Future of Smart Home Products

Welcome back to another episode of The Mac Romor Show. Good afternoon Hartley. How's it going today It is slightly less warm in England so I am I'm pleased. I can finally get a day's work done in peace. It is burning hot here. It is ninety five, ninety six degrees, which I believe is what it was for you, if not a little bit warmer. So I think that's like thirty five degrees Celsius. Yeah. It's bad. I like we we can't breathe. You know what? I think every episode needs to start with a weather discussion and then I think And then I think everyone needs to comment their weather in their current location. So please go ahead and take the time to do that now, especially I can't think of it be more exciting Yeah, this is the way everything go and speaking of I don't know if this is exciting. There's been some there's been some things going on that it only feels right that we at least acknowledge Um because it's out in the community. I think Apple Insider has been reporting on a lot of this and then others have uh sort of kind of gone off of those reports. There's been a massive data leak, some stolen information about to the iPhone eighteen Pro. And a lot of it backs up bleaks that were already out there. So We're kind of going go through some of those leaks and new information that we might have found out about, But I just wanted to throw this over to you and kind of fill us in on what's going on here So there was a massive theft of data from Parter Electronics, which is one of Apple's suppliers in India. Um very similar to Foxcorn, another one of these major manufacturers that will be manufacturing upcoming iPhones out of course fromrom our perspective in the media, it raises an ethical question because unlike a lot of this other information which we regularly report on, which has kind of been It's often been leaked. It's a leak from someone who knows something in the supply chain. It's usually a very small piece of information. What's happened here is actually stolen and it is stolen with the intention of holding Tter to ransom as well to extract money. So we don't really want to be a part of that. That being said, Some of this information is now out there. Other outlets like Apple Insider have been dissecting some of this information. and publicizing it And since it's out there, there are some small little details in there that are worth discussing. And one of those is what is going on with the C two modem, which is something that I don't think any of us really expected So We know that the CG modem has been rumored for the iPhone eighteen Pro for years at this point. I mean, I even seem to remember that rumor from beforefore was even the C one was announced, this roadmap for transitioning to Apple's custom modem technology lookooks like U is going to happen is there won't be a C two modem in the United States It will only be for international markets. That's crazy I u I'm confused as to why. So it does the leak information say that No, it doesn't say why, but it actually it's almost kind of obvious when you think about it. Right now, the cellular technology inside every iPhone that is available in the United States is different to every other iPhone in the rest of the world. And that is because of millimeter wave Every other iPhone, like my iPhone here, which is a UK unit does not have that little pill shaped cutout on the top of the device. millimeter wave where is your one does a millimeter away five G enables you to obtain very, very fast speeds, close proximity. and you get that, I believe in like sports stadiums in the US. it's quite narrow in terms of the kinds of places you can get coverage And as I say, it has to be a close proximity. but when you can get that, it is extremely fast U, but say in the rest of the world, like in Europe We don't have millimeter wave infrastructure at all. So there's no point Apple selling devices with that technology in Europe So it follows, therefore If the C two modem is available in the rest of the world, but not in the US must not have millimeter wave capability U Okay, because right now the C one modem doesn't support millimeter wave So it would make sense that maybe they've just not been able to figure that out in time for the C two And so we're just retracting the C one for US customers and going back to Qualcom then prettyretty much so it will stick withQualcom. I would be shocked if the C three modem, I guess, next year does not have millimeter wave capabilities It's a matter of time before that happens. But I think everyone was expecting the C two to have millimeter wave. I think that was the the evolution that was expected from the C one X to the C two. there definitely were reports about that. I don't remember who they were from. It may have been Ming Chi Ko, but U It's it's definitely interesting because I don't know how Apple's going to position that because The C two coming to the pro iPhones should be very exciting because it leads to enormous efficiency gains and actually faster performance as well And in a pro iPhone where you can talk about elongated battery life. That's a big deal So is Apple going to get up on stage in September and say The iPhone eighteen Pro now is more efficient and faster in terms of cellular technology. but just not in the U.S Yeah, it's a bit of a weird predicament. And we're getting into this space It's almost like an inverse of like Apple intelligence in Europe where It's kind of the other way around where there's going to be this feature that's missing in the US. So does Apple even talk about the C two modem then on stage I imagine in reality it probably will gloss over it. It will mention maybe that I It will feature the C two modem in I international markets. It will be on its comparison page. I don't know that it will say a huge amount more than that. And what I expect is that when you go on Apple Newsroom. which is regionalized to every market that Apple is present in. And there are always slight differences for that country. So obviously they're in different languages, but sometimes there are news andom posts that are relevant to some countries and not others I imagine that when you look, say at say the UK iPhone eighteen P press release, there will be a C two ion in that newsroom post that won't be in the US version Um So it will be weird, but So what's interesting in my and in my perspective because we I just did something on the u on the MacBook Ultra And that's reportedly going to have cellular capabilities. Does that just not get the C two now in the US? Does that just get Qualcom? then couldn't we have just done Qualcom for all of these years beforehand? L The whole is the MacBic culture is there's nothing to say the MacBaculture would have millimeter wave The problem that they've got with the iPhone is that If they were to give the iPhone eighteen Pro the C two under this sort of speculated plan Um then you would be taking away a feature. You've got all of those carriers in the US like Verizon that have got these vast buildouts of millimeter wave and years have been spent telling consumers why they need millimeter wave and why they need five G And then suddenly the proro iPhone drops that. The carriers would be furious. And so I get that I get that point of view, but like for the Mac and I guess the iPad, it just doesn't really matter because they're like, listen, you're getting something. you just don't need millimeter wave on your Mac book basically. Well, they did that with the iPad. They dropped it with the iPad Pro if you remember. It did have a millimeter wave. and then when they switched to the C one X They got rid of that I just don't want to change perspective. It doesn't it doesn't sell that many units compared to a pro iPhone. Like the carriers are not going to lose their minds over the iPad Pro, which already sells in really low volume, especially the cellular models, losing Millometer wave. The Pro iPhone is a completely different situation U And so I think with the Mac book P even get a cellar Mac book. It's fine if that doesn't have millimet to weight. It's fine for now. You know what MacBook that I think the carriers would be Well, they don't even really sell what they would be upset about maybe would be like if the No in five years eventually gets, you know, if they trickle that down ono the entry level, which who knows how long that could take if ever, but that would be the one where I could see that being huge or like the MacBook air. especially like for businesses and enterprises when they're traveling on the road, they want you know, I can see them being upset about that. but that makes sense. The iPhone obviously sells way more. so Yeah, I mean, that's that's interesting. a little little bit of information that we weren't really expecting there that came out of all this Um in reality most of the rest of what was disclosed here I'm was unsurprising and not very interesting. A lot of component information, parts lists, suppliers Nothing that is of a huge amount of interest to us And there has been footage out there circulating, but what it will show is a device that looks just the same as an iPhone seventeen pro pretty much. Well there is one thing we should mention, right? There is one very minor change, which has already been rumored, so it's not surprising just could choose forir u the kind of the more consistent uniform rear appearance of the device. So right now, there is definitely a contrast between that ceramic shield Glos. insert in the back of the iPhone seventeen Pro, it's much more prominent on the silver model where that is a white piece of glass inside the silver unibody And even on the other devices, cllosest is maybe the dark blue But certainly the orange, it is a slightly different shade of orange. It does look different in different lighting conditions. This is something that I think Apple is understandably a bit dissatisfied with and it looks like the iPhone eighteen Pro is going to have a color matched insert. So There may you will still be able to perceive that there's an insert there. It is a different material. I don't know if it will be a perfect match Um, but it will look near on exactly the same. They rather than giving it, say on the silver model, a white insert, it will actually be a silver insert to look just like that the rest of that unibody, which you could do because it's, you know, it's blasted matte glass, which is very similar to a blasted silver Aluminum Yeah, there was also an image that honestly kind of made me skeptical about whether this whole thing was true or like kind of fake some of these images because one of them looked it was supposed to be the dark cherry color and it just looked orange to me, but you know, lighting can mess with colors as we all know U So who knows what that color' going to look like, but did you have any thoughts when you saw that or too me, it looked like orange. So that's kind of where I was like, H is this actually the real image or Yeah, and also it's worth saying that among all of these files, it obviously was not just Apple information, nor was it iPhone eighteen Pro information specific it could have been about a whole bunch of devices. So that easily could have just been an iPhone seventeen Pro because there was information in there about the iPhone sixteen, the iPhone fifteen anything that Tarsa has manufactured. So That's not particularly sururprising, I think Uh, so there are other things that we could talk about with the iPhone eighteen Pro here Do you want to start with the camera, perhaps? Yeah, we can do. So that's one of the bigger upgrades we're expecting this year, which is moving to a variable aperture main camera, which we've talked about quite a bit I'm very interested in this because camera features are a really big driver of iPhone sales and interest and certainly it is for me because I always want to have the best pictures I can possibly take before you get into what's making you really interested in this I'm going to make everybody wait because we have to take a quick minute to hear from today's sponsor Now before we get back into today's episode, I just want to take a quick minute to talk about today's sponsor, Storyblocks If you've watched my YouTube videos for any amount of time, you've probably seen storyblocks at work without even realizing it Whether I need B roll to help explain a feature, background music that fits the tone of a video or sound effects to make edits feel more polished It's just one of those tools that's become part of my regular workflow What I really like is that everything in the library is one hundred percent human made. I never thought I'd have to say that, but every video clip, music track, sound effect, template, and image is created by professional artists and filmmakers and not AI generated. Everything is professionally curated, pre licensed, and ready to use, so I don't have to waste time worrying about licensing or searching through questionable assets Plus, with unlimited downloads, I can experiment with different ideas until I find what works best. Honestly, it just saves me a ton of time every week. So head to storyblocks dot com slash Mac to access the human made stock media library that's essential to my workflow. For a limited time, they're offering fifteen percent off any annual plan and that discount is only available through our link. So again, that's storyblocks dot com slash Mac for fifteen percent off annual plans. Thanks Storyblocks for sponsoring this episode What I am interested in is how much of a difference this really makes. And I know Apple will show off some very beautiful images that they will have got photographers to take with the iPhone eighteen Pro But I really want to see hands on comparisons between the seventeen Pro main camera and the eighteen Pro to see that how much difference that varable aperture really makes. Certainly for things like low light, it should make a difference I wonder if there'll be any manual controls in there as well Um, I just don't know like the iPhone camera is so good at this point Yeah. And the annual upgrades feel quite incremental at this point It's rare when you get an improvement to the camera that really feels transformational. I mean, I think the last one that did feel huge was this Eight X. telephoto But you know, before that moving to uh, the, uh forty eight megapixel ultra wide. I don't really think that's changed a huge amount for me. I don't take a lot of ultra wide pictures I know they can make other optimizations with the lenses or the sensor It was good when we moved up to forty eight megapixs. was that made a big difference? But my question, I guess is is this one of those small little bumps that will make a minor improvement to image quality, or is this going to be another huge leap where it really does feel like night and day over the previous generation I think it's kind of hard to tell, honestly. It just depends. Personally, I think it will make a pretty big jump. The one thing I wish Apple would do is like Stop doing professional phhoto shoots for their camera tests. go outside. Take a phone that's a couple years old because that's what people are realistically upgrading from. You don't need to do year over year. I don't need to see what year over year improvements are. It's probably not going to make that much of an impact anyways Take an iPhone fifteen P, take an iPhone eighteen proro goo out there, do a shot and like a man on the street style thing, I think that would be really like a lot more impactful than seeing these beautiful people that they pull in these ridiculously, you know well lit, really attractive environments that are appealing to the eye and it's just like, look at this really good picture that oftentimes I question whether you know, especially from other companies, not Apple, but other companies have been caught in the past with you know, some nefarious activities there when the photos happen, not saying that they're not legitimate, but You know, I just think you're you're really like Just making it easier to have the photos look like just let's just showcase what it actually does in kind of like a live demo environment, even though it's not necessarily a live demo, you know We don't need to see these touched up photos or at least just really high quality environments for production when they're doing these show. I agree with the entry level iPhone at least I think that certainly with the pro iPhones now they've repositioned that toward photographers, professional photographers. and I understand why they feel a need to show what that device is able to do in a professional context. But sometimes I think like when they show off what who like An iPhone sixteen E. kind of photos it can take, I think. This actually is not as engaging as it could be But I think this maybe speaks to H a slightly larger problem, which we've actually talked about a few times over the last few weeks, which is someome of howow The these dev some of the way in which these devices are introduced is maybe starting to just get a little bit stale. And the reason why WWDC this year was quite refreshing because it was different. Yeah and it was a lot more raw and authentic and Well, it wasn't as raw or authentic as the live shows from before COVID it certainly did feel a lot more candid And I would like to see things move back in that direction. I understand it's a pendulum I just do I do cringe. when And I don't know actually that they do it so much anymore, but they definitely went through a phase of saying every year and saying over and over in the event This iPhone is the greatest iPhone we've ever built No. And I think Why are you telling me that? Like of course you' Are you gonna tell me that this is not the greatest iPhone you've ever built? Like What does that actually mean? Like that's a waste of words. That's not good marketing. That's Why already bad marketing? Why wouldn't you have made the greatest iPhone this year?ike Would you have just settled for something slightly better than exactly a couple your ideiP? You're debuting a new device here Yeah. You're telling me all the ways in which it's good. That is not like no one, no person that is interested in buying an iPhone, even if they know nothing about tech thinks, Ohh yeah, this is the new model. And this one, I don't know if this is better from the model better than the model from five years ago. I don't know. I need someone to tell me It's just that kind of Uh that kind of hollow Rhetoric. which U sometimes kind of creep in And I agree with you that K kind of goes back to some of those really glossy images. I want to be able to see that the phone is capable of that kind of thing, especially pro models. That's what I'm saying with the pro models, maybe you can showcase both because they're the same cameras. Yeah. for the most part. like I mean, you're just not getting the extra camera, but they are the same lenses for the most part for the last few years, at least. I don't know what's going to happen this year. L looks like it'll kind of be you know, but like it just Google does this, I think sometimes. They're very into like the more relaxed like marketing. And Samsung has done it. And and even if they give it to like a professional, you know, photographer and then they follow their journey, That's slightly better than just being like, look at what we did with these, you know, we hired this person. We they didn't even say who it is. but look at these photos of these models that we have in this really well lit environment. That's perfect probably aren't going to take, you, any pictures like this ever How about you do a little man on this? G it to some random person and be like, this is what they were able to do with it I think that's far more engaging marketing. Yeah. I just would like to see things changed up a little bit. I mean, I think that The iPhone eighteen Pro is going to be a tall order and U What I mean by that is that It's going to be a hard sell becausecause this device is definitely going to be more expensive. I mean, we talked about this last week When we had that discussion last week, it was actually before the price rises were announced. Sorry, everyone Now that we know that every single product line with the exception of AirPods, studio display Apple Watch and iPhone has had price hikes, E, whether it's an Apple TV or a HPod mini, all of it has now increased in price all around the world The iPhone eighteen pro just is going to cost more. There is no way that that is now not going to happen. That seems pretty locked in. If the iPhone eighteen Pro now starts at thirteen hundred dollars. That just starts And then maybe you want to proro Max, you want to bump up to five hundred and twelve gigabytes of storage That is a seriously expensive device U no one should even buy it. I mean, it' seventeen Pro. It depends what you're upgrading from. off course it will have an effect on seventeen Pro price as well because it willll inflate those in the aftermarket Yeah. so I'm so interested to see how Apple is able to put the argument as to why you should buy an iPhone eighteen pro because a lot of these upgrades are good, like we're expecting a bigger battery. Obviously, we're expecting this veryarable apertature camera. The A twenty chip is expected to be a lot more capable We've got the C two modem at least in international market. so I can look forward to that Um We're not expecting any dramatic changes this year because last year was that year. And some years, we're very used to this in the Apple community that We just have a small upgrade here. while, this is not going to be the smallest upgrade we've ever seen I think it is gonna be fairly I'm not seeing anythingy here that is massively exciting. I mean, the smaller dynamic island will interest for A little while makes it maybe look a tiny bit fresher. But my bet is that the majority of people that go and pick up an iPhone Aeen Pro in the Apple store in the first couple of weeks I'm not even going to notice that that dynamic island is a few millimeters narrower suddenly, When we I mean our reference point for this is the iPhone thirteen, when we got the narrower notch How many people really notice that narrower notch? How much did it really matter I can tell you that not one general consumer that has an iPhone that usually asks me questions every year about like which one should I get or you know, I saw the new iPhone and this this and this is cool has ever mentioned anything about the dynamic island, the notch In fact, I don't think any non tech person has ever talked to me about the dynamic island before probably doesn't even know what it's called. I'm going to be honest with you. I'm not trying to insult people. If you're listening to this, I don't really consider you to be the person that I'm talking about. I'm talking about friends and family. they upgrade every three to four years if that. And they just, you know, I got a friend that will just come up to me and be like, this is the new iPhone. tellell me what's good about it. And when I point that out, they'll be like, I didn't even notice that. And it's just like, oh, Okay, cool. You had no idea that there's this, you know, maybe now people notice it more because of Siri, but yeah, have you ever Had a conversation with a general person about the dynamic island before? No, I agree. And I think it goes to show how the tech community's perspective on these things is totally different to. ordinary consumers and could be for better or for the worse It sometimes makes me wonder, like, if you really take a step back whenever I say statements like that Does that not make you kind of just be like, who is Apple actually making these iPhones for? Well, I think makes it just goes to show that maybe we don't always understand what actually is selling iPhones We can think that it's these small upgrades or be a new color option or something, but It's probably just stuff that we're not even aware of. and My bet is that Apple could actually release an iPhone that is no different other than just maybe a new color I don't new number in the name and People would still buy it because they're on carrier plans and they want to be seen with the new color. and the new iPhone. And I think that that is what drives so many sales because you're not telling me that I see an I see iPhone seventeen pros everywhere wayay more than previous new iPhone generations. It has been I totally believe these reports about it being insanely popular because I feel like everyone I know has one It's also a really good phone. Yeah. it it's it's I think it it is So is a go back to what I was saying, it's the greatest iPhone they've ever built It is in fact, the greatest iPhone ever built But I don't think that the people who have that device because it's got an Ax telephoto camera or maybe even the majority of them know what a telephoto camera even is so I think a lot of it just comes down to marketing. I mean, some of this stuff is great for marketing. The dynamic island I will actually say Do you remember those iPhone fourteen Pro ads that they did where it just showcased all of the animations and jumping between apps and it was so fluid enaging in the way that it was animated That sold iPhones. undoubtedly that must have sold iPhones. That was a great ad campaign because it was so different and so visual and it's kind of easy to understand. It was nothing that we'd really seen. on a smartphone before. People are so interested in it anymore But the challenge that a device like the iPhone eighteen Pro has is Where is your cool feature to show off I don't know that it actually has one. And that's fine because sometimes we do that Um On the whole there is It usually helps if there is something to lean on. Yeah. I mean, like the iPhone thirteen Pro is a good example of that really was there to show off on that device. There was Very little. There was the promotion display, but you can't show that on a billboard or in an ad. I mean, it had a bet a camera, but Everyone knows the new iPhoneess got better cameras Some years this just happens, but the fact that this year it's going to coincide with those price increases is what I think is going to be quite interesting to see because even I am kind of thinking Do I really want to shell out to buy a new iPhone this year? Do I really need to do that Um I mean, do I need a new camera control that is less capable than the current one but might work a bit better Not really. I don't really care about that. I don't really care about a narrower dynamic island. I don't care about the N two chip And that So What is there for me to grab onto? And there are some things, you know, I'm interested in this Variable aperture camera but It It is difficult. And I think that this year is clearly the stop gap before the twentieth anniversary iPhone which we definitely should do a dedicated episode on soon Yeah, because that is going to be a huge change and will be one of those kind of must upgrade. Yes But how do you feel about it? I mean, you will pick up one of these devices inevitably anyway Yeah I don't really have a choice. But What's your sense of it? Do feel just the upgrade as a whole? Yeah I mean I'm very underwhelmed. I honestly haven't even thought about it because All I care about is the iPhone ultra. That's all I want to see at the event They should spend ten minutes talking about the iPhone eighteen pros and then the rest of it on the ultra perhaps maybe something else, if they have anything available for that time D. Yes. I mean, I just it looks like the iPhone seventeen pro that I've been using for the last year. And Maybe the cameras will be better. Variable aperture certainly does help, although Samsung's had it before and I don't know. Does anyone really talk about how great that was Really? So well sometone we removed it. Yeah, it was probably becausecause no one cared and they probably didn't do a great job marketing it, to be honest Um, and know that the people who use Samsung phones are like, I use this because it has the best camera I think there are different reasons why people use Samsung phones. I think it's just a lot of it's just like people don't like Apple and they' like Samsung is the best Android device, which I feel like you could confidently say, wouldn' Yeah, it would probably be my choice to be honest with you now. I think back in the day, no, I would have gone Google, but now I do really like the features that Samsung offers Um and the style of phones But like Is there a reason why you should use a Samsung phone that's camera specific? No I think it's it's Mostly because it's Android, it's the top quality one. People probably like writing with the pen, which they don't even really add to most things anymore. Big I don't know. there's good features, but like I don't think that's they market them for. I don't know. I don't I don't think this is going to be a good selling phone, especially with the price hikes coming in. whichich is hilarious, by the way that we did a whole episode talking about how things were going to get really expensive. We talked a lot about the iPhones getting expensive, and those were the only things that didn't go up in price U So Apple really got us there Um Don't buy an Apple TV Oh my god. That That's a very, very big price rise. I want to hear your thoughts on that briefly we take one break to talk for hear from today's sponsors again All right, so Apple TV and Teen seconds U so by percentage, this is the most expensive or the largest price increase going from one hundred and twenty nine dollars up to two hundred doars The Apple T' is not a very popular device anyway I don't think this is going to help it. or one hundred fifty to two hundred fifty. And also I don't know if that statement' true, maybe not from a sales perspective, but Man, the people who love Apple TV love Apple TV. I think I've mentioned many times Apple TV. I do without it. I It is essential. I would actually use my TV a huge amount less if I did not have an Apple TV that price I mean, what do I do with it that ultimately the built in software in my TV can't do already? Nothing, it's just because I like the ecosystem, I like the remote. It's just a kind of nice to have But when you compare that to something like an Apple Watch AirPods that has these sort of dramatic reasons why you might want to use that You didn't eat knacle TV. I really did wish Apple went through with the TV like the actual TV unit thing and just made that the software that you get with this. so I don't have to have anything plugged into it How great would that have been? Just a really nice display OLEed TV, you know, I don't know. I mean, that was rumored for many years years a long time ago. But I think the challenge is that just because Apple doesn't manufacture its own displays, it never has. We have never seen an Apple design display pull some Samsung into it like you do for everything else. But then I think they were saying, Well, if we're going just do what every other TV manufacturer does, which is just By a panel make a housing, put the panel in the housing and then make it work. likeike what is the What are we doing differently here? What are we doing better than competitors? And I don't know that they really could have done anything other than put the Apple TV in there But it's the best TV ever built That's what they're doing differently Well, that's what they would have said Anyways, a lot of price hikes there and goingo back to the iPhone eighteen Pro, if it's going to be substantially more Assuming let's just say somehow the secondary market for the seventeen pros don't go up or you can find them still relatively cheap, you know, even if you find a nicely used one that's you know, five hundred, six hundred bucks, justust do that. It's worth it I'm so interested to see where it actually falls as well because right now, correct me if I'm wrong, the iPhone eighteen P starts at. ten ninety nine venty. Yeah, the IPone seventy pro sts at ten ninety nine Some of the estimates putut it at thirteen doars ninety nine cents, a two hundred dollars price increase. That feels very big But it could be more I mean, the average increase of a lot of these other products we've seen was about two hundred dollars. You can see that on most of the Macs, most of the iPads, it's kind of hovering around two hundred. I think the average across all of the products that they did was I think it came out to about two hundred and seventy five dollars on average. but that includes like the Mac studio where for like How did that not raise it even more? It was like wo grand almost. Yeah end. The majority of the devices went up by two hundred, even like the Vision Pro went up by two hundred So I think probably, if I had to guess going to be U Probably thirteen, ninety nine Yeah, it's too much. Too much for a phone that's identical. certainly I can't see it being less than twelvellars ninety nine cents But suubbsidized world, That's like five bucks extra. So it won't matter. And that will be fine, but ye at the high end when you look at a Pro Max and you add storage, I mean, how much is a two terabyte iPhone eighteen Pro Max going to cost now A lot But you know what You're going to get a new reflective Apple logo on the back And some people will buy it straight away, but It's it's a shame because It feels like The iPhone seventeen Pro has done so well. It is such a good device and has been so popular And I just see this this being very popular now. I mean, it will drive a lot of people down to the entry level iPhone eighteen when it becomes available The seventeen will remain on sale for another six months or so U I don't know. I just It's just a bit of a shame, isn't it Here's an old person boomer take that I'm going to give you guys. Do we need all this AI advancements? Can we stop here? I think we're fine with it It's now impacting our day to day life in a negative way, where everything's just getting raised in products that we want to buy We don't need more than this. I don't need an entire app being coded and written in thirty second. How about you do the work back like the old days where you had a team of developers Is this even inc Jell due to that? I don't know, it's what they say because there was an interesting report. from Micron, which is one of Apple's memory suppliers And they they didn't say that they blame Apple price increases But they kind of said that peopleeople they supply memory to have not helped with their pricing tactics because Apple is known, it's been known for years to really squeeze its suppliers for the lowest possible prices. And the way that it usually does that is by locking them into contracts very early for a very large amount of its supply U and what u What Micron said is that this negotiating tactic meant that they were locked into such low pricing for such a long time with Apple that when they had to increase prices in response to the global memory shortage and just the demand of AI data centers then have to continue to supply that memory effectively like at a loss at a price that was well below where it should have been which meant that then when they had the opportunity to raise prices, they had to really boost them up to try and get back to where they were presents An interesting question, I think. And while Obviously Micron's going to to blame other people. and it isn't even Micron' fault. It's just a fact of requiring so much AI demand now around the world But it is interesting that maybe Apple's negotiating tactics with suppliers has maybe not helped. becausecause Apple charges very high premiums on those devices but squeezes its supply is very hard. so it maintains very good margins does make me also wonder, could Apple not have eaten into its margins anymore? I know that's what it's been doing up to now id the Apple TV really need to to go up by that much to protect your margins on that device I don't know if I agree with that. You shouldn't have been The one that's really the issue is the fact that they raised refurbished prices. That's the one that's the problem I mean, also, I don't know that it couldn't have been a smaller increase Do't need to be an increase at all. thoseose products exist already You didn't manufacture those with new chips that cost more Unless this happened well beforehand. Also, I think it just would have been helpful if maybe some of the entry level devices hadn't have been touched. So like the entry level iPad going up by a one hundred dollars is a real shame. The MacBook Lo Those are probably the most popular selling ones though. They are, but they're gateways to the rest of the ecosystem. true I think that In some ways, it's understandable to increase the price on the MacBook Pro and the iPad Pro because if you're buying that device You're not a price conscious user. You're buying it either because it's for work and you're going to make that money back in some way or a company is buying it Or you are buying it because you're an enthusiast and you're interested in tech and you want the latest and greatest Those customers can be the ones to absorb those price rises But I do kind of feel bad for you the parents that are buying their kid their first iPad and have now got to spend an extra one hundred dollars on that. That feels a little bit not right to me. and I would rather have had U more incremental price rises, I would have rather Apple six months ago. prices up by a smaller amount and was more selective about the products. I mean, the Vision Pro needs a price not a price rise. Bld move to put an extra amount on something that isn't selling anyways. I think it was on I can't it may have been on on Daring Fireball. But I did see it was a it was a funny comment about the Vision Pro's price rise, which is they just gave it to the Vision Pro to make the Vision Pro feel better to make it feel included make it feel part of the game. Yeah makeake it feel what about Yeah what about us? Well, you're going to get a price range and no one's buying you anyway, so who cares Might as well. Yeah mean whichich is a shame. You know, here's my weekly diatribe. The Vision Pro is a good product. It just is too expensive. It may be even. It would have been an opportunity to me to have been maybe a chance to recalib calibrate pricing across the whole product lineu Maybe they could have accompanied the price increases on some products. with a price cut on others I kind of shifted things around like press for Vision Pro would have been if they'd said actually We have decided to cut the price of the Vision Pro to U twenty nine ninety nine. And we are also going to cut the too. It's too much, but they they could have done it on cut the Apple TV Ke the full size homepod, keep the homepod miniware is, keep the entry level iPadware is and the iPad mini. U Increase the iPad Pro, increase the MacBook Pro, increase the MacBook Air. keep the neo where it is Um maybe what he the the u the Mac miniware is, But if you want to push Mac Studio up, you can do that now because there is no Mac Pro I think that that might have been a bit maybe more palaceable I don't know One thing I'm confused on, and this could be the last thing unless. A actuallyually there's one more thing I do want to talk about going back to the iPhone eighteen proro, but real quick on the price increases thing What's going on with the Apple TV because This would have been the time If the reports are true that there's just Pduct sitting in the warehouse, ready to go newew Apple TVs, new home pods Why are we raising the prices on this then? Just release the new one with the new price increase and it's slightly better It's not great. It's still stupid, but it's slightly less stupid than just putting a higher price tag. a sing homeome pod mini, which thirty year old product has been available for Nearly six years now. Exactly. Six year old product that does not support any Apple intelligence features at all Si on that device is terrible and will continue to be terrible And now that device is war one fifty. It's gone up by fifty bucks.. And so you have to imagine there's one of two things here It's got I don't know, maybe it's There has to be a bigger change for these, right? Like it's got to be something that they're holding on for an event because there's no reason why if it's not getting the new seri And it's not some sort of greater deal where it's coming in with this home hub and everything that they couldn't have just been like, hey The new home pods, the new minis or the new Apple TV's coming later this year. We're not touching the prices on this one, but This is going to have new SerI capabilities. We'll talk about it later this year, but it's going to start at this price. They could have done something. I know that they've never really done that before, but they could have done something like that to like kind of help with that. Owise you're just kind of getting J just getting crapped on for negative press because you decided to raise the prices on something. or just don't do anything. Take the loss on those and Inrease so prices late anyway. I think that would have been fine to just he it later Eie I mean, I've been saying this for months as you know. I couldn't foresee an Apple event coming dedicated to the smart home Well, that's what I'm saying. It's got to be almost guaranteed at this point, right I don't know. Maybe they'll do it in September with the iPhone eighteen Pro. They'll do eighteen Pro, eighteen Pro Max Then we will go into the home, we'll go with HomePod Mini Apple TV, this smart home hub And then they'll do a one more thing as the iPhone ultra. That's a good event about Apple Watch Oh yeah, I forgot about the Apple Watch. Just like Apple forgets about the Apple Watch. Alough aren't there some rumors about a magetic magnetic system again? Isn't that coming back? Oh yeah that for next year That's next year. I would fully expect that Apple Watch this year at the event will be five minutes. It will be the same the last five last last year. But last year in particular it was very, very brief because they had so little say The majority of what they focused on was the satellite connectivity on the Apple Watch Ultra But that's one feature. ne Wolch. And I'm glad you brought that up because that is the last thing I just want to spend a couple of minutes talking on. and it's not about the Apple Watch, but it's the five five G over satellite feature that is rumored for the iPhone eighteen P lineup Is this This actually could be something really, really big. if it works the way I would like it to work. But my guess is it's probably not going to work that way It's still going to be a real pain to try to get it to connect, isn't it? And it's not going to just be something that automatically switches over and you don't even notice it. No, because that's to be like the rest of the Yeah. That would be a free service, I mean Apple talked about charging for these satellite features initially, but it has never done it because pay Unless you are. regular or something and you go out in the middle of nowhere where you have no service. But Or you have a crafy service carrier and you're in a spot all the time that has really bad reception This is a fully fledged. you can just keep using Safari where you have no service Maybe that is good reason to pay for that directly to Apple. In reality, I expect they won't want to anger carriers because that's a whole reason why there was so much argument inside Apple about this feature in the first place. probably It will let you access a very basic version of Safari that maybe will be limited to certain sites So you won't be able to like stream video, you won't be able to navigate to YouTube or anything maybe you will just be able to access like goovernment websites, public services Things like that, where ways to get yourself out of trouble? Yeah, in an emergency U And maybe it will let you do things like communicate with Siri over five G in the satellite, if it needs to go to the web, it will let you use AI services that will let individual apps Um, like the maps app U load stuff online, but I don't think it's going to be Safari. I think it's also going to be when individual apps want to go like I don't know, say you want to send a message on Instagram or something. It will let you do that, maybe. notot enough So you're telling me when I'm in SOS and I just w to keep watching YouTube. I can't watch YouTube I would be surprised if you could Well, that's the feature I would pay for Yeah I would like it to where if I drop down to one bar of LTE, I have the ability to switch over to satellitite and it should work well and I'll pay for that Or I would like the carriers just figure it out. because there's often times where I live, man. it doesn't matter what service you have. You're going to have LT. it's going to be one bar, or it's going to say five G. Have you ever noticed this? I don't know how this is, I guess you don't have Millimeter way, but with Verizon specifically If I don't have the ultra wide band little logo there. I have essentially no service which is utterly ridiculous It'll say five G. And there was a world where we'd had five G and that meant you had great service. It's when you dropped to LTE that you essentially had no service. And then if you think back to when we had LTE over three G or whatever it was back then It essentially meant that if you dropped from LTE down, you had no service Why does the more we progress, the one underneath that worked perfectly fine for years, all of a sudden is just unable to do anything Maybe there's a basic misunderstanding of it that I just don't get, but I would have loved Apple to launch its own carrier service which it was planning to do. And that's actually where all of these satellite features came from in the first place. It was that project that was reorganized in a different world Apple by now is a carrier and you don't even need to bother with your conventional carriers, Apple cut out the middle map. I would have loved them to do that How has Starlink not become like a data carrier? I'm surprised. Maybe it will eventually. As to say it's actually really good. When you get on planes's It's amazing. I'll be honest. I haven't used it in the other environments that like I think you can get it for your home Um, but you know, it's a really good I would love something like that in the future. Yeah. That's another real feature that I think would would would enable Apple to to offer a more cohesive all in one product as well. like we've heard these rumors about device subscription services. Imagine if you could actually just buy your device on a monthly plan, including your service and then Apple just You ship it back to them when you want the new device and it just rolls over everything's one company. It would be perfect. I mean, as somebody who misses the days of actually owning something Um I would hate that, but also that's just kind of what we do anyways. I mean we don be convenient. It would be very convenient. Right. And We know that I mean everyone has bad experiences with carriers. They are a nightmare to deal with. If you ever want to speak to anyone, you ever want to change your plan Always a nuisance and they always are basically overcharging for their service I mean, you kind of have this already with the iPhone upgrade program, you just don't have the service that. Yeah, but that that makes a huge difference U They still do you remember the early on years of the iPhone upgrade program? they still brought in like representatives from like TMobile, ATT and Verizon to the Apple stores. And so you still got that great experience of they can't get your service to get ported over correctly. God, I remember people going in and just like spending hours there because the portion that you're trying to navigate away from. The whole point of the iPhone upgrade program so you don't have to deal with carriers and you just de do with Apple. you still got screwed in the store when they tried to port your number over. This is why I always have and always will just buy my iPhone outright unmarked, N on a carrier plan, unlocked. and then I can do what I like Yeah. And then if I want to negotiate my contract, I do that separately And it's nothing to do with my device. And was was what I would recommend to anyone And it was even better back then with physical ESims, which or physical Ss, which you do still have. I do not So why to ESM Okay. Well, they say EIM is easier, but I disagree. I think it's easier for me to poke out the little chip and put it in the other one. I can do that more than I can navigating the menu So well Um, but it's It's reassuring with stuff like if you lose your device and you obviously lose the SIM That does make things easier Um, I guess losing a sim is really hard. What if you lose your device? What if you lose the device I guess you lose the sim that's in that device where theyaking just and easy to turn those offad and just make you a new one Yeah, but it's still a headache to do that, whereas now I can just navigate to my carrier and download the ESIM again. So do you want to know what's happened to me more so than losing my device or losing my S trying to port over a number to another iPhone and it gets lost in the ether and then I have to drive to the store and have them figure out a way to get it back. That's happened to me twice actually So that is a bigger pain than something that doesn't really happen At least in my specific world, I can't speak for everyone. Maybe you've lost your phone, maybe you've lost your SM card. Please let us know in the comments down below. And with that said, this was an episode about the iPhone eighteen P. so let us know your thoughts on that. And also the price hkes because we put out an entire episode last week speculating, which we were correct on you know, there was going to be price hikes. We just didn't know that it wasn't going to be that It wasn't going to be theiP we record it. It wasn't going to be the day after either, where we talked about the iPhone mostly getting price likes and that one didn't get touched It will for the next year. Anyways, yeah, let us know hit us up and we will talk to you guys and or we We'll see we won't do any of those things. We'll put out another episode next week. Thank you