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Apple held their latest event yesterday in Cupertino where they unveiled a host of new products and features, including the iPhone 16, the 16 Pro, the Apple Watch Series 10, the launch of Apple's new intelligence features as well. But yeah, here's the cold water. These new products and features, are they worth paying for an immediate upgrade? That's the big question and here to help us is Bridget Carey, CNET's editor at large. Bridget, I mean, you're making the face that says no right now. I don't even have to ask the question.

I think it's the question we always ask because our phones are lasting longer, we're holding on to them longer, and you kind of go, all right, do I really need it? So I, I look at Apple's presentation from the angle of, okay, what's Apple going to focus on when it talks? And so yesterday you heard a lot about some magic words. Battery life is better. The camera, and this is the reason that people upgrade. And then yes, there was a lot of talk about AI because that's right now in the tech space. But that's not coming out when the phone lands on September 20th.

Right. Some of the analyst reviews that we had seen come out, and I'm not going to get too close to the, you know, just how Wall Street is looking at this. But I mean the mode of this was largely no surprises, and ultimately this looks like a software type of year. That doesn't sound sexy for people who were looking to try and figure out if they should spend hundreds of dollars on a new phone.

You look at what Google and Samsung even present, it's always like very AI heavy. This one actually was a little bit hardware heavy up front. And I think the star of this iPhone event wasn't the iPhone. It was the updates to the watch, the Air pods. You know, this is the kind of thing where maybe people go, oh, I don't mind spending that to get an upgraded, you know, experience in health tracking with sleep apnea, or having some sort of new, you know, audio experience rather than drop down, you know, a lot for a new phone if their phone is still good. So right now people might be waiting to see what the reviews are on the phone before just immediately hitting buy on the pre-orders.

Yeah, I mean look, I'm inevitably going to be able to, or will have to upgrade to the new AirPods anyway when I lose the current pair that I had to buy because I just found one of the AirPods behind software or console in the apartment. All that considered, so I'm going to get the new AirPods at some point. But the Apple Watch, I think, so some of these other devices, the wearables, how much do you think that the features are actually enough to tell consumers mentally, like, all right, I'm going to get more healthcare features in this. And is that enough to make people try to initiate that new purchasing cycle for an Apple Watch or other wearables?

It's been 10 years since Apple came out, you know, introduced the Apple Watch. This one's larger screen. I think it's going to be, you know, kind of making people's heads turn a little bit like, oh, a larger screen now. Oh, I can be able to monitor all these different health issues, cuz they just keep adding up every year with the sleep apnea. It's kind of giving you a heads up if you might have a problem with your breathing during your sleep. But when the price point is lower than the phone, yeah, people go, okay, maybe I'll upgrade into that. And what's interesting is that the $400 new series 10 watch is larger of a screen than that high-end $800 ultra watch. So people who might have been holding on, might kind of go in a different direction when they want the 10 instead of the ultra, maybe.

I mean the pricing power that Apple has has been something that's talked about by analysts a lot. But from the consumer side, is there enough of the wow factor to support the pricing that Apple puts into the market at this juncture right now?

I the phone prices haven't changed, right? So people are kind of getting used to it. I thought it was interesting in the messaging that you start to see in these presentations from Apple that they kind of lean more into the whole, hey, you know, with a trade-in, with a trade-in, you can get a little discount. So they're kind of like letting consumers know, hey, if you have your old devices, you know, why don't you go ahead and upgrade. It's just a different way of kind of pitching the same thing. But I think people still like those AirPods, and they might actually, if they haven't upgraded in a while, look at those.

Yeah, all right. Well, a lot of it felt like a personal attack when they were saying you need to upgrade and just trade in that old phone, cuz I am one of those people.

Because people don't really care that much about AI right now.

Yeah, no, and my phone works. So that works too. Bridget Carey, CNET's editor at large, joining us here in studio. Thanks so much for the time.

Thanks, Brian.