646: An Email Job

It's time for episode 646 of the Clockwise Podcast from Relay, recorded Wednesday, March 4th, 2026. Clockwise, four people, four tech topics, thirty minutes. Welcome back to Clockwise, the tech podcast where we're coming in like a lamb and going out like a slightly louder lamb. I am one of your hosts, Micah Sargent, and I am joined across the internet by my good pal, my dear friend. You know him. It's Dan the Man Morin. How you doing, Dan? I knew this was a bad idea, Micah. I love it.

As you can tell, that was a great one. Uh uh, but well All right, we should end the show then. It doesn't get any better than that. Yeah, we should be we were good. Um no we do we did invite guests, and so we should be uh thanking them for being here to my left. Senior culture writer at TechCrunch and awarded most likely to post inflammatory Facebook status in college. It's Amanda Silberling. Welcome back to the show, Amanda.

Hello. I think the first time I was on clockwise, the other person had like a superlative that they won in high school or college or something. So I put that in and then now every time I come back, that's still like on the spreadsheet. And sometimes I delete it. But this time I was like, you know what? Why not? Why not? I I need to own who I am. Exactly. Embrace it.

Uh also embracing their identity to my left this week. It's co host of the primary technology podcast and co host of Mac Power Users right here on Relay. It's Steven Robles. Welcome back, Steven. He's beginning to believe. Sorry, I had to do a matrix quote with the new MacBook Neo. Oh Whoa, clever. Clever. Deep cut.

Uh well, you all know how this works. We've got four topics, 30 minutes. Mine for you all is this. Uh it's been a while since I've played The Sims, and I didn't realize that uh back a few years ago it went free to play. I'm just kind of curious, have you ever played The Sims? And just tell us about your experience and would you consider checking it out again if you don't play it now? Amanda, we'll start with you.

I played as a kid a little bit, but I wasn't super into it. But I think a lot of those sorts of games I played maybe before I was intellectually ready for them because I have an older sibling, so I just kinda was doing whatever he was doing, but So when I played The Sims and Roller Coaster Tycoon and all those games, I always did like the infinite money modes so that I could just have fun with like the role-playing aspect and not worried about the financial aspect.

And and now I'm kinda like, I don't know, maybe uh maybe now that I'm managing uh finances in real life, I can manage finances for my Sims or also like Roller coaster theme park. My main engagement with The Sims now is that one of my friends has a sticker, like, you know, like the iPhone stickers or you can like react with them. That's like the the minus.

signs of like so uh whenever I say something that they don't like I get the minus signs and then I'm like wow I really I really messed up here. That's fantastic. I've never played The Sims, ever. I think I was in the wrong uh age range, maybe. I don't know. I And and it's a type of game that I feel like I struggle with. I liked when I was a kid, I loved the original SimCity. Um I played SimEarth, I played Sim Ant.

Um and I loved all those games, although I found that I didn't really have I didn't get so into them that I um, you know, really spent a lot of time playing them. Um in part I think because For me, I really like games with narratives and

the having to sort of do that heavy lifting on your own, like and not only that, there's no there's no real end, it felt like, you know, in a lot of those games, right? Like your city might get destroyed, but you could just rebuild it. You know, I it's kind of the same way I feel about stuff like Animal Crossing where it's like

The it holds me for a little while, but then I'm just like, Oh my god, why am I just doing this with all my time instead of doing something else? Um So yeah, so the Sims was never really my jam, though I do kinda um, you know, I was like I'm I do kinda want to go find a classic A classic SimCity uh emulator there. The two D. Come on. Let's not none of this three D nonsense. Let's go back.

Uh I've got my cheat codes for that one too, all ready to go. Steven, what about you? Uh you stole my answer. I was gonna say Sim City was my thing back in the day. I've never played the Sims, but I remember the emotional trauma of that tornado ripping through my Sim City and there was horrible. But I would just say on like mobile stuff, the only games I've played

Just quasi recently has been like the Altos Adventure games. I've played every one of those and accomplished all those objectives and those were super fun. But I need games that I can like pop in and out of on my iPhone and things like that. And the other one is Jetpack Joyride. I really enjoyed on iPhone and so I played that one. But but no Sims for me. Well, I quite like the Sims. I will say that

Regardless of my ability to manage finances now, I am not shy to throw in a few more dollars in in well, I guess it's simoleons. Uh throw in a few more simoleons in in-game currency by way of the cheats. Because it is nice to have a uh when you need a a toaster in the game just to be able to have a toaster. Uh so I yeah, I I'm I was curious to hear and I'm uh I appreciate your answers to that topic. Uh let's move along to our next one, which comes from Amanda.

Apple unveiled its new Chromebook competitor, the MacBook Neo, today, which starts at$599. Um, there's a lot more to get into there, which I believe we will in Dan's question. However, what I want to talk about here is that I find myself tempted to buy it, and in my heart of hearts, this really is just because it's pink. How often do the colorways of new hardware sway your choices to buy something?

This is a good question. I think it is a it's certainly a tipping factor. I don't go in thinking I need this because it's a certain color, though I agree with you there is a more visceral level of like, ooh, that looks nice. And I will say most recently, I mean, I've got an iPhone seventeen Pro in that cosmic orange.

It's a great color. I love it. It certainly, you know, was a no-brainer for me when I went to buy it. I was like, I'm getting the orange one. It looks cool. And I, you know, I missed the uh the iBook. era, the original colorful Apple laptop era because I was

uh twenty something who was too cool for school and was like, I'm gonna get a black power book G three. Um I do have a classic yeah, I still have my classic blue and white um G three tower, which I do, you know, I do like that colorful era of

But you know, I'm I'm glad to see Apple embracing this a little bit more, but I'd like to see them, you know, realize that pros like to have fun too. We can have we can have more expensive laptops that come in fun colors too. I bought when I bought my M four MacBook Air last year, I bought the midnight one because

Uh of them, I think that's the most fun. It's not that fun. It's like a dark blue, almost black. Um, but it's it's different than silver or space gray, which was every laptop I've had from them in the past decade. Um, so I think color is a big thing. I mean, I still have also I will say the other one that I've got going for me here is I've still rocking my series seven Apple Watch that is blue.

um, because they don't make really good colors for the Apple Watch anymore either. So I'm hoping I'm hoping this and the that base level iPad and the i Mac and the iPhones. Like I'm hoping this is all presaging a new era of color at Apple. I'm probably due to be disappointed. But you know what I can dream. Steven? So I mean I've been in the world of all the pro devices, so you have silver and black and that's all I've ever gotten. I did get the sky blue MacBook Air, which is like the

I don't even know. It's barely blue, should have been the name. But I will say the one place I do love getting colors is Apple Watch straps. And so I prefer the solo loops with my Apple Watch where there's no clasp. You have to get it sized properly, but I find them to be the most comfortable in all scenarios. And so I'm all about the solo loops and the braided solo loops. I have many different colors of those and it's where I really like uh to do the colors.

I did get a MacBook Neo. Of course I got the Indigo, which maybe is the least fun of the colors, but I wasn't sure where it was gonna go after I I should have gotten the citrus or something. The silver is the least of the fun of the colours. You have the second least fun color, which is also the third most fun color. Oh thank you, thank you for that.

I do wanna uh submit one complaint to Apple though is they've refreshed their colors for iPhone cases And sport loops just earlier this week, Monday when they announced the seventeen E There's a new guava color, which looks amazing, but they did not make a solo loop of that color. They updated the sport loop, but not the solo loop. And so I feel like that's a personal affront. Um, I...

Uh colors do matter uh for me in terms of, you know, uh what I am excited about or what I'm going to get. Anytime there's something green. I mean, this morning when I looked at the MacBook Neo I was like, do I maybe possibly need the green one? Um, and I don't, and I have no reason to have it. But did my mind go, you probably need that one? Uh yeah, it did.

I think colorways are fun and I think that any time that Apple is making that choice is some is a time that I'm going to celebrate because I want more of that. The green iPhone, oh, that was a day. I I I I think people have made memes out of me reacting to that green um iPhone. And so yeah, I I think it's great. But It's not a matter currently of, oh, if there's a product and it has a color, which in my case would be green, that I immediately am like, well, that's something I will be owning.

Thank goodness, because otherwise again I would have a MacBook Neo on the way and I have no reason to have a MacBook Neo on the way. Amanda, why don't you rent this out here? Yeah, I just I've been thinking about this because I feel like I don't need a new laptop, but For more my corporate issued laptop is like one of the massive sixteen inch MacBook Pros. Oh yeah. And then I um honestly I just use my work laptop for literally everything. Um, one day surely that will bite me in the back. But

The other laptop I have is a 2020 MacBook Air. And I'm like, it works, but also I could spend$600 and get a shiny new thing that's pink. But then I think to myself, I'm like, if there wasn't the pink colorway, I don't think I would even be considering this. And maybe is that a sign that I don't actually need this? It probably is, but

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Indeed it is. Apple has started playing more for price with offerings like the iPhone 17E and last year's 16E, as well as the new previously mentioned MacBook Neo. Uh which starts at just five ninety nine, but if you're an education customer, four ninety nine. It's

almost the cheapest Mac that Apple's ever made. Um, is this a strategy that you think will work for them? Is this something that they're they're really feeling like there's an opportunity here or do you think this is all just about the upsell, hey, you spend two hundred dollars more, three hundred dollars more, you can get this way better thing. Steven, where do you think this pricing strategy is going?

The seventeen E is such a weird place because the sixteen E bombed, and I don't think it was because of MagSafe. I think it was just because when it comes to the phone It's a status symbol, it's also everybody's camera, and even the air, you know, didn't sell as good as the pro. So I feel like in some categories like the phone, people are still gonna go for the more expensive, the nicer ones.

But the MacBook Neo, a hundred percent, I think that one's gonna sell like crazy. I'm curious if there are any school districts out there that will go to the Neo instead of the Chromebook. Obviously the Neo is still more expensive, probably by several hundred dollars, but I think it's a great deal. And so I think

For the Mac side, I think they are going towards the price. On Amazon, there's probably going to be crazy sales on this Neo where you can get it for five hundred dollars even without an education discount, especially by the holidays. So I think on the Mac side, they're definitely trying to push.

down into the pricing, but I feel like with phones, the expensive ones are still the most popular. I don't uh the seventeen E feels like a weird thing this year. I think Steven said what I well how I feel. Yeah. The the phone is uh it's fine, but I do think that people will just be more interested in

m more. Uh and as far as the Mac goes, yeah, let's make that more available. And I I can remember, I think middle school would have been the first time that I started to see these, but those Mac carts and they were so fancy and had like the the charger situation all built right in and I think that with these

colorful options, although will they offer colors in the in the schools, I don't know. Uh it just is is ripe for, you know, making a place once again, perhaps, where Chromebooks have taken over. Amanda, what are your thoughts?

I feel similarly that I think the 16E and the 17E is a little like I don't know who this is for exactly, but the Neo that there does feel like there is a clear customer. I think especially just Whenever I write these sort of here's the new Apple product posts, it's like Every year they're like our new M five chip can do things at a billion times faster than you ever imagined and the the on device AI and blah blah blah and like A lot of this is just far beyond what the average person needs.

And I think that if you're someone who is a student or someone who has like an email job where they don't need to like edit video or whatever. Like you don't really need the amount of power that's in a MacBook Air. I mean, that's kind of what makes it tempting for me. But also then again um I do podcasts and things and sometimes photography and sometimes video things and I have a MacBook Pro through work. And if I lost the MacBook Pro through work, I don't think a Neo would necessarily

fit all of my needs, but maybe I'm wrong. I have yet to use it, but we'll see. I'm really intrigued by the distinction you're all making between the phones and the the Mac line, in particular what Amanda just said because I would argue the same holds true uh of the phone as the computer there. Most people don't need an iPhone Pro, right? Yeah. The the it's very capable, but to Steven's point, you know, there is a status symbol aspect to it.

in a way that I don't think we see as much with laptops these days, in part because laptops have become commoditized and they've been around so long and they, you know, tend to be things that you keep longer, they tend to be associated with work, etcetera, etcetera. So uh I think it's interesting to to s like draw that line there because uh it does point to a certain degree of uh unsurprisingly human irr un human irrationality when it comes to these kinds of buying choices, right? Like

You know, a lot of people would probably be fine with a seventeen E. It's a very capable phone. Um, I actually just sent it to my like A few weeks ago I was uh having having lunch with my literary agent and he's like, I need to replace my old, you know, terrible phone that's just a cheap phone and he doesn't You know, he he got dragged kicking and screaming into the smartphone era and I was like, Well, this the seventeen E is supposed to be coming out in a few weeks.

And that's probably the phone for you and I just sent it to him this morning and he's like, Did you bill him for consulting for I should bill him I should yeah, we'll just and I'll take fifteen percent of his purchase. I think it's interesting to see how that that sort of lines up there. I think Apple is very smart to have devices in

that line that are both if it can hold this these two truths in its head, right? One is let's sell a device at a price point where we're still making a profit on it, but let's also position it so that if people want to give us more, they can give us more. But like having that flag in the sand where it's like our iPhone starts at five ninety nine or our, you know, Mac starts at five ninety nine is good, right? It looks good. It it helps

dispel some of the long held like belief that it's like, oh, their products are just too expensive. Um again, money people are more than happy to pay for phones. Just like to complain about with computers. So it's an interesting situation we're in. Thank you for your thoughts on that. Let's go to our final topic, which comes from Stephen.

All right, is the studio display XDR a bad deal? What what monitors do you guys use right now and is I don't know, am I crazy that I actually want this thing? Listen, I respect your desire to want the thing. If I had unlimited power and otherwise uh unlimited funds, I would have two studio display XTRs. But I think they are a little ridiculous. Um, I'm rocking on one side a Dell Ultra Sharp 27-inch monitor, and on the other side, a Gen 1 Studio Display Non-XDR.

I like my studio display. I do, but For the price that it was even then, it was uh kind of silly. And then I I think it was in just last episode I said I wanted to see how Apple is going to differentiate with this next model. And I'm thoroughly underwhelmed. Um overall, I think that. There are better deals found elsewhere, and a lot of people have found those better deals. So

Is it necessary? No, but if I were to uh like be invited to your home and see that you had studio display XDRs, I would not look down upon you. I would probably high-five you and say, nice. And that's that's pretty much how I feel about it. A weird Okay. Yeah. Amanda, what are your thoughts? I think the the whole studio display line I've always sort of felt like that's just not for me. It reminds me of like in college they had

something I think it like I don't know if do they have studio displays then but they were called something else, but yeah. Yeah. Cinema displays a MacBook monitor that was like extraordinarily fancy and the color was like calibrated within like an inch of perfection and they had those in the like photography studios with like the the hoods around them so that God forbid like another color entered your eyesight, everything was perfect. And it just felt excessive.

But also, yeah, similar to what Michael was saying They're like, it's cool. Like obviously like I I want the cool new shiny thing, but I just don't know if I need it in my life, but I currently, in addition to my corporate-issued MacBook Pro, I have the non-corporate-issued Samsung M8 monitor, which

It's almost like a dupe. It kind of has the sleekness that Apple products have, but obviously it's like like I think I got it for like four hundred dollars. Like it's like not that degree of uh fit and finish.

Yeah. It's just kind of like This is a big monitor that looks nice on my desk and it gets the job done and it has a built-in webcam that absolutely sucks and I still haven't figured out the best way to navigate around that besides opening my laptop in front of the monitor, which is what I'm doing right now.

I've got uh the original studio display here and I was a little worried when they came out a new one'cause I bought this um a few years back when I switched from having uh an i Mac on my desk to a Mac mini, and my thinking at the time was

Well, this will be, you know, I put it on a vason mount so it's adjustable and everything, but you know, it'll be something that lasts me a while. I can always swap out the mini and put in a new computer, because that was my frustration with the iMac. I had a gorgeous one of those Retina iMac.

And when it was done, uh, the screen worked fine, but you couldn't do anything with it. You had to recycle the whole darn thing, which was a real bummer. So this way at least there's some modularity to it. And it's like it's expensive, but it felt like a good investment.

And so, you know, I'm always wary of like, oh no, they'll come out with a new one and I'll feel like do I need to upgrade to that one? And then I looked at the specs for the new studio display. Yeah. They're exactly the same, so I don't uh So as far as the XDR model goes, it's certainly a nicer model. It's positioned kind of, I think, well between the uh studio display and the old Pro Display XDR, which was ridiculously expensive.

Um honestly a lot of the benefit you get is just having that height adjustable stand included, I think. Uh that which normally costs you another couple hundred bucks through four hundred. I don't even remember. It's a lot. Um You know, Apple's displays are expensive a lot like a lot of other products, but they're premium and I will say they're really nice. I love my studio display. It's gorgeous. It's you know uh it's not like a most advanced panel you can find.

you know, higher resolution. You can find stuff with HDR, whatever. I don't find this any of this to be an impediment to me getting my stuff done because I'm not working with graphics or anything like that. So uh I think it looks great.

Um the studio display XPR, it's pricey. I don't think I would ever buy it because I think it's more display than I need, but for people, you know, who want it, I I get that. I understand it. But you're you may still need to buy an external webcam because who knows if it's any good or not. Right, well here's the thing. Uh Mac.

I did in fact buy it before we recorded. But anyway here's the thing, I have the original studio display on a Vasamount and it's been great. I could never swallow a pro display XDR price point. And if you look for five K monitors, there's actually not a ton out there and five K at twenty seven inches where Mac OS looks normal, otherwise you get weird scaling stuff, and six K at thirty two inch, although there's no larger size.

So it's actually kind of hard to find a 5K 27 inch 120 hertz monitor that is also nice hardware. Samsung supposedly had some that were coming out. They showed them at CES. They're not available yet. I didn't see any pricing. So while surely Apple's gonna have a premium price tag. It actually is slightly unique. Plus the six speaker design, I probably to my detriment, I edit videos

And I just have the audio playing out of my studio display. I don't have a studio display speakers are good. They are good. They're really good and this new model actually has improved speakers. And so I'm actually looking forward to that and better base. So because I use my studio display speakers all the time, it is my main monitor.

Uh yeah, I got the studio display XTR. It's probably more expensive than it should be, but I'm I think I'm gonna enjoy it. The one thing that was really frustrating is because I have a Vesa mount. I was like, maybe by chance the Vasamount model will be cheaper. No. No. I just get less aluminum in the box, but I still have to pay the same price. Yeah.

I will say I have a pair of stereo home pods next to my Mac and I never use them. Same. It's more of a pain. I have a I have a pair of home pod twos sitting right here on my desk and all they do is I'm going to go. You got a switch to them and it's like, you know what? It's only

If they had a headphone input, if they just had an eighth inch jack input, I would a hundred percent use the home pods of my main speakers. But literally all they do is I say, Hey Dingus, I'm done working and it turns off all my studio. That's it. Unfortunately now I'm like Hmm, there is a pink IMAC. Which is a thing I need even less than I need a MacBook Me. I just I mean, it is full circle because my first Apple product I ever owned was an iPod mini that was pink, but

But I think I need to not buy something just because it's a button. Um, folks, that just about brings us to the end of this episode of Clockwise, but we've got enough time for a bonus topic. I'd like to know

What's something in your city that you like to take visitors to see or experience? Amanda, we'll start with you. Um, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which also has been re rebranded to the Art Museum or the Philadelphia Art Museum, which then can be abbreviated to FART. So there's been a lot of discourse around that. But um, name aside I think people are attracted to it because the rocky steps and there's like the rocky statue, but

It's like an amazing art museum. It's kind of like I'll go out on a limb and say it's like a mini met, and by that I mean they have like contemporary art. They have rotating ex exhibitions. They also have like suits of armor and like weird stuff from All eras of history and I've been there like a bajillion times and then whenever I go I'm still like, hey, I never noticed that they have a bunch of chain mail before, that's fun.

I I really like the um the Museum of Science down here that we have, which is straddles the river between Cambridge and Boston. It's just super fun. Uh and I don't only say that because I bring my child there like once a week.

Um but yeah, there's lots of great stuff and I would say down if it's summer and it's nice, uh uh baseball game at Fenway Park. Uh it's uh it's a great time. It's a great afternoon. I bring people, I'm near Tampa and there's a place in Tampa called the Oxford Exchange, which is like

Multiple things in one. There's like a buddy brew coffee place. There's like a bespoke tea place. There's a really nice restaurant. There's also a candle making a bookstore. There's a new podcast studio on the second floor. There used to be a Warby Parker. It's like But it's this mid century modern designed build And it feels very like.

Swanky and like it's just a really fun place to go. Everybody can get what they want. You can eat. There's there's also like this gift shop with like really weird trinkets and these obscure books. And it's just fun to kind of walk around and just be there in that environment, get a coffee, get a tea, and uh it's fun to hang out in. So the Oxford Exchange in Tampa.

I would take people to Pittock Mansion here in Portland. It's like a a huge house museum that is just fun to walk through and think about. the way we used to live. Uh, and then also, of course, Powell's Books, which is the big popular bookstore. here in Portland. I don't think I've ever had someone come visit without us making a Powell's run. So that's it's just a requirement if you're visiting Portland, I think. Thank you all for your answers on that.

If you can believe it, we have reached the end of this episode of Clockwise, which means all that's left. is to remind you that if you'd like to get ad free episodes of the next unwound episode every week, you could become a member of Clockwise. Go to relay.fm slash clockwise, sign up, seven dollars a month, seventy dollars a year to help support the show. Amanda Silberling, I wanna thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today.

I'm happy to be here and thanks for helping me through not buying something just because it's pink. And Stephen Robles, thank you so much for joining us and buying something. Your mind makes it real. And Michael will be back next week, but until then we remind everyone listening out there, watch what you say and Watching the clock. Bye everybody.