Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:00:02 ◼   ► Hello and welcome to Connected, episode 325.

00:00:12 ◼   ► It's made possible this week by our sponsors,

00:00:15 ◼   ► Hover, Mack Weldon, and Pingdom.

00:00:18 ◼   ► My name is Stephen Hackett

00:00:19 ◼   ► and I am joined by Mr. Myke Hurley.

00:00:22 ◼   ► - Hello. - Hello.

00:00:23 ◼   ► Happy 16th of December to you, sir.

00:00:26 ◼   ► - Oh, it's my favorite day of the year.

00:00:28 ◼   ► - Is it?

00:00:29 ◼   ► Nope.

00:00:30 ◼   ► It's my brother's birthday yesterday, but so today is not important to him either.

00:00:33 ◼   ► Happy birthday, Marc.

00:00:34 ◼   ► Happy birthday, Marc.

00:00:35 ◼   ► And Federico Vittucci.

00:00:36 ◼   ► Hello.

00:00:37 ◼   ► Hi.

00:00:38 ◼   ► Hello.

00:00:39 ◼   ► Hi.

00:00:40 ◼   ► How are you?

00:00:41 ◼   ► Your birthday is not this month.

00:00:42 ◼   ► No, but it was this year, just like every other year.

00:00:47 ◼   ► That's how birthdays work.

00:00:48 ◼   ► Congratulations on having a birthday this year.

00:00:50 ◼   ► Well, some people cannot say the same, right?

00:00:53 ◼   ► If you were born on a leap year.

00:00:55 ◼   ► if you were born on December 17th to 31st you haven't had a birthday this year yet.

00:01:01 ◼   ► Right, right, that's also a possibility.

00:01:04 ◼   ► And if you listen to our pre-show you may be feeling like you may never have a birthday again.

00:01:09 ◼   ► So we've got that going for us I guess.

00:01:13 ◼   ► Okay, next month Myke and I both have birthdays.

00:01:16 ◼   ► Interesting.

00:01:17 ◼   ► That is true actually.

00:01:19 ◼   ► Which one is more important?

00:01:20 ◼   ► I don't think there is an importance this year.

00:01:24 ◼   ► Which birthday has more consequences?

00:01:27 ◼   ► I'm turning 35.

00:01:29 ◼   ► Oh you are? Yeah, yours is more important.

00:01:31 ◼   ► Then Steven's is more important. Sorry, Myke.

00:01:33 ◼   ► Gosh, that doesn't seem possible because I vividly remember your 30th birthday.

00:01:38 ◼   ► It was not that long ago.

00:01:40 ◼   ► Well, got bad news, Myke.

00:01:43 ◼   ► He bought a tan for himself.

00:01:45 ◼   ► I did.

00:01:45 ◼   ► I thought for my 30th anniversary of being alive, I need a 20th anniversary Mac.

00:01:53 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:01:54 ◼   ► Are you calling them anniversaries?

00:01:56 ◼   ► No, I was trying to, like, connect the two.

00:01:58 ◼   ► You can make it a thing, though.

00:02:01 ◼   ► Linguistically.

00:02:02 ◼   ► My birth anniversary?

00:02:03 ◼   ► The 20th birthday, Macintosh.

00:02:04 ◼   ► That's a better name.

00:02:06 ◼   ► All right, we have some follow-up, but before we get there, a quick reminder.

00:02:10 ◼   ► This is our final normal episode of the year.

00:02:13 ◼   ► We're taking next week off, but we will be back on December 30th with the Connected Year

00:02:19 ◼   ► in Review.

00:02:20 ◼   ► We've already started on it.

00:02:22 ◼   ► And boys, a lot happened this year,

00:02:24 ◼   ► like way more than you remember.

00:02:26 ◼   ► Every year I feel like we do this.

00:02:27 ◼   ► - Very busy tech year.

00:02:28 ◼   ► - Big tech year.

00:02:29 ◼   ► - Very busy tech year.

00:02:30 ◼   ► - So that will be, we'll record live normally on the 30th

00:02:32 ◼   ► and it'll be out after that.

00:02:34 ◼   ► And then we'll be back on January 7th, which is a Thursday,

00:02:37 ◼   ► one day later for our annual Ricky's.

00:02:41 ◼   ► So we will grade ourselves in 2020

00:02:45 ◼   ► and we will make predictions for 2021.

00:02:48 ◼   ► I've already been thinking about this

00:02:49 ◼   ► because I boys, I'm playing to win.

00:02:52 ◼   ► - I have only just realized right now

00:02:55 ◼   ► that I need to be thinking about this.

00:02:56 ◼   ► - It's coming up in just a few weeks.

00:02:58 ◼   ► So that's kind of our,

00:03:01 ◼   ► the lay of the land for the next several weeks on Connected.

00:03:04 ◼   ► Myke, back on episode 312,

00:03:09 ◼   ► there was a bet made

00:03:11 ◼   ► that you would buy a Series 6 Apple Watch

00:03:15 ◼   ► by this episode that we're doing now.

00:03:17 ◼   ► Have you purchased a Series 6 Apple Watch?

00:03:20 ◼   ► Well boys, I have something to tell you.

00:03:22 ◼   ► Okay.

00:03:23 ◼   ► No, I haven't.

00:03:24 ◼   ► Of course I haven't.

00:03:26 ◼   ► How can we believe you?

00:03:27 ◼   ► Do you want to see a picture of the watch I'm wearing?

00:03:30 ◼   ► Um...

00:03:31 ◼   ► No.

00:03:32 ◼   ► I want to see a picture of...

00:03:35 ◼   ► the drawer where you keep all your watches.

00:03:37 ◼   ► Well, I'm not at home, so I can't...

00:03:40 ◼   ► I cannot give that to you.

00:03:41 ◼   ► But here's the question.

00:03:43 ◼   ► If I would have bought a Series 6 Apple Watch,

00:03:46 ◼   ► Why would I not be wearing it?

00:03:48 ◼   ► To prove us wrong on the bet and mess with the timeline just so you can come out in a few weeks and say

00:03:54 ◼   ► "Oh, by the way, I ended up buying an Apple Watch" while in fact you already have an Apple Watch.

00:03:59 ◼   ► Yeah, who would hide a purchase from their co-host? I don't know.

00:04:02 ◼   ► Do you like... Yeah, you would. That's who.

00:04:05 ◼   ► Do you... What do you want? Like a picture of my iCloud devices? My Find My? What do you want?

00:04:10 ◼   ► I feel like we need Adina to confirm with us that you haven't purchased a watch.

00:04:14 ◼   ► to watch. Yeah, go get Adina. She's not here. I'm at the studio. Steven, why don't you just text her?

00:04:20 ◼   ► I will text her. I will text her right now and I will provide real-time follow-up.

00:04:24 ◼   ► So, well, I mean, I can provide you with the real-time follow-up. I haven't bought one.

00:04:29 ◼   ► I have no... Yeah, but we don't believe you, necessarily. I have no desire for it and none of

00:04:37 ◼   ► the visual options are as good as the Series 5 white ceramic that I'm wearing right now.

00:04:42 ◼   ► Okay, alright.

00:04:44 ◼   ► I am now realizing, is this one of those things where like so many Apple products have found

00:04:50 ◼   ► their way into my home this year that maybe Adina has completely lost track of what I

00:04:53 ◼   ► do and don't have?

00:04:54 ◼   ► She's gonna be like, "Yeah!" and then that's gonna complicate everything.

00:04:59 ◼   ► So I said, "Urgent life and death matter."

00:05:01 ◼   ► Oh jeez.

00:05:02 ◼   ► "Has Myke purchased a Series 6 Apple Watch?"

00:05:05 ◼   ► You are the worst text message.

00:05:06 ◼   ► I didn't say that.

00:05:07 ◼   ► I said suddenly something on a show.

00:05:09 ◼   ► Come on.

00:05:10 ◼   ► Okay.

00:05:11 ◼   ► But that is the kind of thing that you would do.

00:05:12 ◼   ► Like you just text someone like, "Hey."

00:05:14 ◼   ► Hey.

00:05:15 ◼   ► And then like write like dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot.

00:05:18 ◼   ► Hey.

00:05:19 ◼   ► I hate to tell you this, but I'm canceling your podcast.

00:05:22 ◼   ► I've never done that to anybody.

00:05:23 ◼   ► This is the kind of message that Stephen would send to someone.

00:05:26 ◼   ► Okay, while we wait for Adina, we will move on.

00:05:29 ◼   ► Fitness Plus has launched.

00:05:32 ◼   ► Mary has used it.

00:05:33 ◼   ► I think she may join the show again and talk about Fitness Plus because she is, she got

00:05:37 ◼   ► up at like five o'clock yesterday morning or no, this morning, yesterday morning.

00:05:42 ◼   ► morning to work out on Fitness Plus. You're not, you don't have fitness right

00:05:46 ◼   ► now because you have a broken leg. Yes, that's true, well foot, but yes that is true.

00:05:50 ◼   ► Oh Adina has texted us back saying the latest one, no. The last one he bought

00:05:55 ◼   ► was the white ceramic one like a year ago. Thank you. See, is there anything else

00:06:01 ◼   ► that you want? Any other? Well I mean you guys could be in cahoots, we're gonna need

00:06:05 ◼   ► access to your to your bank account. Do you want me to send a picture to you of

00:06:09 ◼   ► my iCloud account which shows all of my devices in it.

00:06:12 ◼   ► - Just send your password, that'll be enough.

00:06:14 ◼   ► - Just gonna have a secondary iCloud account

00:06:16 ◼   ► just for the Apple Watch, it doesn't really matter.

00:06:19 ◼   ► Okay, so.

00:06:20 ◼   ► - I win the bet, I've won the bet.

00:06:21 ◼   ► - Okay, what happens now?

00:06:23 ◼   ► Whatever, what happens now?

00:06:24 ◼   ► - Nothing.

00:06:25 ◼   ► - Oh. - Nothing happens.

00:06:26 ◼   ► - Was this a bet without a punishment?

00:06:28 ◼   ► - It was a bet without consequences.

00:06:30 ◼   ► - Oh, that is not a bet, it's just something that we said.

00:06:33 ◼   ► - Well, something you said and I said,

00:06:34 ◼   ► it's not gonna happen and you were convinced about it

00:06:36 ◼   ► and I said, it's definitely not gonna happen.

00:06:37 ◼   ► - But I say a lot of things.

00:06:39 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:06:40 ◼   ► Did I even say this?

00:06:41 ◼   ► Did I even say this?

00:06:42 ◼   ► I find it very strange.

00:06:43 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:06:44 ◼   ► I find it very strange that I would say something that's bad without a price or a punishment

00:06:48 ◼   ► of sorts.

00:06:49 ◼   ► That's true.

00:06:50 ◼   ► He's into punishment.

00:06:51 ◼   ► Oh my.

00:06:52 ◼   ► Apple Fitness Plus and the Apple Watch made to work together.

00:06:56 ◼   ► When you open Fitness Plus, it looks for your watch and it gives you an option that says

00:07:00 ◼   ► work out without watch.

00:07:03 ◼   ► And so you just don't get the cool metrics and stuff.

00:07:07 ◼   ► Oh, so you can do it then?

00:07:08 ◼   ► Only on an iOS device that does not work on the Apple TV the Apple TV requires you to wear a watch

00:07:15 ◼   ► I don't know why that doesn't make any sense

00:07:17 ◼   ► It's because the one person working on tvOS forgot to turn this off. I guess it's also

00:07:23 ◼   ► Incompatible with airplay so you can't airplay from an iPad like to a TV people think that is to I

00:07:30 ◼   ► Guess stop piracy of fitness plus because I also have that thing where?

00:07:37 ◼   ► If you take a screenshot

00:07:39 ◼   ► It's just black. Oh does it like Netflix and others? Yeah. Yeah like

00:07:45 ◼   ► Really sure why Apple's so?

00:07:48 ◼   ► concerned about

00:07:50 ◼   ► Piracy of fitness plus well you could screen record a lesson and put it up on the internet

00:07:57 ◼   ► Right, but who wants to do that because like the internet is full of what have videos

00:08:02 ◼   ► Yeah, but like you don't need Apple Fitness Plus to watch a workout video

00:08:06 ◼   ► You could just go to YouTube and watch a workout video.

00:08:08 ◼   ► Right, but what if you really want Apple Fitness Plus?

00:08:11 ◼   ► Then you probably pay for it.

00:08:14 ◼   ► I don't know how much of a market there's gonna be for piracy of Fitness Plus workouts.

00:08:20 ◼   ► Well, it's better to be safe than sorry though, right?

00:08:23 ◼   ► There's you know, you wouldn't believe the extent that some people go to get stuff for free.

00:08:27 ◼   ► Yeah, but those people will get these things for free then. You know what I mean?

00:08:31 ◼   ► Like, everybody knows, right?

00:08:33 ◼   ► You cannot stop piracy.

00:08:35 ◼   ► If people want something, they will find a way to get it.

00:08:37 ◼   ► -Sure. -Sometimes you end up

00:08:39 ◼   ► making things more difficult for people.

00:08:41 ◼   ► -Right. -Like, this is, like,

00:08:42 ◼   ► the whole Quibi thing, right?

00:08:44 ◼   ► Like, they did this, and then people couldn't share podcasts,

00:08:47 ◼   ► uh, screen recordings or screen captures of their shows.

00:08:50 ◼   ► And then it was one of the reasons nobody cared.

00:08:53 ◼   ► But, like, do you, like, as a user,

00:08:56 ◼   ► do you really have to take screenshots anyway,

00:08:59 ◼   ► while you're doing a workout.

00:09:01 ◼   ► No, but then that for me is like another reason why like why even bother doing it then.

00:09:06 ◼   ► You know what I mean? Like why?

00:09:07 ◼   ► Because most people who are gonna do that are gonna pirate the content.

00:09:11 ◼   ► So might as well just put in the blocking feature.

00:09:16 ◼   ► What if it's like you want to just record it for your own personal use? I understand.

00:09:20 ◼   ► Right and that is exactly the problem that we are having at Mac Stories but it's you know...

00:09:26 ◼   ► what's better, to make it easier for bloggers to take screenshots and screen recordings

00:09:31 ◼   ► or to at least establish a threshold where you can avoid piracy, you know, potentially

00:09:37 ◼   ► for millions more users. So I don't like it. I mean, it's causing, you know, trouble capturing

00:09:42 ◼   ► that content. How are you doing it? But I'm not, well, I don't know. Taking photos, I

00:09:49 ◼   ► guess. But basically I'm not shocked that, you know, it's the same of when you're

00:09:57 ◼   ► doing a screen recording and you're listening to something on Apple Music and

00:10:00 ◼   ► the music stops while you're recording the screen.

00:10:03 ◼   ► You know, this is the thing. But, you know, like, yeah, you can go to you can go

00:10:10 ◼   ► YouTube and listen to the same song for free.

00:10:13 ◼   ► But these companies, they always use is different, though, because Apple doesn't

00:10:18 ◼   ► own the rights to it so like they're kind of bound into that by... anyway this is not important.

00:10:24 ◼   ► I haven't tried Fitness Plus yet, I'm planning on digging into it this weekend, but I am very

00:10:32 ◼   ► intrigued. People, I've seen a lot of people talking about it online and there's been a

00:10:36 ◼   ► bunch of videos and reviews and stuff published and people seem really like into it, like that

00:10:42 ◼   ► that it's well made, that the instructors seem

00:10:45 ◼   ► super good at it.

00:10:46 ◼   ► I think Apple made a right move in going out

00:10:50 ◼   ► and hiring people already in these spaces

00:10:53 ◼   ► because there isn't like a, this is, you know,

00:10:56 ◼   ► they didn't have to get people and then train them

00:10:58 ◼   ► to be good on camera and stuff, you know?

00:11:00 ◼   ► It's just like, this is what you do,

00:11:02 ◼   ► you're good at it, go for it.

00:11:04 ◼   ► I did notice that one of the videos,

00:11:06 ◼   ► that one of the instructors was a guy with a prosthetic leg

00:11:10 ◼   ► and I thought that was super cool.

00:11:12 ◼   ► Like in the core workout thing,

00:11:14 ◼   ► I just did a little detail, I saw it in a screenshot,

00:11:16 ◼   ► and I just thought that was like super cool,

00:11:18 ◼   ► like to normalize that kind of thing, so.

00:11:21 ◼   ► - We got big news, guys.

00:11:23 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:11:23 ◼   ► - Through the power of Salesforce, Slack has new emoji.

00:11:27 ◼   ► - But they don't know, do they?

00:11:29 ◼   ► - Well, that's sort of the problem here.

00:11:32 ◼   ► So Slack, it has rolled out, or is rolling out still,

00:11:35 ◼   ► two new like packs of emoji.

00:11:38 ◼   ► One is like this alphabet thing and the other is called remote work.

00:11:42 ◼   ► It's like just working, people working, doing things at home.

00:11:46 ◼   ► But they have yet to support the emoji from now the last two releases.

00:11:50 ◼   ► Yeah, they're not emoji, they're sticker packs, but they're calling them emoji.

00:11:56 ◼   ► And for some reason they're putting the effort in there when they are currently not supporting

00:12:00 ◼   ► the actual emoji release from 2019.

00:12:04 ◼   ► That's how far back they are.

00:12:06 ◼   ► I hate Slack, I hate it.

00:12:08 ◼   ► I hate it. That's where I've landed. I'm getting so frustrated with it. So that's where I am.

00:12:13 ◼   ► Slack is terrible and boring.

00:12:15 ◼   ► I imagine a cool, fun-loving, hip company like Salesforce will fix this immediately.

00:12:20 ◼   ► I said not the right way to describe them.

00:12:25 ◼   ► I mean, for all we know, they are. We don't know anything about them.

00:12:30 ◼   ► So they could be super cool. I don't know anything about them at all.

00:12:33 ◼   ► So maybe they're cool.

00:12:36 ◼   ► Guys, I have big news.

00:12:37 ◼   ► Again?

00:12:37 ◼   ► - They have more, but it's a lot of big news.

00:12:39 ◼   ► It's like hit after hit from you today.

00:12:41 ◼   ► - Steve has designed me a custom,

00:12:44 ◼   ► remember the milk emoji, or icon.

00:12:47 ◼   ► - You could just call it an emoji.

00:12:50 ◼   ► - Well, a tattoo as well.

00:12:51 ◼   ► I'm using it all over the place.

00:12:53 ◼   ► So it is a cow that I am milking.

00:12:56 ◼   ► The cow has Mac Pro wheels on it,

00:12:58 ◼   ► which is a little upsetting.

00:13:00 ◼   ► And I'm milking it into what seems to be a bucket,

00:13:03 ◼   ► but kind of looks like a big thing of beer.

00:13:05 ◼   ► And in like a little thought bubble,

00:13:07 ◼   ► I have a milk jug.

00:13:08 ◼   ► - Milk carton.

00:13:10 ◼   ► Have you set this as a custom icon with shortcuts?

00:13:14 ◼   ► - No, 'cause I'm using Todoist.

00:13:16 ◼   ► - You should set it for that for Todoist.

00:13:18 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:13:19 ◼   ► This is an, it's an incredible icon.

00:13:22 ◼   ► It's an incredible logo.

00:13:24 ◼   ► The attention to detail is incredible from your feet, Steven.

00:13:29 ◼   ► - This is made in paint.

00:13:30 ◼   ► Looks like it's made in paint.

00:13:31 ◼   ► - To the little, you know,

00:13:33 ◼   ► to the little wheels that the cow has.

00:13:36 ◼   ► the Mac Pro hooves. Yes. And the thinking bubble where you're just thinking milk with

00:13:45 ◼   ► a shocked expression on your face. Well he's remembering the milk. Oh, I'm remembering

00:13:49 ◼   ► the milk. Yeah. Therefore I need to milk the cow. It's really, this is almost an impressionistic

00:13:56 ◼   ► painting when you think about it. Or this is like the, you know, cause this has got

00:14:01 ◼   ► to have happened to a farmer at some point in their lives, right? Everyone needs to get

00:14:05 ◼   ► milk sometimes you've got to imagine that someone has been milking a cow once

00:14:09 ◼   ► and they're like I gotta get milk right as you're literally doing that yeah

00:14:15 ◼   ► like oh it reminds me today oh man straight from the source yes like I

00:14:28 ◼   ► should do it I'll eat the milk out today just like I don't know Stephen are you

00:14:34 ◼   ► gonna use this icon? I'm setting it up right now. Most of all I just kind of want to know

00:14:40 ◼   ► whatever is going on with your body and specifically with your left leg and your bottoms. They're

00:14:49 ◼   ► broken we know that. You're very angular in the left part of your body and you're very

00:14:57 ◼   ► curvy in the left leg. Thank you. Hey is getting a unified inbox. Hey. So this was something

00:15:04 ◼   ► that was one of the many big innovation sons that I had about using Hey as a platform in

00:15:11 ◼   ► the long run. And I think we all kind of agreed that surely they would add this at some point.

00:15:18 ◼   ► And I mean, it's worth noting that as we said before, the business service that Federico

00:15:23 ◼   ► is using is not publicly available yet, but they've said that they will be adding in the

00:15:30 ◼   ► ability to have a unified inbox for personal and business accounts at some point in the

00:15:35 ◼   ► future, which is great. I can imagine you're very happy about this Federico.

00:15:38 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, this is great news. So far I'm still using just like a single work account,

00:15:46 ◼   ► so I don't really have a need for a unified inbox, but I suppose it could be handy for,

00:15:51 ◼   ► know the future if we set up a different user on Mac stories having shared access

00:15:56 ◼   ► with the unified inbox I guess that's gonna be nice so yeah it's nice to see

00:16:01 ◼   ► that they're adding more traditional features I wonder how this is gonna work

00:16:05 ◼   ► in terms of accessing like you know sending something to the feed or the

00:16:11 ◼   ► paper trail with unified approach so that's gonna be interesting I'm curious

00:16:16 ◼   ► to see how it works in practice but it's nice I like that there you know

00:16:20 ◼   ► adding features from the old school of doing email. So yeah, good sign.

00:16:27 ◼   ► I've made my icon.

00:16:29 ◼   ► It looks good.

00:16:30 ◼   ► Thank you. I'm putting it on my home screen.

00:16:32 ◼   ► You're putting it on your home screen? Alright, I want to see it on the home screen.

00:16:35 ◼   ► Alright, let's see.

00:16:36 ◼   ► We can put that in the show notes.

00:16:37 ◼   ► You do lose some of the detail at that size.

00:16:41 ◼   ► Mmm.

00:16:42 ◼   ► Like your little hands touching the, you know, what are they called? Anyway, I don't know. Still.

00:16:47 ◼   ► Uh, the...

00:16:48 ◼   ► Utters.

00:16:49 ◼   ► Are they, isn't the whole thing, aren't they teats and the whole thing is an udder?

00:16:53 ◼   ► I think that's how it works.

00:16:54 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:16:56 ◼   ► Not a farmer.

00:16:57 ◼   ► You sure?

00:16:58 ◼   ► Well, I mean, I have an image that would suggest that you in fact are.

00:17:02 ◼   ► Like Greenfield, you and the wheel-equipped cow,

00:17:07 ◼   ► just milking away.

00:17:09 ◼   ► If there's one thing that 2020 has taught me is that

00:17:13 ◼   ► I can believe what I see on the internet, and so

00:17:16 ◼   ► I see this, therefore I believe it. You are a milk farmer.

00:17:20 ◼   ► Otherwise, how do you think this person, Steve, was able to come up with such an excellent

00:17:27 ◼   ► and detailed drawing, Steve?

00:17:29 ◼   ► Exactly. Wow.

00:17:30 ◼   ► Are you sure you didn't make this yourself?

00:17:33 ◼   ► I didn't make it myself.

00:17:34 ◼   ► Are you Steve?

00:17:35 ◼   ► It's super convenient, isn't it?

00:17:38 ◼   ► No, I hate my name being shortened to Steve.

00:17:41 ◼   ► It's just Steve Hack. That's this guy.

00:17:43 ◼   ► Steve Hack is an internet persona.

00:17:46 ◼   ► No one's ever heard of him before.

00:17:47 ◼   ► He sends in the feedback.

00:17:49 ◼   ► He sent it to me privately.

00:17:51 ◼   ► Isn't it convenient that there's this Steve person.

00:17:54 ◼   ► This is not the first time that this Steve person has sent in some feedback that seemingly

00:17:59 ◼   ► agrees with you or supports you, Steven.

00:18:02 ◼   ► Or makes you look cool like a farmer.

00:18:05 ◼   ► What's going on, Steve Hack?

00:18:08 ◼   ► Steve Hack.

00:18:10 ◼   ► Let's not talk about listener Steve.

00:18:11 ◼   ► Let's talk about listener Tim.

00:18:13 ◼   ► - Quarry owner Tim.

00:18:14 ◼   ► - Oh, quarry team.

00:18:16 ◼   ► - Quarry Tim.

00:18:17 ◼   ► - So last week we had feedback from listener Tim

00:18:21 ◼   ► about the iPhone leather sleeve,

00:18:25 ◼   ► iPhone leather sleeping bag,

00:18:26 ◼   ► fleshy sleeping bag for the phone.

00:18:29 ◼   ► And Tim wrote in saying, "Hey, in my line of work,

00:18:33 ◼   ► "I often get like sharp things in my pockets

00:18:36 ◼   ► "and I don't wanna scratch my phone up."

00:18:38 ◼   ► So we guessed that Tim worked in a quarry,

00:18:40 ◼   ► but turns out Tim is a letter carrier

00:18:43 ◼   ► for the United States Post Office, which is pretty cool.

00:18:46 ◼   ► Out delivering mail every day.

00:18:48 ◼   ► - How dangerous a job is this?

00:18:50 ◼   ► - Well, if you look at the picture in the show notes

00:18:53 ◼   ► that I'm also pasting into the Relay FM members Discord,

00:18:56 ◼   ► which you get if you're a Relay FM member,

00:18:59 ◼   ► he has destroyed previous phones.

00:19:01 ◼   ► So Tim writes--

00:19:02 ◼   ► - Oh my word.

00:19:03 ◼   ► - But how?

00:19:04 ◼   ► - So let me finish reading the feedback.

00:19:07 ◼   ► - This is lots and lots of paper cuts.

00:19:09 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:19:10 ◼   ► What's happened to this phone?

00:19:11 ◼   ► - That's right.

00:19:12 ◼   ► So postal letter carriers drive around in the US in what's called the LLV.

00:19:20 ◼   ► There's also a link to that in the show notes. If you live in America you've

00:19:23 ◼   ► probably seen these, the little cute adorable little delivery trucks. They're

00:19:28 ◼   ► old and like falling apart, a bunch of them catch fire, but what Tim says is they

00:19:32 ◼   ► because they're kind of, they're pretty open, like all the doors open like maybe

00:19:37 ◼   ► you're in a rural area, they seem to get a lot of rocks and like sand and little

00:19:42 ◼   ► debris in them. And so he shared a picture of his old iPhone SE and

00:19:48 ◼   ► basically there's like spots rubbed through the finish. The anodized gold on

00:19:52 ◼   ► the back. It looks like it's been through a war or something. You don't want that

00:19:56 ◼   ► to happen to a new phone. I guess I'm still not sure why are these vehicles

00:20:01 ◼   ► full of rocks. That's the part that I still don't understand. People need to mail

00:20:06 ◼   ► rocks to each other? No, you can't mail a rock. If you need to, how else are you gonna

00:20:13 ◼   ► do it? Well, still though, like, Tim makes it sound like these vehicles are just full

00:20:18 ◼   ► of rocks flying around and entering their pockets. I mean, you can imagine, like, you

00:20:24 ◼   ► get in and out of this thing a bunch of times during the day, you can see how the door opens

00:20:27 ◼   ► all the way to the bottom and the back, and a bunch of these do get run in rural areas

00:20:31 ◼   ► where maybe you were on dusty gravel roads.

00:20:34 ◼   ► You could see, I could see how it could happen.

00:20:37 ◼   ► I mean, maybe Tim just needs Velcro on his pockets.

00:20:40 ◼   ► - Requires a lot of imagination, but yeah, okay.

00:20:43 ◼   ► - Mm-hmm.

00:20:44 ◼   ► - Sure.

00:20:45 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:20:46 ◼   ► Not really feed follow-up.

00:20:49 ◼   ► That is something I selfishly wanted to announce on the show.

00:20:52 ◼   ► So I'm gonna do that.

00:20:53 ◼   ► I'm gonna be doing a Twitch stream December 17th,

00:20:57 ◼   ► that's tomorrow as I'm speaking now,

00:20:58 ◼   ► at noon Eastern, 5pm London, 9am Pacific. I'm going to put an SSD in a titanium powerbook

00:21:06 ◼   ► G4. It's going to be the fastest G4 ever. So, don't want to miss that.

00:21:11 ◼   ► Is there a possibility that you're going to break this?

00:21:14 ◼   ► No, I'm good at this sort of stuff.

00:21:17 ◼   ► Okay. Alright, I'll trust you. I guess we'll all see together, right?

00:21:23 ◼   ► tune in the machine works now will it work afterwards it will so anyways I'm

00:21:28 ◼   ► excited about that this is filed under the I haven't left my house in some time

00:21:34 ◼   ► and weird ideas are happening this episode of connected is brought to you

00:21:39 ◼   ► by hover one of relay FM longest-running sponsors when you have a big idea where

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00:23:21 ◼   ► Make a name for yourself with hover. Our thanks to hover for their support of this show and

00:23:26 ◼   ► relay FM. All right, there is a new version of iOS 14 out in the world. What is in it

00:23:36 ◼   ► guys?

00:23:37 ◼   ► App Clips.

00:23:38 ◼   ► They're here.

00:23:39 ◼   ► They're here!

00:23:42 ◼   ► That is the big new feature of iOS 14.3.

00:23:45 ◼   ► Wait, I thought app clips were already around.

00:23:47 ◼   ► Well, app clip codes, I guess.

00:23:49 ◼   ► What does that mean?

00:23:50 ◼   ► The QR code, the fancy QR codes.

00:23:53 ◼   ► The special QR codes that Apple supports for app clips.

00:23:57 ◼   ► You can now scan those and you get the pretty animation.

00:24:02 ◼   ► It's been funny, I haven't been collecting them for follow-up, but we've gotten quite

00:24:05 ◼   ► a few tweets and emails from people seeing these out in the world now.

00:24:09 ◼   ► I think people are just seeing them all in one place, a gas station. It's like some gas

00:24:14 ◼   ► station or something.

00:24:15 ◼   ► Yes, I think it was the same gas station for literally everyone who sent a note to us.

00:24:22 ◼   ► So yeah, congrats to Apple for shipping AppClip to one gas station in America.

00:24:27 ◼   ► Little did you know that that one AppClip just turns your phone into a Bitcoin mining

00:24:33 ◼   ► them. So everyone that sent that to us, that's what your phone's doing now. It's just mine

00:24:38 ◼   ► and Bitcoin.

00:24:39 ◼   ► That is an unfortunate consequence. Yes.

00:24:41 ◼   ► Yep. Sorry about that.

00:24:42 ◼   ► So app clip codes can now be generated by developers. They can make stickers with them.

00:24:49 ◼   ► They can share them as images on social media and you can scan them from the camera app

00:24:55 ◼   ► or via the code scanner that you can add to Control Center.

00:24:59 ◼   ► Now, besides that big change,

00:25:04 ◼   ► 14.3 also comes with support for Apple ProRAW,

00:25:08 ◼   ► which is the new RAW format

00:25:11 ◼   ► that you can shoot pictures with

00:25:13 ◼   ► on your iPhone 12 and 12 Pro.

00:25:16 ◼   ► There's this really good overview

00:25:18 ◼   ► of what ProRAW is and what it does,

00:25:20 ◼   ► and RAW photography in general

00:25:22 ◼   ► on the blog of the Halide Photography app.

00:25:27 ◼   ► The developer, Ben Sandovski,

00:25:28 ◼   ► has done a really excellent overview of the format,

00:25:31 ◼   ► what it does, and sort of a,

00:25:32 ◼   ► what does Apple mean when they say,

00:25:34 ◼   ► you get all the benefits of RAW,

00:25:36 ◼   ► plus the computational photography aspects

00:25:39 ◼   ► that the iPhone camera can capture and process.

00:25:43 ◼   ► So go check it out, because it's really well explained,

00:25:45 ◼   ► really well done.

00:25:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, Austin Mann, famed iPhone photographer,

00:25:50 ◼   ► did a really good piece on when,

00:25:54 ◼   ► I thought it was particularly useful,

00:25:55 ◼   ► when is the right time to use it

00:25:58 ◼   ► and when it may actually work against you.

00:26:00 ◼   ► So we'll have that in the show notes too.

00:26:02 ◼   ► - And the visual comparisons that Austin did

00:26:05 ◼   ► are also really well done.

00:26:05 ◼   ► You can see, like you can literally see all the details

00:26:08 ◼   ► that you cannot have in the JPEG or HIC version of a photo,

00:26:12 ◼   ► and you see more details after processing ProRAW.

00:26:15 ◼   ► So go check it out because it really helps

00:26:19 ◼   ► visualize at a glance what does it actually mean in practice. The other

00:26:24 ◼   ► feature we mentioned this before Apple Fitness Plus, this also requires

00:26:30 ◼   ► watchOS 7.2 if you're gonna use your Apple Watch and TV OS 14.3 if you're

00:26:35 ◼   ► gonna use it on an Apple TV. You can sign up for Fitness Plus from the fitness app

00:26:41 ◼   ► which is now also available on the iPad. On iPad it is not a pre-installed

00:26:46 ◼   ► application you need to download it from the App Store and just like any other

00:26:51 ◼   ► apps made by Apple that you can delete on your device you can also find them as

00:26:56 ◼   ► individual listings on the App Store. Why do you think they did that? I don't know.

00:27:02 ◼   ► I don't know why. I mean I can assume it's like... It should be pre-installed, right?

00:27:09 ◼   ► thing that they're doing for like antitrust stuff maybe I don't know but

00:27:15 ◼   ► like it's inconvenient right like whatever but yeah yeah fine the other

00:27:24 ◼   ► feature is big changes to shortcuts and adding shortcuts to the home screen

00:27:31 ◼   ► before we get into this one though there was also the wallpaper one right that

00:27:35 ◼   ► stayed that's actually in the shipping version now that you can change your

00:27:39 ◼   ► wallpaper, is that true? Did that stick? Oh yes, yes. The set wallpaper action is now

00:27:45 ◼   ► included in shortcuts. I have a pretty sweet update to one of my shortcuts coming based

00:27:50 ◼   ► on this action that I should be able to share this week on the site. So there's set wallpaper

00:27:56 ◼   ► and also there's new edit actions for editing reminders, contacts and calendar events, I

00:28:02 ◼   ► believe. And then the change to adding icons on the home screen. If you are among the people

00:28:08 ◼   ► making custom icons for launching apps on your device.

00:28:12 ◼   ► Like Steve.

00:28:13 ◼   ► Like Steve and Steven, who are also the same person.

00:28:17 ◼   ► Same person, yeah.

00:28:18 ◼   ► It's not me!

00:28:19 ◼   ► You'll be happy to know that you can now create those shortcuts and add them as icons, and

00:28:24 ◼   ► when you tap the icon on your home screen, it doesn't redirect you to shortcuts first,

00:28:29 ◼   ► it launches the destination app directly.

00:28:31 ◼   ► And if you have these icons from previous versions of iOS that you created in September

00:28:37 ◼   ► with iOS 14, the new behavior will apply to those old icons as well. So just update to iOS 14.3,

00:28:45 ◼   ► and when you tap those custom icons, you will be taken directly to the destination app that the

00:28:50 ◼   ► shortcut wants to launch. You will not see shortcuts opening first. This also applies to

00:28:57 ◼   ► utilities that allow you to install custom icons, not via shortcuts, but via profiles,

00:29:04 ◼   ► via custom profiles on your device. However, Apple made a change during the iOS 14.3 beta.

00:29:11 ◼   ► So, up until beta 2, I want to say, they removed the redirect behavior when changing the icons for

00:29:22 ◼   ► system apps as well. So I was able to create custom icons for Safari, Photos, Apple Music,

00:29:30 ◼   ► built-in Apple apps using a utility called icon board.

00:29:34 ◼   ► And those icons on 14.3 Beta 2,

00:29:38 ◼   ► they were not doing any redirect.

00:29:41 ◼   ► So when you tapped on the custom Safari icon,

00:29:43 ◼   ► Safari opened directly, which was awesome.

00:29:45 ◼   ► And then Apple made a change in Beta 3, I believe,

00:29:49 ◼   ► where they went back to the old behavior.

00:29:54 ◼   ► Now you can, if you wanna use icon board

00:29:57 ◼   ► or other utilities for making custom icons--

00:29:59 ◼   ► How does icon board work? What is this?

00:30:02 ◼   ► Icon board, it lets you create,

00:30:04 ◼   ► it's a visual editor for making custom icons on your iPhone.

00:30:09 ◼   ► And it lets you create icons for third-party apps

00:30:13 ◼   ► and for system apps.

00:30:15 ◼   ► For system apps, it needs to do a redirect

00:30:17 ◼   ► where you tap on the icon, you see icon board for a second,

00:30:21 ◼   ► and then you're taken to Safari photos or whatever.

00:30:25 ◼   ► For third-party apps, it's basically

00:30:27 ◼   ► a fancy URL scheme launcher.

00:30:30 ◼   ► You're just saying, I want to launch Twitter,

00:30:33 ◼   ► I want to use this icon, and you create a profile,

00:30:35 ◼   ► and you install the profile,

00:30:36 ◼   ► and then you have a custom icon that opens Twitter.

00:30:39 ◼   ► And for third-party apps, you don't have any limitations.

00:30:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't like the profile installing thing.

00:30:44 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, but it's fine.

00:30:45 ◼   ► You're literally just installing like a web,

00:30:47 ◼   ► you can take a look at the profile file,

00:30:49 ◼   ► and you're literally just installing like a web clip.

00:30:53 ◼   ► That's all it does.

00:30:54 ◼   ► - Do you have to install a profile for every app?

00:30:58 ◼   ► - No, what's nice about Iconboard is that it lets you

00:31:01 ◼   ► create multiple pages of custom icons.

00:31:04 ◼   ► Like you have these multiple home screens in the app

00:31:08 ◼   ► and you can create say 10 icons

00:31:10 ◼   ► and then you can install them all at once.

00:31:13 ◼   ► - And then it just drops them on your home screen?

00:31:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, on the last page.

00:31:17 ◼   ► And then you can place them wherever you want.

00:31:19 ◼   ► And so what I've been doing is for some third-party apps,

00:31:22 ◼   ► I've created custom icons, and then I've used the new iOS 14 feature that lets you hide

00:31:29 ◼   ► an application from the home screen, and it sends it to the app library instead. So I

00:31:35 ◼   ► have marked as hidden the default icons for stuff like Twitter and Slack and GoodTask,

00:31:43 ◼   ► and I'm using the custom icons instead. I purchased a bunch of icon packs from Michael

00:31:49 ◼   ► Fredrop has a really nice set called Juice and Vidit from the Lookup team has a set called

00:31:57 ◼   ► Asteeth or Aesthetic, I think. Yeah, there's a bunch of people making really beautiful sets

00:32:04 ◼   ► these days and I'm using IconBoard to install them. There's also a shortcut that I didn't make,

00:32:11 ◼   ► but you can find it on Reddit, you can find it on RoutineHub. It's called IconThemer and this is

00:32:17 ◼   ► quite impressive because it's a shortcut that does the same, like it creates profiles and it lets you

00:32:23 ◼   ► create profiles with custom icons entirely via shortcuts. And at the end you have a profile that

00:32:32 ◼   ► is open in Safari and you just say install and you can even back up those custom profiles

00:32:39 ◼   ► created via Icon Themer to the Files app. And so what I did was I exported my custom profiles from

00:32:47 ◼   ► icon themer on the iPhone 12 Pro, and I re-imported them on the iPhone 12 Pro Max

00:32:54 ◼   ► that I received yesterday. Yeah, because I assume that this stuff doesn't sync very well.

00:33:01 ◼   ► It doesn't. And my hope was that when that thing happened, when Apple made that switch

00:33:09 ◼   ► in the iOS 14.3 beta when they said you cannot install custom icons for system apps anymore.

00:33:17 ◼   ► If you had installed them before, they kept working. So I was on the 14.3

00:33:24 ◼   ► GM or release candidate and I still had my custom Safari icon and my custom Apple Music icon and

00:33:32 ◼   ► they kept working because I had installed them before the change in the beta.

00:33:37 ◼   ► Why... what's the reasoning for this? Why can't I have a custom icon for Safari?

00:33:43 ◼   ► It's silly, right?

00:33:45 ◼   ► But that's BS though, right?

00:33:46 ◼   ► It is!

00:33:46 ◼   ► Because what Apple was saying, that their icons are more important than anybody else's icons?

00:33:51 ◼   ► No, and especially like the Safari... have you seen the Safari icon? I mean it's...

00:33:54 ◼   ► No, but it's like, oh, we won't let you change our icons, but everybody else's icons, go crazy.

00:34:00 ◼   ► Right.

00:34:00 ◼   ► Go do what you want, go wild, like you can just go for it.

00:34:03 ◼   ► Like, really what they should do...

00:34:05 ◼   ► What they should do is they should have a native system for changing all the icons you want.

00:34:09 ◼   ► They should have a theme or feature.

00:34:11 ◼   ► Well, I think that this is probably going to be the main feature of iOS 14.

00:34:14 ◼   ► They really should consider it because, I mean, I get it. I get it. Designers,

00:34:18 ◼   ► they care about the icons that they craft and work on. I totally get it.

00:34:24 ◼   ► But, you know, millions of people like to customize their stuff.

00:34:27 ◼   ► And, you know, I think they should give it to the people, this option.

00:34:33 ◼   ► Like from settings, imagine like a simple page where you go in, you see all the apps,

00:34:37 ◼   ► and you just change icon, and you pick an image, or you pick a file, and you're done.

00:34:42 ◼   ► That's it.

00:34:43 ◼   ► No shortcuts, no profiles.

00:34:45 ◼   ► That's the way it should be.

00:34:47 ◼   ► So I really hope that they enable this option next year.

00:34:54 ◼   ► Using shortcuts, using profiles is really a clever workaround.

00:34:58 ◼   ► It's a clever hack, but it could be so much better.

00:35:03 ◼   ► Yeah, so in 14.3, but this thing with launching shortcuts from the home screen, it goes beyond

00:35:11 ◼   ► icons, right? All kinds of shortcuts that you want to add to the home screen as an icon

00:35:18 ◼   ► can now use CompactUI. In fact, one of the main reasons that I think I sort of stopped

00:35:27 ◼   ► using my own Max Stories shortcuts icons was the limitations around CompactUI. It used to be that

00:35:35 ◼   ► those icons, they would take me to shortcuts first, and I was kind of annoyed and I was kind of sad

00:35:41 ◼   ► because it meant that I had to use widgets. But widgets are not as compact as icons, you know?

00:35:50 ◼   ► In the same slot of a small widget on the home screen, I can fit four shortcuts icons.

00:35:56 ◼   ► And so now I'm happy again, because it means we can keep working on the max storage

00:36:00 ◼   ► shortcuts icons, we can make new ones, and they have the same functionality and the same speed

00:36:05 ◼   ► of widgets, which is great. I meant iOS 15 by the way. Let me ask you about the custom icons that

00:36:12 ◼   ► you're using. Yeah. Why are you doing it? Are you doing it because you were testing it? Are you doing

00:36:19 ◼   ► it because you were testing it now you love it? Or were you doing it because you really wanted to

00:36:23 ◼   ► to change the icons. You know what I mean?

00:36:25 ◼   ► I really like the idea of personalization myself as a thing. And now that it's possible,

00:36:31 ◼   ► I'm more inclined to do it, just like I was inclined to do it on Mac OS when it was easy

00:36:35 ◼   ► to do, like years ago, stuff like Candy Bar, for example, that made it so easy to change

00:36:40 ◼   ► icons. And I was so into that. So there was that component, but it's also the fact that

00:36:45 ◼   ► some of the icons that I have are super ugly. Like the Safari icon, I really can't stand,

00:36:50 ◼   ► and now it's back on my home screen and I don't like it. The "Hey" icon with the scribbled

00:36:56 ◼   ► hand, I mean, come on, is that an icon? It looks like a drawing from a one-year-old.

00:37:03 ◼   ► I really don't get it. Like, why is it a scribbled hand? It's so ugly. And so I just took one

00:37:10 ◼   ► of, I believe I used one of Vidit's email icons. It's a really pretty icon with the

00:37:17 ◼   ► @ symbol in the middle of an envelope. It's really nice. So now I have a decent icon for "Hey".

00:37:22 ◼   ► Yeah, it's mostly about just customizing stuff, making it my own, and putting in icons that I like.

00:37:31 ◼   ► I've kind of grown tired of... we've effectively had the same icons since 2013 with iOS 7 for things

00:37:40 ◼   ► like the App Store and Safari and Reminders. I guess Reminders changed to an extent, but

00:37:47 ◼   ► you know those icons are kind of boring and designers are doing more interesting things

00:37:51 ◼   ► with depth and sort of like Big Sur inspired designs. So yeah, so I've been using this setup

00:38:00 ◼   ► for like over a month now. It's not like I was testing it and now I'm gonna... You know,

00:38:08 ◼   ► the performance is so good now that all you lose effectively is the ability to long press

00:38:15 ◼   ► and use the quick actions. It used to be like the 3D touch quick actions on the home screen.

00:38:21 ◼   ► But I don't use those anymore. I used to, but now I don't. And so even more reason to

00:38:27 ◼   ► say, you know what, I'm going to use the custom icons and I'm not losing anything effectively.

00:38:33 ◼   ► I've been thinking about it, but for me, I kind of have this feeling that like, I know

00:38:39 ◼   ► they're going to make it a pain for me at some point.

00:38:42 ◼   ► And it's like that idea of like, well, if you move to a new phone, they don't move over.

00:38:46 ◼   ► Yeah, that's one of the problems, even if you restore.

00:38:50 ◼   ► Like I did this yesterday, I restored from a backup, but those certificates, they don't

00:38:54 ◼   ► move over, which is unfortunate.

00:38:57 ◼   ► I think I've been more interested about for myself is not necessarily the idea of a custom

00:39:04 ◼   ► icon for an app, but a custom icon for something inside of an app that I can get to with shortcuts.

00:39:15 ◼   ► So like opening an app to a certain point or opening a certain note or something like

00:39:21 ◼   ► that and having app icons for those as opposed to like having a new slack icon or whatever.

00:39:27 ◼   ► Because I think one of the things that I've found is like,

00:39:30 ◼   ► if I'm going to do it, I probably want them all to be in one style.

00:39:35 ◼   ► And I've yet to find a pack that I could do all of the apps that I have on my home screen with.

00:39:42 ◼   ► You know, like how you have kind of like mixed two different packs together.

00:39:48 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:39:49 ◼   ► I kind of feel like I would maybe want one pack.

00:39:52 ◼   ► But like that's just going to be a thing that over time.

00:39:55 ◼   ► I thought about that.

00:39:56 ◼   ► But when you think about it, when you install apps from the App Store, you're installing

00:40:03 ◼   ► icons made by different companies, made by different designers, so it's always been like

00:40:07 ◼   ► you're using different packs when you think about it.

00:40:09 ◼   ► Yeah, I see that point of view for sure, but I do feel like if I wanted to do this a lot,

00:40:14 ◼   ► I would like some visual consistency between them all.

00:40:16 ◼   ► But I don't know, but then you end up in the situation where, like you did, you might have

00:40:20 ◼   ► that one that you don't like, and then what do you do?

00:40:22 ◼   ► And then you're back to square one again.

00:40:24 ◼   ► this is something I'm keeping my eye on but I wasn't on the beta train so I

00:40:28 ◼   ► wasn't able to play around with it until now and and I did do it last night just

00:40:32 ◼   ► to test and I was like oh this is actually quite cool so it's something

00:40:36 ◼   ► that I have I'm like keeping an eye out for now as other applications start

00:40:40 ◼   ► sorry other designers start creating different packs and stuff like that or

00:40:45 ◼   ► existing designers keep adding to their packs which I think is also a strong

00:40:48 ◼   ► possibility I mean Stephen's already doing it with Todoist anyway so he's all set.

00:40:53 ◼   ► This has never really been something that I'm super interested in. Like even

00:40:59 ◼   ► back in the day with like candy bar where you could do this with Mac icons,

00:41:04 ◼   ► not just app icons, but like things like in Finder and you go all the way down

00:41:09 ◼   ► and I just never really, it never really worked for me. Part of the reason, Myke,

00:41:15 ◼   ► like you said, that it feels fragile in a way and maybe it's gonna break at some

00:41:20 ◼   ► point or just be a pain if you have to replace your device but I'm generally

00:41:24 ◼   ► why it works why I don't try to and and honestly I think with this it may be

00:41:29 ◼   ► different I mean candy bar lasted until mountain lion which seems like a miracle

00:41:34 ◼   ► but I think on iOS and iPad OS Apple may embrace this and actually make it

00:41:39 ◼   ► easier but it's just like a layer of stuff on top of the OS and I don't know

00:41:46 ◼   ► I don't really care.

00:41:47 ◼   ► Does the little notification not bother you Federico?

00:41:51 ◼   ► That would bother me.

00:41:52 ◼   ► Well no, because when you use certificate based utilities, you don't see the notification.

00:41:58 ◼   ► You only see the notification if you use a shortcut based approach.

00:42:03 ◼   ► And also another reason why I don't like to do that, because I tried that and I was so

00:42:07 ◼   ► annoyed by the notification, by the banner that confirms the shortcut, that I went looking

00:42:15 ◼   ► for other solutions like the next day. It's like, no, no way. You cannot even dismiss

00:42:19 ◼   ► that thing. There's no setting to hide it. You're forced to see, even if you've tapped

00:42:26 ◼   ► the icon like 200 times, you're still going to see the banner that says, "Hey, you ran

00:42:31 ◼   ► this shortcut. Yeah, go figure. I did."

00:42:36 ◼   ► What about app badges? Because you don't get badges on these, right?

00:42:39 ◼   ► No, you don't. And it's a feature, the way I see it.

00:42:44 ◼   ► - See, that's what's gonna break my Todoist one for me,

00:42:47 ◼   ► 'cause Todoist is one of the few apps

00:42:49 ◼   ► that I allow to batch. - Oh, you keep badges

00:42:50 ◼   ► for your task manager?

00:42:51 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Oh no.

00:42:52 ◼   ► No, stop doing that.

00:42:53 ◼   ► - No, I need to know how much I've left to do during the day.

00:42:56 ◼   ► - No, use a widget or you just open the app anyway,

00:42:59 ◼   ► because you're opening the app anyway.

00:43:01 ◼   ► You don't need to see the number.

00:43:02 ◼   ► The number just causes you anxiety.

00:43:04 ◼   ► So you either just open the app, which you do anyway,

00:43:07 ◼   ► or use a widget, which at the very least

00:43:10 ◼   ► gives you the context of what the things are.

00:43:13 ◼   ► Just seeing the red number puts you in a state where you know you have things

00:43:17 ◼   ► left to do, but you don't know what, which makes you even more anxious.

00:43:21 ◼   ► So you either just tap the icon or use a widget,

00:43:24 ◼   ► which at the very least it gives you some visual context of like a visual

00:43:28 ◼   ► preview. So you know what it is. I should be a productivity,

00:43:31 ◼   ► I should be productivity coach. This is what I'm going to do next.

00:43:35 ◼   ► I'm going to be a productivity guru.

00:43:36 ◼   ► Perfect. And teach people how to use icons.

00:43:40 ◼   ► It feels like a limited business, but maybe it's not.

00:43:42 ◼   ► I don't know, I feel like I've made a pretty decent living out of it at this point.

00:43:55 ◼   ► This episode of Connected is brought to you by Mack Weldon.

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00:45:43 ◼   ► Alright, so we're going to talk about our impressions of the air pod air pods max, just

00:45:51 ◼   ► one of them just the left one.

00:45:54 ◼   ► Federico I think you have the most to say so I think Myke and I are going to go first

00:45:59 ◼   ► because you're like testing things with gold monster cables and...

00:46:02 ◼   ► Or we can have a conversation. It doesn't have to be a list of people.

00:46:06 ◼   ► That's also very true.

00:46:07 ◼   ► Like it's a podcast. It's not a, you know...

00:46:10 ◼   ► So can we start with the case?

00:46:13 ◼   ► But you can start, yes.

00:46:14 ◼   ► Okay, I want to start with the case because it's dumb and embarrassing.

00:46:17 ◼   ► It's...

00:46:18 ◼   ► It's really bad.

00:46:19 ◼   ► It's really... it feels like it's made of scraps from the Magic Keyboard.

00:46:28 ◼   ► I really don't get it. It's dumb and the single, like we talked about, the fact that it has

00:46:39 ◼   ► magnets and I mentioned how it's interesting that keeping that ultra low power mode to

00:46:47 ◼   ► preserve battery but also to make sure that you never have to turn off or on the headphones,

00:46:52 ◼   ► that's super nice. But because it appears to be based entirely just on a couple of magnets

00:46:58 ◼   ► inside the case, I'm really keen to see if at this point third party companies can come

00:47:03 ◼   ► in and make actual protective cases that also have the same magnets and which align the

00:47:11 ◼   ► same way so that you keep the same benefits of the smart case made by Apple but in an

00:47:17 ◼   ► actual protective case design. Because right now it just feels like you're putting these

00:47:21 ◼   ► under you know, you're tucking them in, you're like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, you go little AirPods,

00:47:26 ◼   ► go to sleep and it's like you're not and you look stupid just holding them and walking

00:47:32 ◼   ► around with them it's like I don't get it you have this little you've made this little

00:47:36 ◼   ► bad for your headphones and you're not really protecting anything and so yeah I hope that

00:47:41 ◼   ► I saw a tweet by MKBHD I still have to watch his review so you mentioned potentially mentioned

00:47:47 ◼   ► mentions this in this in the review as well but because it seems to be based on a couple

00:47:51 ◼   ► magnets inside the case, then I guess somebody else can copy the design, make an actual hard

00:47:58 ◼   ► plastic case that protects the headphones, but also keeps them in the low power state,

00:48:03 ◼   ► so that you have the same benefits in a much better design.

00:48:07 ◼   ► The thing that I just find so baffling about it is that it doesn't offer hardly anything

00:48:12 ◼   ► in terms of protection. Like, the aluminum is exposed, but I think most critically the

00:48:17 ◼   ► fabric across the headband is exposed.

00:48:20 ◼   ► And I mean, that feels that we're gonna talk about this in a second, but that fabric feels

00:48:24 ◼   ► like it could be damaged pretty easily by something sharp.

00:48:29 ◼   ► And then like, then where are you?

00:48:31 ◼   ► Like what do you then what do you do?

00:48:33 ◼   ► So I agree with you, I think that we're going to see some third party cases for this, that

00:48:39 ◼   ► just put magnets where magnets need to be for them to go to sleep.

00:48:43 ◼   ► we can all forget this terrible nightmare of this case.

00:48:47 ◼   ► For me, it's my only knock on the product.

00:48:51 ◼   ► It's the only thing I don't like.

00:48:53 ◼   ► There's actually a slight thing, which I'll get into in a second, but this is the thing

00:48:59 ◼   ► that they have included that I think doesn't necessarily cheapen the product, but doesn't

00:49:03 ◼   ► make me feel better about it.

00:49:06 ◼   ► I feel like just a case that covers the most fragile parts would have been way better.

00:49:14 ◼   ► And in the review that you'll see Federico, the MKBHD points out that I really like, is

00:49:17 ◼   ► like even the case doesn't like, it doesn't even line up properly.

00:49:22 ◼   ► Like the lightning port that is a cut out for the lightning port and it doesn't line

00:49:27 ◼   ► up properly.

00:49:28 ◼   ► It's like it just seems cheap.

00:49:31 ◼   ► It's not good.

00:49:32 ◼   ► Like it's really not good.

00:49:34 ◼   ► I mean, I'm using it because I have it.

00:49:36 ◼   ► And so like, I'm just going to keep it in my bag and I'll just,

00:49:39 ◼   ► when I have my AirPods in my bag, I'll put it in this thing.

00:49:43 ◼   ► But as soon as somebody comes out with a better case, I'll get it.

00:49:47 ◼   ► But like, if I was going on bigger trips, I would try and get something,

00:49:53 ◼   ► even just like a drawstring pouch to put them in instead,

00:49:56 ◼   ► because that would at least stop the like the headband and stuff

00:49:59 ◼   ► from potentially getting damaged if it was in a little bag,

00:50:02 ◼   ► like even like a little drawstring bag as opposed to this one where the only thing that it's

00:50:07 ◼   ► protecting that could get damaged is the part that can be replaced which is the ear cups.

00:50:12 ◼   ► Yeah, I will say the case design does lead to a funny side effect speaking of the ear cups,

00:50:17 ◼   ► so listen to this. Yeah, I did that today.

00:50:19 ◼   ► You can squeeze them and all the air comes out of the phone.

00:50:25 ◼   ► Yeah. It's weird.

00:50:26 ◼   ► Yeah, it's very strange. The other thing that is a slight knock for me is like I cannot believe

00:50:32 ◼   ► that they didn't put MagSafe on these things for charging.

00:50:36 ◼   ► Oh, so you could like lay them down on top of a puck?

00:50:38 ◼   ► No, you just clip the puck on one of the ear cups.

00:50:40 ◼   ► I don't know why I have to charge this thing with lightning.

00:50:43 ◼   ► Like, it seems so strange to me for them not to have found a way to make that work.

00:50:48 ◼   ► Like, it's really, I find it really weird.

00:50:53 ◼   ► Like, I mean, it seems like the engineers who are in charge of

00:50:56 ◼   ► charging products at Apple all hate each other.

00:50:59 ◼   ► So they have some people, products charge over USB-C, some charge over Lightning, some get MagSafe, some don't get MagSafe.

00:51:07 ◼   ► Some get Qi.

00:51:08 ◼   ► Get on the same page.

00:51:09 ◼   ► Yep, I really think that this, I mean I can't work out why they didn't build this with that in mind.

00:51:14 ◼   ► Like, I really think that that's something that they should have had.

00:51:18 ◼   ► Because it's just like a weird omission to me that I have to, like my other AirPods charge with a MagSafe charger.

00:51:26 ◼   ► like and they're just these little things and they've made that work so

00:51:31 ◼   ► there's surely space in the ear cup to put a wireless charging coil in there

00:51:37 ◼   ► it's just strange to me like whatever it's it my my only not to defend the the

00:51:45 ◼   ► move but the only thing I think that may have been a factor is that drivers are

00:51:50 ◼   ► basically magnets and I wonder if there would be some sort of issue with

00:51:55 ◼   ► wireless charging when you've got these big magnets inside the ear cups.

00:52:00 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean they said that they managed to shield the wallet.

00:52:03 ◼   ► Yep.

00:52:04 ◼   ► That's not so true.

00:52:05 ◼   ► Yeah, it is.

00:52:06 ◼   ► I mean, I'm just saying like that could be a factor and maybe it was, but on the whole

00:52:10 ◼   ► though, like Apple needs to get this charging situation under control.

00:52:14 ◼   ► Like just move everything to USB-C, rip the band-aid off, and some stuff gets wireless

00:52:19 ◼   ► on top of that.

00:52:20 ◼   ► Yeah, the USB-C and where you don't have a port, have it work with MagSafe.

00:52:24 ◼   ► lightning needs to go now it does lightning has had its day in the Sun we

00:52:29 ◼   ► were very happy to have it it was great you know at the time when everything

00:52:33 ◼   ► else was terrible you know like remember when lightning was introduced all of the

00:52:37 ◼   ► other charging solutions will like they were one directions on the directional

00:52:41 ◼   ► like you know you plug them in one way right it's all like USB or USB mini

00:52:45 ◼   ► micro USB or that kind of stuff but now USB C is vastly superior clearly Apple

00:52:50 ◼   ► agree for some things right but not everything if you know these these

00:52:57 ◼   ► headphones should have had it they should have USB C on them and then I

00:53:00 ◼   ► wouldn't be so bummed out about it but it's like just super annoying to me but

00:53:04 ◼   ► anyway outside of that though I absolutely I love them I love them I

00:53:09 ◼   ► mean look I've had them for like 30 hours and I've been trying to put as

00:53:17 ◼   ► much use into them as I can during that period of time for all of the things

00:53:21 ◼   ► that I would use my headphones for. So more music than I would typically listen

00:53:26 ◼   ► to but like that's really the best way to tell how good or bad they sound right

00:53:31 ◼   ► is by using music. I've watched videos, I've listened to podcasts, all that kind of

00:53:36 ◼   ► stuff and I would say that like yeah they're very easily the best headphones

00:53:41 ◼   ► I've ever owned like for listening to things. Like I have nice headphones you

00:53:46 ◼   ► like the headphones that I use for recording right now, the Bear Dynamic DT 770s, they're

00:53:53 ◼   ► really nice headphones but they're not like, they're not tuned in the way that these are,

00:53:57 ◼   ► at least they don't sound that way to me. They just, I absolutely adore the way that they sound.

00:54:03 ◼   ► They had that thing that I mentioned before about like I could hear things in songs that

00:54:10 ◼   ► I didn't think I'd noticed before. I definitely had that experience. The clearest one to me was

00:54:17 ◼   ► listening to Last Night by The Strokes and there was a guitar strum that was just in the right

00:54:22 ◼   ► channel that I just never heard in the way that I heard it with these headphones. And that's the

00:54:29 ◼   ► experience I was looking for. I wanted a rich sound and I wanted it for there to be complexity

00:54:35 ◼   ► to the sound and for things to be separated in a really interesting way.

00:54:40 ◼   ► Honestly these remind me both in the way that they sound and the way that I feel about them,

00:54:46 ◼   ► they remind me of the HomePod, which I guess makes a lot of sense, right?

00:54:51 ◼   ► But like the experience that I've had listening to music on these things reminds me of what

00:54:55 ◼   ► it's like to listen to my music on a HomePod, where it's like this sounds really good and

00:55:00 ◼   ► good in a way that the products that I had before, like the Amazon echoes, did not sound right. Like

00:55:05 ◼   ► the echo that I was listening to music on before was like one of the cylinder echoes

00:55:11 ◼   ► and I replaced it with the home pod. It's like this is so much better and I know I'm not the

00:55:15 ◼   ► best judge of this. Like I frequently make the jokes right and like about if the music's tinny

00:55:22 ◼   ► and what the mids sound like and that kind of stuff. Because I, you know, I do honestly,

00:55:28 ◼   ► if you think you can hear that kind of stuff great i mostly think that that's bologna honestly

00:55:32 ◼   ► and i i do think that a lot of people don't know what they're hearing but they just say it's one

00:55:38 ◼   ► thing or another but like there's absolutely no way for you to know how i hear something

00:55:42 ◼   ► right it's like really it's like a very hard thing to communicate to people

00:55:47 ◼   ► well but the the fact that that you don't know what they mean doesn't mean that they don't exist

00:55:52 ◼   ► i never said they don't exist i said what i said is i think a lot of people that say that kind of

00:55:57 ◼   ► a thing, don't know what they're talking about, I'm not saying everyone, I very much believe

00:56:03 ◼   ► that you, because the way that you explain things to me is different to that, like I

00:56:08 ◼   ► feel like I watch a lot of YouTube videos and there are a lot of people that tell me

00:56:11 ◼   ► that like "oh there's good in the mids and there's tinny on the high end and there's

00:56:16 ◼   ► low frequency on the bass end" and it's just like I feel like...

00:56:18 ◼   ► Like it's the terminology that you don't believe.

00:56:22 ◼   ► No I just don't believe that everyone...

00:56:24 ◼   ► They just feel like empty words.

00:56:26 ◼   ► Because I can say that stuff and it has no context.

00:56:30 ◼   ► It doesn't mean anything.

00:56:32 ◼   ► Like you can't tell me like these are tinny.

00:56:34 ◼   ► What does that even mean?

00:56:35 ◼   ► Like do they sound like I'm listening to music through a tin can?

00:56:38 ◼   ► Like what is tinny?

00:56:39 ◼   ► Like my point is like there's no...

00:56:42 ◼   ► I do believe that a lot of people that say that stuff,

00:56:46 ◼   ► not everyone, but I believe a lot of people that say that stuff,

00:56:49 ◼   ► picked up that phrase from somewhere else and then they just use it.

00:56:53 ◼   ► So you'd be happy that I prepared some practical examples for you today.

00:56:56 ◼   ► That's what I want, though, right?

00:56:57 ◼   ► And it's like the way I explained it of like, I feel like I could hear a guitar

00:57:01 ◼   ► in the right channel a little bit further away than normal.

00:57:03 ◼   ► And it's like, I feel like you can understand kind of what I'm getting to

00:57:06 ◼   ► when I say stuff like that or when I say that, like the sound is rich.

00:57:10 ◼   ► It's like I can hear lots of instruments that is complexity in it.

00:57:13 ◼   ► And it's like it's not like usually like if I'm even if I'm using AirPods Pro,

00:57:19 ◼   ► the music is like it's kind of flat like the amount of different instruments it kind of

00:57:23 ◼   ► feels like it's been squished together because there's only so much they can do but with these

00:57:28 ◼   ► and with the AirPods Max because they're covering my whole ear the music's coming from different

00:57:35 ◼   ► places so they have the ability to make it sound that way you know like I understand way more when

00:57:41 ◼   ► we've made this show before but like people talk about the sound stage but like I get that a lot

00:57:45 ◼   ► more because it's like imagine musical instruments far away from each other. It's like alright

00:57:52 ◼   ► that makes more sense to me. But like it's just like I do think that a lot of the reporting

00:57:56 ◼   ► around headphones stuff and the way that headphones sound, I just don't think that it's possible

00:58:03 ◼   ► that every single tech YouTuber can know how to do this.

00:58:07 ◼   ► Honestly most of it is like rehashing press releases as well.

00:58:10 ◼   ► Yeah, right? But anyway, the point that I'm trying to make is I think these things sound

00:58:16 ◼   ► really great.

00:58:17 ◼   ► Yeah, I agree with the sort of home-potty-ness of them. We can use that as an adjective.

00:58:25 ◼   ► I think they sound more similar to the HomePod than anything else I've experienced at least.

00:58:31 ◼   ► Federico, I definitely want to give you the stage.

00:58:34 ◼   ► The sound stage.

00:58:35 ◼   ► Right, the sound stage. Talk about this stuff, the sound stage.

00:58:37 ◼   ► Yes, okay.

00:58:38 ◼   ► Wait, wait. So I think two things are going to happen here, right? I think this could

00:58:46 ◼   ► go very long, potentially. And I also just want to make sure we talk about some of the

00:58:51 ◼   ► other features of them, and then I want to hand over to you, and I want you to give me

00:58:56 ◼   ► what I'm sure is a very well-prepared experience with these things. Is that okay?

00:59:01 ◼   ► I've only had a few hours with them, but I think I've…

00:59:03 ◼   ► Yeah, but still, I know you've got more to say than me already. I've seen the notes,

00:59:08 ◼   ► so I know it. Okay. Yeah. I just wanted to touch on a couple of other areas and then

00:59:13 ◼   ► I want to head over to you. Transparency mode is absolutely unbelievable. Really well done.

00:59:19 ◼   ► It feels like even more of an enhancement of natural sound than on the AirPods Pro.

00:59:27 ◼   ► So I'll see if I can give people an example of this, right? You know if you rub your hand,

00:59:34 ◼   ► like your fingers on your hand, right? If you hold that really close to your ear, you

00:59:37 ◼   ► kind of hear a sound of like your skin rubbing together, right? You can hear that incredibly

00:59:44 ◼   ► loudly with your hand kind of like at your waist. It's unbelievable.

00:59:50 ◼   ► I noticed this when I was typing today. Like the sound of my fingers hitting the keys was

00:59:58 ◼   ► louder than it normally is and that is because I had transparency mode turned on. So yeah,

01:00:04 ◼   ► totally.

01:00:05 ◼   ► I first heard Gray reference it this way with the original AirPods Pro of calling them like

01:00:11 ◼   ► AR, right?

01:00:13 ◼   ► It's like augmented reality because reality is being changed around you.

01:00:18 ◼   ► And I heard John Gruber mention this when he was talking to Matthew Pansarino of like,

01:00:22 ◼   ► we think of AR as just visual, but it doesn't have to be and it isn't.

01:00:26 ◼   ► It's like it's just using technology to change our reality.

01:00:30 ◼   ► And I had a thought of like, if I could get a hearing aid that gave me Apple's transparency

01:00:38 ◼   ► mode like it is in the AirPods Max, I would wear it.

01:00:43 ◼   ► Because I genuinely hear things clearer this way.

01:00:48 ◼   ► And similarly, if there's a piercing loud noise, like if there's a siren, transparency

01:00:55 ◼   ► mode adjusts that for you.

01:00:57 ◼   ► My hearing is better in every possible way when I use these headphones.

01:01:02 ◼   ► I found that way for AirPods Pro but it is significantly more on AirPods Max.

01:01:08 ◼   ► The transparency is incredible.

01:01:10 ◼   ► Noise cancellation is also of course vastly better.

01:01:12 ◼   ► I think we all would have assumed this.

01:01:14 ◼   ► I wasn't expecting transparency mode to be so much better.

01:01:17 ◼   ► I assumed noise cancellation to be much better.

01:01:20 ◼   ► I'm still not sure if it's too much for me because I've always been a bit weird of that

01:01:25 ◼   ► and I know Steven you've had the same so I'm keen to know what you think.

01:01:28 ◼   ► I think so far it's comfortable but I think it's right on my edge of comfortability.

01:01:34 ◼   ► I do wish Apple would let you tweak it.

01:01:36 ◼   ► All of the other companies let you tweak it, right?

01:01:38 ◼   ► Like Sony let you use their app to tweak it, Bose do the same.

01:01:42 ◼   ► I wouldn't mind just being able to bring it down just a little bit but they don't let

01:01:47 ◼   ► you do that.

01:01:48 ◼   ► Yeah, I feel the same way.

01:01:50 ◼   ► I really disliked the noise cancelling in the AirPods Pro.

01:01:55 ◼   ► I don't mind it on the Max, but I don't think I could use it for super long.

01:02:00 ◼   ► So like last night I used them for a couple of hours and had them in noise canceling for

01:02:05 ◼   ► probably like an hour, which is way longer than I've ever made it.

01:02:08 ◼   ► But it didn't make me feel sick, but I just felt closed in.

01:02:13 ◼   ► And so I eventually just turned it off.

01:02:15 ◼   ► And that's easy to do, thankfully, with the button on the right ear cup.

01:02:22 ◼   ► But you have to...

01:02:23 ◼   ► So much better than the squeeze-in.

01:02:24 ◼   ► way better. But you have to go into settings and tell it that you want off to be an option. By

01:02:29 ◼   ► default, it just goes between transparency mode and noise canceling mode. So you have to tell it

01:02:36 ◼   ► that off is an option that you would want. And also in those settings, you can reverse the

01:02:41 ◼   ► direction of the digital crown for volume. And I think they have it backwards by default, where

01:02:46 ◼   ► you're rolling it counterclockwise to turn the volume up, which is not how volume knobs generally

01:02:52 ◼   ► work. Generally there you rotate it clockwise. Yeah I kind of get it though

01:02:56 ◼   ► because like away from me seems up and behind me seems down. I changed it immediately

01:03:05 ◼   ► because I couldn't. Same, same. Yeah I'm trying to see if I can get used to it

01:03:09 ◼   ► but I feel like honestly I feel like I would have the problem with this that I

01:03:12 ◼   ► do with USB is of like I'll always do it the wrong way the first time no matter

01:03:16 ◼   ► a witch ray around I have it like... I think I changed it because my brain made

01:03:23 ◼   ► the association of raising volume therefore going up should be clockwise.

01:03:32 ◼   ► Yep. Yeah. Not counterclockwise because clockwise is what happens when time goes up, right?

01:03:40 ◼   ► And I find it strange that they set the behavior to be the opposite, to be counterclockwise.

01:03:45 ◼   ► I don't get it. I'm not super keen on pressing the crown because I always adjust the volume

01:03:50 ◼   ► a little bit. It pulls my hair, I've noticed. Which is interesting, I will have to see how

01:03:58 ◼   ► I can get used to it. You're gonna have just a tiny bald spot right on your right hand

01:04:03 ◼   ► side just above the digital crown as your hair is being pulled out slowly over time.

01:04:08 ◼   ► The crown spot on my head. Isn't that part on the top of your head called your crown

01:04:15 ◼   ► Yes it is. I know because I've been listening to Silvio Spillari's videos. Yes.

01:04:20 ◼   ► Because you've got to reach up through the crown, haven't you? Towards the sky.

01:04:24 ◼   ► Exactly. Yes. Yeah, that is a little bit of a venture with with longer hair. I came in

01:04:31 ◼   ► from work yesterday and I've been wearing them here in the studio for a couple hours

01:04:35 ◼   ► and Mary was like, "Do you wear headphones today?" Because apparently I had like a flat

01:04:41 ◼   ► spot across my hair and then around my ears. Oh because you have the big poofy hair right now

01:04:45 ◼   ► don't you? Yeah, yeah I haven't gotten a haircut since March. Really? Really. I'm not gonna go get

01:04:51 ◼   ► a haircut during a pandemic. You can do it at home. Yeah, I've been, Adina's been cutting my hair.

01:04:57 ◼   ► Yeah. I mean Mary cut my hair in March and then I've just let it go since then. Interesting

01:05:01 ◼   ► approach. Did you get in a fight? Yeah but you've done that anyway though. This is the thing,

01:05:06 ◼   ► Stephen Hancott cannot adjust to any hair based style for more than six days

01:05:11 ◼   ► Right, right like you change it so much you grow your hair out you cut it all off you grow your beard huge

01:05:17 ◼   ► You cut it to a mustache then you cut the mustache off and then stubble and you know

01:05:20 ◼   ► You are very flexible of your hair in a way that I think most people aren't

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01:06:42 ◼   ► All right, Federico, you are in the situation where you can compare these directly to a

01:06:47 ◼   ► bunch of other headphones.

01:06:48 ◼   ► I'm not in the situation.

01:06:49 ◼   ► Myke really isn't either as full.

01:06:52 ◼   ► I don't have good music headphones.

01:06:53 ◼   ► Yeah, you don't have good music headphones.

01:06:55 ◼   ► Federico has like a Walkman and a DAC and listening to Ogg Vorbis files.

01:07:01 ◼   ► So as the...

01:07:02 ◼   ► Flak, not Ogg Vorbis.

01:07:04 ◼   ► I feel like you didn't have to correct me, but you did.

01:07:08 ◼   ► Well, I mean Ogg Vorbis, really?

01:07:11 ◼   ► What kind of person do you think I am?

01:07:12 ◼   ► I don't think I understand the burn I committed.

01:07:15 ◼   ► I feel like the type of person that knows it's not Ogg Vorbis is the type of person

01:07:22 ◼   ► that would correct you about that, you know?

01:07:25 ◼   ► So Federico is that type of person.

01:07:27 ◼   ► Actually guys, the bits are arranged in this order.

01:07:30 ◼   ► So how long is this to continue?

01:07:34 ◼   ► How much bits are lost in the lost less?

01:07:36 ◼   ► If it's less than how much lost?

01:07:39 ◼   ► Near lossless.

01:07:41 ◼   ► So you've been comparing this with some of your other stuff.

01:07:45 ◼   ► What is, what's what?

01:07:48 ◼   ► So I tested this for about five hours this afternoon, and today I compared the AirPods

01:07:58 ◼   ► Max to my Sony headphones, and I had two kinds of Sony headphones.

01:08:05 ◼   ► The first pair of headphones, the XM4, so the standard Bluetooth Sony headphones that

01:08:12 ◼   ► most people seem to use and know about these days.

01:08:16 ◼   ► These are standard Bluetooth headphones that I can use with my iPhone and my iPad and I

01:08:21 ◼   ► can stream Apple Music and they rely on standard AAC Bluetooth-based connections.

01:08:28 ◼   ► So nothing fancy, just Bluetooth headphones made by Sony, which also have active noise

01:08:34 ◼   ► cancellation.

01:08:36 ◼   ► And the other comparison that I did was streaming the same... so picking one song, listening

01:08:42 ◼   ► to the version on Apple Music with the AirPods Max, compared to the same song which I own

01:08:50 ◼   ► in lossless format via my Sony Walkman and my Sony MDR-Z1R headphones, which connect

01:08:59 ◼   ► via a 4x4, 4.4mm jack, balanced cable would be the correct name.

01:09:07 ◼   ► Can you give a very brief overview as to what on earth that last part meant?

01:09:13 ◼   ► The balance cable?

01:09:14 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:15 ◼   ► So a balance cable is a, first of all, it's got a 4.4mm jack, so it's chunkier than a

01:09:22 ◼   ► standard 3.5mm jack.

01:09:24 ◼   ► It's bigger and thicker.

01:09:27 ◼   ► And what the balance cable tries to achieve is better channel separation between the left

01:09:33 ◼   ► and right channels, where the wires inside are physically separate, and there's room

01:09:40 ◼   ► for... let's put it this way, there's more room for audio, therefore you're trying to

01:09:48 ◼   ► better separate the two circuits and achieve more clarity in what reaches the left ear

01:09:57 ◼   ► cup and what reaches the right ear cup, essentially. But yeah, it's a shorter, chunkier cable,

01:10:06 ◼   ► basically. So I also chose some songs to try and do these tests, and I tried to make them

01:10:16 ◼   ► different enough from each other so to get a good sense of the kind of acoustics and the

01:10:21 ◼   ► kind of performance that I was getting from these headphones. So I tested "All You're

01:10:25 ◼   ► Dreaming of by Liam Gallagher, his latest song, kind of an acoustic ballad featuring

01:10:30 ◼   ► piano, acoustic guitar, and backing vocals, plenty of backing vocals and horns in the

01:10:36 ◼   ► background. Slow Dancing in a Burning Room by John Mayer, so, you know, a really warm

01:10:45 ◼   ► guitar and bass line in this one. Exile by Taylor Swift and Bon Iver, the Long Pond studio

01:10:53 ◼   ► version. And I chose the studio version because I wanted to compare the... I wanted to listen

01:10:59 ◼   ► to the sounds and try and see what kind of performance I would get on the AirPods Max,

01:11:06 ◼   ► especially for Taylor's side, where they were performing the song in the same room. So Taylor

01:11:13 ◼   ► singing in the room together with the person, I believe it was Jack Antonoff playing the

01:11:19 ◼   ► piano in the same room, which is different from when you're recording a mix in separate

01:11:23 ◼   ► tracks. Like, the piano player goes in, does their track, and then the singer goes in,

01:11:28 ◼   ► does their track, and then you mix everything together. This is more like the Beatles used

01:11:32 ◼   ► to record albums, you know, everybody together in the same room. So I wanted to listen to

01:11:38 ◼   ► that, see what kind of performance you would have on the headphones. "Set Day" by FKA Twigs.

01:11:46 ◼   ► She's an amazing performer, and this song in particular features this sort of ambience

01:11:53 ◼   ► at the beginning, together with a very clear... with Twig's vibrato at the beginning of the

01:12:02 ◼   ► song, which carries a lot of detail, the way that she sings and the way that she modulates

01:12:09 ◼   ► her voice and her pitch, especially in the first portion of the song before the bass

01:12:14 ◼   ► kicks in, I wanted to listen to that detail, like how much of that vibrato can you still

01:12:19 ◼   ► you'll get when you listen via Apple music and the AirPods Max and when you listen to

01:12:25 ◼   ► the lossless version. And lastly, I tested I'm Not Okay by My Chemical Romance because

01:12:31 ◼   ► it was like kind of fun, messy punk rock song that makes for a good test when it comes to

01:12:38 ◼   ► distortion at high volumes, which is what we talked about last week. Like when you play

01:12:43 ◼   ► something loud at maximum volume, how messy does it sound in terms of like, can you still

01:12:51 ◼   ► make out the individual parts, the individual instruments of the track, or does everything

01:12:56 ◼   ► sort of blend together into this loud machine, like this loud mess that you get from most

01:13:03 ◼   ► headphones that are not particularly good?

01:13:05 ◼   ► On that, I have listened to them really loud and it was exhilarating. Like I went up to

01:13:12 ◼   ► the maximum, but it's still, I mean, I don't know about the claims that Apple make about

01:13:17 ◼   ► the distortion, but it sounded better than I would have expected.

01:13:21 ◼   ► Something about the loud volume too is that they do bleed more than I thought they would.

01:13:26 ◼   ► So I had Mary listen to them and she cranked it basically all the way up and was like,

01:13:30 ◼   ► "Oh, I can hear very clearly just sitting next to you was playing."

01:13:34 ◼   ► I mean, I figured there'd be some leak, but it surprised me how much there was.

01:13:38 ◼   ► I'm gonna try and make this not a drag to listen to.

01:13:43 ◼   ► But basically the comparison between the AirPods Max and the Sony headphones with the lossless setup,

01:13:50 ◼   ► I just feel like it's kind of unfair because obviously, like I was expecting this,

01:13:56 ◼   ► obviously I still come out preferring the Sony Z1R headphones with my...

01:14:03 ◼   ► I mean you should have, right? Whether they're like four times the price or something?

01:14:07 ◼   ► Yes, but it's like the it's the whole setup of like the headphones and the player and the lossless source of audio

01:14:15 ◼   ► But I want to give you some examples

01:14:18 ◼   ► Because otherwise you're just talking about the mids and the highs and the treble and it and it doesn't really explain what you hear

01:14:25 ◼   ► So basically what I noticed when comparing the two

01:14:29 ◼   ► Is that a lot of details and by details?

01:14:32 ◼   ► some in sounds, they get lost when you're listening to wireless audio. And if they're

01:14:36 ◼   ► not lost, at the very least they're so quiet, you may not even notice them. So for example,

01:14:45 ◼   ► in "Slow Dancing in a Burning Room" by John Mayer, at the beginning of the song, in the

01:14:49 ◼   ► first verse. There's rhythmic guitars in the back doing... and there's another guitar that

01:14:58 ◼   ► goes... does that note, that chord, and when you hear that via the high-resolution format,

01:15:10 ◼   ► you can hear that second rhythmic guitar perfectly, and you can hear the strum on the guitar,

01:15:19 ◼   ► And it's part of a bigger whole, obviously, in the first verse, but if you focus on that

01:15:27 ◼   ► sound, you can hear it.

01:15:30 ◼   ► And on the AirPods Max, those two chords from that guitar, they just kind of disappear in

01:15:37 ◼   ► the background.

01:15:38 ◼   ► They're very, very...they feel small in a way that...maybe that's the best way to describe

01:15:45 ◼   ► it.

01:15:46 ◼   ► The bassline in "I'm Not Okay" at the beginning, you can hear that on the AirPods Max via the Walkman and the Z1R.

01:15:59 ◼   ► It feels like its own thing, like it's warmer, it's louder, and it feels like you can more easily discern the bassline from everything else.

01:16:11 ◼   ► Obviously you can hear the bassline on the AirPods Max in that song, but via a different

01:16:17 ◼   ► setup because you don't have compression, because you're playing high resolution audio,

01:16:21 ◼   ► because honestly those are better headphones for high fidelity, it's more easy to tell

01:16:27 ◼   ► "Oh yeah, I can totally hear the bassline."

01:16:30 ◼   ► And also the sound is slightly different.

01:16:32 ◼   ► It's like a warmer sound, I would say.

01:16:37 ◼   ► In the vocals of "Sad Day" by FK Twigs, the vibrato at the beginning, for example, when

01:16:45 ◼   ► she says "It's a sad day for sure", that part, with the AirPods Max, you can hear it, you

01:16:53 ◼   ► can feel it, it's... when they say "thin", or like it sounds small, it's very faint,

01:17:04 ◼   ► basically.

01:17:05 ◼   ► With my headphones, it almost feels like you're sitting in front of Twigs when she sings,

01:17:13 ◼   ► and you can imagine, like, you can visual...

01:17:17 ◼   ► I don't know, maybe it's just me, but I can visualize the movement that her throat is

01:17:22 ◼   ► making when she does the vibrato at the beginning of the song.

01:17:25 ◼   ► Like, you can feel the air moving when she sings in a way that it feels very, very close

01:17:31 ◼   ► to you.

01:17:32 ◼   ► like you're putting your ear next to the microphone, basically, where she's singing into. That's

01:17:38 ◼   ► the effect of like... It's the difference between hearing a song, like hearing a very

01:17:46 ◼   ► good singer on TV, and hearing a very good singer in real life, like how powerful a voice

01:17:57 ◼   ► can be when you hear it in real life. That's sort of the effect that you get via that setup.

01:18:05 ◼   ► Now the XM4... Now these are your more run of the mill, everyone

01:18:13 ◼   ► can buy them, not everyone, you know what I mean.

01:18:16 ◼   ► These are the Bluetooth Sony headphones that a lot of people know. These are popular, the

01:18:23 ◼   ► Bose QuietComfort 2 are also popular, Beats headphones obviously are popular. I also have

01:18:29 ◼   ► Beats Studio headphones, but I didn't try them today. But I do know how they sound.

01:18:36 ◼   ► So the XM4 are interesting because they are lighter than the AirPods Max obviously. They're

01:18:43 ◼   ► also made of plastic, and I'm kind of torn about them because in a way they are more...

01:18:50 ◼   ► They are easier to use, you can fold them, they are lighter, but they're also cheaper

01:18:56 ◼   ► in a way that the AirPods Max are not.

01:18:59 ◼   ► However, I'm not sure how I feel about the headband design of the AirPods Max yet.

01:19:06 ◼   ► Not the design per se, but I guess the materials being used, the fabric part, you know, at

01:19:12 ◼   ► the very top of the headphones.

01:19:15 ◼   ► It's more flimsy, it's thinner than I would have hoped, and I have some serious concerns

01:19:23 ◼   ► about the durability of that part of the headband at the top.

01:19:27 ◼   ► So this is like the mesh part?

01:19:29 ◼   ► The mesh part at the top, it's very thin and it feels like you could poke a hole in it

01:19:34 ◼   ► with a pencil.

01:19:35 ◼   ► You could definitely do that, yes.

01:19:38 ◼   ► Right?

01:19:39 ◼   ► And I'm not sure, like, the moment you're going to put this in a bag, if you're not

01:19:42 ◼   ► are careful, or if you leave them on your nightstand, then your cat or your dog or whatever

01:19:47 ◼   ► plays with it. At that part, I don't think it's even replaceable. So I don't know how

01:19:54 ◼   ► I feel about that. Like, I get it, it's totally comfortable. I don't feel the weight on the

01:19:58 ◼   ► top of my head. For example, as much as I do with the Z1R, like, these are more comfortable,

01:20:04 ◼   ► I think. At least at the top of the head, you know, the big Sony headphones that I have

01:20:11 ◼   ► are still more comfortable on the ears, but on the head I prefer the AirPods Max, however

01:20:16 ◼   ► that material we'll see in a couple of months, we'll see in six months maybe, I don't know.

01:20:23 ◼   ► Still, so the XM4, what I noticed playing the same songs, is that they can get slightly

01:20:30 ◼   ► louder than the AirPods Max, they have a more pronounced bass overall, I think, that's kind

01:20:39 ◼   ► of the sound that Sony decided to go for. And I don't have any EQ feature turned on,

01:20:46 ◼   ► by the way, I don't like to use equalizers, so I just... In the Sony app, in the music

01:20:52 ◼   ► settings on iOS, I always keep the EQ disabled. But I would say that the XM4, they can get

01:20:59 ◼   ► slightly louder than the AirPods Max, and they have a more pronounced bass. However,

01:21:07 ◼   ► I tried to listen to "I'm Not Okay" at full volume with the XM4 and the AirPods Max, the

01:21:14 ◼   ► XM4 sounds like a mess. And that was the moment when I realized, "Oh, Apple's claims on the

01:21:21 ◼   ► distortion were actually true." Because on the XM4, the intro to the song, and something

01:21:32 ◼   ► came to mind when I listened to that. It's like, the XM4 are like when you're watching

01:21:38 ◼   ► your friend's punk rock band play live in a garage, and the AirPods Max is a balanced

01:21:45 ◼   ► sound that you get when listening to a CD. Basically, on the XM4, everything sort of

01:21:51 ◼   ► blends together at full volume, and you get this huge, loud mess of the drums and the

01:22:01 ◼   ► two guitars and the bass. It's very loud and messy. It's like, when you hear that distorted

01:22:08 ◼   ► sound of all the instruments together in that kind of music, that's what I mean. It's messy.

01:22:13 ◼   ► On the AirPods Max you retain the balance of it, where you can tell that the drummer

01:22:20 ◼   ► is really going for it, and the bass player is really going for it, and there's two loud

01:22:25 ◼   ► electric guitars, but if you focus just, you know, on the overall sound, it doesn't...

01:22:35 ◼   ► You don't hear the distortion that comes when everything blends together.

01:22:39 ◼   ► You can still make out the individual parts of the intro, right?

01:22:43 ◼   ► Instead, on the XM4, it's just very loud and very bassy, essentially.

01:22:49 ◼   ► So that to me was the moment when, and obviously I listened to a bunch of other songs after

01:22:57 ◼   ► that, but on the AirPods Max compared to the XM4, which is a comparison that I think a

01:23:02 ◼   ► lot of people will do, I think the AirPods Max have a, what you said Myke, have a bigger

01:23:07 ◼   ► soundstage in the sense that the sound coming out of the XM4 after you try the AirPods Max,

01:23:15 ◼   ► It kind of feels constrained.

01:23:17 ◼   ► It kind of feels like the sound is happening within this very enclosed space, which is

01:23:24 ◼   ► the headphone.

01:23:25 ◼   ► And on the AirPods Max you get that illusion of, yeah, it feels like sound is playing in

01:23:30 ◼   ► a bigger room, which means I can more easily tell the instruments apart, the different

01:23:36 ◼   ► sounds apart.

01:23:38 ◼   ► And that was really interesting to see, because obviously Sony has a lot more experience than

01:23:44 ◼   ► Apple, again excluding Beats, in making Bluetooth headphones and wireless headphones. And this

01:23:53 ◼   ► to me already sounds better than the XM4. I don't have any Bose headphones, unfortunately.

01:23:57 ◼   ► I've always been a Sony guy. But to me, this sounds much better than the XM4. The XM4 have,

01:24:05 ◼   ► again, perhaps slightly louder volume, more pronounced bassline, so if you're into that

01:24:11 ◼   ► kind of style that is not as heavy-handed as the Beats sound, but somewhere in the middle

01:24:18 ◼   ► of AirPods Max and Beats, that's where the XM4 stands in terms of bass performance. But

01:24:28 ◼   ► overall, based on my taste, I tend to prefer warm and balanced sound. I really like the

01:24:36 ◼   ► way that the AirPods Max sounds. And in fact, I will say that in terms of... like, excluding

01:24:42 ◼   ► my Sony Walkman and the wired headphones, considering the Beats Studio, I have Beats

01:24:49 ◼   ► Studio 2, Beats Solo, and Beats Studio 3. Today I tested the XM4. Before the XM4, I

01:24:56 ◼   ► used for over a year the XM3. In the past, I used the Sennheiser Momentum Wireless, a

01:25:05 ◼   ► a bunch of other headphones that I sold that I don't really remember at this point. But

01:25:09 ◼   ► to me the AirPods Max are the best wireless headphones that I've tested in my life, I

01:25:14 ◼   ► think, so far. They sound... Well, I cannot say incredible because when I say incredible,

01:25:23 ◼   ► the other headphones that I have, they sound incredible. These are...

01:25:26 ◼   ► Well, you can say they're incredible for what they are.

01:25:30 ◼   ► what they are. Yes, these are the best wireless headphones that I have at the moment. I have

01:25:36 ◼   ► some questions about the design itself, especially the non-replaceable headband. That is really

01:25:43 ◼   ► a concern to me, and I guess it's too bad that they don't have a, you know, that they're

01:25:47 ◼   ► based on lightning, they don't have an analog port for wired audio.

01:25:53 ◼   ► Have you tried the cable?

01:25:56 ◼   ► It works, but it still converts everything to digital. And when I tried to do that, I

01:26:02 ◼   ► tried to plug in the AirPods Max into my Sony Walkman. The volume was really low, and I

01:26:08 ◼   ► got better performance out of it by doing straight Bluetooth from the Walkman to the

01:26:14 ◼   ► AirPods Max. And in fact, strangely enough, I noticed that the Walkman connects to the

01:26:20 ◼   ► AirPods Max using SBC as the audio codec, not AAC, which in theory my Walkman should

01:26:27 ◼   ► support so I don't know, it's quite strange. Still, it sounded better via standard Bluetooth

01:26:33 ◼   ► than using the Lightning to audio jack cable. It's ridiculous that that cable is not in

01:26:39 ◼   ► the box for something this expensive, and it's also the thinnest, wimpiest cable I've

01:26:45 ◼   ► ever had from Apple. It's junky. It's very bad. Oh my god, yes. It's like if you go into

01:26:52 ◼   ► a gas station and you buy like a USB to lightning cable to charge your phone in a rental car

01:26:57 ◼   ► and it's like you just know it's gonna break after three days. Yeah. That's how this cable

01:27:02 ◼   ► feels. It's what $35 from Apple and not in the box which is almost as insulting as the

01:27:08 ◼   ► cases? I would say overall, are they worth $550? I think my answer depends on whether

01:27:19 ◼   ► you are really, whether you really bought into the Apple ecosystem, obviously. Like,

01:27:26 ◼   ► if you just have an iPhone, I don't think you're the target user for these headphones.

01:27:31 ◼   ► But if you're an Apple person with like an iPhone, an iPad, and a HomePod, and an Apple

01:27:35 ◼   ► watch. And if you're the kind of person who likes the homepot sound, like the way

01:27:40 ◼   ► that the homepot sounds, so warm and balanced and detailed, but not too

01:27:48 ◼   ► opinionated, I guess would be a good word for it. Like, doesn't go crazy on, you

01:27:55 ◼   ► know, when you're listening to rock music, it doesn't go crazy on the guitars, and

01:27:59 ◼   ► when you're listening to hip-hop and rap, it doesn't go crazy with the

01:28:04 ◼   ► bassline and the beat. It's right there in the middle. So if you're the kind of person

01:28:09 ◼   ► who likes clear and balanced sound with a bit of warmth to it, then I say yes, these

01:28:16 ◼   ► are worth the price because for wireless headphones I think they have really, really, really good

01:28:22 ◼   ► sound, really good performance, and obviously the integration with iOS and Siri and the

01:28:29 ◼   ► now playing, screening music, obviously you're getting AirPods, right? So instant connection

01:28:35 ◼   ► and switching between devices and all of that. So I would say, and I feel pretty good about

01:28:42 ◼   ► this even though I listened for just a few hours, I would say these are my new favorite

01:28:46 ◼   ► wireless headphones. I think I feel pretty comfortable saying that. So these would be

01:28:51 ◼   ► then the headphones that you would be wearing for the majority of your music listening is

01:28:56 ◼   ► what you're saying. Because those headphones that you have, those models...

01:29:02 ◼   ► Those are very specific headphones for when like...

01:29:05 ◼   ► That is an intentional decision you are making to listen to music on those headphones, because

01:29:10 ◼   ► you need hardware and cables and blah, blah, blah, blah, right? Like it's not just a thing.

01:29:15 ◼   ► Like when I want to relax and I have 30 minutes for myself and it's like too short an amount

01:29:20 ◼   ► of time to play a video game, but too long to just waste time on Twitter, basically.

01:29:27 ◼   ► I was like, "Yeah, I can go for a few songs and take out my Sony Walkman and listen to

01:29:33 ◼   ► some music." But I just do that, right? It's something that I rediscovered over the past

01:29:39 ◼   ► couple of years. Like, when's the last time you just sat down and you just listened to

01:29:44 ◼   ► music without doing anything?

01:29:46 ◼   ► I never listened to music that way.

01:29:49 ◼   ► I know which I used to be the same and most of the time I do the same right because when

01:29:53 ◼   ► I have wireless headphones I'm doing something else but it's just the idea of like yeah I

01:29:57 ◼   ► want to listen to an album and do nothing else my dogs are sleeping usually maybe Sylvia's

01:30:03 ◼   ► doing one of our classes or she's not around and I do that like my dogs sleeping next to

01:30:08 ◼   ► me and I just listen to some music and it's beautiful but I do that like it's a very specific

01:30:13 ◼   ► occasion, if you will. Like, yeah, it's very intentional. So yeah, most of the time I'm

01:30:19 ◼   ► gonna be wearing the AirPods Max, I think. What about you, Myke? Oh, I mean, I've spent

01:30:24 ◼   ► all this money on them. I mean, darn right, I'm gonna use them. But they are the best.

01:30:29 ◼   ► I mean, as I said before, I don't have any wireless headphones. Like I have my AirPods

01:30:36 ◼   ► and I will continue to use my AirPods, all of the places that I will use those. Like,

01:30:41 ◼   ► I'm not going to use these things when I'm out in the street because oh by the way the

01:30:45 ◼   ► weight yeah it's a lot so they're heavy for me I think they're within the realm that I'm

01:30:53 ◼   ► good with as I said before like I use heavy headphones quite a bit and I don't notice

01:31:00 ◼   ► it when I'm sitting down but when I get up to move I feel like they're going to fall

01:31:06 ◼   ► off. Like I only notice them when I'm moving around. I don't know if you guys

01:31:12 ◼   ► noticed a similar thing, but it's like that that's when I notice the weight of

01:31:16 ◼   ► these headphones is if I'm physically moving. Other than that I'm totally

01:31:21 ◼   ► fond of it, but that's that's the experience that I've had with them so

01:31:25 ◼   ► far. But yeah I'm really happy with them as a product because ultimately it's

01:31:31 ◼   ► pretty much exactly what I expected. Like I'm not that I have no surprise from

01:31:35 ◼   ► this product. I was expecting them to sound really good and shock horror they

01:31:41 ◼   ► sound really good and for me as a as a I would say like lay headphone person they

01:31:49 ◼   ► blow me away but I I don't have what else to compare it to realistically. I'm a

01:31:57 ◼   ► little on the fence I like the way they sound I'm not super blown away by the

01:32:03 ◼   ► comfort. I do feel like I'm pretty sensitive to things like squeezing on my

01:32:10 ◼   ► ears and the weight doesn't bother as much as I thought it did. I agree with

01:32:14 ◼   ► you like last night I was sitting at dining room table wearing them working

01:32:17 ◼   ► and then I got up and like oh they were very heavy when you start moving your

01:32:21 ◼   ► head around but they are a little tight and I've adjusted them a bunch I'm gonna

01:32:26 ◼   ► give it some more time but I'm not I'm not positive I'm keeping these in fact I

01:32:31 ◼   ► I think if I had to make a decision today, I would be returning them.

01:32:34 ◼   ► From the comfort perspective alone.

01:32:36 ◼   ► What is it, because the reason you would return them is because they're not comfortable enough.

01:32:41 ◼   ► Is that it?

01:32:42 ◼   ► And again, that may just be me.

01:32:43 ◼   ► Okay, so what would you be looking for? Lighter?

01:32:46 ◼   ► Lighter and less, like, horizontal pressure, like around my ears.

01:32:54 ◼   ► See, I almost feel like they do not grip me enough around the ears.

01:33:00 ◼   ► So like the headphones that I'm used to using, the Beyerdynamic headphones,

01:33:04 ◼   ► they support themselves by just clamping to the side of my head.

01:33:07 ◼   ► Yes, I tried those for like three minutes and sent them back a couple of years ago for that reason.

01:33:12 ◼   ► So I'm much more used to that and I almost wished that these headphones would do that more because

01:33:17 ◼   ► even on the lowest setting, I feel like they don't hold on the top of my head enough.

01:33:23 ◼   ► I've always found this, I think I have a narrow head, like I don't have a small head,

01:33:29 ◼   ► But I think my head is pretty narrow because I've always like I've always had to think like why did these headphones stretch so much

01:33:35 ◼   ► Like I've always had headphones at the lowest size always so I'm Ernie and you're Burt

01:33:41 ◼   ► I guess what do you guys do you guys like stretch the headphones out like you you like you extend them a little?

01:33:48 ◼   ► Yeah, a little you see I minor at the bottom and I wish they were a little smaller. Yeah, like like

01:33:56 ◼   ► One and a half centimeters, maybe yeah, I have nothing

01:33:59 ◼   ► interesting

01:34:01 ◼   ► Narrowhead mic they call me. Mm-hmm

01:34:04 ◼   ► So yeah

01:34:06 ◼   ► Look, these are going to be a divisive product. I think price or no price. They would have been a divisive product

01:34:13 ◼   ► Anyway, I'm not surprised about that, but they're hype for sure

01:34:18 ◼   ► They are hyped. I think it's one of those funny things. We're like, yeah, they're expensive

01:34:23 ◼   ► but people really want to get the content about them.

01:34:26 ◼   ► People want to know all about them.

01:34:27 ◼   ► And I really love them.

01:34:29 ◼   ► And my feeling on the weight is I will report back.

01:34:33 ◼   ► I don't know if I can have enough time with these

01:34:37 ◼   ► to understand if I'm going to be comfortable with it.

01:34:42 ◼   ► Because one of my issues is I get neck pain quite a lot

01:34:46 ◼   ► and my neck is sore today,

01:34:48 ◼   ► but it could be a completely unrelated thing for me.

01:34:51 ◼   ► So I don't know.

01:34:52 ◼   ► As I say, I don't think it would be difficult for me to adjust to these though because honestly

01:34:57 ◼   ► they're not that much heavier than a pair of headphones that I use for multiple hours

01:35:04 ◼   ► a week every week, which are the headphones I use when I stream.

01:35:07 ◼   ► It's like tens of grams of difference at most between the two of them.

01:35:13 ◼   ► Anything else?

01:35:14 ◼   ► I think we're going to be revisiting these in the future for sure.

01:35:17 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:35:18 ◼   ► One more thing I want to say.

01:35:20 ◼   ► I tried it again on the AirPods Max and I ended up disabling the setting once again.

01:35:27 ◼   ► Automatic device switching.

01:35:29 ◼   ► I really don't like it.

01:35:30 ◼   ► It's so hit or miss.

01:35:32 ◼   ► It just annoys me to no end that every time I'm scrolling Twitter, for example, on my

01:35:39 ◼   ► iPad, I see the little notification.

01:35:41 ◼   ► Audio switched back.

01:35:42 ◼   ► There are some apps that are bad.

01:35:44 ◼   ► That's the problem.

01:35:45 ◼   ► Apps like Twitter are bad.

01:35:48 ◼   ► I don't care though, right?

01:35:49 ◼   ► I'm not saying that's not a reason to be annoyed, but I experience this.

01:35:54 ◼   ► Twitter is the biggest culprit for me of an application that tries to grab my audio,

01:35:58 ◼   ► and I don't know why it's doing it.

01:36:01 ◼   ► Yeah. And also I don't...

01:36:03 ◼   ► It's a great feature. It is a genuinely very good feature.

01:36:07 ◼   ► It is a very great feature, but it happens so frequently.

01:36:11 ◼   ► lately I was talking to Alex in the Mac story slack and he mentioned like I

01:36:16 ◼   ► wasn't on a phone call with my mom and I was using the AirPods but then something

01:36:21 ◼   ► played on my iPad and the audio switched back and like the whole call like

01:36:26 ◼   ► switched to a different audio output like yeah I totally get it like that

01:36:30 ◼   ► that sort of thing also happened to me where it's like it's trying to be

01:36:34 ◼   ► helpful but sometimes like I still prefer the manual control you know like

01:36:41 ◼   ► also I don't have those kinds of interruptions where like my source of

01:36:46 ◼   ► audio needs to be constantly switching from one device to another like if I'm

01:36:51 ◼   ► listening to a podcast it's fine I'm gonna connect from my iPhone and then

01:36:55 ◼   ► I'm gonna start listening and then later if I'm sitting down in my iPad and I

01:36:58 ◼   ► won't listen to music that I'm gonna manually connect from there so I tried

01:37:03 ◼   ► it within a few minutes, I saw those notifications coming again and I disabled it right away.

01:37:09 ◼   ► Also, I guess one more thing, and then I'm done, I'm still getting, even though I have

01:37:18 ◼   ► set up an iPhone 12 Pro, and yesterday an iPhone 12 Pro Max, restored from backups of

01:37:25 ◼   ► course, that issue of having iOS ever so helpfully turning down my headphones

01:37:34 ◼   ► volume. I thought we learned that was an EU thing. No, but it doesn't

01:37:39 ◼   ► happen to me. So basically I have this bug that is following me around across

01:37:45 ◼   ► iCloud backups and restores because I know for a fact that this is a setting

01:37:52 ◼   ► that you can disable in settings and in health.

01:37:56 ◼   ► And I have done that.

01:37:58 ◼   ► Every day, I open the page and I look at it

01:38:01 ◼   ► to have visual confirmation that the setting is disabled.

01:38:05 ◼   ► However, it keeps wanting to lower my headphones volume.

01:38:10 ◼   ► -Got to restore your phone.

01:38:11 ◼   ► -I think I will have to, honestly, at some point.

01:38:14 ◼   ► -Yeah.

01:38:15 ◼   ► -Because every 30 minutes or so,

01:38:17 ◼   ► my headphones volume is turned down

01:38:21 ◼   ► Because the EU thinks that I'm gonna kill my ears otherwise, but and Apple agrees

01:38:27 ◼   ► But really I don't care and it's a setting that I disabled

01:38:31 ◼   ► But it doesn't care about the fact that it's turned off. It keeps happening and all the solutions that people

01:38:39 ◼   ► Sent me

01:38:40 ◼   ► Never worked. I think that does it if you want to find links to stuff

01:38:45 ◼   ► We spoke about head on over to the website relay.fm/connected/325

01:38:51 ◼   ► While you're there you can send us an email with feedback or follow-up. You can

01:38:56 ◼   ► also become a member and get Connected Pro which is a longer ad-free version of

01:39:03 ◼   ► the show each and every week. You can find us online, you can find Michael on

01:39:08 ◼   ► Twitter as @IMYKE. Myke hosts a bunch of other shows here on Real AFM. Myke, what

01:39:14 ◼   ► do you have going on this week? I would recommend that people go and check out

01:39:18 ◼   ► the yearly themes episode of Cortex, which is episode 110, which is a big episode that we do every year,

01:39:26 ◼   ► and then go and buy a theme system journal at cortexmerch.com.

01:39:30 ◼   ► You can find Federico on Twitter as @vitiicci. He is the editor-in-chief of maxstories.net.

01:39:38 ◼   ► Federico, I have a question for you.

01:39:40 ◼   ► Okay.

01:39:41 ◼   ► What is your favorite smell?

01:39:43 ◼   ► You.

01:39:44 ◼   ► Really?

01:39:47 ◼   ► I told you I was gonna do easier ones

01:39:49 ◼   ► Favorite smell? Like honestly? Yeah, you know like freshly baked cookies

01:39:55 ◼   ► Can I give you a top three? Sure. Well now so by far a top first place is

01:40:03 ◼   ► My dog Zelda's smell like she she has a like

01:40:09 ◼   ► Like she smells great honestly like even though like it's not like she takes a bath every day

01:40:17 ◼   ► but she just naturally has a very sweet smell that both Sylvia and I we

01:40:23 ◼   ► absolutely love so that's my favorite it's kind of funny really that you have a

01:40:27 ◼   ► dog called ginger and it's the one that doesn't smell as good right it's funny

01:40:31 ◼   ► Ginger doesn't smell. You need to swap their names. She's pretty smell neutral.

01:40:37 ◼   ► Does Ginger carry a sword? Although she bit me the other day. There you go.

01:40:52 ◼   ► Adventurer. Then I would say, well, I do love freshly baked pizza. It's a very good smell,

01:41:06 ◼   ► I think. Is there a particular, I mean, because different pizzas are going to smell different,

01:41:09 ◼   ► so... Yeah, does it have pineapple on it? No, I meant real pizza. No, but pizza has

01:41:16 ◼   ► different ingredients, it has different toppings. Right, but only one of them is real. Wait,

01:41:21 ◼   ► So you only eat one type of pizza?

01:41:23 ◼   ► No, I mean Italian pizza.

01:41:25 ◼   ► The smell of Italian pizza.

01:41:26 ◼   ► Italian pizza isn't one ingredient.

01:41:30 ◼   ► No, just standard margherita.

01:41:32 ◼   ► That's a drink.

01:41:32 ◼   ► There you go.

01:41:33 ◼   ► That's what answer I'm looking for.

01:41:35 ◼   ► And I also just want to say for the record,

01:41:37 ◼   ► they have different pizzas, different types of food

01:41:39 ◼   ► in different places.

01:41:40 ◼   ► And that is my belief.

01:41:42 ◼   ► You have Italian pizza, you have American pizza.

01:41:45 ◼   ► They're both great.

01:41:46 ◼   ► No, you have pizza, which is the default one, which is Italian.

01:41:49 ◼   ► And then you have the international variations of it.

01:41:52 ◼   ► And your third favorite smell?

01:41:53 ◼   ► You don't call it Italian pizza, you just call it pizza.

01:41:56 ◼   ► Third smell is in the winter, the smell of the roasting chestnuts on the fire.

01:42:08 ◼   ► You know, inside you have like a little fireplace.

01:42:10 ◼   ► Do people actually do that?

01:42:11 ◼   ► I thought that was just in the song.

01:42:12 ◼   ► I do.

01:42:13 ◼   ► People do it?

01:42:14 ◼   ► We do it.

01:42:15 ◼   ► I see street vendors do it in the UK.

01:42:18 ◼   ► In Rome as well, they do it.

01:42:19 ◼   ► Yeah, but you can do it inside.

01:42:21 ◼   ► If you have a fireplace, you can do it.

01:42:24 ◼   ► We do.

01:42:25 ◼   ► And it smells great.

01:42:26 ◼   ► Like I think in general, roasting anything on, you know,

01:42:30 ◼   ► meat, chestnuts, like anything really just.

01:42:33 ◼   ► And it's both the smell and the sound, you know,

01:42:36 ◼   ► the crackling sound of it.

01:42:37 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:42:38 ◼   ► It's a multi, what would you call it?

01:42:41 ◼   ► Multi-sensorial experience, I guess?

01:42:44 ◼   ► - You can find me on Twitter as ISMH

01:42:47 ◼   ► And tomorrow I will be making the PowerBook G4 very fast

01:42:52 ◼   ► with an SSD over on Twitch.

01:42:53 ◼   ► So if you're around, come check that out.

01:42:55 ◼   ► I'd like to thank our sponsors this week.

01:42:57 ◼   ► They are Hover, Mack Weldon and Pingdom.

01:43:01 ◼   ► Until next time guys, say goodbye.

01:43:04 ◼   ► - Adios, El Chirio.

01:43:05 ◼   ► - Cheerio. - Bye y'all.