Hello and welcome to episode three of the Brew and Byte Show,
sponsored by the London Mac User Group. I’m Craig your host and I’m joined today
with fellow co-hosts and committee members Martin and our resident tech expert Alistair.
We were also to be joined by London’s favourite mathematician Tina, but we wish her well and hope that she’ll be joining us next week with her shiny new iPhone 12 Pro.
Coming up in the show, I catch up with an Apple developer to find
out how a new OS affects his workflow.
We’ll also be discussing the new HomePod mini, the iPhone 12, 12 Pro and the mini models.
And can we tempt Martin to join the blue team?
But first up, here’s the HomePod mini.
I like the presentation that they did this time around.
I liked the fact that they had that very slick presentation of that mini house where they
went from room to room and you could see like the wall was taken down so you could see all
the rooms in one go.
So when they were demonstrating the effectiveness of the home pod and how it worked with a family
or how it can recognise different voices it made better sense because you could see it
in context, especially when they were doing the intercom section for it.
What did you think, guys?
Well, I thought they, as you say, they never would have got that house on the
stage at the Steve Jobs Center.
It was quite an impressive presentation.
I think they spent quite a lot of money on the presentation.
A lot of that was real.
There was a fair bit of green screen, but even so, I’d say the visualisations
were pretty impressive.
The little mini pod itself, I think, was an absolute view.
Really impressive.
I think certainly I would more than happy to buy one,
even if not two.
I like the idea of the intercom.
So you could easily have one of those in each room almost,
just to tell the kids to get up, get out of bed
and get off to school or ask your Mrs. to make a cup of tea.
Whichever way you wanna look at it.
I like to look at them.
The sound that should be, I think very good.
They don’t mess about with these.
And for the price, I’m sure it’ll be the same here,
£99 for one of those little mini pods. I think it hits the price spot quite well
I thought it would be near a hundred and forty nine
That’s the thought sort of figure I had in mind when they were discussing it
So I was pleasantly surprised when it came in that under a hundred pounds
Do you think that their pricing was intentional?
Against the likes of Amazon with the echo, but it doesn’t it doesn’t really compete with it
The echo is only what forty nine. Yes dollars. It’s it’s half the price or a lot less
So don’t think they’re trying to compete on price.
It’s more maybe they’re trying to compete with the Sonos range or that slightly higher higher level of audio speakers.
Because it’s 50 pounds for the small speaker, the small Amazon one called the Amazon dot Echo dot.
That’s 49 99.
I think it’s trying to compete with the mid range one.
Yeah, because the one just called the Echo, the fourth generation one, that’s 90 quid.
So they’re, I think they’re trying to sort of produce something which is mainly a speaker first,
you know, for the sound quality, and then in the assistant second.
I don’t know how many people have the Google speakers in this country.
So it’d be interesting to see how it does.
From what I can see and what I’ve experienced with the normal sized home pod,
the sound is amazing off that.
So it’d be very interesting to see if the price has been done deliberately for people
who are sitting at home and would like just a better sound so that when they’re doing,
playing music from home or
They they want a better sound quality on their zoom calls. It might work quite well and they like the stylishness of Apple
Maybe it’s a tie-in also with their beat side, but the one thing it did surprise me is it’s sort of like
well Apple would really want to have like a mesh network to go with this as well and that would have been perfect with the
airport extremes and the airport’s
Expresses, but we no longer have that so
Maybe that will come back again in a different form.
That’s what I was thinking.
Maybe these could act as a mesh.
If you have already, you’ve got your home pod.
I’ve got three home pods here, two downstairs, a stereo speaker and one in the bedroom.
The fact that you can just change the music from speaker to speaker on your phone is really useful when you’re moving around the house.
So I think these will be added to that.
And I think it would be, yeah, certainly, but certainly everyone in the kitchen and
one in the office bedroom would be, I think for me would be ideal.
So that a price that I can, I can justify.
Yeah.
I think 99 is not too bad for an Apple device, considering that most of the people I
know who buy Apple stuff buy it because they want better quality sound and then
like the design of it.
Whereas if you wanted to sort of cheap assistant, you might go for Google or
the other thing is that the, I was reading, I’m trying to find it here.
that they actually can link to your Apple TV and act as stereo speakers for your TV when you’re watching.
Is it 4K video? 4K video with the new with the Apple TV 4K.
And I believe the update of this of the software means that my home pods will do the same as well.
So the two the two home pods in the lounge.
Could I now I could now tie to the Apple TV and get a better sound from TV.
It should be interesting.
The other theory is that by releasing a lot smaller devices,
you will get a better feedback.
So when Apple are trying to get their assistant
to get more efficient,
by understanding a greater range of English accents,
it might sort of help them understand what you’re saying
because we’re a small country,
but we have a wide range of different ways
of saying the same thing.
- Yeah, it’ll be able to recognise
what six different family voices in the same household.
So whoever asks Siri a question, it will respond to the person by name rather than just to whoever has spoken.
I’d assume you’d have to have some sort of training attempt.
You know, you’d have to go through some app on the phone, probably the home kit section on the phone and say,
“This is Alastair. This is what my voice is.”
And you read out a statement.
this is my voice, this is my password, please open, you know,
something simple like that.
- Hi, this is Martin, please make sure you record all my speech
and send it straight to the FBI.
(laughing)
- Whoops, sorry.
- Or Apple’s other one would be, you know,
I do love being in this fancy machine.
- Yeah, we’ll have to watch that.
I have to tell you a story, the other day we were having
a discussion and laughing about and Jackie somehow triggered
Siri and then use the F word which we didn’t notice at the time until I got a message from
EE saying we just had a message with some rather rude words and we don’t understand what you mean
could you please explain so be careful what you say around these speakers yeah that’s why people
now when they’re saying it, especially when you’re on a podcast I would say it very slowly
so that you can’t understand it or say it very fast or say the assistant who can’t be named.
So it doesn’t trigger stuff when you’re listening to this podcast off a home pod.
Do you also think it’s going to act as a manager for Internet of Things devices in your home?
I think tied up with an Apple TV then yes that could be a real probability
that the Apple TV could act as you’re always on the computer and could likewise respond to all the
different control mechanisms that we’re now using for light, for heat, for security, all those aspects.
Whether or not the mini pod itself would be powerful enough to do that, I’m not sure.
But linked in as a system, you know, the internet of everything, it could easily pull all that together
into one harmonious unit.
- Because Apple does not have a very good track history
at dealing with internet of things devices at all.
It really struggled, especially with the home integration app.
They were very slow off the mark.
- I think the other thing is that they’ve changed
the viewpoint from where they are in the world.
I mean, was it the Americans go on about saying
how they used their home pod to tell them
how to make recipes?
But I’ve not come across anyone in this country
yet to say how they want to have a recipe done, but from their home pod.
So maybe that is being Apple’s thinking of a they know that in certain parts of
the world, they want one thing and other parts of the world, they have no interest.
I think as well in America, the security issues in the home, the home invasion is
more of a problem than we have here.
I think that’s what a lot of people worry about.
So these integrated systems that’s link alarm and control and security,
They have been trying for quite some time now to link all that together.
Wasn’t there a new initiative launched and Apple were part of that initiative
that all of the new equipment for your home is going to be on an open source
standard? Of course, the problem with that then is Leisure’s have wide open
to attack by hackers.
Yeah, I’m intrigued.
I wonder where they’re going to go with it next.
The one thing you can say Apple’s internet of thing devices are now
integrated with Tim Cook’s new IKEA home that he displayed at the recent event.
And I just looked at the amount of devices that the new HomePod Mini will
support. It goes all the way down to the iPhone 6s and if anyone’s wondering why
you haven’t got this iPhone 6 it’s because the speakers and the microphone
are not compatible. That’s interesting. So that’s the main reason behind it.
problem is being made more complicated because they had to adjust the microphone, I think wasn’t it in the iPhone 6 to make it more powerful.
So I think I could hear a whole range of nuances and tones in voice if I remember when they released the iPhone 6s.
And I just looked on Apple’s website and they’re saying at the HomePod you can teach it to say film night and it can automatically set up the lighting and put on certain films.
so you can have it like that. So it’d be interesting to see what comes from it. One of the things which
comes out of all of this is how people actually intend on using it after
the company releases it. So I’d be intrigued to know how many people actually have automatic
garage doors in the UK connected to their iPhone. I’d be intrigued. But when you look at all that
stuff. It’s all very middle America, isn’t it? It’s very nice to have, you know, automatic blinds
and automatic lighting and TV chairs that move around the house, but that to me seems to be very
middle America. As we’ve tried to point out on this show, I don’t see a lot of that in the UK.
It’s a different lifestyle to what we have here. I don’t think as many people would rely
on the internet of things controlling so much of their house.
I haven’t yet to come across anyone who has that yet.
I’ve come across a number of people who have speakers.
I’ve come across a number of people who have lighting set up
automatically.
But I haven’t come across that many people who set up stuff.
I mean, I come across people who’ve tried to have automated
TVs, you know, the ones where you speak into the TV and it changes the channel or goes up or down.
But it doesn’t work with certain people’s regional accents. But most people are like plain and simple
stuff, you know, park on the street or have a simple buzzer to open the door, you know, something simple.
Well, I do live out here and a little bit more at the sticks. And here you do get you get automatic
gates and stuff like that, people who have larger style houses and driveways. Quite often
you’ll see automatic gates operated by either a blipper in the car or some of them actually
have got an app on the phone that as the car approaches, the gates will start to open ready
for them to sweep into their drive and close the gates behind them. So that kind of stuff I do see
bit but I say the very glamorous stuff we see on the on the TV and that the house that
that tin built was very much set up in that style. It’d be interesting to see if people’s
styles change as a result of it so if you design a kitchen now which will be best suited for the
home pot or because you only have to look at some of the flats and some of the places and you’ll
see that they’re either too small or they’ve got too many reflective services. The sound
bounces off them.
Well, as you say, I will be putting my order in for a couple of mini pods as soon as they’re
released. That’ll be my Christmas present to me.
Yeah, it does look very tempting. I must admit at now at that sort of price.
It does. I think that was a big, big thing on their part to bring it down to that kind
of price. That’s going to make a massive difference.
So no Apple tax added then for that particular one.
(upbeat music)
- Hello, I’m here with Paul
and we’re going to discuss what it’s like to be
an Apple developer.
And if I could ask Paul to introduce himself
and tell us a little bit about him.
- Hi, Craig.
Yes, I’m Paul.
I work at Stratospheric
and we’re a small iOS development company.
We’ve been making iOS apps now for just over 10 years,
pretty much as soon as it was possible
to make an app on an iOS device.
And we started, our main series of apps
has all been about file access
because that’s where all of our experience
and expertise is in.
We’ve been making file access apps.
ever since we started and doing okay.
- That’s brilliant.
Thank you, Paul.
Could I ask how you first got into becoming a developer?
- I trained at Bath University
as an electronics and electrical engineer.
And then it wasn’t long after I started working
for a big industrial company
that they needed software writing.
It was all the hardware engineers
who got involved in the software too.
We were at the sharp end, if you like,
of developing code for embedded systems,
electrical control systems, all those kinds of things. And from there, I moved on from
sort of more of a heavy engineering and software to do with it, so to side, into a consumer electronics
and then into just software for mainly Windows PCs. I did software for mainly communications
applications, file transfer stuff, and also then moving on into email and all the web stuff and
all those technologies too. It really only in the last obviously 10 years or so that mobile
stuff has come to the fore and that’s where it was possible to make a decent living in mobile
software and that’s where I’ve been ever since. Perfect, thank you. What would you say or what
piece of advice would you give to someone that’s just starting or wanting to become a developer?
A lot of people are saying at the moment that you don’t need to have the computer science
background and although it obviously helps and will get you great connections in the industry
and all those things, I still think it’s possible to be a software developer from a transition
from any other career into it or even just to dabble into it as a hobby and use it as a side
job. Be just have a go. All the tools are available and usually free for hobbyists.
Definitely give it a go and also develop some connections with people on Twitter or other
social media and there’s lots of people out there who are willing to help and give advice
and point you in the direction of the right things. So, yeah, I think it’s a very open
field still.
Do you think that any of the coding applications that Apple have provided are really useful
to help you getting into becoming a developer?
I think they’ve made great strides with their playgrounds and Swift and those kinds of tools.
I tend not to jump straight into the Apple ecosystem.
Firstly, it might be great to maybe use,
I know if you’re at school, use tools like Scratch,
which is a great graphical tool for learning programming.
And there’s lots of stuff available on the web
for learning JavaScript, most of which you don’t need
anything but just a browser to get going.
So there’s lots of those tools that you can use first
before then progressing into downloading Xcode
and embarking on a lot of learning to make a start on the Apple system.
That’s great. And if I could ask a little bit more about the apps that you develop,
is it true in saying that it’s not just one app that you actually develop?
There’s a number of different ones.
It is indeed.
And although our main core app is the main breadwinner for the company,
called File Browser.
We now offer four different versions of that app.
We also offer some other little utilities and tools
that we thought would be interesting to try on the way.
And also some things we tried just to see
whether we could make a collaboration and note taking
app, which we did in the form of share spaces.
So we have a few other things, but our main apps
are File Browsing File Access apps.
What would you say sets the File Browser apart
to some of the other apps that are out there?
Okay, well, I think it’s our commitment to keeping it up to date with every IOS version,
adding new features to it on a regular basis.
So the app gains new features every couple of months.
And obviously, there are bug fixes to address all the time with File Access App.
And particularly as an app that does so much, it does everything from making scans of documents
and storing scans of a document on a file server to connecting to a plethora of different cloud services.
Interesting features like capturing video,
it does file copy and subfolder copy.
And it really is a very complicated app
interfacing with all these different services
means we have to keep those up to date all the time.
Means that it’s such a long lived and popular app,
and an app that people keep on using once they’ve bought it.
And it’s because they know that we’re standing behind it
and keeping it going and making sure
it needs everyone’s needs.
Well, I think the reason why we’ve had to create several different versions of the app is to try and cater for the different markets the app is sitting in.
So we have a standard version of File Browser, which has most of the features that are available
in all of our versions.
And that suffices for most users who want to use it for file management, copy, move
deleted files, bulk renamed files, doing things like viewing videos or streaming videos from
any source to their device, Chrome casting,
or all those kinds of things.
So that’s sort of a home user sort of based app.
But then we have a business version
that also supports mobile device management.
So if you want to set up a fleet of iPads with file access,
then you can do that with file browser business,
because you can just put all the settings into one place
in the mobile device management system
and then roll all those settings out
to all of the iPads at the same time
so that every iPad has the correct access
to all the right servers and volumes and cloud services.
And also you could use it to lock down features
so that if you don’t want your users
perhaps to be able to delete files,
then you can just block that feature entirely
to make sure that all your appropriate security policies are in place.
Yeah, we’ve covered home and business.
And then we have an education version, which is very competitively priced for bulk rollout
because we know that education is one of those areas that’s often underfunded.
And so we’ve made sure that there’s a competitively priced version that does everything they
need for that.
we have a subscription version. The subscription version is not everything that the business
version has. So all of each is including sync and automatic backup of your camera or all
those kinds of things built in. And that version is for those people who want to support us
on a regular basis for 50 pence or 50 cents or whatever it is a month. And you can have
a nice feeling that you’re supporting us every month with your purchase.
Who would you say the app is designed for?
Is there a particular customer out there?
Yes, everyone’s using it in different ways.
And often we’re quite surprised when we discover, and recently we discovered that there’s a
medical device manufacturer in the US who uses an iPad to interface with medical devices.
I think it’s pacemakers and other sort of in-body devices, and it communicates with
those devices to pull off statistics files, pacemakers and so on.
And then they use File Browser to upload the content to a secure server.
So that was an interesting find for us.
That’s great.
It sounds extremely versatile and there’s lots of different users out there for it.
That’s fascinating.
It’s interesting to see where and what people do with different applications,
things that even the developer may not have thought of.
Yes, we even had communications from somebody at NASA talking about File
browser being used on the International Space Station. Other conversations with people at
SpaceX too. We don’t know whether it got on there, but it’s all very interesting to see how it gets
used in various situations. And that was because the business version could connect to the secure
government Amazon S3 storage system. That’s incredible. You can actually say it’s an out-of-world
application. Oh yes. Okay. So as I’m sure you’re aware, there have been lots of recent
Apple Headquarter news recently with new software updates and hardware releases.
How does a new version of an OS impact how a developer works?
Okay, so yeah, the process starts with all the announcements at the Worldwide Developer Conference.
And so we’re obviously glued to the keynote to find out what the major changes are.
Once we’ve done that, then we have to start delving into the all of
various talks during the developer conference to find out what detailed changes they’ve made to the
OS. And with File Browser in particular, it’s tied in to the OS file storage system fairly
tightly. And so whenever they make a change that’s associated with that, we have to take it apart and
work out how we make sure that everyone’s normal file operations they do on the iPad with our app
can continue just as they did before. And sometimes they introduce new features which is great because
Apple’s been developing iOS. They’ve been opening up the file system gradually bit by bit. So
File Browser can now get its tentacles into more and more parts where you couldn’t do in the first
place. It was quite locked down, but now you can with the app get access to storage in other apps.
You can get access to cloud storage and also pass files around the system much more comprehensively
than used to be able to. One of the things we’ve been quite excited to use in the last couple
of iOS updates is Apple’s system for allowing one app to edit the file of another app. And what’s
that that allows us to do is the user can select a file on any storage, whether it be cloud or a
local computer, and then open that file in the Word app. And then when file browser spots that
that Word has resaved the file,
we then re-uploaded it back to where it came from.
And that gives you the kind of functionality
that people have on a laptop when editing a Word.
- On that topic, would you say it’s now possible
to be without a laptop and just use a tablet?
- Most definitely, yes.
And we are seeing lots of companies
who we work with who roll out file browsers of the business.
And they are increasingly having an issued iPad
to an employee with all the apps they need.
And they don’t bother issuing a laptop anymore.
And I think that’s great news
because it means that people are more mobile.
They’ve got tools that are actually easier to use.
And so they don’t need so much training.
But they’ve got all the functionality
they used to have with a laptop.
So dealing with all the legacy storage
that they might have,
dealing with the legacy storage on file servers
can be tied in with all the new storage of cloud systems
like Azure and all the other cloud providers,
Google Drive and so on.
All those can be integrated into an iPad
without having to resort to switching back to a laptop
for those things you can’t do
because those corner cases are getting fewer.
- That’s brilliant, thank you.
Do you have any thoughts on the new iPhone
that’s just been announced or should I say iPhones?
I know it’s quite a range this time and lots of colors and wireless charging, all those
things with their new MagSafe things.
And I see this is very much sort of an incremental development over all the work they’ve done
previously with the phones.
I’m not sure what applications we’re going to get with the new camera system, particularly
the, oh I’ve forgotten the name of it now, the special camera they’ve got to.
Oh the LiDAR sensor.
LiDAR, sorry that was the word I was looking for.
I’m not sure what applications are going to come of that, but I’m sure someone’s got some good ideas.
I think it should be quite interesting.
As a developer, what would you say has been the most difficult part of your day-to-day process?
Okay, yeah, there are a couple of things I spend most of my day doing.
So, first thing is fixing stuff that’s broken. And you might think that, gosh,
the app’s been on the app store for several years now. How can stuff still be broken?
And I think it’s because of every single storage system keeps on changing their
APIs. Every time someone adds a new feature into a storage system, we have to add in features to
cope with that. And then with all the interactions between various things, there’s all sorts of
little niggly gray areas where we might need to improve functionality in various ways. We’re also
constantly improving the way the app looks to try and make it a bit easier to use.
One of the problems with adding all these features means that we’ve got an ever-expanding
number of controls and menu options. Keeping that under control means we’re constantly distilling
them down into what is the actual thing that the user needs to do next, what should they
have on the screen to help them make a bit of work. So most of my day is spent doing that kind of
thing. And then the other part of my day is spent, well, so helping to fix the website
to make sure that all of our user information for how to use the app is good, all the manuals
and the marketing information we’ve got there. And then finally, it’s answering customer queries.
We answer every email that comes in personally. We don’t use any automated system for that.
We make sure that everyone gets a timely response and with the information they need to use the
So if someone says, I can’t connect, then we might have to have a couple of emails with
them to say, OK, what is it that you’re trying to do here?
How is your home network organized so that we can try and help them best?
So it’s a very personal service that we offer.
But I think without that, we’d lose contact with our customers and we wouldn’t be able
to get the kind of personal recommendations that we get.
Perfect.
Thank you.
In regards to the recent news of Apple being investigated for being a very one-sided company
and that they’ve got their control over the app store, do you have any thoughts on that
particular subject?
Well, yes, of course, because as app developers, we’re very much tied in with the Apple ecosystem
and dependent on it.
And so hearing lots of developers complain that the 30% cut they take is too much, you
know, that echoes quite a lot with us.
We’re looking at what value we get from the app store.
And of course, we get the visibility of our app on the app store.
And that’s the only place you can get your app sold is on the app store.
So it’s a very, it’s a difficult equation to balance.
I think they, you know, to my mind, I think they charge too much for that. It’s hard to
come up with a value of what they should charge. Is everybody charging 30% so that means Google and
Amazon and all the rest of them are all the other stores charging that amount simply because Apple
gets away with charging 30% so why isn’t there a little bit more competition there? And the
subscription thing one gets us as well is where Apple is constantly forcing Apple developers of
apps to put in subscriptions for things. And we were very reluctant at first. And so we were quite
late into making a subscription version of our app. But in the end, we decided to do it simply
because customers said they wanted a subscription app because they wanted to support us regularly.
Some of them knew that it takes constant effort to keep an app going on the app store and to
maintain it properly. And so we introduced it because of that. And now we have several
100 customers who subscribe to our app to support us, knowing that they get the best
version of a file manager app that they can get.
That’s a very good suggestion indeed because a lot of people don’t realise they just buy their app
at 79 or 99p here in the UK and they think that’s it. I don’t think they really see what
goes on behind the scenes.
Absolutely, it’s a lot of work. In some ways, a customer isn’t really bothered about that kind of
constant work, what they see is how much am I using the app? What am I using the app for?
And is the price I’m paying justified for the value I’m getting? And so that’s probably why
we’re constantly putting in new features and new capabilities to make sure we justify the fact that
it is a subscription. So that we’re not doing it just to say, please give us some money,
we’re poor developers. That’s not the case. It’s just the fact that we do it to make sure
that people get a good experience and well maintained app and something they can depend on
and use. You know, they pick it up in six months time. They’ll know it just carries on working
with the way it did before. And one last question if you don’t mind. In regards to the new releases,
can I ask, do you have a particular favorite or which one will you be buying next?
Well, I’m actually on an iPhone X, the original iPhone X with the notch.
And I’ve not upgraded since then.
I think the only one I might sort of like is the small one because I do prefer a smaller phone.
That might get my recommendation.
Do you have a preference over color?
Not really, no. I generally choose the black or silver.
something like that. That’s brilliant Paul. I really appreciate the time you’ve taken to speak to us
today. I wish you all the success that there is to come and we look forward to hearing lots more
about the apps and what updates you have for us. I’m sure we’ll keep in touch. Thank you so much
yeah and I hope everyone continues to safe 2020 if that’s possible. Stay safe everyone. Thank you for listening.
Welcome back to part two. Let’s jump into an ongoing discussion about the iPhone 12.
So we’ve got the pro line and the non-pro line. Let’s start with the order which they came out.
So it would be the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini. I think the mini is a clever piece of marketing.
I think that is trying to put that phone right back into the mix of people considering
whether they’re going to have an Apple phone or not because they’re compared to some of the Samsung and the Pixel and the phones there.
There is a premium to them. So I think that that phone is pitched right in there to upset the Apple cart that you can have an Apple phone,
or you can have an i12 phone. So it’s bang up to date and it’s a price that will make a lot of people maybe reconsider Apple.
Do you think it was aimed at a customer that would have normally bought the iPhone XR?
No, I think it was designed for the customer who would normally buy the iPhone SE.
Because if you look at the weight and if you look at the finness and the size of it,
it’s actually smaller than the SE, but very close to the SE first generation.
But as powerful as the full blown iPhone 12?
Correct.
which leads me to the conclusion that maybe Apple wanted a lot more people to upgrade,
so it would be more compatible with maybe the Silicon phones, Silicon computers,
which are coming out in a few years time.
It could also be that maybe they felt they were starting to lose customers because the
top-end phones are becoming quite expensive now in real terms. So maybe people who would have thought,
Well, I can’t afford to go to a Max Pro, but still want to retain an iPhone.
So, well, hang on, the SE is a viable option for me.
It’s still as powerful with the same guy chip.
And it’s a smaller form factor.
And it’s in a price now that actually would suit me better than trying to pay
twelve, thirteen, fourteen hundred pound for top of the line iPhone.
Yeah.
I think it’s also designed to help out the parts of the world which like having small iPhones
because if you look at when they release the iPhone SE that’s done quite well from sales
point of view from what we can work out. So maybe they thought they would get like the entry level
versus the small phone and the pro version for small phones. So you have the SE if you want
something simple and if you like small phones but you are like the parent you could have the SE
It’s more than one.
Also, don’t forget that survey
prefer to have a smaller phone.
- Yeah, it’s interesting you say that
’cause my partner currently uses an iPhone 8
in looking at the new phones.
The first one she jumped at was the Mini.
She liked that the most, purely based on its size.
- What do you think about them going backwards
in design styles, going back to the old original four
and five style of foam at the square edge
with the rectangular slab?
Is that a good or a bad point?
I think it’s a good point.
I’ll tell you a really good reason behind that
is because if you’re looking at,
if you want to put your phone on your side,
say you’re wanting to watch Apple TV off your phone,
it’s far easier if you’ve got a flat edge.
Second of all, if you’re wanting to video yourself
or look at stuff, those flat edges are actually easier.
The other thing I found is that flat edges are easier
to hold if you’re making phone calls.
rather than curved edges.
- Do you think there’ll be any kind of antenna gate issues
with this one, or do you think they might have
possibly designed the hell out of it
and made sure that no matter which way you hold it,
do you think we’re all holding it wrong according to Steve?
Do you think this time it doesn’t matter which way
you hold it, it’s gonna work?
- Well, that’s why they’ve got the lines on it.
- I’m very surprised that they even mentioned
that kind of thing in the presentation.
It mentioned that the frame was the antenna.
I’m surprised that they bought that up again.
I thought they would want to avoid that subject.
- Or kill it off from the round one go.
It’s the antenna, you know?
So it’s gonna be a subject to the way you hold it.
Are we all gonna get little rubber bands to go around it again
or prefer to put it back into some kind of cover shell
or something like that?
Which brings on to the next part
of that about the charging, this new Mag Charge,
Mag Chargers that they’re talking about.
Have they finally got that right?
Is this the culmination of all those years work spent on the charging pad that they were going to bring out?
AirPower, yeah.
Yeah, the pad that shall not be named.
Yeah, I think it was all designed to work with a certain limitations of what you had,
because they said if you didn’t get the phone exactly on the pad, it wouldn’t charge.
And so maybe just by putting something on the back was the simplest answer to charge the phone,
you know, not wirelessly, but it was probably a way also to make sure that they could get a
phone which has a higher water resistance rating because they’ve been looking to get rid of the
lightning connector all together. I’m saying that these things are now can go down to six meters,
so they’ve obviously cracked something in that, that six meters submersible for 30 minutes, that’s
that’s quite a bit of pressure. So obviously the lightning port must be some way sealed and contained
that it’s not a big issue for them. I thought that was quite an impressive point they made.
You can take this down to six metres, which is almost like six bar of pressure. That’s pretty
impressive. Yeah, I think the other thing they were trying to do was avoid accidental dropping.
So for example, they showed the oops moment where they put the phone on the table and someone
knocked a drink on top of the phone and the drink looked like a carbonated drink, you know,
like a coke or something. And so they were just making sure that that extremely expensive phone
doesn’t get destroyed by something so simple as a cheap soft drink. So, and the most common,
when I used to work in a phone shop, the most common insurance claim for phones was someone
who dropped their phone down the toilet and it stopped working. Yes, my lovely daughter did that
to two separate phones. We didn’t even learn the first time. She learned the second time
when it cost her £150 to get it repaired. Funny, she’s never done it since. It’s quite
strange, isn’t it? On that subject, what do you think about the new reinforced glass to the screens?
I’m one of those people that touch wood in 10 generations of the phone that I’ve yet to crack a
screen. Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t say it. We don’t mention
that that happens on the 25th December and we don’t mention the Friday that’s coming up. That’s
a no no. Okay go ahead and say it now Craig. No I can say that I’ve actually broke one but it was
was never an iPhone was a Samsung Galaxy Note 3, I think. And I literally had it in my back pocket
of my jeans and sat down and the screen cracked. So that was my end relationship with Samsung.
I’ve had the Sony Z3, you know, cycling around Greenwich Peninsula, you know, where the Millennium
dome was. And it was a hot day and when you’re cycling, I pulled my phone out my pocket and
the Z3 is quite a large foam. And the sweat on my hands couldn’t grip the foam, slipped
up my fan and then smashed on concrete. And so I got like a crazy paving all across the
front of it. And so I tried to replace it myself, but the problem is it’s they’re
They’re so thin, those screens, but it’s very hard to put back together correctly.
I am like you, Craig.
I’ve been lucky all the phones I’ve had.
I’ve not broken a screen, I’ll scratch them at all.
And like you, I’ve inadvertently sat down forgetting it was in my back pocket.
And I’ve been surprised how strong they are.
I normally just put a simple cover on the back of it, a rubber or leather cover.
I don’t go for the big screen protectors and the big box shells.
but so far touch wood, it’s all worked out well.
So if they’ve managed to make the glass even more unglassed
than glass, then that’s great.
- Yeah, I’m intrigued by this idea of ceramic shield.
Be interesting to see what the real life–
- I have to presume that Apple with all their resources
and the number of phones that come back
under warranty claims and stuff like that,
must have a pretty good idea what is causing the damage.
if you’re dropping your phone,
if it’s landing face down, flat down,
okay, you stand a chance.
If it’s hitting an edge in a particular manner
or way on a sharp edge, it’s gonna go.
The glass is gonna crack whatever you put in there.
So with their experience,
they must be able to tell what kind of damage
these phones are most susceptible to,
and hopefully they’re designing it out.
It could be why it’s gone for the more square,
shoulder design this time round.
The glass that goes right around the edge
wraps over the side is extremely vulnerable to edge-on hits, which causes that kind of damage.
So I’m sure that they do look at the claims that come in for all their warranty and the number of
repairs they have to do to tell what kind of damage has been done in the main to their phones.
And it wouldn’t surprise that if they’ve looked at Samsung because you know, look at Samsung,
and they’ve got that screen with the curved edges,
and that is so susceptible to damage on the corners
because you only just need to catch it
and then it puts a scratch or puts a crack
all the way through the screen.
So that’s all interesting.
And if you’ve read the Johnny I’s autobiography,
it talks about when they first came across Gorilla Glass
and when they were looking for glass to put on the iPads.
And the glass that they originally were looking at
was invented by this particular foundry, I think in Concorde, which was designed for shop fronts,
to stop shop fronts from being broken into. So it was designed as a very large pane of glass
to stop a sledgehammer hitting it. Now that is very different from dropping that pane of glass
on its corner and the shockwave going through it. And so if you’ve they’ve probably done a very
simple drop test and analyzed where the shock is hitting it,
determining it on a curved side or a straight side.
So it’ll be very interesting to see what comes from it.
I think this glass is going to be a bit more sort of flexible.
From a failure perspective I’d be intrigued to know
which component comes top of the list. I imagine it is the screen
more down to user error. But then I’d also say the charging port, the amount of people that
misuse the charging port or they get something lodged in there.
They do make a big point of saying that you shouldn’t charge a phone when the port is wet.
If you plug your connector into a lightning port when it’s wet, you’re going to short
out something quite quickly. So they’re pretty insistent on that. Which comes back to your point,
Alastair, that maybe they are looking to remove that port in the future anyway,
just to avoid that kind of scenario where people are plugging into a wet phone and causing internal
damage. Because the idea of having it on the outside is that it’s magnetic so it will charge
just like your toothbrush, you know like their brawn toothbrushes you can get which can be immersed
in water and still charge because it’s inductive charging. So it’d be very interesting to see
if they’re going along that idea. That’s part of the reason I believe they took out the headphone
- That was also to save space.
They wanted to try to cram so much stuff
in any space they can make by getting rid
of any extraneous ports they will do.
So yeah, I think the lightning port is on,
a lot of people say, “Why wasn’t it USB-C
or Thunderbolt port?”
I think it’s that they’re looking to remove the ports
and why go through the whole process
of getting a new port in there
for just maybe one or two generations of phone
when they could maybe buy the next one by 13,
get rid of it completely.
Also, the idea is that I think they’re trying to unify to have one connector through their phone
and the watch because they’re the two things you carry with you at all times. So why should you
have two cables? The other issue about that though is that if they remove the lightning port,
all the accessories that rely on that become obsolete overnight if there’s no way of doing that.
So maybe some enterprising company will create a little docking station that you can plug your
accessories into and then they’ll be wirelessly linked to your phone. I’m going
to ask the controversial question do you think it was a good idea that they
removed the power block from the phone packaging as well as the headphones? I don’t think it’s
the contrary of it at all. They should have done it a couple of generations ago.
If I look around the house now I can’t begin to tell you the number of
headphones I’ve got lying around the place which I didn’t use as soon as I bought my first pair of Bluetooth.
So there’s all that wasted technology and expensive kit that’s lying around the place. Chargers again,
most of us use different types of charge and different scenarios. I’ve got a little bedside charger that does my phone and watch at the same time.
So again, I don’t use the charger block that they sent me at all. So I think it’s a good thing.
I think we’re at a stage now where surely most people have had an iPhone if they’re upgrading,
we’ll use their old one. Although there was an argument which said that if you get rid of Apple’s
one people will go and buy the cheapest one available which might not meet British safety
standards and may cause electrocution or damage to the phone because you’re buying a cheap USB
charger. And so the argument has always been in the UK, that’s why you have the free pin
socket so that it has meet British standards. It also is put by the manufacturer, so they’ve
determined that you can charge the fastest and most efficiently with the manufacturer’s
cable and plug. That’s always been Apple’s policy. Now you take out the plug, you’re now saying we
we no longer provide a warranty for any charging.
We only provide a warranty for charging
via that cable via an Apple-authorized laptop.
Or if you have to, you know, the other strange thing
it’s which I found, peculiar.
People will now buy, if they need that plug,
will now have to have two sets of packaging
come maybe from two separate warehouses back to their home.
So it actually increases the carbon cost
and increases the amount of environmental damage. If you’re new to iPhone, you buy your own
phone 12, you’re going to have to order a charger and cable from Apple at the same time.
Well not cable, no the cable. The cable comes from the box, isn’t it?
Yeah so all you’re doing is buying a new charger for what is it? 29 pounds, I think I saw on the
website somewhere, the accessories. 30 quid I think it was. One interesting thing, I don’t know,
I can’t confirm it for sure but I read recently that if you go to use the MagSafe charger
you have to have a voltage of at least 20 watts on the power block you’re using otherwise
it doesn’t work. And the one on sale in the shop is 20 watts isn’t it? Yeah I believe it
is. Yeah so if you’re buying something elsewhere, of course the thing is if you’re buying
Electrical products in this country, must conform to British regulations.
The trouble is people do buy cheap stuff from overseas which is sent in,
which therefore sometimes doesn’t match the thing.
But that’s a risk you always take with anything, any electrical product you’re buying
from off-site, that’s not compatible with English safety laws.
The problem is sometimes you get stuff on the Amazon marketplace or an eBay
which claims to be compliant with British safety standards
it turns out to be counterfeit.
- A good example of that, I don’t know if you’ve seen,
but recently, if you just hover into the shop side
of Facebook, it’s completely flooded with air pods,
which are clearly fake.
They’re priced around anything between 25 and 50 pounds.
- But that always has to be by and by where.
If you if someone’s saying look these are identical to air pods, but I’m only charging you 50 quids and you know
You’ve got to say to yourself hang on. There’s not something not quite right about this
But then again people can easily be fooled into that which is a sure
I am pleased to say they have actually lowered the price of both of the accessories that they took out of the packaging
I think that had to be done. I’m not sure about an 11. I don’t know. I didn’t have anything that high
But as far as I’m aware
Last year charging blocks were all USB
Chargers rather than these are all seen now. So if you’ve got although you might get a USB C to lightning cable
If you haven’t got a USB C charger, you are gonna have to buy one anyway. Yeah
And if you want that MagSafe one the the really funky one, let’s go cost you 14 39 quids
I can’t see people.
- I’m quite surprised at the size of these Meg safe chargers
’cause a lot of them have actually shipped to customers.
A few have been received in the last few days
and they are quite a bit bigger than the Apple Watch charger.
- But that could, that used to be just a USB-C.
That was like the, we have, I’ve got one here somewhere.
So like the folding pin type,
you know, the ones that has got flat three pin.
I’ve got one there, and that’s what I charge my watch with.
- Yeah, I remember.
when I take that on holidays or when I’m away, rather than use my bedside stand.
I’m intrigued it’s taken them so long to produce an Apple Watch charger that’s USB-C
and they’re only limited to not even a quarter of a meter.
But I think, going back to your original question, I think it is a good thing if they can start to
reduce the amount of stuff that we throw away. It is really depressing when you go down to
the dump to see how much stuff is just thrown away. I was amazed to see in the bottom of the
electronic skip on one side of it was the Mac Pro dustbin. One of them had been just thrown in the
the bin. So someone must have more money to than sense, but that’s always been the case.
Okay, so yeah, as you know, I think it’s a good idea as they can reduce as much of that stuff as
possible the better. So the next product that Apple obviously released was the iPhone Pro models.
And here’s a little intro from Apple themselves. A singular new design, a re-engineered chip
And 5G. This is iPhone 12 Pro.
Okay, so now we’ve covered the two smaller models. What do we think about the new iPhone Pro?
Well, I’m in a position that I have a strange kind of setup. I tend to buy a new Mac product each
year, so because I can’t afford to change all of them all the time. So my last big purchase was my
MacBook Pro last year. So I’m in a position now, two things have happened for me. I’ve got an iPhone
10 at the moment. So that’s now due on upgrade and it’s starting to really sort of struggle with
this battery. So this is the perfect time for me to upgrade and it means I can also spend a little
bit more money than maybe I would have and just gone for the i12. So I’m looking at the Max Pro.
I suppose I’ve got used to the smaller screen of the 10 and I think looking at the screens that
that I’ve seen in the sizes.
I could actually live with a bigger phone
because it kind of complements my MacBook Pro quite well.
I’m not taking the laptop with me.
I’ve got the phone which I can do quite a lot of work on
on a bigger screen.
If I have got to delve into spreadsheets
or invoicing for people or even some of the software
I use for mapping rooms and sizes and measurements,
the bigger screen I think would help me in that sense.
So looking at the improvements to the camera
it’s now got three separate different types of lens and I do use the phone quite a bit for video work
I think I could that again could be a real game changer for me in the sense that
Now is the time to upgrade so yep
I think I will be putting my money down on an iPhone 12 plus
Max whatever it’s going to be called
and go for the the complete jump from a small 10 up to the big boy
12 max pro that you concern that it might not fit your hand correctly or
Luckily as you can see on the screen here guys, I’ve got big hands
I’m a builder by trade. So yeah, I’m used to lumping around large bits of kit in me hand most of the time
Someone said to me well, what about how’s you’re gonna fit it in your pocket? Well again, I’m a builder
So I wear cargo pants. So yeah, I’ve got pockets the size of east Texas. So no problem
but I get in a big phone in there as well.
And hopefully it’ll be so big,
I won’t try to be tempted to put into my back pocket
’cause it’ll keep me upright all day,
I won’t be able to sit down.
- Have you ever preference on color?
- Yeah, now I’m more likely go for the slate gray,
the metallic gray.
Certainly not gonna wear blue,
no way you’re gonna get me anywhere near blue.
- Pacific blue, yes.
- Pacific blue, yeah, sorry,
that’s an anathema for any Man United fans.
So no blue and I’m not gonna wear pink or silver.
So the slate gray will do for me
’cause I’m more like a red product
back on the back of it anyway.
- It’s interesting you say that.
So for me, from a size perspective,
I’m kind of undecided between the Max Pro
and the Standard Pro.
In the past, I’ve used both the 10S Max
and the standard 10S.
And if I think about it,
I spend more time with the standard size one
then I did the max.
Though I am a photographer
and that I do watch lots of tutorials,
I just find it awkward.
And my problem was keeping it in a coat pocket
or a jeans pocket.
It just didn’t fit.
However, I say that,
I do like the new features of the new Pro model.
also say that there is the added advantage of a bigger sensor in the max, which is drawing me in.
Although what I would say would be interesting is I would say reserve judgment on that until
actually get to see what the reviewers are saying and they actually take photographs with it because
you know what Apple will have done. They would have sent out a lighting crew and a film crew and
got the perfect lighting and perfect settings for anything until the first reviews come in
about what the actual difference between the 12 pro and the 12 pro max is. It’s going to be hard
to say and the second thing I will say is that do you remember when Apple released the was it
must have been the 11 or was it the XS remember when they had the black matte and the black gloss
and the horror viewers said until you’ve actually gone and seen it they there is quite a big difference
between the two and until you actually went and viewed them you couldn’t see what the difference
was because you’re listening to it on the podcast and people are very hard to describe it and even
looking on YouTube you couldn’t see what the difference really was and I think that’s going
to be the same between the Pro Max and the iPhone 12 although what I will say is the 12 I think is
going to be the perfect one for the majority of the people. I see the Pro Max being primarily for
visual-orientated industries. So yourself Martin who’s in building, so that’s visual orientated.
That will also be the same for very much the film industry because if you see them,
they can act as a second unit camera. So if you wanted to capture something like behind the scene,
something or you need someone to go off and do some location work or low level film work,
or your photojournalist having to record the latest routes in whichever city you’re currently in,
I could see that bigger phone coming useful because you could do all the editing and everything
on one device. So it would be very useful if you were one device unit. I’ve also seen it in the
Apple Adverts being used on mounted on top of a camera, you know, like one of the red cameras,
as a secondary monitor. Whereas I can see the iPhone 12 Pro being just an upgraded version
of the iPhone 11, which means that I think you will probably find that that would be the one
which most people will be buying. Now what is interesting is if you look at the dates
of the two phones when they’re coming out, the iPhone Pro Mini, the iPhone Pro Max and the Mini
both come out on the same day if I look at it. So that’s what was very interesting from it.
I think again your highlight is something there about the general use. I think, okay for someone
like me I can only talk about my own industries for a certain extent. It’s amazing how much you use,
I use the phone for various aspects of the work. There’s the visual aspects when you’re even just
is going to do a quote for someone taking pictures of what’s there.
One thing that does intrigue me, I do
have some software for measuring on the phone.
But that’s basically links in with a laser measure that I use.
But the new LiDAR sensor on it, if that
can take really accurate 3D generated pictures,
being able to very, very quickly measure a room
or to get a pretty good working copy of a room for, say,
for doing quote values.
you don’t necessarily need it to be as super accurate as when you’re actually going to
do construction. But for quotes and stuff like that, being able to take very quick accurate
measurements of a room or an area would really be useful, really, really useful. And if that’s
then tied in with some augmented reality where you could put, if you have a standard size unit,
let’s say we’re talking about a large refrigerator unit, we know the size of that already,
combined the two, you could very quickly. So will that fit in the space even before you need to take much, much dimension?
So I think there’s there’ll be a lot of professional trades and professions that will make use of stuff like that.
It’s the old adage, it’s what the developers come up with. They’re given the physical kit to work with. And we’ve all seen that.
Look at the look at the huge array of apps that’s out there that no one had any kind of inkling that those apps would be
be workable until we started developing the kit to use them.
So I think that’s again, that feature again,
the telephoto lens is only available on the Pro Max, I believe.
So that again would just give you, for me,
the added advantage of being able to take that kind of photograph,
especially on site without having to lug around
my great big DSLR around all the time.
What did you think about the pro res raw that they discussed?
Did you see that as a feature?
So I think this is like one of those features which is going to come in slowly.
And it sounds interesting, but how many people have you heard outside of Apple refer to Heath?
Or two six, was it two six five Apple now shooting?
Apple released both of these and you don’t seem to come across them on a…
I’ve never heard of another manufacturer referring to heif photographs. I’ve heard of people talking
about in higher resolution video but that’s about it. I’ve come across in my usage. The thing about
the raw, it’s always a bit of an issue because there is no such thing. Raw is digital data that
comes out of the phone. You can’t see a raw picture. All it is is dots, is ones and zeros. So
any type of picture that you see is automatically doing some compression work to get it into a
format that you can see. And then it’s then turned into various other compression rates that we all
used for photographs. So I’m not entirely sure what they mean by saying it’s going to give you
raw photographs because as I said you can’t see a raw photograph it’s just not there it’s dots and
dashes not ones and zeros. So there must already be some kind of compression for them to bring it out
in this new Apple ProRes format and what you do with it from there on is again that’s the
ability of the software that you’re running to actually manipulate raw pictures.
And I wonder if they’re going to be doing what a lot of phone companies
have suggested if they do raw, which is you shoot in JPEG and shoot in raw. So at least you see
something. So if you need to send it in another format to via another messaging platform,
you can get around it without any problems. The other factor is that the neural engine in the A14
must be quite powerful in order to read the raw file and then be able to edit it in the special
version of iPhoto. Yeah, they’re talking about doing that. We saw on the show that they gave
people doing editing work on the camera, stuff that they filmed only a matter of minutes previous,
which does mean yes, there must be some really heavy-duty computing power in that chip
to be able to do that on the phone. Now the only thing I will say is that it’s all very well having
an Apple-trained engineer who has had perfect training from Apple but how is the average pro
consumer photographer going to deal with this software if you’re not given any training because
as Apple are famous for not having instruction manuals.
- Oh yeah, there’ll be a four line training page
somewhere on the Apple website,
which turns you into a professional there.
So within four lines, it’s brilliant.
Why do we need all this training?
We can learn it in just four lines
and a couple of emojis, it’s great.
- Yeah, I mean, we can’t see what Nick on and out
and has kind of been complaining about for years.
- Yeah, yeah, no, I’m sorry.
I’ve been slightly facetious here.
It’s anything like that you have to learn.
But the fact that, like I mentioned about the development,
the fact that it’s there and you can use it,
that’s the point that you start learning to use this stuff.
I never ever thought I would do editing on a phone.
But a couple of times when I’ve taken some video
and stuff that I wanna send to someone,
and it’s like, I’m in a hurry, I’m on site
or whatever, we have a problem.
Being able to trim and clip and zoom the pictures you’ve got,
got to send it as a very quick film over to another site or another supplier is quite
impressive. And I think you’ll see more of that. Look at the number of people you see
in restaurants and everyone else walking around with iPads and phones, taking your orders
and everything else. That will be, again, further developments from the various app
developers about what they can do with this very impressive kit.
- The question you say that because,
well, being the very mobile photographer that I am,
I have now come to the point where I don’t carry
a laptop around anymore for editing.
I can literally rely on the phone to edit,
especially Adobe’s Lightroom for iPhone
or iPad in particular is great.
Can also make a piece of software for the iPad
that was the first and I think still is one of the only
programs that you can edit entire raw files on the fly.
It is a subscription based I think now, it never used to be.
But there is no need to carry heavy equipment around.
If I want to show somebody something,
it will literally be a portfolio is now Instagram
that you keep in your pocket.
Or when it comes to developing something quite fast,
I will literally carry around a set of raw files
that I can edit quickly for different scenarios.
- So, okay guys, we’ve been chatting around
talking for the last hour
and no one’s mentioned the elephant in the room so far.
Do you think, or I suppose because we’re
a British-centric podcast,
what do we think of 5G for Americans with Verizon?
- Well, we’re British and we’ve never heard of Verizon before.
It’s a nice idea.
It was amazing they spent so much time on something,
certainly for us, where we don’t even seem to get a look
and we’re not even mentioned on the website.
So that to me seemed a bit strange,
that we, the special relationship seems to have gone
right out the window with Apple.
- It seemed to be very much,
if you’re in America, you go go with Verizon.
And by the way, have we mentioned it’s 5G?
And by the way, this is Verizon’s version
of Epic’s new game and we think this will be brilliant.
And by the way, if you’re in any other part of the world,
we’re not interested.
We’re only interested in the US and one carrier in the US.
So forget it if you’re AT&T, that’s it.
What does that mean to me?
It means nothing.
We can’t get Verizon outside in Europe.
It is a pointless discussion.
- Almost sounds like you’re promoting Trump
as the new CEO of Apple.
That’s a strange word, yes.
- That’s fake news, so why?
That’s fake news.
- Is it correctly saying that there are only certain sections
of 5G that work in different regions?
So we’ve not got some of the features
that other countries have got?
- Yeah, there are different wavelengths of 5G.
So the millimetre version,
which Apple had in their announcement,
which we’re talking about is only US-centric.
It’s not currently here,
because we run on different wavelengths or radio frequencies.
Also, the other thing to point out,
if you’ve seen anyone who has a 5G phone,
it goes in and out of 5G signal quite quickly
because it’s not a standardised signal across the UK.
I mean, 4G is still very powerful.
I mean, you still get very fast 4G signal in the UK,
so I can’t see why you would need to have 5G.
I mean, look at all the problems that Frio have been having
with their 5G network.
So, it’d be interesting to see what comes out from it,
but surely Samsung and Huawei have had their phones out
for a lot longer and we haven’t seen huge runs on those
phones in this country, have you?
- Not on the world, no, no.
Is this just a simple thing of Apple making sure
they can’t be clobbered anymore by being accused
of not being 5G?
I’ve only met one person who boasted about the fact
that he had a 5G phone.
- It’s true, I remember the criticism that they got.
Oh, it’s only 2G.
The first iPhone is only 2G.
Why have they not upgraded it yet?
- But the last time I seemed to remember them talking
about a G on the phone was when it went free.
The iPhone 3, when they were talking about,
“This is now a 3G phone.”
- That’s a while back, Alastair.
- And that was it, and then they moved on.
- I had hair in them, Dave.
What are you talking about?
Yeah, well the first iPhone didn’t even have a copy and paste
and didn’t even have an app store.
Oh, you had to bring that up, didn’t you?
You had to go and bring up no copy-paste, honestly,
I thought we got over that.
We’ve moved on a bit, you know.
(laughs)
Okay, so yeah, you asked the original question, Craig.
Yeah, I’ll be lined up for a phone on the 6th of November.
That’s when I think I can order it.
So maybe by the next podcast I can show off
my new iPhone 12 Max Pro plus everything,
whatever it’s gonna be called.
Yeah, I’m thinking that the iPhone 12 mini
is going to be the killer phone,
which everyone’s going to be buying
because it’s got majority of all the features of 12,
but it’s a smaller and lighter weight.
So very similar to the SE Mark 1.
And I can see that being a very successful phone.
So I’m looking at that or the iPhone SE second generation.
I think I can live with the cost of the phone,
but it’s all the accessories I’m gonna have to add to it.
It’s gonna put it up over the top, you know,
the new MagSafe connector and the new AirPods that I need
and everything else.
So yeah, so it’s also gonna have to be a very busy run-up
to Christmas and work quite hard.
But sorry, Martin, I’m gonna have to get the blue one.
(both laughing)
Well, luckily you can’t see,
Luckily, you can’t see how red I’m going at the moment with
angles. Don’t worry about it.
So earlier in the week, I had an opportunity to speak to
another Mac user group. This was the Mac user group based in
Austin in Texas. I had a very interesting time speaking to them
via zoom. It was a bit of a time difference. It was 1 am here. So
the next morning I did look like a bit of a zombie. I’d just like to say a really big
thank you to the guys over there. Their presentation was superb. I’ve learned a lot about ancestry
and genealogy. They hold monthly meetings in a similar basis to us currently on Zoom and
their next meeting is on the 10th of November, very close to a product launch. You can find
more information about them on their website. They also are highly active on
Twitter. You can find them at www.capmac.org. I would highly recommend that
you take a look at their website. It’s really useful. They have some really
interesting blogs from their members as well. Well thank you very much to Alistair
and Martin for yet again another recording of the Brew and Bite show.
Thank you very much for your time. I will look forward to seeing what exciting
purchases we make by the next time we come to record. I would say thank you and good night.
Good night Craig, good night Martin. Good night Alistair, good night Craig.
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