636: Expensive Feet

It's time for episode 636 of the Clockwise Podcast from Relay, recorded Wednesday, December 17th, 2025. Clockwise, four people, four tech topics, 30 minutes. Welcome back to Clockwise, the tech podcast that won't leave you out in the cold, at least for more than 30 minutes. Anyway, my name is Micah Sargent, and I am joined across this United States of chilly weather. By my Bostonian big guy. It's Dan Morin.

Don't know what is happening. I was going to say we could be the podcast that came in from the cold, but that feels like an entirely different thing. So I guess that's not us. No, sadly, no. Let us... introduce our awesome guests to my left, podcast host and Six Colors contributor. It's John Maltz. Welcome back to the show, John. Thank you. I record from the basement, so I'm always cold.

And to my left, also joining us from the Pacific Northwest, it is writer, photographer, and late-nighter Jeff Carlson. Welcome back, Jeff. Thank you for having me. I also record from the basement, but I work in an upstairs office, which is also cold. So I don't know what's going on here. Yeah, I got that too. We're always cold all the time. This is just how we do things here.

Indeed. That's okay. Well, let's warm everybody up by reminding you how this works. Four topics, 30 minutes. Mine for you is this. The iPhone rumor mill. In full swing, the information published a piece about some rumors regarding the next set of phones or quite a few next set of phones. What do we think about? under glass face ID technology and an iPhone fold. John, we'll start with you. The under glass face ID tech, of course, is going to.

probably, you know, impact most everybody since the, I guess the... Dynamic Island will be going away, I suppose, because you won't have to have it there anymore, I guess is the thing. I'm someone who came kind of late to the Dynamic Island because I didn't get it until the iPhone 16 because I chose to hang on to those minis. long as I possibly could and I do like some of the information it provides I think that's really neat

But I'm sure they can find other ways to provide that information without having the dynamic island there. And honestly, I hope that since the screen sizes have gotten bigger. I know movie producers and directors don't want to hear this, but I've tended to start watching more TV shows and movies on my iPhone than on my iPad these days. It's just easier to hold in bed.

So I know, I know it's terrible. I'm the ruination of modern entertainment. Having the experience now of watching stuff on the iPhone a lot. I think I would really like it to go away. I mean, it's not a huge distraction, but it is a little bit of a distraction. And so I'm looking, I'm really looking forward to it. I think the iPhone Fold, I don't know. I hope it's going to be neat. I'm interested in the technology.

And for me, as someone who preferred the Mini, I would rather it fold the other way than up and down. because it's the length that bothers me in my pocket. So it's not really, I don't think it's going to be something that I want anyway. But, you know, I'm sure it's going to appeal to lots of people who would rather walk around with a much bigger screen in their pocket.

Yeah, some interesting suggestions here. As for the Dynamic Island thing, I was thinking about that because it's a good place to... People are like, well, they'll just pop it up when it has information. I'm like, it's going to be weird to leave an empty space there, I guess. So part of me wondered if they might incorporate the status bar stuff that's already there into kind of a dynamic island, even if it's all virtual, because...

That way you can just make it go away, right? If you're watching like a movie or video or something like that, it doesn't need to be there at all. But when you're using your phone, there could still be like maybe a little lozenge or something that's like, here's the time and you're, you know. cell connection and whatever so i don't know i'm kind of curious i think they could do some clever stuff with that um the suggestion that there's no face id

One of the challenges is, do you use Face ID only on the outside? Is it also on the inside? Do you have to build separate camera modules for that? That could be kind of a pain or expensive. I mean, it's already gonna be very expensive. So relying on something like Touch ID on a sleep-wake button might... then just be easier because it could theoretically work whether unlocked or unfolded or folded.

That said, as somebody who does live in cold climates that get dry over the winter, I find Touch ID just stops working for me on the regular. And I really like Face ID. I'm sure they'll get there eventually, but... If they are lacking it in this first version, I think that'll be a real pain point for some people. Jeff, we'll read to you. In terms of iPhone Fold, I love the idea. And I'm going to shout out to my CNET colleague, Abrar Alhidi. She has an article today just talking about.

thin phones and how this is going to pave the way for foldables and why it's important. From a design aspect, I love that they're doing this. I love the idea that Apple could bring that Apple-ness to it of, all right, everybody's made these designs that have been kind of janky and we're going to do it right. Even though the latest ones seem to be...

Like the ones from Samsung and there's a trifle that was that has come out this week. I love the design aspect of let's do something different. Let's make something. That is thin and modular and all of that. But I also agree with John. It's going to be way out of my price range. So I'm not going to touch it unless, you know, for some reason, Apple's like.

look, we've been able to make this so that it's only a few hundred dollars more than an iPhone. That's probably not going to be the case. So love the idea. Very curious to see how it's going to be implemented. I think I'm still very much not that style of foldable. I don't necessarily see the need for it for me. But as far as...

under glass face ID tech and the other stuff that Apple is rumored to be working on. I really like the dynamic island. Personally, I like the kind of always updating bits of information. I use that. all the time. And so I am eager to see how that changes in terms of the next set of software.

because I hope they don't mess it up. I'm really happy with how things are in terms of the dynamic island. So we shall see. Thank you all for your answers on that. Let's go to our next topic, which comes from John.

Well, this week's hot rumor includes information from leaked debug kits that show that the existence of a M5 Max-based... iMac which would be an iMac Pro so it's the possible return of the iMac Pro which is something that's been rumored for quite some time it seemed like it wasn't a completely dead project at Apple and this would lend credence to that so

This is, I mean, it's not a machine for me, but I find it kind of interesting and kind of exciting. And it seems like maybe there's a nice fit for this. So I'm asking you, if you had your druthers, how would you create the Pro Mac lineup? Would you have just a Mac Studio or Mac Studio and Mac Pro, Mac Studio and iMac? What do you think? Let's spend some of Tim Cook's money. You know, I was an iMac user for a long time before I switched to a Mac mini and a studio display.

I liked the iMac and the simplicity of it, but it did always kind of gall me the idea that you would spend all this money on a really, really beautiful display. And then sooner or later, you just got to toss the whole thing. So switching to a studio display and a Mac mini is certainly a... better setup for me, because if at some point I do decide I'm going to upgrade my Mac Mini or whatever, I'm pretty happy sticking with my studio display. As far as the lineup options, though, I don't think...

having an iMac Pro is a bad idea at all. I mean, I think there's a big market for people who want, and by some accounts, this display may be larger than the previous large iMac, which I think would be really interesting. So there, you know... for people who want something with like a beautiful display and some more power than the base iMac offers. I think that's a great option.

I think the Mac Studio is in there as a great option. I think the Mac Mini is in there as a pretty powerful option if you want to configure it up. So having all of those things available, I think kind of covers, you know, not... Like leaving aside the MacBook Pro, obviously, which is also a big Pro line device. I think it kind of covers all the options. You don't need the Mac Pro. Like, come on. We all know this now. You don't need the Mac Pro. It's just...

It's too expensive. It doesn't do very much beyond what the Mac Studio offers. And the stuff it does do is not really that useful because those PCI slots don't support the things that you want to be able to put in them. I think it's time to let go of the Mac Pro. I know that will anger some people, but honestly.

It's like 12 people and they can just buy Mac Studio. There aren't that many people buying macros. I'm sorry. So I think, you know, offering the iMac as an integrated pro option makes a lot of sense. And it gives still a lot of choice for what is, again, just overall.

all a small segment of Apple's market. Desktop pro users, there aren't as many of them as there were 10 or 20 years ago. So having even two or three different options already that can be configured with a lot of power, I think is plenty. Jeff, what do you think? I agree that the Mac Pro is an interesting relic. I can't imagine. I mean it seems like the Mac Studio has filled that niche even for people who are doing hard research. Like I guess the expansion just –

isn't a thing anymore. Like the Mac Studio just fits really nicely. I think an iMac Pro... is a neat idea. And I think you'd get sort of that enthusiast audience that says, well, I need an iMac Pro because... I want to spend my money and I'm a pro person even though they're not really a pro person. But otherwise, I don't know, like you seem like you're kind of trapped into this big form factor when –

It would be much more better if you are actually a pro user to get a separate display and just swap out a new Mac Studio every four or five years or whatever. It's been interesting to see how Apple has...

completely disrupted their own high-end lineup with the Mac Studio, and it kind of puts them in a bind. And I think because the previous iMac Pro was fairly popular, but... I don't really see a good spot for this other than it makes sense for us to spend the money to make this because the people who are going to buy it.

and probably won't need it as much as they think they do, will still buy it and will make money. Yeah, I'm still stuck on the choice to make a Mac Studio. It is such a pro-level device. It almost felt like it was sort of... appeasing concerns at the time that people were worried at the time that Apple did not care as much about the Mac lineup and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And so they were almost like, if we call this a pro.

then people are going to think that this is what we see is what is pro at this point. But... without actually trying it and then realizing, oh, actually, this thing can do so much. I don't need more than this. And so it all just felt kind of like handling, I guess. And so in that way, yeah, I feel like the studio is. pro enough and the idea of the mac pro is just kind of like some odd purchase that people who

probably don't need it will make. And that just seems like a waste. So if I had Tim Cook's money and Tim Cook's choices, I think I would just not have the pro. John, you want to round us out here? I think it's, yeah, basically I don't think the Mac Pro has any legs left or expensive feet as the case may be. So it doesn't seem like there's that much reason to continue to make it.

Unless it's some sort of a vanity project that you want to do every few years in order to appease a very small set of your customer base. The iMac... Pro, you know, kind of came out when the Mac Pro was languishing for so long and they didn't have a real good story for developers and pro users. And so they came out with the iMac Pro to kind of stem the gap until they came out with a studio.

And so now that the studio is out, I wonder how well an iMac Pro will sell. I think it's great if they want to try it and see if it sells well. And maybe, you know, there's a way to position it for, you know, if you make a larger screen, you can position it for those people who do want an iMac. a larger screen and so you're going to get not just pros but you'll get a bunch of people who are regular users who just want more screen real estate

So, you know, maybe it'll do okay. It's worth a shot, I think. You know, they tried different things with, you know, like they tried the iPhone Air, which maybe didn't work so great. But they have enough, you know. money to be able to make these kinds of bets and see how they turn out.

If they want to do it with this one, I'm interested to see how it goes. I think it's nice to have iMacs in different sizes. That seemed like a nice era for the iMac. And it's a little bit weird to just have one now. It seems sort of limiting for that.

for that line. But, you know, for me, I'm not going to buy one because I prefer the flexibility of having a Mac mini and being able to hook up whatever monitor I want to. So again, it's, you know, it's something that's not for me, but maybe it's for enough people out there that they'll make it work.

Alrighty, folks, we've reached halftime here on this episode of Clockwise, which means... It's time to tell you about the awesome swag we have on offer. If you hit a clockwise dot social, you will find some links to our awesome swag. We've got hats. We've got. phone cases. We've got stickers. Now we have a beautiful embroidered

sweatshirt option. I think the embroidered actually works for multiple types of apparel. You can have shirts too. Or hoodies or whatever you like. I need to get in on that embroidered action. Get in on it. Get in on the embroidered action. what we say every time and definitely wasn't just said for the first time today by John Maltz. So yeah, do it. You want to be in on the embroidered action because when you do, then every once in six months, Dan will send me a little bit of money that I can.

put toward the zoom bill uh and so we appreciate it we love it and we thank you buy our swag all right we're back from halftime let's head to dan I want to know if you have any automations on your phone or set up for your home or whatever that solve like a particular...

problem for you? Is there any sort of very targeted automations that you have designed for yourself? Jeff? Honestly, the automation I use is called it's time to record a podcast. And whenever I come on to something like this, it. Launches a bunch of apps on my computer, including like Audio Hijack and Zoom. And it turns on my LED displays in here in this office so that if I am on camera, I look.

you know, at least lit. And then upstairs in the living room, I have smart bulbs and they all turn red so that everybody in the house knows that I'm recording and to hopefully, you know. Don't drop things on the floor, which is right the ceiling above me. So, yeah, basically like that's a nice way to just kind of set up all the stuff.

to be ready for recording and let everybody in the house know that something's going on and then i have another automation that basically turns all of it off when i'm done so in my office i have plants of all sorts in this window Because it doesn't get a lot of light, I have some grow lights in kind of around the different plants. And when I am doing video shows, which is most of what I do during the week, those grow lights.

interfere with the otherwise well lit shot and kind of make it look bad. And so I have set up a painstakingly set up timed automations. for those grow lights on the days that I do video podcasts so that the lights go off about 30 minutes before the show starts and then turn on 30 minutes to an hour after the show ends.

depending on what the show is and how often I know it'll go over. In the summer, I like to open that basement window to let a little airflow go. And above my window, I have a little NFC sticker. And when I tap it, what it does is it sets a reminder that says when is sunset to close the window. So that way I don't forget to reclose the window because I would otherwise. John, what about you? One thing I've had.

for a while was when a smart plug so that when we went away, we could have a light that went on and off basically. And then that smart plug died. So we have not replaced it and that's no longer functioning. The other one that I've used for a while, I used for a little while was MusicBot, which is from Federico Faticci.

uh and i never got into the habit of using it though and i don't think it's now on my new phone and yeah just not a lot however um i have an inside source at the north pole and i believe i might be getting some smart lamps for uh my office which is as we discussed before in the attic and in the winter does not get very much light so i'm hopeful that i will be able to set up some

automations for those uh so like when i come up to the attic they can just turn on and i can not be depressed as often happens smart Very smart. These are all great. I have plenty of different automations running for different tasks on my Macs and stuff. What spawned this for me was I finally this morning got around to doing something I've been meaning to do.

for several months, which is... I set it up so that... Sometimes I find myself... I wake up in the middle of the night. I'm trying to get back to sleep. And I find that it's most helpful to put in my AirPods and turn on some background noise using the dark noise app. But one of the problems is it's like four o'clock in the morning. I can get my AirPods on, but then I have to pick up my phone. I have to open the phone. I have to open the app. I have to start playing on the app.

Now I've been looking at a screen for like 30 seconds and it's just, it's irritating. And I have to make sure I put the phone back carefully so that it doesn't like fall down and wake up my wife and all that. So what I did was just create an automation that basically says when my AirPods connect and it's between. like midnight and 7 a.m. Just set the volume to a reasonable level, open the app, and start playing the sound that I want.

And like, I have yet to give this a try because I just created it this morning, but I'm hopeful that it means I can just put my AirPods in and they'll just start playing the noise that I want, which would be far. less intrusive and disruptive to my sleep. So I like finding these little tiny automations that's like, oh, this is a really easy thing to make. And hopefully it solves a problem for me. Now, invariably, it'll turn out that it's super...

broken or something and it won't work but that was my goal so here's hoping uh thanks for all your answers that topic let us go to our final topic which comes from jeff the pacific northwest where three of us live uh it's experiencing record rainfall and flooding right now

So I'm curious, like what do you do when the power goes out? When I was a kid, we'd light candles. That was pretty much it. But now there are lots of possibilities. There's big portable power stations. You can even connect an electric car as a giant power source.

What happens when the lights go out? Very much what I did when I was a kid. So I grew up in Missouri and that meant... tornadoes uh and that was usually what took out the power for us and so i learned very young um about you know having candles uh and and being able to kind of move about the house that way. My partner's a bit more of a not...

into tech. And so I think we both, when there's been a power outage, take it as an opportunity to just be tech free for that period of time. And it's kind of a nice thing where we just feel like we're, I don't know, ready to go churn butter or something. I will say the places that I've lived before, like up to this point, I've always had either a fireplace or a gas fireplace, which in many of those situations would be something that could be used.

Uh, so that's the one thing now that I'm thinking about where, um, I'm not sure what we do in terms of being able to keep warm over time. So Jeff, you've given me a lot to think about because I don't think a few candles is going to be enough. Uh, what about you, John? Yeah, I have fond memories. There was a big ice storm. I grew up in Connecticut, and it was a big ice storm, which I think is actually part of what the movie The Ice Storm is based on, even though...

That is a much darker movie than my experience of that ice storm because I was, you know, I had two brothers and we camped out in front of the fireplace with my mom. My dad was stuck in New York City because he had been working there and couldn't get out.

And then my dad came back and he was like, no, everybody pack up. We're going to stay with these with these friends of ours. And we were all like upset about it. And, you know, looking back, I'm sure my mother was like screaming at him. Get out here and get us over to the friend's house because these kids are. And here we, you know, we live in Tacoma and we live in, you know, the incorporated part of the city. And so, you know, it's not.

We don't live right downtown or anything, but despite the crazy high winds that we've been getting a lot of recently, we hardly ever lose power, knock on wood. We're actually in the middle of trying to get solar panels. stalled and they're almost done they just have to put the panels up but the wind has been so high that they haven't been able to do it yet but yeah i mean i have i have fond memories of camping out in front of the the fireplace we don't have any battery situation here uh

the few times the power has gone out it doesn't go out for very long so it hasn't seemed like something that i need to invest in um but and frankly having survived the last two weeks here seems like that's the right decision because we've been okay so Knock on wood. Knock on wood. Don't knock it down, though. Don't knock the wood down. It's just going to fall over down.

Yeah, so it's an interesting question because when we put on solar panels earlier this year, and one of the things I put into consideration while doing that was whether or not we should get a battery. And we ultimately opted not to. And the reason was that in the five years that we have lived in this house, actually four years that we lived in this house, five years we've owned this house, the power has gone out once. And as a result...

It was like during the winter, I want to say two or three years ago. And it was out like I remember because it was very memorable. My wife was cooking something in the instant pot. So we had it like slow cooking. And the power went out and we're like, oh no. And so we had like bundled up. We're like, okay, I have a friend who lives around the corner. We can like bundle up the Instant Pot, take it over there, plug it in and make sure it keeps cooking and everything.

um and we're like bundled up and we got it we're walking out the door and then all the power came back on we're like all right never mind um so given that like we are in a very sheltered place where we live on the side of a hill it's like the wind doesn't really get too much here, even though we do have overhead power lines, um, which seem like they should be more vulnerable. They're basically mainly just eyesores. So I don't tend to worry about very much.

I have a bunch of, you know, like smaller batteries that could be used if we need to charge some phones or something like that. I think it's one of those things where if it turned out like it started being the case that we had to do stuff more, I would more seriously consider like a home.

battery, but there's a lot more restrictions here upon where you can put them. We don't have a garage, so they couldn't go there. You'd have to find some specific space, like possibly build out space to put them. So it's a bit of a headache. So yeah, I think, you know, on the rare occasions that happens... Candles, just go to bed early, bundle up, throw some blankets on, and probably just read from my e-reader.

Like it was in the ancient time. You know, there was Abraham Lincoln reading from his e-reader by the fire. Which was also a shovel. Yes, it was a shovel and an e-reader. Jeff, what about you? See, that's the benefit of a foldable iPhone. It gives you a little scoop. You can scoop up the snow. Yeah, I echo a lot of that. Whenever bad weather starts to come up.

You know, I get into that little panic mode of, OK, let's make sure we got candles. Let's make sure, you know, we're all set. I've got like a bunch of little chargers. And it always makes me think, all right, maybe I need one of those big like Jackery, you know. I don't even know what the specs are because I just like I haven't looked into it enough because I think, all right, I don't really need that, but maybe I should have that. And I'm also in the same situation.

We rarely lose power here and I'm also knocking on wood and afraid that like all of us are going to get knocked out of power this week because we've been tempting the universe. You know, the last time this happened, I was all set up. I had candles ready. We had a fireplace going and my wife went and grabbed.

A little camping LED lantern that we had and just turned it on. And I was like, what are you doing? Like we have to conserve this power. We don't know how long it's going to be out. And she looked at me like I was coming from a different planet because. It's an LED lamp. It's going to last a long time. We have more batteries. Like, so it was as much of the like, well, no, it's a power outage. You can't.

turn on other lights because the power's out and like my brain just got scrambled and so when things like this happen I always ask myself, right, maybe now I need to take advantage of the Black Friday sale where I can get this big old power bank for, you know, $200 off or whatever. And so far, the rational part of me has said, no, you're fine. And the power's not going to be out for very long. Just hold tight. You've got plenty of little chargers. It's okay.

Well, that brings us nearly to the end of this episode of Clockwise, but I do have a bonus topic for you. I'm just curious, when you go to a restaurant and you don't already have something in mind, is there a specific entree or dish that you kind of look for? or on the menu that you go to as your sort of regular pick. John, we'll start with you.

I don't have a great answer to this, but I think you can't go wrong with a burger. A lot of places will have one, and sometimes they'll try and do something that's a little bit different. As long as it doesn't have peanut butter on it, I would probably try the burger. I don't know really how to answer this question because I feel like it depends on the restaurant. Like, you know, at a Thai restaurant, I love a good dish of pad cu. I'm not getting the Thai burger.

I'm not getting to see you at an American bistro either. I mean, you know, I think it depends where you're going. I will say if I, if it's sort of like a American quick quote unquote cuisine, like a chicken sandwich of some kind, probably my go-to. I think most of the restaurants we go to are more like specialized. Like it's either a Thai restaurant or an Indian restaurant. But I would say like maybe if there's a good fish and chips, maybe I'll go for that.

Yeah, that's a good pick. For me, it is the blue cheeseburger. A lot of places will have a blue cheeseburger and I like to try them and find like what's the best one. And so far, nothing has beaten a blue cheeseburger I had in Kansas City at a restaurant called A Streetcar Named Desire. I'm not even lying to you. I did get tears in my eyes. It was that good and nothing has ever come close.

Thank you all for your answers on that bonus topic. If you out there listening would like to get ad free episodes with an extra unwound topic every week where Dan and I chat about stuff. Well, you can become a member of Clockwise. Go to Relay.fm slash Clockwise and sign up. It's just $7 a month, $70 a year, and you will help support the show in doing so.

With that, it is time to say goodbye to our wonderful guests. John Moltz, thank you so much for being here today. Thank you. I'm booking a trip right now to Kansas City. Nice. And Jeff Carlson, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. I got to get all these power banks out of my Amazon shopping cart. We will not be back next week at our usual time, but you can catch us on the following week when we also won't be live. But look for one more episode before the end of the year.

roughly around New Year's Eve, the last year. We'll get it in right under the wire. But until that future date, we remind everyone listening out there, watch what you say and keep watching the clock. Bye, everybody.