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Our full, honest reviews of the #iPhone17Pro, #iPhoneAir and #AirPods Pro 3! How’s the battery life? How’s the orange? How bad does it scratch? How good is Live Translation? Everything you need to know.
Produced by Extra Ordinary for Cult of Mac
Music composed by Will Davenport, arranged by D. Griffin Jones
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:12 Squarespace
2:47 iPhone 17 Pro review
36:33 iPhone Air
1:01:00 AirPods Pro 3
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Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:02
Hello and welcome to the Cultcast, the best Apple conversation you're going to hear all week long. I'm your host,
0:09
Natani, and joining me today we have D. Griffin Jones. Hey, welcome Griffin. Good evening. I like how I've been
0:15
regularly promoted to the the first to be introduced for the last few weeks now. Well, you're the first one I see on my
0:21
feed here, so that's why it's not any kind of seniority, so don't get any high minor ideas.
0:27
Okay. and uh and Louis, my good friend Lewis Wallace. Hey, Louis. Hey, good morning. And it is morning.
0:34
It is morning right now for sure. It's a hot, muggy day here in San Francisco. We're all sweating.
0:39
It's only like 65, but it feels like you're in Florida or something. Yeah, it's muggy. It's muggy. Well,
0:47
today we're going to talk about uh all the new products. We've got a review reviews. It's reviews. Reviews reviews.
0:52
Uh we're going to be talking about the iPhone 17 Pro, uh the iPhone Air, and
0:58
the AirPods Pro 3, which is everyone's favorite new headphones. Uh we're going to be talking about battery life, how is
1:04
it uh to get the orange colored, how bad does it scratch, how good is live translation, everything you need to know
1:10
about the new products. But before we do that, we got to say thanks to our
1:15
sponsor this week, which is uh Squarespace. And Griffin, you're going to tell us all about Squarespace's new
1:21
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1:27
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1:32
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1:39
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1:45
It handles all of that hard work for you. I uh don't build my website with Squarespace and you know it takes a lot
1:52
of maintenance and it isn't very well optimized and it doesn't look very good or modern. So that's on me. That's
1:58
that's that's the alternative path. It's not a path you want to go down if you just want a quick way to get your side
2:04
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2:47
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2:54
checkout. That's squarespace.com/cultast with code cult.
3:01
All right. Very nice. Yep. Yep. Yep. We should get that for the Cult of Mac website. Yeah. Which also is in need of a desperate
3:07
overhaul. So, I think I might be going and making a purchase right after this. Before we do that, let's talk about the
3:14
iPhone 17 Pro, which you know is my god, what a magnificent phone it is this
3:19
year. It is the proest. Um, we had a great review from um our uh
3:26
our friend Ian Fuches uh who's a a video professional, lives in Chicago. uh he'd
3:31
been u playing around with this and he he I thought he did a nice job with the review which is up on the website. But Lewis and I also have Pros
3:40
um which uh which we bought day one. Uh what kind of orange that is? Oh, wait.
3:45
That's the case. Yeah, right. What color is it? It's It's
3:51
orange, isn't it? It's orange. Yeah, sure. Of course it's orange. Right. Yeah. There you go. I'm gonna take mine out of the case so you can see it in it
3:57
full glory. Be careful. I can't get it out now. Uh, yeah, right. I know. Good point. We're
4:02
going to talk about that afterwards. Yeah, we got to blow the lid off a scratch gate. My god. Anyway, why don't
4:07
you tell us about the the the the Pro, Lewis? Colors. Okay. What do we got? We got uh
4:12
cosmic orange. We got deep blue. And what's the other one? Silver.
4:18
Silver, right? Which is kind of like white. Well, it's I can't get the case off.
4:25
But I mean, Lewis, how do you feel about the orange? I mean, my god, you were going We We spent weeks and weeks debating it and we were sure you were
4:33
going to be disappointed. Are you? Uh, I'm I'm mixed on it, you know. I The
4:38
thing that I h I like the most about it is that it is actually orange. It is orange. Orange.
4:44
It is not bronze. Uh, if anything, I mean, I I I always like to take these phones out in the backyard and take
4:50
pictures of them and and really look at how the I mean, I I don't know. It's almost like staring into a, you know, a lawn ball or something, you know, just
4:57
stare and like look at it. And the the sort of orange aluminum frame of these
5:02
things, it's um it it ranges from like orange to almost
5:09
fiery red in certain uh certain, you know, certain angles of the sun catching it and stuff.
5:14
When you hold it at a sharp angle like that, it it it definitely gets darker and richer. Yeah, it's it's interesting
5:20
the way it morphs and and the the thing I really don't like aesthetically about the iPhone 17 Pro design is the the sort
5:27
of two-tone effect you get where the the glass on the back is a definitely a
5:32
different shade from the the metal surrounding it. And that also varies wildly depending on what angle you can
5:40
look at it, you know. And in some instances that like I I wrote about this cosmic orange thing because I've been
5:45
waiting for an orange foam for so long. Uh yeah, in some instances that glass looks like a dreamsicle. It's it's just
5:50
like the most kind of pale and I don't know, timid yellow you can
5:56
imagine, but in and in other instances it kind of blends in. It's it's it's a really it's a peculiar it's a peculiar
6:02
color scheme. Uh yeah, at at the same angle where you hold it where the orange kind of looks red on the on the aluminum, at the same
6:08
angle, the the glass plate on the back looks kind of yellowy. Yeah, it's it's really it's just it's kind of a bizarre color. Um, I like the
6:17
way it looks. Uh, I'm not going to use it without a case because of all the scratching that I've seen happening.
6:22
Well, here's a silver one. And you know, you talk about mismatch color. This one's white. It's got the white glass,
6:30
but I actually think it's really nice. I I like it. It's clean as heck. It's a beautiful uh beautifully made.
6:38
the unibody um construction that how they've carved it out of one piece of aluminum, you know, makes it just for a
6:45
really pleasing piece of tech.
6:50
I had some hands-on experience in the store as well when I was picking up my iPhone Air. I took a look at all the phones. Maybe I'll cut in video of that
6:58
while we're having this if you're watching on YouTube cuz I looked at the blue and in Apple's pictures I think the
7:04
blue out of all the colors looks like it just you know blends together like back plate and aluminum perfectly but even
7:10
that has a little bit of contrast to it too. I kind of like that the back plate doesn't perfectly match because I think
7:16
then you don't notice as much that the Apple logo is offc center because then it makes it obvious the Apple logo is
7:22
perfectly centered within the glass plate in the bottom part of the phone. I kind of like it. It makes the back looks
7:28
more look more interesting in my opinion. I thought I thought the blue model looked really good. I mean in the store
7:34
it looks very uh kind of handsome, you know. I I mean, yeah, it's uh normal safe color, but
7:43
it's it looks all right. I mean, previously, Apple differentiated the top and bottom of the phone by
7:49
having the uh plateau be a different texture to the back, like the you know, the plateau would be shiny and the rest
7:54
of it would be matte, but and now that the plateau takes up the whole top of the screen, and now that it's also made
7:59
out of metal, I think they needed like a different way to differentiate the two parts of the back to make it look good.
8:06
So, you you think the two-tone looks good? I I do. Yeah.
8:12
But I mean, I I haven't lived with it for a week. I only saw it briefly in a store, but Yeah. Well, I think probably most people
8:17
aren't going to see it much either once they put a case on cuz it's just like, you know, but uh let's see. The design
8:24
of the thing, I mean, to me, I I guess it's slightly heavier. It doesn't feel any heavier. Not noticeable. Screen
8:30
looks great. Performance has been fantastic. I haven't noticed it getting hot. Uh, which is I did notice with the
8:39
16 Pro. Everything seems to work beautifully. Liquid glass is smooth and fantastic.
8:45
I actually just want to interject for a moment. You said you haven't felt it get any heavier. Uh, it is worth noting these phones actually are quite a bit
8:51
heavier. So, between like the iPhone 13 and 14, the phone started getting gradually heavier. Then there was like
8:57
the big reduction in weight with the iPhone 15 Pro. And the 16 Pro got a little heavier than that, but still not as heavy as the iPhone 14 was. The
9:04
iPhone 17, I think, is almost as heavy as the iPhone 14 Pro was before they had
9:10
to reduce the weight of it. So, the these phones are creeping back up in weight. That had a stainless steel frame, right?
9:16
So, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I honestly like I don't notice it being any heavier. Do you, Lander?
9:23
No. Oh, and I I did a test with um uh the 16 Pro and you know the the the hand
9:30
scales of justice and I I couldn't tell any difference and it uh I mean it
9:35
doesn't feel heavy by any means at all, does it? It it feels solid. Not until you pick up an iPhone air.
9:41
No. True enough. Right. Exactly. Yeah. It doesn't feel any extra weight at all. It's it's it's still a solid thing in
9:48
your hand. I mean or your pocket. I mean, you can feel it. It's there. But I I'm just saying I I don't find it to be
9:53
like ownorously more heavy than the previous the previous phone. Ian talked
9:59
a lot about all the the really like pro camera and especially video features of it. And as always the video stuff like I
10:07
mean I I shoot a video here and there. I never spend any time editing a video,
10:12
producing a video. I never you know I I'm I'm the least pro user when it comes
10:18
to video. I don't know that I've actually even taken many photos with it. I've mostly even been taken pictures of
10:24
the phone with my old phone. I took a few pictures. Uh, you know, the the the new sensors are are fantastic
10:30
and the zoom is amazing. The way you can zoom in now uh with the 8x zoom, it's
10:36
crazy the it's so detailed. It's it it uh you know, there's no loss of detail.
10:42
And if you do it side by side with the old 16 Pro, there's a huge huge difference. you know, it goes from like
10:47
a horrible fuzzy pixelated mess to a a very very usable, very very detailed
10:54
picture when you're zoomed in. Um, it's pretty remarkable. It's a It makes it really useful for the first time. Like I
11:00
didn't used to use the zoom on my old at least, you know, the full zoom the 5x zoom because it just wouldn't take a
11:06
good picture. They were awful. Yeah. Yeah, the the the telephoto sensor of the 5x telephoto lens on the iPhone
11:12
16 Pro. Apple had actually been using the same exact camera sensor for that telephoto lens since I think the iPhone
11:20
13. So, it's not actually just like a one-year change. It's effectively like a fouryear change there or five year.
11:26
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm very jealous of that that new sensor. I'm not I'm not upgrading from the 16 Pro to the 17 Pro personally, but
11:34
that's maybe what I'm most jealous of, the the much improved telephoto sensor. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
11:39
I can't wait to get out out of my office and actually uh see that see that in
11:44
use. Not much use in my tiny little office. Uh Ian was also talking about
11:50
the the sort of computational processing of the photos. says says that they the
11:55
ones that he's taken with the 17 Pro versus the 16 Pro look much more natural and just better all around. So, uh I'm
12:03
I'm pretty psyched to check it out. I I I do love to take pictures. I just a lot of time at the computer this week.
12:09
Yeah. Right. I I actually noticed that myself. The um the Apple didn't make many hardware
12:15
changes to the 1x sensor, but they did improve the image pipeline in like the
12:21
computational photography part of it. how it sharpens up images after you've taken them. And I took a picture of, you
12:27
know, my dog Indie sitting on the floor like side by side, iPhone 16 Pro in this hand, iPhone Air in the other hand. And
12:34
you can definitely tell the iPhone Air is better at sharpening up like dog hair. And they know that that's how
12:40
exactly how people are going to test these things, taking pictures of their pets. And that seems to be what it's really good at doing. I didn't do any
12:46
other like direct sideby-side comparisons, but I can tell that the 1x sensor is better at like the machine
12:52
learning sort of cleaning up of photos after you've taken them to make them look sharper than they really are.
12:58
Um, Google is going way overboard with that. Like if you if you take like the
13:04
new Google Pixel phone and zoom into its, you know, top like 50x zoom or
13:09
whatever it is, like somebody took a picture of a stop sign from really far away and Google is going so all in on
13:17
the AI upscaling of it that it makes it round instead of octagonal. It's like
13:22
completely making up letters for signs and street signs and things like that. I'm very glad Apple is showing more
13:28
strength than Google in that regard because that's you can't even say that's a picture at that point. It's an AI
13:33
recreation of an like that moon scandal, you know, when you took a picture of the moon. Remember
13:39
that one from a couple years ago? Mhm. Yeah. It's craziness. Um I've got some
13:44
pictures actually, some sample pictures. I can I I'll give them to you afterwards. Maybe you could show you could I'll show the zoom. I took some
13:49
pictures of Gate Bridge. Um you can put them in here. Do we want to talk about any other features? I mean the pro the process is crazy. I mean,
13:56
the whole performance of the thing is is great is is is great, isn't it? It's snappy. It does everything super quick.
14:02
No lag. The screen looks wonderful. The 120 Hz prootion screen.
14:07
What's the uh battery life been like for you? Fantastic. Lasts all day, all all night and all day.
14:13
And I charge it to 80%. So, uh it does seem better. Yeah, it uh I had
14:18
no problem with it at all. I've had some I saw some people complaining about it like that they they lose it in the like, you know, late afternoon, early evening,
14:26
but I've been on the thing all day, you know, like all day and uh no problem at all. No problem at all.
14:32
If I can ask you to follow along here, go really quick. If you go to the settings app, you go to settings in the
14:39
top section, you tap battery, and then you wait for the thing to load for a second, and then you tap view all battery usage. So, I'll read this out
14:46
for comparison on my iPhone Air. If I tap on Friday, I can see I had the
14:51
screen active for 8 hours and 16 minutes and it drained 84%.
14:58
So, I'm curious what that those two numbers are for you for one one of the bigger days that you used your phone.
15:06
Well, on Saturday, I've got screen active was only uh two hours, one hour 50 minutes. Mhm.
15:12
And uh the battery drain was where do I see that? 67% I think.
15:18
So that's not very much because not much usage. The next day I used it for 5 hours, 4 hours, and 50 minutes.
15:24
Mhm. And battery drain was 53%. Okay. That's actually surprisingly kind
15:29
of in line because like the the ratio that I'm looking at on my iPhone Air, it seems to be like for every hour the
15:35
screen is active, it's gone down roughly 10%. Or a little bit less than that. like you know Sunday I used the phone
15:42
for a bit under 5 hours and it drained 40%. So you know 10% down battery drain for
15:50
every hour that I was using the phone seems to be seems to be the the rule of thumb that I'm seeing around here.
15:57
5 hours 29 minutes 82%. That's a lot. Battery usage by app Slack 12%.
16:05
Okay. Google 9% podcast 8%. Uh,
16:11
I mean that's probably, you know, the podcast running in the background, you know, like the screen isn't on, but it's running.
16:18
So, it's interesting that that ratio is actually showing up as being worse for the
16:23
iPhone 17 Pro compared to the iPhone Air. Uh, yeah, I wonder if the iPhone Air is maybe like underclocking the
16:30
processor to reduce the battery drain compared to the Pro. Who knows?
16:36
Who knows? the design of the Plateau. How How do you feel about it? Oh, the Plateau. You've been putting your phone in a case
16:41
for a lot, but uh yeah, I mean, you know, it's fine. I mean, I I find the whole design kind of
16:48
um I don't know, Star Warsy or something. I mean, to me, it has like a retro feel.
16:54
It doesn't seem as polished and nice as as the iPhone 16 Pro. It seems And especially once it starts getting
17:00
scratched up and beaten up, then it's really Star Wars. Uh, I got to say I kind of liked the the
17:07
glass plateau on the previous one better. Like I it had a nice kind of shiny look to it. This is kind of a dull
17:14
matte at least in this color. Dull matte orange and uh or I mean sorry at least
17:21
in this light. Uh and you go outside it looks bright and shiny. I don't know. I I I have a like if they would have gone
17:28
with the glass plateau back there. I mean, they could have made it super shiny. I I I guess I I really I am like
17:36
a crow or a fish or something. I I I love the shiny stuff. Uh I don't know if you
17:41
noticed this, but uh you guys haven't probably you none of you have the orange one. If you take the orange phone out in
17:47
the like the pictures I took of it, it almost does look like it has like a little bit of a glittery finish to it in
17:52
the sunlight, which is what I I was really hoping for, like extreme extreme metal flake glitter, but uh you know
17:59
what? It's a step in the right direction. You're hoping for like the color that like a boomer would paint his like Chevy Bair as like his 1950 when he takes it
18:07
to a car show. Exactly. That's exactly what I want. You know, five coats of uh clear clear coat
18:12
and, you know, hand buffed, everything beautiful, shiny as can be. That's that's what I would like um more than
18:19
anything. But yeah, I I'm I'm happy enough with it the way it is. I I can't say I'm 100% crazy about the uh the look
18:27
of the the forged plateau, which is really the only thing you see out of the phone once you put it in a the case that
18:32
you have to put it in because otherwise it's going to get beat up. The orange case, orange silicone case. I love the
18:37
sil I love Apple silicone cases. I love the way they feel. I love how grippy they are. I love how,
18:45
you know, all the buttons work perfectly. Everything's they're just really nice cases. And uh I had one I
18:51
used one I don't know half a year. Finally finally got a nick out of it, you know, like from a key toss it in my
18:57
pocket with some keys or something. They're they're pretty durable. Yeah. Yeah. Mine too. My old one lasted a long time. Well, this year I picked up
19:03
the the tech woven out of curiosity. Uh and of course, you know, this is the uh the replacement to the fine woven case,
19:10
which wasn't very durable, and this thing um hasn't got a mark on it. I mean, I've been using it for about a
19:15
week. I I can't say I've, you know, I haven't actually dropped the phone yet, which is kind of unusual. Usually I I
19:20
drop it the minute I get it in my hands. Take the key to the back of it and see what happens. Uh,
19:27
okay. I don't know if I want to do that live right now, but just try and try try and scratch it with your finger because those that's so
19:35
different from the way fine woven was. I mean, fine woven felt like they were trying to make something that felt like
19:40
u, you know, suede or something like that. And and that thing I mean I don't know the tech I I went up and was
19:47
scratching my fingernail on it in the store. It felt like you know heavyduty plastic. Uh seemed very like I
19:55
I can't imagine you can scratch that thing. It's got a cloth feel. Really? I thought it felt like plastic.
20:01
It feels to me well the the edges are plastic. You know the edges are No, I mean the I mean the Well, it is
20:06
plastic, isn't it? But it Yeah, I guess you're right. It does have a sort of I think it has a plastic
20:13
cloth feel like light like light like plastic cloth. Well, that's literally what it is, plastic cloth. But it I don't know. I My
20:19
point is it feels very uh very sturdy, very durable. I I don't think it's going
20:25
to get araided easily. It It just seems solid as opposed to fine woven which
20:31
immediately felt just horrible. Well, let's try it right now. Here, look. I'm I chewed my nails. So, they're
20:37
not very um they're not very
20:42
good ASMR right there. Get that pull that close to the mic.
20:49
Oh god. I'm feeling very relaxed. Yeah, it there's not a mark not a mark on it.
20:55
No. Well, there you go. Tell us how that holds up, you know, a month from now.
21:00
Yeah, that's the thing. That's the question to ask. And of course, this thing is snug as as a as a bug in a rug.
21:07
And um as as you can see, you know, like Apple's attention to detail, it's it's
21:12
as nice inside as on the outside. Steve Jobs would be proud.
21:17
Yeah, it's a very nice case. I mean, it's $70. So 70 bucks 69, I think, or 65.
21:25
Um the buttons are really nicely nicely done. Yeah, it's a nice case. It's a
21:30
super nice case for sure. One benefit of the plateau taking up the whole width of the phone is that now when you put it in
21:37
a case and you sit it down on a table, it doesn't rock when you're like typing on it. I think that's a definite improvement. I
21:42
mean, and I mean, I guess we should talk a little bit about for people who don't know what that does. I mean, Apple with
21:48
their design, they basically put almost all of the the guts and and like
21:56
processing and camera and everything in that plateau up there so that the rest of the phone is battery. That's why you
22:01
get better battery life. And uh you know, it seems like a really smart decision. I mean, even if I don't find
22:08
it as aesthetically pleasing, it seems like a great move. For sure. Definitely. Definitely. Definitely. They did that. There was a
22:15
Phil Schiller did that, didn't he? When he when they first showed off uh one of the old um I can't remember which one it was, but one of the the old MacBooks
22:21
when they he said, "Look, you know, here is the processor now." And it was like this little tiny um
22:26
MacBook Air, I think, was the one. And he said, "What do we do with the rest of the space? We fill it with batteries and there there was like I
22:32
think it was like four separate batteries, wasn't it? That that were that were inside the thing. So, it's just battery battery and and and people
22:39
kind of can't complain that was the biggest complaint for years, wasn't it? The battery life on the phones wasn't long enough. And uh fully Yeah. Make it
22:46
basically one big giant battery. Great idea. Great idea. It uh it also helps with the heat
22:52
dissipation having that aluminum unibody. I don't think we discussed that, right? That that was a good point. That
22:58
was the whole point of Ian's review. He was saying that, you know, it was for the first time this year was it was
23:03
function over form. You know, it it it it um they've they've gone a big part of
23:09
the aluminum unibody design is for better heat dissipation along with the vapor chamber. And you know, when this
23:14
thing is cranking out what was it ProRes RAW, 18 gigabytes a second um to capture
23:20
this stuff, it's insane. And uh this you know it it the the aluminum makes it
23:27
cool, doesn't it? It gives it much much better heat dissipation. So, it's a they've gone for it. They they've you
23:32
know, they've they've made this design choice to to increase the functionality of the phone. I I actually like it. I I like the utilitarian look of it. You
23:39
know, it's like a it's like a tool. And I think, you know, even we're going to talk about Scratchgate in a second, but um like Johnny IV, you know, I got that
23:45
Johnny IV design book that he he put out a few years ago. And one of the images in there was the original uh was one of
23:51
his designers original iPhones and the thing's all beaten up and scratched up. And he and he talks about how much he loves that like the patina like from a
23:57
well-loved tool. And there's definitely, you know, I I I've got a few I I had a little pocket knife. I don't have it around. I used to have it around here
24:03
somewhere. But um that is like that. It's like it looks better when it's scratched up. I I don't know if I'm
24:09
going to be saying that about my phone. Maybe. We'll see. But for for some things like that, I think it does look
24:14
better than when it's new. Yeah, I agree as well. Well, let's talk about Scratchgate because uh this thing kind of blew up at the weekend and um I
24:23
went down to the uh the local Apple store here in San Francisco at Stonestown Mall uh to pick up my phone
24:29
and as I was checking out all the f they've got they've got maybe I don't know dozens
24:35
a couple of dozen at least uh of the new phones on display there in the store.
24:41
And of course, like the first day when I went down to pick it up on the Friday, the place is a zoo. It's just packed. There's lines on two lines on either
24:48
side of the store for people trying to get in and inside it's like heaving like a nightclub and um all the most of the
24:56
phones were scratched on the back. I was actually kind of a little shocked because this is day one and on the back
25:02
they're all they're all scratched up and some had some pretty deep scratches too and it became it was really apparent
25:08
what was causing it. They're all sitting on MagSafe chargers and the chargers uh are made out of
25:14
plastic with an aluminum ring around it and the aluminum ring was all chipped up creating a sharp edge that was
25:19
scratching up the back of the phones and um of course you know these are phones
25:25
that are getting handled by um a mob.
25:31
So they're not being babyed. I mean people are like are not treating them very well and they're getting handled by
25:36
hundreds of people. So, on the one hand, there's there's that, you know,
25:41
uh this isn't typical usage. On the other hand, I was kind of shocked at how easily they scratched up. And it was like the orange one was scratched up,
25:48
the deep blue one was scratched up. The only one that I didn't see scratches on was this, the silver one. The um I on
25:56
the um on the regular iPhone 17s. So, the silver one was scratched up. Just the regular iPhone 17s, which have a
26:02
different design. And they have a they have a a a glass back, right? A ceramic shield, not ceramic shield too, but
26:08
ceramic shield back. Um, and so then the next day I saw some
26:14
tweets saying, "Oh, no, this isn't real scratches. This is just um uh you know,
26:19
some kind of uh staining from from the from the chargers or from being handled
26:25
or residue." Yeah. Some kind of residue. And so I I I kind of I didn't actually So I went back
26:30
to the store. I went back with a microfiber cloth and then don't turn
26:36
cloth. It wasn't actually a cult cloth. It should have been a cult cloth, but I went back and I and I cleaned a
26:42
couple of the back of the phones and yeah, it took off the some of the there was some grime and some residue. Uh uh
26:48
but you know, it didn't remove the scratches. These are definitely scratches. You know, they they were I clean and I I I've got a GIF on their
26:55
website when I did a report about this. So, you can you can see me cleaning the thing. Um it you know it's they're
27:02
scratches. There's no doubt about it. Apple responded to this um and saying that uh it was the MagSafe
27:10
charges that uh was causing it. Um but they kind of they but they also said
27:16
that there was they also denied it, didn't they? They said that the Mags safe charges were leaving a residue. So or or that Yeah.
27:23
Yeah. So that it could be like uh rubbed out or something, you know. It's like really Yeah. I you know all this is like I mean
27:32
it's it's completely obvious when you look at the pictures and you look at the the ones in the stores. I mean yeah it
27:38
that aluminum can be araided and that for some reason that glass glass back
27:44
can be scratched. I mean it's it's really weird like what what is different
27:49
about this glass I mean I've never seen that on a the back of a the glass back of an iPhone ever. I mean, some some of
27:56
the pictures do kind of look like it's leaving a residue because like people like rub their keys on it and you can clearly see like brass colored like
28:02
streaks that don't match the color of the aluminum phone. Like clear, yeah, there's probably a little bit of column
28:08
A and a little bit of column B. We're like, yeah, some residue is being left on these things. It's not like when you scratch an orange iPhone 17, it's going
28:14
to be like brass key color underneath it. Like that is residue that's being left on it. But then, you know, rub that
28:20
away and there probably is also a scratch on it, too. I I I think the most amazing thing about that is like who was
28:26
in charge of those MagSafe chargers? I mean, can you how did they all get so beat up? And I mean,
28:35
when you look at like your pictures, Leander, of you took a picture of one of those Chargers, it looked like something
28:40
from a Star Wars movie. Like it had been just damaged by uh you know.
28:46
Yeah. It looked like someone took a chainsaw to the edges of it. I mean, I think that's just terrible. It's really sharp. I mean, you can actually sort of cut your if you run
28:51
your finger over it, you you will cut your finger. It's it's it's a it's a sharp sharp edge. I know. It's kind of
28:57
It was a It is a bit surprising. Yeah. A bit s you know, they they didn't they didn't uh put nice, you know, plastic
29:04
ones out instead of metal ones. Yeah. It's like uh you know, everything else about the Apple store is so, you
29:10
know, perfect and just just excellently maintained and beautiful and Yeah. And and and then you
29:16
look at that thing, it looks it looks like it's I don't know at a Walmart or something. Yeah. Right.
29:22
That's probably one of the one of the parts replaced the least, you know, cuz those things are expensive. Like the tables
29:28
are enormously expensive. The big heavy like solid wood tables that they have it on. You know, they replace the
29:34
phones all the time, but how often do you think they replace those chargers? Probably not very often. They're probably years old. So they've got, you
29:40
know, just Well, they they had a broken one at at Stonestown and so it and it was it was
29:47
it was uh the mag the park itself was broken. So it didn't have a phone on it. And of course it sticks out like a sore
29:53
thumb because it's line of phones and then there's one with an empty space and it has a little security thing, the
29:58
little security tab that is on a retractable wire. So, it's sitting there
30:04
and then when I was in the store, I kept on hearing the alarms going off and then someone had run over and then when I was
30:10
investigating it, when I was when I was at that particular table, I pulled that wire myself and set the alarms off and I
30:16
could see what I was doing. And then I asked the guy, one of the Apple staffers, I said, "What's going on here? Does someone steal the because it was
30:21
supposed to be for the iPhone Air. Does someone steal an Air already?" And he said, "Oh, no, no. It's" That's when he explained to me that the thing was
30:27
broken and that's why they didn't have a a phone on that particular uh stand for display. But that must have been driving
30:33
them crazy too because like almost everybody was doing what I did which is like pulling on that little yanking that wire and set the alarms off. But um
30:40
iFixit actually did uh that when they did their tear down of the iPhone 17 Pro, they uh got a material specialist
30:47
um a guy called David Neber um and he explained to them why the anodizing
30:53
process uh makes the iPhone 17 Pro susceptible to scratching. and it's to
30:59
do with the sharp edges. Um the anodization layer doesn't adhere to a sharp edge as well as it does to a flat
31:06
to a flat surface. Um and that he suggested that Apple could have avoided this by making the sharp edge of the
31:13
plateau which now you can't see it because I got it on my uh case but the sharp edge of the plateau um uh
31:20
shameferred or you know rounded so that it it it eliminated any sharp corners and it would have it would have uh uh
31:26
you know had less scratching. So, we'll see if Apple changes that design next year.
31:32
I was kind of hoping that the shape of the plateau, like the the shape of the edge of the plateau would change. Like
31:37
some of the uh leaked pictures that we saw from like Sunny Dixon and Majin Buu
31:43
before the official event kind of looked like they had made changes to it just because they were low quality, slightly
31:49
blurry images even of like the leaked models. But um I was kind of hoping that
31:54
uh it wouldn't have that shape where it just like curves up from the black from
31:59
the back and then comes to a corner like that because I'm not really much of a fan of that design. But um
32:05
yeah, which is exactly what it does. But um yeah, it's I mean it's it's funny because it's the only sharp edge on the whole phone.
32:11
I mean all the other edges are rounded. Like around the screen they're rounded. Yeah. And it's got sharp edges around the lenses too. So I
32:17
wonder whe they'll they'll probably get all scratched up as well. I haven't seen any pictures of those getting scratched up, though. It's mostly the glass and
32:24
the edges around that forged plateau.
32:30
I I also don't think like that sharp corner just feels very good in the hand. Like, yeah, that that's probably why it
32:35
gets scratched up because it's a very obvious corner that you can feel obviously when you rub rub
32:41
your finger over it. It really is kind of shockingly uh not sharp but uh not smooth, not
32:48
curved. Wow. I didn't even ever uh notice that. And you know, it is funny because
32:54
everything else is, you know, is curved. That's the only edge that is is sharp around from around the lenses, too.
33:01
Yeah. But one of the things that people are complaining about, I don't know if it's worth mentioning, this is the the millimeter wave um the 5G antenna
33:07
cutout. I saw some people lose their minds over this. Like, oh my god, this just, you know, like the whole thing has
33:13
been ruined. How often do you look at the top of your phone? I was going to say I just noticed it
33:19
there for the first time ever. Of course, it's it's less pronounced on the silver one. I Well, I guess it actually
33:25
it isn't, is it? You can see it quite clearly. Yeah, it's I mean, for people who aren't
33:30
watching it, it's just it's like a it goes like at least half the width of the top of the phone. uh just like an oval
33:38
kind of pillshaped, you know, once again two-tone look. It doesn't match perfectly with the uh the metal. It's,
33:46
you know, uh that is one other thing that uh I forgot to mention that that that Ian was talking about. He was
33:52
saying he he thinks that the the cellular connectivity is better with this model than the last model. I
33:58
haven't once again haven't really been out of the house that much. Well, the millimeter wave connectivity should be a little better. I think the
34:03
reason Apple moved it more prominently on the top is because they tried to hide it on the iPhone 16 Pro and it
34:08
supposedly ruined some of the performance of the millimeter wave antenna. I've still since 2020 never
34:17
been within range of a 5G millimeter wave cellular tower at all. So, I have I
34:24
I can't speak to that. But, um I think on the 16 Pro they actually built the millimeter wave antenna into
34:30
the camera control if I if that's right. But and and they and they found that
34:35
like that's why it the performance wasn't as good with that particular phone. The um the the camera control button on
34:40
the on this one is very nice. It uh it has it's a nice button. And I've actually learned how to use it finally.
34:48
Only a year. So I've been using it a lot more. And actually if you turn off that it's set
34:53
up by default now, isn't it? the um when you set up your phone, it asks you if you want to turn on the um controls, the
35:01
extra controls for the camera control button. Mhm. Uh which of course is the most confusing thing about it because if you accidentally get into a you can actually
35:08
get dive down into all the settings instead of just taking a shot. So, it's off by default and but I think that is a
35:14
good move. Um you know, I didn't really ever use it anyway. Um, and I just want to have a button that works as a button,
35:21
which it now does reliably. And it's a great way to take a picture like once you train yourself to use it. You can
35:27
you can be, you know, up taking a picture like in a very very quickly. So, it's a good way to to capture, you know, something that you need to if you want
35:33
to if you want to take a quick snap. It's a it's a great way to do that. Definitely worth training worth training yourself to use.
35:39
Now, I I only ever really open the camera using the camera control button. uh you know, I reassigned my action
35:45
button to do something else, which I've talked about previously. But then the other piece of it was the camera icon on the lock screen, and I wasn't sure what
35:52
to replace that with until I had the idea to replace it with an Apple TV remote button. So now I have instant
35:58
access to my Apple TV remote in the spot where the camera used to be. And I recommend that as well.
36:04
That's a good idea. Yeah, great idea. Great idea. What other things can you put there? You can put a lot of things there. I
36:09
think any or at least most of the buttons that you can put in control center can also be lock screen buttons
36:16
down there. So if there's a toggle that you often reach for, then you can you can assign it to your lock screen as
36:22
well. I'm kind of tempted to put a Shazam button there. Yeah, that'd be pretty handy. Not that I need.
36:27
You have a different way of opening the camera now, so you don't have to worry about that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
36:33
All right, cool. Well, let's talk about the iPhone Air because that of course, you know, is the the um the, you know,
36:38
the biggest design change Apple's made to the iPhone lineup for quite a while.
36:45
Uh, and we have one on hand. Griffin's been testing it out. Let's have a look. I have I've been living and breathing
36:52
with it for like the last week now. And I will just say holding it in the store
36:58
is one thing that will make you lust for this phone. But when you actually live
37:03
with it for a week, going back to an iPhone 16 Pro, just holding it in my
37:10
hand, this is the first time in a long time where just year over year, a new
37:16
phone comes out that makes the old one feel old instantly. My iPhone 16 Pro
37:22
doesn't just feel old, it feels like this thing is four years old. This is just so thin and cool and awesome in the
37:30
hand. that it literally makes every other phone feel ancient. This is the
37:36
way that phones should be. And I know that right now, uh, the iPhone Air is
37:41
kind of in this weird middle spot. You know, you have the regular iPhone 17 for
37:46
only $800. It's an excellent value. You have the iPhone 17 Pro, which adds all of these extra awesome features. The
37:53
iPhone Air is kind of like this weird middle child right now. I actually wouldn't be surprised if
37:58
we're in an iPhone 10 type situation where another year or two from now the
38:06
entrylevel iPhone 18 or the entry level iPhone 19 will have a design inspired by the iPhone air. Like this this design
38:13
style will become their new standard consumer level iPhone design. Um because
38:19
my god this thing just feels incredible. Absolutely incredible. It technically
38:25
has the same design where it's that the iPhone has had since, you know, the iPhone 15 where it has the flat sides
38:30
that are a little rounded, but it's so thin that the like only flat part of it
38:37
is like the middle half because it is just that thin. Like if you have an iPhone 16 Pro, look at the or an iPhone
38:44
17 Pro, look at the side of your phone and look how how curved it is on the edge. Imagine that the flat part of it
38:50
is like half as thick and that's how thin the iPhone 17 air is. It's It's truly crazy.
38:55
Yeah. Um, in terms of weight, I was astonished to see that it's only
39:00
17% lighter than my iPhone 16 Pro because if I didn't know that, I probably would have guessed 40%. It
39:06
feels so much lighter. And, you know, the lighter it is, that means that, you know, the longer you can hold it without
39:12
feeling tired, the less it'll hurt when you drop it on your face. I was going to say, you were you were reading it in bed, right, and it dropped
39:18
on your face. Yeah. And I was like, "Oh, that that didn't hurt as much as I expected." come away with a black eye.
39:24
Yeah. Yeah. It's actually quite a big phone. I mean, for a light phone, it's actually quite big, isn't it? Um Yeah. I think part of the reason why it
39:31
feels so much lighter is because it's bigger. Like, you know, it's a physics thing where it uh the the weight that it
39:37
has is spread across over a bigger area. And it actually is literally lighter. But that combined with the fact that I
39:44
mean, so little of it touches your hand when when you hold it in your hand, it it literally feels like you're holding a
39:51
credit card. like a, you know, maybe like a slightly thick one of those fancy credit cards, but like it feels like
39:56
holding a credit card and it makes it makes holding my iPhone 16 Pro feel like I'm holding my whole wallet.
40:03
Like that that's the metaphor I've been using. It It's It's just like this light little metal thing that you're just like
40:10
barely touching with the palm of your hand. What about the plateau? Has that got on your nerves?
40:15
Um, well, you know, the nice thing is that because it isn't tall, it's only, you know, one little camera lens up in
40:22
the corner, I can rub my finger across the whole back of the phone and not ever touch it. I held my I picked up my
40:29
iPhone 16 Pro back in my hand after a while and immediately like my left because I hold my phone in my left hand,
40:36
my pointer finger is like sitting right on the LAR sensor. I can feel the camera lenses. I don't get that with the iPhone
40:42
Air. I can I can do a whole windshield wiper swipe across the back of it with my pointer finger and like barely touch
40:48
anything. Wow. I don't have I don't have to adjust my grip or anything like that. Um
40:54
when I hold it horizontal, it kind of feels like the the plateau feels like a little camera grip. In terms of the
41:00
colors, I I pull this out of the box. I ordered the gold one. I literally
41:06
thought Apple had made a mistake. It is so not gold whatsoever. I don't know if
41:12
the YouTube viewers watching have even noticed that this is supposed to be the gold one. I guess it does kind of help.
41:18
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the edges look gold. It does kind of help that I have like very yellow lights in my office and my
41:25
walls are yellow. It take it to my living room. It doesn't look remotely gold. There even the edges.
41:30
Yeah. Yeah. The There are very few conditions where it actually does look I double checked the box. It said I had
41:36
the gold one. I double checked the phone to make sure that the phone knew that it was gold because my eyes just did not
41:42
register this as yellow whatsoever. Um, it it just looks white. If I were
41:47
buying this for myself, I would probably just get the silver one because, you know, there's no point in
41:52
having it be like 1% yellow. So, it is even less gold than there is a titanium.
41:58
Trump's not going to like it. No, I've got it all. Doesn't match his toilet.
42:03
Mhm. Uh, we already spoke about battery life. Like, surprisingly, very similar battery
42:09
life to my iPhone 16 Pro. I I don't think anybody would really be disappointed with the battery life of
42:14
this phone. Um, Apple's optimizations with the adaptive battery mode are like
42:20
very good. You're getting you're getting all day battery with it. Oh, yeah. Easily. Like again looking at
42:25
the stats it seems like I average you know 10% battery going down for every
42:31
hour that I'm using the phone which is pretty standard for phones as far as I
42:37
can remember at least like it's not unusually bad and you know screen idle time again um Apple's like efficiency
42:45
cores and their processors are getting better every year. The adaptive power mode like reduces the amount that it drains in the background like very good.
42:53
I would if the iPhone 16 Pro is enough battery for you, this is also going to be enough for you.
42:59
And you know, most people are upgrading from a 13 Pro or even older or 14 Pro and they're going to get better battery
43:05
life. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's a you know, there seems to be a lot of skepticism. We've run a few polls in the
43:10
newsletter about the the Air and and and a lot of readers say that they're not interested and then they've had all these news stories come out um saying
43:18
that that you know the Pro this year is obviously the the device that people are picking up and that the the Air hasn't
43:23
really taken off. I I think there's a lot of skepticism about it obviously um how much they're selling out depends on
43:29
how much inventory Apple stocked up in advance. Like I I think I heard a report that Apple ordered three times as much
43:36
inventory for the iPhone Air than they did for last year's iPhone 16 Plus. So they expect this will they just have
43:43
more stock than they typically do. But then again, you see like if people anyone who's touched it and used it,
43:49
they're like, "Oh my god, you know, this is they're the same reaction as you." It's it's like,
43:55
you know, they fall in love with it. This is the way. Honestly, it's even better than holding it in the
44:01
store because in the store they have like that metal security wire that pulls it tries to pull it back out of your
44:06
hands. Like it is even better like than than touching it in the store. Yeah. Like having a friend who owns one and
44:13
touching theirs will give you a better feel for it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And actually you and actually using one
44:19
for more than a few days makes every other is what really makes every other phone in the world seem ancient.
44:25
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's gonna be a slow burn sleeper hit
44:30
eventually. Like that. That's what they say the problem was with the iPhone mini. It was introduced during co when people weren't
44:37
going into Apple stores. They weren't touching and holding the phones. So, people didn't get to experience, oh,
44:42
this is a phone that fits in my hand. Uh the display size is bigger and I was really concerned. The iPhone 16 Pro is
44:49
already only barely small enough to fit in my hands and I thought, "Oh, the iPhone Air is going to be even bigger."
44:56
I'm not I'm gonna be miserable and I'm not gonna like it at all. But again, because it's so much thinner, my hands
45:03
wrap around, you know, even better around this phone than my iPhone 16 Pro.
45:08
Like, yeah, right. Uh my thumb still can only like barely reach the opposite corner, but because
45:14
it's so much thinner, like it I can still hold it just as easily and it seems to be a good like, you know,
45:19
Goldilock size, mid size between the other two sizes. Mhm. Mhm. But then in other situations like it's
45:26
it's kind of like an illusion and it breaks and I have to twohand it more often than I'd like. But
45:31
yeah, I wonder why they didn't go for a smaller screen size. Uh then the 6.3 is kind of was in the middle, isn't it?
45:37
Halfway between the uh 6.5 is halfway between 6.3 and 6.9.
45:42
Apple considers it to be a big screen size. Like when you when you turn your phone horizontally, you get that special two column layout that they only give
45:48
the big phones. And and that's what you get on the iPhone Air. the selfie camera features. I think this is going to be a
45:56
huge hit. Um maybe maybe the biggest feature of these new phones and it's
46:01
it's really awesome that it's across all three of the phones. Like you can buy the regular iPhone 17 and still get the improved selfie camera. Um I tried them
46:08
out. Excellent features. You know, you can take horizontal landscape selfies by holding the phone in a more comfortable
46:14
vertical position. Truly excellent. The uh whole center stage thing I think is a
46:19
little gimmicky honestly where it'll automatically zoom out because um it's like a special
46:26
mode that you have to turn on and if you make any manual adjustments to the selfie camera zoom then it turns it off
46:33
entirely and like it makes for a good demo because you know in the Apple keynote you see ah more people enter the
46:40
camera frame one by one and it keeps zooming out but honestly when I'm taking a selfie I'm zooming out to the maximum
46:46
um extent every time because I want to capture more of the background too and
46:52
it's not and you get more resolution when you take the the full the full size picture. So
46:58
and so so as soon as you touch it to zoom out it breaks the center stage. Yeah. And then you have to turn it on by like going back into a menu at the top
47:04
of the screen and tapping on. Like it's kind of fiddly to turn on and it's not actually very helpful. Hm. Hm.
47:11
Like I I can easily tap the button to either zoom out or zoom in myself and so I I'll just do that really. Um
47:19
but the whole horizontal like square selfie sensor is excellent. Um I already spoke about the AI upscaling on the rear
47:24
camera. That's pretty good. Um the other contentious thing is the single speaker,
47:30
right? So people losing their minds about this too. Yeah. Yeah. Um, this is not the legacy
47:36
that the iPhone 7 would ultimately have in this area, but the iPhone 7 was the first phone to have like to use both the
47:42
the ear speaker and the speaker at the bottom of the screen for playing media. So, you know, you got two full volume
47:48
speakers. The iPhone Air only has the top speaker, which is actually like
47:53
technically the worst position because the bottom speaker had bigger sound because it had more volume to work with.
47:59
The iPhone Air has gone all in on the top speaker, which is a pretty crowded area of the phone. Um,
48:05
how does it how does it look in, you know, everyday use? I So, I did a side-by-side comparison. I was playing music like Lady Gaga, very
48:12
bass heavy music on both phones. I had them started at like the same time, and I was just like volume max on one, zero
48:19
volume on the other, and like directly comparing them, like turning it up and down. And you can definitely tell that
48:25
the iPhone Air has a tinier sound to it. The iPhone 16 Pro has much more bass.
48:31
The iPhone Air is much tinier. Even on vocals, it it it sounds like it's coming from a phone more than it's coming from
48:38
a speaker. But the overall volume output isn't really any worse. My my use case
48:44
here is that uh when I'm taking a bath every morning and shaving, I like to have a podcast playing on my phone and I
48:50
just play it out on my phone speaker. And the iPhone Air, I think, has
48:55
virtually the same like total volume output as previous iPhones. Uh it's only
49:02
like the richness of the sound that suffers. So, Right. So, you can hear it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's not really that much of
49:08
a problem. The thing is like if you're if you're watching a YouTube video and you hold your phone in landscape, you
49:13
can hear it's only coming out of one side and that's kind of obvious, but still the overall volume output isn't
49:19
that much worse. Mhm. Yeah. I I don't think you have to consider that a deal breaker. And lastly, in
49:25
terms of accessories, I was very excited about the bumper case
49:30
because I'm a I've I've always wanted an iPhone 4 bumper and I I took this
49:36
opportunity to buy an iPhone 4 bumper. Uh which I which I've installed. Very
49:41
nice buttons. U also a good classic iPhone case.
49:46
Look at how chunky that thing is. Going back to my iPhone 16 Pro. Feels like I'm holding a phone this chunky.
49:52
Right. That is a chunky boy. Anyways, I got the bumper case and I was
49:58
very disappointed uh for two reasons. I knew I would be disappointed for one reason, that being that when you have
50:03
your iPhone Air in the bumper, it protects the front screen and it protects the bottom two corners of the
50:10
back, but the plateau and the camera lens still stick out very noticeably
50:17
from the bumper. So, you have your phone in a case and it still rocks when you set it on a table. If you drop it, it's
50:23
still likely to shatter your one and only camera. Have you chucked it across a room out?
50:29
Uh, I'll do that right now because I have a very thickly carpeted office. But yeah, like you you set it on a table,
50:35
you can still rattle it. It doesn't offer enough protection for the people who want a case to protect their phone,
50:41
but it's also really thick. It makes your phone feel way too thick for the people who want who like having who like
50:47
going caseless. So, it's kind of worse at everything. Oh dear. How much does
50:53
that cost? Oh, I don't remember. I think it's like 50 bucks. But it it also feels kind of
50:58
cheap. It feels like kind of cheap plastic if I'm going to be honest. Uh the buttons aren't very nice. I mean,
51:04
they're clicky, but they're not like the the metal buttons that you get on the fine woven case.
51:10
Mhm. It's kind of pointless. I don't know why anybody would buy this because if you like to go caseless, you're just going
51:16
to go caseless. And this makes the phone feel thick. Like look how thick the edges are on that. just looks like a regular iPhone. It ruins the whole thin
51:23
feel in your hand. Um, and it also doesn't protect the phone, so what's the point?
51:28
What about the uh Did you check out Did you get the other case that they have the the very thin case? I did. I got the clear case. I'll try
51:35
and also thing other thing I don't like about the bumper is it's very hard to get on and off. Wow. Surprising.
51:42
I got the clear case and I got the special cross body strap.
51:47
Mhm. I really like the clear case. Honestly, it feels lighter and thinner than the
51:53
bumper case, which is surprising because it does also protect the full phone. You get like full camera plateau protection,
52:01
right? How much does it stick up over that? Uh is it like a couple of millimeters higher? Yeah, it completely protects the the
52:07
camera plateau, right? Uh it sits flat when you sit it on a table. It feels pretty nice and, you
52:13
know, barely adds any extra thickness to it on the back. So, this is all around
52:19
what you should absolutely be buying if you have an iPhone air. Buy the clear case. It's great. And the body strap,
52:25
the cross body strap, it's very fiddly to put on and off
52:30
the pull on and off the case, not your body. You have to, first of all, you have to take the case off of the phone to put it
52:35
on and off. Then you have these tiny little uh metal loops that you have to attach. And the holes are of course very
52:42
tiny and the the strings are very delicate. So, you know, it feels like you're doing heart surgery trying to put
52:48
this thing on. Um and then you have the strap. And I guess you could uh sort of uncip the
52:54
strap from these little legs that stick out of the bottom of your case and use that. But it's handy to have your phone
53:01
just like hanging from your around your neck cuz then it reduces the friction of even taking it out of your pocket. Like
53:06
you can literally just like reach up, snap a picture, and then let go of your phone and let it fall against you and
53:11
it'll just like permanently stay attached. I can see the strap being honestly very handy like during day
53:17
trips or vacations or walking across a streety or you know going through an amusement park like
53:24
very handy for that. But it's kind of annoying the rest of the time to just have like a strap attached to your phone,
53:29
especially because you can't easily get it on and off, right? That's got to be Well, what you can do is you can uncip the strap from the little loops, but
53:35
then it just looks like your phone has like tiny little legs dangling from it.
53:41
Oh my god. But but the strap itself is very nice. It has like the magnets that run through
53:46
it that so that it's always like, you know, pretty pretty tidy. The the fabric itself feels excellent. Um, and it is
53:54
handy to have when you're using it, but it's just kind of annoying the rest of the time. So, honestly, my advice is get
54:00
the strap, get a case, but have like a second case that you can swap your phone
54:05
into, cuz that's honestly the the the better way than to attach it.
54:11
Yeah. So, it should be permanently attached to a case. Yeah. You should permanently have like a second case that you use to strap it
54:16
into. And and that's very handy, but I can absolutely see the utility of this. I was kind of skeptical of it at first. Um
54:23
because you can imagine the use case being I'm a woman. I don't have pockets and I also don't want my phone to be
54:29
stowed away inside a zipped up bag because then I miss all my notifications or what have you or it's very hard to
54:35
get out uh because I have to, you know, unzip my bag to get it out. Um but honestly, yeah, like if you just like to
54:42
take a lot of pictures and you want instant access to your camera or, you know, you're navigating around a city.
54:48
when I used to carry a a camera around, I had a I always bought a strap for it, like one of those kind of cross body
54:53
straps. Um, and sort of that so you could hold it, you know, you could strap it and
54:59
actually sort of hold it at your back and it's a great way to, you know, your camera quickly ready.
55:04
Like you said, when you're on holiday or going on a trip somewhere, some kind of outing and then when you're done with your phone, you don't have to like put it
55:10
back in your pocket. You can just let go and it's not going to clatter onto the floor, right? Yeah. So
55:16
hanging around your neck. I see I see a lot I've seen more and more people use them. I can't say they're popular, but I've seen I've seen, you know, I've seen
55:21
them more out in the wild than than you used to, these kind of these kind of
55:26
cross body straps. Yeah. And you don't have to buy like all of Apple's cases or at least most of Apple's cases have the little loops
55:34
built into them. But I imagine third party cases will have like, you know, lanyard attachments as well. They'll
55:40
follow in Apple's footsteps there. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And even though Apple strap is very nice, you also don't have to buy Apple
55:45
strap. You could use an Apple case and then get a third party strap. But I'm really I I'm really h like impressed by
55:51
the quality of the strap. Like the fabric just feels really nice on it. Uh the little even the little metal snaps
55:59
have like, you know, diamond like shamferred edges on them. They feel really nice. They make a really nice solid snap.
56:06
The little loops that the uh that the that the strap goes through to resize it, like the holes in the loops
56:12
are just like perfectly sized for the fabric. Like build quality is insane.
56:18
Top notch. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Nice stuff. How much do those cost? $100.
56:23
Whoa. Yeah. Whoa. How did I overlook that? Wow. 100 bucks.
56:30
Criy. They uh I wonder if uh they're going to sell a lot of them. We'll see. That's
56:36
pretty pretty pretty steep. Pretty steep. Let's move on to the
56:43
question from um the reader this week which comes from an anonymous and they sent it by text. Uh and they anonymous
56:50
says, "So I just watched Austin man's video review of the iPhone 17 Pro Max that he shot in Italy and I was
56:55
intrigued by the recommendation he made regarding the use of the halite app on the iPhone air. Has anyone attempted
57:01
this? And if so, uh does it truly solve the widely believed shortcomings of the iPhone air's camera with close proximity
57:07
pictures as well as telephoto ones?" And for anyone that uh doesn't know, Austin
57:13
man is a professional photographer in Apple um has been giving him uh ahead of
57:18
time uh an iPhone Pro to test out, you know, from a photographers perspective. And he usually publishes his review uh
57:25
pretty early on. Um and they're always beautiful, aren't they? This year he went to the uh the mountains in uh in
57:32
Italy and amazing shots. But anyway, so Griffin, you know, what's what's the answer to that? Does Haly overcome the
57:38
shortcomings? So, I guess to explain what the uh the shortcomings are to listeners of this podcast, um there's
57:44
always a statistic that's uh relevant to cameras that Apple doesn't really talk about called the minimum focus distance.
57:51
And what that is is basically how close you can get to a thing before like the max the maximum close distance you can
57:57
get to a thing. So, on an old iPhone, like an iPhone 10, I've got a little, you know, on iPhone 10, I've got a
58:03
little Macintosh coaster here. I can get up to
58:09
you know, really just a few inches away and still take a perfectly clear picture of it.
58:15
Like three or four inches is the minimum focus distance. On newer iPhones, Apple
58:21
has been steadily increasing the minimum focus distance on the 1x lens. And they make up for that on the iPhone 16 and,
58:29
you know, 14, 15, 16 line by switching to the ultra wide lens when you get too
58:34
close. So, I'm holding the same coaster up on an iPhone 16 Pro, and I can get,
58:42
you know, only about eight inches away from it before it switches over to the uh ultra wide lens. Um, and it switches
58:49
the ultra wide lens and crops in. So, it still feels like you're taking a 1x photo, but it's kind of faking it. And
58:55
that's what happens when the little flower icon appears in like the bottom left of the camera. That's what that's doing. It's saying, "You're getting too
59:01
close. I'm going to switch to the ultra wide lens because the ultra wide lens has much much smaller minimum focus
59:06
distance. Uh the problem with the iPhone Air is that the iPhone Air doesn't have an ultra wide lens to switch to to make
59:12
up the difference. So if you have an iPhone air, you can't take really close
59:18
pictures to things, uh you know, as close as the iPhone 16 Pro. You also can't get as close as previous iPhones
59:24
because the minimum focus distance on the 1x lens is still like 8 in away. So
59:29
if you try taking a picture really close, it's going to come out blurry,
59:34
you know. So it's about 8 in. Yeah, something something around there. And the Halli app
59:41
um does have its own sort of macro mode that you can switch to, but ultimately
59:47
the the Halllight app can't overcome the physical limitations of the camera. So when you switch to the Halllight apps macro mode, it's also kind of faking it
59:55
by just zooming in 2x, which is a solution you can do. You can just, you
1:00:01
know, zoom in 2x to take a close picture of something, at least a picture that's tightly cropped, but you can also do
1:00:08
that in the regular camera app as well. So that's not really um anything like unique to the Halllight app. The
1:00:13
Halllight app can't overcome the limitations of the camera and it has its own sort of like fake macro mode. But um
1:00:20
yeah, that is a problem if you have an iPhone air. You can't take you can't get pictures that are super close. You also can't get pictures that are super far
1:00:26
because it doesn't have a telephoto zoom. But right, the macro is perfectly
1:00:31
the macro photos on the Pro look amazing, don't they? I saw some this morning. People taking these creepy pictures of insects and my god, it's
1:00:37
like uh way way too close. I couldn't believe the quality of the things. I've always wanted a mac like I used to buy
1:00:43
those um moment lenses or external lenses and to be able to get like macro
1:00:48
shots. Uh but the the ones out of the pro now are amazing. You can get really really close too close creepy close.
1:00:54
Mhm. I took I took really close creepy photos of my AirPods for my AirPods review. Right. Yeah. Well, let's you know, let's
1:01:01
move on quickly to that because we're running out of time. The AirPods Pro 3. Um, now this I think is the one
1:01:08
no-brainer product that Apple put out this year that, you know, everybody um should buy. This the the AirPods Pro 3.
1:01:16
Um, uh, you know, there are I think this is the one time where the incremental
1:01:22
upgrades add up to great upgrades. Um, and Louis Griffin, you did again,
1:01:29
you know, like a really great review for us. which I thought really put did a nice job um with testing out all the
1:01:34
different features. Uh what was it? What's your favorite feature do you think of the new the new AirPods Pro 3?
1:01:40
I mean favorite feature has got to be the improved noise cancellation. The Yeah. Right. Me too. It's like a bubble of silence, isn't it?
1:01:47
Yeah. Yeah. All of the all of the noisiest things that I do like mowing my lawn, uh blow drying my hair, these are
1:01:53
all things where I have to either crank up the noise. Um, I mean, I should clarify, I never owned AirPods Pro 2.
1:02:01
Uh, before the before I bought the AirPods Pro 3, I was just using generic noise cancelling earbuds from a company
1:02:08
called Sound Petats. I had like the Sound Pets Air4 Pro or whatever. Um,
1:02:13
which basically offered noise cancelling and that was their only special feature. And other than that, they're pretty generic like AirPods type clones. And
1:02:22
yeah, for doing any of those tasks, I have to turn on noise cancelling and still turn up the regular volume to
1:02:27
like, you know, near deafening levels to overcome uh the noise of like, you know, because
1:02:32
gas lawnmowers are very loud and electric lawnmowers are too expensive for me to buy. So,
1:02:39
yeah, I I just put up with like the hearing damage to cutting the grass.
1:02:44
My experience is that I've been able to turn down the volume, which is a which is amazing. Once you got ANC on,
1:02:49
you know, then then you can get it down to like and I check I'm trying to protect my hearing, so I always check
1:02:55
the decibel levels in the uh and the control center. And you know, you I can turn it down to to
1:03:01
quite low um levels, much lower than I used to be able to do with the old AirPods Pro 2. And I did on the AirPods
1:03:06
Pro 2 and I used to wear them all all the time when I walked to work and I walking down Mission Street. That's a noisy street. Big buses, trucks, lots of
1:03:12
traffic. Um couldn't really hear anything. Uh sometimes when using the old AirPods Pro 2, AirPods Pro 3, bubble
1:03:19
of silence, can hear everything. Turn the volume down. Fantastic. It's amazing. It's a huge upgrade. And a part
1:03:25
of that has to do with the ear tips, doesn't it? Which are the they've been redesigned. A lot of that comes with the ear pit tips. So the the thing is that the ear
1:03:32
tips have, you know, now foam infused. And the thing is that because that's like a passive method of noise
1:03:39
cancellation, that means that because you know the the new ear tips are on there all the time, even when you don't
1:03:44
have&c turned on, there's still a degree of noise cancellation happening just because they're they're creating a
1:03:50
better seal against the outside world. You know, there there have been times where, you know, when I'm not doing a noisy activity, I'm otherwise just like
1:03:57
in my kitchen. I'm like, do I have ANC on? I actually can't tell. Can't tell because up your ears. Yeah.
1:04:03
Yeah. it covers up the ambient sounds of like the AC or the the fridge or the freezer, you know, the sort of ambient sounds of
1:04:10
the environment. Um, but then you turn ANC on and it's like you you just hit the mute button on the rest of the world
1:04:16
and it's just a cone of silence. It's it's incredible. Yeah. Yeah. That does come at a comfort cost though.
1:04:22
And I've seen a number of people who have AirPods Pro 2 switch to the Pro 3 and say, "Oo, these are much less
1:04:28
comfortable." I think because the new ear tips have foam in them, they're much more firm than before. My other point of
1:04:34
comparison, my generic noise cancelling earbuds that also have like the tips where just all rubber tips and I had to
1:04:41
have a quite large size in order to fit in my ears. Um, I stuck with like the
1:04:48
medium one in my left ear and the large one in my right ear. So, with the AirPods Pro 3, even though it's a
1:04:54
completely different brand, I also stuck with the same thing. you know, medium tip in my left one, large tip in my
1:04:59
right one. And it was pretty uncomfortable even though it felt like
1:05:04
it made a really good seal. And so then I started playing around with the sizes. I switched them around. I went down to the, you know, small and the medium. And
1:05:12
then I eventually settled on just having small ear tips in both of them. And they
1:05:18
still kind of fit pretty well in my ears. I don't feel like they're going to fall out, you know, but my ears also hurt a lot less. I still get a little
1:05:25
bit of ear pain if I wear them for extended periods of time. So, I didn't have that experience at all. You know, like I've been wearing them
1:05:30
all day every day because I've been testing them out as hearing aids and so I've been wearing them full time and I've been wearing them for like every day now for you know how long is it
1:05:36
since the weekend. So, uh I I have had absolutely no issue with uh comfort.
1:05:42
Sometimes they itch like every now and again especially when it's kind of get kind of hot here like they were they got
1:05:48
a bit itchy a couple of times and I had to get my finger in there to sort it out. Apart from that, it's uh I've had
1:05:54
no comfort issues at all. Yeah, I've had, you know, like everyone's mileage seems to vary. Uh and definitely not
1:06:00
pain. Definitely no not not uh not pain or discomfort. I always thought I had like, you know,
1:06:05
large ears because I I whenever I used in-ear earphones, I always I always went for the large tips and that's all that
1:06:11
could fit in my ears, but like without them falling out. But um maybe I don't and maybe it's just because they're so much firmer.
1:06:17
Did you do the tip the ear fit tip test? The ear tip fit test? I did. I I think it must be like a bug
1:06:23
with the new phone or the new operating system or something, but it didn't seem to like tell me anything really.
1:06:28
I don't know. It didn't give me any conclusive results cuz I I you know, like I thought I was a large and or extra large and I tried
1:06:34
those and um I can't remember now what that the sequence was, but anyway, I ended up going through all of them and
1:06:40
then going back to the original ones and then finding out that actually you got to you do actually kind of have to jam it in a bit more than you do the old
1:06:47
ones. Yeah. So the, you know, wiggling them and jam them in your ears, you get a much better.
1:06:52
You also have to make sure you get them in at the right angle because like sometimes I can rotate. I'm like, "Ooh, no, that's that's the wrong I I got to
1:06:58
point it back down again." Yeah. Like my natural inclination is to, you know, ergonomically when I'm holding in
1:07:04
my hand and I put it up, they end up sticking far forwards much more than they should. And I have to like try and remember to like twist my hand a little
1:07:10
bit and put them in so they're pointing down more. Um, I don't know. It's very complicated. But I also switched to the
1:07:15
extra small ear tips and I was like, "Oh, no. These are definitely way too small." Like the small is where I should
1:07:20
be. But I think if if there is a controversial change in these, that would be it. Uh even if you have a previous version of AirPods Pro, still
1:07:27
try around different ear tips to to see if you know maybe your size has changed because they are much more firm.
1:07:33
There's actually not that much foam, is it? It's actually just a kind of a little thin inside layer at the tip of the foam. So,
1:07:40
they do feel very siliconey and they still have that that flex that silicone flex except
1:07:46
at the tip where at the at the very end of it uh where there's actually a sort of very thin layer of uh of foam because
1:07:53
I know that people used to um there was a lot of people when they upgraded their old AirPods uh Pro, they would buy those
1:08:00
sort of memory foam tips, the kind of ones that you have to twiddle between your fingers to compress them and then you quickly jam them in your ear and
1:08:06
then they expand to fill the hole. And that was a popular upgrade. like a lot of people would would would you know uh
1:08:12
said that they got a much better sound and much better um A&C when they when
1:08:17
they switched to those ones. So these ones you don't have to actually fiddle with. Uh you don't compress them to put
1:08:23
them in your ear. But uh I I thought they you know they were they're still pretty flexible. They they don't make that big a different you know I didn't
1:08:29
think that they didn't feel that different from the AirPods Pro 2OS. Abs I mean everybody's different so
1:08:35
maybe I'll have a different experience. Um, other new features, the live translation. I tested this. I Well,
1:08:43
first of all, I reached out to a a nearby university to their language department and asked several people,
1:08:49
hey, would you be willing to like, you know, test this feature with me and I never received any answers. I'm surprised.
1:08:55
I don't know if they they just misunderstood what I was asking or didn't want to do anything to do with me. But uh then I reached out to a you
1:09:02
know friend across the internet, Neil Leon, who was a contributor at Max Stories and is on the Comfort Zone
1:09:09
podcast, speaks fluent French, you know, they they live in France. So we we did a little FaceTime call and what we did was
1:09:17
I had her audio just playing over out of the speaker of my computer so that you know kind of simulated we were like face
1:09:23
to face having a conversation. um we we entirely you she exclusively
1:09:28
spoke to me in French and she actually muted the English words that I was saying in response to simulate being you
1:09:36
know a a non-English speaker so that she was also dependent on the translations that the uh that the iPhone was spitting
1:09:42
out. So I made a separate video of this. I might play a clip here for you in a
1:09:48
moment. But um we we tried having a little little English French conversation.
1:09:55
Good evening. I'm Driffin Jones with Cult of Mac and I am joined today by
1:10:00
Neil of Mac stories and today we are going to be testing the automatic
1:10:06
AirPods language translation feature. Uh, I know absolutely nothing about the
1:10:14
French language other than when you're reading it, the the rule of thumb is to
1:10:19
just ignore half of the letters and just go really fast. That that's all I know about French. So, how much of that word
1:10:27
salad is going to show up properly translated? I don't know. Welcome
1:10:35
[Music]
1:10:41
Thank you. I have very random translations in what you just told yourself, but I think I
1:10:47
understood overall. He speaks the translation speaks in
1:10:53
particular of salad, which makes no sense. I imagine you were not talking about salad.
1:10:58
I was not, in fact. But uh you know what is your favorite type of salad while we're at it?
1:11:04
What?
1:11:12
I don't think I'm a rabbit and I'm not really a fan of rabbit salad. What I just read makes no sense, but
1:11:17
it's very funny. You said on your podcast that you were
1:11:22
disappointed in the iPhone 17 Pro Orange, and I think that was maybe your
1:11:28
initial reaction after watching the event. Has your opinion changed anymore in the week and a half since?
1:11:39
That's a great question and my opinion hasn't changed. The orange Apple chose for the iPhone 17
1:11:46
Pro is in my opinion the wrong orange. They chose an orange that is too dark,
1:11:53
quite saturated, and does not tend enough towards yellow. There are too many chestnuts also in this shade of
1:11:58
orange. I'm not a fan of it, but I say it is a defender of the orange color. So
1:12:04
it means that my word takes precedence over all the others.
1:12:09
Let's say that apple and color science is complicated. Six colors. They had it right in 1977.
1:12:17
Yes, it's true. I think ultimately uh I was very
1:12:22
surprised. The the translations were not perfect by by any stretch of the imagination. It didn't it didn't feel like I was speaking to another fluent
1:12:28
English speaker, you know, in the way that you can kind of tell like when a Russian person has learned English as
1:12:34
the second language. So, there are just like a few grammatical mistakes that they make, but you can still understand
1:12:39
what they're trying to say. That's kind of how this felt. Like a few of the translations sounded a little robotic in
1:12:47
their phrasing or a little unnatural, like no human is actually going to talk like that. But I can still understand
1:12:54
like the meaning of her words, what she was trying to say to me. I feel like we had a pretty fluent conversation. Uh the the few mistakes that it made
1:13:01
I think were actually mostly transcription errors. It's it's very easy to forget because it
1:13:06
feels like you know I'm just talking to another person. You forget I'm talking to a computer that's translating what I'm saying to another person. And the
1:13:14
first step of that is getting a transcription of what you say. And if you've ever used iOS dictation, you know
1:13:20
that iOS dictation is not perfect. Mhm. Mhm. So, there was one point where I said,
1:13:26
because this had come up somehow in the conversation, we were talking about salad, and I said, "Well, what is your
1:13:31
favorite type of salad while we're at it?" And I think it mistranscribed that as, "What is your favorite type of salad
1:13:38
while you're a rabbit?" So, then we started, so she thought I was asking about rabbit salad, and I was
1:13:45
like, "No." But, you know, that's the kind of mistake that's like very obviously wrong. You can you can you can
1:13:51
ask for clarification if you're having like a real conversation with a person. And I was also kind of intentionally
1:13:57
trying to stretch the edges of it, trying to break the system because, you know, that's my job. I'm supposed to
1:14:03
test this thing. If I were actually in France, like speaking to a merchant trying to buy shoes or whatever, I would
1:14:10
I would be aware of that and I would intentionally try and say like speak in very simple sentences, the kinds of
1:14:16
things that would be easy to translate. I wouldn't use a lot of metaphors that are lost in translation, stuff like
1:14:21
that. Um, so I do think it's good enough to be useful, especially if you're in a
1:14:27
in a country like, you know, Vietnam or India where there are just like no words in common between the two languages at
1:14:33
all. But um, you know, those languages aren't supported yet, right? It actually only supports a a
1:14:40
fairly limited range, doesn't it? Well, how many languages? Nine or something. Yeah. Well, there there it only supports like four or five out of the gate. And
1:14:46
there are more in iOS 26.1, but still not, you know, not that many ultimately.
1:14:53
But I was very impressed with that all, you know, in the in the end. It's a really like it'll be amazing to
1:15:00
to test it out when we go abroad. I try to test it out with a with a with a movie last night, but I couldn't get it to work. So, I've still yet to test it.
1:15:06
My daughter speaks uh fluent Spanish, so I'll test it with her the next time I see her.
1:15:11
The other thing is heart rate monitoring, isn't it? that that was a that actually had a lot more success.
1:15:17
Uh I had low expectations of with this because we we tried like you know the the beat the Power Beats Pro 2 came out
1:15:23
earlier this year also have heart rate monitoring and everybody who's tried it has said yeah this kind of sucks but uh
1:15:30
I went on a little you know little stroll the other day. I had the AirPods
1:15:37
paired with my iPhone 16 Pro and I directly compared it to my Apple Watch paired with my iPhone Air. Uh, and you
1:15:45
know, the Apple Watch pretty like it's it's practically has like a heart hospital grade heart rate sensor on it.
1:15:51
Like, you know, it's very accurate. It's the gold standard. I figured that would be a good measuring stick. And I was
1:15:57
absolutely amazed how similar the numbers were. I don't know why the AirPods Pro 3 are so much better than
1:16:04
the Power Beats Pro 2, but like the numbers that it got virtually identical
1:16:09
to the numbers it got for my Apple Watch. Like the the heart rate graphs that it shows you at the end, virtually
1:16:15
identical. Um the estimated like calories burned, which is isn't always
1:16:21
like a strictly accurate measurement there. Those numbers were within within like 7% of each other. the um all of the
1:16:28
statistics for the workout like basically showed the same as each other. So I think if you're the sort of person who doesn't like wearing an Apple Watch
1:16:35
um you actually would get quite a lot of utility out of this heart rate sensor if you want it to monitor your exercises.
1:16:42
Yeah. My theory is that the they're the different in the ear tips between the Power Beats Pro two because the Power Beats Pro two have the old silicone the
1:16:48
the the wobbly silicone rubbery silicone tips and and even though they uh are
1:16:54
designed to sit firmly in your ears, I I'm guessing that they move around a
1:16:59
little bit more um inside your ear than the than the AirPods Pro 2 thanks to the new foam tips. The foam tips keep them
1:17:05
more securely in place and therefore you're getting a more accurate reading. But that's just, you know, my my uh my theory.
1:17:12
The sound quality is absolutely excellent. I haven't had AirPods since
1:17:17
the original AirPods from 2016. And the original AirPods,
1:17:23
they sounded a little better than the earpods that replaced them, but not that much better. Like you could they were
1:17:28
still like, you know, you buy them because they're wireless, not because they sound good. They still sound like, you know, crummy little iPod earbuds.
1:17:36
The AirPods Pro 3 are honestly better than most of the headphones I have.
1:17:41
I was very impressed. Like it's astonishing out of them.
1:17:46
Bassier, good punchy sound. The the the sound stage, which is, you know, how how big the stereo sound
1:17:54
sounds to you. Very impressive. Um, these are my first headphones with spatial audio. And I I don't know. I
1:18:00
couldn't really tell the difference between like spatial audio and regular stereo sound yet, but maybe I just need
1:18:05
to listen to it more. But overall, very impressed by the by the sound quality of them. Pumping pumping Lady Gaga, you
1:18:12
still get all that all that bass in there. Lizo, you know, all all the all the most bass heavy like pop music that
1:18:19
I that I that I have in my rotation. Excellent sound. I'm I'm no audio file,
1:18:25
but I was I was impressed. I guess the one other potentially contentious change is the battery life.
1:18:32
Um, they increased the battery life in the buds themselves.
1:18:37
I don't know exactly how, but now they claim eight hours of battery life instead of six. Um, but the battery life
1:18:43
of the charging case is worse. They It used to go the the AirPods Pro 2
1:18:50
said 30 hours of battery life and now the AirPods Pro 3 say 24 hours of
1:18:56
battery life. Um that is bizarre. I I can't for life understand it because the case is even
1:19:02
actually slightly bigger. Right. The case is slightly bigger. Yeah. They they say that it it weighs less. So
1:19:08
it which says to me they took out one of the battery cells like intentionally gave it a smaller battery. And I don't
1:19:16
know why I reached out to Apple for comment and they didn't respond, of
1:19:21
course. I mean, who really cares to be honest about the battery life of the case, you
1:19:26
know, cuz Yeah. Yeah. It's still uh you're getting uh what, four or five charge supplemental charges
1:19:33
to your AirPods out of the case. And charging the case isn't that hard. Like, you know, when I'm at my desk, I'm
1:19:38
within arms reach of a charging case where I can just like sit the charging case on top of it and then it's charged,
1:19:43
right? And and and the other point I made was like if I had to make a trade-off, you know, increase the
1:19:49
battery life of the buds but decrease the battery life of the case. That is the trade-off I would choose to make. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
1:19:55
I don't know why they did what but why did they have to do that? I don't know. It's not like the earbuds got bigger and
1:20:00
the and that took away volume from the case because the earbuds are basically the same size. Like I don't I don't know.
1:20:06
Yeah, it's an odd it's a bit of a mystery. Bit of a mystery, but you know, the battery life too. I was wearing them all day yesterday and I got like uh a
1:20:13
good solid eight hours out of it. And if you use and this is use them as hearing aids all day. So they're on transparency
1:20:18
mode and listening to music, making phone calls uh you know all the kind of normal stuff and and I got a good full
1:20:24
solid eight hours out of it which I think is is is amazing out of you know these little because of the battery and the stalks. It's kind of astonishing
1:20:31
that they last that long. Um and but if you're going to be using them as hearing aids I mean you do want that that you
1:20:37
you need that long battery life. I mean, it's going to be no good if it if it runs out. So, of course, you can, you know, you can get you're not getting the
1:20:43
full 16 hours that you're awake, but um they charge really fast and and they top
1:20:49
up super quick in the uh in the case. So, you can pop them in. I I I didn't I should have timed it. I can't remember.
1:20:54
I put them in there for about 10 20 minutes and they were back up to about 80%. Um which I was really impressed by.
1:21:00
I couldn't believe how quickly they charged back up again. Um so, yeah, the battery life is is great. They definitely made the right
1:21:06
call there to increase the battery life of the stalks and who cares about the case. Yeah, but it's like, well, if you're
1:21:11
going to put less battery in the case, why can't you make it smaller, you know? I was thinking, well, maybe they, you know, reduce the number of batteries in
1:21:17
there to make them cheaper and maintain the same price because, you know, maybe it got more expensive for them to manufacture, but they didn't,
1:21:23
you know, slightly different shape now. Maybe that has something to do with it. Um although, I don't know. Probably not.
1:21:30
Uh, the case is still kind of scratchy. I scratched mine up the first day.
1:21:35
Yeah. Yeah. Just like my my iPhone Pro. Um but then I don't really care because I I I was a
1:21:41
bit It's like, you know, it's like when you get a non-stick pan, right, and you first scratch it. The first scratch is always the hardest. And it was like, "Oh
1:21:47
no, they're ruined." But then I look back and I've got, you know, I've got several old pairs of AirPods and I can't say I've ever ever once worried about
1:21:54
the scratched up case on my AirPods. One of them looks so beat up that uh it like it went through a grinder, but um and it
1:22:01
still works fine. I don't care about it. Well, the old AirPod the AirPods themselves too with my old AirPods Pro
1:22:07
2, they're all they look like a Greek vase because they keep when I'm riding my bike, they keep dropping out on the road and they're all so cracked up. Uh
1:22:14
still work fine. Surprisingly, one of the worst things you can do to your battery life on your AirPods is drop them. the the more that
1:22:21
you drop them, that can actually damage the batteries inside and that can reduce the the the battery life overall.
1:22:28
Oh, well, no wonder I'm getting like about three hours out of them now. Yeah. Um, but yeah, overall I I I think
1:22:35
ultimately they're very good headphones. If you don't own AirPods or you don't or you only have like the entry- level AirPods, try out the AirPods Pro 3. I'd
1:22:42
say if you already own AirPods Pro 2, you can probably wait for those to die. I wouldn't say that this is a must-have
1:22:48
upgrade on the from the Pro 2, but you even if you have the AirPods Pro 2, you're going to be super happy with a new AirPods Pro 3. I mean, because
1:22:54
that's always the argument is every year, okay, it's an incremental upgrade. Should I upgrade? If you've already got the recent ones, yeah, no, don't bother,
1:23:00
skip it. Very, very true. They are very, you know, the AirPods Pro 2 still are excellent ones, but these are even
1:23:05
better. And like for the the noise cancellation and for the sound quality, um I think you know, yeah, you if you've
1:23:12
got AirPods Pro, upgrade to the AirPods Pro 3. you're still going to be super delighted. You're going to be like,
1:23:18
"These are a no-brainer." And like you said, they're great great earphones, headphones, period. You know, they um
1:23:26
these are the ones that, you know, I' I've got a like a weird headphone obsession, even though I'm deaf. Like,
1:23:32
I've got a collection of of deaf. These are super high-end ones. These here.
1:23:37
Huh. That's how you got deaf. Yeah, I know. Exactly. These are what made me deaf. I know. But uh uh yeah, I
1:23:46
think they're they're great. They're now my new favorite. Like you, Griffin, new favorite headphones, period.
1:23:52
Mhm. Yeah, but what are you going to do with your old AirPods? Good question. Maybe I should trade them in
1:23:58
with a Cultter buyback program. Yeah, we buy them. If you've got some old AirPods, trade them in with us. Go to
1:24:04
the Accultton Mac homepage and scroll down to the bottom uh or use the menu at the top of the page and and uh hit the
1:24:10
buyback button and we'll buy your old AirPods. where uh Apple doesn't take them for trading. Um so uh you uh if
1:24:16
you've got an Opair lying around and you don't want them anymore, yeah, it's you know, get some get some get a get a bit of cash for uh for your upgrade.
1:24:23
I I was really surprised that Apple doesn't take them. They take everything else. It's weird. Yeah, it is surprising. I don't know why
1:24:29
they don't take them. Well, I mean, I think usually when Apple like takes in products to upcycle and
1:24:34
resell them as refurbished, they they basically take apart the phone and give
1:24:39
it all new give it an all new case. Like when you when you get a refurbished iPhone, they've replaced the battery,
1:24:45
they've replaced the screen, they've replaced everything on the outside that that the user touches, but they can't
1:24:51
really do that with AirPods because they're basically hermetically sealed, impossible to repair.
1:24:56
Yeah, that's my theory anyway. Maybe people don't like putting other people's AirPods in their ears.
1:25:03
Yeah, might have something to do with it. Don't like to think about it anyway. Yeah, you can try an AirPods in an Apple store, but you probably don't want to. I
1:25:10
mean, honestly, like since I got the AirPods Pro 3 and I'm, you know, wearing in-ear earbuds much more often than regular, my ears are probably incredibly
1:25:17
clean because every time I take them out of my ears, I'm like, "Oh, it's pulled a lot of ear gunk out. Let me flick that off."
1:25:23
Jeez. Yeah, I know. I know there's a bit more gunk on mine than normal, too. But let's
1:25:28
not get into that. All right. Well, let's wrap it up there because uh I think we've we've run out of time.
1:25:33
That's uh that's all the coldcast we have for you this week. If you want more, check out Lewis on Twitter at
1:25:39
Lewis Wallace. Griffin's on Macedon and Blue Sky, DG Griffin Jones. And uh I
1:25:44
write every day the ColdMac today newsletter, which is uh the best newsletter you're ever going to read.
1:25:50
That's at newsletters.colmack.com. So if you want to uh send us a text link, uh use the top the link at the top
1:25:56
of the show notes or use the YouTube comments uh to ask a question for the show. Uh that's been the Coldcast, the
1:26:01
best hourong Apple conversation you're going to hear all week long. I want to thank you all for listening. and we'll see you next time. Have a
1:26:07
great weekend, everybody. Bye. Woohoo. All right.
1:26:14
I gota I was running out of steam there at the end. Oh my. That was a long one, huh?
1:26:19
That was a long one. Back back to an hour next week. Hopefully. How long was it?
1:26:25
Hour and a half. I've got Look at it. It's 11:30. Oh god. I know. I was worried about the I'm
1:26:30
worried about getting the newsletter cranked out. All right, let's I mean, hey, we've got plenty of content. You know, that's the best part
1:26:37
about this time of the year. That's right. Oh, what are we going to do in the newsletter? I don't know. How about the 50 70 new Apple products that came out
1:26:43
still? What's What show number we at? 718.
1:26:49
[Music]
1:26:54
Definitely need a cup of coffee now. [Music]