iPhone 18 Pro has arrived, and it’s already got a -gate

Charlie Sorrell (0:00)

Okay, come on up.

Leander Kenney (0:01)

iPhone 18 Pro Max has performant issues on high-end models. Big changes in Apple's fitness team as Eddy Cue prepares to take on Whoop. Mac Mini storage upgrade options get a downgrade. Plus, developers finally get to work adapting their apps for iPhone Duo. Graham will be giving us a show and tell on how his fitness app is shaping up for the Duo.

Welcome to the Cult of Mac podcast. I'm your host, Leander Kenney. Joining me today are Lewis Wallace, Graham Bauer and Charlie Sorrell. Hey, guys.

Lewis Wallace (0:27)

Hello. Hey, there.

Leander Kenney (0:32)

Let's dive right in with this one terabyte iPhone 18 Pro Max storage speed, craters under heavy and sustained workloads. The one terabyte iPhone 18 Pro Max reportedly uses slower QLC flash, while the tested 512 gigabyte model uses faster TLC flash memory. QLC increases the capacity by storing four bits per cell, but comes with performance and durability trade-offs. So in normal use, the difference is relatively small. The 512 gigabyte model was about 11 percent faster in standard retesting, and Apple's fast SLC cache can handle short bursts at over 3,000 megabytes per second. Sustain heavy writes, what?

Graham Bauer (1:13)

Megabits.

Leander Kenney (1:14)

What did I say? That was all gobbledygook anyway. I didn't understand a word of that even though I was reading it.

Graham Bauer (1:20)

I thought you were doing really well. Really?

Leander Kenney (1:23)

I was like, okay, even I don't understand a word of this, but let's keep going. Anyway, so sustain heavy writes, so expose a dramatic slowdown. So once its caches were exhausted, the one terabyte model averaged just 79.4 megabits per second.

Okay, thank you, Graham. Falling as low as 25.6 megabits per second. So a fuller drive makes it even worse. At 60% capacity, raw speeds averaged around 45 megabits per second and occasionally plunged to 1.1 megabits per second, which is like floppy disk speeds, right? So this is unlikely to affect everyday users, but potentially a significant slowdown for potential, for pro users who are shooting lots of 4K videos or transferring huge files. So this came from a Chinese tester, right, who did these benchmarks. And I haven't seen anyone else reproduce this yet, but it does sound like a really serious cost.

Graham Bauer (2:23)

Like a Pro Max with 1 terabyte. I mean, who can afford this?

I don't even want to look at how much that costs. But I guess if you shell out that much for a phone, you definitely expect it to be able to record video.

Leander Kenney (2:36)

This is the crazy thing, isn't it? I mean, like, you know, for the one and two terabyte models, I mean, the people who are going to buy that are people who are going to be shooting 4K video with it.

And it slows down if you're doing those exact tasks. It seems completely nuts. And this has got to be, you know, ran again, you know, this has got to be because they can't get the faster chips for those higher. Or maybe, or is it because, you know, that the difference in, you know, 3 bits versus 4 bits in the.

Charlie Sorrell (3:09)

Well, that's double. 3 bits versus 4 bits is double. It's not one, but it's not like what it's not a 25% more.

Each bit you add is double the previous one.

Leander Kenney (3:19)

Well, is it because, I mean, presumably that you can buy one and two terabyte storage models, modules using the TLC technology. Is that right? Does anyone know that? Yeah, I'm not sure.

Charlie Sorrell (3:35)

Just as a data point, it's 1899 for the one terabyte model for the 18 Pro Max.

Graham Bauer (3:41)

That's Duo prices we're getting into there. When I hear TLC, I think about the group.

Charlie Sorrell (3:47)

Yeah, that's right.

Leander Kenney (3:51)

That's the other thing as well, right? I haven't seen anyone else reproduce this yet, so.

Graham Bauer (3:55)

I was curious if Apple was doing some clever software thing here.

Theoretically, it grinds to these really sluggish speeds, but in practice, maybe Apple is shuffling around the way that it's using the storage so that it doesn't affect the things that you would use it for, like saving video and stuff. I don't know. I'm curious as to whether or not this is like a theoretical flaw, but in practice, Apple works around it in software, and it's just another example of that tight hardware-software integration. Or if this is like something which in the real world is going to mess up workflows for people that are spending a lot of money on an iPhone presumably to make video. Influencers, I guess. This is squarely in the way of influencers.