Hello everyone and welcome to a special episode of the Engadget podcast. We're here at Apple Park in the podcast studio again. You might have seen this before. I am managing editor Sherin Low, and joining me for this special episode today is Engadget's senior reporter Carissa Bell. Hey Carissa.
Hey. I'm excited to be here. It's so nice to be here in person.
And we have a special guest, Allison Johnson, senior reviewer of The Verge. Hello.
Oh, it's nice to have the competition in here because we can do things.
Do them with them around them.
I'm surrounded. I don't know.
And no. Okay. I like Apple events. I like tech events like this because we get to hang out with our friends. People don't usually know we like to talk to each other at these things. So it's nice to have you here, Allison. Thank you for joining us. The iPhone event, the iPhone 17 launch, was this week. By the time this video and podcast episode goes out, Carissa, you drove up here.
I technically took the train.
You took public transport, but to be clear, Carissa helped our team with coverage, both from home and then is here at Apple Park today with us. And I just wanted to know, because Elsa and I saw this in Steve Jobs Theater, like we watched the same stream though. Did you feel any sort of thoughts based on first a picture, first impression of these devices from home, and then you know you've been out here at Apple Park, you've caught glimpses of this thing around. What do you have any different opinions now that you're here in person?
I guess it's been interesting in general for me to see this kind of transition from, you know, you'd show up to the theater and like you would actually see, or even prior to Steve Jobs Theater, you'd see like Apple events like actually, you know, they were doing it live versus these very like orchestrated, right, like video streams. It's been like interesting to watch. I will say that I was surprised about the camera bumps on the new phone. I mean, you know, there were some leaks that came out ahead of time. I think they actually like look a bit better from what I've seen so far, even in just like in the press images and everything that's come out. Like they look a little bit nicer than I expected. Still seems like I'm still adjusting to the new look though.
Yeah, I agree. I think they look better in person, and you kind of read the rumors and all that. The orange color is super nice.
Can we, is any of that orange around you behind you, Carissa? For the people who are watching the video version of this, the orange is, I've been saying it's like the action button on the Watch Ultra basically. Does that feel right to you?
Yeah, it is kind of an outdoorsy orange.
It feels like a warning kind of orange. Like a traffic cone orange.
Yes, you know, let's have some vibrant colors.
Yeah, there's some interesting things going on. I think the cosmetic changes are maybe give a signal that there's more going on under the hood than there really is, but there's still some cool stuff to check out.
It's so refreshing to see something visually different. Bored by sameness. So we're going to talk a lot more about just the iPhone 17 lineup today on this episode. I think there's just so much that was announced around like watch, around AirPods. I don't think we're going to have time to really dive into that. Plus, Allison, you're mostly a phone reviewer, right?
Mostly phones. I dabble in that.
Do you care about smartwatches?
I use one, but I don't follow it like beat for beat, I guess.
Carissa, you're an iPhone user too. Are you a smartwatch user as well?
Okay, I'm going to like out myself here. I have a Series 5 Apple Watch.
That I exclusively use for like workouts and running, and I don't use it for anything else.
Well, we need your money.
Well, you're here and there's an Apple Store.
Or maybe we'll see about making you a reviewer of one. I don't know. But yeah, so of the phone lineup, let's start with you, Allison, because you're the special guest. What was your favorite?
Oh, that's tough. I mean, I go for the Pro, just because I love the camera stuff. I love all that. Like, you know, it's doing a crop zoom kind of thing and getting into the nitty-gritty of that. So I feel like there's the most going on with the camera, you know, always with the Pro. So yeah, and I just appreciate that the smaller Pro still, you know, maintains like you get the same telephoto camera. You're not making big sacrifices on other stuff, which seems to be like across the board now. Like Pixel does that too.
Yeah. So I'm glad we all got here. Yeah, I like the little Pro was always the one I'm like, oh, yeah.
Yeah. I remember when there was a year they added like a telephoto zoom to the Pro Max and not the Pro. And then that was the year right before they shifted to titanium too. So it was heavy.
Yeah. And the number of times I've cracked my skull in bed because I was holding this phone.
Oh, no. That was a heavy phone.
Yeah. Carissa, are you a Pro Max girly or?
No, I'm with Allison. The small Pro is where it's at for me. I don't, you know, I want to be able to hold my phone in one hand comfortably. Like even as it is, I can barely reach my thumb across it, you know?
That's how I drop the phone. That's how I like crack it. Tough enough to get in your pocket as it is. Like, what pocket, girl? What pocket are you talking about? By the way, I was like, I don't know how you all felt about that crossbody strap that was announced. And when it was initially announced, it was like cheers in the audience. And I was like, what are y'all on about? I was like, are y'all nuts? Like, why are you cheering for a cross, like a sling? And then I was like, hang on a second. This dress doesn't have pockets. I want my phone on me securely and easy to reach and not in a bag. Dang, I like that crossbody strap. I mean, do either of you want that?
I want to want it. I don't know if I'm, I may be like too old or not old enough to pull it off, you know.
You want to want it? Okay.
I'm going to, I'll give it a try, you know, when I can. But yeah, the idea of like, I am constantly, I have a coffee in my hand like at all times usually. So that's one hand down. And then if I need to check something on my phone, like what do you do? You can just drop your phone, right? It's just on you.
Right. Exactly. Just let it go.
Anyway, exactly. Carissa, you know, I feel like there's very few situations where I would actually pull that thing out and like just sling my phone across myself. But I will say, so I just got back from vacation recently. I was in Argentina.
And I saw several people with similar kind of straps like carrying their phones around when I was there. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. That's not like an accessory that I often see around here. So like clearly there's like some kind of demand, like people are using this. So I guess I wasn't that surprised that Apple would make one.
I guess when you said something about age too, Allison, I was like, is it the equivalent of those like glasses chains? You know, like when you stick it the way around your neck and then like boom, you just drop it, right? I feel like if you had your phone on a lanyard, that might be a bridge too far.
Too far. My neck doesn't have the strength for that heaviness. But when it's crossbody, yeah, it's fashion.
I will say I was shopping for a new bag the other day. Well, I've been trying to get a new bag and all the options coming up were like these crossbody phone cases. So to sort of the point we're almost making here, Apple is not new in the concept, right? It's not something, but I did like the way the strap kind of like adjusts. It's magnetic on itself.
It's so interesting the way you adjust the length of it. I don't know if that is unique because I just haven't looked into it, but I was like, this rules. I will just play with this. It's pretty cool. But anyway, yeah, Carissa, favorite phone of the lot, you know.
I think I got to say the orange Pro. Okay. It's just so nice to see color again in the iPhone lineup. Like I feel like we just see so many like kind of like neutral tones or like beigy gray shades. And you know, orange isn't like my favorite color, but just seeing a really bold color. Again, I don't think we've seen an orange iPhone in quite a long time, especially not that shade of orange. It's just like nice to see something that you see right away. You're like, whoa, that's cool.
So yeah, the iPhone 17 Pro orange, cosmic orange, it's the name of it. I am reminded though, the orange and the invite image and all that, like there's even the background of this space here, there's this sort of like thermal scan situation going on and it really calls to mind the idea of the vapor chamber in the iPhone Pros this year and it's a first for Apple. I think it addresses a very important thing for a lot of us. I don't know how often for both of you does your phone run hot to the point where like it won't, you know, charge anymore or like it just is so uncomfortable to hold on to. But like Allison, you review a lot more phones than I do nowadays. Vapor chambers in phones isn't brand new, right? Have they worked in other devices? And do you think it's good that Apple's done this?
I think anything, you know, it's forward progress. It feels like across the board like the phones are running hotter. The cooling and the heat dissipation kind of step up every year, but I feel like the chips also get like more powerful and we're running more on-device AI and doing crazy things in video and portrait mode stuff. So yeah, I'm curious. It really is like, good, thank you.
Sometimes I open a web page that has too many things on it and my phone heats up like no other.
And then it gets slow, right?
Yeah. The thing I have trouble with as a person who lives in Seattle, it's not that like hot and sunny for much of the year. So I always got to get a temperature check from other people who live in a sunny place. I'm like, did the screen dim a lot on you? Because I don't know. It's like...
So you don't run into the situation where you're like doing something and your phone just runs hot on its own?
So I am always opening up a website called Icy Veins to play Diablo IV and like cheat my way to having a good character.
Shout out to Icy Veins. I love it. It runs so hot. It's like the torture test for every phone I use and it'll heat up and things kind of like stutter to a halt.
So I'm going to pull up Icy Veins and see what's what. Carissa, do you care about vapor chambers in phones? Did that appeal to you, that bit of news?
So my phone does get hot a lot. So it does appeal to me. I guess I don't quite understand like how much cooler is it going to be. Like it's never going to get hot, it's just going to cool off faster when it does get hot. Like what is... you know, maybe you can speak to this because it sounds like you know more about this, but like what does the vapor chamber actually accomplish?
Yeah. Well, I'm confused too, to be honest, because there's like cooling the system and then there's dissipating the heat and like sending the heat away, which is going to make it feel hot. So that's a good thing to some extent, but you sort of want to not get there in the first place. I couldn't get a good read on it. Like if I'm holding this in my hand doing something intense, is it going to be cooler? Is it just going to be doing a better job and not run?
So based on some of the materials Apple has shown at his keynote and some of the press release stuff, the A19 processor that's in the Pros has been relocated within the chassis of the iPhone 17 Pros. The vapor chamber overlaps sort of on parts of it. And where the phone gets hot is where the processor is just like going crazy, right? So it starts generating heat. If the vapor chamber is positioned well enough, it can draw the heat and dissipate it better. So it's partly the positioning, it's got more space to send the heat out, and the fact that it's even got a vapor chamber to do that. There's like Sam Rutherford on our team who knows the science a bit better to explain this, but it's about like something like a pressure differential, something about moving the air around. And there's some liquid in it that like evaporates and then becomes water, condenses, and then there's a lot of that. Like I'm throwing out words that I heard from Sam about like how do vapor chambers work, that sort of thing. So it basically dissipates and like from some videos that I think were at the keynote, it should help the iPhone 17 Pro not get as hot as the 16 Pro, right? And so not just through dissipating, I mean dissipating alone frees up like the temperature threshold. But because of the repositioning too, like there's just more room for the heat to go off of the phone. And it's not just on the processor area. From what I understand, the charging side of things, when you're charging your phone, sometimes it does run hot in that scenario. Just the presence of the vapor chamber will also help better dissipate any sort of collection of heat. So it should help. I don't know how much.
It should help with the overall battery health too, right? Because isn't heat like the main thing that makes a battery degrade? I know it's charging cycles and other things, but you know, that battery getting hot all the time.
Yeah. It's a good reminder for me to not put my phone under my butt right now, but...
Yeah. No, I don't enjoy...
Good job. You live in Seattle. Your battery health is probably...
Yeah. In New York, we get ass hot and then we get butt cold. So I don't know if we can say ass, but I guess I just said it.
But yeah. So, okay. So we all three of us love the Pros, but did you like the iPhone Air, Carissa?
So I like it from the perspective of our colleague Sam wrote a great piece about this that it kind of gives you a sense of where Apple might be going with the next generation of phones. You know, what he wrote was that, you know, having this very thin phone is kind of the first step of potentially having some kind of device that can fold, for example. So I think when you look at it from that perspective as like, you know, it's a very impressive feat of engineering to get an iPhone into that thin of a package. You know, maybe that sets us up for like an even more exciting phone in the future. I think that's pretty cool. As a standalone phone right now, I'm just not really sure it makes sense for me and I'm not really sure who it makes sense for, to be honest. It has some interesting features, but the battery life seems like a major drawback. That single camera seems like, you know, we're way past the point where you can have, you know, something that's considered to be a top-of-the-line phone, you know, that costs $1,000 with one lens. Like I'm just not really sure who it's for, but I think it shows us some really interesting things about what we might see in the future.
Yeah, I do. I think there's, and you know, you might agree with the like Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge kind of experience where on paper you're like, is this really that big of a difference? It's like a little thinner, whatever. And then you pick it up and use it, you're like, whoa, okay, no, this actually is kind of different. I think maybe there's an audience for that who will be like, yeah, actually, I'm fine giving up all this other stuff. I just don't want to lug a heavy phone around anymore. But yeah, I think the reality is a lot of people will have trouble trading off battery life, going to the single camera for the benefits of it being thinner. It's sort of almost a question of like, I feel like the regular 17 has like people who are going to buy that know who they are, and then there's the Pro crowd, and there's people who are kind of in between the Pro and the Air, which seems weird, but this is weird.
Yeah. But they're like, maybe I can just give it all up and live free. And I'm already having those conversations in my DMs and Slack where I'm like, well, camera is important to me. I don't know about you. Well, the good thing is, I guess the selfie camera, right? Like on all the iPhone 17s, including the Air, support Center Stage, have that 24-megapixel square sensor, which to me was very intriguing. Like just from the technological engineering perspective, I'm like, whoa, whoever, why didn't we think about this before? You know what I mean? It's like, oh, interesting. I guess the Air is for someone that's like not so, you know, into a telephoto experience, for example, like a faraway telephoto experience or like needs ultrawide camera. All I couldn't. When I was reviewing the iPhone 16, I was like, no, ultrawide sucks. It's hard.
Yeah. When you're forced to like live without the ultrawide after having it at your disposal all the time, I think that's a big problem. And like the last time I didn't use an ultrawide or didn't use a phone with an ultrawide was before the pandemic.
Oh wow. It's been a while. Is an ultrawide important to you all? Am I the only one?
Yeah, because you can, for better or worse, zoom in on stuff a little and I'll tolerate like a little digital zoom. You can't, sometimes you just can't move backwards anymore. You're like, well, you're getting cut out of this picture. I'm sorry.
Yeah. Or not. Do you use it?
There we go. So three of us won't be buying the Airs. I was thinking like I was on a different podcast earlier today. Brian Hong, shout out. We were like the only people that might consider the iPhone Air or possibly the Apple diehards, the faithful who are like, we will buy anything that's really like significant like that, or you have dual devices. You have two. And for me, if I had that kind of money, I'd be like main the 17 Pro. The Air is my take to the gala and the little clutch, a little purse phone, but not the crossbody. You could crossbody it.
Who? What? What are you wearing?
Okay. Yeah, if it's that you can wear a crossbody.
It's evening attire. Maybe that's...
I'm not wearing like a nice little ball gown to this wedding with a crossbody strap ruining the whole look.
We don't wear a lot of ball gowns in Seattle because of the rain.
Which by the way is raining here right now, which is so funny.
I'm sorry for bringing it with me.
It is. Yeah. But yeah, Carissa, what's up? Do you think that the iPhone Air might become kind of like the phone you get when you want to flex a little bit? Because it does look so much different. Like I'm thinking of when, you know, on the Android side, when like the first foldable phones came out and it was kind of like when you saw somebody flip open their phone, you're like, oh wow, they, you know, they have it. And I wonder if like the Air might just turn into that even though it's not technically the highest-end phone, but because it is a new form factor, that it's kind of the one you get when you want to like show off a little bit.
I've been consoling myself a little bit because like I know that if I were, you know, going back to my friends and like they're like, oh my god, which one did you get or whatever. And I'll be like, well, you know, I have the Pro, not the interesting one or whatever if I end up bringing back phones or like buying whatever. And I can imagine people being disappointed, right? Like, oh, that's the phone I got, even though it's the more expensive, the higher-end phone.
And the Air, to your point, Cara, you've been bringing up F-words like crazy. One was flex, the other was foldable. So, I mean, supposedly this is a very durable phone, the Air. And the Flex, like you said, with earlier foldables and the LG G Flex, they all like would bend. And to a certain level, I don't know that when I held the iPhone Air in my hands, I was like, let's bend this. It feels like I could crack it, right? And I've said this before, it feels like the physical manifestation of liquid glass because like those little bits you see in the interface, touching the iPhone Air feels like grabbing one of those chips almost. So I do think it might be quite another effort fragile. But I will say that I don't think Apple, like I think it's very well documented that there might be foldable prototypes somewhere in an Apple office, but as an idea, as like a precursor to the foldable that Apple might be building. Do you think the iPhone Air is a display of like potential, you know, grounds made there, Allison?
I think you just look at the Samsung, you know, the Galaxy Edge and what they did with the Fold 7 this year, like how they slimmed that way down. And it's kind of like this is probably not a coincidence, you know? So I think there's something to that of like if you're developing that technology, I don't think Apple has figured out what to do with the non-regular base iPhone. Like we have the iPhone mini, and they've put that to rest.
No, no, no, no. It's coming back. It has to come back. Coming back.
No, don't get my hopes up, Sherin. And then the Plus, and that didn't catch on super well. My dental hygienist had one. I can't think of anyone else who did. Yeah, she was a Plus owner. So I think it's kind of grounds for experimentation. And it's like, well, you know, we're not upsetting anybody by like doing away with a form factor that they were loving.
I mean, I don't think they care about upsetting people. They removed the mini. Like, some of us are upset.
Some of us are very upset.
But to your point, like the Plus wasn't the most, like it didn't make a lot of sense for it to continue to exist, right? I don't know if like... I think the iPhone 17 now getting ProMotion is a big deal.
I'm finally like ready to recommend it to people. I'm like, yeah, okay. Carissa also wrote a story for Engadget about the storage. Can you tell us more about that?
So I'm very excited that every new iPhone now comes with 256 GB of storage as a base level.
Yeah. Would you like in the past run out? Like how quickly would you run out or would you need to buy iCloud storage?
Okay. So, sorry, three questions at once. I have not run out in quite a while because I think since the iPhone X, which I had two phones ago, I have always just paid for that like that extra bump in storage because before then with every phone, you know, inevitably you run out. It's such a pain. You can kind of use iCloud, but iCloud isn't really like a full substitution for running out of local storage.
It's a huge pain. And it's like the one thing that I think actually kind of, I'm somebody now I want to keep my phone as long as possible. And I feel like running out of storage is a thing that really kind of limits like your time with it. Like once you start hitting that cap, of course you can go and you know, try to delete things, delete apps, you know, move stuff to iCloud, but you know, it really becomes such a pain. And especially if you have a Pro-level phone, you know, you can shoot in, you know, cinematic videos and ProRAW Max and like these formats and like take advantage of like these amazing cameras. Like there's no reason why you should be limited to 128 gigs, you know, especially you're paying that much. But personally, I always try to go at least one bump up.
It stings. You know, that $200 bump for storage is something that like it always like makes me mad a little bit. You know, you're like, why am I paying more for something that, you know, I can't see? It doesn't benefit you right away, but in the long run, I think it's worth it. I have 512 on my current phone. I'm going strong and I think it's going to help me keep my phone like at least another year or two.
That's good. I mean, I think about like when I used to run out of storage because I would keep a phone for a very long time, which is what you're describing. And I'd be like seek out alternative methods of like keeping those things. So I would like have, I still remain a big like Google ecosystem person. So I have G Drive, I have Google Photos, back those up. And back in the day, Photos was like unlimited backup or whatever, right?
So those were my creative ways around this whole like, okay, I got to get rid of these photos approach. I would also get the Lightning thumb drives, the flash drives that plug into the phone and be like, I just drop them off. But to your point, Chris, none of these are perfect like solutions. I just want them there because there's nothing more annoying than when you're scrolling through your Photos app and you want this picture of like some receipt from ages ago and it's like downloading or like it won't load, it was just gray. It's very annoying. I don't know if, did this feel like a big deal to you?
I think it is a big deal for most people who buy and use phones. I'm like a weirdo who's also kind of, I still have my photos in Google Photos and I for a while was like keeping it under the limit and then I was like, well, I got to pay for this now. So and I'm like, well, I'm paying for this, I might as well just keep, you know, loading that up on every review unit. So it is a little bit of a weird thing when you're not like living with a phone day-to-day and accumulating all the apps and all the extra stuff. But yeah, I think in this age of huge video files and photo modes, it's time.
I have to ask, do you have like a daily driver? I switch my SIM all the time into whatever phone. If you had a preference though, would you...
And it's at home and I like, it's not allowed to travel anymore. Like the video team would kill me if I brought it to an event like this.
Just the battery is no good anymore. You're not allowed to use it. I thought you can't just bring it with you as like a security blanket.
A support. Yeah, exactly.
I know. No, I mean I take it out of the, you know, the desk drawer every once in a while. Hold it. Sometimes I get to use it for a week and I'm like, oh, my old friend.
Doesn't that suck though to use such a small screen? I'm sorry. I know. I love the mini, but I'm also like that screen is tiny.
Two things can be true at once. I love the mini and also like it kind of sucks sometimes.
Yeah, I guess I can see why Apple no longer sells it. I guess I don't think that will happen with the Air, which by the way has a 6.5-inch screen. You see how I did that?
And the iPhone 17 Pro is what, 6.3 and 6.9. I think that's an interesting way to get at the like screen size situation because the 17 is 6.3. So you have now 6.3, 6.5, 6.3, 6.9, whereas the Plus before was just the same size as the Pro Max, right? And so now you have a sort of in-between option. I mean, I think that's nice. I don't need as big a screen as a 6.9. It feels unwieldy for me.
Yeah, I don't like how big it makes the whole phone feel. I think the 6.1-inch, 6.3-inch screen size, perfect.
Don't touch it. That phone can be that small.
