Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► Good morning. This is Tim Cook, and definitely not some weird AI voice clone thing. I'm just sending this voice note to confirm that, yes, it was because of Steven. Don't worry. I'm not upset that the iCloud team rushed to get my attention while I was in the middle of looking at some important charts.

00:00:20 ◼   ► It didn't bother me at all being told that the International Tech Podcast put us on blast for not being able to merge Apple accounts. Really, I'm not. And I am definitely not going to sneak Federico the answers in the next Rickies as a way to get back at you. Also, you can have my humane AI pen, Steven. I think it's still unopened.

00:00:50 ◼   ► From Relay, this is Connected, episode 541. Today's show is brought to you by our three excellent sponsors, Google Gemini, Incogni, and Ecamm. I'm your annual chairman, Federico Vittici, and it's my pleasure to be joined today and for the next few months by the one and only Mr. Steven Hackett. Hello, Steven.

00:01:12 ◼   ► Hello, Federico. How are you?

00:01:14 ◼   ► I am doing fantastic. How about you?

00:01:16 ◼   ► I'm good. We should start the show with some congratulations.

00:01:21 ◼   ► We should. We should. And obviously, congratulations to us.

00:01:28 ◼   ► Yes.

00:01:29 ◼   ► No, to us for enduring.

00:01:31 ◼   ► No, congratulations to the Hurley family.

00:01:35 ◼   ► Obviously, Mike and Adina had their beautiful baby.

00:01:41 ◼   ► Sofia was born last Saturday, right?

00:01:44 ◼   ► Unexpectedly, last Saturday on February 22nd, Mike posted a beautiful photo on Instagram and also then posted on the other social networks.

00:01:58 ◼   ► I don't know about you, Steven. It kind of feels unreal to know that, and I mean in the best possible way, that Mike is a father, because we've been through so many things together, the three of us, right?

00:02:16 ◼   ► And it's just a beautiful thing that Mike and Adina have entered this new chapter of their family and this new chapter of their lives.

00:02:24 ◼   ► And I cannot imagine, because I'm not a father, I cannot imagine what it feels like.

00:02:31 ◼   ► You obviously, I think, maybe you have a much better sense than I do, because not only do you have, you have three.

00:02:37 ◼   ► You have three children.

00:02:39 ◼   ► So I am just so happy for Mike and Adina.

00:02:43 ◼   ► I think it seems like they have received an outpouring of love from our community.

00:02:49 ◼   ► And yeah, so congrats, Mike and Adina, and welcome, Sofia.

00:02:53 ◼   ► Yes, welcome, Sofia.

00:02:55 ◼   ► Yeah, I got a text very late from him.

00:02:58 ◼   ► Yeah, she was a few days early, I think.

00:03:02 ◼   ► But everyone's good.

00:03:04 ◼   ► I spoke to him yesterday, their home.

00:03:06 ◼   ► And yeah, it's so exciting.

00:03:10 ◼   ► I am just so, so happy for them and can't wait to meet little Sofia at some point in the future.

00:03:16 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:03:17 ◼   ► You think she has takes on iPhone colors or anything yet?

00:03:21 ◼   ► Okay, okay, we need to clarify.

00:03:23 ◼   ► We need to address something immediately.

00:03:25 ◼   ► Okay.

00:03:25 ◼   ► Are we allowed to make Mike as a father and Sofia jokes already?

00:03:32 ◼   ► Like, is that okay?

00:03:33 ◼   ► I mean, I don't, I think it's okay.

00:03:37 ◼   ► Okay, perfect.

00:03:38 ◼   ► Just, you know, I need it for future material.

00:03:41 ◼   ► Oh, okay, I thought maybe you had one queued up.

00:03:43 ◼   ► No, no, I do, I do have some queued up.

00:03:46 ◼   ► Like, it's been killing me not to be able to share these jokes, but yes.

00:03:50 ◼   ► Yeah, maybe, you know, can't wait to see Sofia at WWDC.

00:03:54 ◼   ► What happens first?

00:04:01 ◼   ► Sofia can talk or Siri has app intents?

00:04:06 ◼   ► Now, this is just savage from you.

00:04:11 ◼   ► My money is on Sofia.

00:04:12 ◼   ► Yeah, me too.

00:04:13 ◼   ► What is a baby if not a large language model, really?

00:04:20 ◼   ► Well, yes, kind of.

00:04:23 ◼   ► Steven, can we talk about the Apple C1?

00:04:25 ◼   ► Please.

00:04:26 ◼   ► I'd love to.

00:04:28 ◼   ► So, we shared, I think, last week, two weeks ago, when we talked about the new iPhone 6C carrying the brand new Apple-made modem, the C1 modem.

00:04:38 ◼   ► We shared this conspiracy theory that was also reinforced by a friend of the show and my colleague, OTJ on Mastodon, that maybe it was the C1's fault that the iPhone 6C does not have MagSafe charging.

00:04:54 ◼   ► Because maybe the modem is big and there's not enough room for Apple to fit MagSafe charging in there.

00:05:00 ◼   ► Well, it seems like Apple also saw these conspiracy theories floating around on social media and other websites.

00:05:06 ◼   ► And they issued a statement to Macworld saying Apple has confirmed to Macworld that the C1 modem is not responsible for the decision to leave MagSafe charging off the new iPhone 6C.

00:05:19 ◼   ► Okay, so it's not, you know, not the C1's fault.

00:05:23 ◼   ► It's just, it's a decision from Apple.

00:05:27 ◼   ► And we also, obviously, saw some other reports from Gurman and, you know, from other sources saying that this is, obviously, just the beginning of Apple rolling out their in-house modems on new devices.

00:05:43 ◼   ► Obviously, it sounds like the new iPhone 17 lineup of devices coming out at some point in September will all carry Apple-made modems.

00:05:52 ◼   ► And it seems like the reasonable thing for Apple to do now.

00:05:56 ◼   ► I saw a video on YouTube from a YouTuber who was able to tour the facility.

00:06:03 ◼   ► Because, you know, you know Apple, for everything they make, they have a facility.

00:06:06 ◼   ► And they were able to take a tour of all the fancy rooms that they have for testing cellular signal, testing interference, like all that sort of stuff.

00:06:16 ◼   ► So Apple has built a whole structure to test these modems.

00:06:20 ◼   ► They have spent a lot of money over the course of many, many years.

00:06:23 ◼   ► And it just makes sense for Apple to now have this technology and roll it out on as many devices as possible and reduce their reliance on Qualcomm or whoever was making their modems before.

00:06:34 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, it was Qualcomm.

00:06:36 ◼   ► Yeah, Apple's wanted to get away from Qualcomm forever.

00:06:39 ◼   ► There have been fights between the companies.

00:06:40 ◼   ► You know, there's a pretty big licensing fee for Qualcomm.

00:06:44 ◼   ► And obviously, Apple wants to control, you know, every bit of vital hardware they can.

00:06:49 ◼   ► And now that Apple Silicon is, like, in force, the modem is obviously the next thing in that line.

00:06:56 ◼   ► But my favorite thing about this, this Reuters article, it's in the show notes, I just love looking at all the stuff.

00:07:02 ◼   ► Like, there's a picture of Johnny Surugi and an unnamed Apple engineer looking at this, like, iMac and they're doing some sort of thing.

00:07:14 ◼   ► Like, all this stuff behind them, there's, like, oscilloscopes and, like, servers.

00:07:18 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:07:19 ◼   ► It's pretty cool.

00:07:21 ◼   ► That first photo in the article of the person standing in front of a rack of shelves with a bunch of iPhones, it looks like one of those photos for, like, a content farm of somebody playing, like, 50 different instances of Farmville on a phone or something like that.

00:07:39 ◼   ► It looks like that type of setup.

00:07:42 ◼   ► It's just a whole bunch of iPhones doing something with the modem, obviously.

00:07:46 ◼   ► And also some rack-mounted old Mac minis, I think.

00:07:51 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:07:51 ◼   ► It's the old design.

00:07:52 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:07:54 ◼   ► Everything is clear acrylic, all the stands.

00:07:56 ◼   ► And it's like, is someone cleaning that?

00:07:58 ◼   ► Like, can you imagine the fingerprint situation in this room?

00:08:01 ◼   ► Those are nice-looking stands.

00:08:03 ◼   ► Yeah, how much money do they spend on stands?

00:08:05 ◼   ► I bet they're making them themselves.

00:08:07 ◼   ► I bet they got, like, a laser cutter in the back.

00:08:08 ◼   ► Oh, for sure.

00:08:09 ◼   ► Oh, for sure.

00:08:10 ◼   ► And for sure, like, and also the cable management is absolutely on point in this photo.

00:08:14 ◼   ► Like, really good job.

00:08:16 ◼   ► Really good job.

00:08:16 ◼   ► Yeah, so that's the C1.

00:08:18 ◼   ► Do you think we're going to see, with the iPhone 17, are we going to see the C1 or the C2 already?

00:08:24 ◼   ► Yeah, that was really interesting to me that they, I mean, I figured they would brand it.

00:08:29 ◼   ► I don't think I would have guessed they gave it a number.

00:08:32 ◼   ► It's like, what happens if the C2 isn't ready for, like, five years?

00:08:36 ◼   ► I mean, I don't know if we'll see the C2 in the iPhone 7.

00:08:41 ◼   ► You know, maybe this will be an every few year thing.

00:08:44 ◼   ► I really don't know.

00:08:45 ◼   ► But it was very interesting to me that they branded it as if it were an Apple Silicon system on a chip.

00:08:54 ◼   ► How much money do you want to bet on the fact that in a few years they will skip the naming of the C4?

00:09:04 ◼   ► Do you want to have a C4 in your phone?

00:09:09 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:09:10 ◼   ► Probably not.

00:09:15 ◼   ► I had not thought about that, but that's very, that's very good.

00:09:18 ◼   ► We're going from C3 to C5.

00:09:21 ◼   ► C4 never happened.

00:09:23 ◼   ► Maybe.

00:09:23 ◼   ► Wasn't, wasn't their talk, this was years ago now, there's like, I forget what the number is.

00:09:29 ◼   ► There's an unlucky number, like in Chinese culture, and people are like, oh, Apple's going to skip that phone number.

00:09:35 ◼   ► And they didn't.

00:09:36 ◼   ► Maybe it was the 7?

00:09:37 ◼   ► I don't remember.

00:09:38 ◼   ► 13?

00:09:38 ◼   ► I think, didn't I see, am I hallucinating this?

00:09:42 ◼   ► Didn't I see Ben Thompson or somebody else post something about this in the context of AI?

00:09:48 ◼   ► It's the number four, which is spelled D-I-E, like the word die, and it's the unlucky number.

00:09:59 ◼   ► And there was a joke about Anthropic, the AI company, not shipping Claude 4, because 4 in Chinese is an unlucky number.

00:10:08 ◼   ► Unlucky number, something like that.

00:10:09 ◼   ► So yes, I think that is the unlucky number also.

00:10:12 ◼   ► Maybe.

00:10:13 ◼   ► But obviously, C4 is a bad name for something that goes into your phone with a battery.

00:10:18 ◼   ► It is.

00:10:19 ◼   ► Yeah, just, you know, Note 7 vibes.

00:10:22 ◼   ► We got to talk about taxes now.

00:10:26 ◼   ► Are you excited?

00:10:27 ◼   ► Yes, I couldn't wait.

00:10:30 ◼   ► So Lex, who is the proprietor of rickies.co, one of our scoring websites.

00:10:35 ◼   ► Lex, also much taller than I imagined.

00:10:38 ◼   ► I met Lex in London this summer.

00:10:40 ◼   ► Are you taking Mike's thing now?

00:10:44 ◼   ► No.

00:10:44 ◼   ► Taller than Mike.

00:10:46 ◼   ► I mean, everyone's taller than Mike.

00:10:48 ◼   ► Sophia is taller than Mike, but we have to stop.

00:10:52 ◼   ► Lex wrote in, on episode 540, you were shocked by European iPhone prices.

00:10:58 ◼   ► I agree.

00:10:59 ◼   ► Yes.

00:10:59 ◼   ► It's expensive, and lots of people around me find it hard to justify getting a new one.

00:11:03 ◼   ► I was wondering, though, these U.S. prices, these U.S. prices, all sides, sorry, I lost my train of thought.

00:11:13 ◼   ► We can leave that in.

00:11:14 ◼   ► I was wondering, though, these U.S. prices that cites, quote, they are excluding tax, right?

00:11:19 ◼   ► Obviously, this is different per state, but most Americans pay more than what the price tax says.

00:11:25 ◼   ► How does that calculation and psychology go in your heads, particularly with Stephen?

00:11:29 ◼   ► Well, I'm a Stephen.

00:11:31 ◼   ► I can answer this.

00:11:33 ◼   ► So, in Tennessee, the state sales tax is 7%, and then my local government has 2.75% sales tax on top of that.

00:11:45 ◼   ► It's actually as high as the state will allow a local government to have a sales tax.

00:11:49 ◼   ► So, sales tax, where I live in Memphis, on most things, is 9.75%, and that may sound really high to you if you live in the U.S. and other states,

00:12:00 ◼   ► but Tennessee does not have an individual income tax, and so they make up for that in high sales tax.

00:12:06 ◼   ► So, I don't pay individual income tax in Tennessee, but I pay almost 10% sales tax on everything, and I just mentally add 10% to everything.

00:12:15 ◼   ► Like, I don't even think about it.

00:12:17 ◼   ► Like, when I saw this question in the feedback form, I was like, I had to, like, think.

00:12:22 ◼   ► Like, oh, yeah, I just add 10% just in my brain, and I haven't even thought about that in years, because, like, that's just what it is.

00:12:30 ◼   ► And I would imagine most people in the U.S., if they have sales tax, not every place does.

00:12:34 ◼   ► Like, I think it's Oregon does not have state sales tax.

00:12:38 ◼   ► Shout out to Oregon.

00:12:39 ◼   ► Shout out to Oregon.

00:12:40 ◼   ► And, you know, but they make it up.

00:12:43 ◼   ► The state makes it up in other ways, right?

00:12:45 ◼   ► They're not, they're taxing you in other areas.

00:12:48 ◼   ► So, that's what it is for me, and I have just totally internalized it as someone who has only lived here,

00:12:53 ◼   ► and, you know, I just, that is what it is.

00:12:56 ◼   ► All right.

00:12:58 ◼   ► Exciting.

00:13:00 ◼   ► Big news.

00:13:02 ◼   ► Huge news.

00:13:04 ◼   ► Huge news.

00:13:07 ◼   ► Are we ready for this?

00:13:08 ◼   ► Are we doing this?

00:13:09 ◼   ► We're doing this.

00:13:10 ◼   ► Let me start with some follow-up.

00:13:11 ◼   ► Listener Brian wrote in and said, 48 Megapickle needs to be your next shirt design.

00:13:18 ◼   ► We have gone so much further than that.

00:13:23 ◼   ► I have gone into the archives, and we are re-releasing basically every T-shirt in the show's history.

00:13:30 ◼   ► So, we have Technology Should Be Colorful, our old standby.

00:13:36 ◼   ► We have Gumdrops, which is the shirt we did with the, when I was collecting all the iMacs.

00:13:41 ◼   ► That one is tweaked a little bit.

00:13:43 ◼   ► I had to, first of all, the original artwork had a yellow iMac, which never existed, so I replaced it with a graphite one.

00:13:49 ◼   ► And that shirt, originally, that shirt had us as like cartoon characters in front of it, and I got rid of those due to printing issues.

00:13:58 ◼   ► And so, it's just the iMacs.

00:13:59 ◼   ► We have Take a Test Flight, which is the, I've been testing the shirt for a few weeks.

00:14:06 ◼   ► We have two Tiny Heads shirts.

00:14:09 ◼   ► Yes, yes.

00:14:10 ◼   ► We have Return of the Tiny, which is just the standard black print on a bunch of different colors.

00:14:16 ◼   ► And then we have Tiny Heads Special Edition, which is a black shirt, and the Tiny Heads artwork is done in six colors.

00:14:26 ◼   ► So, like the classic Apple logo.

00:14:30 ◼   ► And then our newest shirt is Organic Mega Pickles.

00:14:34 ◼   ► It's pickles in a jar, but it's also a camera lens.

00:14:37 ◼   ► Organic Mega Pickle has to be one of the best things you've ever made, Stephen.

00:14:47 ◼   ► We have gone through, you and I, in secret, obviously, in secret from Michael, we have gone through many iterations of the Mega Pickle to land on a design that couldn't be confused with anything else.

00:15:00 ◼   ► That's right.

00:15:01 ◼   ► And, obviously, you have the Mega Pickles in a jar.

00:15:04 ◼   ► And, you know, there's one, there's two sliced pickles, but one of them is also a camera because it's a Mega Pickle.

00:15:11 ◼   ► Mega Pickle.

00:15:11 ◼   ► And they're organic.

00:15:12 ◼   ► And the logo, the design looks absolutely amazing on the green t-shirt.

00:15:22 ◼   ► I am so, I'm just so happy to see these stupid jokes all together in a single page where people can go in and buy these t-shirts.

00:15:32 ◼   ► And I think, Stephen, we should pitch our listeners on these t-shirts, right?

00:15:41 ◼   ► And there's multiple degrees of pitching that we could do.

00:15:46 ◼   ► And let me just say that I have some ideas.

00:15:53 ◼   ► But the kind of pitch that I prepared, only I am allowed to do it because I am going to use some politically incorrect jokes.

00:16:07 ◼   ► Oh, boy.

00:16:08 ◼   ► That I can do because I have internet insurance, which means that I cannot be canceled for saying certain things.

00:16:17 ◼   ► That is a concept that I came up with.

00:16:20 ◼   ► Internet insurance should be a thing.

00:16:22 ◼   ► For example, one way that I would pitch our listeners on these t-shirts is Mike's family is starving and they need your money.

00:16:35 ◼   ► They're all starving, you know, and it is what it is.

00:16:40 ◼   ► And we are releasing these t-shirts to make sure that especially Mike, and especially Mike, because obviously all the food is going to Sofia.

00:16:46 ◼   ► And so Mike is hungry right now.

00:16:49 ◼   ► Mike is starving.

00:16:49 ◼   ► And the money goes a long way toward buying whatever food they buy in the UK.

00:16:55 ◼   ► You know, pasta at, what's the name of the supermarket?

00:16:59 ◼   ► Tesco or something, something like that.

00:17:01 ◼   ► Isn't that a gas station?

00:17:03 ◼   ► Is that a gas station?

00:17:05 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:17:05 ◼   ► No, I think it's a supermarket.

00:17:07 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:17:07 ◼   ► Or I could say that you buy these t-shirts because let's face it, we used to say that we were the greatest podcast, the world's greatest podcast, right?

00:17:20 ◼   ► I would argue that a few years have passed, that status has remained.

00:17:26 ◼   ► But, I mean, look deep down inside yourself and ask yourself this question.

00:17:32 ◼   ► Do I listen to any other tech show that is as funny and as lovable as Connected?

00:17:40 ◼   ► I think you know the answer.

00:17:42 ◼   ► And the answer is Connected is the funniest tech show you listen to on a weekly basis.

00:17:49 ◼   ► So we deserve your money, arguably, right?

00:17:53 ◼   ► Because we make you laugh.

00:17:56 ◼   ► I mean, you know it.

00:17:57 ◼   ► You can listen to a tech show that talks about file systems every week.

00:18:01 ◼   ► You can listen to a tech show about, you know, power users of the Mac.

00:18:07 ◼   ► No offense, Stephen.

00:18:08 ◼   ► No, I'm not taken.

00:18:09 ◼   ► You can listen to a tech podcast about, I don't know, regulation or something.

00:18:16 ◼   ► But no, we make you laugh.

00:18:17 ◼   ► And that's the world's greatest currency, I would say.

00:18:23 ◼   ► And so why?

00:18:25 ◼   ► The answer is not, should I buy the Connected t-shirts?

00:18:29 ◼   ► The question is not that.

00:18:31 ◼   ► The question is, why wouldn't I?

00:18:33 ◼   ► So that's my pitch.

00:18:36 ◼   ► Okay.

00:18:37 ◼   ► I'm going to get canceled for a whole bunch of reasons.

00:18:40 ◼   ► I mean, can't help you.

00:18:43 ◼   ► Yeah, all those reasons.

00:18:47 ◼   ► So shirts are on sale now.

00:18:50 ◼   ► There's a link in the show notes.

00:18:51 ◼   ► Pre-orders are open through March 14th.

00:18:56 ◼   ► So we'll remind you a few more times.

00:18:58 ◼   ► This is kind of the standard cop bureau thing where, you know, you pre-order and then they print them and ship them out.

00:19:04 ◼   ► Please go buy a shirt.

00:19:07 ◼   ► It would mean a lot to us.

00:19:09 ◼   ► Yes.

00:19:10 ◼   ► How do you think Mike's going to take this?

00:19:15 ◼   ► I think it will put up this pretense that he's upset.

00:19:20 ◼   ► We should factor in the fact that he is sleep deprived at the moment.

00:19:27 ◼   ► So maybe his first reaction won't be exactly nice.

00:19:32 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:19:33 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:19:35 ◼   ► I do view this as a test to see how quickly he's listening to podcasts.

00:19:39 ◼   ► Yes.

00:19:41 ◼   ► Like if it takes him eight days to be mad at us, then we know that he's not listening.

00:19:47 ◼   ► I would also say that the listeners should buy these t-shirts to prove a point to Mike that you and I were right, you know, about doing merch again.

00:20:02 ◼   ► Like get the satisfaction of showing Mike that Connected is the kind of show that can sell merch.

00:20:08 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:20:09 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:20:10 ◼   ► It's not just Cortex.

00:20:11 ◼   ► It's not just Cortex.

00:20:13 ◼   ► You know, we can sell products even if they're not fancy notebooks.

00:20:18 ◼   ► Well, big news.

00:20:20 ◼   ► No, we don't have a notebook.

00:20:22 ◼   ► What if I just bought a bunch of Cortex notebooks and like put Connected stickers on them and put them back for sale?

00:20:28 ◼   ► How would you call it?

00:20:30 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:20:33 ◼   ► So they have the theme system, the theme system journal.

00:20:38 ◼   ► We could do, so they do themes.

00:20:42 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:20:42 ◼   ► We could do, we could sort of, sort of do the exact opposite that they hate.

00:20:47 ◼   ► We're going to call it like resolution something.

00:20:50 ◼   ► Oh yeah, that's good.

00:20:51 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:20:52 ◼   ► You know, with, with all these themes.

00:20:54 ◼   ► No, we love resolutions.

00:20:55 ◼   ► We love them.

00:20:57 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:20:58 ◼   ► Resolute.

00:20:59 ◼   ► You know, the resolute notebook.

00:21:02 ◼   ► Done.

00:21:04 ◼   ► Honestly, that's a good name.

00:21:05 ◼   ► That is a good name.

00:21:07 ◼   ► So yes, please go buy shirts.

00:21:10 ◼   ► Don't, don't, don't make us regret this.

00:21:14 ◼   ► We, we love you.

00:21:15 ◼   ► Don't listen to my jokes.

00:21:16 ◼   ► We appreciate you.

00:21:17 ◼   ► And you know, we don't expect you to buy all the t-shirts, but also we wouldn't mind.

00:21:23 ◼   ► Wouldn't mind.

00:21:24 ◼   ► I cannot wait to, to see these in the world.

00:21:28 ◼   ► Yes.

00:21:29 ◼   ► Very excited.

00:21:29 ◼   ► Especially organic mega pickles.

00:21:31 ◼   ► It's really good.

00:21:32 ◼   ► We went, we had a whole day basically where I was working in Illustrator.

00:21:36 ◼   ► I'd like send you something.

00:21:37 ◼   ► It was, it was fun.

00:21:39 ◼   ► I don't think I've looked at as many drawn pickles as I did in those two hours of my life.

00:21:48 ◼   ► That Illustrator document has lots of bad ideas in it.

00:21:53 ◼   ► And then we finally landed on it.

00:21:55 ◼   ► Yes.

00:21:56 ◼   ► Yes.

00:21:56 ◼   ► This episode of Connected is brought to you by Google Gemini.

00:22:02 ◼   ► I tried Gemini a couple of days ago, Gemini Live, where you can talk to it.

00:22:08 ◼   ► And it's really wild to have a full on conversation with this thing.

00:22:11 ◼   ► I was asking it to give me ideas for hosting during the holidays.

00:22:15 ◼   ► And when it starts giving you results, you can just stop it and say something like, okay,

00:22:19 ◼   ► well, what about something a bit more low key for a smaller group?

00:22:22 ◼   ► Then it adjusts to that.

00:22:25 ◼   ► And you can just keep going until you get an idea that you want.

00:22:28 ◼   ► I think that's what I would use it for the most brainstorming things.

00:22:32 ◼   ► It's so good.

00:22:33 ◼   ► If you don't know where to start or you hit a wall with something, you just go to Gemini

00:22:36 ◼   ► and it helps you get the ball rolling again.

00:22:38 ◼   ► But you can use it for all kinds of stuff.

00:22:40 ◼   ► If you want to learn something new, you can have it give you advice, ask to explain something

00:22:45 ◼   ► like Bitcoin in simple terms, or you can have it quiz you on something like microbiology.

00:22:49 ◼   ► I mean, I mean, imagine being a student and you've got this personal tutor on hand.

00:22:54 ◼   ► It's hard to explain.

00:22:56 ◼   ► You really have to play around with it.

00:22:58 ◼   ► See how it listens, responds, and adapts to your style of conversation.

00:23:01 ◼   ► Just try it out.

00:23:03 ◼   ► It's free.

00:23:03 ◼   ► Our thanks to Google Gemini for the support of the show.

00:23:06 ◼   ► Ah, so can we talk about, can we talk about Wi-Fi 7?

00:23:12 ◼   ► Sounds good.

00:23:13 ◼   ► You know, just completely switching gears.

00:23:15 ◼   ► So long story short, I have upgraded to Wi-Fi 7, but let me explain why.

00:23:21 ◼   ► I had been using for about a year a Wi-Fi 6E system.

00:23:27 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:23:28 ◼   ► I had one of those fancy, very capital G Gamer-y routers by Asus with all the antennas sticking

00:23:36 ◼   ► out that almost looks like a robot that wants to kill you.

00:23:38 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:23:39 ◼   ► Those are upsetting.

00:23:39 ◼   ► They're very upsetting.

00:23:41 ◼   ► Thankfully, I hid it in a cabinet so that, you know, people wouldn't be able to see that

00:23:47 ◼   ► robotic spider providing the Wi-Fi.

00:23:50 ◼   ► And it worked okay.

00:23:54 ◼   ► I wouldn't say well, because they're very expensive.

00:23:59 ◼   ► And I got to tell you that for the price, I was probably expecting better performance.

00:24:02 ◼   ► But the problem with the Wi-Fi 6E system that I had is that after about a year, I was basically

00:24:10 ◼   ► annoyed with all the issues that I was encountering with latency and range.

00:24:16 ◼   ► I don't know if it was a problem specific to the Wi-Fi 6E standard, or it was an issue of

00:24:21 ◼   ► the routers or my placement.

00:24:23 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:24:24 ◼   ► But I was having all kinds of trouble streaming my PS5, streaming, you know, from the cloud

00:24:30 ◼   ► for cloud gaming, and even just, you know, being able to have good range inside the apartment,

00:24:36 ◼   ► which is not a huge apartment.

00:24:38 ◼   ► It's like 95 square meters.

00:24:40 ◼   ► Don't ask me about square feet because I have no idea.

00:24:43 ◼   ► But it's not like, I don't live in a mansion, I live on a single floor.

00:24:46 ◼   ► And the moment that I went into my bedroom, like Sylvia, for example, sleeps on the side

00:24:53 ◼   ► of the bed that is the farthest away from the office where I had the satellite router, and

00:25:00 ◼   ► she would constantly drop back to 5G because the Wi-Fi couldn't hold the connection there.

00:25:05 ◼   ► And it's like, that seems not ideal, given that there's like, what, 10 meters in terms of

00:25:12 ◼   ► distance and two walls, but like these two walls usually have the door open.

00:25:16 ◼   ► Yeah, it's the walls, man.

00:25:19 ◼   ► 6E, like 5 gigahertz, just struggles through walls.

00:25:23 ◼   ► 5 and 6 gigahertz, both.

00:25:25 ◼   ► That's what I also realized over time.

00:25:28 ◼   ► So I started doing my research, and I started looking at Wi-Fi 7, and I started doing some

00:25:35 ◼   ► research in terms of looking at the best options because I was like, if I'm going to spend money,

00:25:39 ◼   ► these Wi-Fi 7 routers are really expensive.

00:25:41 ◼   ► But I figured if I want to spend money, I got to get at least something that is going to

00:25:45 ◼   ► last me, not a year, but ideally, like, I don't know, two years or three years before Wi-Fi

00:25:50 ◼   ► 8 or whatever comes out.

00:25:52 ◼   ► Let me tell you, there were some really expensive options.

00:25:58 ◼   ► The consensus on the internet is that Asus continues to make the best options for Wi-Fi 7, but a pair

00:26:06 ◼   ► of those Asus riders was 1,600 euros.

00:26:10 ◼   ► Oh, what?

00:26:13 ◼   ► 1,600 for two units.

00:26:15 ◼   ► And combining, you know, the fact that this price was insane with the fact that I didn't

00:26:23 ◼   ► have a good experience with Asus, I was like, maybe I'm not going to get the Asus ones, and

00:26:29 ◼   ► I should look at other options.

00:26:31 ◼   ► And I saw that the second best that was frequently recommended was from a brand that I had never

00:26:37 ◼   ► personally used, but a lot of people in my real life were vouching for, and that is the TP-Link

00:26:43 ◼   ► Deco, Deco, Deco, it's D-E-C-O, the TP-Link Deco line, specifically the BE85.

00:26:54 ◼   ► So I was very intrigued by these models because I knew one of them I was going to keep in the

00:27:04 ◼   ► living room cabinet hidden from you, but the other one, I knew that I had to compromise.

00:27:09 ◼   ► For the past year, the Asus one was also hidden in my office cabinet.

00:27:16 ◼   ► I have this small cabinet under my desk.

00:27:19 ◼   ► But I figured if my video game console is plugged into this secondary unit, and I want to make

00:27:27 ◼   ► sure that when I'm in the bedroom, I get the best possible Wi-Fi, probably this unit doesn't

00:27:34 ◼   ► have to be inside a wooden cabinet.

00:27:37 ◼   ► It has to be outside.

00:27:39 ◼   ► And if it had to be outside, it had to look nice.

00:27:44 ◼   ► That was my only request.

00:27:47 ◼   ► Like, it has to look not like a robot that wants to kill me.

00:27:51 ◼   ► It has to look minimal.

00:27:53 ◼   ► It has to look nice.

00:27:55 ◼   ► And the TP-Link Deco BE85, it's basically a pretty bare-bones, chunky, tall, white cylinder.

00:28:06 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:28:06 ◼   ► That's it.

00:28:07 ◼   ► Yeah, it's inoffensive.

00:28:08 ◼   ► It's, yeah, it looks like, I don't know, it's a little, it's a canister.

00:28:14 ◼   ► It's a cylinder.

00:28:14 ◼   ► It's a plastic white cylinder that is a Wi-Fi router.

00:28:19 ◼   ► And I got it.

00:28:20 ◼   ► And I set it up a couple of weeks ago.

00:28:21 ◼   ► And let me tell you, Stephen, it's been a dream come true.

00:28:25 ◼   ► And I have had the time of my life streaming video games, both locally and from the cloud,

00:28:33 ◼   ► using Wi-Fi 7.

00:28:34 ◼   ► And I think what is working for me with Wi-Fi 7 is a specific feature of Wi-Fi 7, which is MLO.

00:28:43 ◼   ► It stands for multi-link operation.

00:28:45 ◼   ► That is a unique Wi-Fi 7 thing.

00:28:47 ◼   ► That means this network can set up two separate networks, a regular one and another one that uses MLO.

00:28:58 ◼   ► The thing about MLO is that it can use multiple Wi-Fi bands at the same time.

00:29:05 ◼   ► In my case, it's basically meshing.

00:29:08 ◼   ► It's combining the 5 gigahertz and the 6 gigahertz band at the same time.

00:29:14 ◼   ► That vastly increases the bandwidth and vastly increased the stability of the connection and the range of the connection.

00:29:24 ◼   ► So I have been streaming from my PS5 and, you know, from the cloud also.

00:29:32 ◼   ► I've been streaming with my Android tablet and with my other devices, with my iPhone 16 Pro Max and the iPad Pro.

00:29:40 ◼   ► All of them have Wi-Fi 7.

00:29:43 ◼   ► I've been streaming PlayStation 5 and NVIDIA GeForce now.

00:29:48 ◼   ► It has been incredible.

00:29:50 ◼   ► I have gone from the 3-4 milliseconds of latency that I was seeing before inside my local network, which may not seem like a big deal.

00:30:00 ◼   ► But especially when you're playing something fast-paced, you can tell.

00:30:04 ◼   ► I'm sure.

00:30:04 ◼   ► The latency is an issue.

00:30:06 ◼   ► I have gone from 3-4 milliseconds of latency to 0.2 milliseconds of latency.

00:30:12 ◼   ► Jeez.

00:30:13 ◼   ► It's been beautiful to see these stats go down and just, I'm basically streaming, like Astro Bot, for example, or even the new, do you remember the Apple Arcade game, Sayonara Wild Hearts?

00:30:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:30:30 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:30:31 ◼   ► Yeah, so they really released it on PS5 a few days ago with, like, 4K and 120 FPS mode.

00:30:38 ◼   ► It's beautiful.

00:30:40 ◼   ► Like, when you stream on Wi-Fi 7, it's basically like I'm sitting in front of the PS5.

00:30:44 ◼   ► Obviously, the PS5 is plugged into Ethernet, and the signal goes over Wi-Fi 7 MLO to my iPad Pro, for example.

00:30:54 ◼   ► And I just don't see any latency anymore.

00:30:56 ◼   ► The quality of the image is incredible.

00:30:58 ◼   ► I have plenty of bitrate to, like, the performance and bitrate headroom that I have is wild right now.

00:31:07 ◼   ► The iPhone supports Wi-Fi 7.

00:31:10 ◼   ► The iPad Pro supports Wi-Fi 7.

00:31:13 ◼   ► And I've basically reached the point where, with these two routers, I get the real speeds from my ISP, no matter where I am in the house.

00:31:24 ◼   ► Like, I don't see any speed degradation anymore.

00:31:28 ◼   ► Yeah, over Wi-Fi.

00:31:29 ◼   ► Over Wi-Fi, yes.

00:31:32 ◼   ► What is wild to me about Wi-Fi 7 is that, for the first time, you're not penalized speed-wise, and especially latency-wise, to your point a second ago, by not using a cable.

00:31:45 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:31:46 ◼   ► Like, it breaks all of, like, my entire tech life.

00:31:51 ◼   ► If you want fast and, more importantly, reliable speeds, you use Ethernet.

00:31:58 ◼   ► With a Wi-Fi 7, it's like, you know, actually, you're okay.

00:32:01 ◼   ► Like, you can, now, you know, the hardware's expensive.

00:32:05 ◼   ► Like, these base stations are pricey, and I think even 7 has some of the range issues.

00:32:11 ◼   ► The 6E, I think, in hindsight, will really be seen as kind of, like, a half-step.

00:32:16 ◼   ► My access points, so I tried Wi-Fi 7 initially when I switched to UniFi.

00:32:22 ◼   ► I had a lot of issues with it.

00:32:23 ◼   ► Not because of Wi-Fi 7, but I think Ubiquiti's implementation of it.

00:32:28 ◼   ► And from Reddit and some other places, it seems like that's mostly better now.

00:32:31 ◼   ► But the access points I switched to, I actually misspoke on an episode weeks ago, saying that it was just 6 and not 6E.

00:32:40 ◼   ► But the access points I have are 6E capable.

00:32:42 ◼   ► But the 6E is, like, it's great if you have line of sight to the access point.

00:32:48 ◼   ► Yes, yes.

00:32:49 ◼   ► And in some rooms in my house, I do, because I actually have ceiling-mounted access points.

00:32:54 ◼   ► And I cannot believe, Mary, let me mount them on the ceiling.

00:32:57 ◼   ► But if you're not in view of one of them, you don't get 6E speeds.

00:33:03 ◼   ► Like, you get dropped down.

00:33:05 ◼   ► And 7, I think, addresses some of that.

00:33:09 ◼   ► But the higher these speeds get, and the broader, like, the channels are that the Wi-Fi is on,

00:33:17 ◼   ► you have issues with walls.

00:33:19 ◼   ► And like you said, it was, like, in a piece of furniture.

00:33:21 ◼   ► It's gotten more complicated.

00:33:26 ◼   ► Wi-Fi has gotten more complicated.

00:33:27 ◼   ► But if you can store all this out, and you have equipment that can do it, the speeds now are just, I mean, truly unbelievable from, like, a traditional tech standpoint.

00:33:39 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:33:39 ◼   ► Two more things I want to say.

00:33:40 ◼   ► The first one is kind of funny.

00:33:42 ◼   ► One of my Android handles, shout out to MPC, where, you know, I talked about this, the A&Odin2 portal.

00:33:50 ◼   ► It's an Android-based little handheld console.

00:33:54 ◼   ► It can connect to the Wi-Fi 7.

00:33:58 ◼   ► And it can also connect, because it sees the separate Wi-Fi 7 MLO network.

00:34:04 ◼   ► But when it connects, it reboots.

00:34:07 ◼   ► So, it seems like the Android fork that the company flashed on the console is not exactly optimized for MLO connections.

00:34:20 ◼   ► It doesn't seem like it.

00:34:21 ◼   ► As soon as it connects, it hard crashes, and the whole thing reboots.

00:34:26 ◼   ► So, not ideal.

00:34:26 ◼   ► I've just been using regular Wi-Fi 7, and that's already, yeah.

00:34:31 ◼   ► Even the regular Wi-Fi 7, I want to point out, it's a vast improvement over 6C.

00:34:36 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:34:37 ◼   ► The other thing, that the TP-Link app, the Deco app, has a really nice feature in that it can scan your network,

00:34:46 ◼   ► and it can automatically optimize your Wi-Fi based on channel interference that it finds around you.

00:34:55 ◼   ► And I did this, and it realized that there was interference with the previous channel that I was using for the 5 gigahertz band.

00:35:02 ◼   ► It fixed itself, and I've been having incredible performance.

00:35:06 ◼   ► Like, it just, you go into settings, you tap the optimize button, it scans the whole network for like 30 seconds,

00:35:12 ◼   ► and it tells you, I found some interference on this channel.

00:35:15 ◼   ► I'm switching to this other one.

00:35:16 ◼   ► It's great.

00:35:17 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:35:17 ◼   ► I've been really, really liking it.

00:35:20 ◼   ► That's important, especially in a situation like yours, where like you're in a building with a bunch of neighbors, right?

00:35:25 ◼   ► Yes.

00:35:26 ◼   ► Yes.

00:35:27 ◼   ► And that may change over time if like someone next door gets a new access point.

00:35:32 ◼   ► And Unified is the same thing, where it's like you can manually select the channels, or there's like an optimize button.

00:35:38 ◼   ► Unified, you can even set it up to optimize every 24 hours.

00:35:42 ◼   ► My situation is relatively stable because I'm in a house, and like, you know, it's a house next door.

00:35:48 ◼   ► I'm not, you know, sharing a wall with anybody or anything, but it is, it's very useful because you can, you really can get speed penalties if you're kind of running over someone else's network on the same band.

00:36:01 ◼   ► And lastly, I have a confession to make for something funny that I did.

00:36:06 ◼   ► So I was setting this up one afternoon while the cleaning lady that we have was over doing, doing, she was doing the office, I think.

00:36:16 ◼   ► And I was setting this up in the living room.

00:36:18 ◼   ► And obviously, like I always do, I set up the new network with the same name as before.

00:36:25 ◼   ► Yes.

00:36:26 ◼   ► So that all my previous devices would automatically reconnect.

00:36:28 ◼   ► And when Advice connects for the first time to the TP-Link network, the TP-Link app tells you, like Federico's iPhone has joined the network.

00:36:37 ◼   ► So I was setting this up and...

00:36:40 ◼   ► Like it talks?

00:36:41 ◼   ► Like it says something?

00:36:42 ◼   ► No, it sends you a notification.

00:36:43 ◼   ► Okay, I was like, well, I don't want that.

00:36:45 ◼   ► No, no, no, it sends you a notification.

00:36:46 ◼   ► You can't disable them, but I had them on.

00:36:48 ◼   ► So I was setting this up and I saw every device come back to life slowly but surely, like all the cameras, all the Apple TV, everything was reconnecting.

00:36:58 ◼   ► And at some point I saw Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 is online.

00:37:03 ◼   ► Oh boy.

00:37:04 ◼   ► And I thought, what is going on here?

00:37:07 ◼   ► I, for a good 10 minutes, I was convinced that my Wi-Fi password had been passed around by one of our neighbors.

00:37:16 ◼   ► Because we had some of the neighbors over, you know, over the past year and it's possible that I shared my Wi-Fi network with them.

00:37:24 ◼   ► And for a good 10 minutes, I thought, oh no, for the past year, someone has been on my Wi-Fi.

00:37:31 ◼   ► Because as soon as I turned it off and recreated the network, this device came back online.

00:37:38 ◼   ► Now it's on the network, but it must have been on the network for the past year.

00:37:41 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:37:42 ◼   ► And so I went in and blocked the device.

00:37:45 ◼   ► Um, and after about 30, 30 minutes, like I would, I was texting Sylvia.

00:37:51 ◼   ► I was like, I think we had someone on the network for the past year.

00:37:55 ◼   ► And I was very concerned.

00:37:57 ◼   ► It was the cleaning lady, right?

00:37:58 ◼   ► Is that where this goes?

00:37:59 ◼   ► It was, it was the cleaning lady's, uh, phone.

00:38:02 ◼   ► Uh, she, she came to me and was like, uh, Federico, um, I've, I've been unable to, to call my son on WhatsApp.

00:38:09 ◼   ► And I realized that because she never had good reception inside my apartment.

00:38:14 ◼   ► And so that's why last year I gave her the Wi-Fi.

00:38:17 ◼   ► And so it's like, I'm trying to call my son, but the Wi-Fi is not working anymore.

00:38:22 ◼   ► And I was like, I realized mentally, I realized what happened.

00:38:26 ◼   ► I was like, ah, that's weird.

00:38:29 ◼   ► Let me see what's up.

00:38:30 ◼   ► And then I secretly opened the TP link app and unblocked the device.

00:38:35 ◼   ► And she was okay.

00:38:35 ◼   ► Fixed it.

00:38:39 ◼   ► Yeah, it, it is, it is funny looking through, uh, and like, wait, that's hooked up somewhere.

00:38:45 ◼   ► That is very funny though.

00:38:46 ◼   ► And I would, you know, especially with like a brand, you know, there's like, you know, it's not yours, right?

00:38:53 ◼   ► Like, you know, all the, all your devices.

00:38:55 ◼   ► You're like, what is this?

00:38:57 ◼   ► I mean, that's, that's fantastic.

00:39:00 ◼   ► Uh, well, yeah, I'm pleased.

00:39:02 ◼   ► I'm pleased that you, uh, you got all sorted out.

00:39:05 ◼   ► Yeah, finally.

00:39:07 ◼   ► Bedroom Wi-Fi is underrated.

00:39:09 ◼   ► You need, you need good Wi-Fi in there.

00:39:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:39:11 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:39:12 ◼   ► But Sylvia won't let me put a router in the bedroom.

00:39:14 ◼   ► So.

00:39:15 ◼   ► That's probably fair.

00:39:17 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:39:21 ◼   ► This episode of Connected is brought to you by Incogni.

00:39:24 ◼   ► Data brokers are in the business of collecting personal information, which can be uncomfortable for a lot of us to think about.

00:39:32 ◼   ► Nobody likes the idea of other people having access to personal details.

00:39:37 ◼   ► Enter Incogni.

00:39:38 ◼   ► They reach out to these data brokers on your behalf, request that your personal data be removed, and then deal with any objections from their side.

00:39:46 ◼   ► Personal privacy is important to me, a lot more important than it used to be, honestly.

00:39:51 ◼   ► And it really bothers me that my information is just out there.

00:39:54 ◼   ► Well, with Incogni, you protect your privacy in three easy steps.

00:39:58 ◼   ► Create an account, grant them the right to contact data brokers on your behalf, and then kick back while they get back to work.

00:40:06 ◼   ► And you can stay up to date with their progress, because a user-friendly dashboard provides updates on the status of removal requests.

00:40:14 ◼   ► Incogni makes protecting your privacy easy.

00:40:18 ◼   ► Learn more at incogni.com slash connected and secure your data today.

00:40:23 ◼   ► Sign up and enjoy a 30-day money-back guarantee.

00:40:27 ◼   ► With Incogni, you experience the peace of mind knowing that your personal information is safe.

00:40:33 ◼   ► So take back your personal data.

00:40:36 ◼   ► Use code CONNECTED at the link in the show notes and get 60% off an annual plan.

00:40:41 ◼   ► That's incogni.com slash connected.

00:40:44 ◼   ► Federico, there are new betas.

00:40:49 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:40:50 ◼   ► 18.4 Mac OS whatever .4 Vision OS.

00:40:56 ◼   ► What is Mac OS?

00:40:57 ◼   ► 15?

00:40:58 ◼   ► 15, I think.

00:40:59 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:40:59 ◼   ► Yes, 15.

00:41:01 ◼   ► Sequoia 15.4.

00:41:02 ◼   ► Lots of things in here.

00:41:05 ◼   ► There are some notable, noticeable absences as well.

00:41:09 ◼   ► But I want to start with what in the world is going on with Apple News Plus food.

00:41:19 ◼   ► I did not see this coming.

00:41:20 ◼   ► Tell me about this because I don't have News Plus.

00:41:23 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:41:24 ◼   ► So, you know, News Plus is part of a paid iCloud subscription.

00:41:29 ◼   ► And starting soon, News Plus subscribers will have access to this like new section.

00:41:36 ◼   ► So there's today, which is like headlines, News Plus, which is, you know, if you have paid access to the Wall Street Journal or a bunch of magazines, sports, and now a new tab called food.

00:41:49 ◼   ► And in there, there's going to be 10, quote, 10, quote, 10s of thousands of recipes.

00:41:54 ◼   ► There's going to be restaurant reviews, kitchen tips, you know, kind of some, I think some lifestyle stuff in here.

00:42:03 ◼   ► The UI is really interesting to look through the recipe catalog.

00:42:09 ◼   ► And this is all coming from like, they have a bunch of content partners, right?

00:42:13 ◼   ► It's not Eddie Q putting his like famous ribs in here.

00:42:19 ◼   ► Although maybe.

00:42:21 ◼   ► I, I, I, I am sure.

00:42:23 ◼   ► I don't, I don't know.

00:42:25 ◼   ► Like, I'm just vibing with this.

00:42:27 ◼   ► Sure.

00:42:27 ◼   ► But I think Eddie Q loves a Cuban sandwich.

00:42:30 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:42:32 ◼   ► I, I, I, I, is that type of guy for sure.

00:42:36 ◼   ► I think so.

00:42:37 ◼   ► I, yeah, I think, I think he's probably also has a big smoker out back, you know, like he seems.

00:42:43 ◼   ► Yes.

00:42:44 ◼   ► Yes.

00:42:45 ◼   ► Smoking meats.

00:42:45 ◼   ► Smoking meats.

00:42:46 ◼   ► Uh, sweet baby Ray's on there, you know?

00:42:49 ◼   ► So anyways, Apple's publishing with a bunch of publishers, like, uh, Bon Appetit, Food and Wine, All Recipes, and some others.

00:42:56 ◼   ► But the UI is really interesting.

00:42:58 ◼   ► Like they have these categories at the top.

00:43:00 ◼   ► So you can pick like dinner or vegetarian, less than 30 minutes.

00:43:03 ◼   ► They have a bunch of different things in here.

00:43:05 ◼   ► You can save them for later.

00:43:07 ◼   ► Uh, you know, I, I don't know if this like Sherlock's apps, like paprika or others.

00:43:12 ◼   ► Uh, but it, it, it is interesting.

00:43:17 ◼   ► What is most interesting to me in this UI though, if you look through the newsroom article and scroll down, they have a like step-by-step, like how you do the recipe.

00:43:27 ◼   ► And that's great because a lot of websites and recipes are awful.

00:43:31 ◼   ► And like, they're covered in ads and comments and it's very clean.

00:43:35 ◼   ► But if you look at this, this is the design of the lyrics view in Apple music.

00:43:40 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:43:40 ◼   ► This is Apple music.

00:43:41 ◼   ► Right?

00:43:42 ◼   ► Like it's, it's the same, it's the same thing.

00:43:45 ◼   ► It just kind of made me chuckle.

00:43:46 ◼   ► Um, but I need some feedback from you in the head, uh, like the, the hero image on the Apple newsroom.

00:43:55 ◼   ► They have a recipe for some pasta and this doesn't show the whole thing, but I would like your feedback on this recipe based on what you can see in this image.

00:44:05 ◼   ► Creamy miso pasta.

00:44:10 ◼   ► Uh, so they're using red, uh, miso, which is stronger than white miso.

00:44:15 ◼   ► Um, I like miso.

00:44:16 ◼   ► I think that's a good idea.

00:44:17 ◼   ► Uh, and they're mixing it like a high level overview.

00:44:20 ◼   ► They're doing, uh, uh, miso, walnuts, roasted cabbage.

00:44:25 ◼   ► Okay.

00:44:26 ◼   ► Uh, whole green spaghetti.

00:44:29 ◼   ► Uh, in the hero image, those are not spaghetti.

00:44:33 ◼   ► I don't know if you guys are eating those as spaghetti in the U S those are not spaghetti.

00:44:36 ◼   ► Those are way too thick for being spaghetti.

00:44:38 ◼   ► I think I would call that spaghetti.

00:44:40 ◼   ► I think it's just like a long skinny noodle.

00:44:43 ◼   ► Well, that's a noodle.

00:44:45 ◼   ► That's, you know, noodles and spaghetti are two different things.

00:44:48 ◼   ► Um, those are way too thick, um, for being, for being spaghetti, uh, in my opinion.

00:44:55 ◼   ► Uh, anyway, setting that aside, they said they use Barilla, which is okay.

00:45:01 ◼   ► Um, could have, could have gone for something a little less mainstream, but whatever.

00:45:05 ◼   ► Uh, so they're using a, uh, uh, tablespoon olive oil.

00:45:09 ◼   ► First mistake.

00:45:10 ◼   ► They're not using extra virgin olive oil.

00:45:12 ◼   ► They should be using extra virgin, not standard olive oil.

00:45:14 ◼   ► Um, red cabbage.

00:45:17 ◼   ► I like salt and pepper, rice vinegar.

00:45:19 ◼   ► This is a nice touch using the rice vinegar.

00:45:22 ◼   ► I use, uh, I use apple vinegar or whenever possible, but the rice one is also a good idea.

00:45:26 ◼   ► Walnuts chopped.

00:45:28 ◼   ► Uh, I, I honestly have two issues.

00:45:30 ◼   ► With this recipe.

00:45:31 ◼   ► I mean, aside from the suspicious shape of the spaghetti, um, the medium onion, uh, onion,

00:45:39 ◼   ► thinly sliced and cloves of garlic, finely chopped.

00:45:43 ◼   ► Good luck with your digestion, you know, mixing onion and garlic together.

00:45:47 ◼   ► That's a choice.

00:45:48 ◼   ► That's a choice for sure.

00:45:50 ◼   ► And, uh, my main concern is the heavy cream.

00:45:57 ◼   ► What is heavy cream?

00:45:58 ◼   ► Like, what, what, uh, is that like, I suppose that's what in Italy we called panna?

00:46:06 ◼   ► Let me see.

00:46:07 ◼   ► Heavy cream.

00:46:09 ◼   ► It's a lot, it's a lot of, it's a lot of dairy for me.

00:46:11 ◼   ► Uh, oh, okay.

00:46:14 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:46:14 ◼   ► This is, this is a thick, this is basically even thicker than, than our panna.

00:46:21 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:46:21 ◼   ► Heavy cream is pretty thick.

00:46:24 ◼   ► Okay.

00:46:25 ◼   ► It's got some weight to it.

00:46:26 ◼   ► Okay.

00:46:27 ◼   ► They could, considering how this looks on the surface, like a vegetarian recipe, like, like,

00:46:35 ◼   ► oh, it could have passed for a vegan recipe.

00:46:38 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:46:38 ◼   ► Right until you get to heavy cream.

00:46:40 ◼   ► Right until you get to heavy cream.

00:46:42 ◼   ► There were other options instead of the heavy cream.

00:46:46 ◼   ► There is, there is like coconut heavy cream, but then your pasta tastes like coconut.

00:46:50 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:46:51 ◼   ► It also tastes, yeah.

00:46:52 ◼   ► I mean, you could, you could, uh, you could have used almond milk, you could have used,

00:46:55 ◼   ► you know, uh, uh, uh, some other kind of, of, um, of milk that is not like dairy and still

00:47:03 ◼   ► gives the creamy, the creamy texture and flavor to the sauce.

00:47:08 ◼   ► But yeah, I mean, um, Americans, am I right?

00:47:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:47:13 ◼   ► They do what they gotta do.

00:47:14 ◼   ► That's right.

00:47:14 ◼   ► Heavy cream.

00:47:15 ◼   ► I hope that in the direction section, you see those little like labels look like timer

00:47:22 ◼   ► links.

00:47:22 ◼   ► Those have to be shortcuts to start a timer.

00:47:26 ◼   ► Gotta be.

00:47:26 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:47:27 ◼   ► Gotta be.

00:47:28 ◼   ► Which is a nice idea.

00:47:29 ◼   ► Nice idea.

00:47:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:47:29 ◼   ► Uh, yeah.

00:47:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:47:32 ◼   ► I like this.

00:47:33 ◼   ► I think it's cool.

00:47:33 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:47:34 ◼   ► Um, there's a whole bunch of other things that we should talk about in a 10.4.

00:47:40 ◼   ► Uh, most of which I am not using, but I still want to mention.

00:47:43 ◼   ► Uh, actually, I don't think any of them, I'm not using them.

00:47:48 ◼   ► Um, so there's, uh, for Apple intelligence.

00:47:52 ◼   ► We are not getting right now, the new Siri intense feature that is still, as we talked

00:48:00 ◼   ► about in the report that they were delaying the functionality, maybe to 18.5, maybe later.

00:48:08 ◼   ► That is, none of that is here.

00:48:09 ◼   ► So no Siri intense functionalities, no Siri awareness of your personal contacts or screen

00:48:15 ◼   ► awareness, none of that.

00:48:17 ◼   ► But we are getting priority notifications, which is using Apple intelligence to highlight what

00:48:23 ◼   ► the system considers important notifications that you're receiving.

00:48:28 ◼   ► Uh, I have the Apple intelligence notification stuff enabled.

00:48:31 ◼   ► I have not received a priority one yet.

00:48:34 ◼   ► Um, um, um, for image playgrounds.

00:48:38 ◼   ► And I see that you have just pasted an absolutely horrific, uh, result in our, in our show notes.

00:48:44 ◼   ► Uh, the new sketch style is here allowing you to create quote unquote sketch illustrations

00:48:53 ◼   ► of, uh, various subjects.

00:48:55 ◼   ► You just pasted an illustration of Mike that, uh, I, I, I gotta say it.

00:49:02 ◼   ► It kind of looks like, it kind of looks like president Trump in this sketch.

00:49:06 ◼   ► Um, a little bit, right.

00:49:08 ◼   ► It's the, it's the red tie and the facial expression.

00:49:11 ◼   ► I think, I mean, look, um, Apple spend $500 billion to keep the guy happy.

00:49:15 ◼   ► So maybe it's just like they've waited the models a little bit.

00:49:18 ◼   ► Train, train the model, you know?

00:49:19 ◼   ► Oh God.

00:49:20 ◼   ► Uh, sorry, Mike.

00:49:22 ◼   ► Um, so there's that, whatever nightmare this is, you can now use it, uh, for Apple intelligence.

00:49:30 ◼   ► Uh, there was something else I think.

00:49:33 ◼   ► Uh, no, that's, that's pretty much about it.

00:49:35 ◼   ► I think.

00:49:36 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:49:36 ◼   ► No, uh, no app intense, no app intense, just.

00:49:41 ◼   ► Just the sketch illustrations and the priority notifications, because the smart categorization

00:49:46 ◼   ► in Apple mail, that's theoretically not Apple intelligence.

00:49:50 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:49:51 ◼   ► Uh, but that is now available as of 18.4 on the iPad and on the Mac.

00:49:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:49:57 ◼   ► So you can have, you can have those categories, those categories now in Apple mail on, on every

00:50:01 ◼   ► device.

00:50:01 ◼   ► We also have these new toggles.

00:50:05 ◼   ► This is kind of interesting.

00:50:06 ◼   ► There's these new toggles in control center for ambient music.

00:50:10 ◼   ► And you basically have these four toggles for chill, productivity, sleep, and well-being

00:50:16 ◼   ► that are basically pointing to playlists in Apple music.

00:50:20 ◼   ► Uh, I think this is a good idea.

00:50:22 ◼   ► And I, and I'm especially fascinated by Apple, uh, expanding into different kinds of audio.

00:50:29 ◼   ► Uh, they already have their white noise integration in iOS and now they're going to have this ambient

00:50:35 ◼   ► music.

00:50:35 ◼   ► I think it's a, I think it's a nice idea to have not just obviously Apple music, but different

00:50:40 ◼   ► kinds of music.

00:50:41 ◼   ► Uh, I think it's nice.

00:50:43 ◼   ► Um, there's another, there's a whole bunch of smaller things.

00:50:47 ◼   ► Uh, you can now see when your verification codes expire with a little timer in the passwords

00:50:54 ◼   ► app.

00:50:54 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:50:56 ◼   ► That is a good addition.

00:50:57 ◼   ► I mean, one password has that because it's just the worst.

00:51:00 ◼   ► If you go to paste one of those things and it expires like in the four seconds, it takes

00:51:06 ◼   ► you to get back to Chrome.

00:51:07 ◼   ► Uh, yeah, good, good change.

00:51:09 ◼   ► You're looking at a code and then the moment, the moment you copy the code before 18.4, the

00:51:14 ◼   ► moment you copy the code and you switch to Safari or whatever to paste the code, like in that

00:51:18 ◼   ► moment, it becomes like Schrodinger's code.

00:51:21 ◼   ► Like it either works or it doesn't.

00:51:22 ◼   ► And you only know until you hit return.

00:51:24 ◼   ► Uh, so that it's nice to have a timer now.

00:51:27 ◼   ► Um, what else?

00:51:29 ◼   ► Oh, you can, if you have a matter enabled, uh, robot vacuum, you can now add that to the

00:51:36 ◼   ► home app because it's, it's expanding its matter integration to, to, with support for

00:51:41 ◼   ► robot vacuums.

00:51:42 ◼   ► I don't think the matter specs includes any sort of standardized mapping feature.

00:51:49 ◼   ► So you will not be able to see the map of your floor plan in the home app.

00:51:53 ◼   ► You'll still have to use whatever dedicated, uh, vacuum app you have on your phone to check

00:51:59 ◼   ► the map, but you will at least be able to check the progress of the robot vacuum and start

00:52:04 ◼   ► it or stop it, whatever.

00:52:05 ◼   ► Um, there's going to be a new interface for editing albums in the photos app, uh, new

00:52:14 ◼   ► widgets for your library and for your shows, for the podcasts app.

00:52:18 ◼   ► Good.

00:52:19 ◼   ► There's a new, there's a new messages action to open a conversation and arguably the big

00:52:24 ◼   ► change, which we cannot test right now, uh, because it's not there yet.

00:52:30 ◼   ► It's the new vision pro app that will allow you to, uh, enable guest mode, download apps

00:52:37 ◼   ► and games on the vision pro app store for, from your phone.

00:52:40 ◼   ► Uh, Apple is doing a whole bunch of vision pro and vision OS things in this release, uh, including

00:52:46 ◼   ► the new, what's it called?

00:52:47 ◼   ► Spatial gallery gallery app on the vision pro.

00:52:50 ◼   ► None of these apps are available right now in beta one, but, uh, they will be at some point.

00:52:56 ◼   ► Vision pro app is really interesting.

00:52:59 ◼   ► It seems like it's going to be the same model as the Apple watch app on the iPhone.

00:53:03 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:53:03 ◼   ► Where you can kind of manage things in a easier way.

00:53:07 ◼   ► And I think that plus the spatial gallery, which is this new vision pro app that basically

00:53:13 ◼   ► has content from Apple and others that is like spatially enabled.

00:53:19 ◼   ► And, you know, right now that stuff's kind of hard to find.

00:53:22 ◼   ► And I think that it's smart for Apple to put it under kind of one umbrella.

00:53:28 ◼   ► Now I think there's a risk there that if more of this content doesn't come out in a

00:53:32 ◼   ► timely fashion, that app's going to feel stale.

00:53:34 ◼   ► So I'm interested to see in how they keep it feeling fresh over time.

00:53:39 ◼   ► It's different with like the TV app, right?

00:53:41 ◼   ► Where basically the content is unlimited.

00:53:43 ◼   ► Like, and then if you pay for max or, you know, national geographic or something through

00:53:48 ◼   ► Apple, that content also goes into the TV app.

00:53:51 ◼   ► If you use Netflix last week, it was in there briefly, which is a wild story, but this is

00:53:57 ◼   ► going to be different because there's not a lot of it.

00:53:59 ◼   ► I'm very curious to see how that plays out because Apple needs that content library to

00:54:04 ◼   ► continue to grow on the headset.

00:54:05 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:54:07 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:54:08 ◼   ► I think it's a good idea to do the app and I'm mostly excited for guest mode because whenever

00:54:14 ◼   ► I try to have Sylvia try the vision pro, she absolutely hated the experience because like

00:54:20 ◼   ► all the things you're supposed to go through, all the settings, all the little, you know,

00:54:24 ◼   ► all the little obstacles that you run into, uh, before 18.4.

00:54:29 ◼   ► So, um, and, uh, vision has 2.4.

00:54:33 ◼   ► Uh, so yeah, excited to give this a try again.

00:54:35 ◼   ► Um, every time we talked about the vision pro, I kind of feel like I want to, I want to use

00:54:42 ◼   ► the vision pro more, but then I don't.

00:54:44 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:54:45 ◼   ► And maybe this will be the thing like having the vision pro app on my phone, maybe will

00:54:50 ◼   ► push me to like download apps remotely, you know, that sort of thing, have the view because

00:54:56 ◼   ► then when you, you, you, you enter this sort of like negative loop of you forget about the

00:55:03 ◼   ► vision pro.

00:55:03 ◼   ► And when you do remember about the vision pro, the battery is not charged.

00:55:08 ◼   ► And so you got to charge it and then you forget again, and then you don't use it.

00:55:12 ◼   ► So now maybe having the vision pro app on my phone will like help me remember more frequently

00:55:17 ◼   ► to keep my vision pro charged and download new apps from the phone and find them when I'm

00:55:23 ◼   ► using the vision pro.

00:55:24 ◼   ► So I think it's a good idea.

00:55:24 ◼   ► I think so too.

00:55:26 ◼   ► Just keeping it on people's radar.

00:55:28 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:55:29 ◼   ► Is, is a good thing.

00:55:30 ◼   ► I think a lot of people are like us.

00:55:32 ◼   ► It's like, oh yeah, I've got that thing.

00:55:33 ◼   ► And I use it every, you know, once in a while, but I'm mostly just sort of sad about the money

00:55:38 ◼   ► I spent.

00:55:38 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:55:38 ◼   ► You, you have, uh, you have the every, uh, you know, a lot of people like us, they have

00:55:42 ◼   ► the, the headset drawer, you know, it's a drawer where you keep a headset and then you

00:55:47 ◼   ► forget about it.

00:55:47 ◼   ► You know, it happened with the Oculus before happened with, you know, a whole bunch of other

00:55:52 ◼   ► headsets before, like it happened to the best of us.

00:55:55 ◼   ► And I know it happened with the vision pro for me.

00:55:57 ◼   ► It's in the drawer and I forget about it.

00:56:00 ◼   ► So, uh, the, the iPhone app is a good idea.

00:56:02 ◼   ► This episode of connected is brought to you by Ecamm.

00:56:08 ◼   ► Ecamm live is the leading video production and live streaming suite built for the Mac, but

00:56:15 ◼   ► it doesn't stop there because Ecamm is great at simplifying your workflow too.

00:56:18 ◼   ► You can do it all with the Ecamm app, get started quickly and have everything

00:56:22 ◼   ► on hand to create whatever you need with video.

00:56:25 ◼   ► A lot of video tools are complicated and Ecamm's team has gone out of their way to make it easy

00:56:31 ◼   ► to use.

00:56:31 ◼   ► If you are familiar with what the Mac can do audio and video wise, Ecamm is going to really

00:56:37 ◼   ► impress you.

00:56:37 ◼   ► It's great for streaming, recording, podcasting, and presenting.

00:56:41 ◼   ► If you want to stand out from the crowd, you need high quality video.

00:56:45 ◼   ► And with Ecamm, you can screen share, use multiple cameras and direct the show in real time with

00:56:51 ◼   ► their live camera switcher.

00:56:52 ◼   ► Plus you can add logos, titles, lower thirds, and graphics.

00:56:56 ◼   ► You can drop in video clips, bring on interview guests, use a green screen, and so much more.

00:57:01 ◼   ► Ecamm live truly does it all.

00:57:03 ◼   ► Ecamm's members are entrepreneurs, marketing professionals, podcasters.

00:57:08 ◼   ► Hey, that's me.

00:57:09 ◼   ► Educators, musicians, church leaders, bloggers, and content creators of all kinds.

00:57:14 ◼   ► And if you're on the pro level plan, you can enjoy Ecamm for Zoom.

00:57:19 ◼   ► This is really cool because you can send Ecamm lives audio and video output into a Zoom

00:57:25 ◼   ► meeting, webinar, or event.

00:57:27 ◼   ► And you can add up to eight Zoom participants as camera sources in your broadcast and recording.

00:57:33 ◼   ► So it works kind of in both directions.

00:57:36 ◼   ► Plus, automatically create individual participant audio and video recordings, add Zoom chat messages

00:57:42 ◼   ► to your broadcast.

00:57:43 ◼   ► It is really cool.

00:57:45 ◼   ► To get one month free today, go to ecamm.com slash connected and use the code connected.

00:57:52 ◼   ► That's one month free of Ecamm live at Ecamm, E-C-A-M-M, ecamm.com slash connected with the

00:58:00 ◼   ► code connected at checkout.

00:58:02 ◼   ► Our thanks to Ecamm for the support of the show and all of Relay.

00:58:06 ◼   ► Welcome to Connected, Mary H.

00:58:17 ◼   ► Yes.

00:58:19 ◼   ► You don't watch Severance.

00:58:21 ◼   ► It's a little lost on you.

00:58:21 ◼   ► I think you would think it's creepy.

00:58:23 ◼   ► It sounds creepy.

00:58:25 ◼   ► Everything that I've heard about it, like, hmm.

00:58:27 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:58:28 ◼   ► Too plausible.

00:58:29 ◼   ► It's weird because once I come into the pod cabin, I don't remember our life outside.

00:58:33 ◼   ► Oh, gosh.

00:58:34 ◼   ► Totally separate.

00:58:35 ◼   ► Great.

00:58:36 ◼   ► Okay.

00:58:37 ◼   ► Well, you are our Beats expert on Connected.

00:58:40 ◼   ► You've been on the show a few times over the years talking about headphones.

00:58:43 ◼   ► And you're back because Beats slash Apple slash Dr. Dre have released the Power Beats Pro 2.

00:58:51 ◼   ► And you are a Power Beats Pro user.

00:58:55 ◼   ► So, for people who aren't familiar with this, it's the Beats headphones that have the ear

00:59:00 ◼   ► hook, right?

00:59:01 ◼   ► Yes.

00:59:01 ◼   ► So, they go up over your ear, use them while working out.

00:59:04 ◼   ► You have tried other Beats products in the past.

00:59:06 ◼   ► I think, kind of famously, the Beats X you really hated.

00:59:09 ◼   ► Big X.

00:59:10 ◼   ► Big X on the Beats X.

00:59:13 ◼   ► Do not like.

00:59:14 ◼   ► I don't...

00:59:15 ◼   ► They were replaced by, like, the Beats Flex or something.

00:59:17 ◼   ► But, yeah.

00:59:19 ◼   ► I wonder if those would be better.

00:59:21 ◼   ► Are they the same type?

00:59:23 ◼   ► Yeah, I think so.

00:59:24 ◼   ► The way it fits.

00:59:24 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:59:25 ◼   ► Yeah, I just hate them.

00:59:26 ◼   ► So, the Power Beats Pro 2 were rumored for a while.

00:59:29 ◼   ► The rumor mill got the colors exactly right.

00:59:32 ◼   ► I showed you an article somewhere.

00:59:33 ◼   ► It's like, what color would you like?

00:59:34 ◼   ► And you like those.

00:59:35 ◼   ► And so, you have the Hyper Purple, I think is what they're called.

00:59:37 ◼   ► They're beautiful.

00:59:38 ◼   ► It's like a lavender?

00:59:40 ◼   ► Yes.

00:59:41 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:59:41 ◼   ► It's not...

00:59:42 ◼   ► It's like a pale purple.

00:59:43 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:59:43 ◼   ► No, they're nice looking.

00:59:44 ◼   ► The orange is better.

00:59:46 ◼   ► If you're you.

00:59:47 ◼   ► Yes.

00:59:48 ◼   ► Yes.

00:59:48 ◼   ► If you're me.

00:59:49 ◼   ► Right off the bat, what I noticed, because I don't wear these, I use AirPods Pro 2, is that

00:59:54 ◼   ► the case is smaller.

00:59:56 ◼   ► The case in the original Power Beats was, like, humongous.

00:59:59 ◼   ► Yes.

00:59:59 ◼   ► And this makes it less possible for me to drop it and it open up and the headphones go spinning

01:00:09 ◼   ► across the house, which happened a lot with the other one because it was just so big in

01:00:14 ◼   ► your hand.

01:00:14 ◼   ► You're trying to open it and things happen.

01:00:18 ◼   ► And it charges via USB-C, which is nice.

01:00:20 ◼   ► Yes.

01:00:21 ◼   ► That's right.

01:00:22 ◼   ► That was the only reason we had the other one in the kitchen, right?

01:00:25 ◼   ► It was just for my phone.

01:00:26 ◼   ► One of the kid's phones uses lightning still.

01:00:28 ◼   ► Yes.

01:00:29 ◼   ► Yay.

01:00:30 ◼   ► That's true.

01:00:31 ◼   ► I forgot about that.

01:00:31 ◼   ► Maybe they'll get a 16E for their birthday.

01:00:33 ◼   ► Another plus.

01:00:34 ◼   ► Yep.

01:00:35 ◼   ► USB-C is the way to go.

01:00:36 ◼   ► These also come with five sets of ear tips.

01:00:41 ◼   ► One nice thing about these silicon-tipped headphones like the AirPods Pro 2 is that you can find

01:00:47 ◼   ► what works for you size-wise.

01:00:49 ◼   ► And we opened these and, like, I just had missed that on the product page, I guess.

01:00:54 ◼   ► But they range from, like, I mean, truly teeny tiny.

01:00:57 ◼   ► Extra small.

01:00:59 ◼   ► To, like, ones the size of grapes.

01:01:01 ◼   ► You would go with the medium?

01:01:05 ◼   ► It's disturbing.

01:01:06 ◼   ► I think it came with the medium on, and I tried the small.

01:01:11 ◼   ► And I like the small better.

01:01:12 ◼   ► One thing I don't like about, really, I think it's true across Apple's headphone lineup with

01:01:18 ◼   ► the tips, is there's not a great way to store the unused tips.

01:01:22 ◼   ► I mean, you have to keep the packaging.

01:01:24 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:01:24 ◼   ► That's what I did.

01:01:25 ◼   ► The ones that I pulled off, I just put back in the small spot.

01:01:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:01:30 ◼   ► Because they were close enough to it.

01:01:31 ◼   ► And they're just, like, in a closet somewhere now.

01:01:32 ◼   ► And I just have to hope that I don't lose that box.

01:01:34 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:01:35 ◼   ► I wish they came with, like, I mean, I guess you could, like, put them in a Ziploc baggie.

01:01:38 ◼   ► Like, it's not, you're not forbidden.

01:01:39 ◼   ► That I would definitely lose, though.

01:01:41 ◼   ► I just, I kind of wish there was a better way because, you know, you may change sizes at

01:01:47 ◼   ► some point or give them to somebody else.

01:01:49 ◼   ► I mean, they say your ears never stop growing.

01:01:51 ◼   ► So.

01:01:52 ◼   ► It's true.

01:01:52 ◼   ► I might be a size medium.

01:01:54 ◼   ► Like 2027.

01:01:55 ◼   ► Have you seen my dad?

01:01:56 ◼   ► Like, I'm one of those great ones.

01:01:58 ◼   ► I still love you.

01:02:00 ◼   ► You are an Apple Watch wearer.

01:02:04 ◼   ► So your heart rate is tracked via your Apple Watch.

01:02:07 ◼   ► But one thing these do have, if you look at them, you know, they got all these, like,

01:02:11 ◼   ► new contacts and stuff inside, is they can track your heart rate, which is kind of interesting.

01:02:17 ◼   ► Is there a large number of customers who love, like me, love the Power Beats, but don't have

01:02:25 ◼   ► an Apple Watch?

01:02:26 ◼   ► So what's interesting about Beats in particular is that much more than the AirPods, they market

01:02:32 ◼   ► and, like, build features for Android users.

01:02:35 ◼   ► Oh, okay.

01:02:36 ◼   ► And so there are a couple, there's a link in the show notes this week where you can go read

01:02:39 ◼   ► about the heart rate tracking on these if you're listening.

01:02:42 ◼   ► I mean, you can read it now if you want.

01:02:44 ◼   ► Okay.

01:02:44 ◼   ► Great.

01:02:45 ◼   ► It's a notion.

01:02:45 ◼   ► It'll be published in a week.

01:02:49 ◼   ► Yeah, because on Android, obviously, you're not using an Apple Watch.

01:02:52 ◼   ► And there's lots of other products that, you know, there's Garmin's and the Pixel Watch

01:02:57 ◼   ► and Samsung Watches and stuff.

01:02:58 ◼   ► So for Android users, it uses the Beats app for Android.

01:03:03 ◼   ► I think that syncs with, like, the health and fitness stuff on Android.

01:03:07 ◼   ► But on iOS, what it does is if you're wearing an Apple Watch, the health app or, like, your

01:03:14 ◼   ► workout app.

01:03:14 ◼   ► So it defers to the Apple Watch.

01:03:18 ◼   ► But if you, and if the app supports it, if you have it set up in health, again, go read

01:03:24 ◼   ► the documentation.

01:03:24 ◼   ► If you're not wearing an Apple Watch, you don't have one, it will fall back to this.

01:03:29 ◼   ► And so for some users on the iPhone who don't have an Apple Watch or don't want one, or maybe

01:03:34 ◼   ► they wear, you know, something else, then this would be a way to get heart rate data into,

01:03:40 ◼   ► like, the Apple Health ecosystem and all the apps that plug into that.

01:03:44 ◼   ► But that is what's really interesting about Beats.

01:03:46 ◼   ► And it was kind of a question, like, gosh, now, like, 10 years ago or however long ago

01:03:52 ◼   ► it's been, when Apple bought Beats, was, like, Beats was very big in the Android scene, even

01:03:57 ◼   ► back then.

01:03:58 ◼   ► And they were in, like, all these retail places that Apple's brand wasn't.

01:04:03 ◼   ► Apple's brand is a lot more places now, retail-wise.

01:04:07 ◼   ► But part of the conversation back then was, like, what is Apple going to do with Beats?

01:04:12 ◼   ► Like, are they going to let them be Beats and, like, do colors?

01:04:15 ◼   ► And, you know, at the time, they were known for, like, very bass-heavy, maybe not actually

01:04:19 ◼   ► that good-sounding headphones.

01:04:20 ◼   ► I think they're a lot better now.

01:04:21 ◼   ► It is interesting to see they continue on that path.

01:04:24 ◼   ► And I think it's good, like...

01:04:26 ◼   ► I love it.

01:04:26 ◼   ► I love that they're headphones for all.

01:04:28 ◼   ► Headphones for everyone.

01:04:30 ◼   ► That's what we believe in the...

01:04:32 ◼   ► If you have the amount of money to buy them.

01:04:34 ◼   ► Yeah, they're, like...

01:04:35 ◼   ► I forget how much they are.

01:04:36 ◼   ► They're, like, 200...

01:04:39 ◼   ► Let's see.

01:04:41 ◼   ► $249.

01:04:43 ◼   ► I was looking at my laptop.

01:04:45 ◼   ► So, that's kind of the deal with the heart rate.

01:04:47 ◼   ► So, you as an Apple Watch user don't really benefit from it right now.

01:04:51 ◼   ► Where could I find it?

01:04:52 ◼   ► Like, if I weren't wearing my watch?

01:04:55 ◼   ► It would be in...

01:04:56 ◼   ► Like, I've tried...

01:04:57 ◼   ► I was playing around with it.

01:04:58 ◼   ► Like, pulled it up on the dashboard on my phone.

01:05:00 ◼   ► And that's what it's called, right?

01:05:02 ◼   ► Sure.

01:05:02 ◼   ► The health app?

01:05:03 ◼   ► No.

01:05:04 ◼   ► Like, I swiped down from the corner.

01:05:06 ◼   ► Control center.

01:05:06 ◼   ► Control center.

01:05:08 ◼   ► I was in control center on my phone last night trying to figure it out.

01:05:11 ◼   ► And...

01:05:11 ◼   ► Because that's where you can pull up to change...

01:05:13 ◼   ► We'll get to this in a minute, I'm sure.

01:05:14 ◼   ► The different options they have for audio and stereo.

01:05:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:05:21 ◼   ► But I thought that it might be there, but it wasn't.

01:05:25 ◼   ► It would be in the health app.

01:05:26 ◼   ► Oh.

01:05:27 ◼   ► Which is a mess.

01:05:28 ◼   ► Who opens the health app?

01:05:29 ◼   ► Yeah, there's way too much in there.

01:05:31 ◼   ► It's just crazy.

01:05:31 ◼   ► We agree.

01:05:32 ◼   ► So...

01:05:33 ◼   ► The app is just a lot of stuff going on in there.

01:05:36 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:05:37 ◼   ► So that's where it shows up.

01:05:39 ◼   ► Okay.

01:05:39 ◼   ► But you were an Apple Watch.

01:05:41 ◼   ► Yeah, probably not going to...

01:05:41 ◼   ► But I could see because...

01:05:43 ◼   ► Use it for that.

01:05:43 ◼   ► There have been reports that the ear is actually a pretty decent place to pull heart rate information.

01:05:49 ◼   ► Hmm.

01:05:49 ◼   ► I don't know why.

01:05:51 ◼   ► I'm not...

01:05:51 ◼   ► I don't know if you knew this.

01:05:52 ◼   ► I'm not a doctor.

01:05:52 ◼   ► Oh.

01:05:54 ◼   ► You know what kind of college degree I have?

01:05:56 ◼   ► I sure do.

01:05:57 ◼   ► It's right over your shoulder, actually.

01:06:01 ◼   ► On the wall.

01:06:01 ◼   ► But there could be a future where they like collate that information somehow or like the Apple Watch.

01:06:09 ◼   ► And because it's also rumored that heart rate track is going to come to the next version of AirPods Pro.

01:06:14 ◼   ► Okay.

01:06:14 ◼   ► Which are due...

01:06:16 ◼   ► Maybe they're testing it out in these.

01:06:17 ◼   ► You're like, how do people...

01:06:19 ◼   ► How does it actually compare to what we've done on the watch?

01:06:21 ◼   ► Well, I think they do all that in the labs, but I think it's just the first part of it.

01:06:26 ◼   ► I don't think so, buddy.

01:06:27 ◼   ► I think I'm a guinea pig.

01:06:28 ◼   ► Wow.

01:06:29 ◼   ► I think that's what's happening here.

01:06:31 ◼   ► Wow.

01:06:31 ◼   ► Although, if I was going to be a guinea pig for these, they should have given them to us a little bit cheaper.

01:06:37 ◼   ► A little bit cheaper.

01:06:37 ◼   ► We're just free.

01:06:39 ◼   ► That would be nice.

01:06:40 ◼   ► That's not how that works at all.

01:06:41 ◼   ► That would be great.

01:06:41 ◼   ► Like, knock over a Best Buy and get some.

01:06:44 ◼   ► Steal me some orange ones next time.

01:06:46 ◼   ► So, maybe there's a future where, because if they come to AirPods Pro, like, that's a much more iPhone-heavy user base, obviously.

01:06:52 ◼   ► And so, I could see a future where Apple kind of just manages this in the background, and you don't have to really worry about where your heart rate information is coming from.

01:07:02 ◼   ► It's just like, you know, sometimes, like, you're working out and your watch is, like, a little loose or, you know, get sweaty.

01:07:08 ◼   ► I know you don't sweat, but, you know.

01:07:11 ◼   ► No.

01:07:12 ◼   ► No.

01:07:12 ◼   ► I glisten.

01:07:13 ◼   ► Wow.

01:07:14 ◼   ► So, yeah, we'll see.

01:07:16 ◼   ► So, let's get to, this is kind of the tech stuff.

01:07:18 ◼   ► You did mention noise cancellation.

01:07:20 ◼   ► The previous Power Beats Pro had some noise cancellation, right?

01:07:24 ◼   ► Or did it have any?

01:07:26 ◼   ► I don't think it had any.

01:07:27 ◼   ► I don't remember.

01:07:28 ◼   ► But these do.

01:07:29 ◼   ► Because I was thinking about that, and I think I was remembering Beats X.

01:07:33 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:07:34 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:07:35 ◼   ► Which I hated.

01:07:36 ◼   ► It's true.

01:07:37 ◼   ► If you didn't know this already.

01:07:38 ◼   ► You gave them an X.

01:07:39 ◼   ► I hate those.

01:07:40 ◼   ► Big X.

01:07:41 ◼   ► Because those, it hurt.

01:07:43 ◼   ► And now I'm thinking it was more about the form of the Beats X than the actual noise cancellation feature.

01:07:50 ◼   ► As I was thinking about the way that the button works, which isn't really a button.

01:07:54 ◼   ► It's just, you can see, like, you push at the bottom of the earpiece, but you're not having to push it into your ear.

01:08:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:08:03 ◼   ► Because you have the support of the loop going around the back of your ear.

01:08:06 ◼   ► I think that pressure is kind of more spread out.

01:08:09 ◼   ► And so when I touch it, there's no pushing into my eardrum.

01:08:14 ◼   ► There's no, like, compression of anything in my ear, which is what really annoyed me about the noise cancellation option.

01:08:20 ◼   ► But again, I don't think that was the power Beats.

01:08:24 ◼   ► Okay.

01:08:24 ◼   ► That I've been using.

01:08:26 ◼   ► Well, regardless, because you could also turn it on in software, in Control Center.

01:08:29 ◼   ► So you have played around with the noise cancellation on these.

01:08:33 ◼   ► These have the same sort of inerts as the AirPods Pro 2.

01:08:36 ◼   ► So I imagine they're pretty good.

01:08:37 ◼   ► Are they pretty good?

01:08:39 ◼   ► They are.

01:08:40 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:08:40 ◼   ► I couldn't hear anything.

01:08:42 ◼   ► I was in the kitchen washing dishes.

01:08:44 ◼   ► And our daughter and one of her friends were baking and they had a question.

01:08:49 ◼   ► And our kitchen is not that big.

01:08:51 ◼   ► It's like five.

01:08:52 ◼   ► We were five feet away and I had no idea that they were talking to me.

01:08:55 ◼   ► And I was not like, I didn't have it cranked to 11 or anything.

01:08:58 ◼   ► I just.

01:08:59 ◼   ► All of our listeners in New York City are angry that there's five feet of space in any direction in our kitchen.

01:09:04 ◼   ► It's really not that big.

01:09:06 ◼   ► That's basically end to end.

01:09:07 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:08 ◼   ► The noise cancellation is really nice on the AirPods Pro 2.

01:09:12 ◼   ► They also have the transparency mode where it brings in outside noises, which is nice.

01:09:18 ◼   ► Like if, you know, if you're in a big city and you need to hear what's going on around you, but you want your headphones in.

01:09:25 ◼   ► Whereas before I, well, I still probably will only wear one just out of habit.

01:09:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:30 ◼   ► That's what I do.

01:09:31 ◼   ► I will wear one and then have, you know, the other ear.

01:09:34 ◼   ► But yeah.

01:09:35 ◼   ► In which case noise cancellation doesn't work.

01:09:37 ◼   ► You got to have both.

01:09:37 ◼   ► Right.

01:09:38 ◼   ► I think.

01:09:38 ◼   ► Right.

01:09:38 ◼   ► Yes.

01:09:39 ◼   ► Did you play with the spatial audio stuff?

01:09:43 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:43 ◼   ► Is that a new thing?

01:09:45 ◼   ► It's the last couple of years.

01:09:47 ◼   ► Okay.

01:09:47 ◼   ► But I hate it.

01:09:49 ◼   ► Really?

01:09:49 ◼   ► So there's a couple of different ways it works.

01:09:51 ◼   ► One, you can have it where like it's locked to your device.

01:09:54 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:55 ◼   ► So like right now my Mac book is off to my left and it would sound like it's coming out

01:10:00 ◼   ► of my left ear.

01:10:00 ◼   ► And then if I turned my head to look towards it, it would equalize between my ears.

01:10:05 ◼   ► I find that super trippy and like, it doesn't make me dizzy, but I don't, I don't like it.

01:10:13 ◼   ► No, I get, yes, I get that.

01:10:15 ◼   ► And so when I was playing around with it, I looked like a crazy person because then I

01:10:19 ◼   ► was in the, I was in the kitchen, just like turning my head this way, turning my head that

01:10:24 ◼   ► way and just getting a feel for it.

01:10:27 ◼   ► And I, what I like about it is that I kind of feel like I'm like at a concert, like, oh,

01:10:33 ◼   ► like there's music right in front of me.

01:10:34 ◼   ► And now I'm turning and all the music, they're still playing over there.

01:10:38 ◼   ► It's just, it's just.

01:10:39 ◼   ► How loud do you have your headphones?

01:10:41 ◼   ► Don't worry about it.

01:10:43 ◼   ► We're going to turn on hearing protection on your phone when we're done with this.

01:10:47 ◼   ► No.

01:10:47 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:10:48 ◼   ► But, but I was thinking about using, you know, I, I use them for working out.

01:10:52 ◼   ► I don't use them at work.

01:10:54 ◼   ► I don't need to, you know, edit podcasts.

01:10:57 ◼   ► I don't need to listen for specific things.

01:11:02 ◼   ► I'm just listening to music most of the time.

01:11:04 ◼   ► Sometimes podcasts.

01:11:05 ◼   ► Interesting.

01:11:06 ◼   ► Have you heard of podcasts?

01:11:08 ◼   ► No, they're not going anywhere.

01:11:09 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:11:10 ◼   ► They're pretty big.

01:11:12 ◼   ► But when I think about using spatial audio for working out, I don't, I don't see any benefit

01:11:18 ◼   ► to that.

01:11:18 ◼   ► I could only see it being mildly annoying.

01:11:21 ◼   ► Like you're doing yoga and you're turning and all of a sudden the music has moved and that

01:11:27 ◼   ► might be kind of disorienting.

01:11:28 ◼   ► Or distracting.

01:11:29 ◼   ► Distracting even.

01:11:30 ◼   ► Yes.

01:11:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:11:31 ◼   ► And even like if you were, I was thinking about like if you were mountain biking and you need

01:11:37 ◼   ► to do a quick head check because you think you hear somebody coming up on your left, then

01:11:41 ◼   ► the music moves.

01:11:43 ◼   ► That could be really confusing.

01:11:44 ◼   ► Well, connected listeners will know that I only like walk or bike ride with one earpod

01:11:52 ◼   ► in because air, airpod, God, these names are so, only one earpod in because I want to hear

01:11:58 ◼   ► what's around me.

01:11:59 ◼   ► And everyone was like, use transparency, bro.

01:12:00 ◼   ► I was like, I want, like, if I want to, if I'm going to get hit by a car, I want to hear

01:12:04 ◼   ► it coming.

01:12:04 ◼   ► Yes.

01:12:05 ◼   ► At the very least.

01:12:06 ◼   ► I agree.

01:12:06 ◼   ► And maybe I can get out of the way or at least I know what's coming.

01:12:10 ◼   ► You know, like if it sounds pretty good, it's like, man, your exhaust sounds good.

01:12:12 ◼   ► And then I get hit by a truck.

01:12:14 ◼   ► So, uh, how do they sound?

01:12:17 ◼   ► Good.

01:12:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:12:18 ◼   ► I like them a lot.

01:12:19 ◼   ► I could bump up the bass a little, but, uh, as I, but that is, that is a setting though,

01:12:29 ◼   ► right?

01:12:29 ◼   ► Can I, I feel like we had to do that last time.

01:12:32 ◼   ► There's some EQ settings that may be a fitment issue too.

01:12:35 ◼   ► Maybe try like one size up.

01:12:37 ◼   ► If you don't have a good seal, the bass is what you lose first.

01:12:41 ◼   ► Now, if that's uncomfortable, right?

01:12:43 ◼   ► Like there's a, it wasn't, it just, yeah, maybe I'll try that.

01:12:46 ◼   ► Yeah, I would try one size up, but there's, there are also some EQ settings on the phone,

01:12:50 ◼   ► I think.

01:12:50 ◼   ► Um, but it's kind of funny because Beats again is like known for, or at least were known.

01:12:55 ◼   ► I think, I honestly think most of their headphones are much better now, but in the day they had

01:13:00 ◼   ► a reputation for just like their EQ was like all bass, you know?

01:13:04 ◼   ► And you know, a lot of people like that, right?

01:13:06 ◼   ► And a lot of, and a lot of, yeah.

01:13:09 ◼   ► And a lot of styles of music benefit from it.

01:13:11 ◼   ► So podcasts don't necessarily, uh, but a lot of music.

01:13:16 ◼   ► A lot of music does.

01:13:17 ◼   ► So, so overall, it sounds like we got a winner.

01:13:20 ◼   ► Yes.

01:13:21 ◼   ► I'm very happy with them.

01:13:22 ◼   ► There's still a part of me that wants to keep using my old ones because they're, they're just

01:13:28 ◼   ► broken in, you know, like we have a long standing relationship.

01:13:33 ◼   ► They're my first loves.

01:13:34 ◼   ► Interesting.

01:13:35 ◼   ► So both of us have a love for past technology.

01:13:39 ◼   ► I got my first Mac in the other room, like right, right over there.

01:13:42 ◼   ► I feel just one.

01:13:44 ◼   ► Don't play.

01:13:44 ◼   ► No, but my first one, that blue and white G3 from Ties.

01:13:47 ◼   ► I have.

01:13:48 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:13:48 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:13:49 ◼   ► Oh, I'm aware.

01:13:50 ◼   ► I'm going to hug him.

01:13:52 ◼   ► What's his name?

01:13:53 ◼   ► He doesn't have a name.

01:13:54 ◼   ► I don't believe that.

01:13:54 ◼   ► You know that, that blue and white G3, I don't know if you know this.

01:13:56 ◼   ► In college, I took the translucent panels off in my dorm room because it was under my desk

01:14:01 ◼   ► in my dorm room.

01:14:02 ◼   ► It's like my server.

01:14:03 ◼   ► I'm doing giant air quotes.

01:14:04 ◼   ► It just put my iTunes library on the school network.

01:14:07 ◼   ► With all your music.

01:14:07 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:14:07 ◼   ► And because the university at the time had a flat network, I could get to it from anywhere

01:14:13 ◼   ► and from the outside.

01:14:15 ◼   ► I don't, that's not, hopefully that's not how this university network works anymore.

01:14:18 ◼   ► This is a public IP address.

01:14:21 ◼   ► What is happening?

01:14:21 ◼   ► But I took the panels off and with like a fat Sharpie, like made the G3 darker.

01:14:27 ◼   ► So it like stands out more in the case.

01:14:29 ◼   ► I was really cool.

01:14:31 ◼   ► Why did you marry me?

01:14:33 ◼   ► Well, Mary, thank you for joining us.

01:14:37 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:14:38 ◼   ► It's always fun to have you on.

01:14:39 ◼   ► Glad to be here.

01:14:40 ◼   ► And Federico is sorry he missed this.

01:14:42 ◼   ► We tried, it's a little behind the scenes.

01:14:45 ◼   ► You work as a teacher.

01:14:46 ◼   ► And so your schedule is like you're out of the house early in the morning until the afternoon.

01:14:51 ◼   ► We had a couple of snow days last week and we tried aligning like where all three of

01:14:56 ◼   ► us could be on.

01:14:57 ◼   ► Cause I think he wanted to grill you about me.

01:14:58 ◼   ► Probably.

01:14:59 ◼   ► But it just didn't pan out.

01:15:00 ◼   ► So just the two of us.

01:15:02 ◼   ► Uh, but Federico, uh, says hello and, and sorry he missed you.

01:15:06 ◼   ► TG will just set up another time for talking about FaceTime him right now.

01:15:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:15:10 ◼   ► So, all right.

01:15:12 ◼   ► Well, uh, back to the show.

01:15:14 ◼   ► Federico, that brings us to the end of the show.

01:15:23 ◼   ► We did it.

01:15:23 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:15:23 ◼   ► That was a really good interview.

01:15:25 ◼   ► Uh, I, I am sad that I couldn't join you and Mary.

01:15:29 ◼   ► Uh, I would, I would have quizzed Mary on, on a whole bunch of things.

01:15:33 ◼   ► Uh, but you did a good job and, uh, I especially loved the sound effects.

01:15:38 ◼   ► Those are fun.

01:15:40 ◼   ► Those are fun to do.

01:15:42 ◼   ► Uh, maybe we'll have the two of y'all do something at some point.

01:15:45 ◼   ► We need to do it.

01:15:46 ◼   ► So, okay.

01:15:47 ◼   ► Uh, yeah, just, it just didn't work out this time.

01:15:49 ◼   ► Uh, so if you want to find us online, uh, a bunch of links to do so.

01:15:55 ◼   ► You can leave feedback, uh, at connectedfeedback.com.

01:15:59 ◼   ► Uh, send us follow up there.

01:16:02 ◼   ► You can get connected pro, get connectedpro.com or .co.

01:16:06 ◼   ► Either one, they both work.

01:16:07 ◼   ► Uh, connected pro is the longer ad-free version of the show that we do each and every week.

01:16:13 ◼   ► Uh, this week we spoke about our podcasting setups and the pro show.

01:16:17 ◼   ► Uh, members also get access to some members only podcasts, access to our discord, a bunch

01:16:23 ◼   ► of great stuff.

01:16:23 ◼   ► It's just seven bucks a month.

01:16:25 ◼   ► Let's go learn more.

01:16:26 ◼   ► And, uh, thank you to our members who do support us directly.

01:16:30 ◼   ► If you want to find us online, uh, Federico's work is at maxstories.net where he is the editor

01:16:36 ◼   ► in chief.

01:16:36 ◼   ► Uh, Mike is off for a few weeks, uh, but go send him some love on Instagram and you can

01:16:42 ◼   ► find my writing over at 512pixels.net.

01:16:46 ◼   ► And of course, of course, go check out our shirts.

01:16:49 ◼   ► That link is in the show notes as well.

01:16:51 ◼   ► Uh, we would, uh, we'd love to see you all in some connected gear and more importantly to

01:16:57 ◼   ► prove Mike wrong about merchandise.

01:16:58 ◼   ► Thank you for mentioning that.

01:17:00 ◼   ► I'd like to thank our sponsors, Google Gemini and Cognite and Ecamm.

01:17:04 ◼   ► And until next week, Federico, say goodbye.

01:17:07 ◼   ► Arrivederci.

01:17:08 ◼   ► Bye y'all.