iPhone 12 Battery Tests Not Looking Great... By Lew Later

By Lew Later
Aug 13, 2021
0 Comments
iPhone 12 Battery Tests Not Looking Great...

So, I can't say that I'm all that surprised about this uh early one, this first story of the day over here can't say: I'm surprised I uh well many had speculated leading up to the release of the iPhone 12 that there would be some compromises. I mean there always is right, you're trying to make a smartphone. You got to do some things. You got to make some choices you got to, I mean, there are some selections. Furthermore, you say I got to be this thin. I want to be this tight.

I want to have this chip. Furthermore, I want to uh. Have this screen size? How much are you willing to give up? Well, that's the question: that's the question. Every time, isn't it- and you know previously apple- had always put a huge emphasis on thinness and lightness and kind of really compact, something you put in your hand and right away like. Oh all, right I like that.

That's kind of was a big focus. The appeal, the initial, the visceral reaction- oh as you would have to holding one of these things and uh and people had complained in the past- about battery life, for example, and having smaller battery figures than some competition. And then the iPhone 11 happened and when the iPhone 11 happened, they took battery real serious, and they set the bar quite high for themselves. And so when I saw this new design, knowing I had to rework everything there, and I saw the initial battery figures just on the scale of the batteries, and I know they said they were going to do software optimizations everything else. But you wonder how much they could do in the amount of time he's still running relatively similar software, and so the speculation started to emerge that maybe we take a bit of a step back on battery life when it comes to the iPhone 12 in exchange for this new design, and it's a very sort of slim appeal, and we have some of the initial tests they're.

In now, we have uh Tom's guide coming through with the iPhone 12 battery life results, and they stack it up against some heavy hitters, not just the previous generation iPhone 11 11 pro, but also the galaxy s 25 g at both screen refresh rates, the s20 plus 5g, the OnePlus 8t 5g, and the Google Pixel 5. And each time with those android devices they did it at 60 hertz and the higher refresh for the pixel 5. That brings it up to 90 hertz and for the others up to 120 hertz and within this test, here 's's a sort of what they put the phone through. They surf the web continuously at 150 nits of screen brightness launching a new site every 30 seconds until the battery was completely drained and for the iPhone 12 and 12 pro. They ran the test over 5g and 4g in order to determine how much of that extra drain was going to come via 5g.

Now, it's important to note will, as we glance at these numbers, uh 5g is a new thing for apple. They haven't right, they don't have that 5g product. So is there a chance that, over time, maybe I don't know software updates optimizations, I don't know, is there a chance? This could improve? Maybe I'm just going to put that out there a quick little disclaimer, because it's very fresh, but it doesn't look that great right now, I'm going to be honest with you. We took a step back from a 31 10 William hour battery in the iPhone 11 to a 28 15 William hour battery in the iPhone 12. And the iPhone 11.

It beat the iPhone 12. Even in 4g performance, you can see the iPhone 11 there uh it gave you 11 hours and 16 minutes of battery life in that test that I referenced browsing the web doing basic stuff, the iPhone 12. On the other hand, if you're running it in 5g, it's only going to give you eight hours, 25 minutes and in 4g uh 10, 10 hours and 23 minutes. So actually it took a step back in each direction. Now do you think it will be the same if the iPhone 12 have has a bigger battery? It's slightly smaller yeah, it's a what is it like: 300 William hours, smaller yeah, yeah yeah, I mean because if you look at the comparison yeah, if you look at the 4g comparison, it's only what is it like? 45 minutes difference, yeah yeah.

So but here's the thing: well, you go to 5g and then the expectation is for the average user. They love the upgrade. They say: okay, we're going to get faster, but they also might be assuming that they should expect similar battery life. Yes, as you know, these batteries degrade over time and these numbers I mean the discrepancy, gets amplified and so on way that other manufacturers on the android side have mitigated this 5g battery drain is by putting enormous battery yeah. So, for example, let's go down to the OnePlus 8t pulling in 10 hours and 49 minutes on 5g with a 4500 William hour battery.

You see that's how you got to get it done, especially when you don't have the same integration or potential for optimization. That apple does hardware software, so you just got to slam a giant battery at it, and I mean if we're, if we're talking about the s20 plus, it's the same story: 10 hours, 31, minutes, eight hours, 55. Uh, of course, once again that's a 5g 4g! Oh, no! Actually, in this case it's not 5g 4g, it's 60, hertz, 120 hertz. All the tests are in 5g on the android devices, that's important to note. So of course they get better on uh on 60 hertz than they do on 120.

So those are 5g numbers. So let me just let me just kid you could, you do that? If you don't mind, if you don't mind, essentially what we're talking about here is that a galaxy s20 is going to give you an hour more of battery life at 60, hertz and comparable battery life at 120 hertz, an OnePlus 8t 5g is going to give you more than two hours better of battery life at 60, hertz running the same 5g, and it's going to give you an hour and a half better battery life at 120 hertz. So you see where I'm going here: yeah, it's not a great battery performer for apple for the iPhone 12 or 12 pro 12 pro gives you a little better. It gives you about a half hour on the 5g setting there, but you're still at 9 hours for a 5g performance as opposed to almost 11 hours on the OnePlus 18. I don't know how much this matters we're talking about a couple of hours but, as I said to you, will over time, as these things degrade, it becomes more of an issue battery life depending on how long you're going to hold on to the thing.

For so, you want to come out the gate with the best possible status and certainly when you're playing paying a flagship price. Now it's important to say, though, that some of those phones are bulkier than this new iPhone, and so some people may prefer they may say. Look I understand I'm taking a dip in a battery, because I got this super slim and trim thing. It feels like a piece of jewelry in my pocket, I'm very happy about that yeah and so those people they got a point too it's. What is the right amount? How much time is enough time? How important is battery life to you, but nonetheless, these types of reports are useful for people, so they can at least say to themselves hey.

If battery is that important? I can take this into consideration right, that's where it comes from, but anyway you can check out the chart and uh make up your own mind this, but this should also showcase to you one of the potential reasons why Apple didn't throw a 120 hertz display in their yeah, because that would drain the battery, because you had the here, you had the 5g yeah and the 120 hertz display, and I don't know what they're going to do between this generation and next to increase the display refresh, but you're, going to have to knock another hour off that battery life and then the discrepancy not between apple and other manufacturers becomes an issue, but apple compared to its older products. People are going to sit there saying. I don't need the screen refresh, because the old model has tremendously better battery, which is what I might well. You never want people to say that you try to improve in every single category every single time. So anyway, there you have it.

It's not the worst news, but it's maybe not as great as some people had expected. Today's sponsor of the show is DoorDash. One of my favorites makes me hungry every time. Every time we got the DoorDash sponsor and I had to look at their home page yeah. I look at their website and I mean I see the ribs on there.

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DoorDash uh, the Porsche TACAN will be the very first car with native apple podcasts native. Will I'm not talking about apple car play, I'm talking about them just getting out the way completely and just having an actual podcast button for anyone who gets in the car and because the car is going to come with a free or at least a for a period of time, a free data connection? This is the end of radio. It's over. It finally happened. Furthermore, it's in the car.

You just hit the button. Now you can imagine. Other manufacturers do the same thing: who's going to click the radio when they got podcasts and music and because, because we previously or Porsche- and even I think we talked about it on this show- they were also the first they've done a couple. First with apple, they were also the first to put Apple Music as a button not through car play. Just click Apple Music and your account is linked, and you don't have to connect your phone same thing for podcasts.

You don't have to plug your phone in nothing, it's just all your podcasts, where you left off, but it's linked to your Apple ID on the podcast app. So if you're a part way through a podcast, it's bookmarked it's in it's in the app in the car, and it's right on the dash on top of that they're doing lyrics too and the lyrics I don't know if you know the dash the way that the titan is there's a secondary display where the passion passenger sits right on this car. It just says TACAN at the moment, it's not activated, but there's a display there right above the glove box. That's where the lyrics go. So the passenger can follow along the lyrics when you're listening to the song, so they can sing along yeah.

I don't know what kind of voice they have yeah your passenger, but uh they get a little extra entertainment over there. So this is big. It's not just big for this vehicle. It's a! Furthermore, it is big for the vehicle, because on the tesla side of things they have their own interface. There's no car play no android auto.

It's not really integrated with your device. It's its own thing when you're in there and it kind of, has to be because they're doing the thing with the autonomous, and you know they just it's a different approach here you see Porsche working with a big player: apple uh, not the know, arguably the biggest when it comes to, depending on what market you're. Looking in looking at and bringing some of your favorites right to the dash- and I love this will sometimes I don't want to connect the thing. Sometimes I don't want to have a whole thing yeah, so I would love to see more of this happen, natively right on the dash, because it's quick, it remembers where you left off and remembers what you're setting was and even as good as Bluetooth has gotten and the various CarPlay systems when we talked about wireless android, auto coming out, which is also going to be a great option, but this is going to encourage people to listen to podcasts, who never listened to podcasts before for people who never link their phone at all, never even worried about it. They're going to see that button and Porsche, hopefully rolls it out to more models, not just this one and then because it's the same company as Audi and v and whatever else you see now, podcast numbers through the roof, willy dew through the roof me okay, yeah.

That sounds good. You specifically, I'm saying your microphone is now being broadcast to more people. That's exciting stuff, that's cool! I mean never mind the am and the FM they just uh tap right in poultry voice. It's an it's an it's actually, a first believe it or not, but uh. Hopefully we see more of it on both platforms, apple and android.

Right now, speaking of apple and google, we've talked a little about this relationship in the past. This is uh the relationship where google just sends apple billions of dollars. It's that relationship. I don't know if you remember, but yeah yeah. They do this in order to secure the default search, the ownership over the default search when you launch the safari web browser on your iPhone.

Obviously this is a huge footprint and a huge business driver for Google who originally and still to this day, is a advertising company with an enormous and popular search engine yeah. So they need those searches will he do and if, if, if they didn't have that on iOS now, we've talked about this before I don't know who else it would be yeah, but presumably it would be someone else, because these companies are competitors and so there's uh. Currently, the justice department is investigating, there's a lawsuit, accusing google of abusing its monopoly power, and so then, in within that filing on page 36, this figure comes out between eight and twelve billion dollars, which uh we've talked about this before, but we're getting more detail we're getting uh it's getting a little more granular. What exactly is going on, and so this 8 to 12 billion dollars. Sometimes when you're talking about these big companies, you, the numbers, get lost eight to 12 billion.

Is that a lot? I don't trillions? I mean who, what you can't, they're so big the numbers there's nothing to compare it to exactly so. Here's the best relationship. I think, in order to try to quantify the magnitude of this relationship that number eight to 12 billion accounts for up to one-fifth of apple's worldwide income, one-fifth of their income income income, not profits right if that's a key, that's a key, because when Apple makes an iPhone there's a lot of costs associated with that somebody when they get that check from Google. Oh baby, it has profit yeah, oh baby, that's a margin, there's a difference. This is huge.

That is a huge amount of money. Yearly. Isn't it let's be honest here, but what's weird about it? Are they say one-fifth, but then they say that the worldwide income is 260 billion and then the number is people that the guess is between 8 and 12 billion, so one-fifth of 260 billion is a lot more than 8 billion? So we got to be wondering about these numbers that are coming on just how big this is, but as the things continue to get uncovered here, I think we can imagine that this is a very substantial percentage of Apple's revenue in order for them to think it's worthwhile to do it. That part we have for sure if it is one-fifth, my goodness, that is an enormous. I mean that's impossible for apple to say no to no wonder they keep saying yes yeah up until this point I mean they uninstalled you used to have YouTube by default on your iPhone.

We took it out the box, they got rid of that. They said see. This could happen to google as well yeah. We could put Bing here Bing I mean that would be equally problematic. I guess they could do their.

Could they do their own search engine? I mean they're, trying with Siri to do an assistant. Maybe they could do their own search. I mean they're, doing maps yeah right. I mean it's so processed, presumably at some point they got to pull off the band-aid, stop taking tens of billions of dollars from Google and just do their own search engine. I guess- and we talked about that- I think we did a clip- yeah uh apple building, its own search engine, there's probably some more details in there.

You can go look for it, but uh anyways. This is a very aggressive move, and it certainly leaves no room for any other. Google commands 80 of the global search traffic currently they're by default on every android phone, and then they pay tens of billions to be on every iPhone yeah what's left over here so anyway, that's the that's the claim, but one of the problems I have with this uh investigation on the monopolistic practices is- and we've talked about this before is like who takes their spot. We really have a problem figuring out who that is, in the absence of apple, doing it themselves yeah if they build their own. Is it worth the 8 billion or 12 billion? That Google gives them exactly right because they never wanted to be an ad company either, so they would just have to do it without generating fresh revenue from it yeah, and it's going to take time absolutely anyway.

Atari. Remember you, remember Atari, no, you don't because it was even before you will. That was the OG. It was the o. g game console yes, oh you do remember, of course, okay hazy, man, I mean yeah you're right it's before my time, but you didn't have one.

They were OG, no yeah. It was just before we were more well. I had something called in television at one point, but it was actually a hand-me-down from my parents who just had it in a box somewhere. I was like: what's this, and they're like try it out uh, it was around the same era. Was this 83, something like that um, but really the first console that we got real excited about was the original uh Nintendo entertainment system? Yes, probably you too yeah you had that as well, yeah, so, but anyway, prior to this Atari- and we were just talking about apple Atari- played a role.

If you watch any of those uh biographic films about Steve Jobs, Atari was right there at the forefront of the whole technological situation going on in Silicon Valley. At the time he used to work at it exactly a little and the games and everything was kicking off and in a weird way. Atari was kind of the first computer system people put in their house. It was, it was a gaming system, but guys were doing other stuff with it back then, and they kind of had a jump, but, of course, things uh. What didn't maybe didn't work out as expected, however, they're trying to make a comeback here, and they have a fascinating approach, so they're putting up this game console to compete against the current generation of game consoles, it's styled in a retro way as a kind of homage to the original? However, the part of the approach that really surprised me.

It's not just your typical retro throwback thing where they throw all the old games on it, they're doing that. You get 100 old titles on there, but then they just made it like a relatively powerful PC. So it's got an AMD Ryzen CPU, an AMD radon GPU, eight gigs of ram, which is expandable user expandable, and it can pump games at 4k HDR, oh wow, what it's also got: USB 3 HDMI and an Ethernet port for wired connections, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless connectivity. It has a classic style controller like a joystick style controller, but then it also has a more modern controller like you would use with Xbox or PlayStation, and it comes pre-loaded with a Linux based operating system, but it has a dedicated PC mode where you can install a secondary operating system like windows and use it as a full out computer. So it's kind of like a gaming PC from the couch who that just so happens to be Atari branded and have the retro styling yeah it uh.

It looks really nice, it's kind of cool yeah, so it surprised me what they were able to pack into such a small form factor and look. It's not going to be cheap. Furthermore, it's 389 bucks which, as you know, I mean that's not too far off from the upcoming game consoles from the big players, but it's also a gaming PC, but it's also a PC yeah. So it's a nice little package there. It's kind of interesting now, on top of that, within the Atari VCS operating system, which is powered uh by Linux, they're going to have uh video, streaming, apps, music players, web browsers and various other applications as well.

So it's kind of like a multimedia. It's like a remember in the old days. I would be building these uh home theater PCs, it's kind of like a home theater, PC yeah, which also happens to play some classics. Yeah, that's like right. Beside your TV and you're on the couch, just playing might be a time I don't know it comes in black walnut, onyx, black and carbon gold, and that should be coming out shortly to compete against those other consoles.

I don't know how much it competes head-to-head, but it's an interesting. Can they revive the brand? We shall see you remember this rollable OLED TV. Will he do that lg showed off it was actually years ago? Now they showed that off. I believe at CES 2019. Imagine that CES 2019 and uh the whole.

This was one of the first commercial products shown off that was going to be for sale that showcased what OLED was really capable of prior to the folding phones and things like that, but it never came out. It never hit the market. All that quickly. You can show, maybe hopefully there's a video clip that you can show a quick video clip. This thing takes a 65-inch TV and rolls it into a spindle.

However, when it's completely extracted from the base, it looks perfect. Like a TV, here's a nice little quick little clip, I mean it looks like nothing, looks like a piece of furniture yeah when it's turn when it's turned off, and you turn it on, and this thing rolls up now in a modern imagine in a modern atmosphere, a modern, modern environment. Does it ever roll up where you're going to blow people's minds? It's actually pretty quick too. It's not bad, and then you put it away when it's not in use, and it just rolls down. Look at this.

How it turns on, I mean that's a statement. Will he do you? Have some visitors over some guests they're? Looking around like yeah, you know nice room but where's the TV, and you hit the button yeah. You have a moment, don't you plus? I mean once you pop it out: it's not just a magic trick when they go to inspect it. It's crazy, thin! It's OLED, and you know the attributes of an OLED picture. Furthermore, it's also going to look amazing, so you're the guy.

At that moment anyway, 65-inch rollable, it's actually available. You can get you're actually going to buy the thing now. Finally, it has a price and people were speculating that back then that it could be as much as 60 000 U. S. , because it is such innovative unusual tech.

However, the price is even higher than that yeah 87 g's 87 000. Is it worth it for you to make your statement? Will he do? Is this a sound system as well at the bottom yeah, it's going to have a sound system. I mean that's impressive, all right, you're, pretty sure you're paying 87 you're going to blow some minds, believe it or not. I think we're actually going to do an unboxing video on this thing fairly soon, so we'll check it out in person, but how about that for a price tag than the 87 thousand dollar rollable TV? Furthermore, I don't know if you heard this one apparently Trump's Twitter account was hacked last week and uh the Dutch researcher who hacked him just guessed his password, no fancy tactics. Apparently it was the fourth try, and you want to know what the password was.

It was mega 2020 exclamation point: oh wow! Well, that's what he says now for the record. Twitter says this never happened. Twitter says nah. We got tons of security measures. You never did this.

This guy obviously is stating otherwise. He says that after he had hacked and been in there, he tried to warn people, I think, including maybe the FBI and uh and then shortly after two stage was turned on, and he was kicked out. So he thinks twitter's. I guess just trying to cover it up like we're, not that suspect, because they had the bad hack and yes prior to that. So maybe this yeah- I don't know because apparently they were supposed to have all these extra measures uh.

The crazy part here is apparently this guy. This guy claims to have guessed the password back in 2016 as well. At that point, the password was you're fired, which was from the apprentice show in 26. , so he claims he's just so good that he can keep guessing Trump's password, but I kind of I don't know. I don't know where I stand on this story, because I do also find it hard to believe that there wouldn't be two stage on it like by default.

I wouldn't be surprised, I can't imagine Jack Dorsey and everybody at Twitter, letting Trump's account not have to stage on it. That just doesn't make any sense yeah. Well, maybe uh trump has too many phones, and then he has to log in, and then it's just he's mad at the two stage yeah. I would think it would be a non-negotiable two stage: the level of influence and the profile of the account yeah, even if it's a back end to stage where somebody at Twitter has to type it in and verify because they would know oh yeah Trump's, not in Amsterdam, right now, yeah yeah, I don't know, but anyway uh this guy claims that the CIA reached out to him and thanked him. Apparently, let's see what it says.

So he tries to warn others Trump's campaign team. He tried to uh warn Trump's family. He sent messages via Twitter asking if someone will call to Trump's attention the fact that his Twitter account is not safe. Furthermore, he tagged the CIA, the White House, the FBI twitter themselves and got no response a day later. Furthermore, he noticed that two-step verification had been activated on Trump's account uh and at some point the CIA apparently reached out to him at which point they thanked him for bringing this security issue to their attention.

So I don't know you can believe whatever you want. I find it hard to believe, but the guy is very adamant himself that he was in there, and he had access, and it just brings up the whole conversation again, especially with an election coming up about how important these Twitter accounts are and how fragile the whole thing is. If somebody goes in there with their own intent and agenda, and they actually gain access, this stuff becomes new. So fast, you wouldn't have the time to pull it back. Whatever the person said.

Yes, so it really gets, gets you thinking, but twitter's official statement. They see no evidence of this man having had access. That's the official line on it. Remember that guy uh, the star man he left on that rocket, Elon Musk's star man. He was uh going into orbit and uh with the roadster he's in the roadster at the end of the rocket, and he looks like an astronaut kind of suit on, and he's holding the steering wheel and then says: don't panic in the dash- and you know it was kind of just a fun thing at the time we had some news about that.

Guy he's really that guy's really far away now, as you might imagine, yeah and uh recently, he passed as close as ever to Mars. Two years later, the Falcon Heavy upper stage and the vehicle at its tip are making their second trip around the sun and uh the star man passed 4.6 million miles from Mars at 2 25 a. m. October 7th, which is 19 times the distance from earth to the moon and 35 times closer than anyone on earth, has ever gotten to Mars. So he's I know, he's not a real person, but he got he's been he's closer to Mars than Elon's ever been he's.

Making moves yeah he's making moves good on him. He uh. What was I going to say, though? Oh, he's not doing. Well, though, no physically, no he's got some health problems because of all the radiation and whatnot. Okay, he's got no atmosphere to protect him, so uh.

The speculation here is that, and probably all the organic materials would have been wrecked at this point, so the red paint is likely gone, the rubber tires gone, the leather seats wrecked and because the all the carbon bonds that hold them together would have been destroyed by radiation. At this point, however, uh the aluminum frame and the glass parts might be okay, okay, that might be the lasting effect. I mean it created some incredible visuals, that's a real photo man yeah, like they did some cool stuff with him, but uh yeah he's still floating out there. He might look a little different with the know, all the exposure, but uh inspiring stuff. This guy- I don't know if you saw this one.

I know you love the neural stuff. I know you're big on the deep fakes. Furthermore, I know you. This is just your you're into it yeah, and so that's why I brought this one up. Uh.

Apparently we have new filters from adobe inside photoshop that are just bananas straight banana town, uh, they're, called adobe's, neural filters and just very easily, even on a pretty straightforward image. Low res rip that you grab from Google images- you can do some amazing stuff in a couple of clicks in a couple of you know, minutes no crazy running it through these intensive processes, but just in real time within the app you can do well, for example, what this guy did here. He took 40 years off of Joe Biden, real quick, as you can tell. I don't know if you think it's a convincing or what I mean it is does. I don't it doesn't really look like Biden, but it uh looks like a younger version.

It looks like a younger version. Well uh, so this guy showing off this, is via pay to pixel. He took a portrait of Biden at 77 years old, and he used adobe photoshops neural filters, which uh he moved the age and hair sliders. These that's the sliders. You got inside photoshop yeah, fully customizable crazy, just age, slider, yeah amazing.

Now this was first showed off uh shown off with the baby. That was looking the wrong way, and then they just shifted the eyes, and you're like whoa. Well uh this one. It was age and hair, sliders removed skin blemishes, wrinkles and increased the density of hair, which is what you would do, and then the image is sent to the cloud for processing and in about two minutes it spits out the 40 year younger version of Joe Biden, so it's not quite to the level of deep fakes, but the process of deep fakes, obviously tremendously more resource intensive for the time being, this, on the other hand, accessible to anyone quickly to be able to go in there and really uh. You know shift reality ever so slightly uh.

You know, we've seen, we've seen the automated versions of this right on smartphones, with the selfie filters and things and the smoothing and stuff. But this takes it to another level for sure yeah I mean with photos retouching and everything I mean it could be just one click, and then your good photographers would be happy. You set up your whole script. One click photographer boom, yeah lovely. What age is anyone in the future? Whatever age they want to be Instagram, incredible, everyone's young? What are you really looking at? What are you really seeing if these get good enough man? I heard that you know.

What's crazy, can I just say something just before you say that is if you are a celebrity and your image is a real valuable thing to you. Could you imagine if imagine a future in which you never leave you're, never seen in public, because then your image is some sort of merging it's some sort of neural hybrid, of what you actually are at the moment and the fabrication that of what AI thinks you should look like? So you can't leave because that, in the impression people have of you, people are in interchanging the Instagram appearance with reality that becomes the that that's your broadcast, yeah and then going out would spoil it because then you have regular images and people be like nah, this person's old yeah, but you with this kind of stuff, if it's good enough, if you have a team or if you could do it in one click or whatever yeah I mean that's the future right you just never. You can never show people the actual you because the yeah you'll be wearing a mask every time you go out right, yeah. What is it, but then? What is what? What is what at that point? Yeah, because then everybody's doing it? It's like a hybrid avatar yeah social media is just a mean it already is, but then it's a more advanced, hybrid avatar, which is a worked up, a version of you, which can be anything at any time. However, it probably would never be the real you anything, but that yeah, that's scary, wow this next one is going to require some uh a little of google Google Maps magic from you, okay, so this caught my attention because apple well, okay, first up apple, is closing.

How dare your apple is closing yeah watching us for sure, and they're closing a store in Minneapolis, which is your know it's not the biggest deal. I was curious because Apple usually goes into the really uh affluent areas for the retail you're gonna, find it apple in a rundown location for the most part. So if they, when they close down a store, you're curious, if there's a reason, if they're opening another store, if it's a temporary thing, they just don't, do it that often because there's usually not much reason to well this store in uptown Minneapolis is just closing for good they're, not moving. If they're just done with it, and I was like what could what would be? What would cause that to be the case now, obviously, there's been a lot of stuff happening in the world recently with the movie has affected retail substantially, but then you had also protests and riots, and things like that- and I was just curious if this was affected by that. So then I went in, and I just put this into Google Maps.

Okay, because I wanted to see, I see the image there of the Apple Store when it's thriving. I was curious what it looks like right now and what the whole area looks like, because I was like wait: a sec. They closed the Apple Store. I'm reading the article here talking about uh all this stuff being damaged during the riots in that area and then uh also closing down Columbia. Sportswear north face victorious secret closed down a year before Canadian outerwear company arc terr ex left and the urban outfitters store is listed for sale or lease.

I'm like those are all expensive brands yeah. How could an entire area go from supporting that retail to z, to hippo like what happened, because I mean I get it. Retail is suffering right now, but those brands they all got. Bank accounts yeah, and it's never a good look to just bounce completely, so anyway go to google maps for a second okay. Yes, we're going to go on just a little street view.

Uh you got to type in uptown Apple Store Minneapolis. This is this. Is some real-time, real-time stuff, you got it, you got it there. You spelled Minneapolis wrong, but it got it anyway that one yeah okay now here this is a key. Well, I need you to grab the little street view.

Man picks up the street view man and choose the dot that dot. Oh, no, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! Don't do it, don't do it stop okay, get the little man and just drop him at the street corner, not the dot. We're going to do the dot. Second, one yep drop him right there in the street corner okay. This is big stuff.

Okay, riveting we're on the corner. It's a lot of traffic. It looks like it's a happening place. I don't know what cb2 is. I think it's a furniture store now go down the road.

This avenue is called. What is it Hennepin, Hennepin avenue south? Is that what it that's? What did I get that right? Yes, Hennepin, Hennepin avenue, south okay travel down this street, all right. Let's, let's look at the retail uh. Look at that a kitchen window, uh majors and Quinn books booksellers keep going down. Okay, keep going down, we have uh jimmy John's, we have a spice place, keep going down, keep going down.

We have a bar on the left with a h m all right. We have an old theater which looked like it was ready for a revamp at the time. You could do something cool there right. You have the Apple Store. Obviously, looking great yeah, fully open glass, you have Columbia, sportswear, just next to the Apple Store right, keep going a little.

You have the north face over there. Timberland is on the other side I would like to. I would like to go here: okay, yeah. I would like to go here and have myself a time seems like a nice place. It seems like a nice place now.

I want you to zoom out hit that minus button. There are urban outfitters on the left as well hit the minus button. It's all happening hit the minus button. I want to show you what 20, what 2020 looks like hit the x up top hit the x up top. Now I want you to grab the little man once again.

The street view man, okay, grab him, pull him over and drop him on the dot, the earlier dot right. There drop him right here. Yeah, drop him right there. I did this earlier. Oh baby, look! Go look at the Apple Store.

Every the entire neighborhood is finished. Boarded up. This is what is this July? Yeah, finished. That's the Apple Store, that's the Apple Store. When have you ever seen an Apple Store like that? Oh, crazy man.

So I don't know what happened, how every? How do retailers all abandoned? They just said we're not gonna we're not going back right, it's wild! You would have thought that I get it with COVID-19 and stuff and everything else it was like. Like I don't know what happens to the h m, for example, is the h m back up and running? Maybe somebody can go look because I don't know how you know, there's obviously more recent imagery than this, but talk about a massive shift from the street view that you did previously to depending on how recent it is to the retail status now, and you wonder what do you do with this whole space? What happens well apple said that the employees who used to work there are going to get jobs elsewhere and a lot of these other big brands are probably going to be able to do something similar because they do have other stores, probably in the uh Minneapolis area. But it's just a really uh. I mean the visual is just impactful to go from, because I had that experience myself, I'm like why do they shut down? They never shut down Apple stores like holy, and then it's like whoa wow. What a contrast in just a few months yeah just a few months, it's like a whole different place.

The spice place the bookstore yeah. It's all uh boarded up its wild man, it's crazy anyway, uh so yeah, the apple that Apple Store, decided to shut down for good, and I should also note it's an it's listed here within the article. Apparently, the closure of the uh that Apple Store was already in the plans prior to the pandemic. So I guess that area had already been hurting and then that everything just amplified it and made it and expedited the process by the looks of it. But I just how can an area change so much so fast? I need somebody in Minneapolis to tell me how an area can change so much so fast.

It's really uh curious, uh, anyways, Burger King remember we talked about how they were going to give away an uh, PlayStation 5. Yeah. Well um. This is not about a PlayStation 5 at all, but I thought it was interesting nonetheless, because they're apparently working on reusable uh, like no wrappers, reusable containers. I know that sounds very boring, but you look at it, and it's really messes with your mind.

Look at those Burger King containers like they're, like uh. It looks like you're about, like you, packed your own lunch yeah, but you leave Burger King with that, and you put a deposit on your fast food meal and then, if you bring that stuff back, the deposit gets refunded to you, or I guess you just keep replacing it with. Depending on how often you go to Burger King, this is blows my mind. Huh, I mean you got to be a regular to start thinking about this, but the other thing that came into my mind is its kind of a weird time to launch something like this with the pandemic stuff, because it's like what about the contamination yeah. I was curious about that now.

I'm do you want people bringing the food articles back, even if it's just the containers now, obviously the beer store and things like that they do that they're still taking the bottles back yeah, so they probably have some sanitization system they just slam it with high heat and steam and everything else. Do you know what this is made out of? I'm sure it's some bio plant-based, uh plastic. You know because I think with glass. Oh, I see where you're going yeah more high heat, yeah sanitary. I hear you, but with plastic I mean you can't melt that or with blasting with high heat and have it survive yeah.

It looks like it's some type of plastic. Now they say it will be safely cleaned and then refilled, apparently to use the containers. Customers will opt for the zero waste option when they're uh putting their order in now. Obviously, at coffee shops you were able to bring your own mug like Starbucks, but they put that on hiatus when the pandemic hit they're like no. No stop ringing.

We're not touching that stop bringing your stinking mugs in here, but it doesn't change the fact that people are moving towards the sustainable ways of doing things and uh there's obviously waste when it comes to fast food and things like this uh. The program is going to roll out in NYC, Tokyo and Portland in 2021. So it's not immediate. Maybe things will chill out with the pandemic, and it's not going to seem as weird once it does roll out, but the weird. The part that still remains weird for me is how much of a fast food regular you've got to be to justify carrying around the reuse.

I mean you got to go for lunch a couple of times a week at least I would say yeah and how much of a discount are we talking about here? What, if you just keep collecting these plastic uh containers? Why? Because you don't bring them back yeah, oh god. Well then, the whole thing's out the window because the discount is like one, I don't know like 50 cents or something right. Is it worth it for them to just bring like these containers back dude, I don't. Even I don't even bring back my beer bottles or beer cans. I just put them in the recycling yeah.

So but it's a tough one, yeah, that's a tough one. I know see with beer cans and bottles they recycle well as well, because you have the aluminum and the glass, but you're right, it's another plastic product. So it's a bit hit-and-miss. I think, if you're going to pick it up, you really got to be committed that you're going to bring it back. Yeah, just I mean never mind the money, but also from an environmental standpoint.

If you're like yeah zero waste, and then you throw that out, that's way worse than the flimsy paper yeah, so you have to be really committed to the environmental situation. Did you use this, though? No because I don't go to fast food for me would be once in a while uh. What, if you had no choice? Would you just like okay, fine I'll take it? What do you mean like we're out of the regular wrapper yeah? We have this box instead. No, I would throw I don't. I doubt it.

I got so many containers. Already in my house, I mean like what'd, you eat from it, knowing that, oh from a sanitation- oh I'm sure, they'll figure out the scent. It would be a nightmare they'd be sued. If somebody got sick from that, would you be the first one? That's right, I'm on the front of the line, all right last one here apparently adidas is reportedly selling Reebok. They bought Reebok all the way back, I think 2005 for yes for 3.8 billion dollars. Since then the brand has it's been tough man.

The brand has been losing money, they don't know what to do with the brand. Oh, they try to get into the. What is it the CrossFit yeah market? They were like we're, gonna, be the CrossFit brand and I think they had some level of success with that, but I just how is CrossFit doing right now? There's a lot of struggles right now for a number of reasons. I mean they have the UFC right, they did the UFC thing, but they took so much heat with the UFC like how many jerseys did they sell, I mean, did it really? It was tough because adidas they didn't want to dip into their thing. They had the ultra boost going on, and they were just killing the game in all kinds of areas, and how much do you let Reebok into that versus force that brand to carve out its own thing? Well, anyway, there's been problems and apparently a lot of uh investors and board members and whoever else have been trying to get adidas to just get rid of Reebok cut its losses.

Uh Reebok revenues were down 42 in the U. S. market. In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic so way down- and you remember you and I were talking how Nike actually did okay in a pandemic, Nike was online the online they were able to shift people to the online yeah, and they were okay in China and all the rest of it. Yeah, and well china kind of got over the pandemic stuff before everyone else, so that may have helped as well but Nike.

They were okay, they're like all right pandemic, we'll figure it out we'll do it online, uh, Reebok, apparently not so much so uh investors have been demanding as early as 2017, making demands that Reebok get rid of or that adidas get rid of Reebok. Some potential suitors for the brand. China's anti sports and the VF corporation, which is the uh timberland vans north face brand north face showing up twice on the show today, with the store, shut down and now over. Here is a potential uh. Well they're, not the flagship brand, I guess, or maybe they would who do you think? What do you think is the biggest brand timberland vans or the north face? Out of those three, maybe vans, maybe vans.

Maybe that's why it's the VF corporation anyways uh, so those are a couple brands where the uh, where the Reebok brand can go potentially live under uh. But adidas has not officially responded to this. They have not said that for certain this is what's going to happen um. But what can I say I don't know it would be unfortunate. I have memories of the Reebok brand.

Reebok was cool at one moment. Reebok had the Iverson shoes right, didn't Allen iv, weren't, Allen, Iverson's shoes, Reebok, plus they had the one classic there. Yeah uh, actually perfect timing, because VIN had these shoes, and he just walked in the studio. Wait you didn't have those, no, no wait. He had ones it had a zipper on the front, see if you can find or maybe didn't it.

Yes, is that a Reebok shoe though or yeah Reebok signature? He had that shoe right there, but maybe it was blue, not black, anyway, point being they had a few athletes. They had a few interesting designs over the years. A few futuristic different designs going on. Of course, they had the pump, don't forget the pump yeah classic. The pump was huge so anyway, here's to hoping they find a home, and they don't just uh evaporate completely, but they're going to need some type of resurgence.

Some new uh identity here, because it hasn't been working out under the adidas heading, at least for the time being. It's causing problems for everyone, so apparently they're looking to sell, but that's just a report. For the time being you.


Source : Lew Later

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