
a case for upgrading every single year.
2:14
But we've had smartphones and iPhones and Androids for long
2:18
enough that it's less and less common for people to upgrade
2:21
their phone every year when smartphone technology has start
2:26
to slow down a little bit. In the early days for
2:29
smartphones, every new generation of the newer models
2:34
were a bigger upgrade than the previous year's last generation
2:40
model. But we've had iPhones for, I
2:44
don't know, the better part of two decades now.
2:47
Every year when there is a new iPhone, it's not some big new
2:51
radical upgrade in terms of like the battery life or like the
2:55
screen or the design or the functionality, so on and so
2:58
forth. So it's not always worth it to
2:59
upgrade. We'll get all into that.
3:02
All right, let's start small and we'll make our way to the
3:07
iPhones, which is like the big announcement.
3:10
Let's start with the first thing Apple announced in the event on
3:13
Tuesday, which are new Airpods. So there is a new Airpods Pro 3.
3:21
OK, So you have the Airpod 4, the non Pros, you have the
3:26
Airpod 4 that was announced last year, I believe early this year,
3:30
I don't remember exactly. And those are like the baseline
3:33
or non pro versions. But now there's a new pro
3:37
version and it's the third generation Airpods Pro 3.
3:42
The Pro twos came out three years ago.
3:46
So it's kind of it's kind of sort of due for like an upgrade.
3:50
So they're claiming 8 hours of battery life with noise
3:54
cancellation on. So that eight hours is pretty
3:57
competitive with the competition.
4:00
Obviously there are other makers making noise cancelling earbuds.
4:03
8 hours is pretty competitive. I feel like the pro twos were
4:06
like 6 or 7 and they also claim that the noise cancellation is
4:12
2X the performance of the previous generation, the Pro 2,
4:16
so like twice as good in terms of like the noise cancellation.
4:19
And they're claiming it's going to be the best noise
4:21
cancellation of any earbuds in the world.
4:25
So obviously they just announced it.
4:26
They're not even out yet. When reviewers, the professional
4:30
reviewers with their testing procedures get their hands on
4:33
it, as well as when those earbuds get into the hands of
4:37
you know, real life users and restart getting the reviews,
4:40
then we really know how much of an upgrade they are.
4:44
I do want to say though, I have never been a fan of the Airpods
4:50
because due to the unique design and structure of my jaw and my
4:55
skull and my head, any of the air pods, they always make their
4:59
way loose, even if I'm not doing anything.
5:02
Just if I'm just like talking or just regular movement from what
5:05
I'm walking, the way my jaw moves or like the way I twitch
5:08
my face, whatever it is. Airpods, they always eventually
5:12
like kind of loosen themselves in my ear and I don't get the
5:16
proper seal and I always have to like keep readjusting and
5:20
pushing them back in. So I used to have the Airpod
5:23
Pro, the original generation until I lost them, but that was
5:28
like my main complaint with them.
5:29
I bought them because everyone else got them.
5:32
Apparently with the third generation that was just
5:34
announced, they've made some big claim about having spent over
5:38
100,000 user research hours, have scanned 10,000 years or
5:44
whatever to say these are going to be like the best fitting
5:47
Airpods ever. And they're also claiming, oh,
5:51
no matter like how rigorous of a workout you have, these are
5:54
going to stay in place and all that kind of stuff.
5:57
And for me, like just looking at them, looking at the image of
6:00
them or like a video of the Airpod Pro Threes, they don't
6:05
look like a vastly different design than the previous
6:08
Airpods. So I'm curious to see if these
6:12
Airpod Pro Threes are going to stay in ears better for some
6:17
people. Obviously, everybody has very
6:18
unique ears. There's billions of people in
6:20
the world. You're never really going to
6:21
have one single physical design that's going to work for like
6:25
everyone, despite what Apple claims.
6:28
The other new thing about the new Airpods Pro Threes try to
6:32
say that five times fast is that they have a heart rate sensor.
6:37
Basically when you have the ears in, it's going to interact and
6:40
integrate with the fitness Apple Fitness app, for example, and
6:44
it's going to be able to measure your heartbeat, especially when
6:46
you are in an active workout. So if you were looking for
6:50
something to monitor your heart rate, if you don't already have
6:54
some sort of smart watch or a fitness tracker or something
6:58
like that, you know, you just have your phone and your earbuds
7:02
and you were wanting some way to monitor your heart rate,
7:06
especially doing exercise without having to wear another
7:09
thing, this would be like a great option for that.
7:12
So in terms of like the physical hardware, those are like the big
7:15
changes on the software side. Apple also showed off live
7:19
language translation for certain languages.
7:22
So for example, in theory, according to this very traded
7:26
demo video that they showed, you could be in a foreign country
7:29
and you could be putting the Airpod Pros into a live
7:34
translation mode. It also requires your phone to
7:36
support it. And then if people are talking
7:39
to you in a different language that it supports, then in your
7:43
ear, that foreign language will be translated into your language
7:47
of choice. So maybe your preferred language
7:49
is English. You go to Spain, you go up to a
7:52
shop, shopkeep, say something to you in Spanish.
7:57
The Airpod Pros were able to hear the Spanish and then via
8:02
its connection to your iPhone, the iPhone will basically do the
8:04
translation and then in your ear via the Airpods, you'll hear the
8:09
English translation in semi real time.
8:12
Because there's probably going to be a little bit of a delay.
8:15
So that's really neat. I feel like, you know, these
8:19
live translation things. We'll see how well it works in
8:22
practice. Obviously, in the demo video, it
8:24
looks super spiffy. All right, those are the
8:27
highlights for the new Airpods Pro 3.
8:31
And should you upgrade? I'm going to ask this question
8:34
for every product that Apple has announced today.
8:36
If you have some version of an existing Airpod, whether it's
8:39
the Pro or not the Pro and you have an older one that's
8:43
starting to have like some wear and tear.
8:44
Maybe the batteries in the earbuds are not lasting as long
8:48
as they used to. Maybe you know, they're not even
8:51
like 100% functioning that well. Or you find yourself wanting
8:55
like the noise cancellation to be a little bit better.
8:57
The fit generally works for you that Airpods fit, but you wish
9:01
the fit was just like a little bit better.
9:04
You're interested in the heart rate monitoring or your pair of
9:07
Airpods don't even have noise cancelling and you really want
9:10
to upgrade to noise cancelling. Yeah, I think, I think you would
9:13
buy it as long as you know that the Airpods are a good fit for
9:18
your ear. If this is your first time
9:19
buying Airpods, you know, maybe you just had cheaper, older
9:23
other brands of earbuds because you know, $250 is what they're
9:28
going to sell for the new Airpods 249 U.S. dollars.
9:32
You know it, it's a little bit of an investment.
9:34
OK, they're not going to be cheap, But if you're like, you
9:36
know, I've, I've been using older, cheaper, crappier
9:39
earbuds, but now I want nice ones because you want the sound
9:43
quality, you want extra noise cancellation, you want the good
9:47
battery life. You do have an iPhone.
9:49
If you don't have an iPhone, you wouldn't buy Airpods.
9:51
Honestly, it wouldn't make any sense if you have the Airpod Pro
9:54
2, there's got to be like they've got to be like pretty
9:58
old, the batteries wearing out or you must really, truly want
10:03
like the heart rate monitoring or like you're really, really
10:05
craving better noise cancellation.
10:09
Otherwise, I would just kind of hold on to it like the I don't
10:11
know if it's a big enough step if you have the pro twos to
10:14
upgrade. If you have like an older or
10:16
different version of the Airpods, then I think it might
10:19
be worth it. All right, let's move on to the
10:22
next stuff. Next thing that Apple announced,
10:25
which are new Apple Watches. OK, there are three Apple
10:29
Watches in the line up. Even before Apple's announcement
10:34
today. There's always been kind of
10:35
three models, if you will, of Apple Watches.
10:39
There's the regular Apple Watch, the one that you see most people
10:42
have. There's the Apple Watch Ultra,
10:44
which has got a bigger case, a bigger display.
10:47
It's just the generally bigger design and it's more for people
10:51
who are into sports like hiking, diving, marathon type things.
10:57
It's the big chunky ones with like the aluminum case.
11:00
That's the Apple Watch Ultra. And then there's also the Apple
11:04
Watch SE, which is the lower price value, quote UN quote
11:10
option. And it looks very similar to
11:12
just a regular Apple Watch at a glance.
11:14
You wouldn't be able to tell it apart, but it's just has, you
11:17
know, lesser specs and it sells for a lower price point.
11:21
So that Apple SE, let's talk about that one that hasn't been
11:24
updated in quite a few years. You know, the regular Apple
11:26
Watch, they updated every year. It was the series 10 Apple Watch
11:30
last year. This year is the Series 11.
11:33
Up until last year, we have the Apple Watch Ultra 2 and now with
11:38
the Apple Watch Ultra three, that's the new one that's
11:40
announced. The third generation, the SE,
11:43
the baby model doesn't get updated most years.
11:48
So we have the SE-3 now. So this year Apple updated all
11:52
three of the Apple Watches. The Ultra didn't get an update
11:56
last year. The SE didn't get an update last
11:58
year or the year before. It's been quite a few years
12:00
since it is. He got updated.
12:01
So let's start with the regular Apple Watch, the Series 11, not
12:05
the SE and not the Ultra, just like the mainstream one.
12:08
The only big changes is that Apple is claiming a little bit
12:13
more battery life every Apple Watch.
12:17
That's not counting the SE or the Ultra, but like the Series
12:21
123, all the way until the Series 10 that was announced
12:24
last year, they've all claimed up to 18 hours of battery life.
12:28
With the Series 11, they're claiming up to 24 hours.
12:32
However, it's a little bit of question mark how they're
12:34
squeezing those extra hours because beyond some of the
12:38
claims, there hasn't really been many changes.
12:41
It's not like it's got a new processor or a chip.
12:44
They didn't really mention a bigger battery.
12:47
So maybe just do some optimization.
12:50
Maybe there's like a itsy tiny bigger battery in there.
12:53
But usually when there's a bigger battery, manufacturers
12:56
like to, oh, we put a bigger battery in this thing because
12:59
when they talked about the new iPhones, they repeatedly said
13:02
they mentioned the word battery so much and how like this has a
13:05
bigger battery and that has a bigger battery.
13:06
And all the things they did to make a bigger battery fit into
13:09
the phone that I think if they put a bigger battery into the
13:11
series 11 Apple Watch, they would have mentioned it 50
13:14
times, but they didn't mention it all.
13:16
So I don't know how they're squeezing these extra hours out
13:19
of the Series 11 versus the Series 10 because physically
13:22
it's the exact same size. The design has not changed.
13:26
One IOLTA OK. They also claim that the glass
13:30
that they use is now twice as scratch resistant.
13:36
The Apple Watch has always came in two flavours.
13:40
You can get the aluminium version, which is the base
13:43
cheaper version and it's got something called Ion X Glass.
13:47
And then you can get a more expensive stainless steel
13:50
version, which is like roughly twice the price and that comes
13:54
with a crystal instead of just regular glass.
13:56
You know, if you know anything about like regular watches, not
14:00
smartwatches, a lot of nicer watches, they use crystal
14:03
because it's extremely scratch resistant.
14:06
With the Apple Watch, you kind of have both options.
14:09
You know, like the most of the Apple Watches you see out and
14:11
about are the regular base aluminum version that has this
14:14
Ion X glass. So apparently for the Series 11,
14:17
they've upgraded this Ion X glass somehow and it's now
14:21
supposedly twice a scratch resistant.
14:24
And that's good news because for me, I have a Apple Watch Series
14:28
5. It's six years old.
14:31
I don't plan on upgrading it because I know it it works and I
14:34
don't use any of the fancy new features.
14:36
The only thing I wish was for the glass to be a little bit
14:40
more durable because I'm so klutzy.
14:42
I flail my limbs and I'm always like scraping my Apple Watch
14:48
against some hard metal thing or like a concrete wall or
14:53
whatever. That's how klutzy I am.
14:55
And it's got some scratches on it to the point where I was
14:58
thinking the next whenever I'm ready to get a new Apple Watch,
15:02
maybe I should upgrade to that nicer version with the sapphire
15:07
crystal that's going to be roughly twice the price as the
15:11
regular one that doesn't have the crystal.
15:13
Because I'm probably going to keep the Apple Watch for quite a
15:16
while. My current one is 6 years old
15:17
now. I just wish that it was a little
15:20
more scratch resistant in terms of like the display.
15:23
So apparently if that was also you worry the base model now has
15:26
this improved glass. It's still not going to be as
15:29
good as actual sapphire crystal like in the fancier version or a
15:34
lot of the nicer just regular watches out there.
15:37
So that's another thing that is improved.
15:40
The design again hasn't changed. The bands haven't changed, the
15:42
sizes haven't changed, the display hasn't changed, the
15:45
battery life. Apparently somehow they
15:47
magically added a few hours of the thin air.
15:50
But if you have a recent Apple Watch, like a Series 10 or like
15:55
a Series 9 or even a Series 8, if you're happy with it, like
15:59
there is absolutely no use to buy the new one.
16:03
Obviously, if your watch is dying, then yeah.
16:06
Like if you have a Series whatever and it's like dying and
16:10
you kind of have to buy a new one and you don't want to
16:14
upgrade to the Ultra, which if it's like bigger design and
16:17
you're OK with that price point, yeah, it's fine.
16:19
You can buy the Series 11, but there's really no upgrades on
16:24
the Series 11. Now you have the Apple Watch SE,
16:28
which is like the value entry level version of the Apple Watch
16:32
that lives in the shadows of the regular Apple Watch.
16:34
And also the Apple Watch Ultra. No one really talks about it
16:37
doesn't get a lot of love. Most years it they don't even
16:39
update it or change anything about it.
16:41
This year they did upgrade. It is the SE-3, and it's getting
16:45
a lot of the features that the other Apple Watches have had for
16:48
several years. For example, it now has an
16:51
always on display. Older Apple Watches.
16:54
The display doesn't come on until you like kind of raise
16:58
your arm and like turn the wrist towards you.
17:00
You know, newer Apple Watches, the display is always on.
17:03
Older Apple Watches don't have that and the Apple Watch SE for
17:08
the first time now has the always on display and it also
17:12
has some of the gesture controls.
17:14
So one of the newer things with the more recent Apple Watches is
17:17
you raise your wrist and then you can basically touch your
17:20
index finger and your thumb together and the phone will
17:23
recognize that. And that's like an additional
17:26
way to interact with the watch and kind of activate the
17:29
function on the watch instead of like using your other hand and
17:32
poking on the screen on the Apple Watch or like pressing one
17:35
of the on the Apple Watch or using the dial.
17:38
The Apple Watch SE is still $249.
17:41
They've also kept the same pricing for the Series 11 versus
17:45
Series 10. So it's going to be 399 for the
17:47
smaller version. I believe the pricing they just
17:51
announced that I can't keep all the numbers in my head, but the
17:53
pricing is the same between the Series 10 and Series 11.
17:55
The SE-3 starts at 2:49. They also have both sizes, but
18:00
I'm actually thinking the SE with the upgrades that they've
18:04
given it, unless there's a very specific kind of more advanced
18:08
feature, you want the the SE doesn't have as much of the
18:12
health and fitness tracking sensors and capabilities, but it
18:16
has enough for like most basic workouts.
18:19
If you're not like a super advanced user of the Apple
18:22
Watch, you just wanted to like tell the time, give you
18:25
notifications, you want to use Apple Wallet on it to do like
18:29
Apple Pay or whatever. You are not like a super fitness
18:32
buff. You don't do like skydiving or
18:35
like run marathons on the regular or whatever.
18:38
You just do like basic fitness things like that's a really
18:41
great price 249 for a brand new one.
18:44
So actually think that and just looking at the designs, very
18:47
similar to the regular mainline Apple Watches, so you're not
18:52
losing that much on there. It uses the same bands.
18:54
So actually that's like a really good value, but they just
18:57
brought a lot of updates to the Apple Watch SC, The Ultra, I
19:02
think they made the screen a little bit bigger.
19:04
They didn't change the design on the Ultra.
19:06
I think it's the same price. They made the screen a little
19:08
bit bigger. There's 5G now if you get the
19:11
silver versions for the series 11 and also for the Ultra.
19:14
If you're interested in five GI, don't think your watch story
19:16
needs 5G. It's not like you're watching
19:19
videos or like doing anything that requires a lot of bandwidth
19:25
and LTE, 4G LTE is still like everywhere.
19:28
So the 5G is more for like future proofing.
19:30
You're not going to buy the Apple.
19:31
Don't buy the Apple Watch just for the 5G because it's like
19:33
useless. Maybe 2-3, four years down the
19:36
road, 5G might make some sort of difference on an Apple Watch.
19:39
Today. I don't think it really makes
19:40
any difference. There is satellite connectivity
19:43
on the Apple Watch Ultra 3 now. So they've had satellite
19:47
connectivity on quite a few of the recent iPhones in the sense
19:53
that if you're in like an emergency situation and you're
19:55
off the grid, you don't have bars, then you can send an SOS,
19:58
maybe your car's broken down or like you need some sort of
20:01
emergency help. And Apple in recent years have
20:04
also expanded so that you can send messages via the service
20:07
non non-emergency messages. And you can also use fine my on
20:14
some of the newer models of the iPhones as well.
20:15
So some of that functionality is coming to the Apple Watch Ultra
20:18
3. It's the only Apple Watch that
20:21
has some amount of satellite connectivity for right now.
20:24
And again, the Ultra is really kind of designed for those
20:28
people that you actually go off the grid.
20:30
No, you go on hikes, you go diving, like you go off road,
20:34
like you go camping. It's for like more outdoorsy
20:37
people. A lot of the features that are
20:38
exclusive to the Ultra, other people that buy the Ultra, the
20:42
other type of people that I see buy Ultra is they just want like
20:45
the biggest, most expensive thing, fine, or they just wanted
20:48
like a larger design. They prefer just the look or the
20:51
feel of a larger watch or they just wanted a bigger screen.
20:55
But however, with the series 10 and series 11, the screen is the
20:59
same size pretty much as the Ultra, just in the physically
21:03
smaller case. So that excuse you want a larger
21:06
screen for whatever reason has kind of sort of gone away with
21:08
the newer Apple watches. All right, so I kind of went
21:13
through a little bit like I think the SE is a great buy.
21:16
Should you upgrade the Apple Watch?
21:17
Should you upgrade and buy the newest Apple Watch again, I said
21:20
if you have a recent Apple Watch, like a series 8, series
21:24
9, series 10, there's nothing really wrong with it.
21:27
Don't buy the 11 because it's unless there's like a very
21:30
specific, but there's not even that many new features on the 11
21:34
versus the 10th. You can get 5G if you get the
21:37
cellular version, which is optional.
21:38
It costs more somehow. There's a little more battery
21:41
life. The glass version is supposedly
21:44
more durable. Yeah, that's it.
21:50
There's not that much more. If you have like a pretty recent
21:52
Apple Watch, I don't think you should upgrade.
21:55
If your Apple Watch is like 567 years old, it's got some wear
21:59
and tear. It's probably pretty scratched
22:00
up. Maybe the battery isn't lasting
22:01
as long as you wanted to. Maybe you have to like keep
22:04
charging it multiple times a day.
22:07
Even if you found like a Serious 10 at like some big discount,
22:09
there's probably going to be some retailers that are trying
22:12
to clear out the inventory of the Serious 10s that maybe they
22:16
have some big sales on it. I would probably go for that
22:19
because the discounted Serious 10 is pretty much just as good
22:23
as the Serious 11. So I would do that if you have
22:27
buying the Apple Watch SE because you don't want to spend
22:30
$400.00 on up for a Apple Watch. The Series 10 all through the
22:36
summer basically has been discounted by like 100 bucks.
22:39
They were going for like in the low three hundreds.
22:42
But even if that is more money than what you want to spend on
22:46
Apple Watch, your needs are pretty basic.
22:48
You know, $250 is doable, but like no more than that.
22:52
Then yeah, the Apple Watch SEI think it's a really, really good
22:55
value. I would not have recommend you
22:57
buy the previous Apple Watch SE, the SE-2 because it was an old
23:03
design and it didn't have a lot of like the really nice quality
23:07
of life improvements that the nicer watches have with the
23:10
improvements that they made to which are quite a few things.
23:13
I think for 2:49, that's a really good value if your needs
23:17
are not super advanced and it for the Ultra, like if you have
23:21
the Ultra 2, the Ultra 3 is like you will only buy for bragging
23:25
rights or if you really use the satellite connectivity.
23:29
If you already use the satellite features from your iPhone
23:33
somewhere regularly and you just wish, oh I wish that would just
23:37
work on an Apple Watch. I think that's the main reason
23:40
you would upgrade. Besides, just like you just want
23:44
the newest, highest, most expensive thing, you just
23:46
upgrade for that reason. I think the satellite thing is
23:49
the only reason, but like, you got to be pretty convinced that
23:52
you actually will use it on the watch first.
23:54
It's like you're going to have your iPhone with you.
23:55
You're just going to be using your phone for that anyways.
23:58
OK, I know this is getting a long podcast, but I'm just
24:00
excited about this and I feel like I just want to talk about
24:04
it. It's my podcast.
24:05
I want to talk about it. OK, Finally we get on to the
24:10
iPhones. The four iPhone models.
24:13
There is the iPhone 17, there's the iPhone 17 Air, which is a
24:18
brand new model that didn't exist before we get into
24:22
actually, it's not called the iPhone 17 Air, it's just called
24:24
the iPhone Air No 17. Next year they're going to have
24:28
the Air, they're going to have the called the iPhone 18 Air.
24:30
And then they'll be like where was the 17 Air?
24:31
It was the iPhone Air. It didn't have the 17.
24:33
OK. And then they also have the
24:36
iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max, OK.
24:41
So, you know, we've had the iPhone 14, the iPhone 15, the
24:46
iPhone 16, not the Pros, just like the base model that goes
24:49
for usually about like 6 or $700.00.
24:52
That's kind of like the volume model.
24:54
I feel like people talk about the Pros or the Pro Max, but the
24:58
one that sells the most is the base model that doesn't get as
25:02
much of the fanfare. So this year we have the 17,
25:06
which directly succeeds the iPhone 16 and it starts at 799
25:11
and all the iPhones now start at a minimum with 256 gigabytes of
25:18
storage. Previous iPhones, certain
25:20
models, you can get 128 GB version.
25:23
Every iPhone that was just announced this week, the minimum
25:28
amount of memory you can get, they all start with 256
25:31
gigabytes, which is quite a lot. I have 256 on my iPhone 14 Pro
25:36
Max and I shoot tons of videos on it and I don't usually need
25:40
to pay that much attention to running out of space.
25:43
So iPhone 17, I think out of all these models that they've
25:48
announced, it's a great value just looking at all the changes
25:52
that they've made. So some of the key changes that
25:55
they've made for the iPhone 17 is it has what's called a Pro
25:59
motion display. So the nicer newer iPhone Pros
26:05
and Pro Maxes from previous years, they already had this Pro
26:08
Motion promotion is a higher refresh rate.
26:11
You know, sometimes you look at you look at a video, right?
26:14
Sometimes you film a video at like 60 frames a second and it
26:17
looks like super smooth. You don't you might have one of
26:21
those fancy TV's that kind of makes all the motions super
26:24
smooth. Basking TV's from like the last
26:26
10 or 15 years. They have this like feature kind
26:30
of smooth out all the motions. So everything kind of looks like
26:34
a soap opera. You know, just having that
26:36
effect is kind of sort of the effect that promotion gives you.
26:40
Like it's basically in the scrolling.
26:42
It's going to look a lot more fluid, a lot more smoother.
26:46
Like the animations that are in iOS, for example.
26:49
So the old iPhone only had a 60 Hertz refresh rate.
26:54
That means within one second, 60 Hertz meant that the display
26:58
would update and refresh 60 times.
27:01
With Pro motion, that's 120. So the display, each little
27:06
pixel on the display updates and refreshes twice as often, 120
27:11
times a second instead of 60 times a second.
27:13
That's what hurts me, by the way.
27:14
So you will notice if you had like a phone that didn't have
27:18
promotion that was 60 Hertz next to a phone that did have
27:22
promotion, 120 Hertz. You will notice as you're just
27:25
scrolling on a web page or scrolling through anything, it
27:27
is smoother. It's one of those things where
27:30
if you never experienced it before, you never thought
27:33
something you needed. But once you've experienced it
27:36
and you have to use a phone that doesn't have it, you're like,
27:39
oh, this feels kind of like old fashioned, a little icky.
27:43
It's a little like if you have never been in business class on
27:45
a plane, you don't really know what you're missing necessarily.
27:49
Then you fight business class. You're like, it's hard to fight
27:51
an economy anymore. It's almost a little bit like
27:53
it's like if you never experience it, you don't know
27:55
what you're missing. But once you experience it, it's
27:59
for a lot of people, it's hard to do without.
28:01
So for the first time, the base level iPhone, the iPhone 17 does
28:05
have this promotion display. It also has an always on
28:09
display, which again used to be reserved for the phones.
28:12
With promotion always on display, that means that with
28:15
your phone just sitting there, it will show a reduced amount of
28:19
content, but the screen is still on.
28:20
So for example, most of the iPhones that they have promotion
28:22
in years past, it will show the date and the time and like some
28:26
of your widgets, for example, until you wake it up.
28:30
So the display is always on. It's not always showing
28:32
everything in full color at full brightness all the time.
28:35
But we're sitting there, maybe it's on the coffee table, you're
28:37
sitting on the couch, you can glance with the phone and you
28:40
can kind of tell the time. So that always on display
28:43
because of the promotion technology that it that it
28:45
requires now it's coming to the regular iPhone 17.
28:48
So that's like one of like the most noticeable things.
28:51
They've also increased the ceramic coating that's on the
28:55
glass on the display to make it more scratch resistant moving
28:59
from the display. And onto what I think is one of
29:04
the biggest changes to all of the iPhone models that were just
29:08
announced is the selfie camera. So the selfie camera a lot of
29:13
when they a lot of new phones when they get announced, there's
29:15
a lot of hoobla and fluff that is made and fabricated and hyped
29:21
up about the cameras on the back of the phone, the rear cameras.
29:24
OK. So like every new generation of
29:27
every phone model, they have to claim some sort of advancement
29:30
to one or the set of the rear cameras.
29:35
The selfie camera, I feel like for a lot of people get more
29:38
use, a lot of people take selfies, but the selfie camera
29:44
on most phones in most years get no changes or upgrades at all.
29:50
So this is the theme of iPhone. If you look at the iPhone,
29:52
pretty much every year for almost the life of the iPhone
29:56
since the original 1, every year, every new model, every
30:00
generation, they've touted some sort of improvement to some
30:03
number of the cameras on the back.
30:06
But the selfie camera, it'll go years without any sort of
30:10
changes. So the last time they changed or
30:13
kind of updated the selfie camera, I think it was several
30:16
years ago, like it's at least like 3 or 4 years ago.
30:19
I have a 14 Pro and I think it's pretty much got the same selfie
30:23
camera as the 15 and the 16, so no changes.
30:26
But this year they have given all of the iPhone models a brand
30:31
new selfie camera. And one of the most interesting
30:35
things is that the camera sensor itself is a square.
30:39
Most the camera sensors are a rectangle.
30:43
And you will basically rotate your phone physically 90° to get
30:47
the horizontal landscape version of a photo video or the portrait
30:51
or vertical orientation depending on if you're going to
30:54
do a TikTok. Obviously you're going to hold
30:57
your phone vertically. So you get a vertical video
30:59
right? Now, with this square sensor on
31:02
the front of all the iPhone models, you don't have to
31:05
physically rotate your iPhone because a square is the same
31:11
whether you rotate it or not, right?
31:13
It's going to take some getting used to.
31:15
They showed it off pretty well. Basically, you can just hold
31:18
your phone in whatever orientation is most comfortable
31:23
for you. Sometimes it's awkward to hold a
31:24
phone in a certain way, depending on how you like to
31:27
hold your phone, like your hands or whatever.
31:29
But you can hold your phone either like horizontally or
31:32
vertically and it would make no difference in terms of the photo
31:37
or video that you get. There's going to be controls on
31:40
the screen on the new iPhones that let you switch between
31:43
getting like a vertical photo or video or getting a landscape or
31:47
horizontal without you having to like twist your arm and twist
31:50
the phone 90°. But that for me, it's actually
31:53
the most exciting feature. Obviously the fact that they
31:57
upgraded the sensor, that means you should be, they didn't claim
32:00
it explicitly, but it should be better quality, more detailed
32:05
just because they did a new sensor for it.
32:07
But the fact that the square sensor, it seems like a little
32:10
thing. And I think we are also used to
32:13
like twisting our wrist. We all have carpal tunnel from
32:16
like having to twist our phone like 90° either facing up
32:20
vertically or like facing across horizontally.
32:23
So I really appreciate that they made this change, which wasn't
32:28
necessarily something anyone asked for, but I think it's
32:33
going to be one of those little things that once you get used to
32:37
it, you're like, Oh my God, why didn't every phone do this?
32:39
So that's what I think of this new square sensor.
32:42
It just lets you hold the phone in the most comfortable way.
32:45
And I think it's also a wider angle as well.
32:47
So that's actually the change I'm most excited about is coming
32:50
to every single new iPhone model.
32:52
You don't have to like, buy the Pro model to have this better
32:54
selfie camera. It's going to be the same on all
32:57
the iPhone models this year. That's one thing that I'm super
33:00
excited about. But yeah, it still comes in like
33:04
a bunch of colors, still going to run the latest version of
33:08
iOS. But those two things I feel like
33:12
make it make it a really good value.
33:16
This kind of base iPhone. I think for all the people that
33:21
you have an older iPhone like iPhone 11/12/13, maybe even like
33:29
a 14 one that doesn't use usbc, it has a lightning port and you
33:35
don't care for like the pro model.
33:37
You don't need like 3 cameras on the back.
33:39
You don't need the you don't want to spend that money
33:43
honestly you just want a steady reliable iPhone.
33:46
I think this is the year to upgrade.
33:48
If you are a non pro person, you're not really considering
33:51
any of the pro models. This is the one to get.
33:53
Like I wouldn't have said that about the 16, the iPhone 16 last
33:57
year, but the addition of that promotion display, the always on
34:02
display and this new selfie camera, the display you interact
34:06
with, having the always on display is something you get
34:09
used to quite quickly. The promotion you will get used
34:12
to quite quickly as well. And the selfie camera, they only
34:15
update that every like 3 or 4 years.
34:17
And this is the year where like they're upgrading it.
34:20
Just those changes, those are like the big changes and they're
34:23
very big changes for the base iPhone.
34:25
So I think this year is the one. This is the year you've been
34:28
waiting to upgrade your iPhone again.
34:30
You have like the 11, the 12, the 13 for the 14, not the Pro
34:33
because you're not going to consider that anyway.
34:35
But it's too expensive. There's more phone than you
34:36
need. You just want like a nice solid
34:38
basic iPhone. This is the year to bite the
34:41
bullet at I think the 17. It starts at 799.
34:44
It's 100 bucks more expensive than last year, but that's
34:47
because last year, the cheapest iPhone 60 you can get, it only
34:52
came 128 gigabytes of storage. Now again, all the phones, they
34:56
all start with 256. I think it cost the same this
35:00
year for the 256 of the iPhone 17 as it does last year for the
35:06
256 of the iPhone 16. I don't have the pricing for
35:09
last year, don't quote me, but 799 is the price.
35:12
And yeah, so if you're not looking for the Pro, this is the
35:16
year to upgrade just because they made some big changes to it
35:19
that I think will serve you very well for quite a few years to
35:21
come. OK, moving on to the brand new
35:26
iPhone Air, I have to correct myself to not call it the iPhone
35:29
17 Air. It's just called the iPhone Air.
35:32
This kind of sort of replaces the Plus model they've had
35:37
previously. They had a iPhone 15 Plus, which
35:40
is just a bigger screen, bigger version of the regular iPhone 15
35:44
and they had a 16 Plus. So the iPhone Air does have a
35:49
bigger screen than the regular iPhone 17.
35:52
But the thing about the Air is that it's thin.
35:55
So that made it super thin, is less than 6mm thick, not
35:59
counting this big, huge bump at the top.
36:01
You see photos of it. You see this kind of quote UN
36:04
quote camera bar at the top that runs like the width of the phone
36:07
and that's where they've put a lot of the internals that they
36:12
need to squeeze in that couldn't be made super thin.
36:15
Okay, If you just want a super thin phone, you want something
36:18
stylish, you want something thin, you want something more
36:20
like fashion forward, I guess. And, and I get the appeal for
36:24
that. There have been people, kind of
36:25
pundits, tech pundits, if you will, that they keep saying
36:29
there's no point in making a thin phone because everybody's
36:31
just complaining about can we get a better battery life?
36:33
But I do think there's a market, maybe not the biggest market.
36:37
I do believe there are people out there, they just want like a
36:39
sexy thin phone. For the people that just want
36:43
the most amount of battery life and don't mind the thicker
36:46
phone, you can get the Pro. OK, and it's not even the Pros
36:49
are not that much more expensive than the iPhone Air, because the
36:52
iPhone Air is quite expensive. It starts at 999.
36:56
You're paying extra for this super thin design.
36:59
That's basically what you're paying for.
37:01
You're also paying for it in the camera setup.
37:03
It's only got a single camera on the back.
37:06
Other phones, they've got multiple cameras on the back.
37:08
That's been trying for several years now.
37:10
You get the main camera and you also sometimes get a ultra wide
37:14
angle camera in addition, or for camera or for phones to have
37:18
three cameras on the back. There'll also be a telephoto
37:20
camera that's more zoomed in. Whether you are a person that
37:23
would take advantage of all these different cameras having
37:27
like an extra wide angle and have a zoomed in telephoto
37:30
angle, that's up to you. I know people that they don't
37:34
take that many photos, they don't care for all these extra
37:36
cameras, and they probably don't want to pay all this extra money
37:39
for it since these phones are so expensive now.
37:41
But the iPhone Air, because it's so thin the other way, you're
37:46
going to pay a bit of a price for it beyond $1100 of your
37:50
earned cash and only having one camera on the back is the
37:53
battery is not going to be as big.
37:55
Now, Apple is not quoting how many hours of battery life
37:58
you're going to get out of just regular everyday usage.
38:01
They're only saying quote UN quote, all day battery life,
38:04
which means nothing. But that's the big question mark
38:09
is they've had to make the battery smaller.
38:12
The battery itself is physically smaller.
38:13
It can't hold as much of a charge.
38:15
Apple is touting they're doing all these other things to make
38:19
the iPhone air more efficient, more energy efficient, and
38:24
they're touting us the most energy efficient iPhone ever
38:27
made. I don't doubt them on that
38:29
claim. But what we don't know is, is
38:33
the phone going to last all day for most people?
38:36
I mean, people already consistently complain about
38:39
battery life and even Apple, I think kind of sort of hinting
38:44
that this phone might not last all day for a lot of people
38:48
because they've also released today a Magsafe battery pack
38:53
just for the iPhone Air. OK, this, you know, it's pretty
38:57
popular to have a magnetic wireless power backs now that
39:01
you can smack onto the back of an iPhone.
39:03
A lot of third party accessory manufacturers make them.
39:06
Now. Apple did make one before many
39:10
years ago. It only lasts like a year.
39:12
They didn't try again, but for this iPhone Air, they have
39:15
dipped their toes back into the wireless magnetic power bank
39:19
business. So it only works with the iPhone
39:23
Air Because of the shape of the back of the iPhone Air, this new
39:27
power bank doesn't work for the other iPhone models.
39:30
But the fact that they went to the trouble of making a power
39:33
bank, an external wireless magnetic Magsafe power bank just
39:36
for the iPhone Air, it's kind of sort of them emitting this
39:41
iPhone Air out-of-the-box just by itself.
39:45
There's going to be a lot of people where the battery life
39:47
might not measure up. So I think this is kind of so
39:50
like a way of them saying some of you might need to give us
39:54
extra money, pay us an extra 100 bucks and buy this battery pack
39:56
if you buy the iPhone Air. But I think it is the price you
39:59
want to pay. Listen, looking hot is
40:03
uncomfortable and takes a lot of effort.
40:07
I know. I was at the gym today and I was
40:11
like, honest effort to like make myself look hot.
40:15
It's uncomfortable and it's a lot of work, you know?
40:18
Anyways, yeah. So there's a trade off to be
40:20
made to have the thinnest iPhone for it to look sexy if you are
40:25
not the type of person. OK, who should buy this?
40:27
OK, Who should buy this iPhone? Air.
40:30
I think if you prioritize just having something sleek and sexy,
40:33
having something thin and there's nothing wrong with that.
40:36
OK, But you know, we have like a two, maybe 3 year iPhone right
40:41
now and the battery is in good shape.
40:44
It's not rundown. It's not like super worn.
40:47
If it's like halfway through the day and you have to recharge
40:49
your phone, the the iPhone error is not for you.
40:51
So it's for those people that don't currently already have
40:56
battery life complaints. You don't wish your iPhone has
41:01
much better battery life. You're not the type of person
41:03
that has to usually even top up your phone most days actually,
41:08
most days don't have need to top up my iPhone battery actually.
41:11
And you're willing to sacrifice extra cameras and you're willing
41:15
to sacrifice a little bit of battery life for this thin like
41:19
pretty sexy, I think design that is the target audience for the
41:24
iPhone Air. But otherwise it runs the same
41:27
software. It has the same selfie camera.
41:29
You know, all the functions and the features you get on an
41:32
iPhone is present on the iPhone Air as well.
41:35
Finally, we move on to the Pro and the Pro Max and I don't
41:41
think there's, I was actually underwhelmed when they talked
41:43
about the Pro and Pro Max. They built it up in the event to
41:47
say like now that we have the iPhone and the iPhone Air, the
41:51
Pro models are free to be really Pro.
41:54
When they were getting to that section of the event, I'm like,
41:57
OK, Apple, let's see what you've got.
41:59
I was underwhelmed, so here we go.
42:02
What's different with the Pros? There's still the Pro and the
42:04
Pro Max. The 17 Pro has the same screen
42:08
size as the regular iPhone 17, not Pro, and that's been the
42:12
case for several years now. And then you have the Pro Max,
42:14
which has a larger screen, same as the previous years.
42:18
The design is different. So in previous years they've
42:22
used, they've had a stainless steel or a titanium body
42:27
basically like the around the edges.
42:29
So I have a 14 Pro Max and it's got stainless steel for the 15
42:33
Pro and 16 Pro. They switched to titanium and
42:35
they made a big fuss about it. They switched back to aluminum.
42:39
Now is a unibody aluminum unit body.
42:42
You know what that means? Don't worry about it, doesn't
42:43
really matter. But they're back to aluminum,
42:45
and you have this big, gigantic, slightly ugly camera bump at the
42:49
top. Just look up a photo.
42:51
You have this gigantic rectangle, gigantic rectangular
42:55
island for where the cameras are at the top of the back of the 17
42:59
Pros. It doesn't look better, but I
43:01
think they did it to shove a bigger battery into the phone
43:05
and for the other design changes.
43:07
I think that previous design looks better.
43:09
It was nicer the previous one with the aluminum.
43:12
Switching back to aluminum, I don't know how it's going to
43:14
feel and just how nice it's going to feel.
43:17
I really like the stainless steel on mine at the 14 Pro Max.
43:19
The single steel for me is like very classy, but that's going to
43:23
be like a a personal preference. However, switching back to
43:25
aluminum, thus being that Apple was able to come out with some
43:30
more vibrant colors. Titanium doesn't color very
43:32
well. It's hard to get really vibrant
43:34
colors of the titanium, but with the aluminum did not have this
43:37
like bright copper orange. And they also have this like
43:40
dark blue and they also have white for the first time.
43:44
There's no like black or dark Gray or graphite option.
43:47
Like every iPhone Pro has had like a black or like a really
43:52
dark Gray this year. They don't.
43:54
So if you're a fan of like a dark Gray, black type of a
43:57
iPhone Pro, they don't have that this year.
44:00
Maybe midway through 2026, they might come up with a special
44:03
edition color. Sometimes Apple does do that.
44:05
They've had like an Alpine green for the 14 Pro midway through
44:09
the year, for example. That was like a special edition.
44:11
But there's no black or dark Gray or any kind of Gray iPhone
44:15
pro this year. You need the dark blue or this
44:18
bright orange or you can get the white.
44:20
So there you go. Besides the design being
44:22
different, they change the design to have a better cooling.
44:27
So they made this huge thing about they have this called
44:30
so-called vapor chamber. I'm not going to talk more about
44:32
it, but it gets like technical. But basically they made changes
44:36
under the hood to better dissipate the heat from the
44:40
phone. And that only really matters if
44:42
you're like playing. If you're doing heavy duty stuff
44:45
on the phone, like playing certain types of games, that is
44:48
going to be like hitting up the CPU really hard.
44:50
Certain types of video recording, if you're recording
44:54
in like 4K60 for like a long period of time now things like
44:58
that kind of more like advanced things are not everyone is doing
45:00
all the time. That's where in those cases the
45:03
cooling is going to have some sort of pay off.
45:05
They squeeze a bigger battery into it.
45:07
So the iPhone 17 Pro, not the Max has a 18 ish percent bigger
45:13
battery than the 16 Pro for the Max, I think it's like 8, seven,
45:19
8% bigger. So these are the biggest
45:21
batteries they put in any iPhone.
45:23
So I'm sure the rest of the phone is a little more efficient
45:27
as well. So we're on track for these Pro
45:31
and pro Max phones, seventeens to have what should be the best
45:35
battery life out of any iPhone that has ever been released.
45:39
So if battery life is super important to you and you don't
45:43
want to carry around a a power bank, which is a much cheaper
45:46
option, you just want the built in battery on your iPhone to be
45:49
the biggest and have like the best battery life, then you're
45:53
gonna have to go for the 17 Pro of the Pro Max.
45:56
Different design is new. The cameras it hasn't.
46:01
I don't think the cameras have been massively upgraded.
46:03
All the cameras on the back, all three of them are 48 megapixels.
46:07
Now if that was something you really wanted, I feel like
46:09
that's a minority of people. Sure.
46:12
I don't know if the main camera, which is the camera that most
46:15
people shoot most of the photos with, I don't think it didn't
46:18
seem like it got much of an upgrade.
46:20
It seems like very similar to the previous main camera sensor
46:24
and lens. But if you have some hard
46:27
requirement where you want all three cameras on the back to
46:29
have 48 megapixels, yes, sure. I don't think that's really like
46:35
a big thing for most people. Yeah.
46:37
So the same ceramic coating that is improved on the iPhone 17,
46:44
that's also on the air now. So they need this new ceramic
46:46
coating for the glass. It's on all the new iPhones.
46:49
You don't need the Pro to get the new ceramic coating that on
46:53
the glasses. All the iPhone models have it.
46:55
So I was underwhelmed by the Pros.
46:57
The pro models like, yeah, it's like a different design, but it
47:00
doesn't look better. It's got a bigger battery.
47:02
But like, I mean, I'm not going to buy a 12:30.
47:05
I'm going to spend 12 or $1300. But the Pros are really
47:09
expensive. They are like 12-13, fourteen,
47:11
$100 on up. I'm not going to spend $1200
47:15
just to have a slightly bigger battery.
47:18
And I I should just go buy a power bank honestly.
47:20
You know, 10% or 15% better battery life.
47:23
Is that worth spending 12 to $1500 on a new phone?
47:28
The value proposition is really questionable with the new Pros.
47:32
So who should get their Pros? So you want a big screen iPhone?
47:40
Only the iPhone Air and the Pro Max have like the bigger screen.
47:45
There's the iPhone 17, the base model, and the iPhone 17 Pro,
47:50
not the Max. They have a smaller screen, but
47:52
you really want a bigger screen. And you are not willing to live
47:55
with the trade-offs of the iPhone Air, the trade-offs that
47:58
Apple made to make it super thin and there are quite a few.
48:01
Then you're going to have to get the Pro Max, which is hyper
48:03
expensive. If you have like a 16 pro Max,
48:06
don't upgrade. I don't think it's worth an
48:08
upgrade if you have a 15 pro Max if you're the type of person.
48:11
By the way, if you have the type of person that just buys
48:13
whatever is the newest, nicest, most expensive thing every year,
48:15
you upgrade regardless. Like this.
48:16
You don't need the advice, but I find it hard to think of a good
48:20
reason, good tangible reason. If you have like a 15 pro or Pro
48:25
Max, a 16 pro or pro Max to upgrade.
48:28
You already have Apple intelligence.
48:30
That's on all the new phones now anyways, you got to really want
48:34
the new iPhone. It's you doesn't have you don't
48:36
have the rationally one. If you want the new iPhone, any
48:39
of the models and you have the money you want to buy, just do
48:40
it. You don't need to justify
48:41
yourself is your money. Go do whatever you're worth it.
48:43
But if you were like, oh, I want to upgrade to the new iPhone.
48:48
Should I get the pro or pro Max? And I have like a 15 pro or 60
48:51
pro? I'm like, I don't think you
48:52
should, honey. All right, this has been a long
48:55
enough podcast. I will leave it there.
48:57
I can also see that my camera is about to run out the battery, so
49:00
we'll end it there. Normal service will be resumed
49:03
next week when I won't spend an hour talking about iPhones and
49:06
Apple Watches. But until next time, bye y'all.