Hello, everyone. Welcome to episode 194 of the IA Cast. All right. With me this week, we have another good group of folks. We have Jeff Bishop with us. Hey, Jeff.

Hey, everybody. How's it going?

Yeah, good. And we have Marty SoBo.

Hey, all.

We have Lynn Schneider. Welcome, Lynn.

Hi, everybody. I'm here because I'm not all there.

Wow. All right.

We didn't even get 1 minute in.

Hey, Lynn, I have a question. If you were doing Friday fines on Friday, are you on Saturday founds?

Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Actually, I do Friday finds on Thursday, so that really confuses everything.

I understand. But, you know, if you are finding things on Friday, Saturday, you found them, right? Yep.

Yeah.

Okay, good. I'll go with.

But not least we have Taylor art. Hi, Taylor.

Hello, everyone.

We have a great podcast for you all today. And it's that time of year. It's that wonderful time of the year. September. Apple Christmas. We have several Apple Christmases throughout the year. Is that a word? Christmases?

I think yeah, it is.

It's plural.

Plural.

Or if it's not, you just made it up on.

Yeah. This is when we get our iPhones and I think do you guys look forward to this one the most probably.

It's the most popular, I would say, especially now that I'm due for an upgrade.

I like WWC better.

Well, I kind of do, too. It's when we get to see what the software will do on these new exactly.

Yeah, definitely.

Because that's truly the magic that lights up the device.

Right?

For sure.

The devices are nothing without the software.

Yeah, exactly.

We had the software. Now it's time for the hardware. So we're going to get into what we would like to see. I would like to say this isn't a rumors show, because wow. When I think about it, we've done prediction show every year before events, and I remember a time when there really wasn't a lot of rumors before these events. Now it's like we pretty much know everything we're getting. Right. But I would still like for us to talk about what we as technology enthusiasts would like to see on these devices. Right.

Yes.

So that's why we're here today for this episode. And this podcast will actually be out the day before the Apple event. So watch before the event and see how right or absolutely wrong we are.

Yeah, for sure.

And the question is, is there going to be one more thing?

I think we got our one more thing in June.

I think so. Yeah.

They bring out the one more thing on very rare occasions. I think Apple Watch was the last one more thing, wasn't it?

Well, they sort of did the vision glasses. I would think that was like the one more thing.

No, I mean before Apple, the vision.

Pro, I think you're yeah, well, no, they didn't even do that as a one more thing.

Though, did they not? I thought it was no, I don't think they did.

I thought they did because they said one more thing.

Maybe not.

Maybe not. Okay, somebody go back and look while we're on.

Somebody use the hashtag iacast on mastodon.

Someone go Google that or use feedback at iacast. Why not?

Yeah, if Chat GPT will give us the right answer.

Feedback. Yeah, that's not trained, though. Chat GPT is not trained for this.

Data for this year.

The Apple Watch was around many years.

Oh, the watch.

Yeah.

What's that?

Reminder. Michael I would suggest we do this backwards. I suggest we do the things that are not iPhone and save the iPhone for last.

Yes, I totally agree with that. And I want to talk about all the things that we want to see. So one thing that I'm excited about, that we've been hearing about, and I want to get you all's thoughts are the AirPods. So I love my AirPod Pro two S, and we're hearing rumors there might be a USBC AirPods case. AirPods pro case. Is this something you guys want or kind of predict that we'll see?

I definitely want it, and I think we're going to get it. I am trying very hard to make it. So one cable charges, all the things.

That would be awesome, wouldn't it?

I have too many cables. Condensing them would be very.

Ahead, Jeff.

Yeah, I guess I'm going to be the Odball in this podcast today, because, honestly, I think I'm just going to wait another six to nine months and wait for the next generation of AirPods Pro. Because rumor Mill says that the only difference will be the case, that there will not be any generation improvements in the actual like, they're not going to put a new chip in them. You know what mean? So I don't know.

Okay, so let me put something at you, Jeff. What if you could just buy the case for the original AirPod Pro two S that you already own, then would you do it?

If someone were to buy me the case, yes, I would take it. I don't know that I would go off and buy it. Wait, a year ago, if you were to ask me that a year ago when I had a lot more income that I could play with, oh, I will do it, no question. I'd go out and buy it. But no, now things are a little bit different in my world, so I'm having to be a little more careful.

Let me pose this thought to you guys. May Apple not put this out, because Apple is really trying to do this environmental friendly kind of thing.

And if they're coming out and if.

They were to put out a case with USB C, what would everybody do with their old cases? Would they just throw them away? Or what would they do? And how much e waste would that, you know, apple's really trying to avoid that.

See, this is why I don't think they're going to be coming out with them. I think they're going to wait and wait until the next generation.

I mean, they've done it before, where they put out a case by itself.

With yeah, they have the wireless.

They've done it with an iPad. Also, in the year that they switched to Lightning, I think it was the iPad Three they came out with, the only change was to leave that 32 pin port that they had on there to Lightning. And that was the only change.

And they did it in the same.

Year they announced the i. Yes, they did. And then, like, a few months later, they re announced it. And the only difference was, with a different port, they took away the 32 pin and they added a Lightning.

The 30 pin. Yeah.

And by the way, I've got, like, 40 of these Lightning cables.

Yeah.

So, honestly, I don't want to cry and draw these cables away.

Well, as Michael Deutsche would say, more.

I don't know.

Yeah, more.

I mean, I've got plenty of them and I've got really good ones.

That's really long, because I like my cables super long.

I love my cables long.

I guess one of my questions now is one of my favorite pair of headphones was the AirPod Three S. But when the Pros got all the features they did, like the volume raising and lowering, it just made my Three so obsolete. If they came out with Fours this time, would that be exciting? Because one of the things with the Threes I really like is, michael, you.

Just asked a really interesting question. Now, if they came out with Fours, would Jeff buy Fours? And I think the answer would be yes.

Really?

Yes. Well, first of all, they're a lot cheaper. Right. They're not as expensive as the Pros. I actually have both the AirPod Threes and the Pros, and I use them under different circumstances. Like, if I'm just at my house, I'll use the Threes. But if I'm outside or I'm in a car or in a van or something and it's really noisy, then I'll use the Pros. So it just depends on my environment. And I might buy the Force if they were to come out with I never thought about this. Yeah, that's very interesting. Okay.

But on that kind of technology, what else could they possibly do besides add USBC? I mean, we're not talking about better transparency or any of that kind of stuff. What else are they going to do?

The Threes do not let you raise or lower the volumes. They don't have the stems where you could do that with those AirPods, but.

They'Re a lot cheaper. They're like $100 cheaper.

Yeah. So if you could do the yeah, Taylor can't use them as well.

I wouldn't buy them.

Yeah, but if you could raise or lower the volume, you get the here around them like you get with regular AirPods and things like that. I might be buying them.

Yeah, that'd be enough for you to buy those over spending the more money on the Pros?

Yes, because every Pro, I mean, I still love my Pros. I won't say I don't. But one of the things that I'm finding again with my Pros is those internal microphones get clogged, and so my transparency is not working as well. I have to clean them more. They're harder to clean than the regulars. And I got to replace the tips on the Pros every six months because of they become malformed and things like that.

That's the only thing I don't like about the Pros.

So with the threes and the twos and the ones, I could just take a toothbrush and some compressed air and clean them out. And it's not as easy to do that on the Pros.

No. Now, Michael, do you think they'll put the new U two chip in the AirPod three S, like they are with the Watch?

Possibly, but I think they would bring it to the H three with the headphone the headphone chip.

Yeah, but I meant that technology, right? Like, the Watch is getting the U two chip. The iPhone 15 is they're saying it might get it, but it might be the 16 that gets the U two chip, which is going to improve the ability to locate people and that kind of stuff. So that was announced by Marco.

There's also rumors that our AirPods will be able to unlock our devices if we have them.

Wait, I've heard that before.

Can't they do that?

Maybe. Maybe our current one?

Oh, no. The Apple Watch can not the AirPods.

I have my watch to do it right now.

That's the other thing I have to enable. Oh, God. Okay, we'll get there.

Yeah.

Well, with Apple doing a lot of the health type things, I wonder if the new ones will be able to take our temperatures like these ear thermometers.

I don't think so.

I don't think so on AirPods.

No.

Maybe eventually.

That's coming, I think, but I don't think that's coming now. The only health thing I've heard is in the Watch and that they are improving the heart sensor in the watch, which is always good.

It's always good.

So do we think that there's going to be any unexpected devices that we're going to see this time that you guys want to see?

No, but I think we'll see more about vision. Yeah, I think they'll show like fantastical or drafts or something on the because those developers have already come out publicly and talked about them going to the lab and actually seeing their product live on the glasses. And so I suspect that they're going to bring they'll show some footage of developers testing their product in lab.

I've seen some really neat developer videos where somebody was showing they had a music player that was with the Vision Pro and it was sitting on a dresser and they actually put their hand out and spun it around like a credit card, like spinning on a table. It was so cool. I'm just wondering about the accessibility of such things.

I know that could be a little bit interesting to implement for accessibility.

I don't think we'll see new Macs at this event. I think that either they will be announced as a press release or there will be a Mac event in October.

I'm guessing there will be an October event as well.

Me too.

So what do you think we're going to look at? New Imacs? Maybe 27 new Imacs, 32 inch Imac, something like that?

I don't think we're getting a 32 inch Imac. I think the larger Imac is gone. I think it's no longer well, this.

Is where they'll announce the M Three.

Well, I don't know that we're going to see. Well, we could see an M three in October. I have a feeling it'll be March next year.

I don't think you'll see the M Three, Max, but I think you might see the M Three because I think.

This kind of stuff is like on a 1416 month cycle, if I'm remembering right.

So that means the first things that came out with the M Two was the MacBook Air. So you think a new Mac last July? M three.

So this might be october might be the time when we see that on the M Three. We'll see.

And do you think that's worthy enough to bring to an actual event? Because do you think they're going to redesign it or anything, or just put the new chip in it?

Well, we might get a product event video, like we got with the it.

Will be an hour long event, just like they did before. Yeah, it won't be like the iPhone event, which will be a two hour event.

On the 16 inch MacBook Pro, they went from the M One to the M Two, and other than that, there wasn't a whole lot of changes. A couple of small things, but nothing.

Yeah, on that event they did just a press release and videos. Right. But I think with the M Three, they're going to go to that new three nanometer process, which will increase the speed and efficiency of the chips by a lot more than the M Two. A lot of people said the M Two was a stopgap.

But the M Two is already so fast, though.

Yeah, it is.

Oh, my goodness.

So we've got AirPods. We've talked about those watches. Do we think we're going to get an Ultra this year?

Yeah, I think we will.

I think we will for sure.

But the question is, should you buy it? And I'd say again, I'm going to be Mr. Negative, I guess. So. They've already shown the future of Watch Ten coming out next year. Which is supposed to be a revolutionary change and a complete overhaul of the watch. And so if I'm spending $900 on a watch because I will go with the Ultra again, because I love the size, the form factor, love it, love it, love it, love it. Then I'm going to wait, unless they shock me and put blood glucose monitoring in the watch this time. I don't think they are, though. But I'll tell you something, they could do that and charge $5,000 for it and I would buy it.

Yeah, me too.

Well, here's the thing. Let's see, since the four up until now, I think they haven't really changed the chip. Or maybe they did once in the six.

No, they've changed it, but they are saying that we are going to see a dramatic performance improvement in this watch.

So I have an eight.

What is it?

Plus the eight large one, whatever that is, the 42 millimeter, whatever the millimeter is on it.

Well, then you should upgrade. If you have an eight, then you should upgrade, probably.

Well, how much more performance am I going to get out of a nine opposed to an eight?

So you're not buying the Ultra, right. So you're getting I got a regular eight plus, whatever, 499 or three. Did you get the cellular one or.

Did you get yes, I did. I got the larger one and the cellular version.

So that's like 529 or whatever it is.

I don't know that this year would be a good one to upgrade to.

I don't know, it depends. I mean, you're going to have to look at it to see what the other features are. But I sure as heck would not buy the Ultra for 749 for that. No. Why aren't you buying the Ultra, Marty? Come on, step up, man.

Yeah, I know, I should.

Too big for me. I don't like it.

The one thing I think I'm kind of excited about if they do it on the regular versions is adding the button that you can assign to any sort of task or any app or whatever. What are they button?

I think they call it yes, that's on the Ultra.

I heard they're going to bring that to the regular eight or nine in this case.

Right. And they're bringing it to the iPhone.

See, that's cool.

We'll get there, we'll get to iPhones.

Which is one of the bigger reasons why I might upgrade to the new iPhone, but I don't know. Don't be surprised if I have a pattern today, though, folks.

Yeah.

And my thought on the, on the new watches, I've got an Ultra. I really love my ultra. Anytime they can increase battery power, which I don't think they're going to do. Right. But if they said you could get one more day out of the new.

They might with a new chip, though. Michael.

Yeah, I know. See, I hate charging my watch. I just don't like it. I want it on my wrist as much as possible for as long as.

I want it to go. A.

Want with the with the ultra. You could turn on that low power mode and it will go a week.

But it turns a bunch of features off, though. Yeah.

So I don't know. It's one of those things that time will guess. We'll see what happens on Tuesday. We'll see how much money Apple will get. Michael to mean I will always buy the new phone. I've bought every new iPhone since the original.

Right.

Except I don't know if I'm going to be able to justify we're going to see about the watch. Am I going to justify getting a nine or do I keep the eight for another year?

The only thing I did, I skipped the five c, I did not own one of those. And I think there may have been one other.

Now, what did you do the year of the eight and the ten? Because those came out at the same.

I didn't go with the ten. I didn't go with the ten.

I went with the ten. It was a no brainer for me. But if you think about it, the ten was kind of like the equivalent of the pro model that year, right? The eight was the regular and the ten became the pro. And I think that that's kind of where everybody's gone from there. And I might be wrong. You all may not agree with me. I still say the iPhone X was the best iPhone ever made. I absolutely love that phone. Loved it, loved it, loved it.

And that was the year that the price significantly jumped. And it's gotten more expensive every year since.

That sort of in smaller amounts. Yes, we will see. So do we want to talk about phones or is there anything else you guys want to talk about beforehand?

Well, let's talk about iOS first.

I was just going to say the HomePod.

What do they call that, the speaker?

The HomePod.

Yeah. Is that anything going to change with that?

Are they going to good question, Lynn. Good question. They've only released one HomePod mini. They've increased the colors since then, but they haven't changed it.

I don't think they're going to do anything. I don't say that because it's equal to the regular HomePod, which just came out, what, the beginning of this year? I mean, the size is obviously different and the speakers are different, but I'm talking about the technology in them are equal.

I don't think they're going to do anything.

But when they did announce the minis, it was at an iPhone event, I believe.

Now they're going to release new software for them and they're adding more capability to them. But I don't think you're going to see new hardware, though, personally. It might be the one more thing. I don't know.

It could be since they're around, I call them home balls. Well, they're exactly round. I mean, they look like a little ball that you can roll.

They are, yeah. You know what's most annoying, though, about them? If you pair two of them, siri only speaks out of one.

Really? I think the big ones do, too.

Wow.

I only have one, so I can't speak to having two in stereo in.

I have one of the old big HomePods in the bedroom where I am now. We have a stereo pair in the living room and Taylor's room has one HomePod mini. And then in each room we pretty much have an echo.

So I bought two of them so that when I am listening to movies, I listen to them on them as opposed to the speakers of my television because they produce better audio.

Yeah.

The only thing I don't like is whenever I use my paired set that's hooked up to my TV, it has to turn on the TV for them to work. Which is so weird because it's hooked up to the Apple TV.

Yeah, mine are, too.

So I kind of wish they would.

Fix that through.

Ios. And we got a good amount of knowledge on that during the event. But what do you guys want to see? We still don't have the journaling app.

I was just going to say that we don't have the Journaling App, which.

Is has anyone even seen it in testing at all?

No. My guess is it will be a 17 One feature.

Yeah.

Which will probably get a public beta of the day they release probably no, they'll probably release it the day that they release the Gold Master to the world on the 18th.

Yes.

So my guess is we'll get final iOS 17 for all devices in the public and then they'll release 17 One. That's my educated guess.

Yeah, you're probably right. And that's kind of the big thing I've been waiting for in iOS is the Journaling App. I've wanted to play with that for a long time.

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what they do with it.

So do we think we're going to see Mac software come out this time, or october?

No, october.

October.

Yeah.

They'll probably wait until if they're going to announce some kind of new Mac or processor, that's when they'll probably release it.

Right. So I guess the last thing to talk about is the phones. The phones, everything. It's always the thing people want to hear about new iPhones.

So I have a question, Michael, about this new camera in the iPhone. They talk about it being a telescoping lens.

I think they call it a parallel or something like that. I've always heard no, a periscope.

Periscope.

Does that mean it's actually going to have a motor in it and you're going to push a button and it's going to extend out of the device?

So a telescoping lens would do that? It would extend out of the device, but a periscoping lens would come out, like, spring up and I don't think we're going to see a periscoping lens. A telescoping lens, possibly, but I don't know that we'd see a periscoping lens and the telescope. Yeah, other phones have it. I just don't see Apple doing that. More moving parts is not good on a phone.

I was just going to say this is apt to break.

Android phones do have this. I just don't see Apple doing it.

And then how do you retract it? Then? You have to push a button to retract the camera lens.

Well, on a periscoping lens you would, but on a telescoping, it would do it on its own.

Can you imagine, like, people, the way they treat their phones? Throw them in purses pockets, whatever.

That's what I'm saying.

Yeah. And I think people may be rougher on iPhones, and I'm making assumptions here, but there are Android phones that do this. Of course, there's Android phones that could do everything. Right? So I don't know. And I don't think we're going to see an iPhone fold. I don't like the idea of folding phones. I haven't seen one. People say they're you, Lynn, do you want a folding iPhone?

Lynn?

I guess I can't really see any good reason to have a folding iPhone.

I agree with you.

Unless you want to bridge in like your Spock or something.

Unless it would well, I can think that sighted people might like more screen real estate.

Okay.

It would be cool, though, if you had the communicator sound, so that if you did have an iPhone and you flipped it up, it would make the sound.

In all seriousness, though, somebody on TikTok actually took the pixel fold and put the what is it called, el cars or whatever the Star Trek computer interface is. And it looked like a folding Star Trek computer.

Yeah, I love that.

That would be awesome. If it made the sound when you opened it up, that would just be great.

They probably did. I don't know.

Or like if you could unfold it and you would have speakers, like better speakers somehow.

Well, they do have four speakers on some of those folding phones. So you would unfold it and it would become an iPad mini, basically. But I don't know, I like having separate devices. You have an iPhone with that form factor and then an iPad mini with its form factor. Maybe I'm just old fashioned.

I agree with you, Michael.

I like my devices, but too many parts, there's too many moving parts, too many ways to break it. And then you're still getting into that realm of, well, you have the folding phone. You have the best phone ever, even though it's just another phone. Right. And we already have this concept know, shaming based on what phone you have in the world. So I don't see Apple doing it. I don't see a point. I mean, it's kind of like we're getting to this point where VR AI folding phones, if a company doesn't have that, then they're behind. Right. And I just don't think that a company having a certain thing puts them behind or not. It's what is the company's focus? Apple is hardware, right?

Yep. So I think it's both, really.

Well, no, Apple has always been a hardware company. That is their focus. They make good software to go with the hardware that complements the hardware. But Microsoft, for example, Google, for example, they're software companies. They focus on software and the hardware goes along with the software. Apple's the reverse. They build hardware and the software goes along with the hardware. So phones, USB C, that's the elephant and not the mastodon in the okay.

So here's a question that I have. Is it going to be just straight up USB C or is it actually gonna be Thunderbolt? Because I have heard some rumors about them having a Thunderbolt cable, but of course, in Apple fashion, you're going to have to buy it separately.

I think it's going to be an MFI USBC cable, and I think you're going to get limited speed with generic USBC cables. And if you want high speed, you're going to need to spend whatever that's going to be. 39.

Is that going to satisfy the European Union and whatever their rules now? I mean, I guess that's why Apple's doing this in the first place, to satisfy the EU.

Well, to standardize. The EU is trying to standardize, and they're trying to say that iPhone needs to be a part of that standardizing. And the only thing they're really saying is USB C. They're not requiring Thunderbolts or anything aside from us.

I don't think they you know, who knows? We'll have to because what would be.

The point of changing the cable if it's not, I guess, standard, you know what I mean?

The Thunderbolt technology allows you to use Thunderbolt, but it's backwards compatible to USBC. If you just have a regular USBC device. That's the cool thing about Thunderbolt.

A Thunderbolt is much more expensive.

It's really a shame because I have a cable here, it's USB C. I can charge my Mac with that thing, and I can charge my mantis with it. And both of those cables will charge the Mac and the mantis with no problem. And it's like, I just dream of a day when we have one cable that charges everything. It would just be awesome.

Well, and that's why Apple changed from the 30 pin to Lightning, is because, believe it or not, apple wanted to put USBC on the iPhone back with the iPhone five, I think it was, when they put Lightning on the iPhone. The problem was that the USBC spec wasn't ready at the time.

Okay, yeah, I was going to say it wasn't out then for I don't.

Think it was out yet.

Right. It wasn't know Apple was on. The group making USB C and it wasn't ready and so they made Lightning. And when Apple puts a connector on their devices, they don't want to change it for a long time. There's an article by Mark German that says that Apple is being pulled, kicking and screaming into USBC, and I disagree with that because I feel know they could go one more year, they don't have to do it till next year.

Yeah, it was Marco, it was Mark that was I made a mistake earlier.

Just to correct and I feel there's there's a lot of people saying that Apple doesn't want to do this, and I think they do. Apple just wants to really make sure it's the right time. And I'm sure they want to get as much out of MFI as they can before they have to ditch the Lightning MFI program.

But no one's forcing them to change. You would think they'd ride it out as long as possible because they're making a ton of money on that Lightning port because of the licensing that people have to pay third party companies to be able to make a certified Lightning cable. And as long as companies have to pay Apple to make a certified Lightning cable, that's money in Apple's pocket. Do you think they're willingly wanting to give that up just for a free port that everyone uses?

Yes.

There's no more having to pay Apple to make that cable.

Yes, but I'll tell you why. If I'm recording four K or higher video on my iPhone using ProRes Raw, like say I'm doing YouTube and really high quality stuff, right, or say I'm making a film, it is actually faster to get that off with WiFi than it is with the Lightning cable on that phone. And that should not be because with a USBC cable I can pull 2.5gb a second off of that phone with.

A standard USBC cable.

Well, with a Thunderbolt cable, I think, but at least on the Pro models, if they put Thunderbolt and make it to where videographers and people can do better footage with the iPhones, what does that do?

Sells more iPhones, probably true, I would say.

Yeah.

So that's one of the reasons why they're doing it. But I think they wanted know wait, as long as they of people, a lot of people in industry, in the film industry have been saying apple, we need this, or we're switching to Android for certain.

And here's an interesting question. If they do switch to USB C or USB C and have a Thunderbolt option on maybe the Pro models or whatever the case may be, what's the attraction for people to jump from Android and come over to Apple finally, if it's got that USB C port or USB C with an option to go Thunderbolt?

Good question. Android phones have good screens, iPhones have good screens, they both have good cameras. But there's one area where iPhones are better speakers. I have not found an Android phone where I've liked the speakers as much as I have an.

For that matter microphones too, right?

Michael?

Certain microphones, yes. Certain devices on Android do not have the best microphones. So it just depends. And I was watching a video from Marquez Brownlee where he's doing iPhone and Android comparison and I do not believe that we should be doing these kind of videos these days because of such a thing as platform need. People need to be happy with what they have instead of being told that this is better than that because then their friends are going to say well, I saw this video where your iPhone is less customizable so why are you using it? Right?

Not everybody wants the best. I mean not everybody needs the best. You know what I mean?

This goes to talk about the whole standard for text messaging, right? Because Apple has messages, imessage, whatever you want to call it these days. But they have their own platform for messaging which is on every Apple device and it works great, but it only works great on every Apple device and it also fails if everybody else in the world isn't on an Apple device. And so you were talking about shaming and they're talking know how much of a big deal it is for oh, you only have a green bubble, you don't have the blue bubble, you're not cool, blah, blah, blah a lot of.

Times in schools young people, but not only young people, adults as well. It's weird how it is but yeah, there is a lot of social stigma.

About certain things and they tout all this technology built into imessage or the messages app, right? But if the person that you're texting with has an Android device or any other device that's not Apple, you lose all of that technology and it just goes straight back to plain old SMS messaging with no security value to it at all. Nothing. It's just completely out mean it would be great if that standard would go across all the devices and everyone could swallow their pride a little bit and work together well.

And one thing is know Apple Google's using this RCS thing and it has its own problems, imessage has its own problems and I don't think that everybody's saying the answer is RCS, but keep in mind RCS still relies on the carrier. That is not the right answer.

It needs to be.

So I think that we're still a long way off from solving this issue but I want to acknowledge our YouTube listeners. So thank you guys for being here and listening. We have a chat message saying that the person watching would love to see a smaller iPhone again because of they are totally blind and it fits better in the hand and I agree with that. One issue with that is the bigger chips with the batteries do not have enough heat dissipation area to stay cool. And so that's kind of a problem. On the newer phones, the closest thing is the Ses, which are pretty small. But I do think when Apple starts investigating new technologies, they may go down that road again in a few years. I don't think that'll happen for a while, but possibly on the three nanometer and things like that.

If the phones get too big, I'm going to have to get new pants because my pockets will not fit my phone.

We're also talking about on those smaller phones, the battery doesn't last nearly as long, and then that's a thing for a lot of people, but for some.

People it doesn't matter, right?

That's right. I was just going to say, if.

You'Re at a desk all day long, you can plug it in.

Yeah, well, and some people just don't even while out, they don't use their phone that much, or they use their watch or their iPad or all the other things some people use the phone as. Imagine this a phone.

Yeah, that is true.

So it just depends. But we still haven't gotten to we've talked about USBC and the cameras, but I think we're going to get Titanium phones now. What are your thoughts on this?

Well, it'll make them lighter weight. So if you can make your phone lighter in a larger size, because right now the pros are pretty heavy, I would say they're significantly heavier than the regular phones, which means the 14 regular, they come in a regular size and a large size. The Pro versions of those are much heavier due to the material, and so they're trying to make those a little bit lighter, I think. And when you're talking about a Max, which is a pretty beefy phone, if you can shave some weight off of that, I think a lot of people would appreciate that.

Agreed.

Agreed. And if you want to hear why Titanium is such a good option, listen to the latest episode of the Nosilicast. Great discussion of aluminum compared to Titanium by Allison. Great stuff.

Yeah, for.

Great. Then I've also heard that this new phone may have a curved, like, rounded edge back and a flat front. What are y'all's thoughts on that? Because Apple has gone through three year cycles of the same design, and this has been the third year.

Interesting contact loose. Have to see how it plays out.

A rounded back. I'm trying to picture that.

I know.

Just like the old phones where both sides were rounded, but this time it will just be the back with the rounded corners.

Okay, so it's more like a visual thing, right?

More of a no, it'll be a tactile thing, too.

It'll be a little bit more comfortable.

So do we think we'll see a change in speakers? Is that something that we want or we're predicting will happen?

I'm not, I think, pretty solid.

Now, the last action item to talk.

About the action button.

It's the action button.

That was clever.

I try. Not very hard, but I try. Is the action button do we think we're getting this on all the phones or the Pro phones right now?

Well, on one hand, on all of.

Them, and I'm torn. I'm kind of riding the fence and not sure which way to go because in some instances they bring something and they put it on all the phones, but in other instances, they bring it only to the pro model, and then they don't bring it to the whole entire line until the next year. And the Dynamic Island is a good example of that. They've only brought it to the pros the first year, but now they're going to bring it to the whole line. Supposedly we'll see when they actually announce it.

Okay, but I think iOS 17 beta is giving this away. I think if you use the mute switch on your phone, it announces differently now.

Oh, really? I'll have to check that out.

Who knows? Now we're just playing guessing games. Yes, but that's why this is so fun. Right? And I'm going to probably be completely wrong, so that's fine. But my guess is that we're going to see this button on all of the devices, and I think you're going to see, like the rumor has said, where you can define up to like, 15 different activities for this button. The one thing I'm wondering about is, can you define things like if I hold the button down for a longer period of time, or if I double click the button, or if I triple click the button, then what does it do?

I bet we can. And that's exciting, folks.

If we can do that, then that's amazing.

That's kind of like backtap, but better.

But it opens up all kinds of possibilities.

Oh, yeah.

So this is the one feature, and no one's talked about this, but I think we're going to see a I hate to even give numbers, but I think we're going to see probably a 25% to 30% increase in battery performance.

Okay. Really?

Wow.

How do you think that's going to happen? Just curious.

They said that the components in the phone are smaller and they're going to allow for a larger sized battery.

Interesting.

Well, that would go with probably the new chip that they're putting in there. So that will be if all these things, even the action button, and that happen. Okay. Who am I kidding? I'm buying it anyway.

I know, yes.

But are you going to go for? Which one are you going to go for?

The max regular promax. I always go for promax or ultra. I'm going to call it the Ultra this year.

That's what I'm going to go for this year. Whatever the big one is. Whatever they call it. The pro big one? Max Ultra?

Who knows?

Whatever they call it.

And just think, guys, in five more years, we're going to have the iPhone 20.

Let's see the new phone, the large one. My guess is going to be called the Max this year, and next year it will be called the Ultra to align with the Apple Watch Ultra.

All right, let's start our bingo cards, folks.

Okay, what do they call hold on.

And I could be totally wrong.

What do they call the large regular one, which was the first year they did it last year?

That's the plus.

So you think we're going to have a plus, and we're going to have an Ultra.

Oh, we know that, yes. Well, we're going to have a plus.

Pro Ultra or Max.

Yeah, we're going to have a plus, and we're going to have a Max this year. Next year, we will have a plus and an Ultra, and probably the Pro.

Right in the middle.

And the Pro will be the smaller phone in the pro line.

Yeah. All right, write it down.

Today is September 9, 2023. Jeff will be seen as being completely, 100% wrong. That's completely fine.

We'll start our bingo cards on Tuesday. During the event, we'll be streaming this to Iacast Radio, and I will be on and what we'll do is during the phone event, and we'll say one point to Jeff if he gets one and one point from yeah.

And they're going to come out with the Ultra on Tuesday. You watch. And they're going to completely screw Mike.

We'll see if Jeff gets a bingo or if he loses all of his points.

Yeah. Something tells me I'm not going to do well this year.

But it'll be fun either way. That's what it's all about. That's what it's all about.

Sure. That's the fun part of it. Just trying to figure out what they're thinking, what they're doing.

Right.

The only reason I think that they're going to wait on the Max versus Ultra name is because I think they're going to really want to emphasize the Ultra next year for the Watch.

Yeah.

And I think they're going to want to really brand across that. And I think there'll be a really significant push by Apple to do something great. They're also talking about revolutionary changes in the iPhone next year, too, and, you know, whatever that means. I have no know.

One thing I want to talk about here is we're not here to spread rumors that we hear online. We're talking about what we've heard and what we think, but we're really talking about what we want. More specifically, my belief, and I think everybody here is the rumors are rumors. Apple, we did not know it was going to be called the Vision OS or the Vision Pro. We had no clue.

Yeah, I had no idea. I thought it was going to be like Vision One or Apple One something.

We thought it was going to be like the OS would be XR OS.

Yes.

Right now, funny thing is, I have still seen when you go to download betas, it says Xros beta. Believe it or not, it says that.

I bet you that's a code word. I bet you that's a lot of companies will use a code word internally. I bet you it's called that internally.

Yeah.

Or what do you think it'll be in the end?

Well, it's Vision OS.

We know that it's Vision OS, we know what it is. But I think internally they probably had a code word for it. You know what I mean?

Companies do this yes, all the time.

Like Sydney for one of Microsoft's models was called, you know, before it was called Was. That was their internal code name. And somehow it got.

They they code names get revealed all the time. They do that on purpose. So know, it's like, oh, there's this new project, but nobody knows what it is. They just know of this code name.

How is Apple keeping secrets now, though? Because normally well, they're doing a lot better.

They're doing a lot better at it.

Yeah, that's what I mean, because normally stuff would just come out.

There was a report on a podcast, I listened to that one of the biggest whistleblowers was arrested a few years ago.

I was going to say that they're putting people in prison for this now.

Wow.

Yeah. This is stealing trade secret, closing trade secrets.

Do you really think that? I mean, if someone's just trying to leak what's coming out absolutely.

Are you kidding me? There's probably great money in that, right?

Oh, yeah.

You could come out and say, hey, this is what the new iPhone is going to be.

And here if you could bribe somebody.

To.

Spill the beans or whatever. Well, the issue how would they find out who did it?

The issue is too, though, is that it's not only internal, I mean, they're trusting different companies that are making third party products that they want to come out at the exact same time, like iPhone cases and on and on.

The only way to do that is.

To give out some kind of specs so that they can make a correct item.

Well, that's why they have cameras and everything everywhere. And they've talked about this, about when they're building the iPhones, how stringent security.

Is, because I know that there were a lot of leaks. Like Jeff was saying, it used to be the one time there were so many leaks that when the presentation, like, nobody was surprised.

Right.

Because everything was pretty much leaked.

And the problem is, the way they do things is their thing. But Google, they make money off leaks. And so what they do is they leak it themselves and they make it.

Look I mean, they practically already announced everything. Yeah.

And they do that on purpose so that they can build around their own.

Right.

And Apple does not do know. Apple is very secretive because that's how know, if everybody knows, then they know if they should buy the iPhone or not.

Yeah.

And it changes their stock and everything. Like mean, because their stock has kind of gone way down because of the issue in China where they're not allowing their people to use iPhones for a lot of things. So it caused the stock to go down. So I think they're probably going to need to really if they don't have the Chinese market, they're really going to have to really up their game in other ways.

That's the other thing we didn't talk about, which is the price increase for these new phones.

Yeah.

They're saying that the Pro model is going to go up $100. Right.

Yeah, that's kind of expected. I think they're putting a lot into this. But again, there's rumors, and then we'll.

Find out on see, you know, they said this last year.

Does oh, go ahead, Lynn.

No, I was going to say how I guess they have to consider what the market will bear.

It's not going to make any difference. And you want to know why? Because if you think about it yeah. In the out and out, it's going to be $100 more. Well, they're saying the rumors are that it's going to be $100 more, but the majority of people pay their phone over time, and that makes $100 over two years is like I'm not even sure that equates to a dollar more. I mean, it's not going to be anything significant. People, they get their phone, they make the payment and add it to the.

It'S like $5 more.

And they don't even think about it. They're just like, whatever, just put it on my plan.

$5 more.

Yeah. I don't think it's going to be anything that people are going to really worry about that much.

Okay, so before we leave this, let's all just go around the table and say, what are the features that would definitely make you buy the new phone?

Action button.

Yes.

USB C. And action.

Button Lyn I would say action button. Yeah.

Okay. For me, it's got to be battery first because I'm always on the battery. I want more and more and more juice and then the action and then the action button. I really don't care about the camera because I don't know that, honestly, we're going to get much more for what we utilize the camera for, for things like be my AI and that type of thing. And if we do, it's going to take so much time that it probably will take six to nine months before they actually can actually implement such features due to the changes in the architecture. That's not a selling point to me. So it's battery first and then action button would be the next thing for.

So before we go, I want to bring up one thing. Jeff just has made another switch on us, and he is using a mac again. And Jeff, do you want to talk about how that experience is for you kind of coming back to the Mac?

Yes. Well, this is very fascinating because we started this conversation and I said, I have an M One MacBook Air with eight gig of Ram and 256 gig blah, blah, blah. And apparently that's not what I have. Apparently after Jason's like, Well, I said, well, it's got big feet on it. He goes, well, what kind of feet does it have? And I'm like, well, I don't know. Let me go look at it. Let me go fond on my feet and go, see, I don't know. That's going to be the title of the show now. Let me go fond on my feet.

I see.

John Chip just came up.

With the title of the show for us. That's all we need.

Now.

What turned out to be an M One turns out to be an M Two with 16 gig of Ram, which, by the way, I was told it was an M One, so that's why I was going on that and I went and looked. But it's weird, and I don't know where the other eleven gig is. I'm going to figure that out after the show. I'm going to see if I'm going to try to anyway or other partitions somewhere. It shows 245 gig of storage and not 256. I'd like to understand there might be.

A recovery part if it crashes. There is a way to boot it up into, like, a recovery mode so that if you had to reformat but.

Eleven gig doesn't, that it's big.

I don't know, that just seems a.

Lot because I think the 512 version says 500 gigs.

Well, if you go to your Applications folder, you go down to Utilities and you open up Disk Utility, you'll be able to see how many partitions the drive actually.

And I will do that after the show. I'll return and report.

All right.

Okay. Now, keep in mind, I have not touched a Mac in any serious way in about six and a half years. I used to work at Microsoft. I do not any longer. And not that people at Microsoft use Macs, too, by the way. I just didn't. So I haven't been on macOS in a really long time. And of course it's changed a lot. It's coming back pretty quickly. But my God, I spent an hour yesterday trying to figure out how to turn on the feature to allow Voiceover to speak at login, which is in the most bizarre place in system settings I've ever seen before on a Mac. It's under the lock screen. Are you freaking kidding me right now? I'm not trying to be negative here.

Right?

How is that even discoverable how would you know that there were accessibility settings under there? Why can't you just put a button in Accessibility Settings or under Voiceover or something that links you there? Right.

A universal keyboard shortcut that would work.

From that screen or something. I just found it very confusing because I went to General and then I went to Accessibility and I thought, oh, I recall it used to be under Users and Groups as a login item thing and you have to enable it there and of course it's not there. Right? So I don't know the question.

So people don't email in and go, oh, just make it so you do automatic login. We did discuss this. And you are not able to do.

That due to I'm not able to do that. Right, yes. So it's an Enterprise login, I have to log in with my work account, blah, blah, blah.

Can't you not have automatic login if you have a password set?

Anyway, not on Enterprise, no, not on Enterprise, no.

Even if you don't have Enterprise, if.

You don't use Enterprise, then what you do is you log into the desktop, you go into System settings, you go to User and Accounts.

And then what you do is you.

Do your check a box, you put your credentials in, and then after that, every time you boot up your computer, it'll light to go all the way to the desktop. But if you're on Enterprise, it does not give you that option.

Right, but at least I can use fingerprint, though, which is marvelous because I can't do that on my PC. Yeah, so the only other thing that right now has been totally screwing me up, which is just going to be one of these things you just have to get used to. And I'm wondering if any of you Mac users can guess what it is. We've discussed this. So Lynn, I think you're the only one that can track no, we're talking keyboard. So the FN key for those that don't know the FN key on a Mac is the far left key, which of course on a PC is what? The control key?

Control keep going into that character palette.

Yes. And I'm telling you right now, I about nearly killed somebody trying to figure out how to turn that off because it was like, are you freaking kidding me right now? Because by habit you're hitting that FN key. Shut up. And then it pops up in this stupid thing. Anyway, it's just one of these things that you just have to get used to it. But other than that, I've got my printer working, I've got a whole bunch of apps installed, I got overcast, which, by the way, I'm not happy with on the Mac, by the way, it's got issues. I'm going to start calling it Undercast because it's not performing very well on iOS and it's got issues on Mac. Anyway, I'll stop there.

Right? That character palette thing drives me crazy too.

You turn that off on your keyboard settings, by the way, just so you good. And yes, thank you, everyone, for telling me how to do that because that was driving me banana. That was Michael Babcock who told me that. So thank you, kind sir. You are a gentleman and a scholar. And it took Jason Castingway to help me find the lock screen thing. Three other people did not know the answer to know due diligence wins.

Just so you guys know, you cannot enable automatic login if File Vault is on.

Yep. And I'm forced to use file vault. In fact, when I booted it up when I got home, because they gave me the laptop and they said, okay, everything is downloading when you get home, just turn it on. It will finish downloading everything. So I turned it on and it said, you must enable File Vault, and if you don't enable it, then you cannot log into the device. I'm like, well, I guess I'm enabling file vault.

Is that an Enterprise thing? You have to have File Vault on with enterprise?

Yes. Well, I think you can enable it's a policy. It's a policy so they could enable it. And I understand it. It makes perfect sense.

It's good to encrypt your hard drive.

Yeah, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine. I have no problem with that. I was just a little surprised by that. I was like, oh my gosh, I'd never seen that before.

I have, and I've had so many issues.

File Vault used to have a lot.

Of issues, but I haven't had any issues. I don't get the beeps and all that weird stuff.

They fixed all of those issues from what I've been told.

Yes, that's the hope.

Right?

So I will return and report over the next month or two and just let you know how my Mac experience is going. But so far Jeff, have you had.

Any experience with Braille on the Mac?

Considering that I've only used the Mac for about 2 hours, so sorry about no, no. I mean, I just literally got it this week. And yesterday was the first day that I spent most of the afternoon starting to configure it and get it all going and all of that. So I did get Microsoft Edge on it, though, so I'm happy about that. I like Edge.

Okay.

I don't like the 1.5 gigs it takes up.

Whatever. It's fine. It's all good.

Are you a Bing guy or no?

I don't know. I don't like I like the results that it gives. I just don't like how cluttered it feels. And I'm hoping that that will get better over time. I think Chat GPT has got it nailed pretty well. I have not played enough with Google's Bard product. I'm hearing from Brian Hargin that actually that's a really great screen reader experience. I've heard that. So I need to play with that. But boy, AI is oh my gosh. We're talking about it at work all the time. I work at the University of Arizona again, which is wonderful. I'm so happy. To be back working with that team. It was like returning home. It was like returning back to a family. It was wonderful. And I have a window and a door, but no doorknob. Now, it might be there by now, but when I left, I still did not have a doorknob, but I at least have the window now. And I have the door, but I do not have a doorknob. And then when I get the doorknob knob, then I have to go across campus and give them my blood and sign papers and get keys. So eventually, sometime next week, I hope to actually have a full office. And then we will party. We'll throw an office.

Yay. All right, terrific.

Well, and then the other thing I will just mention here, just because I think it's kind of hilarious, actually, because there's a little story behind that. Do we have time for this, Michael?

Yeah, we'll squeeze it in here.

So I thought, well, why not? I will bring an A device to the office, because how cool would that be to be able to listen to things like Apple Music and the like, until I forgot that I did not have a purchase Pin on my said device. And I didn't realize that until after I left the office. So I was freaking out trying to figure out, oh no, what do I do? And the A device app on the iPhone had a bug in it where you could not get to the settings screen on the More tab. And so I had to unlink my A device that was at work until Amazon fixed it, but they have since fixed it, and now I can listen to Apple Music on my A device at work, which I think is kind of interesting. So now I have PC, Mac, and Amazon devices on my desk. So it's very strange.

Where I thought you were going with that, is that somebody tried to purchase.

A MacBook Pro using your A i. But I did test that, by the way. And the way that it works when you don't have a pin is it simply just adds it to your cart and then you have to go approve it. Thank freaking goodness.

Because if it just got automatically, it.

Just went without your yeah, that would have scared the bejibis out of me.

A friend of mine did that to me. He said a lady purchased a MacBook Pro, and in the background you could hear my echo. Got it. Added MacBook Pro, $2,500 to cart.

But if you do add you want.

To purchase and I'm like, no, but.

I think if you actually add a pin, it actually places the order, so I believe no, I have not actually tested it because I haven't figured out what I want to buy. That's like something throwaway. Can I buy something for ninety nine cents? I don't know, maybe get a cable. Yeah. Or something.

A new USBC cable for your new iPhone.

I'll get a USBC cable. That's what I'll do. Yeah.

There you go.

Yeah, exactly. There you go. That's right. Well, I'm going to go back and continue to fondle my Mac feet.

All right.

So with all that being said, this has been another lively episode, as AI said last week. Yes, it did say that we were a lively group, which I still find hilarious. I wonder what it'll say about us this week. With all that being said. Lynn, do you have a pick for this week? And where can people find you online?

Okay, so I really like there's a YouTube channel that I like if you're into hurricanes, and it's called Hurricane Track. It is one of my favorites. The guy is awesome because he doesn't blow things out of proportion and he really tries to explain things. He geeks out, but he's good. Mark Suttith is his name, and I've been listening to his channel for years, and I do like it. So if you're into hurricanes, hurricane Track is a great channel on YouTube to subscribe think. I think you'll enjoy it and you can reach me now. I have my own email, and that would be feedback at Fridayfinds show.

Fantastic. All right, Jeff, do you want to go next?

Sure. And I'm going to give a pick. It's an oldie, but a goodie. And I think if people have not tried this on their Windows machine, then you might want to give it a try. It's called openshell. This is a shell replacement. Think of when I say shell, I'm thinking of Start menu here. Not necessarily Windows Explorer, but if you miss the good old days of Windows XP or even Windows Seven style start menu interaction, where you can do things like press a letter and actually have it jump to that item and actually speak that item and have really fast interaction with your start menu, and it just feels warm and fuzzy and beautiful and amazing and just delicious. Then go get open shell, because, my goodness, I've known about this for a really long time, but I never really played with it because I was always doing other testing and things, and I'm like, well, why not? So I installed it, and I have fallen in love with this thing. So there are other competitive versions of this that cost. Openshell is free. The other ones have some licensing restrictions, and you can only use them on three devices, and some of us have more than three, if you consider work devices and personal. Openshell is open and free and all those kind of fun things. So give it a try. You can contact me on Mastodon at Jeffbishop at mastodon online, or you can email me at [email protected]. So if you know my name, you know my email. Thank you, guys.

All right, and Marty, what about you? What's your pick and where can people find you?

So my pick.

Of course. I'm the last one on the bandwagon here, but I finally picked up a HomePod mini for the Office here and it's know I can hook up any of my Apple devices to it and listen to podcasts or music or anything like that. And surprisingly, it sounds really good for how small it is. I was surprised at how big it sounds for such a small device. So I'm enjoying it. It's fun. I got the orange one, so it's supposedly kind of bright, but it's fun.

Just like time for Halloween.

There you go.

You need to get a little mini pumpkin.

Yeah, I should get a second one. I want to do the Jeff Bishop thing and get a second one to hook it up to the Apple TV and see.

Yeah, man, they're only $99.

Yeah, no big deal. We're going to maybe just go for it so you can reach me on Macedon. I am Marty at Unmute Community.

All right, and Taylor, do you have a pick and where can people find you online?

So I was kind of like, trying to figure out what my pick know. I think that I'm in my pick. So the pick that I am choosing is our new apartment. At first I was very skeptical. Like, I don't want to move everything. I don't want to deal with it. I wasn't really happy about moving because how much of a pain moving is. But after it's all said and done and everything has been figured out and a bunch of other stuff has been dealt with this week, I think that it's been a very good move and I'm very happy to be in a new apartment. People can find me online at Tayarndt, at Techopolis. T-E-C-H-O-P-O-L-I-S social. And I'm also on X at T-A-Y-A-R-N-D-T if anybody's still over there. I still question that sometimes, so I don't really check it that often anymore, which is a big shocker, but I do check it occasionally and I'm also contributing content for Iacast.

All right, for me, I guess this is fair. I don't really have believe it or not. Okay, I'm going to pick it. I have not played it yet, but I've been watching a lot of gameplay of it is Starfield. It's an Xbox game. Looks amazing. Cannot wait to get into it. Had to get our Google Fiber Internet back up to even download the thing because I'm sure it's going to be a huge game. So that's what I'm going to be doing while I'm not watching the Apple event, is playing that. It looks amazing. It's a space based game where you could fly around, build your own ships, go to different planets, do Quests. It's made by the makers of The Elder Scrolls games and other things like that. So very excited and yeah, huge gamer. So all that fun stuff so if you want to get a hold of me, I'mike DOE's on Twitter, X, whatever you call today, I'mikedoeys at Techopolis Social. You can email me at [email protected] and I'm all over the web to search for Michael Doeies. You can find this podcast by searching for iacast and you could find the network at the Iacast network iacast Net, and you could email [email protected] to leave us feedback. And we're always wanting your feedback. And if you have questions, tech questions, we'd like to answer anything you have on the show. And we had some engagement on YouTube, so thank you to the listener that was listening on YouTube. I don't want to say people's names in case they don't want those shared, but yeah, thank you for posting and I hope you come back and we hope everybody continues to use and love the radio. We're always live when we do these things, so we're always uploading new content, so hope you guys continue to use that. It's on all the time, so all technology talk all the time. So we'll be back with more content soon and we will see you next week for another IA cast. Thanks everybody for being here, all the people that have been on the show, jeff, Marty, Taylor, Lynn, you guys have been great and I hope you guys come back soon.

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