I’m putting together this week’s Installer newsletter, and want to know everything you think is awesome right now. So what are you playing / reading / watching / buying / building / hanging on walls that everyone else needs to know about? Tell me in the comments! And subscribe to Installer to see what everyone else is into, too — I promise it’s not all Apple gear this week.
[The Verge]
I just... I mean, here is the pitch for a new company that plans to make a million AI podcasts that I guess it hopes you’ll accidentally click on?
The company is able to produce each episode for $1 or less, depending on length and complexity, and attach programmatic advertising to it. This generally means that if about 20 people listen to that episode, the company made a profit on that episode, without factoring in overhead.
”We believe that in the near future half the people on the planet will be AI, and we are the company that’s bringing those people to life,” CEO Jeanine Wright told THR. I’m good.
I assume everyone’s already locked onto the purchase page for the crossbody strap, right? But seriously: Apple’s keynote has been over only a few minutes, is there anything you saw that made you immediately go, “yep, that one, I will have it please and thank you?” For me I think it’s the AirPods Pro 3. I’m close to sold on the Watch Series 11, though I have some worries about 5G and battery life. The phones... we’ll see. What’s on your shopping list? Anything so far?
There is a lot of new Apple tech in the super-thin iPhone Air — Apple’s talking about the work it had to do on everything from the modem to the chip to make the phone this small. Check out the images below for an x-ray of the camera array, which is seriously crammed in there. Apparently it’s a “plateau,” not a camera bump.
New Watch Series 11, new Watch SE 3, new Watch Ultra 3. I’m due for an upgrade, and am thinking the Series 11 is probably the one for me? That 42 hours of Ultra battery does sound good, though. Check out the stories and the bentos, tell me which does it for you!
They look good! We’ll have to see how that “world’s best ANC” claim holds up, though. Check out Tom’s story for more, and here’s the bento box with all the details:
And Apple CEO Tim Cook says there’s “a hands-on area” at the end, so, you know, hardware confirmed. Go read our liveblog, which is way ahead of all the streams! And also more fun.
I’m betting we’ll get: iPhone 17s, iPhone Air. New Watches, new AirPods. (I am oddly more excited about new AirPods than any other device this year.) From what Bloomberg and others have reported, there might be a big focus on cases and accessories. I’m not expecting much Siri talk, and I don’t think we’ll see a new Vision Pro or even a new iPad, though both have been rumored to be possibilities.
I’m not expecting fireworks, really. But I’m hoping against hope that Apple takes this opportunity, on the 10-year anniversary of the Apple Watch, to make it the phone-replacing, do-everything device it truly could be.
This is the iPhone event, so obviously Apple’s going to talk a lot about gadgets. But it’s also Apple’s most public, mainstream moment of the year, and a key moment to see how Apple explains itself to the world. Will the company talk about AI and Future Siri? Will it talk about privacy? Show Ted Lasso trailers? Or will it spend the day happily in the details of building beautiful devices? (One guess: probably no recap of last week’s dinner with President Trump.) It’s always interesting to see what kind of company Apple hopes you think it is.