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Apple's first foldable iPhone makes the case that a bigger screen is better for nearly everything in the AI era. Its new Apple Watch features raise a harder question: how much of our conversations should AI remember?
In this special episode of The Deep View Conversations, we record from Apple's campus in California following its September 2026 event to unpack the iPhone Duo, the new Audio Intelligence features in Apple Watch, and what Apple's latest devices mean for AI.
We share our first hands-on impressions of the Duo, explain why foldables are becoming more useful for AI agents and multitasking, and examine the price and hardware compromises that come with Apple's new form factor. We also debate Live Rewind and Siri Recap, two new Apple Watch features coming in beta later this year. We disagree on which feature we would feel more comfortable using, opening up a broader discussion about privacy, trust, and staying present.
The conversation also covers:
• How the iPhone Duo compares with foldables from Google and Samsung
• Why Apple's software experience is the Duo's biggest advantage
• Camera, battery, durability, and Touch ID tradeoffs
• Whether foldables will eventually become the default iPhone
• Siri AI, iOS 27, and Apple's approach to other smart features without AI washing
• The social questions surrounding AI-generated conversation summaries
• The iPhone 18 Pro's camera upgrades and Apple's computational photography
• Apple silicon, the A20 Pro, and the possibilities of running AI models locally on a phone
If you're following the future of AI in phones and wearables, this conversation connects Apple's announcements to the ways people will actually use them, along with the questions that still need answers.
Subscribe to Deep View Conversations for interviews with the leaders shaping the future of AI, business, and technology: tdv.transitor.fm
And don't forget to sign up for The Deep View daily newsletter. We don’t just cover AI, we decode it. In a world flooded with hype, we deliver sharp, no-nonsense insights to keep you ahead of the curve and help you put AI to work every day: subscribe.thedeepview.com
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What is The Deep View: Conversations?
From frontier labs and enterprise platforms to emerging startups reshaping entire industries, The Deep View: Conversations podcast interviews the brightest minds and the most influential leaders in AI.
Jason Hiner: Welcome to The Deep View Conversations podcast. This is a special episode coming to you from Apple campus in California. After the Apple event, I'm here, I'm Jason Hiner. I'm here with my co-host, collaborator, colleague, Sabrina Ortiz. Sabrina, we've got a lot to talk about.
Sabrina Ortiz: There was so much announced yesterday. Of course, the headliner was the iPhone Duo. We'll unpack whether it is the iPhone of AI era. And then there were a lot of other announcements that you may not have heard of just yet, but totally worth talking about, like on the Apple Watch, two major features have everybody here buzzing, and they really do push the AI envelope pretty far. So there's that. And then there's of course, we'll talk about the new silicon we'll talk about AirPods. We'll talk a little bit more about the new iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max. And yeah, we have a full episode for you.
Jason Hiner: Yeah, this is going to be packed. As always, good to be back at this event on Apple campus to talk about some exciting stuff. So this was the biggest phone launch that we've seen in a while. The most anticipation. It did not only live up to expectations, but surprised us in a number of ways, us in a number of ways. There are some challenges and some drawbacks. There also are some ways in which that it really talks about what the future of the phone is going to be. And that's maybe what I thought of as kind of the most exciting thing. And really, it gets to this idea of, you know, AI has given foldables a reason to exist. And this device is definitely, you know, more evidence of that.
Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah, it was really fun. All of the hype, I feel like there hasn't been this much buzz around an Apple event in so long. Of course, there's the new CEO and just having completely new form factor on the iPhone with finally entering the foldable scene. I think we should kick it off there probably. And as always, we'll cut through the hype and we'll really try to focus too on its actual usefulness in the realm of AI, which Jason, you have a lot of thoughts on. So yeah.
Jason Hiner: For sure. For sure. You know, the thing is, you and I have both tested foldables for several years. They felt like I always have felt like they were like a solution looking for a problem to solve. But last year, something sort of changed. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 for the first time that like the hardware was so impossibly thin. And it was also the first time that it felt like, oh, this when it's closed, it just feels like a regular phone. You could never open it and just, you know, hold it and feel like a regular phone. I was like, that made me think, okay, you know what? Now I see why Apple's going to do one of these.
Sabrina Ortiz: I had a similar moment. I have been reviewing phones with Jason for years. And whenever I came to a foldable, I was always just like, okay, great. The more it feels like a phone while closed, the less of a reason I have to ever open it. And to your point, I think within the last year, it became something of like, well, if it does feel like a regular phone when closed, I guess I'll carry it and I'll try it. And then it's like, okay, I guess I'll give it a real chance and open it once and a couple of times. And then you kind of start realizing, wow, the bigger surface area on the screen really does help you do so much more. Some of my favorite use cases are using two apps at the same time. Like I'll have my Google Docs when I'm writing an article for The Deep View and then Slack from Jason, perhaps when we're collaborating something else and it could go back and forth without really compromising the experience or having to toggle between two different windows, which I have always on Safari on my iPhone, I have 450 tabs. That's not exaggeration. I can pull out my phone and show you because I'm always multitasking. So foldables have helped me tremendously with that. And I love that the 7.6 inch display on the iPhone Duo, it really does feel like an iPad mini almost.
Jason Hiner: Yeah, it does. That was the unlock was like, okay, if you can have a device in your pocket that is an iPhone and an iPad, I think most people are going to want that. And we could talk a little about some of the AI use cases because there's some really interesting ones that suddenly have gotten interesting. But there's another foldable device that we both have been looking at this year, a month ago, which was the Pixel 11 Pro Fold. It's a mouthful. But it was another one that all of a sudden, okay, closed just feels like a normal phone, like a premium, like large phone like the iPhone 17 Pro Max or the Google Pixel 11 Pro XL. But then when you open it, all of a sudden it can do a lot more. And it did a couple things that were that were really interesting. Maybe you're always like, okay, and I wrote about this on The Deep View that like, this is the best phone for AI. And a lot of it has to do with kind of two things. One is AI agents. It's funny because the folks in our audience, really AI enthusiasts, developers, you know, when they are, they're so chained to their desk right now, because they're using AI agents all the time. And it's funny, you walk around in San Francisco, and even in New York too, you see people walking around with their laptops open, and it's like, why is a person walking around with their laptop open? Well, it's because if you close it, your agents, you know, stop working. So they needed their agents to keep running. So they're walking around with their laptops. Well, now this has gotten better. Some of these apps like ChatGPT and Claude and Perplexity. Now you can manage your apps from your phone, but it's sort of a pain, right? Well, on a foldable, where you have more screen, okay, now it's a lot better because you can see all of your things that are running on the left side. And then you can see the chat and what's open on the right side. And like, it's just a lot better.
Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah, that's what I actually really liked at the beginning of the keynote when Ternus took the stage. And granted, of course, some of this is marketing, but it actually resonated with me as somebody to your point who covers AI so much and is also covering these products, like just the foldable category. And he basically said, like, what would you need for this AI era? You would want a processor that's really powerful. And it's worth mentioning, which is pretty incredible that the Duo has the same chip that the iPhone 18 Pro has, which is the Apple's latest silicon, the A20 Pro. Their most powerful chipset yet. So that's already a massive win. And then he also mentioned something about having a larger screen to do exactly what you mentioned. So this phone does really hit the checkboxes, at least on paper. Of course, we haven't tried it yet other than a couple of seconds in hands-ons, which we could talk about the feel. It does really feel great. A lot of people were asking me on socials if it felt, you know, if it felt like plastic or if it felt cheap and it doesn't, it feels like a full, weighty, hearty phone, which all of the foldables have gotten to a point where they really do feel sturdy. But any who, just it does, at least on paper at the moment, check off all those boxes that you would want for a phone in the AI era. So that's super exciting, I think.
Jason Hiner: Yeah. All right, let's talk about one more device. And then let's talk of some of the specifics of the fold, too, because there's some really interesting things. The Samsung Fold 8. This one came and probably inspired by the designs of what we expected for the iPhone, which was a passport style foldable. They're not the first ones that have done it. You know, Google did one a little bit more passport style. Other Chinese brands have done passport style foldables. And then the reports over the past year had been that Apple had chose this form factor, which they did. And the iPhone Duo is a passport style foldable, meaning it's shorter and more square when closed. And then when you open it, it's almost exactly the dimensions of an iPad mini, like an eight inch tablet. So you and I both tried the Fold 8 this summer. And we're both like, okay, I understand why they chose this form factor, even before we have seen the iPhone Duo yet. And that's because it's a little wider, so it's a little nicer for typing.
Sabrina Ortiz: Also for streaming, right? The ratios fit better. If you're watching a YouTube video, there's no boxes on the side, which I also did love that visual that Apple included in the beginning of the keynote. So it really demonstrates that really nicely, not having those two bars on the side.
Jason Hiner: It uses the whole screen when you watch a video opened. It's really nice. It's essentially like a four by three ratio. But closed, it's that little bit wider, shorter form factor is really nice for typing. It's really easy to one hand with.
Sabrina Ortiz: And Apple did such a nice job with the software. I think the software is one of the best things that they did with this device is like, you could even put the bar on the side so that you could click all of your apps from easy access, holding it with one hand and your
Jason Hiner: Right hand.
Sabrina Ortiz: Also, when you open the phone, it is so cool how it goes from the graphics that show as you're opening it to show you the full screen. We'll include a visual because it's easier to see than to explain. But yeah, they did a really nice job with the software there so that you get the best out of the closed screen and the big screen. And also another great thing about the passport size is that it's really nicely pocketable.
Jason Hiner: It's nicer in your pocket than sort of the big phones.
Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah, because even if you have a chest pocket, the other phones that are more like a chocolate bar, they fit, but they'll be sticking out a little. This one just fits perfectly right there.
Jason Hiner: It's true. This is the part that impressed us the most. When we actually got to try the Duo yesterday in the demo area after the keynote, was Apple has clearly put a lot of thought. This is obviously a product that they've been working on for years, has put a lot of thought into the software experience and really just the digital experience. And when I saw Greg Joswiak, the head of marketing afterwards, I asked him about that. I was like, you've been working on this for a while. So talk to me a little bit about how this is such a seamless experience, because clearly a lot of thought has been put into that. And he reminded me, he said, well, remember, we don't see ourselves as a hardware company. We see ourselves as a product company. And it goes back to like what Steve Jobs said about, like, we make the whole widget, meaning we try to take responsibility for the whole user experience. And that's the part that I liked the most about the iPhone Duo, honestly, was like you said, the software opening it from sort of closed to open, taking it from open and moving from landscape to portrait, from going back and then closing it again and then taking it, you know, in the closed and going to portrait from portrait to landscape, like all of that is so fast, so seamless that you could think about, okay, whatever app or experience you're in, what's the best way to use it? And it just, you know, move between that and find the best one. That was the part that I thought, first thing that I noticed was that.
Sabrina Ortiz: All the apps also being really custom and redesigned to fit that screen perfectly and interact with the experience, that's still something that's glitchy sometimes on other, you know, developer ecosystems where they're not exactly catered to that form factor. And I mean, like, left with a wonky screen and app crashing, you have to restart the app when you open it more times than not. And it's just a hassle. So again, hats off to Apple for the software. And also it just, you might have been wondering at the beginning of this podcast, like, why are we unpacking all of these non-Apple, you know, foldable phones? But the reason it really is, it boils down to the fact that Apple did such a great job on basically taking everything in the market and finding the things that worked the best or didn't work, and then applying that into this final device. Like, one of my favorite little things, it's a small detail with the camera being like underneath. So basically, you don't see the camera when you're just browsing, we're just using the inner display, unless you're actually wanting to use the camera. And that's one of my biggest pet peeves on the Galaxy Z Fold 8 is the fact that I'm always using it, and it's awesome, and it's handy for the same proportions that we just talked about. And it's like, great, let me flip it. And it's like, the camera, that black dot is just in the wrong spot over a word or something that I never wanted to be over. So yeah. But there are some trade-offs, right? Like, if you're asking yourself whether we should buy it, we do need to do our due diligence, just let you know there is a hefty price tag. It is more of an investment than anything on the iPhone lineup right now at $1,999.
Jason Hiner: Yeah, so two grand, and then if you go to like the two terabyte version, like fully max out, it's $3,199. So it's like MacBook Pro territory. It's an expensive device.
Sabrina Ortiz: And the trade-offs include what? So there's a missing telephoto lens.
Jason Hiner: Only two cameras not three. You're missing the really great, you know, telephoto lens.
Sabrina Ortiz: And then inside the selfie camera the resolution, it's 12 megapixels versus like the 18 megapixels available on the 18 Pro.
Jason Hiner: So it goes back a couple generations to the older like iPhone 16 Pro camera, the camera on those phones.
Sabrina Ortiz: Exactly. Battery life, it is not as long. I mean, to be fair, the battery life on the 18 Pro is outstanding. It's 45 hours of video playback, which is the metric that Apple uses to kind of describe battery capacity. Of course, we haven't tested it, but that is huge. And when using the inner display on the Duo, I think Apple claimed 31 hours of video playback, which again, comparing both, it is significantly less for the price tag too. And then there's the durability issue. It's still highly rated in terms of like, you know, water resistance. Like I think it's IP68, right? So water resistance, dust resistance, that sort of deal. But at the end of the day, it is a thin phone. There is a hinge. There is a chance that you might break it a bit easier than you might break the regular slab phone, right?
Jason Hiner: Yeah. It also doesn't have, it only has Touch ID. It doesn't have Face ID.
Sabrina Ortiz: Which I don't think I'm going to miss, actually.
Jason Hiner: Really?
Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah.
Jason Hiner: It's funny. I didn't like Face ID at first. And now I'm a big fan.
Sabrina Ortiz: It never recognizes me sometimes. Well, it does. But like if I'm wearing glasses, I'm not wearing glasses. I did my hair. I'm sitting in bed with like a triple chin. Like, you know, it just doesn't sometimes work. So I've kind of moved on to just using Touch ID. But anyway, that's just a personal preference. I'm not going to really miss the Face ID much, I don't think. But it was to save space ultimately, right? Like that's the reason that that was removed. And also, they're all eSIM for the same reason, I think, of saving space.
Jason Hiner: That's right. Yeah. Because it is so impossibly thin. When you open it up, you can't imagine, you know, kind of how thin it is. If you've seen the iPhone Air, it's very, you know, you can, you can, it is definitely like two of those, a little shorter. It's, it is a device that feels great in your hands. It feels very solid. It is, feels impossibly thin. And the thing that I think that ultimately people should take away, you probably aren't going to buy this device. Most people probably are not going to buy this device. But if you are an Apple enthusiast and there's going to be a premium on the people that get them, I think they'll sell every one that they make.
Sabrina Ortiz: Oh, absolutely.
Jason Hiner: Because component shortages are, you know, are real right now. It doesn't come out until October 23rd, until, you know, the second half of October. You can't pre-order it until the week before that. So it's a little bit of a delay. But I think one of the ways to think about this device, even if you aren't going to buy them, I think plenty of people will, and especially Apple enthusiasts, are going to, are going to love the device. I do think that this is not just Apple's take on the foldable though. I think this is Apple's vision of what the future of the phone is. And, and here's why. I think I go back to like the phablet, so like 10 years ago, almost 15 years ago, when like the Samsung Galaxy Note and then the iPhone 16 Plus came out. Those devices were so much bigger than the regular phones. And they were very specialty devices. And a small percentage of people liked them, used them, loved them. Three to five years later, every phone looked like that. Those were the majority of phones. And I think we'll see that with the fold. I think it'll, the price will come down. It will eventually get the, the cameras, it will eventually get Face ID. And this will be what the, essentially the Pro Max is today, the Pro Max line. It will be the primary, you know, phone that you use. Because I think most people will realize that everything is better on a bigger screen. That's what we learned with phablets, even though people sort of laughed at them at first, the same way that they laughed at AirPods when AirPods first came out. And they sort of just looked different and odd. I think that this one looks a little different and odd. But I think in time, everybody will realize like almost everything I do is better on a big screen. It's definitely better for AI, the, you know, AI chatbots, but also AI agents, and those things. But it's better for everything. It's better for looking at photos. It's better for watching video. It's better for, we can talk about some of the special modes, you know, next, but it has some special modes that regular phones can't do, like tripod mode and nightstand mode. But it's better for so many things, looking at documents, all of that, that I think people will realize, you know what, I would like something in my pocket that is an iPhone and an iPad. As long as it doesn't cost me a lot more, which eventually I think it won't.
Sabrina Ortiz: I agree with everything you said, except that I do think that a lot more people are going to go for it now. I've used, again, because it's my job, right? Like I have to carry a foldable with me, especially when I'm, you know, reviewing it, I have to carry whatever device I'm using all the time. It has to be my main phone, basically. And every time I bring it to any social interaction, my friends are always like, Oh my God, I love this thing. Yes.
Jason Hiner: Oh, especially the Fold 8.
Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah. I love this thing. Oh my gosh, the bigger screen. Oh my gosh, it's so cute. Everything about it. Oh, but it's not an iPhone. And that's of course, because of the walled garden of iPhone, of Apple products, and especially the blue bubble and all of that. So there's, there's many people who are always like, I cannot wait to have one. I'm just waiting for it to be Apple. So I actually think there'll be a very high demand right now, even, even with those challenges there, you know?
Jason Hiner: Yeah, I believe you because I think a lot of those challenges probably are, I think there's a certain part of the enthusiast crowd. If you're really into photography, if you're really into Face ID, but I think still the benefits you get out of it for like the real enthusiasts are gonna, are gonna be all in on this one.
Sabrina Ortiz: I'm just thinking about it too. And like with the iPhone Air, like I see so many iPhone Airs in the real world more than, much more than I anticipated. Like my, my roommate's mom has an iPhone Air. Like my boyfriend's mom has an iPhone Air. Like, you know, it's just like it was convenient and, and it appeals to certain amount of people. And those were making a lot of the same compromises, if not way more compromises. So it's fair. I think some people will just choose novelty. And every day, not power users. I don't think we'll have a problem with that much of the trade-offs, except the price tag, of course, because we do have to be mindful that it is a lot of money.
Jason Hiner: But lastly, on the, on the Duo, what do you think about the different modes, you know, the nightstand mode?
Sabrina Ortiz: The StandBy mode. I don't really get why we keep talking about it.
Jason Hiner: You don't use StandBy mode?
Sabrina Ortiz: It's cool. I mean, I'll use it, I guess. But like, you, you could just, I don't, I, do you want to see the time that bad? Like, I don't really, you know, like, I mean, it's cool. Don't get me wrong. I'm not, I'm not hating on it. But like, I would definitely not say that's a major pro. That's very much in the middle for me, like.
Jason Hiner: Fair. Another mode you probably are more interested in.
Sabrina Ortiz: It's just using it as like a little tent to take photos and videos.
Jason Hiner: The tent mode, yes, to take your, to take your own photos. Tripod mode, you know.
Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah, no, that is awesome. I, I do use it on the foldables that I currently own. I will say I use it again also way less. More so what I love, if we're talking about cameras, is being able to take selfies with the back camera and still be able to see yourself.
Jason Hiner: That's clutch.
Sabrina Ortiz: That's massive. That one I actually use all the time now. Because the quality of your selfies are so significantly higher.
Jason Hiner: So a little trick that I've learned is on the Fold 8, the Samsung Fold 8, which is the same form factor. Just open it. Put it in the, the selfie mode where you, you are using the best cameras and then you see the viewfinder. Put it in the five second timer and then, because it's a little awkward to do it, to hold, because it's bigger and hit the button. But then just hit, tap the button, the shutter button, and then you have five seconds to like, you know, center it and frame the photo. Your selfie game will be, will go up big time.
Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah, that's a good tip. I, I do use that mode a lot. I don't use the timer, but maybe, maybe I'll start using that too.
Jason Hiner: [Unclear brief reply.]
Sabrina Ortiz: And yeah, and I think with that, we've, we've talked a lot about this, the Duo. We might want to move on too, because in the realm of AI, there was still a lot of, of—well, first of all, let's not forget that this is basically the launch that will make everything we talked about, WWDC, all those new iOS 27 features, we'll finally see them materialized, right, with, with this launch. So that's including the new and improved Siri. That's including, which it's just being more conversational, actually being able to have it understand anything you want when you're just speaking to it. Better dictation, which you discovered recently. Yeah, it's Siri chat, a Siri like chatbot experience. It's its own app. So that's already coming to all of these products that, that we're talking about. But specifically, there were some standouts with the Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 release.
Jason Hiner: That's right. Yeah. These were, so we weren't expecting a ton. We weren't, there weren't a lot of rumors about things that were coming out. And so we got, what I think of as like three things that were really, really interesting, maybe one that we'll talk about briefly and two we'll talk about a little more in depth. One is for people that are really into like Oura and WHOOP, there's some really nice kind of insights on your vitals, on, on those kinds of things.
Sabrina Ortiz: A readiness score, which again, for, for people who like to gamify their health, that's going to be a massive one.
Jason Hiner: So that's big, that it now has that readiness score that the new Apple Watches do. And that essentially, it has a better heart rate sensor in it as well too, like that takes your heart rate more often. And so it's, it, it, they call it the world's most advanced heart rate sensor. We'll, we'll see. We sort of don't know exactly what that means yet. We'll have the chance to unpack that. But it is an upgraded heart sensor. And then it has this kind of new readiness vitals experience that basically gives you more friendly data about your, and more proactive data about your health, you know, that could be helpful in planning your workouts and better understanding, you know, certain activities you do, what's the impact, you know, on your, on your health and your wellness. And so, you know, all of that's going to be welcome for people that are really into health data.
Sabrina Ortiz: It includes to like a little summary at the next day, perhaps like using all of your vitals, just telling you basically top level insights into your health. And I asked repeatedly, like, are these like AI features? And, and they weren't. And the reason I'm actually very happy and tickled by that is the fact that it is health data and Apple takes that very seriously. There's a reason that like, you know, their wearables are still some of the best sellers. And I like that they didn't go all in on the AI coach of it all. Like everybody has an AI coach now. I think I reviewed my first AI coach. I think it was like WHOOP's AI coach in like three years ago, maybe at this point. So I like that Apple's offering really useful insights that are conversational and digestible, but they're not masking it with AI. To be clear, There's a ton of, you know, ML happening in the behind the scenes. But again, there it's less so of that like AI washing more so of intentional use case of using ML models to reach a purpose to deliver something to the user less so of to make it just an AI product. So I really enjoyed that.
Jason Hiner: I really, I do like the restraint on that because it's an ML and they're using algorithms, they're using ML and plenty of other companies would have just called them AI features. And you really couldn't have argued if they would have, but I like the fact that they decided not to do AI washing with it. As you said, that's big.
Sabrina Ortiz: And they did release pretty big AI features though.
Jason Hiner: That's right.
Sabrina Ortiz: And those are under their Audio Intelligence suite. So I think there's two big ones, right? There's Siri Recap and Live Rewind. Which one do you want to start with? Which one are you the most passionate about? Because I have one that I'm like okay with and one that I'm like a bit more hesitant.
Jason Hiner: Start with the one you're more hesitant about. Let's hear it.
Sabrina Ortiz: All right. So Live Rewind essentially works in that you click a button, right? And then on your Apple Watch. And then it will be able to show you a transcription of 15 seconds before. So let's just say this conversation right now. Jason's like, I zoned out. I don't know what Sabrina was saying. She was going on a tangent, like she always does. He would click the button. It would make an audible noise. I would hear the noise.
Jason Hiner: Okay.
Sabrina Ortiz: It would show a microphone on the face of it. But the thing is, again, I don't know if right now I'm in the zone. So I don't know if I would hear necessarily hear a chime or be paying attention to the microphone. And then he would see a transcription of what I just said in the last 15 seconds. Those transcriptions he could then choose to save and then open them up in the Siri app. I don't like this feature because it does mean, technically, that your watch was listening to you all the time so that I could rewind 15 seconds before. I will give you the full picture because I'm not here to fear monger. They do have the new S11 chip.
Jason Hiner: Yes.
Sabrina Ortiz: That has its own, basically, as I understand it or as I was told, it's a little silo where it takes all of that audio. It does not save any of the recordings. It does not save any of the audio. It just audio goes in. It transcribes as a thing. And then when it needs to send out the transcript, it's end-to-end encrypted to you. That said, again, it's not like somebody's recording you. It's not like he could ever access the actual audio of my last 15 seconds. But it does mean that it is always listening. If on, you have the option to turn it off. That's the high level. Give me your thoughts.
Jason Hiner: The thing is, it's funny because we've gotten used to this idea of like, oh, just rewind. I didn't quite hear that. Just rewind it. Whether it's on YouTube, right? There's the go back 15 seconds thing on YouTube. On radio, well, I don't listen to the radio much anymore. I listen to podcasts. But on podcasts, I do this all the time where I go, hold on, did he say what I think he said? Did she quote a certain statistic? And so I'm used to this in life, in so many places that I listen to things. So to like, have that in the real world, I'm sort of here for it because-
Sabrina Ortiz: No way.
Jason Hiner: Yeah, because in one sense, there's things that happen all the time. I'm almost thinking of it in terms of what are the places, there have been places where I have listened to like, NPR on the actual radio. And then I'm like, oh, and then I want to go back 15 seconds, you can't do it, right? So I'm like, could I do that on the watch? If I was listening, could I go back and hit 15 seconds? So I'm curious about it. I have the same concerns you do in terms of privacy and listening all the time. I'm the person who did not want to ever have Google Home or Amazon Alexa in my house is like, I don't want that thing listening all the time to every conversation that I have, you know, that just didn't sit well with me. But this, I feel a little bit better, mostly because Apple's been very clear and transparent and because I actually believe them when they say that they're going to do what they're doing with the data.
Sabrina Ortiz: I do actually believe them too, which is a huge plus. But I guess my concerns go also beyond just the fact that it's always recording me, but also like weaponizing that, right? Like, Apple might not weaponize it, that's not what I'm saying. But I'm saying like, I don't know, I said something maybe in the workplace or something, you know, sometimes you're having water cooler chat and then somebody decides to be like, HR, like she said, like, you know, or something of that sort, not that I'm ever saying something that bad, but or like, if I'm like, oh, you know, like how many times have you been talking to somebody and it's like, did you hear what you just said? And it's like, I didn't say that. Oh, yeah, I know you could actually show the transcript. Like, that's like the most simple way to weaponize that, you know?
Jason Hiner: Yeah.
Sabrina Ortiz: And then also, I just don't like using AI as a crutch for like things that just require simple human decency, like stay present in the damn conversation. That's it. That's all I'm asking. Stay present. Listen to me, I'm talking to you. Oh, you didn't hear me? Then you have to live with the shame of looking at me and going, hey, Sab, I wasn't paying attention. I dazed out. Can you repeat that? And that's okay. I will repeat. Sometimes people are having a bad day, but you have to live with that shame. You have to live the consequence.
Jason Hiner: You have to ask for the grace.
Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah, exactly. Not like click on your watch. But again, I mean, the use case that Apple showed was like if you're at a restaurant and like the waitress is like spitting a bunch of like, you know, specials at you, like that seems more harmless, but I'm just kind of concerned about what people are.
Jason Hiner: You're worried about the ways that it gets used, the fringe cases. And I think it's legit. And I think that's, let's talk about the other one, because this is where I also, where I have maybe more concern.
Sabrina Ortiz: No way, because I love the other one.
Jason Hiner: So we're sort of flipped on this.
Sabrina Ortiz: That's awesome. Siri Recap. So the way this feature works, if you're familiar with Granola, it's pretty simple. It's pretty similar. It will hear your conversation. It will then recap it, send it that recap. It's super high level. And that's important because it's not including like, quote, it's not including attributions and it's not including a transcript. So it's just a high level summary. And it's sending it to your Siri app. So again, same thing. It goes to the same part of the chip. No recordings are kept. And it's end to end encrypted, as I've been told. You do have the option to opt out entirely, but you also have the option in your control center on your Apple Watch to click the feature. Once you click the feature, it's activated and it's listening and it will send all those summaries to your phone. And then you could turn off the feature whenever, like if you're like, oh, actually, again, this is an argument. I don't want this recording right now or anything that you could turn it off. I would probably opt for keeping it most of the time off and only turning it on during like work meetings or things of that nature. But technically you could do it either way. So yeah, you have more concerns with this one?
Jason Hiner: Yeah. So this one, to be clear, again, Apple says it's not recorded. There's no audio recorded. Apple doesn't have access to any of the audio. That as you said, there's no names. There's no transcripts. There's none of that. This is only audio summaries. It doesn't even include the names of people unless you say your name during it, unless like for whatever reason, if it was a, I was recording you giving a presentation at a conference and at the beginning you said, hi, I'm Sabrina Ortiz from The Deep View. Well, then it would have it. But otherwise, it's not going to have it. I think all those things are good. I think the implications are much, much bigger and tap into the sort of the AI world that we're moving into, which is ambient recording is going to be everywhere. With some of this next AI glasses that are coming out, they're also going to kind of do this. They're not going to record the video or the audio, but they are going to record what's happening.
Sabrina Ortiz: Like process it.
Jason Hiner: Yeah. Process it. And then you're going to be able to give summary, ask for a summary. What did I say to Sabrina last Wednesday about where we were going to have lunch when we were in Cupertino? And it'll find that. Probably potentially really useful, right? But one of the things that surprised me is like Apple is really out front on this. The cutting edge of essentially ambient computing in this feature is this Audio Intelligence feature, and it's specifically Siri Recap. I guess you could say the other Live Rewind as well. But that surprised me a little bit because even yesterday when this was announced, like on Twitter, on X, there was a lot of people sort of freaking out about it. And because people don't realize the extent to which this is already happening or is about to happen by all these products that are coming on market. But I would normally expect Apple to let this play out with some of the others, let them be on the leading edge, see sort of what people are responding to, the ways that expectations are being set, all of that, and then come out with a product that meets those needs in a unique way, in a way that's very natural, that's very acceptable. I did not necessarily expect Apple to push the boundary, and now we're going to really see what people find out about this. What's going to happen if somebody records something and then they have this summary, and then the two of them sort of go to divorce court, and now that that gets, can that get subpoenaed? What's going to happen when people have, spouses have fights or partners have fights and arguments, and all of a sudden they're like, no, I didn't say that, no, let's go back and look at it, or somebody then using it in the way, weaponizing it, as you said, to say, no, look, the summary says this is what you said, and no, I didn't say that because it's not a transcript, then you could argue it and say, no, I didn't. There's edge cases on this that I think are going to get kind of messy. In one sense, we're just going to have to figure this out as society, and that's going to be challenging over the next few years, but we're in it now. When this feature comes in beta, we should say it's not available at launch, it's available in beta later. I think part of this, I got the sense that Apple had a sense of we're going to put this out there, we're going to see what people say, and I did hear today from somebody that we're still going to have time to adjust it before we launch in beta based on the feedback that we hear over the next month.
Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah, I think all those concerns are super valid, and when I have my reporter cap on, I'm like, absolutely, we have to find the answer to all these questions. This is really critical of a societal moment. When I put on just my Sabrina as a consumer hat on, I'm Gen Z, and I think that has a lot to do with it. I'd be curious if anybody listening is too, you could tell me if I'm just maybe an exception to the rule, but I do think I'm so desensitized to any form of surveillance. I know that whenever I'm in a cafe or something, like if I'm having an argument of some kind or saying something inappropriate or doing anything that might be cancelable, let's just say, I'm perfectly aware that there might be every single person in that cafe, every single person on the sidewalk could be having voice memos open.
Jason Hiner: You have no expectation of privacy.
Sabrina Ortiz: No. Yeah. That's a good way to put it. I think when this comes out, I'm like, oh, is this any different than you just voice recording me and not telling me, and I get a summary? That's cool. It's like, but then just expectations there of privacy. Again, I would love to see public perception and also hopefully nothing goes wrong, but that will also be something we just have to wait and see.
Jason Hiner: Yeah. I think this is an issue of more like the norms and expectations of society. This feature, because it's Apple and because it's going to go out and get a lot more exposure, this is going to start to create some of those conversations around that. That part is a good thing because we need to have those because it's the Apple Watch today, but you and I know, and we've been briefed on a lot of products that haven't even been released yet, like it's coming in a whole wave of stuff over the next six months to a year, and we're going to have to have these conversations and reset expectations.
Sabrina Ortiz: Absolutely. That's the highlight of the biggest AI things, I think, but we can't close off, and I know we're right at the finish line, but without talking about the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, just a bit more, if you're...
Jason Hiner: Apple Silicon too.
Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah, yes, exactly. That's a good segue too. Those also have the new A20 Pro chip. It's a good phone. It's a good phone. If you like the 17 Pro, you'll like the 18 Pro. It's a powerful phone. It can support your AI workloads for sure. It's less expensive. It has some cool new features. If you're into photography...
Jason Hiner: What? Less expensive? It's actually...
Sabrina Ortiz: Sorry, less expensive than the Duo.
Jason Hiner: Than the Duo.
Sabrina Ortiz: I meant to say, yes, yes.
Jason Hiner: Okay, yes.
Sabrina Ortiz: Significantly...
Jason Hiner: Because it's $100 more expensive than last year's models.
Sabrina Ortiz: Sorry, I meant way less expensive than the Duo, like hundreds of dollars less expensive than the Duo. Still capable. The cameras are in every way basically better, because you have that third camera, and then all those new features, the aperture features, you can talk a bit... You're the photography nerd here.
Jason Hiner: I mean, you take more pictures than anybody I've ever met, but I do love the photography features on the phones. It has a variable aperture, so now it literally has a physical aperture in it. With that, you can control that so you can get more exactly the shots you want. You can even do... Somebody from Apple was even showing me a photo that they took with it, that they got starbursts because you can control that. You got from shooting into the sun, which was super cool. Can't wait to try that. It also has this new kind of Pro mode that you can control shutter speed. You can not only control the aperture, you can control other parts of the camera, the white balance. You don't have to just do auto white balance. You can control the white balance. You can control this more, which really makes this more and more... You're going to be able to get shots that you could only get with a pro camera, like for me, that's Sony mirrorless. There are shots that I could still only get with my Sony mirrorless, that now I'll be able to get with an iPhone. I'm pretty confident. Can't wait to try that stuff. Really, I think to bring it back to the AI of it all, of course. A lot of this is enabled by the fact that these phones... I wrote about this before the Apple event, that these phones are Apple's greatest victory in AI, because if you look at this 10-year journey of AI and ML, Apple has created an incredible phone, incredible camera in the phone. That's really enabled by those features, but they haven't tripped over themselves trying to call it AI at every turn.
Sabrina Ortiz: Their computational photography, which a lot of it is powered by AI, you would never even know.
Jason Hiner: They just made a better camera. I think more and more... I think the AI is going to fade into the background and AI in Apple devices and in other companies too. At least my hope is they're just going to make smarter, better features. They don't have to hit everybody over the head with AI every time you use it.
Sabrina Ortiz: Apple did a good job with that. If you watch the live stream, you're not getting banged over the head with AI. There's Apple Intelligence [unclear].
Jason Hiner: Just make better stuff that people like and tell them how it's going to help them and they'll be into it.
Sabrina Ortiz: The Silicon has a lot to do with that too. Apple making that in-house chipsets, they always... Or at least I think they've always tried to build for efficiency, to optimize efficiency. That's extremely crucial right now. You need as much power as you could get without tons of overheat, all those different things with the demands of AI workloads. Apple's in a good shape to actually build products using their own chipsets to power that.
Jason Hiner: What a journey over the past 10 or 15 years with Apple building its own chips. That's incredible. Johny Srouji and his team at Apple, I'm just so in awe of the work that they've done truly. I don't mean to fanboy on this because obviously we've talked about some things that we have our challenges with, but that part has been pretty incredible. The A20 Pro is an outgrowth of these other M-series chips. Apple just announced the M6 and the M5 Max and Ultra. These are arguably the best chips for AI that you can get on the desktop. It's why so many AI enthusiasts use the Mac mini for their AI agents. The A20 Pro now, you can run for the AI nerds out there. You can run a four billion parameter model on your phone. That means you can run your AI locally. You can do a lot of the things that you used to only be able to do with the most advanced models from OpenAI and Anthropic. You can do them on your phone with a local model like Gemma, that's the Google's open source model, and some of the other models like Qwen. You can run them on your phone for free, meaning you can burn through as many tokens as you want. It's also going to be faster. You can do it offline when you're on a plane. That is bananas. That is incredible. I think that I just did want to get a chance to tip my cap to how far they've come, how far and fast they've come with that Apple Silicon. Lastly, on the new phones, they have a dual neural engine now, meaning not just one, but two. You're essentially going to be able to run a lot of the AI workloads and the AI features twice as fast. That's pretty cool. For Siri AI, which also mostly runs on device, can go to the cloud for doing this. It's like super AI nerdy things that I just mentioned that I know most people aren't going to do, but people in our audience are probably going to be excited about. Those things are really going to be better and faster. Everybody likes faster.
Sabrina Ortiz: I think that's a great place to also just wrap it up. It's been a great launch event. In terms of AI, we're pretty happy with what Apple has delivered. Of course, we'll be reviewing a lot of these products. We'll have more thoughts. We'll have more hands-on time, and we'll keep all of you all posted. These are our first takes.
Jason Hiner: Hot takes, in some cases, especially yours.
Sabrina Ortiz: Shocker.
Jason Hiner: It's good. Thank you, everybody, for tuning in. Follow The Deep View for more coverage of these devices and other AI and Apple opportunities. You can go to subscribe.thedeepview.com.
Sabrina Ortiz: If you have any questions too, find us on socials. We're super responsive. We love talking to you email, Instagram, Threads, Twitter, all the places.
Jason Hiner: All the things. All right. Thanks, Sabrina.
Sabrina Ortiz: Thank you, Jason. Thank you, everyone, for tuning in.