How Useful Will Apple Intelligence Be? The Next iPhone Will Tell Us

September 12, 2024 gear Leave a comment 30 Views

On Monday, Apple held one of its splashy media events. This one was used to show off its next round of iPhones, AirPods, and Apple Watches. These are three of its biggest products, and all of the design tweaks feel very familiar to the current Apple universe. But Apple has also trotted out some new tricks, like sleep apnea detection in the Apple Watch and a new feature that instantly turns a pair of AirPods Pro into hearing aids. And of course, the company is also very keen to get consumers hyped up about the iPhone’s new Apple Intelligence features—even if those flashy AI tricks won’t start becoming available until next month.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED product reviews editors Adrienne So and Julian Chokkattu join us after Apple’s “Glowtime” event to go over all the big news from Cupertino.

Show Notes

Our roundup of everything Apple announced this week. Read Julian’s WIRED stories about how the iPhone 16 is incorporating AI and which iPhone 16 model is right for you. Dive into Lauren’s story about whether Apple’s AI promises will actually equate to more iPhone sales. Read Chistopher Null’s story about how AirPods Pro could disrupt the hearing aid industry. Follow all WIRED’s Apple coverage.

Recommendations

Adrienne recommends the book Status and Culture by W. David Marx. Julian recommends the Dev Patel action movie Monkey Man. Lauren recommends that you recommend a good chair to help her back pain. Mike recommends Manning Fireworks, the new album by musician MJ Lenderman.

Adrienne So can be found on Threads @adso_sheehan. Julian Chokkattu is @julianchokkattu. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight@heads.social. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

How to Listen

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Transcript

Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors.

Michael Calore: Lauren.

Lauren Goode: Mike.

Most PopularGearThe Top New Features Coming to Apple’s iOS 18 and iPadOS 18By Julian ChokkattuGearHow Do You Solve a Problem Like Polestar?By Carlton ReidGearThe Best Hearing Aids We’ve Personally Tested and Vetted With an ExpertBy Christopher NullGearEverything Apple Announced TodayBy Boone Ashworth

Michael Calore: Are you excited about the new iPhone? Are you going to get one?

Lauren Goode: Am I as excited as you sound about it? Is that what you're asking? I am probably not. I just upgraded to the iPhone 15 a year ago.

Michael Calore: OK.

Lauren Goode: Like a year ago, several months ago, I don't know. Yeah. No, I don't think so. Are you?

Michael Calore: No. I mean, I'm a Pixel person first of all.

Lauren Goode: Oh, are you?

Michael Calore: Yes, maybe.

Lauren Goode: Are you an Android person?

Michael Calore: That's why they have us do the show together so that we can provide both sides.

Lauren Goode: Right, the friction.

Michael Calore: Yes, that's right.

Lauren Goode: Natural friction.

Michael Calore: No, I will not be getting one. But also, I know a lot of people are excited about the AI features in the new iPhone, and I've been playing around with the AI features on the Pixel, and I don't know if that's necessarily a reason to upgrade for either device.

Lauren Goode: And also, aren't a lot of the AI features not coming until next month, or in some cases even next year?

Michael Calore: Well, we're going to have to talk about that.

Lauren Goode: I think it's scintillating. Let's do it.

Michael Calore: Let's do it.

Lauren Goode: Let's make it fun.

[Gadget Lab intro theme music plays]

Michael Calore: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Gadget Lab. I am Michael Calore, WIRED'S director of consumer tech and culture.

Lauren Goode: And I'm Lauren Goode. I'm a senior writer on WIRED's business desk.

Michael Calore: We are also joined this week by WIRED reviews editors Adrienne So and Julian Chokkattu. Hello, Adrienne.

Adrienne So: Hi.

Michael Calore: Hi, Julian.

Julian Chokkattu: Hello.

Michael Calore: Welcome back to you both, and welcome to the Bay Area once again. Great to have you in the studio with us.

Julian Chokkattu: Thank you for having us. It's been a busy month.

Lauren Goode: We just had you guys here. It feels like you were just here for the Google event.

Julian Chokkattu: Yeah.

Lauren Goode: Yeah.

Julian Chokkattu: Like three weeks ago.

Lauren Goode: And earlier this week, you got to experience the stunningly sunny and hot weather in Cupertino.

Julian Chokkattu: I'm getting used to the wild fluctuating weather.

Michael Calore: We dragged you up to foggy San Francisco to record this today. Well, thank you for being here. Because this week we are talking about Apple, we all just watched or attended or if you want to say subjected to another of Apple's big media presentations. Julian and Adrienne, as we mentioned, you were down there in Cupertino for the big show. Lauren and I, along with our producer Boone here, we're in the office watching on YouTube or on Apple's website. I don't know. You didn't do the YouTube, did you, Lauren?

Lauren Goode: I tried. But the lag was pretty significant. So then Boone said, "Check out Apple's website." And then the lag was only three seconds, seven seconds.

Michael Calore: Oh, that's not bad. I was like two minutes behind everybody.

Lauren Goode: No. Actually, you're right. It was a pretty serious lag.

Michael Calore: Well, you know it's—

Lauren Goode: I don't know. I couldn't keep track of all the good mornings. It was just like, “Oh, why did this happen? OK, great. Oh look, another Apple Watch. Oh look, another Apple Watch. OK.”

Michael Calore: Yes. Yes.

Lauren Goode: Yes. OK.

Michael Calore: I mean it was exciting, but it was also a bit short on surprise. We knew it was coming. But still, when one of the biggest companies in the world, sometimes depending on the day, that biggest company in the world debuts the most important phone in the world, the most important wearable in the world, the most important headphones in the world, it tends to be a pretty big day.

Lauren Goode: It's a big deal.

Michael Calore: Yes. So the company did unveil new iPhone 16s in regular and pro models. There's an Apple Watch, some new AirPods, and of course, there was a lot of discussion of Apple Intelligence.

The big question going into the event was whether the AI features would make all of this new hardware more compelling and give people more of a reason to upgrade. Now, in the second half of this show, we're going to talk about whether that was the case and whether it feels like Apple Intelligence is something that's worth upgrading to get. But first, we need to go over all of the products and do a quick vibe check. So where should we start? Should we start with the event itself or with the phone? What's more exciting to talk about?

Adrienne So: Julian and I, we were talking about this yesterday, about how the event in person, your excitement about the Apple Event, it goes in a bell curve. You're starting, you're reading all the rumors, and you're like, "Not so many surprises." And then you get there and it's sunny. And you feel like you're in Hollywood and there's so many loud noises and shiny black things. And they're just like, "Hype, hype, hype."

I waved to Tim Cook in person. I was so excited. I am a journalist. And then you get out of the theater and you shake yourself off like a dog and you're like, "Oh." And then reality kind of returns. So going to the Apple Event is kind of… I mean, I'm still not used to it.

Lauren Goode: And did Tim Apple wave back at you?

Adrienne So: I think he was looking right at me, Lauren. I'm about 80 percent sure that we made eye contact. I felt a jolt.

Julian Chokkattu: I will say they really need to try and step away from this highly produced thing that they've been doing for the past few years since the pandemic because I think it just allows them to take things for way too long. I don't think it needed to be two hours. This was one of the longest keynotes in a while.

Michael Calore: It was 99 minutes, 98 minutes.

Julian Chokkattu: I think because they can shoot everything remotely, they just pack it all in. And there was a lot of repeat stuff from dub-dub, WWDC, where they talked about all the same Apple Intelligence stuff, so I think they could have probably cut that down a little bit.

Michael Calore: Yeah.

Adrienne So: I was really excited when you mentioned there might be live AI demos, Lauren, because when we saw those made by Google, that was by far the most entertaining part of the show. And I was like, "I would pay. I would give anything to see Tim Apple just be like, 'Siri, make a Genmoji.'" I don't know. I can't even … My imagination fails me at what could have possibly happened.

Lauren Goode: Well-

Julian Chokkattu: I mean, live events seem fun. They kind of give a little humanity to the whole aspect, especially when they go a little wrong. I mean, it's a little fun to see. Well, maybe not for them when Google had a few errors when they were doing it with the Pixel.

Lauren Goode: My idea that they were going to do live presentations and live demos was purely just me trying to will that into existence. That was based on no reporting, no tip-offs from anyone saying, "Oh, they're going back to a live format this year." It was just me saying, "You know what? These pretaped things, they're kind of boring. They don't show you that texture and humanity and the weird ums and the mess ups and the things like that. Let's get back. Let's get back to the live show people, but not so much."

Michael Calore: Yeah. We're never going back to the live show, I don't think. I mean, Apple is just … Everything has to be so perfectly polished and so beautifully tied with a bow that a live demo would just throw a big wrench into the works.

Adrienne So: We heard a rumor that there's a new facility. That they may actually be able to fit in everyone who was invited into the Apple Event into the theater instead of having the videographers and everyone just in their bullpen outside.

Michael Calore: Oh, the overflow room.

Adrienne So: Yes. But I was actually jealous because the presentation lasted so long and they started passing out lunch boxes to the people in the overflow room. And I was hungry and just starting to gnaw the armrests on the leather seats, and I was just like, "I don't feel privileged. I feel sad and starving."

Michael Calore: It's a price to pay for status, unfortunately. Well, we should talk about the phone. Tell us.

Julian Chokkattu: There was a phone?

Michael Calore: Yeah, what was the most interesting thing?

Lauren Goode: I know we're such a bunch of whiny journalists. We should probably talk about the thing that millions of people around the globe are more interested in.

Michael Calore: But wait, there wasn't lunch.

Lauren Goode: Right. Where's my hard-boiled egg?

Adrienne So: I was so hungry.

Michael Calore: We appreciate you being there and struggling through it, Adrienne. So, Julian, you're a camera person, and I know that you've reviewed the last few iPhones, and I want to hear your impressions of the camera control button. Are we calling it a button? Why don't we just call it a shutter button?

Julian Chokkattu: There's weirdly a lot of debate online about whether it was a real button or not, but it's a real button. It actually depresses when you push it down. But of course, there's that 3D Touch-esque tactile functionality. So you can do a light press, and then it moves between different camera modes like zoom levels or aperture controls, or all sorts of little camera features like that.

I don't know if it just takes getting used to, but in the hands-on area, I found it a little hard to really swipe through some of these things. It just really required some precision when you're using your finger over it. But again, I could just be something that you have to get used to. I think it's a little weird that the timing of this seems to line up with Apple Intelligence.

I don't think necessarily, they put this button on this phone for you to have a new way to experience the camera. I think it really has to do with visual intelligence. Because I think everyone's moving to the… With Google has Project Astra and the whole idea of pulling up your phone and having computer vision describe what you're seeing. I think this is what Apple is focusing on, and this will inevitably lead it to some type of a wearable thing in the future where you put it on and there's a camera, and you'll get all that information fed to your ear. But that seemed to be the sort of hidden feature of what this is. Oh no, it's just a camera shutter button. Maybe that really is how it started. But when they showed the other part of visual intelligence with it, I was like, "That seems to be what it's for."

Michael Calore: You're talking about the Google Lens Project Astra-type thing where you're standing in front of a restaurant. You press the little camera control button. You point your camera at the restaurant and it shows you a menu and a link to make a reservation. Or you pointed it at a flyer and it says, "Do you want to add this to your calendar?"

Julian Chokkattu: Right. Yeah. Because that just seems to be like you're trying to add these physical buttons to… Such an emphasis is placed on how Apple Intelligence is going to change so much, and this seems to be like, "Here's how to use your phone's camera to get anything, any kind of information about what you're looking at. Add it to your personal calendar or get a reminder or save a note or whatever. This is the button that lets you do that." In a way, it's almost like a Siri button except just purely visual. And I think that just makes sense from what Apple is positioning Apple Intelligence as.

Adrienne So: I had the iPhone 16 yesterday. And the camera control button is just at the exact right spot on the iPhone where I just push it accidentally all the time. Especially with the case on it, trying to distinguish between, first you scroll, then you add a light bit of pressure, and then you scroll. It's a little… It's not as intuitive to use as Apple products generally are to me.

Julian Chokkattu: I will say it was noted to me that it's a really good placement to hold the phone and use the rear cameras to take a selfie, which apparently is a very popular thing Gen Z is doing with the ultrawide camera. I don't know this. But apparently, it's a really good position. And interestingly, they did not make any updates to the selfie cameras this year. So I guess instead of actually upgrading that camera, maybe they want you to-

Michael Calore: Make it easier to use.

Julian Chokkattu: … flip your phone. Yeah.

Adrienne So: I can confirm that I've been accidentally taking selfies of myself all day.

Lauren Goode: OK. Wait, wait, wait. But truly, this is just like a button?

Michael Calore: Yes.

Lauren Goode: I always made fun of for the way I say button.

Michael Calore: Button.

Adrienne So: Button.

Lauren Goode: What else do we need to know about the new iPhone 16?

Michael Calore: Nothing.

Lauren Goode: What else matters there?

Michael Calore: That's it. It is getting all the Apple Intelligence features eventually. So it won't ship with the baseline Apple Intelligence stuff. That will come in a month or so.

Julian Chokkattu: In October, yeah.

Michael Calore: In October.

Lauren Goode: What else?

Michael Calore: I mean, it has a new chip but-

Lauren Goode: And we're all just looking at each other around the round table right now. We're like, "OK, new chip, new colors. It's bigger."

Julian Chokkattu: The Action button is now on the iPhone 16. It's still a button.

Adrienne So: There's all that stuff about how you can use it like a film camera, right?

Julian Chokkattu: Yeah. The 16 Pro series has these additional… Apple is constantly saying how Hollywood is using its camera phones, and I don't really know how many people are really doing that.

Lauren Goode: Hold on, let me call up Spielberg.

Adrienne So: The weekend.

Julian Chokkattu: Right. So now, the two big new features you can shoot in 4K 120 frames per second, which really gives you really nice looking slow-mo footage that you can adjust the speed of the slow motion. And the other one was actually really cool. It's called Audio Mix. And basically, it uses all the iPhone's camera and you get your recording and then you can adjust how the audio and the video sound. So you can choose between like a studio mode. And so I saw a demo where people were talking. In studio mode, it just deleted all of the background sound and the people in the frame just sounded super crisp like they were in the studio.

And then there was cinematic mode where it adds a little bit of that background sound but still focuses the center mix is what they're calling it, of the audio channel to focus on the people that are in the center of the frame. And so it seems like a little movie-esque audio dialogue. And so that stuff is just always insanely crazy how well they're able to do that on a phone. And I mean genuinely, it makes the process of creating content with your phone better every year. And that's just something you can't really deny. No other phone really has a lot of the capabilities to the level of polish that Apple has. But again, it's also what percentage of people are using these features.

Adrienne So: No, wait. No, wait. No, wait. I have to talk about something that I learned about Julian last night because there's a new voice notes feature where you can just layer you're-

Julian Chokkattu: Oh, no.

Adrienne So: … melodic and you're backing tracks. And then Julian got excited about this. And I'm going to tell all the listeners of this podcast that Julian was in his choir and sings, and we should start a band, the four of us.

Lauren Goode: Yes. Julian, sing something for us.

Julian Chokkattu: Oh, no. I was president of my choir in high school.

Lauren Goode: That's amazing. What was the choir called?

Julian Chokkattu: Well, it was just the school choir. But then, we were part of the more higher level like Premiere is what we were called. We went around to senior homes, holiday concerts, those kinds of stuff. Well, one of the things over just for fun you would do, or I would do at least is get the audio backing of a song just like instrumentals, and then I would put that in something like an audio editing app, and then I would record my singing and then layer the two over. But one of the new features with Voice Memos is I think it just does all of that for you where it plays the audio instrumentals and you can just record automatically right in the app without having to really move files around, and all that kind of stuff, which seems like a very simple but smart thing that now you can just do on your phone without having to use third-party desktop software or something like that.

Michael Calore: That's great.

Lauren Goode: Huh. Now your voice is totally reframed for me. Hearing your melodic voice on the podcast makes so much more sense.

Julian Chokkattu: Well, I'm a-

Lauren Goode: Now that I know you're a singer.

Julian Chokkattu: There's a lot of karaoke in New York that we go to but there's very few songs I can sing.

Lauren Goode: Midtown '30s. Yeah.

Julian Chokkattu: … because I'm a bass 2. And all the pop songs are not sung by…

Michael Calore: Johnny Cash.

Julian Chokkattu: Yes.

Michael Calore: You should learn all the Johnny Cash songs. Adrienne, before we go to break, I want to get your impressions of the watch because you are an Apple Watch person, you review all of the Apple Watches for WIRED. What did you think of the new/old Apple Watches we saw this week?

Adrienne So: The black color, it was supposed to come last year. I was very excited. I put it in our preview video last year and it didn't come and then I sobbed. And now, it's coming this year. And then we looked at it in the hands-on yesterday. And yeah, I think I used the words mouthwatering a couple of times. It's aluminum. It's polished to a high shine. I don't know. Everybody's all up about hot pink and I was just like, "Black, give me black." The Ultra 2 comes in a black finish this year, which I can confirm looks way better than the titanium or the one they had before.

There's this whole thing about how smartwatches are just supposed to look like jewelry. Now, it's got a bigger face that you can see it from more angles and there's a new Reflections face that looks like a scintillating chandelier is the best way that I can describe it. And we saw a bunch of Hermes dress bands. And I was like, "Oh, this is a watch and it has a new metal back. This is a watch that's designed to look like jewelry," which is something that a lot of smartwatches are not really designed to do yet.

Michael Calore: They all kind of look like plastic pucks.

Adrienne So: Yeah. All smartwatches say is, "I like health." And now… Yeah. And now the Apple Watch is saying, "I'm the kind of person who might care about what bag I have." So that was really interesting.

Michael Calore: Watching the presentation, I realized how much I missed Apple's self-congratulatory tone when they're talking about how intricately designed the smallest pieces of it are. And they talked about the Milanese Loop.

Adrienne So: The Milanese Loop.

Michael Calore: Which has always been the height of that Apple self-importance.

Lauren Goode: Oh, I don't know. I think the gold Apple Watch along with the Hermes Double Tour band was the height of Apple fashion combined with the watch.

Adrienne So: I did-

Michael Calore: Agree. But that's an Hermes product. This is an Apple-designed watch strap that they just love talking about how difficult it was to make.

Adrienne So: I did spend-

Michael Calore: And how many pieces it has and the click.

Adrienne So: I did spend a truly insane amount of time in my briefing. The Apple PR people were like, "This are the features, blah, blah, blah." And I was just sitting there in the briefing going, "Click, click, click, click, click, click, click." It's the best.

Michael Calore: When I saw the click happen on the screen, and they… The sound of the click in the video, I said to myself, "That costs them $2 million."

Adrienne So: I know. I clicked it to myself and I was like, "I feel safe. I feel right." But yeah, the standout feature this year like health-wise, every year Apple introduces their big thing that's going to change your life. And actually, I think sleep apnea is kind of a big deal. I guess 80% of the people who have it are undiagnosed and they're using the watch's accelerometer along with advanced machine learning to monitor you over the course of a 30-day period. You can get notified within a month or 60 days or three months or six months if you might have sleep apnea, which is this disorder, apparently really common disorder where you stop and start breathing when you're sleeping.

It can lead to all these potentially life-threatening conditions like having a stroke or a heart attack. And I just thought. It was like we're all talking about Apple Intelligence and advanced machine learning and we ourselves, our magazine reported on using machine learning with the Apple Watch to diagnose sleep apnea back in 2017. So I don't know. It was just the coolest and the best uses of machine learning is just the stuff that you… I don't really want to make super specific Genmoji but it would be really cool to find out if my spouse has sleep apnea. I don't know.

Lauren Goode: Was that a third-party app that we reported on back in 2017?

Adrienne So: No it was with-

Lauren Goode: That was doing that or it was built in?

Adrienne So: It was Apple had started working on the algorithms to diagnose sleep apnea. Someone mentioned to me that they had been working on these sleep apnea algorithms for almost at least half a decade at this point.

Lauren Goode: Huh.

Michael Calore: Yeah.

Adrienne So: Yeah. This is one of the few health conditions that I think I was just like, "Oh, this seems really important." And everyone has an Apple Watch. And the process of testing for sleep apnea is really inconvenient. You have to go to the sleep place and get all the things strapped on you. You have to spend a night in a hospital. Yeah.

Michael Calore: Which is expensive and it's the type of thing that if you don't have a really good health insurance and you a younger person, then they're not going to cover the cost of it.

Lauren Goode: This is the kind of thing that will save lives and save marriages.

Adrienne So: Yes. And it's-

Lauren Goode: Good Lord. Has anyone ever lived with a snore? Don't get me started.

Michael Calore: I live with the snore. It's me. Anyway.

Adrienne So: Do you wake up every morning with four punches in the face? Because that's what I do. The other thing that I wanted to talk about with the health conditions with the watch is that I know that you and I, Mike, reported a lot earlier this year about the Masimo Corp patent dispute with the blood oxygen sensing. And I have never had a more awkward conversation with an Apple PR person like, "Where is blood oxygen sensing in everybody's eyes," just kind of drifted over to my right shoulder. I feel like this should be a relatively simple problem for a company as large as Apple to solve, but there's still no blood oxygen sensing.

Lauren Goode: You had your chance when you waved at Tim Cook. You say, "Tim."

Adrienne So: I know. Tim.

Lauren Goode: "Where's the oxygen sat? You talk about customer sat, where's the oxygen sat?"

Adrienne So: Well, this thing, they've been like years ago, every other watch has it, and now Apple doesn't because they won't pay the money to the lawyer or whatever.

Michael Calore: Well, I'm sure it's-

Adrienne So: I know right. I'm not a lawyer.

Michael Calore: I'm sure it's much more complicated.

Adrienne So: Give me the right person. I will make a call.

Michael Calore: All right. Well, we do have to take a break. So let's do that right now, and we'll come right back.

[Break]

Michael Calore: OK. So my favorite thing from the Apple announcements this week was instant hearing aids.

Julian Chokkattu: Yeah. So the AirPods Pro 2nd generation can now act as hearing aids. If you have moderate or light hearing loss, you can wear them, do a little hearing test, and this is all enabled from FDA. In 2022, they authorized over-the-counter hearing aids. So now, you don't need a prescription. You can just buy them from Amazon. And we've been publishing a lot of hearing aid content over the past year from… We have a contributor who's been helping us. You can get $100 hearing aids. You can get $3,000 over-the-counter hearing aids. And this kind of seems like a no-brainer for Apple with all of the popularity of their AirPods, and the fact that you can get the capability to perform as well.

Because a lot of the other devices that are coming out, they're very much like Bluetooth earbuds and it just kind of makes sense. And it's also really cool that they can do this, and you also don't need to buy a new product. You might actually have those earbuds sitting around, and now you can actually put them to different use.

Michael Calore: It's just the AirPods Pro 2, right?

Julian Chokkattu: AirPods Pro 2nd generation.

Michael Calore: 2nd generation.

Lauren Goode: And they don't look any different-

Julian Chokkattu: No, they're the same.

Lauren Goode: … than prior AirPods. So you can be a person-

Julian Chokkattu: And also, this feature is coming, I think, a little bit later this year. It's not available yet.

Lauren Goode: OK.

Adrienne So: That was the only thing that was just in the hands-on part where I was just like, "Hmm." Because there's the AirPods Pro 2nd generation that has the hearing aid stuff, and then there's the AirPods Max. Everybody loves those. USB charging like double thumbs up. Great. And then you have the low-end regular old AirPods, which we have historically never liked. And I'm like, "OK, they're still selling these. You have to pay extra for the active noise canceling. They don't have the hearing test. Why? Why?"

Lauren Goode: Is it classic product differentiation? I mean-

Julian Chokkattu: This seems like a little cruel almost because the AirPods 4 are 129 and they don't get a lot of those smart features, especially like ANC, active noise cancellation. You have to pay 179 for that. But these days you can get good earbuds for under a hundred bucks with active noise cancellation so it just seemed really strange to have within… And also, $179 for AirPods 4, that's like… You can get the AirPods Pro 2nd generation for sale for 200 bucks these days. So, $20, I don't really understand the product differentiation really.

Lauren Goode: Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.

Julian Chokkattu: It's just kind of a strange choice that they decided to go with when they could have had pretty good earbuds at $129 with those smart features that now is so commonplace in all other wireless earbuds.

Lauren Goode: Yeah. Yeah, that's fair.

Michael Calore: Another thing that was announced about the earbuds is that they also work as hearing protection. So you can put the AirPods Pro into your ears if you're in a loud environment, and it'll block the ambient noise, but then filter in some of the loud noise at a quieter volume. So if you go to a loud concert, you can put your AirPods in and use them as hearing protection. So we're entering a phase of reality as human beings on this planet where we will be in situations where the person that we are with or the person that we're talking to is wearing AirPods, which signals, "Don't talk to me." But now, they might be wearing them because they need the hearing protection. They might be wearing them because it makes them easier to hear what you're saying. But the social signal is, "I have headphones in, don't talk to me." It's going to be awkward.

Lauren Goode: Would you consider wearing… You go to a lot of shows and you're a musician, would you ever wear them? For that reason, I mean.

Michael Calore: No. I have $20 Etymotic earplugs that protect my hearing that are great and are not electronic and never need to be charged and don't have USB-C or wireless charging.

Lauren Goode: Right.

Adrienne So: Here's the thing, Mike. I also go to shows, but I was always forgetting earplugs and then just running around being like, "Does anyone have a dollar?"

Michael Calore: But you always have your AirPods.

Adrienne So: But you always have your AirPods.

Michael Calore: Yeah, good point.

Julian Chokkattu: Also, I don't know how it is. I'm sure it's the same here. But in New York, everyone already does that where they're just wearing AirPods and walking around and talking and ordering coffee and all that. They don't take them out. I don't like it because I find it a little awkward.

Michael Calore: Yeah. To see somebody having an interaction with a barista while they're wearing their AirPods just feels rude.

Julian Chokkattu: Yes.

Michael Calore: It's like, "Take the thing out of your ear when you're talking to another human being." But it's not anymore.

Adrienne So: It feels really weird. It feels like this ring that we were talking about last year or something like the ring that signals to people that you're single. And I think, Mike, you were like, "Isn't the signal just not having a wedding ring?" But no, people need to be explicitly told that you're single now.

Lauren Goode: Yes.

Adrienne So: And it's the same thing. I'm going to buy a device. Something that's like, "Yes, I am listening to you even though I have my EarPods on." All of our social signals are just totally… We don't know how to be in public anymore. No one knows how to behave. Thank you.

Lauren Goode: And with that, let's wrap this podcast up.

Michael Calore: No because-

Lauren Goode: I think you made an excellent point.

Michael Calore: … we need your expertise here, Lauren, to bring us home.

Lauren Goode: My non-reviewer expertise.

Michael Calore: Because you have been doing a lot of reporting and you wrote a story about this.

Lauren Goode: Yeah.

Michael Calore: The fact that going into the event, a lot of the Apple watchers on the internet thought that Apple Intelligence would be presented as a way to entice people to upgrade to the new iPhone. Can you tell us what is going on with Apple's iPhone sales? What is predicted to go on with Apple's iPhone sales over the next cycle?

Lauren Goode: Yeah. So a little context for that, which is that globally, a lot of people have smartphones. A lot of people have iPhones. But generally, smartphones are… It's a saturated market. So Apple has only had so much room for growth compared to how it was doing in the mid-2010s.

In recent years, sometimes over consecutive quarters, Apple reports a year-over-year decline in sales for iPhone. This year, they happen to have, late 2023, a good holiday quarter. But yeah, iPhone sales have been on the decline. So some analysts ahead of this event have been predicting that it's going to be Apple Intelligence plus the new chipset that's powering Apple Intelligence that's going to drive a super cycle, this kind of economic boom after a somewhat fallow period. Boom in terms of sales and revenue growth.

Others are saying, "Not so much," because maybe the Apple Intelligence… By the way, you have to love that also is an acronym for AI. It's not artificial intelligence. It is Apple Intelligence-

Michael Calore: Right. It's the same but different.

Lauren Goode: … on their private different private compute cloud.

Michael Calore: Yes.

Lauren Goode: We do LLMs differently here, folks. OK? But yes, some analysts are saying this is going to be the thing that's finally going to spur an upgrade cycle. Most people are holding onto their phones for four-ish years now. Others are saying, "We still think it's going to be incremental growth because of the fact that some of these features are going to be delayed. Because of the fact that we don't know what's going to happen in the Chinese market for iPhone, which is a critical market for Apple."

Some are saying that, "Well, even if these features get rolled out in say October or early next year, the AI features, we don't know what the interaction's going to be like yet. We don't know how compelling it's going to be." So you always have with Apple, these super bullish people. Dan Ives from Wedbush Securities is a famous Apple analyst. They're always like, "Yeah, this is the…" It's like, "The hockey stick is going up again." And then you have some more tempered thoughts on this, which is, "Well, it might be a good year for sales for iPhone. It might just be. But maybe it's going to be staggered out over time."

Michael Calore: Right. It seems like there is always an opportunity for Apple to sell more iPhones and they seem to be stretching a little bit farther to make that happen with every release.

Lauren Goode: There's so many factors that go into this, right?

Michael Calore: Yeah.

Lauren Goode: Just think about the fact that iPhones have become a little bit more repairable. It's easier now to go get a battery swapped in to your old phone than it's to buy an entirely new phone. I shouldn't say easier, but it's certainly more cost-efficient.

Michael Calore: You can do it yourself.

Lauren Goode: The smartphone, it's not as much of a flex anymore.

Michael Calore: Yeah.

Lauren Goode: I don't think You're always going to have people who are the early adopters, the hype beasts technology lovers. They want the latest thing. The content creators who are going to use the camera features that Julian you were talking about earlier. But then, there's just a lot of people who are like, "I just need this glass lab to work. I need it to message. I need it to FaceTime. I needed to send emails for work, and I want a camera in my pocket at all times." And just good enough has been pretty darn good enough. That's what I mean. This is amazing technology. It has completely changed our world over the past 15 to 20 years. But that change is… We're not in an incremental phase anymore because of AI. But AI is still, I think in a type phase. It's like we're waiting for it to deliver certain things now. They're like, "Oh, I can't live without this."

Adrienne So: You missed one-

Lauren Goode: That's how I feel. I don't know. I have not had a generative AI experience yet where I have thought I can't live without this.

Adrienne So: You missed one factor in the sales, Lauren.

Lauren Goode: Yeah.

Adrienne So: It's that the pink is so very, very pink.

Lauren Goode: This year's phone?

Julian Chokkattu: It is.

Adrienne So: It's so pink. You get so used to how understated and tasteful and classic iPhones look. And then this year it was like, "Pink, Ocean Marine, or whatever." I was just like, "Ooh."

Lauren Goode: But I'm such a klutz that I always put a case on it like this one right now. This rubbery thing. I'm like, hold on, I'm going to do what the influencers do.

Julian Chokkattu: You can get a case.

Lauren Goode: Ready?

Michael Calore: Yeah.

Adrienne So: It's very ASMR.

Lauren Goode: Yes, it is. It is. But it's all dirty and weird and smudgy and you put sunscreen on or if you wear foundation and then you hold the back of this leathery phone, and it's so gross and gnarly. But you know what? When I drop it three times a day, it keeps it protected. I have no idea. I bought this iPhone. I don't know what color it is.

Julian Chokkattu: Oh, no.

Adrienne So: Oh, no.

Lauren Goode: Should I even attempt to take this off now?

Julian Chokkattu: Yes.

Lauren Goode: No, probably not.

Adrienne So: I have a clear case.

Lauren Goode: No, it's just permanent.

Adrienne So: I have it here.

Lauren Goode: It's like my iPhone is always cold. And so it's a jacket. And it always wears it. It’s like an air-conditioned office. I don't know.

Michael Calore: What color is it? I want to know.

Lauren Goode: I think it's black. Actually, I bought this. So now I know when I bought this, it must have been January because I went to the Apple Store and I bought the Apple Vision Pro at the same time.

Adrienne So: Yes.

Lauren Goode: But I knew I was going to return the Apple Vision Pro and I knew I was going to keep this bad boy.

Michael Calore: It's black.

Julian Chokkattu: Oh, it's black.

Lauren Goode: Wait, but it's like muted.

Michael Calore: It's black. Oh, no. Sorry.

Lauren Goode: Matte.

Michael Calore: It's midnight.

Lauren Goode: It's matte midnight. There we go.

Adrienne So: That looks like a missed opportunity to me, Lauren.

Lauren Goode: To just flex it like this?

Adrienne So: No, pink.

Lauren Goode: Oh, to get pink. Yeah.

Michael Calore: Apple Vision Pro was not mentioned.

Adrienne So: Oh.

Julian Chokkattu: It wasn't. No.

Michael Calore: There was like-

Lauren Goode: I saw someone said it was mentioned once, but I missed it.

Michael Calore: You can use the camera control to take spatial photos.

Lauren Goode: That's what it was.

Michael Calore: And then they showed somebody watching spatial photos in Apple Vision Pro.

Julian Chokkattu: Lots of spatial talk.

Michael Calore: Literally sitting on their couch tipping their body side to side about 10 degrees so that they can see the spatial action in the photo. And that was it.

Julian Chokkattu: I do want to know one thing though, going back to our conversation of whether people are going to upgrade because of Apple Intelligence. Certain features sometimes get popular months after the devices come out like someone on Twitter makes it popular and everyone's like, "Oh my God, I need to try this." And one of those things under the Apple Intelligence umbrella is Genmoji which is…

Lauren Goode: I'm actually very excited for this.

Julian Chokkattu: Right. It's the ability to basically generate your own emojis with keywords that you use. And I think one of the examples was a cowboy frog and they had a cowboy frog emoji. And I feel like this is one of those things that someone six months from now is going to be like, "Oh my God, look what this silly little thing I made just sending an emoji to a friend." And then everyone's going to be like, "Oh my God, I need this." And turns out you need an iPhone 15 Pro or any of the iPhone 16 phones. So I think this is the kind of subtle, if not so subtle ways of how Apple is like, "That's the only way you can get it, and now you have to upgrade. Gotcha."

Adrienne So: I know. I spent a month or two months on an Android phone, and then I went back to an iPhone for this event, and I missed all my whole library of stickers, my sticker library of all of my kids teachers that are strangely appropriate at any time, at any place.

Lauren Goode: I can't wait to see what it generates for Snackfight. When I put in Snackfight, what is it going to think? Like you are-

Michael Calore: It probably won't let you do it. It probably won't let you do it because it'll say that that's sensitive material.

Adrienne So: You have to-

Lauren Goode: Because of the word fight.

Michael Calore: Yeah.

Lauren Goode: It implies violence.

Michael Calore: Yeah.

Adrienne So: Like two pretzels punching it out.

Michael Calore: Doritos versus apples. I'm looking forward to the first Genmoji movie. Like somebody makes a Genmoji that goes viral and everybody's obsessed with that particular Genmoji. And then the person who created it gets to sign a movie deal.

Lauren Goode: I'm signing off the internet then, permanently.

Michael Calore: It's going to happen.

Lauren Goode: That's the moment.

Michael Calore: It's going to happen.

Adrienne So: And then we can view the Genmoji in spatial visual. We can just examine every angle of this emoji.

Michael Calore: But wait a second. A serious question. Has there been a movie made with just plain emoji?

Adrienne So: Yes, The Emoji Movie.

Michael Calore: Yeah, there's The Emoji Movie.

Julian Chokkattu: Well, there was also-

Adrienne So: We said it simultaneously. Like, "Of course."

Lauren Goode: Simulation is real.

Julian Chokkattu: I watched a show on Broadway called Emojiland.

Lauren Goode: No.

Julian Chokkattu: They were all the smiling tear-eyed face emoji. That was one character. They're all different types of emojis and it was very cute.

Lauren Goode: They were real human beings dressed as big fuzzy emojis.

Julian Chokkattu: They weren't necessarily … They didn't have costumes. They were just presenting as emojis. But it was very funny, and it was great.

Michael Calore: This show brought to you by Unicode.

Lauren Goode: I had stuff of nightmares.

Adrienne So: No. The hand emoji had hands. I was freaked out.

Michael Calore: OK. Well, this has been a very fun and wide-ranging conversation, but before it goes any further off rails, we have to take a break because we have to come back and do our recommendations.

[Break]

Michael Calore: OK, welcome to part three. We're no longer talking about Apple because we're going to do our recommendations. Let's start with you, Adrienne.

Adrienne So: I had another recommendation but I had to switch it to this recommendation because Julian was like, "You have not stopped talking about this book for the whole time we've been here." And it's Status and Culture by W. David Marx. He's the guy who wrote Ametora. It's like the book that examines why the Japanese did American denim and American style better than Americans. And he's like … It felt both appropriate for the Apple Event and also a little bit of a guilty pleasure because it's just about, Why do we like the things that we like? And what do certain products signal to each other about our taste and status? And about how people who are at the top of the food chain can make totally ridiculous choices and that just makes them look real.

But if you're low … your ability to break the rules is lessened when you get to the bottom, and there was a whole section about why people liked the iPod Shuffle instead of the Zune. And part of it is just the experience of being the kind of person who owns an Apple product versus Zune, even though objectively the Zune worked better.

Michael Calore: Yeah.

Adrienne So: It was just a totally fascinating slash … I don't know. I felt a little bit cheesy reading it. But yeah, it was just this exploration of why we like the things we like, which seemed especially appropriate given this event.

Michael Calore: That's great. I'm going to have to read this book.

Adrienne So: No, it was very good. It was at the library. My dog ate the back cover. I'll bring it back, and give it to you.

Lauren Goode: Status and Culture, you said it's called?

Adrienne So: It's Status and Culture by W. David Marx.

Michael Calore: Awesome.

Lauren Goode: Great.

Michael Calore: Julian, what is your recommendation?

Julian Chokkattu: My recommendation is Monkey Man, which is a movie featuring Dev Patel. And it came out I think a couple of months ago, not that old. And it's just a story about a man trying to deal with his childhood trauma and get revenge on the men who caused that childhood trauma. And what's unique about it is Dev Patel wanted to do this movie because he wanted to be an action star. And it turns out, no one really thought of him as an action star. And so he decided, "I'm going to do this myself."

Jordan Peele helped produce the movie. It's cinematography, visually very interesting. There's so much social commentary that is the underlying message of the film as well. And it's just super entertaining. And just seeing a brown-skinned person on a big-screen Hollywood film, being an action star is not something I don't think I really have seen of the … Not counting Bollywood, because that's the norm there.

Michael Calore: Sure.

Adrienne So: The Eternals.

Julian Chokkattu: Yes, that's true. Kumail Nanjiani was in The Eternals, but that movie wasn't great. But this one is, so watch it.

Adrienne So: He worked out so much.

Julian Chokkattu: He did.

Adrienne So: Sorry.

Julian Chokkattu: He got really ripped. But so did Dev Patel, actually. He looks very good in this movie too.

Lauren Goode: Love the glow-up.

Michael Calore: Yeah. So you can stream it, right? You can stream it everywhere?

Julian Chokkattu: I think it might be coming to streaming soon, but I don't know.

Michael Calore: You saw it in the theater.

Julian Chokkattu: I did see it in theater, yeah.

Michael Calore: OK. Did you wear a mask?

Julian Chokkattu: Did I wear mask?

Adrienne So: You don't have to answer, Julian. You don't have to answer.

Julian Chokkattu: I did not. I didn't know.

Michael Calore: I'm just curious, because I wore a mask to the theater recently, and I felt … I was like the only person wearing one. Anyway.

Lauren Goode: Oh my god.

Michael Calore: Discussion for another day.

Lauren Goode: This is, "Hello. Welcome to the sanctimonious pod."

Michael Calore: I know.

Julian Chokkattu: I know.

Michael Calore: Lauren, what is your recommendation?

Lauren Goode: Well, those of you who are sitting here right now might've noticed that I've been sort of wriggling in this uncomfortable manner throughout the entire show. And that's not because I was uncomfortable talking about the new iPhones. It's because the era of the bad back has come for me.

And recently on Threads, I asked for advice from folks who … And this was not engagement bait. I had to give that caveat because there's so much garbage engagement bait on Threads. Basically, it was saying, "My back's bothering me and I don't think my chair at home is cutting it. So what's your chair choice?" And so this is a solicitation on the podcast. I've done this before. A while ago, I asked for playlist recommendations. I am asking you all to send me your firm seated chair recommendations for sad writers with hurting backs. We actually have really good chairs at the office here. They're Knoll chairs.

Michael Calore: Yeah, ReGeneration.

Lauren Goode: Yeah, they're great. But I don't steal from my employer, so I'm not going to take that home. I am tempted because of my back. I also just started using Tom—our old colleague Tom had a standing desk, and he left us for another publication. So now I'm like, "You know what? Going to use Tom’s standing desk." And I keep a hot water bottle behind my back. So I'm trying all the things, folks, but if you have any recommendations for a good chair.

Michael Calore: Julian might know some chairs.

Julian Chokkattu: Just a few.

Lauren Goode: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I was going to say, we do have a guide on WIRED.com. Yeah. But what I'm really hoping for, if I'm being totally honest, is that someone's just like, "Go find this super-firm low-tech woodworkers' chair here in this shop that's not going to break the bank." Some people are like, "You need the gaming, blah, blah, blah, G2 Force Razer …”

Michael Calore: No.

Lauren Goode: "Pow wow, blah." And I'm like, "No, no I don't. That's the thing." Yeah. Anyway. So send your recommendations on, I don't know, Threads. Don't Signal me this, because I do need to keep Signal free for actual sources. All right. Thanks, all. Mike, what's your recommendation?

Michael Calore: I'm going to recommend a piece of music. It's a new piece of music, an album that came out this month. It's by the South Carolina, North Carolina, I don't know.

Adrienne So: North Carolina.

Michael Calore: North Carolina. Sorry, Adrienne.

Adrienne So: No, I love this album and I'm so excited you're recommending it.

Michael Calore: OK. It's this guy named MJ Lenderman, and he is an indie-rock songwriter. He's in the band Wednesday. He also has done some work with Waxahatchee recently. But he has a few solo albums under his own name, and one live album, which is really good. And this is his new studio album. It's called Manning Fireworks. And it is fantastic. That's pretty much it. If you like indie-rock singer-songwriter types, if you're into that pavement vibe, that sort of palace music vibe, that sort of slacker, really fun, really witty lyrics vibe, you have to check out MJ Lenderman. He's going places.

Adrienne So: You sent me his Wristwatch song.

Michael Calore: Yeah.

Adrienne So: And I was just like, "Why has there not been a song about the Apple Watch before?" But also, it's just like this tech is just so much a part of our everyday lives. Everybody was so startled when Taylor Swift like saying about people looking at people's location on Find My. And I was like, "I can see all of your locations on Find My right now." And it's just like, "Oh, this wristwatch, it's also a compass." And it's just like, "Yes, it is. It's awesome."

Michael Calore: Yeah. And it's great because the song Wristwatch on the album, it's a song about an Apple Watch, but also it's not about an Apple Watch.

Adrienne So: Yeah. There's a literary device for this, which we all should remember because we're all English majors, but we don't.

Michael Calore: All right. Well good recommendations everybody. And that is our show. So thank you Julian and Adrienne for joining us.

Julian Chokkattu: Thank you for having us.

Lauren Goode: Thank you all.

Adrienne So: Thank you.

Lauren Goode: That was super fun.

Michael Calore: And thank you all for listening. If you have feedback, you can find all of us on Threads. Just check the show notes. You can find Lauren on Threads. Our producer is the excellent Boone Ashworth. We will be back with a new show next week. And until then, goodbye.

[Gadget Lab outro theme music plays]

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