Why You Should Wait Until the Fall to Buy an iPhone

[00:00:00] This program is brought to you by Vanta. Vanta's Trust Management Platform helps you quickly assess risk, streamline security reviews, and automate compliance for SOC2, ISO 27001, and more. Learn how by watching Vanta's on-demand demo at vanta.com slash wsj. Welcome to Tech News Briefing. It's Thursday, June 27th.

[00:00:23] I'm Zoe Thomas for The Wall Street Journal. Political texts are an overdrive and they'll lead up to the 2024 election. It's not just campaigns that are reaching out asking for support and donations. Scammers are sending messages too.

[00:00:39] We'll explain what you can do to reduce the campaign messages flooding your phone. And then, thinking of buying a new iPhone or other Apple products this summer? You may want to wait. Our senior personal tech columnist Joanne Stern says the company has given shoppers

[00:00:55] a very big reason to hold off on their purchases until the fall. But she's still got a few tips on what Apple products are worth picking up now. But first, if your phone is being flooded with campaign texts asking for money, you're not alone.

[00:01:15] And as the 2024 election gets closer, analysts who study automated texts predict the number of political messages could rise as legitimate organizations and scammers try to get constituent attention. So what can you do about it? Cordelia James from our personal tech team is here to tell us.

[00:01:33] Cordelia, let's start with why people are receiving more texts instead of, say, phone calls or mailers. While people are more likely to ignore phone calls from people that they don't know, they're more likely to check all of their text messages.

[00:01:48] Thus, a lot of campaigns and scammers like to reach people that way through text. And that means that you're going to get a lot of messages from people or just interviews that you don't know. What are the rules around sending automated texts?

[00:02:03] Has the Federal Communications Commission or the Wireless Carriers laid anything out? So when it comes to automated text messages, the campaign does need to get your consent before sending that. So that can be by asking you to opt into messages from a certain organization or what have you.

[00:02:22] They just need your permission and they should respect when you ask them to stop. The SEC recently set some rules that essentially require carriers to block messages that violate the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Essentially, again, that it goes back to what we're saying about getting consent

[00:02:41] before sending automated messages and also respecting a recipient's right to revoke that consent. Ideally, that's how it should work. But of course, there are some bad actors out there that like to sidestep those rules

[00:02:56] and keep bothering you even after you've asked them to stop sending you all these messages. And can you just explain to us how all of these messages get out? I assume it's not just one person constantly pressing send. Yeah, so there's a chain of communication here.

[00:03:12] For starters, political campaigns need to register with some kind of relevant text messaging registry such as the campaign registry, which just verifies the campaign's existence ensures that it plans to adhere to the rules. And then once that's approved, a mass texting company will assign dedicated phone numbers.

[00:03:32] So those are the numbers that you're hearing from to an organization and that can vary. Maybe they want local numbers to reach certain constituents in a certain place or what have you. And from there, it makes its way over to the wireless carrier,

[00:03:44] which can help determine whether or not they're going to filter that message or if they're going to block it or what have you. And then it reaches the recipient. And so that's how things should work. And essentially, if there is an entity that's not following those rules,

[00:04:01] then their messages should be blocked. But then things slip through the cracks. Like sometimes if you are blocking one specific number and you're telling it to stop, some bad actors might use another number to try to reach you.

[00:04:14] And that was the case with someone that I spoke to who would reply stop. But then as soon as he blocks and deletes the number, he would get the same message from someone else. OK, let's talk a little bit more about that.

[00:04:27] If you want to report some of these messages as possible scams, how can you do that? Yeah, so the FCC advises reporting those like sketchy looking messages by forwarding it to 7-7-2-6. And so essentially when you do that, that lets the wireless carrier know,

[00:04:46] especially if they receive so many complaints about that number, that they'll investigate the sender and block future messages. But then there's also different like spam blockers on your phone. And there are different instructions in terms of how you get to those,

[00:04:58] depending on if you have an iOS device, like an iPhone or like an Android device. And then there's also third party filtering apps that can also help all those messages that might slip through the cracks because there's just so many of them.

[00:05:12] That was Cordelia James from our personal tech team. And if you want more specific instructions on blocking these messages, check out Cordelia's story on wsj.com. Coming up, we'll tell you all the reasons you shouldn't buy an iPhone this summer, from A to I. That's after the break.

[00:05:37] This program is brought to you by Vanta. Managing the requirements for modern security programs is increasingly challenging. Vanta's trust management platform helps you quickly assess risk, streamline security reviews and automate compliance for SOC2, ISO 27001 and more. Plus, save time by completing security questionnaires with Vanta AI.

[00:05:59] Learn how by watching Vanta's on-demand demo at vanta.com slash wsj. That's vanta.com slash wsj. Summer after summer, our senior personal tech columnist tells readers not to buy an iPhone. And this year she says Apple has given purchasers a big reason to hold off.

[00:06:23] Joanna Stern is with us now to explain what that reason is and what Apple products she says are okay to buy right now. Joanna, why do you say it's especially important for shoppers to wait until the fall to buy an iPhone this year?

[00:06:36] Well, the main thing that happens every year is that Apple kind of announces these software features in the summer when it has its WWDC conference. And then it holds all the hardware updates or announcing the hardware updates till the fall.

[00:06:49] But this year we're getting a peek at what that hardware upgrade might be based on what they've announced with the software. And that all has to do with Apple intelligence, the new AI tools and software that's coming from Apple.

[00:07:02] And what Apple announced is this big suite of AI tools, summarization, photo generation, emoji generation, all of these things. But they said to get Apple intelligence, you're going to need to have an iPhone 15 Pro or 15 Pro Max, which are the high-end iPhones.

[00:07:16] And I bet everything that that means that the next iPhones are going to have these super powerful chips that can run these AI features. So what we really learned right now is that you should hold off on buying an iPhone

[00:07:28] so we can see what happens with these iPhone 16 models and their capabilities around AI. Has Apple specifically said anything about its future products? No, Apple has completely declined to comment on any future products. Most of this column is based on what we've seen in these repeated cycles

[00:07:45] year after year when Apple launches these products. And then also some reports from our own reporters and from reporters at other outlets. OK, let's talk about specific products starting with the iPhone. Why should shoppers wait? There's a couple of reasons for that.

[00:08:00] One, sure, you're going to get better hardware in the fall. Why don't you just wait a few months? But two, the prices come down. So that means that a phone that might be on the market now might be 100 or $200 less in September.

[00:08:12] But again, the real reason I'm telling people not to buy right now is because we're going to get this more powerful hardware in the phones, better processor, more memory that's going to be able to run these AI features better.

[00:08:23] And that's going to help with future proofing your phone. What about Mac laptops? Are these OK to buy right now? So it depends on which Mac you want to buy. The MacBook Pro, which I actually bought the 14 inch back in January is a good buy.

[00:08:36] I'm giving it a little bit of caution because Apple did just update the iPad Pro with an M4 chip and the MacBook Pro has an M3 chip. So it's likely that these MacBook Pros are going to get the better chip soon.

[00:08:49] But you'll still be in good shape if you got this laptop. But the MacBook Air is a definite two thumbs up that was recently upgraded and is a good buy, especially for students. Let's talk about tablets for a moment.

[00:09:02] You wrote in your column that now could be a good time to buy a new iPad, but you have to pick the right one. Yeah, so Apple just upgraded a number of the iPads. And that's a good thing.

[00:09:13] But I also call it iPad Oply because you need to roll the dice and hope that you land on the right tablet. And I say this because Apple has a number of different iPads now and they're all quite similar, especially that iPad Pro and the iPad Air.

[00:09:27] You get really similar screen sizes on both of them. But if you go up to the pro, you get a better chip. If you go down to the air, you get a OK chip. Both chips, by the way, are totally capable of running

[00:09:38] Apple intelligence and those AI features. So iPad Pro, iPad Air, good to go. The one you do not want to get right now is an iPad mini. Apple has not upgraded that for at least three years now. And there is talk of a refresh. What about headphones?

[00:09:54] It feels like it's been a long time since Apple updated its AirPods or its AirPods Max headphones. That's right, the five hundred and fifty dollar AirPods Max. Those are the big headphones. Yes, they cost a lot of money, but also they haven't been updated for four years.

[00:10:09] And so there's talk of Apple updating those. I also suggest you look at some other competitors like Sony. They are cheaper and they come with a headphone port on the AirPods earbuds. What you're really looking at is you're fine to go on the AirPods Pros,

[00:10:23] but the regular AirPods, those have also not been upgraded in a while. And there's a good report that those are going to get some significant upgrades in the fall. And what about for anybody looking to buy a watch?

[00:10:35] I always say wait on the watches in the summer, too. Apple has turned to that fall iPhone event also into an Apple Watch event. And it's also the 10th anniversary of the watch this year.

[00:10:45] So we expect them to do quite a bit around that, especially on health features. All right, that was our senior personal tech columnist, Joanna Stern. And that's it for tech news briefing. Today's show was produced by Julie Chang with supervising producers Catherine Milsopp and Melanie Roy.

[00:11:01] I'm Zoe Thomas for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back this afternoon with TNB Tech Minute. Thanks for listening. This program is brought to you by Vanta. Vanta's Trust Management Platform helps you quickly assess risk, streamline security reviews and automate compliance for SOC2, ISO 27001 and more.

[00:11:25] Learn how by watching Vanta's on-demand demo at vanta.com slash WSJ.