Hello and welcome to Connected Episode 525. I'm John Voorhees, and with me is Mr. Ricky Benchman himself, none other than Michael Hurley. Hey Mike. Hi John, thank you for joining us, O.T.J. I would like to say this episode is brought to you by Squarespace and Vantone. It is my pleasure as Ricky Benchman to introduce Mr. Federico Vatici, Hello Federico. Hello. Hi. I'm here. I'm here. Inside of App Stories right now. Or, I don't know, John is unconnected.
It could be either or. We'll see how the show goes. Or, or, or. Mike, or, you're joining an episode of Unwined, which is also a vibe. Sure. You've left out the show that I really want to be on. Oh, you want to be on MPC? My favorite podcast. Well, there's going to be Brandon on it though. Yeah, I know. Brandon's calling me. I get it. I get everybody knows it. We can all see it. All right. I wouldn't say cooler, but
it's definitely taller than you. No, he's cooler. No, he's cooler. It's fine. We can all admit it. He's cooler than all of us. No, he's certainly not me. No, he's cooler than all of us. No, he's certainly not me. No, he's cooler than you. Federico, I love you. He's cool. I know. Yeah, you've lost your cool. Yeah, no, no, Federico's still cool. Right? What? What? Federico, you are cool. You take that back. You mean to the day, John? I take
it back. I take it back. You could bring this to the show. I will not stand for these energy at the beginning of this. You know what it is, Federico? I'm just upset because I was promised rickies and I didn't get them. And I feel like there's been collusion. There's been collusion. Somebody has plotted against me. That is really true. Collusion with what exactly? I don't know. Who colluded? You think I can be with you. You would like
you and Mike, maybe Steven too. Maybe we asked you on tennis when we saw him a few months ago to do it this way. There it is. We are personal acquaintances of future Apple CEO, John Ternus. He did say to you. I know you. He did say that. He did say that. He didn't say that to me, which is good for two reasons. Maybe he doesn't know me and the things that I say about him. Or he does and decided he didn't want to bring that energy. Now you keep
that in mind. You keep that in mind when you say that I'm not cool anymore. The future CEO of Apple said, I know you. He probably also said, you're the cool one, aren't you? Well, I would just like to state for the record, if we're talking about coolness, I in this year have met the current and potential future CEO of Apple. That's pretty cool. You got that going for you. That's pretty cool. You met a 65 year old man. He's a nice guy.
Tim cooks a nice guy. We should do some follow up. Follow up number one, which is Steven has renamed our group chat to roommates in order of Tim. He has. I had no idea what that was all about. It was very funny to see like what is going on. I don't know what's going on. I was behind in my reading and I had no idea what that was all about. Very confusing for OTTJ for obvious reasons. But we have we do have some other follow up. IOS 8.18
IOS 8.4 baby IOS 8.1. That would be fun. IOS 18.1 is now available, which brings a bit the first round of Apple intelligence features. John, I know that you wrote about that and Millianne wrote about it. Mac stories. We've been talking about this for a while. They're out now. A funny thing. I was kind of talking to my wife about the Apple intelligence stuff. I'm sure we all do this. We all talk to our partners because we care about this
stuff so much. She was like, I'm interested in seeing what this stuff is about. I ended up urging her to just wait for 18.2 because I just don't think it's worth for her like changing her language settings. And I actually recommend this to most people. If you're not in the US, I would I think you would be fine to wait for 18.2 if your language is going to be added because I really feel like 18.2 is the better overall package if you're interested
in this stuff. But I did do that. I did do the language change thing. I'm realistically it didn't really affect me at all, especially when at one point in the beta process, they made it that you didn't need to have your language, your language should protect the keyboard, your keyboard language, sorry, as a US English. So I could have my language, phone language is American, she's very confusing. My region could stay UK. My phone language had to
be US English, but my keyboard could be UK English. It's like, I don't wish that on anyone having to work out and set that up. Yeah, I wish I were in the meeting where they decided how to split up all these features because I can see why they did it the way they did. On the other hand, I think it's because 18.0 felt pretty light. And 18.1, if those things had been in 18, it would have felt like a more like a normal update, I think.
But they were still so far off of having the image stuff ready that I guess they decided to drop some stuff in between. I feel like as well, as you were talking about, I was thinking like, oh, what would have been the harm in just waiting and just doing it all in December, right? Like if you're promoting it in September and it's not
coming out in October, why not wait for December? You know, but then I was thinking, I do still think that Jen Moji is going to be popular, especially with the way that Apple have implemented it in the keyboard. So I think that there is something to be said about like staging it a little bit, like not having that be in the first Apple intelligence release, maybe. Yeah, well, they needed more time to test out the image stuff too. I mean, that's we'll
talk about that. But I want to see if you two have some details on this for me, where Apple have said that the Apple intelligence is coming to the EU in April. Like this is in a basically the footer terms and conditions secret legal notes at the bottom of a newsroom post. Do you know what? Like this seems weird that they would announce it this way also seems weird that there's been, there has not at least been a public acknowledgement from anyone or
the EU haven't sent, like it seemed like this couldn't launch in the EU. So how are they doing it? I think that there are ongoing conversations between the EU and Apple. So I think that that my guess is that when they say April, they've struck a deal. They just, yeah, no one's going to talk about it being a deal though. Yeah, I mean, but it is what it is, right? They've said they were having conversations with regulators in Europe and they seem confident
that by April, they will be able to release Apple intelligence in the EU. I do think it's a little strange that you find out, you know, about this via a footnote or apparently, if you want to know everything about like, if you want to have all of the EU asterisks in Apple's press releases, you just got to sign up for the Irish newsroom. So the Irish Apple newsroom is my new best friend because apparently, if you're in Ireland, you get all
the fancy details about the European Union that you don't get on the other newsrooms. So, yeah, go Irish newsroom, I guess. But yeah, they have most certainly, you know, struck a deal with the EU. And so realistically, I think we're looking at IOS 18.3 or 18.4 coming out in April. And that's going to be it. Yeah, the language is a little bit hedge too, I think. If I remember right, it's something that affect that most of the features will be coming to the EU or something along those lines.
Actually, that's interesting. It's just weird because like at first, it was like, oh, but the data rules did the DMA, like, it's not going to work because of the way it's written. So like, who's who's changed something? You know, or what was that misunderstood from the beginning, right? Like, it's, it's just, it's a confusing thing to me at least.
Or maybe people just go carry it away. Yeah, the way I look at it, it feels like to me that Apple has had ongoing continual conversations with the regulators in Europe ever since the very beginning. And the last thing you want to do is like, haul down to the public and make somebody look bad when you're having sensitive negotiations. So they've gotten Apple has gotten comfortable enough with what they're hearing from the EU to be able to at least
say that this stuff is coming in the spring. But my guess is like the details have not been totally worked out, which is why there's still time to go and why it's hedged a little bit. I would go one step further. And I will say that the deal that they have cut with the EU is that by the time Apple intelligence launches in Europe, it's going to support multiple AI sources in addition to chat GPD. All right. So here's one I'm going to read to
you from the, from the, the actual footnote that was in the Irish newslette. This April Apple intelligence features will start to roll out to iPhone and iPad users in the EU. This will include many of the core features of Apple intelligence, including writing tools, gemmogie, a redesign, Siri with richer language understanding, chat GPD integration and more. My bet on this is that they will not have support for personal context because that
was the issue, right? It was like using somebody's data. And that's what personal context does. Who knows? But they hear a couple of potential things, right? It's like that's when Gemini's coming on board or they're basically cutting it off there because these are just like these features are just that they're like the generative AI stuff that already
exists. But the idea of using somebody's data for an AI system, like I think if memory serves, that was what people were suggesting was the reason that they much trouble. Yeah. If I remember right to when the press release talked about the visual thing where you press the, you know, the camera control and you can point it at something that there was some language in there about later, there will be third party tools available. And
that to me, I think that that means other AI tools, not like third party developers. I think it means other services that are available AI type services. So yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if we see more. I mean, that would make sense because that visual intelligence thing, like I don't understand what I'm supposed to do with it. Like, yeah, it's really weird.
It's told me I had a cozy coffee mug on my desk. It sure did. It's an odd feature that where it's like that feels like something like we know how that should act because we've seen products attempt to do this or like products say they can do this, but like at least visual intelligence right now, I don't really understand what's doing. Anyway, let's move on from this. We're going to come back to it. We're going to we're going to have an AI
sandwich for today's episode. I'm going to talk about my favorite. Everyone's favorite tasty, delightful tree. But I actually want to talk about something which is just genuinely heartwarming and was a really interesting story, which was John, can you talk about your experience with the Apple Pro 2 hearing features? Oh, yeah. So I figured, you know, this is a new feature that I've read about a lot and having read about it, even, you know, there's
a great story on the verge by Chris Walsh about it. And Chris talked about how he was a little has you know, how it was kind of stressful taking it. And so I was just very curious about what the process was like because going into it, I didn't really know what to expect. And I know just because of my age and my past, I have some hearing loss and my wife certainly reminds me of it frequently. And so I thought, well, can we talk, can we talk about that
for a second? Sure. Sure. For Jennifer. Like how? Like how? Like that, that I, well, that I don't listen to her. Yeah. I tune her out. Or I can't hear her. So yeah, or the TV's too loud. Are you sure you're not using this physical limitation as an excuse? Well, I guess I was glad to find out the day I don't know, hearing loss because I so now you're certified to John as your little council. I recommend you play the fifth on this one. Absolutely. But
yeah, you know, everything's for the content, right? So I decided it's time to take this hearing test. Wow. That is some dedication. Everything. So this is like me and Federico doing eye tests in our living rooms, right? Yeah. Absolutely. Look, I mean, I'm not trying to be cynical, but I thought it would make for a good story, depending on how it turned out. So when you at any point being like, boy, I really hope I do have some hearing loss.
So no, Federico, my concern was that it would tell me that my hearing loss was so bad that I needed to go see a doctor. That's what I didn't want to have. And fortunately, it did not. I did find out that I have mild hearing loss in one of my two years. And I have jerps. So not not really a particularly big deal. But what was neat was, well, there are a couple of things about this. First of all, the process of doing the hearing test is
super, super well done. You can tell that a lot of thought went into it. The design is really good. It kind of puts your, if you're, if you're anxious about it, all it kind of puts your, you know, your nerves at ease. Because I felt like by the time I was actually taking the test that I was ready for it in a way. And I was, you know, just a lot of intro screens. I was able to like, listen to a tone before I actually took the test.
So I knew what I was listening for, which was kind of nice. And then I went through it. And it, it steps you through first checking your surroundings to make sure that your room that you're in is quiet enough. And mine was. And then it checks whether your air pods are in your ears with a good seal because it needs that. And then you start taking the test one ear at a time. And the first time I did it, it failed because I was sitting at
my kitchen table on a truck went by. And it was enough noise, even though it wasn't super loud that I had to redo it. So I retreated to my bedroom, which is a little further away from the street and quieter. And I was able to get through the test. And it showed me
that I had the hearing loss. And then once you do that and you set up the hearing assistance, the hearing aid part of it, all it really is is tapping a button because it's, you know, boosting some of the signals and whatever range of frequencies you're having difficulty with. And I thought, well, here I am. I'm working at home by myself. I'm not going to really be able to test this until Jennifer gets home. And I have somebody to talk to. And I stood
up and walked across the floor. And I was like, wow, I was immediately floored by the fact that I could hear my footsteps across the floor much more clearly than I did before I took the test. And then I was making lunch. And I could hear, you know, the, the rustle of the packaging is I pulled food out of the refrigerator. And then I went to my office and started typing. And I could hear the keys like I hadn't heard before. It was all
really kind of, it was really surprising. And it just doesn't, I mean, it does what you would expect it does. It pulls out those frequencies you have trouble with, makes everything more defined. I kind of finished up my story by talking about how I walked down. I kind of wrote up the story right away because I wanted to have it fresh in my mind, what, what it was like. And then I walked down to a local coffee shop to finish up the, the,
the draft. And I left my AirPods in while I was ordering a drink. And while I was sitting outside and it was noticeable being able to talk to the person who took my order, hearing people at the tables nearby, despite there being like a park right next door and a lot of kids running around and making noise, it was, it was, it was amazing to me. I mean, it really is kind of cool. The novelty of it has worn off pretty quickly. Like I noticed
it less today than I did yesterday. Two days ago. That's like when you get a new power glosses though, right? Yeah, exactly. It's very much like that. Yeah. But it's, I, you know, I encourage anybody who thinks they might even potentially have some hearing loss to give it a try because it only takes like five minutes. And it can, you know, it can really improve your hearing. Yeah, I felt, I don't know. I think it's just because I
love you and care for you. But I felt quite emotion, I felt quite emotional reading that article. I was suggesting you did a good job with it. Like you can tell in the way that you're writing it, which, it was just kind of, I get the impression of how much you were taken aback by the difference. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why I wanted to write it right away because it was like, I stood up and I just took a couple of steps and I was like,
whoa, what's going on? I mean, I can hear the future. I can hear my socks on the, on the wood floor like never before. You were like, is this what I sound like when I walk? It's like the glory of my socks against wood was almost like a scene from a superhero movie. Right. Well, like, you, like you've woken up after being bit by the radioactive spider. And now you've got like extra cool sensors, I suppose. Yeah, it is a little bit like that.
I mean, and I like going forward, my hearing loss isn't so bad that I'm going to be walking around with AirPods in my ears all day. But I do, I do feel like, like today I walked into town again for another reason, just run an errand. And I was wearing my AirPods and listening to a podcast. And it's like little things like the podcast volume level is lower than
it was before, which is probably good for my hearing long term too. Yeah. And the, and the fact that as I was walking down the street, you know, a lot of these things are already kind of built into AirPods with the transparency mode where, you know, it's lowering the traffic noises and kind of pulling out other noises a little bit more. And what I noticed was it's, it's those sounds that you want to hear like people talking that are better defined and pulled out against
the backdrop of what's going on on the street around you. And that, that, you know, I'll definitely wear them for things like that, I suppose, which I tend to be anyway. Like if I'm walking around doing errands, I'm going to have my AirPods in anyway, probably. Yeah. Or if you're like in a loud restaurant, maybe or at a concert or something like that, I could definitely see doing it.
I would just say for the record because I feel like I hear a lot of people say, right? Like, and you even kind of hinted towards it, like it being weird that you would go into a coffee shop and would speak to somebody of AirPods and I don't think we're at all. I don't know why people think this is weird. Like if I have my AirPods in and I'm talking to you, you can probably assume I can hear like I'm not listening to something. Like, right. I don't, I think we need to get over
this idea that like I have to take one earbud out to be able to speak to you. Like it should be contextual, right? You know I'm talking to you because I'm talking to you. If I say, oh, wait, sorry, what? I can't hear you. Then you know what I mean? Then I'm listening to something. I'm not sure that I fully understand the, that why this is like a social, like a bad social cue. Like it doesn't make sense to me. Yeah, I agree. But I think it happens to be for some people
and I think it'll take a while to kind of become normalized really. But I must be upset in people all the time. It had become a habit for me where I would, like when I would walk down the shop to get a coffee, I just naturally would pull my AirPods out as I approach the door and drop them in the case and order my coffee then put them back in as I go find a seat, you know, but you know, even when I'm by myself, but, but I, I didn't. And it actually was better because it's pretty
loud place. And the woman behind the counter was, was pretty quiet spoken. So it did help. Very cool. Do you think you're going to, do you think this is actually going to change your app, post usage? Like, do you imagine now that you would like, so you mentioned a restaurant. Let's say you and Jennifer are going to dinner and you're in a loud restaurant. Would you be more likely to put your app pods in so you could hear about it? I don't think so. I'm not sure.
I'm not really sure because I haven't been in that situation yet. But I will say that like last night she came home from work and I was making dinner and I was making noise in the kitchen. She was like on the couch facing away from me and she was talking to me and I happened to have my AirPods in because I was listening to a podcast when she got home. I paused it when she got home. And as she was speaking to me from the couch, I could hear her better. So I definitely, you know, would leave
them in in a situation like that more likely than not. And I think in the future going to, you know, into town to run errands and things leave them in when I go to the pharmacy to pick something up or, you know, talk to somebody at a restaurant or a shop or whatever it happens to be. I can definitely see it in those circumstances. I haven't really thought, well, I'll have to see. I mean, jury's still out whether I would do it if we were out to dinner together or something.
Federico, do you think it's rude? I don't think it is. It's pretty normal by now. I mean, it's been, what, eight years since AirPods? And yeah, I just, I don't care about it anymore. And I, I don't know, I don't know. I don't really speak. And I think people have gotten used to the idea of the other person can hear you even if you're wearing AirPods. Yeah. Right. So yeah, I think, I think we are past this. Yeah. I look forward to the follow up. Yeah. I'll definitely let you know,
I think it's a generational thing. I think this is a generational thing. I think AirPods can agree. But, you know, we'll see, we'll see how, how people react. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the only one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out, succeed online, whether you're just getting started or managing a growing brand. You can stand out with a beautiful website, engage directly with your audience and sell anything.
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for their support of this show and all of Relay. It has been New Mac Week. We were wondering how this was going to go down, and basically it went down thusly. There have been press releases and videos. Monday Tuesday Wednesday of this week showing off a variety of different Macs. There were all these videos were kind of emissed by John Turner's. John Turner's really playing
the Tim Cook role in these presentations. He sets up the thing, sends it away to people, comes back to him, goes to someone else, comes back to him to wrap up. Turner's is fantastic. I know I love him, but part of this, yeah, I'm a big fan, but genuinely though, I have a lot of respect for Tim Cook. John Turner's is better at this kind of stuff, I think. He's more, I think he has more of the personality. He's got more energy. He's closer to Federighi,
he's not that good, but he's closer to Federighi, he's funny. And he can do funny things. The Mac Mini, when he leans down, it's very immutable. When he opens the Mac and it does like his master's voice thing. He can do funny faces. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I think he's good at that. But overall, just kind of top level, this is an interesting but weird way to do this, where they basically had a keynote and they just cut it into three pieces. I don't know why they
didn't just do this, but maybe they wanted to try this out. And I would say it's been pretty successful. They got to show off Apple Intelligence three separate times. I think that is definitely part of the reason. And they showed some cool features stuff we can't use. That I would like to have. There's that one demo where she's like, is Allegra Tepper, who is going to be, I think we're going to see her a lot. I mean, they used her three times this week. And Tim
Millay as well, who I love that they always reference is Tim Millay. Everybody else gets the first name, but you can't say in his team, right? Right. So they were going in his Tim Millay, whose friend of upgrade, we've had Tim on the show a bunch of times. He's a great guy. But like that is a very funny, like I noticed it. Like everybody else is like, here's Allegra, you know, it's like, oh, back to John. It's like, and here's Tim Millay. But like, it's interesting to see these like, they're
building new figures kind of thing, right? Like these are the people responsible for this thing. And like Allegra was in all of them. She did a great job. So I think we're going to see her more and more. But like, I think that's part of why they did this maybe was like, we can show off these features. But yeah, the drivers, the passport thing on the like the website, like the way they're filling in the travel information, being able to just say like, well, can you put my passport
number in here? That's cool. I would love to use that. I have no idea when I'm going to be able to get to the adventure. Also, like I was thinking about that. The idea of Siri feeling information in a web form. Yeah. I don't think that was shown off at WDC. No. Because if that's like, there has to be a new shortcuts intent. Like, right? I mean, it's not something that... Well, could it be combined with on-screen awareness? Like, maybe on screen awareness,
take action on the screen stuff? It's either like a new Siri combined with Safari thing. Or it's a new type of shortcuts integration where a shortcut action can modify the contents of a web page. But maybe just like a Safari exclusive thing. But here's the question, where did that come from? Like, I'm not trying to nitpick this, but it's interesting. Like, where in macOS iOS would I save my passport information? Like, where? Where was that?
Right. Because the password's app doesn't support things like driver's license. Sure. No, but it could also be something that the idea is that it could be something that you have in notes or that you have in photos. Or one of those intelligence, yeah. Right. And any theory app on intelligence with its semantic index knows, oh, this item is a passport. And it's the person's passport because it matches their face, you know, all these signals. It's possibly,
right? But it's just interesting. Like, because, but where? Like, this is the... This has been the question the whole time, right? Like, this is interesting, but how? Right. And I like to see more practical use cases because that is one which would be great, right? For me, like, I like put my address in here. You know, like, this that's better than autofill, right? Like, I'll just fill out this form for me.
Like, and it's just, it's just my name, my address, my billing address, my shipping address, my credit card, my phone number, right? Like, it should be able to do all of that, right? And that would be great if you could just say, like, fill this out and do do do do do. Mentioning about we haven't seen this before, whatever, interesting is... And did you see what anthropika doing? Like, they showed off a demo of, like, filling in a form.
And it's like, maybe it's like, oh, okay, we think, like, we know we can do stuff like that. Maybe we should show it now. I don't know. Anyway, I just talk about the products. I want to rank these by the ones that I find the most interesting. So we'll start with the Mac Mini. This is the thing, though, right? Like, the other stuff is like, much or much of what we expected. You know, like, it's easy to kind of expect. But the Mac Mini is like, are they actually going
to do this? They did it. It's a five by five inch cube, like square, sorry. That's kind of like the dimensions of it looking down. Still has a bunch of IO, EthernetH, DMI, 300 bolts on the back, two USB-C on the front, headphone jack, power button on the bottom. We'll come back to that. I'm just going to run through some specs, right? First carbon neutral Mac, eight, five percent, less aluminum is part of the way they did this. Features M4, M4 Pro, essentially faster and more
in all cases. And the M4 Pro has the quote, world's fastest CPU core. The M4 Pro is 75% faster memory bandwidth than I guess M3 or M2 Pro or whatever, good for AI. Better ray tracing faster neural engine. M4 Pro has stunned about five. The M4 has stunned about four 16 gigabytes of memory standard, still starting at 599. I'm going to say does anybody have anything they want to talk about, but I will just say, Federico, do you want to talk about thunderbolt five?
I don't know. It's really exciting. There are no, basically no accessories at this point. I believe like a couple of companies announced literally a couple of cables and a couple of external SSDs. I'm sure now that Apple is doing this, I'm sure that CES will be an exciting time for thunderbolt peripherals, like thunderbolt five peripherals. I think we will see, how would you say, a deluge of thunderbolt five accessories?
You tracked the stuff more than me. Is it weird for a computer company to support this before this accessories? I can feel like usually it's like, hey, we're making this thing. Not really, because it's a bit of a situation, it's a bit of a chicken and egg problem, because if you don't have the computers with support for the standard, why would you even make the accessories? Right. It has to come. A couple of things needed to happen. Apple needed to add support for
Thunderbolt five to their computers. On the Windows side, Intel needs to, or Qualcomm, whoever is in charge now, AMD, they need to introduce their desktop and laptop controllers for Thunderbolt five in their CPUs. That's most likely going to be the next step in Windows Land. In Windows Land, that's also going to open the door for things like Thunderbolt five, EGPUs, for example. That would be a really interesting comparison between USB 4 version 2 and
Thunderbolt five. Everybody was basically waiting for Apple to come up with their own with their computers and with their Thunderbolt five passive cable, which is also something that we have now. We don't have an active cable, meaning we are limited right now to a one meter Thunderbolt five cable. I am looking forward to the Thunderbolt five three meter active cable that's most likely going to show up at some point within the next year. What does that mean? Why stop at three meters,
Federica? You should keep going. Go limit yourself. Thunderbolt is really hard to do distances. It's like any love relationship. It's really hard to do lung this, that's become their bolt. It means that basically, I don't know the proper words, personally to describe this, but basically an active cable is actively sending an electric signal throughout the entire cable to make sure that there's no data loss in the three meters of the
cable. Yeah, I think that there's an amplifier in it essentially to sustain or longer distances. Yeah, whereas this passive cable, it's just one meter, so it's short. There's no data loss, there's no data degradation as it moves through the cable because it's short.
Yeah. John, what are your things about the Mac Mini? Oh, I love the Mac Mini. I mean, if this computer had been out at the time I bought my Mac Studio, I would have bought a high-end Mac Mini instead because that's effectively what my M1 Mac Studio is because I've got a Ford Terabyte SSD in it and 64 gigs of memory. That is essentially the high-end of the Mini. The Mini actually can go up to eight terabytes of storage, but it caps out at 64 gigabytes of memory,
and that's plenty fine for me. I mean, that's great for even the most taxing things I do, which tend to be like audio editing and a little video editing here and there. So I'd be really happy with this little thing. And I think what we're seeing is something that I'm sure is near and dear to Federico's heart, which is we're seeing really the most modular of Macs ever. I mean, you could easily take this thing, put it in a little case and carry it on out to your coffee shop
with a portable display and a keyboard and trackpad. It really, it's really going to fit into, I think, a lot more contexts than even the small Mini did before. Yeah, I mean, if I were a Mac user, I would be totally over this. This is the computer I would buy. Yeah, super modular Mac Mini that is so like basically a tall Apple TV. I mean, it's lovely. Yeah. You mentioned the Mac studio, though, right? And I think the thing about this machine,
it starts at five and nine. You add anything to that base configuration and you're you're getting up towards Mac studio. Like the configuration that I want now all I'm doing is increasing the RAM and the storage. It's 2,399 pounds. Yeah. I price. Right. It's an M4 Pro, right? So I've got an M4 Pro, right? So I've gone up from the base. So when I'm in for a pro, I want a little bit more RAM, I want a little bit more storage than what that starting base is and we're
up to 2400. Like it's it's it's a it's a it's a big old jump. But this computer is like, I mean, I've been waiting for a while. I'm using an M1. I'm using an M1 Max because I didn't know what I was buying. I have an M1 Max MacBook Pro that I use for recording editing all my production work. It stays here at the studio and in my daily computer is a MacBook Air, right? And that comes backwards and forwards from me. Like that's my main machine. And I've been wanting to get a
Max studio for a while and was deciding I would wait until they upgraded the Max studio. And now it's like, this will be my next computer. I'm just not sure when I'm going to buy it. And I think I was just a little bit surprised at that price jump, right? Like I thought this was going to be maximum 1999 to get what I wanted. You know, it is much more money than I would have expected considering where it starts and considering basically that really then it's a couple of hundred
pounds more to get a Max studio with basically the same specs. And I know that when I get the new Max studio, I know it will obviously be more expensive. But like it still is just a surprise to me anyway. Yeah, I mean, you could definitely get into, you know, over $4,000 for a Mac mini now, which is really, really something. I mean, that's wild. But at the same token, by the same token, you can expect this out to be comparable to a Max studio, at least a certain range of the
Max studio that's out there today. Now, of course, Apple's going to rev the Max studio and it's going to leap forward, I suppose. I do wonder though a little bit like how do the, how does the top end of the Mac mini relate to the Max studio, which then relates to the Mac pro and is there, is there going to be overlap? Is there really room for all three of those things, you know, from the very high end mini? I got to get rid of the Mac pro, right?
You would think that that's where this is going because I would think that now that the Mac mini is encroaching on the bottom end of the Max studio, you push the studio up to where the the pro is now essentially. I mean, they are like power wise, they're at the same level. Right? Yeah. Now, but then you lose expansion though, that's the thing, you lose the expansion if you get rid of the pro. That's the biggest thing. Can anyone tell me what you can actually expand
in a Mac pro now? I don't know. It was you just put SSDs inside, like, you have to be a pro. I'm not a anymore. They have to be a pro, Mike. We're not pros. We're not pro enough. We need Stephen, you know, but like, I just, I feel like, I mean, I've been banging his jump for a while that the Mac pro is kind of just like, to me, it just was kind of pointless now because they don't have the
support for external GPUs and stuff like that. The Mac pro is the way I look at it. The Mac pro is a very expensive statement for people who really want one because like, I mean, yeah, for a lot of us in this industry, I'm not talking about 3D artists. I'm not talking about like academics doing DNA research. Like for a lot of people listening to this show, it's more of a like, you know, it's the equivalent of, I don't know, actually, I'm going to say it because I'm part of the problem
in another industry. It's like the equivalent of getting really fancy headphones. Yeah, because I go, I can tell, you know, I can tell the difference. It's for the computer file. Who wants those crunchy heads? It's for the computer file. Oh, looking for the, looking for the base. Really, the open expansion inside of the Mac pro
provides good resonance for the CPU wine. So that I really like to have that. Yeah, I mean, I know at this point, like most of those pro use, like the top, top N pro use cases, the Mac studio can handle them. Like, and it is an edge, edge, edge case now. I'm sure for the Mac pro. And I just, I wonder if the people in that bucket, if they're still best served by the Mac. Like I just don't, I'm not really sure that I can kind of get my head around it anymore.
I think the Intel Mac pro made so much more sense because it had the ability to use cards. You could, yeah, actual cards that you could put in that thing. Imagine that. But this doesn't, so has the ability to do that, but Apple don't support most of the stuff that people would want to put in there. So yeah. Anyway, I don't want to talk about the Mac pro anymore. This is there are other podcasts that will do this.
There are, there is a problem in a way. I think that Apple faces, though, is that the M4 is so powerful that that I don't, I think people are going to start to realize they can get by with a lot less computer than they might have thought they otherwise would have needed in the past. I mean, you can certainly use an iPad pro with an M4 in it and do final cut editing in it and all that
kind of stuff. I mean, the software holds it back compared to the Mac to a degree, but, you know, you look at somebody like Chris Lolli does all of his YouTube editing on an iPad and it's totally doable. Anyway, the Mac mini looks sick. I think the thing is so cool. I love that they've got, they've got a bunch of ports on it, which I'm happy about, even on the just a standard M4 version, they've got a bunch of ports, which is great. The power button on the bottom don't care.
Yeah. I don't care about this at all. I know that some people care about this. I just put my Mac to sleep every night. I used to tell my Mac off, but no, I just put my Mac to sleep. I guess if, you know, I guess what I would say is like, if it's a big problem for you, I don't put it upside down. I don't know what to tell you, right? Would there be any harm in putting it upside down? Like just put it upside down. It's so little in light. It's not going to be that hard to get
your finger under there and press the button if you need to do it. I mean, I'm like you. I don't turn my, I don't turn my Mac on or off almost ever. So it's not not really an issue for me. I love that it's just kind of right in between the size of the old Mac mini and an Apple TV. It's, you know, five inches is nothing. It's two inches tall. I love it. I think it's amazing. Something I thought you would like Federico's digging through the text packs. The M4 chip supports displays
that of up to 8K 120 hours. Wasn't that a mistake? Like some people debunked that last night? Well, I mean, it's it's on all the pages still. So if it's been debunked, I don't understand what that would mean because like I think I saw something on mess at all last night. Well, the MacBook Pro text specs page was they published today. Oh, maybe it was the iMac,
the problem. Maybe, but the Mac mini, the MacBook Pro and an i's found us on the iMac page yesterday, they support displays that are significantly higher powered than my Apple's current eSanct, which is exciting. They do 8K 120 on the M4. The Pro will do 4K 240 as well and it also has display port 2.1 via 3 on the bot 5. Yeah, it was the mistake on Apple's website was on the iMac.
I'm looking at a Mac rumors article. It says updated hours after it was published, Apple updated the text packs for the new iMac to confirm that the 10 core m4 chip configuration does not support 8K up to 120 hertz, but instead 60 hertz. All right, well, the M4 range does do that because it just depends on the computer, it's just not the iMac. But the the M4 Mac mini will do one display of up to 5K at 60 hertz,
over Thunderbolt, one display of up to 8K at 60 hertz or 4K over 240. And then if you go for the M4 Pro, you can do more and more and more. And I just think that is exciting. I mean, I really want them to make a studio display pro. That's what I want. I want pro motion on a 27 inch display. You need it for your software when you play a cyberpunk in February. Yeah, I can't wait. It's going to be amazing. So MacBook Pro, that was released today.
The MacBook Pro comes in an M4 M4 Pro and M4 Max options. The M4 Max, I guess, it's just like a monster of a computer. I'm really, again, like all we really get is what Apple shows us. I'm very intrigued for the speed tests and stuff like that of this one and all of the benchmark and anything would be interesting. The MacBook Pro now has three Thunderbolt ports. So it's one more than before. And that is, I think that's under the base one. I think has three now. I think that's right.
Which I think was part of that Russian thing, like where there's Max, I should open Russia. I think they had an actual Thunderbolt port. But anyway, so three Thunderbolt ports, they go up to a Thunderbolt 5 on the Pro and the Max version. It's on the Watt 4 on the regular. The cyber, General Image Cyberpunk is coming to the Mac, can't wait. Up to 24 hours about relived, the screen is brighter and they offer a nano texture option on the MacBook Pro now.
12 megapixels, a center stage camera, 16 gigabytes of memory standard, it's just the same on the Mac Mini. That's on the 14 inch. You get 24 gigabytes of standard on the 16 inch starting prices remain the same. Cool. Yeah, I mean, that's a great. I've been using an M3 MacBook Pro for about a year now and it's a fantastic computer. I mean, it's a bit chunky. It's a little heavy if you, I mean, I think I personally prefer an air and I'm kind of waiting for an M4 M5 air before
before I upgrade. But I do like the Pro. I mean, the Pro is for the longest time now. It's been the fastest computer I've been using. But now it's the iPad Pro is actually the fastest computer I'm using. I love my MacBook Air so much. I have an M2 MacBook Air. I love that computer. I can imagine using it for years. I'm not pushing them to for anything, which is I love that computer. But I'm MacBook Pro is very popular. Also, I think it is a of all of the machines that Apple make.
I think that the MacBook Pro is the one that is most likely to see the year of a year upgrades. Right, like, yeah, I think that's true. If you're building an X code, right, if you can get any percent faster, that's better, right? Yeah, I think you're right. I think you're absolutely right. I mean, that's it's the one that makes the most sense. And those are the people who are most likely to upgrade on a more frequent basis than an air or anything else, I think. Yeah, so
super cool. I don't know, there's a ton to say that the MacBook Air also now has 16GB of RAM, which is the same as the iMac, which is the first of the week, which is now an M4, 16GB of RAM standard, not up to 32GB. They have new shades of colors. They're keeping the same options, but new versions they have in there to display texture option, 12 megapixel camera, all four USB C ports on the MacBook on the iMac now are Thunderbolt 4 and also the same starting price. This was a
very healthy, good week of Mac announcements, I think. Yeah. Yeah, it was good. I mean, these are a lot of things that people wanted for a long time. I think it's worth noting with the camera that this is a center stage camera, which these Macs didn't have before. They were, it's still 1080p, but it's a better sensor with a wider field of view that allows center stage to work. Good point. I didn't think about that when they were calling them center stage cameras. I was just,
it's kind of washed over me, but yeah, that makes that's cool. Yeah, it's just the same, same resolution, different, different angle, which allows that feet, that software feature to work, I guess. I was thinking today when I was looking over this and looking at unnotes and looking at Apple's web pages and stuff like that. I think that right now, the Mac lineup is Apple's best product lineup. Like, there are good options in basically every category that they sell.
The options are clear. It's easy to know what you want when you go into it. You kind of like, do I want my computer to have a screen? Do I want it to be a laptop? Right? These are like very simple questions you can ask yourself. And then from there, it's I think very easy to understand what you're looking for. And I think that you have the luxury of making choices about huge sacrifices because all of the base models of everything are good and like, especially even better now,
thanks to Apple Intelligence, like they've all got good RAM in them now. Like, I think at the moment, they just have a very strong lineup of products. I think it, because you know, you compare it to the iPhone, you compare it to the iPad, and you compare it to the Apple Watch. All of these product lineups, I think there is at least one product with pretty significant caveat. And I don't really feel that way for the Mac except for the Mac Pro, but nobody's
thinking about that. I think even the Mac studio today, you buy that Mac studio now, that is an incredible computer, even though it's older, but like, it's very powerful and it has a ton of like a Vintone Lio. And if that's what you want, great, right? You're going to be able to get that. So I just think, I don't know what you guys think about that statement, but I think overall
right now, the Mac lineup is just very healthy, I think. Yeah, I agree. I think it's easy to pick because like, I look at all these Macs and I know exactly what I get if I were in the market to buy one today. And I can't say the same as easily with other things. You can't even say for the iPhone, look, look at the amount of questions there have been this year. Look at Ariko, right? Like, that should, you know, you'd think the iPhone was the slam dunk, right? Like, everybody knows exactly
what iPhone they want. But this year, it seems like the main topic of conversation around the iPhone 16 line is which one shall I buy? And maybe I'm good with a different one than usual, right? Like, that is that's potentially showing that your lineup isn't as strong and as clear. Where like, for the Mac, you can do it. And the iPad is to a point like this, but I think that the iPad has a lot of inconsistencies and also where like, I don't, every Mac lineup is, I think, being put to
its full potential, the iPad is not, right? Like, right? You, whatever Mac you buy, you can very easily use it to its fullest extent. But that is not the case with the iPad, right? Like, this is the question that we, every year, right? Federica says, like, oh, the iPad Pro is really powerful, shame, I can't do it a lot with it. Like, I can't, I can't push it. It's not a lot of it, but I can't push it to that level, right? Like, yeah. The, the, the MacBook Pro with M4,
it's the same chip, right? Yep. Yep. Absolutely. Kind of. It's like, yeah, it's, I would say it's probably still a bit more powerful than the M4 in the iPad, but yeah, it's the same feminites. Yeah, it's the same. It's essentially the same thing. That's the same thing. Yeah. What you can do with it. Yeah. So I just think that right now, I think Apple's, there's, there's something pretty on this Mac lineup. And I hope that they saw a lot of them
because they deserve it. I would say they're, they're telling a very compelling story right now with the Mac lineup and with the AirPods lineup. Yeah, that's what I'll say. Yeah, except for the AirPods Max, but we forget about those. They're a fashion statement. No. The AirPods Max are the Mac Pro of the, yes, that's a great, that's a great point. Although I don't know if the Mac Pro is as fashionable as the Apple's. And also they're way more popular than the Mac Pro. Yeah, a little cheaper.
Do you think I bet this, I wonder if this is true saying about popular, do you think Apple make more money each year from the AirPods Max? Absolutely. You do. One on the percent. Yeah, I think so too. Yes. That is a horrifically wild thing to consider. Like, because what you'd have to sell, like 10 pairs of AirPods Max for one Mac Pro. Yeah, you know what? Yeah, they're doing that. They're doing that easy. John, do you have any big picture thoughts about the Mac lineup?
No, not really. Not that beyond what we've already said. I mean, I think I'm really happy with the way this week turned out. It's, I think it's a great lineup and really puts Apple in a good place going into the new year with a nice lineup that, you know, this week was strategically, I think, for the company a smart one, because they've got earnings call tomorrow. And so they can go in, having told the world not only about their great new Macs, but also Apple Intelligence three times
before they go talk to the analysts about it. And, you know, from a business standpoint, that's important. And I think they did a good job kind of, I think pitching this indirectly to Wall Street. This is a bad week to be John Boy, he's our Jason Snow. Oh, I know. I drive, I dread tomorrow because I've had a busy week on. Like three set for Mac announcements. Then the earnings call boy, you two should come is around Friday. We, we will. Federico, do you want to talk to us about peripherals?
Well, yes. And I come with a twist. Oh, I mean, of course you do. Of course he does. Well, it's not what you think. Of course not. So I thought, well, there's now USB-C magic keyboard and USB-C magic track pads. Let me try those again. Lately, I've just been working with the iPad Pro in its magic keyboard at my desk so that I see both the iPads on display and my internal, my external display. I use both at the same time. I keep usually something like
ivory on the iPads display and then all the other windows. Like, for example, right now, I'm recording. I have ivory on the iPad and I have Safari, Discord, Notion and Messages on the external display. But I thought, well, let me try again with those USB-C peripherals. I can take advantage of a little workaround that I wrote on Macs or is I think it was last year. To sort of fake your way around having clamshell mode on an iPad, it's not really clamshell mode.
You're basically just telling the iPad not to lock itself when you close the cover of the magic keyboard. It's really not clamshell mode and it comes with a whole bunch of limitations. Like, for example, what if you have to use Face ID? The iPad thinks it's unlocked and tries to find your face, but it can't. So anyway, I thought I'm gonna try fake clamshell mode again
with the new peripherals. They arrived today and much to my surprise. So I don't know if I got a faulty unit or I don't know if it's because I have my iPad Pro running iPadOS 18.2 beta. Yeah. The magic trackpad doesn't work. None of the multitasking gestures are recognized. Actually, none of the multitouch gestures are recognized. I cannot even scroll with two fingers with this magic trackpad. Yes. Now, could it be that the iPadOS 18.2 beta doesn't have the
necessary driver for the brand new USB-C magic trackpad? Most likely. I would bet that's what's happening here. I have the latest beta. This accessory just came out. This trackpad is not working, but I don't know. Maybe it's a sign that I shouldn't keep it. Maybe it's, I don't know. Because once again, I was already stretching it with my fake clamshell mode. And maybe this trackpad not working is a sign from the universe telling me not to just return these accessories and keep using your
iPad with the magic keyboard even when you're working on your desk. So it was nice charging them, though, with USB-C. That was cool. That's all I would say. It's a shame, right? Like it's a shame. I mean, I feel like when we spoke with Jason about the peripherals and we drafted what we would like to see that it was very unlikely that we would get any of the things that we wanted. But it is also just sad to have gotten nothing other than USB-C. Very interesting that I don't want to start
a new gate here. Interesting that people in this court are saying that somebody else on this court on the relay discord was having similar issues where their Mac, not even an iPad, their Mac was picking up the new Magic Trackpad as a mouse. Therefore, no multi-touch gestures were being properly recognized. I wonder if this is a, there might be an update, right? Like that might be something when it's just not being recognized fully or something. Maybe if you're on
a bet or something, it could be an issue. But if you were a gate, could we please call it Magic Gate? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, call it Magic Gate and do a little quick video, put it on YouTube and see if you get on Good Morning America. Come on. You can do it. You can beat Steve. Before I could learn from the master right now, but Sun Se is not here.
Talking about, I was thinking about this the other day. I was using my iPad Pro and I was on my home screen and was, I was tapping days on the fantastic panel widget to see what was going on. And every time I tap today, I could hear the processor in my iPad Pro. I tap a day and I could hear it like I could hear the wine just for a second. You're like, oh wow. Really? Yeah. Nothing else on my iPad was doing it, but if I... Because that's a pretty loud wine.
It's pretty loud. Yeah. Yeah. Every time I was on that problem, I wouldn't have been able to hear it, so I'd be fine. But your Apple is in. You'll be hearing everything, isn't it you? Yeah. Absolutely. I hate to hear all this about the peripherals because that's the only thing I bought this week and mine are coming tomorrow. I'm surprised you got them already. Well, yeah. I mean, what kind of say? You know, UPS in Italy really works. Yeah. I guess so.
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I actually got access to image playgrounds today. Do you want to talk about your experience over the last few days? Yes. I will say that you just mentioned landing on Good Morning America. I will say that if I went ahead and shared on social media, some of the images that have been able to create with image playgrounds in this beta, I think it would be a pretty big deal in the sense that I've been able to create. And you guys have seen them. So I'm not suggesting
anything without evidence. I've been able to create some really deeply concerning images. By using a specific prompt that I don't want to share, but you guys can read it in the show notes. And that's been unsurprising, but still concerning. Because I know that you can trick the systems, right? If you're using just the right words. And maybe we were thinking, Apple must have built an incredibly sandboxed, safe environment. But I can tell you, it's not.
Especially in this first beta of a team. I've been able to create some really awful things. None of them involve nudity. So at the very least it does seem like none of Apple's models were trained on that sort of adult content. But yeah, I've been able to create some really disturbing images otherwise, especially from a political and historical perspective. That's what I will say.
Yeah, I think that's a good way to put it, right? Because I think it is important to state that because the wording that you're using, I think is correct. I mean, it's even just one of these things of like, in the context of disturbing political, historical things, right? That's the context that we're describing here. But these images aren't like, they're not like in and of itself bad. The problem is, they're not graphic. It's the way I would say that.
They're not graphic. No, they're not graphic. The problem is, it's like, this should, if you're effectively gone railing, these are the obvious things you got throughout. Yeah, yeah. The thing I found most surprising was the prompt accepted something that in that context of, for example, say a location that I was requesting. And for example, requesting laughing that specific location or smiling at that specific location or having a chuckle at a specific
moment in time, that's all those were instructions that I used. It should have been guard railed. And it wasn't. Yeah. Yeah. But like, maybe you don't necessarily want to exclude some of these things, but there are words that you would use around them that wouldn't. But anyway, like that is one thing, but that is one thing. And so all that set aside, like I said, I don't want to share these images. If Apple is listening, you want to get in touch, I will probably,
and maybe I should submit this as feedback at some point. But I don't want to. I think you should. And I think they're tools that make that very easy to do. But all that aside, I will say that. I was just looking at the most recent one. So I've also been having fun, creating images of my friends and sharing them with my friends. And by fun, I mean, I mean, cringing really, those images for how bad they are. They're terrible. They're terrible.
They're terrible. They're terrible. Just today, let's see what I created today. There's no good. There's no good imagery. Right. There's no. I I asked for John Azaracun. And sure enough, it's created its own version of John. I was playing rabbit. I cannot. It will not accept John as a dog. Like, oh, interesting. As a dog won't allow you to do that. John, a John Azaracun added an extra pair of years. There's like racoon years on top of the human ears.
I asked for Mike as a gondolaure. And you can see that is sure enough, Mike wearing a gondolaure head with some gondolas, you know, typical from Venice, Italy in the background. Mike's expression is horrific, but I listed under to the prompt. I believe last night, I asked for Steven as a swole police officer. And he did look exactly like that. You're a rhyme. And also as a distressed fisherman. I mean, look, here's the thing is because there's not we can keep going into this,
but I'm not going to show you this in the show. That's because I just think it's just not worth it. I mean, essentially, the over description is you can create something that kind of looks like someone kind of sometimes better than others, which is weird. You can use the same image as I completely different people. Kind of looks like someone, the quality of the imagery, like the actual resolution of the imagery. Terrible. Like, you zoom in at all on anything in a
disaster. Like, yeah, my overall feeling on this, looking at this stuff, the image playground stuff. How could you be proud of this? Yeah. That's what I'm coming back to. And I feel like, I've been getting people sending me feedback. I think I'm going to hard on this. I don't know. This is my feelings on this. If you don't like it, then, you know, that's it. I just don't understand how, how you could be proud of this output because it's not good. Here's my take. Here's my take.
And I have a post-cryptum at the end. Right now with this image playground, Apple is in its Will Smith, eating spaghetti, AI-generated video. It's like they're basically mid-journey three years ago. So, after trying this, when I see those reports, that Apple feels they are at least two years behind, I believe those reports. And I believe they are correct. Because this is like, this is exactly the typical output of mid-journey from two or three years ago.
At the same time, I think you can potentially save Genmoji. I think Genmoji probably, because they train. Genmoji is good enough because they've trained it on their own emoji, which are my opinion the best in the biz. Genmoji is good enough. Genmoji is fun and good enough. Image playgrounds. And I haven't tested there. I don't even know. Is the image one available in notes? It is, but I haven't even tested it yet either. It's not, I don't know. I'm not really that
particularly interested in that feature. It's kind of being realistic. I'm interested in Genmoji because I actually think it's a good idea. I'm interested in image playgrounds because I think it's a disaster and it's fun to talk about. I think magic wand seems more like a party trick to me in a lot of ways. I don't know why someone would actually use that. Maybe there's a use for it. Yeah, I look at these. I mean, one of my favorites is Stephen Hackett's smoking a cigarette,
where the cigarette is floating in mid air. Right? So, they're just to give you an idea. And then you like, Mike zooms in on his eyes and they're pointing in different directions. Yeah. And I'm so bad. Everybody's so bad. They're like these weird swirls. It's like, basically, you've seen this style of image. And the main reason you've seen this style of image is everyone was sharing them a lot a year and a half ago because people were using different tools to do this.
And like, the image playgrounds in and of itself, whatever, right? Like, make me an image of a sunny day with a mountain and a bunch of trees, like whatever. Right. The reason this is a problem is like, I cannot, like, I went into image playgrounds today and it shows me the ability to create images of my two year old niece. Now, that ain't right. Like, come on. Right. I shouldn't be doing this. I will not do that. Like, I shouldn't be able to do this at all. Like, Jeff's photos are someone
in my photo library. Like, at the moment, we're all being menaces to each other because we're good friends. Right. Jason's grief in me. I'm grief in Jason Federico's grief in me. I'm grief in him. Right. But like, you could, and this, you can make images of me and people are gonna, like, you know, because why, why can't, all I need is one photo of you. Now that I thought you would need, like, loads, but you just need one photo of someone and you can,
you can use that. And I just, let's just, let's just say that I, to test this out, I downloaded from Wikipedia the photo of a past dictator and loaded it up in image playgrounds. I don't really have that time. And it couldn't, thankfully, in this case, couldn't figure out the, the facial hair is what I'm gonna say. Right. But you were able to make it. You were able to do it. Oh, yeah, it did make a version of that person. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean,
to, which I mean, by the way, do some, this is a, this is a clean shell. Do some image recognition, you know, for God's sake, do some image recognition and be like, hey, we don't want to create an image. No, but you just shouldn't be able to make, make images of people. Yeah. Right. You just
shouldn't be able to do that. Like I, yeah, it's what you're able to make, but it's also the quality because, you know, the first thing I asked Federica to do is to ask it to make a hand, and it made a hand with six fingers, which is just, you know, it's, it's so cliche to be at this point for AI to do that. But that just shows where Apple is at with this stuff. And I, I, I, yeah, I'm kind of with you guys on this. I don't like it at all. I don't have it yet because I was
doing my 18 one review and didn't want to pollute my screenshots. So I didn't install it until over the weekend. And so I don't have it yet. But believe me, I've seen plenty of it and I don't like it. Yeah. But again, it's like, it's a shame because Gemmogie is, is a great feature. And I think Apple have mounted it well, right? That like, you search for an emoji. And if the emoji you're looking for isn't there, they're like, make one. It's like, yeah, that is good. That's
a good idea, right? Like here is a legitimate, good idea of a thing Apple can do. And it makes sense because it shows an emoji like in messages. And as tap backs, all that kind of stuff. And it's like, that's great. But like the image playground is like, that's not very good. Like there are thousands of free apps on the app store that do about a job than this. Now what are they doing with that imagery, right? It's a whole different thing. But it's still like a thing people can do. So I
just, it's just like a weird is a weird feature to me. And I just, I just struggle to get my head around it. Like this feels like it feels like there, it's like a separate company. It just doesn't feel like a company with who, who I know have great taste. Because this is app, it's tasteless. It's part of, it's part of what the conclusion of my review of 181 was all about was, you know, shouldn't we expect more out of the biggest company in the world with the heritage of Apple of,
of, you know, championing creators and culture not to do this kind of stuff? I don't know. I think it's a little much. I think that there are there. We don't know what the lines are, right? Like, and I think this is when I think everybody's finding their own lines and it depends on their own context. Like, but I, I, you know, between the three of us, we have very different lines, right? Like I use the writing tools. I know you two would never, right? Like we all have our
own lines. I genuinely struggle to imagine the person who wants to create imagery of their friends and family. Like I don't, if you want to do this, please write in. Like tell me why? Like and I'm not trying to say that you're wrong, right? I just saying I can't get my head around it. Like if you have used this feature or you would like this feature, like please go to connectafeedback.com,
write in and tell me why. I just want to understand. Yeah. I think what Apple's going for and not doing a very good job at is maybe making this similar to the, the gift button in messages that, you know, you're going to send some kind of cute, funny thing clip to somebody, but it's different in nature than that kind of thing. Obviously, but I think that that's, that's at least how they're trying to pitch it is, you know, then that's why it's cartoony too, right? They're trying to make it like
lighthearted in some way. And that's certainly how Craig Federiggi sees it when he talks about it in interviews and in videos. But they're horrifying though. I agree. Federico's been tormenting me for like five days now. Uh huh. Like why not? Why not? Why not? Get you back, man. All of these Mimoji, right? Like why isn't it just Mimoji? I'm like, that's a thing too, right? Where yeah. That superhero mom image. That was Mimoji, right? It looked like Mimoji,
like a horrifying version of Mimoji. None of these images look like that. No. They look like weird humans. They're like a really bad Pixar image in a way. It's like if you still to somebody to make the worst possible imitation of Pixar, you could in a way. Yeah, it's like we have Pixar at home. Yeah. The thing that the thing that is particular of why I'm mentioning that one is like that image of the superhero mom and like all of the eyes are really large, right? Yeah.
I have not seen bigger eyes like that in any imagery that I like I do. I don't think these images are made on what is in my phone. Now what? Yeah. There is potentially they're going to make it better, but like I haven't seen anybody produce an image to me look like this. Maybe they're out there, right? And like and I just haven't seen them. But yeah. If anything, yeah, if anything, some of the images that we've been sharing the eyes are too small. Yeah,
that's actually the problem. Why they look weird. Right. The the the gondola one of you, Mike. I mean, you have these beady little eyes that are too close together. They should be more cartoonish. Right? Like they're they're they're trying to make me look like a person, like a like an actual person. And I think that's part of the problem. I don't know. I don't want to keep being mad about this stuff, you know? Yeah. But yeah, we're just going to I think we will within the next few months
when all of this is passed. Like people will just start ignoring this stuff. Yeah. It'll have it's moment. It'll have it's moment. You know, we're going to have some fun. You know, at some point they're going to get canceled because some some controversy like the one that I'm not going to share is going to pop up because like this system is not perfect. And we'll just move on because honestly, it is like the least exciting feature of Apple intelligence, the most boring one and the one that's
been honestly the one with the worst most useless results. So like cool Craig for the riggy really likes to make pictures of his dog. I think within the next three months, the rest of the world won't care anymore. So good luck. You know, yeah. I don't know. That photo. Oh, I just I just I made one here and get to put it in the show notes. Like it's just something I just made of me wearing a beanie hat and a rain forest. Like sure. This is everything that's right. It's like one. Why? Why?
Why do a lot of these images put on people the weird Mr. Beast smile? Yeah. And like, what? Why? Why is like my skin like speckled like that? And like, what is going on with the beard texture? You're blushing, man, because in the ring for us. Yeah, it doesn't think it doesn't go the lot where it has like really rosy cheeks. I've noticed that too. Yeah. Very strange. Very, very strange. But that's where we are for now. Again, I'll just say again, I love I love gemmogy as an
idea. I'm looking forward to playing around with it a little bit more. I think like, yeah, let me make like weird little emojis. And it's like, my expectation is like, it's that feels like it's done in the right way, right? Like Apple have because they look like apples emoji. So the training data is apples emoji, right? So Apple made their own training data. They trained us an element on their own data. And then I'm able to make things look like emoji and send them to my friends. Like,
that's like that. Yes, you did it. Whoever came up with that idea had a great idea. I really like that feature. John, thank you for joining us. Thank you, John. It's been a real big bag today. Great. Terrible images. If you want to find John online, who's John Voorhees at Macstories.net or Mastodon, JOHN VWR HWS. It's the same one threads. It's fun. I just know that, right? I just know it from here. And you say it. I know how to say it in your way. JOHN VWR
HWS. Yes. Goodbye. What do you say? Like, talk to you next week. Talk to you next week. JOHN. JOHN. No, we're not done yet. Federico is the TG at Macstories.net or Mastodon. He's at the TGVITICCI. Incredible. I'm like I am like a E. Thanks so much for listening. Thank you to Vanter and Squarespace for the support of this show. We've had a good time in October, but let me tell you, I'm ready for Stephen to be back. No offense, John. No offense, Federico.
It's not nice. I'm just ready to have him back, right? Of Mr. Yes. Yes. I'm looking forward to be back. Daddy, please, Daddy, we missed you. Daddy, come back. He's never coming back. My hope for next week's episode, like I'm not, I'm not going to put this to Stephen directly and Stephen, if you're listening to this, don't take this as a thing, but if you want to do this, like, we, me and Federico, just have no
idea and you're just coming back of all the things that you've been wanting to talk about. That is my hope for the episode. Like Stephen has like three topics. We don't know what they are and it's like Stephen's been away for a month and he has things to say. That's gonna be my assumption for who'll be. I was saying to him, like I was talking to him, like I imagine it. I think it was the case, this has been the hardest week, I'm sure, right? Because like there's actual Mac stuff to talk about.
He nearly got away with it. We need to go to the end. Yeah. Thanks for listening to this episode of Connected. We'll be back next time. Talk to you next week Federico. Not even did you. Ciao, Mike.