 My new Libre shirt is available on Base.win in this yellow color, which I think looks lovely on me, as well as several other colors. I've got a lot more merch that I sell on Base.win along with computer parts, phone cases, and much more. Discounts are available site-wide when you shop on Base.win with Monero XMR. That's B-A-S-E-D dot W-I-N. So the other day, Apple streamed their new product event, which I'm pretty sure is the most popular Apple keynote that they've ever done, at least in terms of YouTube views, because it's already gotten 27 million views in just 24 hours. So it's one of the most popular videos already on the official Apple channel. And the main attraction of this last Apple keynote was, of course, the iPhone 15. And the most interesting thing about the iPhone 15 to me, as somebody who doesn't use iPhones and really doesn't use any Apple products, is the fact that now iPhones are finally going to be using USBC for charging. Finally, Apple has joined the rest of the modern world by using USBC ports instead of forcing this proprietary lightning garbage on its users for another generation. So the iPhone 15 Pro, and I guess the rest of these iPhones that were designed, another cool thing about them, is they're supposed to be designed with repairability in mind. Now, it's still a long way away from something like a ThinkPad or something like a Fairphone when it comes to repairability. But things are starting to get better in the iPhone world, and I guess in the rest of Apple's walled garden proprietary ecosystem. So the iPhone 14 was really the first phone where Apple made a design change and actually started taking some steps towards making the phones more repairable. But the iPhone 15 takes things further because now the back glass on the iPhone 15 is supposed to be removable. So when that glass breaks, which during my time working at Geek Squad during the transition to them being like an Apple certified repair center, and we were actually one of the first stores, the Cambridge Galleria store was one of the ones during the pilot programs, like one of the first stores that was fixing them. Anyway, I've seen my number of broken iPhones and back glass breaking is one of the more common things, probably for any phone really, because so many of them have glass on the back to support wireless charging. But anyway, that's supposed to be removable now. And I think it's even able to be removed by an end user. I mean, if you're brave enough to go ahead and do that. But if you're not, then you can probably take it to Apple or an Apple authorized repair center and get it fixed for a lot cheaper because now I'm pretty sure you can just take it off with a screwdriver. It's not something where you need a heat gun and a pry tool or some kind of like laser removal tool to try to get the back off. Now, what's really going to matter what I'm really curious with this removable back. And really, I would probably just want to see a full tear down of an iPhone 15, which we're probably going to see in the upcoming weeks and months as it comes out is how difficult is it to replace the battery in an iPhone 15, because a battery replacement is one of the main repairs that really every phone is going to need, at least if you plan on using it for more than three or five years, changing the battery in your phone is kind of like getting the oil changed in your car. So I'm pretty sure that this is going to be a little bit easier to do the battery replacement. And in fact, I think user replaceable batteries were one of the requirements that the EU recently ruled out, or maybe they're still voting on it for smartphones, because that's actually what made Apple change over from lightening to USBC. It was an EU ruling that all smartphones were supposed to have USBC charging by I think the end or beginning of 2024. And then in a few more years, it's going to have to be all laptops as well. So when you start seeing laptop manufacturers coming out with USBC, and they try to say the same thing that Apple did where they're like, Oh, we're trying to join the new standard or we're trying to be environmentally friendly. It's a lie. No, they're doing it because the EU forced them to do it. And the same thing goes for the iPhones being easier to repair now. But there's a few more features that I want to talk about these phones that I like before we start getting into the negatives of the Apple Keynote. So the main processor of the iPhone 15 is the A16 Bionic. And it's pretty damn powerful. So one of the things that really stood out to me during the keynote was when they got to the mobile gaming section, which, you know, usually nobody really cares about mobile gaming. But it's the fact that they said the full console versions of Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil Village and Assassin's Creed Mirage are going to be playable on the iPhone 15. Now, of course, you know, playable. We'll put that in quotes because I'm sure that there's, you know, going to be a little bit of a stretch with how playable it is, you know, Apple might be a pretty, pretty innovative company, but they're not able to break the laws of physics. So don't expect these games to run as well on an iPhone 15 Pro as they would on a console or especially not as well as they would run on a proper desktop gaming PC. But the fact that we now have a mainstream smartphone that's, I guess, not necessarily being advertised as a gaming device, but it's being advertised as a device that can play games and specifically can play AAA titles. I think that's a really big deal for the mobile gaming world. I mean, it might actually make the mobile gaming world become something that real gamers take a little bit more seriously. This also looks like further confirmation that Apple as a company is really starting to get more involved in gaming themselves. I mean, they already have that VR headset already, which I'm sure they've got some killer games on there, at least some killer games couldn't be played on there as long as there isn't a lot of software incompatibility. But a phone, you know, since they have the iPhones supposedly able to play AAA titles, I'm sure it would be fairly easy to get those ported over to Macs, you know, to get the same kind of AAA gaming support officially supported on MacBooks, which in terms of processing power for MacBook Pros, they actually are some of the most powerful laptops in the world right now. So yeah, I think Mac gaming, Apple gaming might actually be a thing in the near future. So a couple other things that I think are sort of cool on the new iPhone is that they got rid of the mute switch on the iPhone Pros. And now they've got like some kind of programmable button that just goes to be able to map to different things. I mean, that's a pretty big change because I'm pretty sure the mute switch on iPhones have been there since the very beginning, like literally the first iPhone. The only thing that I'm sort of skeptical about with a programmable, you know, user programmable button being put on an iPhone is how far is your ability to program that button going to be? Because with Apple, you know, with the walled garden, you tend to be very limited in end user customizability. And I guess this next change also has some ups and downs, but I'm pretty happy with it. And it's the fact that the iPhone Pros and I think the Pro Series watches as well are supposed to have titanium bodies. I'm really glad that Apple did this because well, I think it might start bleeding out into the Android world because I think it's really ridiculous how rare titanium bodies are on these flagship phones that cost like a thousand plus dollars. Okay, Samsung, they don't have titanium bodies on their flagship phones. Google doesn't do it. And I really can't think of any manufacturer off the top of my head that have titanium body phones. They're all either stainless steel or I think even more often than that, they're aluminum. And titanium just has so many more benefits. Okay, so titanium is lighter, more durable and more corrosion resistant than stainless steel. And while it is technically heavier than aluminum, titanium is generally so much stronger that you don't have to use as much material to build a titanium frame for a phone case than an aluminum frame for a phone case. I mean, I'm not a machinist. I'm not an expert on this. This is just some kind of brief research that I was doing before recording this video. But yeah, titanium to me seems like a much more premium metal and it seems much more appropriate in a smartphone. Plus it's such a small amount of metal when you think about it. I mean, in terms of increased costs, because I'm sure titanium is more expensive, that's probably the reason so many people aren't doing it already and why the $3 trillion company is the only one doing it. In terms of the cost, I think it's pretty negligible for the small amount that goes in a smartphone. And same thing that goes with the weight if it does end up way more than aluminum. It's such a small amount that I don't think it makes a difference to even really think about the cost or the weight and just put all of your points into durability and corrosion resistance. Now, one of the downsides to a titanium body is, well, you can't really color it as easily. It's really difficult to anodize titanium and Apple didn't even do that. They didn't anodize it. They didn't polish it. They just kind of put a coating over it, which isn't as scratch resistant as anodized metal is going to be. So if you're the kind of person that likes to keep your phone naked and get scratches on it, those scratches are probably going to show up more versus different material for your phone. But I always use a phone case. I think it's definitely a good idea to use a phone case if you have a phone that costs over $1,000. But if you insist on keeping your phone naked, they do have a, I think they call it natural titanium color. So if that scratches it probably or the coating outside scratches, you probably won't really notice it as much as if you got some of the other colors. Now, let's talk about some of the stuff Apple did that kind of rubbed me the wrong way. So the first one, which is really something that every big tech company seems to do these days is the fake environmental friendliness, the fake, you know, like green consciousness or whatever. And they do this because it's just a really easy PR move for them to do. And I will give Apple some credit. There is some, you know, green environmentally friendly moves that they do, like actually using renewable energy for, I think it's their data centers and their headquarters and main offices and things like that. But they're constantly sniffing their farts with it. Okay. Like in the keynote, talking about everything that they've done, them just sniffing their farts about environmental friendliness is probably about 15 minutes of the whole thing, which is like an hour and some change. But, you know, they talk about how, oh yeah, the phone's being repairable, that's environmentally friendly because now people can actually keep their phones for longer instead of just buying new ones. And I guess same thing with them switching to USB-C. I don't actually remember them making that point specifically, but you've got to think all the tons, like literal tons of copper and plastic that now don't have to go into lightning cables because you can use USB-C. I mean, looking around me in this room, there's probably like 10 USB-C cables just sitting around. But for Apple to actually do that, for them to make their phones repairable and for them to start using USB-C, they had to be dragged kicking and screaming through the mud by the EU, the US, like various governments throughout the world to do it. Like they only did that because they were forced to. And now they're trying to sniff their farts and be like, oh, look at us. We're Apple. We're so good. We're so good for the environment. And another thing though is they actually took some steps backwards with environmental friendliness, in my opinion, with a couple of things. So let me just lay this out for you. The Apple Watches, so the watch straps and the cases for Apple Watches used to be leather, or at least they used to have leather options, but now the option they give you is 82% recycled sport band and cases. So there's still 18% of some non-biodegradable that's added in there. And the last time I checked, leather was completely 100% biodegradable. I mean, think about it, it's just cow hide, right, or some type of animal hide. So I really don't understand the move from something 100% biodegradable to something that's only partially biodegradable. I mean, with that one in particular, if we had to make a guess at what it is, it's probably Apple's way to appeal to some animal rights people, which also I guess kind of tend to be not environmentally conscious, like maybe environmentally concerned is a better word. But yeah, they probably got rid of using leather to appeal to those people. But by appealing to these people who maybe don't know better, you've actually now done something that has a, or increases your carbon footprint a little bit more with those watch accessories. And speaking of the watches, there's this new gesture that was added to the watches called double tap. I believe you like tap your hand or tap your index finger to your thumb, something like that is how you activate it. And it's supposed to activate the primary button function on your watch. So like the function for answering a phone call, silent and alarm, things like that. Now there's a couple of things about this feature that kind of suck. One of them is the fact that the feature is not actually going to be available when this watch comes out. You got to wait another month for it. So you know how that stuff goes when there's a software feature that isn't available at launch. Usually it means that the company behind it is rushing to get it out. It's probably going to have a lot of bugs and not work super great. But the other thing that I noticed about it, which also kind of ties into the fake environmental friendliness I was talking about, is the fact that this new double tap feature is not going to be available on previous generations of Apple watches. Now this is kind of weird because double tap is just another gesture. The Apple watches for generations now have supported I think a dozen plus gestures. I don't really know them all off the top of my head because again, don't use Apple products, don't sell them anymore, don't repair them anymore. But I'm not convinced that this double tap feature is something that the new chips that went into the watch that it needed, the new chips to go into the watch. Like there's some features that are only made possible with the new chip, mainly onboard Siri, because previously if you tried to use Siri on an Apple watch, I think it had to sync with the cloud. And so that's obviously going to have a lot more delay than something that's available locally on your device. But yeah, Apple's trying to say that the double tap feature is only made possible because of their chip, the new chip that's in it. So if you want that feature, you have to buy a new watch, even if you just bought last year's watch. And I guess last year's watch is going to go end up in a landfill somewhere. And again, if my skepticism is valid here, it's another example of Apple's environmental hypocrisy. But besides all that, I'm actually pretty impressed with what Apple is doing here with their phones from the satellite capability to boosting the wideband signal, which I believe makes the radius for AirTag connectivity three times wider, which I mean, that's already probably one of the largest area mesh networks in the world. And now you think about it, the radius for all the phones is going to be three times wider. They're pretty soon going to have global coverage with that AirTag network. These are all things that I'm really hoping to see in the Android world and just in the open source world in general or the more open source world, along with those better processors and titanium frames. Or you know, Apple could just open source iOS and that way their phones would be opened up to mods, ROMs and side loading and all the other things that we get to enjoy in the Android world. Those are features that I need to have in my phone if I'm going to buy it. And as soon as an iPhone Pro has it, I'd be happy to buy it. Maybe the EU can actually bully Apple into implementing those features just like they did with increased repairability and USB-C charging ports. But let me know what your thoughts are on the Apple Keynote and the Apple 15 in the comments below. Be sure to like and share this video to hack the algorithm and have a good rest of your night.