652: I Don’t Like the Way That Things Are

It's time for episode 652 of the Clockwise Podcast from Relay, recorded Wednesday, April 15th, 2026. Clockwise, four people, four tech topics, thirty minutes. Welcome back to Clockwise the Tech Podcast. Leave you as drowsy as all those antihistamines you're taking. I am one of your hosts. My name is Micah Sargent, and I am joined across this vast and ever-changing internet by my good pal, my dear friend. It is Dan the Man. Moran. How you doing, Dan? Oh no, you took the drowsy kind.

I d uh yeah. If I were uh you know, we'll tell our editor here, insert that like idyllic morning classical music. Yeah, where else we as we wake up to clockwise. Uh, perhaps there are some who would celebrate that, and others who would rather wait for us to come later in the day. Uh, in any case Mostly followed that. Yeah. Ha ha.

Uh let's let's move along to thank our wonderful guests for joining us this morning. Uh first and foremost, we've got podcaster, fiber artist, and so much more. It is the wonderful Aline Sims. Hello, Aline. Good morning, sunshine. Good morning. The earth says hello. Oh, yeah. And to my left this week, second and also foremost. Yeah. We have the host of Android Faithful, Jason Howell. Welcome back, Jason. Oh. I'll do my best. Allergies. Walka walk.

Uh okay, folks. This is of course the time where we talk about our four topics in just 30 minutes. Mine for you is this. Um I For a lot of reasons, have been thinking about moving somewhat away from my AirPods Pro. And I have been s eyeballing for some stupid reason uh the AirPods Max. What I need you to do is please. Convince me not to purchase AirPods Max. Please, I'm begging you, I don't need to spend that much money on a pair of headphones. Please help me, Aline?

That's the thing, you don't need to spend that much money on a pair of headphones. There are so many excellent noise canceling over your headphones on the market now that are so much less than AirPods Pro. Um, or AirPods Max or AirPods Pro Max as I sometimes call them, because what is naming even in the Apple ecosystem? But like there there are a lot of headphones that you could get that are a lot less money.

And some of the features of the AirPods Max that are are are supposed to be helpful, I hate and I don't use and I keep them turned off like Um, I sometimes use like two iPads and a computer at the same time. And my earpods get really confused. They don't know what they're supposed to connect to. And it's like, no, no, no, no. I I told you. Stay with what I told you to do. Just get something less expensive. And something that doesn't have like a ridiculous like, oh, our ear cups

swivel in this this whole huge thing is going to be what you carry like like they're their own carrying handle. They're their own carrying case. We'll offer you no protection when you shove it in your bag with your knitting so that the yarn'll get all tangled up and the needles will go everywhere and it's gonna be awful when you try to take them out. Just don't do it. Don't do it.

You know, I have I have a had problems in the past with expensive headphones. There was one years ago when I was thinking I'll upgrade my podcast setup. Um, I have these, you know, Sony MDR uh monitors, which I've used for years and years. And uh I saw a friend of the show, Marco Armin, recommend these nice headphones. I was like, oh yeah, I'll treat myself, get some nice headphones.

And I bought those headphones and I thought they were terrible. They made my head so sweaty. They had like the like f like uh like velvety soft like ear cups and I was like, oh my god, my head is just so hot. Uh and I found them very heavy and I didn't think the sound was that much better. So I went back to my my nice Sony MDRs. I just replaced the like sort of the ear the ear pads that were flaking off or whatever, and it's been great since then. I've never had a problem with it.

I we use AirPods Pro Two basically every day. I love them. I think they're great. I I just don't see what the AirPods Max would bring me and I don't know where I'd use them in my life. One of the things I love about the AirPods Pro is that they pop into the little case and the case goes in my pocket and I can take it anywhere.

I do not want to walk around with AirPods Macs all the time. And when I'm sitting at my desk, the only time I'm really wearing headphones is when I'm recording a podcast. And those aforementioned Sony monitors. Just fine for me. So, Micah, I understand the temptation to go out and spend that tax refund, but you know, reel it in. Reel it in. You don't need them. Take a breath. If you still want them in a couple weeks, then yeah, treat yourself. Whatever. Jason.

Man, y'all are good. Talking me out of it and I didn't even want'em. Um Uh Micah, let me ask you a couple of questions. Do you love the sound of things? That's okay, good. Your honor. Leading the witness. Do you do you love comfort and feeling good? I do love comfort. I do love to feel good. Do you love the idea of have an apple on your head? Or No. Isaac. Do you have five hundred dollars? Not for headphones.

Okay, well then there's your answer. If you don't have five hundred dollars, I guess that's your answer. What I was gonna say is, you know what? At the end of the day, buy what you love. If you love this, if there's plenty of reasons for you to get this and it's just expensive but you really want it, like buy what you love.

Especially because right now you can actually find them at Walmart for$430. They're on sale. I'm just saying blue, orange, purple, and I promise I don't work for Walmart. Or Micah, you could just be like me and don't buy them because there are plenty of solid alternatives. End of story. I liked your flow chart.

Yeah, me too. Here's the the deal. I have been I've worn AirPods Pro for a really long time and love them. Um the most recent version, because I uh anytime they come out with new ones, I get the new AirPods Pro. And these most recent version, for some reason, are making my ears a little bit itchy and uh at times sometimes even pain. And I keep them clean. But

I am using like the same sort of cleaning frequency that I used to have, but I feel like I need to ramp up my cleaning with these most recent. I don't know if they're they're just they seem better at collecting. Stuff that I'm not gonna talk about. And it's it's frustrating. Um But I consider that you keep them too clean. Ratina Filth. In any case, I have been thinking like okay, maybe because my wonderful Sony headphones that I wear while I'm doing podcasts

same as Dan's, uh because they, you know, are are comfortable. I can wear them for a long time, etc. I could go for a pair of over-the-ear headphones, but I This is the thing is that I have listened to lots of different headphones and I like Apple's choices when it comes to noise cancellation versus other companies' choices when it comes to noise cancellation. And that is where I said, okay, maybe the AirPods Macs are the ones that are right for me because I know I can count on Apples.

sound profile and all of the easy peasy lemon squeezy uh level of of connectivity. So that's what had me thinking I should get them, but I'm walking away from this feeling. Still like this. I will just beat myself up uh over uh wanting to get them and then I won't get them because at the end of the day I'll be left with no energy to even hit the buy button.

as I spent too much time um deciding whether I should get them or not. Thank you all for your answers. On that, let's move to our next topic, which comes from Elene.

That got very dramatic. Um, sometime last year, I'm I'm spitting mad about this, Backblaze stopped backing up cloud synced folders. Um on Mac the release uh was nine dot two dot two dot eight seven eight. As far as I can tell, this was for Mac um released on August thirty-first of last year. I've done my investigative journalism. I mean th that's the extent of it. Um they don't date their release notes. Um but

They also didn't notify their user base of the change, except for in the changelog for the release. I only found out about it yesterday, so for over half a year, um, my iCloud files have not been backed up, my Dropbox files have not been backed up. And as we know Or as we should know. And as Backblaze itself has reiterated time and time again, the cloud is not a backup solution. Like you need a backup of your data. So my data has not been backed up off site.

in a very long time. So because of this change itself, there's nothing you can do about it. And more importantly, the lack of communication with its users that they're just gonna stop backing up files. Which might result in major losses for people if something really catastrophic happens. I'm in the market for a new off-site backup company. So does anyone have suggestions or any thoughts on this change to backblaze? Alright. Mad Dan.

I am sorry, I am you know what? That sucks. And I think the lack of communication, especially, uh, is kind of egregious. So for sure. I got your back on that. Here's my unpopular take. I know, look, I know the cloud is not a backup. Yeah. No. Because it my data is in multiple different places and for whatever it's worth

the information that is on those cloud servers is usually backed up. And I can say this with some uh I I recently uh uh got involved in like a lengthy attempt to clean out my inbox as I documented a previous week. And it went real bad, uh, where I literally lost over a hundred thousand messages from my iCloud. It's fine. I had backups.

Uh and I cause I was not an idiot. But I ended up having to go to Apple support and be like, Yeah, something happened and I deleted all these and they're like, you know what? It's fine. And they pressed a button. And they all came back. So while it may not be a good backup solution, and you should never, I think, view it as your only backup. For me, in most cases, I find it to be a sufficient cloud remote backup in addition to all my local backups.

Um, and so I don't necessarily have a good solution for you other than the the other thing I would consider is using something like ARC, which is the tool that basically lets you back up to like, you know, an AWS server or something like that, where you kind of It handles the like Mac side of it and then you back up to a remote server that you just sort of pay for directly rather than having a service that does it for you.

Um, that might be one solution that that gets around some of your issues and and is lower on reliance on third parties as well. Jason, what do you got? I don't have any any like cloud recommendations because I I don't do that. Backblaze was one of the services that I was considering when I've looked into this and then got lazy and decided not to do anything about it, which story of my life.

Um, so definitely don't emulate me. Um I have a local machine that that I'm backing up to a network attached storage here in the house, but obviously that's under the same roof. And so like technically it's a backup to one destination, but if the house goes up in flames, like I'm screwed. One idea I had though is instead of relying on a service, do you have a friend or do you have a relative that would allow you to park like a NAS at their house and do use something like tail scale?

to uh kind of sink across to that machine. And you, you know, you might have to pay them for power or whatever, but you'll probably pay them a lot less than you'd pay for a a cloud service. And then you're not relying on them like being you know, not being sneaky the way uh Backblaze was'cause that's crummy that they did that to you. So that's that's an option thinking a little outside of that.

This is so frustrating to me as a Backblaze user as well. And I too have been looking for uh other options. I will say that like Dan, I do consider some of my off-site backup or offsite storage as a backup. And I try to be okay with that. Backblaze has been running on my machines for a while. It's is you know, it's still running, it's backing up what it is able to. But yes, most of the stuff that I have is

uh stored in what are considered cloud folders. And I just feel like the better thing would be for Black Backblaze and Apple to have a conversation and play ball. So that we as users can uh know that our stuff is backed up properly. I don't like the way that things are where it's just like this shrug. Well, we can't do that, so shrug. I guess we just won't. No.

figure it out. Unfortunately, because it is what it is, I'm not I you know, I haven't been driven to find uh a replacement and maybe that's what I need to do. replacement. So I really am sorry that I don't have more advice for you here, but I'm not sure what to use as a replacement. I had not considered like getting a NA to put at a friend's house or something like that. I had considered like a sneaker net type thing like

Okay, I'll get my hard drive and I'll back it up and then I'll take it to I don't know, b bury it in someone's backyard. I don't even know. Like what am I gonna do? Um but the the NAS idea is really interesting. We do have um a Synology that all of our computers back up to, but it's it's just that like, well, what if the house catches fire? Um and that goes down. And right now the Synology backs up to Backblaze too.

But you know, we're just trying to be safe with our data um and not lose I don't know. I'm not even doing anything important these days, but like my thousands and thousands of cat photos, like what am I gonna do if I lose those? It's gonna be so sad. Alrighty, we have reached halftime here on the show. And of course, this is the wonderful time where I tell you about. Our swag. Yes, if you head to clockwise.social, you too can become a swag wearer. Ha ha.

Uh we have wonderful shirts and hats and all sorts of great gear uh that you can rep. And in doing so, you help support the work that we do here on the show, and of course help us pay for our Zoom bill. So please head to clockwise.social to check out our swag. All right, let's move on as we are back from halftime. Dan, what is your top?

Well, Amazon announced this week that it is buying uh Global Star, which was Apple's provider for satellite services like its emergency SOS and text via iMessage via satellite, et cetera. Um may change the landscape a little bit. I'm curious. I know both Android and Apple uh phones have a variety of cellular or excuse me, satellite connectivity features, whether it be for emergencies or for just other calls, data, et cetera.

I'm curious to know if you've used any of these satellite features for real. Um, and what you would like to see in the future maybe from satellite features, as well as whether you think this deal might be a pathway to uh, you know, m increased satellite connectivity, Jason. Well, I am on Android, full disclosure. Um, and so yes, so I actually have a story, I'll I'll keep it as as brief as possible, but last uh summer I went on a backpacking trip with a couple of friends.

And we were off in the you know, in the wilderness, out out all alone, no internet connectivity or whatever. And it was shortly after I knew that my Pixel had satellite connectivity. So I was really curious to see if it would if it would kind of come up. And eventually I spotted it and I was like, oh well that's really nice. Like that's really great. If I was trapped out here, at least I know I could I could reach out or whatever.

So then I tried to test it out and quickly realized oh I don't have that as part of my plan. Yeah. So therefore I can't actually use it, which gave me a real sour taste in my mouth about the whole satellite thing, which okay, I get it. Like if it's an extra feature you gotta pay for it, sure, but I think a lot of people are gonna find themselves in a bad situation, like say I am lost in the woods.

And my recourse is to use the satellite, but I can't use it because I didn't think in advance to sign up for the service. And I just thought that was really crummy. So I think I like the idea of it. I just kinda wish that it was i either clearer from that perspective Or that carriers would just be like, you know what, this is just like something that we should have as part of the plan because it's a real like actual very important safety feature that everybody should have access to.

Yeah, I agree about the sort of table stakes nature of it, especially with like the level of promotion that we're seeing for it. It feels a little bit um, I don't know, kind of meh, uh kind of kind of upsetting uh that it is not being treated more as uh something that that you know you just

You either have or maybe even like you on your you know you've got these on device intelligence stuff now. You're about to gear up for a trip. I can tell that you're about to do that, and it says Oh, have you considered or even in like the maps app, if it whatever the maps app, uh Google Maps it said, uh, you know, you might want to check this out in case you're ever traveling and and need it. Uh, because I agree. These features are really cool, but it is troublesome that

Um, you may not be able to access them. I have never u well, no, I take that back. I was gonna say I have I haven't ever used the features for real. There was one time where I did send a text via satellite uh because originally Apple had uh push this as a an option for when you're in an emergency or when you're disconnected and you need to send an emergency message. And then they were like Actually, you can just send messages when you are in areas uh that you don't have access otherwise.

So it sort of lightened it up a little bit and made it more uh available. And so I I believe I have sent a text message via satellite before. Um, and believe it or not. Worked pretty much the same way as normal. So nothing nothing special there, uh, but handy nonetheless. I'm curious to hear, Aline, your thoughts on Santa.

I really don't have any. I am an indoors girl. I do not go outside very much. So I have not ever had I mean on road trips, I guess there have been like zero connectivity, and there's a little satellite that appears in my status bar and it's That's cute.

I'm like, oh that's cute. But um I think that that it's really cool that these um these technologies exist and are available to people theoretically at least. But yeah, I'm not a user of them, so I don't have any any insight into features or anything.

I've never really used the satellite features other than a like brief test here and there. Um it's rare that I end up someplace without connectivity, though it happens. My my in laws live up in the mountains in New Hampshire and there are places in there that are there are pockets of

you know, no cell service and what have you. Um and I appreciate it as a safety net feature. I think it's good. I'm glad that Apple hasn't charged for that because I think that's a bad look. Um But I'm still curious about what their path forward is in terms of getting revenue from some of those features because it seems like there is must be an expense.

Um, and I can't imagine they're gonna wanna eat that expense forever. So I'm kinda curious, especially with this deal with Amazon to see what kind of path that opens up. for future satellite features, whether it's satellite calling or um satellite, you know, data connectivity for a fee, et cetera. Um, I'm hopeful and I'm pretty confident that they'll leave some of those emergency features as free to everybody.

and just subsidize it with some of those additional features um because I think they've gotten so much good press off those emergency features and they are legit useful. Um most people won't need them, right? Like that's the best part is like hopefully you won't need them, but it's there if you do. So thanks for your thoughts on that. Let's go to our final topic, which comes from Jason.

Yeah, let's talk foldables. Samsung and others we've seen in the past number of years have done uh book style foldables that fold out to like a tablet size thing when you unfold it. Um with a ratio that presents a standard size smartphone when it's all folded. So when it's folded up, you've basically got a a f a s normal smartphone in your hand, more or less. Didn't used to be that way, but that's where it's all kind of landed.

Apple, it appears, is taking the approach of a what I would call a squatty kind of uh form factor where when it's folded, it's a little bit uh y closer to square, though not really, but definitely a little squattier than a traditional smartphone. Which means that when you unfold it, it kind of resembles the f to my understanding, the four to three uh aspect ratio of an iPad when it's unfolded.

And I'm curious to know what you all would prefer. Would you prefer your foldable to lean more into the normal smartphone or to lean more into the iPad tablet when it's unfoldable? I really think that I've gotten to a place where I just like the idea of a flip phone again. And so I don't know that I want what I once wanted, which was this sort of iPad thing when it unfolded.

There's a possibility, right, that the any of these companies could do clever things with this older form factor of the flip phone. And I think I'm more interested in that than I am in some sort of multifold flip it out and suddenly it's a it's a picnic blanket style devices, which I feel like uh is where things are going. And I think I'd rather avoid the picnic blanket. Uh, what about you, Aline?

I am also kind of not sold on folding technology. So I think ultimately my answer is I don't really care what the direction they go in, whether it's like on par with, you know, a an iPad aspect ratio or not, I feel like I would get used to whatever it was. And I care more about how well it fits in my pocket, how well I can use it while I'm on the go. It's an interesting technology that I'm just not super interested in, unfortunately.

I am interested in this. I think in part because I like the idea of reducing the number of devices that I carry around. Um and so I'm I don't end up using my iPad that much, which uh people have different use cases for it, but for me, um, it doesn't end up being it ends up being the device that gets forgotten the most. If I'm around the house I'm usually using my phone. Sometime I'm using my laptop if I you know, I haul it out if I need a keyboard or something.

I use my iPad for travel. It's a good travel device, especially if I'm not going to need to do any work while I'm traveling. Um, but other than that, around the house it only gets used kind of sparingly. And so the idea of having a phone with me that can be expanded into a larger screen for a variety of things.

um, whether it be watching video, you know, or uh just having more screen real estate, running two apps side by side, something like that. I think there's a lot of promise in that. I'm really curious. I mean the the The devil is in the details, as always, what features will be enabled, what features won't be available here. I doubt it will have a full windowing system, a la iPad OS, but that would be kind of wild if it did.

Um certainly the idea of being able to carry that and like a foldable keyboard around and maybe use that as something to write on is kind of wild to me too. Um so I don't know. It it certainly appeals to me and I like this form factor. I think it you know, the idea of having a smaller ish phone that fits in my pocket is kind of cool. I've seen the sort of flip the vertical flip ones that harken back to those classic little dumb flip phones and um. Let's be nice, please.

I'm not saying they were dumb, I'm saying they're non smartphones. Um you know, I love those. I had I had um one of the Motorola ones for years and I loved it. Um I love I Call Dumb too. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Well. I I just I'm sorry, it's just the problems of the time. But I don't find that that orientation of phone very useful. Like I don't get that. That doesn't make sense to me because I think most of the time when I pull the phone out I'm gonna want

a full size phone interface, not half a phone. And so the idea that when I want the more, I can expand to the more rather than needing to expand to the more as the default is far more appealing to me than the vertical orientation flip phones. So We'll see uh what it what it actually looks like when this thing rolls out, but I'm I am intrigued and I am cautiously optimistic. Jason, you want to wrap us up?

Yeah, I mean I've I've used a number of these. Uh I haven't relied on them. They haven't been my long term kind of daily, you know, driver device, but I've definitely tested and reviewed and used a lot of the book style foldables and the clamshells. With the book styles like of the Samsungs that I've used in in recent years, like what I've realized is the way I expect to use my phone is as a phone. And so primarily I opt towards or I tend towards wanting if I'm gonna get a foldable

a device that can stand on its own as a normal phone, the way most of my other phones actually are when I pull them out of my pocket. It's not so narrow that it's a little weird that things don't fit quite right. It's not so squatty that, you know, half the stuff fits on the screen when it's when it's in its folded state. I suppose that means that like I opt for the standard smartphone side of things.

And then there's this small percentage of time that I'm like, okay, this would be better on a larger screen. That's when I unfold it and I would rather optimize for the kind of folded thing. But the original pixel fold, if you remember, was kind of a little squattier and to my eyes

uh somewhat resembles a similar kind of approach to what Apple seems to be doing with some of the um the leaked like case uh designs that I've seen on that. So uh I'll be really curious to see what Apple does and and if people how people respond.

All right, uh it is just about the end of this episode of Clockwise, but of course we have time for a bonus topic. I am just curious. Ice cream cake. Or no. No. No, nothing. Yeah. Or ice cream than ice cream cake. But my my wife loves ice cream cake. I once uh drove or or I got driven across the entire almost the entire city of Mumbai to get her an ice cream cake in India when we were there for her birthday.

And we fully admitted it was the worst ice cream cake we had ever had in our lives. Um but she still loves an ice cream cake. I think'cause her birthday's in December, and she's like, I always wanted one as a kid and I never got it. So now she gets one and they're fine. They're fine, but they're not There you go I mean if if I if the ice cream cake is, hey, we took ice cream and froze it and cut it to look like a cake, no. But if it's like, hey, here's ice cream on top of like cake like stuff

And you know, it's all frozen and together and it's intentional, you know, across the board, then heck yeah, I love it. Tastes great. Hate it. Um, don't like ice cream cake. I think it's garbage because it's it's logically garbage. Uh the way that our taste buds work is that they work better when they are not cold. And so when you have cold stuff, you are not able to taste it as much.

as it rolls across your tongue. On top of that, you add fat to the food, whatever it is you're eating, and fat coats taste buds, which causes them to not taste as well either. So what is one of like the worst things to have when it comes to taste? Ice cream.

That's how I feel. Also, this is a bonus topic. I don't have enough time to go on my full rant. It's it's it's regardless uh it's ridiculous. Uh folks, if you out there would like to get ad free episodes with an extra unwound episode every week where I complain about ice. More ice cream content.

can become a member of Clockwise. Go to relay.fm slash clockwise. Sign up seven dollars a month, seventy dollars a year. You'll help support the show. Uh with that, it is time to say goodbye to our wonderful guest. Uh thank you so much, Aline Sims, for joining us today. Thanks for letting me rant about backblades. And thank you, Jason Howell, for being here. The Claritin D's finally kicking in. Woo!

And Michael will be back next week, hopefully decongested. But until then, we remind everyone out there listening: watch what you say. Keep watch of the clock. Bye everybody.