Gadgetory

good morning on Tuesday February 27th it is episode 360 one of the 359 podcast my name is BVG and your host today are alfred Inge and Bridget Carey what's up guys Apple heavy show today we have rumors about three new lines of iPhone tens or iPhone X's whatever you want to call them and you know report came out yesterday which was confirmed today that Apple is starting its own health care unit or whatever word they have but it's only for Apple employees but you know just taking a look into what that is and what that entails so hang out everybody we are going to record our form an audio podcast and when we come back we're gonna take your questions and comments in the chat we hope they're good so we'll be back in 3 minutes and 59 seconds from 3 to welcome to the 359 I'm Alfred Inge and I'm Bridgette Gary Apple is rumored to be dropping three new iPhones this year which I like to call the three bears of iPhones there's gonna be the largest iPhone 10-1 that's an upgrade to the current model and then a third cheaper one so the really big one is going to be the size of the iPhone 8 plus but it'll have this screen size so it'll be like completely there of the iPhone 10 so yeah that rounds out to about 6.5 inches the cheaper one there making it cheaper by not giving it like stainless steel on the back it's supposed to have like an LCD display aluminum edges and a glass back I mean I to me this feels very like unlike Apple right like their major selling point was always like simplicity like here's the iPhone you'll like it and if you don't you have no other choice yeah but last time it was here's the new iPhone $1,000 or more and now maybe you can still have all the cool inside features and I can do all the cool photo tricks but if you don't care about it being like the best outside material you have another option there ought to see how that works out I mean the 5c I remember that still in that and that wasn't - yeah oh that was almost gonna be my first iPhone for a while and then I looked at like the processor and all the stuff is I don't I wanna do this but I do applaud Apple for you know choosing to go for whatever the cheaper choice is here if as our listeners know I'm like very very like frugal about this kind of stuff I'm curious to see how much like the cheaper one will be like like does the stainless steel back like really cost them that much more no it's probably gonna be the same like starting price as your iPhone 8 you know and then just you know with that happening I wonder what that means for the iPhone like 9 line or whatever if if the 10 is supposed to still be this like premium model like what's gonna happen with them are they what are they also gonna come out with like three different like iPhone nines or anything like all them numbers there you go we need to go to X let's embrace the X and like you said let's make it extra large yeah so like X I'm like x1 they should have called it at the rumored name is supposed to be iPhone 10 plus which know if you have an X just make it extra large let's just just do that so you know speaking of Apple and more options there's a report from CNBC that Apple is launching its own healthcare service it's called AC wellness which they quietly launched a website for in December right now it's only available for Apple employees and it's expected to launch this spring you say the Apple employees at the headquarters in Cupertino because they have worldwide like a hundred and twenty-three thousand employees at stores no this is not for like all the store employees yeah imagine being like a genius employee in New York and then like flying all the way out to see your doctor in Cupertino because that's where the two clinics are you can FaceTime Oh God we'll just check what your pulse is like on your Apple watch just tell us your ID they're not the first to like get into the healthcare business you know we saw this last month with Amazon working with JPMorgan Chase and the Berkshire Hathaway group going how can these tech companies go hmmm let's put our smarts together this put her money and check together and find a cheaper way to tackle healthcare for our employees internally so by having two centers one on the campus and one near the campus you know they're able to kind of test the waters here they're hiring doctors they're hiring people to create healthy lifestyle environments but to me I go I look at this and go home you just got okay there's 12,000 employees on campus you just got a bunch of test subjects for your next healthcare yeah that's what I was wondering like do you think this is more like a guinea pig thing you know they're gonna be unleashing this on everyone else once it's like oh here's what worth with our own staffers and here's what did and we're very sorry about that by the way yeah I would hate to be the one where a test goes wrong right yeah I mean I'm just wondering the like is this generally gonna be our future like I feel like it's not enough that like tech companies know everything about our social lives or businesses you know who we talk to on a day-to-day basis now it's like oh we also know it like your blood pressure level and all this stuff - yeah it's easy for them to make health care cheaper but right what about us do you Facebook really poking you I don't know yeah so you know that's all the time we have for our show today if you liked what you heard check us out on CNET I'm Alfred Dean I'm Bridget Gary thanks for listening I miss Ben's a cappella version of our end theme that was me that did the a cappella oh yeah I'm always my eyes are on the screen and I'm not paying attention if it isn't I just assume that it's Ben we both have a very similar singing voice I'm curious as what's going to happen with Apple branding at this point I just Apple heart it's frivolous titling as far as the iPhone X plus xx LS read like what's what's coming next down the pipeline just fancy and just go with X - the best thing to do have you say so or you could be like Kingdom Hearts I'm like my square enix like velocity right now whether it's like Kingdom Hearts where it's like ten and a half birth by dreams or something like all right everybody thanks for hanging out and joining us for the recording of today's podcast which you can subscribe to anywhere you subscribe to podcasts let's take some questions from the chat first up sir enjoy first we had lots of beauty and health products at CES very astute now Apple health care will 2018 start a new branch of health tech well more like these tech companies probably just just want more places to test it and then to and to figure out ways to gather your data more cuz like sure more places of surface their brand right you have all these gadgets that can measure this and measure that but how can you make it so it makes sense yeah Tim Tim Cook I feel like at every Apple Keynote has all talked about like hey check out this Apple watch that we're coming out with by the way I got this letter from somebody that used an Apple watch that talks about how it like saved their lives by their lie by like detecting of their heartbeat was like off pace and then they were able to alert somebody and the right time I'm like oh yeah I'm sure everyone uses their Apple watches for that yeah you know i phone saves my life and doesn't save lives though when you're texting and walking fall into a ditch wait people use the Apple watch yeah apparently it's actually it's actually the most sold watch like in the world like high-end wise like it like so that like beeped out like Rolex and sales which I know people aren't going out every day I'm buying Rolexes but like still the with with with all of the stress that my constant checking of my phone has given me I'm so glad they're looking into my health now and to make the circle complete yeah they actually have physicians that like check for like your neck damages for Mike staring down their neck is real people look at my story on seeing it was an experience but back to some Joy's question though yeah health tech is definitely like an emerging field our reporter or Brar al he is has actually been reportedly extensively on that have you seen that thing Scott Stein's walking around wearing in the office lately because there's always something he's doing this scan is yeah vitals guy last week he had a headset kind of thing that's supposed to like reduce your stress levels I think he's writing a story about it have you seen it who's up Scott it was one thing there's a photo of it on Twitter that like that has been like making the rounds for a bit I don't want to pull it up right now but yeah I mean that's one of those things to where it's like hey you but part of me is like concerned though that there's a lot of like tech like snake oil salesmen kind of thing there was a the story in the New York Times yesterday called like about digital phenotypes or whatever which it was like it's these like physicians and and psychiatrists that like try to see if you're depressed based on like your social media habits which is really really weird it's like something oh you you haven't talked to your friends as much as you used to like are you depressed and if anything it could be healthier by not looking at a screen that was don't know that that was one of the counter-arguments though that was basically saying like no maybe like I went on camp trip or something that's not really don't use that as an indicator of how I feel so much of that movie this circle is let's go back into the chat Michael Brown says I think a phone of the 6.5 inch screen is crazy big I agree with you Michael that's too big for my tastes but since we are here with this 6.5 inch screen do you think at WDC we'll see some split screen features good question hmm I don't think so from Apple not from Apple I don't think yeah maybe they're warming up to them maybe we'll see that by the end of the year yeah possibly at their next keynote because if it's offered about if they haven't done it for their iPads I don't really see them doing it for their phones or thinking of something else I thought there was some sort of iPad weight of yeah I would agree though that 6.5 inches is that's kind of absurd for a phone like that's that's literally like you know half an inch smaller than like most like mini tabloids jeans are not keeping up like I can't fit my phone image in I remember yeah I remember when tablets first came out I I saw a dude like on the train using like one of the smaller ones like a 7-inch one like as a phone and I just like kept laughing and like what an idiot he looked like but now that like there's gonna be a 6.5 inch like phone it's just oh I'm the idiot I'm the idiot well that's you know supposed to put it to your ear if you have you know ear pods that's that's the solution people buy more to look cooler the question of the day of course is coming from I'm gonna try say racy I'm sorry as always if I'm mispronouncing your name well we ever seen any mind-blowing innovations coming from Apple in the near future now isn't that just the ongoing question for the last couple of years has Apple actually blown your mind as of late I'm going to go out in the limb here and say not so much my mind has always been blown not by what Apple has done but by how much people are willing to buy into it like I think when earpods first came out I thought this is ridiculous these are just Bluetooth headphones and yeah my mind has been blown by you know me walking around on the train and seeing all these people with it I was like that's are you kidding me kind of thing but you can attribute that to the introduction 10 years ago not to I any current developments in Apple it's the sheer fact that it got so ingrained in society ten years ago but yeah even like iPads - I remember when iPads came out and everyone was making fun of it just saying like this is just a big iPhone and there's like there ever that's like that's most of the ways of my mind herbal is blown not by the products themselves but by like how many people like adopt them well why is it I don't know about you but I feel like Amazon's more interesting lately because they have more motivation to try some crazy stunts yeah I mean they have a different goal than Apple Apple wants you to buy products Amazon to buy things that they sell on their website you know so it's a different beast but still like yeah they've been throwing a lot of stuff at the wall I I was just thinking about this the other day when I was getting dressed I do you remember the the Amazon look yeah yeah hey we'll rate like how well you dressed like oh no one uses that now so yeah that's Amazon is definitely throwing a lot more at the wall because they're trying to establish themselves as more like we have our own products - not we're not just like a marketplace kind of thing for other for you to buy like cat food to get here in two days I think the real innovation is gonna be thinking about screens differently because what does Apple care what what I guess content Facebook has they they want to deliver things in a product I can buy yeah I think people are hungry for something that isn't so addictive on a phone so what do they care I guess what's in it they can they can think differently about how we're getting our information Andy and the chat says I think the air pods are great I would argue that that's more one of the better up there type innovations apples had in a while but I just don't think that with groundbreaking them and we've seen wireless headphones before maybe Apple accelerated them into the mainstream yeah you separated yeah it's rather than the connected by cable it is right now the highest rather say that the most popular wireless headphone helped to take off I read some statistic that 80% or so of the money being spent on wireless headphones is going to air pods yeah that's awesome yeah it's the same thing smartwatches - like I'd say like higher than 80% of the money going to smartwatches going to right like the Apple SmartWatch and yet they can't get iTunes right I would just like a nice easy way to make my NSYNC Thanks iTunes was right like eight years ago it was fantastic I'm gonna but yeah I'm not I'm not disparaging anything from like the air pot itself I actually think they're like a really nice pair of bluetooth headphones the microphone on it is like one of the few that like actually works even though it doesn't have like the microphone right in front of your face yeah like it picks up the audio really well I was impressed at the reception on the microphone too but again it's not really that innovative that's my point I wasn't polishing the fine tuning and yeah that has to happen from time to time they have not blown her mind in a while face ID I will say did like blow my mind for a little bit just because like of how much better it is than like any other facial recognition like biometric out there yeah like the fact that like it actually does a 3d scan of your face and like you know they I'm pretty sure they originally put that in for an emoji yeah and oh wait like this is also the thing that we can do still astonished - an emoji such a sell point these days I like this comment from Gopal says Apple is a stronger lifestyle brand than tech brand lifestyle healthcare yeah exactly it's all aspects of your life yeah for sure it's definitely an aesthetic more than it is like like people that are buying Apple products aren't exactly looking into it as like I need you know like this much RAM and Papa blah it's more so like they know what they're getting and they it's it's yeah it's like a status symbol at this point can they solve problems or they just wait to do it stylish Lee you know yeah definitely so yes that was like a big like selling point for that mm-hmm coming in from Balwinder and MP Cody asking about the potential for the Apple healthcare to come to the public but winders specifically has this Apple testing this on the employees in hopes to roll it out to customers and I MP Cody's wondering if it there is any kind of date or potential for this to see public eye I think the the where it's going is when you have a company like Apple like Amazon with all this money where they can do their own investment of like fixing their own their own employees healthcare just to cut down costs internally you're gonna see other companies maybe mimic that model so it'll affect you if you happen to work at a larger company where they maybe can like you know take those ideas but I don't think they're going to I mean gosh can be so weird to like have Apple doctors yeah I'm also saying oh my god and an apple a day keeps the doctor in the office there's some joke in there I am interested to see how this will affect like if I'm an Apple employer like how does this affect my health plan like am i paying less for like if you have to pay more for Apple health care which wouldn't surprise me at all I've wondered like just essentially like would you be allowed to get go out of like Apple care or something like probably option yeah but then again they really want all those testers yeah next watch it'd be so great if you can come by and sign this NDA on this new thing we're trying out yeah yeah I'm not sure if they're I like I feel like the end goal would have to be for this to go public like you know oh you can sign up for this now kind of thing but at the same time there are so many hoops that they would have to jump through to get this like out in the world for everybody of that yeah the motivation isn't to go through more stress to make it for everyone look at Amazon what's their motivation hmm they got into grocery stores maybe they can get into your pharmacy degree you know so there's always another motivation to behind it like if there's two layers Brigitte you were talking earlier about other companies who have kind of gone down this path who else has like maybe in brief detail have we seen go down the healthcare path well you know Google in the alphabet know line up they're trying to tackle some some ideas like oh how can we stop death you know you know those really big questions I don't what is this Star Wars Episode three yeah basically oh god one that they would the Jedi would tell you yeah have you heard the tale of dark Plagueis the wise know so I don't be surprised I think this is a new idea though and and and I think we have folks like Google thinking oh how can we solve weird problems like self-driving cars and health and different and different spin-offs and this is Apple you know you know okay I am interested to see what like tech they're like talking about implementing in this just because I'm like that's why I'm saying there's gonna be a lot of Hoops for them to jump to if they try making this public I think it's more about saving because like so anytime I met a doctor's like and this is like with my dentist and my vet to where I get very paranoid when I see that all their computers are still running like Windows XP and all this stuff I'm like oh my god all my information is on here somebody's definitely stealing this it's it's one of the big factors it's too expensive to upgrade for a lot of these companies yeah Michael Browns asking why do you think Apple is so ingrained in the US culture how much time do you have I got the easy answer US citizens will throw money at silly things present company included yeah cool right yeah I mean I don't know that I think they spend a lot of time on advertising and they spend a lot more time on like presentation than other companies do and this goes like all the way back I think like for a while like you know caring about computers is very much as like this like really like nervy like thing you know like and then and then you know I think Apple is like done and like a very good job to like bring it to the forefront as like Oh literally everybody uses computers like this is not like a nerdy thing and I think they've done like a really good job at like presenting it and like that way I hear you there I like this concept here from Scott might again maybe healthcare is way for Apple to collect a user data as it doesn't gather much user data of like the likes of Google is this meant to just gonna be a small-scale petri dish I wouldn't I wouldn't see it that way I mean for one it only be their own employees I don't think they need to collect user data about their own staffers but it's a way to test what they want to do next in like your phone that's coming to you yeah like all right we're gonna have a new iOS that will Trek XYZ I would also make the argument that Apple has never really sold itself on like user data or like user information like Google does that a lot and because it's like at its core it's like an ad company but Apple has always been more about the product yeah yeah like these are really good phones we don't really care about your data I mean Amazon like is it this is the same thing as Google where it's like they're collecting your data because they needed to improve like their sales but like with like even with like Siri which is able to collect all your voice data like it doesn't like in anonymizes it so it's like they're not really doing anything like with your day yeah it's always been more about like their products but if they can have an ecosystem where they can maybe do some good and have make sure every doctor around the country wants to have the same thing now suddenly doctors are buying their gadgets and and the third-party people who make the things that track your heart and your polls and love them suddenly now you have to have an Apple product right because all these doctors you have and outside of Apple all use it so we are almost out of time but let's bury ourselves in speculation first with the forthcoming tentative iPhone x2 electric boogaloo do we have any inspiration or any any indication that's the right word about cost and timing especially for hi-hi Terrace and chunks during the chat chunk stirs really wanting to know if he should wait it out if it's gonna be worth the money I say it's always worth taking a couple extra minutes taking a step back doing your homework and research waiting because ten to one even if you end up not liking that new model you get a discount on the old model well then I'm gonna be an old model this year that was another story like the iPhone 10 that's out right now I almost said x10 that's out right now they may not sell that exact same one for cheaper instead this third or this middle one because there's three of them right this new one will be an upgrade to the ten and they might just not offer yes III wrote that rumor so yeah the idea is that they would be afraid that the current iPhone 10 now would take away from sales from like the one that they're making the upgrade for because really it's not all that different to begin with there so there's nothing on speculation as far as like price or anything like that goes but I would assume like release date this year yeah rumor is all it's all suppose for this year will probably be like after Labor Day when they like around September whenever they do they're big like here's our new iPhone like event so but there's also like the mid-year like like release that they usually do around July that's when they drop the SE in uh 2016 oh you think they're gonna separate it no way i I've also read a lot of rumors about like a new and upgraded se so it's literally just gonna look the exact same thing but like the process is gonna be like up-to-date we kind of light phones in the fall I think we probably get six if it's like beyond the exelon at least yes he won't rip the pocket out of your pants all right let's talk WD see real quick to close things out Josh boy de what Nokia smartphones will be coming to the u.s. yeah the 8110 yes but this is this is actually a story that's on our front page right now the only phone that's from Nokia that's coming to the US is the Nokia 6kt Collins has the story on it on our front page is literally the nokia sake so you're not gonna be getting any of their like retro phones for a bit from enjoy as bezels are coming down to zero we need to shuffle our phones to reach top and bottom of the screen will these shifts in center of gravity pose a problem actually I was thinking about this yesterday actually is a thought that did not occur to me I actually think it will and I think that because like it's gonna be harder to grab your screen I think you know the like really annoying phone cases that are barely cases one is it just like a stupid pop socket thing you know yeah like that's gonna be really popular and then the ones that's just like a hook kind of thing it's like it looks like a like a bottle like tab open Herta thing and it's just like there on the back of your phone and you put like your thumb through and you're just hold it that way oh yeah yeah I know what you're talking about I do like those like I've seen something like a ring yeah yeah I hate all of those I also think that because like people are gonna be less inclined to like hold their screens because there's no bezel like is probably gonna be like much more popular like because you know what they should do is just make the back of the phone like really sticky now so that you don't have to really grip it's already gross enough I don't need them to be sticky too but I just imagine what's gonna come out of your pocket I do like that idea there was that prototype at MWC where the selfie camera cuz you can't have on the front yeah it just pops up like a toaster bespeaks out on the top actually did like that just for like privacy purposes like there's not a camera like always all the time they know of yeah I would love to see some kind of like add-on peripheral so like you have to eat a magnetized glove to hold on to your phone an Apple charges you $80 for it accessory yeah Apple glue uncle glove and then all the doctors wear it to recharge the glove like absolutely of course you would why wouldn't the that Club just be the phone I mean you can do this too because then you could because then they couldn't charge you extra all right and the closings out from James Cook hi Bridget what do you think about Sony's comeback Sony's comeback oh you mean like that venom looks sick but yeah like I really know is about there i Bodog and I think that's fun yeah that was fun though I would I wouldn't call it a comeback just yet don't call it a comeback they've been here for years um no but I haven't been volley neither oh yeah I think I think you might be going soon so I don't know but yeah I mean like they announced like two new phones at MWC I don't know how many people are interested in it to be honest if you get yeah if you want to let me know why you think it's like a big comeback for them I think I think we'll have to wait a bit longer I think the jury's still out on whether or not this is their major resurgence and you know the smartphone area fair enough it's not not a comeback but it's not not not not I'll come back either yes okay that's it we are out of time thanks so much everybody and we'll see you all again tomorrow alpha do you want to take us out yeah thanks for listening everyone for these stories and more check us on cnn.com our podcast is also available on iTunes TuneIn stitcher SoundCloud Google Play Music Feedburner and the Amazon echo take care everybody we'll see you tomorrow morning