Tom Anderson (00:02)
This is Basic AF episode ninety seven. Show notes for this episode can be found at basic AFShow dot com. Hello, welcome back. If you're new to the show, glad to have you around. Hope you enjoy it. My name's Tom Anderson, and I am joined, as always, by my pal Jeff Battersby. Hello, Jeff. How are you, sir?

Jeff Battersby (00:19)
Good morning, Tom Anderson. we've had the usual burps and farts to begin to begin our little morning together, haven't we? Burps and farts.

Tom Anderson (00:28)
Those are tech terms, by the way. We're not sharing a space and enjoying those things. We as we kicked off the show,

for some reason my phone decided to jump into the conversation and connect to my MacBook and the continuity camera mode and my audio got really weird.

Jeff Battersby (00:43)
Yeah, and you tried to blame it on me, Tom.

Tom Anderson (00:45)
Yeah, well, I don't know. God blame it on somebody. All right, so for this episode, a couple of weeks back we had Joe Moyer on.

To recap the Apple September event with the new phones and everything. And we

Jeff Battersby (01:02)
Thank you, Joe.

Tom Anderson (01:03)
s yes indeed. Thank you, Joe. We've had a nice response to that show, as we usually do when Joe comes on. He's a man of the people. So if you haven't heard that yet,

Jeff Battersby (01:09)
Yeah. Yeah, yes.

Tom Anderson (01:10)
go check that out. then in that show we said we were going to order some new stuff, or we had ordered some new stuff, and new stuff has arrived. So we're going to talk about that

Jeff Battersby (01:20)
Yes, it has, Tom.

Tom Anderson (01:21)
today.

Jeff Battersby (01:22)
Yeah, we are. and I think both kind of big upgrades for both of us. I jumped from an iPhone fifteen Pro Max to an iPhone eighteen pro almost said fifteen. and you have jumped from the original Apple Watch Ultra to

Is that right? It was the original, right? The first.

Tom Anderson (01:50)
It was.

Jeff Battersby (01:50)
Yeah. So you made the the great leap from the original Ultra now to the Ultra Four. So it's it's good times for both of us. We both have had, I would say, pretty pretty good upgrade experiences. So we'll we'll start with that. And we'll start with with me. you actually had sent me, and maybe we can link to these in the

in in the show notes, but you sent me a couple of really good videos about upgrades from the fifteen. the fifteen actually I think in those cases it was fifteen pro, to the to the eighteen. And I I have to say, I am very pleased on a couple of different levels. So we'll we'll start first of all with the just the the responsiveness.

the phone is very, very responsive. I immediately, by the way, switched it over to, you know, eighty percent charging, which kinda interesting 'cause my battery life must have been pretty good on my Pro Max because I get about the same amount of time out of my phone now as I was getting before. But I I I have switched back from the Pro Max to the Pro because of the

because I really preferred that size factor. when I got my fifteen Pro Max, the only reason I did the Pro Max version was because of the camera. the camera is better was better in that round of iPhones. The camera was better in the fifteen Pro Max than it was in the fifteen, so I sucked it up and did that. I have to say I'm extremely

Extraordinarily happy to be back on the smaller size phone. fits in my hand nicely and really kind of love it. So that form factor for me is great. I have not purchased any any cases for this yet. So and I don't know whether I will or I won't, although it it's kind of funny. Very slippery, as was the previous version of this, and I have it hasn't fallen out of my hand.

But I find that it slips off of every other surface that I put it on pretty easily. So I have already dropped this phone more times or had it slide onto the floor more times than than I have ever had any other phone. Usually it's pretty slick, you know, pretty pretty tight. One thing I will say though is that the fifteen Pro Max, right now I have this on a magnetic magnetic thing.

connector in order for me to use the the phone while I'm while I'm recording with you. And the f the fifteen Pro Max used to kinda tilt. So I had to have a case on it in order for it to to hang properly, you know, with a little magnetic holder. This has no trouble whatsoever. It's perfectly balanced on this on this holder. yeah, it's great. so that

Tom Anderson (05:08)
Which colour did you

get again?

Jeff Battersby (05:10)
I got the they call it burgundy, I wanna call it cherry, and I will say I absolutely love the color. it's it's great. I was wondering whether or not I'd be a little disappointed that I didn't get the matte black, which is another one. In fact, Chris Freitag and I who will be on a show in you know, in a in a few weeks, we hope, to talk about cameras.

talk about these cameras. I had seen that he had gotten a fifteen pro as well. You might recall that we talked with him last year when he got the air and decided that he did not like the air anymore because it was just not suitable for what it was that he was trying to use it for. he this year has upgraded to the same the same thing. So he and I'll be on the same camera. It'll be kinda interesting to talk with him.

Tom Anderson (06:04)
Ganon Nordberg, who was on

that episode with Chris when we were talking about the airs, has had

Jeff Battersby (06:07)
Yes. Yeah.

Tom Anderson (06:09)
his and he was mostly okay with the cameras. He was running into some heat related issues where it would say it's kind of like throttling down processing or something. And

Jeff Battersby (06:20)
really?

Tom Anderson (06:20)
so he has ordered an eighteen pro. So he's had enough of that. Yeah.

Jeff Battersby (06:24)
interesting. Okay.

Tom Anderson (06:26)
Which those did not get the the vapor chamber.

Which I wonder if they'll put that in the air two to help with some of that. They seem to be putting it in everything, so it wouldn't surprise me. 'Cause

Jeff Battersby (06:34)
Yeah, yeah.

Tom Anderson (06:34)
the duo has it. so I'm fairly certain the air two will have it if there's an air two, which I suspect there will be, but

Jeff Battersby (06:42)
Well, and I think some of you know, this is kinda going off the rails for a second or off track from from you know, talking about this, but I I think some of what the air was, the experimentation with the air was the you know, the to see how thin they could get it. And that shows up in the duo. you know, the duo has that thinness and maybe that's also where they determined they needed that that vapor chamber.

in order to be able to you know, to make it so that th th the duo could be cooled as well. So open, the duo is thinner than the areas, which is kind of incredible when you think about it, 'cause that thing was thin.

Tom Anderson (07:27)
Mm-hmm.

Jeff Battersby (07:28)
so anyway, yeah, it's it's pretty interesting. so yeah, it'll be interesting to talk with Chris about about the camera, particularly since that really is his

line of business now. You know, he's he's shooting photography all over the place. And I fancy myself a photographer, but not to the extent that that that he is. So we'll talk about the camera in a second. But yeah, I got the I ended up getting this is a long way around of saying I got the Burgundy one. He got

Tom Anderson (08:00)
Ha ha ha.

Jeff Battersby (08:02)
the he got the Matt Black one and I will say as soon as I opened the box, I was pleased with my

with my choice. It's it's the orange I liked, you know, of the previous the the previous model. but no subtlety to that. Had I had I gotten the the seventeen I would have gotten the in I guess they called it midnight blue or something like that. and that was lovely color as well. I really liked the dark that darker color. But this this

Burgundy slash cherry. cherry to me, burgundy the apple is gorgeous. really

Tom Anderson (08:47)
Yeah, it looks nice. I haven't seen it in person, but the

pictures I've seen looks really nice. Yeah. Looks good.

Jeff Battersby (08:52)
Super nice. Very, very happy with

it. and was able to trade in my my my fifteen pro Max. just got the actually got the email back from them yesterday. I got four hundred and fifty five bucks for that. So that was a nice, nice round number for me to be able to trade in. I probably could have sold it for more than that.

Tom Anderson (09:13)
So here's the real question, Jeff, that everybody wants to know, maybe not everybody, just me, but when you bought the phone

Did you put it on your Apple card or did you do Klarna? The the Apple upgrade program. Yes. That you walked back, let's be fair, you you walked it back.

Jeff Battersby (09:27)
You mean Clar and I made fun of so much, even though it's no yeah. I

w I did walk it back. because I understood where the the finance used to come from. I put it on my Apple card.

Tom Anderson (09:39)
Okay.

Jeff Battersby (09:40)
So it is costing me thirty one dollars a month. but no interest. I did not do a lease because first of all, I keep these things longer than

Like I I jumped from a fifteen Pro Max to an eighteen, so that's three seasons of three seasons of of iPhones that I w waded through to be able to

Tom Anderson (10:02)
Yeah, and I think that's

become more typical and it's very reasonable for most people because you know, we're the improvements we see year to year are okay, well that's nice, but that's nice and

Jeff Battersby (10:14)
Right.

Tom Anderson (10:14)
but if you skip a few, then you really like feel like you did went from fifteen to eighteen. and then imagine like

Jeff Battersby (10:22)
Big jump.

Tom Anderson (10:22)
we had a a lady at work yesterday that came in for some support and she's still using the iPhone eight.

So imagine what an upgrade that would be, like the eight to the eighteenth, yeah. So

Jeff Battersby (10:31)
Wow. my gosh. Insane.

Tom Anderson (10:36)
but yeah, just whatever you do with your phone, some people just use it for text messaging, so they don't care about the cameras or anything like that.

Jeff Battersby (10:42)
W well and I think this is an important point

to make because you know, I I made the move to this to this phone and started using it and really Tom, it's just a phone. You know not to be you know, make it a little a little anticlimactic. It is nice to have a new one. Yeah

Tom Anderson (11:05)
All right, that's the show everybody. Thanks for s checking us out. The the phone is just a

phone. Have a good night.

Jeff Battersby (11:13)
Yeah, there you go. Yeah, it's I mean you know, it's a phone. I I use it primarily as as a camera, you know, a camera that I have in my pocket all the time. And we'll talk a little bit about that in a second. I have not, by the way, been able to dig into all the all the the camera details. I have played with it, but I've not completely given a good go a a good go round yet. You know, I've taken some photographs and and

played with the aperture settings and seen if I can see or make a difference. but it in reality it's just a phone. You know, I check my email. I I unlike you make phone calls and and have talked to people about about that. And then I you know send text messages to you and others and do a couple of other things

watched a little F one on it this morning. Not that I'm not as into that as I was was before I went until the whole race was over and then watched the last ten laps or so. So that was about the size but you can only watch people go around in circles so

Tom Anderson (12:22)
Casual viewer. Yeah.

Jeff Battersby (12:25)
much before you kinda lose your mind. So not my

Tom Anderson (12:28)
And what storage configuration did you get?

Jeff Battersby (12:30)
I got the two fifty six. I d I

would have to look at it right now and I can't because I'm using it as my camera, but I would have to I would have to look at it right now

Tom Anderson (12:37)
Ha ha ha ha.

Jeff Battersby (12:40)
to tell you how much of that I've used. But that's exactly what my my fifteen Pro Max was and I was barely tapping half of it. You know, it just didn't make any sense for me to to get anything. So I got the base model in terms of, you know, storage. I don't need any more storage than that.

I i there definitely is a speed difference.

I definitely noticed that and I was noticing that there was a little lag when I scrolled and and things like that. It could have been because I was on betas, you know, on the on the fifteen Pro Max. But back to that that very brilliant statement, it it really is just a phone. I I I suspect when the duo comes out there might be some feelings that are different than this is just a phone, particularly since you get a little

a little iPad in your pocket at the same time and because the the footprint of that is more like a notebook than this is. you know, it's it it's the same thing that I've had for a while with the exception of the cameras. Now here's kinda gonna be an interesting thing. I know you and Chris both said that the

The special camera button was no big deal. You know, like got in the way, didn't really care. Do you even use yours?

Tom Anderson (14:17)
I use it to launch the camera app. But I don't use it to

Jeff Battersby (14:20)
Okay. So

Tom Anderson (14:22)
do any of the controls or anything. I found it too finicky. But for launching the camera app I like it. I that's always how I do it.

Jeff Battersby (14:29)
I

Yeah, okay, that's great. And for do you use it to click the shutter or do you tap the screen?

Tom Anderson (14:35)
usually tap the screen.

Jeff Battersby (14:37)
Okay. Yeah. I I have been using I f completely forgot that it was a feature, by the way. Pressed it by accident. That's that's how I got to it.

Tom Anderson (14:45)
Right. I have a similar tale for the watch when we get to that.

Jeff Battersby (14:48)
Okay, great, cool. We'll get there. We'll get there in a second. Tom's my turn right now. Yeah,

Tom Anderson (14:53)
Takes time, brother. Takes time.

Jeff Battersby (14:54)
I'm doing doing my best. I really do like that feature. So now the action button set up with halide, which by the way has not as of this moment been upgraded.

to you know I mean it supports obviously it supports the camera, but you know, it's not doing anything to take advantage of any of those special features. And honestly, if I look at their website, I don't even see, you know, usually these guys do review these cameras right out of the box at Lux. and I don't think that they've even done that. And that may be largely due to the fact that

half of the team is now now on now on yeah, team Apple doing that camera, right. so, you know, who knows? Yeah, Johnny Appleseed is taking them taking them over.

Tom Anderson (15:41)
Team Apple. Mm. Over there with John Appleseed. Yeah, John Appleseed. Yeah, new CEO.

Jeff Battersby (15:52)
Yeah.

Tom Anderson (15:53)
So you you said

you haven't done too much with the cameras yet. have you dug into the new controls?

Jeff Battersby (15:57)
I have I have used them.

Tom Anderson (15:59)
I mean, I know you haven't you've only had it a week, so I know you haven't had a ton of time to do to go too deep with it, but like they added some additional controls. of course the aperture we've talked about. have you noticed any difference by the way on the aperture settings, like just some test shots, early test shots you've done like

Jeff Battersby (16:15)
I have

yeah, I've played around with that and I th I sent you a couple of those. So working

Tom Anderson (16:19)
Mm-hmm.

Jeff Battersby (16:19)
at the bar the other day, I use it to g get a little different depth of field and I have to say I really do like that. I need to find a way to to start using it more and start playing with it. And but so far I like that feature. I know you

Before we started recording, you you told me that there was some guy that you were watching that jumped from the seventeen to the eighteen. It's like no difference except for some starburst in my and you

Tom Anderson (16:52)
Yeah.

Jeff Battersby (16:52)
know, it's like, okay, genius.

Tom Anderson (16:55)
Yeah. I mean there's a bit like on some of the shots you did like

you just mentioned with the depth of field, but I mean other than that it's not a huge jump from the seventeen to the eighteen, aside for some of the

Jeff Battersby (17:03)
No, it's not, not from the seventeen.

Tom Anderson (17:05)
I guess the things you don't get on the seventeen that you only get on the eighteen because, you know, Apple being Apple and all, but no. Right.

Jeff Battersby (17:12)
Right. A the

A twenty chip and the you know, there's a couple other things that are there that you don't you don't really notice. you also asked me whether or not I'd I messed with any of the styles, the new photostyles. And there are a number of new photostyles, kinda interesting and fun to play with. I have primarily been shooting Raw for almost I haven't changed this over to Raw yet, but for most of my photographic time.

that's kind of of a preference and I tend not to shoot with filters, but one of the things that I will say, previous versions of and this is I think more of an iOS thing than the camera thing, previous versions have made photos seem super overprocessed. And it feels to me like they've dialed some of that back a little bit. So it's one of the things I I said that I'm really enjoying about Halite is Hay Light is

'Cause what they're referring to as films, they're still filters, you know, but they're they they had some Hollywood colorists design a bunch of these things and so they have yeah, there there are certainly photostyles and halide that I love and I'm shooting in almost extensively just because of what it does with blues in the sky and things of that nature.

Tom Anderson (18:37)
Mm-hmm.

Jeff Battersby (18:39)
I have started to play with styles.

on the n you know in well it's really part of new iOS but as part of this this phone as well. And I could see some upsides to that. Like I could see some of the some of the colors are are really good. Right now I've got that camera control set to change the zoom levels. I think I can customize it a little more yeah a little differently than that. So I might want to see if it's possible to

And you might know this already 'cause of n what you're using phone wise, but whether it's possible to make the styles change using that little slider. So we shall Yeah, I don't n I don't

Tom Anderson (19:21)
That I'm not sure. Yeah. and I feel like

Jeff Battersby (19:24)
know either.

Tom Anderson (19:25)
yeah, and I think I've been sleeping on those styles to be honest. Like I saw them there and I was like, well, I don't know, check it out maybe. but then in the review for the eighteen pro that Tyler Stallman did, he was talking about that was with

Jeff Battersby (19:39)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Anderson (19:41)
I forget who the guests were, but and he was saying how he uses them extensively and that because what's different

I think what's is kind of cool with those is you can go in and it kinda you know, you say you do amber, but then you can tap on it and then you can adjust the tone and the color to your liking. Like it's it's got that little

Jeff Battersby (20:01)
Yeah, I have plenty of

Tom Anderson (20:03)
touch slider thing. It's a little quirky to get

Jeff Battersby (20:05)
It it

Tom Anderson (20:06)
set, but so I actually went in this week and changed so I have the amber filter applied by default to everything. So every shot I take

Jeff Battersby (20:16)
Uh-huh.

Tom Anderson (20:17)
uses that. Because it's not instructive, you can go and change it later.

and and mess with it. and so he's he's got a couple of you call them recipes, I think, where like for amber you'd drop it down to minus twenty on the tone or something like that. But what caught my interest the most about that is he said he was able to use some of those adjustments on those to kind of offset some of the over processing that Apple does automatically.

Jeff Battersby (20:42)
Interesting.

Tom Anderson (20:43)
and so I wanna go back and kind of look at some more of his videos about that to see how I might be able to apply that a bit more.

Jeff Battersby (20:50)
Yeah, no, there's I'm interested to play to play with them 'cause they are they are pretty there's several more and th they're a little more interesting, you know, d and I what it you know some of the things about the styles that that that it comes up with, what it considers dynamic, I think is very flat.

Tom Anderson (21:15)
Mm.

Jeff Battersby (21:16)
so you know, it's

it it it'll make it I don't know. We'll see. We'll see how it how it plays out. But I really am in in enjoying at least starting to play with it. And then like I said, the i i the fact that you can with these with these styles that they've they've done kind of a better job I think of making it less crazy.

Like for a while, I think any time I took a picture with the with my phone, it was like, ooh, this is way, way too much. so yeah, we'll we'll see how that goes. But so far camera really really nice. couple of things that I'm supposedly getting is sixteen more hours of video playback than my than my Pro Max.

You know, I I one of the thing I really like and this is a big a big difference is now I have several zoom levels that are all quite good. so I think it would have five now as opposed to it as opposed to three previously or four previously.

Tom Anderson (22:31)
Right. 'Cause

I think you've got point five, one, two, four, and eight. Which is nice.

Jeff Battersby (22:36)
Yeah. And I

it it's amazing, you know, and really is and that eight is you know, it's pretty good. Takes it takes really solid, sharp photos and yeah, I I think and you said this the other day, I think f four and eight are the sweet spot on Zoom. I think that's a really a really good Zoom Zoom level.

So pretty good stuff. I have not really screwed around with any of the other things that might make this, you know, a little more interesting, which is to say, you know, I'm not working with shortcuts, not really working with any of the other kinda newer features that show up. I Siri for me still f seems a little old school.

I don't know there's something I need to do or I'm just an idiot and can't ask questions. But Siri, I know you've you've had a pretty good experience with Siri and and you know Apple intelligence. I will say that, you know, I I haven't I know you did some photo stuff with it, like pulling out specific photos from a beach trip and things like that. And I'm still getting

Mostly, I can't do that for you today. So to see Yeah.

Tom Anderson (24:06)
That sucks.

Jeff Battersby (24:09)
Yeah. Well, you know, you know me. I'm not I'm not gonna be leaning into that stuff too much anyway. so we'll see. We'll

Tom Anderson (24:17)
Biggest obstacle I've

had with that, with Siri so far is it had been bad for so long that other than saying,

Jeff Battersby (24:25)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Anderson (24:26)
hey, add this to the groceries list and you know, three out of eight times that not working, or set a timer,

Jeff Battersby (24:31)
Ha ha

Tom Anderson (24:32)
like I just didn't try it for anything else because I knew it was just going to be aggravation, but now it's better. Like it's still not perfect, like it still stumbles on some odd stuff here and there, but way better. And so now it's the retraining of, I could just have Siri do that.

Jeff Battersby (24:47)
Right.

Tom Anderson (24:47)
And usually

it does it, but it's such a mind shift to be like it's like, why would I ask you to do this? I

Jeff Battersby (24:51)
Right, because you haven't been using it for anything but stupid stuff.

Tom Anderson (24:54)
know you can't do it, but now I can't. But I think we're we're gonna

Jeff Battersby (24:57)
Yeah. No, it's

Tom Anderson (24:58)
look to do a Siri AI show maybe in a month or so. So

Jeff Battersby (25:04)
Yeah, I think that's great.

Tom Anderson (25:05)
we can dig into that and see what our experience has been, what's worked, what's not, maybe we can share some ideas and I'll see if maybe we can

Jeff Battersby (25:11)
Mm play with it a little more.

Tom Anderson (25:12)
find somebody to come on for that one too. So if hey if you're out there and having fun with Siri, let us know.

Jeff Battersby (25:17)
Yeah, and and let us know what you're doing or what it is that that's taking place. I I know that shortcuts have gotten more deep and detailed too. so able to, you know, create your own shortcuts that you can then use with Siri. So we'll see. There there may be there may be some things that we can absolutely

Tom Anderson (25:30)
Yeah. I feel like Riley would be a good guess for that 'cause he was building Safari

extensions in the beta and stuff to do like page source and stuff like that. So I'll we'll hit him up and see what he says.

Jeff Battersby (25:37)
Correct. Yeah, so we'll hey Riley,

if you're out there listening to us, we want to get you on the schedule.

Tom Anderson (25:45)
Ha

Jeff Battersby (25:48)
So yeah, so we'll we'll d we'll see about that.

Tom Anderson (25:51)
Okay.

Jeff Battersby (25:52)
I overall though, my experience with it is you know, in in one week and as much as I could use it in one week is pretty pretty solid, I'd say. given the fact that it is just a phone, you know, it I know, I know.

Tom Anderson (26:17)
Buzz kill.

Jeff Battersby (26:18)
I know, I'm the worst. No,

it's you know, that's really what it comes down to. it's a phone I'm happy with and you know again, it is the camera that is constantly with me. So, you know, it'll be the one in my pocket. I'm going to my niece's what's going to be a w rainy wedding shower today. but it's i it really is

pretty nice. And nice to get, you know, four hundred and fifty five bucks from Apple and I trade in. So that was

Tom Anderson (26:49)
Mm-hmm.

Jeff Battersby (26:51)
that it simplified that decision as well. So they they gave me a you know a nice a nice buck and now I'll have this thing for three or more years. You know. And by the way, and we're gonna talk about this in a little more detail, really easy to drop my my old phone off the Apple one Apple care

one subscription and add it, add the new one to that. So that was piece of cake. So you know now my old one doesn't have Apple Care and this one does and we're we're in good shape. And and Apple Care for anybody that hasn't been getting it. And I know a lot of people who for whatever reason get their carriers coverage. Do not get your carrier coverage.

Apple care is the is the way to go. really amazing as far as i how it you know, it just being able to replace a a phone and considering how many times I've dropped this one, I suspect that I'll I might need Apple Care this time for the first time. And my intention is

Tom Anderson (28:03)
Mm.

Jeff Battersby (28:03)
no longer to yeah, I I don't think I'm gonna get a case for this. I I the fact that it sticks up here on this little magnet is is

pretty solid for me. So I don't think I need to I don't think I need to do that.

Tom Anderson (28:19)
What Apple cares for.

Jeff Battersby (28:21)
That is. All right, Tommy, that's me. I'm really happy with the phone. It is just

Tom Anderson (28:25)
Excellent.

Jeff Battersby (28:25)
a phone, and I'm playing with a camera, and we'll we'll have more conversations about that with Chris Freitag after I I've had a moment to spend with it. And he being a professional and me being a schmuck. he'll have many better or worse things to say about how he's using the camera and what he is, what it is that he's getting out of it. So looking forward to that show. Yeah, definitely.

Tom Anderson (28:45)
Yeah, that'll be fun. Yep.

Jeff Battersby (28:49)
All right.

Tom, you got a Apple Watch Ultra Four. Talk to us.

Tom Anderson (28:54)
I did.

And so had the Ultra One from day one when that came out back in, I think it was 2022. but you know, my satisfaction with it had really taken a dive when I think it was a combination of Watch OS twenty-six, battery getting a little bit older, but it was mostly, I think, watch os 26. like it the performance.

just day to day of the animations and tapping things, nothing happening and having to tap it. Like I would get a notification, I would tap clear, it wouldn't do anything. I'd hit the digital crown to dismiss it, bring it back down, tap clear, then it would go away. And I'm like, my God. And tap

Jeff Battersby (29:39)
Mm.

Tom Anderson (29:41)
the timer, it wouldn't do anything. And then eventually it would do stuff. So it was struggling. and

You know, it was I'd actually reset that too, if you recall, like I was having problems with my phone battery, which had been well discussed on this show. and so as part of that whole process, like I reset the phone, I reset the watch and didn't really make any difference on the watch at all. So I was like, hm. And so I had been waiting for the Ultra Four.

Jeff Battersby (30:13)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Anderson (30:14)
And so when it came out I pre ordered it.

And I'll be honest, I wasn't too excited about it. I was like, like you said, it's just to watch. but I have to say, it has been a very pleasant surprise, Jeff. Like it's fast, it's responsive,

Jeff Battersby (30:27)
yeah, tell me about it. What what makes it pleasant?

Tom Anderson (30:30)
the screen's brighter. The battery life has been now, yeah, I'll put a little star next to this because remember I just said my battery life on my ultra had deteriorated. I was about eighty two percent battery capacity. So there were some days like I'd put it on the charger, like

My process is typically I put it on the charger in the evening and then I shower and get ready for bed and everything. And then before I go to bed, after it's charged up to a hundred percent, I put it back on and then I go repeat the next day. But there were some days I'd put it on the charger at eight o'clock and it'd be like ten percent battery left. And I was like, Jeez. so I wasn't

Jeff Battersby (31:04)
Yeah.

Tom Anderson (31:05)
getting much. but so far with the Ultra Four caveat again is it's brand new. This isn't going to last forever.

Easily getting two days on a charge. so it goes from a hundred, like the first two days it went from a hundred down to fifty-one by Sunday. Like so forty-eight hours it had only dropped down about half. it settled in a little bit. Now I'm doing more workouts and everything with it. And I'm still like the other day I put it on and it was at I think only charged it up to about ninety percent. Went another two days and it still had thirty-seven percent left.

so it sips power, so it's really nice.

Jeff Battersby (31:50)
And that's in regular mode, right? You're not putting it in a low power mode.

Tom Anderson (31:52)
Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up.

Yeah, 'cause there some people really try to t you know, stretch it out so they'll turn off the always on display, they'll turn it off cellular, which I don't have on, but they'll do low battery mode and all this, and they'll be like, Hey, I got seven days. And I'm like, But you're not using it. You've turned all the stuff off.

Jeff Battersby (32:10)
Right. Right.

Tom Anderson (32:12)
but yeah, this is pretty much default out of the box. All the health stuff on, the heart rates, all that stuff have not turned off anything. and I think the series twelve,

Actually too, from seeing what people are saying on threads, people

Jeff Battersby (32:24)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Anderson (32:24)
have been really happy with battery life on that too. So I think nice jump between, you know, the more efficient processing. I think they made the battery a little bit bigger. So all wins in that regard. so

Jeff Battersby (32:39)
Right. And what d what color did you get?

Tom Anderson (32:43)
I stuck with the natural finish. I was really Yeah, it is

Jeff Battersby (32:46)
And and what kind of O C D brought

that about?

Tom Anderson (32:49)
Yeah, 'cause I was really tempted with the black one. I was like, man, this looks so nice. But all of my watch bands, the lugs are the natural color, and I was like, mmm

Jeff Battersby (33:00)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Anderson (33:00)
I really don't want to deal with that. So I just stuck with the natural. And plus I'm still a little paranoid I would scuff it and then it would show 'cause

Jeff Battersby (33:08)
Yeah, I've gotta say, by the way, I've had mine for a little over a year now and nothing. You know, it's in it bobs into things. It's it's pretty unscuffable. So when you when you get over your O C D

Tom Anderson (33:19)
You know, and I know you've told me that and then I go and I look on

Reddit and people are like, Man, I've had it twenty four hours and I just knocked it on the door frame and now it's all scratched up and they show the picture and I'm like, It looked like they dragged it down like a block wall but Yeah, I don't know what they've done. Yeah.

Jeff Battersby (33:33)
Yeah, I think that's a little different. Yeah. I I

I've banged this into things and you know, while I'm bartending it hits parts of sinks and stuff like that. And it's it's pretty solid. So yeah, good stuff.

Tom Anderson (33:47)
Yeah, so you had mentioned there with the phone that you had forgotten about the camera control button being a thing.

Jeff Battersby (33:55)
Yeah.

Tom Anderson (33:56)
And so one of the things that I did not have on my first gen, because it came out I think with the series nine watches and maybe the ultra two and beyond, was that double tap gesture with your finger and your thumb.

Jeff Battersby (34:08)
Yeah, you you using that or no?

Tom Anderson (34:11)
well, I stumbled onto it 'cause I forgot about that. And so I was making dinner last weekend. I had the watch on and I was getting some spices out, you know, and I was tapping the jar to get the spice into the measuring spoon. Well,

Jeff Battersby (34:24)
Uh-huh.

Tom Anderson (34:25)
I guess it kind of thought that was the same thing as my thumb because my watch starts doing all this stuff. Like it's it's going to

Jeff Battersby (34:30)
Ha ha ha ha.

Tom Anderson (34:31)
widgets, it's scrolling. I'm like, what is it doing? But

Jeff Battersby (34:33)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Anderson (34:34)
then I remembered, yes, the gestures.

Jeff Battersby (34:37)
Yeah,

interesting.

Tom Anderson (34:38)
I have not really integrated that into any type of a of a workflow. I just

Jeff Battersby (34:41)
Yeah, I it's funny. I

Tom Anderson (34:43)
don't think about it. Like it seems to work okay. and I think it's a really interesting idea, but I do like the twist your wrist to dismiss to go back to the home screen. That's kinda cool. so we'll see. I don't know about that one.

Jeff Battersby (35:01)
Yeah, I just did the twist your wrist and it did go back to the home screen. I don't even know that exists. So

Tom Anderson (35:10)
Yeah, so there you go. There's your pro tip of the day.

Jeff Battersby (35:13)
Yep.

Yeah. There. Woohoo. I just did it. I'm never gonna do it again. And half the time my th my phone, my watch thinks I'm falling down, so 'cause of something that I'm doing.

Tom Anderson (35:29)
Except the day you fell down, then it's like, I don't know.

Jeff Battersby (35:31)
Yeah, right. You

Tom Anderson (35:34)
He's falling down all the time.

Jeff Battersby (35:35)
Yeah.

Libber can't give up.

Tom Anderson (35:40)
So the other couple of things, and then we'll

Jeff Battersby (35:43)
Yes.

Tom Anderson (35:43)
move on to the Apple Care discussion, 'cause it has only

Jeff Battersby (35:45)
Yep.

Tom Anderson (35:46)
been a week.

The audio intelligence stuff has not come out yet. That's the Apple intelligence where it's always listening to your conversation and you can do the Siri

Jeff Battersby (35:59)
Gonna Yeah, yeah.

Tom Anderson (36:01)
recap and the live rewind. the automatic music identification with Shazam is still there. and I did stumble into that and it it worked fine, of course. It's Shazam, it's worked for years.

Jeff Battersby (36:11)
wait,

wait, the automatic i so it's listening to the music and then telling you what it is? Great.

Tom Anderson (36:16)
Mm. So if you go into your widgets

it's like, music. Hey, it's this song. which okay, great. I don't know if I'm gonna leave that on.

Jeff Battersby (36:21)
Okay. Mm. I do use

the yeah, I use that all the time. But that's that's I mean, I use Shazam by tapping Shazam and almost never on my watch. So Okay.

Tom Anderson (36:35)
Right. Which

I do use the watch for that. not often, but when I use them, it's typically on the watch. so we also got some advanced

Jeff Battersby (36:43)
Okay. interesting.

Tom Anderson (36:45)
health sensing with the background heart rate measurements being more frequent every five seconds, more frequent

Jeff Battersby (36:51)
Uh-huh.

Tom Anderson (36:52)
heart rate variability tracking. so all of that is good to have. Like I've said before, anything health related, I'm sure let's do it. the readiness app is on the watch in the phone.

it's on series twelve and ultra

Jeff Battersby (37:06)
have you

Tom Anderson (37:07)
four.

Jeff Battersby (37:08)
you used that at all yet?

Tom Anderson (37:10)
So that required seven nights of sleep data. And so yesterday was the first day and it showed up.

Jeff Battersby (37:14)
Okay. Seventh. Okay.

Tom Anderson (37:17)
I think I had a six and then today I don't know what I have. let's take a look. I have an seven for today.

Jeff Battersby (37:23)
All right, yeah. Okay. You're ready, pal.

Tom Anderson (37:26)
I'm ready. of course in twenty seven point two the health app is getting some more features around the data that the watch is gathering to show like your

Jeff Battersby (37:38)
Okay.

Tom Anderson (37:39)
age.

you know, your health age and things like that. the betas for that came out in the last week or two. So if you're on the beta profile you could go get that, check that out if you so desire. A couple other things I didn't have before too were the hypertension notifications. Haven't gotten any of those, which is great.

Jeff Battersby (37:56)
Yeah, let me let

me encourage you to turn on the AFib notification as well. It's not on by default. Yeah.

Tom Anderson (38:01)
Yes. Good tip. And the sleep apnea

notifications, you know, so that stuff's there too. but overall just the like it's it's very quick compared to the Ultra One. Coming like we were talking about with phones though, like if you have a three

Jeff Battersby (38:19)
Not gonna be big difference, right.

Tom Anderson (38:21)
I don't know that you'll notice

anything. two, maybe. but I would say definitely, like if you're on an Ultra One and looking to upgrade, I would recommend it. the other thing is if you're on an Ultra One, you're stuck at Watch OS twenty six because twenty seven's not supported. if you're on an older series level watch, so maybe a series seven or an eight, jump to the twelve or the ultra four would be a nice upgrade, I think.

Jeff Battersby (38:52)
Nice.

Tom Anderson (38:53)
So overall quite happy. I got a hundred and ninety dollars on the trade in with Apple.

Jeff Battersby (38:57)
That's not bad.

Tom Anderson (38:58)
which was okay. So I took it and just got the email back yesterday that they've processed it and everything's good, which wasn't

Jeff Battersby (39:04)
Same.

Tom Anderson (39:04)
a surprise, but all the same.

Jeff Battersby (39:06)
Yeah. No.

Yeah, mine same thing. Got the email yesterday saying that I saying that I got my four hundred and fifty five dollars or they they approved it and that I could not get that one back if I wanted it. Yeah. Yeah. If you go into exchangers,

Tom Anderson (39:25)
Right. You're out of luck. It is ours.

Jeff Battersby (39:30)
it's now in the you know, probably torn apart by that little robot that tears things apart. So

Cool. All right. So you're happy with it? And like you said earlier, you know, we're both only a weekend on these things, so it takes a little a little minute to to get there. So we'll

Tom Anderson (39:48)
Yeah, and I'm a little

interested to see when the new like that always listening

Jeff Battersby (39:52)
How thought.

Tom Anderson (39:53)
stuff comes out. So the audio intelligence features with the live rewind and the recap.

Jeff Battersby (39:55)
Yeah. I'm interested not to see you after that. How's that?

Tom Anderson (40:03)
to see what kind of impact that has on the battery life. 'Cause right now it's not there. So if it's always processing stuff, like it has to do something. Like nothing processes for free. And so it's you

Jeff Battersby (40:13)
Correct.

Tom Anderson (40:15)
know. But it is opt in, so you know.

I don't know. I I still don't know how I feel about that. Like

Jeff Battersby (40:20)
Yeah,

yeah, I don't I'm not I think I

Tom Anderson (40:22)
And

Jeff Battersby (40:22)
said a couple a couple episodes back I know a guy that has a little thing that he puts in his pocket and uses to record every meeting and I'm like, nah nope.

Tom Anderson (40:32)
Right. Right. Yeah, so I'm not not not sure about that. I'll certainly try it because hello nerd here, but but and I

Jeff Battersby (40:42)
Right. Yeah. Yeah, of course. All right.

Tom Anderson (40:46)
think once it's out and some people get to look at it and maybe kinda look closer at the developer documentation and maybe some white

Jeff Battersby (40:54)
Right.

Tom Anderson (40:54)
paper stuff that Apple's got. Maybe I'll feel a little bit better about it. But we'll see.

Jeff Battersby (40:59)
Yeah. Initially I don't want everything listening to me. Even though I know everything's listening to me. Right.

Tom Anderson (41:03)
Right. I mean it already is. I mean, I guess they're

just telling us it is now, but

Jeff Battersby (41:07)
Right.

Tom Anderson (41:07)
it's this is nothing new. Yeah.

Jeff Battersby (41:09)
Right. All right, Tom.

One of the other things that you did, Apple released Apple Care One. It's been a little over a year, I think. Great. Save some money doing that, but you did something completely different. Why don't you talk to us about that?

Tom Anderson (41:24)
Yeah, so one thing they announced in the September event, they kind of briefly talked about it. So the Apple Care one was an individual thing. Like you could buy it, put your particular Apple devices into it that you wanted to have coverage on that were eligible. and so they've now made a family version of this Jeff, which is good for up to six people and a family sharing group.

Jeff Battersby (41:49)
Hmm.

Tom Anderson (41:49)
So for me, I was like, You have my attention.

Jeff Battersby (41:53)
Yes.

Right. Right, good.

Tom Anderson (41:54)
Because we do make,

you know, we do take advantage of family sharing. My wife, her two kids are in there. and so it's 50 bucks a month. includes unlimited repairs for, of course, your typical accidental damage 24-7 priority support, battery service when it falls below 80, which I was really hoping the Ultra One would just go down to 78 because I still had Apple Care on it, but it never made it.

Jeff Battersby (42:17)
No

Tom Anderson (42:19)
it includes theft and loss protection, just like you know, Apple Care would.

plus wood for phones, iPads, watches, stuff like that. So I started to look, you know, I did kind of an inventory of what we're paying Apple Care for. And some of these, like I wouldn't typically like if they were mine and were of this age, I probably wouldn't have kept Apple Care on it, but seeing they were the kids and not, you know, they're running around and they're not five years old anymore. They're fifteen and twenty. But

You I thought, well, I'll keep it just in case they drop their phone, crack the screen. I can get it fixed fairly cheaply. and so I d did inventory of what I was paying, you know, an audit of what I was paying for Apple Care. So I have my Apple Care one individual plan, which had my Vision Pro in it, my MacBook Pro, my iPad Pro and I think my phone. have double check. I can't remember, I had it written down somewhere, but

Anyway, I tallied it all up with my stuff plus their stuff, and it came to seventy-seven dollars a month. So I thought, well, okay, I'll do this and save twenty couple bucks a month. and so I did that and I now have twenty devices, Jeff, that are covered under this Apple Care One family plan. Now what I found was interesting.

Jeff Battersby (43:39)
Wow. Wait, wait, how

and how much is that costing you?

Tom Anderson (43:43)
Fifty bucks a month.

Jeff Battersby (43:45)
How many devices?

Tom Anderson (43:46)
twenty.

Jeff Battersby (43:48)
Dang.

Tom Anderson (43:49)
Yeah, so it

Let me check something here real quick. Limits and exclusions. Device eligibility. Okay, so devices have to be less than four years old and in good working condition to be added, while headphones must be less than a year old.

This one made me laugh. Apple Vision Pro. All right. Coverage is limited to a maximum of six Apple Vision Pro headsets on one planet. I'm like,

Jeff Battersby (44:15)
Yeah.

Tom Anderson (44:18)
who, which household is rolling deep with six Vision Pro?

Jeff Battersby (44:23)
Yeah, that's the robot household. I d d

Tom Anderson (44:26)
That's a lot. but yeah,

I've got so I've got twenty, but what I found was kind of cool about it is it added a couple of things that I guess because they were eligible, that I didn't have Apple Care on, like my home pod minis in the garage here in the gym space that I built out. I didn't get Apple Care for those 'cause they're eighty bucks. You know, crap's out, just get a new one. So I added that and Apple T V that I had as well. And

But it was very simple. You basically sign up and then it just adds everything else to the plan. And I started to get a bunch of emails that I've got credits for stuff that was recently paid, so a couple bucks here and there. studio displays in there, Mac Mini, MacBook Pro, Vision Pro, AirPods, pretty much everything.

Jeff Battersby (45:18)
Yeah, that's pretty crazy. And how much how much were you paying for Applecare One? Do you remember?

Tom Anderson (45:28)
so Apple Care One just for my stuff, because I'd added something, it was with tax and everything, it was twenty six dollars a month. But it was

Jeff Battersby (45:35)
So double that and you've got every device.

Tom Anderson (45:38)
right. But when I factored in the other stuff that I didn't put into the Apple Care One individual plan, I was at seventy seven. So I'm actually twenty seven less a

Jeff Battersby (45:47)
Yeah.

Tom Anderson (45:48)
month. which is going

Jeff Battersby (45:50)
Wow, that's great.

Tom Anderson (45:51)
into my iPhone Duo payment, but we'll talk about that in another show.

they do have some limits on this. So for the claims, there is an unlimited number of accidental damage repairs. But it's limited to six theft and loss claims per year across the family group. Right.

Jeff Battersby (46:14)
That's a ton. Unless

unless you are me and get your bag stolen.

Tom Anderson (46:23)
right at the in and out that's

no longer in business because there's so much of that going on. Yeah.

Jeff Battersby (46:28)
Right. So

in that case that was big money. But

Tom Anderson (46:31)
Yeah. So

Jeff Battersby (46:32)
that

Tom Anderson (46:33)
obviously plan not for everybody. Like if you're, you know, a party of one and you have four devices, that wouldn't make much sense. but if you do have, you know, and got a family in there, family sharing, all

Jeff Battersby (46:41)
No, no, no, no. But for the whole family group that's pretty amazing. Yeah.

Tom Anderson (46:46)
that sort of stuff. I was listening to MacPower users this week and Steven Robles was talking about this. and he moved his stuff over. He has thirty three devices now covered.

Jeff Battersby (46:58)
my gosh. For fifty bucks.

Tom Anderson (47:00)
For fifty bucks. Which, by the way, there's

Jeff Battersby (47:02)
That's crazy.

Tom Anderson (47:03)
a lesson there, Jeff, that Apple Care is a huge fat moneymaker with a fat margin

Jeff Battersby (47:10)
Moneymaker. Yeah.

Tom Anderson (47:13)
on it because most people never use it. So they're they're not

Jeff Battersby (47:15)
Right. Right.

Tom Anderson (47:16)
giving us anything, believe me. But

Jeff Battersby (47:18)
Y you don't think they're giving us anything, Tom? Okay. I'd I'd I'd

Tom Anderson (47:23)
No. Have you ever made an Apple

Care claim other than the stuff that got stolen?

Jeff Battersby (47:27)
Didn't make an apple care claim on that because there was no such thing as as theft and loss

Tom Anderson (47:31)
you didn't have depth and loss on it.

Jeff Battersby (47:33)
that wasn't available at that point in time. So the answer is my wife has one time and I have

Tom Anderson (47:49)
Yeah. I can't I don't

Jeff Battersby (47:50)
Long, long time ago

in a galaxy far, far away.

Tom Anderson (47:53)
I don't think I ever have. Which just goes to show as happy as I am about saving twenty seven dollars a month, I'm still paying six hundred dollars a year for something I'll never use. Good. Good.

Jeff Battersby (48:01)
Yeah, but for that one time, right.

Tom Anderson (48:04)
It's like, okay, great. That's perfect. Run that out five years. I'm paying three thousand dollars. What am I gonna? Yeah. But

Jeff Battersby (48:11)
Yep. Yep yep.

Tom Anderson (48:12)
with the I saw the Apple Care for the duo is going to be twenty dollars a month instead of the ten, which it is. Well, it might be a little more than that for iPhone now, but mine was ten dollars.

Jeff Battersby (48:21)
Two screens, baby.

Tom Anderson (48:22)
So it's gonna be twenty, so if you get that I can add it in there and it's not gonna add anything extra to it. Which definitely

Jeff Battersby (48:27)
That's great.

Tom Anderson (48:27)
would want it for that with that new hinge and everything and the d you know, three

Jeff Battersby (48:30)
Yes.

Tom Anderson (48:31)
three screen panels and all that stuff. So yeah. So we'll have a link

Jeff Battersby (48:34)
Yeah. All right, cool.

Tom Anderson (48:36)
to that in the show notes too.

Jeff Battersby (48:38)
Awesome. And we'll also include those comparisons between the fifteen pro slash max in the and eighteen. the eighteen models for the iPhone, which I think is worthwhile to see. It was very convenient for me that you sent those to me, Tom, because that was my upgrade path. All right.

Tom Anderson (49:01)
Hand curated list for you, buddy. I keep telling you that. I don't know why you don't believe me when I tell ya. All right. Great.

Jeff Battersby (49:03)
you love me so much, and that's what I love about you. I love you that you love me. That's that's right. It's all selfishness. Tom, we've burned about fifty

five zero minutes of everybody's time, but just a reminder to all of you who have listened this far, we're really grateful that you're here.

Yeah, we are a growing concern, slowly growing, but a growing concern and we're grateful grateful for that. As a reminder, if you want, you can support us. There's a link in the in the show notes that we'll let you for you know a couple bucks a month send us a couple bucks a month. Tom and I support ourselves, so we throw in three bucks. Yeah, yeah. Super yeah, super

Tom Anderson (49:43)
We do, and we have a couple of listeners doing that too, and we're very appreciative of them doing that.

Jeff Battersby (49:48)
grateful for that. as a reminder, our show music,

Psychokinetics, Celsius seven. we did h have a link in last episode show notes to a couple of new videos that have come out for Cal Rissian and and Celsius seven and one of them is filthy, be careful. the other one Yeah. Well you label all NSF.

Tom Anderson (50:10)
I labeled it. Yeah.

Jeff Battersby (50:15)
or NSW, whatever the heck it is. N S F. Non sufficient funds. That's me every every month. the

in not safe for work, NSFW. and then our our art for these shows, Randall Martin Design, we're grateful to Randall for all the work he's done for us. Tom, where can we find you?

Tom Anderson (50:40)
You can find me on threads at Tom Anderson and the website where I'm also posting the show notes for each episode now because I've moved the website over to Ghost, which is a little better for that kind of thing. By the way, if you've got any sample photos, Jeff, you wanna throw over or send to me, I can put up on there and they'll they'll show up,

Jeff Battersby (51:00)
I could do that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Tom Anderson (51:02)
which is why I like it a little bit better than the the the official basic AF Show dot com. It's kind of basic, but

We'll throw them up That's tomfanderson dot com if you guys want to check that out.

Jeff Battersby (51:11)
Yeah, I could do that. I

can send some send some photos your way. All

Tom Anderson (51:14)
Okay, cool.

Jeff Battersby (51:15)
right, Tom. Always good to see you. And thank you for your time and attention.

Tom Anderson (51:23)
Thank you for your courage, Jeff Battersby. And thank you everybody for hanging out with us. we'll see

Jeff Battersby (51:25)
My courage.

Tom Anderson (51:29)
you again in a couple of weeks. And until that time though, do enjoy the rest of your day or your night.

Jeff Battersby (51:33)
See ya.