The Great Color Armageddon

[JM]: All right, we are back after an extended break.

[JM]: And in the interim, it looks like Apple announced some new things.

[JM]: And it sounds like unlike some recent times, you and I actually watched this entire keynote, or at least the vast majority of it.

[JM]: And it was the first time that we got to see new CEO John Ternus lead the show with a brief and relatively classy handoff appearance by Tim Cook.

[DJ]: I liked it quite a bit, actually.

[DJ]: I think Apple has a certain amount of cheeseball built into its culture when it comes to stuff like this.

[DJ]: So yes, for starters, this was the first Apple keynote I've bothered to watch in quite a few years.

[DJ]: The last one I really paid attention to might have been when my beloved iPhone mini came out, which would have been, I think, six years ago.

[DJ]: And I might have watched the next one, and then after that, I just, I didn't bother, maybe out of silent protest that they weren't going to sell my beloved mini anymore.

[DJ]: But this time there was a device rumored...

[DJ]: that actually captured my interest. And maybe I was slightly interested in, okay, the new master of ceremonies. It feels weird to say, oh, there's a new CEO at this company, because I don't think there are any other companies, aside from perhaps the one that employs me, where I would care or even know...

[DJ]: when the CEO changes. But for some reason, Apple is this company where the CEO is sort of a movie star in certain ways. John Ternus showed up at the Emmys. I saw that in the news. So there's case in point. But I did really like the opening. And again, the various different scenes, like you should open it like this. And then they showed a scene and then no, you should open it like that. And they showed this other. And of course, these are all like scenes aping different types of action movies. And of course, they're all shot on iPhone.

[DJ]: And of course, they're all kind of cheesy, you know, like they're gorgeous looking and really well choreographed, but also just sort of dorky because that's Apple's vibe.

[DJ]: And then finally, there's this scene and the voiceover is Tim Cook's voice.

[DJ]: They did this shot where he like walks down a darkened hallway towards the camera and then his face appears just kind of in shadow, which John Gruber, James Bond fan that he is, pointed out seems like it's a call out to the opening of Skyfall, the James Bond movie.

[DJ]: And so Cook, you know, talks about introducing your main character and then he stops and goes, no, no, no, no, not me.

[DJ]: That's your guy.

[DJ]: And there's this other guy walking in the background.

[DJ]: He's like, that's your opener.

[DJ]: And then the camera flies past him and goes to John Ternus.

[DJ]: And it's like, again, this is very dorky to have these two like white dudes in their 60s dressed in like that absolutely style-free outfit...

[DJ]: wardrobe Apple executive wardrobe, right of like a casual sort of pastel-colored shirt, untucked over blue jeans...

[JM]: The official Apple uniform.

[DJ]: That's the official Apple uniform, exactly, and I mean, I guess when you're worth billions of dollars, it's the only clothes you can afford, really.

[DJ]: But I liked it.

[DJ]: Like as cheesy as it was, it was enjoyable.

[DJ]: It kind of made a big deal out of like, hey, like Tim Cook's been giving these presentations for well over a decade.

[DJ]: Now a different guy is going to do it without also sort of overstating it.

[DJ]: Like there is an interesting thing about Apple and its keynotes where Apple kind of always acts in public like they're the only thing in the world, right?

[DJ]: Like they never acknowledge their competitors exist, etc., etc., so forth.

[DJ]: And these keynotes are also this sort of insular like it's like you're going to live in Apple world for the next 60 to 90 minutes.

[DJ]: And I like this way of doing it.

[DJ]: Like it was fun without being overboard, without acting like, oh, this new guy is the CEO of Apple is really that big a deal.

[DJ]: But it is still notable.

[DJ]: And I liked how they noted it.

[JM]: Like all of Apple's recent announcement videos, it definitely does have its cheeseball moments.

[JM]: And there are parts of it that are a bit cringeworthy.

[JM]: I felt like this one had a little bit less of that than maybe some of the ones I've seen in the past.

[JM]: So good on them for making it a little bit less awkward and uncomfortable to watch.

[JM]: I feel like despite having some experience in front of the camera,

[JM]: for these videos, not in the CEO role, but in whatever role John Turner's had before.

[JM]: He has some experience in this position of talking to the camera and announcing features and talking about whatever it is that they're trying to highlight.

[JM]: This is the first time he's doing it as CEO.

[JM]: And so he gets a lot more airtime and he's obviously a lot more front and center.

[JM]: And I do think there is a little bit of...

[JM]: him not quite feeling comfortable doing it, which I can totally understand.

[JM]: I don't think I would be all that super comfortable doing it either.

[JM]: And I imagine he'll get a little bit better at it.

[JM]: But there were definitely some parts that felt kind of stilted and stiff.

[JM]: And I think eventually he'll loosen up and kind of get his feet under him in terms of feeling more comfortable and doing this kind of thing.

[JM]: But as a first run goes, I think he did a great job.

[JM]: So, you know, good for him.

[DJ]: I also felt like he almost didn't have that much to say.

[DJ]: It felt like very quick handoffs.

[DJ]: He's like, so today we're announcing this, and so I'm going to get the heck out of here and let this person talk about it.

[DJ]: And they did that a lot.

[DJ]: But I think it's natural to grow into that thing, because I guess Ternus was like the head of hardware, I feel like, the last time...

[DJ]: I heard him talk,

[DJ]: so he would show up in this weird metal room and talk about MacBook Pros for a couple of minutes.

[DJ]: But now he's running the whole thing.

[DJ]: And it reminds me of when I used to watch these keynotes more regularly during the first generation of iPhones, probably.

[DJ]: It felt like the keynotes were a lot more exciting.

[DJ]: And I remember Craig Federighi,

[DJ]: who's the head of software, the first couple of times he came out, and these things were still live pre-pandemic, like live in front of a theater full of people instead of recorded videos, he came out and he was like quite nervous and awkward being on camera and then like...

[DJ]: I think he got a promotion to vice president or senior vice president or whatever.

[DJ]: And over the next couple of years, it was like remarkable.

[DJ]: He really did become like movie-star-Craig, where he would like walk out and there are all these jokes about how good his hair is.

[DJ]: And like, he just got super natural on camera and talking to people.

[DJ]: And sure enough, like now whenever he is giving a keynote segment or you see him interviewed by someone, he's just like, you know, supernatural at it.

[DJ]: So I'm guessing Ternus will probably grow into this role also.

[JM]: I agree that Hair Force One definitely feels very comfortable on-camera, and John Ternus will probably get there soon enough.

[DJ]: Thank you.

[DJ]: I forgot it was Hair Force One, which is epic.

[DJ]: And I remember once he was demoing something about iMessage, and he messaged supposedly his wife.

[DJ]: And I don't think they pointed this out, but if you were quick, you would notice that her contact was named Hair Force Two.

[DJ]: That's the kind of cheeseball silliness that we're referring to in these in these keynotes, but that we sort of that's sort of heartwarming about this, you know, otherwise cold, uncaring mega corporation that runs every aspect of our lives.

[DJ]: But it's cute.

[JM]: Indeed.

[JM]: Let's talk about some of the things that were announced during this presentation.

[JM]: And let's start with the Apple Watch Series 12.

[JM]: Now, remind me, Dan, because I always forget.

[JM]: Do you have an Apple Watch?

[JM]: And if so, which one?

[DJ]: I don't.

[DJ]: I did for a few years.

[DJ]: I actually was given my first Apple Watch as a gift when I left a company that I'd been at for a while.

[DJ]: They bought me an Apple Watch Sport or whatever the base model was.

[DJ]: And that was quite a while ago.

[DJ]: That might have been like a Series 3 or something.

[DJ]: And now we're on Series 12.

[DJ]: That doesn't seem possible.

[DJ]: But anyway, I had one of those.

[DJ]: After a year or two, I actually replaced it with the stainless steel, the upper tier, upper crust, whatever, the fancier version of, I want to say maybe that was a Series 6.

[DJ]: And then after another year or two, I got sick of wearing it.

[DJ]: And I can talk a little more about that,

[DJ]: because maybe it relates to, you know, our feelings about this product. And I sold it.

[DJ]: And so I haven't had an Apple Watch since and I've occasionally felt, I don't know, a flicker of "Maybe I should get one of those again".

[DJ]: I mostly haven't been drawn to it.

[DJ]: What about you?

[JM]: I think I started on a Series 4.

[JM]: That's when I felt like, okay, this thing's getting far enough along its development curve that it made sense for me to try it.

[JM]: And a couple years later, I got the Series 6, and that is the one that I've had on my wrist for the last five years.

[JM]: And I've been pretty happy with it.

[JM]: It's remarkable to me how well something that I wear every day

[JM]: and bang into things, and charge somewhat indiscriminately, has held up over those five years.

[JM]: So I'm not really champing at the bit to replace it, but let's talk about the Series 12 a little bit, and I'll share my thoughts about it.

[JM]: It seems like one of the new things is that unlike some prior years where...

[JM]: they didn't change the SoC at all, where the processor inside the watch stayed the same, even though maybe other things about the watch changed.

[JM]: In this particular year, the Series 12, if I understand correctly, does indeed contain a new SoC that would be the S11 chip, if I'm not mistaken.

[JM]: And the S11 chip that's in this phone apparently also powers a new health sensing system, which improves heart rate sensing...

[JM]: and perhaps some other health measurement features that are built into the watch.

[JM]: So if you're into really accurate heart rate sensing, then this is an upgrade compared to any of the previous Apple watches.

[JM]: But much like the phone, I feel like aside from the improved SOC and this improved heart rate and heart rate variability measurement,

[JM]: there's not a whole lot new in terms of like tentpole features or reasons to, you know, to upgrade if you have a relatively recent Apple Watch.

[JM]: I am six series behind.

[JM]: So I suppose if I were to switch to the Series 12, I might notice other things that have accumulated over those other years.

[JM]: But I haven't really been paying much attention to the...

[JM]: Apple Watch, because again, it doesn't seem like it changes all that much.

[JM]: And I'm happy with the one I have.

[JM]: And so I don't know that I've made a decision on whether to upgrade or not.

[JM]: But as I often say, when Apple releases iterative changes that don't necessarily make news headlines, I think it's great that they continue to

[JM]: make whatever small improvements that they can.

[JM]: And those small improvements over, say, six years should, in theory, add up to quite a decent change in terms of the experience of using the watch.

[DJ]: I referred before to call it the first generation of iPhone upgrades from, let's say, 2007 to... Oh, I shouldn't try to do this off the top of my head.

[DJ]: But the first five or six or seven or eight years...

[DJ]: where it felt like pretty much every iPhone model for the first handful of them was so substantially different.

[DJ]: They were coming out in different form factors.

[DJ]: They had different features.

[DJ]: But since the iPhone X, there's some controversy over what to actually call the thing.

[DJ]: The iPhone has been very, very similar year over year.

[DJ]: Again, there have been some changes.

[DJ]: And then I think since whichever year it was that the Pro moved back into being an aluminum housing, like the iPhone Pro, which is sort of the flagship device that Apple sells, has been visually almost exactly the same, with the exception of what the cameras on the back look like.

[DJ]: And of course, there's a lot more to these devices than what they look like visually.

[DJ]: But something that fascinates me about human behavior around buying stuff is what motivates us to do it at any given time, especially for things like this, which are expensive and expensive.

[DJ]: They do a bunch of things and they last a relatively long time.

[DJ]: There are people who buy a new iPhone every single year.

[DJ]: And there are people who keep their iPhones and Apple Watches, as you've said, for many, many years, like five to ten years.

[DJ]: So we could divide why you buy a new Apple device into two camps.

[DJ]: You need one because your previous one broke or stopped working.

[DJ]: We will leave aside for now questions of do you really need a fancy computer strapped to your wrist?

[DJ]: You know what I mean.

[DJ]: If you've decided that you're going to have one of these devices, you are either buying a new one to replace the old one because the old one doesn't work anymore, or you're buying a new one because you just want to.

[DJ]: And so that question of what makes you buy the thing because you just want to, I think has been a lot less clear, or there's been a lot less impetus to do it in this second generation of Apple Watches and iPhones where year over year they're

[DJ]: not that distinct from each other.

[DJ]: So it's always interesting to me, someone in your case, Justin, where you're like, well, I have this watch.

[DJ]: It still works remarkably well for being as old as it is.

[DJ]: What change could they make to the Apple Watch that would motivate you to go, oh, now's the year.

[DJ]: Now's the year that I replace it.

[DJ]: I don't know that we know the answer to that question, but evidently Apple Watch Series 12 doesn't have it.

[JM]: I haven't decided yet, but to your point, there's nothing about this new watch or any of the years that came before it that screamed to me like, oh yes, this is something I really want.

[JM]: If I had to pick one thing that would probably cause me to feel that way, it would be a thinner design.

[JM]: I think from day one, I have thought, oh, okay.

[JM]: So this somewhat chunky thing that sticks out from your wrist, because realize that I'm,

[JM]: from an era where watches, particularly really nice watches from Swiss watchmakers, got to the point where they were incredibly thin, way less than half, maybe even less than a quarter of the thickness of an Apple Watch.

[JM]: And so that's what I was accustomed to before the Apple Watch came out.

[JM]: So when it was announced, I thought, okay, well,

[JM]: it's going to be like this for a few years.

[JM]: And then eventually, they'll figure out ways of making this much thinner.

[JM]: And you fast forward 12 years later, and as far as I'm aware, this has become no thinner, or at least not noticeably thinner at all from the very first Apple Watch until this series 12.

[JM]: So that would probably be the thing that would really get me

[JM]: interested in upgrading.

[JM]: But since that doesn't seem to be in the cards anytime soon, I think at some point, I'll probably just decide, "Sure, why not" and and see what happens.

[JM]: But one of the things that I thought was kind of interesting about the 12 is that they have it available in a couple of new finishes.

[JM]: I'm not sure that they are for me, but they are interesting.

[JM]: It's available in the usual aluminum.

[JM]: It's also available in titanium.

[JM]: There's a

[JM]: additional gold titanium if you're into that color. And for the first time in a few years, I don't think this has been available for a few years, but now it's back is a ceramic finish. And for me personallym the finishes are not really... I don't know, I just don't

[JM]: know that it's worth it to me in terms of how much more they cost.

[JM]: Like to go from an aluminum to say a titanium finish on a watch is an extra 300 US dollars.

[JM]: If you want to go from say the aluminum to a ceramic, that's an extra $500.

[JM]: I don't know that I get enough value out of the finishes to...

[JM]: do anything other than the base aluminum, which is what I've been using this entire time I've ever had an Apple watch.

[JM]: And I've been quite happy with it.

[JM]: In addition to the series 12, Apple also announced the next iteration of the Ultra model.

[JM]: This is the Apple Watch Ultra 4 has the same new health sensing system, presumably

[JM]: it also includes the same new S11 chip.

[JM]: And as someone who wants a watch that is thinner and less obtrusive, I don't know that the Apple Watch Ultra has ever been a product that I've been super excited about.

[JM]: It is much larger than a standard Apple Watch and twice the base cost of it.

[JM]: So I'm not really sure that the Ultra is for me, but...

[JM]: Once again, I'm cool that Apple continues to update it for people that are into this sort of thing.

[JM]: The last product to mention before we talk about phones is Apple updated the non-pro AirPods.

[JM]: So the AirPods 5, which is what they sometimes call the open-ear AirPods,

[JM]: because it doesn't form like a very tight seal with your ears.

[JM]: And the main difference that I can tell with the AirPods 5 is improved active noise cancellation.

[JM]: And I don't really know very much else that's new about these.

[JM]: I'm really more of an AirPods Pro kind of person.

[JM]: So I really usually don't pay much attention to the open air version of the AirPods.

[JM]: But for those that are into that, seems like a nice update.

[DJ]: Yeah, those of you that are AirPods amateurs, Justin thinks it's fine, but it's not for him.

[DJ]: No, I'm just giving you a hard time, Justin.

[DJ]: I also use the AirPods Pro, but it's nice to see that they keep improving the non-Pro AirPods with better active noise cancellation.

[DJ]: I don't have an exhaustive feature list in front of me, but it feels to me like ANC was originally the real reason I wanted to get the Pro ones.

[DJ]: I think I started off with a pair of AirPods, and then I got the AirPods Pro, which I now have.

[DJ]: But the ANC was really what drew me to it, because prior to that, and maybe there were other in-ear earbuds that had ANC.

[DJ]: I don't know.

[DJ]: I apologize to them if they came first.

[DJ]: But before the AirPods Pro, I wasn't really aware of earbuds that could do active noise cancellation.

[DJ]: Usually, when I thought of noise-canceling headphones, I thought of giant cans,

[DJ]: from Sony or Bose or someone like that.

[DJ]: Not the kind of thing I would wear every day.

[DJ]: So it felt really nice to have these headphones I could just carry around with me.

[DJ]: And then when I want to, I can turn on noise cancellation.

[DJ]: And actually, over time, now the AirPods, at least the Pro ones, have this setting that's in between the so-called transparency mode and the noise cancellation mode called Adaptive,

[DJ]: where, as the name implies, it tries to set the amount of active noise cancellation based on the ambient audio level.

[DJ]: And I do find that it does things like, if I'm listening to a podcast and I start my blender to make a smoothie, it will actually damp down the sound of

[DJ]: my very loud blender after a second or two, which is cool. So I like seeing that feature go back into the non-pro AirPods because I think it's the main, in my opinion, it's the main reason to buy these aside from how readily they connect to other Apple devices of course.

[DJ]: I think I might continue to go with the Pro earbuds just because I think I like the whatever you call it, like the in-ear seal that they create, whereas the basic AirPods do not do that.

[DJ]: They just, as you said, they're so-called open headphones where they sit in your ears.

[DJ]: And they don't attempt to like block, like physically block other sounds.

[DJ]: But to go back to that thing about when you replace your devices, it feels to me like AirPods are the kind of thing I will probably replace when they break, but not sooner than that.

[DJ]: But they're also the kind of device that breaks potentially faster than your watch or your iPhone, because again, like

[DJ]: they're in your ears all day.

[DJ]: They I don't know about you, Justin, they fall out of my ears sometimes and bang on the floor.

[DJ]: And they have very these very small batteries in them that aren't going to hold a charge forever.

[DJ]: So AirPods does feel like a thing that I will replace.

[DJ]: And it's nice to know that maybe, you know, maybe I could consider getting the non-Pro ones the next time.

[JM]: Makes sense.

[JM]: All right, let's talk about the phones that Apple announced.

[JM]: The first thing to note is that the new phones use a new SOC, which is the A20 Pro.

[JM]: And from what I can tell, this thing is a beast.

[JM]: Apple often makes SOC improvements from one year to the other.

[JM]: And by often, I think I mean every year.

[JM]: But this one seems particularly notable.

[JM]: The A20 Pro has a six-core CPU, a seven-core GPU, and a dual 16-core neural engine,

[JM]: for a total of 32 cores dedicated to things like language models, image generation, and computational photography, which is twice the number on the A19 SoC that shipped last year.

[JM]: And the first phone that they announced with this beast of a chip in it is the iPhone 18 Pro.

[JM]: And before we go into the 18 Pro, unless I missed something and I don't think I did, there is no iPhone 18.

[JM]: There is only the iPhone 18 Pro.

[JM]: There is no 18E or Air.

[JM]: There is nothing, at least so far as this announcement and so far as the date of this recording, beyond the iPhone 18 Pro, which is unprecedented as far as I'm aware in any of Apple's prior announcement years.

[JM]: This is the first time they've done this.

[DJ]: Yeah, it did feel weird to have the 18 Pro.

[DJ]: The Pro series is always kind of the flagship phone, but it's almost always introduced next to the basic phone, the non-Pro one.

[DJ]: And year after year for the last quite a few years, the non-Pro phone tends to get decent upgrades, occasionally including stuff that was in the Pro phone in prior years.

[DJ]: It trickles down into the base model, and then they'd introduce the new

[DJ]: Pro phone, which has some exciting new, often camera-related enhancement.

[DJ]: But this time there was, as you say, like just the Pro.

[DJ]: I have heard a suggestion that there might be a spring release where we might see the iPhone 18 and possibly also the next iteration of the iPhone Air,

[DJ]: which also did not get mentioned in this keynote, but that would be unusual.

[DJ]: Would that be the first time that they released like the Pro and the non-Pro models at different times?

[DJ]: I can't remember if they've done that before.

[JM]: As far as I'm aware, this is the first time.

[JM]: And one of the things I wondered is, okay, so if you, for whatever reason, don't want to

[JM]: buy the iPhone 18 Pro, what are your options?

[JM]: And it seems like the Apple's answer to this question is you buy last year's iPhone 17, which is still for sale, which is a little weird.

[DJ]: Yeah, imagine buying a product that's an entire year old.

[DJ]: God forbid.

[DJ]: What a travesty that they would consider selling such a thing.

[DJ]: I mean, I'm making fun of you a little bit, Justin, but it is kind of fascinating how normalized it's become with the iPhone, which costs $100 trillion.

[DJ]: Like, it's not a cheap thing.

[DJ]: It's not like a cup of coffee that you buy or a sandwich.

[DJ]: That we have somehow internalized this notion that it's actually, like, normal for there to be a whole new one every single year.

[DJ]: And indeed...

[DJ]: Perhaps more on the software side than the hardware side, I have long lamented the fact that Apple insists on this annualized cadence where there has to be a whole new version of a thing every single year, which sometimes leads to, again, mostly the software feeling rushed and broken.

[DJ]: So I'm not suggesting that this...

[DJ]: ushers in a new era where we're only going to see new iPhones every few years. I'm sure that's not true. But just something about the notion that like how weird it is that you would even consider buying last year's iPhone is sort of, I don't know... That stuck out to me. It's just like in any other product category, yeah of course you would consider buying the year-old version of the thing, but...

[DJ]: Like cars... Cars always are always introduced in new model years.

[DJ]: Most people do not insist on buying the current model year of a car.

[DJ]: At least I don't think so.

[JM]: Correct.

[JM]: But usually the price changes accordingly.

[JM]: And I think that's the part that I'm implicitly commenting on,

[JM]: the fact that if you go out and buy an iPhone 17 today, you're paying presumably the same price. Or not...

[JM]: I don't know.

[JM]: Maybe they reduced the price by $100.

[JM]: I am speaking out of sheer ignorance here, and I probably shouldn't.

[DJ]: No, no.

[DJ]: I think it's the opposite, Justin.

[DJ]: I think they're raising all of the prices.

[DJ]: So if the old model is cheaper, it's because all the new models are more expensive and not the other way around.

[JM]: And I was just about to say that even if they didn't change the price, even if they didn't reduce it, it's still comparatively a noticeable difference than the iPhone 18 Pro, which starts at $1,200.

[JM]: That is a significant...

[JM]: increase from prior years by at least $100 and is a significant amount to spend on a phone.

[JM]: And we can guess at why they did this, like why did they announce the iPhone 18 Pro and not an 18, which maybe they'll announce, as you said, in the spring, maybe they won't.

[JM]: But assuming that they intend to release a non-Pro 18 at some point in the future, one of the potential reasons could be

[JM]: that it's supply related and they wanted to keep as many of the new A20 Pro chips available for the phones that they did announce and are shipping this fall.

[JM]: Another possible explanation is Apple realized that they could do the same thing that they've done with, say, the MacBook Pro line, which is announce the more expensive models first, which gets people to think, OK, well, I want the new shiny thing.

[JM]: And this is the only new shiny thing I can get.

[JM]: It's not, here are two new shiny things, one of which is less expensive than the other, and then you choose between them.

[JM]: Here, the choice could be, here's the one and also another shiny thing...

[JM]: which we'll talk about in a moment.

[JM]: But here's the new shiny thing.

[JM]: And if you don't want this, and you want the less expensive non-Pro 18 that may or may not ship later, well, you're going to have to wait for that.

[JM]: And so it could shift consumer behavior in that regard, pushing people to buy the higher margin item and

[JM]: Apple would be presumably excited about that.

[JM]: So that could be also a factor.

[JM]: As far as what's new in the iPhone 18 Pro, the short answer, as far as I'm concerned, is not very much.

[JM]: It seems that the vapor chamber that shipped in last year's iPhone 17 Pro has been expanded to span nearly the length of the entire phone, which...

[JM]: means that the phone can run cooler, which means that the phone can run faster because the chip can run at a higher speed without overheating.

[JM]: And the main other thing I noticed besides the vapor chamber, and again, I'm sure there are small things here and there, like I know that, for example, they added...

[JM]: an improved camera system with an improved six blade aperture control.

[JM]: But the other thing that stood out for me is that they added some new colors.

[JM]: The iPhone Pro models have had a reputation, much deserved in my opinion, for being kind of boring in terms of the colors.

[JM]: For example, the iPhone 15 Pro that I have...

[JM]: Those models, I remember when I was looking at them, they all were just various shades of gray.

[JM]: They had different color names, but you look at them...

[JM]: Like, for example, I think mine is supposed to be a midnight blue.

[JM]: And I don't know what kind of light you have to shine on this for it to look like it's blue.

[JM]: It just looks like a near black.

[DJ]: Well, actually, it only appears blue at midnight.

[JM]: No wonder I never see it.

[DJ]: That's the mysterious power of the midnight blue iPhone.

[DJ]: I had one of those also.

[DJ]: And yeah, it was blue-ish, but yeah, very muted.

[DJ]: I agree that the Pro, basically all of Apple's Pro stuff, they just refuse to release in colors that are actually interesting or fun.

[DJ]: You know, like the iMac, which I mean, who's heard of...

[DJ]: Who's heard anything about the iMac in recent memory, but they revamped the iMac a few years ago and offered it in all these cool colors with like a new design.

[DJ]: But I mean, they never released a new iMac Pro, which had only ever been available in like light gray or dark gray.

[DJ]: And the MacBook Pro is only available in light gray and dark gray.

[DJ]: And as you say, the iPhone Pro has struggled right until recent years where last year there was this fun orange color.

[JM]: And following up on that fun orange color, Apple has thankfully not reverted to a bunch of boring monochrome shades and at least offers the choice of four colors, if you can call black and white colors.

[DJ]: Technically, you can.

[JM]: Fair.

[JM]: In addition to black and white, there is a light blue,

[JM]: and what I would call a burgundy, a reddish hue.

[JM]: And if I were to choose one of these myself, I think I'd probably go with the red just because it's the least boring of these various colors.

[JM]: The black is the usual one that's been offered ever since, you know, more or less day one.

[JM]: The white one's white.

[JM]: The light blue one is, I don't know.

[JM]: I don't really care for it.

[JM]: So it's sort of a process of elimination.

[JM]: I'm like, all right, cool.

[JM]: Red.

[JM]: Not my ideal color.

[JM]: Not the one I would imagine,

[JM]: like, oh yeah, that's the color I want.

[JM]: But process of elimination, that's probably the one I would choose.

[DJ]: Yeah, I would feel the same way, except I have the -- holds up to camera, even though a listener can't see it...

[DJ]: Product red iPhone 12 mini, which is such a fun, like rich color, shade of red.

[DJ]: And I don't think, I mean, not only are they ever going to make this form factor again, I don't know that they'll ever ship it...

[DJ]: like a color that looks like that again.

[DJ]: And so the burgundy iPhone Pro just kind of makes me wistful for the days of yore and all the things that we've lost in The Great Color Armageddon.

[DJ]: Because you can't anodize aluminum in fun colors anymore, Justin.

[DJ]: Not after The Great Color Wars that destroyed all the color anodizing machines.

[DJ]: I assume that's the explanation.

[DJ]: Clearly.

[JM]: So for me, the 18 Pro really feels like an S year.

[JM]: In previous iPhone announcements, we had, you know, like the iPhone 4, and then there was a 4S, and then we had the iPhone 5, and then there was a iPhone 5S.

[JM]: And Apple...

[JM]: eventually did away with that and haven't had S years.

[JM]: But this one very much feels like an S year to me in terms of the variance between last year's 17 and this year's 18 Pro, which again is fine.

[JM]: If you're happy with your 17 Pro, you don't need to upgrade.

[JM]: That's really how it works.

[DJ]: Well, it's also fine in the sense that the so-called S-year has always been a little boring because often the year before it would introduce some relatively new thing.

[DJ]: Like going way back, the iPhone 5 was quite different.

[DJ]: It was a different form factor from what had come before.

[DJ]: It was taller and thinner.

[DJ]: And it had, I think it went to the 64-bit architecture.

[DJ]: And then the 6 was yet another form factor.

[DJ]: It was really thin.

[DJ]: Those two phones in a way almost presaged like the phones that would happen a decade later with like the all-aluminum Pro and the iPhone Air being really thin.

[DJ]: But for both of them, if you held out and you bought the 5S or the 6S instead of the 5 or the 6...

[DJ]: You got what was just fundamentally a better thing.

[DJ]: And in fact, when the iPhone X or 10, I still never know what to call it.

[DJ]: I think I'll call it the iPhone X because it's cooler.

[JM]: I believe it was supposed to be pronounced 10.

[DJ]: I know, which is lame.

[DJ]: And that's why I'm not doing it.

[DJ]: So the iPhone X was like this really cool looking, it was a big deviation.

[DJ]: It had the screen that covered the whole device and it had these nice shiny borders around it and this glass back.

[DJ]: It was hot, Justin.

[DJ]: It was a hot phone.

[DJ]: But I ended up buying the XS, which stands for the iPhone Extra Small, which is weird because at the time it was the biggest iPhone they made, which is why this naming scheme is questionable.

[DJ]: But the XS was better...

[DJ]: in a bunch of different ways.

[DJ]: And so I remember feeling very smug about my decision.

[DJ]: So I would say in this way, like if you didn't buy an iPhone 17 Pro and you are in the market for the Pro iPhone, yeah, the 18 Pro is probably a real solid choice because the talk of the so-called tick-tock annual cycle tends to get you a device that's just like more robust, in my opinion.

[DJ]: Especially when they've introduced new things.

[DJ]: Well, now they've had a year to refine those new things.

[DJ]: So they introduced a vapor chamber to help keep the processor cool under sustained load.

[DJ]: Well, now there's a bigger vapor chamber.

[DJ]: And again, as you started off by saying, there's kind of nothing really different about this phone.

[DJ]: But all the things that are different about it make it better.

[DJ]: So I'm a big fan of the so-called S-year cycle.

[DJ]: And yet I'm still probably not going to buy the iPhone 18 Pro.

[JM]: That was going to be my next question.

[JM]: And before we get too deep into that topic... there is one more thing.

[JM]: And that is the iPhone Duo, the much anticipated, rumored, and leaked foldable iPhone.

[DJ]: Also known as the reason I bothered to watch the keynote at all.

[JM]: The iPhone Duo has a screen on the outside when it's folded, just like a normal phone.

[JM]: And you flip it over and you see the back, just like a normal phone.

[JM]: But then you can unfold the interior portion to reveal this wider foldable screen inside.

[JM]: So this is the first iPhone that has two screens, one on the exterior and then one on the folded interior.

[JM]: Now, I say it's the first iPhone that has a foldable screen, but of course, many people will point out, OK, yes, but Samsung and X number of other companies have had foldable phones for years and Apple is late to this party and et cetera, et cetera.

[DJ]: Is anyone still bothering to make that argument after -- glances at clock -- like 40 years in which Apple has always been late to every party and yet ends up having the only device that's any good in that category anyway?

[JM]: Yes, they absolutely do that repeatedly, at every opportunity.

[JM]: So, yes.

[DJ]: Justin's like, Dan, you don't go on Hacker News very often, do you?

[JM]: And also I would argue that Apple isn't necessarily late to every party.

[JM]: There are certain things where they are out in front, but you're right that for a lot of cases, they decide to bide their time until they can release something that they can feel really confident about.

[JM]: And if you were to pay attention to some of these early foldable phones that Samsung and other companies made, they were, by all accounts, terrible in many respects, including but not limited to this noticeable crease that formed in the screen when you repeatedly opened and closed it.

[JM]: Now, how did Apple come up with ways to mitigate that and have that not be a problem with

[JM]: potentially years of opening and folding this new iPhone Duo? I don't know. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. Maybe it'll be just as big a problem -- we will find out. But presumably the reason that they took all this time to ship this thing is because they wanted to get that part better than some of their competition.

[DJ]: There are some other unusual things about this phone, both versus every other iPhone that's ever existed and versus other foldable phones, to the best of my knowledge, which is the outside screen and the inside screen have the same aspect ratio.

[DJ]: And it's a little bit of a weird one on the outside, at least.

[DJ]: It's a little squatter and wider than phone screens have generally been.

[DJ]: And I am really, really curious to pick one of these up in my hand, my right hand, presumably, because that's the way the phone is designed.

[DJ]: I bring this up because I'm left-handed and usually use my phone in my left hand.

[DJ]: So we'll see.

[DJ]: But I'm also, yeah, I'm also just really curious what...

[DJ]: that outside screen will be like the inside screen looks awesome.

[DJ]: And one of the things as a person who has an iPhone and an iPad Mini, I looked at this device and thought, I might credibly be able to replace the iPhone and iPad with just this.

[DJ]: Because if you fold it open,

[DJ]: it is a little bit smaller than the iPad Mini, but seems, again, like a pretty credible replacement for that small tablet, which I mostly use to read, right?

[DJ]: It's about the size of a pocketbook, so it's a good size to read things on.

[DJ]: I could probably do that on the inside screen...

[DJ]: of the iPhone Duo.

[DJ]: What I'm really curious about is what will it be like to use the outside screen, which is, again, if you think of like use your phone versus use your tablet, if you have both of those things, I use my phone a lot more.

[DJ]: So I'm probably going to use the outside screen of the Duo while it's folded up most of the time.

[DJ]: And I'm really curious in terms of size and weight and how it feels in the hand and what that screen is like to look at and use apps on,

[DJ]: what that's going to be like.

[DJ]: Because if the folded experience of this phone kind of sucks, then that's, I mean, that might be a deal breaker.

[DJ]: Like no matter how nice it is to sit and unfold the phone and have an iPad all of a sudden, which is kind of a thing that

[DJ]: I've been fantasizing about at least since HBO's Westworld came out, because in the science fictional universe of that show, they had these cool devices that were basically a smartphone whose screen essentially magically slid open into two panes of glass that fused together, so suddenly they were using a tablet, right?

[DJ]: Of course, in real life, we haven't figured out any way to do that.

[DJ]: The closest we can come is a folding phone, so the bigger screen is...

[DJ]: on the inside, but it means a device that's thicker and bulkier.

[DJ]: And in this case, when you're using it as a, as just a normal iPhone is kind of weirdly shaped.

[JM]: That was the first thing that I noticed and remains my biggest concern.

[JM]: When using this phone, when it's folded, it is 12.2 millimeters wider than an iPhone 18 Pro.

[JM]: Not the Max, which is, again, this larger, more ungainly size of the iPhone Pro.

[JM]: But at 12.2 millimeters wider than the iPhone 18 Pro, that extra half inch of width seems really cumbersome for me...

[JM]: for one-handed use.

[JM]: Not to mention, when you have this thing in your pocket... Like I already own pants where my iPhone 15 Pro is somewhat pressing up against the fabric of the pants and doesn't feel particularly comfortable when I'm out, say, in the evening.

[JM]: And I really am having a hard time imagining this wider phone fitting anywhere near comfortably in those same pants.

[JM]: So I have my doubts regarding how this will work, how comfortable it will feel to use in the hand, to have in a pocket.

[JM]: And you mentioned the right-handedness aspect of it.

[JM]: It is arguably the first phone that by way of some of the software elements, if not the hardware, there are assumptions being made that you are using this thing with your right hand.

[JM]: I have always, like many Olds, kept my phone in my left pocket instead of my right pocket, because for many years before phones, I kept my wallet...

[JM]: in my right pocket and perhaps my keys in my left.

[JM]: And then once we had phones, well, the wallet stayed in the right pocket and the phone went into the left.

[JM]: So I use my phone left-handed quite frequently.

[JM]: I would say when I'm particularly when I'm walking and using my phone.

[JM]: Or really, any time where I'm pulling my phone out of my pocket, I am using it with my left hand.

[JM]: And that really changes how excited I am, among the other reasons, about this form factor for the iPhone Duo.

[DJ]: There's an unspoken mystery in what you've just described, which is, in what part of your pants do you now keep your keys?

[DJ]: We'll leave it up to the listener to find the answer.

[DJ]: those get stuffed into the pocket along with the wallet is the answer

[DJ]: Now I said way back at the beginning of the show, and I'm a talented podcaster, so I'm bringing it all the way back around, that there's kind of two reasons that you might replace a device like your smartphone: one of them is the old one doesn't work anymore, and the other reason is a little more mysterious and nuanced, but I've found it generally tracks along alongside the, "Oh that's a cool new thing."

[DJ]: And so what interests me and excites me, honestly, about the iPhone Duo is this is the first time since maybe the iPhone X or 10 or whatever the heck that Apple has shipped an iPhone that made me go, oh.

[DJ]: And even as I say that, I realize it's not true.

[DJ]: It was my beloved iPad iPhone mini that made me feel that way.

[DJ]: But again, I think that came out in 2020.

[DJ]: So...

[DJ]: It's been quite a while since Apple shipped a new device that made me go, I got to get me to an Apple store so I can at least pick that thing up.

[DJ]: And since this device, all of its other weird idiosyncrasies, and also its astonishingly high price, which we haven't even mentioned...

[DJ]: All of that aside, it also isn't available in stores for like a month.

[DJ]: And it's just eating me up inside because I can't wait to pick this little weirdo up and see what it actually is like to use.

[DJ]: And having said all of that, either way, even if I decide I really want one, I might be tempted to wait for the S year of this device for a whole bunch of reasons that include things like we don't really know yet what the heck is going to happen to that bendy screen when you spend a year bending it.

[JM]: There's definitely risk associated with buying the initial model year of anything.

[JM]: And given the innovations and new elements of this particular phone, yeah, I'm with you.

[JM]: I don't know how comfortable I would feel buying this phone out of the gates.

[JM]: I would feel much more comfortable...

[JM]: assuming it worked for me, assuming the form factor wasn't an issue and I was excited about the benefits that it has, I would feel much more comfortable buying it in a subsequent iteration.

[JM]: One of the things that I wanted to highlight, because we've talked about what it's like to use it when it's closed, but one of the things that does seem interesting to me is the versatility when it's unfolded.

[JM]: And I say that in part because I think most people assume like, okay, you can use it when it's folded and when it's unfolded.

[JM]: But there's also these like intermediate states where you can have it like half open or like, you know, mostly open, like almost like a book,

[JM]: where it's a kind of angled, but not totally flat, and then have different things on the left portion of the screen compared to the right.

[JM]: So you could have like one window on the left and have a different window on the right.

[JM]: It doesn't have to just be this one uniform screen.

[JM]: You can, for example, make it a right angle

[JM]: and have the top portion of it be video and have the bottom portion of it be playback controls.

[JM]: Instead of having playback controls be this liquid glass blur over your content, you can now have those controls on the bottom portion of the screen that's lying flat while you're watching the video on the part that's vertical.

[JM]: You could flip the phone almost all the way around where the phone is basically tented and you can have it kind of look like an alarm clock,

[JM]: where you have the screen that's facing you horizontally displaying a clock and a calendar and the date.

[JM]: So there's these really interesting ways, presumably, that you can use this.

[JM]: At least that's how they show it in the images on the website.

[JM]: It also is the first iPhone to support an Apple Pencil.

[JM]: Which is, as you said, kind of cool if you're the kind of person who really just wants an iPad mini, but not as a separate device, but as like an integrated device where I get to have my phone and iPad mini and use a pencil to draw or to take notes.

[JM]: That's very cool.

[JM]: The one thing that I think is super

[JM]: lame about it is it doesn't support all Apple Pencils. So for example the Apple Pencil Pro that I have for my iPad Pro will not work with this iPhone Duo because it pairs and charges by attaching to the iPad, and there is no way to do that to the iPhone Duo. So you have to buy the other USB-C chargey thingy where you pop off the end of the pencil and you can plug it into a USB device. You have to use that particular model on this iPhone Duo, which just highlights Apple's

[JM]: extremely fragmented and nonsensical strategy when it comes to their various pencils and the devices that support them.

[JM]: So in the end, Dan, are you going to buy anything?

[DJ]: Well, yeah, it sounds like I'm going to have to buy two different Apple pencils, and that's going to be the deepest cut of all.

[DJ]: So, not quite.

[DJ]: No, I'm not quite buying anything yet, at least not when it first comes out.

[DJ]: I think for various reasons, if I did decide to buy the iPhone Duo, I would probably wait until the new year.

[DJ]: And even then, unless I just really couldn't tame my geek lust, I would be very tempted to wait until whatever is the iPhone Duo 2 or iPhone Duo, as I am sure I will call it when it comes out.

[DJ]: So just to give you a little preview of that.

[DJ]: But either way, I am really looking forward to experiencing liberation through using the iPhone Duo in the intermediate state, which might be the most inscrutable reference I will ever make.

[DJ]: You're welcome.

[JM]: Well, for the low, low starting price of $2,000, you can try out the iPhone Duo and report back to us and tell us how much you like it.

[JM]: But until then, thanks everyone for joining us on the show today.

[JM]: We hope you enjoyed it.

[JM]: You can find me on the web at justinmayer.com and you can find Dan at danj.ca.

[JM]: Reach out with your thoughts about this episode via the Fediverse at justin.ramble.space.