iPhone 16 and Apple rumors with Bloomberg's Mark Gurman | Engadget Podcast

[Music] w [Music] [Music] Bo [Music] what's up everybody welcome back to another live broadcast of the Gaga podcast I'm senior editor Dinger Hardware this week I'm joined by Deputy editor Shin low hey Shin hello you're muted shulin but we will fix that and also um hey we have a special guest Mr Mark Gman from Bloomberg how's it going good thanks for having me glad to back on andget yeah it's another year we did this last year where we were like hey let's just talk to the guy whose rumors you know we're often reporting on and talking about so thank you again for coming on Mark and we're going to say quick hello to chat and then we're just going to get right into our recording how's everybody doing this morning hello chat room let me see here I see Kevin says I see Ian Walker Tom Rogers J M hello hello Trevor Smith hi everybody um we're gonna get right into it and maybe we'll do some Q&A stuff after um I want to be respectful of Mark's time so we're just gonna get right I can do some Q&A cool awesome awesome shin how's your audio sounding hello yes gotcha gotcha all right I've been saying hello for ages it's felt like the loneliest thing I was talking about how we should do an Engadget mukbang we should do a mukbang that would be fun anyway anyway that's all good hello everybody uh podcast producer Ben is around but uh he's he's on vacation and not so great internet spot so he's goingon to be off video for this one um okay let's just get right into it everybody's recordings look good hello okay oh and mute everything everything that you can find okay all right let's go in three two one what's up internet and welcome back to the gadget podcast I'm senior editor dendra hardwar I'm Deputy editor sherlin L this week it is all about the iPhone 16 rumors um because Apple announced the date for their for their event it's going to be on a Monday surprisingly enough September 9th right chin yes September 9th of Monday for for the first time which just well for the first time in a while I guess in a long time typically it's like a Tuesday but yes we have a special guest on to talk about those and uh yeah we've got some news as well but we've got a lot of rumors to dive into before all that folks if you're enjoying the show please be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or your podcast R Choice leave us a review on iTunes and drop us an email at podcast engadget.com also Thursday mornings we typically do a live stream of the show typically around 10:30 a.m. eastern or 10:45 this week it's at 12: for our special guest and that special guest is m Mr Mark German um from Bloomberg hey Mark how's it going good thank you so much for having me and for the time adjustment it's all good thank you so much like we can it's tough good for charlin we're in the east coast so it's always tough when we have to get West Coast guests on but we appreciate it and yeah mark for a bit of background right you're a chief correspondent at Bloomberg I think people typically see a lot of iPhone and other Apple rumors throughout the year and turns out you're often the source of that so can you just like give us a quick uh I don't know a quick update on how things are going on your end at Bloomberg yeah things are going great I mean this is busy season right now going into September obviously we have the Apple launch uh on the 9th there'll probably be some more announcements uh later in the year particularly on the Mac side it's been an interesting year for Apple obviously the Vision Pro launch at the beginning of February you had WWDC where they you know sort of introduced their apple intelligence their their AI features uh but in terms of the the news and the reporting I'm as interested and focused on on breaking Apple news as ever uh for those not familiar I was at 95 Mac with Seth and Zach and and and chance and crew um for seven years uh through through uh many of my my early years working on this type of stuff and then I started a Bloomberg in 2016 I'm uh I've now been there uh eight years actually as of this month and uh it's been terrific and looking forward to the next eight years of reporting on Apple yeah it's funny anniversary anniversary congrats and you have not really slowed down at all Mark like here's the thing like uh I remember when you were at nin to-5 Mac and I was at other sites too being like who is this kid reporting all this cool stuff um you're still you're still going and we've actually got a lot of details around the upcoming phones we're expecting the iPhone 16's um at this upcoming Apple event can you give us a quick rundown what do you expect because it doesn't sound like this is going to be a particularly I guess um major change on any on any of these phones yeah that's right so the big highlights if you're looking for major changes probably you're not going to find in the phone you're going to find more so on the airpods and the Apple watch but I'll start with the iPhone so per usual uh four new iPhones right the big change will be on the pro model so two major things to look out on the Pro Models you're going to have slightly larger screens right these are not big screen size increases these are Le less than 10% uh but they should be noticeable I'm not sure they're going to be notable but they certainly will be noticeable okay uh the other thing is going to be a camera button so it's a dedicated button on the right side of the phone uh next to the power button and if you've ever used the DSLR the idea is that it's going to function pretty similarly to that right so they're taking an idea that's existed in the marketplace for decades now and bringing it to the phone as part of their IDE idea where they want everyone to use an iPhone as their camera and try to disrupt the uh Standalone camera Market who knows if that will happen but this is another push in that direction and the third thing is going to be apple intelligence now as I've written I think that Apple intelligence is is well integrated uh it's prototypical Apple uh of course they did it this way but they are so behind the competition in terms of uh the overall technology and the use cases and the implementation I think Apple intelligence in its first Incarnation is uh sort of limited the summaries and notifications are are really nice and helpful these are not things that should or probably will drive sales to any extraordinary extent uh but I guess it's a good thing that they have it implemented too and perhaps only perhaps I wouldn't say for a certain this will set the foundation uh for better AI features that are more more on par with the competition I mean I'd say at this point apple is still at least two or three good years behind Google in terms of their AI uh offerings uh what's been most interesting to me is I think a lot of people have been hesitant to uh be open about that I I've seen in terms of the coverage of Apple intelligence uh for the most part I mean you guys have done a good job but for the most part I've seen uh so much positive commentary nothing critical about it but once you start using it I think a lot of people are going to say where is it what is this yeah there's not much there we've done a bunch of testing on it too charlin what are what are your thoughts on like I guess where Apple intelligence is now and also your thoughts about the camera button which I guess is be big highlight yeah I was going to ask Mark when you mentioned actually the uh camera button and that you think it's a uh you know meant to disrupt the DSLR industry and for people to kind of ditch that and switch over to their iPhone I I'm curious is that where you think apple is you know aiming or not like uh the other smartphone cameras in the game right do you think Apple might be looking at Google with the pixel line where they have extremely good mobile photography whether it's in Hardware or more importantly software for them like is that where Apple's heads at well in terms of DSLR cameras right people are not buying DSLR cameras for the button they're buying it for the gigantic lenses and the incredible zoom and color and raw photography capabilities you're able to get right those are cameras that could top you know $10,000 a piece if you combine the body with lenses and other accessories right y uh but I think trying to bring some of that feeling down Market to the thousand plus phones and I think that's what the button's going to do I think that having that button there is going to inspire people to take more pictures and use the camera more uh which in turn is going to mean people are needing to buy iPhones with more storage capacity And subscribe to iCloud plans with more storage capacity so it's a true clear win for apple and I'm not saying that's why they're doing it uh but that is certainly something that uh they are not unhappy about in terms of Apple versus Google and mobile photography you've seen Google really take a lead here because of their deep integration of AI into taking pictures apple is using you know machine learning when it comes to you know photography and stuff they've integrated some AI uh into the camera app and into the photos app but I think apple is pretty reliant on the hardware capabilities of their cameras in terms of the telephoto lenses and the setup there it's actually really amazing I saw someone take a uh iPhone 6 that the first iPhone with a camera bump and put it in a case for a pro Max right one of the latest Pro max phones and the size difference between the camera array on the current phone versus the the little camera on the iPhone 6 is just it's hilarious size difference right and I feel like technology has a way of going in One Direction and overtime going back in the other direction so you know 5 10 years from now I mean I would be surprised if you are reversing back to you know a single lens or smaller lenses that have the capabilities of the large lenses today sure uh obviously that's a physics problem but probably one that uh some people are dead set on solving I I think like specifically around the camera button too like first of all you described a really interesting like virtuous cycle for Apple Mark like basically yes more pictures you need more storage bigger iCloud like it's all and you're more reliant on the photos app and all the changes you're getting from that too but I also kind of feel like maybe more so than the $10,000 dslrs we are seeing all the like hipster love right now around like point and shoots like $1,500 the Fuji films those like really cool looking retro point in shoots but really it's it's within the same price range of what you pay for an iPhone so now maybe rather than getting a sandone camera people will have more of that feel let's talk about that camera button by the way because I think from your reporting this is not like a physical button this is a capacitive button and also may have some like some aspect of like maybe zooming or something there's some aspect to it that's physical there some aspect to it that's that's capacitive so it'll push in physically but then it has a capacitive layer on top to be able to swipe back and forth to zoom in uh to use that as your Zoom make sense um that's that's what I heard so so I heard that like yeah you can mimic that like half press to focus sort of feature that dslr's getting I'm personally really excited about this feature and that's why I kind of like am engaging you more on this I also think that our uh chat seems to be interested in this feature for example uh I believe someone in the chat was well Kevin says uh the name Kevin says says Sony's cameras are the best as Apple still use Sony sensors and um Tom Rogers asked if the camera button would be a programmable camera button or is it dedicated and I think it's dedicated to start but like can you program other features in so in terms of the the camera button so first oh on the Sony thing yes I believe Apple's still using Sony lenses uh that's one two I believe there's going to be a way for developers to tap into it so if you use a third party camera app you'll be able to use that uh as well um in terms of additional features I'm sure there'll be some customization settings but normally Apple takes a while to to roll out additional customization on new hardware features uh it's going to be interesting to me how many people need to change their action button from the camera to something else by the way does anyone use the action button mute loudly still mute still mute baby yeah do think the action button is like the potential of it is powerful with the shortcuts thing but and I have read like every now and then I see or come across a power user describing how they use the action button so I think it's good that there is that Fe functionality and that they didn't get rid of the new function because let's be honest you set it up to some crazy shortcuts array nine out of 10 times it's not going to work anyways I've tried setting up with shortcuts that's completely unreliable if you ask me um so definitely um the other thing is I feel like there's now a lot of one second oh um I I think there's a lot of overlap between the new control center the action button and the lock screen controls and then you're going to have this camera button so you now are going to have a few software components and two Hardware components that essentially do the same thing so they're just throwing a lot at the user right now I I think that's that's probably a bad thing yeah that's probably a good sign is what I'm thinking because Apple for so long has been so like the iPhone has felt hermetically sealed right while Android is this like free-for-all zone of like do whatever the hell you want with your lock screen and your home screen and everything and now it's like well now you're getting more customizations but you're also getting like physical buttons that do different things uh I have not met a normal human who actually uses the action button aside from being the mute button so I'm still using his mute like to me that's the most convenient thing because I have to do that often several times an hour like if I'm going into a call but also I want to be available for kids stuff or my wife or anything so that it's still the most useful thing there one one thing so I use it for do not disturb so I I would argue that I'm still a normal human being because I would say do not disturb and mute or in the same family right right but maybe there's a little twist there yeah um it is funny how we're just we're talking about a single button on this new iPhone right you mentioned slightly bigger screens but it really is this is kind of maybe just an off year where there really isn't that much else to look forward to um last year kind of felt like that too but we also got the uh the new the year before and the year before yeah and I know from your reporting we're we're expecting next year maybe a little more um but it's funny like last year I think the most interesting thing was the titanium uh case on the Pro Models which is what was enough to bump me up to a pro Max like then the pro Max felt lighter and easier to use all day whereas I hated the max phones before so a lot of incremental changes I guess from Apple nothing huge you've reported on other stuff strange they they there was a time certainly in in my 95 Mac days where you were getting pretty significant annual overhauls to the phones yeah at the very least you were getting pretty significant overhauls every two years then they went to like this three-year design cycle and now it feels like they're on a four or fiveyear design cycle yeah what's the deal our our smartphone became go ahead charlin go ahead do do you think yeah it's like a maturity point like we used to have obviously the S years and whatnot but yeah we're we're seemingly at the candy bar form factor to have reached like nothing everything's refinements and then where they're experimenting elsewhere outside of Apple is in foldables maybe I think of the typical life cycle of a PC like a laptop or something is four to five years and I think phones have just gotten to that point where they're now are literally our most personal computers and the hardware is good enough the software is good enough like the cameras are good enough like I'm I'm not going to upgrade and nothing from the rovs I've heard this year that makes me think I should be upgrading but that's good for everybody I guess if the hardware can actually withstand two to three to four years of uh of work uh my mom is still running an iPhone 8 and she really likes it so you know wait she still has a home button she still has a home button yeah she does she does and she likes it and she also doesn't do that much with her phone so but it still runs whereas I know I have tested like Android phones after two to three years um those things just disinte in your hand so I know there anything else you want to add about like what you're expecting Hardware wise this year mark watches yeah so I believe the camera button on the phone will be exclusive to the Pro Models okay but then the action button was going to go from the Pro Models to all the models um for this year watches and airpods so let me start with the airpods the airpods sort of an interesting lineup you have three models right now of the non headphones you have the bass you have the mid tier which is the third gen and then you have the pro second gen at the top so confusing the lowend is for 2019 so it's five years ago uh they're getting they're aging a little bit for that price point compared to some of the competition then you have the mid- tier and that's an interesting one because it's more expensive than the entry level but really not that much better and then it's only a little bit cheaper than the pro model but much worse and so they know that third gen has not sold as well as they had anticipated the entry level is not as competitive as it was three years ago so they're going to replace both and release two fourth gen models a lowend fourth gen and a highend fourth gen both below the airpods pro and the high-end fourth gen is going to have ANC in a similar case to the airpods pro with the fine my and the speaker and and what have you and then the low end is going to have similar features to the airpods pro but without a ANC and so I think that's going to give a huge boost to the airpods line and I think it's going to make it even more popular watches is is is interesting so you have that uh 10th gen or series 10 watch coming that will be a bigger case uh thinner design bigger displays so I think that is going to be uh the fan favorite of the watch line this year and whatever new health features and Chip and what have you that come to the 10 are also going to come with the ultra 3 uh the ultra 3 looks the same as the ultra one and two but that's still a fretty uh a a a pretty a pretty fresh design yeah yeah the watch just from what you're talking about Mark like that is the thing where I'm like I would I would love to have I I'm still on series 4 I don't use it as much as I would like to but I would be compelled by like something a little fresher newer thinner certainly um Shin like any thoughts on these things because I want to ask about the robotics stuff too I know uh I know I mean personally interested to hear more about the Apple watch stuff I mean the airpod stuff seems self-explanatory to me um um so yeah that's really that's really it on thing is interesting because blood oxygen very important right yeah apple is trying to get that feature back through the court system and it's already getting here they could probably settle and get that back even pretty soon I don't anticipate that coming back as part of these new models so there is a scenario where these new models ship without blood oxygen not good uh they had been pretty far down the line line of bringing blood pressure to the watch this year uh I have not heard anything about that recently and so I would say there's a chance that it didn't make the cut I had heard there were some major issues in terms of regulatory and testing also to be honest I didn't think it was that compelling because it didn't give you an actual systolic and diastolic reading it gave you sort of a uh comparison in some sort of what your Baseline is for the blood pressure so wasn't that powerful but if you could have a watch that tells you you know you're in a state of hypertension I think that would make a lot more people aware of high blood pressure and the impact of that the other thing is sleep apnea which I I do expect to to still make the cut that'd be I feel like if apple or anybody uh made a device that just helped with snoring it would save lives it would save relationships it's also like related to sleep apnea too like there there are some stupy gadgets that do that stuff but also my wife would really appreciate that like an apple CPAP machine like an apple CPAP or just something something that like rocks you to your side if you're wearing your your Apple watch and it's like you're snoring buzz buzz move to the side buddy there are a couple devices that do all sorts of things like that it is interesting we are almost 10 years from the launch of the very first airpods that was 2016 so wow this stuff is yeah this stuff has been around for so long and I think a lot of people are thinking about like what is new for Apple last year we got the Vision Pro I think it was a really interesting device go check out like my cover your coverage Mark um but it's not for everybody that is like more of a long-term view another long-term view thing you've been writing about is like robots and apple looking into robotics um potentially first off with like a homepod that has like a screen that may articulate in some way what are you what are your thoughts on like apple pursuing this especially after something like the Apple car you know they spent a decade on it a billions of dollars and that kind of went nowhere for them the robotics effort is still very early actually uh the origin of the robotics effort was within the Apple car team uh in 2020 and after they shut down the project they decided to refocus uh much of the people who are working on the car exclusively to the robotics effort so you have the first thing is a table they call it a tabletop robot internally and it's basically uh an iPad a giant iPad on a robotic neck that can can move around also they're exploring this is still very early um a mobile robot that can roam your home like an Amazon Astro they're trying to figure out what you do about multifloor homes I don't know if they'll ever figure that out the the bigger picture and this is even earlier and this is probably 10 15 year Horizon if ever is a humanoid robot and so that is definitely something they're taking a look at as well and it makes sense that this is going to be the next area for them especially if you want a hardware sort of component to the to the AI push but like they need to get the AI up to Snuff before you can really start thinking seriously about uh the the hardware side now why this makes sense a mobile or a car is a self-driving car is essentially a gigantic robot that's rolling itself on on city streets but you have to be accurate 100% of the time are you're going to risk lize if you have basically a mini car that is designed to roam through your house or your office or what have you you're not risking killing people right and so if that thing works 75% of the time it's not maybe the most ideal but you're not talking about any real risk here you're not dealing with regulatory you're not dealing with insurance you're not dealing with human lives so uh I think that going down this road even in an exp or even if it's just an exploratory uh method I think is a positive for the company in terms of looking for long-term uh projects I I feel like we've all been I mean just from science fiction alone but the dream of like a humanoid robot you know that is somehow AI powered has been a thing forever I guess it would be silly for Apple not to start taking it seriously uh do we think a uh an iPad essentially with an articulating arm it does that count as a robot I guess the Hydraulics or whatever you need for that they consider it who knows when they Market this thing what they're going to consider it yeah from a technology standpoint from a development standpoint this is a robotics effort MH uh I believe it's going to if they move forward with it which they are moving forward with it if it ultimately hits the market I would anticipate a release uh in 26 or 27 gotcha uh they're struggling with price they want to get down to a thousand so I can't imagine how expensive it is right now if they shipped it and it's amazing they're just G to just come out with these multi- thousand products that are out of people's budgets at this point I mean between the Vision Pro uh and the tabletop robot but it's a lot of they're they're going to add up to the price of what a car was yeah yeah totally I feel like that that gets to like the quintessential Apple problem I think at one point I wrote about the uh was it just the wheels for one of the Mac pros at one point or that no the stand for one of the studio displays cost like a thousand dollar and there were people were joking about the wheels too like this is this is Apple not operating in in normal human world I guess yeah hey I don't think this is going to happen for a number of reasons right uh I still think Apple should make a TV you sound like you're describing what is essentially a tabletop TV that can follow you and move around and what a lot of people don't buy TVs now like despite TVs being so cheap I see people huddling around their laptops or their tablets as that is their movie time their movie night so Apple made the right decision not building the TV but I think as a consumer and I think if you know there's someone who's willing to spend on TV for the living room I think Apple could do something just absolutely so much better than the compet ition from a business stand point it makes less than zero sense it makes negative sense to go into the TV Market I just a few uh profit on TVs is ridiculously low uh you also have the logistics complexity of shipping TVs you also have the upgrade cycles of TVs like I'm a huge Tech guy as you know I'll buy the new iPhone every Apple product when they come out uh my TV in my living room is a 2018 I don't think I've ever had a piece of technology that's six years old before and I would guess I would guess that I'm gonna have that TV for a lifespan of the TV itself of 10 to 15 years yeah until it dies yeah you can't beat apple and release products that are on a 10 to 15 year upgrade cycle yep absolutely well I guess logistically a nightmare for them but it would be really cool it would be cool even Sony though like a company that is synonymous with TVs has been trying to back out of the TV Market essentially like how to it so not a great business yeah you make a good point about the way that TV not only has changed in terms of moving from the box to to streaming right we could talk about more more about that if you want but moving from which devices you're using it on right people gathering around their laptops their iPads you know I watch uh TV on the on the on the Vision Pro or on your phone or or whatever right and so that way people consume this content has moved to this to the fact that you know what I mean how often do you even power on the TVs right so it it does depend I almost wonder if they would I feel like apple would explore I feel like the ultimate end point for something like the Vision Pro could be holographics because that is that interface could easily apply to some sort of like holographic type of device I don't know um but projectors are things we've reviewed and we've talked about a lot Anker the company Anker has like really good portable projectors I personally have like an ultra short throw which is just a little short little box that makes a 100 in Plus image I can see apple like doing something like that you know like a little device that does not take over your entire home projector yeah yeah interesting I could see it like Ultra short throws are great and Anker has stuff like their nebula projectors which are like little they're like 500 bucks but they have batteries you can move them around and make like a nice big image wherever so there's potential to like change how we how we think of like our entertainment devices um we're probably going to be running short on time soon Sherin I want to know Apple AI stuff from what you've tested from what you've heard from Mark like how are you feeling about that and what should we expect like over the next few years you think or what would you like to see I I think um to Mark's Point earlier that Apple isn't breaking a lot of new ground in this space at all and the features that Apple has shown off um have been things we've seen elsewhere before I think some of the integration is interesting we still haven't seen things like gen mooji or um the image playground but I will say what Apple has done differently which I've already mentioned earlier when we talked about it during WWDC is the Privacy approach right that private compute cloud of cor uh the white paper they release for everyone to see um Google knows it has to catch up on this front and um sorry to keep bringing Google in but that's like you know where I have a bit more insight and I know that I think recently Google may have um published something similar um with its Chrome uh security and Bug Bounty type of thing they really want to focus on that it seems like Chrome is real and also alongside the Gemini AI um launch and news with the pixel phones recently there was some mention there of um how everything is supposed to be way more secure they haven't gone as far as Apple I don't believe to create a whole new like infrastructure thing to communicate all the like um Apple intelligence requests but I think with apple having focused on that and apple proving that is a way to do this the right way at least with the Privacy approach from the start it gives people like Microsoft and Google no excuse to like be leaking your confidential information to the public all the time when it's processing your AI stuff so that's where I'm excited for Apple intelligence like the nitty-gritty like each feature thing I'm not super I don't couldn't care less about Siri with the glowing borders really it looks have you seen yeah you've seen it on your device right like that's the thing I get a and that's what Apple's selling with this new event like the the glow is on or something right um it's glow time it's glow time whenever I activate the new Siri and my entire phone glows up it is just like a little Pang of like oh this is good feeling this is like I love this UI I love the way this thing feels better than the little orb that would like get in the way of everything so I just get good VI but it's just lipstick it's just lipstick yeah but it's on a pig or on a whatever is underneath you know what I mean like I'm not I'm not going to say Siri's a pig because that would be rude but I'm going to say that Siri is behind the time MH yeah yeah one thing I'll say is I completely agree that the Privacy thing on Apple intelligence is a is a huge win it's a huge differentiator and it's great I care a lot about it personally I know there's a lot of people who care about it personally but if you look at this stuff on a global scale what percentage of consumers care or know about privacy when it comes to AI how many people use Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and all these services and such people who are of a younger generation uh just don't know just don't care yeah right so I think it's important it's a huge marketing uh Focus but it's also like a real thing within Apple philosophically but I think at the end of the day people just want the best technology they can they want it to do what it they want it to do and so I think people I think consumers have shown time and time again that they are willing to give up a bit of their privacy for better functionality such as you know using Facebook right you're you're paying for that social network access that a couple billion people use right you're paying for it with your data and two billion people show that they're very happy to do that and so I think the Privacy stuff is great I love it I would want to use something that is not private uh but this is not about me or you guys right or even the people watching this right now this is about the seven billion people on this planet who is who ultimately at some point are hopefully the address market for these Technologies and what percentage of those people care yeah I would say it's slim yeah I think it's funny to your point mark that like if you if you flip it a little bit right like the the the iPhone Market is the exact consumer that doesn't really care as much about this whereas the Android consumer tends to be a bit more on top of like Tech Trends and privacy and maybe like specs and and all of that stuff what and then that's where maybe a privacy would be a bit bigger of a concern or at least something they're aware of to start and it's it's just funny for me to see like that's the flip side but again there are a lot of Android is the thing too like a lot of Android User is the people buying the cheapest phones that they find I will just say I am me and my parents like I talked in a previous episode about like my parents use face recognition everywhere to unlock the doors in Singapore like that's what happens right and I am one of those people that's happy to give up slight like a slight amount of privacy in exchange for a better feature but yeah Mark for sure I mean what you see with the difference between Apple and Google is you have one company who doesn't build anything from the start unless privacy is very much integrated from the very beginning You're Building from the gecko around what the Privacy approach is right and then you have another company where you're building it and then you're going to tack on the Privacy uh implementation after and that I think is the big difference that you see yeah and I think the age-old question when it comes to Ai and when it comes to Apple in particular is what sort of negative impact does that privacy stance have on the functionality if you ask Apple they're going to tell you it doesn't have an impact but I think it clearly does but I would say it's having every year they roll out these new features it's having less of an impact while the Privacy stuff is getting better while the consumer features are getting better and so my hope as a consumer is we get to a point where Apple intelligence is really good in three years and it's really really driving the way you use these phones and the Privacy story is there and there would be no way for the Privacy to be as good as it is with apple uh if it didn't start out this way just it also requires a bunch of companies making mistakes I feel like Microsoft is the one that wanted to just like run with this as much as it could as quickly as it could that partnership with uh open AI co-pilot and everything uh key co-pilot features let's just go guys let's launch it and egg on their face and it's something that I think they're they're working hard to like deal with but also it is weird how those just some very obvious privacy issues that they just walked right into um certainly big heads up to Google and to Apple and everybody like the things you should probably be looking out for you know the iPhone is such oh go ahead please no no no it's fine I feel like we're really in the zone here right we're like really deep in our Fields but okay so that mine's a quick one one like to your point I think privacy may not impact people so much but it's good that they think about it from the ground similarly apple is Apple and maybe Microsoft too are both very like conscious of accessibility from the ground like they don't build it without having considered that it seems like at least from my understanding of the accessibility teams as opposed to like Google seems to be like yes also from the ground up but like it feels less crucial to them um so anyway I think these are even if something like accessibility may not seem outwardly to have a huge impact on the day-to-day billions of consumers that is important that they still consider it from the beginning of the product creation process most most definitely go go ahead Mark and I want to ask you about meditate while we have you the iPhone is such a money printing machine and that money printing machine is never to stop even if they release the same phone year after year but just change the number and I'm talking about actually doing so that will never happen where they tell consumers this is a new phone when it's not I saw this skit I don't remember if it was Kimmel or stew or whatever they went around Hollywood Boulevard uh in LA and they handed people the current iPhone or the iPhone from last year and they said hey you want to see the new iPhone and they hand it people people looked in they're like the most amazed they thing they've ever seen in their whole life and it's the same phone they have in their pocket and they were there led to believe it's a new phone there's nothing different about it so point being the brand is so strong the products are so good already and they're so relied upon that there is no uh need for Apple to take major risk the the downside to that is you're at a point where Apple's a company that's not evolving and Reinventing itself and at some point they need to meet in the middle how do you get to a place where you're Reinventing yourself you're evolving you're innovating but you're not risking the status quo and the popularity of your current products and I think just for next year and then we can move on to whatever else you want to move on to I think they're going to thread that needle I don't think they're going to change the bass iPhone much or the Pro Models to a gigantic degree but instead of releasing that fourth iPhone model that's the mini or the plus that nobody wants not nobody very few people comparably you're going to have an ultra slim phone that they're going to throw out a new design and try something new there and see if that sticks and eventually move to that direction so I think with they're realizing is you gota you got to keep your Breadwinners then you can you can try your more uh inventive stuff see if that moves the needle and then eventually tilt the company in that direction so I think it's I think that's smart to some extent happen with the iPhone 10 right so there's that everything you describe by the way Mark is true innovator dilemma stuff so this is the point where apple is um how does it move forward doesn't have a foldable you know Insight that ultra thin model sounds cool the rumors around a foldable maybe an iPad Mini type of device sounds cool but I guess we will see uh another company that's going to be having a product event soon is meta uh they're gonna have meta um yeah meta connect in a in a couple weeks towards the end of September and you've reported that we're expecting a cheaper Quest 3 model and also a glimpse at um concept device oryan AR glasses anything real quick you just want to mention there mark because you seem it seems interesting but not huge for them I have to tell you if they're able to get to $300 on the quest 3s or even $400 that is such a compelling price point the what I will say is is that you've seen meta try those price points before you've seen them try those low-end headsets before and they didn't create much Market momentum so I think VR I thought VR was dead four years ago right but it's still a market that's trying to to find itself yeah and I think that's one of the reasons that the Vision Pro is struggling you're in a market that is trying to find itself but then you have that $3,500 and up price point right before tax and accessories and storage upgrades and so I think it's A Hard Sell and I don't think uh I think headgear in a compelling for fashion is going to be when glasses as everyone knows is able to provide augmented reality I don't think that people are that interested in being fully immersed for long periods of time I think they like the idea of AR classes and I think that's where the Market's going to go but you can't necessarily get there until you start with the VR headsets right computers used to be the size of a room now they're the size of a watch right so y yep uh I mean totally compelling there we're also going to be following the meta stuff too and I'm still I'm certainly at that point where I'm like I was such a big VR believer for a while it seemed really compelling and cool the content we saw from it was cool but things have just cool because I think the overall Market is still trying to find yourself like you're saying Mark uh we'll talk more about like xreal and their glasses and stuff too because I feel like that may be kind of part of like what meta may be looking at uh that is a much cheaper almost like Vision Pro alternative um all right Mark thank you so much for joining us where can people find your work online these days where where can they find you yeah thanks for so I have my Sunday column every week power on I encourage everyone to subscribe to that it's bloomberg.com poweron to sign up you can find me on X at Markman threads Markman uh any social that you're probably on Markman and uh definitely stay tuned for for more stories to come and uh thank you both so much for having me uh it's a pleasure to be on end Gadget uh the site that I learned about tech from many years ago I'm glad you guys are still rolling thriving than if you want to stick around for like five minutes of Q&A I'm sure chat has questions too that's fine okay let's we have any questions we want to pull out yeah I I actually wanted to uh end that little segment with a quick shout out to Markell I don't know Ben if you are able to edit this in later but I'll just say this cleanly right now I just wanted to say before we wrap things up for that section that Markell said uh that he predicts that Apple will say this is their most powerful iPhone ever that's a good prediction thought that a really great way to end it um yeah we have a lot of questions I think accumulated in the chat and I don't know if um Ben you had any that you already filed Ben might be on mute though because uh with the like the stream load I think we're pushing Ben more to the background because he's at a beach house right now and we can't trust his internet and the Wi-Fi yeah might be not uh I just think we had a lot of people just weigh in and say for example demand welcome back demand said that they're still interested in a Vision Pro but that Apple needed to take a hair cut on their margins and keep it to $24.99 or $29.99 us to try to get an ecosystem up and running maybe pay devs to make apps and I don't know if that's like a fair assum like a fair assessment you think Mark okay so the ladder I think is fair I think Apple should be investing into the third party app and game ecosystem I think gaming is a very popular category of application for for VR and I think Apple has done uh next to nothing to prop up a gaming ecosystem uh including the idea that there is no hand controllers even as an option yeah I strongly disagree with the price point um comment I don't think the market I think I think the market for 2500 to 5,000 or even 6,000 for the headset I think it's the same market so I don't think that going down from 3500 to 3,000 or 2 500 uh actually changes anything I don't think there's anyone who pauses at 3500 that's not going to pause at 2500 uh the the needle mover is 1,500 uh and below and that's going to require uh new hardware so if you see them drop the price point of the Vision Pro from 3500 to 3,000 um I think that was a from a business standpoint I think that would be a really terrible decision because you're just you know losing margin on on each unit and you're not expanding your total addressable Market yeah for sure for sure I almost wonder um yeah there were also the rumors of Cheaper Vision Pro eventually like maybe maybe that'll happen what do you what are you thinking at this point uh I think that's going to happen at the tail end of next year or or early in 26 it's been the problem they're running into is how do you get the price down without removing so much functionality that you're left with a quest true and then you're still in the same situation where hold again you're not better than a quest you're still not better than a quest right maybe you're worse than a quest now and you're still forx the price sorry no I agree with you no no no I just want to say I'm going to sign up to your newsletter obviously not that I haven't already but can we like can you like tell me when they plan events so that I can plan my life like just generally when they'll have events so that I can be like I can take vacation I think everybody still thought September 10th is the thing and then they surprise I meant when you set the vision for next year I'm like all let's I'm that far ahead too no I'm kidding yeah the the the first uh um Trump uh Harris debate is on the 10th and so boy they didn't want to run up that makes sense I thought they were trying to avoid the to being too close to September 11th and having a lot of people have to travel on that date no they no that's stopped them before they were September made people fly out no they've made us fly out on September 11th before they wouldn't do an event on the 11th uh out of respect which I think is the right move exactly but this is this is related to the election gotcha I got a couple questions from the chat Mark Dell asks uh think we'll get a new airpod Max with USBC I feel feel like apple has completely forgotten about the airpod max at this point there is a new Max coming with USBC yes okay okay good good confirmation there Kevin says it was supposed to be end of this year but we'll see what happens okay oh but so not for this coming uh it's it was supposed to be it was supposed to be for this year but we'll see we'll see where it ends up go I wouldn't be surprised if it slips see well I I mean this is just from an internal chat a friend a coworker um saw a rumor that there will be like that they might be changing the size of the larger regular Watch series 10 whatever um to a 49 millimeter instead of 45 if do you think that's possible because we think that might be too big no no no I think that's what's happening oh it is what's happening and it's really freaking big then it sounds like uh well this it's getting bigger I'm assuming it's going to be 49 millim but yeah the bigger one is getting bigger and the smaller one is getting bigger too um but they'll keep the prior my hands okay I won't be happy till I have an iPhone 5 on my wrist okay just like nice nice rectangle screens are getting bigger right and so there is a scenario where the bezels are getting Slimmer and the cas it's not you know totally makes sense yeah 49 mm is huge the ultra is really big it's so it is way too big uh Kevin says in the chat says have you seen the leak benchmarks for the a18 pro it's very close to the M2 Max I wouldn't be surprised by that to be honest not I've not seen those okay and Tom Rogers in our chat says I have a paid off 12 Pro Max and I'm running it until the wheels fall off and Tom I think that's the best move as the best move until a long you know until there's a major major redesign I would guess the wheels are going to fall off pretty soon yeah especially with with the Apple Intel stuff I feel like that is the hey if you don't have a device from last year or this year you don't get to have any fun Siri time or fun yeah it's not worth the upgrade it's not worth the upgrade but it is what's going to be in the commercial and that that sweet sweet pink glow I don't know may uh may get some people I guess um well you know what mark thank you so much anything else you want to add like to the chat anything you want to mention before you head out no but I'd love to see those benchmarks if uh someone can tweet them drop a link in the chat people I have not seen those benchmarks either but uh M2 Mac is what two is years at this point so kind M2 Max is January of 23 gotcha gotcha so we're uh yeah that happened so oh man yes it's 2024 so Mark if we Cas if I have casual like speculation about Apple can I throw it at you right now sure yeah um do do you think Apple will ever buy pelaton no I don't think there's any reason to because pelaton at this point is a company that has been run completely into the ground yes there's nothing proprietary about their uh Hardware I think all they have is really Fitness if I were the board of pelaton uh I would completely write off the harbor business be entirely an app-based Fitness business and try to sell myself to Netflix uh Amazon or one of the other subscription Services the play being Netflix Fitness or Amazon netx play a good one for one to two billion to get a full of the pelaton library which say what you say about pelaton and I say a lot of bad stuff about pelaton uh All Things Considered they do have the best uh Fitness library of digital Fitness content and they have some of the most loyal users and so I think for a billion or two huge win to make that Netflix or Amazon Prime subscription more sticky I almost wonder like wouldn't it wouldn't it make sense for Apple just to get that content too you know like I just actually literally just what are they gonna do with that content right because the Fitness Plus content is all Apple branded and apple shot be really weird if they they had two two types of you know edits right so do they have bike content in Fitness plus I don't know I would assume yes I would s hi hi yes sorry I use apple Fitness Plus sorry I was ston because I was looking at the the the the yes they do have bike workouts cycling does it sync with bikes like with the smart bik it can it can with the that's I think that's the key I literally have uh are very basic just FY yeah the bow Flex I have in my garage right now which will work with pelaton and all the other apps too so that's kind of the key there it's just it's just not as integrated as a pelaton where I think like to Marks point the the the content is so good like you can you have the live like classes you can sign in and then you are competing against other people for instance or like you know I think they're they just do a better job of showing your like live stats on the screen the screen is right there too the screen is right there yes I I could just never justify the cost anyway Mark don't want to keep you too much longer thank much for joining us yeah Apple's never never is gonna buy pelaton and I'm surprised that pelon's board hasn't figured a way to offload uhet Amazon you have to assume they're smart enough to have tried so maybe it's just they don't want them which is also not too shocking but absolutely I think it would be good for both sides thank you both I'll see you audio when you're done okay thanks thank you by bye all right chat we are going to get right into the rest of the show we're just going to kind of blast through things okay you ready to go ready to go Shan yep very ready yes all right let's go in three two one let's move on to some other news and thank you again Mark for joining us um this week we I think the biggest story was this crazy arrest uh telegram CEO paval durov was arrested in France kind of out of nowhere nobody expected this um it was like big thing over the weekend he was eventually charged with Distributing cam money Laing basically the bad stuff that exists within Telegram and I guess we haven't really talked about telegram much charlin but it is a really unique app right because it's not just a messaging app it is also kind of a weird social network because people can create these public rooms and share anything and it's unmoderated completely right well I so in in that way it's very similar to things like we chat or like Discord or or or um even WhatsApp is borrowing these features all the chat apps are copying these features from each other so yes it is also and it's like every now and then I get added to a crypto group chat that has like a 100,000 or whatever how many members in it that I don't know why I was added to you know I mean so yes telegram is a strange app and this was definitely like caught me by surprise because I'm a very loyal extreme user of telegram like really I talk to all my friend yeah I've convinced my family to get on it like I think I think of telegram is the best chat app actually this is this was disappointing to see it is I mean because the thing is it is run more like a social network right like the WhatsApp you can be pushed into a WhatsApp chat but the telegram chats are like basically public you can find them and join them and like it's like a big old room out there that's what people I guess right sure in the way Discord I guess is Discord is a little bit of more of a barrier to entry I guess I don't use telegram that way though right like I use telegram mostly as a direct group chat app or direct chatting app or a group chatting app right I don't use it for the broadcast channels people are also pointing out like uh people used to conflate like Telegram and signal and signal is an fully encrypted secure messaging app telegram is not because you have to like be in a private Channel with somebody and then activate the encryption so that is another key difference which is how I use it to be clear never use those public rooms yeah I mean you're not you're not in the dark webs shn you're not there looking on tegram but it is just want to point out like how just how Wild of an app telegram is because the stuff we used to talk about from like pure dark web stuff stuff where nobody's looking and no Regulators are looking and like no moderators are really paying attention that is just what telegram has just kind of become um the latest update from last night was that he was um he posted five million pounds or five million euros in bail he's required to stay in France and under Court monitoring and check at it check in at a police station twice a week while the investigation plays out he's somebody who has dual citizenship I believe between France and where else uh telegram's technically based in Saudi Arabia so perhaps there too but yeah he can't go back to Saudi Arabia um and I think it's because of just the sheer amount of awful stuff that's happening on telegram they're blaming him specifically for lack of moderation how like what was your reaction when you heard this new Shin first off like I said disappointment right like and then my immediate second reaction was I'm not leaving telegram some of my group chats so my group Chats on telegram are mostly like the tech people that you all know and love um from wire people from you know former co-workers people from the influencer space and uh one of them in one of our group chats was like so should we move to RCS move to it's not a great platform to be associ with but yeah it's sort of like are you gonna stay on Twitter because uh you know Elon Musk made it all awful all of a sudden except I think the argument here is that telegram always sort of was enabling the stuff and the stuff is disgusting like openly sharing cam um a lot of like illegal activity uh our friends over at 44 media have done a lot of reporting around the crazy stuff they've seen at Telegram and I think even they're wondering like why the heck is it just telegram that all this stuff is happening in it's because it's a big social thing with no moderation right so yeah um I see a correction here thank you Ben uh durav has dual French and uh Saudi Arabian or yeah United Arab Emirates citizenship UAE yeah UAE he is stuck in France basically though he is somebody who's used to like traveling the world and going all over the place not surprisingly like right-wing pundits are really decrying this move as being a move against free speech and whatnot but also I think the sheer lawlessness of telegram is worth worth like pointing at and if it requires arresting a CEO when he's on your in your country maybe it should come to that um did you see Mark Zuckerberg kind of out of nowhere saying hey man the US government made us uh put all this uh covid like uh squash a lot of like weird um false covid information we don't feel too good about that we did I didn't like being pushed to do that that was weird I I didn't see that I I want to by the way thank guom in the chat for providing the the um background on dav's uh citizenship info uh G also said that like he just like you know French UAE as well as Russian apparently um and that this story according to GFR stays inside French jurisdiction it is the Paris Court um but yeah the Mark Zucker BR stuff is very weird like I I guess where since you said like the telegram is based in Saudi Arabia the laws and the regulations around it are looser perhaps then say Facebook or meta since they're in the US and therefore protection against like cesam versus free speech that sort of thing is it's less C dry I don't think they're thinking about Free Speech too much but also exactly over in Saudi Arabia probably so like when when Mark pointed that out and Zucker Brook pointed out that like he had to be told that you know was he reacting to the telegram stuff or was he just not it it felt like it came out of nowhere it was it sort of like the meme like nobody blank blank blank Mark the US government forced me to be very responsible about Co information and now uh he's also talking about like uh he's not going to fund uh information around like El uh basically he and his wife used to fund something to encourage people to vote and get voting information out there and he doesn't want to fund that anymore uh he's talking about being neutral politically which I'm not that's a really chicken thing to say I think that's ultimately where I come down in it I don't know if other people have other opinions but Mark Zuckerberg with his glow up and everything he is high on life free of worries apparently and politically neutral um perfect and Rising it up apparently that's what the kids say anding it up uh we also want to point out a couple other things Razer announced first controller with Hall joysticks um jonda did a great hands on with this thing the Wolverine B3 Pro it's $200 works with the Xbox and PC notably it's a wireless Xbox controller which there aren't really too many of those out there um je seems to like it if you want Hall uh sticks this seems like a good one and what do you think uh can I ask do you think they had to license the name Wolverine I don't think you have to license the name wolfrey no you're not no no no you don't uh you do have to license the name Droid apparently like early on remember the early Android like the Droid had to be licensed to Lucas film the Motorola Droid but not Wolverine because Wolverine is an animal that exists uh what do you think of the new AI pin Trin uh we saw pla I already hate this company I hate their name I hate everything it's a little pen you wear and it records all your conversations I guess without anybody's permission another pen you want to review this one no I mean look look look let's put it let's let's let's clar ify too right this AI pin isn't just to be like the Humane AI pin which is like a second brain supposedly or like there to like project a screen or play music or whatever the pla uh AI pin is called the plot note pin it is a note taking device but with some quot AI bells and whistles I'm quoting our article by Lawrence Bonk um it will automatically record and transcribe conversations and that is pretty much it apparently uh it can transcribe and translate 59 languages with more on the way it'll supposedly learn to correctly name each speaker and organize your talk um and assign speaker labels it will like pick up the name during the conversation if it's mentioned and then like assign so like there's some stuff that using AI to do that seems smarter than the average AI pin but again we've been burned so many literally burned in my case um by AIP pin so many times that like it's really hard to quickly buy into it um I like the idea of an AI notet taking device this way sure um and Ben is pointing out that uh that Ben has used otter AI so much that it's supposed to like learn speaker like look not only otter other transcription Services right rev uh the the the pixel recorder app they're Samsung's recorder app all supposed to learn how to assign speaker labels I mean I will say pixel is better at assigning speaker one speaker two speaker three than most things I've seen but it hasn't been smart enough to learn the names yet which is fine by me I can assign it myself um anyway I am intrigued by the idea of an AI pin I've always been right or a wearable camera wearable recording device I think I need to just go and buy a body cam but anyway yeah you need a body cam that's it or just like put a put a GoPro on your head and just yes that's it go through like just like that like a pure that's why I like the snap spectacles early on when they first launched I liked the I whatever um I'm not a fan of people walking around with the devices are just literally recording everything around them like that's the ultimate that's what this thing does it's purely what it's meant to do it's not clear to other people it's not clear like when you're it needs to be clear um and I will say that the look of this thing is quite different from like other AI pins we've seen it's more cylindrical in shape it kind of looks like a a big bullet almost um and I don't know quite yet how pill can be attached to your body but you know I mean good luck to this company but this looks like another AI device that is about to crash and burn you could do the same thing if you want to transcribe conversations you can pay for Otter AI right now or a descript which is what we use for a lot of our podcast transcription stuff like there are Services you can use your phone can do it your computer can do it um yeah that's the whole thing what is what is more useful by the way Shin this thing or the Barbie flip phone what are you more excited by excuse me I think so yeah in fun Gadget land this week right I I freaking love the new pink Barbie phone I cannot hmd the company that brought us the more recent Nokia branded phones has launched the Barbie phone it is a device that is hot pink a flip phone and is apparently sanctioned by Mattel um but like a year after Barbie fever I guess a little a little slow yeah so so on time H but they only cost $129 um and I'm just like all right well if I needed like it has like a has a teen N9 keyboard it's got no third party apps apparently it won't do like social media but it will call and send text like I think hmd um and and another piece of news uh this week recently was that what was the GameStop was doing a retro pivot I think this whole like idea of retro devices that are a bit more simple um being their Focus right now for hmd is not dumb it's pretty smart like dumb phones aren't a dumb idea I actually want to get one now it may make sense to have like another just another device that can be not as yeah not as for calling overwhelming as your smartphone I do take issue with some things like this thing has a 5 megapixel camera with flash that is set to deliver quote authentic Y2K style images let me tell you what images from your phone looked like around y 2K it was not 5 megapixels it was it was like barely BGA was like 120 4 480p 220 by 240 like my first like I got a really nice Sony Ericson phone like 2003 2004 and even that was like a uh a potato camera basically is what we used to call them um I'm glad this thing exists although I would love to see videos of just like people just like Young's like a gen Z trying to figure out how do you type on a for your kid I don't know buy it for your kid I know I mean you can actually get cell access it can actually send texts and do things um but it's sort of like uh just yeah throwing this thing at somebody who has never seen a T9 keyboard before how will they survive how will they how will you text on this anybody I know I know I'm actually literally copying the link right now and asking telling people I want to review it you should absolutely review it this seems like a Sherin device if there is one let's move on to what we're working on want to shout out hey I reviewed the Dell XPS 13 the copilot plus version of this this is the one with the new Snapdragon uh ex Elite chip um it's an interesting laptop because we literally just reviewed the Intel version of this same exact machine so the screen keyboard everything exactly the same uh this one is just snapdragon powered so it has all the issues we talked about around the Surface Pro app compatibility weirdness um slowdown when you're emulating some apps like every note always feels a little weird to me it won't run some games because some games don't run on arm chips um so it's an interesting thing I initially decked um or docked it a couple points in our review too because the battery Benchmark came in really low like much lower than I expected it was like seven and a half hours and then I did some updates which came in after the review like were not showing up for meain Windows update or whatever after I did that update I started getting better Snapdragon performance so that is weird it's weird how all that stuff works but anyway now we're seeing like 17 hours and 30ish minutes um we'll have a final number soon um I'm intrigued by this thing but I still think like if you have the choice between an Intel or AMD system versus one of these unless you really want that super low power Snapdragon life like you there really aren't any benefits here do you see any benefits of like an arm machine like this trillin when you can get an x86 x64 machine instead I just I mean it's the same issue I think the Surface tablets uh and and laptops seem more cool um that they seem to have gotten over the emulation issues and so if you want extremely long battery life and exchange for that architecture Arm based architecture uh with a potential of not being able to use an app here or there or not gaming for example yeah yeah but otherwise yeah obviously I think the Intel and AMD machines with slight AI power it's better because yeah it's a more known like product like it's a more what is it when you say no what's that saying known known quantity known whatever know quantity sure thing it's a it's like it's a sure bet we kind of know what those things are yeah you know what to expect yeah and you know what to expect and I feel like if you're spending a th000 to $2,000 on a computer you kind of don't want to risk it on a new on like a fledgling platform AMD just released their new um AI chips which are supposed which have much better mpus in their earlier chips we're expecting the new stuff from Intel very soon so even then the choice is going to get a little more confusing but hey I also want to say this thing has the same issues I've always had with the new redesign of the XPS 13 I don't like the invisible touchpad sorry right and that function that function row is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen because it's a it's a cap passive lightup row and it disappears in sunlight because it's not a physical key so I am just not a fan of that anything else you want to mention uh that you've been working on charin I mean the general stuff right we have the Apple event date already so now we know I'm going to be busy planning that and then we're still kind of in the midst of pixel reviews you all just don't know okay so more and plenty of yeah plenty of like that background planning and and executing stuff not people Jesus um yes I'm sure you would like to execute some people but we will not talk about that on air to our pop culture picks for the week what do you got trillin yeah um I have so I remembered what I wanted to talk about last week okay as I saw it pop up I I by the way uh D I don't know if you'll be proud of me I signed up for our AMC like stubs or whatever it is subscription alist aist yeah aist thank you I am an AMC aist now just because now do watch movies so frequently to Warrant It Anyway totally worth it um yesterday just yesterday I saw alen ramulus I've been dying to watch it um and I know you covered it already so I'm not GNA go too much into it here but the week before or several weeks before whatever I actually what I saw was and I can't remember if I talked about it on this show long legs do you remember this one Dev I mean did I talk about it already I just I just rewatched it with my wife too I don't know if you I forget if you talked about it but what did you think yeah so it's what was it Nicholas Cage isn't it and I was like this is we know what to expect with Nicholas Cage which is that we don't know what to expect and it's always kind of like hit or miss or whatever um and this was one of those where he's just unhinged and his acting is like kind of like wild but the story I don't know I I thought it was interesting if it was a winner it's it's The Vibes like it's doesn't make sense but is so creepy I was watching it uh with my wife like we had a bit of free time and it was bright and sunny outside we went to the basement turned on this movie and just like the sheer Vibe of dread and fear and all that is in that movie it's so good if you like long WS uh by the way I'd recommend um did you ever see cure the Koshi kurasawa movie from like 1999 that is another very similar movie about like this these murders are happening this detective is trying to figure out what's going on and um there's like direct Supernatural stuff it's really cool that I think you'd appreciate that movie yeah I like I like the vibe to that to your point yeah okay check got long legs also kurasawa has a new horror movie coming this year too and I hear people really like it I have more I have more game picks to recommend but but I think I'm gonna save them for next time okay all good I want to quickly shout out a game that has sort slowly like taken over my free time and my nights and it's called tactical breach Wizards if you're like me and you like tactical RPGs stuff like um I guess uh Final Fantasy Tactics but there have been a whole bunch of like PC ones too uh this is a cool one of those set in a world where it's a modern world where magic exists uh Wizards and witches exists and it's really cool it's really funny it's well written um the actual gameplay the tactics works I think is like really fun and always like it's always changing and always like keeping your brain going I I think you would actually have a lot of fun with this game charin because you serious about everything to I think you would like it because it's the characters are fun and I think like I'm just trying to get you to push you beyond like the basic basic ass puzzle the games like you're going for anyway if you like everyone what I've been play yeah tell us give us one you saw the slack that I dropped in our in our Gadget team slack y'all don't get to see angadgets fire slack conversations which we may publish with them every now and then I don't know whatever um but like we've been sharing some of the shitty games I've been recently hooked on this game called fruit merge yeah yeah okay we'll talk about that next episode or something next episode folks we're gonna keep trying to get charlin into real games hey any game real games any game is a good game but I think some games are better than others I don't know any thank you Krillin uh anybody who check who likes tactical RPGs check out tactical breach Wizards it's a lot of fun I clearly like I think the the creators it's developed by suspicious developments as a developer um I think they like clearly thought about this world so there's like an ongoing religious War there are people who are like using magic Mana for illegal you know efforts like there are uh you're play basically playing a group of like Rainbow Six type people who breach into buildings and rescue people or get information and but they have magic powers I think that's really cool this is a really cool universe that could easily be like a book series or an anime series or something eventually too so I love the universe and I think people would appreciate so that's tactical breach Wizards okay you can wrap all right Chad I'm going to do the outro recording and then we can do some Q&A okay well that's it for the episode this week everyone thank you as always for listening our theme music is by game composer Dale North our outro music is by our former managing editor Terrence O'Brien the podcast is produced by Ben Elman you can find the vindra online at at the vindra on Twitter Blue Sky Mason your usual places and podcast about movies and TV at the filmcast at the filmcast docomo badly you want to see our team slacks online I guess I don't know sometimes become posts you know sometimes our our ideas do become posts yeah they do we uh you can send uh your requests to me on Twitter or x i at sherlin low uh c h e r l y n n l o w or threads Sher linstagram or email c h e r l YNN engadget.com email us your thoughts about the show and anything else at podcast engadget.com leave us a review please on wherever you're listening to this podcast that helps people find us and then subscribe on wherever you're listening awesome thanks thanks folks we're out okay chat thanks for joining us late um whoever said batro the reason I didn't mention batro is I don't like card games Ben yeah Ben I don't like card games you you cards and you're G and I'm out wait Tom Rogers says they want to see the engag telegram the engaged telegram is like event specific so we have the telegram for like if you go to CES or like whatever um so exposing the end Gadget telegram would be actually terrible opset would be bad it would be boring the slack is where it's at like I might leak our slacks every now and then um apologies to Kevin says for your vampire survivors addiction yeah it's a good game great game that's a real game we got CH into a real game there yeah I love that one um okay so then hi to Jonathan Anderson and who joined a little late um but didn't miss much I know that Dean was also worried they missed half the show you're fine anytime you guys join us it's like fine um why says Cooking Mama and don't even I like got stuck on Cooking Mama for so long for anyway I think that is thank you all for joining us time for us yeah yeah that's time we had a good one I'm glad we're able to get mark on please be sure to stay tuned for we're going to have a whole bunch of coverage if you have questions about new Apple Hardware new met Hardware if you have questions you want us to bring up on the show or you send us questions we will think about like how we handle coverage too like it does feedback is helpful and good we really want to know what you like to see yeah drop us some comments here but also podcast in gadget.com um please send us feedback I'd love to respond to some letters also next week's show will be starting at 10:30 again and we have a special guest 10:45 might be yeah 10:30 is when I supposed to dial uhuh uhhuh anyway okay bye to Kevin says bye Why by Tom Rogers bye to Jonathan Anderson bye to Mark who needs to go back to work yes you do y you guess you need but you do um bye to d man back we do we do yeah I I also need to unfortunately go back to work by the dude named Charlie was the last one I saw all righty but Simon B bye next week's not about Apple Fans next week we got other stuff and then then we be apple week and then Apple event so come back come back it's gonna be fun I think it's fun all all right thanks folks we're out bye