[JM]: It seems there's a new member of the Raspberry Pi family.
[JM]: I saw that the Raspberry Pi folks released another in their iteration of all-in-one computers.
[JM]: I think the previous one was the 400 or something like that, and now they have the 500+.
[JM]: And if you haven't seen this before, it's a complete desktop computer in the form factor of a keyboard.
[JM]: So if you imagine a small low profile keyboard, and then now imagine that they've stuffed a computer into the very tiny substrate beneath the keyboard, and that's what it is.
[JM]: And this is a improved model that has a 256 gigabyte solid state drive, 16 gigabytes of RAM, which is
[JM]: more RAM than I've seen in Raspberry Pis before.
[JM]: And that solid state drive, by the way, is via an internal M2, presumable NVMe socket.
[JM]: So that should be easy to swap out with a higher capacity one if you needed it.
[JM]: And I think the most interesting thing about this, in addition to the upgraded CPU, which is a 2.4 gigahertz quad core ARM Cortex A76,
[JM]: is the fact that this keyboard is a mechanical keyboard, which is pretty cool for us mechanical keyboard nerds.
[DJ]: Yeah, I'm suddenly paying attention.
[JM]: It even comes with a key cap puller, so you can pop off the key caps and replace them with your preferred key caps.
[JM]: I think the only thing that I would comment as it relates to the key caps part of it is that I have probably a drawer full of various normal height key caps, whereas this keyboard really only works with low profile key caps.
[JM]: I think if you were to try to put full height ones on there, it would bottom out.
[JM]: It's not really designed for that.
[JM]: And the only other thing that occurs to me as far as the keyboard is the choice of key switches, which sadly are not swappable.
[JM]: You are stuck with the switches that they built into them.
[JM]: And I wouldn't really be sad about the key switches they chose.
[JM]: They chose blue style key switches, which means they are clicky.
[JM]: and I like that action and sound and that works for me.
[JM]: I don't know if it would work for people who frequently work next to other people, but I think this is a really cool device.
[JM]: I love that it comes with dual 4K display output and
[JM]: I don't know if I fully understand the market for this, like who's the target market, but I guess it's someone who travels with it and who has access to a display outside their home environment or their work environment.
[JM]: So you could, in theory, actually, I suppose if you just had like a display at work and one at home, then you just bring this keyboard back and forth.
[JM]: You don't have to bring, say, a heavier, bulkier laptop back and forth.
[JM]: You just get to bring your little keyboard computer.
[JM]: So it has that benefit.
[JM]: And if you were so inclined...
[JM]: you could pair it with a 15 and a half inch OLED external display that's meant for travel.
[JM]: I had a very brief experience using a ViewSonic 15 and a half inch OLED display, and that would pair very nicely, I imagine, with this.
[JM]: So if you were on the road, you're at a cafe, and for whatever reason you prefer the combination of this keyboard computer and an external display in a coffee shop, then you can do that.
[JM]: Seems pretty cool.
[DJ]: I agree that it's cool to see the Raspberry Pi folks innovating.
[DJ]: I've always been a fan of their products.
[DJ]: I have never really understood why they would make an all-in-one.
[DJ]: In my mind, the coolest thing about a Raspberry Pi is that it is an all-in computer on this tiny little board, and you can sort of put them in interesting places.
[DJ]: At least in my personal use, the Pi has always been something that you stick in a weird little plastic case and then like hang it off your network somewhere and use it as like a micro server for some thing.
[DJ]: And of course, you can use it as a workstation style computer.
[DJ]: But, of course, the tricky thing with a portable workstation-style computer is there's already an extremely robust form factor for such a thing.
[DJ]: You might not have heard of it, folks, but it's known as a laptop.
[DJ]: And the chief advantage that a laptop has is that it has a display, because most people don't have displays just sitting around in all the places they might want to use a portable computer.
[DJ]: And I'm sorry, Justin, I know OLED is great, but when you get to the point where you're lugging around a 15-inch monitor...
[DJ]: and some piece of computer that is built into a keyboard, you might want to consider just getting a laptop.
[DJ]: They're pretty sweet nowadays.
[DJ]: So I'm also not exactly sure who is the market for this particular iteration of the Raspberry Pi.
[DJ]: I'd love to know.
[DJ]: I'd love for them to say, like, do a lot of people buy these weird little things you build into keyboards?
[DJ]: It's possible that not a lot of people have to buy them, that it's one of those things that like almost like a concept car that like Raspberry Pi builds it to show what they can do and to like help popularize their products.
[DJ]: But predominantly they probably most of what they sell are just the little boards themselves, in which case that's fine.
[DJ]: And I like the fact that if they're going to build a keyboard centric desktop computer, they at least have the insight to know that it should be a sweet mechanical keyboard.
[JM]: Having already produced a previous iteration of this, I get the impression they probably know that there is some degree of a market for this.
[JM]: Like if they didn't sell any of the previous version of this integrated, arguably and understandably somewhat weird keyboard based computer, I don't think they would have bothered to make this one.
[JM]: So I don't know that I would necessarily buy into the concept that this is like a concept car.
[JM]: I feel like they must have some sales under their belt, some confidence that they can market a successor product to the version that they made before.
[JM]: But I obviously have no idea how many of these are going to sell.
[JM]: I don't know who the market for this is, but I do think it's cool.
[JM]: I think, uh,
[JM]: If I had one of these, it would be fun to play with, but I, again, don't necessarily know that I'm the target market for this particular device.
[DJ]: It's true, although I think enthusiasts like you and me, despite my sort of sarcastically poo-pooing of this product line, we probably are at least close to the orbit of the target market.
[DJ]: I mean, we've discussed in various ways in the past that each of us has way more computers in our homes than anybody,
[DJ]: anyone really needs or anyone really should.
[DJ]: Right.
[DJ]: Well, I mean, should is relative, but I mean, it, it, it goes beyond the, like, this definitely has a, every one of these definitely has a utility.
[DJ]: And some of it is more like, I think this is cool.
[DJ]: So I have one now.
[DJ]: I mean, not that people can see because this is an audio only medium, but there is an iMac G4 on the
[DJ]: sideboard behind me and I only own that because I love the way it looks I do not need a what a 20 year-old Apple computer when I have several modern ones. So likewise for the all-in-one Raspberry Pi, I guess their other argument is price, right?
[DJ]: That's always been part of Raspberry Pi's deal is hey You get a sort of fully functioning computer for not very much money, which is excellent for a lot of customers.
[DJ]: And the whole question of the display still makes me wonder a little, but perhaps this is a good solution for someone who is relatively technical.
[DJ]: Most people are never going to even learn that this exists, right?
[DJ]: Because most normal computer users, they're probably never going to learn that things like the Raspberry Pi are available, even if they go looking for like cheap computers.
[DJ]: So this is definitely targeted at enthusiasts, but it is great that there are options for people who are enthusiasts but are not necessarily willing or able to drop like a couple of grand on some nerdy computer.
[DJ]: So hopefully there is a market segment for that, and it's cool that Raspberry Pi continues to fill it like the low-end, affordable, but very capable computer.
[JM]: That's a really good point.
[JM]: At only $200, you are getting quite a lot of value.
[JM]: I've seen mechanical keyboards.
[JM]: I own mechanical keyboards that cost more than $200.
[DJ]: Admit it, Justin.
[DJ]: Yeah, so do I. I was just thinking that...
[DJ]: ... my primary mechanical keyboard costs like twice what this entire computer costs.
[JM]: So you're getting arguably a very decent mechanical keyboard in addition to an entire computer all integrated into one very portable, very sleek device and the ability to just connect it to any display you have handy, whether that's one at home, one at work, one that
[JM]: actually isn't very bulky.
[JM]: I'll have you know, this 15.5 inch ViewSonic was quite slim and light and portable.
[JM]: And it'll be interesting to see how many more versions of this that the Raspberry Pi folks make.
[JM]: because that will indicate how well they're selling.
[JM]: Like if there's a Raspberry Pi 600 and then a 700 and an 800, then we'll know that this is a product line that's doing well.
[JM]: But like you said, I imagine most of what they're going to sell and the vast majority of the revenue is going to come from their more traditional, very tiny boards that you can package up yourself and put into embedded devices and all kinds of other more flexible things.
[JM]: But nonetheless, I think it's cool that they're doing this.
[JM]: Okay, moving on.
[JM]: Recently, Apple announced some products and I thought we could talk about what they announced and what our thoughts are about them.
[JM]: And I want to start by commenting on the opening of their keynote.
[JM]: In the very opening frame, they displayed the quite famous Steve Jobs quote, which I'm just going to paraphrase because I don't have it handy, and which goes something like, design is not how it looks, design is how it works.
[JM]: And my first reaction to this was one of abject revulsion.
[JM]: I was repulsed by this quote.
[JM]: not because of the quote.
[JM]: The quote is actually excellent.
[JM]: And I think it's indicative of Steam Jobs to have said it.
[JM]: The thing that really rubbed me the wrong way was the fact that this version of Apple put that front and center at the beginning of their announcements that they're saying that design is how it works.
[JM]: And we're about to show you some stuff that's all about how it looks.
[JM]: And
[JM]: is not really about how things work or should work.
[JM]: And I think that as I've probably said in previous episodes, the whole Apple 26 slate of operating systems to me are all about how it looks and are a significant regression in how it works.
[JM]: And so it just really for me did not fit with the direction that Apple is currently going in.
[JM]: So for them to highlight this whole design is how it works thing, it just did not feel right to me.
[JM]: So I felt somewhat vindicated after reading a lot of comments on the internet from folks who had a very similar, oh, this is really not okay response to this particular opening to the keynote.
[JM]: Did you not have the same reaction?
[JM]: What was your reaction when you saw it?
[DJ]: Let's give a little timeline here.
[DJ]: Apple showed off this new design called Liquid Glass.
[DJ]: And I think I didn't, I certainly didn't see a lot of takes where people were like, I love it and I can't wait.
[DJ]: And then in September, as they always do, they launch new iPhones.
[DJ]: And those are the first products that are actually going to ship with this new operating system.
[DJ]: So then they say, listen, design is how it works.
[DJ]: And people go, but I don't like how it looks.
[DJ]: So you guys are hypocrites.
[DJ]: And I don't like how liquid glass looks either.
[DJ]: But I will say, one of the challenging things about this is that none of us know how it works.
[DJ]: At least at the time of this, while we were watching this keynote, none of us know how it works yet, unless we've been using the betas, I guess, because we haven't actually touched it.
[DJ]: Like we haven't used it on our devices.
[DJ]: All we know is how it looks.
[DJ]: So we're sitting there rejecting how it looks and saying, ah, but you're trotting out that famous quote about design when you've designed something that's bad.
[DJ]: I think at the very least, time will tell if it's bad or not.
[DJ]: Jumping ahead a little bit, I do now have a phone running OS 26.
[DJ]: I don't like it very much.
[DJ]: There are some very real questions around like, why Apple?
[DJ]: Why?
[DJ]: Like, why is this necessary?
[JM]: It sounds like you didn't have any particular reaction to this opening quote.
[DJ]: No, I think I was more like reacting to the reaction.
[DJ]: I will say like for full disclosure, I didn't even watch the keynote this year.
[DJ]: Maybe I don't have that much of a reaction to it because I only saw the quote alongside the discourse about it.
[DJ]: So the discourse is more of what I have the reaction to.
[JM]: Speaking of reactions, I think my favorite reaction was someone posted on the Fediverse with a caption of, if Apple still had courage, they would have opened the keynote with this.
[JM]: And then I'm going to put this image as the chapter art here because it is just magic.
[JM]: It's like the Steve Jobs quote, the aforementioned design is not just what it looks like, but like you can't even read like the right half of it because of the whole liquid glass effect.
[JM]: It's really, it's great.
[JM]: Bravo.
[JM]: Well played.
[DJ]: If Apple had any courage, they would have presented that quote in the way that it will now show up on everyone's computer, i.e.
[DJ]: unreadable.
[JM]: Precisely.
[JM]: So this year, Apple announced not two, but three iPhones, the normal standard iPhone, the pro version and a new air version.
[JM]: Even before these announcements, I didn't really feel like I was in the market for a new phone.
[JM]: And I really couldn't think of anything
[JM]: that they would add to this year's crop of iPhones that would convince me to upgrade.
[JM]: And the very short version of my impressions of the announcements are suspicion confirmed, nothing new.
[JM]: really world-changing that makes me think, oh, I must swap my 15 Pro for one of these new 17 models.
[JM]: They all seem interesting so far as there's a lot of improvements, very Apple style incremental improvements, which is great.
[JM]: So if I had say a 13 Pro,
[JM]: maybe even a 14, I could easily see upgrading to one of these.
[JM]: So I think they did a great job of doing what Apple does best, which is a whole bunch of iterative improvements and good on them for that.
[JM]: I have my thoughts on the Air, but given that I haven't purchased any of these iPhone 17 models, and it sounds like you may have,
[JM]: Why don't we start with your impressions of the, as he holds up the gleaming, shiny object in the hand.
[DJ]: And extremely thin.
[JM]: Very thin.
[JM]: Why don't you tell me about your impressions of this new phone that you have?
[DJ]: Again, you know, not a video podcast, but my face is completely covered currently by the body of the iPhone Air, which is so big.
[DJ]: That's my thing with phones nowadays, is they're so big, and like right next to it, I have a beautiful red iPhone 12 mini, which I think is like the perfect iPhone.
[DJ]: When they came out with that phone, it was...
[DJ]: sort of going back on years and years of ever-expanding device sizes, and I was happy to see it.
[DJ]: For whatever reason, when it comes to a smartphone, I really like having this small thing that I can easily handle.
[DJ]: And the modern, yeah, really like the last decade at least of these phones,
[DJ]: The screens have just been getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and since the laws of physics are currently what they are, making the screen bigger means making the thing that you have to clutch in the palm of your hand bigger.
[DJ]: And so I did get the iPhone Air.
[DJ]: I got it as a work phone because, well, that's one of the perks of my job is that I occasionally get new hardware, and so I might as well just take advantage of that.
[DJ]: And I happened to be up for a phone upgrade right around the time these came out, so I said...
[DJ]: That iPhone Air looks really cool.
[DJ]: I don't think I would buy one for myself personally, but yeah, I'll have one.
[DJ]: Thanks.
[DJ]: So I traded in my old work phone was a 15 Pro and I got the Air and the Air is even bigger.
[DJ]: Like it's very thin.
[DJ]: Don't get me wrong.
[DJ]: It's very thin and it feels nice in the hand, except it's so big and small.
[DJ]: I don't see any reason that they will ever make a phone that I am truly delighted to hold, and that sucks.
[DJ]: So, you know, I have this 12 mini.
[DJ]: It's five years old now, and it works fine.
[DJ]: So there's a lot there.
[DJ]: You know, you mentioned incremental improvements.
[DJ]: And I think this is really a something that the smartphone industry needs to reckon with somehow is that smartphones are not novel anymore and they haven't been for years.
[DJ]: So when these phones come out and people people say, you know, sometimes sort of critically like, well, merely incremental improvements.
[DJ]: It's like, yeah, I mean, the product category is almost 20%.
[DJ]: 20 years old.
[DJ]: What improvements exactly do you expect them to make?
[DJ]: You know, like what could this thing possibly do?
[DJ]: Holograms.
[DJ]: Right.
[DJ]: Where am I hologram UI at?
[DJ]: As these products become good enough, there is less and less consumer pressure to keep buying them, especially buying them every year.
[DJ]: And so clearly Apple, along with most other companies, especially that make hardware, they really feel like they have to do a release every year.
[DJ]: They clearly feel a need to release something, but by its very nature, that thing is only ever going to be slightly bigger, faster, different color, different user interface.
[DJ]: So I can sort of see the impetus behind this liquid glass thing is there's no way to make radical changes to the smartphone at this point in time, probably.
[DJ]: But software, you can just do any crazy thing to.
[DJ]: So they have.
[JM]: I wanted to hear your thoughts on the iPhone Air first, in part because I knew ahead of time that that's what you had.
[JM]: And I didn't want to offer my thoughts and then feel like, oh, I just like trampled all over your new phone.
[JM]: I feel comforted to know that your impressions of it are very similar to my own impressions of it with the obvious caveat that I haven't even touched or seen one.
[JM]: When I heard Apple talk about it in their announcement, my first impression was, oh, great.
[JM]: They have reduced the size of the phone in the one dimension that I do not care about.
[JM]: The one dimension that, in fact, I actually don't want them to change.
[JM]: Like,
[JM]: I don't want a thinner phone.
[JM]: I have an iPhone 15 Pro and picking it off of a table with no case, because that is how I prefer to carry my phones and experience my phones, trying to pick it off of a table is...
[JM]: not particularly easy.
[JM]: So when I think what do I want them to change in terms of the form factor of my phone, making it thinner is dead last.
[JM]: It's like literally the last thing I want them to do to it.
[JM]: What I want them to do is to make it more like what it sounds like is our shared fantasy, our beloved iPhone 12 slash 13 mini form factor, which actually fits comfortably in your hand and can be used comfortably
[JM]: in one hand without using the other.
[JM]: I have the 15 Pro as this somewhat not great compromise because they don't make the mini anymore.
[JM]: And so when I think of what I want them to change, it's definitely not the thinness.
[JM]: And so I look at the iPhone Air just in terms of form factor and
[JM]: Yeah, it's just not a phone that I would enjoy using.
[JM]: It is wider.
[JM]: It is presumably taller.
[JM]: They've increased the other dimensions.
[JM]: Those are the dimensions I want to be smaller, not bigger.
[JM]: So again, to me, it feels very much like indicative of a design is how it looks.
[JM]: And not design is how it works.
[JM]: Apple to produce something that to me feels like it's new and shiny.
[JM]: And the thinness is mainly about how it looks when you hold it sideways and you show someone and you go, Ooh, look how thin it is because the thinness in your hand, like, can you even really like appreciate the thinness?
[JM]: Like when you're holding it, like your, your hand.
[JM]: I don't really appreciate the thinness of my own phone, the phone I have in my hand, because the thinness isn't something you really notice when you're holding it.
[DJ]: There are legitimate trade-offs that have no easy solution here.
[DJ]: Because I think one of the things about big phones versus small phones is the fact is when you are looking at a phone with your eyes, like when you're actually attempting to operate it for most of what we use it for, it is its screen.
[DJ]: Its capabilities are related to the size of and density of its display.
[DJ]: So we've both said and agreed that like the iPhone mini is our preferred form factor for holdification, like actually clutching it in our meat paws.
[DJ]: But when it comes to using the phone, like I have both these phones next to me.
[DJ]: And if you asked me to pick both of them up and swipe the screens open and then like read a web page.
[DJ]: And then you said, on which of those phones did you prefer reading that web page?
[DJ]: I would be lying to you if I claimed that I preferred to read the web page on the smaller screen.
[DJ]: That is not true.
[DJ]: There is this kind of like intrinsic design constraint where to use a phone, you want a screen as big as possible.
[DJ]: But to hold a phone, you want a phone that is as small as possible.
[DJ]: And so I will say...
[DJ]: that having actually held this big stupid thing in my hand, the thinness does actually contribute to a feeling of, well, let me put it this way.
[DJ]: I think this is the iPhone that I have clutched to date that feels the most like when you pick it up, it's just a screen, which is to some degree sort of the like ideal case.
[DJ]: Like if you, like in a fantasy world,
[DJ]: When you wanted to use a smartphone in air quotes, you would just like hold up the palm of your hand and a giant screen would appear.
[DJ]: Hence the hologram idea.
[DJ]: I do think there's value to what they're doing with this design that isn't just about, hey, look, we have something new consumer sheep.
[DJ]: So purchase it like it does address one of the fundamental design constraints of the smartphone.
[DJ]: Unfortunately, it it just it doesn't help with the other thing you do with the phone while you're using it, which is holding it.
[JM]: I will concede that it does address the fundamental design constraint of how do we make a bigger screen and a lighter phone?
[JM]: Because the only way you make a bigger screen and a lighter phone is by reducing the thickness of it.
[JM]: But the question of, okay, which of my two existing screens by my name and yours would I prefer to read on to me feels like a bit of a conceit because I would prefer to read on my 13 inch M4 iPad Pro because that screen is amazing and it's a wonderful, but the last thing I want to do is hold it in one hand and put it in my pocket because that's not what it's good for.
[JM]: So I think it is, how do you balance those things?
[JM]: And to me, again, not having looked at one, not having held one, I obviously am speaking from a position of ignorance, but to me, the iPhone Air is simply not a product for me.
[JM]: And so
[JM]: Yeah, I understand that I'm probably overstepping by saying, oh, this feels like design is how it looks and not how it functions.
[JM]: And this whole product is just kind of like flashy and doesn't really serve the usability needs of most people.
[JM]: That is probably overstepping.
[JM]: I don't know.
[JM]: Maybe it does.
[JM]: We're going to find out, right, in terms of like how well it sells.
[JM]: But even then, I'm not even sure really how much that proves that.
[JM]: Like, I think a lot of times people buy things that are less usable for whatever reasons, because they...
[JM]: prioritize other things.
[JM]: I don't know.
[JM]: I'm not those people.
[JM]: I'm me.
[JM]: So I have to make my own choices based on what feels like the right combination of things for me.
[JM]: And ultimately, what I'm saying is, again, not having seen it not having having held it, but to me, the air does not seem like the right balance of features and form factor for me.
[DJ]: Agreed.
[DJ]: I would not want to replace my personal everyday phone with this.
[DJ]: Like it's fun to own one.
[DJ]: That's kind of how I think about my work phone, right?
[DJ]: Is it like, oh, it's fun to own this.
[DJ]: And I use it, you know, I use it to run like debug versions of our app or something like that.
[DJ]: But there is, and maybe this is where I get a little sympathy.
[DJ]: Again, not that Apple needs it, but like I work for a product company.
[DJ]: And so I am familiar with the human tendency to equate
[DJ]: You didn't do the thing I wanted.
[DJ]: And that is evidence of some failing on your part that is larger than merely the fact that you didn't do what I wanted.
[DJ]: And so I perceive a little bit of that in like this broader criticism in general around the design is how it works thing.
[DJ]: is people going like, well, Apple's bad at design now because if they were good at design, they would have designed the product I wanted.
[DJ]: And it's like, look, I'm sorry, I have some bad news for you.
[DJ]: You're not the only person in the universe.
[DJ]: And it's possible that a lot of other people actually prefer the set of trade-offs that they're making, i.e.
[DJ]: bigger screen, bigger, thinner phone.
[DJ]: I mean, clearly that was Apple's conclusion because they made the mini form factor for two years and then stopped.
[DJ]: Which made me very sad.
[DJ]: But to me, that's not an indication that like they're a bad company that doesn't know how to do their jobs now.
[DJ]: Unfortunately, like basically what it told me is, alas, we are on the wrong side of history.
[DJ]: And apparently people buy big phones and not small phones because I assume that's why they did it.
[JM]: That's why everyone assumes they stopped making the iPhone Mini.
[JM]: Everyone assumes it's because it didn't sell in big enough numbers to meet whatever internal goals they had for that version.
[JM]: And it'll be really interesting, not that we'll probably ever find out, but I would be very curious to see how the iPhone Air sells relative to how the iPhone 12 and 13 Mini sold.
[JM]: Because it's not clear to me that this is a better product for most people.
[JM]: But again, that doesn't mean anything, really.
[JM]: People sometimes buy things that aren't necessarily the best product for them.
[JM]: But it will be interesting to see if it's a product that a lot of people choose and a lot of people buy.
[DJ]: Right.
[DJ]: Well, and as other people have pointed out, it's not the iPhone 17 Air.
[DJ]: It doesn't have the number in it, which means, like, are they going to keep making it?
[DJ]: Do they still sell the iPhone SE?
[DJ]: By the way, I haven't checked.
[JM]: My understanding is that they did sell the SE, obviously, and that this is supposed to replace it, I guess.
[DJ]: Really?
[DJ]: That's super weird because the SE has always been essentially the cheaper iPhone because it uses like the previous form factor and the previous technology.
[DJ]: And so the idea that they would introduce something novel now, but then it becomes like kind of the cheap phone over time.
[DJ]: I mean, that's kind of interesting.
[DJ]: I guess, yeah, it'll be real interesting to see what they do.
[DJ]: Like maybe next year, does the iPhone Air stay exactly the same while the 18 and 18 Pro come out?
[DJ]: And then the Air only gets like a processor bump every couple of years?
[JM]: I think it'll get more than a processor bump, but I would be surprised even if the iPhone Air sells well, I would be surprised if they update it every year alongside the regular iPhone and the Pro version.
[JM]: I don't know for sure whether the iPhone Air will replace the SE,
[JM]: Maybe Apple now has four models, and two of those models, the regular and the Pro, are updated every year, and the other two trade off.
[JM]: So the SE comes out every other year, and then in the off years, the Air gets updated.
[JM]: Maybe that's how they'll do it.
[JM]: I don't know.
[JM]: I don't really understand Apple's whole iPhone strategy here, obviously.
[DJ]: I think I don't know, and also I don't really care, which maybe leads to the bigger point about how smartphones are not novel anymore.
[DJ]: So I kind of like the idea.
[DJ]: Frankly, I wish they would do this with their software, too.
[DJ]: I kind of like the idea of a company like Apple getting off the annual release cycle entirely.
[DJ]: And if you went to buy whatever year it is where you go, it's time to get a new iPhone for some reason.
[DJ]: You just go buy whatever what's in the store right now.
[DJ]: You know, it's like here's the iPhone.
[DJ]: You just buy it as opposed to this this thing where every year there has to be a new number and nominally some new features that like drive people.
[DJ]: Because I'm guessing it doesn't drive people very much.
[DJ]: Like maybe it's always it's probably always just been like the tech the tech nerds.
[DJ]: It has always just been the tech nerds.
[DJ]: But there was a period when the iPhone came out where the fact that a new iPhone had come out was enough reason to get rid of your old one and buy a new one.
[DJ]: Because it was the new iPhone.
[DJ]: And I strongly doubt that's really true anymore.
[DJ]: Like, does anyone who has the iPhone 16 Pro watch the 17 Pro come out and go, oh, I wonder how much I can get for this 16 on eBay?
[DJ]: Because I got to get my hands on that new one.
[DJ]: Like...
[DJ]: It just doesn't work that way anymore.
[DJ]: So I kind of like the idea of dropping this artificial product enhancement cycle.
[JM]: As you said, I think that because it's a mature product line and category that fewer and fewer people are upgrading their phones every single year.
[JM]: It just doesn't make any sense.
[JM]: The changes that they make to them are incremental and they're iterative.
[JM]: And that is how it should be.
[JM]: We don't need holograms yet, or maybe we do need them, but we don't have holograms yet.
[DJ]: Or folding screens.
[DJ]: I wonder when the folding screen is coming.
[JM]: Yeah, the rumor mill is abuzz with this whole Apple is working on a folding screen thing, and I just don't care.
[JM]: I don't care about rumors, and I will care about it when they announce it, and that will be interesting, but...
[DJ]: I agree that the one thing that I would hope there, and then we probably won't even get this, would be that it's a return to a much smaller form factor because you can like fold it open to get a bigger screen.
[DJ]: But just watch that when they actually do this, it'll just be an iPhone Air that folds open into two iPhone Airs.
[DJ]: And it'll be like, it's still too big.
[DJ]: And now it's way too big.
[DJ]: It sure is thin though.
[JM]: If and when Apple releases a folding phone, I totally agree that is precisely what it will be.
[JM]: It will be a too big folded device that unfolds into a gigantic parabola of a phone.
[DJ]: Oh man, just let me live in hope, Justin.
[DJ]: Come on.
[JM]: I think the phone that continues to be, well, particularly this year, the phone that is the best phone for most people is the iPhone 17.
[JM]: They have added so many of the pro-level features to the base model, if you can even call it that, iPhone, that for most people, that really is the best phone.
[JM]: And
[JM]: Even I, if I were going to buy a new phone this year, which I don't intend to do, would consider getting the iPhone 17 and not the Pro model, except for, at least for me, one feature that I think is kind of silly, and that is that the iPhone 17 still transmits data digitally.
[JM]: via a USB cable at USB 2.0 speeds, which is 480 megabits per second.
[JM]: This is a standard USB 2.0.
[JM]: This is a standard from the year 2000.
[JM]: That is 25 years ago.
[JM]: To me, it is just absurd that this is a pro only feature.
[JM]: Like why, why would you say like, oh, you know what?
[JM]: This is something that only pros need.
[JM]: And I suppose the reality is it is something that only pros want.
[JM]: Your average person in 2025 is not transmitting data via a USB cable between their phone and another device.
[JM]: Like I get that I am a vast outlier, that most people have no desire to do this, but I backup my phone to my computer.
[JM]: And so for me, backups occur much, much faster
[JM]: on a pro model than on a non-pro model.
[JM]: The iPhone 17 Pro, from what I understand, can transmit via I think Thunderbolt 5 at 10 gigabits per second.
[JM]: That is just a huge speed difference between the two.
[JM]: So for me, that's pretty much a deal breaker.
[JM]: Just really on principle, like on principle, I'm like, no, I just can't bring myself, even if it's just for backups, which for the most part, I don't need to be very fast, but just the principle of it.
[JM]: Like you're going to give me a phone that transmits data via USB 2.0.
[JM]: I don't know.
[JM]: I just don't think I could do it.
[DJ]: I wonder what the driver for that is.
[DJ]: I don't mean the device driver.
[DJ]: I mean like the economic driver, because there's no economic driver.
[DJ]: No, there must only be an economic driver because otherwise, why would you do it?
[DJ]: It's a marketing gate.
[DJ]: No, I don't think it is.
[DJ]: I think because think about how many iPhones they make.
[DJ]: So if there's some way that they save 0.05 cents across 150 million devices by making this decision, that's got to be part of it.
[DJ]: I mean, it's probably both.
[DJ]: Why does it have to be one or the other?
[DJ]: But I assume that part of it has to go into saving money.
[DJ]: It's really interesting when the iPhones come out and various companies do teardowns of what's inside them and the component cost.
[DJ]: It's interesting because it gives you a little insight into the sheer logistics of how do you assemble and then sell hundreds of millions of this same thing such that the profit margins are within some knowable amount.
[JM]: I'm sure that the Thunderbolt 5 licensing fees cost something, but there's nothing that says that the iPhone 17 has to have that same Thunderbolt 5 interface.
[JM]: Like it could just use normal USB 3.0.
[DJ]: But I guess that's my point.
[DJ]: Like if it costs slightly less to put USB 2.0, because to your point about a marketing gate, like the marketing gate is already there with Thunderbolt.
[DJ]: Like Thunderbolt's already the thing that you claim over USB 3.0.
[DJ]: There's no reason to use USB 2 other than that it was the cheapest and most accessible thing to mass produce, I have to assume.
[JM]: So the one product that did catch my interest, like we haven't even talked about the other non-iPhone products, right?
[JM]: Like there's watches and yeah.
[JM]: I don't really have very many thoughts about the watches. The watch I have works fine. I didn't really see anything in the watches that caught my interest, so I was like, "Okay, no on the watches, no on the iPhones… but AirPods Pro 3? Okay — now you have my attention." Because this is, besides the phone and my mac computers, the product that I use the most on a day-to-day basis...
[JM]: ... and the one that I think I'm happy with, but not thrilled with.
[JM]: And the reason why is from the first time that I used AirPods Pro, and I don't remember if it was the 1 or the 2 — I think it was the original one.
[JM]: But I feel like over time, the active noise cancellation has degraded over time.
[JM]: And I have my own conspiracy theories as to why that is.
[JM]: The impression I get is that perhaps someone threatened to sue Apple and they said, okay, well, we're going to just release a software update and tweak how we handle the active noise cancellation to avoid some lawsuit.
[JM]: But we're not going to talk about the fact that we did that because that would trigger a class action lawsuit for everyone who did buy this product.
[JM]: And again, I have no evidence to support this whatsoever.
[JM]: I can't think of any other reason why over time the active noise cancellation would be degraded over time other than they released this automatic software update that made it worse.
[JM]: And I can't think of any reason why they would do that unless they were getting sued.
[JM]: But anyway, because I have no evidence to support it, we can just toss the whole thing aside.
[JM]: Bottom line is I have noticed at least for me that this has not felt as good as it was before.
[JM]: And even if that's totally made up in my head, maybe it's not changed at all.
[JM]: What I definitely can say is there are times where I am in a noisy environment and it feels like, wow, it seems so loud in here.
[JM]: I must have forgot to turn on the noise cancellation.
[JM]: And then I go to trigger the toggle and then it flips into transparency because it was already on noise cancellation.
[JM]: Now it's super loud.
[JM]: And I'm like, oh, got it.
[JM]: So I felt like it was loud.
[JM]: I thought it's because it wasn't on.
[JM]: It actually was on.
[JM]: It just wasn't doing the job I wanted it to do.
[JM]: And so...
[JM]: Fast forward to the Apple announcements and they announced this new version.
[JM]: They say that they have improved the noise cancellation or noise isolation, however they phrased it, by some percentage.
[JM]: Maybe it was 50%, maybe it was 100.
[JM]: I don't remember what they said, but it was significant.
[JM]: It wasn't like, oh, we've improved it by 10%.
[JM]: And not that you can necessarily take them at face value, but for, you know, shy of $300, I'm like, okay, you know what?
[JM]: I'm willing to roll the dice and try it.
[JM]: And so I ordered it immediately on launch day so that they would arrive in a timely manner.
[JM]: And they did.
[JM]: And there is no question that they are improved.
[JM]: That is my bottom line summary.
[JM]: They are definitely better at noise isolation in part, as they explained in their announcement due to a better seal.
[JM]: I think they now come with either four or five tips.
[JM]: I don't have them handy, so I don't remember what was inside the box, but they come with more tips.
[JM]: And to me, the default tips feel larger, I suppose.
[JM]: I don't know how to describe if they're actually larger, but they definitely feel more like, oh, okay, I am putting something in my ears and I can feel the sort of invasive nature of putting them in my ears.
[JM]: They feel as I'm inserting them,
[JM]: less comfortable than the ones that I use with the AirPods Pro 2.
[JM]: But whether they're actually larger, or it's just they change the shape, I don't know what it is.
[JM]: But it definitely isolates the sound better, just by sheer nature of the form factor, as well as whatever they've done with the algorithm or the software that does the active noise cancellation.
[JM]: So
[JM]: I have not used them at length in noisy environments.
[JM]: So my end verdict is still out.
[JM]: But my initial impressions are very positive and well done, Apple.
[JM]: I'm really happy with these.
[JM]: Of the things they announced, this is the only thing I bought.
[JM]: And so far, I'm happy with them.
[DJ]: Nice.
[DJ]: It does feel like the AirPods get better with every iteration.
[DJ]: Like that's a product that hasn't sort of topped out yet.
[DJ]: I am curious though, this would be an interesting experiment.
[DJ]: I wonder if the degradation you experienced in the noise cancellation on the AirPods Pro 2 might actually have something to do with the tips.
[DJ]: Have you ever replaced them?
[JM]: For reasons that are boring, I have actually owned multiple pairs of the AirPods Pro 2.
[JM]: And so I have used both the pre-USB-C, the Lightning version of it, as well as the upgraded USB-C version of the case and the AirPods.
[JM]: And so I've tried them with different tips and I have indeed replaced the tips on one of those pair.
[JM]: And so I feel like I have a pretty good set of data in terms of how they function with different.
[DJ]: I see.
[DJ]: Okay.
[DJ]: So there's, it definitely feels like the degradation happens even, even if you put a fresh pair of tips on them, it's still noisy.
[DJ]: For example, I wondered if that was a thing where like the tips might just like lose, get worse at sealing over time.
[JM]: I do notice with at least one pair of those AirPods Pro 2 that I periodically have to push them back in a little bit because over time they start to move towards the exterior and that impacts the seal and impacts the ability for them to isolate sound.
[JM]: But my impression is that this degradation that I've experienced probably isn't related to the tips.
[JM]: Obviously, I don't know.
[JM]: But the good news is that these new AirPods Pro make it so that I don't really need to think about why that is.
[JM]: And I can just enjoy the fact that they're better.
[JM]: Excellent.
[JM]: All right, everyone.
[JM]: Thanks for listening.
[JM]: You can find me on the web at justinmayer.com.
[JM]: And you can find Dan on the web at danj.ca.
[JM]: Share your thoughts about this episode on the Fediverse at justin.ramble.space.