Apple's new iPhones and Watches are better than the last ones

0:02Welcome to The Vergecast, the flagship podcast of variable apertures and going back in time, 15 seconds. I'm senior reviewer Allison Johnson. And I'm senior reviewer V Song. And today we are each the host of the show and the guest. Wow. Yeah, that's how it's going to work. Oh, wow. Dual roles. Yeah, we're going to be talking about our iPhone 18 Pro review. That would be me and the new Apple Watches.

0:31Victoria Song:Apple Watches. I only got one of the Apple Watches on me right now, but it's the Series 12 in Radiant Gold. Radiant. It's not just gold. It's Radiant Gold. Gorgeous. It radiates. So that's what we're going to get into. But right now, here's what's happening today on The Verge. I'm Josh Cajas, and this is 90 Seconds on The Verge for Thursday, September 17th, 2026. The Verge's Jay Peters tested out the specs. Snap's new$2 ,200 smart glasses. With these glasses, you can play dominoes in augmented reality and watch YouTube videos while people are talking to you. And with how big these frames are, they'll notice for sure.

1:09Snap CEO Evan Spiegel says he's looking to create computers that support more natural human interaction. Jay's not so sure that the specs achieved that vision. Snap's specs launched sometime this fall. Next, shit is getting real. That's according to Marius Hapan, the CEO and co-founder of the third-party AI safety and evaluation firm, Apollo Research. This is just one of the many warnings AI researchers shared with The Verge's hidden field in her feature on the explosive world of AI safety. It seems like OpenAI's hugging face hack back in July was just the tip of the iceberg that we could see from the outside, with related incidents having happened for a while inside OpenAI.

1:44If that's not bad enough, Andrew Webster sat through and reviewed a two and a half hour AI-generated Odyssey movie this week. His thoughts? It's pretty bad. And finally, have you ever wondered where you can get a colorful shirt of an Apple co-founder. Steve Wozniak launched an online merch shop just for you, stocked with t-shirts,$500 carry-on bags, and Woz Chardonnay, vintage 2019. Now that's Woz Up. You can read more at TheVerge.com. That's 90 seconds on The Verge for Thursday, September 17th, 2026. Your favorite fall flavors are back at Starbucks. The one and only pumpkin spice latte and the deliciously smooth iced pecan crunch latte have arrived and are ready to sip all season long.

2:28Or find a new favorite, like the new iced banana bread latte that tastes just like fall in a cup. You can find your favorite taste

2:36Victoria Song:of fall only at Starbucks. iPhones. Allison, you reviewed the iPhone 18 Pro and the 18 Pro Max. You know, I have a very discerning eye, but my discerning eye says that these phones look very similar to the 17 Pro and the 17 Pro Max. So what's different? Well, you are not wrong. Okay, okay. They are very physically similar. The insides are very similar, too, with a couple exceptions. So inside the main camera on both of the phones, there's a new mechanical aperture, like a variable moving. Six blade aperture from the keynote, right? Where it was like six blades. Real James Bond stuff. So that has all kinds of camera things, you know, that I spiraled about.

3:35But other than that, which you can barely see from the outside, like if you go looking for it, you can. Very, very similar phones to last year. They both have the A20 Pro chipset. They both have a slightly bigger battery, which is like nothing to sneeze at, but also probably nothing to write home about. And just the little, like, quality of life stuff. They're shipping with iOS 27. They have a new Siri. But, yeah, not too much. I did do the important test of trying to put an iPhone 18 Pro case on the 17 Pro. That's what I need to know.

4:20Victoria Song:And they fit. They fit. Like, it's fine. Thank you for your service. Yeah. Because the people need to know whether that's going to— Because, you know, some of us may have bought the blue—I can't get this case off. But I may have bought the dark blue iPhone 17 and then seen the burgundy color and felt massive envy. Like, it's a fine blue. It is. It's a fine blue. That's the one I've been carrying around. It's quite fine. It's a nice blue, but it's no burgundy. It's no burgundy. You are decked out in the burgundy today. I didn't even realize that I was wearing burgundy today. Wow. Yeah. It's very on theme.

4:58Victoria Song:Subconsciously, I don't want to get rid of the case. Yep. But I would like maybe, normally I don't upgrade, but yeah. Cameras. Cameras are the main feature of this. And like you mentioned it, the variable aperture for a photo taking dum-dum where I just go, me point, me shoot. What is a variable aperture? Why do we care? Like, are we excited about this? It's like a big deal that's actually a small deal, I think. An aperture is a thing. It's like an opening in a lens in any camera system that lets light in. And it opens up, traditionally opens up and closes down. That's how you kind of change how much of your scene is in focus.

5:44It's letting in more light or less light. Smartphones, smartphone cameras are teeny tiny. They're little babies and they almost exclusively have an aperture that doesn't move. It's just fixed at one f-stop, f1.8 in the case of the iPhone for many years. And then it changes all the other exposure controls to like change the brightness of your situation. So a couple of other companies have tried this before. Xiaomi most recently, I think, had a variable aperture that moved. Samsung a ways back had one that was like two different stops. but the the kind of perplexing thing is like an aperture that moves makes a ton of sense you need one on a bigger camera system you could be dealing with a very small amount of depth of field which is the range of your photo that's in focus so if you think of like a beautiful portrait that has that like nice dreamy background and there's not much in front of them or behind them that's in focus.

6:54It's like just them. That's an aperture, like a wide aperture. And you stop that down, close it down to get more in focus. So that works on a big camera with a big sensor. On a little camera with a little sensor, you're already working with a ton of depth of field. There's just like the way you can compare it and think of it is as if you had like an F5 lens, like just from the get go on your iPhone. So everything like most things are in focus most of the time. Like this is probably not a problem for you where you're walking around. You're like, oh, I wish the background of my photo was more in focus.

7:41Like, right.

7:42Victoria Song:It usually is like usually different. like features where you press and you can autofocus the area you like a bit more so it's a little more point and shoot me dumb me take photo friendly yeah um but then you know there was a chance while we were in cupertino where i got to play around with some of these like features and i was like oh everyone was so excited about these variable apertures let me play around with them and i and to my very trained and discerning eye i was like i can't tell the difference between these different photos that I took. You are not wrong. This is the reality. So this is kind of my question going in.

8:21I'm like, it's such a small sensor. There's already so much in focus. How much change would there really be? You know, the other thing about this aperture is that it goes a little wider.

8:32Victoria Song:Okay. So it's a little brighter, f1.48, and then goes down to f4. So you get those four stops and you have to look very close, especially if you're taking a photograph of a scene where the subjects are farther from you. If you're like real close on something, then you can start to see like things in the background will sharpen up if you go to F4 or get a little blurrier F1.48. But again, like you, it's kind of the extremes where you would even really notice it. Right. Yeah. It's sort of like, oh, my gosh, there's a whole new like like hardware mechanism on this phone camera on the iPhone camera for the first time.

9:20Like, that's cool. It's they did all that stuff where it's like the the blades were cut by lasers as thin as a human hair. Like, it's objectively like a cool thing. But the the benefits are kind of marginal. And the whole thing is automatic. Like, you don't have to know about apertures. You don't have to go in there. By default, it will be changing to accommodate different scenes. But it's a very subtle thing. It's like if you have people kind of lined up in a group shot, it'll drop down to a smaller aperture. So the person in the back is a little bit sharper than they would have been.

10:05Victoria Song:Okay, so it's sort of just like if you're a pro, maybe you'll catch it earlier. But if you're just me point me shoot like me, you're probably not going to think about it too hard. Yeah. That sort of. Okay. And you don't need to. And you don't need to. Good. Okay. And so the one question I have is like we have this laser thin as a hair blade, six blades on there. Do we have any durability concerns about that? Because you are adding a new kind of mechanical component to this camera. Yeah, that's what I wonder about, honestly. And I know that, you know, iPhone cameras and phone cameras in general, the glass that they put on those lenses is super, super durable.

10:50I think it's all sealed up in there, you know, so I don't think there's any more risk of like dust getting in and jamming it up than there was with, you know, it's all pretty airtight to begin with. But yeah, I think it has to add some level of complexity to putting this phone together and to it operating correctly for the next seven years or so, you know. So it's one of those things. It's like we will kind of just have to see and find out if it ends up failing for some people.

11:27Victoria Song:So Antonio, who's the other camera nerd on the reviews team, wrote that the variable aperture isn't the cool part of the iPhone 18 Pro's camera. The new f1.48 lenses. What? What does this mean? So that is the ability of this aperture to go a little bit brighter. And I totally agree with Antonio. so the old the the aperture on the previous iphones f1.8 this one goes a little wider further all the reasons we talked about earlier that doesn't make a huge difference to what's in focus and what's not but it is a benefit in low light to be able to let more light into the sensor and more light just helps you know even if you're using night mode you can get away with like it'll do maybe like a two second night mode instead of a four second one.

12:27So better chance of like people being like freezing motion in your photo, less noisy maybe. I mean, phones, it's again, it's a marginal improvement. Like if you compare between an F1.8 photo and F1.48 photo, I'm like, these are both pretty good, honestly. Like, we were doing a good job with F1.8 in night mode. Like, there's so much computation magic happening anyway. But it is just a little bit better for those reasons.

13:01Victoria Song:A little bit better. So, another camera question, since I feel like probably the camera is the big thing with these phones, is pro camera controls. Like, again, I was playing around with the little sandbox demo that they had us have. You know, you can, it seems like there's more controls that I can do now, like white balance, shutter speed, focus. Is that exclusive to the 18 Pro? Is that coming to older phones? What's the dealio? Do they work? Are they good? Are you like, wow, this has changed my shot on iPhone life forever? Or you're like, eh, fine. It is, this is so annoying, but it is a big deal and a small deal, I think.

13:44Okay. It is like they've been a long time coming for the native iPhone camera app. So it is cool that you can finally, like, change the shutter speed yourself. You can change focus manually in that way and white balance. You've been able to download a third-party app, and a lot of people have favorites that will give you those same controls. Right. Right. So it's a little bit of like, oh, people probably already go to like a particular app for that kind of thing. But it's nice that it's baked into the actual camera app now. My complaint is that they are teeny tiny. So the actual they kind of sit in this little bar at the top of the screen, which is actually an iOS 27 feature.

14:38Like everybody's going to get that. and you can customize what controls go up there. So if you're turning your flash off, if you want to like force night mode on, all that stuff will go up there. If you have the 18 Pro or the Pro Max and it does seem to be just those two phones, you get the aperture control, of course, and then the shutter speed and all that stuff is up there. They are, but they're little, little tiny baby icons and I keep having to be like, And I'm on the Pro. Maybe the Pro Max is a little better. I don't know. But you have to really focus on like, OK, that one's a shutter speed.

15:15And then you're doing your little shutter speed. And it like takes you out of it a little bit.

15:21Victoria Song:Right. And most people are just using these to me point, me shoot, me get photo. Yeah. I don't know why I've turned everyone into a caveman photographer, but that's just kind of how I use my phone a lot of the time. So that's all right. Okay, so, you know, obviously Siri AI is big. Is there anything notable in your time testing that you're like, ah, yes, Siri AI, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. This is going to change how I do everything from now on. I wouldn't say change everything. It has gotten to that point where I'm like, it is good. I will trust it with certain things. And, you know, we've kind of been testing it all summer with the betas.

16:03It's finally like out now. Now, the way that it kind of has access to information across the system does all that indexing of like your messages and your emails and stuff. And if you have like decades of worth of that, it takes days and days to do that.

16:23Victoria Song:The initial beta over the summer took over a week to index. We're at the bleeding edge with the betas. But it changes the things. I'll do that kind of mental calculation where I'm like, think of a question. I'm like, oh, I need to sit down and like Google it or whatever or like check my calendar. I'm like, no, actually, you can ask Siri. And I give it a shot and it works. And I don't have to like babysit it, you know. Right. I'm like, OK. And it turns into like a little bit of a feedback loop of like I'll go do that more. um i haven't uh i haven't relied on it a ton for searching messages but i hear that's like a killer use case especially if you're in the car so in in testing i think the time i've used siri the most is one with carplay and two there is a situation where um my spouse was supposed to pick me up from a place and then I was like actually I have to go they're kicking us out so I have to go to a different address and they were driving and they just asked Siri to like update the driving directions to the place where I texted them and it was able to do that and we were afterwards we're like that's cool that's awesome that's that's you know quite helpful because when you're driving in New York City traffic you don't want to have to like look at the thing and put in the And you might get someone going, I'm walking here.

17:53Victoria Song:Yeah, definitely. If you do that. So that was actually quite, yeah, because we all do that in New York. I've experienced this every single day. That, I think, has been the most useful thing that I've seen. Okay, have you had this where it's constantly suggesting that you send money to people? No. Oh, my God. That's so hilarious. Someone will mention, we'll be answering a question about how much something costs. But it's tangential. It's not like, let me send you that money now. And Siri will come up with, send with Apple Cash. Send$5 right now. I'm like, no, no, no. Like, calm down. That hasn't come up for me, but the Genmoji prompts are very aggressive.

18:34Victoria Song:Yeah. Where it's like, would you like to create a Genmoji for this very cursed thing? Because I say cursed things in my text, apparently. And I'm like, one, I don't think that you were going to allow this to actually be generated. And multiple times it was like it did not turn Jalen Brunson into Hello Kitty despite multiple attempts. But, yeah, so AI. Yeah. It's in there. Real mixed bag. There's some real promising stuff that I think maybe Siri can earn some trust from people. We relegated it to, like, it's going to set timers and that's about it. But, you know, it's coming back, I think. Like, I've definitely found it more useful, for sure.

19:18Victoria Song:Well, I think our listeners should absolutely write in for what they find useful with the new Siri AI as it gets out there. Because, I don't know, I think it's interesting to hear how other people are using it. Like, the new Siri AI shortcuts, my spouse was like, babe, babe, I just created a shortcut that deletes all the random-ass screenshots I take during the day at the end of the night. Oh, my God. And I was just like, can you share that with me? That sounds smart. I think of that. So in that spirit, I think it's cool if some of our very smart listeners tell us how they're using Siri AI. But to that point, this is the almighty question every single time we do review season.

20:03Victoria Song:Who should upgrade? Is it those of us who were like, maybe phone better if burgundy? Or who should upgrade this year? Well, the bad news is they are$100 more expensive. No. Yeah. So you're starting at$1 ,199 for the Pro,$1 ,299 for the Pro Max. A lot of people love the Pro Max for the big screen size. So it's just wild to be like, yeah, your baseline is$1 ,300. Oh, my God. That is a lot. Yeah. But, you know, we pay for our phones through mystical means with our carriers and all that stuff. I think the gains are really marginal. They're good. They are better phones. We're not getting just nothing for a price increase, for sure.

20:54The aperture is cool. An underrated thing you can do with it is to, you get little sun stars if you stop it down. Because there's real aperture blades now. So you can do artsy little things like that. If you're someone who's like way into that and that sounds super cool, like you'll have a good time with this. I don't think just anybody should run out. It's not a drastically better camera. It's not, you know, for any reason that you would be like, well, my old phone is kind of on its last legs. Like, yeah, it's probably time and you will enjoy a lot of things about this one. The, you know, last year's model as a refurb is always going to be a good deal, a good find.

21:44You know, obviously very much the same as the last year's model, same shape. But the usual upgrades, there's an A20 processor in both of them, Pro and Pro Max. They both have a slightly bigger battery, which is nothing to sneeze at. That's always going to be good. And the Dynamic Island is a little bit smaller, which is something that I constantly forgot as I was using the phone. And I've been jumping back to the 17 Pro. hasn't occurred to me a single time. But you can fit an extra live.

22:23Victoria Song:There is. Yes. I guess it's for people who are really on the go, right? They're like, I need my plane and my Uber and my sports. Yeah. Three live activities rather than two. The multitaskers. The serious multitaskers. The serious multitaskers. Yeah. I mean, the camera is the big update and there's a lot to unpack there, but there are a few other things. you know, to consider. Okay. Okay. But I don't have any, I don't have any concerns or complaints. And if you're more than like three years out from your old phone, you have my blessing to start looking at this one. Fall is here and that means the pumpkin spice latte is back at Starbucks.

23:08It's the one we've been waiting for. So whether you're a fan of the original pumpkin spice latte or ready to mix it up with an iced pumpkin cream chai, the new iced pumpkin cream matcha, or the new iced pumpkin cream shaken espresso. You can find your favorite taste of fall only at Starbucks. Support for the show comes from Square, the system that fixes one of the biggest headaches in running a business. Starting a business is exciting. Running it is where things get complicated. You end up juggling payments, inventory, staff, scheduling,

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24:36So like any good millennial, I have a love-hate relationship with Gen Z.

24:41Victoria Song:It's the phenomenon rattling millennials. They just look at you. They want something bigger themselves. Lifestyle is a priority. Motivation is being inspired. But regardless of how you feel about Gen Z, it's undeniable that they're changing national politics. Generation Z is increasingly showing less loyalty to traditional political parties. many now more likely to identify as independent. So what is going on with the kids? I think the biggest misconception about Gen Z's politics right now is that all of a sudden they're all socialists. That is just not the case. They are embracing candidates who are offering new, bold ideas in the absence of those ideas from establishment Democrats.

25:21This week on America Actually, Gen Z researcher Rachel Jambaza joins us to separate Gen Z fact versus fiction.