The UK's version of the iPhone upgrade program is effectively dead until this new opportunity becomes available. For some reason, it works on a very different financial basis here in the UK than it does in the States. In the UK, you cannot join the iPhone upgrade program unless you go into an Apple store and have an A credit check conducted in person. You can't do it to join in the first place, and what we're learning today is that you can't even renew your contract because there's still some financial requirement for you to go in and get the program.

All those people in the UK who were holding off upgrading on the program, waiting for the iPhone 10s Max, well they can still buy it. They can still get a loan system similar to the upgrade program but they can't actually get it through the upgrade PR yet. Oh man, is it noticeable now that there's obviously no store pickup option for the Pro Max or 12 mini coming. But I imagine you could still pre-order it, and there could be options like click and collect for online ordering.

Once they're available, once the pre-order process is over, weeks availability I think it's at least certain you will be able to order an iPhone 10s Max and go to the store like run past them and scoop it up like a bat on kind of thing. But what you can't do is get it via the program. It has to be pre-bought whether that's outright sale or through this confusing part and I've had people asking me about this um in the UK Apple still has a deal with Barkley's financing and barley financing will do loans which can all be checked out online so you don't have to go to a store for those. You can order it and have your phone sent to you.

But Barkley is behind the UK upgrade program and there you cannot get it because of some Financial loophole somewhere requires them to go this strange road but it's been that way for years so it's not going to change. For our US listeners and around the world stay safe breathe deeply you know maybe turn off the news for a bit I had to you know now that we have the Apple 1 Services bundle which I did sign up for and we have News Plus I kept looking at the news app and I've decided need to not look at that for a while especially here in the US as we're literally in the middle of kind of a chaotic election so I actually had a nightmare about your election.

And in the nightmare I decided that I was going to delete Apple and News off my iPhone and I woke up is one of those where it's so real you believe it for a second and I'm looking at my phone by the bed thinking why is News still on there. I just deleted it yeah it's wild. So anyway listeners stay safe out there be encouraged you know do something if you can open a window and look out and breathe deeply you know do that as well.

Let us know we'd love to interact with you on social media especially during this time if you if you can't go anywhere but if you're pre-ordering stuff hey we'd love to talk and you can tweet at William Ori our Twitter handles are in the show notes you can find it there. Let us know if you pre-ordered something or if you how much you're enjoying your 12 or 12 Pro I'd love to hear about that as well if you haven't yet we'd appreciate a festar rating and review and Apple Podcast as well.

There's a few of you that do that every week and we greatly appreciate it. Don't forget to check out homekit Insider that goes out every Monday and you can hear Andrew O'Hara and myself talk about homekit products we have the YouTube channel youtube.com/insider where you can see me finally finding 5G plus and running those tests on my iPhone 12 Pro and as always thanks for tuning in.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello and welcome to the Apple Insider podcast this is your host St roess and joining me this week from across the pond is my friend William Gallagher how's it going William uh we're in lockdown that's what we in asking how it's going in 2020 is kind of a fraught question I think that's true for anyone but yes I saw that the UK and and other countries have been shutting down so we will discuss that for sure towards the end of the show but we do have some news and obviously there's a huge event next week so let's touch on that and you actually have a new phone in hand and so I'd love to hear your thoughts on that I do at literally in hand I'm holding it now and Frank oh well it's just you isn't it I'm stroking it yeah that's fine you're doing a my precious Lord of the Rings thing I get it yeah yeah that would be it yes so first of all next week on Tuesday November 10th Apple announced that they're holding their third event this fall they titled it their one more thing event which you know Apple famously does that every once in a while you know they they save it for for the big ones for the standout products but they called it the one more thing event and I don't know if you saw this William but there's an augmented reality invite they've been doing this with all their events now and the the previous augmented reality invites haven't really given away anything but I think this one if you do it it's actually an Apple logo and you kind of see it going from a laying down position to a open and then closed again and I think it's pretty sure that's to allude to the Apple silicon MacBooks or new laptops maybe they'll change the name uh that are going to be announced next week there's some rumors that we will see multiple models that we might see a 13 and a 16inch maybe an AR and a pro I imagine we'll see at least two different models I can't imagine that they would only have one MacBook and be a big event but actually before we even talk about or pontificate about the kinds of MacBooks they might announce it seems like every event this fall we've gotten the two product announcement so in the first event of September we had the Apple watch and iPad Air during the iPhone high-speed event we got all the new iPhone 12's and the homepod mini and so I would assume and it looks like we'll have the Apple silicon Mac being the headliner for this event next week but I'm pretty sure there'll be one more thing pun intended what do you think I'm thinking air tags or airpod Studio which do you think has a better chance that's two more things and there airpods come in pairs so is that three more things no I think I think I think it'll only be one or the other but uh yeah what do you think from our answer said there was some um problem with uh the airpod studio some manufacturing thing that meant that they were delayed that means to me if I had to bet uh air tags would seem more likely but I think if we have two and and I agree it's more likely I feel like surely they do a desktop and a laptop somehow feels more dramatically correct but one laptop and an air tag well depending on the money I could actually afford an air tag so yeah okay air tags so you say air tags I'll do a different prediction so this way we can see who's right next time we're on the show but I'm saying Apple TV first announcement Apple silicon Max as the larger second announcement because and the reason why I'm saying that is obviously the new Apple silicon chip which they might call it the A14 with some other letter maybe the A14 M or maybe that won't even follow the 14 line maybe it'll be a different numbering system all together and they'll call it the M1 or something you know I think the chips is going to be the story at this new event and so a new Apple TV that boasts a new chip that might even be better for gaming more powerful for some of that more powerful games coming to Apple TV so I say Apple TV and MacBook and then we will see in this gentleman's wager no no no no no no no no gentleman's wager when you cheated you offered me a choice air TXS Apple Studio and then you went Apple TV well huh I forgot I thought of it as you were talking so yeah okay so no wager we'll just see we'll see what happens but I would be excited about any of those for sure I'd be curious about a new Apple TV and air tags but when it comes to the Apple silicon Mac you know there's been lots of questions you know the way Apple has always sold their Macs you know whether you're buying a Macbook or an iMac or what whatever Mac you know there's always lots of customization options you can choose a processor speed with the Intel chips you know it be I3 i5 7 or even 9 you have multiple Ram choices you have graphic card choices you know depending on what model you're getting if you're getting a higher-end MacBook Pro or iMac so I think what I am most curious about and we don't have much information on this but I'm curious what customization options Apple is going to give with these Apple silicon Macs I feel like having multiple chip choices is kind of against what Apple normally does especially if you look at like iPad pros and iPhones and all that even Ram you know apple is usually very Cy about Ram inside phones we know the iPhone 12 Pro Line has 6 gigs of Ram the regular 12 has four but Apple never says any of that so if we have any customizations I'm curious and especially with the GPU as well if it's built into the chip will we have other options or if it's just you get the MacBook Air and that's that model and maybe you get a storage option like you do with iPad and that's it and maybe you get a MacBook Pro and it's the more powerful one and you get storage options and that's all you get you make it sound like we're going to go into the same situation are with the iPhone 12 range where all the processes are the same much of the design is the same the differences are are really quite subtle I mean that be good in some ways but very confusing in others for people that don't care to make a bunch of choices you know most consumers you know you think about a student getting a laptop going off to college or university you know parents would probably enjoy not having to make a ton of decisions on that they say just give me the MacBook Air and give me the 500 gig version and we'll be done with it and they just know it's going to work and it's going to be fast and they don't have to worry the what is the difference between the I5 and i7 and so I think maybe in some lines like the if they bring back the MacBook just kind of the low-end MacBook and the MacBook Air maybe one choice there and then but the MacBook Pro maybe you get a couple different models maybe you get like medium fast fast and really fast I don't know how they would Market those differences that appeals to me at you I'm worried on the way in because I I've spent a long time wondering whether I made a mistake going for the iPhone 12 Pro when the iPhone 12 does a lot of what I want and the thought of going through that again didn't appeal but yeah the the just works by this it does it fine and all the Intel iore Duo 9 po fourth generation 10 I I found that bewilderingly confusing uh so to be free of that with just A14 and a bit right that sounds good to me yes right yeah exactly and then you know if you're a pro and you want to really know how much RAM you're getting what the GPU core and speed is you got the Mac Pro and maybe an iMac Pro or similar model iMac where you get some of those options so anyway very curious what they do and how they frame it so that event is 1 p.m Eastern 10:00 a.m. Pacific for you in the UK what is that 6:00 p.m. yes 6 p.m. aha I got it right off the top of my head look at that so it is yeah but look who's saying yes I I I get very very confused we changed our clocks back about a week before uh you did and for that week oh was just my head was all over the place I'm going to go with yeah yeah yes I didn't realize you guys change your clocks at a different time than we do oh yes yeah yeah got to be awkward interesting well the event is Tuesday November 10th 1:00 p.m. Eastern 10: a.m. Pacific 6:00 p.m. UK time and just one final question on this before we move on does any of these tempt you do you think in the near future you might be an early adopter to these Apple silicon Maxs or you're going to do a wait and see approach it would have appealed um I'm on a 2018 Mac Mini and it's straining a lot I wanted to move to an Apple silicon and actually I mean before lockdowns plural I used to do a lot of traveling and I was thinking I really should my next machine should be a MacBook MacBook Pro and when I thought that and apple silic was coming clearly wait for that but now uh I didn't expect to spend any money buying an iPhone 12 I thought I'd sit this year out so I'm somewhat down financially on my I only like to give Apple so much every minute um so I'm going to be uh technologically responsible this time and wait for the Next Generation the sort of February time onwards and pretend it's for all the best reasons when actually my heart says I want to buy them all right now I I like that phrase for technologically responsible yes good oh thank I love that what about you are you uh poised I have been holding out for the new iPad pros and I I still want to hold out for that but my thinking is I I actually have a 16-in MacBook Pro and I bought it with some use cases in mind that I used it for and now it's a little bit Overkill and I I've always loved the 13-in MacBook Pro size for portability but I Al you know I have an 11in iPad Pro so honestly I'm not sure I really want to see the comparisons in speed you know if they put up on the screen that their apple silicon Mac is two times faster than the fastest Intel I9 that I have in my 16-in MacBook Pro I might look to offload that MacBook Pro and just go with an apple silicon Mac I mean I would love to kind of get in right as there being announced and launched I just love this idea of the Apple silicon Max and you know the kind of speed you might get from Apple really controlling the whole stack so we'll see I would probably sell my 16in first and I'm curious to see how those those speed comparisons go especially the Final Cut yeah performance because as we'll talk about in a second I'm basically a YouTuber now you know very very famous YouTuber uh right here and but we'll talk about in a second so we'll see Final Cup performance is important to me and given that that's Apple software and if Apple silicon really works well with Final Cut and you get really fast rendering times and you know I don't know we'll see what they announce but but I'm very tempted for sure I can tell you that before it was announced Apple silicon I got close enough to buying a MacBook Pro that I went through all the uh figures for the 13 and the 16 specifically looking at my use of Final Cut Pro and uh what I needed for it and where I needed it for it and it was coming down to I was reluctantly uh close to getting the 16in for the power that it gave with the separate GPU uh but I don't like what to me seems like a a a sailboat sized G I much prefer the 13in but then I was also hoping the 13 would magically become a 14 and you know that was rumored before so yeah I'm I'm ready with all the specs in my head from the last set uh I'll I'll be comparing as well right and maybe we'll see that 14inch finally come yeah that was the you know 15 went to 16 13.3 we had heard it might go to 14 maybe now is the time maybe they'll have like a a 12 in a 14 and a 16 you know who knows but I remember my first Apple laptop was the G4 PowerBook 12in and I loved that thing oh yes 12 in power sweet one yes yeah that's a very nice one this episode is brought to you by mintmobile breaking up with your old wireless provider just got a whole lot easier thanks to Mint mobile they were the first company to to sell 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for sale now as well and William and I both have an iPhone 12 Pro in hand which I am eager to hear what William has to say about the 12 Pro but listeners let us know did you go with a mini did you go with a pro Max how are pre-orders this time I will be pre-ordering a homepod mini to check that out and maybe an apple leather case as well but I've I decided to go with the regular Pro and not the Mac so I won't be pre-ordering a phone this time so William are you going to be pre-ordering anything today as as our listeners hear this episode actually probably not I'm I'm I'm without question going to buy a homep pod mini I'm actually looking to buy one as a Christmas present uh for my wife so if she's listening to this Angela look behind you it's too late for that isn't it uh you reveal okay didn't think that through I'm certain that I'm going to do that but since it's going to be for Christmas there's no particular benefit in pre-ordering for it unless I mean I unless I mean you know how the iPhone 12 and stuff have been selling out really quickly right I mean even magsafe accessories you know if you wanted to get a magsafe wallet right now looked cuz I saw a bunch of people tweeting about it and I was like maybe I want one of those it's not arriving till like late November so I you might want to think about pre-ordering it as we speak uh do you know I will actually you've just totally changed my mind uh talk faster so I can get to the Preorder button yeah I just I really think it's going to be a very popular item and so you know I don't know if you remember when airpods were first announced yes those were hard to get uh because those went for sale I think in November or even early December December and you know if you wanted it before Christmas you had to pre-order it immediately and if you waited you couldn't get it for 8 to 12 weeks so you know sometimes some of these products that hit a certain price point I think really in between like that1 and $150 price point that are christmy type items Hanukkah type gift items you definitely uh they go fast so you might want to hit hit one of those up I'm glad we had this conversation I think thank you yes very wellc GL to it up now you William now have your iPhone 12 Pro after after a heartbreaking delay it is now in your hands you are holding it tell us a what color you got what you think of it and then yeah your your overall impression uh it's the Pacific Blue which is lovely and actually I say uh the delay the delay was disheartening because it was a hiccup during the ordering process that saw the delivery date slip from October 23rd to November the 9th uh but then it arrived actually a week early so good on Apple uh under over deliv that made me very very happy when that arrived except um I'm going to admit I did actually I went through about a day of buyers remorse because the difference in the Pro and the 12 is so fine you're now YouTube Star I have a YouTube channel called uh 58 keys and this this will now never be shown I I shot uh an episode about this three different times uh because I kept changing my mind and it's also an incredibly complicated shoot because it it ended up being an intervention with myself arguing with myself on behalf of each phone I mean really complicated and after I'd shut it all and edited it together I realized something had happened and it's I now completely love and adore my iPhone 12 Pro and I am so glad I got it and and the the the Tipping Point I mean of the many many things that I love about it the Tipping Point was actually last night I used the liar scanner an app called uh canvas uh to do a quick scan of our living room and it is utterly beautiful I have no idea when I'll ever use it but playing with it is incredible so I'm I'm very very pleased with it yes so yay iPhone 12 Pro yay are you similarly uh happy or have you got 5G disappointment well we'll talk about the 5G in a second cuz I have an adventure there yeah but I I really love the the 12 Pro um I'm curious though so that I keep seeing the blue I have a little bit of buyers remorse I went white cuz i' I've gone black for so long and I wanted a different color and I wasn't sure about the blue but the blue looks really nice do you like the color you got you glad you went with that I do but as I sit here as we record this it's quite uh dark outside in here in the UK possibly because of the lockdown I don't know that's different type of Darkness uh in this light it doesn't actually look blue it looks more a kind of space grayy uh thing but in regular daylight I think it's gorgeous enough that um I yet again hate the idea of putting it in the case so I'm gingerly carrying it around and admiring it every now and again yeah that's coming from the 11 Pro cuz you didn't have the max right you just had the regular 11 Pro that's right and still do actually I'm keeping them uh both for reasons yeah so coming from the 11 Pro I'm curious your thoughts on it but but this 12 Pro definitely feels heavier and larger you know obviously it is a physically larger screen and the dimensions are slightly different more taller than wide but for some reason it just feels significantly chunkier in hand and so I I have an apple silicone case but I keep going back and forth because the case adds even more bulk and without a case it does feel very nice and looks great fingerprints on the side edges aside yes but uh nerve-wracking a little bit without a case so so you're going no case did you get a silicone case or anything just in case no I never do I mean I've been talking with a lot of people about this and everyone's I seem to be the only person who has no marks on my iPhone at all really not the faintest little pixel of a scratch I don't know what the rest of you are doing uh but a couple years ago I did actually drop my iPhone 10s Max and Smash It To Pieces so uh I'm not plaz about this but I'm I'm doing all right so far so okay you don't even have like microabrasions on the screen just like hairline another one Andre o' har your partner in crime on the home kid inside the podcast sent me a photograph of his screen and I send him a photograph of mine right back huh what is that man doing to his pH that I'm not oh wow okay so you don't drop your phone and I guess you never accidentally grze a metal object near it n keys or otherwise I have occasionally slammed my Apple watch into a door by mistake that that that's the frightening thing uh but with the phone no and I have actually dropped I found it a few times I mean all right only once into a toilet that's complicated and that was pre uh all the fancy um so very very scary yes uh but otherwise yep I mostly have a shirt pocket that I slip it into or jacket pocket and uh Andrew is actually saying that he keeps his I think it must be his front jeans pocket and the wear as he pulls it out is what's making the marks recently I've ended for some reason I've ended up with a lot of shirts that don't have a shirt pocket and I've been putting my phone in my back pocket and the moment he told me this I've stopped doing that right buy new shirt that's what I'm doing this week right well it's good to hear do you have any regret or do you think you'll experience any regret when the pro Max comes out and if they say that this camera is like life-changing do you think you'll have any kind of regret then I I've wondered because I the reason I'm keeping my old iPhone 11 Pro is so that I have two cameras for shooting YouTube things uh and the key thing with both these that I didn't have with the iPhone 10s Max is that the front-facing camera uh is very good on both and since I film uh myself alone usually uh being able to shoot with the front camera means I can do the framing quicko and do all this stuff I can now do multiple shots very quickly with the setup so that made me keep this is why I wanted the 12 Pro originally and then I started hearing about the greater stability of the camera on the pro Max and I wondered it's not that much more than an iPhone 12 Pro for what you get so no I but as I remember saying to you before I liked my iPhone 10s Max but I loved my iPhone 11 Pro and I do notice the the slightly bigger screen I was surprised how visibly the bigger it seemed you and even when they're not side by side I opened up and I immediately saw the difference uh so it's bigger but it's still within my grippable range and the max I just think is too much for me really in every way but I'm um you not tempted by it then I am I was very tempted by it but after holding the 12 Pro now I really don't want anything larger you know I I think and looking at my camera roll it's mostly screenshots and and random pictures that I think even slightly better camera is not going to make it look that much better you know I take pictures of my kids sometimes obviously but most of the time it's very bright outside or you know I'm doing portrait mode and you know trying to I don't know if it's going to make that big of a difference for those those action shots you know kids don't stay extremely still anyway when you take uh when you take pictures of them so anyway I'm I think I'm good we'll see I know Wes is getting the pro Max and so if he takes pictures and they look like DSLR quality I don't know we'll see I don't know what I'll do then this episode is brought to you by masterclass with masterclass you can learn from the world's best Minds anytime anywhere and at your own pace you can learn about astronomy and space with Neil degrass Tyson you can learn from Master animal trainer and the emmy-winning host of Lucky Dog Brandon McMillan you can even learn skateboarding from Tony Hawk and one of my favorites you can learn from the former FBI lead International kidnapping negotiator Chris Voss and learn how to negotiate for yourself like one of the pros I've done several of these master classes and I love it every time I've done Han Zimmer's course on music composition 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find 5G plus somewhere in Florida and so the Verizon Ultra wide band is what apple touted on stage and it's what all the reviewers we're using but I have AT&T and I'm sure many of our listeners have AT&T and so I was very keen to see does AT&T actually have a millimeter wave 5G somewhere around now on AT&T's website as I've said before they advertise 5G plus as millimeter wave and it's in quote unquote select Innovation zones in quote select Cities end quote end quote everything's in quotes like you you cannot count the amount of asteris and quotes about this and so I went to downtown Orlando again looking for antennas going to their cell towers doing a ton of research on all that seeing where the Orlando Sentinel announced that 5G was installed tried contacting AT&T anyway finally two people helped me out there's uh Jamie Williams he actually contacted me on Twitter he works for AT&T the business side he was able to find the exact intersection in Orlando where it was and also someone named Tiffany from AT&T corporate finally got it for me but it is exactly one street corner in exactly one place in Orlando and that's it and then there's like a few street corners in Miami and one in Jacksonville and that's it for Florida so if you were on that list of AT&T 5G plus cities just know it is probably exactly one street corner there's not really other places like it is not widespread at all I think it's in one or two stadiums it's in one stadium in Jacksonville but even not a lot of stadiums not as much as Verizon now I have seen some people on YouTube also find it in some Walmarts there's some Walmarts installing millimeter wave antennas inside so you can get super fast 5G while you're shopping around Walmart apparently so if that's you listener if you've seen a Walmart with 5G Plus on AT&T I'd love to see pictures and and see what you got there but found the intersection I went there and then I just had to do a video of it because I was so happy to have finally found Mordor to finally get there and and throw the ring in and get 5G plus so there's a video on the Apple insid or YouTube go check it out I'll put a link in show notes to that video and an article that Amber wrote up talking about all the five plus and so I found it I got up to, 1600 megabits down which is great Apple touted up to 4 gigabits in ideal conditions I've seen some of the Verizon Ultra wideband get up to two almost 3,000 but AT&T 5G plus where I was got up to about 1,600 but in real world use cases I tried downloading movies I tried downloading from Dropbox some large files I even tried hotspotting and I have to say in a lot of those practical use cases I don't know if AT&T is throttling some of those sources of data I don't know if I did too many speed tests so AT&T started throttling my phone specifically but I did not really get good speeds doing anything practically I was able to get speed test the app give me that high number but when I tried to practically download a movie through Disney plus Netflix even Apple TV movies it just was not very fast and so as far as practicality of the AT&T millimet wave I have not found it to be very useful and again it was exactly one street corner outside of Universal Studios Orlando so that was my experience I found it you know why you didn't get practical use out of it though why is that you said there was somebody called Tiffany and a Jamie and a Ryan they're all back at wherever it was giggling as they held the buttons down to delay your dlers that's what it was you got to have some fun no no no no no I can't believe it I can't believe it that was my experience go check out the video you can see me on the video right outside Universal Orlando you can see me doing the speed tests and hotspotting and trying to download stuff so it does exist AT&T's 5G plus millimeter wave service is a real thing it is just extremely limited and in very few places so William I know you were saying that millimeter wave isn't even an option there in the UK but now that you have your 12 with 5G and all that have you experienced anything related to 5G uh I'm just going to say lockdown to you uh haven't been able to get out of the house to try it and there's no 5G right where I am I did look up um actually before we knew the lockdown was coming I check I had the fun for a couple of days before it was in place I I looked to see where 5G was and there's plenty enough of it around uh Birmingham in the UK where I am but nothing close enough that I could actually conveniently nip out to check while we could still conveniently nip out to do anything right that's what I was particularly I watched a video I was really interested for the the that part about the practicality of it because everybody talks about these speeds but then to actually see I love to have fast music downloaded for you I thought that was good yeah yeah yeah that was cool but I was really expecting you know and I checked every setting just you know before everybody tweets at me you know Netflix has settings where you know you allow maximum data and you allow highspeed you know downloads like use all the data and I did all those settings my in the settings app I made sure it was 5G on not just 5G Auto I I told it to use as much data as possible just up my entire data allotment for the month and even with all those settings in the right place it just did not give me very fast speeds even just downloading a 5 gigabyte file from Dropbox I had a movie rip uh like Star Wars the Force awakens it was 5 gigabytes and it took I don't know 2 minutes to download and it seemed or even longer and that's about the same that I experienced with just LTE speeds so I'm not quite sure if there's something up with throttling from certain services like Dropbox or Netflix you know if AT&T is Li that and you know of all the asteris about 5G plus there's also many asterisks about throttling on AT&T if the network is busy if there's too many users in the area if the wind is blowing from east to west they'll you know slow down your connection so I don't know if maybe I did too many speed tests at first so they started locking down that Tower I'm not sure but that was my experience you know check out the video and let me know if you see AT&T 5G Plus or Verizon Ultra wideband and you actually get some cool use cases out of it like you can download a big file very quickly I'd love to see it you know take a quick video and and tweet it at me at Steven roblas and let me know actually do you remember a year 18 months ago everybody was saying apple is doomed apple is dead in the water because it has it won't have 5G until the end of 20 uh 20 what were all the Android users using their 5G for where were they using this stuff what what confused I don't know and now I've you know in some places I do get slightly faster downloads so when I was first going out to Orlando to test 5G I literally went directly under the AT&T cell tower I was you know getting X-Men abilities as I was standing there and there I got like 120 down and it was on regular 5G not 5G plus and so that seemed legitimately faster than LTE speeds I would get normally just around town so that seemed better but again not hugely so you break into cell towers uh you stalk outside Universal Studios uh this video of yours is probably going to be the last video as well is I was in a TGI Friday's parking lot for the for the filming of that video so I don't know I was surprised no one stopped me but anyway check out the video let me know what you think listeners uh I found 5G plus it exists now as we ran out the show covid-19 amongst the election here in the United States so much craziness going on but we'll stick to what actually affects Apple stuff and you specifically William UK is now under a secondary lockdown and that seems to have also included the Apple Stores over there in the UK so yeah William Tell us kind of what the status is right now right now as we record this um all England Apple stores are closed uh Wales and Scotland are open I think there's only one in Northern Ireland and it's closed uh anyway as of uh the time people are listening to this at least most England Apple Source say they will have a cooking collect system open so if you've ordered something online you should still be able to pick it up and they will also accept returns um I don't know what the circumstances are but they'll be available for it other than that everything is shut uh from the Apple Source from it was uh 5th of November to the 2nd of December We Believe it'll be the 2nd of December when it's lifted no that's the wrong word we're told it's the fifth but the UK and the US are quite similar in that you kind of believe it when you see it when you've been told something uh officially you know we're dealing with it we're staying locked in but we won't be surprised if it extend on into Christmas unfortunately there was some confusion a couple of days ago actually uh an apples Store employee reached out to Apple Insider to say that they had been told Apple was going to keep the stores open and for a while it looked like they might because in France which is also in a lockdown applesauce did uh there's a way that they can count that count as essential stores uh or near enough to stay open and it looked like it was going to happen here so actually I was quite surprised when the lockdown started and it was just no blanket everything closed and then later on a few hours later we started getting this cook and collect possibility the thing that really amazed me though it just never occurred to me the UK's version of the iPhone upgrade program it's effectively dead until this is open because for some reason it works on a very different Financial basis here in the UK than it does in the states so in the UK yeah actually in the whole of the UK not just England you cannot join the iPhone upgr program unless you go into an Apple store and uh have an a credit check conducted in person you can't do it to join in the first place and what we're Lear today asking people on it you can't do that even when it comes to the renewal time there's still some Financial requirement for you to go in and since you can't go in uh you can't get the program uh so all those people in the UK who were holding off upgrading on the program waiting for the iPhone 10s Max um well they can still buy it they can still uh get a a loan system it's very similar to the upgrade program but they can't actually get it through the upgrade PR yet oh man is it I presumably the same thing happened uh during our first lockdown in March but I mean who buys a new iPhone in March when they're on the upgrade program you suly it's noticeable now there's obviously not going to be any kind of store pickup option for the Pro Max or 12 mini coming but I imagine you could still pre-order it there could be I mean there is this click and collect thing for online ordering I was going through all the uh the UK sites of what was available when and really nothing's available but once they are once the pre-order process is over the weeks available I think it's at least I'm I'm certain you will be able to order an iPhone 10s Max and go to the store like run past them and scoop it up like a bat on kind of thing but what you cannot do uh is is get it via the program it has to be pre-bought whether this outright sale or through the this is a confusing part and I've had people asking me about this um in the UK Apple still has a deal with Barkley's financing and barley financing will do loans uh for you which can all be checked out online so you don't have to go to a store for those you can order it and have your phone sent to you but Barkley is behind the UK up grade program and there you cannot and who knows what minuscule Financial loophole somewhere requires them to go this strange Rd but it's been that way for years so it's not going to change wow well very strange you know listen just for our us listeners and around the world stay safe breathe deeply you know maybe turn off the news for a bit I had to you know now that we have the Apple 1 Services bundle which I did sign up for and we have news plus I kept looking at the news app and I've decided need to not look at that for a while especially here in the US as we're literally in the middle of kind of a chaotic election so I actually had a nightmare about your election and in the nightmare I decided that I was going to delete apple and news off my iPhone and I woke up is one of those where it's so real you believe it for a second and I'm looking at my phone by the bed thinking why is news still on there I just deleted it yeah it's wild so anyway listeners stay safe out there be encouraged you know do something if you can open a window and look out and breathe deeply you know do that as well let us know we'd love to interact with you on social media especially during this time if you if you can't go anywhere but if you're pre-ordering stuff hey we'd love to talk and you can tweet at William Ori our Twitter handles are in the show notes you can find it there let us know if you pre-ordered something or if you how much you're enjoying your 12 or 12 Pro I'd love to hear about that as well if you haven't yet we'd appreciate a festar rating and review and apple podcast as well there's a few of you that do that every week and we greatly appreciate it thank you for doing it don't forget to check out homekit Insider that goes out every Monday and you can hear Andrew O'Hara and myself talk about homekit products we have the YouTube channel youtube.com/ inssider where you can see me finally finding 5G plus and running those tests on my iPhone 12 Pro and as always thanks for tuning in we'll catch you next time\n"