Apple Crunch February 2025: The Most Expensive Cheap iPhone Yet

By AppleVis, 7 March, 2025

In this edition of Apple Crunch, Thomas Domville and John Gassman discuss recent Apple news and other topics of interest.

Chapters:

Introduction
Apple Introduces iPhone 16e with 6.1-inch Display, Face ID, A18 Chip, and More
Apple finally lets you move your digital purchases to another account
AppleCare+ for iPhone Gets More Expensive
Latest News and Updates on iOS 18.4 Beta
Apple TV is finally available on Android devices – just in time to stream MLS and Severance season 2
Foldable iPhone Entering Mass Production This Year
Closing

Resources:

Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by Aiko, an AI-powered transcription app. It is not edited or formatted, and it may not accurately capture the speakers’ names, voices, or content.

Hello and welcome to Apple Crunch for February 2025.

My name is Thomas Domville.

I also go by the name of AnonyMouse, and along with me today to talk about all source of Apple news and rumors, is John Gasman.

How are you doing, John?

I'm doing fine.

Are you ready for your CSUN?

Yeah.

Looking forward to it.

We are, as we record this, we're one week away and all my friends from Techland are going to be there, or most of them, so it's going to be a lot of fun.

Awesome.

Are you going to be here for a day or are you going to attend the whole thing, or what's the plan?

I'm attending the whole thing.

I signed up for the presentations, and I'll be there for some of the events after the day finishes.

I live 15 minutes away, so I'm not staying there overnight, but it's cheaper just to take an Uber or a Lyft to and from.

We're also doing that and grabbing some dinner with people from time to time, so it should be a lot of fun, a very busy week.

Sounds like a lot of fun.

I know Scott Dever will be there, so you'll have to hunt him down, and I know that the fine folks of Double Tap is going to be there, and I understand the Be My Eyes is going to have a booth in exhibit hall, so give them a shout out, and hopefully next year maybe I'll be able to make an attendance.

If that happens, I'll let you all know, but I'll be very excited if that were to happen.

But nonetheless, have a great time, and my gosh, it's in Anaheim.

I mean, that's one of my most favorite city.

Yeah, there are a couple of things to do in Anaheim.

Right.

Maybe one of those is Disneyland, which I will definitely have to come to Disneyland a couple of days.

Absolutely.

But we'll just come down to Orlando and we'll have to have one of them down there.

But anywho, the sea sun is next week.

That's pretty exciting news.

But onward and upward, and let's talk about Apple News.

My gosh.

You know what, John?

This is long overdue, my friend, and that is we have been waiting for the so-called SC40 to come out.

Since the last model has been three years.

I can't believe it's been three years since that model came out.

You would think there would have been a new one before that, but apparently not.

But it doesn't look like the SC is really coming back, I suppose.

Now, they gave this an iPhone 16E. Have any clue what the E stands for?

Because I sure don't.

I have no idea.

Well, what would the E stand for in SE?

Do you know?

I don't even know what SE was for.

We probably have to get Siri to see if she can get chat GPT going long enough to find out.

Right.

Maybe it do.

Yeah, that might be a good idea.

But nonetheless, I guess it's a replacement to the SE.

Now, the iPhone 16E has been released and we have received a demo unit from Apple.

And so thank you to Apple.

We have played with it with the team and Michael Hansen did a great review over the 16E, everything you want to know about it.

Well, let's talk about the nitty gritty stuff about us, about our thoughts on the 16E, because I got some pretty heavy input to put into the 16E. Let's cover the popular stuff here first.

So obviously, so the phone is a much bigger now 6.1, which is a pretty standard size for a lot of the iPhones now.

So your SE is going to grow a little bit and bigger size and display.

So for those who are low vision, probably enjoy the bigger real estate of the display.

The thing they do have what we call the A18 chip.

So that allows you to have all the up to date speed of the modern iPhone 16, which is very nice to see as well.

And of course, you got the action button that did come on the device.

We were wondering if the action button would be there.

So it got some modern updates to it.

And of course, everybody is going to be very mixed on this.

And that is the Face ID.

No more hold button.

What do you think of that?

No more hold button.

Well, how long have blind people been hearing about the fact that the home button was going to disappear?

At least eight, nine years.

And you got to deal with it.

It's not that big of a deal once you've discovered how to use Face ID.

So you've had eight years to kind of hang around with it and use it.

And now it's time to move on because everybody else has.

Yeah, you know, in some respect, I can understand that.

So I mean, yeah, you have known for many years.

And we've kind of warned you the past few years that Face ID is coming to your phone.

So the home button is going to be gone.

You know, I get it.

It is easy just to have that button.

You just push on it.

Maybe have some dexterity issue or mobility issues.

You're not able to perform those gestures you can with a Face ID.

So I get it.

But we kind of mentioned this in the article that Michael Hansen wrote.

And I created a shortcut that you can implement right on the action button.

So if you just hold down the action button, boom, that's your home button.

So that is an option, an alternative way.

So there are some other ways to do it.

And of course, Scott Dever did a wonderful podcast of other alternative options to find a way to get your home button back for you that makes things easier for you.

Now, one of the biggest advantage of this phone, too, and I'll kind of give you some positive things I think about the phone.

And one, that is the Apple intelligence.

So Apple intelligence is part of this device.

And that's a big upgrade.

Just with that alone, it's kind of worth having that Apple intelligence on the device.

Now, the other thing to kind of keep in mind, a lot of people aren't aware of this, that the C1 modem, what is that?

That is Apple's in-house branded chip.

So the silicon chip in that device is their new kind of a cellular slash Wi-Fi chip.

They have always used Qualcomm in the past.

And now they have their own in-house baked chip.

What's the advantage of that?

And I'll tell you why.

Number one, obviously, Apple will be able to make more money, more profit, because they got their in-house chip, they don't have to pay out for that Qualcomm chip.

But the biggest thing that Apple's really good at, John, is energy efficiency.

And with that efficiency is the battery life.

The battery life on this phone is phenomenal.

Have you heard about this, John?

Because of that C1 modem, that the battery life on this particular phone, because of that chip, outlasts the iPhone 16 and is almost to a par to iPhone 16 Plus.

I had not heard about that because I haven't had any experience with the phone.

But I think that's great.

Right.

And with that, I mean, that's just huge.

That's awesome.

So I love seeing that.

And not only that, but this kind of shows you the future of the upcoming iPhone 17.

That's going to be the second generation of these modem chips.

So I'm excited to see that, and any battery life efficiency would be great.

I don't know if you ever notice, when you're on the phone with these phones, just using that chip, you ever see your battery just go, just drain because you're on the phone?

Oh, yeah.

Absolutely.

Oh, yeah.

And not only that, but let's just say I'm on a trip and I'm just riding around for hours.

I know my battery kind of just goes down some more.

That's because it's always continuing to looking for Wi-Fi and things like that.

So there are some good advantages of that.

Now, because it's the first generation chip, it doesn't have what we call the MMWave onboard.

Not yet.

It's not a deal breaker.

I don't think most of us ever use MMWave.

I have yet to be able to use it.

This is something that says like ultra fast speed that you're only going to get at certain events and certain performance area that provide the MMWave and you have to be very close.

So that's not a deal breaker.

All right.

Let's talk about some deal breakers.

I'm going to kind of compare notes with you, John, to see what you think.

That camera has me worried.

So if you are a user that loves your camera and you take a lot of photos, I think this phone is not going to be for you.

And let me explain why.

It is because it only has a one camera lens and that's not a big deal.

But the deal breaker for me is that camera does not have optical zoom, meaning that it is digital zoom and the zoom is terrible.

And I've had many reviews where they had some zoom that goes in and it does a terrible job of zooming.

So not that's going to really bother us that are blind, but those that are low vision that might make a big deal.

But the biggest deal breaker is that it doesn't have the macro lens.

Let me explain the macro.

Have you ever gotten your camera out and you want to be able to have be my eyes or somebody read out what's on your document and you hear this macro mode?

That means you're getting really close to a document, right?

Well, that is not available on this camera.

So I think you're going to have some issues with that performing OCR on certain documents.

It just depends on the distance.

If you get too close without the macro, it's going to be really fuzzy.

So you're going to have to be a good distance, like 18 inches from a document to be able to read something.

So if that is something that's concerned, that is something I want to point out to everybody.

So that camera to me is a real kind of a sad thing.

I wish it had those items.

So what do you think with that?

I don't know, John, that no macro kind of bothers me.

Well, you'd have to know about it in advance and take a look at other options in order to get, for example, your OCR example done.

I would imagine for people who have some low vision, absolutely.

It's a major concern for those of us who use OCR as blind people.

You have to know going in that that camera's not going to be the best camera for you and take other steps or know that you've got to line it up 8 to 10 inches away going in.

If you know that, then you can probably overcome it to some degree.

But you have to know what you're doing going in.

That's true, John.

And you make a good point I didn't really think about until you just mentioned it.

Our low vision folks that have used that as a magnifier, I wonder if that'd be a major problem without a macro because they like to get things kind of close up on something.

And I wonder if they have to get back a little further and it may be a little more difficult because they have to zoom in a little bit more and it might be a little more shaky on the screen.

Just a lot of those things, if that's something that bothers you, I would definitely go to your Apple Store, put it in your hand and give it a run.

I think that's something that everybody needs to know about.

And it's just one of those things, an observation that I found with the device that I like to spread out to everybody just to let them know.

Now, like John said, is it workable?

It sure can if you know the workaround.

But I think you will definitely be a little more frustrated, but it's hard to say.

The other thing that kind of bothers me, John, is that it says it has no MagSafe.

And I see a lot of people saying, who cares about MagSafe?

Okay, I get that.

Here's my problem.

If you are a wireless charger person, so if you like to just kind of tap it off, put it on your pad or whatever, I really don't recommend this device.

Why?

Yeah, it doesn't have MagSafe, but I'll tell you what it does have.

It does have wireless charging, but because it doesn't have this MagSafe, you are limited to a 7.5 watt charging.

What does that mean?

That means it's incredibly slow.

I think you'll be hard pressed to get that to charge where you want it to be in a reasonable amount of time.

But it's a very, very slow wireless charging.

That's my other concern.

I am one of those wireless charger, but I get it.

If you're not a wireless charger person and you kind of tap into using the cord, I think you'll be just fine.

Are you a wireless charger guy?

No, I never got into that.

I just, I'm just so used to plugging stuff in if that's what I've done.

I mean, I suppose once I did the wireless charge the first time, I'd want to do it all the time.

But you know, when I'm away from home, that may be the way to do it too.

So you always like when you want to top it off, you just stick a cord in there, what you do?

Yeah.

That's what I've always done.

So when I go on my cruise here, maybe I should take a look at wireless charging.

It might be the way to go.

You know, I have a battery pack and this battery pack, what's cool about it is that not only does it have USB-A on it, it has UBC on it, but also it's a wireless so I can just put my phone on it and it'll charge and if I want to, I can just plug it into the adapter at the top of the battery pack and it charges.

So that's just something to look at, especially when you want to go on a cruise.

But nonetheless, if you're a wireless person, that's something to be concerned about too.

There's no ultraband chip in this either.

What does that mean?

If you are a precision finder, you want to find your AirTags or better yet, an AirPod Pro, and you want to look for it, if you are a person that does that, you're not going to be able to do that with this device.

So there's a lot of shortcomings to this and you know, again, if that's not something you do or really have a need for, that's fine.

But the point is, there's a lot of things that kind of cut the corners to get the prices down where they want to be.

If you're a low vision folks as well, the other thing I want to let you know that this is a 60 Hz refresh screen, meaning that if you're low vision and you're trying to scroll where there's many pages, you're going to see that it's very slow.

Where you see on a much faster device with 120 Hz, it goes really snap, you can just, there is no slowness to it, there's no wobbly effect when you're trying to go too fast.

And so low vision folks, you got some obstacles here with this device.

And then my last kind of gripe is that it comes with a notch, meaning there's no dynamic island.

Why is that such a big deal?

I'll tell you what.

For us blind users, maybe not so much, but I tell you, dynamic island has been around for years, there's no reason not to have that on there.

And I can't figure out why they kept a notch that when it's so old, and not only that, but for those with notch, you lose your real estate space on your screen.

So you're not getting the total aspect of the display strength as you would with a dynamic island.

So that's another one.

But all right, let's talk about the other things.

The price.

Oh my gosh, John, did you see what the price it was before and what the price is now?

Yeah, it's about a hundred bucks or more higher. 150 bucks more, it's still at a bad price really.

But for people who are on a budget and have to be very careful about what they spend, that's a pretty good amount from one year to the next.

Well, I'm really disappointed.

It was $430.

Now that's a budget phone.

And if this phone were $430 with the items I just mentioned, it's worth the price.

Hands down.

I wouldn't have any arguments with it.

But because they increased it $150 or whatever, $170, let me see, yeah, $170.

So you're talking almost a $200 jump, plus you get a lot of minus stuff than shortcuts they took out of it to making it a whopping $599.

I get that.

I get what you're saying.

I know a lot of us are budget conscious and we don't have a lot of cash going around.

If you are on a cellular plan service, maybe your provider breaks it up in payments for you.

You know, my T-Mobile will give me 24 months or whatever, 30 months.

And if you break that down and if you just get a iPhone, say just a regular iPhone 16, you're only talking about $7 or $8 extra a month.

Now I know that doesn't sound a lot, but to some it may be a deal breaker.

But my point is if it was $430, I'm okay with $599.

That is not a budget phone.

That is not a budget phone and I think, just my personal preference, I think you're better off with the iPhone 16 for that extra $7 or $8 a month because you're going to get a much better camera.

You're going to get that dynamic island.

You're going to get all the shortfalls that I mentioned on the SC that you're not going to get with the iPhone 16.

I think there's too many corners being trimmed out of this to be able to expect that people will shell out $600 for.

I don't think you're getting a great device.

I think the battery life is great.

That's about the only thing I can think of.

That's just my personal two cents.

So do you think it's still a good price for what it offers?

I don't mean to put you on the spot there, John.

It's nice that they've updated some of the things to give you a lot of the same things that the 16 has.

No, but I can understand that they did cut corners to keep the price lower.

So really it depends on what you want.

If the camera's no big deal, maybe it's worth it too and that's something that everybody's going to have to decide for themselves.

In the long run, I would go toward the 16 if I could handle it more than this new phone.

But again, it depends on what you want out of it.

I wanted the Apple intelligence because even though we don't have all of it yet, we're eventually going to get to it.

So I went ahead and spent the extra money because of what I'm expecting to see in the future.

So everybody's got their own choices to make.

I'll be curious of our listeners out there, what do you feel about this?

How do you feel about that price?

Do you think I'm being crazy and that's a great price for what you get?

Or do you think that you're in agreement with me that I think it's overpriced for what you get?

I agree that you get the Apple intelligence with it and the whole nine yards.

So reach out to me, applecrunch at applevis.com or you can just email me at thomas at applevis.com.

Either way, I would love to hear from you guys.

Now the next thing, this is pretty cool, Mr. John.

This is, I had to always wonder why Apple have never done this, but they finally, finally did this.

There are times when you have to create a new Apple ID for whatever reason.

Maybe you got locked out of your original Apple ID, maybe, I don't know, whatever that might be and you created a new Apple ID and you'd turn to learn that I lost everything I paid for on the other Apple ID.

Now it looks like Apple is now going to allow you to transfer what's your purchase of the digital items from your original account to your new account.

That is amazing.

This is way overdue.

I'm not sure why they never done this before.

Yeah, I agree.

I think it's a good idea and it can only help with the customers and the people who use their devices.

It's something that should have happened a long time ago.

I mean, can you imagine, if I would have lost my Apple ID, I would be devastated.

I mean, all the things I purchased on that wouldn't be able to transfer over and, but now you can, but I have been very blessed.

I have not lost my Apple ID.

Do you have just your original one still?

Yeah.

Yeah, I do.

Yeah.

Now the bad part here and I'm doing, I will announce it to you and I don't understand why Apple always do this to us, but it is only for the US folks.

So unfortunately it's not ready for other countries, why that is an issue every single time.

I have no idea, but when that comes to rolling out to other countries, I can't wait because I know there are a lot of you that have an additional Apple ID.

So now you can be able to transfer a lot of the stuff over.

Now keep in mind, I don't think you're able to transfer your password and things like that.

I could be very wrong on that.

I think it's just your purchase of your digital items and the apps that you purchase.

So things that you have purchased is what's transferred over.

Obviously the settings and all that would not be able to transfer over as far as I know.

So there is some cash 22, but nonetheless, this is a great start.

The other item that Apple have decided to change, and I'm not really sure how I feel about this, I'm kind of mixed, is that the Apple Care Plus has now been changed.

Now originally, if you guys probably always know that every time you purchase a new Apple product, they're going to ask you, would you like to purchase an Apple Care Plus?

And that is some sort of kind of like a warranty for say, if something happened to your device, you'd be able to get it to replace or fix while it's under the Care Plus.

I have never, well, I take that back.

I had a two, I think I had a three year plan on my Mac that I bought many, many, many years ago, but I've never bought one for my phone.

Have you, do you buy Care Plus?

Not usually, no.

And I don't, you know, in retrospect, I don't know why, because I carry that thing around with me everywhere I go.

And I've had it slip off of my holster once and had to use, find my with an IRA agent in order to, in order to find it.

So not that it was ever really lost, but you know, when I'm out and about or if I'm traveling and I lose it, I'm out of luck.

So you know, that's, that's a good enough reason.

It's kind of like vacation protection, travel insurance.

That's true.

A good reason to really do it.

I know you, you, you say in the back of your mind, I'm not going to lose it.

I'm not going to spend the extra couple of hundred dollars on it, but you, you just never know.

Yeah.

You really don't.

It's simple, but you know, I've had my device for, well, you know, I had multiple devices since my original three GS and that's been well over, Oh gosh, what 10 years, more than 10 years, almost 15, 14 years since I've had my phone.

And I've never had any problem, but like you said, it just takes one slip up or one forgot or whatever it might be.

You left it at a restaurant and somebody stole it.

You know, it's, it's simple as that.

But the only thing that always gets me John is that price is like, I'm already paying that much money for a phone.

Do I really want to spend the hundreds of dollars more for the care?

And I always chose not to.

So the point is, is that Apple is no longer going to this, do these advanced two, three year plans on your Apple products.

So your Apple phone, the only items you're going to be able to do now is a monthly subscription or annual subscription.

Same concept.

I mean, I kind of like that better because it was a monthly, it's kind of like my Netflix.

If I feel like I'm, you know, I've get past a certain time, I just don't want anymore.

I can just cancel it.

And without having to shell out all that money in advance.

So what are your thoughts about this new subscription base?

You think that's a better idea or a good idea?

Yeah, I kind of like it because it is, they're doing what everybody else in the industry is doing now with a subscription.

And for whatever reason, it just seemed to be as difficult to do a monthly subscription or even an annual subscription for that matter anymore.

So it's what, like 130, 40 bucks, something like that.

I think it would be, and now with the price was in the article that, that I read, it's 14 bucks.

Let's just say I got an iPhone 16 pro or 16 pro max.

It is $13.99 a month.

It does sound kind of hefty, but if you get the yearly plan, it is $139.99 and that's for a one year and that's 17% savings.

Now, if you're asking that sounds a little more expensive, yes, it is, it is a little more expensive.

It's not a whole lot.

I think it's 50 cents more a month that you're paying now than what we were paying before in advance.

So I don't know.

I think this, this is a welcome thing and I think if it really, truly matters to you, I think that 14 bucks can be reasonable.

If that is something that you feel like you do break a lot or lose a lot, obviously that's going to be cheap and that will cover your phone and device.

I don't know.

I kind of like this new subscription base.

I think it's a little easier on the wall than having to shell out all at once.

And easy, it's going to be a lot more to swallow for me than just saying the whole bill at once.

No, no, I'm not going to do that.

You ever see that one when you buy something at best buy it and it's like a hundred bucks and they want to know if you want to put this $40 warranty on it and I'm like, no.

So that's kind of the same feeling I get when I get these iPhone and they ask for Apple care plus warranty.

But nonetheless, that's a pretty reasonable price.

And this is the same for most of the products out there that Apple is going to be doing to use a subscription base, so the AirPod Max, for example, or I'm sorry, the AirPod Pro, I think it's only $4.99 a month.

That's really reasonable for something, but you're not dealing with something expensive.

Now that my friend, I think I would purchase because losing those things are probably going to be a lot easier and I've heard so many people that may get something wrong with it over a year.

I think that'd be worth five bucks a month.

Oh, the stories we could tell about people who have lost, I mean, and those things are not cheap.

They're fairly expensive.

So I don't know if people actually buy it for that very reason, but it sounds like a good idea.

You know, I could be a hypocrite that I don't buy a care plus for my phone and it's a lot more expensive than my AirPod Pro, but I would for this.

I think it's because it's easier to swallow, $4.99, I think that's, I don't know, I've just heard so many disasters with those pros that you're losing them and between not working, echoing and things like that, I think I would definitely do that hands down.

But nonetheless, Apple now has care plus subscription, so goodbye pain advance.

Let's talk about iOS news and updates.

Oh my goodness.

Okay.

So let me talk about, we'll just say that at 18.3 was released and there wasn't a whole lot in there and 18.4 is now in beta, but I don't know, guys, this is another one I'm going to do kind of my ranch on this and this Apple intelligence, this whole thing about Apple intelligence and this new iOS 18 rollout seem to be like a slow moving disaster.

That's just my opinion and let me explain a lot of things to catch you up if you don't know what's going on with all this Apple intelligence stuff.

So let me put it this way, Samsung just announced their Galaxy S25 and I think it was back in January and they got this great device that's got this Google Gemini built into it and it's fantastic.

You got the live conversation with its version of this assistant.

It's got all the chat GPT kind of things like that.

You can run your pictures through the Gemini and get the whole nine yards.

It's like, wow, now that is a phone.

That is where you should be.

Well, not the Apple.

We've been talking about this for months and I really, truly hate trying to beat on the dead horse, but Apple is really in serious danger on this, John.

I'm really worried about this.

Let's talk about 18.3.

The first disaster that happened with Apple intelligence, you hear about this where people were receiving, you know, when you receive a kind of a message or a notification from an app that you follow.

So breaking news or entertainment news.

Did you read this where it was hallucinating what the news is and it just made up his own titles?

I did not read that, but I guess I'm not surprised because I've heard stories about hallucinations in the past.

So it was bad enough that there were people receiving BBC notification and it would say something that's really bad.

And we opened it up.

It was nothing what it meant to say.

And it was such a huge deal that, that they totally backed off on it.

So Apple decided to turn that option off for anything that has a news or entertainment application that gives you notifications.

So the Apple intelligent parts of it that gives you a summary is now turned off by default.

So you have to turn this on by yourself and then it gives you a warning that it may hallucinate.

And the whole point I make a point of this, John, is that you remember when I mentioned when Steve Jobs was not Steve Jobs, Tim Cook mentioned that he says, well, we're not first, but we'll make it the best.

And I'm thinking, hmm, I think this is a first flop of your being the best and you reduce or you put out something way too early before it was prime time.

And that just showed to me how bad things are and how far back they are.

Now, if you think that's bad, we'll just keep going.

The other two items I want to mention real quick, I noticed with my Apple intelligent, I'm curious, you have Apple intelligent right on your phone.

Yes.

Okay.

Do you have that turned on?

I do.

Yes.

Aspects have turned off like the summaries, but you haven't noticed your battery is kind of draining a little faster when that's on.

Well, I noticed that it had been draining.

I never tried to do Apple intelligent, it wouldn't surprise me.

You know, I have noticed my phone, I have to recharge more often.

I said, man, I have never had to do this.

Something's wrong.

I couldn't figure it out until I read a news article and this guy had the same problem.

He was going through this whole thing, turning off every little thing he could figure out and tried to figure out what the problem was.

And Lord, behold, when he turned off the Apple intelligent, guess what?

The battery didn't start to drain as fast as he used to.

So it is a battery drainer and I'm kind of surprised at that and it's significant.

I think it drains a lot faster than it used to.

And I think that is another issue that they really got to get on top of and try to fix that.

I don't know if that's because I have an older device, maybe the new devices don't drain as fast.

But nonetheless, it's something that people should be aware of.

Interesting to find out for those who go out and get the new 16E with the enhanced battery life.

If they find that turning Apple intelligence on runs that battery down to the same degree that it used to run down before, before the new phone came out.

That's a good question.

I will have to stick Michael on that, see if he can find if there's any difference in that, maybe kind of experiment a couple of days without it and a couple of days with it and see if he noticed a difference.

And not only that, but it takes up a lot of your space.

May not sound like a lot to you, but it did for me because I use a lot of my space and it takes up seven gig of your storage to have that Apple intelligent on.

And my understanding, each and every item that you have on, it takes up more space.

And I had no idea it was doing that.

And I was like kind of surprised.

And I am just kind of wary that as little as Apple intelligence is already on there, which means there isn't a lot in there that when they're going to put out a lot more, I am really concerned about that space and how much bigger this is going to take, especially gets more sophisticated, more complicated.

Is that going to be bigger?

It probably is.

We'll have to wait and see, right?

So internally, I read this article where it says Apple is kind of concerned as well.

They're seeing that Apple intelligence isn't as popular as they had hoped.

And they're showing that, yes, they have sold more phones in certain countries and stuff.

And they were kind of touting that because of the Apple intelligence.

That's not true.

Apparently they won't tell you this.

But the news is that the actual use is very dismal.

Much further below than what they expected.

So let me go ahead and give you more further disastrous news than Apple intelligence.

At least I, in my perspective, I think this way.

So 18.3 came out when I told you about that news debacle and stuff, right?

But it gets better.

18.4 comes out.

Now, if you recall, back in WWDC, this was supposed to be the substantial release of Apple intelligence.

This, when we got the Siri screen awareness where you can ask about things on the screen.

Can you change the settings?

Da da da.

It's supposed to be a huge improvement to Siri and what it can do.

Well, it's nowhere to see in 18.4.

Apparently, they're having a lot of problems with it behind the scenes and it's not working as great as they want and they have pushed it off to 18.5.

Now, I don't know about you, but that's a red flag.

I'm starting to kind of not like that all these promises they have WWDC and to see maybe not ever coming to life until the next iOS.

I think there's going to be a disaster on their hands.

So I hope in 18.5 we will see this.

But the point is, it delayed it, meaning they're putting more resources into 18.4 to make 18.5 work.

Well, guess what?

Let's add salt to the wound here, John.

You ready for this?

Sure.

Did you see in iOS 19 that they are the...

You remember when I told you iOS 19 was supposed to have the Siri conversational, kind of like you have a conversation with the AI?

Right.

Because of all this disaster and flop, they totally ripped it out in 19.

It isn't going to be available until iOS 20.

You know what that means?

That means that it probably won't even come to our device until 2027.

That's two years.

So get used to the same old Siri for another couple of years.

And if you really want an advancement in your assistant, you have to go somewhere else.

Yeah.

And it's so weird that they included Chat GPT as part of your Siri.

I mean, that's the only advantaged part of 18.2 was I turned that baby on.

And the other cool part about 18.4, and for those that don't know, Chat GPT has something called Chat GPT Search, meaning that it kind of gives you kind of a web search, kind of like a Google search, but in an AI more intelligent form of it.

And you are now be able to integrate that into Safari.

So I have that turned on, meaning that any time I do a search on my Safari, it will use my Chat GPT Search.

It's free and yes, you can use it and it is great.

But it's so sad that they're having to take a third party to make that work.

And that's what we have to do temporarily as a roundabout approach where the Samsung Galaxy S25 can take advantage of all that right now and we're not going to have that capability like what the Samsung had for another two years.

Oh my, you know, I understand they were way behind Apple was and I get it.

We mentioned this many, many times that they were caught off guard and but they're doing a catch up and I really thought that they would be able to catch up like within a year.

So that is not the case.

That is not the case and it really disappoints me because Apple has always been the leader.

If they didn't have it, it would be coming soon.

But to have it many years behind, it concerns me.

It concerns me that Apple is no longer the leader as it once was.

And I have to say they aren't it.

That's just my opinion.

I think Apple is a great device.

Don't get me wrong.

I'm not going to leave Apple, but I'm just disappointed.

I think they really have fallen behind.

I just wonder if Apple was just better off not releasing iOS 18 AI stuff until iOS 19 when they had more time and not have to fix things all along the way and just be ready for iOS 19.

Would it?

I mean, is that a bad thing to say?

No.

I kind of wonder maybe if they didn't they didn't have enough good stuff ready to go for 18 to make it worthwhile.

And they figured they needed the AI in order to sell the phone and the iOS, which very well could be.

But I think you're better off holding on to the AI until you had an opportunity to really make it worthwhile.

But on the other hand, everybody else was adding AI.

And so if they had held on to it, people would have asked, well, what's going on, Apple?

I mean, come on.

Everybody else has got it.

Everyone you have it, whoever was responsible for the delay in incorporating AI into Apple products made a huge mistake because they should have been on it just like everybody else was because everybody, all of the various tech companies, not only for assistive technology, but I mean, in general, were on it right from the from the beginning pretty much and incorporated it into their products when they were on it.

And that's because they saw they saw the aspect of this and they were able to get on it, you know, before like a year before Apple, it almost seems like they saw it coming.

Apple didn't.

And by the time it came, you know, we're our expectation was like, well, Apple's got to be caught up with everybody else.

No, it wasn't.

And that is very discouraging.

And what's even worse is that you get Tim Cook to kind of make up PR stuff like this.

Like we're not the first, but we'll make it the best.

And it's kind of like, that's cool and all.

But why tout Apple Intelligent as hard as you did?

And to give us kind of what I think is dismal, I think it's kind of a joke.

I think the Apple Intelligent, what we have now is a joke.

Now I know for a fact that at some point it's going to be nice.

But because of that, you know, I'm really curious and my listeners, again, reach out to me.

I am curious what you think of this.

Now, do you think I'm being too harsh or do you think I'm just not being patient enough or what?

Send me a note to applecrunch at applevis.com or send me a Thomas at applevis.com.

I really want to hear what you guys have to say.

It's easy for me to tout and spout and rant and all the stuff on this podcast, but not having other people to kind of bounce ideas off.

But I just think that when you see chat GPT is being integrated and you can use that, that should be alarming.

And there are indicators that the Gemini will be on there.

I mean, wow, it almost makes me wonder if they should just surrender and just put those as our new Siri and stuff, but I know they're not because they're going to, this is the only way they're going to make money and tout that Apple Intelligent.

So I don't know, John, this is just, to me, been frustrating.

I'm very disappointed what we have so far.

I've been very disappointed that they've had a full year.

I get it.

It takes a lot of resource and I realized there's a lot of GPU cards out there that are in heavy demand.

They don't have enough of that to create their own LLM right now is what I hear.

But still, my gosh, I don't know, I let me ask you this, John, are you a happy Apple Intelligent user?

Do you like it?

Do you think it's dismal or do you think it's, it's okay.

It's okay, but I don't use it as much as I thought I was going to use it.

Maybe I'm still waiting for all the promises and so far we've been very slow to see new things come to Apple and I suspect that's going to continue for a while.

Well, I mean, my gosh, let's think about it.

A summary of notifications.

Don't get me wrong, but the tout and that is one of the huge updates like, wow, are you serious?

I mean, we're all at this way past that point.

We want to ask questions.

We want things to be generated.

We want not only real conversation with our assistant, but a smart assistant, right?

I mean, my gosh, they were so ahead of time with the Siri when Apple came out with that.

And just to see this so way behind where, and it's not just, we're talking years behind guys and I mentioned this last time, even though you think that we'd be out in a couple of years, you know what, just to catch up to where they are now, they are technically between two and five years behind the galaxy.

That's how bad things are.

I don't think there's ever going to be a time unless it was a lag or a lull with the A, but I don't think that the Apple to catch up.

I think this is advancing so fast and it just saddens me that Google, Microsoft, Samsung are able to catch up and get things done within a year when Apple couldn't.

I think that's my point is why can other people do it, but not Apple granted that I know they want the perfection.

I get that, but it shouldn't take that long, but we'll move on here to something different.

Okay.

I know this sounds crazy.

Why am I talking about?

I think it's just a good move or is it a good move is an interesting move.

Apple TV finally came to Android.

What do you think of that?

I mean, my gosh, John, how long has Apple TV been out a couple of years?

Yeah, I would have thought that they would have gone to Android long before this, but I think it's good, especially because they can disseminate their product to other formats and I think it's a good idea.

I would imagine people are interested enough to at least subscribe to it for a while and see what they think of it and it's a good idea.

I think now this is just my personal thought and then that is I'm surprised it hadn't been on Android yet and maybe I don't know if the idea originally was supposed to be exclusive to Apple products and then get you to come onto the Apple products.

Maybe that was their original thoughts.

Maybe that's why they didn't do it and maybe they kind of figure out, hey, we could really boost our subscribers if we include Android.

I'm thinking good move, that's just my thought is that I'm not sure why they haven't done it earlier.

I think this is a good move on their part.

This is just like another service and I think it's a little beyond what they offer now.

I mean, let's think about this.

You got Netflix out there, you got Hulu, you got all sorts of stuff that charges extra for that, right?

It makes me wonder that why didn't you have that earlier?

I mean, that way, because I think that puts it in a whole of a different services.

I mean, everybody gets to take advantage of the Apple TV shows and the movies and whatnot.

Not only that, but you can also subscribe to their MLS package.

So I think they're doing themselves a big favor by doing this.

And just to show the fact that I'm just confused, Apple Music was Android long before the Apple TV was.

So it's like Apple Music's been out there, so it just fails me to understand.

But nonetheless, this is great news.

So if you're an Android user as well, hey, you can take your Apple TV plus subscription and see it on your Android as well.

I think that's kind of a good move on their part.

And then lastly, before we wrap things up, I just want to just kind of lightly touch on this, John, I am really curious what you think on this because I'm just kind of flabbergastic on this.

However, I am one of those persons that I think the Pro Max is just simply way too darn big.

Now, I do have friends that swears by their Macs and they love the larger device.

Even if they're blind, they just love the longer battery life.

But this has been discussed for many, many eons, John.

And I know we have talked about this in the past.

Let's talk about foldable iPhones.

What do you think of that idea?

I think that's a crazy idea.

Well, why not?

I mean, they did it before with the Pro Max, so if they can physically do it to make it still usable, I mean, why not?

I don't think it would hurt us at all in terms of voiceover users.

You know, you just unfold it and you'd have your flat, straight iPhone again.

So if they can incorporate all that stuff into a foldable phone, you know, I think that's a good idea.

I'm sure visually people would love it.

Oh, yeah.

Visually, I think it'd be kind of cool.

Let me explain this a little bit to those out there what this foldable phone is.

I think one of the reasons why it's taking so long is Apple want to perfect it.

I mean, that's just the way they are.

Samsung had the Z folding, it was terrible.

It was very expensive, very clumsy, and it broke quite easily.

So I think Apple learned a lesson from them, abating, and I think that was a good part of them because I've heard the technology that they're putting into this is much, much better and more durable.

But the major point of this is that because it's foldable, meaning that you've got this kind of a clamshell device, so you got this little size phone on the top and when you open it, it expands out.

So what am I talking about?

So here is the early indicators and you will get a five and a half inch screen when it's folded up.

So when you have it folded up, you got a little bit slightly smaller than your 6'1 display that we have now.

However, when you open it up, it gets to a whopping 7.8 inches across and I think, wow.

And what makes this really cool is that it sounds like Apple has invented a technique where you won't have a break in the screen.

So I've always thought when you expand it, where you're going to have this little divider down the middle or somewhere.

So apparently the screen is foldable, so when you open it up, there is no crease or there is no line there that separates it.

So if that's true, that's great.

And the point of this is that it actually sounds like they're actually moving forward on this and they're actually starting to think about starting to mass produce this at the end of this year, meaning that it could come out by next year.

The only concern I have with this, and I think a lot of people are going to love the bigger size and I hope it comes with Apple Pencil, that would be kind of cool too, but that price oh my gosh, John, can you imagine how much something like this costs?

I'm not sure what kind of a major increase in price did Android have?

Do you know?

Well, okay.

So that's a good question.

The Samsung Z Fold that folds out, two grand.

Wow.

That's going to help you update in price.

I mean, if you want a big ass phone, you might as well just get the iPad Pro, right?

I mean, it's less than that.

So well, think about it, it's 1200 bucks now for your, your Max Pro, your Pro Max device.

And obviously for something that's different and you're getting that kind of a new technology.

Yeah.

I can easily see this being 1899 or 1999.

I will, even though there hasn't been any price out there, I am going to bet some coffee beans that that is going to be the price.

If you, I don't know, I think that is going to be ludicrous, but don't be surprised if it ends up being pretty pricey.

Obviously it definitely going to be more expensive than the Pro Max.

So you know, it's going to be more than 1299.

So I don't know.

I don't know.

People who are willing to pay for it, do you think to make it a viable phone?

Well, dang John, I mean, think about it, that size increase, you know, a lot of people may like that.

I mean, my gosh, it probably has a lot bigger battery on that I'm just talking way longer and maybe you're maybe a little bit more productive on that.

If that supports like Apple pencils and whatnot, what'd it be really cool?

And I seriously doubt they do it, but it would be cool if they put an M chip in that instead of just a regular old A18, 19, 20 chip, whatever they end up putting in there.

That might make it more appealing for people who knows it'd be like a miniature iPad mini.

Yeah, we'll have to wait and see.

Exactly.

But I just want to put a teaser out there.

I just been wanting to talk about that for a while, but now again, and I just slipped that in.

All right.

Let's close things up.

Let's talk about some things I like to talk about and see if anything John has to chime up.

I have found a new app that I am in love with.

If you recall, and we just did a interview podcast recently with Dave and I, with the icon factor.

You remember the old folks of Twitterific and how awesome that app was?

Oh yeah, absolutely.

It was beautiful.

I mean, it kind of, kind of like what Mona is today for Twitterific, you know, but it's for Mastodon.

But what Twitterific didn't do and it was kind of sad to see that go and wasn't their fault because Twitter decided to kill the API and so that killed that party.

But nonetheless, that same company has come out with something called Tapestry.

Have you heard of Tapestry?

I've heard of it.

I have not used it yet.

You know, John, I'm going to tell you right now, I have my home screen of all the apps that I use on a daily basis, right?

And those, meaning those top two rows on me, those are the items that I use daily.

I mean, I use it multiple times during the day, so that could be mail, could be messages.

It could be my Leary app.

That's my aggregator.

I have my podcast aggregator called Overcast on that two row.

Tapestry is now on that two row.

That is something remarkable for me because I've downloaded a lot of apps over the years and it's been a long time since I found an app that will make it on my home screen and in my precious two rows on the top where I use it daily.

That's how big it is for me.

I haven't seen an app that I use as often that would make it on that two rows.

So that's saying a lot.

So what is Tapestry?

It is a free app.

It does offer an in-app purchase.

You don't have to have a subscription, but it does offer more things.

You're able to create a timeline what you want.

And this is the coolest part, John, is that it's a hodgepodge of things you can put on it.

In my case, I have RSS feed from AppleViz, I have podcast feeds on there, I have YouTube channels.

I was totally wow.

And I have Reddit on there, I have a couple of other items that I place there.

And this is created by your timeline and your choice.

And all this is in a simple timeline that I don't have to go into Mona, Macedon, IceCubes or whatever.

I don't have to go into Leary, I don't have to go into Overcast.

Those saves me three, four, if not five apps alone into one thing.

Now it's not perfect, it's not 100%, but it gets you by and gives you the highlight of what you want to know and what you want on it.

It is gorgeous, John.

I cannot highly recommend enough for people to check this out.

If you're like me and you do check those things out a lot, and I was just impressed the YouTube channels on it.

I have never seen anything like that.

I don't like using YouTube, but I end up going over there anyway just to see what people post.

And it's so nice to be able to have a timeline, oh, such and such a release of YouTube and I can just watch it right there.

If you got a podcast, you can listen to it right there.

Now it's limited, it's limited, don't get me wrong, but highly recommend you looking at that.

I will.

I definitely will.

I think you'll love it and just for those that are teaser, I will make a podcast on it eventually.

It will come out.

It is complicated, especially to get it set up for the first time.

I get it.

It's not going to be a faint of heart, but I think it's reasonable.

So for example, so Tom, how did you get that YouTube channel?

Well, you go to the YouTube app, for example.

So I go on to a particular channel that I follow.

There's a share button on that.

If you hit that share and you go all the way down to the more and keep looking for add to tapestry, tap on that, boom, it's added to tapestry.

If you know your Lyrae, for example, if you have an OPML beat, you can import that.

Otherwise you just go to the link or page of the RSS feed and then you can add to tapestry or you can just copy the link and then add yourself manually in the app itself.

So there's some things I think could be done easier, but nonetheless, I think my point was is that this is something I haven't seen for a couple of years that I can use on a daily basis like this.

So it is a must have.

So that's my little teaser for the month.

Anything new with you, Mr. John?

I'm just trying to think if there's an app or anything out there that really excites me.

Nothing that I can think of off the top of my head, really.

It's just, you know, it's not using what I have, but there's nothing that jumps out at me at the moment.

Isn't that crazy?

I mean, seriously, John, think about it.

Do you remember our first five years with our iPhones?

We kept downloading stuff, putting things in there and we find something better and replace it.

You know, I'm going to say the past five years, we don't do that that much anymore.

No, no, you're right.

Right.

And we are happy with what we have.

Nothing has really replaced things in the past couple of years until this came along.

So that's just something to say, just something to think about and there's nothing wrong with that.

It's just, just how things are.

We have gotten more mature with our devices and we've gotten way better at apps that we come to love with and stuff like that.

The only thing I got to share with you, John, and my Disney fans out there that my wife and I just got back from Disney World and we got to go on Tiana Bayou's adventure.

Have you been on that ride?

No, and it's, it's here in Anaheim as well.

I just have not had a chance to ride on it.

You'll love it.

I, um, it, you know, I was sad to see Flashmaster Mountain go away, but I understand why it went away.

But this is a great replacement, fun ride.

All I can say, be prepared to get wet.

And Lord behold, it was kind of cool there and we were, it was in the fifties at night.

We were out there like at nine at night because the park is open until 11 and Lord behold, I wasn't thinking about it.

And when we went on the ride, you just, you just know what's going to happen.

I got all drenched and it was freezing.

So I got a little cold.

So just to let you know that, uh, it's a great ride.

So I just want to share that with you, John.

But um, any who, thank you for joining me this, this month, John, to kind of go view the 18 E and the Apple tells it flops and the whole nine yards and you were great as always.

Thank you.

Oh, you're welcome.

Glad to be here.

We had a lot of fun and we'll do it again.

You have fun.

The season next week.

I want to hear all about it or our next month.

I'd be curious what you found and what you love about it and what you didn't like about it.

And we'll talk about it then.

So that's going to do.

My name is Thomas Donva also known as not a mouse.

This is going to do for apple crunch February of 2025 along here with John Gassman until next time.

See you guys later.

Bye-bye.

Thank you. you

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Apple Crunch February 2025: The Most Expensive Cheap iPhone Yet

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