@BillHandelShow – ‘Tech Tuesday’ with Mike Dobuski

ABC News tech reporter Mike Dobuski joins the show for ‘Tech Tuesday.’ Today, Mike talks about Apple’s big event happening today previewing the iPhone 17 and testing out GM’s semi-autonomous driving technology.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, time for Tech Tuesday with Mike Dubuski, ABC News
Technology reporter out of New York. Mike Coopertino, California is
where Apple is, and what they don't do is introduce
any of their products at, for example, any of the
major shows that I happen around the country. They just

(00:23):
do it themselves. So and it's hard to know exactly
what's going to happen. We sort of have an idea
what is expected to be released today.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
New iPhones are going to be the big deal here today.
We are in the seventeenth generation of the iPhone, the
iPhone seventeen, and you're going to get your normal base
level phones and your pro level phones as we've become
used to kind of smaller and bigger versions of each
of those. But the big news bill is going to
be a new version of the iPhone to choose from
an ultraslim, ultra light device that we're thinking, if rumors

(00:59):
are to be believed, is going to be called the
iPhone Air. You might be aware of the MacBook Air,
the ultraslim MacBook computer. It was unveiled by a little
ad where they pulled it out of a manila envelope
everybody kind of like lost their minds, thinking like, Wow,
I didn't realize a computer could be that thin. They
seemingly are going to apply a similar philosophy to the iPhone.

(01:20):
Something I'm going to be keeping an eye on, though,
is what that does to battery life, because, as we know,
when you shrink the frame of a phone, that means
that you have less room for batteries. Apple learned this
the hard way with the iPhone Mini a few years ago,
which had pretty lackluster battery life in its first generation. Still,
this follows Samsung launching a slim version of the Galaxy

(01:40):
Phone earlier this year, so it does seem like we
are in the midst of a trend here towards slimmer smartphones.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
Okay, So I have a question because one of the
things that I do is I carry my phone in
my back pocket and I'll set someplace and the phone
is in the back pocket. Now I have a regular
iPhone and that, even though it is fairly slim, it
is robust. How do they get around having someone in
that thin that holds up.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, it's a good question, right. So Apple moved from
you know, a different construction to titanium materials relatively recently.
That was kind of one of their big selling points
within the last several generations of iPhone. A lot of
that went to making the phone a lot lighter to hold,
kind of countering people who say these things have become
kind of bulky, kind of big, kind of you know,

(02:29):
tough to put in your pocket and not have them
pull your pants down, essentially, So they moved to this
titanium construction, which you know, did raise some questions about durability.
Those questions really have not netted anything. People seem to
be using these phones as they normally do and there
have not been any sort of standing lingering durability concerns
with the iPhone. And you couple that with the fact

(02:49):
that the sort of titanium construction isn't solid right. There
are little cutouts for buttons and cutouts for your sim cards,
so it's kind of like this, there's a bunch of
holes in your phone as essentially on the side of it,
and that additionally would raise some durability concerns. Really hasn't
panned out. Now will that transfer to this new ultraslim phone.
We're just gonna have to wait and see. There are many,

(03:12):
many tech reviewers out there who will put this thing
through its paces, including durability tests. So that's going to
be something to keep an eye on going forward. But yeah,
they're not alone in this space either. And I will
say the Samsung Galaxy S twenty five Edge, the Samsung
Super slim smartphone, really has not stood up any sort
of concerning durability concerns in the few months that it's

(03:33):
been out.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
All Right, just one real quick one because I know
you have to go. Apple is calling what's happening odd dropping,
awe dropping. I haven't heard that one since the Gulf War.
Is this blowing smoke? Or do you really think this
is that big a deal?

Speaker 2 (03:50):
I think aw dropping might be over selling. It's just
a touch given that it is a super thin iPhone.
But Apple does like their sort of play on words.
They give a name to pretty much all of their events.
This is what they went with here. Also a lot
to be read into with the actual invite, which is
kind of blue and orange. Kind of gives you a
little clue as to what the colors to these things
might be, which a lot of people really do kind
of make their decisions based upon. So maybe a blue

(04:12):
and an Orange iPhone. Is it awe inspiring? I think
we're gonna have to wait until about ten o'clock California
time in order to figure that out

Speaker 1 (04:20):
All right, Mike, thanks much as always, Mike Dubuski, who
is the ABC News technology reporter that drops in and
helps us out.