0:00:00- Are you tired of looking at new Apple products?
0:00:03- I mean, I hesitate to say that.
0:00:04It sounds uncharitable.
0:00:06It has been quite an intense schedule.
0:00:08I think it's obviously partially because they try
0:00:10to dump everything at once normally,
0:00:12and now it's strung out over weeks.
0:00:14But yeah, it's a lot.
0:00:16It's been a lot.
0:00:17I can't phone any of it in.
0:00:18I'm physically impossible at phoning stuff in,
0:00:20so it's just exhausting, that's all.
0:00:24- I have the same thought, and there's a part of me
0:00:27that gets a little petulant, and it's like,
0:00:29so we got, I was very excited to get the AirPods Max,
0:00:34'cause they look really neat, and they're very expensive,
0:00:38and it sure is fun to be able to try them
0:00:41without ordering a pair.
0:00:42And now at this point, in addition to spending 550 bucks,
0:00:45you have to wait weeks and weeks to get 'em.
0:00:47But then when they're like,
0:00:50and review embargoes drop Thursday morning,
0:00:53and it's like, 24 hours, F you,
0:00:56I'm just gonna phone this in and write three sentences.
0:00:58Sound good, too heavy.
0:01:00There, done, publish.
0:01:02But I can't, I have to start, you know.
0:01:05- Yeah, of course.
0:01:06And it wasn't even the review embargo, right?
0:01:08It's just like, hey, this is the next morning,
0:01:13first look stuff, right?
0:01:14So I refused personally to sort of review them officially,
0:01:19because I'm like, there's no way.
0:01:20And I felt it wouldn't do anybody a service to pretend
0:01:24that I had some sort of fully formed opinion
0:01:27on these things, but at the same time,
0:01:29I can't just go like, oh hey, look, here's the pictures.
0:01:32I don't know, I'm just incapable of it.
0:01:36- Well, and I also feel like, and I get it,
0:01:38in some sense, I feel a little less pressure,
0:01:42because it looks like at this point,
0:01:44nobody's getting them for Christmas,
0:01:47if you haven't already ordered.
0:01:48- Right, right, if you're not an early adopter,
0:01:52who's gonna order 'em anyway,
0:01:54you're not gonna get 'em yet.
0:01:55Maybe you could still get the silver ones, I don't know.
0:01:58- I don't know.
0:01:59And there was that fun thing that you pointed out
0:02:02that you could get engraved ones in December,
0:02:06but you couldn't get non-engraved ones until January.
0:02:10- Right, and it didn't last long,
0:02:12but it lasted about an hour.
0:02:14And it's like, what if you really want a pair
0:02:18that's not engraved, you don't want any marks on them at all,
0:02:21but you really want 'em by Christmas,
0:02:23what is the least intrusive engraving
0:02:26that they would let you put?
0:02:29So they won't let you just put a space.
0:02:32Their little engraving dingus
0:02:37will interpret that as no engraving at all.
0:02:41So if you go to say, I would like to get my AirPods
0:02:43engraved, and this entire string you enter
0:02:47is just a space or a series of spaces,
0:02:49and then you hit OK, it goes back to the next screen
0:02:54and it has no engraving selected, which makes sense.
0:02:58- Oh, uh-huh, yeah.
0:03:00What, did you try, this is random,
0:03:03but did you try using a zero-width space?
0:03:05- No, I didn't try any fancy Unicode.
0:03:08- Okay.
0:03:09- That would be clever.
0:03:10I did try a dash, which would just look like a little,
0:03:13you know, I also thought, I forget,
0:03:18I think that the engraving goes on the left cup
0:03:22because the right cup is the one with the controls.
0:03:25So I thought, you know, what if you just put an L, right?
0:03:28(laughing)
0:03:31'Cause that, even if you don't want them engraved,
0:03:36you don't wanna put your name on them,
0:03:37you don't wanna put something clever on 'em,
0:03:39you don't want an emoji, just put an L.
0:03:41- I like that it's minimal because it's very Appleistic,
0:03:46it's like, hey, we only need one
0:03:47because obviously the other one is R.
0:03:50- Right, but it is, it's, how bizarre is it
0:03:53that for a while at least you were able to,
0:03:55and it's just, you know, I'm sure it would actually
0:03:57be fascinating and it's the sort of thing
0:03:59they're never gonna talk about,
0:04:00but it would be fascinating to get Jeff Williams
0:04:03to explain it, you know, like,
0:04:05and I'm sure that it's a fascinating explanation
0:04:07of the different supply chain paths
0:04:09that engraved versus non-engraved ones take.
0:04:13You know, in theory, engraving should take longer,
0:04:17but, you know.
0:04:19- Well, it's, in my mind, if you just go the dummy route
0:04:24on the supply chain analysis here,
0:04:27it would probably be that there's a certain amount
0:04:29set aside for engraving because they go
0:04:30to a facility for engraving.
0:04:32And it's like if you're gonna get 'em engraved,
0:04:34they come from this pool, which is usually less purchased,
0:04:38people probably buy far more without engraving,
0:04:40and then, you know, those are still in stock.
0:04:43So that's probably, it just, you know,
0:04:45the simplistic way of looking at it.
0:04:47- Do you-- - By the way, I just tried,
0:04:48I just tried to zero with space, does not work, so.
0:04:51Sorry for anybody looking to do that.
0:04:53- Do you get your stuff engraved when it's offered?
0:04:56- Very, very rarely.
0:05:00Literally the only thing I can, I currently own,
0:05:02I have in the past, and like for my wife maybe,
0:05:06gotten her a phone engraved, you know.
0:05:08I think maybe even her current phone is.
0:05:10But the only thing I currently own is an AirPods Pro case
0:05:14with an emoji on it, and the only reason I did that
0:05:16is 'cause I know which one is my current one
0:05:18and which one is mine and not an Apple review unit
0:05:21as they come and go, and that way I know,
0:05:24you know, that one's mine.
0:05:25Because there's, I have a lot of AirPods around here,
0:05:27either that I've purchased or when Apple, you know,
0:05:30drops new ones and I review a unit, it's sitting here,
0:05:33and then I don't know which one's which.
0:05:35- All right, I would like to get my stuff engraved,
0:05:39but I can never decide what to get engraved on it.
0:05:43(laughing)
0:05:46And then I realize--
0:05:47- A paralysis of choice.
0:05:48- Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, it really,
0:05:52I will sit there in front of the engraving form
0:05:55for a very long period of time,
0:05:57and then I'll think, well, this isn't getting me anywhere.
0:05:59And then a sensible person would think,
0:06:02this isn't getting me anywhere,
0:06:04I'll just order no engraved and be done with it.
0:06:06But what I'll do is I'll say, I'll think to myself,
0:06:09I need to get up and walk around.
0:06:10Maybe I'll take a walk, you know, put my coat on,
0:06:14I'm gonna go pick up some bread or something like that,
0:06:18just to clear my head so I can think about this.
0:06:21And then I realize, you know, it's like,
0:06:23I'm doing all this, you know,
0:06:24and taking a walk to clear your head, you know,
0:06:27get some ideas, that's all well and good and it works,
0:06:29but it's like, I'm not doing it for like,
0:06:32something clever to write about,
0:06:34I'm doing it to figure out what should I get engraved.
0:06:38- No, try to slice an editorial Gordian knot.
0:06:41You're trying to figure out whether to do the rock emoji
0:06:44or the okay emoji.
0:06:46- Well, for me it'd be so super boring.
0:06:48Should I just get like, JG or should I just get Gruber?
0:06:52Or should I go with that?
0:06:54They do give you a star emoji.
0:06:57Hmm. - Right, right.
0:06:59- Maybe just Gruber.
0:07:02- Yeah, why are we the way that we are?
0:07:04I don't understand this.
0:07:05- Right, and then I would just wish, it makes me wish,
0:07:07I was like, I gotta wish they would just charge $25
0:07:10to engrave it, 'cause then I would say, ah, forget it.
0:07:13- Exactly, exactly.
0:07:15Free is the worst, you know?
0:07:17Charge me a dollar, because then I have an excuse
0:07:19to be like, ah, I'll just put the extra dollar.
0:07:21- I'm not for like, AirPods Pro, right?
0:07:24I ordered AirPods Pro last year and I got 'em,
0:07:28and it's like, I'm not worried about like,
0:07:31oh, if I get my name engraved on the case,
0:07:33then the resale value is no, I'm not gonna,
0:07:36who's gonna buy a used pair of AirPods Pro?
0:07:38- Well, people do, but yeah,
0:07:39I would never sell 'em personally.
0:07:41- I'm not, so it has nothing to do with that,
0:07:44it's just pure indecision.
0:07:46Ah, terrible.
0:07:48And again, and then there's something to me
0:07:53with the AirPods Max, where it's like,
0:07:55there's a little bit of an asymmetry there.
0:07:57Now, they're permanently asymmetrical,
0:07:59'cause the controls are only on the right,
0:08:01and the engravings on the left.
0:08:03Anyway, paralysis, I don't know.
0:08:06I don't know what I would do.
0:08:07But anyway, you can't get 'em by Christmas,
0:08:08so it's no worries.
0:08:10You and I had very similar thoughts.
0:08:14I always, I say this all the time,
0:08:16it's always a relief, it's like,
0:08:19I don't wanna go on and on about how heavy these things are,
0:08:22and then I read all the other reviews
0:08:23and nobody says anything, and it's like,
0:08:25maybe this is completely normal, and--
0:08:27- Or maybe, yeah, yeah, exactly.
0:08:29Maybe I just have a weak neck.
0:08:30- Yeah. (laughs)
0:08:31- Let's go down with eight. - Right.
0:08:33(laughs)
0:08:35I think President Trump has actually
0:08:36called people pencil decks.
0:08:37Remember, that was--
0:08:38- Right, right, yeah.
0:08:40- That was big in the '80s,
0:08:41to call somebody a pencil neck geek.
0:08:43Yeah, there, is there something wrong with my neck?
0:08:46- Yeah, I'm on the frat crowd, yeah.
0:08:47- I don't know, it's, but these are heavy headphones,
0:08:52in my opinion.
0:08:52- They're about 100 grams.
0:08:55I put 'em on my kitchen scale.
0:08:58I have a fairly accurate one I use for baking and whatnot,
0:09:00and I put 'em on there, and they're like 385
0:09:04or 89 grams or something,
0:09:06which is about 100 grams heavier
0:09:07than a pair of Beats Studio,
0:09:10which, obviously, sure, there are heavier headphones
0:09:12in between somewhere,
0:09:13but I do believe that's on the higher end of the scale.
0:09:17- Yeah, and my, I have the Bose QuietComfort 35 IIs,
0:09:21and I guess Bose has another one, a 700,
0:09:25which I haven't looked at recently.
0:09:27I mean, I just don't, I'm not enough of a traveler
0:09:29and not enough of a,
0:09:30I'm not a Marco Arman who's gonna collect headphones,
0:09:35but the Bose are 200 and some,
0:09:37so it's a little bit over 100 grams,
0:09:40and you feel it, right?
0:09:41It's also, it's not just 100 grams.
0:09:44It's the fact that it's 100 extra or 50 extra
0:09:47each on each ear cup, right?
0:09:50'Cause the weight is clearly all on the ear cups.
0:09:54- Right.
0:09:55- But again, I'm not saying it's a problem,
0:10:00and I thought you put it pretty well.
0:10:02It's like, I thought your review where you were just like,
0:10:05look, if you don't like heavy headphones,
0:10:06don't buy these, that's it.
0:10:07But it's not like it's a problem,
0:10:09but I also think you nailed it where it's,
0:10:12and I think I sort of fall into that category
0:10:15as somebody who doesn't follow the headphone industry.
0:10:19You know, I get a pair I like, and that's it.
0:10:21I was a little surprised at how heavy they were,
0:10:25and maybe I shouldn't have been based on the fact
0:10:27that they are really high end in terms of the drivers
0:10:30and the quality they're trying to produce.
0:10:34- Right.
0:10:35- But it's, yeah, it's, I mean, I even put it in my headline
0:10:40'cause I wanted to be clever, but it, again,
0:10:44I'm not saying this is a reason not to buy it,
0:10:46not saying it's a product failure, but hmm,
0:10:49this is something to think about.
0:10:51- Yeah, I think, so it's sort of that same feeling
0:10:54that you get when you buy, I don't know,
0:10:58a really high quality pen, right?
0:11:00Like a really high quality pen, very, very nice.
0:11:04We're talking almost as, almost decorative, right?
0:11:08Like it's usable, and in fact,
0:11:10maybe one of the best pens made for writing
0:11:13simply because they spent so much money making it
0:11:15and the craftsmanship is high and all of that stuff.
0:11:18But then you use it and you're like,
0:11:19do I really want to scribble with this thing all day?
0:11:21'Cause it's pretty heavy, right?
0:11:23It's kind of like that, where you know that the heaviness
0:11:25is a sign of overall craftsmanship and quality,
0:11:30which heaviness sometimes is.
0:11:32Sometimes it's not, right?
0:11:34Like I remember this is a little tiny anecdote,
0:11:36but like back when I used to sell cameras,
0:11:39one of the big things we'd do was people would come in
0:11:42with these sort of knockoffs of Canon SLRs
0:11:47that they would get sold by a mail order usually.
0:11:50Like it'd be like, hey, mail order this SLR, right?
0:11:52And they would get it, and it's a plastic body
0:11:55that has the shape of an SLR,
0:11:57but in fact, there's no real prism.
0:12:00It's just a viewfinder, you know, rangefinder on top.
0:12:03And then in its complete plastic body,
0:12:06it technically does work,
0:12:08but it's essentially a fixed lens pinhole camera, right?
0:12:11Like it technically does,
0:12:12you could put film in it in the whole bit,
0:12:14but they think they got something special for a deal.
0:12:17But then if you crack those things open,
0:12:19what it is is it's an empty plastic shell
0:12:21that's one step above a disposable camera,
0:12:23only because it can be reused, right?
0:12:26And then in the bottom, they put a slab of lead
0:12:30to make it feel like pig metal or whatever.
0:12:33They put a slab in the bottom of it to make it feel hefty.
0:12:37So when they pick it up, they're like, oh, this is great.
0:12:40This feels just like a Canon, you know?
0:12:42But it's like really, it's like Canoon or whatever, right,
0:12:44on the label.
0:12:46And it happened all the time.
0:12:47It was crazy.
0:12:48It was this thing I had no idea about
0:12:50until I started working in that business.
0:12:52And I think there's some products out there that are that way.
0:12:55You could see them.
0:12:56They pop up now and then, and you could tell,
0:12:58hey, there's absolutely no way,
0:13:00no reason for this to weigh the way it does,
0:13:04because they're trying to impart some sense of quality
0:13:07in this, but in reality, you open it up,
0:13:10and it's like, oh, it's just a weight in here
0:13:11to make it seem like it's good, right?
0:13:13And there's physical, actual, still products that do that,
0:13:18but then there's also products that do it metaphorically,
0:13:21where you're like, oh, wow, this has the feel of quality,
0:13:23but it's not really quality.
0:13:24And I don't feel that these fall into that category at all.
0:13:28I actually do feel that they are the weight that they are,
0:13:30specifically because of the materials that were chosen,
0:13:33and the materials were chosen specifically
0:13:36to impart a feeling of quality.
0:13:39So it's not that they were,
0:13:41they've got a slab of pig metal in each ear cup.
0:13:44They're just heavy because they were like,
0:13:46hey, what's the best material we could possibly use?
0:13:49And the weight consideration is way down the list,
0:13:53way down the list on these particular pair.
0:13:55- Yeah, making the cups out of unibody aluminum,
0:13:59I don't know if unibody counts,
0:14:01but it's the outer shell other than the foam thing
0:14:06is just one big, round piece of aluminum.
0:14:10Again, I don't know-- - Yeah, it's a hunk of metal.
0:14:13- It's a hunk of aluminum.
0:14:15And here on the East Coast,
0:14:17in a pretty chilly week in Philadelphia,
0:14:21it is kind of cool, literally cool,
0:14:25and figuratively cool,
0:14:28that when I'd reach up to touch them,
0:14:30they were very cool to the touch,
0:14:31which is not something I'm used to with headphones.
0:14:33And I'm sure there's a whole bunch of high-end,
0:14:36German brands of headphones that are made of metal
0:14:40that I don't own.
0:14:42But for these, just sort of wear 'em
0:14:45while walking around the house,
0:14:46it was really weird to reach up
0:14:48and feel this ice-cool aluminum.
0:14:52And again, they don't make your head cool
0:14:53because your cup, you're,
0:14:55I'm not trying to say like,
0:14:56hey, your head's gonna be cold
0:14:57because there's aluminum cups.
0:14:59The aluminum doesn't touch your head,
0:15:01but it really feels premium.
0:15:04And it's like very futuristic too, right?
0:15:08Like where it's so smooth
0:15:11and like aluminum eggs on your ears.
0:15:15They're very organically shaped.
0:15:18- Mm-hmm.
0:15:19Yeah, yeah, they are.
0:15:21And I do think that they have a,
0:15:23they have a interesting shape
0:15:29on the horizontal axis, I guess you'd call it,
0:15:33like outwards from the head,
0:15:35because many, many headphones out there,
0:15:38premium headphones, I should say,
0:15:40have a fairly large or deep cavity.
0:15:44And that is a sort of a physics thing, partially.
0:15:48They need space for the air to move around
0:15:51and for a bigger driver and all of that, right?
0:15:53But it is, somebody brought this up,
0:15:55and this is obviously not everybody's use case
0:15:57and maybe a fairly minimal use case,
0:16:01but it does typify how these are different
0:16:03from other headphones in the shape,
0:16:05which is that because they're so flat on the outer side
0:16:09and so close to the head,
0:16:11they're actually extremely comfortable to lay down on.
0:16:14Like somebody asked me in a Twitter,
0:16:15hey, I wear noise canceling headphones to sleep,
0:16:18like I put 'em on and I put white noise on or whatever.
0:16:22And I'm like, okay, you know, I get it, right?
0:16:24Maybe you live in a noisy place,
0:16:26or you're next to the L,
0:16:27and you're like, this is the only way I can get to sleep,
0:16:29or you have anxiety or whatever, and it helps.
0:16:32But he's like, I lay down on 'em,
0:16:33'cause how are they to lay down on?
0:16:35And I know this is an edge case,
0:16:37but it's funny to me that it actually typifies
0:16:39how different they are, because they are extremely flat
0:16:42and lozenge-shaped, and that lower profile
0:16:44does actually make them easier to lay down on.
0:16:47And while I don't think I'll be sleeping with them on
0:16:50in a bed, I thought to myself,
0:16:53how many times have I been uncomfortable on a plane
0:16:56because I've been trying to lean up against the bulkhead
0:17:01or against a seat rest or turn,
0:17:04and rest against a seat rest as best I can
0:17:06in an economy seat or whatever.
0:17:09And it clanks against the thing,
0:17:10and it makes my neck crick, and I can't really,
0:17:13but I need 'em on, because I can't sleep with the roar
0:17:16and everybody farting around me and all this.
0:17:18And so I'm like, it makes some sense
0:17:21that the shape, the way they are,
0:17:24it actually is a sort of departure,
0:17:28a left turn from the shape of a lot of premium headphones,
0:17:32which typically look like Lobot a lot.
0:17:34You know? - Yeah, right, right, right.
0:17:36(laughs)
0:17:37- I brought up the Lobot picture a couple of times,
0:17:41and I'm like, yeah, see, those look cool.
0:17:44Lobot looks really cool, but it's like,
0:17:46yeah, he's got all these blinking lights,
0:17:48and there's a lot of articulation,
0:17:50and there's a lot of levels, just layers of stuff,
0:17:54and these are just smooth, you know?
0:17:59- Yeah, yeah.
0:18:02The smoothness, the egg shape, the kind of flatness of them,
0:18:06I think a lot of it, all of it adds up
0:18:08to a nice differentiation in design.
0:18:10I think it's not as evident until you really bring up a list
0:18:15and you kind of, I open a few tabs of all of the,
0:18:19I really, this is probably another part of this discussion,
0:18:23but I'm really not interested in comparing these
0:18:25against non-noise cancellation headphones,
0:18:27'cause I think that's just a, you know,
0:18:29if you're getting into non-NC studio monitor headphones,
0:18:33it's just a different conversation,
0:18:35and I don't feel that it's fair or necessary
0:18:37to have that conversation personally.
0:18:39I'm sure people will have that conversation,
0:18:41oh, let me compare them against my $6,000 reference headphones
0:18:44with no NC, you know, direct path of the audio
0:18:47straight through with no processing.
0:18:49It's just not that, right?
0:18:50But if you open up all of the NC headphones
0:18:53that are in this price range, or even more expensive,
0:18:56some of them are, or a little bit less,
0:18:58but certainly not cheap, it's a departure,
0:19:02a great departure in ID from all of those headphones,
0:19:06which are largely black and brown, some silver,
0:19:10with a lot of bulk and a lot of, you know, very,
0:19:15for lack of a better term, 90s Sony design aesthetic,
0:19:22you know what I mean?
0:19:23- Yeah, yeah.
0:19:24- Headphones are really stuck in that universe a lot,
0:19:26and I think Beats did a lot to change that conversation
0:19:29in that they're like, hey, headphones are a fashion accessory
0:19:32and certainly there are other brands.
0:19:33I'm not saying that only Apple affiliated brands
0:19:35have done this.
0:19:36Skullcandy, it springs to mind, they're cheap headphones,
0:19:39but they changed the conversation around how they look.
0:19:41But of course, of course, of course,
0:19:43you cannot talk about any of this without saying
0:19:46that the Apple earbuds really changed the game
0:19:48as far as headphones becoming a thing
0:19:52that people looked at and cared about versus just used,
0:19:55right, and they certainly, you know,
0:19:58if you had those white earbuds with the dangly thread,
0:20:01people knew what you were up to
0:20:03and they knew that you had an iPod
0:20:05and that was the status symbol, for sure.
0:20:07And I think these are in that same conversation, you know?
0:20:12- Yeah.
0:20:13I agree, I mean, and again,
0:20:16and I have not done anything even vaguely
0:20:19like a deep dive on noise canceling headphones.
0:20:24And I know people love the Sony, is it MX series, QX?
0:20:28I don't know what the hell they are.
0:20:30But there's a Sony one that's in that 200-some price range
0:20:33that people really love,
0:20:35where they say the noise canceling is great
0:20:37and the audio quality is superior than the Bose,
0:20:41say many.
0:20:42I got the Bose, my family makes fun of me
0:20:47'cause I actually bought them at the airport.
0:20:49(laughing)
0:20:52- You're the guy.
0:20:53You're the guy.
0:20:53You're the reason that they sell them at the airport.
0:20:55Got it.
0:20:56- Right.
0:20:58I forget where we were going like two or three years ago
0:21:01and I got through security.
0:21:02I forget what the story was,
0:21:08but I had broken a pair, the headband of a pair
0:21:13like a year or two earlier
0:21:14and I'd been putting off getting a new pair
0:21:16and I was like, "To hell with this.
0:21:17"I'm not going on this flight
0:21:18"without noise canceling headphones."
0:21:20And I knew there was just your typical airport place
0:21:26where you buy Bose headphones.
0:21:28And I did.
0:21:29I did quick Google, like, "Well, what are they?
0:21:32"What do they cost at Amazon?"
0:21:34And it was like the same price.
0:21:35It was like $270.
0:21:38And I'm like, "So who cares?"
0:21:40I'm buying them there.
0:21:41- It wasn't like the $70 sushi, right?
0:21:42It was basically the same price, yeah.
0:21:44- Right.
0:21:45It was a perfectly fair price to pay
0:21:48for a pair of Bose Quay Comfort II
0:21:50and my wife and son still do not let me hear the end of it.
0:21:55But once you have them, it just drives me crazy.
0:21:59And I wrote my review.
0:22:00I often use it if I'm writing something
0:22:03or just reading, just reading a book,
0:22:05I will put my noise canceling headphones on,
0:22:08have them play nothing just to have the noise canceling
0:22:11because it is an overall better experience
0:22:15to have headphones on playing nothing
0:22:18but canceling out the, to me, rather unpleasant white noise
0:22:22of an airplane cabin than to sit there and listen to it.
0:22:26So what do you get?
0:22:27You get better audio when you're playing nothing
0:22:31but just have more like closer to pure silence
0:22:35but the physical discomfort of wearing the headphones.
0:22:39I will take that trade off any day of the week.
0:22:43And then if you actually are watching a movie
0:22:47or listening to music or listening to a podcast,
0:22:50it's almost unusable to me not to have noise canceling
0:22:55'cause you have to turn the volume up so high,
0:22:57it's like you should be getting a warning
0:23:00that you're listening to it too loud
0:23:02to hear it over the cabin noise.
0:23:05So I'm a fan but I'm not an expert
0:23:08on the 20 different brands of them.
0:23:12Doing it in the winter was pretty interesting.
0:23:16My office here at the house has pretty loud heat
0:23:21when the heat's on.
0:23:22And especially, it's a little bit of serendipity
0:23:28and a little bit of maybe just, well, it makes sense
0:23:32that the vent was placed over there
0:23:34and the windows were over here.
0:23:37But I just sat down closer to where it's noisier.
0:23:41What else did I test it with?
0:23:45The oven, so like when Amy was baking something
0:23:48and turned on the, what do you call the thing
0:23:53that takes the exhaust out of an oven?
0:23:55The-- - The hood.
0:23:57- The hood, yeah.
0:23:58- Oh, oh, no, the vent, yeah.
0:23:59- The vent, you turn this on and it sucks up the stuff.
0:24:04But it's good white noise.
0:24:06And it's like, boy, they work,
0:24:07and that's the best I could do, you know what I mean?
0:24:10I'm not going on an airplane ride
0:24:12in the 24 hours I've had 'em.
0:24:14- Right, right.
0:24:14- Noise canceling seems great.
0:24:17- Yeah, it's good, it's good.
0:24:20I mean, I do believe that there's a couple of things,
0:24:25you know, a couple of natural advantages
0:24:26that it has over something like an in-ear.
0:24:28I mean, an in-ear, you're fighting with an in-ear,
0:24:33you know, I'm talking like versus an over-ear headphone,
0:24:36you're fighting the fact that the in-ear has a natural seal.
0:24:41So it already blocks more noise than an over-ear, typically,
0:24:46because of the foam and the gap between the foam and the ear
0:24:51and kind of naturally, you're gonna hear more sound.
0:24:54So the in-ear already has a better natural seal.
0:24:57But I would guess that just comparing it, say,
0:25:00'cause I have QuietComfort 2s,
0:25:01which is, they've traveled all over the world with me,
0:25:04and do very well in an airplane setting.
0:25:08They have less hiss and low-frequency noise
0:25:11than a Beats Studio.
0:25:12I have not tried the Sony MX series,
0:25:15which everybody, you know,
0:25:16a lot of people swear by over the Bose.
0:25:18So I can't speak to personal experience there.
0:25:20But they definitely, the QC2s are way better
0:25:24than the Beats Studio for me,
0:25:26for noise cancellation purposes.
0:25:28And sound is more neutral, you know, too,
0:25:30which I actually prefer.
0:25:32But the AirPods Pro, obviously,
0:25:36their noise cancellation, quite good for an earbud.
0:25:39I mean, pretty stellar for an earbud.
0:25:41But I would consider them a little less than the QC2
0:25:44in terms of efficacy.
0:25:46And I consider the AirPods Max to be above both of those.
0:25:51Right, so I think that's the scale for me,
0:25:54is that the QC2s are good,
0:25:55but the AirPods Max do provide superior noise cancellation
0:25:59in terms of blocking, you know,
0:26:01low frequency and sharp sounds.
0:26:03Sharp sounds, especially, are very hard
0:26:05for noise cancellation because they're bursts of sound
0:26:08that kind of pierce the NC white noise frequency.
0:26:12But the Max does a better job at sharp sound stuff,
0:26:17like clinking glasses, snapping fingers, stuff like that.
0:26:21I found it does a little better job.
0:26:23So I've been pretty happy with the noise cancellation.
0:26:26Efficiency, whatever efficacy that you, you know, of these.
0:26:31I think they're good.
0:26:31I think they dull a lot of rustling
0:26:34and a lot of, you know, kind of mid frequency sound very,
0:26:38very well, which is a lot of the stuff that distracts,
0:26:40you know, typically.
0:26:42Just the low hum of life around you,
0:26:44it kind of cuts that out pretty well.
0:26:47- The other thing, I tested the first day I had them,
0:26:49I wore them a lot, and I actually had to run out
0:26:52to get some groceries.
0:26:54And so rather than wear my usual AirPods Pro
0:26:59to listen to podcasts while I do this,
0:27:01I wore the AirPods Max, which I ordinarily wouldn't do,
0:27:05but I realized that they do kind of work.
0:27:08It wasn't freezing cold, I don't know,
0:27:10it was like in the 30s here in Philly.
0:27:13But it was sort of like, you know,
0:27:16like having earmuffs on, you know,
0:27:19rather than wear a hat, it was like,
0:27:21"Hey, my ear's aren't getting cold."
0:27:23(laughing)
0:27:24But then I realized it is, you know, it was like, huh.
0:27:29And then all of a sudden I had to take them off,
0:27:31put my mask on, then put them back on.
0:27:33- Yes, definitely not as convenient there, same thing.
0:27:38- But once, you know, when I leave,
0:27:39I don't take the mask off, you know,
0:27:41it's like I mask up in the house, leave,
0:27:43and I don't have to take the mask off
0:27:46while I'm in the store, I'm not like taking free samples
0:27:48or anything like that, so, you know.
0:27:50But when you're using earbuds, you don't have to,
0:27:54you don't have to worry about which order you mask up.
0:27:57- It is valid, it's valid to point out.
0:27:59I mean, I ran into the same thing,
0:28:00I was running to take a package to the store,
0:28:02but because I live in a driving city, not a walking city,
0:28:06I don't wear my mask in my car,
0:28:08and I don't wear my mask when I leave the house, right?
0:28:11So it obviously, yes, you're probably not gonna be driving,
0:28:14or most people are not gonna be driving around
0:28:16with these things on, but just as a test,
0:28:18and because I'm trying to get as much
0:28:20listen time as possible, I wore them out.
0:28:22And yeah, you have to do the juggling thing
0:28:24where you lift them and put a mask loop on
0:28:27and lift the other side and put a mask loop on,
0:28:29and all of that stuff to get it on and off.
0:28:31- I've mentioned this many times, I write about it,
0:28:34and I don't know, maybe it's me,
0:28:35maybe it's a neurotic aspect of my personality,
0:28:39but for years, I mean, going back to the wired earbuds era,
0:28:44I've always listened to podcasts when I'm out running errands
0:28:48and living in the city, I've run most,
0:28:52almost all errands on foot, so it's not like I'm driving
0:28:55while listening to something with headphones on.
0:28:59And whenever I check out, or if I'm at the butcher counter
0:29:03and I'm ordering some meat, I take the buds out of my ear,
0:29:08or at least one of them out of my ear,
0:29:10even if my audio is paused as a social signal
0:29:15to the person I'm dealing with,
0:29:18that you've got my audio attention.
0:29:20And the conundrum I've been in since AirPods Pro come out
0:29:25is that I hear better with my podcast paused
0:29:30and transparency on than I do if I take one out.
0:29:35And the whole taking one out thing, like the problem era--
0:29:40- For those of you listening under 30, just wait.
0:29:45- The problem era of my life was the regular AirPods era,
0:29:51because what do you do with the one you take out, right?
0:29:54It's like now you've got a delicate little thing.
0:29:57- You're gonna set it down on a dirty counter,
0:29:59or no, you're not gonna do that.
0:30:00Put it in your pocket, and then the sensors get covered
0:30:02and it starts playing, it's just awkward.
0:30:04What do I do with it?
0:30:05- You're, exactly, exactly.
0:30:08It's like my coat pocket, I feel, is clean enough
0:30:10where I would do it, but you can put it in there
0:30:12and it thinks it's in a, I don't know, it gets confused,
0:30:15thinks your ear canal is, well, okay, his ears got bigger,
0:30:18but start playing.
0:30:23So transparency, technically, is a huge win.
0:30:27It actually does, it is a superpower.
0:30:31I think we're such a visual species
0:30:36that we tend to think of augmented reality
0:30:39as being primarily visual, but we as a technology
0:30:44civilization are clearly ahead of the game on the audio side.
0:30:48Like, these are augmented reality.
0:30:50And for me, again, in my hearing, I get an annual physical,
0:30:55my hearing, I get two thumbs up every year
0:30:58with the hearing test, you hear the beeps, beep,
0:31:00left, right, you know, so my hearing is good.
0:31:02But I definitely, in like a grocery store
0:31:07with that white noise, background noise of a grocery store,
0:31:10I hear better with transparency, talking to the clerk
0:31:14or the deli person than I do taking them out.
0:31:18But it looks like I'm listening to music or a podcast,
0:31:22right, like I wish that there was some,
0:31:24I don't know what it would be, like a flashing light
0:31:26obviously isn't going to happen, but like--
0:31:30- A red light, you're on air now with me.
0:31:33- Right.
0:31:34- We're on the line, caller, welcome.
0:31:39- Yeah, like a red T, like transparency mode,
0:31:42this person is paying attention to you.
0:31:44- But it's way worse with over ears, right,
0:31:47like the whole social signal with over ears,
0:31:49it's like fuck you, don't talk to me,
0:31:50or pardon my French, but you know, don't talk to me,
0:31:54get lost.
0:31:55- That's what I look like going to the grocery store,
0:31:57and I know, and I wanted to like, I love this story,
0:32:01you ever hear this story about the card,
0:32:02I don't know if he still carries them,
0:32:03but that Steve Martin carries around cards that say,
0:32:08like when people come up and they're like,
0:32:09hey, you're Steve Martin, can I have your autograph?
0:32:11He has these cards in his pocket that he gives out,
0:32:14and it's a card that just says, this card certifies
0:32:17that you have met Steve Martin.
0:32:18And then the transaction's over,
0:32:22he doesn't have to sign anything,
0:32:24and people, you know, they've got, you know,
0:32:26and it's charming and funny, and oh so Steve Martin.
0:32:29- Yeah, they've got a memento, yeah, a physical memento,
0:32:31it's so much better even than a autograph
0:32:33on some random slip of paper or whatever.
0:32:35- Right, I felt like I needed to take cards around
0:32:38that say I'm listening to you in transparency mode
0:32:41with these headphones, and you've got
0:32:43my full audio attention.
0:32:45But I really felt like I needed it yesterday,
0:32:47or the day before when I had these over-the-ear cans on.
0:32:52And it's like, I want you to know,
0:32:54A, I want you to know I hear you loud and clear,
0:32:57but B, also, I really kinda need to test these
0:33:01in the next 24 hours, and this is it.
0:33:03- I'm not just that guy.
0:33:05Yeah.
0:33:07- I did, when I checked out, I couldn't do it though.
0:33:09I put 'em down around my neck,
0:33:12and that's when I realized that if you leave them,
0:33:15if you take 'em off your ears long enough,
0:33:17they stop playing.
0:33:19Which brings us to the fact that they don't have
0:33:24an on/off switch, which is a very Apple-like design choice.
0:33:29- Yeah, and I think there's some confusion about that.
0:33:32I know some of the early reviewers
0:33:33or early looks that were published,
0:33:36people seemed confused about that
0:33:39and thought that the only way to stop them
0:33:42from draining essentially at full power,
0:33:45you know, like they're on, is to put them in the case.
0:33:49Which does, if you say, if you assume
0:33:52that that's the only way to turn them off fully,
0:33:55that is kind of annoying, right?
0:33:56Hey, I gotta use this case at all times
0:33:59unless I want my headphones to drain, you know,
0:34:02completely over the course of 10 hours or whatever.
0:34:05But that's not true.
0:34:08So the case is, it puts them into what they call
0:34:13an ultra low power mode, right?
0:34:15Which is, the way I compare this is
0:34:19if you take the headphones off,
0:34:20actually, let me run it through,
0:34:21'cause this is a couple things that I picked up.
0:34:23So if you take the headphones off,
0:34:24immediately they stop playing, right?
0:34:26Just ear detection or head detection.
0:34:28The sensor inside says, hey, this isn't on an ear,
0:34:30I'm gonna stop.
0:34:31That's an AirPods thing, all the AirPods do that.
0:34:33Then after about 15 seconds or so,
0:34:36they actually shut down the connection
0:34:39between the device that it was connected to
0:34:42and the headphones.
0:34:43So that saves a ton more power, right?
0:34:45'Cause it says, hey, I'm no longer connected to this phone.
0:34:47I'm just gonna go, you know, you're not playing anything
0:34:49from the phone right now, I'm not on your head,
0:34:51and in fact, maybe I'm still,
0:34:53'cause remember the H1s have accelerometers in them.
0:34:55It says, I'm gonna chill out and cut off this connection,
0:34:58'cause that's using up power that's not necessary.
0:35:00And then I believe there's one more stage
0:35:03of sort of hibernation that is not,
0:35:06you know, it's essentially what you would call
0:35:08a low power mode.
0:35:09And so the difference between that state
0:35:12and what you're talking about with the case,
0:35:15the way that I've come to think of it is that it's like,
0:35:18I'm asleep versus I'm in,
0:35:20versus I'm in carbonite, right?
0:35:23- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I'm frozen in carbonite.
0:35:25If you're frozen in carbonite, you're alive, but barely.
0:35:28Isn't that the phrase?
0:35:31Is he alive?
0:35:32Barely, I don't know.
0:35:32But I can't remember.
0:35:34That's the basic states.
0:35:36Like it's carbonite frozen,
0:35:39the only sensor that's on is,
0:35:41is this in the case or not?
0:35:44That's pretty much the only sensor that's alive
0:35:46in the headphones when it's in a case,
0:35:48which is why it can last so long once it's in there.
0:35:50And it's obviously just a magnet, right?
0:35:52That says, hey, yo, you're in this case.
0:35:53Just like the iPad Smart Cover.
0:35:55But then when you take them out and like you wear them
0:35:58and then you take them off and you set them down,
0:36:00they go into a state that, yes,
0:36:02we'll use more battery than is in the case,
0:36:04but it's not the same thing as on, right?
0:36:08And this whole disambiguation of the term on or off
0:36:13is very Apple.
0:36:14Like what does on even mean in a world
0:36:18with low power chips, right?
0:36:20Like you can see the conversation,
0:36:21the philosophical conversation happening, right?
0:36:23In the audio department at Apple where they're like,
0:36:25but what does on even mean?
0:36:27What is on?
0:36:28You know, what is off, right?
0:36:30But I think that's like where some of the confusion
0:36:32came from, which is too surprising.
0:36:34If you make assumptions that, hey,
0:36:37the case puts them into the lowest power mode possible
0:36:40and there's no off switch,
0:36:41maybe they don't get turned off until you put them
0:36:43in the case, but that's not technically true.
0:36:44There's shades of off there.
0:36:47- Yeah, and it's also the exact sort of thing
0:36:50that by its nature is extremely difficult to write about
0:36:54within 24 or 36 hours of getting them
0:36:58if you're going to spend most of your waking hours
0:37:01in those 24 hours using them.
0:37:03(laughs)
0:37:05So here's what I did.
0:37:06I actually, I should have written it down.
0:37:08I believe when I went to put them down last night,
0:37:12I put them down outside the case
0:37:14and I think they were at 81%
0:37:16and I just looked right now as you were speaking,
0:37:20they're at 74%.
0:37:22So don't quote me on that.
0:37:24It was somewhere around 80.
0:37:26So maybe they lost 5% of their power
0:37:29over the last 14 hours.
0:37:33- So I could give you a little bit more accuracy on that.
0:37:35See, I ran essentially the same test.
0:37:39And so they, I think about 4 p.m. to 4.30 p.m. yesterday,
0:37:44I had charged them full and then unplugged them.
0:37:49And then I used them for maybe a handful of minutes
0:37:52and then after work I had to cook dinner
0:37:54and all of that stuff.
0:37:55So I actually didn't use them much last night.
0:37:57So I actually took them off, set them on my desk
0:38:00around 5 p.m. and left them there all night.
0:38:04So that's over 12 hours, almost 14, 15 hours, right?
0:38:09Or almost 20 hours.
0:38:10Now, when we started this call,
0:38:13which was let's say about 40 minutes ago,
0:38:17I put them on and started using them for this call.
0:38:20I'm using them right now, right?
0:38:21To listen to this call or to listen to you.
0:38:23And they are at 96%.
0:38:26So it's whatever power they're using overnight,
0:38:30they're not on in the traditional sense.
0:38:33- Right, right. - Or sorry,
0:38:34whatever the power they're using laying on a desk
0:38:36or off your head, but not in a case, right?
0:38:39I did not put them in the case.
0:38:40And so I think that there's, that's a pretty easy tell
0:38:43that they're definitely not on, on.
0:38:46- All right, let me take a break
0:38:47and thank our first sponsor.
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0:41:29All right, we gotta talk about this case
0:41:32before we get off there, Puds Max.
0:41:34The case. (laughing)
0:41:37I know people were dunking on it immediately,
0:41:42but it wasn't until I saw it in person
0:41:44that I realized how much,
0:41:46and I don't know, I don't know.
0:41:48My joke is that it's like,
0:41:50I don't know which half of the bikini emoji it looks like.
0:41:53Does it look like a butt from behind?
0:41:56Or does it look like a bikini top from the front?
0:41:59It's a funny looking thing.
0:42:03It's obviously that they designed the headphones.
0:42:08Here's my guess as to how this happened.
0:42:10They designed the headphones.
0:42:11They made the headphones they wanted to make
0:42:14and then they were like,
0:42:15well, how do we put these in a case?
0:42:16And then they designed a case around the headphones.
0:42:18And if the case turned out looking a little funny,
0:42:21well, that's just it.
0:42:23They're not gonna make the headphones different
0:42:25just to make the case look better, I guess.
0:42:28I did not draw the comparison to the Duo dock,
0:42:35the MagSafe Duo dock.
0:42:38You did in your review.
0:42:40And it's like when that part of your review,
0:42:42it was like boom, light bulb, yes, that's the problem.
0:42:47The MagSafe Duo charging dock
0:42:50feels like a cheap jack piece of,
0:42:54if it cost 50 bucks, it would be like,
0:42:58yeah, fine, I'll buy one.
0:42:5950 bucks, that's a cool thing to take in my travel case.
0:43:02For $140 or $130 without the $20 charger it requires,
0:43:08it just doesn't feel commensurate with the price.
0:43:13It feels like a $50 charger.
0:43:14- Even that thing has the redeeming quality
0:43:18of having a couple of pieces of nice aluminum in it.
0:43:20The mounts for the watch and the magnet ring for the phone,
0:43:26at least those scream like,
0:43:30hey, there's some Apple stuff in here.
0:43:32Whereas this is, I don't know what this is.
0:43:36You know what it reminds me of, John?
0:43:38(laughing)
0:43:40It reminds me of when you don't have a paper towel
0:43:45and you wrap your sandwich in a napkin.
0:43:49Where you know a paper towel is more durable.
0:43:53It's got some heft to it.
0:43:55I mean, I'm not saying that everybody wraps
0:43:57your sandwich in a paper towel,
0:43:58but let's say you're gonna pick it up
0:43:59and you're gonna eat it and it's a little sloppy,
0:44:00it's got some juice on it.
0:44:02And you're like, I wanna wrap something
0:44:03around the bottom of this.
0:44:04Like you made it at home.
0:44:06It's like you wrap a Subway wrapper
0:44:07around the bottom of the sandwich and eat the top
0:44:08if you're walking and talking.
0:44:10When you wrap a paper towel around it,
0:44:14you're like, this paper towel's gonna last.
0:44:15It's gonna absorb, it's gonna soak some stuff up.
0:44:18It's gonna be chill.
0:44:19You wrap a napkin around it, you got holes in that thing,
0:44:22you got fibers coming off.
0:44:24That's what this looks like.
0:44:25It looks like you took the headphones
0:44:27and wrapped them in a napkin and it got holes in it.
0:44:29It's like, oh, hey, I just need to wrap this
0:44:31in something real quick and just take it down the block
0:44:33and give my neighbor some chocolate chip cookies.
0:44:34I just need to wrap it in this napkin.
0:44:37And then by the time you get there,
0:44:38the napkin's barely holding on.
0:44:39That's what this looks like.
0:44:40It's like, why?
0:44:41Why go through all the effort to produce
0:44:45what is probably one of the more over-engineered,
0:44:50precision-machined pieces of headphone gear I've ever seen
0:44:55and then wrap it in this?
0:44:57It's honestly insulting to the product itself.
0:45:03I don't get it.
0:45:04It's really awkward.
0:45:05- I think a couple of the other reviewers
0:45:10have mentioned this.
0:45:11I haven't caught up on all the YouTube reviews,
0:45:13but when I unboxed it, my son was here,
0:45:16and he was keenly interested.
0:45:17My son is probably more of a headphone fan than I am.
0:45:20- What kid is it, John?
0:45:24We all loved headphones 'cause they shut our parents up.
0:45:26- I know. (laughs)
0:45:28Well, but now in addition to shutting up his parents,
0:45:31it also connects with his friends.
0:45:33So it's, from my era, it's a combination headphones
0:45:38and telephone.
0:45:40- And telephone, exactly, 'cause I got Discord
0:45:43and he's talking to his friends and all that.
0:45:45- So he's, of all the stuff that's come in,
0:45:48he was more keenly interested in these
0:45:50than anything recently, I think.
0:45:53Although the M1 Mac definitely interested him.
0:45:56But he couldn't believe that the case
0:46:02wasn't part of the packaging.
0:46:04(laughs)
0:46:05And it's weird because there is packaging around the case.
0:46:09There is a typical white, not onion paper,
0:46:14but Apple's version of onion paper around it.
0:46:17But you take that off and it feels like
0:46:19there's just this second level of wrapping
0:46:22around the headphones, and it's like,
0:46:23"No, no, that's the case."
0:46:24And they have a soft touch material inside.
0:46:28I'm sure it's not suede.
0:46:30There's no way they're gonna ship leather,
0:46:33actual leather to everybody, both cost-wise
0:46:36and the fact that some people don't wanna buy leather stuff.
0:46:39It's some kind of artificial suede soft touch thing.
0:46:44And it's not bad to the touch,
0:46:45but that outer material is either identical to
0:46:49or might as well be the kissing cousin
0:46:52of that rubbery stuff that they make
0:46:54like iPad covers out of,
0:46:58and the Duo charging dock in particular.
0:47:01It's like, "Yeah, that's the same stuff."
0:47:03And it's not a bad material,
0:47:05but it is not a premium material.
0:47:08And there is no doubt in my mind,
0:47:10even if you're a, you know,
0:47:12like I'm thinking about how I travel,
0:47:17when I go on an airplane.
0:47:18And it's not like I fill up my backpack
0:47:22or briefcase or whatever bag I'm taking with me.
0:47:24I've switched to a briefcase,
0:47:26but right before the pandemic hit.
0:47:29So I was like, "Why did I spend all this money
0:47:32"on a leather briefcase?"
0:47:33And I don't go anywhere.
0:47:34It's like, you know,
0:47:37I'm not putting unwrapped candy bars in there.
0:47:42I don't have potted plants in there.
0:47:45It's like, you know, it's computer stuff
0:47:47and books and magazines.
0:47:49So it's all clean stuff.
0:47:51But yet somehow my hard case for my bows
0:47:56is kind of beat up, right?
0:47:58It's just the nature of travel, right?
0:48:01You can be as neat as you want
0:48:04and put clean stuff in a bag,
0:48:06but you're stuffing it into overhead bins.
0:48:08You're stuffing it under the seat.
0:48:10- It happens.
0:48:14It just picks up battle scars over time.
0:48:17- And I'm a careful person.
0:48:18Like other people may not be so careful, you know?
0:48:22Yeah, it picks up scars.
0:48:23This stuff, especially the non-space gray colors,
0:48:26there's just no way it's gonna stay clean looking.
0:48:29Space gray maybe will take a beating
0:48:33and maybe will look better with the beating,
0:48:35but like the blue and the green and the silver,
0:48:39it's like, it just does not seem meant for that.
0:48:42I don't know.
0:48:43It's like there's a certain part of Apple
0:48:45that just, as practical as they mostly are,
0:48:48and I think the headphones themselves
0:48:51are very practically designed for the real world.
0:48:54The case, it just is not.
0:48:56And it's not a case, it's a pouch, right?
0:48:59- Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah, exactly.
0:49:02- And it's $550. - I don't know.
0:49:06It is, it's just insane.
0:49:08And there's no justifying it.
0:49:10I'm not gonna dance around trying to go like,
0:49:12oh, well, maybe this is clearly, clearly
0:49:16one of those things where at the last minute,
0:49:17they're like, shit, did anybody decide?
0:49:21Did anybody think about a case?
0:49:23Because like, I don't know.
0:49:25Like the product shots show people holding it
0:49:27by the handle and all of this stuff.
0:49:29- Like a purse, right? - I don't know.
0:49:30- You know, it's like-- - Yeah, like a purse.
0:49:32I think that it would have been better
0:49:33for them to ship it without a case,
0:49:35because you know what that tells people?
0:49:37This is for the home, and if you're gonna travel with it,
0:49:39we'll come up with something for you,
0:49:41or you can fit it into your life, right?
0:49:43Put it in a pouch, put it in a bag, put it in whatever, right?
0:49:45Like, you know, put it in, even a drawstring bag,
0:49:48a lot of premium headphones.
0:49:51Like a lot of studio monitor headphones
0:49:53come with a drawstring bag, right?
0:49:55Some of them come with something fancier,
0:49:56but a lot of them come with like a, you know,
0:49:59a nice kind of pouch, drawstring bag type thing
0:50:02that either you use because you are that kind of person,
0:50:06or you put in the box and never ever take out, right?
0:50:09They would have been better off
0:50:11to go with that kind of situation than something half-assed,
0:50:15because I do believe it lowers the,
0:50:18it lowers the whole product, right?
0:50:20It doesn't elevate the product, it lowers the product.
0:50:23Everything about the packaging and execution of this thing
0:50:27screams expensive, high-quality headphones.
0:50:30The box has that lovely emboss,
0:50:33the headband has this mesh
0:50:36that nobody else would think to execute,
0:50:38because it's like, who would think to do that, right?
0:50:41That you can't, you know, that's hard to do,
0:50:44materials-wise, to attach it with very little glue
0:50:47and very little attachment, you know,
0:50:48to bond it in the way that they did.
0:50:51The pistons on the headphones that extend them,
0:50:54it's not some cheap like rail system,
0:50:56it's like a car piston that slides out.
0:50:59All of this stuff screams like,
0:51:01we worked on this a long time and it was hard,
0:51:04and here it is.
0:51:06And then the case screams like, you know,
0:51:09here's this shit too. (laughs)
0:51:10- Right, the piston feels like you could use the piston
0:51:15for extending the cups out, further out,
0:51:19to accommodate a larger, smaller head,
0:51:22pull 'em out, push 'em back in for fit.
0:51:25The pistons alone feel like you could teach
0:51:28half a semester of industrial design at a university
0:51:32by studying the piston design alone.
0:51:34It's that interesting, materials,
0:51:37and it's like, how does this, it feels magical, right?
0:51:41Because it doesn't click, it doesn't have steps,
0:51:44but it does, it holds its shape.
0:51:46I mean, will it over time?
0:51:48Again, who knows, you know, three,
0:51:49come back to me in three years and see if it still is tight.
0:51:53But yeah, super premium.
0:51:56Just the pistons alone, very, very premium
0:51:59in a way that just blows away the Bose that I have,
0:52:02which are fine, right?
0:52:03They click, you know, and they feel way sturdier
0:52:07than the Bose Quiet Comforts of old,
0:52:09which used to snap after 18 months.
0:52:12Like, guaranteed to snap 18 months after you fry 'em.
0:52:15- Right.
0:52:17- You know, it's like, but the case, Jesus.
0:52:21I don't know what they're thinking.
0:52:24- Me neither, it's almost not--
0:52:28- And then the worst part is you kinda need it
0:52:30to put 'em in the hibernate, right?
0:52:32- Yeah, yeah, exactly.
0:52:33Like, if you would've had a nice shell case
0:52:37that said, hey, this is a little bulky on the case side,
0:52:42but it's the nest that your headphones live in, right?
0:52:47- Right.
0:52:48- They go in there to hibernate and you keep them safe
0:52:50and they're protected.
0:52:51Like, imagine, like the Bose QCs have that hard shell,
0:52:55you know, deal that zips up.
0:52:58Or I think it's like a soft hard shell now, you know,
0:53:01it's like a combination floppy thing.
0:53:03But something like that, even in the same exterior material,
0:53:08I could see the complaint being,
0:53:09oh man, this is gonna get dirty, but hey, you know,
0:53:11it's a safe home for my $500 or $550 headphones.
0:53:15I get it, right?
0:53:17That makes sense.
0:53:18This doesn't make any sense.
0:53:20Because it leaves the most delicate part
0:53:22of what you would think to be the headphone exposed.
0:53:24Like the material, sure, if you don't want
0:53:27these aluminum things to scratch, I get it.
0:53:30But at the same time, who cares, who gives a crap, right?
0:53:34The headband though, it's a mesh.
0:53:37- Like we're gonna stick it in there
0:53:38with my pens and pocket knives
0:53:39and I forget to close it all the way or whatever.
0:53:41Like, protect that, you know?
0:53:43I mean, it's weird, it's weird, it's just all weird.
0:53:46- Right, like you could get a scratch on the ear cups
0:53:48and it's a scratch.
0:53:49It's like getting a scratch on the back of your phone,
0:53:50who cares?
0:53:51I mean, you know, people might care,
0:53:53but I don't wanna get a hole poked in the mesh, you know?
0:53:57- Right, right.
0:53:58- Anyway, I'm still not quite sure what to make of it.
0:54:02I'm glad, I know, I guess we, you know, 550 bucks.
0:54:07It is premium and it's a bad year to come out
0:54:10with premium $550 headphones.
0:54:13I mean, times are tough.
0:54:14- Yeah, yeah. - The world is a mess.
0:54:16But, you know, there is this whole world of high-end audio
0:54:22and $550 isn't even the highest of the high by far.
0:54:30I'm glad Apple is making, shooting
0:54:33for super premium headphones.
0:54:35And same way with HomePod, right?
0:54:40And it's like, I know, you know, people are,
0:54:42a lot of people think, you know, the reason Apple is behind
0:54:45in market share on home talk-tier dingus devices
0:54:50is that HomePod was their only standalone device
0:54:52until they came out with the Mini
0:54:54and it started at 300 bucks.
0:54:56Or maybe it was 350 when it first came out.
0:54:57And that's a lot more than all these $50 pucks
0:55:00that everybody else makes.
0:55:02But I'm glad they make HomePod that sounds so amazing.
0:55:05I really am.
0:55:07But it's, you know, there seems to be a bit of a gap
0:55:13in price between AirPods Pro and AirPods Max
0:55:17where there could be another set of headphones in between.
0:55:20- In between, yeah.
0:55:22It's a pretty big, I mean, they shot for the outside edge
0:55:26before the middle edge, right?
0:55:28Now it is gap filling, right?
0:55:30You have people who are obviously buying
0:55:33and Apple can see obviously very well
0:55:35that people buy Beats, right?
0:55:37And they know how many people buy them
0:55:38and they know that that price is, you know,
0:55:41in the middle of the $300 bracket.
0:55:43And, you know, they're still benefiting from that
0:55:46in that they own Beats and all of that.
0:55:49But that also proves out the need and the desire for people
0:55:53to have something in that universe
0:55:55that supports the most advanced features
0:55:58that Apple has shipped in any audio devices so far, right?
0:56:01Which to me is really the point of these headphones.
0:56:05It's not, you know, at the beginning of this conversation,
0:56:08I was like, hey, I'm not really interested
0:56:09in comparing these to non-NC headphones
0:56:12because by nature, anytime you introduce processing
0:56:14into the audio path,
0:56:16it's no longer a pristine audio device, right?
0:56:20It's just, that's not about that transmitting
0:56:23the pure fidelity of the original recording directly
0:56:28to your ears as little, you know, fuss as possible.
0:56:31There are absolutely headphones and applications for that.
0:56:35I get it, you know, recording audio files,
0:56:39listening to the original vinyl and, you know,
0:56:42if you've got a $1,500 vinyl record player, you know,
0:56:46this is nothing, you know,
0:56:47you want headphones that transmit that, you know,
0:56:50or $2,000 record player or more, whatever,
0:56:53you get the drift.
0:56:54But this, that's not that at all.
0:56:56So then you have to ask yourself, like, what is this about?
0:56:59Like, what's the purpose of shipping these?
0:57:04And the two H1 chips, nine microphones,
0:57:09like every trick that they've learned so far in audio
0:57:13is in these things.
0:57:15And it's tied to, of course,
0:57:16all of the tricks that they've introduced on iOS
0:57:20for, you know, positional audio, the spatial audio
0:57:24that they're shipping, right?
0:57:25You have the adaptive EQ, which says,
0:57:27hey, I'm gonna read the seal of your ears.
0:57:29Some other headphones do this,
0:57:30but not to the efficacy of these.
0:57:33It's better than any of the others I've tried.
0:57:36I will say that there is a,
0:57:37there is a case to be made here that what they're doing
0:57:42is exactly what you were alluding to on the AR front,
0:57:44that they are building out this sort of platform.
0:57:48And in my original first, you know,
0:57:52gasp review of the AirPods,
0:57:54'cause they came out at the same time as an iPhone,
0:57:56and I like tucked my AirPods review into that,
0:57:58but I also broke it out 'cause I felt like,
0:58:00you know, it's worth talking about on its own a little bit.
0:58:03And it was like, hey, this is audio AR, you know,
0:58:06get ready, you know, we're gonna be looking at this.
0:58:08And that was, you know,
0:58:10I can't remember when they came out now,
0:58:11the years blend together, several years ago, right?
0:58:14But that was basically, you know,
0:58:16me trying to be all fun and future looking and say,
0:58:19hey, what if, what if, what if, what if?
0:58:20Well, we're in what if now.
0:58:22You know, it's creating, when you put these on,
0:58:24the larger drivers, the ear cup, the comfort,
0:58:28and the, now the content that supports that most
0:58:31and all of this stuff,
0:58:33it crafts a soundstage for you that feels real.
0:58:36It feels like you're listening to the audio
0:58:38without headphones on.
0:58:40If you're looking at this, you know,
0:58:41if you're watching the kind of content that supports it,
0:58:43right, it's not all content,
0:58:44it's only on iOS devices.
0:58:47There's a lot of limitations here so far, right?
0:58:49- Right.
0:58:50- But if you are looking,
0:58:51you're watching an episode of a show on the iOS device
0:58:56that supports that most and the spatial audio is on,
0:59:00and you turn it off, the soundstage like vanishes
0:59:04and you're getting a single flat kind of,
0:59:06hey, here's audio presentation, sounds good, but whatever.
0:59:10When you turn it on, it really is insane.
0:59:13Like it's really incredible the breadth and depth
0:59:16of the soundstage there.
0:59:17I mean, I've spent, I spent years,
0:59:19like 10 years installing home theater audio,
0:59:22and I know what a good soundstage sounds like.
0:59:24I'm not the world's expert on this stuff,
0:59:27but I know how to set up a home theater system.
0:59:29I know how to set up 7.1 and 5.1.
0:59:32It's actually really good.
0:59:36Definitely not to the par of some sort
0:59:38of actual physical installation,
0:59:40it would never probably will be,
0:59:42but maybe, you know, it's actually really getting close.
0:59:46It's way, way better than any of those like
0:59:49fake sound bar-y type things where they're like,
0:59:51hey, we'll project your audio for you.
0:59:53And they just kind of like use a little beam forming.
0:59:55It's way better than that.
0:59:56It's pretty incredible.
0:59:58And so I think that it's really a test bed
0:59:59for all of those technologies.
1:00:01It is the best you can get right now
1:00:04in a headphone version of a home theater audio setup.
1:00:09But the downsides, of course,
1:00:11we're all still there.
1:00:13It only works on iOS.
1:00:14It's only on portable devices like an iPad or whatever.
1:00:16You can't watch your Apple TV and get that spatial audio.
1:00:19It doesn't work yet, you know, that kind of thing.
1:00:21- It seems crazy to me.
1:00:22I blew a chunk of my review complaining about it.
1:00:25It seems crazy that it doesn't work with Apple TV.
1:00:27I mean, like, it is quite possibly
1:00:32a better audio experience than you could get
1:00:36from any speakers, right?
1:00:38'Cause it's right there personally for you,
1:00:41like in the way that VR goggles
1:00:45are gonna give you a better VR experience
1:00:47than a screen ever could, right?
1:00:51- Right.
1:00:52- It's like, you know, like the old Star Trek holodeck.
1:00:55Never really added up the way, like, wait,
1:00:58if it's just a bunch of, if it's just four walls
1:01:01in like a racquetball court,
1:01:02how are they protecting stuff in the middle?
1:01:04But whatever is the future.
1:01:07Like, in the way that for true VR,
1:01:11you really need goggles that are personal for you,
1:01:14and if you and I are having the same experience,
1:01:16we both need goggles so that we're both
1:01:18getting a personal experience.
1:01:19I think that it's quite possible that for that spatial audio
1:01:23you're getting a better experience from these headphones
1:01:25than you would from any speaker set up in a room.
1:01:28'Cause it's for you.
1:01:29And maybe you could set the speakers up
1:01:31so there's one sweet spot in the middle
1:01:33where like two people sitting in the middle of the room
1:01:36get the perfect experience.
1:01:37But everybody else aren't because they're not in the center.
1:01:41Why, you get this, the best possible audio experience
1:01:47to watch a blockbuster action movie
1:01:49and you have to watch it on an iPad?
1:01:52To get, that's the biggest screen you can get?
1:01:54It's insane.
1:01:57It just seems crazy to me.
1:01:58Anyway, I'll pick this up 'cause I wanna keep going.
1:02:00But let me take a break while I'm thinking about it
1:02:01and thank our next sponsor.
1:02:03Oh, I love this company.
1:02:04They're sponsoring Daring Fireball this week.
1:02:06It's the rare two shot where their sponsorship coincides
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1:02:13'Cause I'm not good at juggling things.
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1:02:21But it looks like Kolide, K-O-L-I-D-E,
1:02:23but they pronounce it Kolide.
1:02:25Anyway, they're an endpoint security company
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1:02:32And they want me to tell you about it.
1:02:35In the guide, Kolide, Kolide shares and expands
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1:02:45on the same honest approach.
1:02:48The guide discusses five key tenets.
1:02:50The values your organization stands behind
1:02:52should be well represented in your security program.
1:02:55A positive working relationship between the end user
1:02:58and security team is incredibly valuable
1:03:00and worth fostering.
1:03:02This relationship is built on a foundation of trust
1:03:05that is demonstrated through informed consent
1:03:09and transparency.
1:03:10The security team should anticipate and expect
1:03:13that end users use their company-owned devices
1:03:17for personal activities and design their detection
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1:03:22End users are capable of making rational
1:03:25and informed decisions about security risks
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1:04:10So here's where I'm going with this,
1:04:15with the spatial audio.
1:04:16To me, and this is why I love talking to you about it,
1:04:18'cause I think you know what I'm talking about.
1:04:20To me, it is Disney-esque in terms of its immersiveness.
1:04:27It is visceral when you're watching something
1:04:31that is hooked up with this.
1:04:33It is crazy.
1:04:34So Apple, you know, the reviewers guide
1:04:39some suggested scenes of movies
1:04:42that really show off spatial audio
1:04:44and it was sort of like their,
1:04:46look, in normal times, I probably would've gone to New York
1:04:49and I guess they maybe would've had you
1:04:51go down to Cupertino or something.
1:04:53But they probably would've had a product briefing
1:04:57in New York and had one set up for the press to go over
1:05:02and now here, try this and we'll show you.
1:05:05Although I guess they probably would've just would've had
1:05:06an iPad set up in front of everybody
1:05:08'cause it doesn't work with Apple TV.
1:05:11But here are some of the scenes they might've shown us.
1:05:13And I looked at them, 'cause it's like, yeah,
1:05:16I wanna, you know, show me what spatial audio is awesome at.
1:05:20And one of them was a scene from Ford versus Ferrari,
1:05:23which I love, which is a great movie.
1:05:26Do you see that guy, what's his name?
1:05:27James Mangold, he's gonna direct the--
1:05:29- Yeah, James Mangold's directing the new indie.
1:05:31- The new indie. - I'm stoked.
1:05:33- Yeah, yeah, hopefully.
1:05:34- Yeah, I think he has the right sensibility to it.
1:05:36It's like, you know, Ford versus Ferrari,
1:05:38while not the world's most amazing cinema ever,
1:05:41had really exciting photography,
1:05:44really, you know, really like deft hand
1:05:47as far as the character beats.
1:05:49And in a movie like that, that's like,
1:05:50has that kind of arc where you know
1:05:52where it's headed in general
1:05:53and you know it's a known story,
1:05:55it had the right moments of like,
1:05:57you know, kind of joy and catharsis.
1:05:58I thought he did a really good job.
1:06:00He'll do good with an indie, I think.
1:06:01- I thought it was kind of crazy serendipity
1:06:03that this, did the news break?
1:06:05I saw the news that he's gonna helm indie five yesterday.
1:06:10'Cause I know Disney had this big announcement
1:06:11where they announced all their stuff for the next year.
1:06:14I think if it didn't come out yesterday,
1:06:16it came out the day before.
1:06:18But I thought it was such serendipity,
1:06:20'cause a friend of the show, Todd Visserie,
1:06:25was tweeting recently,
1:06:26just some sound design clips from Raiders of the Lost Ark,
1:06:30which is like, seriously,
1:06:32maybe my favorite movie of all time.
1:06:34Always, always in the top five.
1:06:37And if you say, you know,
1:06:38"Give me the best movies you've ever seen."
1:06:41Raiders is always in my top five.
1:06:43And the sound is one of my favorite things about Raiders.
1:06:46Always has been, and it's always been confounding to me
1:06:50that more action movies don't just go back to Raiders.
1:06:53Like, one of the great things in Raiders is,
1:06:58okay, action movies, what happens in action movies
1:07:00that doesn't really happen in real life all the time?
1:07:02People are always firing guns, right?
1:07:05It's guns, boom, boom, boom.
1:07:07People are firing guns all the time.
1:07:08In real life, a gunshot is a hell of a thing, right?
1:07:12- Yeah, it's intense. - Anytime, right.
1:07:15Every time a gun goes off in Raiders of the Lost Ark,
1:07:17it is a hell of a thing.
1:07:19It is like, boom!
1:07:21It's one gunshot is a hell of a thing.
1:07:25And it sounds like it.
1:07:26It's like, turn that up loud.
1:07:28Ford versus Ferrari has that sort of,
1:07:31hey, if you take a $9 million race car in 1968
1:07:35or whatever the hell year this was,
1:07:37and just had a guy run it at top speed around a race course,
1:07:41that's gonna be, that's a hell of a machine
1:07:44to put up into the red.
1:07:46Like, if you put that race car in the red,
1:07:48that's a hell of a-- - It's overwhelming, right?
1:07:50It's overwhelming.
1:07:51And I've been in cars with,
1:07:53not one of those specifically,
1:07:55but I've been in cars at that level
1:07:57with somebody else driving
1:07:58who really knows how to hone it around.
1:08:00It's an overwhelming experience.
1:08:02Your body is just sort of, you know, it's intense.
1:08:06And that's why F1 drivers
1:08:08are some of the best athletes in the world,
1:08:09because you can't imagine the stresses that they go under.
1:08:14- Anyway, that was just a fun serendipity,
1:08:17because I thought it's what makes the sound design
1:08:19of Ford versus Ferrari such a great example
1:08:22is exactly the sort of thing that, in my opinion,
1:08:25the Indy franchise has gotten away from,
1:08:28and it's sort of devolved into standard action fare.
1:08:31And that, man, when you go back to Raiders,
1:08:34and just like, hey, like a whip crack, just boom.
1:08:37Just focus on this one thing
1:08:39instead of trying to pick one crayon out of the box.
1:08:44Don't use all 64 of them at once, right?
1:08:47- Right. (laughs)
1:08:50- Anyway, Ford versus Ferrari, wow.
1:08:52It was, the scene they suggested was the scene
1:08:55where the Matt Damon character, what's it, Shelby,
1:08:58takes the Ford grandson and (laughs)
1:09:02he like, not really tricks him, but like just,
1:09:05hey, take a seat in the car,
1:09:06let me take you around the track.
1:09:07And it's both the race car sound and the tire squealing
1:09:12and the bits of dialogue mixed in,
1:09:17where there's characters talking
1:09:19while there's this crazy noise.
1:09:20And it's not just that you can hear them loud as day,
1:09:24clear as a bell, but that there's direction to it.
1:09:28And if the character is like slightly off
1:09:30to the right center on screen,
1:09:33their voice is coming, like, and it, again,
1:09:37does not sound like it's coming from the iPad,
1:09:40arms reach away from you.
1:09:42It sounds like there's a man six feet off,
1:09:46a little bit to your right, talking to you.
1:09:49It is, and that visceral nature of it
1:09:53sounds like there's a person right there,
1:09:55and it sounds like you're in a tiny little race car
1:09:58where your knees are up by your chin
1:10:00with this crazy engine that could kill you,
1:10:04revving right in front of you.
1:10:07It all sounds so real, and it just is like the best
1:10:10of like a modern Disney attraction.
1:10:12Like, yeah, it feels like you're riding
1:10:15one of those crazy flying things in Avatar, you know?
1:10:20- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
1:10:23Yeah, it really does.
1:10:23And like the experience, I've said this,
1:10:27I just like said this on Twitter and other people are like,
1:10:28oh, yeah, yeah, this happened to me too.
1:10:31The experience of watching one of these movies
1:10:33with the, you know, even the AirPods Pro,
1:10:35but obviously even more intense with the Max,
1:10:38is that it feels like you don't have headphones on
1:10:41and that the sound is actually projecting out
1:10:43into the room itself from the device.
1:10:46And I think somebody took this to mean
1:10:47that I thought the iPad sounded great.
1:10:49That's not what I mean.
1:10:50It's just, I mean, it's better than, you know,
1:10:53iPads in the past if you're talking about like the iPad Pro,
1:10:55but it really has nothing to do with that.
1:10:57It's really that the sound feels like it's filling
1:11:00the room that you're in.
1:11:01And so like I had the experience of, you know,
1:11:04sitting in bed watching a movie on the iPad
1:11:08and the spatial audio turned on,
1:11:11and when I was watching it,
1:11:12I actually thought I was gonna wake my wife up
1:11:14'cause I thought that my headphones had disconnected.
1:11:17And that it was playing through the iPad speakers
1:11:19out into the room, right?
1:11:22And I took 'em off multiple times.
1:11:24Like I did it once, I'm like, oh no, I guess not.
1:11:27'Cause then it pauses and you're like,
1:11:28is it playing or not?
1:11:30And no, I guess not.
1:11:31And I put it back in, it starts playing.
1:11:33I'm like, oh yeah, that's definitely the head,
1:11:34and then a couple minutes later, I did it again.
1:11:35I didn't believe myself.
1:11:37It's actually kind of remarkable.
1:11:39And I think there's, people are getting
1:11:41a little bit hung up on the Atmos thing
1:11:43because they're like, oh, does this really sound
1:11:46like height level speakers plus 5.1,
1:11:49which is really what makes Atmos different?
1:11:50And it's like, no, you know, not really, right?
1:11:54Like Atmos is Atmos for a reason.
1:11:56And sure, if you have physical speakers
1:11:59filling a physical space and,
1:12:01and they're all calibrated correctly
1:12:03and you have the right room for it,
1:12:05and the screen is the right distance away
1:12:08and you're sitting in the optimal position
1:12:09to listen to this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
1:12:12Not, yeah, how many people are gonna have
1:12:15the experience of Atmos in their home?
1:12:18Very few, proportionately speaking.
1:12:21Like I have an Atmos system in my house
1:12:23because I'm fortunate enough to have the space
1:12:24that works for it and I know how to set it up,
1:12:26so I did it all myself, so it didn't cost me
1:12:28a arm and a leg to install it, right?
1:12:30- Right.
1:12:31- But most people don't.
1:12:33And I do believe that that is one interesting thing
1:12:36about this that yes, these are $550,
1:12:39but the AirPods Pro are not
1:12:41and they both do spatial audio
1:12:43and as they build out this platform,
1:12:45I do believe it is actually,
1:12:46and this is why I think this is driven
1:12:49from the executive level a lot
1:12:50because I believe that there are a lot of cinemaphiles
1:12:52in Apple and a lot of people who love high-end audio
1:12:55and all of this stuff, which is why we got HomePod
1:12:57and not, you know, Apple Alexa,
1:13:01is that they're democratizing quality of sound
1:13:05in a pretty aggressive way.
1:13:07So yes, you may not get 100% of Atmos,
1:13:10but you may get 60 to 70% of Atmos in a headphone
1:13:15that somebody could buy for $550
1:13:17instead of spending eight grand on an Atmos setup.
1:13:19- Right.
1:13:20- And it's definitely a different way
1:13:23to frame this conversation
1:13:25and I'm sure people will bitch at me about it,
1:13:26but I, as somebody who has gone through the trouble
1:13:30to do this and help people set these up over the years,
1:13:32I'm just telling you, it's actually a really impressive
1:13:35sound stage that they've built virtually
1:13:37and it will give a lot more people exposure
1:13:40to the kind of home theater type sound at home
1:13:44if they're using these devices.
1:13:46I just wish it worked with Apple TV
1:13:47the way it's supposed to, you know?
1:13:49- Right.
1:13:50- And I need to do some more testing.
1:13:52- It has to be coming to Apple TV.
1:13:53Whether it really does require some sort of hardware
1:13:56for locating the headphones versus where the TV is
1:14:01and we really have to wait for another Apple TV
1:14:04hardware update or if it could be done in software,
1:14:07I don't know, but I mean, it seems criminal to me
1:14:10that Apple TV is $200 and you're gonna have to buy
1:14:15another new one to get spatial audio,
1:14:19but if it does, it does.
1:14:20I mean, if it really does require hardware
1:14:23that's only currently in iPhones and iPads,
1:14:25then what are they gonna do?
1:14:26But it has to be coming 'cause it's so frickin' good
1:14:30and there really are, it's not just if you don't wanna spend
1:14:35for the speakers, but if you've got like a small apartment
1:14:37and a sleeping baby down the hall
1:14:39or your wife is sleeping on the couch
1:14:42or if you've got a TV in the bedroom
1:14:43and you wanna watch this movie on the TV in your bedroom
1:14:48and your spouse is sleeping next to you,
1:14:52headphones are the way to go,
1:14:54but with these, you don't have to sacrifice
1:14:56and I'm with you.
1:14:57It is like you get absorbed.
1:14:59It's like 15, 30 seconds, a minute in,
1:15:02and it's like I'm thinking like a reviewer
1:15:05and I'm trying to figure out how this works
1:15:07and I'm thinking about how this and where sources,
1:15:12and then all of a sudden I realize another two minutes
1:15:14have gone by and I'm just into the movie
1:15:17and it's like whoa, I cannot believe
1:15:18that this is in my headphones.
1:15:20It is so immersive.
1:15:22It is incredibly impressive
1:15:24and it is like multi, you know,
1:15:28multi $10 million Disney attraction immersiveness
1:15:32that you can get.
1:15:33Again, 550 is a lot for headphones,
1:15:35but $550 for this world-class immersion
1:15:38and you don't have to know any technical details.
1:15:40There's no EQs to turn up or down.
1:15:43It's just make it sound good, you know?
1:15:46It is so immersive.
1:15:48You've got a good sound system.
1:15:50I set up, I finally got around to hooking up two HomePods
1:15:54to my Apple TV in my living room.
1:15:58My audio situation is that we were having renovations done
1:16:03last year and we didn't know,
1:16:06but it turned out being like incredible.
1:16:08It was like, you know, Indiana,
1:16:10let's go back to Indiana Jones.
1:16:11You know, Indiana Jones slipping under the door
1:16:13and then goes back and grabs his whip
1:16:16before the door closes.
1:16:19That was our contractors finishing up before COVID shut down.
1:16:24It was just, they finished up in like the first week of March
1:16:26and it was like, huh, that worked out really well.
1:16:29So we got a new TV 'cause we redid the living room
1:16:34and it's, you know, I got the big 77-inch LG OLED thing
1:16:39and I didn't buy a sound system yet.
1:16:42And I was like, well, we'll just play,
1:16:45let's just play audio through the TV.
1:16:48And it's like, hey, the audio through the TV is not bad.
1:16:51And neither Amy nor Jonas really complain about it.
1:16:54I'm surprised Jonas doesn't,
1:16:56but it's for TV, sound coming out of the TV, it's not bad.
1:17:01And so I've just procrastinated all year long
1:17:04'cause it's 2020 and I haven't bought anything.
1:17:06So I didn't have to unhook anything to set up.
1:17:09I just had to move HomePods from other rooms in the house
1:17:12to put them in the living room.
1:17:14It sounds really good.
1:17:19Obviously it can't fake coming from behind you,
1:17:23but I'm not really into that.
1:17:24I don't really want speakers behind me.
1:17:27Like I'm fine with having all the audio coming
1:17:29from before me, but the HomePods as home stereo thing
1:17:34sounds way better than they have any right to sound
1:17:37in my opinion.
1:17:38And I love the idea and it scores me points with the wife
1:17:45that if I go this route,
1:17:47I don't have to have a separate woofer.
1:17:51I don't have to have a woofer,
1:17:53which is, I score some political points on that.
1:17:56It's really impressive.
1:17:57I just love what Apple's doing in this arena.
1:18:01I really do think it comes to exactly what you said,
1:18:05that there are people in the company who love movies,
1:18:08but really want to democratize it.
1:18:11And again, it is this weird,
1:18:14to me that's the explanation.
1:18:16Like why in the world are they selling $550 headphones?
1:18:19Why are they selling $300 smart speakers?
1:18:22Well, they're not $300 smart speakers.
1:18:25And why do they work better with a pair?
1:18:27So it's a $600 setup.
1:18:29And it's like, if you think of them as gadgets
1:18:32competing with Alexa stuff,
1:18:35yes, $600 is a lot.
1:18:37But if you think of it compared to what Bang & Olufsen
1:18:41wants to sell you, it's really not.
1:18:45If you come at it from the other side of the market,
1:18:49these are democratizing prices.
1:18:51- Yeah, and it's, look,
1:18:52at the bottom level of this, you go, money is real.
1:18:58$550 is a lot of money.
1:18:59So if you decide to buy these things,
1:19:01you need to be comfortable spending $550.
1:19:04If you're comfortable spending that,
1:19:05it's actually a really fascinating product
1:19:07with some distinct benefits for people
1:19:09that are tightly integrated with the iOS system,
1:19:11especially if you watch a lot on iPad.
1:19:13Like that's my summary.
1:19:15If you listen to a lot of music,
1:19:19like straight up music from Apple Music
1:19:22or stream from an iOS device, it'll be great there too.
1:19:25If you watch movies from iPad,
1:19:27I think you're gonna get a better experience.
1:19:29And theoretically, you're buying into a future platform
1:19:34that will work for home theater as well,
1:19:36like in terms of like watching it on an Apple TV.
1:19:39But if you just want a pair of headphones
1:19:41that work great for noise cancellation,
1:19:43fold up really well and travel really well,
1:19:45don't buy these.
1:19:46They're not for that.
1:19:47They won't work well for that.
1:19:49As it stands, there's no case
1:19:50that I'd really recommend traveling with them with.
1:19:53It's just not good for that, period.
1:19:57- Yeah, and my suggestion, if you want the Apple stuff,
1:20:01just seriously try AirPods Pro for that.
1:20:04'Cause I've flown, there wasn't a big window
1:20:07between AirPods Pro coming out last October
1:20:10and the March shutdown,
1:20:11but I had a couple of flights in there.
1:20:13And I stopped carrying the Bose,
1:20:16not because I'd given up on them,
1:20:18but just specifically so that,
1:20:20well, if I'm going to try AirPods Pro on the flight,
1:20:23I took at least one flight where I had them both
1:20:25so I could try them both side by side in the cabin.
1:20:28And it went well enough where like the next trip I took
1:20:32before everything shut down and I stopped taking trips,
1:20:34I just took AirPods Pro.
1:20:35They really worked pretty well for that
1:20:38where the noise cancellation is good enough
1:20:41to get out the cabin noise
1:20:42and you're just listening to music or movies
1:20:45and it sounds clear, but it's not like this.
1:20:47And like in my review, I touched on this where it's like,
1:20:50I don't know what to say because it's like the movies
1:20:53where this would make the biggest difference
1:20:54and be worthwhile are the sort of movies
1:20:58where I really want to watch on my TV at home.
1:21:00But if I am going to watch a movie on a plane,
1:21:04why not completely satiate one of my senses?
1:21:08Like there's nothing you can do on a plane
1:21:10to give yourself a 77 inch OLED,
1:21:13but you can give yourself a truly world class
1:21:16audio experience, why not?
1:21:18Like and I could totally see if I got into a good movie
1:21:21with these on, I feel like it would be like somebody
1:21:24like sitting in the middle seat next to me
1:21:27who wants to go to the bathroom
1:21:28and they're gonna tap me on the shoulder
1:21:29and I'm gonna be like shocked
1:21:30'cause I forgot I was over there.
1:21:32Like I really do.
1:21:33I think that even though you're watching
1:21:35on like an 11 inch iPad, I feel like the audio
1:21:38could immerse yourself enough that you could forget
1:21:40you're on an airplane.
1:21:41And if you travel enough, that's a huge win, right?
1:21:43It's like--
1:21:44- Yeah, you just have to dedicate yourself
1:21:46to traveling with these things in a way
1:21:47that you don't have to dedicate yourself
1:21:49to traveling with a pair of headphones
1:21:51that has more folding and articulation, right?
1:21:53So you gotta understand that trade off going in.
1:21:56Like I'm gonna create a dedicated space for these in my bag
1:22:00and those are gonna go in there.
1:22:02But when I get on that 11 hour flight to the UK
1:22:06and I watch three movies and sleep
1:22:08and then watch another movie and then have a little breakfast
1:22:11or whatever, I mean, hey, an 11 inch iPad
1:22:14or 13 inch iPad, two and a half feet from your face
1:22:16is the equivalent of an 80 inch screen, right?
1:22:19So that plus the headphones and yeah,
1:22:22you've got yourself a really nice portable
1:22:24home theater setup, which doesn't,
1:22:27it doesn't really exist in the way that it exists here
1:22:31with existing 5.1 capable headphones
1:22:34because it is not, there's no two way communication.
1:22:38And that is really, I think where we're talking about
1:22:40like the hardware stuff in the,
1:22:42that's not in the Apple TV, how are they gonna figure that
1:22:44or can they do it in software?
1:22:45'Cause the iPad knows where the headphones are
1:22:48and vice versa.
1:22:49There is a two way communication there
1:22:51and at least in orientation and a little bit in distance,
1:22:55right, 'cause it does a ranging check.
1:22:58And so it kind of knows where you are
1:23:00and that back and forth comms is what keeps it locked in
1:23:04and keeps it feeling like the soundstage is accurate
1:23:07so that when you as a physical person
1:23:09are moving around in the soundstage,
1:23:11either your head or turning or whatever,
1:23:13the sound stays in the proper position.
1:23:15'Cause what normally happens when you turn your head,
1:23:18when you're watching a screen is at the center
1:23:20of the soundstage travels with your face.
1:23:23And so you're looking to the left,
1:23:25but the sounds and the soundstage is to the left
1:23:27but the screen is to the right.
1:23:28And like that difference is huge.
1:23:31It's the same difference that you see in VR headsets
1:23:35with good tracking because the moment you lose tracking
1:23:38on that, your body's like, this ain't real
1:23:40and by the way, I'm sick because the physical world
1:23:45doesn't match my inner ear, right?
1:23:48And with a good tracking of your headset,
1:23:51it sells it immediately.
1:23:52It makes you feel immersed.
1:23:53It makes you feel like this is a real thing.
1:23:55Your body and your glands and your cerebellum
1:24:00are all working in conjunction to tell you,
1:24:04this thing is real, this is working, everything is cool.
1:24:07What you're seeing is real life.
1:24:09And that kind of two-way comms is what sets this apart
1:24:13from others 7.1 or 5.1 compatible headsets
1:24:17that do not have any communication with the device
1:24:20that they're watching it on.
1:24:21And that's the differentiation factor for now here.
1:24:25- Yeah, it reminds me of like an optical illusion.
1:24:30There's a lot of them, like there's the famous one.
1:24:32It's like, it looks like a chalice centered in the square
1:24:35but if you stare at it long enough,
1:24:36it suddenly looks like two faces in profile staring.
1:24:40- Or Pepper's ghost with the mirrors and glass.
1:24:43- Yeah, yeah.
1:24:45And it's like you put these on
1:24:48and you know you're doing spatial audio
1:24:49and you're moving your head a little bit left to right
1:24:52and you're like, oh yeah, yeah.
1:24:54And you're thinking about it.
1:24:56And no matter what you do, a minute in,
1:24:59you completely forget.
1:25:01And it's like instead of studying the chalice,
1:25:04it's like you're just immersed and it's uncanny.
1:25:08It really is, I cannot emphasize it enough,
1:25:10it is not a gimmick.
1:25:12It is a real thing that takes the headphone experience
1:25:16up to another level.
1:25:17And if you watch enough movies on an iPad,
1:25:20it is seriously worthwhile.
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1:28:20Before you go, I guess the other big thing,
1:28:25I don't know if, we got all caught up talking
1:28:27about headphones in the meantime,
1:28:29we haven't talked about the fact that Apple
1:28:31has completely moved the Macintosh platform
1:28:33to a new architecture.
1:28:35- You know, just the little things.
1:28:37Oh gosh, yeah, well they did a lot this year, to be honest.
1:28:44I mean, given the year it's been, it's pretty crazy.
1:28:48That's just a month old.
1:28:49Like isn't that wild?
1:28:50Like this is seriously like, from my interests,
1:28:55you know, as somebody who's, I'm interested in politics
1:28:58in normal years and if you're interested in politics,
1:29:01a presidential election in the US is always a big deal.
1:29:04Needless to say, this just felt like a big one.
1:29:08- A little bit.
1:29:08A little bit unusual.
1:29:10- My entire professional life has been built
1:29:14around the Macintosh computer.
1:29:17It's kind of a big month for the Macintosh.
1:29:21Like this has all been a month.
1:29:23It just seems crazy.
1:29:25Like that is one thing I'm at the point now
1:29:28with the M1 MacBook Pro where I'm so spoiled,
1:29:31where it now, I'm over the part where it feels amazing
1:29:35and it feels normal.
1:29:36- Yeah, and it's just everything else feels worse, right?
1:29:39Like that's the--
1:29:39- Everything else feels worse.
1:29:40- And you know what, just to speak to the onslaught part
1:29:45of it, you know, the M1 Mac, huge, huge change
1:29:49in architecture, really a generational,
1:29:52once in a generation change, step change in capability
1:29:56for PCs and by PCs, I mean personal computers, right?
1:30:01And that goes for PCs that run Windows
1:30:04or any other platform.
1:30:06These things are just better and you can tell
1:30:09that even now where they're like, oh, this beats
1:30:10a more powerful PC or even a more powerful Mac,
1:30:13or more powerful, I should say, this beats a hot top
1:30:17of the line previous one from ostensibly the high end
1:30:20of the line, right?
1:30:22Previous ones, and we know, everybody knows,
1:30:25and yes, there's been some talk about it,
1:30:27but really I don't think anybody's quite internalized it,
1:30:29that this is the entry level, like this is the beginning,
1:30:32this is just like, hey, what if I wanna buy a cheap laptop?
1:30:35Oh, just get this one, it's probably the best on the market,
1:30:37it's $1,000, right?
1:30:39Like that's, and it's already beating those.
1:30:41So like the exponential shift in what PCs are capable
1:30:45or what computers are capable of, what Macs are capable of,
1:30:48portable computers are capable of, and what they can do,
1:30:51how far you can push the performance
1:30:53while still maintaining a usable battery
1:30:55and a usable mobile platform, we're just beginning
1:30:58to see that, and I don't think that people
1:31:00have internalized it yet at all because A,
1:31:03the tools need to be rebuilt to take advantage of it,
1:31:05and then new tools, new companies, new architectures
1:31:08that are just being spun up now, we're gonna see them
1:31:12sort of appear over the next few years
1:31:15that take advantage of this kind of big change.
1:31:18Because you talk about the iPhone having had
1:31:21an enormous profound effect on the capability of software,
1:31:26I mean, entire billion dollar companies,
1:31:28Airbnb wouldn't exist without the iPhone,
1:31:31DoorDash wouldn't exist without the iPhone,
1:31:34I don't give a crap about Android or not,
1:31:36it's not really about that, I'm not talking down Android
1:31:38or anything, but frankly, the App Store and the iPhone
1:31:41provided the ability for these companies to get fuel
1:31:44and to get access to people with a disposable income
1:31:47that wanted to spend money on, say, food delivery
1:31:49or vacation homes or whatever, all of these businesses
1:31:53were fueled by the rise of the iPhone and the App Store,
1:31:56and that, in turn, many other applications and those
1:32:01were fueled by the fact that the platform remained performant
1:32:06through its entire lifespan.
1:32:09You know, when the iPhone came out, it was like,
1:32:10oh, this is cool, I can actually browse the web for real
1:32:12and it's kind of fast, and yeah, everybody complains
1:32:15about the speed of an iPhone, or complained about it
1:32:18for the first couple of years, but since then,
1:32:20nobody's said anything in practical terms,
1:32:23aside from people running benchmarks,
1:32:26about whether the iPhone is speedy or not.
1:32:28It is speedy, period, it is, and that's the error
1:32:31we're entering into with PCs, it's huge, it's a big change.
1:32:37- I loved this from your, I just, I wanna get the numbers
1:32:42right, so I dialed it up, but from your M1 MacBook Pro
1:32:46review, as a real world benchmark, you compiled
1:32:50the WebKit project, which is, again, that's not
1:32:53an artificial benchmark, now, is a typical person
1:32:56going to compile WebKit, no, of course not,
1:32:58but it is a real thing, real people do, it's a real project,
1:33:02and it's an interesting test, and the M1 MacBook Pro
1:33:05compiles the whole source of WebKit in about 21 minutes,
1:33:10and the 13-inch MacBook Pro Intel from this year
1:33:15was 46 minutes, 10 seconds, so over twice as long,
1:33:19but the biggest difference was if you do this on battery,
1:33:23the M1, in addition to being a little over twice as fast,
1:33:26has 91, start with a full charge, 91% battery life left.
1:33:33And that's the same, whether you're using the MacBook Pro
1:33:36or the MacBook Air, and the 13-inch MacBook Pro
1:33:39from this year has 24% battery left, like, that's crazy.
1:33:44- And then, you did-- - And it'll buy,
1:33:46it'll say baseball, I thought those numbers were wrong,
1:33:48I thought I was screwing something up big time,
1:33:51so I actually had three people run it for me
1:33:53on their own machines, and I had the same results.
1:33:56- I would totally think that, I would look at those results,
1:34:00and it's, you know, there's the sort of person
1:34:03who sees results like that, and then they go,
1:34:05you know, it's like those guys in the '80s from Utah
1:34:09who ran to the New York Times and said
1:34:11they invented desktop fusion.
1:34:12(laughing)
1:34:14- Yes, you're like, uh, let's fact check.
1:34:17(laughing)
1:34:19- There's the sort of person who sees results like that
1:34:22and is like, quick, publish, and then there's the sort
1:34:25of person who thinks, wait, I better triple check this.
1:34:30- Yes, well I always assume I'm the weakest link, so.
1:34:33(laughing)
1:34:35- But even the state of the art 16-inch MacBook Pro,
1:34:39which is a lot bigger device, and you know,
1:34:42a lot more expensive, goes from 100% to 61%
1:34:47on one run through WebKit.
1:34:51Like, so the time makes a difference,
1:34:53twice as fast is impressive, and twice as fast on,
1:34:58we're still talking about the consumer end of the notebooks,
1:35:01not the pro end, but the battery life thing
1:35:04is game-changing, like, 'cause what if you need
1:35:08to make a change and recompile it?
1:35:10- Yep, yep.
1:35:11- Then you can do this multiple times,
1:35:13and there's all sorts of things that people do
1:35:16that, you know, exporting video is huge.
1:35:20They had lots of people export video,
1:35:22and it's, you know, it grinds your computer,
1:35:25and you know, all of a sudden you realize
1:35:27you've misspelled somebody's name in the credits,
1:35:29and you've gotta export it again, you know?
1:35:32We screwed up, you know, that one shot in this,
1:35:37we didn't color correct, you have to bang out
1:35:40the whole thing, you know, you can't just fix the one thing.
1:35:44So, you know, if you can do that multiple times,
1:35:47and you're in the field, you're in the airport,
1:35:49you're somewhere, and you're on battery,
1:35:52and you're doing, you're working on a plane,
1:35:53you can do this, it is, that's night and day,
1:35:57that's a totally different thing,
1:35:58and like you said, it's only the consumer end so far.
1:36:01- Right.
1:36:02- Which is crazy.
1:36:03So that leads me to, you know,
1:36:06Gurman had a report this week talking about like,
1:36:08"Hey, where are they going with the future M series chips
1:36:12"for the rest of the lineup?"
1:36:14And, you know, one of the big questions people have is,
1:36:17"What are their plans for GPUs in the pro models?"
1:36:22I've been thinking, I've been thinking even before
1:36:26we saw the first M1 max, I've been thinking ever since,
1:36:30even before they announced this stuff at WWDC,
1:36:32that they're gonna do it all themselves.
1:36:34That they're done depending on other people.
1:36:37- Right.
1:36:38- They're too big a company, it's too important.
1:36:40- Yeah, when you see how central the GPU is
1:36:43to the modern compute landscape, you know,
1:36:45everything from AI to, you know, even the GPU taking over UI
1:36:50for a lot of applications, you know, from the CPU,
1:36:53there's just very, it's actually funny because
1:36:56there's a lot, a grand percentage less CPU bound operations
1:37:01on a PC than there was 10 years ago.
1:37:03- Right, and combine that, so the centrality of GPU period,
1:37:10even if you're just using a stock Windows Intel system,
1:37:14the centrality of the GPU to modern computing
1:37:18is one reason that they would take it just as seriously
1:37:22and do it all themselves the way they do CPU.
1:37:24But then combine that, it's like a multiplier,
1:37:27it's not just like an asterisk or a footnote,
1:37:29it's a multiplier with the way that the M1 shows
1:37:33that putting them all on the same chip
1:37:36and having them designed to work together
1:37:39makes everything faster, right?
1:37:41Like, and so there's certain things that used to be
1:37:44like dirty words, like shared memory, right?
1:37:48Like, oh, shared memory, you know, that was a compromise
1:37:51'cause it just happened to be that the systems
1:37:53that use shared memory between a GPU and CPU
1:37:56were low-end GPU systems, like, you know,
1:37:59long battery life consumer laptops.
1:38:02Or, you know, the discrete GPU versus integrated GPU, right?
1:38:08It's a dirty word, integrated GPU,
1:38:12'cause it meant bad GPU, bad low power.
1:38:16- Yeah, yeah, it became a dirty word very quickly.
1:38:18It's like, oh, that's the bare minimum
1:38:20to get this thing to run.
1:38:22- Right. - Yeah.
1:38:23- Right, and so you, you know, for the most part,
1:38:25like the words just describe how they work,
1:38:30but what people hear is, oh, discrete GPU means powerful GPU
1:38:35and integrated GPU means weak GPU.
1:38:41And that's just how things were,
1:38:45that's not how they have to be, right?
1:38:47And the shared memory on the M1 isn't a,
1:38:52well, okay, it's a consumer laptop.
1:38:54No, that's how this is so much faster,
1:38:56because anything that gets handed off,
1:38:59like, oh, you wanna do this transformation
1:39:01on this big photo, we'll let the GPU do it.
1:39:05You don't have to copy the memory over anymore.
1:39:08And every single time, and this doesn't matter how fast,
1:39:11you know, and the M1 has very fast memory bandwidth,
1:39:15but it doesn't matter how fast it is
1:39:16if you don't have to copy in the first place,
1:39:18you're saving, it's an infinite performance increase, right?
1:39:23'Cause you're not copying.
1:39:26- Right.
1:39:27- And I just feel like that is definitely going to happen
1:39:31with the Pro machines, and it's just, people are a little,
1:39:34I think that so many people don't realize
1:39:39how off on their own Apple is with this stuff, right?
1:39:42And so many of the questions when the M1 was about
1:39:47to come out, or when it just did come out
1:39:48from other members of the media,
1:39:50were framing it based on Windows ARM systems.
1:39:55Because, well, these chips are using ARM,
1:39:58and those chips use ARM, and they're very slow,
1:40:02and there's a lot of compromises, and it's like,
1:40:06just because they're both using the ARM instruction set
1:40:10doesn't mean they're any more comparable
1:40:12than the fact that like the,
1:40:15what was the name of the chip in the 12-inch MacBook?
1:40:17The Intel M--
1:40:21- Oh, yeah, I can't remember.
1:40:23Yeah, I can't remember what that thing was.
1:40:25- Well, whatever that little chip was, was x86,
1:40:29and the Xeon chips in the Mac Pro are x86,
1:40:33and the fact that they're both x86
1:40:35doesn't mean they have any shared performance characteristics
1:40:39in terms of power or speed,
1:40:42and the fact that Windows Surface laptops
1:40:47are based on ARM chips, and the M1 is based
1:40:51on the ARM architecture chips,
1:40:54doesn't mean they share any performance characteristics
1:40:57at all, and so beginning your framing of it that way
1:41:01is just the wrong way to look at it, in my opinion.
1:41:04And the fact that Apple hasn't shown us
1:41:08pro-GPU silicon from their own design
1:41:13doesn't mean they can't do it.
1:41:15I mean, it's exciting, and it's a big thing
1:41:18I'm looking forward to in 2021, is at some point,
1:41:21they're going to show it to us this year,
1:41:23but I believe they can do it.
1:41:26And that might be one of the reasons
1:41:29why they didn't make this transition a year or two earlier.
1:41:32Like, maybe CPU-wise, clearly they could've done it earlier.
1:41:37Maybe GPU-wise, to do it from the top
1:41:41of the Mac Pro lineup all the way to the consumer laptops,
1:41:44they needed more time, but I think it's coming.
1:41:46I think it's, and I think that this idea
1:41:49of calling them discrete GPUs and integrated GPUs,
1:41:52forget about it.
1:41:52- Mm-hmm, yeah.
1:41:54I don't think that there is an analog either
1:41:59to allow people to draw easy comparisons,
1:42:03and I think that's one of the problems,
1:42:05or one of the reasons that we're seeing,
1:42:07we initially saw so much mismatch,
1:42:09but in opinion versus performance,
1:42:12'cause there was certainly, I mean, I'm not,
1:42:15he sort of has a reputation as somebody
1:42:18who doesn't mind staking opinions,
1:42:19even if they're quite dramatically wrong,
1:42:22or I shouldn't say wrong, but even,
1:42:25he's like, "Hey, I'm willing to be the guy who says this,"
1:42:28but Linus from Linus Tech Tips,
1:42:30he generally goes out there and is like,
1:42:32"Hey, I'm gonna plant a flag while everybody knows
1:42:36"that I'm planting a flag that may very well be challenged,"
1:42:38or whatever, he's willing to sort of do that,
1:42:41but I generally find that I'm okay
1:42:44with the way that he goes about it.
1:42:46He's not being petulant, he's being opinionated, right?
1:42:48And there's a difference.
1:42:50And so he definitely came out and said,
1:42:52"Oh, M1, good luck, this is never gonna work
1:42:56"the way that they say it's gonna work.
1:42:57"They're saying it's desktop class and all of this stuff,
1:43:00"and it's just, here's the reasons that I believe
1:43:02"that that's marketing, essentially,
1:43:04"snow blowing versus something real."
1:43:07And then, to his credit, came back after the announcement
1:43:10and was like, "Uh, yeah, so here's all the reasons
1:43:12"I was wrong, and this is actually a pretty intensely
1:43:16"performant chip and very indicative that they could do
1:43:19"some really cool stuff in the future."
1:43:21And I do believe that that disconnect obviously comes
1:43:24largely from UMA, from the unified memory architecture,
1:43:29community transmitting so much performance gains
1:43:34to the CPU and that integration there.
1:43:38And I think the same conversation is gonna happen again
1:43:41when we come to GPUs, because NVIDIA and AMD
1:43:44certainly have a death grip on that industry
1:43:47and are battling it out, release after release
1:43:50for the most performant graphics chip on the market
1:43:52and all of this stuff.
1:43:54But they aren't systems manufacturers.
1:43:57They cannot tell the rest of the system
1:44:00how to act in a certain way.
1:44:02They're certainly more integrated than ever,
1:44:05'cause every Windows laptop maker and motherboard maker
1:44:08wants to make sure that they work great
1:44:09with the new NVIDIA graphics chip,
1:44:12because otherwise people won't buy them, right?
1:44:13It's like a big driver of sales for gaming
1:44:16and for specialized applications.
1:44:18But they don't make those systems.
1:44:21They can't build them from the ground up
1:44:24to work perfectly with them.
1:44:25And at the end of the day, they are still a peripheral.
1:44:30They are at the edge of the system or at one edge
1:44:33of the system talking to the system.
1:44:36Whereas the M1 is not a peripheral, it is the system.
1:44:40And the M1's graphics processing
1:44:42and M1's memory architecture is the system.
1:44:45And that huge kind of step change in the way
1:44:48that we think about systems integrations,
1:44:51I believe will forever change the way we process
1:44:55those words, integrated graphics, right?
1:44:57It may redeem the term forever in a way
1:45:00that we really haven't seen much happen much.
1:45:04Everybody's like, hey, external GPUs are the thing.
1:45:06So very interesting time ahead.
1:45:08- And part of this is a mindset difference
1:45:13that hasn't changed in 25, 30 years, right?
1:45:17I think back to the '90s, and I remember a very,
1:45:19I forget the guy, I forget his name,
1:45:21but I remember the argument.
1:45:22There was a guy in the Drexel dorms
1:45:26who was more of a PC enthusiast,
1:45:28and Drexel was very, famously was one of these
1:45:32Macintosh campuses where you had to have access
1:45:35to a Mac to do coursework.
1:45:38And he was nonplussed about it.
1:45:41Like, I think he brought his PC then,
1:45:44so he had like a PC and a Mac on his tiny little dorm desk.
1:45:48And I remember this argument with him about sound cards,
1:45:53and I was like, take a step back.
1:45:56Isn't this crazy?
1:45:57It's crazy that you need to buy a separate sound card
1:46:01and get sound drivers and make sure they're compatible
1:46:05and keep 'em up to date.
1:46:06You shouldn't be able to have a computer
1:46:10that doesn't make sound unless you,
1:46:12or the only sound that a PC that's out of sound card
1:46:16in the '90s can make was like a 16 kilohertz doorbell ring.
1:46:21- Yeah.
1:46:22(laughs)
1:46:24- It was like a chiptone type thing
1:46:26unless you bought a sound card
1:46:27and you had to keep the drives.
1:46:29Like, this is crazy.
1:46:30It should all just work.
1:46:32Why shouldn't, why are you designing it?
1:46:34Right, and that's still, like, okay,
1:46:36sound cards aren't really a thing anymore,
1:46:38but graphic cards still are, right?
1:46:40It's still that mindset that if you become an enthusiast
1:46:44and you really care, you pick these components
1:46:48and put them together.
1:46:50And sure, Apple never really was into that.
1:46:53Like, you can't just put any,
1:46:55you can't put an Nvidia GPU in a Mac Pro, period, right?
1:47:00They did just, you know, it's not Windows.
1:47:03- Right.
1:47:04- And Apple's divorce with Nvidia four or five years ago
1:47:08is never gonna heal at this point.
1:47:11But it's still like Apple-- - Yeah, the window
1:47:14for that to heal and Nvidia to integrate deeply has passed.
1:47:18So now it's Apple going, nah, we're gonna do it.
1:47:20(laughing)
1:47:22- But building their Macs on the Intel architecture
1:47:24meant that Apple had to do these component choices.
1:47:27Okay, we'll support these GPUs from AMD
1:47:31and we'll support the switching
1:47:33between the integrated Intel GPU and the AMD
1:47:36that we add to the 16-inch MacBook Pro.
1:47:39And we'll write the stuff in the OS
1:47:42to know when to get into that and go back to this.
1:47:47We'll do that, but it's like ultimately
1:47:49the experience should just be, no, just turn it on
1:47:52and it has good graphics, right?
1:47:55And I feel like that's the reckoning that Linus,
1:47:59Linus Tech, I don't know what his last name is,
1:48:01but I know what you're talking, he called it,
1:48:03he was calling it an iPad chips.
1:48:05And again, I get it, I get the perspective,
1:48:10but it's like, dude, you're not getting it.
1:48:13I think one way Apple sandbagged everybody too
1:48:15and I checked on this.
1:48:17I never signed up to get a dev kit
1:48:19'cause I didn't really have a reason for
1:48:22and I didn't think it would be worthwhile.
1:48:25And I asked around and people who I trusted Apple
1:48:29to give me an honest answer, no, don't get a dev kit
1:48:34just to sort of--
1:48:35- To see what the M1 era is gonna be like.
1:48:39- Right, I was told, no, it's not worth it.
1:48:43It's not indicative.
1:48:45It is really truly for compatibility.
1:48:48It is truly valuable for developers
1:48:51to test binary compatibility.
1:48:53It is not indicative at all.
1:48:55And we're not just saying that.
1:48:56- Yeah, it's not some sort of sneak preview
1:48:57that's gonna give you a good insight.
1:48:59- Right. - Yeah.
1:49:00- Right, and so I've talked to some friends who have,
1:49:03lots and lots of developers have them
1:49:05because they wanna be compatible.
1:49:06And I was like, hey, am I not,
1:49:09like nobody was raving about the performance
1:49:11of those dev kits.
1:49:12And they're like, yeah, the dev kits weren't great.
1:49:13They're not bad.
1:49:14It's not like you were running stuff in molasses.
1:49:17- Right. - And I think like--
1:49:18- But it was there just to see, hey, will it compile?
1:49:20Will it run?
1:49:21Will it get out the door?
1:49:22- But none of these amazing feats of computing performance
1:49:27were evident on the dev kit.
1:49:29It just wasn't there.
1:49:31But I kind of think that that framed people's perspectives
1:49:36that whatever the M chips were going to be,
1:49:39they were going to be like that, right?
1:49:42Like I feel like your Linus type people
1:49:46who were coming at it from a skeptical perspective
1:49:50saw what people were saying about the dev kits
1:49:53and thought that was indicative of what they would ship.
1:49:58And those wouldn't be bad, right?
1:50:02Like if they shipped a Mac mini--
1:50:04- Yeah, if the first generation--
1:50:05- That formed like a dev kit.
1:50:05- Yeah, exactly.
1:50:06The first generation was like, hey, as performance
1:50:09or slightly less performance than current models,
1:50:11I think they think it would have gotten a total pass.
1:50:15Like there's nobody was expecting anything more than that.
1:50:18- Right, it just wouldn't have gotten raves.
1:50:22It wouldn't be seen as a breakthrough.
1:50:24It was like, huh, you know, it ends up
1:50:27that the dev kit performs exactly like, you know,
1:50:31like a low end Intel Mac.
1:50:32It's, you know, roughly the same.
1:50:34- Right.
1:50:35- But I really felt like that sandbagged
1:50:37people's perspectives in terms of thinking
1:50:40that that was all they were capable of.
1:50:42And I kind of feel like it might be happening again
1:50:46where people are thinking, okay,
1:50:48this is the best Apple can do.
1:50:50And so these are, you know, this isn't great
1:50:54if you're a pro user.
1:50:56- I have some friends who have worked on this project
1:50:58over the years and, you know, I do feel that there are,
1:51:02the perception ahead of time, while, you know,
1:51:06it wasn't like I was getting some sort of grand view
1:51:09into what they were up to, just like, oh yeah, you know,
1:51:12working on this thing, it's pretty cool.
1:51:14But I think that there is a general vibe inside Apple
1:51:19that they were afraid to tip their hand to Intel.
1:51:23- I think so too.
1:51:24- And not in terms of, I mean,
1:51:25I'm talking about the time period
1:51:26even after they announced it, right?
1:51:29So like, I think that,
1:51:30I mean, before they announced it for sure,
1:51:32like they didn't want to tip their hand to Intel big time,
1:51:36you know, before they were ready,
1:51:38because then, you know, there are all kinds of problems
1:51:40with negotiation and like, you know,
1:51:41Intel probably gets pissed or gets irritated.
1:51:44I mean, Intel, if they're not stupid,
1:51:46they knew this was coming eventually, especially years out.
1:51:48If pundits are saying it on the internet,
1:51:50Intel who's in the business knows, right?
1:51:52But there certainly was, there's a difference between,
1:51:56hey, they may do it someday and they're going to do it
1:51:57next year and then ship it the year after or whatever,
1:51:59or ship it like six months later.
1:52:01And like that I think is a big difference.
1:52:04And they were afraid to tip their hand
1:52:06because they knew they had something special,
1:52:08but it had to be ready, you know?
1:52:10And they knew though that once they did tip their hand,
1:52:14it was all over, like the Intel relationship was done,
1:52:17you know, just absolutely done, done.
1:52:19And that they felt they had something special enough
1:52:22to the industry that it would change things massively
1:52:26forever in terms of what people expect
1:52:28from a performant chip and a performant portable machine,
1:52:32especially, and frankly, a performant machine of any sort,
1:52:34we'll see eventually, they knew that it would change things
1:52:37so much overnight that they didn't,
1:52:39they were afraid that it would get out too early.
1:52:41And I think there was a lot of,
1:52:43a lot of secrecy and worry about that
1:52:44because they knew Intel was in fact screwed, you know,
1:52:48from that perspective and unable to,
1:52:51at least very immediately compete in any real way, shape,
1:52:54or form with these kinds,
1:52:55the kind of performance that they were going to see.
1:52:56And they were very, very nervous about it getting out
1:52:59because they knew, because it was a big thing.
1:53:01- Yeah.
1:53:03- They were nervous about it, they stand back, you know.
1:53:05- Yeah, and I think that that also,
1:53:08I think slash actually no from talking to my friends,
1:53:12that that is a big part of the explanation
1:53:16of why the industrial design didn't change is secrecy,
1:53:20that for a long stretch, when the go button was hit,
1:53:25I mean, everybody knew,
1:53:27everybody knew this was coming eventually,
1:53:29but like when the, okay, we are actually off to the races
1:53:32and we're doing this for real
1:53:34and we're committing to it internally.
1:53:36It was typical for Apple,
1:53:38even though this is like a major architecture change
1:53:42to their oldest and longest standing platform
1:53:47and biggest platform by scope, very few people knew.
1:53:52And so how do you keep the fewest people knowing
1:53:55for the longest time?
1:53:56Well, you start making hardware for late 2020
1:54:00that looks exactly the same.
1:54:01- Exactly, right.
1:54:03- Yeah, yeah.
1:54:05Oh, by the way, we're gonna put this new motherboard in,
1:54:09don't worry about why, it's just, you know, it's cool.
1:54:11You know, just a little change, right?
1:54:13- Yeah, yeah, you can keep the same fan, that's fine.
1:54:16Don't worry.
1:54:17- Exactly, yeah.
1:54:20- Yeah, but you know, little things like the webcam,
1:54:23you know, right, you know, lots of people dunking
1:54:25on the webcam didn't change as a camera device.
1:54:30It's just that the image processing chain changed completely
1:54:35and it improved dramatically, you know, it's still,
1:54:38you know, it is what it is photographically,
1:54:41but the picture quality is definitely bigger, better.
1:54:43But, and I think also too, in addition to the secrecy,
1:54:48there was definitely a sort of,
1:54:50look, this is such a big change.
1:54:52We know we can do it, but it's such a big change.
1:54:55Every variable we can remove from the equation
1:54:58is reducing the chance of something going wrong.
1:55:02- Yes, yes. - Right?
1:55:03And so look, we know that now that, you know,
1:55:06once they fixed the keyboard and went back
1:55:08to a new scissor switch mechanism,
1:55:11the hardware for these machines is fine.
1:55:14You can say it's not exciting
1:55:15because it's been mostly unchanged,
1:55:18except for a keyboard that looks the same
1:55:19and just works the way it probably
1:55:21should have worked all along.
1:55:22But removing variables while you're changing
1:55:27the single biggest variable, the architecture.
1:55:31- It's smart, yeah.
1:55:32It's the smart way to play.
1:55:33- Right, it's just, it's a scientific approach
1:55:36to doing it, right?
1:55:37Like just, you know, okay, we know this display,
1:55:40we know everything we need to know
1:55:41about the display characteristics.
1:55:43We know this hinge, right?
1:55:45This is a hinge for the display that we know
1:55:49is durable and pleasant, and let's, you know,
1:55:53let's not take the chance that we ship a new hinge
1:55:55and oh, in the real world--
1:55:56- The M1 Macs are great, but they snap in half.
1:55:58Oh man, you know?
1:56:00- Right, right.
1:56:01Or you know, all of a sudden, three months in it
1:56:04starts squeaking or something like that.
1:56:06You don't have to worry about it.
1:56:07- Yeah, then it becomes the squeak Mac pro or whatever,
1:56:09you know, so yeah.
1:56:11Gets meme-ified.
1:56:12- But anyway, I do think, I,
1:56:16so the only other question I know,
1:56:17and I mentioned it on Daring Fireball,
1:56:20and a few readers said, well, the other question
1:56:22in addition to whether Apple's gonna do their own GPUs
1:56:25is what are they gonna do about RAM on memory
1:56:28on high-level machines?
1:56:29Is it always going to be on the chip for all the machines?
1:56:34I think no.
1:56:36I think that the pro, I don't know about,
1:56:41I would guess that even on the pro 16-inch MacBooks,
1:56:46that they will still be on the chip,
1:56:47because they haven't offered user-upgradable RAM
1:56:50on even MacBook Pros for a long time, right?
1:56:53- Right.
1:56:54- So that's your way-- - Buy a configuration,
1:56:55and that's your configuration.
1:56:56- For the Mac Pro, I would guess, though,
1:57:01that it will still be modular,
1:57:02and that there's some different arc.
1:57:04It just doesn't make sense that you would say,
1:57:07if you're gonna build a machine
1:57:08that goes up to a terabyte of RAM,
1:57:11and the fact that they did a terabyte of RAM
1:57:13in the Intel Mac Pro, they're not gonna go back, right,
1:57:16and say, oh, well, all of a sudden,
1:57:18now that we're on Apple Silicon,
1:57:19the most you can put in a Mac Pro
1:57:21is 256 gigabytes or something.
1:57:24You don't make a machine capable of going up
1:57:26to a terabyte of RAM, and then say to somebody
1:57:29who configures it with 256 gigabytes,
1:57:33and they're obviously already spending a small fortune,
1:57:36oh, and if you ever decide you do need more,
1:57:38you've gotta buy a whole new machine.
1:57:39- Yeah. - Yeah, it doesn't make sense.
1:57:41- Yeah, it doesn't.
1:57:43I mean, there-- - I don't know how they do it.
1:57:45I don't know what the electrical engineering aspect of it,
1:57:47that they keep it as performant as having it on chip,
1:57:50but I would guess with memory on the desktops,
1:57:52it will still be modular in some way.
1:57:55Maybe there will be some on the chip and some off,
1:57:59but I would guess that that will still be modular.
1:58:01- Yeah, that'd be my bet if you were gonna ask me
1:58:04how, what would be the setup,
1:58:06is there will still be some sort of base memory
1:58:10that is integrated, you know,
1:58:12that's the part of that universal pool.
1:58:14And then additional memory for larger operations
1:58:18would be off chip, and therefore, you know,
1:58:20yes, would be less performant than integrated,
1:58:23but I think that, let's say you were able to offer a Mac Pro
1:58:27and you go, oh, you know,
1:58:28I'm gonna get the 32 gigabyte Mac Pro, right?
1:58:31Or the 64 gigabyte Mac Pro,
1:58:33and then it's got RAM slots on it
1:58:35that you can add up to terabyte or two terabytes more
1:58:38or whatever, but the 32 gigabytes
1:58:42is incredibly performant, right?
1:58:45And you maybe don't use that external memory
1:58:48for many operations at all,
1:58:50and it's only the operations that require
1:58:52storing enormous textures or enormous libraries in them
1:58:56that it actually taps into them at all.
1:58:58So the vast majority of your operations
1:59:02are much more performant,
1:59:03and then the small subset of those operations
1:59:06that require that larger memory pool
1:59:09are maybe slightly less performant,
1:59:11but still get the benefits of UMA on top of it,
1:59:14so they're better than the Mac Pro previous, right?
1:59:16Like that's my, if I had to articulate the scenario,
1:59:19that's the way I would look at it.
1:59:20- Right, right, like if you're doing
1:59:22some kind of data modeling
1:59:25or some kind of scientific computing
1:59:27where you've got this, you know,
1:59:30literally 200 gigabyte data model
1:59:35that you wanna put in memory,
1:59:36sure, that just goes off to that RAM,
1:59:40and you can keep it there,
1:59:42but, you know, I don't know,
1:59:43I just feel like if they're gonna go up to that high,
1:59:45they're not gonna,
1:59:47there would be too many SKUs, right?
1:59:49Like you're gonna buy what?
1:59:5164 gigabyte Mac Pro or 128 or 256.
1:59:55You're gonna get a 512, you're gonna get a 768?
1:59:57No, it's too many.
2:00:00- 768, man, I haven't heard that.
2:00:02I haven't heard that number in a long time.
2:00:04- I think that's the right number.
2:00:06- The good old days, yeah, no, I mean, yeah,
2:00:08it was the fractional RAM days.
2:00:10- You know you're a nerd
2:00:13when you think that's an even number.
2:00:14- Yeah, yeah, exactly.
2:00:16You're like, ah, that number feels comfortable.
2:00:18You're like, why?
2:00:19Why would it feel comfortable?
2:00:22- Anyway, thank you so much.
2:00:27Have a good holiday season, Matthew.
2:00:28- Thank you, you too.
2:00:29- It's always good to talk to you.
2:00:30- Yeah, absolutely.
2:00:31- Anything else?
2:00:33Everybody can read your fine work
2:00:35and the work of your fine staff at TechCrunch.
2:00:37You guys are still kicking ass over there.
2:00:39- Thank you kindly.
2:00:40Making an attempt.
2:00:41- And then on the Twitter, you're @panzer, P-A-N-Z-E-R.
2:00:47Which endlessly frustrates my ability to communicate with you.
2:00:50(laughing)
2:00:52I start typing this shortcut, P-A-N-Z-E,
2:00:54and it's like, no, that's not right.
2:00:55It's good anyway.
2:00:56And thanks to our sponsors.
2:01:00We had Away, where you can buy a suitcase.
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2:01:18All right, adios Matthew.
2:01:20- Thank you very much sir, appreciate it.