Engadget Podcast: iPhone 16 and Apple rumors with Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman

Engadget Podcast: iPhone 16 and Apple rumors with Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman

Apple is gearing up to launch the iPhone 16 on September 9th, so we've brought on Bloomberg's Mark Gurman to chat about his scoops around Apple's upcoming hardware. We should expect some notable additions, like a dedicated camera button, as well as slightly larger screens on the Pro models. We'll also dive into Apple's robotics efforts — does anyone really want an Apple bot rolling around their home? Finally, we'll discuss Gurman's reporting around Meta's upcoming devices: A cheaper Quest 3 model, as well as a glimpse at prototype AR glasses.

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<li>2024 iPhone event preview with Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman – 0:50</li>
<li>Telegram CEO Pavel Durov arrested in Paris – 37:45</li>
<li>Razer reveals the Wolverine V3 Pro stick drift-resistant controller – 44:23</li>
<li>Meet Plaud’s NotePin. Another AI wearable??? – 45:07</li>
<li>Y2K style goes mobile with HMD’s hot pink Barbie flip phone – 48:10</li>
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<h2 id="jump-link-credits">Credits </h2>
Hosts: Devindra Hardawar and Cherlynn Low
Guest: Mark Gurman
Producer: Ben Ellman
Music: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien

<h2 id="jump-link-transcript">Transcript</h2>
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Devindra: What's up, Internet, and welcome back to the Engadget Podcast. I'm Senior Editor Devindra Hardawar.
Cherlynn: I'm Deputy Editor Cherlynn Low.
Devindra: This week, it is all about the iPhone 16 rumors. Apple announced the date for their, for their event. It's going to be on a Monday, surprisingly enough. September 9th
Cherlynn: Cherlynn?
Yes, September 9th Monday for the first time, which is super exciting. It's, well, for the first time in a while, I guess.
Devindra: In a long time. Typically, it's like a Tuesday. But yes, we have a special guest on to talk about those. And 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 podcaster of 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 AM Eastern or 10 45 this week.
It's a 12 for our special guest. And that special guest is Mr. Mark Gurman from Bloomberg. Hey, Mark, how's it going?
Mark: Good. Thank you so much for having me. And for the time adjustment,
Devindra: it's all good. Thank you so much. Like we can, it's good for me. Don't worry. Good for sure. Lynn. 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, you're a chief correspondent at Bloomberg. I think people typically see a lot of iPhone and other Apple rumors throughout the year. And it turns out you're often the source of that. So. Can you just give us a quick I don't know, a quick update on how things are going on your end at Bloomberg.
Mark: Yeah, things are going great. I mean, this is busy season right now going into September. Obviously, we have the Apple launch on the 9th. There'll probably be some more announcements 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. But in terms of the, their news and the reporting, I'm as interested and focused on, on breaking Apple news as ever. For those not familiar, I was at nine to five Mac with Seth and Zach and, and, and chance and crew for seven years.
Through, through many of my, my early years working on this type of stuff. And then I started up Bloomberg in 2016. I've now been there eight years, actually, as of this month. And it's been terrific and I'm looking forward to the next. Eight years of reporting on Apple.
Cherlynn: Happy anniversary.
Devindra: Anniversary. Congrats. And you have not really sLowd down at all, Mark. Like here's the thing. I remember when you were at nine to five Mac and I was at other sites too, being like, who's this kid reporting all this cool stuff? 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 sixteens 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, major change on any, on any of these phones.
Mark: Yeah, that's right. So the big highlights, and 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 four new iPhones. The big change will be on the pro models. 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 less than 10%. But they should be noticeable. I'm not sure they're going to be notable, but they certainly will be noticeable. The other thing is going to be a camera button. So it's a dedicated button on the right side of the phone next to the power button. And if you've ever used a DSLR, the idea is that it's going to function pretty similarly to that.
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 idea where they want everyone to use an iPhone as their camera and try to disrupt the 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 well integrated. It's prototypical Apple. Of course they did it this way, but they are so behind the competition in terms of the overall technology and the use cases in the implementation.
I think Apple intelligence in its first incarnation is sort of limited. The summaries and notifications are really nice and helpful. These are not things that should, or probably will drive sales to any extraordinary extent. But. I guess it's a good thing that they have it implemented to and perhaps only perhaps I wouldn't say for a certain this will set the foundation for better AI features that are 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. Offerings what's been most interesting to me is I think a lot of people have been hesitant to be open about that. I I've seen in terms of the coverage of apple intelligence for the most part, I mean you guys have done a good job, but for the most part i've seen 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?
Devindra: Yeah, there's not much there. We've done a bunch of testing on it too. Sherilyn, what are, what are your thoughts on I guess where Apple intelligence is now, and also your thoughts about the camera button, which I guess is going to be the big highlight. Yeah.
Cherlynn: I was going to ask Mark, when you mentioned actually the camera button and that you think it's a you know, meant to disrupt the DSLR industry and for people to kind of ditch that and switch over to their iPhone.
I'm curious, is that where you think? Apple is You know, aiming, or not 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.
Is that where Apple's head's 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?
Mark: But I think Apple is trying to bring some of that feeling down market to the thousand dollar 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 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. But that is certainly something that 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 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 iphone 6 That was 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 It's hilarious, the, the, the size difference, right?
And I feel like technology has a way of going in one direction and over time 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. Obviously that's a physics problem, but probably one that some people are dead set on solving.
Devindra: I think like specifically around the camera button to 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 DSLR is we are seeing. All the like hipster love right now around like pointed shoots, like 1, 500, the Fuji films, those like really cool looking retro point and 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 standalone camera, people will have more of that feel. Let's talk about that camera button, by the way. Cause I think from your reporting, this is not like a physical button. This is a capacitive button and also may have some some aspect of like maybe zooming or something.
Mark: There's some aspect to it. That's physical. And there's 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. To use that as your zoom. That's,
Cherlynn: that's what I heard. So, so I heard that yeah, you can mimic that like half press to focus sort of feature that DSLRs get.
I'm personally really excited about this feature and that's why I kind of like, I'm engaging you a more on this. I also think that our chat seems to be interested in this feature. For example I believe someone in the chat was well, Kevin says the name Kevin says, says Sony's cameras are the best as Apple still use Sony sensors.
And 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 can you program other features in?
Mark: So in terms of the, the camera button, so first, oh, on the Sony thing, yes, I believe Apple is still using Sony lenses. 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 as well. In terms of additional features, I'm sure there'll be some customization settings, but normally Apple takes a while to roll out additional customization on new hardware features. 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 for anything other than mute? I used it for Mute,
Cherlynn: proudly. Still Mute, still
Devindra: Mute baby. Yeah.
Cherlynn: I 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 functionality and that they didn't get rid of the Mute function. Let's be honest, you set
Mark: 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 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 softer components and two harder components that essentially do the same thing. So they're just throwing a lot at the user right now. I think that's probably a good
Devindra: sign. Yeah, it'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 do whatever the hell you want with your lock screen and your home screen and everything. And now it's well, now you're getting more customizations, but you're also getting like physical buttons that do different things. 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. Cause I have to do that often several times an hour. 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. Let me give you one.
It is funny. One thing.
Mark: 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 are in the same family. But maybe there's a little twist there.
Devindra: 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. Last year kind of felt like that too, but we also got the year before titanium in the year before, and the year before, and I know from your reporting, we're expecting, we're expecting next year, maybe a little more.
But it is funny, like last year, I think the most interesting thing was the titanium 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. A lot of incremental changes, I guess, from Apple.
Nothing huge.
Mark: Isn't it so strange? There was a time, certainly in my 9 to 5 Mac days, where you were getting pretty significant annual overhauls to the phones. At the very least you were getting pretty significant overhauls every two years. Then they went to this three year design cycle, and now it feels like they're on a four or five year design cycle.
What's the deal?
Cherlynn: 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 seeing 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.
Devindra: I think of a 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 are 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.
Can upgrade and nothing from the rumors. 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 2 to 3 to 4 years of work. My mom is still running an iPhone 8 and she really likes it. So, you know,
Cherlynn: wait, she still has a home button.
Devindra: She still has a home button. 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've tested like Android phones after two to three years. Those things just disintegrate in your hand. So I, yeah, I don't know there. Anything else you want to add about like what you're expecting hardware wise this year, Mark?
So
Mark: I believe the camera button on the phone will be exclusive to the pro models, but then the action button was going to go from the pro models to all the models. For this year watches and air pods. So let me start with the air pods, the air pods, sort of an interesting lineup. You have three models right now of the non headphones.
You have the base, you have the mid tier, which is the third gen. And then you have the pro second gen at the top. The low end is from 2019. So it's five years ago. 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 the third gen has not sold as well as they had anticipated. 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 low end fourth gen and a high end fourth gen, both below the AirPods pro and the high end fourth gen is going to have ANC.
And a similar case to the AirPods pro with the fine, my, and the speaker and what have you, and then the low end is going to have similar features to the AirPods pro, but without 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 10th gen or a series 10 watch coming. That will be a bigger case, a thinner design, bigger displays. So I think that is going to be a, 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 three the ultra three looks the same as the ultra one and two, but that's still a pretty fresh design.
Devindra: 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 said, I'm still on series four. I don't use it as much as I would like to, but I would be compelled by something a little fresher, newer, thinner, certainly. Sherilyn, like any thoughts on the, these things?
Cause I want to ask about the robotics stuff too.
Cherlynn: I know I know. I mean, personally interested to hear more about the Apple watch stuff. I mean, the AirPods stuff seems. self explanatory to me. So yeah, that's really, that's the watch thing
Mark: is interesting because blood oxygen, very important. Apple is trying to get that feature back through the court system and it's already been a year. 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.
They had been pretty far down the line of bringing blood pressure to the watch this year. 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. Comparison and some sort of what your baseline is for the blood pressure. So it 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 do expect to still make the cut.
Devindra: That'd be, I feel if Apple or anybody made a device that just helped with snoring. It would save lives. It would save relationships. It's also like relate to sleep apnea too. Like there, there are some startup y gadgets that do that stuff, but also my wife would really like an Apple
Mark: CPAP machine,
Devindra: 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 you're snoring. to the side, buddy. There are a couple of devices use 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 this stuff has, yeah, this stuff has been around for so long.
And I think a lot of people are thinking about what is new for Apple? Last year we got the vision of pro. I think it was really interesting device. Go check out like my coverage, your coverage, Mark. But it's not for everybody that is like more of a longterm view. Another longterm view thing you've been writing about is like robots and Apple looking into robotics potentially first off with a home pod that has like a screen that may articulate in some way.
What do 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 billions of dollars and that kind of went nowhere for them.
Mark: The robotics effort is still very early. Actually the origin of the robotics effort was within the Apple car team in 2020.
And after they shut down the project, they decided to refocus much of the people who were working on. 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 an iPad. A giant iPad on a robotic neck. That can, can move around.
Also, they're exploring, this is still very early a mobile robot that can roam your home like an Amazon Astro. They're trying to figure out what you do about multi floor homes. I don't know if they'll ever figure that out 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.
The hardware side. Now, why this makes sense, a mobile, our cars, a self driving car is essentially a gigantic robot. That's rolling itself on, on city streets, but you have to be accurate. 100 percent of the time, are you going to risk lies? 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.
And so if that thing works 75 percent 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, I think that going down this road, even in an ex or even if it's just an exploratory method, I think is a positive for the company in terms of looking for longterm.
Devindra: I feel like we've all been, I mean, just from science fiction alone, but the dream of 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. Do we think a 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 something
Mark: who knows when they market this thing, what they're going to consider it. From a technology standpoint, from a development standpoint, this is a robotics effort. 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 in 26 or 27.
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. Going to just come out with these multi thousand dollar products that are out of people's budgets at this point. I mean, between the Vision Pro and the tabletop robot, it's a lot of, they're going to add up to the price of what a car was.
Devindra: Yeah. Yeah. Totally. And I feel like that, that gets to like the quintessential Apple problem. I think at one point I wrote about the 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 costs like a thousand dollars. And there were people who were joking about the wheels too.
Like this is, this is Apple not operating in normal human world, I guess. Yeah.
Mark: Hey, I don't think this is going to happen for a number of reasons. I still think Apple should make a TV. Yeah. Totally.
Devindra: 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. I know that is their movie time, their movie night. So Apple made the right decision.
Mark: 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 A tv for the living room. I think apple could do something just absolutely so much better than the competition from a business standpoint It makes less than zero cents.
It makes negative sense to go into the TV market and just a few profit on TVs is ridiculously low. 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, but when they come out my TV in my living room is the best.
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 going to have that TV for a lifespan of the TV itself of 10 to 15 years.
Devindra: Yeah. Until it dies. Yeah. You
Mark: can't be Apple and release products that are on a 10 to 15 year upgrade cycle.
Absolutely. Well, I guess just a nightmare for them.
Devindra: But it would be really cool. It would be cool. Even Sony though. Sony, like a company that is synonymous with TVs has been trying to back out of the TV market, essentially, or how much is devoted to it. So not a great business. Yeah.
Mark: You make a good point about the way that TV not only has changed in terms of moving from the box to streaming, we could talk about more, more about that if you want, but moving from which devices you're using it on, people gathering around their laptops, their iPads. You know, I watch. TV on the, on the, on the vision pro or on your phone or whatever. And so. That way of 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?
So it, it does depend. I almost wonder if they would, I feel like Apple would explore, I feel like the ultimate endpoint for something like the vision of pro could be holographics. Cause that is that interface could easily apply to some sort of like holographic type of device. I don't know. But.
Devindra: 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 an ultra short throw, which is just a little, little box that makes a 100 inch plus image. I could see Apple like doing something like that. You know, like a little device that does not Yeah, interesting.
Yeah, 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 is potential to change how we, how we think of it, like our entertainment devices.
We're probably gonna be running short on time soon. Sherlin, 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 think 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 have been things we've seen elsewhere before.
Cherlynn: I think some of the integration is interesting. We still haven't seen things like Genmoji or 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 core the white paper they release for everyone to see Google knows it has to catch up on this front.
And sorry to keep bringing Google in, but that's You know, where I have a bit more insight. And I know that I think recently, Google may have published something similar with its Chrome security and bug bounty type of thing. They really want to focus on that. It seems like Chrome is really, and also alongside Google.
The Gemini AI launch and news with the Pixel phones recently. There was some mention there of 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 Apple intelligence requests.
But I think with Apple having focused on that and Apple proving that there 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 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 pretty in that, but
Devindra: have you seen, yeah. You've seen it on your device, right? That's the thing. I get a, and that's what Apple's selling with this new event.
Like a, the, the glow is on or something. 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 oh, this is good feeling. This is I love this ey. I love the way this thing feels better than the little orb that would get in the way of everything.
So it's just lipstick goodbye from it. It's just lipstick. Yeah.
Mark: And on a pig or on a
Cherlynn: whatever is underneath, you know what I mean?
Mark: 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 times. One thing I'll say is I completely agree that the privacy thing on Apple intelligence 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 just don't know, just don't care.
And so I think it's important. It's a huge marketing 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 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. You're paying for it with your data and 2 billion people show that they're very happy to do that. And so I think the privacy stuff is great. I love it. I wouldn't want to use something that is not private. But this is not about me or you guys, right?
Or even the people watching this right now. This is about the 7 billion people on this planet who is, who ultimately at some point are hopefully the addressable market for these technologies. And what percentage of those people care? I would say it's slim.
Cherlynn: Yeah. I think it's funny, to your point, Mark, that 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. And then that's where maybe a privacy would be more important. 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 that's the flip side. But again,
Devindra: there are a lot of answers is the thing too. Like a lot of Android users, the people buying the cheapest phones that they find. I will just say, I am
Cherlynn: 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.
That's what happens. 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. I
Mark: 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 get go around what the privacy approaches, right? And then you have another company where you're building it and then you're going to tack on the privacy implementation after, and that I think is what the big difference that you see. 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 when 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 if it didn't start out this way, just
Devindra: my view.
It also requires a bunch of companies making mistakes. I feel like Microsoft is the one that wanted to just run with this as much as it could, as quickly as it could that partnership with open AI co pilot and everything 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 a deal with, but also, It is weird how those were just some very obvious privacy issues that they just walked right into. Certainly big heads up to Google and to Apple and everybody like the things you should probably be looking out for, you know, Go ahead, please.
Cherlynn: 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 up. Similarly, Apple is Apple and maybe Microsoft too are both very like conscious of accessibility from the ground up.
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 Google seems to be like, yes, also from the ground up, but it feels less crucial to them. 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 definitely.
Devindra: Go ahead, Mark, and I want to ask you about Meta too while we have you.
Mark: The iPhone is such a money printing machine, and that money printing machine is never going 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 in a scenario that will never happen where they tell consumers, this is a new phone when it's not, I saw this skip.
I don't remember if it was Kimmel or store or whatever. They went around Hollywood Boulevard 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 handed it to people, people looked in there, like the most amazed they've thing they've ever seen in their whole life.
And it's the same phone they have in their pocket. And they were 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 need for Apple to take major risks. The downside to that is you're at a point where Apple is 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 base 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 comparatively You're going to have an ultra slim phone That's they're going to throw out a new design and try something new there And see if that sticks and eventually move it to that direction So I think what they're realizing is you gotta you gotta keep your breadwinners.
Then you can you can try your more 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.
Devindra: That kind of happened with the iPhone 10, right? So there's that. Everything you described, by the way, Mark, is true innovator's dilemma stuff.
So this is the point where Apple is how does it move forward? Doesn't have a foldable, you know, insight. That ultrathin model sounds cool. The rumors around a foldable, maybe an iPad mini type of device sounds cool, but I guess we will see. Another company that's going to be having a product event soon is Meta.
They're going to have MetaConnect in a, in a couple of weeks towards the end of September. And you've reported that we're expecting a cheaper Quest 3. Model and also a glimpse at a concept device orion ar glasses Anything real quick. You just want to mention there mark because these seem it seems interesting, but not huge I have
Mark: 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 is I thought VR was dead four years ago, right? But it's still a market that's trying to find itself 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 thirty five hundred dollar 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 I think headgear In a compelling 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 glasses, 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.
I
Devindra: 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 cooled because I think the overall market is still trying to find yourself.
Like you're saying, Mark we'll talk more about like X real and their glasses and stuff too, because I feel like that may be, kind of part of what Meta may be looking at that is a much cheaper, almost Vision Pro alternative. All right, Mark, thank you so much for joining us. Where can people find your work online these days?
Where can they find you?
Mark: Yeah, thanks for having me. So I have my Sunday column every week, Power On. I encourage everyone to subscribe to that. It's bloomberg. com slash power on to sign up. You can find me on X at Mark Gurman threads at Mark Gurman any social that you're probably on at Mark Gurman.
And definitely stay tuned for, for more stories to come. And thank you both so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be on Engadget the site that I learned about tech from many years ago, so I'm glad you guys are still rolling and thriving. So thanks for having me. Thank you so much, Mark.
Devindra: Let's move on to some other news and thank you again to Mark for joining us. This week we, I think the biggest story was this crazy arrest. Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was arrested in France, kind of out of nowhere. Nobody expected this. It was like a big thing over the weekend. He was eventually charged with distributing CSAM, money laundering, basically the bad stuff that exists within Telegram.
And I guess we haven't really talked about Telegram much. so much. Shirlen, 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. It's unmoderated completely.
Cherlynn: Well, I, so in that way, it's very similar to things like WeChat or like discord or, or, or even WhatsApp is borrowing these features that all the chat apps are copying these features from each other.
So yes, it is also. And it's every now and then I get. Added to a crypto group chat that has like a hundred thousand or whatever, how many members in it that I don't know why I was added to, you know what I mean? So yeah, still Graham is a strange app. And this was definitely like caught me by surprise.
Cause I'm a very loyal, extreme user of telegram. Like really? I talked to all my friends. Yeah. I've convinced my family to get on it. Like I think, I think of telegram as the best chat app actually. And this is, this was disappointing to see.
Devindra: 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 WhatsApp chat, but the Telegram chats are like basically public. You can find them and join them. And it's like a big old chat room out there. That's what people are saying. I guess.
Cherlynn: Sure. And the way Discord, I guess, Discord is a little bit 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.
Devindra: And people are also pointing out like people used to conflate like Telegram and Signal and Signal is a 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
Cherlynn: use it, to be clear. I've never used those public rooms. I mean,
Devindra: you're not, you're not in the dark webs, Sherilyn. You're not there looking for drugs on Telegram.
I do not want to, no. 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 no moderators are really paying attention. That is just what telegram has just kind of become.
Latest update from last night was that he was he posted 5 million pounds or 5 million euros in bail. He's required to stay in France and undercourt monitoring and check out 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 Telegram's technically based in Saudi Arabia, so perhaps there too.
But yeah, he can't go back to Saudi Arabia. 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 what was your reaction when you heard this news, Cherlynnn, first off?
Cherlynn: Like I said, disappointment, right?
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 y'all know and love. People from Wired, people from, you know, former co workers, people from the influencer space. And one of them in one of our group chats was like, so should we move to RCS?
It's
Devindra: not a great platform to be associated with, but yeah, it's sort of like, are you going to stay on Twitter because 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 this stuff. And then the stuff is disgusting, like openly sharing CSAM.
A lot of like a legal activity. Our friends over at four four media have done a lot of reporting around the crazy stuff they've seen a telegram. And I think even they're wondering like, why the heck is it just telegram that all this stuff is happening in? And it's because it's a big social thing with no moderation.
So, yeah. And I see a correction here. Thank you, Ben. Do Rob has a dual French. And United Arab Emirates citizenship. 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 like arresting a CEO when he's on your, in your country, Maybe it should come to that. Did you see Mark Zuckerberg kind of out of nowhere saying, Hey man, the US government made us put all this COVID squash a lot of a weird 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 didn't see
Cherlynn: that. I want to, by the way, thank Guillaume FR in the chat for providing the, the background on Derov's citizenship info. Guillaume also said that it's just you know, French, UAE as well as Russian apparently.
And that this story, according to Guillaume, at far stays inside French jurisdiction, it is the Paris court. But yeah, the Mark Zuckerberg stuff is very weird. I guess. So, and so I think that's where, since you said the telegram is based in Saudi Arabia, the laws and the regulations around it are looser perhaps than say, Facebook or Meta since they're in the U S and therefore protection against CSAM versus free speech, that sort of thing is less come dry.
Devindra: I don't think they're thinking about free speech too much, but also
Cherlynn: exactly over in Saudi Arabia, probably. So like when, when Mark pointed that out and Zuckerberg pointed out that he had to be told that. You know, was he reacting to the telegram stuff or was he just
Devindra: not? It felt like it came out of nowhere.
It was sort of like the meme, like nobody blank, blank, blank marks. The U S government forced me to be very responsible about COVID information. And now he's also talking about he's not going to fund information around 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. He's talking about being neutral politically, which I'm not. That's a really chicken shit 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.
Perfect and rizzing it up. Apparently, that's what the kids say. And we also want to point out a couple other things. Razer announced its first controller with Hall effect joysticks. Just conducted 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.
Just seems to like it. If you want Hall effect sticks. This seems like a good one. And what do you think? Can I ask, do you
Cherlynn: think they had to license the name Wolverine?
Devindra: I don't think you have to license the name Wolverine. No, you're not, you know, no, no, you don't. You do have to license the name Droid, apparently, like early on, remember the early Android, like the Droid had to be licensed to Lucasfilm, the Motorola Droid but not Wolverine.
Cause Wolverine is an animal that exists. What do you think of the new AI pin Trelynn? We saw Plod. I already hate this company. I hate their name. I hate everything. It's a little pin you wear and it records all your conversations. I guess without anybody's permission, another pin. Do you want to review this one?
Cherlynn: I mean, look, look, look, let's put it, let's, let's, let's clarify too. This AI pin isn't just to be like. The humane AI pin, which is like a second brain supposedly, or like there to project a screen or play music or whatever the plod. AI pin is called the plot note pin. It is a note taking device, but with some quote AI bells and whistles, I'm quoting our article by Lawrence Bonk.
It will automatically record and transcribe conversations. And that is pretty much it apparently. 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 and assign speaker labels. It will pick up the name during the conversation if it's mentioned and then like assign.
So there is some stuff that is using AI to do that seems so. Smarter than the average AI pin. But again, we've been burned so many, literally burned in my case by AI pins so many times that it's really hard to quickly buy into it. I like the idea of an AI note taking device this way. And Ben is pointing out that that Ben has used Otter AI so much that it's supposed to learn speaker look, not only Otter, other transcription services, right?
Rev the. The the pixel recorder app, there's a 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 to 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 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,
Devindra: you need a body cam. That's it. Or just l