507: $10,495

Hello and welcome to Connected Episode 507. It's made possible by our sponsors Squarespace, NetSuite and FitBod. I'm your keynote chairman, Stephen Hackett and I'm joined by your annual chairman, Mike Hurley. Hello, there's been a change in the connected roles. This is a chairman-only podcast now. You don't get to be on the show. There's no Federico this week. Let's just hope that there is no more Benchman because otherwise this would just become a solo show

for someone. Yeah, solo cast. No, he's just off this week. That's all. Yeah, San Federico, your favorite chair-related imagery. Okay, I like that. I like that a lot. I'm wearing my tiny heads to you today. It's a good t-shirt. We should sell it again.

Well, it's the shame that nobody else agrees. I was thinking about it today. I was thinking about the betrayal and how I feel like I inevitably won the betrayal on the account of the reason that I said we shouldn't have sold the t-shirt was because nobody bought it the first time and then the second time it still was not a successful t-shirt in the grand scheme of what our t-shirts have sold previously. But it's a good t-shirt. I like it. It's a fantastic design. It's just a shame

that people don't agree. Yeah. Well, you know, sometimes it's not everything can be a winner. Maybe it will be like when we die, people will really like then it will become a thing, you know? Oh, right. Right. Posterously it will become a successful t-shirt. Could be. But no one will be able to sell it. So it will just like appear on Red Bobble or something. That's what my leg is going to be. Stolen IP on Red Bobble. Follow up. Mike, last time you suggested killing the Today View Screen.

Yeah. A lot of people didn't like that idea. I don't like this categorization. I didn't suggest killing it. I just, my bet is that it will be killed. It's not like I'm like, oh, you should, well, maybe I said that. But maybe I did say you should get rid of it. But like whatever, you know, get rid of it. Okay. Kill it. A lot of people like it. Which is wherever you want. A lot of people like it. A lot of people like lots of things. Wow. It doesn't mean we should have

more. And some people don't point out that you can get to it without going to the home screen. And that raised a question for me because I feel like the start, I remember how fast touch ID 2 was. And they were just like below through the lock screen. And then your notifications were gone forever. I don't, I like the Today View. I use it with my phones unlocked. I don't really use it from the lock screen. What about you? Like for me, looking at my phone and swiping up is like one thing.

And I don't really ever deviate from that. No, I don't use the Today View. Is there anything in there? Yeah. I mean, there's widgets in there. But I very seldom use it. Because if I truly care about the widgets, I'm going to put them on even my home screen on my second screen. Like the stuff that you've just reminded me by the way to change a setting on my phone. So I had someone recommend to me a long time ago to disable control center if your phone is locked.

Which is a setting that you can enable. Like there are a bunch of things that you can enable. Like if your phone is locked. So it's in Face ID and Postcode. And there's a whole set of things called allow access when locked. Control Center is one of them. Live activities. Your favorite assistant. Yeah, I need to turn off Today View and Search from that and notifications.

And that's a good idea. You shouldn't need it. Right. What I will tell you when you do this, you will realize that sometimes you are using control center when your phone is locked. Because you'll swipe down and nothing happens. But I think that that is a fine thing to like that is total. That's a fine price to pay kind of thing. Okay. I think. Now, one of the options is Siri. And I don't know if you turn this off. If you can,

I guess you can't talk to Siri anymore if you're phone is locked. So maybe I wouldn't turn that one off. Or maybe that'd be more important if Siri gets better in Iowa. So if you've seen, by the way, floating around. I've seen this on threads. We're talking about threads in the in the pre show. There's like a walk around that people have worked out right now to get the new Siri UI in the current beta. Like it's buried in there. And you've got to like, you've got to load some software.

I saw you got to do some weird stuff that I would never do. It kind of fills a kin to like jail breaking, like maybe that kind of idea. But the system is in the beta. But it's like flagged away. You can do it. Anyway, yeah, it does. A tip that I have is like go into Face ID and post go to review the those things. And like think about like if you dropped your phone, what would you not want someone to access? And I think control center and the today view are a couple of things that

would be pretty important. Yeah. Vince and discord said today view is where the large battery would you live? That's true. I think that's probably almost universally in there. All of these things can exist in other places. Yeah. Doesn't have to be in today view. That's that's the point that I'm that I'm making. And I I just think that as time goes on, they are going to remove that screen. That's kind of what I'm getting at. It just doesn't

say your best. If all it is is a place for widgets, you can already put widgets everywhere. So like, why does that need to exist? Like that needed to exist when we had the widgets that couldn't go on the home screen because they couldn't go anywhere else. But now they're gone. Like at what point do we need this thing called today view? Nothing else is there. Like why is it even called

today view? You know what I mean? I just think it's going to go away. The name is left over. I mean, if you remember from the earlier versions of notification center, you would have like all missed and today, and I was like, I don't know, 9, 10, 11 sometime. I do remember it used to like in like in written out English, it was like, you have three appointments today. The weather is 64 degrees. Like it was very conversational in text. It was there were some weird ideas in there. So

the name, it used to just be a tab in notification center. And they sort of kept the name and every mixed it in a bunch of ways. I do like there being a place for widgets that is not on a home screen. I think it's nice to sort of have like, oh, I have these other ones that I don't need all the time, but they're kind of stashed over here and that I can scroll it so I can have a lot of things in today view. The scrolling is a nice is a good is a good point. Yeah.

All I'm saying is like, look, it doesn't bother me that it's there. I'm not like, I don't know, got like a crusade going on. My point is I just don't think it's long for this world. I can definitely see that being true. We have some more follow up about the rickies. This is just like a hodgepodge of things. So every time we do the rickies, there's always follow up about the rickies. This isn't even all of it. I just picked some of it. Yeah.

Brendan wrote in, Stephen, how does it feel to have guessed the latest Mac OS version would be named after an SUV, but you picked the wrong SUV. So I picked Tahoe, which is a GM SUV here in the states and then what was Sequoia, which is a Toyota SUV. So I had the right type of car just the wrong one. Okay. I like Sequoia as a name though. So I know it's hard to spell. No, I don't like it. S.E.U. I don't like saying it aloud and I don't like spelling it because it can't. Sequoia.

But to me, honest though, I was thinking about this the other day. I cannot remember the name of the current Mac OS. Oh, it has gotten way more difficult with the California names. So I feel like the one that we currently, I'm currently using, I don't know its name. And so it doesn't matter to me. Is it Sonoma? Okay. It's not Monterey, which is what I thought it was. When was Monterey? Let me just read you. Can I just read you the California names?

I would love that. I would love that. Can you read them in a California and accent though? Oh, my accents come out Australian as we know. I want you to just to give it a go. What is a California and accent? Yeah, oh, dude. Yeah, one of those Australia. You've got to do the turtle like crush from Finding Nemo. Just be here. Dude,

it's sound like you're stoned the whole time. Yeah, but that works. That works. Mavericks, you have Simbadi, El Capitan, Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur, Monterey, Ventura, Sonoma, Sequoia. So okay, Big Sur and it was one of her in the Ventura. There is no world in which I would remember that they existed. You could have made me sit here for an hour and I would never have remembered those names. There is absolutely zero chance that I would have

remembered either of those. Yeah, I think it's two things. I thought a lot about why this is harder. There were fewer cat names and they were less frequent. They weren't doing an annual release. So it's easier to remember Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion. But California names are annual. Basically, everyone knows what a lion is. A bunch of people didn't know Catalina was a real place. They would use the spots of a leopard.

It was easier to be like, here's this thing. Maybe it's easy if you're a Californian. Maybe it's easier. I don't know. If only we knew some of the elephants. I know them. If only. There are none. They're unknown. But I struggle with it. I like the names. I think they're perfectly fine names. I like the naming scheme. It's just hard to remember. Yeah. It's like I have no criticism of the fact that they do it. It is more just that I can't

ever remember them. I also think that for Mac OS, that's actually okay. This would be more of a problem if it was iOS. But I also realized recently that I really struggle, especially around this time of year, to remember the number of my iPhone. Oh, like the iPhone 15. Yeah. Yes. Same. Is it currently 15? It is. Okay. I thought it was 14. On iOS 18. Well, it's a mess. That's a thing. But more at this time of year, we're thinking about

the next one. And they usually is as there has been rumors about the next one. So like I'm already thinking about the iPhone 17. And I haven't even got the 16 yet. So I can also think it doesn't matter. It's just like I have the iPhone Pro Max. And it's the one that is the new one. And yeah, we can all gamble with that. I do wish for unification across these things. Because like the version numbers in Mac OS are completely lost to me now. Like this is Mac OS. Mac OS 14

Sonoma. Like if someone said Mac OS 14, I'd have to count on my hand or look it up in Mac tracker. Like I'm doing right now. No, the right move is Samsung. What Samsung does? Yes. Where they use the year number. Yep. That's that they crushed it. That's the way to do it. It's just the year number. That's the way it should be done. Yeah. Okay. And Discord says, I like being on the SE because I don't need to know the numbers. Yeah. Because well,

or you can know the numbers, but you only got a no like three of them. Three of them. Yeah. Slop for hard. You got really long time to remember them. SE three. Yeah. It's great. Really, really long time. Uh-huh. Okay. So Mike, not you wrote in. Okay. So we have this issue where we keep tying in the rickies. Right. And some people have some feedback about that. So Mike wrote in, have you considered adding a third round to the regular

picks in the rickies? Most of the game in with the three hosts receiving their regular picks and not their risky. So an extra regular pick may force less surknit picks in the regular round. Nope. They wonder. It makes it wonder. I don't I think we would. I don't think it would solve the tying issue and it would make the game solve the problem. We would just tie with three points free time instead of two because the regular pick rounds, they're relatively easy to get.

Like, and and three picks. It's like, for example, me and Jason, we do like 10 picks in the draft and like it comes down to one point being wrong. Yeah. Right. So like we're clued in and off and there are enough rumours now that it's the whole point of the risky pick is to stop the tying from happening. But it we got too far with it. I am still convinced we are on the right track. We just need a little bit more time. I think I would expect by this is I noticed sounds so

ridiculous, but by the next WWE DC, some are more win a rickies by a score. Like they will actually do it. Like it won't come down to tie breaking because I was really close this last time. Like very, very close. The closest I feel like I have been in a long time. So I think we're getting there. I think we're getting there. I think we are too. Justin wrote in, I've had a

potential rule idea. In the event of a tie, what if everyone's name went onto a wheel or into a hat and Justin's opinion at three way coin flip is weird because it just gives the odd one out a chance to instant victory, which what is what happened last time where I won. I don't mind this. I think this is interesting. No, because if you put everybody's is still an instant victory. But I think what they're saying is because two people have to pick one side of a coin and the

third person has to pick the other. Right. Like it's always a one to two ratio and a hat makes it a one to one to one relationship. No, this doesn't make any sense to me. Because sometimes with the coin flip, we go for another round, which is very fun. It goes to like a second round. Like all it's doing, like and also it takes all agency away. Right. If it becomes a hundred percent chance, I don't like that. Like in the scenario we have the coin flip, you at least got

to choose if you wanted heads or tails. And so you have agency in your decision. And I'm thinking about this because if we tried to do this, Federico would be so unhappy all the time because he would just constantly say it was rigged. At least this way with the coin flipping, he has he has a decision to make and that decision is made and he has made it. You know, so this like that's the end of it. I will say one of my favorite things just in my entire career is that we have diced by

peak out as a person in our CMS. Exactly. And they're attached as a guest to those episodes. Also, for me, James has put so much work into that mode. Yeah, I could not. Yeah, except that. Well, I will say that James has put a cotton beer link to the hat by peak out. So that's for purchase. We'd have to use a peak out cat for the picker. No, I don't like this. I like the coin

flipping, but I don't want to fix the coin flip. I want to fix getting the game. Yes, I want to make it that we don't need it everything rather than let's improve or change the way that the chance game is played. Sure. Someone named Jason Snell, that can't be a real name, had some fuxi scoring feedback. And basically wanting us to remove correct answers are worth one point and there's no penalty for wrong answers. And then we say winner will be judged by the percentage of correct answers.

I get what he's saying, but I like that there, there's no penalty in the game, but there's penalty in real life. There's no point having that what from sense. I think he's right. We could fix it. Because it doesn't matter that correct answers are worth one point when we only pay attention to the percentage. And also there is in fact a penalty for wrong answers. It's okay. Okay. So I'm in the bill of flexes now. Well, you know, we can't change it now. You can only make a recommendation.

Because as well, we can't change it about federal. Oh, again, it's a federal. Okay. So I'm going to copy this. Well, just make a comment or something like we will get to this, I don't know, in September or whatever. Yeah. But like the idea of like it should just say that the winner is judged by the percentage correct possible change. Okay. The correct answer is a worth one point and there's no penalties. It's kind of a superfluous statement at this point. Okay. I've put that in

the bill of flexes documents. We can we can visit that in the future. Luckily, it doesn't change the rules. It just changes the way we describe the game. Yeah, it's just clarification. It's just clarification. Well, now we've cleared out the follow-up pipes. We should move on. This episode of Connected is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one website

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Someone has to do it. This came from both a conversation in real life with some friends and from listener Nathan. Going back a few weeks where I was talking about using a single air pod while bike riding or walking. Nathan and real life friends. Steven, have you heard of bone connecting headphones? These headphones leave your ears unrestructed so you can hear your surroundings. I have some some shocks open run and wear them whenever I'm walking running or

riding my bike and I love them. Sister competitive use the sponsor ATP. I think so. Okay. See, this is the interesting because I just recommended that Adina try these two because she sometimes she gets irritated if she wears a pods, but air pods for too long. But now she's wearing over ear Sony headphones and sometimes when I'm at home, I come up the stairs and she jumps so hard she might hit the ceiling because she's in office because she can't tell that I'm around. Yeah.

You've never seen somebody like jump the way that she does. Her entire body, it's hilarious, but it makes me feel bad for her. So what you're saying is I need to startle her next time I see her. You could try. She might punch you, but you can try. I can outrun her maybe. Yeah, probably. I'm actually pretty confident you could. So having the having taken all this feedback, I ordered a pair of the shocks open run pro mini.

I don't know. I'll stop my head the difference between the pro and the regular ones. The mini just is about the the length of the band that goes around the back of your head, and that's the one that fit me better. So I've had these for, I don't know, about a week now, and have used them on several workouts. And I have some brief review. Just real quick before you do say that before we move on to your specific product,

they do like actual like air pod style versions now. I think they're pretty new. They don't have the band around the middle. It's just like you just put these things on, but these look like they go on your ears more than the other ones do, but interesting. Yeah, I think I think those are very new. The open fit, I think is what they call those. Yeah, open fit. And they also have open swim, which are waterproof. And those have built in storage. You can sink music

to them because Bluetooth usually doesn't work through water. How did he stand on your head though? So they just like they go over your ear and go around the back of your head. I think it'd be okay. But I feel like swimming like would they not get jostled off? I don't know. I mean, I'm assuming not, but that's really cool that they have those. Yeah. And they're like IP68 waterproof rating. Well, you'd be cool. You'd certainly hope so.

Yeah. We didn't bother with these ones gang. We're just seeing how it goes. Yeah. That's super cool. You can sink music to those because yeah, if you're, if you're, you know, changes are your phones in a lock or something. You don't have it pool side. And even if you did Bluetooth and water, don't really mix. So wow, they also do one of a little microphone. Mm-hmm. Lots of features. You can have the zoom call. Yeah, lots of options.

Yeah. And that's that's when you know you're a real professional. You're like taking a conference cause like, oh, I'm in the pool. Tell me about the quarterly numbers, you know, I don't think the pool and the, it is a different product. Well, well, I mean, not with that at you, do you know? That's right. Yeah. That is right.

So the, uh, the open run pros, they go over your ear and they have a little pod that sits in front of your ear kind of on your high cheekbone, I guess, like where your job, you know, right in front of your ear and it vibrates and you can hear what's going on. The effect of this, because I've never used a product like this, but the effect of this is the sound stage to me feels like it's somewhere inside my skull. It's very weird. Mm-hmm. You don't really notice it listening to podcasts,

but listening to music, the, it just, it takes a little getting used to. It's not bad. It's just different for me. I've, I've tried before. Uh, the sound quality is fine. Like these things don't sound incredible, but they're vibrating through your skull and not, you know, directly firing sound into your canals. But music is fine. Uh, podcast or I think a little bit, um, I guess they're fine. I found that I needed, like, I'm sensing a theme here. It's just, I mean,

they don't sound incredible. You're making a trade off for I can hear the world around me, right? Yeah. Um, I did, I did feel like I need to have podcasts of louder than the music to make it clear, but both are fine. The call, mic quality is not good. Like, uh, I called somebody and they said, I sounded like I was across the room. So does it have a microphone or is it also using the bones? It, uh, it does have a microphone, I think. Okay. You, it's great. You need to get the one

with a little expandable microphone. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dual noise canceling mic for clear calls, but it's just built in somewhere, I guess. And these are IP 55 water resistant, which basically means you can like sweat, but you don't, you don't want to get the, the ones that I have, you don't want to get them wet. So, right. So yeah. So comfort wise, our glasses and that, like, I just feel like there's a lot going on over my ears with glasses and these, but that would be true for,

like, where are the beats that go over your ears? The beats fit or isn't out these the ones your wife uses? Yes. I don't know what they're called. Okay. Because I mean, their names are complicated. Yeah. The beats branding is hard to keep up with. Yeah. But the beats, the Koya, they, um, they are, uh, that's no different than those sorts of headphones, but totally fine. Like, once you get used to it, they're pretty lightweight. Um, the frame is made of titanium and like,

they're kind of plastic and rubbery. So like, they're not heavy at all. And you can hear the world around you. And so this is not something that I would wear, you know, if I was like going to sit down and listen to some music, but I think for exercising out in the world, this is a nice, a nice alternative. And one thing that I realized after the second or third time I used them was with, with AirPods, at least, if you get sweaty, like, it kind of feels gross after a while. Like,

maybe this is just me or TMI or something, but it's like my ears feel hot. And, you know, this is like, you know, ears are just open. And, and it, it seems also to me, I don't know how true this actually is. But as someone who is very mindful about his hearing, I, I feel like this is a better alternative than wearing AirPods at a, at a higher volume. Right. Yeah. But some important follow-up, the open fit air, they are not bone conduction. Oh, they're actual headphones.

But they're open. Like, so they're, they kind of don't go, they like go on your ears and they, they kind of have a speaker that plays into your ear, but they don't, they're closer to headphones. Okay. That's cool. So it says, open fit isn't a bone conduction headphone. It uses direct pitch, a brand new audio experience made for open fit. It allows for premium audio quality that perfectly balances blah, blah, blah. But that's weird to me though. Like, you're the bone conduction

company. And now they're not doing that. But these are still open. So you can hear, but I guess it will probably sound better, but it will sound better than the bone conduction stuff. But, there you know, interesting. Yeah. So you think, because you didn't, I mean, on like up until the very end of your little mini review that you didn't seem to cane on them, but it sounds like you might use them instead of iPods now when you're walking around. I think the tradeoff is worth it. I think

is like a standalone in isolation thing. Like, this is not something I'm going to use sitting at my desk. But I think on my bike, the trade officer are probably worth it to be able to hear more clovery around me. Yeah, especially on the Bible about when you're walking. I think though, I think the walking could be like 50, 50 air pods or this. I think both are fine. And especially

as I've talked about, I'll just use one and switch it depending on what I'm doing. I could tell you, if I were walking like, I mean, like in a city city, like downtown Chicago or something, I would wear these way before I ever wore air pods on like busy city streets. You know, you've been in my neighborhood like, I live in a, I live in the middle of the city, but it's a suburban type neighborhood. Walking out, I don't ever feel like is a huge safety issue. I'm probably

more mindful of it than I need to be. But in a big city or definitely on the bike, I think these are, these are going to stick around. But they don't sound incredible because they're vibrating your bones. Feels like maybe more podcasts, the music would be the goal for the bun conduction ones. I think it's more maybe better than getting the crunchy mids and the tinny basses and the deep low highs. You're looking forward to music. Yeah, you know, the response curve and the,

did you consider equalizing the range? Yeah, well, iOS doesn't have a bone conduction setting. So, it's a shame. You're going to lose out in the sound stage. I will say it, it, using a regular Bluetooth headphones, it's done that in a long time since air pods have come out. The air pods experience is really good. You just open them and they work, right? And yeah, this is like, you got to turn them on and you got a paramet. The auto pairing is really fast and they have their

own volume controls separate from the phone, which is like not something air pods have. I guess air pods max do. Why would you want that? I think it just gives you a better or a bigger range because you can turn the headphones up and down and then also the phone up and down. Or maybe it's just because these things are universal, right? They work with all phones. Maybe that's more important on the Android side. I'm not sure. Air pods max only has its own

audio control when it's plugged in via the cable. Okay. So when you're connected to an iPhone, it controls the system volume. Okay. That makes sense. So yeah, not earth shattering in turn to sound quality, but they are for a job, right? I think the job that they do is important. Is that shocksing to you? No, not really.

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flexible financing program for a few more weeks. Head on over to NetSuite in ETSUIT.netSuite.com slash connected. I thanks NetSuite for the support of the show and relay FM. The information is reporting that Apple is shifting focus away from a Vision Pro 2 towards a Vision product, a cheaper lighter, per-down version of a Vision OS headset. Apparently they're aiming

for a $1,500 price tag, which is $2,000 less than the current one. Although they are apparently struggling to decide what exactly gets cut from the experience with a product kind of aim to be on the market by the end of 2025. What's your take on this? What's your initial feeling on this? I mean, I think a lot of the Vision Pros issues in the market are price-based. I think a lot of

it comes down to that. $3,500 is a lot of money. That means the user base is small, which means developers have a harder time justifying a big expensive development project to support it. It means that the media stuff also isn't there because the user base is small. If it is cheaper, more people will use it. That doesn't fix all of the Vision Pros issues, but it sure seems like it's like the top of the list. I think if Apple can remix this product into something that is

noticeably more affordable, it is good for everybody. Good for Apple, good for users, good for developers. I agree with your statement, but I still think $1,500 is the same problem. I do not feel like a $1,500 price tag is going to result in materially different sales to $3,500 in a way that would make the platform significantly more successful. I mean, two grand last, yes, 1,500 is still expensive, but that's my point. It's MacBook, you know,

iPad Pro Territory, not 16 of MacBook Pro Territory. Right, but the price to make a difference is $500. That's the point. Like, if they can't get this product down to the price of a quest, it won't work. Maybe. I just feel like I am very aware of the fact that $1,500 is $2,000 less than $3,500, right? I know that, obviously, but I just don't think that the amount of people that are like, oh, man, I would buy it if only it was $1,500 would be high enough to give them

the critical mass that they want. That's the problem, right? The problem is there aren't a lot of apps and excitement about this thing because they can't sell enough of them. And I personally are not convinced that $1,500 is that tipping point? It may not be. Because that's still a lot of money. That's more than an iPhone. Not that much more than an iPhone. But it's still more than an iPhone. And you know what iPhones have? Apps. It's more than an iPad, right? Yeah.

I say, and iPads have apps, right? I just think that this is great. Like, get it down, but my feeling is, don't expect that a $1,500 version of a Vision headset is going to be the thing that saves Vision, quote unquote, saves Vision OS, right? That's my read on it anyway. I just don't think that $1,500 in that market is low enough.

It may not be. To me, though, like looking at the Vision Pro, trying to figure out where to grand or to your point, I guess $3,000 worth of stuff is to take out is hard to work out for me. Like, I think there's some things we could talk about. Like, can they make it out of cheaper material that would also be lighter? That would be great. But how much is aluminum and glass? Like, how much money does that cost? Does it cost $1,000? You know, I don't think so.

Well, if they, well, the other thing is if they get rid of the eyesight feature, which I think they would, because like, I don't think that's meaningful in the way Apple thinks it is, then you don't need glass on the front. You don't need the screen on the front. You don't need the processing for all that stuff. So I don't know. I think there's a good, there's a good replacement for that, which is like a similar kind of display that's on the HomePod,

which is clearly like a low quality display. Yeah, but it looks cool. But it looks cool. I think that they will and I think should continue to have something on the front of the Vision A Vision headset, which indicates that somebody is aware of you. And that could just be color.

Right? Like, there's no, if, you know, if someone's gone through the breakthrough thing where it currently shows your eyes, maybe it shows that kind of like, like gradient color thing that's on the product anyway when it's in use, like when someone's in like full immersion, like maybe it could do that. Or maybe they could just use Apple Intelligence to create some fake eyes that are just like that. But I think the whole lenticular thing, that's all not needed. Right? Like,

because and I think it worked if it worked better. It doesn't work well enough. Right? Like that effect is not good enough to justify its inclusion. When that effect could have been good enough, I would have said that yeah, it makes sense because I actually really like the idea of like the theory of it, right? Which is allowing people to still communicate with you in a way that feels somewhat natural if it work well. Right? But I don't think it works well enough

to justify its inclusion, but something to indicate that that's easy, right? Get rid of that. What changed the materials? But I think that if they do anything that cuts down on the sensors and the visual fidelity inside the headset, that's a massive mistake for me. Okay. I think the experience of using the Vision Pro is kind of all it is. Like, when you use one, you're like, wow, that is so much better than anything else. And if they change that,

they can't compete because the quest is so close and it's so much cheaper. And what makes the quest close is like they have versions of all of these things, right? They're just not as high powered, but then it also has so many games and so many apps, which Apple doesn't have. So I think when she stacked them up against each other, if you reduce the quality of the experience, I think that they fall down a little bit. Like if it's lower resolution and the sensors on as good,

I mean, then what do you have? Like what's left? Yeah. So it's complicated. It's a very complicated thing to do. It is complicated. I think something else Apple has going for them. It's not the three grand worth of price maybe they need to find, but technology generally does get cheaper over time.

And that in the long term will benefit them. That doesn't help them in the next year. So probably that much, especially when you're looking at, okay, well, the thing has the M2 is that good enough, like one thing that's coming with the with Sequoia and Vision OS to the like ultra-wide-screen Mac pass through. A lot of that processing is going to take place on the Mac because I assume the Vision Pro can't do it fast enough. It's like, okay, like even though you've got to move the

ball forward, some things will get cheaper. You can remove some things. You can change things about the design and maybe all of that stuff adds up to where they can get it down. I guess it's not surprising that they would want to do that. And I think this story, a lot of people were like, oh gosh, they're not doing Vision Pro 2. Well, no, I think the Vision Pro just going to hang out for a long time. I don't think this product was ever going to be anything in the near future that

was an annual cycle type thing. And if they do an error or whatever they call it, that's less expensive and cut down in some way, then the Pro is hanging out there as the nice one. And then maybe they merge in the future. Maybe they don't. I don't know if Apple even knows that yet, right? Like, is this going to be a two-tier platform or does Apple look at what they're able to do at a lower cost and say, you know what? This is actually good enough. And the market may say the same

thing. I would say somebody who bought one of these things, the idea that it would stick around for a few years is fantastic. Yeah. So like, I'm happy about that. The Vision Pro is just like here for like three years, four years. Like, that would be wonderful. And the thing about getting cheaper over time, my understanding of how this works is part of it is because of volume.

That does help. And well, they're not doing volume. So like, I'm not sure how the technology for the Vision headsets get cheaper over time based on everything I think I know about the way that technology gets cheaper. Yeah. Well, like, right now it's a dual processor system, right? You have the M2 and these are the R1. The R1. Yeah. You know, is there a world I just don't know? Is there a world where M5, M6, M7 comes down the line and they bring in what the R1 does

into that chip? Like, I guarantee you going from a dual processor, a single processor system will bring the cost down. Now, does that make sense for Apple and Apple Silicon and their time frames? Like, who knows? But here's a question I have for you because I don't understand all these things work. All right. So let's imagine that you put what's in the R chip into the M chip. Does that not make the M chip more expensive? It may, but does it offset having two? Like,

we just don't know, right? These are all possibilities. But then doesn't it potentially increase the cost of every M chip they make in all of their products and it's wasted because only the Vision Pro uses the stuff that's in the R, but yet you're putting them into iPads. Well, you could say that about the M4 and the iPad Pro, right? Like, hey, oh, I don't know. Safari snappy. I will say like, I will say it like genuinely, like, that iPad feels powerful

when I use it. It does. It feels like it's like steaming through everything I thought. Yeah. It's a swall iPad. It really, like, you know, I know that there's not necessarily a lot of things to do with it, but like it does feel like stuff is happening fast on that product. And maybe with Apple, like the Apple intelligence stuff will be really quick on it, you know? You don't see why it wouldn't be. It's just, it's just me and I feel a lot of it's happening

on device. I feel like the faster your processor, the better you'll experience that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, these are all open into questions, right? We don't know the answers to. But I think our big point is there's lots of things about the Vision Pro that seem like they could be simplified or change over time. I think when they design this product, clearly, it is at the edge of what's doable for them in terms of technology, right? Like,

the Vision Pro feels like it feels very solid. I don't hear it. I'm not saying. But you get the sense that it can't do much more than it's doing. That makes sense. And Hey, you know what? Actually, I will agree with you in a sense of how often I'm doing the things that it should be doing and my eyes are getting a nice little breeze. Right? Like, I'm just in an environment with four apps open and like, it's fine, but you know,

the fan is going. Right. It's more when you take it off. You know, yeah. I guess the thing is working out. Which is fine. Like, it's doing it. It's doing it. It's doing it. It is doing some incredibly complicated, assuming the most probably the most complicated computer I have ever used for like what it is doing. Yeah. Just to exist. Like, it's idling must be madness. Yeah, because it's never, it's never really idling, right? It's always doing pass through and

all these things. Yeah. Like, just just its base level of compute has got to be higher than my Mac. Like, just what it is looking for and handling at any moment. So, you know, maybe as vision OS gets better, they won't need so much power. Right? And like, as well, like, I think I heard someone said us at some point, like, the more data they gather from the sensors, potentially they need less sensors in the future, because they can build better models for detecting the pictures and

stuff like that, which would make sense, right? That like, over time, you, you, if you were, if you, the more data you have, maybe the less hard you need to look for the, for each gesture. And look, I'm just going to say again, like, I am, I am a big fan of the Vision Pro. I was using the Vision Pro like an hour today. I was watching a Skillshare course and taking notes on it. And it was fantastic. I'm watching Aaron Drapplin's Skillshare courses, by the way.

Oh, man. So good. There was a video. I'm going to put it in the show notes that they put on their YouTube channel of him giving a tour of his office. I know what I'm doing. And yeah, and it's a fantastic video. And then it made me think, it was perfect really, because they did exactly what it was supposed to do, right? I watched a video and I was like, maybe I should, maybe I should see what those courses are about. And so here I am. I'm on the,

I'm on the free trial for Skillshare right now. There you go. But so yeah, it's really good. It's very good video. I'll put it in the show notes. It's definitely with watching. And so then I was like watching, I was just taking some notes and stuff. And I was like, this is great. Like, there was a huge video screen, huge notes screen. And I was just rocking a rolling, you know. And we'll say again, it's like, man, sometimes using the compatible apps with eye tracking is

so complicated and difficult sometimes. Like, I don't know what it is that's making that happen. But I'm using like Vision OS apps, no problem. But I was using, I was using notion. And it's like trying to get it to select the thing that I'm looking at. It's like so complicated. But I have the same problem with like to do as well. Like I have to use the trackpad for those. Which is fine, but I wish that that wasn't the case. But I'm just assuming it is just like just either something

to do with the translation or that maybe there needs to be a little bit more of a gap. Maybe you can tell me actually maybe there needs to be more of a gap between elements. Do you have any sense for this? I think a lot of it is that the targets are too close together. Right. Because it's based for, you know, it's, it's based for touch or a cursor. And using the trackpad does basically solve it. Yeah, because then it becomes a cursor. But it's in a way that you, if you were making a

Vision OS app, you would maybe give a little bit more spacing between certain elements. I think I'm over the issue. That makes sense. That makes sense. But yeah, I mean, like I was sitting at the end. It's like, this is the best way for me to do the one I'm doing right now is how I felt. Like, and I really like, I really enjoy the things that I do on the Vision Pro. But the Apple is in

like, they're not even in like a chicken and egg situation. It's like they have a box of eggs and a hot of chickens because it's like they need to sell more devices to entire small developers. But they also need to entire small developers to sell more devices. Yeah. But they also need to make the technology cheaper so they can make different versions and make the price cheaper. But I think they need to sell more units to make the technology cheaper. So like,

there's so many problems with this device. I think really only Apple can fix it because the way you fix something like this is patience and money. And the money gives them patience. So they can just wait it out if they, but they got to commit at the same time. You can't just be like, uh, we just want bother. You can't TV OS this. Right. You've got to like, right? Because they, they put a lot of effort into the Apple TV and then they just stopped.

Yep. And the Apple TV is fine. It's like fine. But it could be so much more. But it's just whatever it's just out there. They can't do that to the Vision Pro, I think. They want it to be successful. And I think they have the opportunity to make it successful. But it's just going to take a lot of effort. But I also don't know if they're willing to put that effort in. Yeah. I mean, it is, it is a multifaceted

situation for them. And I think Apple is still very dedicated to the platform. I mean, if you look through the WAPDC sessions, there's a ton of stuff in there for Vision OS, for developers and designers like they are still very much engaged with this. I look probably six months in. Like it's pretty mature to call anything dead after six months. And we're not saying that it is. Apple's investing. But I do think the cost

bring that down. I think it's as close to a magic bullet for this as anything. I agree. Speaking of cost, Mike, I have a quiz for you. Yeah. Fantastic. Which Mac is right for you? I would like us to both take this quiz together. So this is, what is this? Is this just like on the, like, buy a Mac page on Apple.com? Yeah. Yeah. It's just going to, if you go to Apple.com slash Mac, there is a, there's a link to it. Yeah. Help me choose. And then it goes to this quiz.

All right. So first question. Tell us what will you use your Mac for? And the options are essentials every day stuff and entertainment. I like stuff. That's the word. The work powering my profession, education, taking my studies further and creative hobbies, making and creating away from work. I think for me, it is essentials and work. I think essentials work and creative hobbies for me. Okay. So I was stuck on this. So creative hobbies, making and creating away from work.

Is there any creating that you do that isn't work? I mean, you know, I'd like to think that I go and take pictures sometimes. That aren't. I will use iOS apps for these things. Okay. For me, I like to take pictures of photos, oh, sorry, pictures of photos. I like to take pictures of buildings and just crank the saturation up and add in some film grain. That's my thing. But I don't do that on my Mac. Okay. So, okay. Okay. Question two. What are your day-to-day essentials?

And there's a long list here? Oh, no, it looks like it's a long list. With the list scrolls, which I didn't realize the first time I did this. How does it scroll? I can't scroll it. I mean, you just you scroll like you just scroll down. It's like it scrolls within the web page. It's really bad. It's like an iframe. They jammed in here.

I can't get it to scroll. Are you on the Mac? Yeah. Oh, you scroll like when you're on the gray background because it cuts off after streaming movies and music, but there's more under there. It's not scrolling. Do you have content blockers turned on? I do. Yeah, I would turn that off. But I've whitelisted Apple.com. I don't see if that's it. Hold on. Well, you're going to end up with Mac Minions. It's going to be this website. I know. It's going to be sad.

Yeah, that works. No, it works. Okay. So day-to-day essentials, I'll read them and then we say yes or no. Okay. I just want to stay for the record. So I put my stuff on record. I actually don't block ads. I block things like this. Yeah. That's what I don't have. I block and turn it on for any website. I block like pop-ups and weird things and like auto-play videos and comments. I actually do block

comments. Yeah, I do. That's what I do. I also block the main reason that I use in a blocker or like a blocker is I wanted to block myself from going to websites that made me feel bad. Okay. So it stops me. Like the banks are like certain subreddits more than anything else. Mm. All right. So carrying on. All right. So carrying on. All right. So carrying on. Line of stack tips. You don't want to go there. Yeah. No, there's no comments. All right.

But it's just that thing where like I go to a subreddit and then the thing pops up and I'm like, oh yeah, don't go there. Yeah. All right. So what are your day-to-day essentials? I do browse online. I do browse online. Who doesn't really at this point? I don't know, man. Social media. Yeah. Yeah. Emails. Emails. Yeah. Video chatting. Yeah. I guess. On a Mac. Yeah, I guess. So I guess I'm going to do all of my Zoom calls. I'm going to say for work. Yes. Yeah.

Streaming movies and music. YouTube? Counts, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. I always forget YouTube. But yes, all the time. Gaming. No one does that on the Mac. Multi-tasking across apps. I do do that. I have been known to do it. And other, I guess other. I don't know what it will be, but there's definitely something in here that they haven't told me. I have a question. What? Okay. What Mac does it recommend if you don't

multitask? Is it just getting iPad? What Mac is right for me? The iPad 10th generation. I guess at that point, you're just going to be told MacBook Air, right? Like I feel like if you don't multitouch, it's just going to tell you how you get a MacBook Air. Like always. Okay. Okay. Okay. So okay. Moving on. So okay. I haven't done this yet. And don't ask my question yet. But the thing I'm really intrigued about is if they actually ask me any form factor questions.

Like at the moment, I'm getting the sense it's just going to ask me what I do on my Mac. But like, is it like I can't just tell me like, oh, get a Mac studio. Like that's not. We'll find out. We'll find out. We'll see. What sort of things do you do at work? Create documents? Yes. Planning, organizing. I have been known to do both. That's a common sample. Come on. I'm going to say yes for design, even though I like the iPad.

More for that. But I do with like PDFs and stuff. Yeah. Photography and image editing. No, not for me. Audio production. Yes. Come on. Let's go. Video production. They even had it. The video production. I mean, if I do any, it's on the Mac. Sure. Yeah. What about coding, computing? I mean, I do computing. I mean, what does that mean? What is computing? I don't know. I want to say yes. I mean, I guess I do do some computing.

3D design. No other. Yes. Is there any more? I'm going to say yeah for other. Yeah. Because you know what isn't here, Stephen? Blogging. There's no blogging on there. Yeah. Well, that's that's creating documents. Is it? It's audio production. Screaming into the void. Sure. Almost finished. Final three questions. Coding computing. Interesting. Yeah. I did. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And where will you use your Mac?

Oh, I got a different question next. Oh, I got. How do you get creative outside of work? Oh, because I told it. I do stuff outside of work. Okay. Yeah. Editing photos. Outside of work. Editing photos. I think that's basically it. The other options are creating content. That's work. Designing sketching. I don't do that for fun. Coding. I don't do that for fun. Making music. I don't do that. Making videos. They're for work. I'm going to say editing photos and

other. Press. Okay. Okay. Now almost finished. Final three questions. Where will you use your Mac? I don't like this question. I don't like it. It's always in a fixed place like my desk or around my home out and about on long journeys. This is the do we give you a desktop or a laptop question? See, I don't like this question because the answer is yes to both of them. Right. Okay. I tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to take this quiz now as if it is actually the

next Mac that I want to buy. Okay. And if I'm answering it for that, it's always in a fixed place. Yeah. Because you're looking for a desktop next. Well, I have given up the desktop life and I'm using laptops now. And so I'm going to say around my home and out and about. Yeah, but you see, what they're not there is no answer for like at work here, which is weird. Yeah. You see if you're at your home or out and about. Yeah. This is a little that's weird. This is a weird. They've

they've gone weird here. All right. So okay. Okay. Well, you plug in any of the following. Do you get that too? Yes. Hmm. Displays. Yes. External storage. Yes. Media equipment, including microphones. Little microphone. Yes. Do do that. Other accessories. Yes. Yes. Okay. Okay. Lastly, do you have a budget in mind? Wow. This is really finally cut. So I see up to a thousand up to 1250 up to 1500 up to 2000 up to 2500 up to 3000 up to 3500 up to 3500 up to 3500. I wonder what my current

Mac would forecast asking me a budget is weird because I don't know what I want yet. Yeah, but I think a lot of people have a hard number when they go shopping for these sorts of things. But I could imagine that it's like the Mac is three grand or it's like 3100. If I add more ram and then I'd be like, oh, I'll get more ram. Yeah, maybe. But I'm going to say up to 3000 dollars. I don't think I would want to spend more than that. But I also have not priced out my ideal Mac

studio yet. So I have absolutely. I'll say I was trying to see how much I spent on my current Macbook Pro because it has the eight terabytes and that really made it expensive. A million dollars. Yeah, probably. I'm trying to find it in my email. Generally, you should just you should just pick the 500 and over. You should just do that because let's be honest about what that computer probably cost you and it was probably over the

500. It probably was. Okay, I'll click that. Okay. Okay. I'm going to do up to 3000. Finding your program. Finding my perfect matches. This is what hinges like. Okay. Mac studio. I also did offer me a MacBook Pro though. I got two 16 inch MacBook Pro configurations. One in three Macs, 48 gigabytes of memory, one terabyte SSD, and then the same thing, but with 36 gigabytes of memory. So $4,000 or $3,500. So for up to 3000 dollars, I got my top choice. It's a Mac studio with

an M2 Macs with 32 gigs of memory and 512 gigabytes SSD. That doesn't seem right. No. Because it's only two grand. Surely I could have increased the storage space. Where's that of a thousand dollars going to go? That's weird. I'm going to come back to that in a second. Then I got MacBook Pro M3 Pro with 36 gigs of memory and 512 gigabytes SSD for 2900. The 14 inch or 16 inch. Well, I said it was at my desk, right? So they give me maximum power.

I guess. With a little bit of flexibility, which makes sense. Or if I have a flexible budget for 3500, I could get an M3 Macs with 36 gigs of memory and a terabyte SSD. So I'm going to the Mac studio now and it says so I got like M2 Macs, 32 gigs of memory. Yes, I could put like two terabytes more storage in here and I'm still under $3,000 budget.

Hmm. I just call though, I like this. I do like this. But I think what I would do is probably the base M2 Macs, which would be an M4 Macs, which is 12 cores CPU, 30 cores GPU, 16 core, noranogen, 64 gigabytes of RAM, two terabytes SSD, and then I'm bang on the 3 grand. So come on Apple, you could price me up a little bit. You give me a $1,000 discount. Mm-hmm. But also, five hundred and 12 gigabyte SSD is just not enough.

No, it's not. It really isn't. And so it's very weird that they would suggest that when I have a $1,000 headroom budget was. But this is cool though. I like this. I think that this is really good considering how many Macs there are and how complicated I think the Mac lineup is to somebody who's new. Like, what do you go for? Yeah, yeah, it's pretty cool. I saw a lot of people talking about this and saying that no matter what they did,

they could not get a Mac Mac Pro. I tried that. I tried it last night and it would not recommend the Mac Pro to me. And I owned one. It is a really good reason for this. It's not a very good computer anymore. It's not for anyone. No. Well, you won as a Mac studio. They already make it. I mean, if there was a question, do you need wheels on your computer? Yeah. Yeah. Do you need extra space in your computer that you can't put anything in?

Because all boy do we have the computer for you? Do we? Do we ever? Would you like the idea that you could possibly use graphics cards that we don't support? If I got the computer just for you, would you like to rack mount your computer? I would. Then again, I have the computer just for you. You know, a sick would be to have a rack under my desk with a Mac Pro in their sideways. You know what, steeman? It would be sick. You should do that. It would be sick. Well,

the website didn't offer it to me. I would. There was nothing in world that I would love more than a scenario in which we take that quiz and you spend $7,500 on a rack mounted Mac Pro. You know, I'm going to build a rack mounted Mac Pro real quick. Let's see. It starts at $7,500. It's that. I didn't pull that number out. I know where. So $7,500. That's of a 24 core CPU 60 core GPU 32 core neural engine. You don't need to

increase that right now. 64 gigs of rent memory. Do you want more than that? I'm going to 128. Okay. And then eight terabyte SSD. I would like. I have a, I would like to track bad. Okay. I don't need to bring it elsewhere. This computer is $10,549. Wonderful. Holy. And you've got to just go to build. You just got to buy a rack. How much could a rack be? I mean, after 10 grants. Yes, it's steel. It's steel. You could be, we could put it into an IKEA

Calax. I mean, like it looks like a similar shelving. You know, heavy. The Mac Pro is, I think, with collapse. Just put it in a small Calax right at the bottom. So it doesn't tip over. I tell you what I would do, Mike. I would make sure that that calico scoot into the wall for safety. I don't think you'd need to worry about it. I'd like some people. It's so heavy that, yeah, I was thinking about you when I was building this Calax because I can't screw it into the wall.

Oh, you behind you. Yeah. But there's no wall behind that. So there's nothing to screw it to. Yeah. And I was thinking about you. Apple calls it the Mac Pro rack. I hate that name. Yeah. It's called the rack pro. The rack pro is sitting right there. Like, well, literally. But where does it say that? Because I just see Mac Pro, Mac Pro in the title of the tab. Oh, yeah. Rack pound. Yeah. Because I put it in the show. And it pulled it. Mac Pro rack. Mac Pro rack. By Mac Pro rack. By Mac power.

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But you can get 25% off your membership by going to FitBod.me slash connected. That's FitBod F-I-T-B-O-D. FitBod.me slash connected for 25% off your membership. Our thanks to FitBod for the support of the show and relay FM. Okay, you've done the thing. Yeah, man. Yeah, man. And on our federica not being here, I reviewed headphones and you have returned to the multi-pad lifestyle. I've gone from an iPad mini to two iPad Pros. What's going on?

I'm going to start off by saying I am in love with the O that iPad Pro. It's so good. It is. You know, every now and then, I feel like this happens. We obviously love computers, but sometimes a specific device comes along and you're just in love with it. I felt this way about the M2 MacBook Air. I felt this way about the iPhone 12, I think. Which is, that was the first one that got the flat sides, I think. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't happen often, but it happens.

And I actually felt like I felt this way about the iPad mini when I first got the newest iPad mini. And I feel this way about the 11 inch iPad Pro. Everything I want to use an iPad for, it's so good. Like, the screen is incredible. I love watching things on it. I love reading comics on it because the colors are so good. It's so thin, it's so light, which makes it so easy to use. I am really enjoying the extra screen space for the things that I'm using it on.

Like, it's actually come to be really good. I just, I get real joy out of using it because of how comfortable it is to use. I have not had an iPad Pro for a really, really, really long time. Like, I have not used an iPad Pro before now for like nearly four years. Like, I stopped using my iPad Pro, stop using the iPad and then move to the iPad mini. Like, and I had an iPad Air, yeah, which was just like a testing device. Like, iPad OS and whatever. And I tried to find various uses.

Like, I tried doing that thing that David does and having like a second screen under my Mac, but that didn't really last like, you know, none of these things lasted. But the iPad Pro, like, I've not used with any like, seriousness for a long time, like multiple years now, which is like the longest since it came out, right? I always was on the iPad Pro because I used to use an iPad Pro as a laptop essentially, right? That was like a big thing for me for a long time.

And I think one I had forgotten how good that can be to use like a big iPad. I used the Apple pencil all the time for like just navigating. God, never used hover. Oh my God, using the web with a hover Apple pencil is fantastic. Because it's like having a cursor, right? You can like hover over things and things show up. Like, the chance in member form or whatever, right? I can use the the Apple pencil hover and it shows me the numbers on the chance and stuff like that. Like, it's great.

And just like using a hover Apple pencil to take notes and stuff is really nice because you see it shows where you're going to actually shows a dot where you're going to be. So like, well, that stuff's really good. And so because of this, I was like, oh, this is like really good for design stuff. Like, I kind of forgotten about like, and I had been using my Mac and I've been drawing things out on paper and taking pictures of them and sending them to my director, the designer.

We use a cortex brand, which is fine. And it works, but it's not ideal always. Like, sometimes it's really nice to be able to draw a square and the computer make it exactly square for me, you know? Make all my line straight and stuff like that. Yeah. So then I was finding over the last few weeks that I've been, because we're working on, I mean, like a heavy design period right now. And on a couple of multiple new products that are in different stages of development.

And so I've been bringing my iPad to and from the studio every day, because I like using it at home, that my iPad is now becoming the device. It's replaced my iPad mini is like, it's the device I use most at home, like more than my iPhone. Okay. And this I was taking it back with the four to I could some forwards, which was fine. But I didn't really like needing to do that, because now it's two computers that I'm taking back with some forwards and my backpack every day.

So I'm at my MacBook Air and my iPad. And then also it's like the 11 inches great, but you know what's better than 11, 13 for like size for designing stuff, especially because if I want to try and make things that are true to life, like all of our product, like the sidekick no pad is like a is bigger than the 11, right, is closer in size to the 13. So like if I want to try and get things that still not one to one scale, but close enough, what apps are using for this sort of work?

It's a combination of Apple notes. I use a lot because I just like Apple's drawing tools, primarily. I've tried out good notes a little bit, but I still just prefer Apple's drawing tools. Is Apple done? I'm using most actually to just do the drawings and then I'll take those drawings and put them into other places like notions and them in Slack and stuff like that.

And obviously I've used Procreate a little bit and I have free form on my iPad home screen, which I feel like will be good to try out for something like a design product, like project, like to make some mood boards and stuff. I've yet to use that yet, but it's what I want to use. It's drawing tools are all the same as Apple notes with some additional goodies. Oh, that's very good. I would love recommendations, by the way.

People could write in with recommendations if you have like different tools, different apps that you like for this kind of work. So basically, Clotx brand bought a 13-inch iPad Pro that now is here at the studio and lives here at the studio. And I've set it up as fresh, which is nice. It's like all this has on it is stuff for this work. And it's also come at like a perfect time because I've made all the changes to my studio

that I wanted to make. So I've now like rearranged stuff. So my recording setup is different and I have the different, I have the calax behind me, which has got stuff video, which also means I've brought in a standing height table, which I'm using for design. And like I have all of this table which is covered in the stuff that I'm working on,

which is great. And it's a very tactile table, right? I have like a cutting man, I'm cutting things with paper and I've got rulers and products and I'm picking them up, putting them down, picking them up, putting them down. And the iPad fits so nicely in that mode of work for me because it's a computer, which is substantial and I'm picking it up, doing something with it, putting it down, picking it up, taking a picture, you know, like it feels

very natural in that kind of working environment for me. So it stays here. No keyboards. I am personally not an iPad keyboard believer, because this is not whatever I want. It doubles the weight of the iPad. It's harder to put it into the arrangements that I want for watching things. For me, I just don't want it because it's not the type of work that I'm doing. Yeah, I'm trying to use this 13-inch iPad Pro. It's like a very focused computer.

Yesterday, I had someone send me a message and it was for a relay stuff. I have signed in just to realize like there. And it meant I had to go and use Google Sheets. I didn't have Google Sheets on that iPad. So I thought about downloading it. I was like, no, and I got up and I walked to my other desk and I opened Google Sheets on my Mac and did it there. It's like I'm trying to keep this as much as it can be like a it is for the work that is done

on this table. Similarly, tomorrow, I'm going to a meeting with one of our manufacturers. And I'm going to take that iPad with me because it's got all of the stuff on it in the way that makes sense to me for that work. So I'm just going to put it in my bag and I'll take it good to the meeting, come back here tomorrow. So I come trying to make it not just a device that is

for one location, but a device that is for one type of work. And I feel like the iPad Pro is like the best tool for that work in the same way that like I am talking to you right now on a Mac that I only use for audio production. So this Mac is set up slightly differently to the Mac we care that they use. I'm very much like devices that have purpose. And so yeah, I'm really happy

with this is wild for me to return to the multi-pad lifestyle. It is. I'm happy about the fact that looking at the way that the iPad has been over the last few years that I can have both of these things and not need to replace them for like four years or longer because if we think about the last like the last meaningful change there, the pro actually happened in like 2018. Yeah. And I feel like

I could hold these iPads for as long, but I'm loving it. Like these devices are amazing. And then having them both of these things for the purposes that they are like one is more entertainment focused and then one is more design work focused. It's been great for me. And the discord for members Emma suggests you check out concepts. So I definitely will have scale entertainment tools. I think they sponsor Mac stories. Yeah, I think so. I think

you have become a bit before you've become Apple's ideal customer now. You just have a bunch of Apple products floating around and you just move in between them. If you're using continuity, boy, they would just love you. I guess I probably do, right? Yeah. But you know, I have this up in notes on my iPad and I come over to the Mac and it's there in the dock and it sounds nice though. You're living life. I think that this is a thing that Apple does and they

do really well. Like that you can use multiple devices and use them really well together. I actually think that it that they they design their products to work that way in a way that maybe all the people don't. Yeah, I think it's fair. Well, congratulations on the corporate purchase. I have one last thing I want to talk to you about. Okay. I know you don't want to do it. So I'm making you do. We're not going to talk about AI and Apple intelligence. I want to talk about

talking about it. Perfect. And I feel like the passionate ones are good audience to have this conversation in front of. So like I'm talking a lot about AI, right? And like this week, we did a big episode of upgrade where we're essentially just reading feedback and talking about it. It's very good. It's a thing that I asked for. Thank you. And then I also published Cortex and like the YouTube comments are just like pop enough. And so I feel like right now I'm in this like

fog of opinions around AI. And I'm also like surrounded by people who have various feelings about it all, right? Like we spoke about it a little bit last week, but Federico and John and Mac stories are like they're really pushing hard against large language model training. They are for creative work. I feel like I have some friends and I think I'm going to put you in this camp and you can tell me if I'm wrong, who are like mostly apathetic to the features. Yeah, I think that's

broadly okay to say. Right. But like I'm not talking about your feelings about it, but just like the features themselves, you're kind of just like whatever. And like Jason is very interested about a lot of the features. And I feel like I kind of sit somewhere in the middle of a lot of these things. And everybody has their own middles and I can not try and put anyone in boxes, but just like at least for the things that people are talking about. And what I am noticing

is people have very strong opinions on this stuff. And it's in every direction. Like I think people hear me say that and they're like, yeah, everyone, like I have a very strong opinion about this and everybody else has my strong opinion about this. And listen, let me tell you that's not the case, right? Like there are there are strong opinions in all sides and there are strong

opinions about other people's strong opinions. Like I have people writing into me right now or leave in comments who like can't believe and they're like so outraged at the fact that anyone might not like this stuff. Right. So like there are people are angry. And then I'm also getting similar comments from people who like can't believe that anybody would like it. Right. So it's you know, people have feelings about feelings. And I feel like up until now with the shows that we make,

we have been able to kind of look at it, talk about it, make observations about AI. But the fact that Apple wasn't in this space, it was just like, you know, there's this thing, there, there, there, we move on. But now Apple is in this camp and they're in it big time, right? So I guess we have to start making choices and drawing lines. Like do we use the features? Like how much do we use them? What do we use them for? Do we review these features? Do we talk

about the features? If we like them, do we hype them up and say they're really good? And then I have a bunch of other questions, which are do we lose audience for this? Do we gain audience for this? Do people carry the way? Do we get tired of feedback? Does the type of feedback that we get change? Does our relevancy as content creators changes the result of how we approach these subjects? All of this is what I'm referring to in my mind right now is like the AI fog that like

there are all these questions and opinions out there. And I don't, I don't know what to do about it, but I feel like we have like three months to work in. Maybe a little bit longer. Actually, maybe Apple's going to be gracious to us and give us a year. But like what, what is your initial feeling about this idea at least, this nebulous thing that I'm talking around? No, I think it's definitely a thing. And that's what I was getting at a little bit last time.

And I was like, it's okay that we can have conflicting complicated opinions and we just all need some grace with each other. Because look, having opinion about anything technology that's cranked to 11 historically doesn't age well. I think we've all, who do this for a living have learned that our minds will change on things as things change. And having an absolute stance on anything with

few exceptions, generally that's not a long-term play that works out. Well, what I really enjoyed in hearing you say that was how you realized you were making an absolute stance and then realized that the internet, like this is, but this is what it's like sometimes to create content. It is. It is. If you make any kind of statement, you have to qualify it. And the moment, which is ridiculous sometimes. I think everyone should just take a breath. First of all, be like,

the stuff is not going to kill us all. It's fine. But people do have strong feelings about it. And yeah, I don't know how to approach that on the shows. I think there's a path where we talk about the features and what they can do. And we've used them and we can talk about them. But even that in this case feels like a land mine. And I wish that it didn't. My biggest wishes that people would just calm down because everyone's just amped up all the time now. And that's

not good for anybody. Everyone will calm down. I guarantee you that any years. I think it's going to feel like it because you think about what it was like a year ago. It was worse than this. But it was just in different areas. Like the more the more people use these features, the more people are going to start calming down. And there will be some people that won't. But like that's just with any technology change. And you said a minute ago about making statements in an age where

I understand what you mean by that. But I know who I am. And I make a lot of really strong statements about everything all the time. Sure. But I don't care about that because I genuinely feel like if you can't accept that somebody might change their mind on something that I can't help you. You know, that like I can feel very strongly about something today and feel differently about it now. Like you can go back and listen to me talk about generative AI from like October and November

of 2021. Like we did that double header of cortex, right? Yeah. And it was kind of gloomy from what I remember. Oh, it was horrible. Like we were just like I think one of the episodes is called something like AI is like making us into Marion at puppets in more all the world, which is something gray said something along those lines. And I am my opinion is definitely soft. My opinion is softened because

I use the tools, right? And like me of then was thought that I would never use them. But I use them because I see benefit in them. And like I know that I'm going to use and I look forward to using something some of the tools and Apple intelligence because some of the features that they have shown off I'm very intrigued about. But like I know that but like I'm able to draw my own personal line, right?

I've though I've been very clear on this. I think the image generation stuff is terrible and they should right? We just play around specifically and that they should not do it. They should not ship it in my So what you're describing there is nuance. And that's what that's what gets lost in YouTube comments and angry emails and you know, pieces of feedback that are that are too heated. And how do we, I mean, that is the question, right? How do we have nuance in these conversations

when some people think that there is no room for nuance? And like that, my friend is a question much bigger than AI. That is and okay, to sound, this is whatever, that's Twitter's fault. That is short term that is short form social media's fault. It's social media's fault. And and you know, we look, we used it as long as anybody else. And we have to I think where we should I think break free of that some because I actually, my personal stance is

basically in line with yours. Like I think the tech stuff is good and interesting. And yes, some people will use it too much and you know, send an email with AI to their boss and get fired because it hasn't been appropriate in it. And you know, so be it. I think for Apple, the image generation, some of them they shouldn't have done. I think that's a can of worms. They should not have opened. But they did. And they'll have to deal with the consequences of that when it turns someone's

grandmother into a Nazi or whatever. And no Apple would say, Oh, it can't. But like I'm telling you, whenever this stuff rolls out, there's going to be blog posts and YouTube videos of people. I got it to do this thing. And then Apple's going to know what I know what their problem is going to be. I think I said this on cortex. I have established their issue. Like because they have done, I'm sure a very good job of their God rails to make that stuff not happen because they've made their system

so simple, right? That you can only do people you know, like you can only like make people you know, and they're under these like four styles. Yeah. The issue they're going to run into is because they're recreating people, they're going to get facial features wrong. Yeah. They're going to get skin tone wrong. And that will be offensive. That's going to be their problem. That like they will give somebody somebody's face won't look like their face. And they'll draw it in such a way.

That is offensive. Like I guarantee you right now you can mark this today. That's the problem they're going to have because and I because I genuinely don't think that they can stop that from happening because it's just chance you're rolling the dice every single time, right? That you generate one of these images. And I and like Kate is put so succinctly, I predict to Apple

intelligence is racist headline. Like that's what it's going to be. Yep. But like you're going to have somebody with dark skin and it's going to do their skin tone too light or you know something like that, right? And that's going to be there. In my opinion, that's going to be their issue because it's like, oh, you know, I don't know what right, but it adds a lighting effect or something and make somebody look strange compared to how they look in their photos or something like that.

That's what I predict is going to be. Yeah. Because it's out of the the user's control, right? If you want to change the way you look in a emoji, that's up to you. But with Apple intelligence, it's up to the to the community. And similarly, as soon as you start using a generative a large language model is outside of your control too. Like we've seen this happen. There has not been a image generation model that has not done something like this. Because even sometimes as Google

so right, so easily found out the guard rails can be the problem. Yeah. But like it was like, it wouldn't make white monarchy from Britain. Yeah. It's like, let me tell you something. If there's one thing, the British monarchy has been is white. Yeah. Well, it did the same thing with Nazis, right? It made, um, like Nazis, I think, a, yeah, a very diverse set. I was like, whoa, okay, let's, yeah, let's not go down that road. Yeah. And so there are real problems with AI,

engine or div AI in particular. There are, there will be problems with Apple's implementation, just like everybody else says, despite Apple's best efforts. Despite everyone's best efforts, right? Very few people are going out like, I'm set out to make a racist AI. No, that's just what happens. Like ask, uh, what was it? Microsoft, Tay or whatever it was, like the first one. Um, these things, whoa, that's a deep cut for that. Wow. Yeah, man. That was a long time ago.

You know, it's probably like 2018. It probably won't even that long ago. But it is, it is inherent to these technologies that bad things can happen. And we have to be honest about that. And we have to be honest when it happens to talk about it truthfully. And,

and at the end of the day, like there are going to be people upset no matter what we do. If we don't talk about it, or if we block crawlers from reading our websites, or if we only talk about it, and we embrace and, and these LLMs and cut deals for our content, no matter where we end up on, on those various spectrums, there will be people upset. And, and so I guess the way to do it is just to be as honest and like open with where we think, like the three of us on the show don't

all agree on this, right? Like we have, we have very, like I think we have quite different opinions now. Like I am not doing on five-filled pixels or relay FM what they're doing on Mac stories about the crawling, because it just doesn't, yeah, it doesn't work me up the way that it works them up. And that's totally fine. I think we come out, I'll speak for both of us, we have absolute empathy

and sympathy for the situation that John and Federico upset about. Like I think it, I think what Apple, and I think it, you know, they can speak for it, but it was the Applebot thing that seemed to like spark this in them. Yes. And I understand why, because the way Apple did this was so underhanded. It was bad. It was just bad, like ethically bad to be like, we did this, you can opt out, but it's too light. And so well, they don't even, the problem is giving me the opt out in that scenario.

It's like just like kind of like a slap in the face. Like I think that, to me at least that, that feels like the issue. I don't know what upset me. It wasn't even so much that they did it. It's that they knew that they had to offer an opt out, because that's the right thing to do. But they did it afterwards. Yeah. Oh yeah. I convinced the Apple executives know they did wrong. And they're trying to like sweep it under the rug, because that this is ethically like not even a

gray area, like in my opinion. No, they blew it. They just, they just took advantage of everybody. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I understand their response to that. It's just not my response to it. Even though I think they did it poorly, but like I'm not going out of my way to keep 512 out of those training models, because it doesn't, that just doesn't push my buttons the way it does theirs. And so like, you know, we can be in agreement that we can disagree on things again, nuance.

Yeah. It's like I know that I have a favorite boy that I work of the most upset about image play grounds like I am so upset about it. And I feel like that other people that I would have just like, yeah, I mean, you know, like what does Jason call it fun on your phone? Like which I like that is like, it's fun on your phone. And like that's he can say that's what Apple's going for, but I just

think it's a terrible thing. But like I think that this is the key to this next chapter that we're all moving into is that like, I don't expect that if we're going to talk about Apple intelligence at Federico's going to like quit the show. Right? You know what I mean? Like because I also, I mean, again, I feel like I'm speaking a lot for him. I don't really know his position and stuff right now. I don't know what he's going to do. I hope that he reviews these features. I hope that he uses them

and likes them, honestly, but I don't know where he's going to be about that in September. But I think that's the key, right? I think the key is that we should all be entering into this phase of like we have these opinions right now. And these opinions aren't necessarily going to be the same as yesterday's or tomorrow's because the technology isn't the technology of yesterday is not the

same as technology is tomorrow. That's right. And I think that is why we're in this scenario is that in the age of social media and even podcasting, like there are, we have not gone through something like this. Like the AI moment that we're in right now is unlike anything since I guess the smartphone. Like how much it's going to change? And so I think to try and apply our thinking models of the last 10, 15 years on this is a fool's errand. That's kind of all I want to get out. I feel like I

need to just need to keep talking this stuff out. And I want to be talking it out in front of our audiences. Like I think people need to understand that we don't have answers. And I don't think everybody should have answers. We should just be asking questions. I'm just asking the questions. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's fair. And knowing that, you know, we're going to do so in the, you know, with the in a best faith kind of way, right? Yeah. It's it's the folks who come down

a hundred percent either way that I feel like are missing it. And I don't think this is just too broad, but also too important to do that to not pick it apart and look at it piece by piece and not just at the 10,000 for you. Yeah. Well, I think that does it. If you want to tell us how wrong we are, there's a bunch of ways to do it. You can find us all on threads as Vittici, Vi, T I C C I Mike is I Mike, I am Y K E and I am I semi H 86. You can also

search for us on Macedon using those same handles. Mike is, of course, the host of a bunch of other shows here on RelayFan, we mentioned Cortex and upgrade and go check out his work over at Cortex Brand. Federico is the editor and chief of MacStories.net that doing lots of great work over there. A growing team. I met a bunch of the new MacStories people at WBTC, which was awesome. So they are just rocking, rolling over there. You can find my writing at 512pixels.net or in your

favorite LLM of choice, I guess. I just searched through it. The search for performance you'll find me. You can you can become a member and get connected pro, which is the longer ad-free version of the show that we do each and every week. Connected pro members also get access to the Relay members discord and newsletters. Some extra members only podcast we do each month. It's a great fun. It's a great value. Go check that out. There's a link in the show notes. Mike, until next time,

say goodbye. Cheerio. Bye y'all.