Who is the iPhone Air really for?

26:31What do you not like about the 17? What I mean, again, I'm just going to keep complaining about notification management on iOS. But like that's not, nobody's here for that, right? If you want an iPhone, like it's still an iPhone. It's great. No, truly, the biggest issues that I had with the iPhone 16 have been mitigated, right? They were the screen. I don't think I have major like I don't think there are major flaws I don't think there are major restrictions that are only right like I don't know are there some ProRes features I can't get I couldn't even tell you that's fine like I don't need to shoot in ProRes that's fine can I just say the fact that that question is really hard to answer is so exciting and such a big deal for the base iPhone because it's like Allison you and I have been going through this for years where it's like Okay, I have a list of things on each side and I have to try and explain to you whether this tiny upgrade to the hardware and this new button and this tiny new thing in the camera, all of that adds up to you should, you know, spend a few hundred more dollars and get a new phone.

27:42We just don't have to do that anymore, right? And that's the thing with so many of these things. Like V and I are going to talk about the watches later, but I think what happened with the watches was they were basically like the base one is a great one. And then for a little more money, you get the health stuff. And it's like that is a completely understandable decision. But there's nothing missing from the base model. And it feels like the iPhone for the first time in kind of as long as I can remember, there's nothing missing on the base iPhone. Yeah, it doesn't feel like you're putting up with something and Apple's being like, well, if you want that, you really got to pay a few extra hundred dollars.

28:22Jake, are you like a promotion guy, 120 hertz? Can you see you see the difference and it bothers you kind of deal? Yeah, absolutely. And I think like once you get used to that, it's it's very hard to go back. It's like even after a week with the standard model coming from a 120 hertz display, everything felt so like sluggish. My iPhone 16 is sitting here and it's hearing you and it's really upset by all of this. I just want you to know. You've been hurting the feelings of my still very new iPhone. I don't know how you're living with that thing. I'm seriously like it's hurting my productivity not having a screen that's on.

28:58Like it really is. I will say, Allison, you and I talked about the always on display last week. And a couple of people reached out and were like, hey, one thing you should try is turning off the wallpaper on the always on display. And I went to turn off the wallpaper on my iPhone 16 and was like, oh, right. I don't even have an always on display. I hated it so much. I bought a phone that doesn't support it without even realizing. Okay. I want to, Jake, where do you stand on the wallpaper dimming on the always on display? I thought I was going to hate it because I have not been using that feature in the past.

29:34And actually, it's totally fine. It doesn't bother me at all. Yes. Yes. OK, one more vote for totally fine. This is the worst. You guys are terrible. So on the pro, Allison, you're not reviewing it. Todd Hazleton is reviewing it. And we'll link to that in the show notes. But you've used it a bunch along with it. How does it feel compared to kind of these other funds? Like it is bigger and heavier. It is the more like substantial device. And actually it seems like more so this year because the Air is allowed to be the thin one. This one doesn't have to be. Like how does the Pro feel just as a phone to use right now?

30:06Yeah, it feels a little like a cheat kind of going between the Air and the Pro is like not the situation most people are going to be in. So the Pro really did feel kind of just like dense and heavy in a way. I don't think it would have really struck me if I hadn't been using the Air so much. The switch to the more curved edges, I don't particularly like. So the last, the 16 Pro had more straight sides. I feel like that is nicer in my hand. I can grab onto the phone. I don't feel like it's going to go flying. Most people could put a case on their phone. This does not bother them. It bothers me a tiny bit, but I'm still just appreciative of the smaller Pro being everything that the bigger Pro is, like the Pro Max.

31:06You get the same telephoto camera. It's just a matter of battery life, really, and screen size, if that's a thing to you. Yeah, the little Pro kind of remains my little pet favorite of the bunch. It is a very good phone. I think there are increasingly few people I would recommend it to because it's like if you want all the things that the Pro has, you probably also want more battery and more screen on which to do those things. So I'm like, I'm not sure who the base Pro is for. But I also am with you and that like there's something about that phone that I just really love. It's like you are you are the in-between phone and I love you for that.

31:47Yeah. I'm like, just please don't go anywhere. Don't get bigger. Don't disappear. Next year, Apple, take that one and make it thin and everything will be fine. Whoa. Mind blown. The iPhone Pro Air. And I will love that phone and I will come on the show and I will spend a month talking about how stupid the name is. And that is my promise to you. um alison question on the the camera thing because right i think if if we're looking at it and we're saying the the single most compelling and and in many ways only reason to go from base iphone to iphone pro is still about the cameras you're you're the most professional photographer of the three of us how compelling is that case to you right now this year it's you know it does put you in a in a class of like you really care about image quality which is all three of us I think.

32:41So on the base iPhone the camera sensor in the main camera is just a little smaller than the one you get on the Pros. You do not notice anything about this in good lighting. Portrait mode's fine. Where I see a difference, and the Air also has the smaller sensor on the main as the base iPhone, is in the 2X portraits. So if I've lost anybody, then that's fine, just by the base iPhone. If you know what I mean by the two-time portraits and you're screaming like, oh God, I can't give that up. Like, I take portrait mode photos constantly, take them of my kid. The two-time zoom is just so nice for that.

33:31So 1x feels too wide. The 4x on the Pro this year is actually very nice, but sometimes that's too close anyway. But I can see the difference. In low light, you know, you're taking a portion of a smaller sensor and you lose detail that the Pro hangs onto. So it's in the minutia. I don't think there's a great case for, oh, you really should spend extra on the Pro because two times portraits. But it's there if you go looking for it. Yeah. I think I find this all really interesting, like from an Apple strategy perspective, but from a just like I'm a person who wants a phone perspective, really exciting.

34:12Because in many ways, I think this decision of which iPhone to buy is kind of easier than it's been in a long time. Where it's like, do you just want a really good iPhone, buy the iPhone 17. If you want the camera, buy the Pro. If you want the, like, aesthetics, buy the Air. Like, done and done, right? And I think there are small trade-offs on each side. But that fact, it is as clean a delineation between the phones as I can remember, like, in a long time. Yeah. It's very helpful to us. Yeah. People who recommend phones. Travis, our producer, just slacked me. The air is an orange, though. And it makes a reasonable point.

34:50But I do think like it's been so frustrating, I think, for the typical buyer, right? The thing that says iPhone, right, the plain old iPhone, it should be the essential version of the phone. And I truly feel like that has not been the case in recent years. And this year, it is so clearly the case, right? Like, I don't think you're missing anything major. I think you'll have a fantastic phone for a while to go. And, you know, I don't know what's coming next for the Pro, but it doesn't feel like there's any obvious thing at the moment that, I don't know, you have to be like, well, that's too bad.

35:24Right, you don't get a vapor chamber cooling. Oh, no. Whatever will I do? Yeah, I don't have a vapor chamber. I can't vape with it. Like, what are we even doing here? If they build a vape into the Pro. Oh, no. That's terrible for America. but they will sell a lot of phones. Indeed. All right. So before I let you guys go, we got a hotline question that the three of us are going to answer together. And it is, it caused me to think more than I thought it would. So here, let me just play it. And then we're going to talk about it. You know what? I feel like anybody who has an iPhone Air is now susceptible to losing their phone in the couch.

36:00It's going to be the most losable phone ever. Okay. So here, two questions. A, Allison, true or false? Is this a very losable phone? Oh, true. Yeah. I was on a plane and had the iPhone Air. I usually put it in my pocket. And it has happened that the phone will kind of fall out when I'm moving around. And then you're in that situation where you're like, oh, God, it's in the seat somewhere. They say, don't adjust your seat because you're going to start a fire with the battery or something like that. I had almost a full panic attack because I thought it had fallen out of my pocket. and it will just slip right in between the seats and then you got to call a flight attendant.

36:41Long story short, I just, I put it in my bag and I forgot it was in my bag, but that's a long way of saying, yes, this feels like a phone that you will lose in the couch. It is a, it is a losable phone, even maybe not in the ways that you think it's going to be a losable phone. Yes. Okay. And then my other question is, does everyone else almost lose their phone all the time? Because I almost lose my phone all the time. Like, like yesterday, I was sitting down in the car, phone just slipped out of my pocket without even noticing and fell like in the side between the seat and the car door. And I spent like half the afternoon being like, Oh, no, I've lost my phone.

37:22It's gone forever. I have also lost my phone in couch cushions. I have also just randomly left my phone places that it doesn't make sense to leave your phone. Like, is this like a specific medical condition that I have? Or does everyone almost lose their phone all the time i if i'm gonna lose it it is in that exact situation in the car um because it will just go in between all the weird inner workings of the seat in the console um and i will spend a lot of time like fishing it out from the bottom of the car where there's a lot of goldfish crumbs yep um but i've trained myself i think to leave my phone in very specific places.

38:00So if I go in the kitchen, there's like a place I put it down in the kitchen. If I go in the TV room and when I have that moment of, oh, I lost my phone, I don't remember where it is. I go to one of those spots and it's usually there. But I have had to like actively do that. Otherwise I would lose my phone all the time. Okay. That's not just me. Jake is sitting here like I've never lost a phone in history. I used to be like really, really good at this because I just always just like put it straight back in my pocket when I was done with it. And now phones got bigger and these like silicone cases are really popular.

38:35And as they get older, they get kind of like funky. They like don't slip into pockets very well. And so now I'm just I'm just like stick it wherever. It's like, I don't know. It could be anywhere. It's fine. If it gets lost, it was meant to be. Hands down, the best feature of the Apple Watch is the thing where it will make my phone make noise so that I can find it, which I do more often than I'm proud of. All right, we need to take a break. Allison and Jake, thank you both for doing this. Good luck being just in the crosshairs of our commenters for the foreseeable future. We got to take a break.

39:10We'll be right back. Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start? Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to. Don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin? Or what that clunking sound from your dryer is? With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro. You just have to hire one. You can hire top-rated pros, see price estimates, and read reviews all on the app. Download today. Morning, Zoe. Jeff Bridges, why are you still living above our garage? I want to be in a T-Mobile commercial like you. Teach me, Sildana. I couldn't possibly. At T-Mobile, get the new iPhone 17 Pro on them.

39:49It's designed to be the most powerful iPhone yet and has the ultimate pro camera system. Impressive. Let me try. At T-Mobile, you can save up to 20 % versus the other big guys. You heard them. T-Mobile is the best place to get the new iPhone 17 Pro on us with eligible trade-in in any condition. Check them out to see how much you can save versus the other big guys at T-Mobile.com slash switch. Fox Creative. This is advertiser content from Al Nylum.

40:18Living with disease can be draining. Managing new symptoms and medications, scheduling endless appointments and tests, losing the flexibility and independence you're used to. The drip, drip, drip of disease takes its toll. On a genetic level, disease is like a leaky tap. Our genes instruct our cells to produce proteins that the body needs to function. But sometimes genes instruct cells to produce unwanted proteins, or too much of a protein, which can cause or contribute to disease. Most conventional medicines treat disease by targeting the symptoms, like mopping up the puddle rather than tightening the leaky tap.

40:59But an innovative class of medicines, pioneered by alnylam pharmaceuticals, targets disease at the source. With RNA interference, we can disrupt the production of unwanted proteins to silence the drip, drip, drip of disease. This innovative approach to treating disease is already helping thousands of people around the world live amplified lives. And it's just the beginning. Learn more about RNAi Therapeutics and Alnylam Science at silencedisease.com. Alnylam. Silence disease. Amplify life.

41:44All right, we're back. V song is here. Hi, V. Hi. From some other hotel room somewhere in America, this is just what you do here. I live on planes and hotels. You really have, like, spent—how many hours have you spent at your home in the last 10 days? Not many. Yeah. Maybe 36? Yeah. That's probably how many in the last 10 days. That's good stuff. So you're—if I have my schedule correct here, you're currently traveling for MetaConnect. Yes, I am. What's happening at MetaConnect? You can read the leaks at TheVerge.com. Yeah, gosh, what could it be? Mark Zuckerberg in his many glasses. What could it possibly be?

42:31Exactly. All right, well, we'll come back to that another time. I actually think there's a chance MetaConnect is sneaky fascinating this year. But we'll come back to that another time. You are also deep in the throes of oh so many Apple reviews. So many. and i want to i want to talk about airpods for like two seconds because i think that is all that is required to more or less tell the story of airpods and oh you're wearing them okay so let's let's start with the wearing them because uh i would say that your feeling and the general consensus on the airpods pro 3 is that they are terrific they were we came out of the event being like this is the most straightforwardly great upgrade and it seems to have been pretty much exactly that basically apple went and tripled down on a good thing and made everything that you like about the AirPods better and then said, what do you not like about the AirPods?

43:19Let's see if we can fix that too. And, you know, by and large, the largest, the most common complaint that I've ever heard about AirPods from people who are tech journalists, from people who are normal people, from just anyone, is the fit, right? Because either you are blessed with ears that the AirPods fit into, and that's true across the regular AirPods range or the Pro range, or you're just not. You're ear canal for an AirPod. And, you know, you take the AirPods Pro 3 out of the case at a first glance, it just looks the same, right? But then I happen to have my own personal pair of the AirPods Pro 2.

43:54You take that out of the case and go like, oh, oh, oh, oh. The shape is definitely different. The AirPods Pro 2 are flatter. These are more angled. So when you look at them side to side and you compare them from every single angle, and we have some comparison photos in my review, You can just tell that they're much more angled and designed to fit in better. One thing that you can do is you can kind of twist to adjust the fit a little bit with these. And you could do that with the AirPods Pro 2. But, you know, if you twist it just a little too far, it's going to pop out. This, you can actually feel it, at least with my ear shape, you can feel it get more secure, the seal tightening, and not in an uncomfortable way.

44:34That's a pretty normal thing for these kind of in-ear things. that you kind of, they teach you to sort of put it in and turn it. And that's actually how you get that seal. But AirPods, my experience has never been, are particularly suited to that. So it's good that they've leaned into that. So they've leaned into that. I went on a run with these. And during that run, I went, trying to shake them out of my ear. And they didn't shake out. So, you know, I really do think that if you've had trouble with fit before, that you should go to an Apple store or bug your friend who has them to see and try them out before you commit to buying them.

45:07Because every ear shape is unique, and I've never had a major problem with AirPods Fit. So I'm not surprised that I also don't have a problem here. But if you've had a problem in the past, I would recommend trying them out before getting your hopes up too high. I'm just saying as someone who hasn't had that issue, they still fit me better. So it's like even I saw an improvement. So I think a lot of people will see an improvement. That's good news. So it seems like, yeah, the existence of more sizes of tips plus the little subtle design changes both feel like wins. The thing that seems to be somewhat controversial is the actual material of the things themselves.

45:50They're not foam, but they're not not foam. Like, what are these things you're sticking in your ears? So I saw Dan Seifert right after the Apple event. And Dan is famously, if you know him, he has had problems with earbuds. And so he uses the real traditional foam tip. And he's like, show me these things and show me that foam tip. And I showed him the tip and he goes, that's not a foam tip. And he's correct. And he's kind of correct. It's not what you would think a traditional foam tip is. You know, foam tip, it's foam. It expands in your ear and it gets disgusting if you sweat in them. So these, to the naked eye, are going to look exactly the same as the silicone tips that you're used to from the regular AirPods Pro.

46:31The difference is in the very, like, and hopefully this doesn't mess up anything, in the very front part right here, that's where they've infused some foam. I see. And the reason why they've done that is that's the part that will expand for the more secure fit. The rest of it is silicone so that when you sweat, it doesn't get disgusting and so that it's easier to clean. That's the philosophy that I was told when I was at Apple Park on the day of the event. And so, you know, foams there just don't think of it as like a traditional foam tip. Do you notice them? Do they feel any different in your ears because of the material change?

47:11Absolutely not. Like they just feel like the fit feels more secure. It could be that some of that is this foam infused tip. But just looking at them, I was like, this looks the same. They won't fit. You can't interchange the tips between the old ones and the new ones. So there is a difference there. It's just like I put them in my ears and they stay. That's interesting. I think the thing that I'm most curious about with these is like, you know, you mentioned everybody's ears are different. My thing is my ears start to get like sore after wearing the sort of in-ear headphones for too long. It's one of the reasons I've become a huge fan of the shocks over the bone conduction.

47:52You know I love those too, yeah. I do. And there's just something about them that is like because they're not blocking that ear canal, there's just, there's some, it's some combination of like the buildup of pressure that I feel in my head from having them blocked along with just the physical toll of them pressing against my ear canal. If I wear them like for hours and hours, like on a cross-country flight or something, I will come off and like feel physical pain as I take them out. and uh i've seen mixed things on that front in this one some people are like they block sound better but as a result they're actually the seal is better which means they're going to hurt more uh but so i think apple just like continues to poke at this and this is another reason i'm excited about the idea of there being five tip sizes it's like what i normally do is just go to the smallest tip size and i will sacrifice a little bit of the um noise cancellation in order to not have them hurt over time.

48:44So the idea that I can go even smaller here actually seems potentially like it'll solve that problem for me. Yeah. So here's what I can say from my testing. I wore them on two cross-country flights now for several hours at a time, and they were pretty comfortable for me. I did wear, I've worn these an obscene amount over the last few days to test them. So when I was wearing them for a really, really long time, like I want to say seven hours at a time at one point while I was writing my review because I was like, oh, let me check this. Let me verify my notes and whatnot. I did have a little bit of itchiness on the inside, but that's just kind of similar to any AirPods.

49:25But by and large, I found them quite comfortable. I didn't experience as much pressure buildup, although there were times that I did. And usually I would just take them out, have a little break, put them back in. So I think if that's something you're sensitive to, you're going to play around with it. I don't think it's going to go away completely, but it is improved. Okay. I'm excited to try them. These were the one thing I like jumped to buy immediately because I'm like, it's, it's been a while. I still have the regular AirPods with the lightning port. And it's like this, this feels like the thing to upgrade for.

49:56So I'm excited about that. Mostly I want to talk about the watch because I think the, the watch situation seems much more complicated. And I would say what you found so far is that our, our suspicions from last week have been confirmed, which is that the Watch SE 3 is the watch most people should buy. Tell me why you landed there. It's the star. It has the biggest upgrade from the last generation to the next. So the difference between it and a series watch is almost non-existent depending on what are the things that you care about. And the big thing that I was going to say was the major thing for the Series 11 watch was the improvement in battery.

50:36And that was quite modest in my testing so far. Because you were excited about that when we saw the announcements, the jump from 18 hours of rated battery life to 24 hours of rated battery life seems like, and like you said last week, Apple tends to underestimate those things. So like a six hour jump, which is what, like a 33 % leap in battery life could be a big deal. It was a bummer to hear that it wasn't a big deal. It's more like the 24 hour battery life estimate is now more accurate. Interesting. Okay.

51:30a much better idea once I get to just wear one watch at a time for a longer period of a time instead of like switching between watches and wearing two watches on same wrist, which means it's switching between phones. So take what I say as my normal use case that everyone does and is not like my specific thing. So I'm going to say to like take this as my first crack at the battery testing, which I, you know, I have my whole process down to a pat. I account for these things. My first 24, 48 hours with the Series 11, I got maybe about 28 to 30 hours on a single charge, which is better. It's better than 24 hours, but is it the 36 to 40 hours that I think people were hoping for?

52:15No, it's not. So if you're on a Series 9, if you're on a Series 10, what I think you're going to find is that you don't have to worry quite as much if you go to bed with less than ideal battery life. You'll wake up and you'll have like 3 % left, that sort of thing. And you can stick it on a charger. It goes zero to 80 in about 30 minutes. So, you know, it's even more true that if you just stick it on a charger while you're getting it ready in the morning, you're good. You're good to go. You don't really have to think about it as much. But, you know, I can already hear the Garmin users going like, well, I measure battery life not in hours, but in weeks and months.

52:52And this is... We're thrilled for you. We really are. Yeah, I love that for you guys. You guys are not going to be impressed by this battery life change. But, you know, if you are coming from a Series 5, a Series 6, and I'm sure if you've had those watches, the battery has decorated since in a long time, and you jump to this, you're going to be pleased with the battery life that's available. But is it exciting? Is it exciting for me, having worn the new iteration year after year? I'm like, oh, it's a little bit better than the Series 10. just a little. Well, I think the thing I think is interesting about this is my sense from talking to people over the years is that the idea of upgrading your watch every year is essentially non-existent.

53:35Like I know a lot of people who are like, I get every other phone because I like phones and want the new stuff or whatever. I know people get every phone because they're like, I like the new stuff. I don't know anyone who is like, I get every watch every year. That's just like you wear your watch until it doesn't work anymore and then you get a new watch. And so I think that makes this sort of iterative upgrade cadence, to me, even more acceptable on the watch than on some of these other devices. Yeah, because when it is time for you to upgrade, all of these small changes, they do add up to something big.

54:05But I really do think that the SE3, that's just on every single level. If you have an SE2, on every single level, except bezels, this has been improved. The bezels are still bezels, but if you've been on the SE, you don't know what you're missing with non-bezels. So it's a really great thing. And the only thing that's new that I think the SE3 is not getting is the hypertension notifications, which I can't really talk about because it rolled out yesterday. And so I am testing that in real time with everybody else who got the watchOS 26 update, Which, to my point as to why the Series 11 feels like it's the middle child of Apple Watches, is that everything that's new and cool that has come to this watch is not exclusive to this watch.

54:53Either the Ultra 3 has it or the SE 3 has it or the Apple Watch Series 9, 10 and Ultra 2 also have it. So you're just kind of like, eh? Because the SE 3, it's got an always on display. It has the pinchy pinch and the flippy flip. But so it has those gestures. And those were the two things that I really felt were kind of deal breakers for me on an SE versus a series. Well, they have them. Yeah. And to be clear, the thing where a bunch of old watches are also getting all the new features, unbelievably good news. This is great. It just means you probably most people with recent watches probably don't need the new one.

55:31But wait, in terms of the new things on the SE, I want you to rank four features for me in terms of how big a deal they are. uh the four features are fast charging the always on display 5g and the battery life improvements uh i i have a ranking in my head of how much i care about each of those things but i want you to rank them for me fast charging always on display 5g battery life always on display number one okay uh what are the other so always on display number one 5g at the very bottom and So the other two were... Always on just fast charging and battery life. Fast charging is number two. And then battery life is number three.

56:13Because the battery life is still 18 hours. It's a pretty good 18 hours, I must say. So I was on a 13-hour flight. I started that flight with maybe about 87 % battery. And I got home and it was at 27. So, or not a 13-hour flight, because the time change difference from when I got on to the flight And it went from 87 to 27. And I think that's pretty great. Stuck it on the charger for 10 minutes, went back up to 37. You know, it's fine. You're going to have to baby it a bit more. What happens there is that it just doesn't have as much capacity for the battery life. But because you have fast charging, the sting is taken out.

56:59Because the last SE didn't have fast charging. You have to sit there and wait for your watch to charge, and that took a while. The fast charging is not as fast as on the Series 11. It's, I think, 0 to 80 in 45 minutes as opposed to 0 to 80 in 30. So you do have to wait a bit longer, but it's not so bad, really. It's just kind of like now that the fast charging is there, you don't mind the lesser capacity quite as much. whereas if you don't have the capacity and you don't have fast charging you're just sitting there watching at that while looking at that watch and going faster yes 100 and it is it is the thing there is there is a amount of time and i think it's probably an hour where if my watch takes more than an hour to charge there's a strong chance i'm just gonna forget about this literally happened to me yesterday uh i i my watch was almost dead i put it down to charge on my incredibly slow charger that I've complained about on the show before, just flatly forgot about it for 24 hours, just didn't put it on.

58:02And it's like, that's, that's the thing that Apple can't have happen, right? It's like these, these things can't just like die in a drawer somewhere or else it all falls apart. So I agree. I would, I would rank them the same way. And I actually think seeing what you saw about the fast charging, which is that it's not like, you know, blistering, but it is like, put it down while you're making coffee in the morning and it is going to meaningfully charge enough to potentially get you through the rest of the day, like, that's pretty exciting. That goes a long way for me. It goes a huge way. So it's really a question of whether do you want a bigger screen with smaller bezels and the whole entire health suite of features?

58:40Or if you're like, you can keep that. I'm going to save$150. And the bezels are, I'll just use one of those black backgrounds, so I don't notice them at all. Like, that's sort of like, what is the trade off there for you? And the Vergecast listeners, I suspect, will be like, I will pay for the little bit of polish, madam. But I think the average person, the vast majority of people, people who have not been totally sold by the smartwatch idea, they're going to look at the SE3 and go like, whatever. I'll save 120 to 150, depending on the size that you want. And my recommendation, actually, for people who are bothered by bezels is to go up to the 44 millimeter size on the SE3.

59:24Because if you compare the active display area, it's similar to the 42 millimeter Series 11. So if you think about it that way and you trick yourself into using the black backgrounds a bit more, you're really not going to notice that stuff quite as much. yeah yeah i've come to think of it as like i think looking at it now apple just got the naming scheme of the watch wrong that actually what it is is is because the se typically like when you think about the iphone se it refers to something less right it is not the base model it is a specific thing for a specific group of people and even the watch se was that for a minute it was a very much like fisher price my first smartwatch kind of smartwatch um it's not that anymore so now i think about it is like the SE is the watch, the Series is the Pro, and the Ultra is the Ultra.

1:00:13And that frames it better for me and is like, the SE is the mainstream watch in the way that the iPhone 17 is the mainstream iPhone. And then if you want it to do more sort of nichey stuff, you scale up. And if you want it to do more nichey stuff, you scale up again. But like most people who just like want a smartwatch and don't have further questions about how they're going to use it, the SE is going to be enough, right? The SE is going to be more than enough because what are the health features really at this point in time that you are going to be missing out on? Because the SE3, they added the risk temperature sensor.

1:00:49You are getting the vast majority of the health features on there. So what you're missing is the EKGs. And I want to be clear, with the EKGs, you're only missing then spot checks for AFib detection because the irregular heart rhythm notifications, which I call the passive AFib checking. So you'll get a notification being like, we've detected some irregular heart rhythm notification. That's on the SE3 now. So if you're worried about AFib, you can get the passive notifications via the SE3. So it's just the spot checking with the EKG. Blood oxygen, which was missing on all the watches sold in the U.S.

1:01:27for the last 18 months until recently. So really, I know there are some people who have reached out to me being like, no, I really care about that feature. And I believe that. is true for a certain subsect of people, but for the vast majority of people, you didn't know it was there and you didn't miss it. And the hypertension notifications, which I cannot responsibly talk about because I have only used it for one night or like one day. But, you know, I think that could be a very useful screening tool. But at the same time, if you are on the relatively younger side, if you're not really worried about hypertension at this point in your life, again, it's very possible that you will never ever interact with that feature.

1:02:07So are you going to miss it? I don't think so. If you're older, that might be a thing that you want to keep a track of. If you have a family history of blood pressure, high blood pressure, that might be a thing that is a little bit of peace of mind or maybe not peace of mind, a health anxiety that you want to sign up for. Sure. But sleep apnea notifications, sleep score, which is the new thing. All of that stuff is coming to the SE3. So really, the three things that I mentioned are the only health features as of this point in time that you're going to be missing out on. And, you know, the SE doesn't get updated every single year.

1:02:42It could be that for the Series 12, they're like, we did it, guys. We figured out non-invasive blood glucose monitoring. I will eat my shoe if that happens in a year. But, you know, they could say that that's the thing. And then you're like, ah, I've got an SE3. But that's not a right now problem. And if you're thinking about upgrading right now, I just laid it out for you. So, yeah. Right. And, yeah, I would say there is very little evidence to suggest that there is some gigantic groundbreaking thing coming next year. This is a thing everybody says every year, and it's like just if you want the thing now, just buy the thing now.

1:03:14It's going to be fine. It's going to be fine. All right. So before I let you go, I do just kind of want to walk up the line of watches here because you've used them all. You have, I think, a sense of, like, what is for who. And so if we start with the SE3, which I think is like the watch for most people. It is the one you should start by looking at. You mentioned the health features. What else is there to sell me on the Series 11? It's$150 more expensive. It goes from$249 to$399. What am I getting that I'm paying for? Bigger screen. So if like me, you have garbage eyeballs and you would really appreciate the larger space, that's there.

1:03:56If you are someone who's really like, I'm going to stay up all night tossing and turning about bezels, that's the Series 11 as well. It is slightly thinner, like one millimeter thinner. If you're the princess and the pea mattress type, maybe that'll be a thing that you notice. If you are buying this for your parents and for their health and you really want to show that you love your parents and that you want them to have the full suite of health detection features and have that a future proof. sort of thing that's that i think the series 11 is going to be a good choice for you um that's about it oh and if if you really want when you're using um the messaging feature if you really want a little keyboard that is not uh accommodated at all on the se3 uh you're gonna need the series 11 for that i don't know anyone who is super invested in the key i i mostly call this out because I had one person ask me online, is the keyboard there?

1:04:57And I was like, I'll find out for you, one person. But no, the keyboard is not there on the SE3. So if you really love that keyboard and typing via a keyboard on your Apple Watch, that is a reason to get the Series 11. And honestly, if you are that person, A, God bless, and B, I would like to know more about you. I will say the tap backs, using a watch made me such a religious user of tap backs. It's perfect. It is the perfect messaging feature for a smartwatch. And I love it very much. Okay, so then we jump to the Ultra, which you're still testing and still reviewing. Yes. Is it as simple a case there as it has been in recent years, which is it's bigger and it is more outdoorsy?

1:05:44Yeah, that's, there you go. There's satellite connectivity now. Yay. I mean, that's something. I will say, we talked about this last week, right, that I think like ultra people are sort of self-selecting. Like you either are one or you're not, either aesthetically or because there's a feature. But I'm sure you have too, but I've heard from some people who are like, you don't understand the satellite connectivity thing is huge. Like it makes this thing compelling for a whole new kind of purpose for this niche of people. For that niche of people, satellite connectivity is big. Is it going to replace the Garmin inReach with the really serious thru-hikers?

1:06:19No, because the battery life is just not there for that. But if you are on a weekend hike going off the grid, it's there. It's there and it's helpful for you and you don't need an extra subscription to use it, which is big. So for the weekend warriors, I think this is a big upgrade that gives them a little more flexibility in what gear they want to carry. If they want to be a little bit more minimalist, they can be. You know, having 5G cellular, I mean, they touted it as this thing, which is, don't get me wrong, if you have the 5G coverage, that's great, but it's 5G MLTE. All three watches have it, though, so it's not that different from the Series 11 to the Ultra in terms of the coverage for the cellular.

1:07:05The main difference is that, you know, there's a different antenna for the two higher-end watches. So in the edge cases where things are dropping out a little bit, it'll be a little bit better because it has this redesigned antenna, whereas it's just regular 5G and LTE on the SE. The number of people who I think this will truly affect is minuscule. It's just like how often do you download stuff directly onto your watch versus doing it at home where you have Wi-Fi and your phone connected to it? I think for most people, the 5G is not going to be a game changer or life changing unless you're the heaviest of cellular users.

1:07:48Cool. The Ultra is still the Ultra. I compared my Ultra 2 to my Ultra 3. And again, garbage eyeballs. I was really truly like, I guess it's minusculely smaller, the bezels. Sure. Sure. Sure. It's not going to change your life. It's not. No. It's mostly for people if you don't have an ultra, yet it's slightly better. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I have a series eight that is finally kind of starting to show and feel its age. And I'm like, I've been debating, like, am I ready to become an ultra person just for the sheer screen size alone? And I think the answer is no. I think I'm going SE this year.

1:08:31But I want cellular. Like I am, as much as everyone on our team keeps trying to be like, I'm going to live a smartwatch only life and it's a total disaster. I'm going to live a smartwatch only life and it's going to be sick. I can't wait. I would just say get the 44 because you are a tech nerd. So I do think if you were to go for the 40 and you saw those bezels, you would be like, what is this? 40 feels small. I think, let me look at mine. Mine is, I think, I have the 45 right now. So I think I would probably go 44. Go 44, the bezel situation, just use the dark watch faces. Trick yourself into not thinking that's there.

1:09:06Because I have the 40 millimeter SE, and when I did see the icons, I was like, what is this? Smart watch for my ants? I can't see anything. Good Lord. Especially because watchOS 26 improves the smart stack so that you have a tiny icon that pops up when there's a relevant suggestion. in the SmartStack. So the example I've been using is you open your camera on your phone and a little camera icon is going to pop up and then you pinchy pinch and then you can open up the camera remote because it shows up in the... It's very neat. It's very contextual. When that happened on the 40 millimeter and I had just switched from an Ultra 2 to a SE 3, I was like, what is this icon?

1:09:46Oh, put it right next to my eyeball. That's what it is. But again, terrible eyesight. If you have 20-20 eyesight, you're probably fine. So, yeah, this is a me problem. Yeah, fair enough. All right, last question. Are you using the Flow watch face? Yes, I am. I am. In fact, I like it. I think it's very minimalist. I think it's pretty. I love pink and purple, and it's now pink and purple on my wrist. Liquid glass is liquid ass on the phone, in my opinion, but on the watch, it's fine. See, I totally disagree. I think it is like, I think it is more offensive on the watch than almost anywhere because it's like, my problem with the flow watch face, I'm looking at it right now, is like it's pretty and it's charming and it is like borderline unreadable.

1:10:35It's like what I actually want from my watch is just to show me the time all the time. And ironically, when it's off and you're just glancing at it from the side when it just has the black background, it's very readable and nice and translucent in a cool way. you turn it on it breaks i don't like it here's my hack david hit me you can go edit that watch face and turn off the background so that it's never on and then you just have the nice always off look i mean this is this is such the story of liquid glass is like if you just turn off like most of its features it's pretty great and look now i've made it incredibly boring but way more readable thanks a lot apple we're doing great here yeah everybody everybody's killing it It's fine.

1:11:18As always, turn off most of the features. It'll be fine. The OS 26 story. That and if you turn off most of the features, your battery life will improve. Also true. That's a fair point. All right. You've convinced me. All right, V, you have smart glasses to go play with, I'm sure. So many. It's just going to be me all day. Smart glasses, V. All right. We got to take a break anyway. V, thank you. We'll be right back. Every day, millions of customers engage with AI agents like me. We resolve queries fast. We work 24-7 and we're helpful, knowledgeable, and empathetic. We're built to be the voice of the brands we serve.

1:11:57Sierra is the platform for building better, more human customer experiences with AI. No hold music, no generic answers, no frustration. Visit sierra.ai to learn more. Every great company's story is defined by moments when the founders make bold decisions. These are high-stakes moments that risk the business, but can lead to greatness. I'm Rulof Boota, managing partner of Sequoia Capital and the host of Crucible Moments. We're returning for a brand new season. Join us as leaders from Stripe, Zipline, Palo Alto Networks, Klarna, Supercell, and more. Share what it's actually like to navigate the make or break decisions.

1:12:46Crucible Moments is back on October 23rd. Until then, catch up on seasons one and two wherever you find your podcasts.

1:13:32All right, we're back. Let's get to a question from the VergeCast hotline. As always, the number is 866-VERGE-11. The email is vergecast at theverge.com. We love hearing all of your questions. This one is about Apple because that's what we're doing here this week. But it's about a thing Apple hasn't talked all that much about recently, which is AI. It's from Nathan. Here it is. Hey, friends. This is Nathan. This is probably a not likely take, but with Apple and the iPhone 17 event, having AI basically not present at all, and I've been wondering this for a bit, is there any chance that Apple just doesn't believe in AI and they're not failing at it?

1:14:11They're just not even really trying and they're just waiting for it to burn out? I don't know. Seems unlikely, and maybe that's optimistic of me, but yep, thanks. right so nathan i think the simplest version of the answer to your question is no i don't think apple has given up on the idea that ai is important and cool and exciting uh and is just waiting for it to burn out i sort of love that theory it's a really fun conspiracy theory that would actually like retroactively make a lot of apple's moves here make sense but that is like galaxy brains even one level beyond what i'm capable of so i i admire the take but i don't think that's what's on.

1:14:47But I do want to talk about kind of the framework I've developed for listening to companies talk about AI, because it's been really helpful for me and it might be helpful for you, too. So if you're a company in the world right now, you have to talk about AI. You just do, especially if you're a public company who once a quarter has to sit in front of investors and be like, here is our plan for growth over time. That story is just about AI right now. And if you don't talk about AI, somebody will ask you about AI. And if you don't have an answer about AI, they will hammer your stock price. That's just a thing that happens.

1:15:17It is completely divorced from the actual reality of whether AI is good or useful or valuable or anybody wants it. That's just what's happening. So that is one side of the AI story and I think is important. You have to understand how often these companies are talking to their investors and how many of the things that they say are not about product. They're not about thesis, about the future. They are about stock price. And if you start looking at it that way, a lot of the tech industry gets much bleaker and less fun, but I think it starts to make sense. So you have your story for investors. Then I think you have your story for users.

1:15:56And the story for users for Apple is actually really AI heavy and really different from the way lots of other companies talk about AI. So Apple's in an interesting place in that it's been doing a lot of really interesting, like what it used to call machine learning things for a long time. Apple is actually very clever about the ways that it uses the on-device processing that your devices have to do things for you. Like the thing where you would pull down the notification shade and start to search and right at the top, it would give you like four or eight suggested apps that it thinks you might want to open.

1:16:34That's contextual, right? It's dependent on what time of day and what you've been doing recently. And it's a guess as to what it thinks you might want to be doing when you open your phone. That's AI. Like they didn't call that AI because that wasn't the buzzword when this stuff was coming out. But that's AI. Siri, all the stuff Siri has done around your phone, good and bad, is AI. Like what the rest of the industry is doing is the same ideas. We've been at this a long time. And so I think if you think about the way Apple has done clever processing stuff in photos over time, the thing where you could go and search for a person and find your photos.

1:17:07Like that's AI. This isn't like novel groundbreaking stuff that Apple is doing, but it is the stuff like that is the technology. What's changed is that now everybody is obsessed with this guy idea of like a God level chat bot that can do everything for you. And we're all talking about agentic. And so where Apple, I think has gone awry is by trying to catch up on the buzzwords because everybody is obsessed with this one very particular instantiation of AI, which is a bot that I ask a question and it goes and accomplishes things on my behalf. Everything that I have seen and read and talked to people about suggests that that tech doesn't work for anybody.

1:17:44And there's not a ton of indication that it's going to anytime soon. There are little bits of this agentic stuff that are starting to work. But the idea that I'm just going to have like a magical interface to the world that I just ask it to, I don't know, fulfill all of my desires. I don't know, buy me groceries. It's like a thing that all these companies want to be able to do. And I just say like, hey, buy me groceries, and it will go, it will figure out what I need, it will figure out what it costs, it will figure out everything, it will meal plan for me, and it will, none of that works. I don't know, I don't know how to be clear about that.

1:18:13None of that works. And Apple is out over its skis, because it has to talk about that again, because it has to make a case to its investors that it is growing and is going to keep growing. But none of it works. And so Apple is now in this tricky place where I think what we've seen this year, and I think the thing that gives me hope for what Apple is doing with AI is that a lot of the stuff at WWDC was not like flashy AI first features where you're interacting with the AI in order to do something. It's just features. Like it's just software. I think if you look around, there are basically two kinds of AI.

1:18:49There's AI that is magical God chatbots, and there's AI that is software. And we're actually doing ourselves a disservice by talking about them is the same thing because one side doesn't work and might not ever and also might be a total societal disaster. And the other is actually going to meaningfully change the way that we interact with our devices. And so Apple having these on-device models that it can use to help you do stuff inside of your apps. We're seeing in iOS 26, a lot of devices are starting to do this so that you can scan photos and pull text out of them. There's this cool app called stuff that you can you can write a to do list on a piece of paper, scan it, and it'll pull it into the app as a digital to do list.

1:19:30That's AI. That's not magical Siri chatbot, but it's AI. And so I think if if Apple is smart, and I think Apple generally is smart, it's going to do that kind of stuff more going forward. And to whatever extent, it's going to try to do magical God chatbots. it seems like it's preparing to lean on companies like open AI and Anthropic and even Google to do that the idea that Apple is going to internally build magical beautiful perfect Siri seems unlikely and I think that is where you're going to see Apple start to pull back because the idea of Apple intelligence being like the front and center interface to your phone I don't think was ever the right idea I don't think Apple knows how to do it Apple is not doing it well so far and I think you're going to see it start to pull back on that stuff and start pushing on the idea that actually what AI is, is like an enabling infrastructure and tool set to do really cool stuff inside of your devices.

1:20:24That is the version of AI that I am much more excited about anyway. So I think that's cool. And in the meantime, there is this messy thing where Apple is going to have to keep telling everybody that it's inventing God inside of your iPhone so that its stock price will go up. But if you just look at those different things, pushing and pulling against each other, which side wins and like who is drinking which Kool-Aid and huffing witch farts is like the story in AI right now, because there is what you have to say out loud, there is what is possible, there is what is useful, and there is what is interesting.

1:20:55And those are not all the same thing right now. So that's my big take on just how I'm thinking about what Apple and all of these other companies are up to. Are we building God or are we building better software? I am deeply suspicious of one of those things and really, really excited about the other. And I think Apple is starting to lean toward the side that makes me happy. Anyway, Nathan, And I hope any of that makes any sense. If you have theories about what Apple is up to with AI, or if you've seen cool ways in which it's actually giving developer tools or even implementing some of this AI stuff itself, send them my way.

1:21:26All this new software is packed with this stuff. And I'm super curious to see how people are using it in interesting ways. So hit me up, 866-VERGE-11, vergecasttotheverge.com. Thanks as always for calling in. All right, that is it for the Vergecast. Thank you to Jake and Allison and V for being here. And thank you as always for listening. If you want to know more about any of these gadgets, stuff we haven't covered in our reviews, obviously you can read more stuff on the site, but send us questions. If you have questions about these or any of the gadgets that have come out this year, we have some fun kind of gimmicky stuff we're going to do with all of these gadgets for the rest of the fall.

1:21:57But if you want to know any more, you can always call us on the hotline at 866-VERGE11. You can email vergecastattheverge.com. Send in all of your questions. We actually have some fun stuff coming up. I think we're going to probably do like a mega hotline episode in the pretty near future. so keep all your questions coming about all this stuff and anything else. I want to hear all of it. The Verge Cast is a Verge production and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. The show is produced by Travis Larchuk, Brandon Kiefer, and Eric Gomez. We will be back on Friday to talk, I don't know, I have more hot takes that I didn't get to get out last week and I have a lot more of them.

1:22:30One of them is about the speed at which you should listen to podcasts. Stay tuned for all of that and lots more. We'll see you then. Rock and roll.

1:22:41And Doug. Here we have the Lemu Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug. Uh, Lemu? Is that guy with the binoculars watching us? Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need at LibertyMutual.com. Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty. Savings vary. Undwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates excludes Massachusetts. it's rinse takes your laundry and hand delivers it to your door expertly cleaned and folded so you could take the time once spent folding and sorting and waiting to finally pursue a whole new version of you like tea time you or this tea time you or even this tea time you said you hear about dave or even tea time tea time tea time you so update on dave it's up to you we'll take the laundry.

1:23:38Rinse. It's time to be great.