The Sad Reality of Apple’s iPhone 17 Announcement

In this episode, we explore Apple's much-anticipated hardware event, highlighting key announcements like the iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods. Our hosts discuss the innovative features of the AirPods Pro 3, the sleek design of the iPhone Air, and the impressive camera of the iPhone 17 Pro, while questioning battery life compromises. They also critique the minimal updates for the Apple Watch Series 11 and speculate on Apple's future in AI with the new A19 Pro chip. Join us as we unpack the excitement and shortcomings of this year's hardware showcase.

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TIMESTAMPS

0:00 Apple Unveils Flagship Devices
0:47 AI Features in AirPods Pro 3
3:33 Exciting iPhone Air Innovations
4:49 The iPhone 17 Pro Unveiled
11:54 Cooling Technology Breakthroughs
19:29 Camera Upgrades and Features
21:24 AI Potential in New Devices
24:25 Speculations on Apple's Future AI
25:49 Additional Hardware Announcements
28:32 Recap and Final Thoughts

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RESOURCES

Josh: https://x.com/Josh_Kale

Ejaaz: https://x.com/cryptopunk7213

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Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:
https://www.bankless.com/disclosures⁠

Creators and Guests

Host

Josh Kale

What is Limitless Podcast?

Exploring the frontiers of Technology and AI

Josh:
Apple just concluded the Super Bowl of hardware events for the year.

Josh:
This is their biggest event of the year.

Josh:
They unveiled their new flagship devices, being the iPhone, the watches, and the AirPods.

Josh:
It just concluded. There was a lot of very cool tech that I think I'm pretty stoked about.

Josh:
EJS, we might be going to war on a few topics and things you might find interesting or not.

Josh:
But before we do, I mean, I want to talk about the thing that they notably didn't

Josh:
really announce or excluded a lot from this event, which is AI.

Josh:
It felt like this was, and granted, this is a very hardware-focused episode,

Josh:
a very hardware-focused announcement.

Josh:
But last week when we covered Google's announcement, it was a mostly hardware

Josh:
unveiling, but all of the software on top of it was enabled by AI.

Josh:
And Apple really didn't seem to have a lot of the AI, but they did have some

Josh:
interesting features. So I kind of want to jump in with those.

Josh:
What was Apple's AI presence like, Ejaz, during this hardware unveiling episode?

Ejaaz:
They released a new pair of AirPod Pro 3s, which do live AI translation.

Ejaaz:
So you could be speaking Spanish right now, Josh, and I'd be hearing English in mine.

Ejaaz:
In fact, there's a really cool demo that I want you to see right here.

Josh:
When both people are wearing AirPods Pro.

Josh:
I agree, yeah. Eu concordo, sim.

Josh:
Vamos incluir as principais descobertas na apresentação de sexta-feira.

Josh:
Definitely. The client will love that.

Josh:
I'll let the strategy team know to prepare that immediately.

Ejaaz:
So what you're watching here is basically two people having a conversation.

Ejaaz:
They're both wearing, maybe kind of dystopianly, the AirPod Pro 3s.

Ejaaz:
But they're able to communicate and converse with each other in a completely

Ejaaz:
different setting, environment, and language, which I thought was just super cool.

Ejaaz:
We saw Google release something similar to this, but that was over something

Ejaaz:
more formal like Google Meets, right?

Ejaaz:
So you have to set up a call and do this. This seems much more casual.

Ejaaz:
And I also know, Josh, that you could wear the AirPods Pro 3 and speak to someone

Ejaaz:
who isn't wearing this and the live translation will occur on your iPhone.

Ejaaz:
So you can kind of like show them a kind of transcript of what you're trying

Ejaaz:
to say and converse that way.

Ejaaz:
But Josh, do you find this as cool as I did?

Josh:
Yeah, okay. I found it cool when I saw it first unveiled by Google like six months ago.

Josh:
But I do find this cool because it's built into the ecosystem that I use.

Josh:
So in that extent, I'm very excited. AirPods, I think, are the device that I

Josh:
do not leave home with. Like people always say phone while it keys.

Josh:
For me, it's phone and AirPods. I adore them. I bring them everywhere.

Josh:
Having an upgraded version that includes this live translation seems very cool.

Josh:
I think it's important to note they were both wearing AirPods.

Josh:
In the wild, most times when you converse with someone, it's going to be one-sided AirPods.

Josh:
So they did have a feature where you can actually speak and it will listen and

Josh:
then share the words on a screen so someone who's outside of the conversation

Josh:
without AirPods can hear. For

Josh:
me, Apple has largely lost my trust when it comes to software delivery.

Josh:
So in this case, I need to see it to believe it. If it does work with low latency

Josh:
like they demoed, this is incredible.

Josh:
This would be such a cool feature where you can talk in near real time with

Josh:
anyone in the world in any language.

Josh:
And that's like a pretty remarkable thing from something so small that just sits in your ears.

Josh:
I fear that that will not be the case and that this live demo is in a very controlled

Josh:
environment and it is optimized for a perfect experience.

Josh:
Noticeably, AirPods, I mean, And even the microphone quality of AirPods,

Josh:
if you've ever tried to talk to someone, Ejaz on the phone, has been horrendous.

Josh:
It leaves. It's amazing. It's an incredible demo for an incredible product.

Josh:
These AirPods are awesome and I will absolutely be buying them.

Josh:
But again, we'll test it. I'll believe it when I see it.

Ejaaz:
Josh, buddy, did you have your coffee this morning? You've got your Duma hat

Ejaaz:
on. You're meant to be the fanboy of this show.

Ejaaz:
Okay, let me step into your shoes for a second and just say that it comes at

Ejaaz:
the same price, which is a very un-Apple like thing.

Ejaaz:
Normally they hike the price up hundreds of dollars for every single new model,

Ejaaz:
but it's the same price, $249 and no 99 cents. They've just kept it rendered off there.

Ejaaz:
Eight hours of battery life, built-in heart rate sensor, which is something new, Josh. I don't know.

Ejaaz:
Does AirPod Pros 2 have a heart rate sensor?

Ejaaz:
It's basically where my head is going here is I think they're starting to build

Ejaaz:
a new kind of smart device and it's kind of starting with the AirPods,

Ejaaz:
this live AI translation feature.

Ejaaz:
Maybe they stick a camera on it in future versions maybe i'm being too much

Ejaaz:
of a moon boy about this but i found that pretty cool and and maybe i'm being too hopeful but yeah.

Josh:
Yeah health will be important i think if you're interested in the airpods the

Josh:
only things that you care about are active noise cancellation is better it has

Josh:
live translation um and it can read your pulse in the case that you don't have

Josh:
a tracker like an apple watch or an aura ring and that's pretty much the only thing there so

Ejaaz:
What are you excited about josh.

Josh:
Yeah there's a ton of stuff i'm actually stoked for and it is all hardware related stuff.

Josh:
They released a bunch in the iPhone department, which I think we can get into

Josh:
right now, starting with the iPhone Air.

Josh:
The iPhone Air is awesome. We have this really beautiful designed video that

Josh:
shows the thinnest iPhone they've ever made,

Josh:
Ijaz, one of the things that I got really excited about is for me,

Josh:
this was the first time in a long time that Apple felt like they released a

Josh:
very Apple-esque device.

Josh:
It's new, it's innovative, it's different, it's beautiful. I think we see it

Josh:
from the marketing video.

Josh:
They tried to do like a knockoff Johnny Ive promo video where they had some

Josh:
designer with a European accent start talking about it.

Josh:
But I think the most remarkable thing about this phone is the design.

Josh:
And the reason why I believe they made this phone, which I'm not sure you will

Josh:
agree with nor know about Ijaz, but I do want to get into it in a second.

Josh:
First, the actual hardware of the phone. I think, what, 85% of this phone is battery.

Josh:
So the entire backside of the phone is basically a slab of glass with a battery

Josh:
behind it and a back shell.

Josh:
And all of the hardware, all of the compute, all of the camera sensors,

Josh:
the microphones, the speakers, they're all found in this single array that exists

Josh:
on top of the phone that they call the plateau.

Josh:
The actual limitation of what made this as thin as it could be is the USB-C port.

Josh:
The USB-C port is actually the thickest part of the phone. And they've kind

Josh:
of run up against this, this like natural limitation of thinness.

Josh:
And I just found this really inspiring to me because it's a new form factor

Josh:
of a device that we've come to know and love for so long, but they've really

Josh:
done an interesting job of stacking it all in this tiny, tiny little thing and

Josh:
creating something that feels new. They use this polished titanium.

Josh:
And then as I'm watching this, I'm thinking, well, why, why would they do this?

Josh:
What's the reasoning to make a thin phone? Like no one really asked for a thin

Josh:
phone. I'm stoked they did it. I think it's beautiful.

Josh:
It's amazing. But I mean, if you ask the average person, what they want in a

Josh:
new iPhone, they're going to tell you, well, I just kind of want better battery

Josh:
life, maybe a little bit better cameras.

Josh:
And in fact, this battery is 48% less than the iPhone 17 Pro Max.

Josh:
So it's a significant hit to battery life. But what's interesting is this very

Josh:
much feels like it was a product made for the manufacturers more than it was

Josh:
made for the consumers. Because what?

Josh:
There was a leak a few weeks ago where Apple was looking to make the iPhone Fold next year.

Josh:
And in order to make the iPhone Fold next year, it requires a series of very

Josh:
thin components, a very small components, a very compact tech to be able to

Josh:
squeeze two very thin displays into a single piece of hardware that fits in your pocket.

Josh:
So to me, this feels like this was a dry run, a short production run to get

Josh:
the supply chain and manufacturer set up to create this next generation of thinner devices.

Josh:
And when I also think about what we talk about frequently, Ejaz,

Josh:
which is this next level of compute through augmented reality and ambient intelligence,

Josh:
where computers kind of exist on your face in the form of glasses or the Vision

Josh:
Pro goggles, I think you really need smaller components.

Josh:
And this very much feels like a test for manufacturers to create smaller components

Josh:
to fit in smaller, more confined spaces. Because if you look at the video on

Josh:
the screen right now, it's gorgeous.

Josh:
It's this tiny, thin little sliver. And then at the top, it has all the compute

Josh:
in And to me, it's a remarkable phone.

Josh:
Really beautiful. If I didn't care so much about cameras, this would be a no-brainer for me to buy.

Josh:
I think it is an awesome show of Apple manufacturing strength, of design capability.

Josh:
This is super cool. And if anyone asks me what they should buy,

Josh:
if they don't care about photography, get this phone. It's awesome.

Josh:
Did you have any takes when you watched this about what you thought about it?

Ejaaz:
Okay, listen, as a professional Apple hater, I was super impressed by the engineering behind this.

Ejaaz:
I mean, what we're showing on the screen here is nothing short of genius, right?

Ejaaz:
So you've got the entire brain, body, limbs of a phone in the tiny little camera

Ejaaz:
component of the top section of your phone.

Ejaaz:
I would say that this is probably like, what, not more than 15% of the actual

Ejaaz:
phone body and the rest is just clean, smooth, slick glass, as you said.

Ejaaz:
And I kind of want to pick up on the point that you're making,

Ejaaz:
which is, I think, over decades since the mobile phone was created.

Ejaaz:
It's kind of been on a trend towards getting smaller, thinner,

Ejaaz:
right, being able to fit into your pocket, being able to kind of like slide

Ejaaz:
into your bag or handbag or whatever that might be.

Ejaaz:
And I think this is like the first major leap that we've seen in a while,

Ejaaz:
where we're kind of like taking a very aggressive move, right?

Ejaaz:
You mentioned folded phones, right? Samsung's been doing that for God knows how long.

Ejaaz:
But this is like, this feels like a net new thing.

Ejaaz:
It feels like, as this tweet says, practice for whatever future hardware comes next.

Ejaaz:
And you and I, Josh, have spoken about, or hypothesized rather,

Ejaaz:
about what the new AI consumer hardware device is going to look like.

Ejaaz:
Is it going to be a puck that sits in your pocket or on your table?

Ejaaz:
Is it going to be a necklace?

Ejaaz:
Is it going to be AirPods with cameras in it with sensors in it?

Ejaaz:
We don't know, or is it going to be glasses? We don't know exactly what it's

Ejaaz:
going to be. But I feel like this is kind of like a hint towards that future.

Ejaaz:
And my personal take is I love that it's small. I love that it's tiny.

Ejaaz:
And I love that it's going to be kind of like hidden in the background so that

Ejaaz:
I can just continue doing what I do.

Ejaaz:
Ironically, tech permeates so much of our life, but I kind of want a breather from it.

Ejaaz:
I kind of want it to be subtle in the background. And I love the engineering that went into this.

Ejaaz:
But like I said, I'm a professional Apple hater, Josh.

Ejaaz:
So I kind of want to bring up two images for you. And OK, I don't know,

Ejaaz:
just just get your take on this. Right. Does this look familiar to you, Josh?

Josh:
Yeah, that was actually one of my favorite phones. I had this in college.

Josh:
This was the iPhone 5S. Gorgeous, gorgeous device. Why? What's your point?

Josh:
What do you what do you want to say?

Ejaaz:
Listen, I'll just these little words here, you know, 33 percent lighter,

Ejaaz:
you know, I'm I just want to point out, but listen, what's better than a picture?

Ejaaz:
What's better than a picture is a video demo. Look at this.

Ejaaz:
Look at the iPhone 6, Josh, compared to your fancy Air device that's,

Ejaaz:
you know, whatever, half glass or blah, blah, blah. It's thinner.

Ejaaz:
It's sleeker. It's cooler.

Ejaaz:
Obviously, I'm jesting here. The phone that we're talking about in question,

Ejaaz:
the iPhone Air, is so much more functioning performance than these phones.

Ejaaz:
But I just want to point out, it's not the thinnest or smallest phone that Apple's ever created.

Ejaaz:
So yeah, I just rest my case there. It is the thinnest. Oh, it is the thinnest.

Josh:
Perhaps not the smallest. And yeah, I mean, to your point, the hardware they're

Josh:
packing into this thing, the capability of this phone is equivalent to 100 iPhone

Josh:
6s. I mean, this thing is a monster.

Josh:
And it all fits very neatly in this tiny little package. So actually,

Josh:
when you look at the array of compute, between these two phones.

Josh:
The iPhone 6 has this whole system on chip architecture that expands through

Josh:
the entire vertical length of the phone, and it expands horizontally at the

Josh:
top and bottom, leaving a small rectangular section for the battery.

Josh:
This actually fits all of the compute, which is probably, I mean,

Josh:
I'm not even exaggerating, at least 50 times the processing power of an iPhone

Josh:
6 into a tiny plateau that is a fraction of the size of the iPhone 6.

Josh:
So, I mean, it's pretty, but this new phone is, it's running laps around the

Josh:
old iPhone 6 and the iPhone 5.

Ejaaz:
So one thing I keep hearing about, Josh, is this new kind of venting architecture

Ejaaz:
that comes either through the chip or the phone device itself.

Ejaaz:
Can you tell me a bit more about that?

Josh:
Okay. So before we do that, let's introduce the phone that it's involved in,

Josh:
which is actually the iPhone 17 Pro. This is the new flagship device. This is the new guy.

Josh:
And before we do anything, Ejaz, oh my God, I actually had a meltdown last night.

Josh:
I have to confess to you and the listeners, I had a mental breakdown halfway through this

Josh:
Announcement episode because i saw them unveil this phone

Josh:
and i saw it unveiled in three colorways none of

Josh:
which are black and if you know me i

Josh:
have all black everything the blackest of

Josh:
blacks for everything i own is is my default and for the and in the case of

Josh:
apple actually black has been the default color of pro whenever there's a macbook

Josh:
pro they offer the black the apple watch ultra they offer the black the pro

Josh:
models always get black and for this time for some reason they wanted to go

Josh:
with orange, navy, and silver.

Josh:
So I'm having an existential crisis, but that's not here nor there.

Josh:
Whoever did that, you should be fired. Anyways, let's get into what makes this so special.

Josh:
So one of the things you mentioned is the cooling, right? So the cooling is

Josh:
really, really interesting. This is something I found super fascinating.

Josh:
It's called vapor chamber cooling. And basically the way vapor chamber cooling

Josh:
works is it has a small amount of liquid.

Josh:
It's some sort of water that is tightly sealed inside of a metal ceramic packaging.

Josh:
And what it does is the water actually just kind

Josh:
of sits there and it's absorbed by this this porous

Josh:
thing that kind of holds it right near the processor so if you're imagining

Josh:
kind of like a sponge in a water bottle is is

Josh:
a good way that i could describe this and the sponge holds the water and as

Josh:
the chip heats up the sponge it kind of evaporates the water a little bit and

Josh:
because water particles have way more surface area than solid metal it allows

Josh:
it to dissipate the heat quite a bit so as this water evaporates from your sponge

Josh:
in your bottle it moves to the far end of the bottle and it cools down.

Josh:
So the further it gets away from the heat source, which in this case is the

Josh:
chip, the cooler it gets.

Josh:
And then when it cools down, it turns back into a liquid and it gets reabsorbed by the sponge.

Josh:
So it's this kind of closed circuit system made for cooling hot devices.

Ejaaz:
They've recreated the rain system in a phone.

Josh:
That's insane. So this is not novel technology, but it is novel in the sense

Josh:
that they were able to package this incredibly in a super small form factor

Josh:
and squeeze it into a phone without really increasing the thickness very much at all.

Josh:
And I mean, frequently, I have problems with overheating because I do a lot

Josh:
of graphic intensive work on my phone. I do some video editing.

Josh:
I do a lot of photo editing.

Josh:
The phone frequently gets very, very hot and it overheats if I'm charging while I'm also working.

Josh:
They did two things to help with

Josh:
thermal cooling here. One is that vapor chamber that I just described.

Josh:
But the second one is actually moving away from titanium to aluminum,

Josh:
which is interesting because, Ejaz, if you remember just two years ago with

Josh:
the iPhone 15 Pro announcement, the leading headline for the phone was titanium.

Josh:
They were so proud of this new metal. It was very lightweight.

Josh:
Weight. It was very Apple.

Josh:
Very difficult to work with. And it turns out, it actually just like sucks at

Josh:
thermal insulation and it is not as durable as aluminum and it's just expensive.

Josh:
And yeah, okay, it's a little light, but it's not that impressive.

Josh:
So what they did with this phone is they went back to aluminum.

Josh:
Aluminum, I believe, has either a six or a 10 times multiple in its ability to dissipate heat.

Josh:
So this combined with the vapor chamber will allow the phone to run hot for

Josh:
a very long time without actually getting hot.

Josh:
I think another thing that I noticed about this phone that we're kind of seeing

Josh:
in this little demo here, is you'll notice that it's two-tone on the back.

Josh:
So what they did here is they made a unibody aluminum casting.

Josh:
So it's actually one solid piece, the entire phone, instead of multiple pieces.

Josh:
And they placed this ceramic glass on the back to allow for wireless charging

Josh:
and wireless communication that wouldn't work for aluminum.

Josh:
So we're getting kind of the best of both worlds where we have aluminum,

Josh:
which is more durable, it's better heat resistance, but it's not titanium.

Josh:
And we also get the glass back. These were two interesting things did you have

Josh:
any other interesting things that were noteworthy to you about the flagship phone?

Ejaaz:
Well, interesting is questionable, but I kind of think it looks uglier than

Ejaaz:
the previous phones that they've launched.

Josh:
Don't love the design.

Ejaaz:
That might be a controversial take. I don't like the two-tonedness.

Ejaaz:
I kind of like hide that stuff away.

Ejaaz:
Like I like the wireless charging, but like hide it away maybe.

Ejaaz:
Also, orange is like such a bold color to go for.

Ejaaz:
But one of the main things that is ugly, but I know contributes quite well to

Ejaaz:
this phone's success, Josh, is that big camera hunk, which if I hold up my current

Ejaaz:
phone right now, has just kind of expanded across the top of the phone.

Ejaaz:
Tell me what I'm getting in exchange for that, because I'm expecting a sick camera.

Josh:
Yeah, this is the reason why I'm actually going to be upgrading because I love

Josh:
taking photos with my iPhone and I need the flagship camera.

Josh:
Otherwise, I would absolutely buy a iPhone Air with no questions asked.

Josh:
The cameras are better slightly, particularly with the telephoto and wide angle lens.

Josh:
Now, what's cool is it has 348 megapixel camera arrays, which is the same as Google now.

Josh:
And what that means is you're going to get really high quality on the wide angle lens in low light.

Josh:
You're going to get amazing quality, as you always do on the 1X lens.

Josh:
And for the telephoto lens, you actually get two lenses in one, which is pretty cool.

Josh:
So for the wide angle, you get the 0.5 and the macro.

Josh:
With the 1x zoom, you get 1x, 1.25 and 1.5.

Josh:
Now you get 2x and you get 4x and 8x optical zoom with digital zoom up to 40 times.

Josh:
So what this gives basically is you get another camera built into your phone.

Josh:
So in the previous iPhones, you get a 0.5, 1, 1.25, 1.5, 2 and 5.

Josh:
Now all those you keep but in

Josh:
addition you get a eight times telephoto lens which is

Josh:
pretty cool so you can reach out further you have better optical abilities

Josh:
in low light because the sensors are a bit larger they're a

Josh:
bit higher megapixel count and overall it's a solid upgrade there's a lot of

Josh:
pro features that are good they shoot in pro res it has really good color grading

Josh:
capabilities a lot of people aren't going to take advantage of that i think

Josh:
if you are going from a 16 pro to a 17 pro the advantage is marginal i think

Josh:
the big upgrade really is that optical zoom came out to eight times.

Josh:
But when we're speaking of cameras, there is something that I really want to

Josh:
mention because this to me feels like the most exciting upgrade in terms of

Josh:
cameras, and that's on the front of the iPhone.

Josh:
So the front of the iPhone got an upgrade in camera sensors.

Josh:
And what they did is actually changed the shape of the camera sensor from rectangular to square.

Josh:
Why is this important? Well, it is when you're holding a phone sideways,

Josh:
you could picture kind of like a 16 by nine aspect ratio rectangular box.

Josh:
So that means it's seeing the world through basically what you're looking at

Josh:
right now, which is a display, and it's showing it horizontally.

Josh:
If you were to extend that screen upwards and turn it into a square,

Josh:
well, then it doesn't quite matter the orientation you're holding your phone

Josh:
at because the sensor array is the same orientation regardless of the way that you tilt your phone.

Josh:
So if you hold your phone vertically, it's the same as holding it horizontally

Josh:
because the sensor is a square. It's not a rectangle.

Josh:
And this is a big unlock because it allows you to shoot horizontal content while

Josh:
holding the phone vertically.

Josh:
And I think, I mean, this is kind of a, just it's a cute thing for people who

Josh:
like to take selfies or who like to take vlogs and videos.

Josh:
But I did find this interesting for just consumer applications because you never

Josh:
really have to turn your phone again to shoot anything forward facing.

Josh:
And what I love is they not only increased the resolution of the camera,

Josh:
but they included stability in the front facing camera as well.

Josh:
So if you ever did want to record a video or take a selfie or whatever,

Josh:
it will not only be stable, but it can be captured while holding your phone vertically.

Josh:
So that was a nice, cute little feature. I'm like, okay, I like that.

Josh:
I never have to turn my phone to take a wide angle selfie because actually here's

Josh:
another instance where there's AI, it will detect where the people are in the

Josh:
image and it will automatically create a wide angle version.

Josh:
If it detects people are on the sides of you that don't quite fit in the frame.

Josh:
And this is also true in their FaceTime feature where it will track the location

Josh:
of your head and kind of follow your head. So you don't really lose the framing.

Josh:
So I thought that was interesting in terms of camera upgrades for the phone.

Josh:
And I mean, not enough really to get someone to upgrade, but just fun upgrades

Josh:
that you would kind of expect from a new flagship device like this.

Ejaaz:
Yeah. I mean, that's what I was about to say. I love the engineering feats that

Ejaaz:
they've achieved with this new phone, but I don't think it's good enough to

Ejaaz:
convince me at least to upgrade or to buy a new phone.

Ejaaz:
What I'm noticing here, Josh, and I'm curious if you think otherwise,

Ejaaz:
in this flagship new phone, iPhone 17 Pro, it is a photographer's dream pretty

Ejaaz:
much, right? It's fully functional.

Ejaaz:
48 megapixels is insane. I kind of think about the first cell phone I had and

Ejaaz:
the camera that I had on that looked like a potato basically and it was so chunky and large.

Ejaaz:
This is probably the best engineered mobile phone that is out there today.

Ejaaz:
And I think that is super cool.

Ejaaz:
And like you said, a lot of people who take selfies, which is a ton of people

Ejaaz:
today, right, will benefit from this quite a bit.

Ejaaz:
And it's performant as well for the price that you're paying.

Ejaaz:
I think there's this adage of like Apple, like increasing the prices of all

Ejaaz:
the devices, just kind of like inanely all the time.

Ejaaz:
But you're kind of getting bang for your buck here, given that what this phone

Ejaaz:
does, kind of stepping back for a second.

Ejaaz:
I'm kind of maybe putting my AI hat back on in a way.

Ejaaz:
I feel like they are kind of running out of ideas here, right?

Ejaaz:
I would love to see some kind of Steve Jobs-esque type device creation or design applicability.

Ejaaz:
And that could come either at the hardware level or that could come at the app design layer, right?

Ejaaz:
Like we saw Google kind of like release a similar type of phone with 48 megapixels

Ejaaz:
as well, as you said, but they had 20 different AI apps that kind of came on top of this.

Ejaaz:
And not to make this all about like an AI thing, but I would love to see some

Ejaaz:
of the ingenuity that they're spending and effort and money that they're spending

Ejaaz:
on the hardware design to apply to the app layer as well.

Ejaaz:
Otherwise, I think we're just going to end up plateauing, which I think we've

Ejaaz:
kind of been doing over the last couple of years. I don't know, what do you think?

Josh:
Yeah, there's definitely, there's a discrepancy at Apple currently between the

Josh:
software and hardware stack.

Josh:
I think the iPhone Air is a very respectable and really wonderful device.

Josh:
It's something that I would rarely say that Steve would probably appreciate

Josh:
this, but it really is. It's a remarkable feat of engineering and it's beautiful.

Josh:
And I think the last time we really saw this was actually for the chips,

Josh:
the M series chips, which really created a huge unlock in terms of what types

Josh:
of devices were able to be made with Apple. So Apple Silicon as a technology is remarkable.

Josh:
On the topic of Silicon, there is actually one other thing that I wanted to

Josh:
mention to you, EJS, which I thought was interesting with the new Pro phone.

Josh:
And that's their new A19 Pro chip. And what I heard, they snuck this in there

Josh:
and it said that it features these new neural accelerators, what they call the neural engine.

Josh:
And it's a series of cores inside

Josh:
of this new processor that is built specifically for handling AI tasks.

Josh:
Now, they mentioned that in passing. They didn't mention any uses of these new

Josh:
neural cores, but they did mention that they're investing a lot of energy and,

Josh:
I mean, space on this tiny little chip in these neural engines,

Josh:
which are optimized for AI.

Josh:
So you could kind of think of it, if you have like a mental model to think of

Josh:
these, we have the CPUs, which is, you can think of it maybe like a chef.

Josh:
The CPU is like the master chef. It does everything. It kind of can...

Josh:
Attack any problem you have and then the gpu is kind of

Josh:
like a line of sous chefs right like they're all kind of there to help that

Josh:
cpu do a lot of the hard compute so they'll do the prep work they'll chop up

Josh:
the vegetables and they'll hand it off to the cpu and it'll take care of everything

Josh:
and then you can imagine the neural engine kind of like like a

Josh:
robotic slicer where it's really good at

Josh:
one thing so those vegetables that i mentioned it'll just slice slice

Josh:
slice slice and it's amazing at that and that's what the neural core

Josh:
is for the a19 pro chip so it's super efficient

Josh:
because it uses this on-device sram it's

Josh:
which is not slow but it's it's very fast and it's very power efficient and

Josh:
they use lower precision math so i just we talk about quantized models sometimes

Josh:
here um where they're kind of models that they lower the their lower precision

Josh:
math which is kind of like 8-bit or 16-bit meaning they don't go all the way

Josh:
but they get most of the efficiency at a much smaller

Ejaaz:
Intelligence of the models.

Josh:
Exactly and that's what they've kind of done here with these chips where they

Josh:
use 8-bit, 16-bit, low precision math in order to do a lot more computing.

Josh:
That's maybe 80% as good if they used a lot more data, but also significantly more efficient.

Josh:
So they have now this infrastructure on device using these neural engines that

Josh:
is significantly better than it was last year and like 10 times better than

Josh:
it was two years ago with nothing to run on it.

Josh:
And the fact that they're investing so much, I mean, they kind of have to,

Josh:
but it leads me to wonder what type of AI are they planning to run on these

Josh:
devices? because now they're juiced up and these phones can run local inference

Josh:
like really freaking good, but they have no local inference currently to run.

Josh:
So it leaves me with the question, who's going to fill that slot?

Josh:
Because it's become apparent to me that Apple is not the company that is likely going to do it.

Josh:
They're probably going to outsource this to someone or maybe we'll get a miracle

Josh:
at WWDC next year. But that is one thing I want to mention.

Ejaaz:
It's just the- Yeah, I don't know if I agree with you on that, Josh.

Ejaaz:
So in my Moonboy thesis, which is tucked away in a dusty closet somewhere,

Ejaaz:
for Apple to win this AI race,

Ejaaz:
I think they're going to come in hard right at the end by having the most hyper-performant

Ejaaz:
small device that fits into your hand or on your head or whatever it might look

Ejaaz:
like and runs super-performant models locally, privately.

Josh:
I pray that you're right.

Ejaaz:
And I think they might pull it off, dude, because I, again, I want to hate on

Ejaaz:
them, but they have so much cash that an outlandish acquisition isn't beneath

Ejaaz:
them or isn't going to be surprising, I would say.

Ejaaz:
I just think they're waiting patiently to see what kind of hardware companies

Ejaaz:
kind of pop up with the actual gizmo or the architecture that they need or the

Ejaaz:
model that they require.

Ejaaz:
And then they're just going to come in and swoop in and get them.

Josh:
I hope they do. I really hope you're right because they have all the infrastructure

Josh:
now built to run local inference on these devices.

Josh:
And like we mentioned, this is significant because the price per token drops down to zero dollars.

Josh:
When you can run inference locally on a phone, the cost to serve that AI to

Josh:
a consumer drops to zero because you don't have to interface with any cloud server.

Josh:
So it's a really big deal in terms of cost efficiency.

Josh:
And like we always talk about with Jevin's Paradox, the more tokens you have,

Josh:
the more tokens we will generate.

Josh:
And I think it's a win-win for everyone. If Apple can figure this the F out, I am praying for you.

Josh:
Please do it you have it now in the chip make something happen deliver us some

Josh:
awesome ai hardware that can run locally on our phone i think for me it was

Josh:
a great upgrade this is what i'll be buying uh you just do you have any are

Josh:
you going to be buying anything if you do what are you picking

Ejaaz:
So i'm tempted to go for the air just because it looks so cool i want to kind

Ejaaz:
of like see what that device looks like i want to feel it in my hands like it

Ejaaz:
being kind of top heavy i'm just kind of like how is that going to feel i just

Ejaaz:
think it's a really cool piece of engineering and I kind of want to own the

Ejaaz:
first type of device that's like that.

Ejaaz:
Oh, and I'm going to get the AirPods, the AirPods 3 because I want to be able

Ejaaz:
to communicate with my Uber drivers and the bodega guys because they always

Ejaaz:
crack jokes and I have no idea what they're saying.

Ejaaz:
Are they making fun of me or are they laughing with me? I have no idea.

Josh:
Nice. Yeah, I want the AirPods just because they're a remarkable little pocket

Josh:
device that I take everywhere. And two times the active noise cancellation.

Josh:
That's all I want. Just block more of the world.

Josh:
That's great. I think, like, great job. I will be a purchaser.

Josh:
So outside of the phones, there were a few other hardware announcements.

Josh:
I mean, we did have the iPhone 17, which we didn't talk about.

Josh:
It's another wonderful phone. They upgraded the display to 120 hertz,

Josh:
which is a really nice refresh rate.

Josh:
It's a great phone if you're on a budget and you want to buy something that's

Josh:
a little less expensive.

Josh:
Amazing device. in terms of watches they were

Josh:
the most disappointing watch upgrades to date which really hurts my

Josh:
soul because i have none on my wrist and i was hoping to get one and they

Josh:
cannot convince me to shell out eight hundred dollars for this

Josh:
behemoth of an apple watch ultra what they did with the apple watch ultra is

Josh:
they extended the displays slightly they added the battery life a little bit

Josh:
better they added i believe they added a 5g chip that has um direct to cell

Josh:
connectivity also noted if you listen to our last episode about starlink this

Josh:
device now will work with Starlink satellites,

Josh:
where if you're in the middle of nowhere and you have an Apple Watch 11 or Apple Watch Ultra,

Josh:
you can actually get data right to your wrist from anywhere in the world.

Josh:
So that's a pretty interesting thing that these watches now enable.

Josh:
It's been there for a little while, but the chip has just been improved a little bit.

Josh:
I mean, the Apple Watch Series 11, this is actually a devastating upgrade.

Josh:
They did not even upgrade the chip this year at EJS. It is just the same exact

Josh:
hardware with a slightly more scratch-resistant screen.

Josh:
So now your screen is now twice as scratch-resistant as last year,

Josh:
which is the most underwhelming Apple Watch upgrade to date.

Josh:
They have, um, hypertension,

Josh:
Which seems interesting. I think it remains to be seen if it's actually accurate.

Josh:
They included sleep scores to compete with companies like Whoop, Aura, and Aidsleep.

Josh:
And I think that's kind of interesting to gamify sleep. I would like to see

Josh:
them move more into that space.

Josh:
But that's pretty much everything they announced last night.

Josh:
They had some fun accessories.

Josh:
They had a battery pack for the iPhone Air because the battery is a little smaller, so it extends it.

Josh:
They added a like side leash to clamp onto your phone and walk around as a fashion

Josh:
accessory. But I think that's pretty much it.

Josh:
In terms of AI, to recap, I think live translation It's been around,

Josh:
but it's Apple-fied. It's cool. We like that.

Josh:
They added a ton of neural cores to the new phone with no real use of them yet.

Josh:
So hopefully we'll get a use case soon.

Josh:
And the new hardware, pretty good. I mean, I'm excited to get a new phone with

Josh:
the new cameras, the new vertical, the square sensing camera on the front.

Josh:
And then I think the iPhone Air, it's a lovely phone. It's a gorgeous phone.

Josh:
And I loved it. And I think if no one's even interested, just go watch the release

Josh:
video because they did a really great job.

Josh:
It's just a really cool feat of engineering that I think is a testament to where will we be heading?

Josh:
And it's a dry run for manufacturers to actually figure it out and create smaller

Josh:
devices. I doubt we'll get an iPhone Air 2.

Josh:
It's probably just a transitionary piece to get the manufacturing up to speed.

Josh:
But I think that covers it. That is the Apple event.

Josh:
It was a big event that was slightly underwhelming on the AI front.

Josh:
But again, it's Apple. We will be patient. We will be suckers in their closed

Josh:
wall ecosystem for at least one more year.

Josh:
And I think that's a wrap. So, I mean, thank you guys for watching.

Josh:
I hope you enjoyed. I am curious.

Josh:
I would actually love, I want the comment section for this one,

Josh:
if we could just chat about the phones.

Josh:
Are you going to get one? If so, what are you going to get? If so,

Josh:
what color are you going to get? I have no idea what color iPhone 17 Pro I'm

Josh:
going to get because there's no black and I'm devastated.

Josh:
So this is a serious point of contention in my life. Ejaz, what would you pick

Josh:
if you had to pick a color, the navy, orange, or silver?

Josh:
I think it's probably going to be navy. It's so lame. And you can't even cover

Josh:
the back because the freaking camera array is so big.

Ejaaz:
It's not even matte. Give me a matte option at least. Come on. Brutal.

Josh:
Brutal. Okay, but that's the event. I hope everyone enjoyed.

Josh:
Let us know what your take. Are you going to be upgrading, downgrading,

Josh:
leaving the ecosystem happy, sad, upset that AI doesn't exist on this freaking

Josh:
ecosystem, even though they're the most valuable company in the world,

Josh:
but whatever, whatever it may be.

Josh:
But I mean, EJs will probably get in the iPhone Air on 17 Pro Gang by next Friday.

Josh:
We should have them in our pockets. So maybe we could chat a little bit more then.

Josh:
But that is a wrap. Thank you so much for watching. If you have a friend that

Josh:
is also interested in this technology who didn't know about vapor chambers or

Josh:
who didn't know about neural engine cores, maybe you learned something.

Josh:
Share it with them. Let them know about it. It's pretty interesting.

Josh:
I think it's pretty cool.

Josh:
And yeah, that's a wrap for this episode. So thank you guys so much for watching.

Josh:
I really appreciate it. Don't forget, like, subscribe, all the good things.

Josh:
And we will see you guys in the next episode.