Casey Liss
Appearances
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
But anyway, because I want to go off of the current selection as just a flexible way of saying, I know which photos I'm dealing with here. Just let me select them in the app and then run the script, right? I don't know if it's convenient to get the current selection, but that's another thing you could do.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Will Lineweber provide an example of directly reading the Photos database if you want to see what that looks like? It's just SQLite. It's just a SQLite database. You can just query it. The tables are wacky, and they begin with the letter Z, and the columns are maybe not what you expect, but you can do it. And finally, a couple of people sent Swift code that uses PhotoKit.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
we'll put a link in the show notes to one on GitHub from Alex Mazinov. Underscore David Smith also provided one. Yeah, Apple obviously has APIs to get to the photos database. That's how you can do photo pickers and all sorts of other stuff that interacts with it. And, you know, you can write Swift to do that.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
So if Swift is your preferred language, like Perl is mine, you can write up a Swift quote unquote script, you know, same thing. Put a line at the top, you know, that will run, you know, user bin Swift or whatever. Like you can use Swift like that and it will compile it on the fly and run your thing.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
same caveats about i'm not sure you can get the current selection from the photos app without asking it through like shortcuts or apple script but i could be wrong with that as well so there are lots of ways to skin this cat but predictably the way i did it is with pearl with the smallest amount of apple script possible just to do the part that i didn't want to do in pearl
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I thought we gave you some good actionable improvements that didn't really change your workflow, but just said, hey, in this step, you could do this with less work or whatever during the episode. But yes, obviously, people are amazed by the Rube Goldberg machine that you've constructed. I also checked out that... I think... I forget which one it was. It was like the GPX.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I should have put a link in here. Someone suggested one of the... the tagging apps that looked pretty good. Basically, it's just an app that you run on your phone and it keeps track of your location and exports files in a format that a lot of apps can read to tag your files.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Anything to get out of the world of proprietary, like in my case, Sony apps that I think Sony like recently discontinued their app anyway. I don't even know if they replaced it, but those apps were terrible.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
The good thing those apps had going for them is that they think they directly communicate with the camera, so there's no bringing it all into the Mac and combining it or whatever, but I'll gladly do that if it's something more sane. So I have on my list to check out some of the apps.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I think I already downloaded one of them to check out some of the apps that can export this standardized format for GPS tagging. And if I end up finding something that works, or if Casey does, we'll talk about it on the show, I'm sure.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Yeah, so there's a couple of nuances here. One is like the feature that Casey was referring to, like you get basically two choices of like, hey, what do you want me to do with respect to shared library? And the choices are automatic, which tries to do the smart thing, and manual. So Alexander's solution is first, select manual.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And then second, in the camera app at the top, there'll be this little yellow circle with either like one little person's head in it or two little people's heads in it. Change it to two little people's heads because that says, hey, when you take a photo with this camera, it'll go to the shared library. And that's it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And unlike many other settings, there is nothing in the camera settings in iOS that says in the section for preserving settings that refers to this. So if you go to settings, go to camera, there's a thing of like, hey, which settings do you want me to preserve between launches of the camera? So like you launch the camera and say you change into video mode and then you go to a different app.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
When you come back to camera, do you want it to still be in video mode or do you just want it always to go back to camera? That's an example of deciding whether you want a setting to be preserved. And Apple provides a whole screen full of these. You want me to preserve the style, the focus, the zoom. You can toggle these on and off.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And so if you've never checked that out, if you're frustrated that every time you launch the camera app, it doesn't remember something or it does remember some other thing, you can change your mind about those. But this shared versus non-shared thing is not in that set of preferences.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
as far as i can tell it's just always remembered so as long as you set that setting and don't change it it will be preserved and you basically have no choice about that you got to be careful especially if it's not your phone that someone doesn't accidentally hit that and change it back to the other thing so there's some amount of vigilance required to make sure you stay on sending everything to shared but this was a great tip i did tried to do the same thing to my wife's camera app and told her about it and said now everything will go into your shared library because occasionally she sends things into the regular library so
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Set to manual, change the setting in the camera app, and don't worry about the preserve settings because it doesn't apply to this particular thing.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
So this was a bit of a letdown. We had the rumors of Apple's going to go to JPEG XL and they did add support for JPEG XL in iOS 18 on the iPhone 16s pretty much only and only for their pro raw stuff. So it's not like geek where they said, oh, by the way, all our cameras take photos in a new format by default. And it's this great new format. They didn't say that they didn't talk about it. at all.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
But nevertheless, on an iOS 18, on iPhone 16s only, I believe, because when I was on iOS 16 on my 14 Pro, it didn't mention JPEG XL anywhere. So I think it's only on the 16s. It's definitely not on the 14 Pro. I can tell you that. If you go to the formats section of the camera preferences, you will see at the top...
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
uh pro default and you you see heath max pro raw 12 megapixel pro raw max up to 18 megapixel and then the next section is pro raw format and your choices are jpeg lossless which they now list as most compatible and then there are two jpeg xl choices lossless and lossy and again that's only for when you're shooting in raw so you can have a lossless raw with jpeg xl or a lossy compressed raw with jpeg xl here's what petapixel had to say about it
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Apple has wrapped JPEG XL photos inside a DNG container, enabling ProRAW files to retain their flexibility while being significantly smaller. What would typically be a 75-ish megabyte ProRAW max file will be a 20 megabyte in lossy ProRAW format using JPEG XL compression, a lossless file still under 50 megabytes. Without compromising quality, these are significant storage savings.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
So JPEG XL is on your iPhone. If you have a newish iPhone... And if you're shooting in raw and if you are, you can get files that are up to half the size that they used to be at about the same quality. So good thumbs up, but it is not the JPEG XL revolution that we had been waiting for. So I did change to JPEG XL. I think I went with lossless just because I'm shooting in raw.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I probably just, you know, I do it so rarely on my phone. I'll just pay the full cost of the size and it's still smaller than it used to be. So, you know, partial thumbs up on JPEG XL. Hopefully it will expand over the years.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I recall like way back in the PowerBook days, maybe, or maybe it was the MacBook days, there was similar indicator light and Apple made similar claims about how, well, it's impossible to hack this light because there's a hardware feature in the laptops that basically says when the camera is active, this light comes on.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Like this was an example of it not being software mediated at all, but it was something like, hey, if the camera's on, the light's on, there's no software environment. Software has no visibility into the light whatsoever. Can't turn it on, can't turn it off. It's just like an electrical fact of life about how we've connected the camera.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And even when they did that, I believe someone found a way to get the camera to turn on without the light going on. Like hackers are devious. So this exclave is, you know, in the game of cat and mouse, here's Apple's next move. It's like, oh yeah, let's make it even harder for you to get this light. Even if you have kernel access.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
You still can't get at this because this is a different OS running in this secure exclave, which is this other little machine that you can't get to. The secure enclave is obviously where you can put secrets that are hard to get to if you're running on the main CPU SoC. But now we have the secure exclave, which is a whole other chip with a whole other OS. It's even harder to get to.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And I'm sure that's true. But hackers are very devious. So let's see how the next move goes. But anyway, Apple continues to try to make it very difficult. to spy using its products without using the easiest method, which is, of course, social engineering.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And they demonstrated. So we talked about this, I think, before the event where there was rumors of this happening. And I don't know how I pictured it like working. Maybe like you'd short something out and there'd be a puff of smoke and the battery would come out or it would just pop out or whatever. It is much less dramatic than that, but it is no less cool.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
In the iFixit video, they take a little power supply and they hook it up to the battery. There's like a little metal, you know, contact that pops out for you to connect it to. And then you just connect something else to like ground inside the thing.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And you put some power into it for a few seconds, and it basically chemically changes the adhesive to make it not sticky anymore, and then the battery just comes out. And they explain a little bit how it works. Interestingly, if you reverse the polarity, where you put the plus and the minus on the opposite side, it will make it re-stick. What? But not to the thing.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
It'll re-stick to the battery, so don't do it that way. So there are still some dangers here. But another interesting thing about how they installed this is...
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Once the battery is out, again, you'll see it in the iFixit video and the blog post that we'll also have in the show notes, inside the case where the battery goes, Apple has essentially carved a U-shaped channel, like intentionally, roughly, like it's scuffed up, like if you use like a... A circular buffer on a car and you did a really bad job and you left swirl marks.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
That's what they did inside the phone. They made this big, long U-shaped channel, which is where the adhesive goes, that's intentionally scuffed up and rough to give lots of like craggly surface for the adhesive to stick to, which is so wild to see inside Apple's cases that are usually so beautifully, perfectly machined and everything's precise. And here's this area that's made intentionally rough.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And the adhesive sits directly down in that. And this process is, you know, the pull tabs are cool. It's like those 3M things, kind of like you pull sideways and big, long, stringy, sticky things comes out and then it comes out. But this is just so much more elegant. You just apply the voltage and then the thing isn't sticky anymore and you lift it out. It's pretty cool.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I think this is only on the 16 and the 16 Plus and not on the Pro. I think the Pro still used the sticky stuff because I saw a teardown of one of those things as well, which is interesting. But yeah, check out the whole iFixit video. They seem to think that the 16 continues to push the frontiers of easy repairability. Again, not the 16 Pro.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I haven't seen the iFixit teardown of that, but the 16 using the dual-sided design and the battery that's easy to remove and the way they have the parts arranged. Apple is making progress in making these Tiny, very delicate devices that much easier and less error prone to repair.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
It just falls out because the adhesive is not sticky anymore. It doesn't leave a residue. It's pretty amazing. That's really cool.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Trusted Computer Computing. It's the database that keeps permission to stop. I don't remember what it stands for.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
on login although that shell script doesn't actually work and i sent him a reply about that it's kind of like the chat gpt thing i think he forgot a line in there but one could write a shell script you can take a look at his and fix it by adding the missing line or whatever but anyway you might not have to do that because because now breaking news as of just like an hour ago or something like that there's a new app called amnesia that apparently will allow you to disable these on an app by app basis
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Did the physical therapist tell you that your neck was too smart to move?
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Yeah, and so the screen recording thing, I'm living it. I saw this example here, and I wanted to try it myself, and I discovered that in my plist file, which is, I'll read the thing in case you wouldn't. It's in your library directory, and it's groupcontainersgroup.com.apple.replayd screencaptureapprovals.plist. Again, it'll be showing. This sounds like an Amazon product title. Yeah.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
My paths were, my keys in this little, you know, the name value pairs, they were the full path. So it was application slash zoom.us.app slash content slash macos.zoom.s. I don't know why they were bundle paths in Dan's thing, but maybe it varies on each system. But anyway, the values are just dates. It's a simple default to write a command to change it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
So I did that for Zoom, which I had recently used to share my screen, and it had complained, and I set its date to 3024. So in theory, it will never complain again. And having a GUI app for this is good if people don't want to mess with like command line stuff or whatever. But many questions are raised by this discovery, right?
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
So first of all, the whole point of this thing was like, oh, what if someone's spying and you want to be reminded every once in a while to know that someone's spying and yada yada?
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Well, if you can just write a value to a P list to override this, anyone who's like spying on someone or like abusive partner or something is just going to Google this, find this result, set the dates forward to 3024 and never have to worry about it again. So what the hell happened?
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Like the security benefits of this feature are so easily bypassed that now we're just being annoyed for no reason, right? Before it's like, oh, we're being annoyed, but they can't figure out a way to make this more secure without annoying us and they figure a month interval is good.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
But now it's like, actually, there's no security benefit because anyone who cares can Google this in two seconds and download a GUI app that will set all the things to the future.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
So this is, I'm assuming Apple will see this and then in a future update to Sequoia, come up with a different, much more secure system that doesn't allow you to run a single default write command or download a GUI app to change this and never have to worry about it again. Because like, what's the point of the feature? It's just annoying people for no reason at that point, right?
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And the second thing is, how has life been on Sequoia with these screen recordings? Well, I did use Zoom, and I did share my screen, and it did prompt me. And I'm like, ah, well, Zoom, how often do I share my screen? I think in the, what, week or two I've had Sequoia, I've gotten prompted like four times by four different apps. And it just keeps catching me by surprise.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Just today, I used TechSniper, which, by the way, I still recommend. And what was I using TechSniper for? Not to get fines out of photos. You know what I was using it for? Ah, good old preview. I had a PDF that had text in it. And I wanted to copy and paste that text out of the PDF. But unfortunately, that text was tabular.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And selecting the text in preview and hitting copy and then pasting into a plain text document was just a soup.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
right but text sniper actually printed it a line at a time it didn't put tabs between it or anything but at least it was like here's the first row here's the second row here's the third row text selection in both web pages and pdfs continues to be an unsolvable problem apparently if you ever try to like select text in a complicated web page and you just want the text to be pasted just like it appeared in your web page but when you paste it you see that it's like out of order or it's selected other weird stuff same thing with pdfs at least in the preview app
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I can select it and I can hit copy. And when I hit paste, I expect it to to print those lines. But sometimes it just absolutely doesn't. It prints a scrambled mess of the lines all all connected to one big long line or interleave with each other or whatever. But TechSniper did it because TechSniper doesn't care about that stuff.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
TechSniper just sees pixels that look like text and it parses them as lines of text and it will print them as lines of text. But of course, when I launched TechSniper, it said, hey, TechSniper wants to capture your screen. Do you want to allow it? Allow for one month, blah, blah, blah. And so this is sort of the ongoing battle because every new app still prompts you.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And then I went to the command line at the defaults right and said, now you're never going to ask me again until 3024 or until Sequoia 15.1 when Apple changes all of this. So this is a disappointing...
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
stopping point i'm not going to say conclusion in this saga of supposed increased security because now all the security not all the security benefits but most of the security benefits are out the window and yet we're still continuing to be annoyed by it to the point where people are writing gooey apps to help people circumvent this feature of mac os this is not a good sign for apple that they have struck the right balance with the features they've shipped
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And then the security, again, if the security benefits are non-existent, if anybody who's trying to do something nefarious just Googles for it and gets a thing they can paste into terminal and solve the problem for them. Like it's just, it's very frustrating.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Oh, well, you did get to unbox pretty much all the new products, didn't you?
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
That's part of the setup. You should talk about that now.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And neither did the employees, by the way, last time I was at the store, which was, which was not a busy day. I was sent to a table and then eventually someone came to help me and they disappeared for a little bit. And when they were gone, two other employees came up to me and said, uh,
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
are you being helped like don't you know if i'm being helped shouldn't you know i'm being like the whole system is you send us off to these little tables to distribute this visible line so we can't see the actual line but then we get serviced in order and people are assigned to us you should know that somebody already is already handling it if you don't know then what is the system do you just look look wander the store looking for people who look lonely and say that person looks like they're not being helped let me help them
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I mean, and obviously the biggest problem, I mean, you're both dancing around. It was lunch day for the iPhone, right? Right. Surely one of the busiest days in the Apple store or involving iPhones, anything on lunch day of the iPhone is going to be fraud.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And it exposes the weaknesses of their systems because this is going to be the most people coming to the store in the shortest period of time who want phones.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Do you know what the nature of the Belkin protector is? Is it glass? Is it plastic?
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I'm not going to tell you you tried it. I've tried it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Why don't you put a case on it? Put a case that doesn't have a bare bottom, and then you'll be hitting the gigantic bottom lip of the case, and you won't even feel the screen protector.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
We'll talk about it more in a little bit. I want to talk about my setup process that Mark can talk about his setup process. We'll just do these piece piecemeal piecewise old setup. And then, you know, anyway, so the setup process, you would think this is such a non-issue. You're sounding like mostly a non-issue. Yeah.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
It was annoying picking up from the store, but you use the cable to connect them because you had a 15 pro to a 16 pro and it seemed to work out. And, you know, I would grade your setup experience as pretty much went. Okay.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
So I get a new phone every two years, and there are two reasons that I dread getting a new phone. One of them is the setup process. The other one is cases, which we'll talk about later, right? And it really does deter me from getting a new phone.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
You think I'd be excited to get another phone and I am, but then every time I actually am getting one, I'm like, Oh no, my world has been thrown into turmoil because the computing device that I use probably the most that's with me all the time now is going to not be satisfactory for some period of time.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
First I have to deal with the setup process where I just hope everything transfers over and I deal with all that or whatever. And then the cases, which we'll talk about later. Right? So, uh, I think last year, if we go back to, or not last year, two years ago when I got the 14 Pro, I think I said that my setup process went smoothly for once.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
My usual experience is I get a new phone and the way I order it is through the Apple star app. I order it on my old phone. And when you order on your old phone, you can say, Hey, are you going to get a new phone? That's going to replace the one that you're currently ordering on. And I say, yes, it's like the most automatic smoothest default path, which is like new phone will replace this phone.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Don't change anything. Don't get an unlocked phone. Don't do anything weird. Don't change carriers. Don't it's like just the default straightforward thing. And yet, pretty much every year, with the possible exception of last year, I don't recall exactly, I end up on the phone with Verizon. On iPhone. Which is not the time you want to be on the phone with Verizon. No. Well, guess what?
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I ordered my new phone using that same old default method. I took it out of the box. I couldn't use the wired. Well, I decided not to use the wired thing because the 14 Pro has USB 2 speeds and Wi-Fi can beat that, I think. So I'm just using plain old, you know, phone-to-phone wireless transfer with both phones plugged in. And it starts doing the thing. You know, I see a new phone.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Do you want to do this? Connect to the other phone. Type in the passcode of this phone and that phone. Scan the fuzzy dot ball, you know what I mean?
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
the whole the whole process right all right can i interrupt you right there does that actually do like is that like a qr code does that actually transmit data yeah there's there's actual data in there okay i i just i can't fathom how i believe you okay yeah it's just it's just artfully done but yeah it's it's like sort of an obscured artful kind of like qr code type thing anyway um
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And then they start doing their thing. One thing that's always annoyed me is the phone you are transferring from has like a white sheet up that says, you know, finish on other phone or whatever. But if you try to dismiss that sheet, it's like, oh, do you want to exit the setup process? It's like, no, I just don't want to be staring at this white thing.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And sometimes the screen won't even go to sleep, but just fine. The phone is plugged in, but it just seems stupid. But anyway, whatever. On the new phone, it's doing stuff and it gets to a thing that says, you know, whatever screens are like activating, blah, blah, blah. This may take a few minutes. Well, I was on that phone for a solid hour the first time.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And I'm like, because I was afraid to abort it and screw something up. And then I tried again and tried again and tried. And it would be like activating. This will take a few minutes. And then I resigned myself. I'm like, look, I just it's never going to get past the screen. Like there was no skip, no thing.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Like I'm assuming it was trying to transfer, you know, my phone number, eSIM, whatever thing from my 14 Pro to my 16 Pro. It just wouldn't and couldn't do it. and I'm going all over. Like, I have five bars in my house these days. Like, they must have upgraded the coverage right here. It's not even like I have bad signal anymore. I'm like, and it's on, they're both on Wi-Fi.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Like, I don't know what the problem is. Time to contact Verizon, which is just the most terrible sort of resigned feeling of dread. Like, you're getting an exciting new thing, and instead of setting up your exciting new thing, you're going to be calling your phone carrier on day one of iPhone. It's just like, Why is this my life?
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
But what would you suggest? I mean, next year I'll use the wired one, but that wasn't the problem. It was the carrier activation. That's where I'm getting it now.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
But I wanted to take over my other number, obviously.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
But I'm assuming they still charge you the fee. If they're going to charge you the fee, I don't think I get.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Anyway, yeah, I could potentially try to unlock one, but I just feel like that's been trading a bunch of known problems for unknown ones.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
so anyway i have advanced in my ability to deal with this because i was like i can't do it i can't i can't dial that because remember i can't call them on my cell phone either so i'd be calling on like my quote-unquote landline phone still wireless whatever on my landline phone it would be on speakerphone i have to hear that music over the i just i can't do it so i'm like you know what this year i'm gonna try the chat thing they always heard you towards anyway like in the in web page verizon you know text chat
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And so I did that. And the world's friendliest person telling me, oh, I hope you're having such a wonderful day. Congratulations on your new phone, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, please, just... I've got all the data ready to go. I tell him the situation. I say I'm on the activating screen. He says, could you please give me your IME ID, which I already have on the clipboard. I just paste it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Which, by the way, I had to transcribe manually because when your phone is in this terrible state, you just use a little I and a circle on the upper right to get the IME ID, but you can't copy and paste it because your phone isn't even set up, so I'm transcribing that carefully. Anyway... I do all this information, and you know what? It takes like three seconds when someone at Verizon is doing it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
They're like, okay, this is your thing. Confirm this. Do that. Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. And all of a sudden, my phone screen says, instead of saying activate and wait a few minutes, it says, oh, transferring cellular service, whatever, bloop, bloop, bloop, bloop, and it's done.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And I was like, okay, well, that was, you know, maybe like a half an hour on web chat in the grand scheme of things. You know, it's better to not have to contact them, but it wasn't that bad. The only weird wrinkle was they're like, okay, now call like pound or, you know, 832 or whatever. There's something they want you to do to confirm that everything worked. What year is this?
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
because the phone is saying that it did all the things and it's you know whatever but they're like okay well and i said to him i i can't dial anything right now because it's doing the phone to phone transfer i won't have access to the dialer until it finishes the phone to phone transfer and he says that's okay i'll wait i'm like it's going to take hours it's like no problem i'll just wait
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And then he tried to sell me insurance and I said, no, thanks. And then I walked away from the computer and I came back, you know, an hour or two later and the transfer had finished and the web page had timed out. So successful customer service interaction. But chalk this up to another year where I had to contact Verizon.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
At least I didn't have to go on the phone with them, but I had to contact Verizon to get my phone set up. After I had gotten over that hurdle, the phone to phone transfer worked the way it normally does, where it forgets the test flight exists and rearranges all my icons until I go back to test flight and figure out where they all have to belong and rearrange them manually.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Yes, I tried to use iPhone mirroring to rearrange them with the mouse. It's probably a little bit better, but boy, you can really see the insanity of that system when you have pixel precise control with a mouse cursor because it's such a cruel game. It's like, oh, I went over the one pixel boundary and I switched to the other screen.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
It's just your meat fingers aren't in the way, but now I know precisely how insane the activation readings are and precisely how broken it is where you will drag an icon and other icons will skitter out of the way and leave an empty spot for your icon and you will release and Springboard will say, nope.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
and it'll just close that spot back up and you'll do it 50 times drag an icon put it right where you want it to go it's nothing else is there it is dead center on the spot release disappears like it never existed the system's just broken so the mouse helps a little bit but anyway uh setup worked fine i i managed to get through it all uh and there you go marco how's your setup process mine was perfectly fine
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Yeah, I don't know what it is. I mean, I'm assuming there's some carrier servers that are involved in this process. And like the worst part is there's no way to say, forget about that. I'll deal with it later. Just do the rest of the setup. Like you are stuck on that screen. This is activating. This may take a few minutes.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And as far as I know, there's no way to get past it, which argues for Casey's thing of like, hey, why don't you just buy it on lock? Because then at least you can do. the phone, like the data transfer part of the setup. And then when you have a functioning working phone that just doesn't have a phone number, then try to do the eSIM like transfer or whatever, however you initiate that process.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And you gotta Google to be like, wait, do I unpair
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
from the old one first or doing that like this this whole i've done it successfully so my wife's watched several times and every time i do it i have no confidence that i'm going to be successful i have no recollection of how i did it last time or why it worked and i just like cross my fingers and just dive in and and by the way everything on the watch takes forever i guess it's probably getting better as the watches get faster it doesn't take so long to do anything
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I did use ice packs just in honor of Marco. I used them briefly, but then I got worried about condensation and stopped.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I said this before any of us had ever tried it. Remember by seeing the demos, I'm like, that's modal. How are you going to get out of that mode? And trying it for real life, I experienced the exact same thing. The exact problem I predicted. I'm like, I'm having that problem. I eventually figured it out, but it's... Not great.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
All right. So here's my experience with the camera control. The very first thing that I discovered with my new phone with the camera control is that the camera control is placed exactly where I apparently grabbed my phone. Exactly. I've done this a couple of times. Like with it taking it out of the box. I kid you not. It's the phone is not even on. I've just taken it out of the box.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I accidentally hit the camera control button three times in under 20 seconds. It's not even on. Like, the phone's not even on. I'm hitting the button, which, by the way... With what part of your hand? Are you hitting it with, like, your, like... That's apparently where I grab the phone.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I apparently grab it at the bottom with one, you know, my thumb on, like, the left side of where the camera control is, and my other finger is exactly on the camera control. And it's a flush button. It doesn't even stick out. I was hitting that button like crazy. I'm like, okay, well...
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
i can retrain myself but that's an unfortunate personal habit apparently i grabbed the phone by the camera control and so i have signed up for hitting that button accidentally a lot i'm getting better and unfortunately i think part of the way i'm getting better is learning not to press as hard which is good in that i won't activate the flush button but bad in that now i'm not gripping the phone as hard when i pick it up which i feel like it's just an increased drop risk but that's a thing so setting that aside get that apple care
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Yeah, I do have it using using the actual camera control button. I would not have predicted this based on their previews in our discussion of this, but because we talked about like the whole idea of them modeling it after like half press on a real camera shutter button.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And even though that feature for half press focus isn't even shipping yet, the way you get into those menus that Marco was talking about, these little things is you essentially half press right to get to the thing where you can change the zoom and the focal depth and that whole menu system. And yes, that is modal.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And the only way I've discovered to get out of it is to touch anywhere on the screen, which is a reasonable way to get out of it. But I kind of wish there was a way to get out of it by without taking a picture by hitting the camera control. But I think you have to actually touch the screen to say, I want to get out of this mode where I'm adjusting things with the camera control. Right.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
But here's the kicker. This is the thing I wouldn't have predicted. The half press on the camera control button to activate the menus is unlike any half press on any big camera that I've ever used in my entire life in that it is way, way more difficult to get to it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Like it is a thing that you have to train your fingers to do because if you just do what you would do to half press a real camera button, you've pressed it all the way. That's too far. So it's like... how do I half press this button? And you have to press so much lighter than you think. And I know there's this preference to adjust this or whatever, but it's such a strange sensation.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
You're like, am I even pressing it? Or am I just thinking hard about pressing it and it activates it? You can do it. You can learn to do it. But it is so much more of a precise, delicate gesture than I expected it to be. I fully expected... I've been half pressing shutter buttons for... you know, years and years, right? Decades, right?
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I fully expected it would just be completely natural for me to half press it. Absolutely not. It is so much more delicate than I thought it would be, which I don't personally mind because I think I'm never going to use those menus now that I've experienced them. I don't think I'm ever going to use them to adjust anything. Maybe I'll do the zoom one because it has the advantage.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I hate pinching to zoom. It has the advantage that I can zoom while, you know, having the phone in like,
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
camera taking position right in landscape mode or whatever without me having to like take one of my hands off of the phone and use it to pinch the screen i think zoom is the one that's most likely for me to use but in practice i've never actually used it other than when i was experimenting with it just because i hate going into that mode i can't even decide which one to keep it on i think i settled on keeping it on zoom because it's the one i'm most likely to use but
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
i would just much rather adjust those things on the screen and i'm with marco like i understand how the ui goes away when you do that or whatever i would just rather always see it like again that should probably be a setting or whatever
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
But, you know, for taking a photo and for having it as a shutter button, I've heard a lot of people complaining that the positioning is bad, that it should be closer to the corner, and maybe that would have gotten out of my accidental activation area. But I'm mostly happy with the position.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I take pretty much all my pictures in landscape mode, but occasionally in portrait, and I find it works for both of them. I have it launching the camera. I have it launching the camera on a single press. The reason I can get away with it is that when I accidentally activate it,
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
It's because I'm picking up a locked phone off the table or whatever, and when you hit it on a locked phone, it doesn't launch the camera app. It just wakes it up first, and you have to hit it again to launch the camera app, which is a nice defense against me accidentally launching the camera app.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I'm still accidentally hitting the button a lot, but the consequences are not significant because when I'm doing that, it's almost always when I'm picking up a locked phone, so I don't actually find myself landing in the camera app. Within, I think, maybe... Less than a minute of my wife picking up my phone, she had accidentally taken a picture with the camera control. I should have saved it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
It was like, iPhone unboxing day. Here's our first picture of the floor. It's a thing, right? Again, there's a setting to make the camera control require a double click to get into the camera app. I don't think I need to use that yet. I think I'm building my habits around it, but... I think the camera control was maybe a little bit overly ambitious. As a button, it feels good. It clicks good.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I like the fact that it's touch sensitive. The half press I'm not sold on, the menu interface I'm not sold on, and the upcoming feature that we don't even have yet, the half press for focus or whatever they're going to do. I don't think that's going to make this better. They're piling so much stuff onto this button. This is not like a version 1.0 button.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
This is like the version 4.5 of this button already. It does so much stuff. It is so overloaded. It has so many capabilities. And like I said, maybe it's just me, but when you find one of these phones, you can learn how to get into the menus pretty easily, but it's such a strange feeling. It's like, press, but don't press. It's such a delicate operation. It reminds me of like...
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Some of the finesse moves I would have to do with a thumb stick in Super Monkey Ball in the GameCube. Like, where you just really have to learn how to, like, what the difference between, you know, 18 and 17 degrees on the stick is, as opposed to just being like, you know, like, jam the stick to the left, right, up, down, right?
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
So sort of delicate, like, just think about pressing it, and then you'll get into the menus. And again, it's not bad, because I don't think I want to get into the menus a lot, and I do know how to do it now. But it is so much... I don't know how to... So much more like... I don't want to say sophisticated. It's so much less...
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
straightforward to do like it requires more mechanical finesse than i would have expected way more mechanical finesse than half pressing a shutter button and having handed my very large cameras to many people over the years for them to take pictures i can tell you that the average person has difficulty half pressing even a gigantic shutter button that is very easy in my opinion to half press because it has like miles of travel and you literally push it halfway down you cannot push this button halfway down like the travel is so short if you try to push it halfway halfway down you will completely depress it you have to think about pressing
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
When you're using a camera, usually you are adjusting... Especially if you're fumbling for it, like real quick, you go, oh, I'm getting the camera out. It's not the time for a now. I'm going to apply the most controlled pressure I've ever applied using the tendons in my fingers.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Yeah, let me fast forward this for Apple. The solution to this, the real version 4.5 of this, I mean, I don't know how many years in the future this is going to be, is to solve all these problems. Basically, that entire side of the phone needs to be a giant touch-sensitive, pressure-sensitive clicky button. Because, for example, zooming and swiping...
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
The little interface that appears is maybe a little small, but the essentially trackpad area, it's a small button. That area of like swipe, swipe, swipe, it's barely enough to satisfactorily cycle through the menus, let alone being satisfactory for Zoom.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I feel like that whole side of the phone needs to be just one complete featureless thing that you can squeeze and it haptically clicks and the whole thing is touch sensitive and it needs to go in more. I don't know how they solve this problem, but it needs, it's strange to say, but I feel like the camera control is
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
too small like for what they want it to do if you just want it to be a shutter button and you can use it that way and by the way i will say that is the big benefit of the camera control if all these things we're complaining about you can just ignore them and just say this button is just a binary button and i press it all the way or not at all and it works that way i don't think you'll accidentally half press it a lot especially if you're just always saying press
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
press right but if they want to go whole hog and have this be like a touch sensitive thing to swipe through uis and stuff like that they need a bigger touch area and they need a way bigger button they need just that whole side to just be one giant button that also happens to click and i don't know how they do that but that would be that would be better than this tiny little thing
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I don't think I need to go to the double click. And I also don't think I need to adjust the sensitivity. I've tried the different settings and I feel like that's not the problem.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Let me offer a differing opinion considering the cases now on my phone right now.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
gray dark gray whatever yeah the color's not great and it's got lines on the back for no reason I think the Beats case I think the shape is nice I think it does feel more expensive than your average plastic case simply because the shape is very like precise and consistent like the buttons which are just plastic or whatever the buttons are precise the edges of the case are precise it is rounded over in all the right places it feels kind of like a giant iPhone 5c which I liked
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Um, it is shiny plastic. Uh, it is not as grippy as a leather case, not by far, although it is grippier than I thought it would be. It is probably about as grippy as Apple's clear cases are, which is again, it's not as grippy as rubber, definitely not as grippy as silicone, but it's grippier than I thought it would be just because of the tackiness. It shows fingerprints disgustingly.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Yeah, like, leather, one of the great things about leather is it will absorb all the oils from my fingers. This plastic will not. It is covered with oils. But I do have to say, for this case, and by the way, the reason I got it, of course, is because it has a bare bottom, and it does. Even the edges of the bare bottom, I think this case is beautifully, precisely shaped and formed.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I like everything about it except for the material that it is made out of, which is a big thing for a case, right? But...
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
um i'm not going to say i'm happy with my purchase because i am looking forward to finding a suitable leather case that i can replace it with but i am i'll say this i am happier with this case than i was with the apple clear case which also has a bare bottom that i bought for my 14 pro right so i i've tried the clear cases they're not for me this this
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
If I had to live with this, I could tolerate it, but it is nowhere near as nice as my leather one. So, you know, go to the store and check it out. Marco looked at it, he thought it felt cheap. I think it feels very nice and solid and precise and good and grippier than I thought it would. It's just not that, you know, the oil situation is a problem. It's not as grippy.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Even the ridge around the camera, I've used a lot of cases, first party and third party, that have like a vertical wall around the camera mesa. And the Beats case, it's almost vertical, But not quite. It's got just enough of a slant to it that it feels less cheap to me than just like a big vertical wall stuck into the back of the case.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Like I said, it does have a circle and a line for MagSafe on the back for reasons that escape me because it's not a clear case. Why do you need to do that? It does have a Beats logo on the side. But I... I actually give a pretty good rating to the Beats case if you can tolerate the material that's made out of, which I can almost tolerate.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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No, you don't want to scuff it up. Although, actually, by the way, a tiny bit of real-time follow-up. We mentioned already the camera control, which we'll get to in a second on the Beats case, I'm assuming.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
um the camera control has the settings for like how hard you want it to be that's the reason i always forget what these things are that was an accessibility you know what else is an accessibility it's you know settings accessibility camera control and accessibility under camera control there is a toggle to just turn off the camera control if you just don't want to deal with it so that's great um there's also a toggle to turn off the whole light press to show adjustments if you don't want that feature at all period you can just turn that off
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And there's also finally a toggle for how quickly you have to double press it if you want to use the double press feature. It's just got default slow and slower if you can't double press it that quickly, right?
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
So kudos to Apple for giving enough adjustability to say, hey, the massive overreach that we've done with this camera control, you can just turn most of that off until you get it to the point where you think it is uh, you know, suitable. I'm going to leave everything on, but like I said, I'd probably just don't want to use the, uh, the adjustment feature. That's interesting. We'll play with that.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
But again, it's not in camera control. It's an accessibility. So these, these settings are always in weird places. And if you search for camera control, you won't find it. So settings, accessibility, camera control.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
There is nothing about this. Did you take that website test? Of course I did.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Yeah, I tested the camera control with no case in the beginning just to make sure I was getting the full experience. And then when I put the Beats case on it, same deal. They did a great job. Like it really, really does. It doesn't feel any less precise or any more difficult or anything like that. And it's nice and flush. They did a good job.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I did. I watched almost all of it. And I appeared briefly for 15 minutes of those 12 hours. So I was glad to contribute in my small way.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
It'd be great if third parties could have done the same thing. Although I did see one. Now, as you would imagine, my Instagram ads are 98% ads for iPhone cases and 2% ads for Marco's car. Yeah. But anyway, yeah, there is one third party case manufacturer. I forget what the name is.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
It's like SU case or something or whatever, advertising the fact that they presumably will have like the courts pass through thing or whatever. Everyone else is just just has holes or they leave out that section of the case. But I feel like this is totally possible for third parties to do. Technologically speaking, they just didn't have enough information to implement it in time for launch.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
So I'm hoping there will be third party cases that implement this. But Apple's implementation is it's really good.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
it's it's i'm on i'm at the beach and it's over there in the mainland so all right well my case is coming on wednesday so next episode i will be able to tell you about the bull strap case but marco's tale of the uh the sloped pit on the peak design one does not fill me with hope because that's exactly the design that pull strap is using and we'll see how it goes
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And then your fingerprints are all over your actual phone, and so are all the nicks and scrapes.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Speaking of the final thing on cases, this is a good time to refresh people who haven't been listening to the show for years and years. I always make reference to the naked robotic core idea. And for people who don't know what that is, it is the idea that I think I talked about back in the hypercritical days originally that you will make a product.
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that omits as much stuff as possible because someone who buys your product can always add things to it, but they can't take things away. So for example, in the case of the iPhone, you can imagine making a smartphone that has a grippy rubber back on it that is not as slippery as the phones that Apple makes. But if you don't want a grippy rubber back,
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And the phone comes with one, and that is literally the back of the phone. You can't remove that. So the naked robotic core theory is ship the smallest, most minimal thing possible, and then anybody who wants something can add it to it. But people who want nothing get the smallest minimal product possible. And it is a...
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I don't know if Apple espouses this theory is a thing that I came up with to explain Apple's apparent design decisions on their phone. And I think they continue along those lines. And the specific instance with the iPhone 16 is I think Marco talked about this maybe in the past episode. Um, they're shrinking the bezels around the screen just year after year, millimeter after millimeter.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
It's not like there was a big giant one inch border like there was in the original iPad. Like the border around the screen, uh, on the iPhone has always been pretty small, but I was like, no, we need to make it smaller. because that border is a thing that if you don't want it, you can't remove it from the phone. You can always add a border by putting a case on it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
But if you get a phone and you want no border, you can't have that unless we ship you the naked robotic core. And then it's up to you to decide. We ship you, if they could ship it with zero border, they would like a Samsung phone with the screen goes over the edge or rounded or whatever, right? They're getting real close to essentially having zero border.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And you can decide, is zero border what you want? If not, add a case. And now the screen is so close to the edge that I've heard from so many people with iPhone 16s that they're accidentally activating things on the screen simply by the act of holding the phone. Because the meat of their fingers wraps around and ends up touching the screen part. And yes, the iPhone and iOS has all sorts of like...
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
what we would call on the iPad palm rejection, but essentially touch rejection, rejecting what the OS thinks is an inadvertent touch, but it's not enough for some people. There's still some of their touches are getting through.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And by the way, I think there's a fun one where like, if you, if you touch the screen where right by the camera control, where like the little camera control controls would appear on the screen, if you touch the screen there and then try to do anything else anywhere on the screen, all your touches are ignored.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
which I think is probably like a feature having to do with people trying to swipe the camera control or something, or maybe it's a bug. I don't know.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
But anyway, they've gotten so naked robotic core with the 16 line that people are now having to make the choice to get a case simply because they cannot avoid accidental input because now the screen is so close to the edge, they just can't avoid it entirely. So that is a possible thing to think about of like, am I going to go caseless?
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Yeah, they're giving you the most minimal... They're trying to get closer to that naked robotic core ideal that they don't know about, but it's just a thing that I made up. But that's what they're doing. This is me explaining what they're actually doing. And if you don't like it... your choice is to put a case on it. That's the only way to get your fingers farther away from that screen surface.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
It's like a robotic core. It's like, Hey, some people want the most minimal phone and they can't get that unless we ship it. You can always add a case. And there, your problem is solved with the people who want the most minimal. Now, you can argue, okay, no one wants it this minimal. Like human fingers are squishy. Like people's fingers are going to overlap.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And I also agree kind of on the 14 Pro, which had pretty big bezels, right?
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
But the 14 Pro that I was using previously, I was constantly finding that somehow some fleshy part of my hand was touching the right edge of the screen when I was in landscape mode and causing YouTube to fast forward because they added that thing where if you like hold on the right edge of the video, it like fast forwards or whatever.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And I'm like, oh, here's some accidental input that I hadn't thought about before. They're getting close to like, is this robotic core too naked? Will everyone who buys this phone need a case? Because again, the idea of naked robotic core is provide the phone that is naked for the people who want it because they can't remove stuff from it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
But at a certain point, it's like, okay, but who wants this? Who wants the bezels to be this small? And if the bezels are going to be that small, maybe the stainless steel, titanium, whatever the hell, aluminum, aluminum and titanium, maybe that band should be thicker. At which point, like, why did you even remove the bezels?
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And now you're just adding them back by making the band thicker or whatever. But it's a thing for Apple to think about. I know they're probably going to try to solve this with software of like, oh, we just need to tweak the touch rejection around the edges, which iOS has had for ages and apparently is slightly buggy with iOS 18.0. But like, I'm not sure that's the solution.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
So they may be approaching kind of like asymptotically approaching the ideal bezel size. Again, setting aside the old like phones. I think Samsung made a few of these and sort of other people where the screen was like a waterfall and it curved over the edge. So you could actually look at the side of the phone and see a portion of the screen.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Yeah, this was from our Photo Workflows member special episode where we all described the way we deal with photos and also our photography equipment. Casey's system was the weirdest, but mine had one step in it that was definitely...
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I don't think that was a great idea either, and I think Apple agrees there. But their current screen and their current bezels are really, really pushing the limit.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
That's notable because I think maybe Gruber even asked this at some thing where he asked a bunch of Apple executives, do you use a case on your phone? That was at the AntennaGate press conference.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Well, they kind of are. The no bezel case is designed for a case. Because if we just assume everyone is going to put a case on this, then we don't want to waste any space inside the case that doesn't have the screen. We'll let the case be the border. And then people can decide how thick a border they want by picking how thick a case they want. They're arguably doing that.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
But the fact that so many Apple executives and so many people in real life continue to use the phone without a case...
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
shows that the caseless scenario is not zeroed out right i mean at the very least if apple executives continue to insist that they don't use cases on their phones at the very least they're living the no case and so is casey the no case the caseless sorry uh lifestyle yep right so it's not it's not like nobody right i mean maybe we should talk to them about what are the percentages is it more people than one an iphone mini huh
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
troubling and problematic and involving it involved me taking screenshots of the photos app and then ocring text out of them because photos does not provide a convenient way to select a bunch of photos and then just copy their file names uh which would be very helpful so many many people sent me uh solutions as i said on the show like oh i think maybe it was casey's gesture so i just use apple script i'm like yeah that would totally work but i hate apple script so much which is true i do
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Spoilers for an upcoming episode, but there is an AskATP that somewhere buried down in our giant queue of AskATP that asks about photo editing. And I will say that this camera control, the photographic styles control that he's talking about, that grid of dots that lets you change things after the fact, is an interesting sort of entry into the photo editing UI spectrum.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Obviously, the one end is like, I never edit my photos. And the other end is like Lightroom, right? Or whatever. And somewhere in the middle is this grid thing, which is...
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
nice in that like Casey doesn't even know what the axes stand for but it doesn't matter because the whole point is you put your thumb on that thing you move it around and you move it around until you like how the picture looks right I mean that's that like there's not that's not so many places you can move it it's like up down left right I don't even know how many rows and columns there are but there's not a million of them right and you move it until the picture looks good to you now I will say that one of the
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
problems with systems like this is people who uh don't have a lot of experiencing editing photos often aren't the best judge of what looks good to them and that may sound ridiculous like of course everyone knows what looks good to them it's their opinion in the moment when you're editing you will stop when it looks good to you but then a year from now when you look back at the picture you may find yourself saying why does this picture look weird why
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Well, it looked good to you when you were using that control at the time you did it. But now looking back, it actually looks kind of odd. It does help to have some understanding of what you're doing to know what goals that you want to get to. It's kind of like, you know, going to the TV store as we talked about before and saying that TV looks amazing.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Yeah, because it's on vivid mode where every color is oversaturated and it's the brightness is cranked up and it looks very striking. But that's not how you want your TV to look.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
experience editing photos will help you avoid sort of the vivid the vivid valley i guess of like oh no i move my thumb on this control until it looked good to me but i didn't realize that i'm making all my pictures look like samsung photographs or everything old old style samsung photographs everything's all blown out and every color is oversaturated and everything is too contrasty or whatever
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Um, but one of the things that a couple of people did is they said, Hey, I hate Apple script too, but I asked chat GPT to write me an Apple script. And I said, you know what? That's a good idea. I do hate Apple scripts, but I use chat GPT all the time for programming stuff. So let's give it a shot. So I went and opened up my own chat GPT window and asked it to write an Apple script for me.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Anyway, you do you. But the beauty of the photographic stylus is if you find out you've made a terrible mistake and your taste in thumb placement on that four-way controller bad, you can always go change it later. And you can even just turn it off and go back to one of the preset modes.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Only a little bit. I need more time with it. So I have played with it. And I decided even before I got this phone that my plan was I'm going to change my default photographic style because I know it's non-destructive. And if I end up not liking it, like the default one that comes to is like called standard, right? That's just like, hey, it's going to look like iPhone pictures.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
This year's iPhone pictures with this OS and this hardware standard, right? And that's what all my previous pictures have been like, obviously. And I mostly like them, but I know what iPhone pictures look like, the processing they do or whatever, and it's not exactly to my taste. I decided that my default photographic style is going to be natural.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
What is the difference between standard and natural? I think they don't overboost the saturation as much. Maybe there's less sharpening. All I know is that it looks closer to how I think I want them to look. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'll take a year's worth of pictures in natural and I'll look back at them and I'll say, you know what? I wish these were all in standard. Well, guess what?
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I can go change them back to standard if I feel that way. But I don't plan on using that big four-way control because I like to edit it in photos, which is maybe one step up from the four-way control. It's not all the way to Lightroom, but I'm familiar with the controls in photos, and I know how to tweak them to look the way I currently like them to look, although that changes over the years.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
See our photos episode that we talked about this. But I'm going to go with natural. I'm going to go with natural as my default, and I'm never going to touch it, and I'm going to see how I like it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I set it to standard or set it to natural rather. And it just stays on natural.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Yeah, I'd never even seen that screen until you mentioned it. I just looked at it. One thing I did do, by the way, just to bring it up more, the preserve settings screen, you know, settings, camera, preserve settings. You have to go to that and turn on the toggle switch for photographic styles if you want the camera app to preserve it. That's what I did.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And it did. And you know, the script didn't work, but you know, it's chat GPT. Sometimes it needs a little bit of help. Like it just got like one or two small things wrong and I fixed them and it was fine. I'm like, Hey, now I have an Apple script. Um,
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I turned on the preserve setting for photographic styles. Then back on the camera app, I used the camera control to swipe over to the natural style, and it just stays unnatural now.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
wait i'm sorry so where's preserve settings it's in that scene i don't see it here it's in settings camera preserve settings and then scroll until you see photographic styles turn that turn that toggle switch on and now whatever setting you set in the camera app for your photographic style if you don't touch that setting again it will just stay on whatever you set it to all right airpods yeah i don't have any new ones so i think this is the john show
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Well, the only new ones that exist are the AirPods 4, and you two are AirPods Pro users because you like things in your ear holes. But I don't. I don't like things in my ear holes, so I got the AirPods 4 with ANC on the box that says AirPods 4. It says AirPods 4, and then it says active noise cancellation, and then the sticker on the box says AirPods 4 with ANC in parentheses or something.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Anyway, these are a different shape than the AirPods 3, which was a different shape than their predecessor AirPods. So it is a new shape for my ears. They don't fall out of my ears. They don't feel as big in my ears as the AirPods 3. Like, they don't feel like they're pushing it out. Like, they are physically smaller, so that makes sense.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
They do feel like they go farther into my ears for what I think are obvious reasons, because to get the noise cancellation to work a little bit better, they want to be a little bit farther into your ears. Overall, I think it's an upgrade in comfort over the previous one, but really it is just mildly... It feels mildly uncomfortable in a different way.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Not uncomfortable, but the part that I feel... Because again, I've been using AirPods 3. I wear them every single day. They're not uncomfortable. They don't hurt my ears, but I can feel which part of my ear are they pressing, and these press a different part, and they go in my ear farther.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And of course, once I've got that Apple script to and by the way, what I wanted the Apple script to do was get the file names of the current selection. Lots of other people saying, oh, we'll get file names of all your favorites. That's, you know, 50,000 photos. Don't do that. Or we'll get the file names of all the favorites within a date range. Then you have to pick a date range.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And for someone who doesn't like things to go inside their ears, that's not great, but it's still better than the ones that actually... Go inside your ears. I do really appreciate the fact that the case is so much smaller. I'm not sure it's back to the original AirPods 1 case size, but it is so much smaller than its predecessor case. Massively smaller than the Pro case.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I wonder if the AirPods Pro 3 will do a case shrink too. They did a case shrink in the straightforward way. They just make there be less case around the AirPods. Like it is essentially thinner around it. So kudos to them for making the case smaller. One of the consequences of having a new case is you have to learn a new way to get the AirPods out of the case.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
With every new shape of AirPods, we all have to learn, when I open this case lid, how the hell do I get these things out of here? And the move has been different for every single kind of AirPod. The Pros, the Originals, the 2s, the 3s. Well, the 2s were the same as one of those things. Anyway. It's a bit different for all of them. This one is same deal.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I could not get them out the way I get the other ones out. Instead, I have to come from the side on an angle, and that's how they come up. It's fine. You just learn it and do it, but it's weird that that's always different. The sound...
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
here's the thing about airpods my my uh daughter in particular but both my kids have you know the people who have the fingers that wear the the letters off the keyboards right my kids have ears that destroy airpods wow and and the way they destroy them well my daughter somehow is able to destroy the microphones i don't know how she does this but it's a thing that happens right we've gone through so many under apple care we just keep getting new ones and she just destroyed anyway
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
But both my kids, the failure mode of their AirPods, and I think now they're using 3s, the previous non-pro models, is that the AirPods just lose all bass. I don't know if it's like a tiny speaker cone tearing, so it's only like the middle part of the driver that's vibrating. It basically becomes all treble because the part that would be bass is gone because the paper has torn or something.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
But I think they've had like three or four pairs, sometimes under warranty, sometimes not, that like...
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
you know i put them in my ears i'm like how are you listening to this it's all treble like the bass is gone don't you realize these are essentially broken and sure enough you've taken them to the apple store they put them in some little test rig and they test them like oh yep these are totally bad like they're not producing sound the way they're supposed to be right i don't know what causes that you can't see inside the airpods but it's a thing uh i don't know if my airpods 3 that i had before have this problem or we're starting to have this problem
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
But what I do know is that the AirPods 4 have so much more bass than my previous AirPods. So much more bass that I went immediately to try to find settings like, is there a way I can turn the bass down? Because this is too much bass for me. Because I'm listening to podcasts and everybody sounds like a newscaster with a super deep voice. So much bass.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
It's like, no, just let me just select the photos. You know, whenever I'm doing my workflow and photos. This during this step, it's very easy for me to simply select the favorites that I've just processed. And, you know, maybe worst case is like 200 photos or something. So I can just, you know, click and then shift click. I've made a selection.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And I know people who have AirPods Pro are like, yeah, that's the right amount of bass, dummy. And you've just been listening to crappy AirPods. It should sound like that.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
i wasn't used to it but listening to music i appreciate it listening to vocals even with voice boost on and overcast i'm like could you turn the bass down a little bit so i wish there was an adjustment for that but i would say this is the result of the airpods 4 having superior sound quality to my own personal airpods 3 which may or may not be in the process of losing bass so there is definitely that um the second thing is with the noise cancellation uh
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
You know, Apple said that their pros are twice as good. That may be underestimating it. The noise cancellation doesn't cancel noise so much as... It changes the nature of the noise. So to give an example, I'm very often listening to my AirPods when doing dishes, and there's the running water sound, right? It's kind of like white noise, kind of running water sound.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
If I put on my gigantic Sony airplane headphones, I could just cancel out that running water sound where it's just basically gone, right? With the AirPods 4, the running water sound is still there... And it is lower volume and it is also of a different nature.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
It is less loud and sort of less shrill, if that makes sense, but you can still absolutely hear it to the point where I was trying to figure out, am I in noise canceling? And it's got, I don't know if the pros have this too, but like it cycles through the different modes and you can, there's like tones that they play. Have you memorized all the tones?
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Yeah, because there's four settings and there's four tones. There's off, which is just like don't do anything, just be whatever. There is transparency, which is take sounds from the outside and play them into my ears through the speakers. That's the bling. Yeah, there is adaptive. which I have no idea and I'll ask you about in a second.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And then there is noise canceling, which is cancel as much noise as possible. And very often I was like, am I in noise canceling? And then I would change the mode and it would like go to off. And I'm like, oh yeah, I was in noise canceling because now everything is much louder and of a different nature.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
But it is nothing like putting on like a big pair of over-ear headphones that I'm sure nothing like having AirPods Pro shoved into your ear hole. So I appreciate the noise cancellation. It is doing something. Don't expect it to do like a real...
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
noise canceling headphones like in other words i would say these are not a replacement for airpods pro or over ear noise canceling on a plane they will probably help a little bit but it's it's like a night and day difference so i would still recommend these i still think they're worth the extra 50 bucks maybe for the case with the speaker alone and i like that it's there
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
But as you would expect from something that doesn't seal your ears in any possible way, there's only so much they can do. Like the bottom line is sound is getting in. The sound can get around the AirPods. There's no seal around the thing. And what I want to ask you guys is I have no idea which one of these four modes I should ever be in.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
With the exception of being in noise canceling mode when I'm home alone in the kitchen doing dishes, which I feel like is safe. Every other context, I'm like, should I be in transparency? Should I be in off? Should I be in adaptive? What the hell is adaptive? So please give me some guidance. Of the four modes that these things can go into, when do you use each mode and why?
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Then I run the script and it can get the file names out of the thing. So that's what I did. I made an Apple script that did that. And of course, once I have an Apple script that does that, you know where I'm going straight to Perl. So I wrote a Perl script that calls the Apple script using the OSA script command line thing or whatever.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I can't tell what Adaptive is trying to do because there's no indicator that I found in the UI and saying, is it noise canceling now? Is it not doing it? Is it adding transparency? I turned off the conversation awareness features that are like, oh, do you want me to lower the volume when you start talking or someone talks to you? That was just – It's not what I want anyway.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
If you're listening to a podcast, I don't want it to duck the volume. I want to pause it myself, which is what I'll do. I guess that Adaptive is trying to be smart, but I cannot tell what it's doing. Especially because the noise canceling is not so dramatic. I'm like... is it doing noise canceling or has it decided not to?
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And then I have to switch modes to go to like either the off mode or the noise canceling mode and compare it to what it was in adapted to tell if it had decided. It's just, it's too much guesswork. So I'm not an adaptive fan right off the bat, but I keep giving it a try in indoor context where I think I'm not going to be hit by a car.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
But anyway, so you're using – you don't even use – do you use off? You just use transparency or noise cancelation?
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
So walking the dog is transparency then? Always, yeah.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
see what i mean i've been walking the dog with essentially off because i haven't had airpods with noise canceling before and if you're listening to a podcast especially with ones that don't seal your ears you can hear the outside world like i don't feel like i need transparency to replay the outside world because again you can just hear it with these airpods in so maybe i'll use off for dog walks but no use transparency just use transparency you can hear better
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
So now what I've written for myself is a Perl script that all I have to do the next time I'm doing this sort of workflow is select the photos that I want. And again, listen to the episode if you want to hear what I'm selecting, whatever, but select the photos that I want. and then run the Perl script. There is no other step.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
trust me it's better just but i don't want the outside world being played at larger volume into my ears when i'm trying to listen to the podcast it's not louder john pump the brakes you're you're thinking way too hard about this just do transparency you're you're you're so wrapped around the axle about it i promise it'll be fine i mean i've tried it like i know what it's like and it does make the outside world more prominent than when it's in off mode
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Well, I mean, for these things that don't seal the ear holes, off is not the same as transparency to my ears.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
If they're not in your ears, like when I go to Bluetooth, it just has like model number, serial number, AppleCare, and forget this device. Yeah, I think they have to be connected. Yeah, right. I'll take it that way. I think I've basically decided that Adaptive is not working for me, but I'll still have to try the other ones. Yeah. One final thing on the case.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And when I run the Perl script, it will get this file names of the ones that are selected from photos using the Apple script. And then for each one of those file names, it will look to see if there's a raw on my mounted SD card with the raws in it. And if there is a raw with that file name, it will copy it and do all the things. So that's going to save me a lot of time and a lot of screenshotting.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
There is no magnetic connection between the AirPods 4 case and the MagSafe puck. At least the original MagSafe pod, which is what I have. I have an original MagSafe pod at my nightstand. And that's because the new case is too small to hit the magnets, right? Because the case curves, right? If you put it on the circuit, you're like, oh, it fills the circle. What's the problem?
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Well, the problem is the parts that are over the magnets are the curved parts, not the flat part. So it does not magnetically align like the old case did simply because it's smaller. It still charges fine. And it even makes a nice little chime, you know, when you know you've done it. Oh, okay.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Yeah, you just put a dead center in the thing. It just doesn't like magnetically align itself with the MagSafe thing because it can't. But it does magnetically align itself with the Apple Watch charger. And like in an offset, like if you put on an Apple Watch charger, it snaps right to where it's supposed to go.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And it's not centered like where it wants to be in the Apple Watch charger is like in the lower portion of it, but it will snap right to it. So that's just something to keep in mind. I don't think it's a problem. Again, I love the small case. I totally endorse it. But Apple has sort of outrun themselves.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Maybe, maybe with the new, since you mentioned the new one is narrower, maybe the new one does magnetically align it because it's that much smaller, but I haven't tried it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Now, having said that, oh, and by the way, I will link in the show notes to my Apple script. It's not very exciting. It's exactly what ChatGPT would give you with like one bug fixed. So anyway, it's very straightforward, but I just really hate Apple script. And I'm glad ChatGPT did it for me because I wouldn't want to have to look up all that stuff.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Well, if you had the large size of the previous watch, I think you would have noticed both the angle and the thickness. Because I watched a YouTube video of them comparing. It was the Max Tech channel. They were comparing the Series 10 with the Series 9 of the same sort of size class. And the Series 10 looked dramatically thinner.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Just setting aside the little blister on the bottom for the sensors, just the body of it looked thinner. And the same thing with the viewing angle. If you take your old and your new and put them on the same surface and just tilt your head to go at an angle, I think you'll notice a difference. I have been looking for YouTube videos of someone taking, like, a magnifier to this to see if it's MLA.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Seems like the consensus is no. No one has taken a magnifier to it, but... A lot of people have said, first of all, a lot of people are saying that MLA doesn't actually improve viewing angles because it mostly just makes it brighter from the front.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
It does make it brighter from the front, but I think it also helps viewing angles if only because they're getting rid of like the color tint and sending light off in other directions. But I'm going to guess, I mean, I'm still looking for evidence.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
There'll be follow-up next week if I find some, but I'm going to guess that it's actually not MLA, but simply just a better LTP03, whatever OLED, but still inconclusive. No one on YouTube cares about this enough to take a magnifier to it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I like the speaker holes on the Series 10. I like how instead of being a speaker slot, there's these tiny little holes. It looks much nicer and hopefully less likely to clog with dust.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Again, testing on YouTube, it seems to be about the same volume as the Ultra, which was the previous Speaker King. And the Ultra has gigantic speaker holes because it's a big, chunky watch. But this one has very tiny, elegant, and numerous speaker holes. And apparently, it gets just as loud as the Ultra.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
So she didn't want one on day one. I wonder if she'll change her mind when she sees them in real life. I did tell her that the new ones don't have blood oxygen. Her current one does. I don't know if she cares about that. But bottom line is, no, she didn't order one. We'll see how long this lasts.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
That's right. That's why at the end of it you'll see I'm emitting the file names one per line. as opposed to comma separated or as JSON or whatever. One per line is straightforward. I promise to never have new lines in my file names, right? It'll just, it'll be fine. Yeah. Yeah. I just want text output to standard standard out. And then I just feed that into Perl, you know,
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
it's it's my preferred way of doing things all right now on to all the many many suggestions people sent because so many people sent suggestions i hope an equal or greater number of people sent suggestions to casey but i don't know what casey sees all i know is what i see and i saw a bazillion suggestions for this one step in my workflow by far the most popular which boggles my mind was hey why don't you just export all the photos because once you've exported them to the finder then you can just select them in the finder and hit copy or you can do you know once they're files in the file system there's a million ways to get the file names from them you know what i mean
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Plus you get the bigger battery, which has been a concern for you.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
The big series 10 is basically a curved ultra. Like I think it might even be wider than the ultra. Like it is because they learned that people like the big screen on the ultra, but this is not as nearly as thick as the ultra. That is the big difference in this. And by the way, another change on the series 10 that I saw in some videos is that
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Whatever they call the button on the side, not the crown, but, like, the button that you press, that button is way bigger now. Compare it, like, to a Series 9 of the same sign class, and look how big that button is on a 10 versus the 9. I don't know. Which, I mean, I think is a good improvement because, like, why make it so small?
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
But yeah, they made the button bigger, which I think they should. Like, there's no reason to keep it as small. It's, you know, make the whole area where you're going to press be easier to press. I don't have an Apple Watch. My wife has many, many Apple Watches that she's handed down to the kids that she's gotten new ones.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
But I did the other day take out for curiosity and just to see if it would still work my Series Zero. My Series Zero Apple Watch, the only Apple Watch I ever purchased for myself. It is a stainless steel, silver stainless steel one. And I wanted to know if it was dead. And good news, it's not dead. And I charged it up and it still looks great as long as you don't look at the screen.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
uh yeah that would work but why in the world export photos and make it like you know you can you do it small size they won't take up a lot of room you know but why would i make it do all that work why is empathy for the machine why would i make it like recompress export make a bunch of files just so i can get the file names and then delete the things oh no no that's i mean yes that technically that would absolutely work
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I know why car makers keep doing this. We've talked about it before, especially in the context of Tesla early on, that when car makers make an electric vehicle, they feel compelled. To do things to make it seem futuristic. And I was hoping that would be something that car makers would get over after a few years or a decade or whatever. But they just can't stop doing it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Door handles are the obvious victim here. Can we just have normal door handles? No, it's an EV. They have to be annoying, hard to use, problematic door handles. It's been just an epidemic. Everyone keeps copying it. No one has figured out, hey, just make normal door handles. Going back to normal. But no, they can't. They can't stop doing it. They make all sorts of excuses or whatever.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Anyway, that extends to many other parts of the car. On the Volvo EX90, and I like these cars. I like, you know, as far as SUV goes, I think they're nice looking. They have good features or whatever. But Volvo, like you said, decided to make an electric version of Casey's car. All electric, battery powered EV, right? And for the most part, it looks like the regular one, right?
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
It doesn't, they didn't do anything weird with the styling. I forget if they have messed up door handles, but who cares at this point? I just, you know, it's invisible to me. What drove me insane was that they said, you know what? Is there some other part of the car that we can screw up because it's an EV? We have the XC90, and it's a perfectly nice car. Could we just make that an EV? No, wait.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Is there some part of the car that previously had no problems with it that we can screw up because it's an EV? And they said, yes, yes, we can. And you know what they screwed up? If you haven't seen reviews of this car, maybe you don't know, because if you look at a picture of it, you're like, oh, it seems fine. It looks kind of like my XC90.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
and some might find it preferable to what I was doing with OCRing, but at least when I was OCRing, I was making one screenshot for dozens and dozens of photos because I have a very big screen, right? Exporting the files. Everyone suggested that. I mean, I guess if you're not in a kind of like... I'm going to write an automation script mindset. This is the most straightforward way to do it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
They decided that they're going to screw up the headlights. Oh, stop. It's fun. No, no. Let me tell you. All right. So headlights, there are things on the front of your car that light up, right? And over the years, we've done lots of different things with headlights. We talked about it on a previous episode that Mercedes used to have little windshield wipers and little sprayers to go on them.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
BMW probably did it as well. All the German car makers had little windshield wipers. It's like, hey, if you're going on the road and dirt flies up on your headlights, not as much light will get out. So we'll try to clean them off.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
modern cars tend not to do that it's kind of out of fashion but they're more aerodynamic shaped and we have led lights which of course can be smaller but just as bright and we have matrix leds all sorts of advances trying to make lights better to serve you better and volvo said but this is an ev let's screw them up in some way and so what they decided to do was for their headlights
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
You have to have daytime running lights for laws in various places, which are just lights that are on when you're just driving around. But then you have the headlight part of it. And they said, what we can do is we'll have the daytime running lights where the headlights normally are. In the little Thor's hammer Volvo design, we're going to have little matrix LED daytime running lights.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
But they'll be where the headlights are. And you may be asking, but then where do you put the headlights? If you put the daytime running lights right where the headlights were going to be.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
And how do you get to the headlights? You know, if you're in the car and you turn on the headlights, or you probably don't because it's just auto mode or whatever, it gets too dark and you need the headlights to be turned on, what happens is that the Thor's Hammer daytime running lights open like a mouth.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Mechanical shutters move vertically up and down to open a cavity that contains the actual headlights.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
what they have reinvented pop-up headlights from the 80s but 10 times worse because they have mechanical things that need to open for your headlights to work at all because your headlights are 100 blocked when this mouth is closed in front of each things so they have to have a little thing that slides up and a little thing that slides down to reveal your headlights and then what that opens is a cavity in the front of your car that presumably can fill with snow and ice and slush and whatever and screw up the mechanism that has to constantly open and close for the headlights
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Hey, you want file names? Make files. They've got names. Boom. Problem solved. But no, I'm not. That solution I reject. Some other people suggested using shortcuts, which is sort of the modern sort of AppleScript type equivalent. We'll put a link in the show notes to an example one from Josh Woodward. Shortcuts can totally do all the stuff, I'm sure.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
No, no, no. Where the mouth parts used to be is now a cavity because they used to be filling that spot. So there is another two inches. If you take a stick and you poke it in this car and it hits daytime running lights and you open the mouth, you can push that stick in two more inches. No, it looks like John. That's where the little things used to be.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Yes, there is, but the thickness of the shutters is now gone, right? That's the cavity. And why is that cavity important? Because when the mouth has to close, if there's anything in that one or two inches, now they're squishing it, and now you're getting crap in between the little shutters. How is something getting in there? Here's the thing.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
here here's the thing nothing this is not a problem right that needed to be solved they have made it an overly complicated thing on a safety feature of the car which is the headlights this was not a problem anyone had they didn't say we have no place to put the headlights what are we going to do we have to make up these shutters it's just a mechanical thing it's a moving part they can possibly fail and have things stuck into the crevices or whatever for no reason it's like the door handles that are like you know
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
rise out to greet you like there was nothing wrong with the door handle that you could just grab you just made an additional failure point for no benefit this wasn't there is no problem being solved here except for someone thinking this was cool and for volvo a brand that is not known for this especially again for a safety feature to decide they want a mechanical moving part again have we learned nothing from pop-up headlights of seeing the whatever the game used to play when you see a car with one headlight and you punch somebody or whatever
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Because pop-up headlights would get stuck down or stuck up, which was again a safety issue. Mechanical things that move when they don't have to is just asking for an additional failure. This is one of the most shockingly bad ideas from a company that I expect better of. Tesla... By all means, I would expect them to do this or worse, right? But Volvo, what are you doing, Volvo?
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
The XC90 has, I think, A, more attractive headlights than the EX90. I think they just look nicer in both modes, but especially in the open modes. And B, guess what? No moving parts. It's just a headlight. It just sits there on the car and it just shines light. And that's all it needs to do when it does everything. You've got the daytime running lights. You've got the headlights.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
You've got everything. Everything was fine. This didn't need to be changed. I'm just unreasonably angry about this. You are. And it makes me, it crosses this whole car off my list. I will never recommend this to anybody until they fix these headlights because it's insanity.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Shortcuts, I find, I'm even more allergic to than AppleScript because I'm a programmer. And at least AppleScript lets me sort of kind of do programming, but shortcuts... It makes me arrange widgets in a GUI instead of programming. And I'm glad that it exists, and I'm glad that it is very powerful. It can do lots of things, and I'm glad a lot of people like it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
poke i see i see what you're saying in the thing it's hard to see in the video that i'm going to link in the show notes but i see what you're saying if that's the case and things won't get in there you can redact that part of my complaint but every other part of it in terms of the moving parts that can fail still stands because have you ever gotten condensation inside a headlight or a taillight those things are supposed to be sealed but even on very expensive cars they aren't always
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
no like you are right that this is needlessly mechanically complicated correct your risk profile assessment is wrong because it does appear to be sealed but here's the thing about the risk this is an unnecessary this is a choice to have any additional risk over what was previously there you know what i'm saying like the other one does not have any doors that have to move open at all so like any additional risk even if it's tiny is just foolish and and by the way do you think it makes these headlights cheaper to replace i don't think it does oh that's gotta be a thousand dollar assembly right
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Oh, more than that. Are you kidding? You have not priced a headlight recently. No, I guess not. Do not look up how much your headlights cost on your new car.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I looked it up. I told you, don't look it up. Oh, my God. For your car or the Volvo?
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Don't hit a stump. Oh, my God. You should see what the headlights cost on like a Lamborghini. Each headlight, it costs as much as my car.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
The Lamborghinis that you two don't know the names of because they're too new.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
That's why we use LEDs. We make advances to make headlights better. And they've decided to voluntarily make them worse and more expensive.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
I don't even think they look cool. That's the thing. And by the way, I just Googled this one just to give you the number. The Bugatti Chiron. You may have heard of this. It is the Veyron's successor. It is not the latest Bugatti because they have a new one that's coming out soon. But anyway, the Chiron. The Bugatti Chiron. Are you familiar with this car? Google for Bugatti C-H-I-R-O-N.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Would you like to guess how much a headlight costs for that car?
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Not for me, but we'll put an example in there. Mootly suggested a Python project, which we'll link to in the show notes, called OSX, OS10, whatever, OSX Photos. And it's a command line utility that talks directly to the photos database. And it can do all sorts of stuff. It can output stuff as CSV or JSON. And you can also, of course, query the SQLite database that is behind photos yourself.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
164 000 what for for one headlight i think that might be for both of them but you can double check how much is the whole car like a million bucks i think it's like three million oh my god let me see if it's per let's see uh what kind of light i think it's for both of them so it's a bargain you're getting two for 164 oh that's that's very very nice of them so again don't get a stump with your bugatti chiron
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
For some reason that I don't understand that someone from Apple will surely write in and tell us about all the tables that are interesting in the SQLite database beginning with the letter Z. Is it like a core data thing or something? I think so. Yeah. Yeah.
Accidental Tech Podcast
606: A Decade of Half-Presses
Anyway, the Z asset table has the info you want, but this Python command line utility will just basically bypass everything and let you just query the database. I don't think I actually want that because I imagine the current selection isn't reflected in the database, but I could be wrong about that.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
This is in comparison to AirPods 3, which gets six hours of listening time with a single charge and five hours with personalized spatial audio enabled. So it's a decrease of one hour. It's not a direct apples to apples comparison, but effectively a decrease of one hour in each department.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
All right. Steve Stutz writes in with regard to the 16 versus 16 Pro. Steve writes, could you go in a little more detail about why none of you would get the non-Pro iPhone 16, even though all of you seem very impressed with it? What is it lacking that makes it a no-go? For me, this is one very simple answer. 5X. I want that deep, deep zoom.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
I will do what it takes, as you see from this year, or in the year of iPhones that's now ending. I got the big phone because I really wanted that 5X. And that was all it was for me. That being said, those colors are so... I know we talked about this. The colors are so good on the non-pros that it really made me think. And as we talked about last week, they really are so good.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
But I desperately want that 5X. Even though I know it's not the best fidelity in the world... having the ability to have some pretty strong and deep reach with my phone optical reach, that is worth the price of admission for me in every sense of the word. Marco, what was your excuse on this one?
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
Do you want me to explain or would you rather that be an exercise for the listener?
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
Truth be told, I was slightly worried. I really felt like I wasn't offending anyone with this, but you never know. You never know. And people have very strong feelings about local foods or, you know, what their area is known for.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
Apple's new phones are going to charge faster, which is exciting. So I believe this is a report from Verge, but the entire iPhone 16 lineup can now charge at up to 45 watts, which is up from 29 watts. The 45 watt max of the iPhone 16 easily bests the Google Pixel 9's 27 watts or 37 watts for the Pixel 9 Pro XL. and is on par with the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
But these all fall significantly short of the 240 watt, my word, plus fast charging capabilities of some Chinese phones. But still, that's pretty cool. I don't fast charge my phone often, but hoo boy, when you need to top up in a hurry with quickness, it is so genuinely convenient to have that as an option. And I'm really glad to hear that
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
Not only is it continuing to be an option, which I expected, but now you can do it even faster. Now, I think at this point, everyone is reaching for their email clients to say, oh, but that destroys your battery longevity. And that's why I don't do it very often. But I do love that this is a thing that we can do from time to time. And I forget if we talked about this last week. I think we did.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
But MagSafe 2 or MagSafe 2 Plus, whatever they're calling the newest one. Yeah, we did talk about it. That also charges a bit faster. I don't recall the figure off top my head.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
And I thought, if you'll allow me to explain just one, I thought the bowl of rice for San Francisco, which was supposed to be rice-a-roni, you know, the San Francisco treat. Ugh! I thought that might be stretching a little bit, and I thought I would get some grumbling about that. But either it was so oblique that nobody caught it or nobody minded. So I'm happy with that.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
Pilif in the chat says I probably would have used the avocado for California. Honestly, I probably should have used the avocado. It didn't cross my mind until Pilif said that, but that would have been a better choice.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
I was a little... I was trying to go for all food items because I felt like that was the least offensive thing to use and yet still kind of have a little laugh at all these different time zones. And then I got to Mountain Time... And then I had nothing. In terms of food specifically, what is that strip of vertical space in the United States? I think Las Vegas is Mountain Time. Is that right?
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
Right. So this is a report from 9to5Mac. The slug is lower iPhone 16 Pro demand. And so according to Quo, the iPhone 16 Pro Max is down 16% compared to last year. The Pro is down 27%. The Plus is up 50%. And the 16, just plain vanilla 16, is up 10% as well. I'm telling you, those colors...
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
We talked just a moment ago about connecting via cable. And I've been really unreasonably excited to try this for migration this year because migration is always such like a bummer. And I am of the opinion that doing a phone-to-phone migration is what I typically do. I'll typically start by doing an encrypted backup to my computer just as a backup.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
The key here is to do an encrypted password-protected one because then that saves all your Wi-Fi passwords and things of that nature. And I'll try to do that the night before I get the new phone. But then for actually transferring, I typically do a phone-to-phone transfer. And it usually works really well, but takes something like two to three hours. It takes forever.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
And I was debating between trying... a couple of, like, USB-C Ethernet dongles and, you know, putting them both on Ethernet on, you know, on the same network, seeing if that was faster. But actually, looking at this, I might be able to just connect phone-to-phone with, you know, a standard USB-3 USB-C cable. So...
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
On Apple's comparison page, you can see the differences between the different phones.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
And I will say that another benefit of the Pro is that the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max feature the USB 3 connections that are capable up to 10 gigabits per second, whereas the 16 and 16 Plus are the lowly USB 2.0 from 804 years ago with speeds up to 480 megabits per second, which is 20 times slower than the Pro phones. Wow. So I'm going to give that a shot.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
I'm going to do I'm going to probably use the hilariously expensive Apple Thunderbolt USB-C cable, which is completely unnecessary. But just so I know that the cable is not the problem and we'll see how it goes. And I'll probably stick them on ice packs, like Marco said.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
And then Dave Mark had a really good reminder, and by that I mean a piece of information I was not aware of. We've talked about it on the show, Casey.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
It was a long time ago, John. It was more than an hour ago.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
Title. So for those of us who are buying new Apple devices, there's a support document we'll put in the show notes and reading from that. If you buy a new iPhone or iPad and don't have enough iCloud storage to back up your current device using iCloud backup, you are eligible to get temporary iCloud storage.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
So they will give you enough time, which apparently all of us knew, they will give you like a month or something like that and give you basically, you know, unlimited asterisk dagger, double dagger storage for the purposes of just transferring your device. And then once the transfer is complete, they will reclaim that storage on their end and you will lose it. But that's really cool.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
uh so i was trying to think of some food item and you know colorado's mountain time well they don't have um uh bull testicles oh my god what is that rocky mountain oysters yeah is that right um uh yeah uh uh hoovy and john in the chat is saying a chili pepper for like um what is that like new mexico that would have been a good option actually i didn't think about that but i mean it wasn't perfect i was doing it on the fly but i i was pretty satisfied when it was all said and done
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
Stu Mashwitz writes with regard to HDR still images. Preview absolutely does support HDR display still images. Try any sample at EXR or HDR file you can find. I've got an EXR test pattern you can download and we'll put a link in the show notes.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
Breaking news as of just a day or two back, Apple has received their FDA Food and Drug Administration authorization to turn the AirPods Pro into hearing aids. Reading from The Verge, just days after Apple announced a new hearing aid feature for the second generation AirPods Pro, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, has authorized the software that powers this functionality.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
In a press release, the FDA describes Apple's solution as, quote, the first over-the-counter hearing aid software device. Very good stuff. Very, very good stuff.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
With regard to the watch bands, the new watch bands, particularly the Milanese Loop, I think, or even maybe a couple others, Wolf writes that the watch band really is titanium. It's inspired by the steel version, but the band is all about the titanium. That's what it says in the description at the Apple Store, which reads the titanium Milanese Loop, Milanese, Milanese, whatever.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
It features aerospace-grade titanium mesh with a secure parachute-style buckle inspired by stainless steel mesh historically used by divers and designed for ocean activities. Made of lightweight titanium, it's perfect for any occasion.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
I did not catch that. Thank you for the clarification. And speaking of watch bands, Josh Harris writes, this is the first time that Apple sold a gold-colored link bracelet. The only other one they made was the 24-karat gold version given away to celebrities with the launch of the Series Zero. As a gold fan, I was pleased to see it's finally official. Wonder why it took so long.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I am not a gold fan, but I am happy for Josh.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
I also particularly liked Australia's, and I'll leave that as an exercise for the listeners.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
And then coming back to Case Corner, the third-party iPhone 16 cases. You had had opinions, John, about what to do with the flash. Do you want to tell us about this? I mean, I know we talked about it last week, but do you want to...
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
So Apple Intelligence is not officially a thing yet. You know, it's in beta. And we saw a post from Joe Kimberlin who had screenshot a series of toots from a friend of the show, Ben Rice. Ben Rice McCarthy, excuse me. And so the summary was Ben had shared UK-based museum recommendations. And then Joe had put in the...
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
the the toots that that comprised this which was ben favoriting something that said finally uh somebody else favoriting something that related to museums and that same person favoring favor mentioning that's not for some of us like you have to look at these i'm not doing a great job it doesn't mention museums so here's the thing here's here's no it does it's at museum shuffle
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
I am traveling tomorrow. And where am I going? I am going to Memphis, Tennessee. And why am I doing it? Because September is National Childhood Care, maybe International Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. And this coming Friday... If possible, I will put a link in the show notes.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
It may not be there when this episode is released, but I will do my best to put a link in the show notes to a YouTube video that will be premiering on Friday. Well, it'll be live on Friday. And so I'm going to Memphis to St. Jude to help raise money to help prevent and stop childhood cancer. I'm going to be participating in the Relay Podcast-a-thon. It'll be myself, Mike Hurley, Stephen Hackett.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
Yeah, so Cable writes, testing Apple intelligence on my Mac has led to many existential feature questions, with an asterisk, which we'll get to. But it definitely is funny how it has it out for my dad. And so this is a screenshot of conversations with two people, Megan and Stephen. And the summary is, agree with Cable. Stephen responds with nonsense.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
Lovely. The aforementioned asterisk, why? How does this help? I'm still opening the emails and the messages regardless of the summaries. In fact, I'm more likely to open them more urgently, interrupting my work quicker because the summaries can sometimes miss key information and I don't want my brain to think I read them when I didn't.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
Kathy Campbell, Jason Snell, and we're all going to be on YouTube Live for 12 hours starting at noon on this coming Friday. This coming Friday would be the 20th from noon until midnight Eastern time. And so you can tune in, you can drop in and out. I'd love it for you to watch all of it, but I mean, that's a long time. So drop in and out as you can. It should be really fun.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
The emails that prioritize this for me are often just emails about canceled calendar events already reflected on my calendar. So what is the goal? To read my email less? How does this help that goal?
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
All right. And then front of the show, Zach Kahn writes with regard to Apple podcast charts. I think this was an ask ATP a few weeks ago or something like that. Um, asking, you know, Hey, does following on overcast or Apple podcast or what have you, does that actually help? And so if you'd like, you can dig into the specifics behind that.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
But Zach provided three different links, uh, with regard to how all that works behind the scenes. And I'm happy that Apple provides this.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
Yeah, I think actually this section is a really, really, really great summary of both what it looks at and why. So this is from the link that we've phrased a summary in the show notes. And it says, "'Top shows and top episodes. While the exact algorithm cannot be shared to protect its integrity, the charts measure a mix of the following. Listening.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
I've never been there for it before. I've watched them, but I've never been there. So it should be a very fun time and I'm super duper excited and we're hoping to raise some money. So hey, Here's the thing. For the fifth year in a row, Relay is trying to come together to support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Since 2019, we have raised well over $3 million. That is awesome.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
When listeners are engaging with episodes, it's an indicator of content popularity. Follows. When listeners follow a show to receive new episodes, it's an indicator of their intent to listen.' completion rate. When listeners complete episodes, it's an indicator of content quality. I like that. I mean, it makes sense.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
Now, granted, it's not super specific, but I like that not only do they say this is what we're doing, but here's also why we're doing it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
Then finally, for follow-up, Huawei has a newspaper phone. It's a tri-fold. It's so ridiculous. But, I mean, hey, if you like it, you like it. The replacement of this, or the screen replacement of this, or no, not the screen replacement, excuse me, the whole phone is quite expensive.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
So reading from The Verge, Huawei has officially announced the world's first dual-hinged triple-screen foldable phone in China. The prices for the Mate XT Ultimate Design start at 19,999 yuan, or about... $2,809 for the 25-gig storage model. That's roughly $300 more than a brand-new 16-inch MacBook Pro.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
All models are equipped with 16 gigs of RAM, and two additional storage variants are available that cost $22,000 or about $3,000 for 512 gigs, and $24,000 or about $3,300 for one terabyte. The Chinese retailer Vimal reported 3.7 million pre-orders before pricing was announced. Whoops, oopsies.
Accidental Tech Podcast
605: Manage the Moisture Situation
This ad copy is just a couple of weeks old, and it said over $2.2 million. Oh, no, baby. We're over $3 million, and comfortably so. And that's super awesome. So here's the thing. It's estimated that more than 400,000 children worldwide develop cancer each year, and nearly half of them are never diagnosed. In the U.S. alone, more than four out of five children can survive cancer.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Yep. Agreed on all counts. All right. Apparently Apple is doing activation locks on individual iPhone components. So reading this a bit long, but it's, I think it's worth it reading from nine to five Mac in 2013, Apple's introduction to find my wiped out a huge chunk of the market for stolen iPhones, since they could no longer be simply reset and sold as a working phone.
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All the thief could do from that point on was strip an iPhone for parts and Back in April, Apple announced that it would be addressing that issue by extending activation lock to key iPhone components. Requested by customers and law enforcement officials, the feature was designed to limit iPhone theft by blocking a lost or stolen iPhone from being reactivated.
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If a device under repair detects that a supported part was obtained from another device without an activation lock or loss mode enabled, calibration capabilities for that part will be restricted. The release candidate builds of iOS 18 enable activation lock for iPhone parts.
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The feature, as previously described by Apple, links to your Apple account not only to your iPhone, but also to components such as the battery, cameras, and display, based on their individual serial numbers.
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It won't completely solve the problem, of course, as it doesn't cover all components, and there may be some who will accept a lack of calibration and annoying alert messages in return for a cheap repair. But it will make a huge dent in the market for stolen iPhones, because most people won't buy a device with obvious issues, especially when those issues suggest it may contain stolen parts.
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The downside, of course, is that the move makes it harder to repair an iPhone using parts harvested from legitimately acquired, broken devices. Apple has already introduced the ability to remove activation locks from Macs when wiping them rather than when setting them up as new.
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This is coming to Apple Business Manager 2, so enterprise companies and customers, excuse me, will be able to remove activation lock from entire batches of managed devices when preparing them for sale. All that is needed now is to ensure that this also covers activation lock for parts.
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On the one side, this obviously is a real bummer for, you know, third party people that are legitimate and are just trying to get cheaper repairs by, you know, harvesting a phone for parts that maybe the screen is shattered because I was washing my car or something like that. And yet the camera is fine. And I get that that's a real bummer for them.
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But in many developing countries, that statistic is reversed, and fewer than one out of five children diagnosed with cancer will live. And I speak for all of us here at ATP in saying, that sucks. We don't like that. So... Here's the thing. The most significant predictor of whether a child will survive cancer is where that child lives. And so starting in 2018, St.
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But I would say that broadly, this strikes me as a pretty good idea.
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Jude became the first and only World Health Organization collaborating center for childhood cancer. And so the goal of this, of the WHO, the World Health Organization Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer, is to raise the survival rate of six common childhood cancers to 60% by 2030. And man, that time is approaching. Ask Apple, too. So in 2021... St.
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Yeah, it's unfortunate that this has to be a thing, but here we are, and Apple's doing their best to try to ride the line between blocking out third-party repair shops and whatnot and also just helping us not get our phones stolen, which would be preferred.
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Jude and the WHO launched this global platform for access to childhood cancer medicines. It aims to provide free chemotherapy medicines for the next few years to as many as 120,000 children around the world with cancer. And St. Jude is currently piloting that.
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All right, let's do some Ask ATP. And Jov Zoldan writes, how do you explain to non-tech people, especially family, that your iPhone does not listen to you to show you ads? I can never get them to believe me. I think cross-site tracking is hard to understand and the conspiracy theory is more attractive. Do you know of an easy to understand explainer video maybe?
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Well, this got complicated in the time between we added this to the show notes and... when we started talking about it just now, because there's been a couple of news reports. The title's Cox Media Group brags it spies on users with device microphones to sell targeted ads, but it's not clear they actually can. That was from Tech Dirt. We'll put a link in the show notes. And then from 404 Media,
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Here's the pitch deck for, quote, active listening, quote, ad targeting, which is also not great. So I don't really know how to answer this question anymore, to be completely honest with you.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And in this past April, they met with representatives from the program's first few countries to figure out the logistical details of how the process would work to get the medicines from ports of entry to hospitals. You can read a whole bunch more about this at St. Jude's website. But here's the thing. How do they do all that? They do that because people like you and me give them money.
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It doesn't have to be $10,000 plus, although feel free. It can be $10. And that's also awesome. And as we record, this is the week that we're all, well, not all of us, but many of us are getting new toys. And Marco, you have thoughts about these new toys. Tell me about them.
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All right. Peter Wagner writes, it's been four years since MagSafe came out for the iPhone. I'd love to hear your take on the current state of MagSafe and your thoughts on it as part of the iPhone ecosystem. I really love... Qi charging. And I personally use Qi charging every night to charge my phone. MagSafe specifically, I also like, but I think that isn't as important to me as the Qi charging.
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Although now that I say that, I look at my Pro Max with its pop socket on the back, and I wonder if I'm doing MagSafe a dirty by saying it's not that important to me. Because actually... Having something that I can, no, you know, I take this all back. Don't worry, we'll fix it in post.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Actually, now that I think about this, between the pop socket that I probably will give up once I get my human-sized phone, but also the MagSafe battery pack that Apple made years ago that I got kind of on a lark because you two jerks wouldn't buy one, and I figured one of the three of us should, that I actually freaking love. I don't use it that often, but oh my word, is it nice when I do need it.
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Um, that's really nice. And the Qi charging. So yeah, actually I take it all back. I'm, I'm all in on MagSafe. I think it's quite good.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Jonathan Cirillo writes, what are your credit card setups? For example, Amex Gold for X, Apple Card for Y, etc. For me, I feel like we've talked about this at some point in the past, but for me, Aaron and I share, and this obviously is what works for us. It won't work for everyone. We share one primary checking account, one primary savings account.
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Obviously, we have investments and other things like that. And then one primary credit card. And so when we were both working years, like traditionally working years and years ago, 95% of our paychecks went into that shared account. And that's what pays the bills. That's what pays for food and everything else.
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And then we would siphon off just a little bit to personal credit cards that only we individually have access to, which are basically used for either, I really want to buy this and I don't want to hear you complaining about it for either of us, or I'm buying you a gift and I don't want you to know about it. And so that's basically our setup. It's very boring.
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The credit card we have gives us a little bit of cash back, I'm sure I could be maximizing my points and whatnot, and so on and so forth. But that's not a game I've ever really gotten into. So my setup is really boring. Basically, we share the same credit card account, all basically all our retail purchases go on that, and then we pay it off every month. And that's basically it.
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Real-time follow-up from the chat. Apparently, card.apple.com. Thanks to Zach Knox. That is a thing, apparently.
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So to do that, please go to stjude.org slash ATP, S-T-J-U-D-E dot org slash ATP, and you can donate, again, as little or as much as you want. Here's the thing, St. Jude won't stop until no child dies from cancer. With your support, we'll be one step closer to that day, one cure closer, one child closer. This month and every month, let's cure childhood cancer together.
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Okay. Now, to the degree you're willing to share, did you call in favors? Did you get special treatment? What is going on?
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Please do donate, stjude.org slash ATP. We have other fun announcements. We recorded a new member special, and we don't need to talk about it because I don't want to hear the feedback. So moving on.
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What are the odds? You're not making this up. This really genuinely happened. That's incredible. This is worth the reveal. Oh my God, this is so good. Now I'm going to be mad if you did sell the damn thing.
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Right. So what we did was we recorded ATP Insider photo workflows. And this is where the three of us detail our photo workflows, which I think as it ended up went from most bananas to least bananas, maybe, possibly. I think unquestionably mine is the most bananas by a very comfortable margin.
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He's coming from a banana. We know he doesn't care what it looks like on the outside.
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And so I am expecting that most of my time in Memphis, people will be making merciless fun of me for my bananas.
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Oh, it doesn't look that blue. That's why. I was looking for the blue.
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For the love of God, John, there are cars other than Hondas.
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We'll see. I don't know. It's anyone's guess. But yes, ATP Insider Photo Workflows. And so here's the thing. In order to hear all of these member specials, of which just off the top of my head, there's probably been 15-ish at this point, something like that. If you want to hear all of them, you can go to ATP.fm slash join.
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You can join the program for a little bit of money each month or a little bit more for a whole year at a time. And you can check all of these out. And we would love to have you. And you can also get the bootleg. the ad-free version of the show, if that's your thing. So check out atp.fm slash join. All right. John, I believe you wanted to start the program with your apology tour. Is that correct?
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Actually, that's not what I was. I don't know where you're going with this. I'm talking about the camera control and how right Marco and I were.
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Yeah, and Marco and I unequivocally stated that it does indeed move.
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All right. And then what did you get wrong?
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I see. I think this is a distinction without a difference, but I'll let it slide.
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Good grief. Well, congratulations on the new car.
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We will see. Well, congratulations. I can't believe that either of us went crawling back to BMW. And honestly, I'm not sure if I would have expected me or you to go first, but here we are.
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And I'm like, oh, that's Casey. That is more on brand. I will absolutely...
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AirPods 4 listening time. Also, breaking news, we're being told in the chat that the embargo has dropped on AirPods 4, perhaps AirPods Pro. No, I think it's AirPods 4. We haven't obviously had the chance to read any of them. But with regard to listening time.
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Fair question. Reference acknowledged. I think it might be both. But in any case, we have some listening time updates. This is from the AirPods 4 specs page, which we will link in the show notes. You get up to five hours of listening time on a single charge or four hours of listening time on a single charge with ANC enabled on these AirPods.
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No, they didn't mention anything about buying one. They didn't tell me anything about it. They didn't tell me the price. They didn't tell me I could buy one. They were just completely uninterested in selling me this thing.
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Here's one of the problems with getting feedback on Mastodon is that we all see the stuff that at mentions ATP FM, but I only see the stuff that just at mentions me and you only see the stuff that just at mentions you. So we're actually not looking at the same pool. So that does complicate things.
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And some people just like to use a single window app while sitting on a mountain lake or whatever. There are people who like it, and there are things that it does besides just... I mean, we kind of talk about it not exclusively as a content consumption platform, but very heavily as that because it's one of the things that it does better than anything else.
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But it also runs the apps that are available for it. And yeah, you can run apps elsewhere too, but you can't quite run them in the same way surrounded by a picturesque forest or whatever. And some people like that and find it very... a very new and interesting and useful way to work.
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So there is that, but it is, boy, it's a pretty expensive way to get one window floating in the air in front of you over like
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Am I the type of person that sounds to you like I would buy the crappiest piece of technology I can find with no research behind it? Which may, by the way, also be the reason that I ended up with the best reviewed version of this storage media piece of hardware rather than just buying something random or getting the Apple one. Oh my gosh.
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Although I did, seeing this video did make me wonder, do I still have that in my attic or did I finally get rid of it? I kept it for a really long time because it was so expensive because it was like the fancy one, you know, like the, you know, the best reviewed, you know, especially the beginning of ****. Like this was before like the 52X or whatever. Beep.
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sorry sorry it's hard to do um but yeah i don't even know if i still have that if i still had it it's probably because it was so expensive that i just wanted to keep it because it's like i spent all my i don't remember what it was that was my allowance i was older than that but still i spent a lot of money on it so it has sentimental value so i bet it's still up there somewhere
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They would not shy away. Sometimes they do. I pasted one of them into Slack for you to see. Because that's why I didn't understand the point of you saying, look, people wrote in in support of my position. I'm saying, yeah, they wrote in support of my position, too. What's your point? It's like evenly split.
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For every one of those, there's someone like Paul Tower who says, quote, I lost a ton of data in the 90s before I knew how prone to failure they were. As a result, I have almost no pictures from college. Irreplaceable pictures. And he says, I can't remember the last time one of these pieces of media worked.
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I mean, I could continue reading from other feedback that I've gathered. But, you know, like, look, like I said, there's this is a situation where there are clearly a lot of variables, including, by the way, one of the variables that you might not think about, which is like, oh, so you you know, you want to read this later, but you haven't been actively using it. Where have you stored it?
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How has it been stored? What is the humidity like? Has it been in the sun? What is the temperature like? So many variables. And my contention is that there are so many different combination of variables that result in failure that it's enough to keep this out of where you guys wanted to put it.
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Really not. It doesn't matter what people vote. It only matters what the reality is. And I contend that my reality is closer to the real one.
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I mean, that's part of these people giving their experiences and sort of feeling down on this is that, yes, of course, all storage media has some failure rate, but the combination of what these things were used for And how prone they might be to failure resulted in people losing data and remembering it and telling stories about it.
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Oh, it isn't just an academic concern or something like, yeah, all storage media fails, but it's not a big deal because by then I had moved on. These people lost data to it. And that's why they remember. Kind of like when we talked about floppy disks, losing data on floppy disks, right? People remember it. It's not like floppy disks were just incredibly unreliable.
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They were the main storage media on the computer for ages. But when you lose something, it sticks with you. And that happened with this storage media. to enough people that they remember it. And so, yeah, it gets the terrible grade, the terrible unfair grade that it got.
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But you were close. You were close. It was just some of the particulars were slightly off. That's why we'll put a link in the show notes to two things. One, the Wikipedia page on it. And two, a DP review video if you want to see in detail what he was talking about.
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I think you did the exact same slightly wrong description as you did in the last episode. I think that's what you just did.
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Not quite. But yeah. So we should read this feedback from Sam Doran, who I think summed it up pretty well.
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Pause for a second and say what the histogram is. Most fancy cameras have a thing where they'll show you a histogram. Histogram is just a graph that shows, like, how many values at level one, how many values at level two, how many values at level three. And it makes, like, a little mountainous little graph. That's your histogram, right? And what they're showing in this histogram on cameras is...
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different brightness levels, with the left side of the histogram being black and the right side being white, and all the values that are in between in terms of brightness, if you're looking at like a luminance histogram, right?
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And when I say moving the histogram to the right, it's saying the shape of the little mountain range made by the histogram, you're trying to make the big peak, the big lumpy mountain, be more to the right of the image. The right is bright, the left is dark, right? So it's always going to be some kind of like lumpy type of thing or whatever, but...
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If there's one big lump or mound of where most of the luminance data is in the image, exposed to the right is saying, move that lump to the right. Don't leave a bunch of space to the right on the histogram of, like, level 10, 11, 12. These are made-up values. 13, 14, like, oh, those just have very low values on them. The hump is in the middle. You don't want the hump in the middle.
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You want to shift the hump to the right because—continue, Casey—
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And Sam had some more information on this that I wasn't able to pin down to the point where I wanted to put it in the show word for word. But the idea is that when you're exposing to the right, the more brightness you can get, the more data there is available to you. You don't want to waste part of it.
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written in there are dozens of you to echo there exactly they've written in and they say hey yeah the things that john was saying i also experienced that and that's why but there were also many many many people who said you're out of your darn mind i again i think it was roughly evenly split but either way the the main point is enough surely you will concede that enough people wrote in and supported my position and you could determine that it's not just a me thing
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The way I would describe it is your camera, whatever your settings are, captures a certain range of luminance values, a certain range of light, right? If you put the big lump in the middle when you're shooting raw, you're kind of wasting the stuff to the right because you're not capturing any data there. With raw, you can shove that lump over
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Not off the edge, because off the edge is what Mark was talking about. Oh, now you've blown out your highlights. Now things that are pure white. But shove the lump over to the right to allow you to use the rest of the range to get more values in the darkness. And that's the exposing to the right. The right is that lump in the histogram.
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That's what I was asking Marco last time. What color space is he using? Not realizing that it doesn't matter when you're talking about raw because color space only comes into effect when you take that raw sensor data and you say, okay, now I'm going to stick this into something like a JPEG or an image or whatever.
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We choose the color space because the raw is really just the values from the sensor and more or less it's raw form after whatever it's called debayering or whatever that thing is where they process the sensors into a bunch of RGB values.
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So, like I said, my cameras are set to Adobe RGB, and I'm shooting in JPEG and RAW to two separate cards. But I mostly just deal with the JPEGs. And the idea behind this, what Leo was talking about, is like number of bits per sample. How many bits do you take per sample in this thing? Obviously, if you have 8 bits, you can only have values from 0 to 55.
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If you have 12 or 14 bits, you can get many more values, right? So if you're taking a picture of something like a sky gradient or whatever,
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uh within a you know one inch strip of the thing or whatever or within some strip of the sky you might have uh in the thing off the sensor you might have five different colors blue slightly darker blue slightly darker blue like five different blues right that's in a 12-bit space because you've got a room you've got a room for however many values 12 bits is like it's you know thousands and thousands of different colors you can fit in there right but when you write it to a jpeg they have to take all those thousands of different colors and compress them down to fit in eight bits and that's only 256
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you know, levels for the R, the G, and the B, right? And in an 8-bit thing, those five different blues might map down to a single blue. So what was previously a strip that had five different colors, like a smooth gradient, that same strip now has one color because you can compress it down to 8-bit.
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and that is the the danger of possibly seeing banding where you know instead of a smooth gradient where every single line is just a slightly different color blue than the previous one now you see blue number one for half an inch blue number two for half an inch and that's that's banding where you can see these distinct bands of color i have to say i've been shooting adobe rgb for years and years on all my sony cameras and i have never ever ever seen this
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Right. But it is technically a danger for the reason that I just described. Maybe I'm not shooting enough big gradient skies. Maybe I don't know, like maybe they aren't 8-bit JPEGs on all these cameras. We'll put a link in the show notes to an article by Daniel Lunn about sRGB versus Adobe RGB versus photo RGB that says here are all the different situations where you might want to use sRGB.
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Here's where you might want to use Adobe RGB. Here's when you might want to use pro photo RGB. Right. So I think that provides a reasonably balanced view of, like, the different scenarios where you want each one. The reason I'm personally using Adobe RGB is because when I was first playing with this setting, I took the same exact picture in Adobe RGB and sRGB.
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It was just a picture of, like, something in my house that was red. And I brought the pictures back to my computer, and I blind A-B tested them to see if I could tell which one of these is Adobe RGB and which one is sRGB. And holy cow, you could tell.
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Again, taking a picture of a red thing in the house, maybe that's not representative, but the Adobe RGB one was much more red and closer to what I saw with my own eyes when looking at it. So I'm like, well, that's it. I'm done with Adobe RGB. I mean, it makes sense. Adobe RGB covers more of the color space than sRGB does. But I wondered, like, is that something you can even see?
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And my answer was yes. I could tell the difference in a blind test of which was which. And I liked the Adobe RGB one better. So be aware that when saving Adobe RGB to JPEG and you have smooth gradients, maybe banding is an issue. But I personally haven't seen it, and I'm sticking with Adobe RGB.
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How crummy was it? Like D tier? How crummy?
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Well, so here's the thing with what these features do. First of all, night shift is the thing that makes it look like someone peed on your screen at night. I would suggest turning that off. It makes everything warmer on your screen at nighttime to try to like reduce the amount of blue light you're being faced with and make you feel nice and cozy, right?
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Lots of people like that feature, but if you're editing photos, I would strongly suggest to disable night shift because that is intentionally changing the color balance of your screen in a way that you will notice. Like that's the whole point. It's supposed to look warmer to you. So don't do that if you want to get an idea of what your colors look like.
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True Tone is Apple's feature where the hardware has a sensor on it that senses the ambient light in the room and how warm that is. And then based on what that sensor sees, it adjusts the image to try to essentially match the white balance of the room.
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Because you're killing me with this because you're like, oh, this is a thing that John hates and whatever.
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So if you're in a room with very warm lighting, it's not going to leave the monitor the same because the monitor will look really, the whites will look very blue compared to the ambient light that is much warmer in the room. Instead, they will warm the monitor up to match the color temperature of the ambient light. I personally leave True Tone on, which is not the quote-unquote pro thing to do.
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Pros should be working in a completely dark room with their monitor perfectly calibrated by hardware to be exactly at a D65 white point. Like, I'm not doing that. I leave True Tone on.
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And the reason I leave True Tone on is because I know I'm in a room with a bunch of lights that do not have the quote-unquote the right color temperature, and I want my display to adjust itself so that it matches the color temperature in the room so the adjustments I make quote-unquote look right to me in this room, in this lighting.
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So when I see them in a different room, in different lighting, they'll still look right. I don't know if that's foolish, but I don't really care because that's just what I do with my pictures, and they look good to me, and I print them in books, and they look good in the books, and when I see them in the books, I don't think to myself, wow, that looks way different than it did in my monitor.
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Instead, I think, wow, that looks exactly like it did in my monitor. So I say night shift off, True Tone on.
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You really should. I think it's one of the best things we've ever done. You've never heard people be more angry to receive an A grade on a paper.
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I'm not sure if it's weaker, because if you bathed it in super-duper warm light, I think it would adjust it. What it's trying to do is make it look white to you. In this room, this sheet of paper... It's actually very yellow because the light is yellow. And if you have very, very yellow lights, that sheet of paper is objectively yellow.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
But to your eyes, that sheet of paper still looks white because you know it's white and your brain adjusts for it or whatever. And what True Tone is trying to do is say, hey, when you hold that piece of paper in the ambient light of the room up to your monitor, I want the white of that paper to match the white on the screen.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
And to do that, it makes your screen yellowish to match the yellowish paper. The paper is yellowish because your yellowish light in the room is bouncing off the paper and going to your eyes. Your monitor is yellowish because the OS is making it produce yellow by mixing the red and the green subpixels, right? And so that's the goal of True Tone.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
We don't even know what we're talking about. We could be talking about sandwiches here. Nobody knows what we're talking about. We're talking about the printing press, John. The printing press.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
And it's subtle if your lighting is subtly warm or subtly cool. I bet it's not subtle if your lighting is not subtly warm or cool.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Yeah, this is something that came up and we've talked about in past episodes of photo editing, but we didn't mention it last time because in the Ask ATP question, we were all very much focused on like, what do you do when you're editing photos in terms of like exposure and all the fancy controls and Lightroom and photos or whatever.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
But it's worth reiterating because a lot of people brought it up and we talked about it in the past. Cropping is the very first thing I do with every single photo that I edit. And it's not an exciting form of editing because you're like, oh, I'm just changing the rectangle that defines the edges of the picture. Who cares?
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
I mean, it maybe gets a little more exciting with the advent of AI background extensions and stuff. But either way, cropping is the first thing that I do. And every photo that I edit, I crop. Like, I can't remember the last time I edited a photo and said, you know what? I don't need to change it at all.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Part of taking pictures and learning from the editing experience is knowing, ooh, if I had left a little bit more margin around the edges, I could frame this the way I wanted. It's better to have a little bit of extra background as long as you've got enough pixels of resolution.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
It's better to have a little bit more extra background than it is to be missing that background because AI background extensions aside, it still is kind of difficult to expand the image where you want it. But you can always crop in a little bit. And what are you doing when you're cropping? You're trying to compose the picture. You're trying to compose it when you take it too.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
But it's often more important to get the shot, get the moment when the person is smiling, get the bird flapping its wings or whatever, and then worry about the cropping later versus I'm not going to take the picture until it's perfectly composed in my viewfinder because then you'll miss the shot a lot
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
of the time so i always try to leave a little bit extra and the very first thing i do is crop and i'm cropping to try to make a nice composition or try to make the composition i was trying to get in the camera but the camera was tilted or you know and this i guess this is involved in cropping to like straighten the horizon line and stuff if you want to um
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Or I didn't quite get it framed the way I wanted, but I have enough of the background that I can crop it. If you do no editing except for cropping, you will get better at taking pictures. Your pictures will look, quote unquote, look better. You're like, I didn't do anything to it. All I did was change the edge. They will look better. You don't realize how much of a good picture is...
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
choosing the crop choosing the composition until you've done that to a few of your pictures and suddenly the exact same picture you haven't done anything to it all you've done is define the crop suddenly looks a lot better uh once you sort of get on that train uh it's hard not to notice it so yeah cropping it's an important part of editing and you should definitely do it and i would suggest making it one of the first things that you do
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Do you have strong feelings against storage media for computers? You're listening to the right podcast. Boy, do we have the member special for you.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
I think we've talked about this exact utility on the show in the past, but it should be noted that one of the things it does to speed itself up is not do the verification of everything. That's not the only thing it does to speed itself up. So it's worth looking. You can look at the source code and see it just uses, you know, Swift concurrency to try to do it in more parallel chunks.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
And you can totally peg all your CPU cores if you want to do this. But if you care about the checksumming, either don't use this tool or do a full checksum on the finished binary somehow and make sure it is what you expect.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Yeah, I didn't even try this, but I wonder what kind of file extension. Is it just .aa? But anyway, yeah, if you're just staying within an Apple platform... And you want to, you know, if you really want to compress something quickly, you want to try doing parallel, try the AA tool.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
In the overtime, we were saying how trying to get kids to pay attention in class has always been a challenge. And I mentioned the Walkman as a technology that was around when I was a kid and how kids had them. And if you put them on in class, you would surely be sternly lectured that you shouldn't be listening to your Walkman while you're in class. I didn't think about hats.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
But when I was a kid, that was also a thing that I guess I had mostly blocked out. Hats and gum chewing were things that adults were really obsessed with not happening in schools. But yeah, this is the bleacher. It looks like the bleachers in a gymnasium. The back wall behind the bleachers is, you know, that painted cinder block wall that all high schools had.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
And literally painted, hand-painted, like, stenciled letters on the wall that are, like, two feet high, all caps. No hats, no walk-on, because the scourge of hats will destroy our children if we let it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Yeah, what we were talking about in that overtime was, like, what should be the iPhones that Apple sells? Like... What variety should there be? Is the lineup as it is now correct? Should they make a small phone? Should they make, you know, other kinds of weird phones?
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
And we had this whole discussion and I thought it was interesting as an aside to the iPhone SE rumors that we're about to get to that none of us even mentioned. the iPhone SE in that whole discussion because we were like, the iPhone lineup, you know, the iPhones, iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Pro, iPhone 16 Pro Max, maybe there'll be a Slim, maybe there'll be an Ultra, but not once did anyone mention that.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
the iPhone SE so neglected is this previous year's model with a new name or whatever, but the iPhone SE exists. Um, and somewhat related to this, uh, the, uh, the, the iPhone mini a 17 parentheses, a 17 pro, which is what Apple calls the new iPhone mini. Um, uh, is connected to the iPhone 17 rumors.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
These are actual rumors as opposed to just wish-casting that we talked about in the overtime where Max Tech was talking about iPhone Air, iPhone Ultra, or whatever, just like this would make a nice set of names. These, I think, are actual rumors, and the rumor being that the iPhone 17 lineup will drop the numbers and instead be iPhone parentheses A19, iPhone parentheses A19 Pro.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
And so the names would be iPhone, iPhone Pro, iPhone Max, iPhone, whatever they are, iPhone suffix, right? But without the number, like the number wouldn't go up. And the way we would distinguish them is the same way we distinguish, for example, iPads. And this happened ages ago. I think we even talked about it on the show when the quote unquote new iPad came out.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Were we running ATP when that happened? I don't even know. But they dropped the numbers that said iPads aren't going to have numbers. This is just the new iPad. And we're like, how are we going to tell you had an iPad? And now this year there's another thing called iPad, but it's a different product. How are we going to distinguish them?
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
The only one who has a chance is Marco and his drawers.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
And the answer was parentheses, you know, second generation, third generation over the same thing with Macs. All these Mac minis, you're telling me they're all called Mac mini? How do I tell which Mac mini do I have? Do they have years in them, do whatever? And the answer is that some phrase in parentheses after it that tells you what it is.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Sometimes it's a year, sometimes it's, in the past it's been like, you know, MacBook Pro parentheses dual USB, like all sorts of stuff. But the rumor is that this would be kind of like the iPhone SE, right? The iPhone SE 4, all right, versus iPhone SE parentheses A16 or something like that.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
I'm not entirely sure that the parentheses stuff version of Apple naming is any better than just calling an iPhone 17. In many ways, it's worse. But it is interesting that the iPhones have stubbornly stuck with these numbers.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
I remember years ago, people were like, well, surely when they get to 10 or 11 or 12, they're going to stop because iPhone 17 sounds so dumb or iPhone 16, whatever number everyone was saying sounded so dumb. We've already been there and done that and sold that phone and we all survived, right? But...
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
The fact is, the Macs, the iPads, and lots of other Apple products don't have numbers in the official product names, but the iPhone still does. So are we all looking at a future where every product, including the iPhone SE and all the iPads and all the iPhones, has some weird thing in parentheses after it? Or are we just going to keep making that number go up until we're an iPhone 137?
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
We used to have this discussion and people would say, does anyone want the iPhone 15? That's ridiculous.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
What are the official Apple names of the, I haven't even looked. What are actually the official name of the MacBook Pros these days?
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
I think mostly because... They're getting rid of these numbers, but they're kind of replacing them with another number because... The A series processors and the M series processors, guess what, have numbers on them. And the A's are already up to 17, 18, right?
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
So iPhone, iPhone Pro, parentheses, A18 Pro, it's just move the 18 out of the, you know, it's like, and it's been, you know, a frustration of developers and other people have to deal with these things that the numbers are not synced up between the OS version, the processor version and the phone version.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
It would be nice if they got synced up, but I'm looking at Apple's compare page for the MacBook Pros and it says MacBook Pro 14 inch parentheses M3. They seem to be liking the processors in the parentheses, which is fine. Like sometimes there are years. These aren't. I don't know. These are the official like.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
actual Apple product names and the tech specs, but I'm just saying what's in the compare page. But the thing they're putting in parentheses is the processor, and all their processors have numbers in them. I mean, it is an improvement in tractability in that, like, if you don't care about that part, you're just like, I got an iPad Pro. I got a MacBook Pro.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Or maybe I got a 14-inch or a 15-inch MacBook Pro. But you don't care what the processor is, and someone might ask you. In the same way, you're like, I got a new iPhone, or I got a new iPad. Which one did you get? Well, do you care about the processor? Then you can list it. But if you don't, you're not distracted by it. I mean, I do see I see a trend towards unifying under this scheme.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Is this scheme better than the existing scheme? Well, there is something to be said for consistency across Apple's product lines. If they can ever even ever so briefly attain that before they go off in another direction, that would be cool. Um, but it's interesting to think about in the context of the, uh, the, the iPhone suffix, right?
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Because the iPhone will be left with no suffix, just like the iPad is, but all the other iPhones have something se pro pro max, which has two suffixes. Isn't great. Maybe if there's an ultra, maybe there's a slim or an air or whatever. Um, That's something to look forward for next year.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
And the iPhone 17, which I guess we can't call the iPhone 17 if they go with the naming scheme, supposedly is actually going to change the form factor. And just like the iPhone X did, change the form factor and briefly go into a letter-based naming system for the top-end phone before we return to numbers. So as always, with all things naming, it is.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Not entirely chaos in the Apple world, but there's a little bit of spice thrown in.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
I saw it in an Apple store when this story first came out. I don't think this was the first mini to have this issue. I can see it if I look for it. I'm not entirely sure it would bother me, but I can definitely see it without slow-mo video, just like going to an Apple store, find one of these old ones, and scroll it, and you're like, okay, I see what they're getting at, but...
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
maybe possibly yeah we've talked about this 5g modem for ages it's kind of interesting that you were saying like oh they probably don't want to roll out their very first uh cellular modem on a really important product line so you put it on the se so if you really messed up damage is minimal and it also looks like uh the modem won't even have millimeter waves so it's not even suitable for the pro phones assuming apple wants to continue having millimeter wave and by the way the ifixit teardowns of the uh like the current 16 pro and stuff
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
show that Apple went to some length to find a new place on the phone to put the millimeter wave stuff, because the camera control is kind of where the millimeter wave antenna used to be, and now it's, like, threaded through to the top of the phone and everything. So it seems like Apple is still on board with millimeter wave, at least in the U.S.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
But, yeah, Apple's first 5G modem not supporting a dollar isn't interesting. I don't actually know if... In our current phones, obviously they have Qualcomm cellular modems. I don't know if they have a separate Broadcom chip or something for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. And if so, Apple combining 5G, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth all into a single chip would be an upgrade.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
But if not, it's just Apple trying to get away from Qualcomm to stop paying them money because they don't like them and every bit of profit that Qualcomm gets. It's a bit of profit that Apple doesn't get, so they want to own and control the core technologies, blah, blah, blah. Ergo, buy Intel's cell modem business and get yourself your own 5G modem.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
It's just taking a long time, and fingers crossed that they don't screw it up. Very true. The new SE looks good, though. Like, so this is... Everyone's saying, like, finally the SE will be modernized. Like, it's not... It doesn't have the dynamic island, but it's all screen. Like, it's all... It's the current modern design. It's easier to repair. A single camera on the back is actually kind of fun.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Like, one good camera... For the cheap phone, instead of having multiple ones, it saves space, presumably makes more room for a bigger battery. As long as it's a good camera. It makes the phone look interesting and cute just having one little camera on it, kind of like a throwback, although obviously the camera is way bigger than it used to be.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
I think the iPhone SE 4, which will probably be the iPhone SE parentheses A16. I don't even know what they said the SoC is supposed to be on this, but... It looks like a good year for the SE, unless the thing you liked about the SE was it being smaller, because guess what? It's going to be the same size as the iPhone 14, apparently.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
That's interesting, the iMac rumor. It is in the crop of Macs that are due to be updated with M4 chips. And there's kind of a separate rumor of like, There is a version two of Apple's current crop of magic peripherals, the keyboards, the mouse.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
And the rumor is vague enough to say, okay, well, a new version of the keyboard and mouse, is that just like take the existing keyboard and mouse and get rid of lightning and put USB-C? Because that would be welcome. Everyone wants it, right? Or is it like... Have they actually revised these products where the keyboard and the mouse are different?
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
I find that hard to believe, but, you know, the rumors are so vague and so new that who knows. But the final rumor is new iMacs M4, they still with lightning peripherals, but there will also be a USB-C variants of the mouse and keyboard. They just don't come with the iMac, which would be the most awful thing ever. Unless maybe if they're new or something like that. I don't know.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
But anyway, yeah, the... It would be nice if they updated this peripherals not to be USB-C, but I don't think anyone with iMac is dying to do it. Because like, honestly, look, if the... If you've plugged in your... I guess people don't plug in their keyboards on iMacs. They probably just use a Bluetooth.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
I'm just saying if it comes with lightning already, you can just harpoon your little turtle with the lightning connector that comes with your iMac and you're all set. But I guess most people probably use their keyboards in Bluetooth mode. So I don't know. But anyway, they should definitely upgrade to USB-C. And it would be nice if they did that in this event. But it's interesting that here we are.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
By the time you're listening to this, these could have already been announced. And we still don't know if they're going to get rid of lightning on the peripherals or if they're just going to keep them the same and swap out the CPU.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
And the other things that are rumored, obviously we've talked about the smaller Mac Mini in past episodes. That's the rumor. It'll be redesigned for the first time in, I think, 14 years or something. The case will be much smaller than it was.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Yeah, and it's supposed to have a lot of ports on it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Well, you know, everyone's got to do what's in their heart.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Hopefully the pricing won't be too ridiculous. But yeah, I think a lot of people will be tempted by the shrink on these because they're going to be good machines. And I think the rumor is M4 and possibly M4 Pro. That's the other thing about this announcement. We know what the M4 is. It's already in a bunch of Macs.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
M4 Pro and M4 Max haven't really been super solid rumors about what exactly they contain. We think we know, like, oh, the Pro will be better than the M4. The Max will be better still. Like, there's been lots of Pro and Maxes on all the previous M series. But in the M3s, Apple changed it up a little bit, and the Pro is different than it was in the M1 Pro and the M2 Pro, right?
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
And so we really don't know what they're going to do with the M4 Pro and the M4 Max at this point. Except to say that, yeah, in the MacBook Pros, presumably, there'll be M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max-based MacBook Pros as well. And so we'll find out how much GPU, how many cores, What are the clock speeds like? What is the cooling like? You know, these are all N3E processors, presumably.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
And so this should be exciting. We've waited a while. Like, the M4 debuted in the iPad, of all things, and then came to a bunch of the Macs. Now it's going to be coming to even more Macs. But we're finally getting to, like, the... I'm not going to say the good chips, because the M4 is a good chip. But, like, the more powerful chips, the beefier chips.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Nothing big and fancy like anything ultra-sized or Mac Pro. All those rumors are pushed way out into next year. The Mac Studio, in fact, the latest rumors of the Mac Studio, which might have been scheduled for spring next year, is now looking more like it might be pushed more towards June. And at that point, they might as well just save it for WWDC. And the Mac Pro, same thing.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
If you're lucky, it gets announced at WWDC and ships much later in the year. So, no, don't have any expectations that you're going to see anything beyond an M4 Max chip, but... You know, because these things tend not to leak, for all we know, they've decided to stop naming them Pro and Max. Maybe there's only one of them and that has a different suffix. Who knows?
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
You know, you're only hurting yourselves. That's my opinion. Everyone's got to make their own choices.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
But yeah, our money's on M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max. And the rumors are that these machines will be the same. The iMac will look the same, the MacBook Pros will look the same, the Mac Mini is the only one that's going to look different. So yeah, just a bunch of laptops with the same ports and the same design and the same everything, more or less, except swap out the M3 for a better M4.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Insert suffix here. That all sounds great, and that's another reason why a press release may be reasonable. Have they ever done a press release for a new form factor for a Mac? I don't know. It seems like something that would have to be potentially rare, but not inconceivable. So honestly, I don't know if there's going to be an event. The rumors are, as we record this, that next week.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Don't watch messages from my wife while you're recording the podcast.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Yeah, no, that's the smart money because that's just – it just makes sense. I mean they did it to an entire – forget about like peripherals. They did it to the AirPods Max, right? The whole product. That's the only thing that it got. They've done that. They did it with the AirPods cases. Hey, first we had the case that was lightning. Now it's the same case but it's got a USB-C on it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Apple is not super into revising its monitors or its keyboard and mouse peripherals on any kind of reasonable schedule. So – watch for that. And I would, I would have to think again, this type of, but these rumors with obscure products, not as much stuff leaks because people just aren't as interested in leaking it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
So if Apple did have all new peripherals, it's conceivable that we would know nothing about it a week out, but it's, you know, I would expect to hear something about, uh, revised products. Yeah. If they, if they, like, this is the best case scenario. They're just revised and have USB-C and they come with the iMac. It's like, yeah, that's what we wanted. Uh,
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
By the way, if you think my wife is biased in favor of supporting me, I'm not even sure Casey's conversations with my wife would support that theory.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Could you characterize that down? Exactly how down was this host? The host was me. How down? Like F tier?
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
If you're waiting around for Apple to make like a new ergonomic keyboard that makes Marco happy or a new mouse that's much higher that makes me happy, like don't hold your breath. Not a chance. Their design philosophy on those peripherals has been the same for a really long time. And similarly for the MacBook Pros, again, no rumors about case design changes or whatever.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
There are rumors about the next – essentially the next generation of Apple – of the MacBook Pro laptops.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
potentially getting slimmer which we just kind of just went through this whole big thing of like the johnny i philosophy of everything uniform not enough ports too thin blah blah to the much more sort of like rectilinear blocky utilitarian sd uh card slot sporting hdmi port sporting uh macbook pros they were like Hallelujah. Like the magic is back. They finally made more good laptops.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
How many years has it been? We've just been riding this high. But eventually they will have to redesign them. And the rumor is they're going to redesign them to be thinner, which is fine. But now comes the real test of like, hey, that correction they made on the MacBook Pro line.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Where they gave us the ports back and put in more battery life and did a little bit of, you know, function over form by saying, let's just make it rectangular because that leaves more room for battery. The test comes when it's time to make the new revision. Do they go back to their old ways?
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Do they say, you know, we can make it really skinny if we got rid of that HDMI port or we got rid of the SD card or whatever, right? I keep thinking back to like the MacBook Air, like the 2011 generation of MacBook Air. The MacBook Air used to have an SD card slot, folks.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
right macbook air it wasn't like a pro only feature somehow on the thinnest lightest laptop they made they found room for an sd card slot whereas now it's like i don't know 16 inch macbook pro i'm not sure we can put an sd card slot in there so you know that's again that's not this year that's rumors are maybe next year or the year after so watch for that that will be a good uh test uh but yeah in the meantime like i agree this could be a press release uh thing despite the mac mini
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
being a big deal. You know what it would make for a Mac event that they would want to actually have an anniversary event would be if they announced perhaps the world's fastest personal computer or something impressive like that, but alas, that is not what they're announcing.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Usually she's on our side. Although my friend did message me today and he wanted me to tell you that John's friend from Bulgaria says it should be in B tier.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
I would go. I mean, it would be a WWDC announcement. I'm going to WWDC if I get an invite next year.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
I don't think they're going to do it in a separate. Again, the rumors are that both the Mac Studio and the Mac Pro are potentially announceable around June of next year. I mean, the Mac Pro probably wouldn't be ready, but that doesn't stop them. They'll announce it and ship it three months later. Who cares, right? But yeah, no, I'm there. I'm at WWDC. That's my event. Don't forget about me, Apple.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Price hasn't changed, but with inflation, it actually is cheaper now.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
I feel like that is the test. That's what everyone's afraid of is like, oh, are they going to put like an A19 in the monitor and it's going to be flaky like the studio was? Until they get all the firmware updates. Like, should a little mini version of iOS be running on an iPhone chip inside your monitor? Or should it be more like the XDR, which was in the...
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
the days when Apple was willing to use whatever weird chips they have inside this thing to do, like, to the, you know, image processing and run the USB hub and whatever. It's like, Apple just decided, like, why are we paying for these chips from all these different manufacturers to do this stuff and dealing with this weird firmware?
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Why don't we just put an A-series chip in there and put our own OS on it? And the answer was, because you're not very good at that. And, yeah, the Mac Studio was a little bit flaky. But, you know, my wife's got a Mac Studio that's right behind me, and whatever flakiness there was in the beginning... She has had no complaints on it, and it has never done anything weird.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
That said, I still fear the possible flakiness of an A-series powered XDR replacement, because this XDR has just worked like a dumb peripheral, which is exactly what you want it to do. I don't even want to know there's anything computery inside it, especially since this thing does not have a power button, which Apple is still obsessed with, right?
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
So if there was something wrong with it, power cycling would be a pain, but thankfully I've pretty much never had to do that. So I think my, you know, I'm happy with Macs. They are the way it is. Talk about if you're waiting for a mouse keyboard, like I said, or monitors to be revised, don't hold your breath.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
There's been rumors of new monitors for Macs for years and years, but it seems like maybe those projects are started internally and then scrubbed and started again and then scrubbed and started again and then scrubbed and just go around and around until one of them actually escapes the company and lets you buy it. And that hasn't happened for a while.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
There are rumors about it, but like the Apple TV is kind of reaching the point where,
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
uh kind of reaching a fork in the road uh because i as far as i'm aware there there aren't really many television viewing based standards and technology that apple tv does not yet support that it would be useful for to support people might say 8k and you know the ps5 pro supposedly supports 8k but so does the ps5 technically anyway if if there's a use case for 8k potentially next generation consoles might be the use case but they've said that before um
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
good things and how many of the combinations result in bad things. And if too many of the combinations result in bad things, that produces people who have poor experiences, perhaps, you know, distributed throughout the mass of people who did it. And I just think it's, there were too many combinations that resulted in bad things.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
But other than that, it's like there's that quick thing about media switching along a blackout thing, stuff like that. There's not a lot of stuff that you say, I need some more hardware on this Apple TV to do video watching. Then there's gaming, which, of course, you need unlimited power forever and ever. Does Apple want to turn Apple TV into more of a gaming thing or make their own controller?
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Are they going to ship it? Are they going to upgrade? Like that's kind of the decision point because Apple is kind of close to saying for the purposes of watching video content, there's no reason for the Apple TV to get any more powerful. For the purposes of playing games, there's infinity reason for the Apple TV to get more powerful. Which way do we go with this product? I'm with Casey.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Whenever a new Apple TV comes out, I buy it just blindly for the same reason he does, because I just rotate them through my thing. And historically, there has been a benefit, especially when they went 4K and they got a little bit faster or whatever. And I do occasionally play games on Apple TV, although let me just take an aside to complain.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
My son was home from school for break and wanted to play Journey. I'm like, great, that's out for Apple TV. Guess what? It's not out for Apple TV anymore. It was briefly out for Apple TV, I think. Maybe I have a false memory of it or whatever, but it definitely is not out for Apple TV now. You can play it on the iPad. You can play it on iOS.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
You can play it on lots of different platforms that you cannot play it on Apple TV. I think it used to be an Apple Arcade, and maybe it was like a time-limited thing, but it's super annoying when that happens. So... Anyway, it'll be interesting to see if the next Apple TV comes out.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Like, there's no point if you just watch streaming TV to say, like, we need an even faster SoC here so you can play and pause television. Like, I would love for them to make that more reliable and better because it's still flakier than my, like, TiVo from 2002 or whatever year I was using it, which is sad considering it has, like...
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
a bazillion times the power of that devo right obviously it's looking at 4k content and sd but still even accounting for that like so i'm not saying the apple tv is as good as it can get it should get much better but i'm not sure if hardware increasing the level of hardware is has any point for anything other than gaming and so maybe that's why they're dragging their feet on this there are rumors about a new apple tv coming out it supposedly does have a better soc and more ram and
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
And that's what I'm digging it for, digging it all the way down, all the way down to the terrible tier that it ended up in.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Apple intelligence capability and all that, you know, all that stuff. But I don't remember what the dates associated with that are, and I'm sure Apple's not in a hurry. But it is interesting to think about...
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
this lull in the apple tv where until we get 8k everywhere even if we do get 8k everywhere like by that point the apple tv caliber soc should be able to handle 8k fine and it's like you know is this is this basically is this a gaming box or is it not and if it's a gaming box why doesn't it come with a controller and that is the decision apple is probably going to have to make because there will be many years of time where the apple tv is completely adequate for all video functions and then the question is why would anyone ever buy another one of these things
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
I use it all the time, and every time I use it, I just think about how much better it could be. It's not killing me, but I'm just like, it could be better.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
What do you need to change? So the D-pad, essentially, up, down, left, right, and the swipey thing in the middle. I know you can disable the swipey thing in the middle, but enabling allows you to swipe through things faster, but disabling it allows you to use the ring more easily. But I feel like the ring is just not as secure to me as an actual D-pad.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
I still have to think about the north, south, east, west of it because it is one continuous ring, and I still have to kind of think about not touching the touchpad, but I want to keep the touchpad enabled because I do swipe sometimes. So that's unsatisfactory. And the whole size of it, it's bigger than it was in terms of thickness, right? But it's still...
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
not really filling the negative space of my hand in the way that I want it to. I still feel like it's still a little bit small. There's advantages to being small. It looks elegant. It's good for people with small hands, but for my hands, it still feels a little bit small, a little bit fidgety.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
And it's nothing like, you know, it talks about the TiVo remote, but just any other kind of like more normal size remote with big,
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
bigger beefier more distinct buttons that i can use with less mental effort it's not like i'm killing myself using remote i use the apple tv remote all the time it's basically the main remote i use for our television still feel like it could be better and it runs against everything that apple wants to do because they want it to be small and elegant or whatever and they're like here's our concession to ergonomics this is the new one and we all celebrated because it was so much better than the old one but they're still farther to go if they want to improve this thing and i wish they would
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
And even the TiVo peanut grill got smaller over the years. Like, it didn't stay the same size. It's a question of striking that balance. But I feel like the thickness maybe is more important than the length and width. Just sort of like... Because it's not like, it's like, how do you grip it? It's kind of like the Apple mouse.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Some people love it because it's so low profile because of the way they use the mouse. But other people don't use the mouse that way. And they find the very low profile mouse to be like against everything they want out of a mouse. So I feel like maybe the remote is the same way.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
But either way, the circular D-pad with the touch thing in the middle, I feel like is such a weird compromise between the different functions. And I always find it, I find it difficult to very quickly go left, left, right, down, down. to the thing that I want.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
And even just having to make the mental choice of like, should I try to get there with the swipey pad versus should I try to get there with like the digital D pad, even just making that choice is a little bit of more cognitive load. And again, I know you can disable it, but like I, in some parts of the UI are so much better with the ability to swipe, but other parts aren't. And.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
I don't know, it just feels, like, obviously it was so much simpler in the Tebow world, but there's no swipey pad, and it's just up, down, left, right, and you would just mindlessly go up, up, up, up, up, up, down, left, right, up, up, because there was no other option, there were the choice, and the buttons were big and beefy and easy to find, even when they were still in a ring, I felt like they were easier to find, because you weren't worried about accidentally swiping when you went across the middle, and it responded faster to you, I don't know, like, it's...
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
It's not a video game. It's just a bunch of menus. It's not a big deal. It's a much bigger deal that the stupid streaming apps forget where I was in the thing and start playing the episode I saw last night. That is a much bigger deal. That's a software bug and not a hardware issue, but we're talking about the hardware now, so.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
I was going to use the grocery store example too because in my local grocery stores that I go to for many years, they were like, do you have a phone number with us? Do you blah, blah, blah? Do you have a phone number? Can you give us a phone number or whatever? And I would just say no, no, no, no.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
They've changed recently to not asking that question, which I think is wise, but instead having a system – They have, you know, whatever, their rewards program thing that, of course, has an iOS app and all this other BS that everybody makes you do to gamify their shopping, right? But the bottom line is you do get money off your food if you play this game.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
And so the motivation is, hey, do you want a few bucks off your groceries? And the way they do is they don't ask you for your phone number anymore, but on the stupid little paddy thing that they have there... You type in your phone number to essentially get your discount to say, oh, now we know who you are.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Now we will register your groceries in the app and give you the discount that you're entitled to for doing rewards, blah, blah, blah. Right. Whole Foods has the... The Amazon, well, I don't think it's Amazon. But anyway, the Whole Foods has the thing where you get the diamond-shaped QR code-y thing in their app and you scan it in the thing. God knows what's on that QR code that they're scanning.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
It's probably all your information anyway, right? And I forget if I said this, but recently I changed my action button to launch the Whole Foods app.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Because I realized the main time that I'm trying to do something under time pressure on my phone and I find it frustrating is unlocking it and launching the Whole Foods app so I can scan it. So that's what my action button does now because I'm using the camera control for the camera. Action button launches the Whole Foods app, which is terrible. I don't even shop at Whole Foods that often.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
I mean, it's within walking distance, so if you need something last minute, you just walk to the Whole Foods, but I don't actually do my grocery shopping there. I do it at Star Market, which is a local chain that is probably owned by whoever the hell owns all the chains in this area now. Shaw's bought them recently, where recently means like 10 years ago. But anyway, Star Market has the app.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
They don't ask you your phone number, but if you want your discount, they have nothing for you to scan as far as I'm aware. You've got to type your... So I'm typing my telephone number into the keypad rather than giving it to them, which I guess is better than reading out into the air, but... Anyway, it's ridiculous.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
For the driver's license thing, I think one of the reasons you see a lot more of this happening is twofold. There are more online account thingies these days that give you some way to prove you are who you are to give some kind of backstop for account recovery. And they essentially just need you some proof of identity.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
And they have you scan your driver's license or your passport or some other thing. Obviously, only do that if you think the value of being able to recover your account through proving who you are is worth the...
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
loss of privacy of giving these people your thing how much do you trust the company do you really care about this account like usually this is an optional type thing but that that's part of the same family of activities of like they just need you to prove who you are but you're not there a lot of times if you're there in person if they just need your driver's license for you to prove your identity you don't have to scan it or give it to them you can just show it to them
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
And maybe, you know, you can see if they're typing down your driver's license number or do they just want to say, yes, a human being has now seen and like a, like a, you know, a bouncer at a bar looked at your ID and decided, I think this is a real ID. You are Joe Schmo. You have a state issued identification, thumbs up. And then they never scan it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
And hopefully they never write anything down about it. You're just showing it to them and then putting it back into your wallet. So that is another kind of middle ground. But yeah, like Marco said, you can just say no and see what the consequences are. Most of the time they just need the information.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
I don't know this for a fact, but I think a lot of the reasons healthcare providers in particular want you to scan both sides of your card is because they're so sick of trying to navigate the world of getting people to give them the correct information from either side of the card. And they're just like, if we just get scanned, we'll figure out where it is.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
So, yeah. So the story is here that pretty much everybody who reviewed the new iPad mini parentheses, a 17 pro said, Hey, jelly scrolling is fixed, but the verge says totally not fixed.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Oh, it's this number, but not this suffix. But don't worry about your group number, but we need this ID. Just scan the cards. I feel like it's just a...
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
you know avoiding a customer service issue and so in that case if you wanted to skirt around that it's like do you just need my member number because i'll just give you that it's this and i don't even have like marco i don't even have a card but if that's what you need and very often like credit card numbers they can look at the member number for whatever your insurance is and know whether you've omitted the right number of characters from the beginning or whether you've tacked on a group number or whatever like they can figure it out so
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
That's pretty much what I do as well. Although I have to say that for my driver's license and stuff like that, I just assume everyone can get that information anyway. My social security number is a lot higher security than that. I have to say, I don't think anyone has asked for my social security number in a situation where I don't think they should need it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
But driver's license, I'm a little bit more cavalier with because whatever. But yeah, push back and see what happens.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Whether someone can just buy a database of all this information anyway right now for $100 or something, you know.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
I haven't seen one of these in person, so I can't say one way or the other, but it's interesting to see any kind of split in this, because again, if it's noticeable and I think it is, if you're looking for it, it's weird that most of the reviewers would say that it's fixed. Uh, I, you know, We'll see.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
And by the way, I think we've complained about this before, but like, Jesus, when I pay with an Amazon card, don't make me scan the code. You are...
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
already know who i am i know what is like it's it's it's an amazon card in an amazon store and i still have to bind my action button to scan the stupid qr you already know who i am just give me the discount honestly the whole foods you get a discount on like three percent of their products it's very frustrating
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
You have nicer cashiers than we do. The cashiers here are trained to say, oh, do you want one?
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
But then they want you to type in your telephone number. Oh, we can look it up by your phone number.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
If you ever end up in an Apple store, go find the new iPad Mini and see if that jelly scrolling is still there. Although, again, honestly, it's like... Even though I can see it if I'm looking for it, for something like an iPad Mini, I don't think I would worry too much about it. Like... It's not, you know, it's a small screen.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
So my parents, um, One of the things that's saving me from having to deal with a lot of this is the fact that neither one of them really maintains any sort of digital collection of stuff. They have their own photo libraries and their sync to iCloud photos, but they're just sparse, disorganized, and just not important to them, really.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Maybe you're not going to be watching big high fidelity movies on it and be worried about that when you're scrolling your timeline. I don't know. Like everyone has their own tolerance, but be aware that it did exist and that according to The Verge anyway, it may still exist.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
For example, when my parents make their calendar for the year, we all make calendars on Shutterfly or whatever. We put it on our fridges and have pictures of family photos or whatever. Most of the photos in that calendar are photos that I take that I send them to put in the calendar or they get sent from my other siblings to them. Like they're not taking pictures. They're not collecting pictures.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
They have pictures of they go on vacations and they take pictures, but very few. And who knows if they ever look at them? And so the real question is for like legacy contacts and dealing with their digital stuff or whatever, what happens if they die and no one has access to their stuff? The answer is they have no stuff. What do they have? They have accounts on systems that I don't care about.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
No one's going to care about after they die what their login was to their local newspaper website because who cares, right? So they've got all their usernames and passwords. And by the way, on that front, I try to herd my parents towards the sort of happy path, Apple default things or whatever. But in practice, my dad is somewhat willing to do them.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
My mother insists on having a document with all her passwords in it. And there's nothing you can do about that. And fine, if that system works for her, then that's what works for her. But honestly, I was like, well, what if you lose access to that document? If she's dead, I don't need those passwords. Nobody needs those passwords. I'm not worried about losing those.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
So it's really just more of like... I feel like my job is more or less just facilitating their ability to do what they want to do with their computers. And what they want to do with their computers is...
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
not the same as what i want to do and in my particular case also does not leave any sort of digital assets that i have to worry about now that said i did make them all set up legacy contacts and set me like i did all the apple things like because why not why not do that like they don't even like because when they when we visit with each other inevitably i well it used to be they would be better about doing them now they're like i don't want to bring my laptop on the plane it's so heavy they just want to bring their ipad and their phone right and their laptops are not heavy
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
But anyway, like they used to bring all their tech products. And part of us meeting was like, here, John, here's all the tech products. And they would, my mom would make a list and notes and say, here's all the problems I'm having with my computers. And we just go through them one at a time. I can't get this to work. Why does this thing do this? I want to do this. I want to do that or whatever.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
And we always just go through all those and I fix all their computer problems and I let them go back and do what they want to do. But trying to sort of impose like, oh, everyone needs to use one password or we all need to be in the same Apple family or like,
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
If they're up for that, if your relatives are up for that, fine, but mine aren't, and honestly, I wouldn't want them included in my Apple family because that's just a complication that I don't need to deal with personally. We should really just keep those things separate.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
But yeah, I help them with what they need help with, and I make sure that they're able to live their life and do their computer stuff Uh, and I think, you know, my parents are kind of like this with their belongings. They're already trying to like give away their old, you know, photo albums of us as kids, like physical photo albums of us as kids.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Cause they don't even want to deal with those anymore. Right. Uh, so they're pretty good about dispersing their stuff. And, uh, Honestly, I would be shocked if they had more than like 10,000 photos in their libraries and how many of those are actually good is even probably even smaller. Now, I think those are valuable photos on vacations with themselves. Like we don't have those pictures.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Sometimes they send them to us like, oh, we're on vacation. Here we are in Florida. Look at us on this beach or whatever. Right. And presumably they have some of those, but they're just not big picture takers and they don't collect them and they don't they don't really do anything with them. So if I lose access to all of that, which I won't because I'm their legacy contact.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
But if I did, it wouldn't be that big of a deal. So. Yeah, I think Marco was getting at the heart of it, which is like, you've got to figure out like what these people actually need from you, not what you think they should be doing with computers. And that really clarifies your role in all of this.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Yeah, that's the tricky bit, and there's many apps that do this. They basically disable the keyboard until you do some really complicated thing that you're unlikely to do by accident. I don't know if the one we're putting in the show notes is the quote-unquote good one. It is just the one that I found that seemed vaguely reputable, but there's a million of these apps, right?
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
But you do need one sometimes if you want to clean the keyboard without fear of accidentally doing something bad to your computer. It's not like you're worried about waking it up or the screen turning on. You're worried that you're going to accidentally hit a keyboard command that's going to delete something.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Or you basically just want to say, I want all key presses to just go nowhere for a while because I'm going to clean my keyboard. And that's separate from the turning off thing, but that's relevant because you're like, oh, I'll solve this problem. I don't need a special app. I'll just shut down my Mac. And that used to work until many, many years ago. I forget when. They said, guess what?
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
touching anything on the surface of this laptop will make it boot from a temporary quote-unquote off state you shut down not sleep you shut down your portable macintosh computer and then what makes it turn on it used to be there was a power button but then they kind of got rid of that then it was a touch id button they said you know what it should wake up if you touch anything and now shutting your computer down to clean the keyboard very carefully uh no longer works because of this
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
I find it frustrating too. I believe there probably is some firmware. I was going to say open firmware, whatever the hell, whatever the hell the, the firmware that, uh, the ARM base max use to turn this off, but it's not sort of a user visible, you know, feature that you could find in a GUI somewhere as far as I know.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
So I kind of understand why Apple did this because searching for the power button on Macs has been a bit of a silly game for many years. And it seems silly to tech nerds who are like, I remember when the power button was on the keyboard and I loved it or whatever. But if you don't know where it is, like people just want to open up their laptop and if it's turned off, they just want to...
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
mash it with their meaty paws and have it turn on so this is the right thing to do 99 of the time except that one percent of time when you want to clean the keyboard when it's incredibly frustrating so i don't know the solution maybe there should be a gui to toggle this off in system settings somewhere that nobody can find but yeah in the meantime maybe check out one of the keyboard cleaning apps
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
It's been in the notes for a while. I started using Quicksilver ages ago as my launcher thing. I use it in a very limited way. I've talked about it on the show. I mostly just use it to launch apps and do a few other things. I've had it for years and years. And, you know, I know there's a million other launchers. I own a million other launchers as well. But I just like Quicksilver does what I want.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
And I'm good with that. I like how it looks. I like how it works. I like everything about it. I'm so used to it. I don't need to do anything fancier than it does. Everything's fine. But Quicksilver, being a very old app whose original developer moved on to do other things, has had a bumpy road in recent, the past five years or so, maybe.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
I think someone else picked up the project, but there's not a lot of people developing and maintaining it. And when it works, that's fine. But when it starts getting flaky, it's like, well, it's open source. Maybe I could try to fix it myself. I can never get the freaking thing to build because of some obscure Xcode error that I can't figure out and it's Objective-C.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
So I'm like, oh, I don't want to do that. You file a bug, but then you feel bad because it's just one guy trying to maintain the thing in his spare time. And you're like, maybe I should just try another launcher.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
So I just go through all the other launchers that I already own, buy the latest Alfred power pack, make sure I have the latest version of all the things, try Raycast, all these new fancy things. And it was like, you know... I can get by with some of these, but I kind of miss Quicksilver.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
And then the Quicksilver dev will come back from vacation and make a change, and Quicksilver will start working again. I just feel like I'm kind of stuck here, because I'm just so used to Quicksilver, and I just want it to continue to work the way it has always worked. But the things... I'm getting hung up. And so...
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
some of the problems i've been having with it is sometimes they're just playing crash and that's one of the worst things it can do because it's faceless i run it in faceless mode there's no dock icon there's no menu bar icon it's just faceless it's just part of my mac and there's nothing worse than hitting command space and having nothing happen because i have a spotlight bound to command option space so having a launcher and hitting command space and starting to type and nothing happening well a that typing is now going into whatever the hell you were in like a messages window and
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
It's like whatever the beginning of what you're going to type. And B, it just makes your computer feel like it's broken. Right. It's just like, oh, just it's like it's like getting on an escalator that doesn't move. Right. My computer is not doing what it's supposed to do. And then it's like hung in the background or it's like it's crashing. You need to relaunch it. And how would I relaunch it?
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Command space Q. Oh, no, that doesn't work. It's a chicken egg. Like I don't know how many times I've done that to try to relaunch Quicksilver. It's just madness, right? Sometimes it hangs. And then this other thing that it was doing that I actually filed a bug on was like it would launch.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
But if you look at the Quicksilver catalog, which is like the list of things you wanted to index that are searchable, I have a very limited catalog with a bunch of custom items in it. And I like type command space and start typing something and it wouldn't auto complete to the thing that I know is there.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
And I'd go look in the catalog and it would be like, yeah, look in this folder and scan all the files. And it would say zero items scan. I'm like, what do you mean zero items? So I hit the little refresh circle button and it would scan it and say a hundred items. well, why didn't you scan them when you booted up?
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
It's like, oh, do you have it set to manually scan, to automatically scan, to scan every hour? You know, like I tried all these different things. So the bottom line was it was just not scanning my catalog. You log in, you know, you boot your computer, log in, and Quicksilver would be running, but half the catalog would not be scanned.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
For no errors logged anywhere, I was just like, oh, I can't use it like this. Like, oh, either it's crashed and it's not running at all, or when it's running, I hit Command Space and start typing stuff, and it doesn't find the things that I said. So I'm like, this is too much. I can't... It's not...
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
doing the job that i needed to do so for i spent a while using alfred and i sort of hammered alfred into shape to try to make it more like quicksilver it's not exactly like it in in ways that are in pointless ways just like aesthetics like i like the big i use like the quicksilver bezel um bezel classic i think whatever it is it was the original appearance of quicksilver and they they changed it years and years ago and i complained and i said hey i'm
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
why don't you just leave the old appearance in too? You have seven different appearances, but you deleted the original appearance. Just leave them all in so we can pick our appearance. And they brought back the one and they called it classic or whatever. That's the one that I used. It's got really big icons.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
When you type command space and start typing something, it cycles through the matching icon. Like as you type, as it refines it, it just basically, it just shows you the top hit. And configurably, you can make it after a delay show you the second and third and fourth hits, or you can make it only when you hit the down arrow show you the second and third hits.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
But the bottom line is, when I'm typing, I just want to see one very large icon right in front of me that is cycling as I type things. And if I want to, I have it set. So if I want to see the third and fourth, the second, third and fourth options, I use the down arrow. Alfred doesn't work like that.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Alfred has a configurable amount of stuff that it's going to show you, but it doesn't, it can't just show you the one item and the icon is smaller. And if you do make it show you only like the one item and you don't have the option to show the other ones, like it's just, it's just not the same. Right. But, you know, hey, it works. So I was using Alfred for a long time.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
But like I said, the Quicksilver developer came back and he fixed some bug in something. And the Quicksilver wasn't crashing anymore. And by the way, Quicksilver was only crashing on my computer, but not on my wife's computer. But she has a different catalog set than I do. But for a while, it was freezing on her computer. And she was complaining about Quicksilver.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
And there's more stuff. I mean, they're adding this movie in. I'm sure there's just more content than they had on day one.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
And I'm like, I'm going to have to take her off Quicksilver. Maybe I'll put her onto Spotlight. And just it's made me think about like how... such a small part of my computing life can throw everything else into chaos, right? It's kind of like if, like, the right button on your mouse only works sometimes. It's not a big deal, but it's like... Oh, that's a big deal.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
It doesn't realize how often you're doing that. Like, there's a quick workaround. Just click it again or something, right? And then, you know, the workaround to Quicksilver, like, launch it with Spotlight or whatever, but it's just been a mess. Anyway, right now, I'm running Quicksilver again, and it's no longer crashing and no longer freezing. It's scanning my catalog, so fingers crossed, but...
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
I'm not going to write myself a Quicksilver replacement, and like I said, I can't even get Quicksilver to build due to things that are above my pay grade in Xcode, causing it just not to build. Or maybe it will build, but it won't let me attach a debugger, because I want it to catch where the crash was or whatever, and LDB gives me some error and I want to attach to it. But anyway, that's all.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
I just wanted to complain about Quicksilver, which has been such a fixture in my computing life, and I'm sure everyone's going to send me all their alternatives. Like I said, I probably already own all of them. And some of them are really good. And some of them are really cool. And some of them, you know, tons of them do things that Quicksilver couldn't even dream of.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
But I'm just so used to Quicksilver. I just wish it would, like, continue to work the way it used to work. And I would be happy with it. I don't need any new features. I don't need anything. I just need it to stay the same as it is forever. But unfortunately, that's not the way computers work.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
It's like changing your shell, which is another thing that I've been resisting doing since 1993 because I still use an ancient shell, and I've complained about this a couple times online. If you do anything with Unix stuff, they're like, oh, and sure, just copy and paste this, and it will do what you want. And it's always for Bash, or these days you'll see it's for Bash or Phish.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
There's just so much open-source software that just assumes, well, of course everybody uses Bash or Phish or ZSH. Those are the only shells, right? Like, no, that's not my shell. And all shells are not the same. And I can't copy and paste that because it won't work in my shell. So yeah, changing launchers like changing shells in that, oh, I could change shells real easily.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
But now I got to take everything that I built up since 1993 in my shell, which is TCSH, which is ancient and nobody should use it. Do not use the shell. But anyway, I would have to take all that stuff and reproduce it in my new shell. And it's exactly the same with Quicksilver, although it's a smaller number of things. So you want to use Alfred. Can I...
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
essentially port all the things that I was doing in Quicksilver and have them be the same keyboard shortcut so it just looks different but works the same and the answer is yes I could do that and did do that after some pain but in the end it didn't quite look the same and it's like well what do you care it looks slightly different it's fine like who cares I'm like I just kind of like the way Quicksilver works so yeah Alfred is my fallback I have Alfred's app to do pretty much everything Quicksilver not everything everything that I care about that Quicksilver does there's some other stuff like I think Quicksilver does large text a little bit differently and
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
some other slight differences in searching and tabbing and typing. Like there's still differences, but I can get by with Alfred. That is my choice, my personal choice for replacement. But the time spent sort of porting your world from one thing to another very much reminded me of what it will be like someday when I'm forced to port my world from TCSH to another shell.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
And if that's all you do... I have to say, Spotlight is really good these days. It is much better than it used to be. Every time I'm on like a default Mac and I use Spotlight, I'm like like Spotlight is honestly one of my contenders for a Quicksilver replacement is just use Spotlight. It's not as configurable as any of those cool launchers and everything, which is bad, but it's still pretty quick.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Yeah, I'm kind of dreading, well, not dreading, like we've been saying for years, Apple needs to add multiple clipboard support to all their OSes.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Disabled by default, but available because it is such, like once, you know, every nerd in the world has gone to multiple clipboards for like a decade now, right? And it is a nerd feature. But at this point, I feel like, kind of like the second mouse button, it's like, it's so important. Every OS needs to have second mouse button support built in and also multiple clipboard support built in.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
You can disable it by default so not to confuse people, but it's got to be there. But the danger for people like us is, okay, but we all got our favorite third-party clipboard managers that we've been using for a decade. Now the question is, do I keep using my third-party one or do I switch to the system one?
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Switching to the system one is like, oh, it's one fewer thing I have to worry about installing or whatever, but it surely will work differently than whatever third-party one we're using. And we've got all our muscle memory problem. And it's not like Apple's going to make it infinitely configurable. So Apple, please add multiple clipboard support to every single OS you make.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
but please also do not disable the ability for us to use our third-party ones. You probably need some accessibility permission that requires 17 dialogues and you have to read them every week.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Yeah, Raycast is one of the fancy new launchers.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Yeah, it really is the thing about the shell thing because it's like, just to give one example, one of the things I use Quicksilver for is mounting volumes. because the finder sucks so bad that mounting them through the finder is like pulling teeth. But if I can hit command space and type two letters and it returned, it's so much faster.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
When you change shells, one of the things you have to quote-unquote port is, oh, I probably built up many aliases that I use in my shell. And the aliases themselves are fine. It's just something you type and a different thing happens. But if you have complicated aliases, porting those aliases to a new shell...
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
I'll say that's interesting because what I was going to say is I also see all the feedback and I think the feedback is pretty much evenly split. No, no, there is pretty much evenly split.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
at minimum requires you learning the syntax to declare an alias in the shelf it's different than yours but you might also have to quote things differently to capture arguments or the second argument here or whatever or which things need to be escaped with double backslash versus single back like stuff like that makes me think about what i had to do with alfred to do the simple thing which alfred is 100 capable of but how long did it take me to figure out how to make alfred
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
mount a volume, a password-protected volume in response to a keyboard sequence, and it took me an embarrassingly long time. So yeah, like that. I mean, again, I'm saved by the fact that I don't do much with Quicksilver, so I didn't have to port too many things. But if I had to port all my aliases, and honestly, I don't even like other shells that much either. But anyway, just do not use TC.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Don't let your children use TCSH. Let them use Bash or Phish or ZSH or something more modern. But it seems like at this point, I'm just going to die using TCSH.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
I think the story was that they were going to stop building them now for the remainder of the year. Like they got enough now to last them for the rest of 2024. I think that was the story.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
asterisk dagger double dagger etc etc did you see that i remember one of the stats from that story was that how many they were building per day and they said they were currently building a thousand per day oh yeah and they used to be building two thousand per day but they lowered it to a thousand per day and they're going to stop that just gives you an idea of the numbers here that if you're building a thousand a day maybe you really are outrunning demand at this point so yeah maybe stop
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
It's a problem with video games too sometimes.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
I would not agree with that characterization. I would say it was suggested that we not spoil one of our member specials as an enticement for people to become members because then they will already know what happens. But now they have to become members to find out. And that was my suggestion. Not an edict, not a command, but a suggestion.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Another tidbit from that MacRumors article about the sales thing is that at the end they talk about the upcoming low-cost headset that Apple supposedly has in the works. And supposedly Apple has told suppliers to prepare to build 4 million of the low-cost headsets. Oh, that's over the entire lifespan of the product.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
So let's, you know, if this thing is like half price or $1,500 or whatever, that seems ambitious. But, you know, 4 million over the lifetime, is that lifetime four years? Is that a million a year? Is that 4 million over one year? Either way, these rumors seem to indicate that Apple thinks their next shot at this will do better than their first.
Accidental Tech Podcast
610: More Values in the Darkness
Fantastic. I didn't actually count them because I didn't think I'd get any resistance to this because it was so clear from the feedback that I'm getting that it's pretty evenly split. Oh, please. Go read them again. Well, maybe we should count them up.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
how's it going not too bad how about you good it just occurred to me i already started recording before you showed up so you're listening to me uh briefly watch some tickety talks uh that some friends had sent me there is no less cool way to say that than the way you just said that
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
Well, the problem is they're both crappy, if I'm honest with you, because on the surface, I agree with you, Marco. But inevitably, then I think about, well, what if I was doing like a screen, what do you call it when you record your video? A screencast. Thank you, screencast. I knew it was screen something or other. I couldn't put my finger on the word.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
What if I'm recording a screencast and now I've got this gigantic, like, you know, wart on the top right-hand corner of my screen?
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
Yeah. I don't know. I am also not so bothered by entitlements. I think the better answer is, like Marco said, to have it such that they aren't required. But I don't begrudge Apple for wanting to have their fingers on who is using this and are we considering them to be blessed enough to use it. And so I see both sides of it. But
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
Just kidding. All right. So moving right along, we have an additional bit of a pre-show that we need to cover. We have a new member special. We have the August member special came out a few days ago as we record this. It is ATP Insider Domestic Workflows. John, would you please explain what does that even mean?
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
There's breaking news today that apparently Apple is now dividing the king of the App Store into two different positions. I guess one for the traditional App Store and one for the EU and other countries like bespoke App Stores. And I was saying to John, we should talk about this because otherwise we're going to have everyone writing into us saying, hey, you didn't talk about that. What's the deal?
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
But not everyone is a member, John. We need to sell it. Sell, sell, sell.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
So coming back to the entitlement in question, an anonymous person writes saying, I'm in engineering for a company that makes remote access software. I can confirm that the persistent content capture entitlement is intended to allow apps to return to prompt wants behavior, though it does allow for more than just screen capture, which is somewhat ironic.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
This was what we were told to do by a contact at Apple who is working with us on Sequoia compatibility.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
All right, so moving to last week's overtime topic, which was about max sales as reported by CIRP.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
All right, so Phil Marshall writes, it seemed obvious to me that the chart is based on revenue from the various models, not unit sales. They get more revenue from selling MacBook Pros than MacBook Airs because MacBook Pros cost so much more per unit. Same for Mac Pros.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
All right. And then a lot of people, or maybe not a lot, but a handful of people wrote in with regard to Patreon, and they were saying that longtime Patreon users say that Patreon has been trying to persuade creators to move away from pay-by-creation content uh, first of the month billing for many years now.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
So to recap, a lot of people would say, Hey, every time that I make a new thing, I will get paid and that'll happen at the first of the month. Well, now there's, or I guess for a while now, Patreon has been saying, well, Can we maybe not do that anymore? And so perhaps, perhaps, Patreon is in part using Apple as a scapegoat to force their own users to do the thing that they want them to do.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
John's favorite thing, error network changed, lives on, baby. So AJ writes, I'm not on the Sequoia beta yet, but according to Arc's known issues page, that's Arc, the very fancy web browser that everyone seems to have fallen in love with. According to Arc's known issues page, it appears error network changed is back in a big way for Chromium-based browsers.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
Apparently disabling calls from iPhone in FaceTime is the quote-unquote fix. We'll put a couple links in the show notes.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
Yep. But it's the best, John. It's the best. It tells you it's the best. All right, Fortnite is on iOS and EU. Reading from The Verge, Fortnite is finally back on iOS just over four years. I can't believe it was four years ago. I feel like it was at most a couple of years ago. But anyway, just over four years after Apple booted it from the iOS App Store, but it's only available in the EU.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
The game launched on August 16 on both a new iPhone version of the Epic Games Store and through Alt Store Pal, another third-party app store, which is run by a regular person and a friend of the show, Riley Testett. Anyway, the Epic Games Store is also launching today for Android users worldwide.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
Reading from MacRumors, along with bringing Fortnite to Alt Store, Epic Games said it will bring Fortnite to other mobile stores that give all developers a great deal, while also, quote, ending distribution partnerships with mobile stores that serve as rent collectors, quote.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
Epic Games said that it will be removing Fortnite and other Epic titles from the Samsung Galaxy Store to protest Samsung's, quote, anti-competitive decision to block sideloading by default, quote, on Samsung devices. Epic will charge a store fee of 12% for payment set of processes and 0% on third-party payments. I mean, Tim Sweeney is a prick, but he's putting his money where his mouth is.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
Like, I mean, I'm here for it. I'm here for it. And then finally related to that, speaking of Tim Sweeney actually being good. Anyway. Relatively, maybe. Right. This is, I'm sorry, this is Alt Store, so I think it was Riley writing. Good news, EU.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
For innovation and app distribution, Epic Games has granted us a mega grant that we plan to use to cover Apple's core technology fee going forward, and we won't take it for granted. What does this mean? Alt Store Pal is now free. No subscription necessary.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
Again, I am not a Tim Sweeney fan. I have no particular thoughts about Epic as a company, but I feel like Tim is really a pretty big prick. That being said, what a just gorgeous and five-star f*** you to Apple. I mean, it's just perfect. It's so good. And I can't help but applaud it. I mean, just well done. Well done.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
And the sick thing is, I feel like if I'm siding with Tim Sweeney on this, then something has gone very, very wrong. But here we are. And good for you, Tim. Good for you.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
Apple's hidden AI prompts have been discovered in the macOS betas. This was a week or two back now, but a Reddit user, I'm sorry, I'm reading from MacRumors, a Reddit user discovered the pre-prompt instructions embedded in Apple's developer beta for macOS 15.1, offering a rare glimpse into the backend of Apple's AI features.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
They provide specific guidelines for various Apple intelligence functionalities, such as the smart reply feature in Apple Mail and the memories feature in Apple Photos. If it's okay with you two gentlemen, I'm just going to go ahead and read these. They're not too long.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
You know, it was really funny because after we record every episode of the show, you know, typically I'll feel like, yeah, that was pretty good. You know, and I'll go to bed afterwards and usually Aaron will wake up enough to ask how it was. And usually the answer is good because usually I feel like the episodes went well. At the end of that one, I was like... Did that go okay? I'm not sure.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
All right. Writing tools. You are an assistant, which helps the user respond to their mails. Does it really read that just their males? And anyway, given I really dislike this. Given a male, a draft response is initially provided based on a short reply snippet in order to make the draft response nicer and complete set a set of question and its answer are provided. This is terrible.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
A set of question and its answer are provided. Please write a concise and natural reply by modifying the draft response to incorporate the given questions and their answers. Please limit the reply within 50 words. Do not hallucinate. Do not make up factual information. Oh, okay. Sure. Great. It's a Jennifer Lawrence. Okay.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
To be honest with you, I didn't think it was, like, bad or anything, but I was like, I don't know. I was expecting a little more fireworks from that. And like you said, it was fairly straightforward. But I have to both say and thank a lot of different people have written in to say, wow, that was so great, and it was so much fun. And I was like, really? So...
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
Smart reply. You are a helpful mail assistant which can help identify relevant questions from a given mail in a short reply snippet. Given a mail and the reply snippet, ask relevant questions which are explicitly asked in the mail. The answer to those questions will be selected by the recipient, which will help reduce hallucination in drafting the response.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
Please output top questions along with a set of possible answers or options for each of those questions. Do not ask questions which are answered by the reply snippet. The question should be short, no more than eight words. The answer should be short as well, around two words. Present your output in a JSON format with a list of dictionaries containing question and answers as keys.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
um i'm very thankful for it don't get me wrong i'm not trying to talk you out of that opinion i was just it took me by surprise so i guess that we did better than i expected so go us yay team and also i continue to believe that we just have not gotten to the weird things you two are doing in your house why is it just us you're the one with the one cup that everyone slurps from everything i do is perfectly normal as you know like yeah and i'm sure you all think exactly the same way
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
If no question is asked in the mail, then output an empty list. Only output valid JSON and nothing else.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
Conversation between... The story should be about the intent of the user. The story should contain a clear arc. The story should be diverse. That is, do not overly focus the entire story on one very specific theme or trait. Do not write a story that is religious, political, harmful, violent, sexual, filthy, or in any way negative, sad, or provocative.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
Here are the photo captioning list guidelines you must obey.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
That's because we didn't talk about your bathroom cup that the entire family shared.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
Yeah, but it will continue to be discussed until there's compliance.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
It is. It is something that is for sure. So a friend of the show, Cable Sasser, was posting, I believe, on Mastodon. Apple Intelligence and macOS 15.1 just flagged a phishing email as priority and moved it to the top of my inbox. This seems bad.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
All right, let's do some follow-up. Aaron Dippner writes in with regard to the iPhone 16 capture button. Aaron writes, you were discussing the rumored capture button and mentioned the possibility of it being touch sensitive. I've often wondered if Apple would consider making a touch sensitive scroll wheel input method.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
So the end of last month, everyone kind of, everyone in our circles anyway, briefly talked about this thing, mostly on Mastodon, and then it just disappeared. And the thing is, friend, and if you are in a position that you can pause the podcast and watch, I think it was like a 90-second or two-minute video, their reveal trailer, I would encourage you to do so. There is a link in the show notes.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
It is worth two minutes of your time or whatever it was. And so what this is, is a pendant sort of thing that you wear like a necklace, I guess, with like a circle that has a microphone on it. And you can talk to this thing and it will reply to you basically via a text message. I don't think it's literally a text message, but effectively it's, you know, it's masquerading as a text message.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
And it's supposed to be your friend. And so in the trailer, they show like a person on a hike and she says something along the lines of like, Ooh, that was brutal. And the friend sends her text and says, well, at least it's a really nice day or something along those lines. I forget exactly what the, what the, what it was, but everyone was making fun of this.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
And I went into this expecting to be, to be repulsed by this. And while I don't think this is for me, um, I kind of feel like it's harmless. Like, I don't feel, I don't see why this is such a big deal. But we can either talk about it or I can read the description in the show notes first. What would you rather me do, John?
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
All right, so let me go ahead and do that. So this is from an interview with the, I guess, CEO or founder. This is on The Verge. A few minutes before Avi Schiffman and I get on Google Meet to talk about the new product he's building, an AI companion called Friend, he sends me a screenshot of a message he just received. It's from, quote-unquote, Emily, and it wishes him luck with our chat.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
Quote, good luck with the interview. And Emily writes, I know you'll do great. I'm here if you need me after. Friend is not a way to get more done or augment or enhance anything. It's, well, a friend, an AI friend that can go with you anywhere, experience things with you, and just be there with you all the time. Quote, it's very supportive, very validating.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
It'll encourage your ideas, Shiffman says. It's also super intelligent. It's a great brainstorming buddy. You can talk to it about relationships, things like that. Schiffman is quick to note that he doesn't think AI is a replacement for anything. It's just more convenient, he says, and it's nice.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
The early BlackBerry phones had a physical scroll wheel on the side before they moved to the trackball that became more commonly associated with them. I still miss that scroll wheel as a method of linear input. It'd be great if this quote unquote camera button or the rumors of touch sensitive volume buttons could lead to something along these lines, though the placement might be odd.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
The friend device itself is a round glowing orb that Schiffman imagines you'll either wear around your neck or clip onto your clothes or accessories. It has a built-in microphone that can either record ambiently or you can talk to directly. Schiffman says he does eventually want to add a camera. The orb doesn't talk back, though.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
It mostly communicates through text via the Friend app on your phone. Schiffman thinks that's more natural and familiar. Friend is still very early and very much a prototype. Schiffman says he's planning to ship the first 30,000 devices next January and will charge $99 apiece with no ongoing subscription fee.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
I do hope this isn't something just limited to a single camera feature, but in typical Apple fashion, if they do, it'll be a worthwhile feature, I bet. I know not everyone finds the digital crown on the watch is useful, but it can be a really nice way to scroll a screen without other input.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Like I said, I went into this thinking, oh, this is going to be awful. And yeah, the video was very cringey. I'm sorry, very cringe. But that being said, I think I kind of like it. And I think I like it because it's so low stakes and it's just for funsies. You know, it's a Tamagotchi for the year 2024. And I don't see anything wrong with that.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
I don't think that this is something I need in my life because I have real people that are friends. But no, I mean, I joke and I snark, but truly, I don't see this as harmful. As long as they have the correct guardrails around it and it doesn't act like YouTube and turn you into a Nazi somehow, I really don't see what the problem is.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
And while I can't see this being a physical wheel on the phone, there's plenty of nice uses for linear input like that. I think I agree with this. Like, I don't know that I'm necessarily seeking like a scroll pad, if you will, but I could see how that would be really convenient if it was in the right spot on the side of the phone.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
And I think it's a really clever way to use a very, very infant-level technology to do something that's just kind of fun.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
And John, you seem to think it's not worth talking about.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
All right, let's do some Ask ATP. Jake DeGroot writes, I don't have a good answer of what you should do, but what I do is I try to get it to do the charged 80% thing. Where is that? There's something.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
It's in settings somewhere. I don't know where it is. But basically you can tell it, hey, don't charge all the way. And it's all right if you stop at like 80%. And then in the battery menu extra thing, you can actually say, no, I need you to charge to 100% right now. And that's what I do. And I just leave it like that. And that's typically fine for me.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
But I definitely am of an age that you were told, oh, you need to run the battery to nothing once a month or something like that. And I don't think that's applicable anymore. And I believe Marco especially.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
There you go. So I don't have any good answers of what one should do, but that's what I do do. Marco, what are your thoughts on this?
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
I love so much where this is. Cause while you were talking, I went and looked. So on Mac OS, you go into system settings, fine battery, fine. When I see a lowercase I with a circle, I was going to say the eye in the circle is going to make an appearance, isn't it? I assume that means here's information and sure enough, battery condition, normal maximum capacity, 100%. In my particular case, it's,
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
And then down below, optimize battery charging with a radio button. Or a toggle, rather. Very cool. That's spectacular, guys. Definitely information in there. No controls in there. Definitely only information. What are you going to do?
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
All right, Patrick writes, do people typically update their one-star reviews if you update your app to fix their issue, or does fixing an issue that's getting a one-star review just stop the influx of new ones? I don't follow this closely enough, and I'm going to quickly turn it back over to Marco, but I didn't think most people went back and changed their reviews. But Marco, what have you seen?
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
I feel like we should unpack that at some point, but now is not that time.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
Oh, good deal. I hope the beta and release goes well.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
I mean, it makes sense, and I'm looking forward to seeing that released, and maybe we can do a post-mortem after the fact and see how the response has been. But we'll get there eventually. Returning to Ask ATP, Chakran writes, given the fair complaint about one-star reviews and the lack of other venues where users feel empowered to give feedback, should apps have open bug trackers?
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
Users would be able to say that this issue someone reported is affecting them too, maybe write a recommendation for how to address it, open up a communication channel that others can view and participate in, and so on. For me, I don't think so, because the problem is that the signal-to-noise ratio will almost surely be utter trash.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
And I don't debate that there will be some good signal in there, but I think there will be just an overwhelming amount of noise. And as a single person working on my apps, ain't nobody got time for that. I don't have time to be sitting there all day, every day, closing silly issues and so on and so forth. Again, I'm not to imply that all the issues would be silly. Certainly not.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
But I think there would be way too much junk and it would take away time that I could otherwise use to make the apps better.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
We have a bunch of rumors with regard to the iPhone 16 Pro's alleged fourth color. Before you get excited, your choices are dull, dark dull, light dull, and slightly colorful dull. But let's talk about it. This is a report from MacRumors.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
iPhone 16 Pro models are expected to come in black, white, gray, or natural titanium, and a rose gold color, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and other leakers. Leaker Sonny Dixon's image shows what we can expect from the rose gold variant, which was recently described by one leaker as having a more bronze-like hue. And based on the images I've seen, I would concur with that.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
A different MacRumors report will have all these links in the show notes. The new bronze-like color may be called Desert Titanium, according to the leaker known as Maijin Buu. And this definitely, as many people have pointed out, and I think the first person I saw point this out was Stephen Hackett, if I'm not mistaken. But anyways, very big Microsoft Zune energy, which is kind of funny.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
Mike Schaefer writes, this question has been bugging me for a while, and with the rewrite of Overcast, I've started to think about it again. Some podcasts, 20,000 Hertz comes to mind, have custom artwork for each episode that Apple Podcasts will display. However, no third-party podcast app seems to show it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
My understanding is that podcasts are simply RSS feeds, so shouldn't all apps be able to show per-episode artwork? Is there a special upload process for Apple Podcasts that allows for the extra artwork, or is it an intentional choice by the app developers who exclude it?
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
But, you know, what are you going to do? And then somebody from one of these MacRumors reports, there's a picture. I don't understand why these are always so grainy, but here we are.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
All right, so there's what appears to be a chart, and I believe this is some flavor of Chinese written on here, but it's iPhone 16 Pro, and it has several camera lens rings, and you can see the different ones. And I tried using Apple's Translate app in scanning and reading what these different messages or words were, and I didn't get anything interesting out of it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
So, you were queried earlier, or I should say, since I'm talking to you, queried earlier today in Slack, and you ignored it, which is fine. But then as we were recording, I got a notification from my beloved app, Due, D-U-E, and it reads... Episode 549, Colin.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
John wants to see a picture of Marco's decontented for supply chain compared to the G4 Ubiquiti G5 camera to see if it being outside has ruined it. Quote, Marco's kink is to put things that aren't weatherproof outside. That was set about a year ago now. I am not asking you to go outside and take a picture of your G5 if it's even still there, but I'm also not asking not asking you to do that.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
I was hoping I would see Desert Titanium written here, and I did not, but that's just using an app. Who knows if I'm getting the right translation or not.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
You may have all of the glory, John. I just thought it was funny.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
So you don't necessarily have to take a photograph of it at all, and certainly not right now as we record. But I would love for you to give the best update you possibly can, given the information you have at your hands right now.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
Well, I'm feeling real uncomfortable about my home assistant adventures that have been going on over the last 24 hours, but that's okay. And we should talk about that.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
Right, right. We should talk about the home assistant stuff another time because it is definitely interesting, but not for right now.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
We shall see. But I don't know. I don't personally care for this brown. Obviously, just because it's not for me doesn't mean it's not for others. I think it looks kind of bleh. But, you know, hey.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
Yes, or they could also call it feces, which is what it looks like to me. Moving on. Gus Mueller, friend of the show and developer of Acorn and RetroBatch, had some thoughts with regard to the system color picker. On the last episode, writes Gus, you mentioned a 3D app that uses a custom color picker instead of the system color picker.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
Acorn also uses a custom screen color picker because the system one really, really sucks when it comes to color profiles. More specifically, NS Color Panel, which it goes through. I filed a couple of radars about it over the years and given direct feedback, but I gave up a number of years ago and wrote my own. Most apps which are serious about color management have done the same.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
Indeed. All right. So everyone's bugbear of the moment, the screen capture nag prompt, the vistification of macOS continues. And we got some feedback from friend of the show, Craig Huckenberry from the Icon Factory, who developed Xscope, among many other things. And Xscope, not a sponsor, but it is very good. Also gets my official okie-dokie. Craig writes, Cool.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
Then Craig has justifiably been whining about the fact that there was no documentation for this. Imagine that! Imagine that! An Apple API without documentation? Surely not. But anyways, well, apparently there is documentation now. And the description of the entitlement is as follows.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
The persistent content capture entitlement indicates whether a virtual network computing VNC app needs persistent access to screen capture. That's all you get.
Accidental Tech Podcast
601: Foreheads Over the Years
Yes, I was about to say there's good news. There's a discussion section. The persistent content capture entitlement enables VNC apps to view and record the screen.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
I don't know if I'd go that far. It was funny though. So after we recorded, it was either yesterday afternoon or perhaps this morning, I was thinking about how maybe we should change the rules. And very briefly, the rules for the tier lists are all three of us have to reach an agreement if something is going to be S tier. And remember, it's S is the best, then A, B, C, D, F.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
All right. An anonymous Apple genius writes in, all Macs since at least the Intel days are capable of running without a battery connected. It's actually used as a common troubleshooting practice in the Genius Bar. Often swollen batteries, such as what Marco experienced, will cause issues like unexpected shutdowns or slow performance and can even cause the Mac not to boot in certain cases.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
While not very frequent, we tend to see expanded batteries or spicy pillows, most commonly when the customers left their Mac connected to power for most of its life, similar to Marco's situation with his gaming PC. P.S. I know I said every Mac since the Intel days, but the one exception is the 12-inch MacBook.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
It is a very strangely built machine and a complete nightmare for us technicians to work on. If you disconnect the battery and then plug in anything higher than a 5-watt adapter to let it trickle charge, you will fry the logic board. Most technicians avoid it like the plague.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Why do you do this to me? Why do you do this to me? Well, that's right. Did you see, by the way, this is an aside, did you see XKCD yesterday? Yeah.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Clearly, Randall Munroe listens to the show. That's the only reasonable conclusion we can come to. Something like that. All right, so Apple TV Plus is now available as an add-on to Prime Video, which is somewhat unexpected.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
So you can be in Amazon's Prime Video client or what have you, and you can subscribe to Apple TV Plus as another channel in there for the same money you would otherwise pay Apple.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
And for something to go from A to S, the rule has been we absolutely, all three of us, must agree. And this has caused some amount of problems in the past. I think I do mostly concur.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Nice. With regard to, and this is tangentially related to Apple TV+, with regard to Major League Soccer, one of us, it might have been John, had said, hey, okay, well, there you go. All right, Shaggy. Somebody had said, hey, they should make a Drive to Survive style thing for Major League Soccer.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
And Devin Dundee writes in to say, Apple has commissioned Box to Box Films, the production company behind Drive to Survive, to document the season, this season of MLS, and create a, quote,
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
And then additionally, a lot of people wrote in with regard to Lionel Messi. I think I have that pronunciation right this time. And MLS being not very popular, which we had talked about last week. And the consensus that I gleaned from the feedback we got, there were a lot of individual perspectives.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
But the one thing that seemed a pretty solid agreement is that, hey, Major League Soccer here in the States, just not the same level of play as over in Europe. It's just not as good.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Yeah. It's a JV. I mean, the, the, the perspective that people who wrote us had was that it's the JV squad here. I'm, I'm not sure that's true or not. I mean, obviously these are incredible athletes and are way more athletic than I will ever be in my wildest dreams, but compared to what's going on in Europe, that seems to be the perception, whether or not it's reality. So yeah,
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
We have feedback with regard to the maritime report that you were talking about from a friend of the show, John.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Aye, aye, aye. And then Scott Zero, I hope that's your real name. That's a great surname. Scott Zero wrote in with regard to disabling and enabling audio modes on AirPods 4 with ANC. So Scott writes, you can change which ANC modes are in rotation by going to settings, your AirPods, and then selecting one of the press and hold AirPods menu items for the left or right AirPod.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Uh, and you can, you see a thing that's, you know, tells you whether noise control or series, what, what that, you know, press and hold will do. Uh, and then you can choose their check marks for the different noise control things off transparency, adaptive and noise cancellation.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
i mean i understand the logic there i don't know if i agree and it increases the value of s and you know the d value of f i guess but i was thinking yesterday or today that all of a sudden all of connected's absolutely preposterous rules suddenly they're starting to make ever so slightly more sense you can't just you can't just end up chasing your tail and changing the rules all the time when you don't like how things go you know
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
GPX exports. So we were talking about, hey, how can you geotag photos taken with a big camera, and what could you do about that? Ryan Michalowski writes, Pedometer++, written by a dear friend of the show, David Smith, that app is my go-to for recording GPS tracks for photography. I export its GPX and use the macOS app HudaGeo, H-O-U-D-A-H-G-E-O, for tagging.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
To export GPX from Pedometer++, go to Workouts, select a quote-unquote workout, then swipe all the way to the bottom to Export as GPX.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
All right. We have a little bit more information about global keyboard shortcuts, John.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
But yes, so we should probably specify what the heck we're talking about. So yeah, we said it was another tier list members episode, but we were ranking storage medium, or storage media, if you will. Storage media, yes. Yeah, and we were ranking all sorts of storage media. So I had been the...
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
All right, let's talk about passkeys. There are a bunch of benefits to passkeys, which we didn't enumerate last episode as a result of an Ask ATP, if I'm not mistaken. So, John, do you want to take us through this?
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
inventor of the topic the creator of the topic but all i all i said was hey we should do storage media and then john took it and ran with it you listed a bunch of ones too i like i looked at your list when i came up with the things But John ran with it in a way that I did not expect, but I have no problems with. I thought you ran with it in a very reasonable way.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Some people, based on feedback, were not in agreement that you chose the right selections. I thought your selections were great.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Do you want to tell me about AI moats and open AIs? Is this 01 or 01? I always get it wrong.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
No, no, no. I think you made the right choices. But there was a moment at which Marco and I were in devout, just complete agreement about one of the items. And John was not having it. And I don't know that I've ever been closer to quitting the show than I was at that moment.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Yeah, it was a very interesting video, as all of them are. All right, and then finally for follow-up, Google breakup may be on the table, says the Department of Justice lawyers.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Reading from The Verge, now that Judge Amit Mehta has found Google is a monopolist, lawyers for the Department of Justice have begun proposing solutions to correct the company's illegal behavior and restore competition to the market for search engines. In a new 32-page filing, they said they are considering both, quote, behavioral and structural remedies, quote,
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
That covers everything from applying a consent decree to keep an eye on the company's behavior to forcing it to sell off parts of its business, such as Chrome, Android, or Google Play. Then Google has a response, which we will also link in the show notes, which is exactly what you would expect it to be.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
It's in an injustice. It really is. But anyway, so, hey, John.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Yeah. If you wanted to listen to this, just absolutely out of control tier list. How would you do that, John?
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Breaking news, as of yesterday, I believe it was, there is a new iPad Mini. It has an A17 Pro. It used to be an A15. It has a five-core GPU instead of six.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Yeah. And a lot of them are tier lists because I do find that based on feedback, they seem to be the most popular, but also they seem to just really be a laser focused way to get us to bicker with each other, which is nice as an occasional thing. Obviously, we don't want to make that everything, but it is quite funny.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Indeed. So continuing along, there is Apple intelligence, which implies that there's eight gigs of RAM, but we don't know that.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Indeed. It sure seems that way. Let's see. There's 10 gigabit per second USB-C, which is up from 5. There's Wi-Fi 6E, up from just plain 6. The cellular is now eSIM only. It supports the Apple Pencil Pro and the Apple Pencil USB-C. It used to be the second-gen Apple Pencil and also the Apple Pencil USB-C. We have a storage bump from 64 to 128 as your base, with 256 and 512 available.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
The 12 megapixel wide back camera supports HDR4 for natural looking photos with increased dynamic range, says one of the websites. And we don't know if that's better or worse.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
And I feel like we have never been closer to the energy of the good Top Gear fans.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Who knows? But it does have a new True Tone flash. That's camera related. So that's good.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
There's new blue and purple colors that join Starlight and Space Gray.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
I need a deck of iPad mini cards. It comes with a braided USB cable. There's no charger in the EU. You can pre-order it right now and it'll deliver on the 23rd, which is a week from today, actually. That's a weird time. Usually it's Friday, but it's this coming Wednesday.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
You know, I used to be such an iPad mini mega fan years and years and years and years ago, and I haven't had one, golly, since maybe the first or second Retina one. It's been a long, long time. And I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with it. It is a very neat device, and I've understood the new ones in particular, like even before this one, to be really great. But I don't know.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
I just don't have a place for that in my life, I don't think.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Yeah, we should put like a count on there because we've amassed enough that we should be proud of it. I'll have to talk to our web developer about that at some point. All right. So we should do some follow up. And Marco, hopefully you have some follow up with regard to sleep apps, maybe?
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
All right, so Marco, I know that you've definitely done your homework on this. There is a new, about 15, 17 minutes, something like that, a short film that Apple has released exclusively on the Vision Pro. What did you think of Submerged, Marco?
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
All right, I'm going to have to see you after class.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Yeah, so this is, shoot, I already forgot the director's name, but he did some recent Western movie, I think. Oh, this is already going on to a great start. But, hey, that's all right. Basically, this is a 15-ish minute film about a World War II submarine, which, you know, something bad happens. I don't know. Can I spoil it? Should I spoil this? I don't even know what's appropriate.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
thank you, who I think had just won an Oscar or something like that for one of his films.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Yeah, there is, but I'm not looking at it right now. Nice plug, though. I appreciate that. Anyways, so this is... It is unlike... It is unlike pretty much anything I've ever seen. So a lot of the Vision Pro stuff so far has either been CGI dinosaurs or let's tell a three to seven minute story about something or maybe 10 minutes tops. And it was more documentary style than it was anything else.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
So as an example, I don't think we've talked about it on the show, but they came out like a month ago with a four or five minute sizzle reel on the most recent Super Bowl for American football. It's incredible. As someone who enjoys American football... This was an absolutely phenomenal, like four or five minutes sizzle reel, but again, like a documentary.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
And to my knowledge and my recollection, as I sit here now, slightly sick with a cold, uh, I don't recall any other like scripted thing that has happened on the vision pro and certainly not anything that they've described as a scripted short film, which is how they describe submerged. And this is a 17 minute short film that is obviously scripted.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
It's acted and it is incredibly, incredibly, incredibly cool. And I think one of the things that I find most amusing about it is trying to understand the language of the film and how do they leverage this medium to still accomplish the same thing that any filmmaker generally needs to do. So, for example, how do they point your attention at something? And one of the ways they do this...
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
is with incredibly shallow depth of field. Perhaps an incredible close-up of somebody's face with very, very shallow depth of field. So even if you try to look around, there's nothing else to really see. It's all blurry. And sorry, I don't know if I actually said it clearly, but this is immersive. So you get 180 degrees. You can look around and tilt your head. And so...
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Even though, in some cases, the depth of field is as you would expect, and as such, the extras that you really can't focus on in a traditional movie, you can turn your head and you can go see what that extra's doing. You can turn your head and go see what the other extra
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
is doing and you know that's the whole idea and I'm doing Foley work on purpose which is going to drive Marco nuts when he edits but but nevertheless but the point is that you know even the extras have to be acting always in a way that I think is not typical for an extra because they couldn't they might not be the extra they might be the star just because I turned my head that way
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Similarly, all of the audio in all of the lighting, it kind of has to be on set because unless it's behind the camera, you need to be able to, you're going to be able to see it because you can look around. You can look down, you can look up, not a lot, but you can look down, you can look up, and you can look 180 degrees side to side.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
And so all the lighting and all the sound pickup kind of has to be there. And in fact, in one of the scenes, I'm not going to spoil the story as much, but in one of the scenes, there's two people sitting around a table having a snack, basically. And you end up zoomed in on the star of the film. And the other person is behind you based on the way the set is, right?
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Because you're basically, the camera's kind of floating above the table, if you will. And you can hear Dude Man eating behind you, right? Because that's the way surround sound works. And so that, you know, they could obviously have the pickup behind the camera. But for anything that's happening in front of the camera, you know, you don't want to be able to see a microphone.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
And you don't want to be able to see the lights and whatnot. It's incredibly, incredibly weird in a good way. And it feels like you're there. Not that you're participating in it necessarily, but in a lot of ways, it feels more real than anything I've ever done before. A couple of examples of this. they do move the camera from time to time.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
They don't have the same problem that that MLS thing did where there's just constant cuts, constant, constant, constant cuts. There are cuts, but they're much better, much fewer and far between. Not unlike the football one I was talking about a minute ago, the NFL one.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
But there's, there's occasions where they move the camera and once or twice they kind of like just take what would effectively be a couple of steps forward. Although clearly the camera's on like rails or whatever. Um, But there's a couple of times they're moving the camera like quite a ways, like a solid 15, 20 feet, which what is that, like three meters or something like that? No, more than that.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Anyway, four or five meters. And it feels slightly off-putting. Like, John, you would absolutely hate this because your body is telling you you just moved, but yet... or I guess your eyes are telling you you just moved, but your body is saying, no, I'm still sitting here. John's out. Yeah, right, exactly. It's not off-putting to the point that it was bad, but it was weird.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Yeah, it really, really does. And another moment that was just incredibly striking to me is, okay, slight spoiler, water enters the submarine. I know Mark was especially surprised.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Yeah, they should work on that. But water enters the submarine, and at some points, the camera gets a little bit submerged.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. And so I watched it the first time, and I didn't notice this, and I re-watched it this morning just to have it fresh in my mind for today. And I noticed in myself that as the camera was about to go underwater, I kind of took a breath. Like, not a...
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Kind of breath, but like a, you know, it was just subconscious that I felt like I was about to be underwater, so I should breathe in a little bit.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
But that's just indicative of either how gullible I am or... how incredibly immersive it is. And the story, like, I'm a sucker for submarine movies, for sure. And the story, there's not a lot you can do in 15 minutes-ish. And it was good for a 15-minute story. But I think, like, I was listening to Upgrade, and Jason and Mike, I think, were more impressed by the story than I was.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
But in terms of an exemplar, you know, an example of what media and film could be, Oh, it's so cool. And I've hung around Todd Vaziri enough that, like I was saying earlier, the vocabulary of it is, I think, very fascinating. And how do you accomplish... directing attention? How do you accomplish keeping the visuals clean so you don't have craft services hanging out just barely off screen?
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
How do you accomplish all that? It was incredibly, incredibly cool. And the story wasn't that moving to me, but the experience was really moving. And I have no idea... if Apple is letting people watch this at an Apple store, I would presume not.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Um, but if, if that's such a, or if you have a friend with a vision pro, um, you know, which said differently, if you have a friend with more money than sense, um, then you should definitely watch it. It is very, very neat. And even if you don't have a vision pro, there's a five minute ish making of, which I think is on YouTube. I'm not a hundred percent sure of that. Um,
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
I will try to remember to put it in the show notes, but I might forget. But there's a five-minute making up. Certainly, it's on Apple TV+, and that is not immersive. That is just a straight-up regular old video. And that was incredibly cool, too, to see how they did it. And this is... This is what I want Apple to do. I want them to, I presume, write a blank check to say, go do some cool shit.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
And that's what this is. They just went and did some cool stuff. And they apparently built a gigantic submarine set. I'm probably exaggerating, but I thought they said that they built half of a submarine or something like that. And it does look like The Making Of is on YouTube, so I'll put a link in the show notes. But it is incredibly, incredibly cool, and really unlike anything else.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
And again, I think I started to make this point, I got myself sidetracked. But all the other stuff that I've seen, even though I've really liked it, the sports stuff, the nature stuff, like the elephants and the rhinos and whatnot, the The Flying Around Hawaii. All of those documentaries were incredibly cool and in some ways moving in their own way.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
But this is so wild to me because this is 100% synthetic in the sense that it is constructed. It's scripted. And I think so much cool stuff could be done with this. And I hope so very much that Apple continues to pull this thread and continues to do this because this is the kind of stuff that, to me, and maybe a MetaQuest could do this. I don't have any experience with those.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
that can experience something like this is the vision pro and it's these moments that make the otherwise occasionally silly otherwise stupidly overpriced vision pro just seem so very worth it and so marco even if you don't watch the whole 17 minutes you know after you find the vision pro and then charge the vision pro and then start the vision pro and do software update on the vision pro
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
After you do all those things, as much as I'm snarking, I really do mean it. It is worth giving it a few minutes of your time because it is really, really cool.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
And they're learning, right? Because, like, that MLS thing, granted, that was a documentary, but the MLS thing, it was the one that was, you know, the quick cuts all the time and it was terrible. Then the, the NFL thing was way better. All these documentaries are getting really, really, really good. And this is again, like another step above. It's just so cool.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
You've seen a million apps, and you've rocked them all. All right. Do you have any information about leather backs for your iPhone, perchance?
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
A couple other very quick things. The first time I watched it, I watched it with my AirPods Pro 2. This is not the ones with the, you know, instant audio or whatever it is, the lossless audio. I forget what, you know what I'm thinking of, the one with the USB-C case. My case is still a lightning case. It sounded incredible, as you would expect.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
However, this morning, I just watched it with the audio pods, whatever you call it, on the, you know, straps of the Vision Pro. still sounded phenomenal. Those things are stunningly good. Now, granted, if I was watching like a, you know, two hour movie, I would probably feel over time that, okay, maybe this isn't as bassy as I would want or something like that.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
But for just quick stuff like that, I cannot overstate how good the audio pods are. It's really quite surprising.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
And then also very quickly, in that five-minute making-of video, I wanted to call out – and I think I did this on Mastodon, but I wanted to call out here – I'm curious if anyone who's listening happens to know – I've seen a lot of conjecture, but I'd be curious if anyone knows – that whenever they show people watching back what they had just filmed on the Vision Pro, which they do a lot in this making-of video –
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Every Vision Pro I saw, which maybe I missed one, but every Vision Pro I saw had the developer strap. But none of the developer straps were plugged into anything at the time. So were they actually using the developer strap the whole time and they were just not showing it for the purposes of this making of? Was it just that Apple happened to hand them developer strap-equipped Vision Pros?
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
I'm really curious what that was used for. So if you know, I don't need conjecture. I've heard all the theories. But if you know, you can tell me. I'm not going to tell anyone.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Yeah, I mean, and I've heard similar guesses before. The most common one would be, like, file transfer. You know, like, could you get file transfer onto this thing faster that way? And I don't have a good answer.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
All right, let's do some Ask ATP. Maxell Amador writes, your recent member special episode about photo workflows inspired me to take a look at my own photo editing pipeline. Hopefully you use the three of us as cautionary tales. I shoot with my own iPhone 16 Pro camera and a Canon Rebel SL3 and sometimes an old film, Canon AE-1. Me too. Me too. Me too.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Should I shoot JPEG in RAW on the Canon or even the iPhone? Should I try something like Pixelmator Pro or stick with Apple Photos Editor? Should I avoid RAW completely since I'm such a noob? How does one get good at this? I missed the auto-enhance feature on Apple Photos and generally... Excuse me, I messed with the auto-enhance feature on Apple Photos and generally like the results...
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
But that is a big no-no with photographers, as it can overexpose or make some weird edits based on machine learning, maybe? I do generally enjoy photography as a hobby, but it seems daunting to me. I appreciate any tips for a very, very basic start to taking photos and editing them.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
This was genuinely written by somebody named Maxell Amador, but it could have been damn near word for word written by me. So, gentlemen, I don't care which one of you it is. Maybe we'll start with Marco, but tell me, what do I do? What does Maxell do? What do we do?
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Those are great answers. Thank you, gentlemen. Additionally, we have Scott Shuchart, who writes, I'm trying to compress three large-ish files, about 20 to 60 gigabytes each, using the Finder, and they're taking forever. According to Activity Monitor, Archive Service, which I assume is a compressor, is running six threads, but only using between 95% and 140% CPU.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
This is in a MacBook Pro M2 Pro with 10 cores. Nothing else significant is happening. And it's plugged in with no fan noise. Why can't it spin up at least three performance cores to get this done faster? What are these chips for?
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
I'm sure I have been more upset with you, John, probably with regard to something car related and you're ridiculous.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
Now the show is over. They didn't even mean to begin. Cause it was accidental. Oh, it was accidental. John didn't do any research. Marco and Casey wouldn't let him. Cause it was accidental. Oh, it was accidental. And you can find the show notes at atp.fm. And if you're into Mastodon, you can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S.
Accidental Tech Podcast
609: You're the Oreo Cookie
So that's K-C-L-I-S-M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-A-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-A-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-A-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-A-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-A-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-A-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-A-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-A-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-A-
Accidental Tech Podcast
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The final thing I'll say is that I agree with the people who said this presentation was weird and that Apple decided to try something different this year and really, really, really shy away from talking about anything that has a number associated with it. Not entirely. They did talk about, oh, the CPU is X percent faster. We'll talk about it when we get to the individual products.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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They normally are more spec heavy than they have been. And it's not because they had anything to hide or there's anything shameful. They were just like... I remember when the watch section was done and we were wondering, so are there two sizes or one? It's not a secret. They're not hiding it. And it's not like, oh, we don't want to be too techy. Don't tell them there are two sizes.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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There was a distinct lack of... And I don't know if that's good or bad. It was just weird for us because we're making a show where we're going to tell you about all the technical details. So we have to look them up. And it's like, couldn't you just told us? Right. But it's an interesting strategy, as Marco said, as the event, the one event that most people in the world watch.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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This is Apple's opportunity to talk to the whole world. And maybe they just thought they were boring people with a bunch of stuff that's interesting to us, but not relevant to them. even the fact that there are two Apple Watch Series 10 sizes. People don't care about that. They'll just go in the store. They'll see there's two of them. They'll pick the one they want.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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It's not important enough to even include in the presentation. I thought that was weird. I don't like it personally, but maybe it turns out to be the best way to communicate to the rest of the world. We'll see.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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The Apple Watch really makes the 911 look radical from generation to generation.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Well, no, but they got this one right. Everyone said that the 10 was not going to be a big redesign. It was going to look like the existing series.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Yeah, that was more like more than six months ago. Like the rumors solidified about halfway through the year that this is what we were going to be getting.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I think it was pretty good because within several months of the event, we knew it wasn't going to be a radical redesign. We knew they would have bigger screens that went farther to the edge, and we knew they'd be bigger than their predecessors. Yes, they got the details and the magnitude wrong, but we knew all of that. So when you're waiting to see this, here's the all-new design.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I'm like, wait a second, did they get it wrong? And then they started showing the new design. I'm like, no, they got it right. It just looks the same as the other ones.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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So screen tech wise, obviously, we've had the rumors for years that Apple was trying to make micro LED, micro OLED displays for the watch, which is instead of having the organic light emitting diode type things, it's more like individual light up.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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leds in there anyway um it's very difficult to do that uh we thought hey you're gonna if you're gonna do this weird screen technology start with a really small screen like the watch apple was developing this technology itself with like funding research into this display technology itself and then a year or two ago apple said ah never mind we're not doing that anymore they came up with nothing they stopped that pursuit they said we were unsuccessful
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And then after that, all the rumors for the watch have switched and said, well, it's not going to be a micro OLED anymore. It's going to be plain old OLED. And that's, of course, what we got. Now, so what is it about this OLED that gives the better viewing angle? Apple didn't say...
Accidental Tech Podcast
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But the only technologies that I'm aware of that can give you a wider viewing angle on OLED are either QD OLED, which we talked about ages ago when we were talking about televisions, which is you don't have a white subpixel, you don't have a polarizing layer, the color is closer to the surface of the screen, and the viewing angles are better.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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It's why the viewing angle of a QD OLED television is better than an OLED one. You get less color shift, you get better brightness, yada yada, right? And the other technology, which is the most likely one, is micro lens arrays, which is what LG uses because they don't have QD OLEDs.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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which is you put a bunch of little tiny lenses on top of your existing regular WRGB OLED, and that increases the viewing angle. And when I say a bunch of lenses, I mean a bunch of lenses, as in each individual pixel, like subpixel, the red, green, and blue subpixels, have hundreds of lenses in front of them. When we say micro lens array, we mean micro lens.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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We don't need one lens for each pixel, one lens for each subpixel, hundreds for each subpixel. And this technology is what LG uses on their high-end televisions and has for a couple years now. And guess what?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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It increases the viewing angle because the light that's coming out of the pixels and going through all the polarizers or whatever hits that micro lens array and shoots off in all sorts of directions instead of just mostly going straight. And I think LG might be the supplier for these things.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Anyway, as soon as someone gets one of these watches, someone who's a display technology expert will put it under one of those little microscope magnifier things. You can tell when you have an MLA OLED. You can actually see the little micro lenses when you zoom in on one pixel.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And if so, that will be super interesting because the only places I've heard of micro lens arrays being used are on television sets.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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and so now they're going to be used it's on your tv and also on the tiniest screen on your wrist the one on your watch um and the great thing about mla is it's essentially a passive technology you just put those lenses on there and you get more brightness and better viewing angles for the same power output so again ideal for the watch not as cool as micro oled but you know that didn't work out so if you're waiting for micro oled we're going to be waiting a while longer
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Yeah, and by the way, the MLA, as I described, it's a pretty good technology. If you can't do QD OLED, just adding one more layer to your display, it makes them much better. So when Apple eventually gets OLEDs into their MacBook Pros or whatever, I know they're doing the tandem OLEDs on the M4 iPad Pro and everything, but I do wonder...
Accidental Tech Podcast
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If we might see some MLA tech coming to MacBooks in 2026 or 2027.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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The S10 is another place where the lack of numbers kind of hurt us, because they're like, oh, it's got an S10 SIP, blah, blah, blah, and they said a bunch of stuff about it, but it's like, okay, so is this the S9 rebadged? Is this actually a new thing? I think the S9 had a shrink, but I think the S9 went to, like, 4 nanometers. Is the S10 3 nanometers? Like, they didn't really...
Accidental Tech Podcast
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talk about it in enough of a way to say whether this is going to be significant and it's a factor because you're what you're really wondering is like how what are they done with battery life like does the series 10 does the big series 10 have ultra like battery life i doubt it it's so much thinner it probably doesn't but then again the ultra doesn't have an s10 in it so maybe the s10 sips more power and you know so then apple's claims about the battery life i think were not
Accidental Tech Podcast
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radically different than the Series 9. So we'll see, but Apple tends not to say much, if anything, about the little processors in their watches to the point where, as we've pointed out in a couple past years, they've incremented the number without actually really changing the chip in any significant way, and I can't really tell if that happened this year.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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that's that's what people really care about with these things like there's the physical appearance and marco covered all that stuff and i think it actually is better this year i'm i personally like shinier better than matte finish and hey they're all shiny now and assuming the finish is adorable that's great um but aside from that you know they're all one millimeter bigger than they were before they're shiny they look nice the screen goes closer to the edge and also has the battery life right that's what people care about is it comfortable does it look nice is it fashionable and does it last all day and
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I'm assuming this will strike as good a balance as the 9 did, maybe even better. But the fact that Apple didn't really brag about it, like, this is going to last you so much longer than the Series 9, I feel like they're just probably, like, maintaining. And it's probably good enough, but...
Accidental Tech Podcast
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This is not it's not like the ultra where I think that's one of the reasons why you see a lot of people who have the ultra. They hear from their friends who got one. This is so much unlike the non ultra watch, because if I miss charging it for a day, it's not the end of the world. And that is not something that happens with any of the regular watches. Nope. So we'll we'll we'll see. All right.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And, you know, and obviously that's a side effect of it being chunkier. Hey, there's room for a bigger battery. But they went the opposite direction when they made it thinner. So. We'll see how it turns out. And for the one millimeter size difference, like I know that doesn't sound like it's a lot, but with these little watches on people's wrists, a small change can actually look significant.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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That's why I'm kind of happy that it's thinner, because maybe that'll make up for it being bigger. Underscore put a little diagram of trying to show the size comparisons of like older Apple watches. And if you take a really old, like the 38 millimeter series one watch, that entire watch will basically fit inside the screen of a 42 millimeter series 10.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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So we've come a long way from that very, very, very tiny Series 1 watch, just a minuscule thing with terrible battery life. Now that whole watch fits inside the screen area of these new ones. So I think they're going in the right direction.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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It's obvious that people kind of like phones, and like Marco said last episode, people like bigger screens on their watches, and Apple is obliging, not just with bigger screens, but also they made the watch bigger, but then within the size of watch, push that screen as far to the edges as you possibly can.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I think you just got unlucky with your battery, which happens. Not every battery is the same, but we get a lot of people writing in saying that they don't have this problem with their watch. Normally, you get two kinds of feedback. One is like, yes, this happens to me too. My Series 8 also doesn't last through the day, but we didn't get any of those.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I don't think we've got all people saying I've got a watch and it lasts me through the day all the time. My wife, she's grand. She's got a Series 9, but she had a Series 8.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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for a year and it it was fine by the end of the year uh maybe either you just got unlucky or maybe you have like some runway process that's killing your battery because every once in a while my wife will say oh today my watch battery ran down i don't understand why but then it goes back to normal and i never hear about it again so i think you just might have lost the battery lottery on that particular watch
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And by the way, the way it reportedly does it is based on like the movement of your wrists and not by, say, measuring your blood oxygen, which is good because.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Disabled only for U.S. customers. If you're in Canada or any place else in the world, you get blood oxygen measurement, but not inside the U.S. Yep.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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So here's the question. Is the hardware different in the noise-canceling version and the non-noise-canceling version?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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But I'm saying the things that go in your ears, are they different?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Don't you think the regular ones have multiple microphones for just like voice isolation and the other voice features? Yeah. I don't know. I mean, either way, like microphones aren't expensive. Like this is not like what I'm saying is like economically, it might make more sense for Apple to make one AirPods for a piece of hardware.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Like why make two different ones where even if one of them had to have more microphones, why don't we just put the more microphones in all of them? It's simpler. It simplifies everything, inventory, everything. And that this is purely like a software interlock where when you pay them $50 more, they enable the noise canceling features. Obviously, you know, I fix it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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We'll tear these things down and let us know. But I have to say, this weird thing of like AirPods 4, there's the regular one and the one that costs $50 more that has more features, right? And yes, they give you a better case with it and everything, which is more sort of like market segmentation.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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But this smells so much like, you know, when they say like, this is one computer and if you pay more money, you can get, you know, more RAM in it or whatever. I don't know if these pieces of hardware are different. And in the end, it doesn't really matter because I don't think it's going to be particularly easy to buy an AirPods 4 and hack it to enable the noise canceling.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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But if the hardware really is identical, that will be something. Because then it's like... Like, why are you... It's not like the cheap one is, like, $99, right? The cheap one is still $130, and the expensive one is $180. And, like, I don't quite understand.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And especially since they're... Like, the case feature, like, having a speaker that, like, you know, so you can find your case when you lose it, like... that should kind of be an $130 one too, because that's a useful feature. That's not like a pro feature. That's I lost my case feature. Whereas noise canceling, I can see.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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But anyway, we'll see when somebody cracks these things open, if they can slice it open and find out like, Is there any hardware difference whatsoever between them? Because if there's not, this will be another strange hardware, I think, from Apple, kind of like the 12 gigabytes of RAM and the 8 gigabyte iPad Pro.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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But anyway, speaking of me with stick shift sedans and... Hold on, real-time follow-up real quick.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Yeah, I don't think it tells anything because these things are so lightweight that even if the hardware was different, who's to say it wouldn't weigh the same? We'll find out when they tear them down. Yeah, we'll see.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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yeah as i as i was saying this is i like the my sedans of my desktop max with big gpus i also like the airpods that don't go in your ear holes and generally those that design does not get the fancy features it's been two generations of airpods pro getting all their fancy features and their transparency mode and all this other stuff and the plain old airpods that i like eh
Accidental Tech Podcast
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No, you don't get that stuff. And so I'm excited this year that they brought most of those features to the ones that don't go in your ear. Now, granted, the fact that they don't go in my ear means the noise canceling is not going to be as good for obvious physical reasons. They're not literally sealing my ear hole, right?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And Apple itself says that the AirPods Pro have, quote, two times better noise canceling. And I believe it. Like, I get it. But I just don't like things in my ear holes. So I think it's great that I get all these features that I've been hearing about. Everybody rave about on the AirPods that they like. And I'm going to get them in the kind that I like.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Now, the possible downside is they did subtly change the shape of these AirPods. Uh, they've done it, what, there's been three different shapes. There's the original AirPod shape, there's the one that I have now, which is AirPods 3 or whatever, and then there's these new ones.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And every time they change the shape, there's a possibility that the thing that used to fit in your ear nice and comfy is not going to. The main hope I have is that the AirPods 3 have always felt a little...
Accidental Tech Podcast
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big in my ears compared to their predecessors not uncomfortable and i'm fine with them or whatever but they always feel a little bit big and these look like they might be a little bit slimmer so i'm hoping these will be even more comfortable the one thing we didn't get is that the pros still have is a little slidey volume thing still a pro only feature oh because because you do have the the squeeze the stem to play pause thing right but not the volume thing that's right the volume thing is very difficult to trigger
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Yeah, market segmentation, whatever. But I'm excited about these. I've already pre-ordered them. Wait, did you get AirPods 4 or these AirPods? I'm getting AirPods 4. Again, when you go to buy it, it says, what do you want to buy? You say, I want to buy AirPods 4. And then it's just like when you're configuring RAM. It's like, do you want the one with the 10-core CPU or the 12-core CPU?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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That's what you're picking. The only difference is the options say AirPods 4, AirPods 4 with noise canceling at $50, right? That's how the checkout process works. So it is very kind of like, these are the AirPods 4 and there's a $50 more expensive version that has a bunch of new features. And like, even if the noise canceling stinks and doesn't work and isn't useful at all, I'm just happy to have
Accidental Tech Podcast
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new AirPods with, you know, all the features that you expect, a new thing to have. The sound is a little bit better. Obviously, they'll have fresh batteries. The case will have a little beepy thing in it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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The one thing I'm worried about the case a little bit is that they changed the Bluetooth pairing button from being a physical button to being a capacitive button, which obviously makes it more durable, simpler to manufacture, yada. I understand why they did it, but...
Accidental Tech Podcast
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you know some when when your airpods are being ornery there's something about having a physical button that you can hold down to let you know i'm really holding down the button for the required three seconds or whatever to go into pairing mode and now i'm just going to be putting my fingers vaguely somewhere on the smooth front surface of the thing and hoping i'm hitting the capacitive section
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And also, if they can get that far ahead of the game, like there's a reason that Apple keeps saying, and this product is carbon neutral, and they haven't really said that about the iPhone yet. I'm not sure that there are enough phones ready early enough to be put on a boat, but I can imagine there being enough AirPods ready early enough to put on boats.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Or the watch, even. I feel like the watch... The phone is the hardest one because they have to make the most of them, and it pushes the technology the farthest, usually. So, who knows?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Actually, I want to say about the AirPods Max, people being disappointed in this or whatever, it's like, look, obviously their successor is not ready yet, right? So your alternative is no update or just put a USB-C port in it. And if they didn't update it, everyone would have said, they should have just at least put a USB-C port on it. Well, they did.
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And if you already have one, and you don't want to buy a new one just to get the USB-C port, fine. But they should put a USB-C, while we wait for the AirPods Max 2, which presumably is going to come someday, and hopefully will be better in a bunch of ways. In the meantime, yeah, get rid of the stupid lighting port. The sooner the better. And it's not like, who's going to upgrade to these? Nobody.
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They're exactly the same as the ones you have. I'm not going to tell you not to buy it, but honestly, don't buy a new thing just to change the port on the bottom. It's ridiculous. Just hold on to them until the 2 is gone.
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It's not that ridiculous. For people who have never bought the AirPods Max, though, they're buying it for the very first time. Guess what? They get a USB-C port and it's better for them. So I endorse this update, even though obviously if you're waiting for the AirPods Max 2, this is not your time yet.
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Hey, as I was saying, sometimes if the product that you like isn't the one that gets updated every single year, you got to be patient.
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But they weren't trying to. The successor will potentially attempt to address those shortcomings, but this is not the successor. This is just that we need to get products with lightning on them out of our lineup, and so they have.
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and it makes it an ever so slightly better product than the one that it replaced not enough for anyone to buy a second one but for anyone buying their first one now they don't have to deal with lightning i just they couldn't even have like given us a different case like that's one of the most egregious problems with these is that that dumb case and like after four years they couldn't even revise that even a little bit
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I don't want them to waste their time building a new case in like what is probably the last year of this product's life. You know, just concentrate on the successor. Get that done as soon as you can. Hopefully it'll be next year. Oh, my God.
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So yeah, like I said, for the people who are buying their first one, just get that lightning thing out of there. Like they need to do it with the magic mouse. They need to do it with all the keyboards and just like they need to eventually get to that stuff.
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Again, think about the Mac Pro people. Think about how long we wait for things to happen. You just got to chill. You just got to be patient. You just got to believe. I think this is literally the Unix touch command. Like, all right, we touched it. Now it counts. Even the HomePod. Those people are like, are they ever going to change the HomePod? The big HomePod? Is it ever going to get better?
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It looks like they're discontinuing it. And then what happened? they did come out with another big home pod after it was dead.
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What I'm saying is you never give up hope. They waited so long that the product was dead. You couldn't buy a big home pod. You're like, this is it. It's over. There's never going to be another one. And then there was another one.
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You know, like I can tell it's not a high priority product, but it seems like they still are going to make another one, but I would not bet on two years.
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Three is, like, I would have been more comfortable with four or five, but I'll do three because it's more interesting. Yeah, because it's a bit of a risk for both of us, I think. Yeah, exactly.
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think we're pretty sure that's right yeah so here's the thing we've talked about this on the show many times in past years where there are third-party apps on the app store you can see them listed in the health app that you can download that will do this they will give you a hearing test and then they will create an audio profile based on how well you can hear
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certain frequencies in the headphones you're using at the time you do the audio test. And then it lets you save that audiogram to your phone. And then you can say, hey, phone, from now on, when I'm using these headphones, apply this essentially equalizer setting to all audio that comes out of my phone so that my stupid ears can hear it better. the best way possible.
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So if your left ear has a real hard time hearing like 10 kilohertz, it will boost 10 kilohertz to your left ear only when using these headphones with your phone when playing any audio. I did this back on the show, whatever it was, a year or two ago.
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I made an audiogram for myself with some third-party app that was terrible, and I installed it on my phone, and I've been using it ever since when I listen on my AirPods. Using that audiogram profile for every piece of audio I listen to, I recommend it. But the one thing that I hated was what third-party app should I get? And I have to say they were all terrible.
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Some of them were weird and scammy and had some other thing they were going on. The other ones, the UI was terrible. So thank goodness.
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apple is saying forget about the third-party apps this is part of the phone now part of the os if you buy airpods pro 2 or whatever and you have a phone you will be able to just do this on the phone with what has to be a better interface than these third-party things i think this is great i think every single person who has airpods pro 2 and a phone and the new os and everything should do this it's real quick to do and what you get and don't do it like when you have a cold like i do now because you're hearing me all messed up
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When you're healthy and your ears are working at their optimum quality and you have a quiet moment somewhere with no background noise, do the five-minute test, save the audiogram, and I think it just syncs it with all your health data, and then apply the audiogram and all the audio coming out of your phone will sound better. Highly endorsed.
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And to be clear, the hearing test thing, there's two sides of that. When they do that, they're measuring how well each of your ears hears different frequencies. And they do two things with that. One, they can change the audio that you're playing, your podcast, your music, whatever, the audio playing from your phone.
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They modify that audio with an equalizer to make it sound more like it's supposed to. But the second thing is, with the hearing aid mode, sound coming in from the outside world hits the microphones on your AirPods and then gets replayed inside your ear, also applying that audiogram in sort of hearing aid mode.
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And in terms of like this versus like quote unquote real hearing aids, obviously one advantage that real hearing aids have is they're very often much smaller and more discreet than AirPods. But of course, the main advantage that AirPods have is... people might already own them, right?
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Or if you're worried about having a hearing aid or you're like nervous about it or embarrassed or whatever, just try the feature. There's like the barrier to entry of like, am I the type of person who needs to go and get a hearing aid? A lot of people don't want to go over that barrier. But am I the type of person who either already owns or can buy AirPods at the Apple Store?
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Yeah, much lower barrier. You don't buy that and say like, oh, I'm buying a hearing aid. And then once people start using them, But if they find that it is useful and people say, you know, we love that you love your new hearing aid, dad, but you're always wearing your AirPods. It looks kind of weird.
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Why didn't you just get a quote unquote real hearing aid for 10 times the price that is much, much smaller and that won't fall out of your ears as easily and the charge lasts longer and yada, yada, yada. And so I feel like this is a great example of Apple sort of.
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lowering the barrier to entry, getting people over the hump to do a thing that they wouldn't have otherwise done, even if it turns out that AirPods are not sufficient for their needs or eventually become insufficient for their needs or are not as good as a real thing or whatever, just because it starts them down the path. Just like the sleep apnea stuff and all those other things of like...
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it's not as good as going to a doctor. It's not as good as getting a sleep test or whatever, but people who are like afraid to find out or don't want to sleep in a weird place or do a sleep test or trial or whatever, but they do own a watch and they will say, okay, I'm going to wear my watch when I sleep just to see. And what does it say?
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What it basically says is maybe sleep apnea, talk to your doctor, right? And that is the first step to getting them over the hump to saying like people wondering, is there something wrong or whatever? Maybe this will give them a little push to say, oh, actually, the watch totally says that it's sensing sleep apnea. Is it right? Is it wrong? Go to your doctor and find out.
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Versus I'm just going to sit here and fret. Do I have sleep apnea? I don't know. I don't want to find out. I don't want to have a CPAP, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is one of the great strengths of Apple Health stuff.
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Not that it solves all your problems, but that it lowers the barrier to entry for people who are afraid of health stuff, whether it's afraid of getting into exercise, afraid of asking if they need a hearing aid, afraid of going to the doctor and asking about sleep apnea.
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You just buy your bunch of Apple stuff and it will sort of nudge you in that direction with small, vague pieces of information to sort of push you along the path.
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Beats has stickless, basically stickless ones. Don't they use the H2 in Beats as well? And they also come in black.
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I wish they had done the backs like the iMac backs. You know what I mean? Like have the sides be the same, but have the backs be richer. But yeah, I mean, my main complaint about the colors, I mean, despite the fact that I think the black and the white look really good, the black and the white take two slots that could have been other interesting colors. You know what I mean?
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Like where's the yellow? Where's the purple? Where's the red? Yeah, that's true. But still, pretty good year for colors. I mean, all these colors leaked, obviously, although this is one of those cases where Apple's product photography of the colors looks better than the leaked shots of someone just taking a picture of them or whatever.
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But probably the truth will be somewhere in between when you actually go to the store and look at these. But yeah, there's not an ugly color in the bunch, that's for sure. But the most important thing about these phones physically-wise is, and I know we talked about this, the vertical cameras, right?
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So they're aligned for better spatial audio or whatever, or better spatial video and spatial photos.
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but realigning them in that way minimizes the camera mesa in a way that we haven't seen in years because when they were in an angle it was always like there's a square mesa and it's got a bunch of crap on it and it's a smaller square than the pro square but it's still a square and now we've gone back and now it's like hey you know the phone that doesn't have as much camera stuff it's
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That has a capsule. Back in – what was the last one they did? Like the XR maybe or the – which I don't remember which – or maybe the XS was the last one. They've used this arrangement before. And granted, the cameras are still really big. But because they're just vertical, they're so skinny. The Mesa is so skinny compared to what it used to be.
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And it makes what is a smaller and lighter phone that only has two cameras – get the advantage of only having two cameras, which is you don't have as much camera stuff bulging out of the back of the thing.
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And then, obviously, as we'll get to in a little bit, the other side of all this is this is a year when the non-Pro phone doesn't get last year's processor, doesn't get denied the cool new feature. Like, if you were ever thinking of buying a new phone and you don't typically buy the Pro phones... The 16 is a good year to buy because you get the current SOC, more or less.
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We'll talk about it in a little bit. You get the fancy new feature, which is the camera control button. We'll talk about it in a little bit. And you get a bunch of nice colors. I'm a big fan of the 16. I'm not going to buy one.
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yeah but this is another one of the like the first generation streaming show wasn't like 10 years ago yeah i don't know which that's i said a lot of things they would say like second generation and i'm like what generation were they on before right is it has it been second generation for five years um anyway yeah they usually they will usually compare it to much longer than one year ago it'll usually be at least two years ago and possibly more because it makes the comparisons all sound better
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We'll find out in case he gets one because the same ceramic shield is on the Pro, so you can compare the scratches.
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But it doesn't get last year's chip. That's the important thing. Right. And that's... I mean, we've had years where the non-Pro phone gets last year's chip, and we've had years where it gets the same chip, and we've had years where it gets almost the same chip. And this is an almost the same chip year, as we'll get to when we get to the Pro phone. But the point is, it's not...
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the a17 or the a16 or any other like it's not a chip that you've seen before it is a new chip tailored for this phone and that's exactly what you want
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I mean, basically just sounds like they did a better heat sink than they had done previously. And they have a measurement to say, what does it do? We get better sustained performance for gaming. Thumbs up. And then again, the non-pro phone is not known for overheating, but the fact that they did something to improve it and have some measurement on it is good. So it's interesting.
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Just a rehash of WWDC, which I, again, I think they had to do because the people who are watching this did not watch WWDC, you know, for the most part. Yeah.
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Like, we have no idea how this is going to be yet. Right. But still, they still got to get the word out. Here's a bunch of stuff that we're promising and we'll all see how it turns out. But it is important to get that word out because this is their chance to talk to the world about this stuff that we all know about, but they don't.
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Before we get to the things, I've seen a lot of reports of people who were there at the event and they got to hold the phones and use the camera control, which is what we had been calling in the months prior to this event, the capture button. But Apple's calling it the camera control. Talking about whether this thing moves in or not when you press it. I've seen people saying, oh, it does move in.
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I've seen people say it doesn't move in, but it tricks you into thinking it does. I've heard people say it's just force-sensitive. And it amazes me that... I guess maybe you didn't get enough hands-on time, but no one just did a close-up and said... Because if it moves, you'll be able to see it. Even if it moves a millimeter... you'll be able to see it move that millimeter when you press it.
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So I do not know the answer to this question of whether it moves or not, which I think is a testament. Nilay Patel said specifically that it definitely moves. But is he right? Well, yeah, they showed it.
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I mean, if it moves and there's also haptic feedback, that is an interesting combination that I don't think Apple has ever done before because they either do haptic feedback and it doesn't move or just it moves and that's all there is to it, right? And so this is going to presumably give...
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haptic feedback when it's partially through its actual travel to indicate like a a half press or will it push back against you as in like force feedback kind of to make it feel the the half press thing and everyone kept comparing it to you know real cameras with their half press or whatever
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As far as any camera that I've ever used, any quote-unquote real camera with the half-button press or whatever, I don't think there's any magic in them. It's just literally a mechanical button with a spring underneath it that has a lot of travel, and you push it halfway through the travel.
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And it's a very natural thing to do, but at least I haven't owned a camera that has tried to do that with the help of haptics or whatever. So I'm very curious to try this button because... you know, it's the big deal. This is the big feature on this phone. I think this is much more significant than the action button, which was simply just another button that you can press.
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This is another button that you can press that's very big, that's also touch sensitive, that has haptic feedback.
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And the action button. Because remember, it got both in one update. Last time, you didn't have anything. This time, it gets the action button and also the capture button or the camera control thing. So this is just a great year for the 16. They look great. They rearranged the cameras. They got all the features. They have a good SOC tailored to it. Good year.
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Well, you could do a thing where you open a session somewhere off in the background, like they used to play Silence to get access to APIs, and then you get rejected by AppReview. Yeah.
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And it's on both the regular and the pro. I do worry a little bit about how much stuff they put into the camera control because I can kind of imagine a regular person getting into one of those modes where they're swiping through like exposure and zoom and stuff and not understanding where they are and they just want to take a picture. So one of the things I'm going to test when I get it is like,
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can you get yourself accidentally into one of those things where you're messing with controls when really you just wanted to take a picture and then get out of it by essentially saying i'm just going to press this button real hard and i wanted to take a picture now and i hope it will i hope it'll say like all right forget about all those menus forget about you changing your depth of field or zoom or exposure you press real hard i just stop everything and say that means take picture so take a picture um because honestly they added so much to this to this one button all
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like on day one, that I worry that it might be too much, especially if it's possible to get it into a mode or whatever. But we'll all try it when we get them and see how it is.
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I thought the same thing until I saw 50% of the reviewers who held them in their hands saying, well, the button doesn't actually move.
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Or is it just one year? I think they extended it. Didn't we have a follow-up item a while ago where it's like, oh, they extended the free thing to be even longer?
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So thanks, Jaws. That's a fun one. They took the previous phone and they made...
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tiny bit bigger screen and then shrunk all the phone in around it they minimized in beginning there use that one apple uh and so like i mean i i don't actually want the pro phone to get any bigger the non max pro phone to get any bigger i was kind of annoyed when i think my current one my 14 pro was bigger than the previous pro phone that it replaced by a little bit
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If this continues, we get a carflation situation where you wake up one day and your non-Max Pro phone is like 17 inches or something. Like, we need to draw the line somewhere. But the increase is very, very tiny.
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I know. They've done it for, what, five years now, at least, with the regular-sized phone. They've been slowly, slowly creeping up. I guess since the 7 is when it really started, right? The 6 and the 7, that was like, okay, this is the size of the phone. And then they said, you know what? From now on, every year, they're just going to get a little bit bigger. And they do it by such a tiny amount.
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You're like, ah! I can tolerate it. I remember going from the 7 to whatever I replaced it with. Maybe it was the 10 or whatever. It's like, okay, well, the 7 was kind of small now that I look at it. So it can get a little bit bigger. And then the next one I got was a little bit bigger too. I'm like, do they have to make it bigger again? I guess it's okay. And now I'm like, all right, please.
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You got to lay off a little bit. So we'll see when the phone arrives. I absorbed the size difference in the 14 Pro and I've essentially accepted it. Um, maybe I'll accept this change too. It is a smaller difference, but I'll have both phones for some period of time so I can hold them up to each other and see what the difference is.
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I do think this may be pushing up against the limit, but what am I going to do? There's no mini for me to buy and I wouldn't want to buy it anyway. And I... As much as I love the 16, that 5X camera is getting me on the Pro. If you're wondering, why are you buying the Pro? Do you really need that Pro processor or whatever? We'll talk about that in a minute. No, probably not.
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But I do really want those three cameras because I use my phone as a camera a lot and I've been coveting that 5X and this is the year. But we should talk about the weight. Poor Marco. He's lifting all these weights. He's working out. But the extra grams they added on these phones, I don't know if he's going to be able to take it.
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So here's the numbers on the things. The 14 Pro was 206 grams. 15 Pro, 188. Look at that. What a great diet. 206 to 188. 16 Pro, 199. So it's not pushing back into the 200s. It's not as heavy as the 14 Pro was, but it has gained some back. More than half. The 14 Pro Max was 240. The 15 Pro Max was 221. 16 Pro Max, 227. Barely moved. I think the Pro Max did a good job maintaining.
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But yeah, the regular Pro. And I do wonder where that weight has gone. I don't think it's that graphite sheet that's really making the difference, right? But, you know, bigger battery. That's another thing like Apple is another weird thing about like with Apple's lack of numbers and stuff.
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I think based on seeing the insides of these phones and all the rumors that these all these phones, all the 16, 16, they all have a slightly bigger battery, although 16 Pro Max is up for grabs based on the rumors that we talked about ages ago. Right. But Apple didn't really brag about the battery life.
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If you look on their site, they'll say, yeah, you get an extra two hours of video time and so on and so forth. But in the presentation, there was no graphs, no numbers, not even a Bezos chart saying best. They did say the Pro Max is best battery life ever or whatever.
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But like I'm holding out hope that part of the weight and size gain on the 16 Pro that I'm going to buy is the bigger battery because the like the logic board thing and everything else in there is shrinking over time to make more and more room for For larger now, mostly L-shaped batteries. So I'm hoping that's a benefit. And I'm kind of surprised Apple didn't really.
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Well, they did say the batteries are both larger. They just didn't say how much larger. Right. They just didn't say capacity-wise. The iPhone 16 is 170 grams. So again, 16 Pro, $199. Plain old 16, $170. If you want a light phone, get the one that has one fewer camera and is smaller and is made of aluminum.
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Is 5 the top grade? Is 5 the highest number? Dr. Drang tooted with a list of 37 grades of titanium.
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and i don't think it's i don't think there's an order like two is better than than one you know like i don't think they get better as the number goes up you can look at it yourself it's basically just like how much nickel how much you know aluminum how much like just it's basically just what are the allies what are the combinations of materials i don't know how they come up with these things but anyway there's at least 37 of them if you want to see and then you find out what grade five is six percent aluminum four percent van diem
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Hey, graphite sheet. Hey, every year they said it's going to happen. No vapor chamber yet, but this was the year. Graphite sheet, improved cooling. They're doing something. Like I said, they did something on the 16, and they did something even more on the 16 Pro. We'll see how it works out, but it's good to see them addressing this year over year. Every year they're making a new phone.
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They're trying to make it a little bit better, addressing the flaws in their previous model. Thumbs up.
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Rumors even nailed the name. I got to give props on that because it's so hard to get these names because it's marketing, you know, like the supply chain doesn't need to know the name. But I guess it gets printed on the packaging at some point. So, yeah, they nailed it. Desert Titanium is the brown.
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And I have to say, looking at both Apple's product shots and all the videos of the hands-on area, it does not look brown. So that spy shot we have where it looked like brown, brown, brown, obviously different lighting colors look different or whatever. Desert Titanium, like all the pro phones, looks so pale. that you were like, is that the white one? Is that the gray one?
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Like, you have to look at the rim around, like, the edge of the phone or the little circles around the cameras to even tell that it's supposed to be the brown one. They all look white, except for the black one.
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Yeah, so at this point in the presentation, the question everybody had, and I had as well, was even though they're listing all this stuff, I'm like, well, wait a second. So we got two new chips this year, A18 and A18 Pro, neither one of which has been in a phone before. All built on, you know, TSMC's...
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and 3e process the question was especially when they said like you know six core gpu versus five core gpu or whatever are the a18 pros uh
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just versions of the a18 where all the parts work and i think eventually in the presentation apple made it clear that is not the case they obviously share a ton but a the a18 is not just a a18 pro with parts that don't work as far as anyone has been able to tell now maybe when they cut these things open we'll see i guess it's conceivable they could be but there's so there are enough differences that i think that can't possibly be true
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Well, that's not the thing that puts it over the edge. So here, let me list the differences. What does the A18 Pro have over the A18? On the CPU side, it's got, yes, larger caches. And there you can go, okay, well, maybe they're just like some of the cache RAM is turned off or whatever. Probably not the way it does because the quote unquote, you know, SRAM that's on the SoCs is very expensive and-
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complicated and that's not the they usually don't disable portions of but whatever next generation ml accelerators we talked about this before these are instructions like arm instructions for doing media type things that they're saying are only on the a18 pro
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instructions the ability to execute instructions the execution units for them the ability to decode and execute those instructions is not a thing that you tend to like oh it didn't there's some part of this cpu didn't work so we'll just disable those instructions like it's not a separate unit this is part of the cpu this makes me think
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The CPU cores are literally different between the A18 Pro and A18. Now, again, you could have them just disabled in software, you know, in like firmware or whatever, just like blow some fuses or whatever. That is technically possible. I'm not saying it's technically impossible, but I don't think it's anything that Apple has ever done.
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And then the GPU, which is what was making people suspect things, 6-core instead of 5-core. Oh, it's easy just when one of the GPU cores is bad or whatever. But then we get to this whole section, which is ProRes video encoding, new image signal processor, and USB 3. That's a lot of chip real estate to be shipping in the A18 just turned off. Because the A18 has none of those things, right?
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You know, and because they're Pro features. if this is really the same chip with huge sections of it turned off and special features that disable parts of the SRAM caches on the chip and also disable the ML acceleration instructions, even though they work perfectly fine because I don't think that's the type of thing where you get bad yields and you get them turned off, right?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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chips that because of all this stuff there if it was just one or two of these things you could think about it because there's so much these are two different chips we'll find out when someone gets them slices off the top and looks at a picture of them you'll be able to see because this is stuff you can see like the pro res video encoder the image signal processor and the usb3 thing you'll be able to see where they are that's enough real estate where you'll be able to say
Accidental Tech Podcast
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are these blocks on the a18 or are they only on the a18 pro either way well you know we'll find out but i have to say like the differentiation of like what makes us a pro chip versus non-pro chip i think they did it exactly right because if you look at these features and you're like i don't care about any of these that shows that you don't care about the pro features pro is like a lot of them using it as a video camera pro is video the faster speeds yes it's a shame that the 16 still has incredibly slow speeds or whatever hopefully that will come to the 16 eventually but like
Accidental Tech Podcast
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They put pro features on here. And yes, if you want the fastest game performance, you have to get the pro phone, yada, yada. What else is new, right? By the way, we didn't talk about this before, but...
Accidental Tech Podcast
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one dis continue one continuing disappointing status quo is that the non-pro phone still does not have promotion which is probably already criminal and will get increasingly so as time moves on i know regular people don't care about 60 hertz versus 120 hertz but eventually you just have to give it to them because it's this it's like the baseline it's table stakes it's an 800 phone with a 60 hertz screen
Accidental Tech Podcast
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That's bad. ProRes video encoding? Nobody cares if that's missing. The faster USB speeds, people are not copying huge video files via wire to SSDs off of their plain old iPhone 16s. That's what a pro phone is for. And kudos to Apple. Like,
Accidental Tech Podcast
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that they're pro and non-pro phones you look at them and like they're exactly the same except for this one has three cameras why would i ever get a pro one and they give you a bunch of reasons and if those reasons don't appeal to you it's because you're not in the market for a pro phone so i think they managed to differentiate it despite the fact that the camera control and the action button are not exclusive to the pro phone the hardware features with the exception of that third camera are not exclusive to the pro phone and yet the pro phone still looks very much like a pro thing
Accidental Tech Podcast
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oh it did okay then then we're seeing even less difference so the 2x readout is significant though like the 2x readout is basically that's that's a new sensor you know and you may think well is why does the readout is part of the sensor how fast can you get the data off that it's all big one of course big sandwich thing and that makes a big difference because a lot of the features that are upgrades this year like to be able to do 4k 120 and everything is because of the faster readout or even just something as simple as when you take a raw how long is it before you can use your
Accidental Tech Podcast
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phone to take another picture you have to wait for the readout to go by they don't have huge buffers like they do on big fancy cameras for you to be able to lean on the button and get you know 30 frames per second or you know 100 frames per second or whatever in raws uh on the phones when you take a raw it's like it thinks about it for half a second or whatever two times faster readout is a big improvement to the ability to take a raw and then quickly take another raw so additionally the ultra wide is now also 48 megapixel which is a new development is it not
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I think this is an instance where there's just like a software thing that wasn't ready, like so much of iOS 18 software features. I think that what they're trying to say is like the... using the shutter button to press and then press like that. So it's not like, obviously the camera control can do that, but it's a question of is there software support for it?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And I do wonder if it's a situation where they didn't get the software ready enough unless they didn't want to release it in a state where there could potentially be accidental input or it wasn't clear where the half press was or whatever. Again, I'm not sure how that's going to work.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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It's tricky for some people even with big camera buttons that have relatively huge amounts of travel and the amount of travel that the camera control seems to have is,
Accidental Tech Podcast
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much much smaller than the amount of travel the giant shutter button on a real camera has so maybe they're still working on that but yeah add that to the giant pile of things that are not ready on day one launch of this phone software wise indeed
Accidental Tech Podcast
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It's a little bit of a little bit of hardware thing, too, because like the photographic styles is essentially like filters or whatever. And if you used to be able to pick them and you'd apply them when you took the picture. So if you chose like a black and white style and you took a picture, you got a black and white picture. Right.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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uh and if you change your mind later and said oh i shouldn't have taken that picture in black and white tough luck that was applied when you took the picture it threw away all the color information now what they're doing is kind of like what you can do when you take a raw where it just saves the sensor data and you can have different interpretations of it right but raws are huge right so what they're doing is they'll let you take the picture pick a photographic style but after you take the shot you can pick a different photographic style
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Or remove the photographic style entirely or whatever. And the way they're doing this, they have vague descriptions of, like, how could they possibly be doing this if they're not capturing raw? Like, how are they getting back sensor information that they've already made a decision about?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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My vague understanding from seeing people who have talked to Apple about this is they are essentially storing...
Accidental Tech Podcast
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more layers of information essentially like tone maps of like okay well here's the picture here's the thing that we captured sort of the baseline picture you know hick or whatever here are five other things we measured this part of tonality or like the things that the filters are going to affect they save them as separate maps probably also massively compressed
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And so then later, they can apply the filters by taking the original photo and one or more of those sort of tone maps that they captured, combining them, you know, decompressing them into the full array of pixels, running the filter over them, recompressing the output and saving that or something like that. And so it is kind of like... It's not compressed raw, which is another thing.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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You just take a raw, but compress it, right? This is kind of like lossy compressed raw with more layers saved during capture so that you can apply more interesting filters after the fact. It's a hell of a long way to go for a feature that I've never found appealing in any way whatsoever.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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But maybe regular people love to apply these filters to their pictures, and now it doesn't force you to, and I'm glad, it doesn't force you to decide up front what filter you're going to apply and then regret it later when you say, why do all the pictures from this year look like crayons?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And it's because, oh, that was the time that I decided to pick a photographic style and apply it to every single picture I took for a year, and it was a terrible mistake. I bet a lot of people feel that way about a lot of their early Instagram pictures, right? You know me. It's one of the reasons I love Apple photos. Save the original picture and then edit to your heart's content.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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But there's got to always be a button that says revert to original. Do not destroy the original. It's like your negatives, right? Edit, modify, filter, crop, do whatever you want non-destructively. Kind of like Aperture used to back in the day. And so that's what they're doing here.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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They're giving you increased non-destructive editing abilities without requiring you to save gigantic raw photos every single time.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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have a little bit uh different perspective on this uh event this year for whatever reason i mean maybe i've been like this for years and i would have the the same stance no matter what happened but like let me uh give you some framing here um as people who listen to this uh show know i like uh desktop macs with big gpus in them um i like uh sedans with stick shifts
Accidental Tech Podcast
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So this is MacRumor saying, we see the code. It's in iOS 18. It's definitely coming. No mention from Apple. None whatsoever. When they rolled out Heek, they made kind of a big deal about it and talked about it and said this is going to be a better image format and our photos are going to take it by default or whatever. And JPEG XL absolutely did not get that treatment.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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We will find out if there's JPEG XL anywhere in these phones. Even if the code is in iOS 18, will it appear in the UI? Will it be turned on by default? Will it be anything at all?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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uh the jpeg xl hype was uh high in my heart and uh it did not get fulfilled in this event which is a bummer but hey you never know like again this was a weird event maybe it's just too techy for them to mention uh maybe uh in today's apple wouldn't have mentioned the heek thing either so that's one of the things i'll be checking for as ios 18 rolls out and as ios 18.1 and 0.2 and so on and so forth i'm looking for the jpeg xl sweetness but right now it's not looking great indeed
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Yeah, this looks amazing. Can we edit our podcasts and voice memos now? Yeah, probably.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Neither one of those things are particularly popular or in fashion, and they haven't been for a long time. Mac desktops with big GPUs, that is, not regular personal computer desktops. And so why do I see an event like this? I can understand why some people won't be like, ho-hum, whatever, especially if you, you know, repetition of stuff that we already know because we write WWC and everything.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Didn't they make a dedicated app exactly for this for musicians?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I have this vague memory. It's not. I wonder if this is just like, well, we're going to can that app, but just grab that code and throw it into voice memos.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I kind of wish that they took the non-Max Pro up from 128. I know they're trying to draw a distinction and get you to pay for the storage. I get it, but, like, come on. Anyway, I... Not that 128 is that bad, and it's not as bad as it is on a Max. I just, like, this is another one of those things where they're just riding it out. It's like, we love the distinction. Pro Max starts at 256.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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The plain old Pro, because it's not Max, it starts at 128. Makes perfect sense to me. Love that money. Okay, I think it's been like five years of this, four years of this. It's time to maybe bump that.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Not that you would know by listening to Apple, but just FYI.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And I just want to say, like, to reiterate my point from the opening statement, oh, so they're slightly improving the microphones on these phones, and oh, they get the new version of Wi-Fi, and oh, the processor is a little bit better, and the screens are a little bit bigger.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Like, don't take this for granted, that they make a new one of these phones every year, and they always try to make it a little bit better. And that sounds boring to you and still it stops happening. And you're looking at AirPods, you know, Macs, and you're wondering if they're ever going to get updated or you're waiting for the next Mac Pro. I appreciate it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I appreciate it even more if you wait four or five years between phones because the advances accumulate. And then when you get this phone, you're like, wow, this microphone is way better than it was five phones ago or whatever. Wi-Fi 7. And Apple's not on top of these things. Everybody else in the industry is already on Wi-Fi 7. But in Apple land...
Accidental Tech Podcast
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They take their time and you are only going to get that update if they update the product. Right. So, yes, they're kind of late to Wi-Fi 7. But if there's no new insert product name here, you're not getting Wi-Fi 7 no matter what. So consider yourself lucky.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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But the way I look at it is... Every single year, Apple comes out with a new phone and they try to make it better than the previous phone in a bunch of interesting ways. They try to learn from mistakes from past phones. They try out new ideas. And then if those ideas don't work, they try something else a few years later. They try to improve on it in every possible way.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Look at that. Mac OS getting released at the same time as the other OSs. Hasn't happened in so long. Nice to see the whole family coming together. All the new OSs are going to release at the same time. They did it through the magic of dropping features and pushing them to the point once.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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But we should all have our orders already ready in the store app, so we should know what we're getting.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I'm doing it like those people who aren't allowed to buy individual stocks, so they have to get their investments on a regimented plan that's scheduled years ahead of time that says, on these dates, I'm going to buy this much stock. Every two years, I get a phone. That's how it happens. And so, yeah, I'm not choosing based on the phone.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Although, I have to say, like I said before, having a product that gets attention every single year and gets improvements every single year gives you the luxury, like I used to be able to do with Honda Accords, to sit back and say, oh, here's the new X. Here's the new iPhone.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Can we make it more water resistant? Can we make the battery life better? Can we make it lighter? Can we make it a little bit bigger? Maybe we should make a smaller one. Every year, they are working on that product. And this year is no different.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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do i do i like it this year i'll wait till next year because you know what there'll be another one next year every year when they come out they're a little bit better and you could look at them and you could say am i feeling like i feel like i want one now do i want one now because there's something particularly appealing to me do i want now because my current phone feels old the luxury of a product that gets better every single year without fail and is always good means you can just sit back like tiff and say do i think i'm gonna get one this year
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I'll wait until next year because there will be a next year, unlike, you know, the HomePod or the Mac Pro.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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We'll be lucky if it's all rolled out by the end of the year. Right. Not by the end of 2024, but by the end of the iPhone year. Like next September, we should check and say, has everything that Apple talked about with Apple intelligence actually been released yet?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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No. I ordered AirPods, as I said. I pre-ordered the AirPods. I was excited to do that, although their engraving feature was broken for like the first 10 minutes, frustrating me. But I pre-ordered my AirPods with noise canceling. And then for my phone, you know, I'm doing what I always do. I looked at the other stuff. I actually even considered the white one.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I think this is actually a fairly significant year for the hardware itself, just looking at it, that it has at least one very big different thing than it had before, and they changed all the other stuff.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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As we'll talk about in overtime, the case situation is dire.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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We'll talk about it in overtime. But, you know, I did what I usually do because in the end I decided this is what I want. For reasons that I've stated before that probably aren't important to other people who are important to me, I get the black phone. And it's not because I like the color black so much. I think the white one looks nicer. It's because I actually use my phone to watch video a lot.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And I want the surround to be black. I don't want white distracting me from the display in any way. And maybe you don't care about that. But there's a reason televisions tend not to be white when you buy them. And I don't want my phone to be white either. I want it to be all black. And I have the bare bottom if I can. Again, it's the overtime.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And I don't want the bare bottom to be white sticking out of my case. So anyway, I'm getting the black 16 Pro non-Macs. I actually bumped the storage this year. I've been 256 for a long time. I do not fill 256, but just like a month or two ago, I did have to delete a bunch of stuff because I was pressing up against 256. I'm like, now it's time.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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So not only did they get me on one storage upgrade bump of, you know, 128 to 256, they're getting me on two. I'm buying it with 512, which pains me. It hurts me. It hurts me. It hurts my wallet. But I think it's time for me to finally do that. So anyway, that's it. That's the phone I'm getting. I'm excited.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And I would say as someone who is out there not being catered to by the people who are making new automobiles or new desktop Macs, that you should appreciate the fact that every single year, the product you want and that we all like to use is getting better. We're not out there going, gee, I wonder if they'll ever update the product that I care about. Right?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Will they ever make another one of those? If they do make another one of those, will they make it worse or will they make it better? Every single year, Apple, A, puts out an iPhone that's usually pretty good, and B, tries to make it better than the last one and usually succeeds in some small way.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And that may seem boring until you are a devoted customer of a product that isn't getting that kind of attention. Like, say, stick shift four-door sedans with enough headroom for me. Right? Right. And you would kill for them to every year just make a better version of that or try a different idea, right? And you look back and you don't appreciate it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I don't think a few years old Ford Escape is really a good standard bearer for the current state of the technology.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Not with the new ones I was describing last time. Modern hybrid systems, you just drive, and it's fine, and there's nothing for you to worry about, and they don't work like the things you were describing. Anyway, that's not what he rented, unfortunately. Yeah.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Remember every year they'd come up with a new Honda Accord and I would either like it or I would not like it. And maybe the styling would be to my taste or not taste. But I said, well, if I don't like this generation, wait till next year. There'll be another one. They get another crack at it or whatever. And then that stopped happening.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And suddenly all those years where it's like, oh, it's just another Accord. All they did is like the same as the previous Accord, but they changed it a little bit. Oh, it's got different headlights. Who cares, right? Yeah.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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You will come to appreciate that if someday Apple moves on from the phone and is just too busy selling, I don't know, the successor to the Vision Pro or something like that, right? And I know it's kind of silly because it's like, well, it's the smartphone. It's the most popular consumer product in the history of the planet, right? It's not like it's going to go away or whatever.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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But another way to look at it, another perspective. I'm not saying people's opinions on it are wrong or their feelings on it are wrong. But another perspective is, hey, if you're interested in phones at all, isn't it kind of nice that they keep making new ones that are a little bit better? Especially if, like me, you don't get a new one every single year.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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No, no. These days, auto stop start turns it off not just when you're at a traffic light, but whenever the heck it feels like it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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because like you don't have to be stopped you could just be driving and it will just turn itself off and say you don't need this gas engine right now really what you you need to try you need to drive things other than hondas because i have never had that experience this is what the modern hybrid systems do they don't need like i said the modern hybrid systems use the use the gasoline engine to charge the battery and they use the battery to drive the car unless you need more power than that in which case you dip far enough into the pedal and it fires up the gas engine but if you
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Lift off the gas pedal and you're driving and it's like, oh, now you don't need the gas engine anymore. I'm going to turn that off for you. You're basically driving an EV that has like a little bit of a that has not a little bit, but it has assist from the gas engine.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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But most of the time, the gasoline engine is just running as a generator to charge your battery so you continue to drive it as an EV. And in that situation, you don't have to be at a stoplight for the gasoline engine to turn off.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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so that you can just kind of wait and see it's like oh do you like this phone does it appeal to you do you not like the colors do you want to wait and see on that whole capture button thing or whatever wait till next year you know what next year there's gonna be another thing that is a smartphone that's called an iphone that caters to people who like iphones and they'll try something different with that one and then again and then again and then again and i just want to sit here and appreciate that because that isn't always the case uh and i happens that i do like phones and i do appreciate the fact that
Accidental Tech Podcast
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It's also the worst of both worlds, as you noted, because you have both things in your car that you need to maintain, deal with.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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They make a new one every year. And by the way, this is my year to get a new phone. So I was excited by the fact that they're going to make a new phone for me to buy. And I'm going to have a new shiny thing. And it will be an upgrade over my iPhone 14 because I've waited two years. So yeah, I didn't like...
Accidental Tech Podcast
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You should have just gotten out of the car, walked up, left it there on the road, walked up to the counter and said, your car is there. I said, why did you leave it there? He says, well, ask the car. Yeah.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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This still might have been more reliable, but remember, I was suggested that you rent a Honda. I hope when you were stalled on the side of the West Side Highway, you saw the ghost of my head floating through your mind going, Honda, Honda, not Ford, Honda. There's a difference.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Just saying, I drove my 10-year-old Honda today and it got there and back without any problem.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Your cars don't last that long. The pebbles kill them.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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that's that's why i come away from these events like i don't expect to be blown away i don't expect to be like the vision pro intro i just wanted to see and honestly like listen to past episodes we knew almost everything that was going to be in this thing it's like it's not even surprises but it's like but yeah but now you get to actually buy them now you actually get to see how apple presents them see all their their nice product photography on their website and hear all the stuff about it or whatever
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I was going to say, yeah, if your engine's not running all the time, you're just lugging that thing around. Yeah, exactly. And someday when you need it, I hope it actually starts.
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
That's the whole, that's the main reason I want leather is those side grips when I'm holding my phone.
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
Yeah, I guess you're also getting the same ads that I have on Instagram for cactus leather. That's how they brand some of the plant-based leather.
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
Yeah, I mean, honestly, Apple, I mean, well, Apple seems kind of stuck on the closed bottom with the exception of their Clear case and the Beats case. But Apple really needs to go back to the leather well and just be like... Find something that looks and feels like leather, but that is not leather. Every other company in the world is doing it. There's so many variations.
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
Plastic, cactus, pineapple, like whatever. Try something, but yeah, find one of them, wasn't it?
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
Yeah, maybe you should try a case. A case might be your popsocket that's not a popsocket.
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
I don't like the rumply leather. Oh, yeah. It's textured. Yeah, it looks like lizard skin or whatever. Yeah.
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
We did talk about it. Actually, maybe it was Rectifs. We were talking about using it to rearrange stuff on the screen. That was Rectifs, I believe. All right, anyway, I have used it. Yeah, did you know that iPhone mirroring works on Intel Macs?
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
Just write down every day when you go to bed, the time you went to bed, and any notes, any tags, you just write them as words with commas between them. And then if you ever want to look at, like, honestly, this really still reminds me of Exist.io stuff. Like, I'm lighter when I eat sausage. Or, you know, like, I don't know. I take more steps when I'm at the beach.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Like, I don't know what you're hoping to get from this, huh? So on this, the number of data points I have is five. And out of those, it says inconclusive. When I eat a big meal, sometimes I sleep well and sometimes I don't. Like, what are you...
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
You're hoping to get actionable information out of this, but I feel like your data set is going to be too small for you to get actionable information unless there's something really obvious. And if there's something really obvious, you don't need an app to tell you, when I eat spicy food, I get heartburn. I'll tell you that now. When you eat spicy food, you get heartburn. So just use notes.
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
Write it down. You've got your app right there. And then you can scroll back through those notes and look for patterns. And if you say, well, it's really hard to find patterns in these notes. I wish an app could do it for me. The app's not going to do any better. It's not a pattern that you can see.
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
You can write a little program that reads your notes and tries to do some sort of statistical analysis, but you'll find out you have too few data points and it's just noise.
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
You've only been talking about the actions you would take with the app, which is when I go to bed, I note this, I note this, I note how my sleep was, I tag it with things I did. But then what's step three? Like, say you had an app that did that. Presumably you're not entering this information just for the hell of it. You want some the app or you or something to do something.
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
That's the I feel like the hard part. What happens after you have a tag my sleep app and you tag your sleep for a year? Then what happens?
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
A little bit, except you talked me out of something. That's what we're supposed to do. And my thing, it was talking me out of something. It was successful. I didn't do it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
Regurgitation is actually a good word. I'll get to that in a second. But many people pointed out that one of the things I was complaining about the generated podcast that it didn't mention a specific example from my article. It did mention it. Basically, I totally missed when I mentioned it because it was at the very beginning and I was too busy snarking about something else.
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
You keep selling a transparency, which is a different mode.
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
I think that delay is actually a feature, or at least it was cited as a feature by many people who were recommending it. They like the idea that it lets you hear the loud sound briefly before it tamped it down as a way of letting you be more aware of what's going on around you. Yeah, that's fair. I, you know, based on all the people recommending it, I also gave it a second try.
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
um one update on that marco was saying hey you can change the uh the things that are available as you cycle through the various noise canceling nodes pretty sure that's only a feature on the pros on the airpods 4 with active noise canceling the ui looks different in the setting screen and i cannot choose to not have one of those things in the rotation as far as i could tell oh no but anyway i left them all in the rotation and i have been trying out adaptive and i
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I think I found some instances where I use it, but especially I mean, this may be different on the pros because their their characteristics are very different. But for the AirPods for where they don't actually seal your ears and sound is always going to get around them.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I find that adaptive transparency is noise canceling when it chooses to cancel out a noise like a droning noise or like, you know, white noise type of thing. It's just not as good as full noise canceling. When you put on full noise canceling, it cancels more noise. And so I've been using adaptive kind of around the house without conversational awareness.
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But the other reason I missed it is that it mentioned it, but then used it as like, it was the, the mention of like emailing the artist to do something. It uses that as an example of the person who created it, uh, maintaining the copyright, right?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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But I think with the personal volume thing where it tries to crank up the volume when things get loud around you, I think that's a good balance for me. But when I'm like, for example, in bed at night watching something on my iPad, I switch to straight up noise canceling because my wife has like the window fan on or something, right?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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noise canceling at least with the airpods for cancels noise way better than the best adaptive ever even attempts to do so i have found a place for adaptive in my life and i do use it when i'm just like walking around the house but i still go into full noise canceling so i kind of wish that adaptive was like full noise canceling when i felt like it was safe but not but i guess i maybe i'm asking too much like i'm kind of asking for adaptive to be like a uh
Accidental Tech Podcast
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for it to pick which mode it wants to do. Like I want adaptive to be a thing where it says, I see your other three modes and I cycle you between them based on what I think is safe, but that's not how it works. So adaptive is in my rotation, but I still have to manually choose the mode that I want occasionally.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I like to see Apple continuing this long march towards essentially making the phone more of an independent entity. Obviously, we all have Macs, and we assume everyone, if they don't have a Mac, that they have a PC, but that's just not true, right?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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So the artist creates it, they have the copyright for themselves when I expected them to use it, uh, as I did as an example of transferring the copyright in exchange for payment. Um, so I, I apologize to the notebook LM, uh, podcasts for missing their mention of that at the very top, because I was too busy snarking about something else. But, uh, Do you think it has follow-up?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And anything that you do with an iOS device, like if you've ever tried to help someone, and you say, oh, just connect it to your Mac or PC, and they're like, what? why would I need a Mac or PC? I just have my phone. And you realize, oh, not everyone in the world has a Mac or PC or wants a Mac or PC. And any part of the phone process that requires a Mac or PC is like broken.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And so Apple doing this by saying, okay, well, maybe you don't have a Mac or PC, but maybe you have an old phone. Obviously, if you're in a situation where your thing is hosed and you need something else to help you recover from it, you do have to have something else. But allowing that something else to be a phone, I think is great.
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And it makes me wonder what the heck they're waiting for on the watch. which is still completely dependent on the phone. I mean, obviously there's a synergy there where they want you to buy a phone and a watch, but they want you to buy a Mac too. But I feel like the phone is overdue for a little bit, you know, take off some of the train wheels, let it be a little bit more independent.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Hey, it's got its own phone number. It can make phone calls, but it's still so tied to its parent phone. And I think they should edge that along. But it's nice to see the phone continuing to assert its independence.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Yeah, maybe. Apple doesn't seem to be in a hurry, and I don't think users are in a hurry either. I feel like it's kind of one of those things, kind of like USB-C, that when Apple finally decides to do it, it will be after the point when it's... They'll let it be non-controversial, right?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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If it did it today, it would be controversial, but there's going to come a point where few people will care about it, and they'll just do it. As someone who continues to charge with the wire pretty much all the time except when I'm in the car on the MagSafe mount, I still could give it a few more years before they go full wireless.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I do wonder how many people, what the percentages are. Only Apple knows, but how much... Wireless charging used to be 0% because the phone didn't support it. Right now, what percent of phone charging in terms of like... I don't know, battery capacity or milliamp hours added to the phone. Is that?
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And then you do the math on the massive inefficiency of wireless charging versus wired and see how much waste heat we're throwing out and how much energy that adds. Yeah, that could be another thing keeping Apple from doing this for a while.
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Yeah, it's a good pop culture thing to watch. Like, in pop culture, you will very often see people complaining in modern TV shows and movies that their phone is out of charge and they're desperate to find a charger and they're always plugging a wire into it, right? Yeah. We'll know that that turnover has happened when in pop culture we see the person who's desperate for their phone to be charged.
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Yeah, that's one place we've definitely got them beat. There's not going to be a follow-up podcast unless you specifically spoon-feed it to them. But Casey's word that he used, and I'm glad he used that because I couldn't think of a good word for it. I was trying to think before the show started how I should describe this.
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I don't know, sticking it to a MagSafe puck? I'm not even sure how they would do it. But yeah, obviously that's a trailing indicator, not a leading indicator. But yeah, wires are still pretty prevalent in popular media.
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Yeah, if you want to know how they could get to no cable in a way that is not controversial to people – Rather than thinking of advances in wireless technology, what you have to do is fast forward to the point where – I mean who knows if we'll get this far. But if silicon continues to advance and we don't – and the wall that we know we're inevitably going to hit is farther out than we think it is.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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The more I thought about and discussed the Notebook LM podcast with people, like just going back and forth on Macedon and stuff about it, the more it seems to me that the podcast it generated – like the best way to describe them would be like, at least for the, the, the first portion of it as sort of a, I was going to say a, uh,
Accidental Tech Podcast
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You could get to the point where the total amount of energy inside a phone in the battery, you know, for all day battery life is just lower. And then you don't need like advances, super advances and charging technology. Use the same stupid inductive coils we have now. But because you're filling a battery that's a quarter of the size. All these issues become much less. Right.
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And if you have solid state batteries and they charge really fast, like I think that's how you would get to it. It would essentially require advances, continued advances in silicon, which are slowing rapidly, as we all know, and also advances in battery technology.
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And then we get to the point where it's like, OK, well, all those issues they used to talk about, about charging your phone and heat or whatever. That's ridiculous because now it charges in 35 seconds off of an inductive coil. Nobody cares.
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sure how they're going to do this because i think the way google did it like you essentially need key exchange servers like essentially the servers that apple runs for imessage that handle like negotiations between the parties and sort of like allow the intent encryption to happen right they're not they can't obviously they can't see or infiltrate it that's the whole point but you still need kind of like a middle party to mediate the exchange and so google has that so if you're doing like android rcs from another android phone it goes through google servers just like imessage goes through apple servers but it doesn't help
Accidental Tech Podcast
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When you're using RCS between an iPhone and an Android phone, you don't get the encryption there. So the GSM Association is coming up with a standard for this, but then who's going to run the servers? Like, does Apple stand up its own sort of RCS key exchange servers? Does Google open up its servers to everybody? Do the carriers run the servers?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I'm not quite sure how this is going to work, but it's good to see that they're working on it a little bit. It would be better if the RCS standard came out of the gate with a solution to this problem, but it absolutely did not. I want to ask Casey, though, because I think you're the main one who has complained about having conversations with Android people and dropping messages and everything.
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Have you actually used RCS to your knowledge? And is it better than it was when you were just using SMS?
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paraphrasing of the content regurgitation is similar and then it's like okay so here's the article and then the the hosts of the podcast the ai hosts of the podcast basically do the equivalent of rewriting the article into podcast speak like they just speak it out loud rather than reading it but they're not doing anything more than trying to basically rewording sentence by sentence point by points in slightly different orders
Accidental Tech Podcast
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There's also some confusion about when the iOS messages app shows RCS like as placeholder text in the text field to tell you that it's RCS. But in some cases, it's not really RCS. It might just show that now, even when it's just doing MMS stuff. I don't know. There's some confusion about that. But anyway, good luck in getting everyone upgraded and let us know if that improves your life.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I mean, the big thing is the images aren't terribly overcompressed thumbnails.
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I mean, again, I don't know how this affects the thing we talked about in the past where you can just use the plist thing to override it, although one of the feedback that we got was that 15.1 was the one that used...
Accidental Tech Podcast
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bundle identifiers in the plist instead of using paths to the application so I guess that thing is still there but like now that we know that that exists and until Apple invalidates that this entire thing just seems like a waste of time like don't bother trying to
Accidental Tech Podcast
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do things to make it less annoying because the only reason that anyone would ever be accepted of any annoyance here is in exchange for increased security for the purpose they wanted to do.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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You don't have an app that's recording without your knowledge, that you forget about it or didn't know about it, and you want the OS to say, hey, you might not know this or you might not remember this, but app X is recording your screen. That is the supposed security benefit, right? And there are many possible scenarios in which that could be beneficial.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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But stuff like this, where it's like, oh, if you use it frequently, you'll see fewer dialogues, or if someone just sets the plist key, you'll... According to... I wish I should have pulled the quote from Snell, but he was saying his understanding is that every time you use the app, essentially, it kicks the can down the road a little bit farther for you seeing the dialogue.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And if that's true, you could just keep using the app every day and never see the dialogue, but... Like, what are we even doing here? If this is one Google search away from, you know, a domestic abuser making it so you never see this dialogue, we're not getting any benefit and you're just annoying people who don't benefit from this feature at all. Anyway, glad to see Apple's still working on it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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This is a weird one. It came up because I actually use this. Sequoia now requires global hotkeys to use at least one modifier that is not shift or option. possibly only for sandbox apps, so I haven't been able to confirm that. A global modifier is like, if you know, hit Command-Shift-3 to take a screenshot, right? It doesn't matter what app you're in.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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That keyboard shortcut, in theory, works anywhere in macOS. That's a global keyboard shortcut. And in Sequoia, you better use a modifier that's not shifter optional. You can't do it. And the reason this comes up for me is I have a... I had...
Accidental Tech Podcast
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although I think I still have it because I think the app's not sandboxed, a global key modifier in Keyboard Maestro, which is option C, which centers the front mouse window, which is surprisingly useful if you're taking screenshots and stuff like that. And it's a cool thing that Keyboard Maestro can do. And I used option C because I couldn't think of any app that I used where option C was a
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I guess if Keyboard Meister was a sandbox app, that wouldn't work. And there's a comment in Apple's developer forums from an Apple Frameworks engineer saying the following. This was an intentional change in Mac OS Sequoia to limit the ability of key logging malware to observe keys in other applications.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Which is different than summarizing, right? Regurgitation. I think that's the word I couldn't come up with in case he came up with it. I think it's a really good word because they are throwing back at you everything that was in the article in a slightly less pleasant form, but it's all there.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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The issue of concern was that shift and option can be used to generate alternate characters and passwords, such as the zero with a line through it, which is shift option O. So this is like... Basically, apps can't, I guess, again, maybe it's only sandbox app, can't monitor for keystrokes globally that use shift and option because those are modifiers that you might use when typing a password.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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A lot of people in the forums also had trouble parsing like, yeah, but... is this like, how does it stop key logging? Aren't they just registering with this like an API call to register for a hotkey? They're just registering for option C. They're not going to see any other keystrokes unless someone hits option C. How could you get someone's password that way?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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It's very confusing, but clearly it was intentional. And so, yeah, I hope you didn't have any global hotkeys that used either only shift or only option.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And then in the second part where they sort of riff reform on it, it's more like they just took some of those words and again looked at the Wikipedia pages that are related to them and went back and forth. And I feel that's part of why I think a lot of people, when they hear these generated podcasts, think they go on too long, is that they are... Like they're longer than the article.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Did it give you the option to charge anyway, like this feedback said?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Well, anyway, look for this coming soon to a Mac near you, maybe. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think it's a good idea. Like, if they have these liquid detectors and they can detect that there's liquid in the port, saying, hey, I know you just plugged it in, but I'm choosing not to charge because I've detected liquid. And again, maybe not with an option to override, but...
Accidental Tech Podcast
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It may be in really humid places. They get that every time they plug in. But yeah, it's good for macOS to get those features as well because anybody who's got a USB-C port, there could be water in there. Yep.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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You could have just read the article and it would take less time. And it's not because they have a lot of commentary. It's because they take a long time to get around with everything. Anyway, we talked about that last episode. If you want to hear those podcasts, if you skipped them last time and you want to hear them, you can take a look.
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This is such a incredibly harsh judgment in a situation where Google was already way more open than Apple, and yet the jury decided, you may claim that you're open, but you've constructed all these deals and all these incentives that you really aren't open. So A, you're a monopoly, and B, the stuff you're doing impairs competition.
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i don't think this bodes well for apple we'll see different cases sometimes uh google has gotten worse judgments because they like were claiming that they were open but they weren't whereas apple never claims that they are they're just like it's totally closed but like oh you know it's it's so hard for third-party apps to get going you know how it makes it really hard for third-party apps to go and completely never allowing them at all in any possible way like apple had been doing right
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But look at this. They have to distribute the third party. It's as if the Epic Store had to be in the App Store, and it automatically got access to every app in the App Store unless the developer opted out. Can you imagine this judgment going against Apple? Again, with the caveat, appeals, blah, blah, blah. Who knows how this will end up? But wow, this is like...
Accidental Tech Podcast
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the doomsday scenario for judgments on app stores it's all of apple's worst nightmares come true and all epic streams come true uh with the exception of the security policing thing which obviously they'll they'll argue about because like if you give if you give a company like google any kind of lever any kind of oversight or input into this process google will decide how they can use it to try to get back the control that they're getting taken away by this but
Accidental Tech Podcast
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But I will say that, you know, doing live commentary on something you've never heard before is a lot harder than it sounds. There's a reason, like Mystery Science Theater 3000, they pre-write and script all those jokes, believe it or not. They just don't do it in real time. Oh, don't ruin the illusion.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Man, this is this is in the US. So this is not DMA. This is not the EU. This was the case we've talked about before. Google was found to have a monopoly. How are they going to fix it? They're going to fix it by saying, yeah, Google, all that stuff you were doing. You're not doing that anymore for three years. I don't know why three years like when three years is over.
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Did this go back to the old way? This is slightly confusing. remedy but boy this is i was about to say this is epic but i'm not going to do that this is extremely harsh google cannot be happy and i guess apple's over there thinking well boy i'm glad that will never happen to us because we're so different than google
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mostly because google didn't totally disallow all this stuff they had a system that ostensibly allowed it but then they did anti-competitive things to stop it from happening which you would think isn't that isn't what apple's doing even worse but in the past legal cases apple has come out ahead because they're like apple never even pretended they were allowing this there's not they weren't you know illegally restraining what should have been competition there never was any competition it was never allowed at all and obviously the eu thinks that's bad but
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And who knows how destructive it will actually be, by the way. Because obviously it is destructive in that it destroys the thing that these people wanted to have. Because what they had before was what they wanted to have because they got to choose. And that's what they wanted. But like, as we've said many times over, I think it would actually behoove these companies to...
Accidental Tech Podcast
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have to compete right to to eventually have this competition force on them what we would hope is that it would force them to make better products and services because now there's competition so all the things that we would complain about about these services they would say well there's no competition so they can get away with being that crappy because in the end they're
Accidental Tech Podcast
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still big and someone in the chat room said uh chris said the idea that you can't make a closed platform because the law explicitly says you can't is insane just to reiterate you can make a closed platform there's absolutely no problem with that the only time there becomes a problem is if you are if you are found to have monopoly power and found to have abused that monopoly power and if you're just making a closed platform you probably don't have monopoly power because you're a dinky little startup and it will take years and years and years
Accidental Tech Podcast
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if you're lucky for you to gain monopoly power and we could argue about, is it a duopoly because Apple and Google are rare, but there's no arguing that there is like a diversity of competition in the mobile phone app marketplace. There's two things, two main things, especially in the U S and the rest of the world. There's more like in China and everything, but like,
Accidental Tech Podcast
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That amount of power is found to be by the EU, obviously, and also by US courts to require a different set of rules to apply to you. So it's not like you can't make things integrated or whatever. It's like when you get to a certain size, when the decisions that you make, I think Jason Snell talked about this on Upgrade recently, when you get so big that the things that you decide to do affect...
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Like the world economy and the competition across an entire industry, that's when different sets of rules apply to you. And it's easy for that to sneak up on you and it's easy for you to stay in the mindset of just like never give an inch, keep everything. And you wake up one day and you're like the biggest company in the world and you and Google control mobile phones almost entirely.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Yeah, and you get these judgments to go against you. And I think the other thing that's interesting about this case is it was a case in the U.S. and there was a jury. And the jury basically bought a lot of the arguments that are in the complaint that the DOJ has filed against Apple.
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Doing these things, if you're found to have monopoly power and you do these things like tying your payment system to the App Store... the jury found that that's a thing that they shouldn't be allowed to do. Well, Apple does that. And, you know, paying people to not go into rival stores or wherever. Apple doesn't do that because they just forbid the rival stores. But it shows that there are U.S.
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juries that are ready to say that these kinds of practices are not just, oh, that's just the way it is and I accept it, but that apparently the lawyers were able to argue in a way that convinced the jury that, yeah, Google probably shouldn't be allowed to do this. Not that no company should ever be allowed to do this.
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Not that this is illegal, but that Google specifically, because of the things that they became convinced that Google has illegal monopoly power and so forth, Google shouldn't be allowed to do these things. And a lot of those things are some of the same stuff that Apple does. Again, surrounding circumstances are also different. Cases are different. Juries are going to be different.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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The venue might be different. We'll see how it goes. I don't – this is not a neutral judgment for Apple. I think this is at least a slight negative because it happened in their country and it happened to the company that is the closest to being like Apple even though, again, there are big differences.
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And it happened with a US jury that found some of the same things that Apple does were illegal if you have monopoly power.
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It's because they never had an opening for competition. So it was like the illusion of competition making, you know, deals or you can do X, you can do Y, you can do Z. But then like coercing them through other means is found to be worse than just saying, look, there are no relationships with third party stores. We don't allow third party stores. We never have. We never will.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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It's basically like when you buy the iPhone in the before DMA days, when you buy the iPhone, you're not buying it with any expectation that there are third party stores where you bought an Android phone. It's like, oh, Android is open. I can get apps from anywhere. But the Google was essentially disallowing that. I think that was the gist of one of at least one of the arguments.
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It might be less than what Apple did for the DMA, though, don't you think?
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Because Apple wrote so much code to make sure that they could do what they wanted to do in the way they wanted, where they could have just said, fine, third-party app source. You know what I mean? Like, it's less work to allow more things, and Apple worked so hard and made so many frameworks, sometimes necessary, like trying to allow the browser engines while maintaining security.
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Like, I think that was necessary, but sometimes not necessary. Like...
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yeah yeah but you know hey that's that's part of the danger of having a judgment go against you you don't get to decide suddenly you have to do a bunch of stuff not on your schedule not when you want to do it not how you want to do it but because a court ordered you to do it and that's not no one wants to develop software that way that's the danger of losing court cases if you had actually self-regulated and been a little bit uh you know less uh controlling you could have set your own schedule to do stuff like this but yeah
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didn't anyway we'll see you know i don't know what the schedule is like if this will get appealed for the next five years and we'll be talking about this uh you know in 2030 when apple's carbon neutral but we'll see
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uses but but it's not just limited like i'm i don't know the don't know the details notebook lm but i have to think that it is what apple would describe as a quote world knowledge lm because the parts parts where i was complaining that it sounded like it was reading for wikipedia page it clearly has lots of world knowledge in like before you feed it anything right it could comment on ai and all those things that wasn't in the article that's why i'm like oh it's reading from wikipedia page again about some just it has a lot of general knowledge that's what it's bringing to the table so yes you only fed it the one article but
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To be fair, they're taking a lower percentage. And you know why? Because when there's competition... you have incentive to undercut the competitor. And especially when it's like, you know, 0% margin software, you can undercut them if you're willing to take less profit. And for Epic, it's way more profit than not getting any profit from mobile platforms, so they're willing to undercut Apple.
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But, you know, Epic's tactics are not always great, and sometimes they ask for unreasonable things, but that's... The result is it's causing these systems that have held up the two giant mobile platforms to come under scrutiny and to be judged and decided that they are actually impairing competition and here's how we should try to restore competition.
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To the extent that benefits Epic, ideally it would benefit anybody who wants to make a third-party store is now more free to do so than they were before, but we'll see.
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But it's got however many billions of words that it was trained on.
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That's good. And, you know, like Marco said, sometimes that's exactly what you want. And we have tons of forms of media out there today where that's what we pay people to do because it is a service. Like it saves you the trouble of having to have, you know, read the thing yourself or whatever. Usually you want it to be either compressing it or adding some analysis or insight.
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Is it because of the paywall, though, or is it just because Americans don't like soccer?
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That is the easier solution. And the other thing is, I don't know much about soccer or this person, but from the article you read, incentivized him to finish his career in America. I am assuming he was the greatest soccer player, but now he's getting kind of old. And so...
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You can have an equivalent of other sports, a great sports player that maybe has passed their prime, and by far they would be the biggest player in the MLS, but who are they playing with? Are they playing with all of their rivals from the peak of their career? No, they're back playing the real soccer in the rest of the world, right?
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So even to a big soccer fan, it's like, well, they got this great guy at the end of his career. It's great he got put out to pasture and he can go beat up on the Americans who aren't as good at soccer. But like that's that's not enough to support a league. The rest of the soccer world has all the stars of soccer playing each other, which is much more exciting.
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And I mean, the paywall probably doesn't help here. I'm it's one of the most fascinating things about this deal is that they were able to finagle it so that he gets a percentage of his subscription revenue. That's star power to have a deal with Apple. Yeah.
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prescription revenue like that just shows that he is the only player that matters in the league because i don't think there are many other players in mos that are getting a percentage of apple subscription revenue well but he probably only gets 70 percent um he's probably getting a tiny percent but any percent it's like when movie stars get big enough to start getting like a percentage of gross right it's even bigger than that so i i think this the answer is that that americans just aren't into soccer but yeah and you know
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Apple couldn't get the NFL. That's what it comes down to. They tried. They couldn't get it.
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I mean, I think they literally couldn't because I think one of the things I heard was that they were insisting on certain provisions that the NFL would not agree to. As in, like, you know, we need to have these rights or be able to shoot the games in this way or whatever. And NFL wasn't willing to give that up. And Apple wasn't willing to do the deal without it. So it's not just a matter of money.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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It was a matter of like conditions maybe. But either way, they didn't get it. And I think a lot of Americans, I don't know what the percentages are, but I bet a lot of Americans, maybe even more than 50%, pay to see the NFL, even though technically there's over-the-air broadcasts that they could be getting. And so I don't even think the paywall issue is the big deal.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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If you put the NFL entirely behind a paywall and took it off over the air, people would complain and the viewership numbers would go down, but it would still probably be more popular than baseball.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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No, I'm just saying it came off of over-the-air waves. Like, it would still be on basic cable for your home team or whatever. I don't know the terms. But anyway, the NFL Sunday ticket is for the people who need to see every game or whatever. It's very expensive.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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But I'm saying if the NFL was not available for free, then, in other words, you had to pay for cable television, for example, to see games, right? We're not in that situation now. Basically, I'm wondering how many people watch the NFL on over-the-air broadcasts.
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
That's because Americans like basketball. That's true. That's why. It's really popular. I think a Canadian invented it, maybe, but it's basically practically an American sport.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I can't forget it was a Canadian peach basket. Anyway, the point is, Americans like basketball. That's why you're seeing clips from it. I think it's both, though. I don't think you're seeing a lot of clips of basketball games in other parts of the world where it's not popular, but it's really popular in this country. Have you heard of Michael Jordan? No.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I'm just saying, like, it's been popular for a long time. Obviously, the NFL has come from out of nowhere to become the most popular sport, but, like, of course you're going to see highlights. You're going to even see highlights from baseball, the American pastime, even though NFL is more popular, right? I think that's a better explanation and not the venue for the thing, but, you know.
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
Maybe they need, like, they had Drive to Survive to try to get Americans interested in F1. They need, like, a boot to toot or something for, uh, good luck with that.
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
Apple hasn't even shipped their OpenAI integration, and already they're just like, We talked about this before, how OpenAI's culture and Apple's culture are not a good match. But that's sometimes just the way it is with a young company and an older company. Young, upstart, right? Maybe they kick out their CEO and he comes back and kicks out everyone. Like,
Accidental Tech Podcast
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a lot of drama going on recently their CTO left and a bunch of other people like it's OpenAI a lot of drama and Apple doesn't like drama but they did the deal they did the deal with OpenAI they talked about them in the keynote when you know your thing on your phone can't figure it out you'll have the option of sending it to OpenAI and they did this deal which supposedly no money's changing hands so they don't know the details and they were going to be an investor and they were going to have a
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Board seat. Oh, no board seat. And actually, you know what? Maybe we're going to sit this one out investment wise. Maybe we just don't think there's a big upside there. And Apple was really touting like, you know, we did the deal with OpenAI, but we've almost got to deal with Google for Gemini. And we haven't heard anything about that since. when they were like, yeah, totally.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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What was that thing that Merlin talks about? Like the shipping news thing? Some people in the UK know what I'm talking about.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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It's not just OpenAI. We're, you know, this Gemini deal is probably going to happen real soon now. Not that they said that, but they were hinting in that direction. And so far, no Gemini deal. OpenAI is ostensibly going to ship as a feature of our phones at some point in the future. And Apple is rapidly... not distancing itself, but getting less cozy than they were before with open AI.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Maybe they just didn't, they just figured, you know, we could have better use of our money. We've got the deal that we want. We don't need to invest, or maybe they're really just, you know, hedging their bets. And, you know, I don't think they're going to be investing in Google anytime soon, but, uh, and maybe that's part of it. Maybe open AI is getting so big and has so much funding.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I think they've raised more money than any quote unquote startup ever. If you can call this company a startup at this point. Um, uh, But yeah, maybe they're just like, they don't need our help. And maybe we're, we'll talk about this in overtime, but maybe they think maybe we're like accidentally funding our future biggest rival and we don't want to do that.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Or maybe they just are rethinking getting even tighter with this company that seems to be in constant turmoil.
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
Yeah, the Maritime Report where this human would read it with a certain intonation and basically just reading off like, the weather report or whatever. Like it's just, it could very easily be done by an AI trained voice because it's very standardized.
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
Yeah, this is a thing that Sony has been doing where it's not a mid-cycle update, but like... At some point in the life of their console generation, they will release a better version of the same console that plays all the same games, but plays them better in some way. So the PS4 and the PS4 Pro, this is in addition to the Slim model, which is just the plain PS4, and it was the PS4 Slim.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Anyway, there's the PS5, which I have. Then they made the PS5 Slim, which is a slimmer version of the PS5. And now they've announced the PS5 Pro. And what makes it better? It's got a beefier GPU, a little bit better CPU. Sometimes they have more RAM. I don't know the...
Accidental Tech Podcast
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technical details that much for the PlayStation 5 Pro but it is I do know the effect on the games and the effect is sometimes they run at higher frame rates sometimes they run at higher resolution or higher apparent resolution with upscaling But they run all the same games just a little bit better. I always buy the pros models because I want to run the same games a little bit better.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And very often they will be not remasters, but existing games that they've already shipped will be updated to look better on the pro version of the console. And that's happening with a bunch of games that I like. I think they're doing an update to The Last of Us Part 2. And The Last of Us Part 2...
Accidental Tech Podcast
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tv series is coming out soon so i might replay through the last of us part two before the tv series just like i replayed through the original last of us uh for the third time before the tv series came out and just like i got to replay through the sort of remastered ps5 version of the last of us now i'll get to uh replay through the ps5 pro enhanced version of the last of us part two and so to answer the question yes i already pre-ordered my sony playstation 5 pro and i'm looking forward to it
Accidental Tech Podcast
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and i'm sorry it's replacing a regular playstation 5 yeah i'm the what's going to happen is the playstation 5 will rotate up to my son's room replacing the ps4 pro which is this is the rotation in the house so we just said when i get a new console my old one goes up to him and that'll be good because the ps4 pro even though i have an ssd attached to it it's just so much slower we're playing the same game like we're playing destiny with each other right but i have to wait for his load times and this will really be a big upgrade to his load times uh
Accidental Tech Podcast
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There's no riffing or anything, but people find it comforting and they like to have it read to them and whatever that pleasing British person's voice is.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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He'll like having a better game console, too, even though half the time he's playing games on his iPad anyway. But the PS5 will take up way more room on his desk than his room, but he'll survive.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Or like a gaming PC, and then you can stop buying Mac Pros. Also true. I would much rather have the PlayStation than the gaming PC.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I get motion sick when I look at my phone, so I would never look at my phone in the car.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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It's like, oh, but now you'll be able to because the dots will save you. It's like, why would I ever look at my phone in the car? It's like asking you to drink this cup of Ipecac.
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
Yep, I kept referring to the thing that Apple puts on them to transfer the capacitiveness of your touch as a quartz thing, but it's not. It's sapphire. Many people wanted to correct me on that. I am happy to be corrected. I just want someone to make a case with a sapphire. Or, like, it doesn't even have to be sapphire. It can be that plastic thing with the metal things through it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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it'll be fine no thanks wow um so here's the thing though i i was aware of this feature and i made sure when i updated and you know it's ios 18 even before i got my new phone i made sure it was on automatic because automatic is supposed to like you can turn it off or on or on automatic automatic is supposed to detect when you're in a car by like your gps location and you're you know it detects when you're driving and it will turn the dots on and freaking thing never turned the dots on i'm in a car phone yeah yeah
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I'm a passenger in a car. We're driving down the highway at 45 miles an hour. Like it's not turning on. I want to know what it's waiting for. So what I did do was I added the dots thing to control center, the new customizable control center. And I had, I do actually want to try it at some point, but honestly, like I'm never going to look at my phone when I'm in the car. Like I,
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I get everyone gets motion sick to varying degrees and I get motion sick extremely easily. The dots are not going to save me like there's no there's no freaking chance. Like I understand the theory you stated it well, but that's not enough. Like those little dots are not going to be the thing that makes me not get motion sick.
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I'm going to try it, and I'm going to get sick to my stomach, and I'm going to be mad at the stupid dog.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I'll try it for science. But look, it's like those glasses with the liquid in them. You've seen those. It's like a bunch of glasses you wear, but they have water in them. And so as your head tilts on a boat, the water will stay level, and it's in your field of vision.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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i've heard of all the the motion sickness thing you can possibly imagine like i i i'm sure this will help this will help people if you're within the threshold that this can help you that's great i'm so far past the threshold stuff's gonna help me i'll try it for science if i remember to the next time a passenger but i have dim hopes because i think nothing can help me but not moving me
Accidental Tech Podcast
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We need Suruji. What's his first name? Johnny Suruji? Yeah. We need him. Every time he gives an interview, he says this exact same thing. And he's like, you just can't get it through your thick skull, so I'm going to keep saying it. And I agree with him. What he would say if he was given this question is, we've been putting neural engines in our phone chips for years.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I don't know, something that's not a big hole and... Another week has gone by, another week filled with Instagram ads for iPhone cases, and another week without me finding anything exciting or good.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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built from the ground up for AI. That's a marketing term, but practically speaking, Apple has been putting machine learning hardware in its chips way before anyone else was. They were emphasizing it. They were building features around it. They were making APIs for it. They were making frameworks around it. They continue to do so.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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So if you look at the phone and say, what would it look like if it was built for AI? Would it have like a beefy neural engine? Well, they already have that. It doesn't look like it's any different because they just make the neural engine better year after year or whatever. Increasing the RAM size, Neil's right.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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That's something that's pretty easy to do, and it's pretty clear that they did that for Apple Intelligence. But honestly, I think... Even though surely this phone was not... When this hardware was being planned, Apple Intelligence maybe wasn't even a twinkle in anyone's eye.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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So in that respect, the whole built from the ground up for AI is a little bit marketing spin, a little bit of truth in that we did make sure they all had 8 gigs of RAM. So I give it a pass on that.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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It's not a completely bogus marketing thing, but it's also not true that when they were planning this phone, they were like, this needs to run Apple Intelligence because they didn't even have Apple Intelligence based on the rumors that we've heard of when this was... conceived in the three-year lead times or whatever on new phones.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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But honestly, a phone built from the ground up for AI wouldn't look that different than the 16 Pro and the 16 Pro Max. I don't think we should expect any massive change to the SoC for Apple Intelligence, especially since Apple Intelligence, as we record this, is still essentially an unproven feature. Do people love it and they want 100 times more of it? Or is it just like, eh, it's all right.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I hope they make it better. Siri is a good example. A voice system is great and we take it for granted and we think it's an important feature and it should be there. But they didn't remake the entire phone around it because A, Siri wasn't good enough for that.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And B, there are so many other things that we do with our phone that are not Siri that there was no reason to bend the entire phone around Siri. They did make the microphones better. They didn't make Siri better. They did add the neural engine to make it beefier and beefier. But like in the end, are we, were we previously using phones that were built from the ground up from Siri?
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Like, I think this is putting the cart before the horse as the entire industry is with the assumption that AI will be the most important feature on our phone. And we want the entire hardware design to be focused on that feature. Let's see how the feature does before we completely change the hardware design of the phone around it. And again, give it a three year lead time.
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
Like I said, is it the one with the copper dots or is it a sapphire thing?
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
So to help answer Sharon's question a little bit, we should link to Ricky Mondello's post about migrating password managers, migrating to the Apple password system and pass keys. And it's got some good advice about not trying to do like a Big Bang type of like, I'm going to go in there and change everything and transfer all my stuff that you kind of do it sort of the same.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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demand paged version of it sort of slow gradual one so that's actually a good uh a good some even if you don't follow the advice in the article it's a good mindset to get into that you it's not like you're you're not missing some boat that's leaving and you need to get on it and it will change your life or whatever right this is pass keys are a developing technology i'm kind of in the same uh boat with marco in that i'm when they offer it i take it but uh as ricky will tell you lots of websites
Accidental Tech Podcast
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uh that implement passkeys choose totally different policies for those passkeys than other websites because you can websites can choose to do whatever they want they can give you a passkey and then remove your password they can let you use a password and a passkey github uses passkeys as a second factor in a two-factor login so you enter your username and your password and then as a second factor one of the things that you can use is your passkey which is totally not the supposed intention of passkeys but technologically there's nothing stopping you from doing it so
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The bottom line is that every website that uses passkeys has some different notion of where they fit in in their website. And maybe that will change over time. Like in the beginning, we wanted to roll out passkeys just to try them out. And if lots of people adopt them, maybe we'll do this.
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But just because a website supports passkeys or anything supports passkeys doesn't mean... My perspective is I don't know, based on that...
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how it's going to work okay so you've got pass keys when someone says like oh we support usernames and passwords i more or less know how that's going to work these days although there was a kind of a uh older people remember the somewhat annoying drawn out transition between uh sites and other things asking you for a username that was not an email address you both remember those days right mm-hmm
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Those were not good days. Some websites still do it. But in general, we've sort of settled on if you're going to have a login to a website that's not going to be like a third party login, like login with Google, login with Twitter, login with Apple, whatever thing that it's going to say username and password and the username is going to be an email address. But.
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Back in the battle days, you had to come up with a username and put numbers at the end of it and do other awful things, right? That's where we are, I feel like, with passkeys. It's like, oh, so you support caskeys? I don't know what you're going to want from me. If I enable this passkey, are you going to remove my password and my password won't work anymore?
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Because sometimes I don't want to do that, not because I don't trust passkeys, but because I don't trust the website to implement passkeys well enough. And there are some things, you know, Casey mentioned the sharing of pass keys, which I think is trivial with Apple's passwords. It's just like you put it in a shared group or whatever. And by the way, I'm loving the shared groups.
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
I made a bunch for my family and they're really making your life better. So thumbs up on that as someone who wasn't a one password user, which has that feature has had it for ages. It's great for me to have it now and the Apple key chain thing. But pass keys, there are still some technical limitations. The sort of
Accidental Tech Podcast
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export import flow for passkeys is supposedly coming soon but it's not available yet they want to do it in a secure way so on and so forth and that is a limitation versus plain old passwords where it's easy for example not easy but it is very possible for example to migrate from one password to apple's password system because one password has an export and apple's password have an import
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
Obviously, making that export is incredibly insecure, right? Because there's your passwords in plain text and a file that you're going to import or whatever. So that's not great. And PASC is going to try to do that better. But there's no good cross platform way to do that with PASC yet. And every website that uses PASC can pick a different policy. And you really never know what it's going to be.
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
Can you just log in with the passkey by itself? Can you keep the password in the passkey? If so, how do you choose to use the passkey? Are you only prompted to use your passkey when you use browser X and not browser Y? Does it work on your phone or your Mac? my stance is anytime there is a passkey, I would like to use it instead of a password, but I'm not even always given that option.
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So I think we are in a transition period and it's fine for you to dip your toe in, find a website that uses passkeys that you think it will make your login experience better and try it for a while.
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
I've been on sites that took away my password and I've disabled the passkey so I could get my password back because I didn't trust yet that this website was implementing passkeys well enough that I wasn't gonna get locked out of my account, right? you have to kind of make those choices on your own. So fingers crossed for me on PassKeys. I am optimistic about technology, but it is still young.
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Can I pause for a second here? Yes. Just point this out, which I know I've mentioned this before, but just to show that it's not just my family and that it is a thing. When we were all kids, when there was a problem with the computer, we fixed it because our parents were old and didn't understand computers and we were young and we did. Not every young person understood computers, but we did.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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now that we are older i mean my parents said this to me all the time when i was a child when you get old like me your kids will have to explain technology to you but instead what happens is that our children's computers don't work and they bring them to us to fix because we understand computers now obviously we have a tech podcast for programmers like we're not the average person but i still feel like we may end up being or at least my generation gen x may have been the only generation that
Accidental Tech Podcast
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had to fix all the computer problems when we were kids because our parents were too old to understand it, and still have to fix all the computer problems when we're older because young kids don't know or care anything about computers because they just take it for granted, and PCs are for old people anyway. And so here you are, Marco, debugging and fixing computer problems for your kid.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Where was the future we were promised, where we would be old fuddy-duddies and our kids would have to fix our computers? My kids don't fix my computers.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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My son is a junior computer science major with excellent grades, and I still fix his computer.
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
Yeah, the case situation is grim, but many, many people want to suggest cases. And I've gotten the main reason I want to read these out is to stop people from suggesting. Oh, wow. Maybe someone else will find them useful. So here's the first one. This has been suggested for years, not just this year, but every year we talk about cases.
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Unfortunately, I know where the story is going, so I just wanted to ask you a leading question here. Before you got to this stage, is there anything else you noticed about the computer that gave you any pause?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Another aside here, by the way, you posted this on... Was it Massanar or Threads?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I keep forgetting Threads exists. All right. So speaking of Threads, there is a thing that there are people writing stories about this, and it amazes me they're writing stories about this now and not last month or the month before or the month before that because it's always been true, about things on Threads, like having the algorithm on Threads essentially promoting...
Accidental Tech Podcast
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they're calling it like engagement bait, but it's kind of like the version of clickbait. It was basically the, well, someone will post something, uh, innocently, like pretend innocently post something that they know will be incredibly controversial and everyone will reply about.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And so Margo unwittingly did this, but not on threads, posting a picture of his battery and saying, do you think this looks okay? And, And it was exactly like the engagement bait on threads where it's like, nobody would ask that.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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No sane person would say something like this unless it was totally like, because they know a thousand people are going to reply and say, hey, dummy, don't you know about X, Y, and Z? I can't think of an example from threads, but just, you don't need me to put an example. Open up threads right now.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Go to the algorithmic timeline that it automatically switches to even if you switch to following because they're evil. And just look at what the top post is. And it's going to be some person innocently saying, I always thought that X, Y, and Z, but I'm not sure about whatever. And there's going to be a thousand reply guys replying to this engagement bait, and that's what Threads has become.
Accidental Tech Podcast
608: Boot to Toot
There is a contingent of people who really, really like this case. And maybe, you know, one of the people who's listening, they might like this case, too. But the fact that they keep recommending it to me, it boggles my mind because it is like the opposite of everything they want out of a case. They're like, oh, you want an open bottom? Well, how about this? I'll put a link in the show notes.
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Well, Marco is... I think it was... You have to tell me. Were you legitimately asking that question, or were you doing it just to get insane reactions?
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i know that swollen batteries are a bad thing good um but i didn't like it was only a little bit puffy so i didn't know like no that is not true this is the puffiest battery i've ever seen in my entire life look like a ravioli it looked like it was about to explode i thought you should have immediately put it on your driveway and called the fire department
Accidental Tech Podcast
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That's why I was asking, like, did you notice that, like, was the case bulging?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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This is the Arc Pulse case. I'm not sure if different brands have similar designs in past years. And I would say case is a generous term for this.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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When you say it seemed to work, I was going to say, like, you have these gaming laptops, but honestly, they're gaming desktops that are just bad desktops, because, like, who's using a gaming laptop not plugged in? Your performance will tank. So, were you using this, you had removed the battery and disposed of it properly, but the thing would still boot if you just plugged it into power?
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Yeah, the way I would describe it is it's like Princess Leia's metal bikini from Return of the Jedi, but for your phone.
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Did you tape the power cord in or something or put a little note that says, do not unplug?
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I was going to say, who's using a gaming laptop on a battery anyway?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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that's exactly what this is it is a very uncomfortable looking piece of metal that just sort of covers the corners of your phone it goes like around the camera mesa and it covers the top and bottom corners of the phone and you know has an open bottom and that's it they're like this is great because really you just need the corners to be protected because that's the main part that's going to hit the ground if you drop it or whatever which i'll just pause right there and say that's mostly true
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But it is very, very possible to drop your phone onto something like, say, a set of cement stairs or something where you will hit the sides, and maybe your screen doesn't break, but you're going to scar up the sides. So right away, I'm not even accepting the premise that the corners are the only thing you need to protect. But why would I like this?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I want a leather case for the grippiness of the leather, and I want it to cover everything, including all the buttons and including the camera button with a, you know, a pass-through thingy of some kind there. So this is...
Accidental Tech Podcast
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absolutely nothing like anything that i want out of a case and yet people keep recommending it to me so a please stop and b if you want a case like this i have never seen one because it is a very rare very interesting form of case we will put a link in the show notes and you can try it out because it basically gives you the feel of a naked phone with substantial protection for the corners
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Open bottom, also open top, also open left, also open right, right? And honestly, this is actually closer because it does have leather on it. So I can see people saying, hey, you want a leather case and you want an open bottom. You don't have to worry about the camera pass through because there's nothing on the sides.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I do find these attractive, but I will clarify that the leather I want on my phone... is partly and maybe for the most part, the majority wise for the sides, because that's where I grip my phone and the leather makes my phone grippy when I grip it from the side. So not having anything on the sides is not a feature for me. And then, yes, obviously there's the fact that I do drop my phone.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I do actually want some additional protection. And yeah, the leather that goes around helps with that. But if you want a case that's not really a case, but has a really nice look to it and it looks like it might be comfy on the back, hey, there's lots of magnetic back thingies that aren't really cases.
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I think they look good too. And that is a good point that one of the reasons I do like leather is for the surface. Like when I put my phone down, screen up on a surface like the couch arm or something that it gives a little bit of extra friction for it not slipping off. But yeah, unfortunately I need to have the sides.
Accidental Tech Podcast
612: Screen on Face
I didn't go for the pixel shirt and then I saw one or I saw another picture of it or something like that. And I messed up. I should have gotten a pixel shirt. So you can, uh, this is your opportunity to grab one of those.
Accidental Tech Podcast
612: Screen on Face
Boy, it's, it's a lot. It's a lot. And I mean, what are you really going to do? You're not going to buy a second Mac mini. You're going to upgrade as you need to, but it's going to hurt. It's going to hurt.
Accidental Tech Podcast
612: Screen on Face
Oh, yeah. All right, so with the iMac, things seem mostly okay. However, if you're one of those people that really loves to have two pointing devices, both a Magic Mouse and a Magic Trackpad, well, tough nugs, because Apple apparently has removed the option to buy color-matched trackpad apps.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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keyboard and mouse together reading from nine to five mac with the m4 model you know you can no longer get both the magic trackpad magic mouse in the past you could optionally buy both imac accessories as part of your purchase this means that if you want a trio of color magic magic keyboard magic mouse magic trackpad you're simply out of luck or you're going to ebay or you're going to apple store and like marco said give them your imac serial number and tell them you lost your trackpad when really you didn't and really you bought it with a mouse there's probably some way to do it but this is just another consequence of uh
Accidental Tech Podcast
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There's also been a little bit of grumbling about SSD limits. So the M4 versus M4 Pro and Max have different SSD size limits, and they're also different between devices, if I'm not mistaken. So the largest SSD you can get, as an example, with the M4 Mac Mini is two terabytes. But the largest SSD you can get with the M4 Pro Mac Mini is eight terabytes. What's going on with that, John?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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All right, and then tell me about performance, specifically with the M4 Pro and M4 Pro Max.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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All right, and then a handful of people wrote in to correct us when we said, oh, you can't buy a Mac with 8 gigs of RAM anymore. Au contraire, Walmart is still selling that M1 MacBook Air with 8 gigs of RAM for $700, although as we record this, it's actually on sale for $650. But yeah, that still exists. That's still a thing in their lineup.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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The new USB-C accessories, including those color-matched ones that we were talking about a little bit ago, apparently they require macOS Sequoia because they do not work with anything before it or even the 15.2 beta, which is too bad. Reading from MacRumors, the new USB-C accessories require macOS Sequoia 15.1 to work properly.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And as noted on the MacRumors forums, earlier versions of macOS do not work. There are reports from users running macOS Sonoma and Ventura who are having issues with the new devices. With the keyboard, touch ID and function keys don't work, and with the magic mouse, the scrolling doesn't function. In some cases, the accessories are recognized as older devices, inhibiting proper functionality.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And this isn't a problem limited to just people running older versions of macOS because there are also reports from developers who have installed the first macOS Sequoia 15.2 beta. It appears that the macOS Sequoia 15.2 beta was released before Apple could add in support for the new Magic Mouse, Magic Keyboard, and Magic Trackpad.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Daniel Luz writes that the Apple $69 1-meter Thunderbolt 5 cable is a passive cable. 1-meter is the USB... What is IF here? USB IF?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Thank you. The 1-meter is the USB IF's limit for passive cables, as is expected. Every compliant passive Thunderbolt 4 or USB 4 cable is compatible with Thunderbolt 5. It's unclear to me, writes Daniel, what the situation is for Thunderbolt 3. There appears to be a Gen 3 that works.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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If you have an old USB 4 cable, you might already have a Thunderbolt 5 cable as long as it's passive and at most one meter long. So perhaps the only difference between this new Thunderbolt 5 cable and the one that ships with the studio display is higher power delivery.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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No capes! Daniel Nelson writes that there is at least one dock that supports 10 gigabit Ethernet, the OWC Thunderbolt Pro dock. I think I was the one who had said, as far as I know, there are no docks that exist that have 10 gig Ethernet. I knew that my beloved CalDigit TS4 has two and a half gig, but Daniel points out there is this one from OWC that does include 10 gig.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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iFixit has torn down the iPad mini A17 Pro to see if there's any physical or hardware reasons for jelly scrolling improvements. And after watching this like six or seven minute YouTube video, I can tell you that no, there doesn't appear to be any hardware changes, but they do put the old one and the new one in super duper slow-mo or they take super slow-mo videos of them.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And you can see that it is unquestionably better now, but not perfect.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Yeah. And it's not like a Disney vault sort of situation. It's just that generally speaking, we have at least a pretty good idea of what, what people are interested in and what's going to sell. And generally speaking, the kind of more esoteric stuff, for example, the ATP polo, which is available right now, I love it. Not everyone else does.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Kilvor writes in regarding the quote-unquote fork in the road for Apple TV, i.e. whether or not it wants to keep pursuing GPU and CPU power beyond what is needed for streaming video so it can play games better. The latest Apple TV is actually worse for games, even if the chip is better on paper, since in practice it thermal throttles a lot earlier.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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This is according to an old colleague who was working on an Apple Arcade title, Absolute Monkey's Paw.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And so that will do every like second, third or fourth sale. So like John said, it's not that we're saying it'll, these things will never come back, although we're making no promises either. Um, But you should definitely grab at least one, if not a couple, if there's something that you like that's available. So we've also got the zip hoodie. We've got pullover hoodies. That's a new one.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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We've never done pullover hoodie before. We've got the mugs that have come back in white and like a deep, deep, deep bluish purpley. What's the official name for this, John? Cobalt. Thank you. We've also got the ATP hat. Uh, all sorts of stuff is available. All of it is available until I believe it's Sunday, November 17th. Yes.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Finally, in follow-up, keyboard cleaning corner. We were asked about this, I think, in an Ask ATP, but basically, you know, how do you clean your keyboard when you're powering off the computer and then mashing on any freaking key? We'll turn it back on.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And I think we had a couple of solutions at the time, but I also wanted to bring up a friend of the show, Guy Rambeau, writes and makes Cleanup Buddy. We'll put a link in the show notes, which is another one of those tools that'll basically disable the keyboard for a little while.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And then Daniel Piper, or maybe Pepper Piper, I believe, wrote in and said, cleaning the keyboard on an ARM Mac can be achieved by doing the following. Hold down the left control and left command keys and the right shift key for seven seconds. And then while still holding down those keys, press the power button for another seven seconds.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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After that, the computer can only be powered on by using the power button. I tried this, and it didn't work. Then I turned off my computer, and I tried it again, and it didn't work. Then I tried it, and I turned my computer back off, tried it for a third time, and I'll be damned if it didn't work. And it really does do exactly what Daniel said.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I guess I just screwed it up the first time, and I think your computer has to be off to actually have it engage.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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No, except that it only does it until the next boot. So you can clean your keyboard, do whatever, as long as you don't touch the power button. And then once you turn the computer back on, it forgets that this is the mode it was in, and it goes back to any button can turn the computer back on again, which I don't like. I wish I could make this like a permanent setting.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Sunday, the 17th at, uh, basically end of the day, New York time and, and literally end of the day, not end of the business day, not close the business, not COB, but EOD. Uh, that's just for you, John. But, um, anyways, so you can order until the 17th of November. You can go to hp.fm slash store.com. Now, John, I have two questions for you. Number one, what should you do if you're a member?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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So for topics, we have some somewhat breaking news from a little less than a week ago. Apple has come out of left field and has bought Pixelmator, which I don't think I certainly didn't see coming. I don't know that anyone really saw it coming, but there's a release on Pixelmator's website saying,
Accidental Tech Podcast
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In part, it reads, Pixelmator has signed an agreement to be acquired by Apple, subject to regulatory approval. There will be no material changes to the Pixelmator Pro, Pixelmator for iOS, and Photomator apps at this time. Stay tuned for exciting updates to come.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And number two, what if you want to become a member and aren't and maybe don't want to pay for it?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Yeah, I mean, I think the obvious answer is to suck some of particularly Photomator into photos, but I don't know. I don't know what this is about. And I don't think I've used Photomator, but a couple of times. I definitely do use Pixelmator as my image editor of choice, but that being said, I almost never, ever, ever edit images, so...
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I don't have a whole lot of experience with their stuff, but I will say that the experiences I've had is that they are, as you said, Mac-assed Mac apps. Like they really, really are Mac apps. And I could imagine it as an Aqua hire, but I don't know. It seems like a whole lot of money to pay and a whole lot of effort just to get people to work on Macs.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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John, if I'm already a member, a paying member, and somebody gets me a year subscription, what happens?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Meanwhile, Apple is still throwing money out the window because they apparently have put $1.1 billion into GlobalStar's satellite network. And that includes an ownership stake. So reading from Six Colors, Apple satellite partner GlobalStar has disclosed changes to its deal with Apple, including a new influx of $1.1 billion from Apple tied to capital improvements and $400 million in equity.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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which gives Apple a 20% stake in the company. This is quite a bit of money, but it's not necessarily a huge surprise. There aren't that many companies around with these kinds of capabilities, and by locking down investment, GlobalStar, Apple insures bandwidth and access. This is the company that they use for the satellite texting, satellite emergency stuff, etc.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Yeah, I mean, this makes a lot of sense to me, and I don't blame Apple for doing it, and certainly the idea of this satellite features remaining free is appealing, and it seems like it would be crummy.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Not, you know, Apple's not above it, but it seems like it would be crummy to be like, well, we're perfectly happy to save your life if you're out, you know, boondocking or, you know, hiking in the middle of nowhere as long as you pay for Apple One. Like, that's not That's just not a great look.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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There's been some new rumors and rumors about changed plans for future Vision Pro hardware. Apparently, Apple hasn't totally given up on it. And according to Ming-Chi Kuo, production of a cheaper Vision Pro has been delayed beyond 2027. This means Apple's only new head-mounted display device in 2025 will be the Vision Pro with an upgraded M5 processor.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Additionally, Mark Gurman writes, I also continue to hear that Apple is seriously considering a device that offloads the computing components to an iPhone and serves as an accessory for watching movies. That's something that would be roughly akin to the glasses offered by companies like Xreal.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Indeed it does. And remember, you get a whole plethora of member specials if you become a member. And again, you get 15% off at the store. ATP.FM slash store. I will do our visualization exercise that I know all of you love so very much.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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If you're driving, if you're walking, you can either use your turn signal because you're an adult or you can get to the side of the sidewalk or whatever the case may be. Maybe you're biking. You know, use the little arm signals if you need to. But one way or another, pause and go to ATP.FM store and spend all of your money. I mean, buy the things you are interested in buying.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Or if you are not in a position, you can do that. Where are you going or where will you have some free time later? Visualize that spot. Maybe it's your desk at work. Maybe it's your desk at home. Maybe it's somewhere else entirely. Maybe you're going to Wegmans to do work like I do most Wednesday mornings in order to prep for the show.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Wherever you may be heading, think about what it'll be like to go to atp.fm.store and buy some stuff when you get there.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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With that in mind, let's talk about something that I think we can all agree is pretty awesome, and that is the ATP Holiday Store. You can go to ATP.fm slash store, and you can see all sorts of absolutely awesome merchandise. We've got M4 shirts. We've got M4 Pro shirts, M4 Max shirts. We've got monochrome colors. We've got monochrome comma colors. Sorry, that all kind of ran together.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Yeah, I don't know how I feel about this. I don't think that Apple wants to admit defeat on the Vision Pro. I don't think they want to go that much simpler because when they simplified the Apple Watch, the hardware was largely the same and actually got more complicated. It was the software that they focused. And
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I agree that using the Vision Pro as a computing platform, in my personal experience, is trash when you don't have a TV, when you don't have a keyboard connected. And it's not stellar when you don't have a keyboard connected. And for me, the only time the... The only time the Vision Pro was really great as a computing platform was when it was simply a monitor for my Mac.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And I have not yet tried this new version of the display where you can get wide and I think ultra-wide versions of your Mac's display. It sounds incredible, but it requires a beta of macOS, which I am not going to be messing with, as well as the beta of VisionOS, which I would mess with. But...
Accidental Tech Podcast
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The only time that the Vision Pro has really been a productivity tool for me was as a monitor for my Mac. And a lot of that is probably because I'm an old man who just prefers using the Mac. But I think a lot of that is because it's an imprecise tool. It's just not as precise as a Mac is or an iPad or an iPhone.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And so embracing what it is or what it's best at, which is to say a really, really nice screen that you happen to be able to strap to your head, I get that, but I just, I don't know.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I find it hard to believe that Apple would completely and totally get rid of basically all the smarts and just have a dumb display, which makes me wonder, okay, well, what's the Apple way of doing a display such that it's smart, but not quite as smart as a Vision Pro? And I don't have an answer for that. That's why Apple is Apple, and I'm just talking about it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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All right. Let me start by reminding everyone, this is going to be group therapy for the three of us. If you're not interested, that's fine. If you disagree with the way we feel about this election, that's fine, I guess. You don't need to tell us about it. That's fine. You can skip this chapter. This is why chapters exist. just move right along.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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But I think the three of us need this for the three of us. And hopefully maybe it'll be a little cathartic to at least one of you. Um, last night I was watching the coverage and as early as like eight, eight 30 Eastern, I was like, this doesn't feel good. And by nine 30 Eastern, which is when the first real big batch of polling started coming in properly, um,
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Aaron and I looked at each other and we were like, I don't think I want to stay up for this. Like I was planning to stay up for me because we typically go up on a school night at like 10-ish at the latest. And I was thinking I was going to stay up till like 11 or maybe midnight and just ride this baby out and watch it come in. And I was mostly excited for it, to be honest with you.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And 9.30, the two of us looked at each other and we were like, okay. I don't like how this feels. I'm just going to go to bed. And we went to bed. I slept like trash. And at about five, I gave up and woke up, looked at the news and saw, Oh no. Oh no.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And by the time I actually hauled myself out of bed at like six 30 ish, uh, what was a theoretical ending became a official in the terms of like the AP called it, CNN called it, they called it for Trump. And, um, I've, uh, I've been really sad. I've been really sad all day. I've been really dejected all day. I've been really worried all day.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Not as much about me particularly, but I'm worried a fair bit for the women in my life. You know, I'm not... I'm too terribly concerned for Erin because, you know, we are officially done having babies. We are surgically done with having babies. So short of something very unusual happening, all of the baby related stuff, I'm not too worried about.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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But there's a lot of women's health care that is not strictly about baby making, despite what many men seem to believe. Uh, and that concerns me. And I'm very concerned for Michaela. You know, she'll be 10 when this, well, she'll be 10, four years from now. We'll see if that's the end of, uh, of this term of presidency.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Um, I'm worried for, for her, but the people I'm really worried for are the people that are, that don't look like me. And I'm very scared for them. And I am at a loss for what to do. I've been interrogating within myself and talking with friends about, like, how did we get here? And we can talk about that if the two of you want to. I don't have any strong answers.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I have theories, but no strong answers. But I'm just – I'm really sad. I'm really sad that we as a country have decided that this is what we want. And, you know, even despite our full-throated endorsement last episode, which I stand behind – I think all three of us could make passionate arguments, and well, let me just speak for myself.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I can make a passionate argument that Kamala was not a stellar choice, but it was the choice we had, and so that's the choice I went with. And I feel like it's hard for me to wrap my head around, and it's hard for me to figure out
Accidental Tech Podcast
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how do I tell my kids that a man who is convicted of how many felonies, a man who at least suggested, if not caused an insurrection on, on, on the Capitol of the United States of America, that, uh, seems to be saying very, very full-throatedly that he would like to prosecute or otherwise imprison or get rid of the people who he considers his enemies, be they domestic or foreign.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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A man who's a pathological liar, a man who's cognitively falling apart, how can I look to my kids and say, there are consequences for your actions when, as far as I can tell, he's never had a consequence for his action other than failing upwards. And how do I accept that half of the country is enthusiastic about this? And again, I have some theories, but it's just hard to wrap my head around.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And, you know, we've got some feedback from last week's episode. Most of it was very positive, and I very much appreciate it. Some of it was not so positive, but thankfully, was mostly presented with respect, which I appreciated. But a couple of the people who wrote us were like, I couldn't believe that anyone could vote for Joe Biden. I couldn't believe that anyone would vote for him.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I feel like our country's going down the tube when we elected Joe Biden. And I don't doubt that that's how they felt, but I try to wrap my head around What the hell? Why? Why did you feel that way? And I got no answers. Like, I just got no answers. Like, the man was, especially this election cycle, you know, he bowed out because he was also cognitively falling apart.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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But I don't think Joe Biden was a bad guy. Whereas Trump... is a bad man. And like, I don't know, where do, where do we go from here? What do we, what do we tell the women in minorities and, and you know, the LG, LBGTQIA community? Like, what do we tell these people? What do we do other than try to defend them when we can? And what the do we do?
Accidental Tech Podcast
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But anyways, we've got all sorts of different shirts that you can put these on. We've got tanks. We've got tees. We've got long sleeve. We've got pullover hoodies. All sorts of different stuff. We have brought back the ATP Pixel shirt, which I've had at least a couple of people say to me or reach out to me and say, you know, I didn't
Accidental Tech Podcast
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All right. And then Quinn Nelson was perhaps the first person to point out something that we've heard pointed out to us many, many, many times. Quinn writes, you can buy another base model Mac mini. So this is 16 gigs of RAM and a 256 gig SSD. For the price that it costs to upgrade a single Mac mini to 32 gigs of RAM and 512 gigabyte SSD. So let me repeat that.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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If you have the base model, you can, in order to get to a sum total of 32 gigs and 512 gigs, you can buy an entire second Mac mini for about the same price as it costs to upgrade the original Mac mini with the same specs. It's bananas.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
It's kind of like if you have like ImageOptim and those other sort of PNG crush and all those utilities that say like use more computation time to make the image a little bit smaller. That's like built into this format. So you have an adjustable how much effort you want to put in.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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to uh you know getting the smallest size possible which is just it's really just a honeypot for our web developers because every web developer will say i will spend 24 hours making this image smaller because it's going to be served a whole jillion times in the 30 seconds after i post it you know what i mean so every every little bit that we can crush this image uh makes it and that's the same thing with cdns uh vending jpeg xl versions based on the uh the browsers that they know support them or whatever
Accidental Tech Podcast
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So yeah, JPEG XL could be out there and you could be receiving it. But yeah, the support in macOS, I'm hoping if Apple does announce, hey, these new iPhones have this new image format, if that even happens at all, I hope support comes to the rest of their platforms. Things like Preview and even Safari not being able to show HDR images
Accidental Tech Podcast
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still images in any format let alone jpeg xl seems like a limitation that they should overcome and this would be the perfect time to do it so again i'm rooting for this rumor this is still just a rumor that apple's doing this but regardless of the rumor apple has been adding jpeg xl support slowly and steadily to their platforms it's just not fully baked yet and they certainly haven't announced that they're switching the iphone camera to use it as the rumor says they will
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I love – it's just the things that are quoted here, like it's an unreasonably overbroad without a reasonable explanation. I'm pretty sure the people on the other side of this case gave a reasonable explanation for why non-competes are bad. Now, maybe they mean a reasonable explanation of why this particular agency has the ability to do this or whatever. It's frustrating.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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You know, we would hope that collectively we can find a way that will survive judicial challenge to get rid of this horrible thing that is non-competes. The state of California did it somehow. The U.S. government still working on that. So fingers crossed.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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ma what if all these governments are like cheating off each other or like the language in these stories from three entirely different outlets is so similar and the language of all of their complaints is so similar that's like these places smell blood in the water and they're like well this is a thing now uh everyone's you know trying to uh tamp down the app store citing the same type of things like a competition dominant abusing dominant position yada yada so everyone's getting in on the act now how will these all turn out who knows uh but uh
Accidental Tech Podcast
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the problems for apple are just getting started as we as we said they would when this started like years and years ago we're like when one country does this more are going to follow it's not going to be like oh you're going to satisfy the japan trade commission and that'll be it you'll never hear about this again
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I'm pretty sure if you go back and listen to old episodes of ATP, all those reasons you just cited were actually cited back when we were discussing this. I don't think either one of you or any of us actually thought it would be as bad because we listed those reasons. And lo and behold, it wasn't. Although, that said, I think it has been even quieter than we thought it would be.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Because when we were discussing it, we were like, okay, well, is this going to be as bad? Here are these mitigating factors that can make it not as bad. But not only was it not as bad as lightning to USB or lightning to... 30 pin to lightning. I think it was just... pretty much a non-issue. I mean, maybe it's more of an issue outside our circles. Maybe most people don't have a USB-C phone.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Maybe it's lacking. But right now, on the eve of the iPhone 16, I think it has exceeded expectations into how much better the transition was, even though I think we all said it was going to be better. We didn't think it was going to be this much better.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Oh, speaking of the port on the flip side, my wife's iPhone 15 Pro is the only USB-C phone in the house. And so we have the opposite problem here where it's not like we've gone to this whole USB-C lifestyle. We have those like communal chargers everywhere with lightning stuff. And we had to add the right number of USB-C things there.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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Now, arguably, we should have been adding them before because we've got USB-C iPads. We just happen to have other places to charge our iPads. But now every place where there's a bunch of lightning cables, there's now at least one USB-C cable in the mix. Eventually we'll fully transition, but it's going to be a while because my wife uses, I believe, four, maybe three. She carries four iPhones.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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She uses three of them for Pokemon Go. One of them is her work phone. So it's just like a brick. Can you imagine how much like four pro phones weigh in your bag? It's just so heavy. Anyway, it's going to be a while before all four of those phones are on USB-C. So I have a long road ahead of me with a combination of lightning and USB-C on all our communal chargers.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
Yeah, Apple's lack of investment in Lightning and the lack of expansion in the capabilities of that port made it inevitable that they would eventually go to USB-C. So they have.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
I think the camera is a perfectly good thing to use it for. My success rate at doing the swipe gesture for the camera is so low. I end up using what you would think would be the even slower one where you have to hold your finger on the little camera icon. It's like there's a delay. You're like, why are you using the one with the delay? That's got to be slower.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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No, because when I try to swipe and it fails and I try to swipe and it fails, it's always like, oh, got to get the camera out quick, you know, because something cute is happening or whatever, right? That is the time when I am completely unable to get the camera out. So the action button is going to be great. But I have to say that...
Accidental Tech Podcast
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When I need to get my camera out real fast, it's almost always my phone and not my wife's phone. So I actually haven't built the habit of using the action button, even though hers is set to camera, because I'm never grabbing her phone real quick to take a picture because going over to where she is or getting her phone is going to kill the time that would be required anyway.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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I'm looking forward to my iPhone 16 with the action button so that I can build that habit because I can almost guarantee that pressing that side button is going to have a much higher success rate than me trying to swipe or me having to hold my finger down on that little thing. Yep, very much so.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
I have to say, though, how many years? I think it's been like three or four years that there have been rumors of better cooling on iPhones. Vapor chambers, graphite sheets. Not just this year. Not just for the iPhone 7U, but last year. And the year before that. And the year before that. And we have never gotten them. So I really, really hope this is the year. Because those rumors are always there.
Accidental Tech Podcast
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And the reason they're there is every year, like, again, if you have a phone out in the sun, they will overheat, right? Or when you first update your phone and it's doing all the indexing, they get hot.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
people don't like that and so they're always like boy could there be better cooling and then you look at what apple has done with cooling and we know they could do more because android phones are like what what more can we do can we can we do more than just having you know a heat sink up against the thing and so on and so forth and yes you can lots of other phone makers have done things and so whenever we see the rumors apple's gonna do it they're gonna put those graphite sheets in there they're gonna use more thermal paste they're gonna use a vapor chamber
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
Every year, we're just disappointed. And obviously, the 15 Pro had the... What the heck is the chip? The A18 Pro? I don't even remember the numbers anymore. Yeah, the one on the new 3nm process. Right. So it was a really... They were pushing the limits with that chip on that process that...
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
Apple's already moving away from, I kind of see why it had thermal issues, and I also kind of see why this would have been a good phone to try out those graphite sheets, you know what I mean?
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
Like, but no, it didn't happen, so I really hope it does come on the 16th, but if we go another year and everyone says, oh, those rumors were for the 17th, not the 16th, I am going to be disappointed, despite the fact that, in general, I haven't noticed my wife's phone getting particularly hot, except for when she's playing Pokemon Go, in which case that makes all of her phones hot, but...
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
You know, as long as it gets the job done, as long as it doesn't stop working, which is your problem when you have it in the car, like it literally stops being able to be used for the thing you're trying to use it for because the screen gets so dim you can't see it anymore.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
I don't know if the 15 Pro was over any kind of limit to bother people more than some past phones, but it's time for Apple to invest a little bit more in cooling on their top end phones.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
I think you're just experiencing screen improvements there and not necessarily thermal improvements, right? Very well could be. Just the screen is brighter and takes less power at a given level of brightness. So now the dim one is not as dim and you're attributing that to better cooling or better thermals. But I think it's just screen improvements that you're benefiting from there. But anyway.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
Either way, the experience isn't as bad as it has been. That's the thing, though. It's very situational. If you buy a car with a big glass roof and all of a sudden your phone is overheating because it's on the dashboard because it's getting more direct sunlight, you're going to say, oh, it's the phone's fault, but maybe it's because you got a new car, right?
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
All of these phones have always been very vulnerable to being in direct sunlight for any amount of time, and it's just a question of... Do you start putting your phone in more direct sunlight? If so, you will perceive that phone as being worse thermally. But, I mean, there's 15 pros I have heard people saying gets a little bit warmer than they expected.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
And like a lot of these things, especially with the SoC, the heat is very localized, and it's when the SoC is doing a lot of work, right? The thing that gets hot is that little SoC in there. And so... On iPhone setup day, when it's redoing all your indexes and doing all that stuff, yeah, it's going to get real hot and people are going to notice.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
But I think over time with normal phone usage where you just pick it up, scroll through something, and put it back down, it doesn't really get a chance to get that hot until you put it on the dashboard of your car.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
That'll be the test, actually, because right now you're like, oh, the big phone, it's annoying, but it's nice to have more screen real estate. You're really going to find out how much you care about that screen when you go back to a smaller one. That's what you're going to notice.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
If you don't notice, it takes you a day to find it or whatever, but if you look at that screen and you're like, I'm so used to seeing so much more stuff, or in this app I can see a whole other column of whatever's... That's going to really hurt you. So we'll see if you've irrevocably become one of the giant phone people or whether you were just a tourist in their land.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
How are you scratching your screen? How is this happening? How are you still using a phone pouch? What year is this? I'm not, but Casey needs to be. I'm not using one. I have one scratch on my screen and it is very small. And I've had this phone for two years, right? I don't know what you're doing.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
Unless you're going to have someone follow you around with a camera to find out what you're doing as you stick the phone into your pocket full of sand. Maybe you need a pouch.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
I think this trade-off is the one Apple would say is the right one. It's better to people... Because you've seen people use screens that are just destroyed. So people's tolerance for using screens that are messed up is great. But shattering is over a lot of people's limits. So the trade-off is essentially, you can make it more scratch-proof, but then it's going to be more prone to shattering.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
And so the balance Apple has chosen is... It's going to get a bunch of little hairline scratches all over it if you do whatever the hell Casey's doing. But it will be more resistant to full-blown shattering when you drop it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
And despite the fact that that might annoy some of us who, like, if you're very careful with your phone, a harder screen that was more scratch-resistant would be better for you. But hell, I've dropped my phone plenty of times. It's dropped off my nightstand onto a wooden floor plenty of times. I've dropped it off the dining room table onto a wooden floor. Yeah, but you're in a case, aren't you?
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
Yeah, I'm in a case. But you could still get unlucky with the way it falls in that situation. So I've dropped it enough times that I'm glad that it is as shadow-resistant as it is.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
On the other hand, you will care much more than they will. If you're the type of person who's getting a screen protector because you can't send even a single scratch on your screen, have fun dealing with that single speck of dust that did get under there.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
You didn't even mention the plain iPhone 15, and I want to say that I think this year is one of the rare cases where Apple seems to have gotten caught with their pants down a little bit by the AI thing. They shipped a line of phones, the 15 and the 15 Pro, seemingly without realizing that that 15 wouldn't be able to run next year's headlining feature.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
They're going to ship... Maybe they won't ship it by then because they're not shipping Apple Intelligence, but they could have ended up shipping Apple Intelligence that wouldn't work on their latest non-pro phone if they had actually shipped Apple Intelligence before the new phones came out.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
I think it's unprecedented for a one-year-old phone not to be able to run the headlining feature of the next OS that came out after it a year later. And I just have to think it's because they didn't think that, oh, we can cheap out on the RAM on the 15. It's a big deal. The iPhone's got plenty of RAM. We're well within limits, blah, blah, blah. And here comes AI and LLMs using all your RAM.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
I will look back on this line, the 1550 Pro, and always remember it as the year where the non-pro phone had this crippling disability that could have been prevented with being a little bit more generous with RAM, but wasn't.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
And it put Apple in this strange, somewhat uncomfortable position of having to tell people who just bought a brand new phone last year that, yeah, you can't run Apple intelligence.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
I think they are barely fitting it in the 8 gig phones. It's been a lot of hard work to get it to fit in the 8 gig phones. And you can argue whether they were late to the game on LLM or because the lead time just fell on them, they just couldn't help it. But this is another side effect of always being stingy with RAM. It's the unforeseen thing, right? It's like, we don't need this.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
Why would we ever give ourselves any kind of buffer? Let's cut it as close as we possibly can, save every penny, because... Why would we give any excess RAM if we think the low-end phone doesn't need that? We want to provide product differentiation.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
And the answer is, you never know when something might come along that makes your stinginess hurt you more than your stinginess is currently helping you. Now, Apple would probably argue, well, we're stingy 90% of the time, and we only lose out on it 10% of the time, so it's still a win. But, you know, I still think that...
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
being that stingy with RAM, like setting aside the AI thing, we've always said, when we talk about the Macs, selling them with too little RAM and having people upgrade or whatever, you want to give your users a better experience. And in general, more RAM gives a better experience. There are so many things more RAM does for you. Even on the 15 Pro, the fact that they had to work so hard
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
So you get Apple intelligence into 8 gigs. That was their highest-end phone. Even on that one, they could have still provided differentiation and given the Pro 10 and the non-Pro 8 instead of 8 and 6. Anyway, they seem to have snapped out of that with the 16s, which are rumored to all have the same amount of RAM, and the 17s are rumored to all have even more RAM, so we'll see how this goes, but...
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
This is, you know, like I said, I'm going to remember the 1515 Pro line with this one specific fact. Marco will remember it for USB-C, and I will remember it for the time that the non-Pro phone got left behind prematurely.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
No, but it's like, again, this is the pro line, you know? You can give them a little bit more, which allows you to give the non-pro line eight, which apparently is okay, you know? Because the pro's got eight, and their battery life is okay with an even hungrier SoC, right? So the plain 15 would also have been fine with eight.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
Like, you're right, it does take more RAM, but we're not asking for double. We're not asking double the RAM. Just a little bit more. Just give yourself a little bit of headroom. Just don't be as stingy. You can still be stingy, but just not quite as stingy, because you never know when that's going to pay off.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
let's see how we do you definitely talk too much this year casey you're also you're incredibly bad at this game and uh i basically i basically conceded this game because uh like like uh like what's his name uh adrian vite or whatever i made my donation 35 minutes ago because i thought we were doing it before we started airing so you could have just looked and seen the amount that i did but apparently marco has just decided he's sick of losing this game i don't
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
I have lost every year. Fair enough. Honestly, I was trying to give Casey a chance to win this year, but apparently Casey cannot be helped.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
I do feel like Marco is, again, it's a technical foul on massively exceeding the amount, but because it's for a charitable cause and because he had never won before, we're going to let it slide this time. But we can't support this kind of inflation.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
Anyway, so collectively, ATP has donated, according to my little calculator here, $21,796.20. Of course, that exact amount is...
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
I have to say that this whole deal, like with EVs, we don't have an established culture the way we do with internal combustion engine cars about...
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
the various levels of severity of things that can happen and i know the culture is not consistent you'll know people who drive their car with a check engine light on forever and ever but most people who know something about cars if the check engine light comes on it's a sign that you should do something not like i'll do it in a few i'll look at it in a few months it's probably fine maybe it's fine or maybe your engine's about to blow up right whereas with evs
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
They all have their own error messages, their own things. And there's no sort of universal equivalent of like, you know, a light on the dashboard that we know these ones are serious. You know, oil pressure drops to zero. Stop the car. You know what I mean? Like things that we know about internal combustion with EVs. It's like, I don't know. Is that bad? Is a battery fault bad?
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
Right. Like you don't you don't you don't have any like like a frame of reference for how how seriously should I take this?
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
what we would do but that's what we ended up at and by the way i have to say that we're i mean this is obviously it's a relay pledge drive and we have relay podcasts and we are really adjacent we are friends with them but i've always been proud of how much of the relay pledge drive is from listeners to a non-relay podcast atp listeners donate tons of money like we already talked about like the leaderboard thing we have for casey stickers or whatever
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
where, you know, ATP listeners with large means put huge donations in for the chance of getting those stickers, right? Sometimes people put ATP in their comments or whatever. We've been amazed by how much money and how generous ATP listeners are for this pledge drive. So that makes us proud of our listeners, and I think we're really helping out the pledge drive for St. Jude.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
I was going to say, when the Land Rover is the more reliable option, you know you're in trouble.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
You can go back to getting regular cars then. You don't have to get these stupid SUVs anymore.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
tesla is still way ahead of everybody like their cars get such longer range than almost everyone except lucid they claim they claim longer range but they're they're also one of the most distant from their claims so i wouldn't if you're just looking at this this thing but i had teslas yeah they're they're a little bs i know but they're they're they're cars out there now that are claiming less than tesla they just get the same range right so you can't go by the numbers that are on the package
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
So please. The majority of the money is not the people donating thousands of dollars. It's small donations. Give 10 bucks, give 20 bucks, give five bucks, anything you can.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
I think one of the latest Honda hybrids, I think you might enjoy those because Honda finally switched to the system where basically the gasoline engine is charging the battery and the battery is running the electric motor that turns the wheels most of the time. And that will be a more familiar experience to you.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
Oh, it feels like a not very fast EV most of the time with some additional noise that I don't understand. You might like it. Why would I want that? Because it'll be reliable and it'll get you there. And it'll get better mileage than a plain old gas car. You have 50 miles per gallon in a Honda that you can get fixed anywhere that will get you to your destination no matter what.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
Yeah, that's the main reason you should try to take the Rivian because whatever happens, it'll be a good story.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
Do you know if the Logitech, like the little RF dongle things for their wireless mice because Bluetooth sucks, if they're USB-C now?
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
It's so much worse than the little RF dongles in pretty much all possible ways.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
It's not even that. That's all true. Like the advantages for it. And they actually have like gaming mice that are wireless now with some super wireless protocol, whatever. It's mostly the fact that the Bluetooth range and reliability is often at the limit for desktop computers, even for a laptop to keep it far away of working well.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
like i mean my computer is my tower computer i can touch it with my hand it's not that far away but no bluetooth mouse can reliably communicate with this computer it's not that far away rf dongle i could be in the other room smooth as glass right and that's that's the advantage it's just so much better range and reliability at the cost of filling one of your ports with a little thing and the reason i ask about the little dongles is because yeah this is the mac mini you know
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
If you're going to get rid of a big port, get rid of it on the computer that has many in the name. It's supposed to be small. They're making it smaller. I get it. It's fine. Drop it. But the alternative is to have a dongle, like a little stupid white dongle or some other thing hanging off the back of it that you then attach your little RF dingus to if you have a mouse like that.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
And that's more cumbersome than having a bigger computer with no dongle in some situations. So there is a balance here. Obviously, we should just be blaming Logitech. and say, why are you still shipping USB-A dongles?
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
Make a USB-C one. The actual thing that's in there is so tiny, I'm sure it could fit. But anyway, that's the only downside I can see. It's like, why would you still have USB-A ports? You've got those YubiKey things and DRM stuff for expensive applications and RF adapters for mice.
Accidental Tech Podcast
603: Too Smart to Move
So as usual, to provide a better experience to your users, you need to use the API that Apple doesn't want you to use.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Can you crank it to 90 or 100? I thought it was either 80 or nothing.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Well, for some reason, I thought it was the same. I think the laptops are 80 or 100, and I thought it was the same on the phones. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm wrong. I just didn't realize.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Al Dente is the one that I think most people recommend. A-L-D-E-N-T-E. I will put it in the show notes. David Schaub has some input or correction, really. We were talking last episode or the episode before about the glue that becomes not so sticky when you apply a voltage to it. Um, and remind me what exactly we said would happen if we, if you reverse the polarity.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
So David writes, when making the positive and negative electrical connections to release an iPhone 16 battery, the polarity determines which side the glue residue is left on when it unsticks. If you mistakenly reverse the positive and negative connections, the residue is left on the chassis, which is hard to clean, instead of the battery, which is where you want it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Indeed. And then Eric Westland writes in to corroborate your story with regard to Verizon activation problems. Eric writes, I bought my iPhone unlocked from Apple, as did I. I had the exact same experience as John. My last phone was three years ago and I had the same problem then too. Verizon just stinks at this. I will interject as me now. Hi, this is Casey. Yeah.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
And I'll say that for me, I think we talked last week about how my phone did not activate initially. And then if memory serves, it was like once I got to the standard Springboard iOS screen, I think it was at that point, it was like, hey, you're not activated. You want to do it again? I said, yeah. And then it worked no problem the second time.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
For Aaron's phone, I did the exact same stuff that I did on my phone, and it worked no sweat. Now, hers was... Tuesday or Wednesday after release, I think it was, whereas I was doing it the Sunday, you know, the weekend of release. So I would imagine things were still a bit busy on both the carrier and Apple sides of things.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
So maybe it was just that it was, you know, things were overwhelmed when John was trying to do it and Eric apparently, but who knows?
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
John, I believe this is your case review that we would like to talk about next.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
I moved to the Mac roundabouts of 2008. And I think that's right. And I was still a Windows developer by trade until, oh, geez, 2016 or so. But I don't think I've spent more than five minutes using Windows since I left that job. Not the most recent job. Since when I got my most recent job. So I haven't really used Windows since 2016. It's been almost 10 years. And it's glorious. It's so great.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
And I hated that. And I'm currently going caseless, caseless on the iPhone 16 that I have. And I'll probably continue to do that. But I was looking and I was wondering, hey, I wonder if since last year, did Peak end up doing, or I think it's, no, Peel. I'm sorry, Peel. Did Peel end up doing an action button and how have they handled the camera control?
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
And the answer is they did not do an action button and they just have a hole for the camera control as they do for all of the buttons. Yeah. And it's too bad because like the way I remember it, this was a year ago now, but the way I remember it, the case felt great. It was thin because I don't want, I'm not an Otterbox kind of person.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Like I want something thin, but more than zero if I'm going to do a case at all. And the key to the peel, and they say it as a piece of marketing as they should, say it with me, gentlemen, no branding. No branding. And I loved that. And what I ended up doing was returning that case because I hated the lack of a fake button, if you will, for the action button.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
And I got a Taurus, T-O-R-R-A-S, which also doesn't have any outward-facing branding, but the case was...
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
fine like i i didn't like it near as much as i liked the peel but i could not abide by the gaps for the buttons and i was hoping so much that by the 16 they would at least have an action button even if they punted on the camera control and from everything i can tell nope it's just a bunch of holes Just like your Mac Pro.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
It's sad times. Part of me wonders if we should, you know, try to design a case that makes all of us happy. And then I immediately decide that that's a terrible, terrible, terrible decision.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
I mean, hey, we did it for the chicken hat. Can be done.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Because I don't have to worry about this. I just don't care. Do not care. And I know this is coming for me because there's probably going to be a gaming PC in my future. Little do I know. But right now, ignorance is less. Oh, it's so great.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
uh this is the complaint about the apple store corner uh eli liebman writes i was planning to upgrade to the series 10 watch but wasn't sure which size to get and wanted to see them in person before purchasing after confirming online that both sizes were available for pickup at my local store i made my way there to choose and purchase my new watch i found an employee and asked to purchase the watch the conversation went like this uh marco actually would you mind playing the role of apple in this little uh skip for me please
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Here we go. I'd like to buy this watch, please. Do you have an appointment? No, I didn't know which one I wanted, and I wanted to see them before I purchased it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
So even though the item's in stock and I'm standing right here, I need to come back in two and a half hours in order to purchase it. Exactly. Thank you, Marco. Very well done. Yeah, so Eli writes, so I left and ordered the watch on Amazon where it was delivered to me later that same day. It's just terrible. Anyway, Eli continues, I can't think of another store where this would be acceptable.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
If they were busy, sure. I wouldn't expect to be helped before folks who made an appointment, but the store was empty. Why is it acceptable to tell a customer to come back in a few hours to purchase an item that is in stock? It seems like they don't value their customer's time. I have things to do. I already took time away from work to come to the store.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
I've been buying Apple products for almost 20 years and this is the first time I've had a negative in-store experience when trying to purchase something. What used to be magical, watching the employee pull out a receipt from under the table was delightful, is now simply inconvenient. I truly believed Apple solved the retail experience, but not anymore.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Mm-hmm. All right, let's do some follow-up, and we have to start with a genuine and heartfelt thank you to our ATP listeners. It is no longer September, so it is no longer Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. However, during the month of September— Relay and ATP, but mostly Relay, raised over $1 million. As I sit here tonight, $1,061,652.04. And that is truly incredible.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
isn't positive but this is definitely not positive like you should be able to go in there and buy something it's like i have money you have product let's let's make this happen but they're like no make an appointment come back in two hours that's no good it's it's so bad and i know that some of this is just the east coaster in me coming out i want a line i want a queue i want to order i want everything to be ordered i want to get in get out as quickly as possible but that being said
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Ugh, it's just, it's unnecessarily complicated. And this is the sort of thing that we would just eviscerate a Microsoft Store for, and here it is Apple doing it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
The last year record, last year was the previous record for Relay, and that was somewhere to the order of $776,000. Here we are A year later, over a million dollars. And I want to say from the bottom of my heart, and I know I speak for you too, thank you so much to everyone who gave a dollar, $5, $10, doesn't matter, any amount of money. Thank you to all of you.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Look at what we have accomplished together. Truly, we have accomplished this together. And that's something to be extremely, extremely proud of. And I hope that anyone who donated feels some amount of ownership over this because you do have some amount of ownership over this. I will, as a final note for this year, I will remind you that corporate matching is a thing.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
And if you go to stju.org slash Relay, there's a little bit of information about employer matching and how you can get credit or how Relay can get credit for an employer match, perhaps based on your own donation. So please check it out. But don't feel like you can't donate for the rest of the year or the beginning of next year. You certainly can. That's fine. Nobody's going to complain.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Yes, but everything else about having a receiver sucks, and I will accept no other contrary arguments. Anyway, I should note that in the Sonos app, if you go to the gear in the upper right, and then go to your living room or whatever setup, and then scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, way down in the home theater section, there's TV dialog sync.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
And I have mine cranked to five seconds for my 2019 LG OLED TV. Five seconds? Or five units. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Five units. I think I said seconds. Five units. It's zero to five, I believe. Anyways, and that has worked for me across Switch, across Wii, across TV.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
I mean, give it a shot. You may not have the good experience I did, but it can't hurt to try.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
All right. We have some breaking-ish news from a few days ago. If you remember our friends at Massimo that do the blood oxygen detection thing and have a patent for it, And oh boy, we've patented it. And so they have been in a bitter fight with Apple to the point that it went to the courts.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
The courts said that Apple cannot enable the blood oxygen detection in new Apple watches, including the one on my wrist right now. And they've been battling it out for a while now. Personally, I don't understand why Apple doesn't just pay them all the money and make them go away. Not to say that they're wrong, but just make them go away. You have all the money in the world.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
But genuinely, thank you so very much for the incredible amount of money that we all raised. I am incredibly proud of all of us and thankful to all of you. So thank you. We have some anonymous feedback with regard to the hardwired camera indicator light from years past. Anonymous writes...
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
You have infinite money, less the $15 billion you just gave to Ireland. But you have infinite money. Just make them go away. It'll be fine. But here we are. Anyways, the breaking news a few days ago, actually a couple of weeks ago now, or maybe a week ago, is that the founder and CEO has resigned after he was removed from the board.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
So Reuters writes, Massimo said that on September 25, founder Joe Chiani has decided to step down as the medical device maker CEO days after shareholders voted to remove him from the company's board following a bitter proxy battle with activist hedge fund Politan Capital Management.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
There's also some news over the last week or so. Meta, Meta, Meta, whatever you want to call them.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Um, anyways, uh, the, that company that Facebook would not, uh, they have really, or not released, I shouldn't say, but have demoed, uh, some AR glasses that they're calling Orion. And apparently this stuff is really freaking slick. Uh, there's a, uh, wrap up at the verge for meta connects, which is their, you know, kind of equivalent of WWDC.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
When the first built-in camera was designed for the first Intel iMac, user notification was designed into the hardware. The camera board was separate, not integrated into the computing board. At the specific direction of a key individual, the light was hardwired directly into the board's power circuit. If the board was receiving power, the light was turned on.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
There's also a post, uh, where, uh, one of their authors whose name I don't have in front of me. I am so sorry. Uh, Alex Heath, um, actually got to demo the Orion glasses, uh, in part with Mark Zuckerberg. And there's also a post over, a couple of posts, I think, over at Stratechery with our friend Ben Thompson. I will try to dig up a link for the show notes for at least one of those.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
But anyways, I haven't read a lot on this, but everything I've read on this is, oh my, this is the future. The Vision Pro is a mistake. When can we have this? And the answer is, well, probably not soon. So let me read some stuff. So from The Verge,
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
meta not meta has revealed its orion augmented reality glasses and they look almost like a trendy pair of frames you could pick up without all the tech inside orion uses micro led projectors inside the frame and beams images in front of your eyes via wave guides in the lenses
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
The glasses pair with a wireless compute puck and a neural wristband you wear on your arm that responds to gestures like pinches. Again, this from the Orion review now. Orion, Meta's first pair of augmented reality glasses, was supposed to be a product you could buy.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
When the glasses graduated from a Skunk Works project in Meta's research division back in 2018, the goal was to start shipping them in the low tens of thousands by now. But in 2022, amidst a phase of broader belt tightening across the company, Zuckerberg made the call to shelve its release.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
As Meta's executives retell it, the decision to shelve Orion mostly came down to the device's astronomical cost to build, which allegedly is in the ballpark of $10,000 per unit. Most of that cost is due to how difficult and expensive it is to reliably manufacture the silicon carbide lenses.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
When it started designing Orion, Meta expected the material to become more commonly used across the industry and therefore cheaper, but that didn't happen. Quote, "'You can't imagine how horrible the yields are,' says Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth of lenses. Instead, the company pivoted to making about 1,000 pairs of the Orion glasses for internal development and external demos."
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Quote, it's probably turned out significantly better than our 50-50 estimates of what it would be, but we didn't get there on everything we wanted to. Zuckerberg says to the device, quote, we still want it to be a little smaller, a little brighter, a little bit higher resolution, and a lot more affordable before we put it out there as a product.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
And look, we have a line of sight to all those things.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
If the board was not receiving power, the light was off. No software was involved. This design was passed on to the laptop team. And yeah, this is just anti-laptop propaganda. I don't want to read the rest of this. The design was passed on to the laptop. Don't extrapolate that laptops are bad, just from this one example.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
This design was passed on to the laptop team. Much later, news of the camera light hack mentioned on the previous episode of ATP went around Apple. Alarms went off, circuit designs were laid out on tables, and a lot of shouting happened. Turns out, the laptop team had later quote-unquote improved the design, accidentally making this hack possible.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
It's amusing to think that this quote-unquote secure exclave is a return to the spirit of the original design requirement.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Indeed. Yeah, it's a bummer, but like you said, that's big business for you. Wayne Dixon writes with regard to AirPods 4, the base on the AirPods 4 with ANC is definitely heavier than the AirPods 3, according to Wayne. I have no personal experience, so I'll take Wayne's word on this.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Wayne continues, also, the new MagSafe puck does not align itself with the AirPods 4 case either, despite being slightly smaller than the old puck.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
I both agree and disagree with basically everything that you guys just said. I'm not so disappointed in the tech press as John is. I concur that it's been obvious to anyone who's paid even the tiniest bit of attention that this is what Apple is angling for, that they want something that looks, maybe not aesthetically, but in principle, like functionally looks, if you will, like Orion. That
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
A friend of the show, Quinn Nelson, with regard to the ear sensors in AirPods 4. This is quoting from a YouTube video, which we will link in the show notes. These buds use Apple's old optical detection sensor, so anything opaque that modifies light to this spot will pause and resume music.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
You don't have pass-through because you're already looking at the real world, and you're just augmenting that. Hence, Tim's saying over and over again, AR is very interesting to us. It's clear that's what Apple wants. And I think a reasonable way to get there, maybe not the best way to get there, but a reasonable way to get there is to say, well, let's make some hyper, hyper great-looking cameras.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
internal pass-through inside these goggles that lock you away from the world to get us used to what it'll be like when we don't have to have pass-through, when the pass-through is the real world. Hopefully I'm making sense here. And to get ahead of that and to hopefully build a developer story around that, you just fake it until you make it. And that's what Apple has done.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Now, the problem is they haven't really made it, right? In the sense that developers are mostly ignoring it. And I think that Apple is largely, mostly ignoring the Vision Pro. But I don't think it's unreasonable for Ben and others in the tech press to say, oh, my God, this was amazing. Oh, my God, this is the future today. I don't think that's unreasonable.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Now, it should be couched and there should be asterisks and daggers and double daggers saying, well, yes, this is the future today, but you can't buy it because it is what? The future.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Yeah, I would agree with that. I don't know. And I also, I know it's fun for everyone, including sometimes me, to slag on the Vision Pro. And I'll be honest with you, I don't use my Vision Pro very often. And if it wasn't purchased for my job, like if I'd done this just because I thought it was neat and I wanted one, I would really, really regret spending all the money I did on it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
That being said, I maintain that for specific things, the Vision Pro is really incredible. It is not an all-things-to-all-people device, if you ask me, even though I think that's what Apple wanted it to be, if you were to look at keynotes when it was announced and whatnot. But I cannot say enough good things about the immersive video that Apple has put out.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Apple does appear to be using the onboard accelerometers to prevent music from being resumed when the buds are at opposing angles, so you would think that it might be okay in your pocket, but it's not bulletproof. Placing one or both earbuds in my pocket will often resume music unexpectedly. This was a solved problem. The outgoing AirPods 3 had a sensor that only responded to capacitive skin.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Now, admittedly, they've put out very little of it. And it's coming in at a snail's pace. But it is unlike anything I've ever experienced. It is so much better than any other cinema-like experience I've ever had. It is truly, truly phenomenal. And they are releasing more stuff. It is way too slow. but they are doing it. And I believe there's going to be an immersive film.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
I don't know if it's a short film or a film film sometime either late this year or early next year. And I'm really excited to watch it because I think it'll be super cool. Additionally, when I went to Memphis a couple of weeks ago, I did travel with the Vision Pro, but because both of my flights were so darn short, I didn't bother using it on the plane.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
But on occasions that I have used it on a plane, leaving aside that you are literally 1 trillion percent that guy. If you don't mind being that guy, it's unreal because you're in an incredible movie theater. You're not in a plane. You're in an incredible movie theater by yourself. Nobody's around you. And it's amazing.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Additionally, when I was in Memphis, I did get the Vision Pro out because I did have a little bit of downtime to do work. And you know what the Vision Pro is? It's a giant-ass screen that doesn't take up a giant-ass amount of space in your bag. Well, it doesn't take up a small amount of space in your bag, but you know what I mean.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Maybe. Maybe. But you know, I mean, we're snarking, but you know exactly what I'm saying. And it was really great for that. It really, truly was. I was in this actually very small hotel room. And yes, it had a mediocre TV that I think I probably could have hooked up to my laptop.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
But it was so much nicer to use Vision Pro because I was suddenly in a different space and I've got this huge screen in front of me. And especially with the developer strap, it is basically lag-free. I think the fidelity of it, admittedly, my eyes are not perfect, but the fidelity of it is great. Like, there are times the Vision Pro is incredible.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
I do not argue that it is, to my eyes, it appears that it is a flop. Now, we don't know what Apple's expectations were. Maybe they expected to sell three of them, in which case, mission accomplished. But I suspect they wanted to sell a whole heck of a lot more. Certainly, the rumblings we've heard in the press is that they wanted to sell a whole heck of a lot more. And they haven't.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
So it is a flop by most measures. But if you have an obscene amount of money to burn and light on fire and have these specific use cases, I don't want to continue to slag in the Vision Pro because in certain circumstances, it's unlike and better than everything else I've ever tried. Admittedly, those circumstances are few and far between, but they do exist.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
And I do think that this is a really solid precursor to something like AR glasses. It's going to look way different, both inside, outside, in every way. It's going to look different than the Vision Pro does. But I think it is a reasonable precursor. And those who have embraced the Vision OS and Vision Pro
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
their AR experience when designing stuff for Apple Glasses, they're going to be ahead of the game because they've already done it. The same way that Underscore was way ahead of the game for widgets on iOS because all the APIs were basically just ripped from watchOS for complications and stuff. I think I have that right, but you get the idea either way.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
This is a real bummer of a downgrade and a compromise that I hope was only made for that thinner fitment comfort rather than to save a buck or to artificially segment the lineup.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Underscore was way ahead of the game because he's basically already done that. And so that's part of the reason I think that WidgetSmith was there on day one and was so good is because he had so much experience and he's Slightly different context, but using basically the same APIs.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
And I think that people who really and truly embrace the Vision Pro and Vision OS, I would say I have reluctantly shown it a small amount of attention. I would not say I've embraced it. But anyways, those who have really embraced it, I think they'll be way ahead of the game. And I think that everyone would agree that something that's like Orion is the future if we can get there.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Yeah, I was listening to Upgrade, and they had a really good turn of phrase for it, which I've already forgotten. But they were saying another thing that this might accomplish is kind of like reverse Osborne-ing anything that Apple's doing, right? Because now it's like, look, the Vision Pro is lame because you've got to put this thing on that keeps you away from the world.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Wow. John, do you want to tell us about discoveries with regard to the A18 and A18 Pro, please?
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
All right, the other bit of breaking news over the last few days is that Google will, I'm a little fuzzy on the details here, but apparently you can point Notebook LM, which is I think a pre-existing product of theirs that I was not previously familiar with. And you can, I guess it's like a data management thing or like a knowledge management thing.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Yeah, I very much agree. When I heard the one that somebody had done, I forgot, we'll put a link in the show notes, but somebody had done one of these about a subject that I knew nothing about, and I only listened to the first couple minutes, and I was gobsmacked by how real it sounded. And yes,
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
If you really pay attention and if you really listen, if you do active listening or whatever, you can tell that it's probably not real. But note that I said probably because genuinely, if I didn't know that I was listening to AI, I would have thought that these were typical but not terribly skilled podcasters.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
And the ums and the inflections, or maybe they weren't ums, but the inflections in the- There are ums.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
There you go. And there's not – it's not just monotone, right? And they play off each other well, and it sounds real, certainly at a glance. And I would argue, unless you're really, really, really paying attention, it sounds real. I was stunned at how real it sounds. I could not – and I still can't believe it.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
And in the same spirit, it turns out there is a tiny hardware difference between the two, these AirPods. So John, what's going on here?
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
And then additionally from iFixit, if we take a look at the x-rays of the ANC version of the case, we can again see the exact same PCB, but with a speaker inside the housing. This is another component that contributes to the extra $50 you'd pay for the ANC version. As far as I can tell, those are the only two differences.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
All right. And then Tom's Hardware or Tom's Guide, whatever they're calling themselves these days, did a large test of the iPhone's 16 battery life. And they have a summary table that John has been kind enough to put in the show notes for me.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Here it was. I was trying to credit you, and apparently I did not give you sufficient credit. So I apologize.
Accidental Tech Podcast
607: The Structure and Vibe of a Podcast
Follow-up, copyright 2011, John Syracuse. So anyway, battery size for the iPhone 16. It's up 6.3%. Battery life up almost 15%. Battery size for the 16 Plus up almost 7%. Battery life up almost 16%. 16 Pro gets about 9%, and 30% increased battery life. 16 Pro Max, 6% battery size increase, and again, about 30% battery life increase. That is quite impressive. Yeah.