Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► [MUSIC]

00:00:07 ◼   ► >> From Relay FM, This is Connected, Episode 504.

00:00:11 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by our excellent sponsors, Zuck Talk, Tailscale, and Cell Trios.

00:00:16 ◼   ► I'm Federico Vittucci, and I'm joined, as always, by Mr. Steven Hackett. Hello, Steven.

00:00:21 ◼   ► >> Hello, Federico. How are you?

00:00:23 ◼   ► >> Hi. I am good. I am doing very well. How are you?

00:00:26 ◼   ► I am well, and I would like to ask the person I'm joined by, Mike Hurley, how they are doing.

00:00:32 ◼   ► Hi, Mike. How are you?

00:00:34 ◼   ► >> I'm really good because of this feedback from Ajesh that came into Connected Feedback.

00:00:38 ◼   ► >> Whoa, you're just jumping right in.

00:00:40 ◼   ► >> Ajesh says, well, because this is introduction-related follow-up.

00:00:46 ◼   ► I had an epiphany. I really like the idea of the Ricky winners getting more than just bragging rights.

00:00:51 ◼   ► The Twitter handles were hit and miss, and now you don't use Twitter.

00:00:54 ◼   ► How about if the winners have to be referred as such during the introduction of the show?

00:01:00 ◼   ► I think this is a great idea.

00:01:03 ◼   ► The constant reminder of who is in fact chairman.

00:01:07 ◼   ► So, Steven, why don't you reintroduce me to this episode?

00:01:11 ◼   ► >> [Sighs] This is degrading.

00:01:14 ◼   ► >> Reintroduce me, Steven.

00:01:17 ◼   ► My name is Steven Hackett, and I am joined by our annual and keynote chairman, Mike Hurley.

00:01:24 ◼   ► >> Why, thank you very much.

00:01:26 ◼   ► I would also, at this point, like to propose a rule amendment that we can get to later on of a combined title.

00:01:34 ◼   ► >> So, and what would that be? Dual chairman?

00:01:38 ◼   ► >> His Excellency, the ultimate chairman.

00:01:40 ◼   ► >> Oh, my God. Okay. Okay.

00:01:43 ◼   ► >> We could do like what we do for the flexies, which is to choose, right?

00:01:48 ◼   ► That in the event that the three of, that we hold both, we each have our own title.

00:01:56 ◼   ► >> See, I kind of like the idea that it is less a title that we choose,

00:02:03 ◼   ► but one that is bestowed upon us, like president or something like that.

00:02:09 ◼   ► So, we have one title, and whoever has both gets to use that title.

00:02:15 ◼   ► >> But that isn't how the flexies works, right?

00:02:17 ◼   ► >> But the flexies is a different, but related game.

00:02:19 ◼   ► >> It's a different game, different but related game.

00:02:21 ◼   ► Okay, we can workshop that next week, I guess.

00:02:25 ◼   ► >> Oh, gosh.

00:02:26 ◼   ► >> Oh, no, it's coming so soon.

00:02:29 ◼   ► We can workshop that next week, but I like the idea of a combined title for a person who holds both.

00:02:34 ◼   ► >> You might not be combined much longer.

00:02:37 ◼   ► If you lose --

00:02:37 ◼   ► >> Well, I'll still be one.

00:02:39 ◼   ► >> If you lose WWDC.

00:02:40 ◼   ► >> Yeah, yeah.

00:02:41 ◼   ► >> Enjoy this while it lasts.

00:02:42 ◼   ► >> I could also just win WWDC, which would be no problem for me, and continue my combined title.

00:02:49 ◼   ► >> Does anyone really win WWDC when it's about AI?

00:02:54 ◼   ► >> I'll win.

00:02:55 ◼   ► >> Well, or we'll lose.

00:02:56 ◼   ► >> Because I'll win the Riki's, and I'll win the draft, because that's just me.

00:02:59 ◼   ► Win, win, win.

00:03:00 ◼   ► >> Wow.

00:03:02 ◼   ► >> Mm-hmm.

00:03:03 ◼   ► Well, I've undefeated in the draft for nearly two years, so it's going great for me so far.

00:03:08 ◼   ► >> What is the saying?

00:03:09 ◼   ► "Pride goeth before fall"?

00:03:11 ◼   ► So, I think.

00:03:13 ◼   ► >> Yeah, well, I can't lose my annual championship for a while, so I still have something, no matter what happens.

00:03:17 ◼   ► >> That's true.

00:03:19 ◼   ► Let's do some regular follow-up.

00:03:21 ◼   ► Federico, tell us about squeezing your Apple Pencil.

00:03:24 ◼   ► >> It didn't work for like a solid ten days, and I just -- like, I thought I was going crazy.

00:03:30 ◼   ► Like, everybody was enjoying this squeeze functionality, and it just wasn't working for me.

00:03:35 ◼   ► And that's when somebody on Mastodon alerted me that it was likely due to a setting that I had previously disabled,

00:03:44 ◼   ► a setting that is completely unrelated to the squeezing of the Apple Pencil Pro.

00:03:49 ◼   ► So, it turns out, because I had previously, with my Apple Pencil 2, disabled the double-tap gesture in accessibility,

00:04:00 ◼   ► because I never used it, and in fact, it was like, more often than not, I would accidentally trigger the double-tap,

00:04:09 ◼   ► then intentionally use the double-tap, so I disabled it.

00:04:13 ◼   ► But with that setting turned off, squeezing the Apple Pencil, like configuring the squeeze gesture,

00:04:20 ◼   ► my preference wouldn't stick.

00:04:23 ◼   ► And so, whenever I would go into settings, and I would assign a command to the squeeze gesture,

00:04:29 ◼   ► it wouldn't get assigned at all, and the squeeze would do nothing.

00:04:33 ◼   ► So, I had to re-enable the double-tap gesture, and somehow, magically, that also made the squeeze feature work.

00:04:43 ◼   ► So, if you, like me, years ago disabled double-tap on your Apple Pencil 2, you have to re-enable it for now,

00:04:52 ◼   ► if you want to use the squeeze gesture on your Apple Pencil Pro.

00:04:57 ◼   ► It's weird. I don't understand why. I hope it gets fixed.

00:05:01 ◼   ► Like, let me choose. Maybe I want to use squeeze, but I don't want to use double-tap.

00:05:06 ◼   ► But that's the fix for now.

00:05:09 ◼   ► Can't you turn off double-tap in the Pencil settings?

00:05:13 ◼   ► I guess you can, but I don't know.

00:05:15 ◼   ► So, why would you need to turn off in the accessibility settings?

00:05:18 ◼   ► Look, I don't know. This happened years ago.

00:05:20 ◼   ► No, I mean, like you say, to fix it, but I think it is taken care of now.

00:05:24 ◼   ► I think you can disable double-tap, but leave squeeze in the actual Pencil settings.

00:05:29 ◼   ► Well, there you go.

00:05:31 ◼   ► Actually, I don't even know why I got the Pencil Pro, honestly.

00:05:36 ◼   ► Because it always sits in this mug that I keep on my desk with my knitted Ricky,

00:05:43 ◼   ► or I guess knitted weird fish thing.

00:05:47 ◼   ► It's always in that mug, and I never use it.

00:05:49 ◼   ► But yeah, I guess I could do that. Just go in and disable it again, and it'll keep working.

00:05:55 ◼   ► Yeah, you're probably right.

00:05:58 ◼   ► iOS 17.5.1 is out.

00:06:04 ◼   ► It fixed the "Oh no, my deleted photos are back."

00:06:08 ◼   ► And at the end of the week last week, Apple commented on this to Chance Miller,

00:06:14 ◼   ► our friend over at 9to5Mac.

00:06:16 ◼   ► This is from Chance's article.

00:06:18 ◼   ► According to Apple, the photos that did not fully delete from a user's device

00:06:22 ◼   ► were not synced to iCloud Photos.

00:06:24 ◼   ► Those files were only on the device itself.

00:06:27 ◼   ► However, they could have persisted from one device to another when restoring from backup,

00:06:31 ◼   ► performing a device-to-device transfer, or when restoring from an iCloud backup,

00:06:35 ◼   ► but not using iCloud Photos.

00:06:38 ◼   ► It seems that this was some sort of database corruption where the photo wasn't deleted,

00:06:42 ◼   ► but it was supposed to be, and then it would pop back up.

00:06:46 ◼   ► I am very glad that this was not part of an iCloud Photos bug.

00:06:50 ◼   ► That would have, as bad as this is, I feel like that would have been even scarier.

00:06:56 ◼   ► Yes.

00:06:57 ◼   ► Apple also commented on the, or Chance commented at least,

00:07:02 ◼   ► on the report that photos were showing up on sold devices.

00:07:06 ◼   ► That was untrue, and that Reddit post that said that has now been deleted.

00:07:11 ◼   ► And you know, maybe don't believe everything you read on Reddit.

00:07:14 ◼   ► And if you're Google, maybe don't power your new search by Reddit comments.

00:07:18 ◼   ► In his article, Chance says that Apple confirmed to him that that wasn't possible.

00:07:25 ◼   ► Okay, good.

00:07:26 ◼   ► Good.

00:07:27 ◼   ► That is good.

00:07:28 ◼   ► Sometimes you just have to restore your phone,

00:07:31 ◼   ► and if you do that, then these things won't happen, you know?

00:07:34 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:07:35 ◼   ► OpenAI has shown documents, video, and images to the Washington Post platformers and other,

00:07:42 ◼   ► that they report is evidence that OpenAI did hire a voice actor for the Sky voice.

00:07:48 ◼   ► And you know, there's video that are basically in essence saying

00:07:54 ◼   ► they didn't create a voice that sounded like Scarlett Johansson.

00:07:57 ◼   ► They hired, they were like a casting process for a bunch of actors.

00:08:01 ◼   ► They hired one, and it just so happened, coincidentally,

00:08:06 ◼   ► that this person sounded like Scarlett Johansson.

00:08:09 ◼   ► I still think that it is either A, completely obvious that they tried to find someone that sounded just like her.

00:08:16 ◼   ► I do not fully believe personally that they did not meddle with this voice to make it sound more like her.

00:08:22 ◼   ► I cannot bring myself to believe that this is coincidental.

00:08:25 ◼   ► I also do not believe what OpenAI is saying that Johansson,

00:08:30 ◼   ► if she said yes, was going to be a sixth voice added to their roster.

00:08:36 ◼   ► Yes, sure.

00:08:39 ◼   ► Alongside the voice that just so happened coincidentally to sound so much like her.

00:08:44 ◼   ► And apparently only Sam Altman was responsible for this.

00:08:48 ◼   ► Nobody else at OpenAI even knew about it.

00:08:50 ◼   ► Cool.

00:08:51 ◼   ► There's so much in this.

00:08:52 ◼   ► I just can't bring myself to believe, but that's just the way, that's just what they're saying.

00:08:58 ◼   ► It's...

00:09:00 ◼   ► Yeah, okay.

00:09:01 ◼   ► It's such a mess.

00:09:02 ◼   ► I mean, we're not really getting into this today,

00:09:05 ◼   ► but there's also reporting from The Verge and others about some other things about like the coup that Sam Altman was out and then back in.

00:09:12 ◼   ► Former board members are talking about that now.

00:09:16 ◼   ► And the new safety team, because a bunch of the old safety team left, is run by Sam Altman.

00:09:22 ◼   ► It is incredible to me to watch this company speed run errors and bad decisions that companies normally make over a much longer period of time.

00:09:33 ◼   ► I find it very difficult to believe anything that comes out of that company in terms of official communication because they backtrack on almost all of it.

00:09:43 ◼   ► Or to your point, Mike, it just doesn't make any sense of what we all saw with our own eyes.

00:09:48 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:09:49 ◼   ► What I like is like, you know, LLM development seems to be happening really quickly, right?

00:09:56 ◼   ► Like it's like, wow, this stuff is happening.

00:09:58 ◼   ► And it's the same for the companies, right?

00:10:00 ◼   ► That like they're doing things faster than normal.

00:10:03 ◼   ► It's like, ah, it's all going wild.

00:10:06 ◼   ► I will say like, you know, this isn't a defense because clearly I don't really feel a lot of defense in this company.

00:10:13 ◼   ► That safety team, I don't, this is like one of these things where like headlines are one thing and the information is another.

00:10:21 ◼   ► Like I will read from The Verge's article titled Open AI has a new safety team is run by Sam Altman.

00:10:28 ◼   ► Open AI is forming a new safety team and it's led by Sam Altman along with board members, Adam DiAngelo and Nicole Seligman.

00:10:35 ◼   ► So it's actually three people.

00:10:37 ◼   ► So, you know.

00:10:39 ◼   ► The board that he is now handpicked, like I just, I find it difficult to trust Sam Altman and his position at the moment.

00:10:46 ◼   ► I think it's clear that I agree, but it's just, it was just the headlines annoyed me with that one where it's like, it's run by him.

00:10:53 ◼   ► But then the first paragraph was like, and two other people.

00:10:57 ◼   ► And it's like, all right, but I don't know anything about these two other people.

00:11:00 ◼   ► Maybe they're great at this.

00:11:01 ◼   ► Well, you know, now Open AI will suck that Verge article into itself because Vox signed a deal with Open AI today.

00:11:08 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:11:09 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:11:10 ◼   ► Things are going great.

00:11:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:11:13 ◼   ► Things are going great.

00:11:14 ◼   ► Let me ask you all like a, like a 10,000 foot question here.

00:11:17 ◼   ► Love it.

00:11:18 ◼   ► If you're Microsoft or Apple, particularly Apple who apparently is running around the last minute trying to sign deals with Open AI.

00:11:25 ◼   ► Like does this sort of behavior give you pause about that?

00:11:31 ◼   ► Or do you think these companies are kind of looking the other way at all their chaos because they need their technology?

00:11:38 ◼   ► Well, I think, I think we spoke about this.

00:11:40 ◼   ► I think it's clear Microsoft already had that pause.

00:11:42 ◼   ► Right.

00:11:43 ◼   ► And they're now doing what they're like, they're doing things.

00:11:47 ◼   ► I think if we see Open AI as part of WWDC, it shows how panicked Apple is.

00:11:56 ◼   ► Right?

00:12:00 ◼   ► That's a good answer.

00:12:01 ◼   ► If they have a deal with them, the deal continues after all of the nonsense that they've been through already and just the nonsense of the last few weeks.

00:12:11 ◼   ► I think it shows that, that they are behind and that they're nervous.

00:12:19 ◼   ► I think, I think that's a good answer.

00:12:21 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:12:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:12:23 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:12:24 ◼   ► Especially if they make a big deal about it and they actually mention, even mention Open AI or say powered by Open AI.

00:12:31 ◼   ► Like, yeah, I agree.

00:12:34 ◼   ► That's a good take.

00:12:35 ◼   ► What do you think?

00:12:37 ◼   ► I don't know if this might form part of next week, but we'll see. What do you think is the chance that Sam Altman is a part of the video?

00:12:45 ◼   ► A pretty good chance.

00:12:47 ◼   ► Yeah?

00:12:48 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:12:49 ◼   ► I can see it.

00:12:50 ◼   ► I mean, I think he would want it, right? Which is like part of why it might happen.

00:12:55 ◼   ► He's been on Apple stage before wearing two polo shirts.

00:12:58 ◼   ► He sure has.

00:12:59 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:13:00 ◼   ► Hey, look, it was a style at the time, I guess.

00:13:02 ◼   ► It was not.

00:13:03 ◼   ► Yeah, but I mean, look, look, we had the guy from AT&T, the guy from Verizon. We've had many guys on stage at WWDC. What's one more guy, you know?

00:13:13 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:13:14 ◼   ► That's a good point.

00:13:15 ◼   ► That's a good point.

00:13:16 ◼   ► I think it's like 50/50 that he would, that he would be on stage.

00:13:22 ◼   ► I think it really depends on, and this is like my singular question going into WWDC, is how in the world does Apple talk about this, like where the lines are between what they're doing with Siri and what is happening elsewhere?

00:13:38 ◼   ► And it's, I think it all depends on like where, how they describe that.

00:13:43 ◼   ► You know, they may just say, oh, we have partners and not mention OpenAI by name, or they go all in and saying, hey, we went to the best.

00:13:50 ◼   ► And then, you know, have him out with his, with his dual polo shirts.

00:13:56 ◼   ► Who is this video for? Right?

00:14:01 ◼   ► And that's the question.

00:14:02 ◼   ► Who is, who is this announcement going to be for?

00:14:04 ◼   ► And I think that that, I mean, I don't have an answer for that, right?

00:14:07 ◼   ► But like if Apple wants to speak to the wide tech community and their investors and the stock market, they say it's OpenAI because they are the leader.

00:14:17 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:14:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:14:19 ◼   ► Okay.

00:14:20 ◼   ► Well.

00:14:21 ◼   ► Can we talk about headphones?

00:14:22 ◼   ► Please.

00:14:23 ◼   ► So we've all been wondering what the deal is with the new generation of AirPods Max.

00:14:30 ◼   ► And for a while, I think Mark Gurman has been saying that Apple was working on a second generation of the AirPods Max, which launched in 2020, I want to say.

00:14:42 ◼   ► Was that four years ago?

00:14:44 ◼   ► I think that was one of the many products where they were just like, and here's the website, because no one knew what was going on.

00:14:51 ◼   ► So it was like, here you go.

00:14:52 ◼   ► And it's like, oh, I guess this has happened.

00:14:55 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:14:56 ◼   ► So, yeah.

00:14:57 ◼   ► But the thing is that based on one of the, one of the most recent reports by Mark Gurman, it seems like this is going to be a relatively minor update, according to what Mark has heard so far.

00:15:11 ◼   ► He said, I expect the AirPods Max to get a USB-C port later this year, but it wouldn't hold my breath for any major new features.

00:15:20 ◼   ► Are we looking at just the old AirPods Max, but with USB instead of lightning?

00:15:26 ◼   ► That would suck.

00:15:27 ◼   ► Like, for me, anything less than bringing it to feature parity of the AirPods Pro 2 is a failure.

00:15:34 ◼   ► Yes.

00:15:35 ◼   ► Yeah.

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00:15:37 ◼   ► So I think that's a good thing.

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00:17:09 ◼   ► I think that's a good thing.

00:17:10 ◼   ► I think that's a good thing.

00:17:11 ◼   ► I think that's a good thing.

00:17:12 ◼   ► I think that's a good thing.

00:17:13 ◼   ► I think that's a good thing.

00:17:14 ◼   ► I think that's a good thing.

00:17:15 ◼   ► I think that's a good thing.

00:17:16 ◼   ► I think that's a good thing.

00:17:18 ◼   ► Do you ever think about getting a stronger neck?

00:17:20 ◼   ► Wow.

00:17:22 ◼   ► Do you ever consider it?

00:17:24 ◼   ► I need to find a neck guy.

00:17:25 ◼   ► The things the F1 drivers do.

00:17:30 ◼   ► What we were all getting ready for the Vision Pro with, you know?

00:17:33 ◼   ► That's right, yeah.

00:17:34 ◼   ► Speaking of Steven and AirPods, Duncan says,

00:17:36 ◼   ► "I fully endorse Steven's one AirPod at a time approach.

00:17:39 ◼   ► It's my most common way of listening.

00:17:41 ◼   ► It means I can hear traffic when I'm walking my dogs.

00:17:43 ◼   ► Maybe it's a dad thing."

00:17:45 ◼   ► Do you think it's a dad thing?

00:17:46 ◼   ► I think it's a thing that people don't want to get hit by cars.

00:17:49 ◼   ► I don't think that's related just to dads.

00:17:50 ◼   ► Could be.

00:17:52 ◼   ► But, yeah, I'm a big one AirPod person.

00:17:57 ◼   ► I should say, and maybe I should have clarified,

00:18:00 ◼   ► that I also fully embrace Steven's approach.

00:18:03 ◼   ► I think Steven is doing the right thing,

00:18:05 ◼   ► and I'm also like a one AirPod at a time person.

00:18:09 ◼   ► I think it's the right approach.

00:18:11 ◼   ► Even though, as we'll talk about later,

00:18:13 ◼   ► I now have a preferred way to listen to podcasts or music

00:18:17 ◼   ► when I'm walking the dogs,

00:18:19 ◼   ► but we'll get to that in a few minutes.

00:18:21 ◼   ► But, yeah, when I'm using AirPods, one AirPod.

00:18:25 ◼   ► So, yeah, Steven is right. I'm sorry.

00:18:29 ◼   ► Thank you. Thank you for thinking of me.

00:18:32 ◼   ► Yeah, always.

00:18:34 ◼   ► Ben wrote in,

00:18:38 ◼   ► "I was listening to the discussion about OpenAI Spring Update

00:18:42 ◼   ► on episode 502,

00:18:44 ◼   ► and I thought of the rumors of the capture button on the next iPhone.

00:18:47 ◼   ► If Apple were to partner with OpenAI,

00:18:49 ◼   ► do you think that button would be used to show Siri what you're looking at

00:18:53 ◼   ► and compete with other devices like the R1 and AI pen

00:18:56 ◼   ► rather than just capture video?"

00:18:58 ◼   ► I thought we talked about this,

00:19:01 ◼   ► but I think this is totally in the cards.

00:19:03 ◼   ► I don't remember if we spoke about it

00:19:05 ◼   ► or if we heard someone else on another show talk about it.

00:19:07 ◼   ► I know I've heard this, but, like, yes,

00:19:09 ◼   ► I think there is some sense in this.

00:19:11 ◼   ► I just got those Meta Ray bands.

00:19:13 ◼   ► I'm going to talk about them later on in the show.

00:19:15 ◼   ► And I think there is something to be said

00:19:18 ◼   ► about, like, a dedicated button for quick action.

00:19:21 ◼   ► Like, I think it's going to be really good to have the button to take photos,

00:19:24 ◼   ► but I think it would be really interesting if you, like, held down the button

00:19:27 ◼   ► and just started, like, talking to Siri and asking it stuff.

00:19:30 ◼   ► Like, "What do you see? What is this?"

00:19:32 ◼   ► I think that could be kind of cool.

00:19:33 ◼   ► Or maybe the action button. Like, it's an action button thing.

00:19:36 ◼   ► Or whatever, right?

00:19:37 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:19:39 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:19:41 ◼   ► I think -- did we talk about the action button?

00:19:43 ◼   ► Unconnected? Recently?

00:19:46 ◼   ► Yes.

00:19:47 ◼   ► Did? Okay.

00:19:48 ◼   ► I just -- I had someone ask me in real life what I was doing with it.

00:19:51 ◼   ► I was like, "Did we talk about this on a podcast?"

00:19:53 ◼   ► But --

00:19:54 ◼   ► We did.

00:19:55 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:19:56 ◼   ► Action.

00:19:57 ◼   ► I just want to -- what I should do is set up a shortcut that just says "Action"

00:20:00 ◼   ► in, like, a deep, like, movie villain voice.

00:20:04 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:20:05 ◼   ► Okay.

00:20:06 ◼   ► The action button.

00:20:07 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:20:08 ◼   ► And what will that get you?

00:20:09 ◼   ► Action.

00:20:11 ◼   ► Okay.

00:20:12 ◼   ► Oh, okay.

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00:22:01 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:22:03 ◼   ► Oh no!

00:22:04 ◼   ► Welcome back to The Quizzies, the quiz show within a podcast,

00:22:07 ◼   ► where I, Mike Hurley, quiz my connected co-hosts randomly

00:22:10 ◼   ► and by surprise on a variety of varying subjects.

00:22:14 ◼   ► I would like to remind you of the scores, the accurate scores,

00:22:18 ◼   ► so far this year in 2024.

00:22:20 ◼   ► Steven is on 370 points.

00:22:22 ◼   ► Federico is on 490 points.

00:22:26 ◼   ► Looking at my scoring sheet here,

00:22:28 ◼   ► I just glanced back to 2022 where Steven won with 10,000 points.

00:22:32 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:22:33 ◼   ► So there was…

00:22:34 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:22:35 ◼   ► Inflation, point inflation.

00:22:37 ◼   ► I feel like I've done a good job here.

00:22:39 ◼   ► No, it's deflation because we need to get that in line.

00:22:44 ◼   ► Today we're playing a new game.

00:22:46 ◼   ► It's called Know Your Pro.

00:22:49 ◼   ► Okay.

00:22:51 ◼   ► I have a selection of questions.

00:22:55 ◼   ► There are six questions in total.

00:22:57 ◼   ► Three questions are about the iPad Pro.

00:23:00 ◼   ► Three questions are about the MacBook Pro.

00:23:03 ◼   ► Oh, okay.

00:23:05 ◼   ► There's 25 points per correct answer.

00:23:08 ◼   ► And Federico will answer the Mac questions first

00:23:12 ◼   ► and Steven will answer the iPad questions first.

00:23:15 ◼   ► You both get to give answers to each question.

00:23:18 ◼   ► Does that make sense?

00:23:19 ◼   ► Yep, yep.

00:23:21 ◼   ► So the first question, which is an iPad question,

00:23:24 ◼   ► will go to Steven and then we'll alternate from there.

00:23:26 ◼   ► So Steven, you'll both get to answer but Steven gets to answer first.

00:23:30 ◼   ► Steven, what was the name of the processor in the original iPad Pro?

00:23:36 ◼   ► The original iPad Pro was powered by the A9X.

00:23:43 ◼   ► Okay. Federico?

00:23:45 ◼   ► Original iPad Pro, that's 2015.

00:23:51 ◼   ► You don't know what my questions are.

00:23:55 ◼   ► You might not want to give away data like that.

00:23:57 ◼   ► Well, okay.

00:23:59 ◼   ► Keep talking out loud, buddy.

00:24:01 ◼   ► It was November 2015, all right.

00:24:04 ◼   ► It was 2015, yes.

00:24:05 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:24:06 ◼   ► A9X.

00:24:07 ◼   ► It's 25 points each.

00:24:09 ◼   ► It was in fact the A9X.

00:24:11 ◼   ► All right.

00:24:12 ◼   ► The original iPad Pro.

00:24:14 ◼   ► Federico.

00:24:15 ◼   ► I got to that because I was like, okay, the A7 was 2013.

00:24:21 ◼   ► And so I was like counting on my fingers like, hey, A7, A9, and it worked out.

00:24:26 ◼   ► You counted quickly because you gave me a fast answer.

00:24:29 ◼   ► I just had to count by two to be fair.

00:24:31 ◼   ► It wasn't amazing arithmetic on my part.

00:24:36 ◼   ► It would have taken me a while to do that counting.

00:24:38 ◼   ► All right, get an abacus out of there.

00:24:39 ◼   ► Well, you're doing it in metric.

00:24:40 ◼   ► You know, it's different.

00:24:41 ◼   ► It is different, the conversion.

00:24:43 ◼   ► Federico, how many USB-C ports did the final Intel 16-inch MacBook Pro have?

00:24:51 ◼   ► USB-C.

00:24:52 ◼   ► USB-C.

00:24:54 ◼   ► Final Intel 16-inch.

00:24:57 ◼   ► MacBook Pro.

00:24:58 ◼   ► Two.

00:24:59 ◼   ► From 2019, if that helps.

00:25:01 ◼   ► Two ports.

00:25:02 ◼   ► You shouldn't, but it might.

00:25:03 ◼   ► You think two?

00:25:04 ◼   ► Two ports.

00:25:05 ◼   ► Steven?

00:25:06 ◼   ► You said the 16-inch?

00:25:07 ◼   ► Yeah, the final Intel 16-inch MacBook Pro from 2019.

00:25:11 ◼   ► How many USB-C ports did it have?

00:25:13 ◼   ► It had four.

00:25:14 ◼   ► Also, I think it's the only 16-inch Intel MacBook Pro.

00:25:18 ◼   ► They only did one.

00:25:19 ◼   ► So first and last.

00:25:20 ◼   ► You do not get extra points for trivia, but I appreciate it.

00:25:23 ◼   ► That is 25 points to Steven.

00:25:25 ◼   ► It had four.

00:25:26 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:25:27 ◼   ► So we're so far 50 points to Steven, 25 points to Federico.

00:25:32 ◼   ► Who's the pro now?

00:25:33 ◼   ► We'll find out.

00:25:34 ◼   ► We've only done two out of the six questions.

00:25:37 ◼   ► That may have been a premature.

00:25:39 ◼   ► It may have been premature, yeah.

00:25:41 ◼   ► Steven, in which year was the 10.5-inch iPad Pro released?

00:25:48 ◼   ► 2017.

00:25:49 ◼   ► Federico?

00:25:50 ◼   ► 2017.

00:25:51 ◼   ► It was 2017.

00:25:52 ◼   ► WVDC, I think.

00:25:53 ◼   ► Yep.

00:25:54 ◼   ► Steven, are you going to get a clean sweep?

00:25:56 ◼   ► We're halfway through.

00:25:57 ◼   ► Steven, are you going to get more, right?

00:25:59 ◼   ► I hope so.

00:26:00 ◼   ► Federico, do you think you're going to beat him?

00:26:03 ◼   ► No.

00:26:04 ◼   ► Okay.

00:26:05 ◼   ► Oh, no.

00:26:06 ◼   ► Okay.

00:26:07 ◼   ► So one co-host incredibly confident, the other not confident at all.

00:26:11 ◼   ► Federico.

00:26:12 ◼   ► Yeah, I've become a humble person.

00:26:14 ◼   ► It's one of my many qualities.

00:26:16 ◼   ► Oh, okay.

00:26:18 ◼   ► When did that happen?

00:26:20 ◼   ► Just out of interest?

00:26:22 ◼   ► Is that recent?

00:26:23 ◼   ► Yeah, I always go through a lot of improvements.

00:26:25 ◼   ► Right.

00:26:26 ◼   ► And this is one of the most recent ones.

00:26:29 ◼   ► That's really good.

00:26:30 ◼   ► That's incredible.

00:26:31 ◼   ► We now get to question three.

00:26:34 ◼   ► Federico, what was the maximum amount of RAM that you could put into the first 14-inch

00:26:40 ◼   ► M1 Pro/M1 Max Max?

00:26:43 ◼   ► 14-inch M1 Pro/M1 Max MacBook Pro.

00:26:47 ◼   ► What the hell do I know?

00:26:50 ◼   ► What?

00:26:51 ◼   ► Can you repeat that?

00:26:52 ◼   ► What was the maximum amount of RAM that you could put into the first 14-inch M1 Pro/M1

00:27:00 ◼   ► Max MacBook Pro?

00:27:02 ◼   ► You know what?

00:27:03 ◼   ► I'm going to make this question slightly easier because it's a bit confusing.

00:27:07 ◼   ► And I also feel like there could be some rules lawyering later on.

00:27:10 ◼   ► So the question is, what was the maximum amount of RAM that you could put into the first 14-inch

00:27:16 ◼   ► M1 Max MacBook Pro?

00:27:19 ◼   ► 32 gig.

00:27:23 ◼   ► Okay.

00:27:24 ◼   ► Steven?

00:27:25 ◼   ► I would like to answer the original question.

00:27:27 ◼   ► The M1 Pro, I believe, was capped at 32 gigabytes and the M1 Max was at 64.

00:27:33 ◼   ► Okay.

00:27:35 ◼   ► I don't know why you feel the need to be a teacher's pet today, but you are correct.

00:27:39 ◼   ► You are correct.

00:27:40 ◼   ► And what I will say is this information was taken from Apple's Tech Specs page.

00:27:44 ◼   ► Okay.

00:27:45 ◼   ► And they said M1 Pro/M1 Max maximum RAM, 64 gigabytes.

00:27:49 ◼   ► Do with that what you will.

00:27:51 ◼   ► But it was in fact 64 gigabytes.

00:27:53 ◼   ► 64 gigabytes.

00:27:54 ◼   ► Steven, you were correct.

00:27:55 ◼   ► I don't know if you were correct on your extra credit, but you were correct for the question.

00:27:58 ◼   ► It's a good computer, man.

00:27:59 ◼   ► I love the 14-inch.

00:28:00 ◼   ► I'm using one right now.

00:28:02 ◼   ► It's great.

00:28:03 ◼   ► Steven, which generation of the 12.9-inch iPad Pro was the first to get Face ID?

00:28:10 ◼   ► Which generation?

00:28:12 ◼   ► You're looking for like the generation number?

00:28:14 ◼   ► Yes.

00:28:15 ◼   ► Not the year.

00:28:17 ◼   ► Not the year.

00:28:18 ◼   ► I want the generation number.

00:28:19 ◼   ► Oh, boy.

00:28:20 ◼   ► Which generation of the 12.9-inch iPad Pro was the first to get Face ID?

00:28:25 ◼   ► That's the hardest question I think I've gotten so far.

00:28:28 ◼   ► I'm going to say third.

00:28:31 ◼   ► Okay.

00:28:32 ◼   ► Third gen.

00:28:33 ◼   ► It was in fact the third gen.

00:28:35 ◼   ► Come on, Mike.

00:28:36 ◼   ► These iPad questions are so easy and the Mac ones are impossible.

00:28:39 ◼   ► I feel the same way, but inside out.

00:28:43 ◼   ► This is why I split it this way because I know you'd both feel like this, right?

00:28:48 ◼   ► Like this is why I did iPad and Mac.

00:28:52 ◼   ► Well, I actually honestly, I think the Mac questions are harder and that was kind of,

00:28:58 ◼   ► I don't, so how is that?

00:29:00 ◼   ► That's not more fair for Steven, is it?

00:29:03 ◼   ► If they're harder questions.

00:29:04 ◼   ► No.

00:29:05 ◼   ► It's unfair to me.

00:29:07 ◼   ► But they're hard questions.

00:29:09 ◼   ► They're hard for you.

00:29:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:29:11 ◼   ► Anyway, final question.

00:29:13 ◼   ► What is the maximum amount of external displays that the M3 Max MacBook Pro will support, Federico?

00:29:22 ◼   ► I have no idea.

00:29:24 ◼   ► The maximum amount.

00:29:26 ◼   ► I just need a number.

00:29:27 ◼   ► I have no, absolutely no clue.

00:29:31 ◼   ► Three.

00:29:33 ◼   ► Steven?

00:29:35 ◼   ► Ask it one more time.

00:29:37 ◼   ► I'm going to make sure I followed it.

00:29:39 ◼   ► What is the maximum amount, let's say the maximum total of external displays that the M3 Max MacBook Pro can support?

00:29:49 ◼   ► I'm going to say three.

00:29:55 ◼   ► Unfortunately, you both got that question wrong.

00:29:57 ◼   ► The answer is four.

00:29:59 ◼   ► So Steven, you did not get.

00:30:01 ◼   ► No.

00:30:02 ◼   ► So what you can take away from this Federico is you did at least win your prediction, you know?

00:30:08 ◼   ► When you said you were going to lose, Steven lost his prediction.

00:30:11 ◼   ► The final points is 75 points for Federico and 125 points for Steven.

00:30:16 ◼   ► I will read you, read to you from Apple's technical support document.

00:30:22 ◼   ► About the M3 Max MacBook Pro where they say, this is incredibly complicated the way they write this.

00:30:28 ◼   ► Up to three external displays at 6K resolution at 60 hertz over Thunderbolt and one external display of up to 4K resolution at 144 hertz over HDMI.

00:30:38 ◼   ► Okay.

00:30:40 ◼   ► I don't know why they need to do it that way.

00:30:42 ◼   ► That's very confusing.

00:30:44 ◼   ► You can have four, three of them can be this, but this other one can be this other one, but it can only be over HDMI.

00:30:49 ◼   ► It's like, okay, thank you very much.

00:30:52 ◼   ► So at the end of that game, the points have shifted.

00:30:57 ◼   ► Steven has 495 points for the year.

00:31:00 ◼   ► Federico has 565 points.

00:31:03 ◼   ► So Federico is still in the lead.

00:31:05 ◼   ► Still in the lead, but the gap has shifted by a little bit.

00:31:10 ◼   ► Thank you so much for listening.

00:31:13 ◼   ► Maybe next time don't put down news questions like, what's the maximum amount of value that you can get?

00:31:18 ◼   ► What's the maximum amount of RAM that you can put on an M1 Max MacBook Pro?

00:31:22 ◼   ► So would you have liked me to ask easier questions for Steven?

00:31:26 ◼   ► When did the iPad get face ID?

00:31:28 ◼   ► I knew the year.

00:31:30 ◼   ► I asked which generation of the 12.9 inch iPad Pro was the first.

00:31:34 ◼   ► So what you would like next time if I'm understanding Federico is for Steven to have easier questions?

00:31:39 ◼   ► Well, no.

00:31:41 ◼   ► Yes.

00:31:43 ◼   ► Okay.

00:31:45 ◼   ► No, yes.

00:31:46 ◼   ► Take that no yes away with me and we'll use it for the next game.

00:31:50 ◼   ► Thank you for listening and thank you for participating in the humble manner of which you both participated in this edition of the quizzes.

00:31:58 ◼   ► This episode of the show is brought to you by Tailscale, a programmable networking software that is private and secure by default.

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00:33:14 ◼   ► Our thanks to Tailscale for their support of the show and Relay FM.

00:33:18 ◼   ► WWDC 2024 has been announced.

00:33:23 ◼   ► Well, I mean, we already knew. Announced is wrong.

00:33:27 ◼   ► They're surprising us by saying there's going to be a keynote in the morning.

00:33:32 ◼   ► It starts at 10 a.m. Pacific Time.

00:33:34 ◼   ► Platform State of the Union is at 1 p.m.

00:33:37 ◼   ► I saw somebody on Mastodon saying that that time gap is getting shorter and shorter over the years.

00:33:42 ◼   ► It is. Yeah, it used to be able to go for a walk or something, and now, yeah, you get a sandwich and go back to the last two.

00:33:48 ◼   ► It's going to go straight into it.

00:33:49 ◼   ► But yeah, so there's more information now about WWDC.

00:33:52 ◼   ► It is following the same format as we have followed for the last few years.

00:33:58 ◼   ► Everything's happened at Apple Park.

00:34:00 ◼   ► They also announced the ADA finalists.

00:34:04 ◼   ► You know, there's some interesting stuff in here, I'll say.

00:34:09 ◼   ► Like, I actually think as a list of finalists feels maybe a little bit more broad than it's been in recent years.

00:34:18 ◼   ► There are some apps that have been nominated in multiple categories, which, you know, fine, whatever.

00:34:24 ◼   ► But for me, at least, I do feel like this is a more interesting list of apps than there have been in the last few years.

00:34:34 ◼   ► I don't know what you think, Federico.

00:34:35 ◼   ► Probably you're closer to it.

00:34:37 ◼   ► I think it's a pretty good list.

00:34:38 ◼   ► It's nice to see, of course, some indie apps in the list like Smart Gym, Crouton, excellent app.

00:34:46 ◼   ► I like that there's a new spatial computing category because, of course, they want to promote the Vision OS app store.

00:34:55 ◼   ► And I just saw the one laugh that I had was, of course, there is Death Stranding Director's Cut in the games category.

00:35:04 ◼   ► And Liza P.

00:35:06 ◼   ► Apple is going to milk these AAA titles coming to macOS as much as they can.

00:35:11 ◼   ► It used to be until last year, Resident Evil nominated for like two years in a row or something.

00:35:17 ◼   ► And now it's the turn.

00:35:19 ◼   ► It's probably the last one for Death Stranding, I think.

00:35:22 ◼   ► Now it's going to be Liza P, I guess, is going to be nominated also at the end of the year.

00:35:27 ◼   ► But then, you know it, you can smell it coming from a mile away.

00:35:32 ◼   ► The Assassin's Creed Mirage is going to take the place of these games in the next nominations.

00:35:37 ◼   ► Or Assassin's Creed Shadows.

00:35:41 ◼   ► Yeah, Shadows also launching day one.

00:35:44 ◼   ► I bet they're going to love that.

00:35:46 ◼   ► Which is pretty cool actually.

00:35:48 ◼   ► But yeah.

00:35:49 ◼   ► As far as we know, that's going to be Mac only though, right?

00:35:52 ◼   ► Mac only, yeah.

00:35:54 ◼   ► Shadows is Mac only.

00:35:56 ◼   ► Mirage is iPhone and iPad, no Mac.

00:36:00 ◼   ► That's funny. That's very funny.

00:36:02 ◼   ► I was happy to see Spatial Computing be a category in the ADA's.

00:36:08 ◼   ► It doesn't feel like there's a lot going on in Vision of Westland, so I'm glad Apple's spotlighting some people who are doing stuff there.

00:36:14 ◼   ► Yeah, I was very happy to see Finity get a nomination.

00:36:20 ◼   ► It is a truly excellent, excellent, excellent iPhone game on Apple Arcade.

00:36:25 ◼   ► I have poured, honestly, probably over 100 hours into this game this year.

00:36:32 ◼   ► It has been my commuting game.

00:36:36 ◼   ► So I'm playing it a lot.

00:36:39 ◼   ► It's just a truly fantastic game, which I recommend people go and check out.

00:36:44 ◼   ► But yeah, I would say as well, it was great to see Crouton.

00:36:48 ◼   ► Obviously Procreate Dreams is in there a couple of times.

00:36:51 ◼   ► Arc Search in the interactions category, which I think, you know, I love it or I hate it.

00:36:56 ◼   ► That is what Arc is, right?

00:36:58 ◼   ► It is an app which has interesting interactions, right?

00:37:01 ◼   ► That's their whole thing.

00:37:03 ◼   ► Whether you like those interactions or not is another thing, but that's there.

00:37:07 ◼   ► And so yeah, I thought that was pretty cool.

00:37:10 ◼   ► I was very initially could not understand until I had to read it.

00:37:14 ◼   ► But my initial glance of the social impact category to see Cityscape's Sim Builder,

00:37:21 ◼   ► I was like, "Why?"

00:37:23 ◼   ► But they have an environmental aspect to the Sim building, which is kind of cool, actually.

00:37:29 ◼   ► I like that.

00:37:30 ◼   ► Maybe how do you design a city to be environmentally conscious?

00:37:33 ◼   ► And then Black Box, we spoke about that being in DJ, not surprising.

00:37:40 ◼   ► The NBA app, not surprising.

00:37:42 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that this year when I looked through it, I didn't have any like, "What?" kind of feelings.

00:37:49 ◼   ► A lot of this made a lot of sense to me.

00:37:51 ◼   ► Even if, again, like you guys say, some of them are like the obvious ones, like the games.

00:37:57 ◼   ► They tend to award the partnerships that they have, which makes sense.

00:38:02 ◼   ► I think in the past they had Apple Arcade specific categories, but they don't anymore, it seems like.

00:38:07 ◼   ► It's just games now.

00:38:08 ◼   ► Yeah, I think they have rotated some of the categories.

00:38:12 ◼   ► Didn't they used to do like Watch Apps or TVOS at some point?

00:38:16 ◼   ► Yes.

00:38:17 ◼   ► My hope is spatial computing doesn't go in that direction.

00:38:20 ◼   ► Yeah, that's everybody's hope.

00:38:23 ◼   ► Yeah, I know, I know.

00:38:24 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:38:26 ◼   ► We'll see.

00:38:27 ◼   ► But yeah, it's a pretty good list.

00:38:28 ◼   ► I want to go ahead and say probably one of the best ones that they've had.

00:38:34 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:38:35 ◼   ► No, I agree with you.

00:38:36 ◼   ► I agree with you.

00:38:37 ◼   ► I think it's mixed between the types of apps.

00:38:39 ◼   ► It's mixed up between Indie and not.

00:38:44 ◼   ► I think it's cool.

00:38:47 ◼   ► I think as a list it's cool.

00:38:49 ◼   ► And there are a couple of apps on here.

00:38:51 ◼   ► Honestly, every time I come away from the ADAs and I'm like, what is this app?

00:38:54 ◼   ► I think that's good.

00:38:56 ◼   ► I want to be able to see this list and see things that I don't know about and that I'm interested to learn more about.

00:39:01 ◼   ► And I had that from a few apps in this list this year.

00:39:05 ◼   ► Speaking of the upcoming WWDC, there's an interesting rumor that has been reported also by Mark Gurman.

00:39:14 ◼   ► I'm really looking forward to the next two editions of the Mark Gurman newsletter,

00:39:20 ◼   ► as I assume we're going to get more details about iOS 18.

00:39:23 ◼   ► One of these details is the more customizable home screen.

00:39:27 ◼   ► And so according to Mark, in addition to being able to freely place icons anywhere,

00:39:33 ◼   ► in theory users will be able to design custom layouts with these icons and widgets that do not necessarily snap to the grid

00:39:42 ◼   ► that has been with us since the beginning of the iPhone,

00:39:46 ◼   ► but maybe we will be able to create more dynamic layouts with things like blank spaces, empty spots,

00:39:53 ◼   ► like weird and fun arrangements for icons and widgets.

00:39:57 ◼   ► But in addition to that, it seems like Apple is working on a system to recolor app icons.

00:40:04 ◼   ► And I kind of wanted to hear from you guys what you think about this.

00:40:08 ◼   ► My perspective is that obviously Android has had something along these lines for the past couple of years.

00:40:15 ◼   ► Ever since they did the whole, what was it called? Material?

00:40:18 ◼   ► Material U.

00:40:19 ◼   ► Yeah. So on Android, you are able to sort of select like a system-wide color theme,

00:40:25 ◼   ► and that can be applied if you want to to icons that support the Material U theming system.

00:40:32 ◼   ► I'm going to make you feel old now. Material U was unveiled in 2021.

00:40:38 ◼   ► Oh boy. So three years ago.

00:40:41 ◼   ► Three years ago.

00:40:42 ◼   ► Three years ago. Okay.

00:40:43 ◼   ► Three years ago.

00:40:44 ◼   ► Three years ago.

00:40:45 ◼   ► But yeah, so this sounds like a similar system. What do you guys think?

00:40:49 ◼   ► I mean, yeah, it's all about the implementation for me.

00:40:53 ◼   ► Like, because I struggle to imagine like, say Facebook, right?

00:41:03 ◼   ► The blue is their brand.

00:41:04 ◼   ► So how do you convince Facebook to allow users to change the icon?

00:41:11 ◼   ► The thing that I am most interested in is how this works.

00:41:15 ◼   ► Because unless Apple force it, this will not be widely adopted.

00:41:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:41:20 ◼   ► I don't think they will force it. I think it'll just be an option.

00:41:24 ◼   ► And I do think they have the potential to do something similar, like from a developer perspective,

00:41:31 ◼   ► to sort of follow the approach that they have taken over the past few years with SF Symbols,

00:41:37 ◼   ► which are the icons that developers can use in their apps.

00:41:41 ◼   ► And SF Symbols, they launched a few years ago at this point,

00:41:45 ◼   ► with just the ability to use these monochrome icons in your apps.

00:41:49 ◼   ► But now, like especially over the past two or three years,

00:41:52 ◼   ► there's so many different options that you can enable.

00:41:55 ◼   ► If you are a developer and you want to use an SF Symbol,

00:41:57 ◼   ► you can choose like a multi-color symbol, you can apply a custom hierarchical palette,

00:42:03 ◼   ► like you can tweak the colors of the symbols in many different ways.

00:42:07 ◼   ► And I think from a technical perspective, Apple could build something similar,

00:42:12 ◼   ► where they could ask developers, if you want to support this technology,

00:42:16 ◼   ► now your app icon needs to be in this specific vector format,

00:42:21 ◼   ► and you should be mindful of the fact that users can maybe change two areas of the icon,

00:42:29 ◼   ► like maybe the glyph can be changed, maybe parts of the glyph can be changed,

00:42:33 ◼   ► sort of like you can have a multi-color SF Symbol that has, for example, shiny yellow sparkles,

00:42:40 ◼   ► and another element of the icon that is red that's a multi-color SF Symbol.

00:42:44 ◼   ► Or maybe you can just change the backdrop of the icon,

00:42:48 ◼   ► and the glyph is always white or black, and you just change the background color.

00:42:52 ◼   ► They could go about this multiple ways, but I think you're right,

00:42:55 ◼   ► like it's all in the implementation, and I don't think they're going to enforce it,

00:43:00 ◼   ► like as a rule, but at the same time,

00:43:03 ◼   ► I think there could be some really important accessibility benefits to this as well.

00:43:09 ◼   ► Like beyond visual customization, I think it may be helpful for a lot of people to be able to say,

00:43:15 ◼   ► "I just want these icons in this row to be yellow, and these other icons to be blue,

00:43:20 ◼   ► because it helps me identify particular groups of apps or whatever."

00:43:24 ◼   ► Yeah, Mike, my thoughts are really similar to yours,

00:43:27 ◼   ► that there are going to be some brands that don't want to do this,

00:43:30 ◼   ► because they do feel very strongly about their Pantone color,

00:43:35 ◼   ► but outside of those, I think it'd be awesome,

00:43:39 ◼   ► I think a lot of indie app developers, if this were optional,

00:43:43 ◼   ► would totally opt into this.

00:43:46 ◼   ► It is interesting that we would see icon customization come,

00:43:53 ◼   ► really many, many years after the multiple icon system was built out.

00:43:58 ◼   ► That was what, Federico, iOS 14?

00:44:03 ◼   ► 15?

00:44:06 ◼   ► Probably even before that.

00:44:07 ◼   ► Yeah, probably even before that.

00:44:08 ◼   ► Custom icons, I'm going to say either 12 or 13.

00:44:12 ◼   ► Okay, so that's been a long time, and even some big apps offer those.

00:44:18 ◼   ► It's within their control, right?

00:44:20 ◼   ► Like Twitter used to do, you'd have five or six at a time,

00:44:24 ◼   ► and then there'd be one that you really liked, and then they'd get rid of it.

00:44:27 ◼   ► But I do think this would be a great addition.

00:44:30 ◼   ► I think they could find a way that big brands could still have their, you know,

00:44:40 ◼   ► important brand element there, and still offer some level of customization.

00:44:45 ◼   ► I don't think this would be something that Apple would just do across the board.

00:44:51 ◼   ► I think it would be something that developers have to opt into,

00:44:55 ◼   ► which would mean you could have a really cool, awesome,

00:44:58 ◼   ► sleek-looking home screen, and then Facebook would still be blue.

00:45:02 ◼   ► But the shortcuts methodology, I'm sure, would still be present,

00:45:07 ◼   ► so you could still have those shortcuts that just launch an app with a different icon.

00:45:13 ◼   ► Those could still be there.

00:45:15 ◼   ► I would hope also that shortcuts, whatever gets added to the system level,

00:45:18 ◼   ► is also exposed in shortcuts, so you could do fun stuff.

00:45:23 ◼   ► But I'm all for it.

00:45:24 ◼   ► I think it would be really cool, and I think there's a lot of users

00:45:27 ◼   ► who want to continue to customize their home screens.

00:45:30 ◼   ► We see people do all sorts of wild things now,

00:45:33 ◼   ► give people more tools to make their devices their own.

00:45:36 ◼   ► Yeah. And by the way, thanks to Vince in the chat,

00:45:39 ◼   ► alternative app icons were actually from iOS 10.3.

00:45:43 ◼   ► Whoa!

00:45:44 ◼   ► So that's the pandemic effect.

00:45:46 ◼   ► Point three?

00:45:48 ◼   ► 10.3, I remember it was like a mid-cycle update that added this API,

00:45:52 ◼   ► and we all lost our minds that Apple was doing this in the spring.

00:45:57 ◼   ► But this is the pandemic effect.

00:45:59 ◼   ► Every single version of iOS from the past that we think of,

00:46:02 ◼   ► it's offset by two or three years in our minds.

00:46:05 ◼   ► So I said 12 or 13, it's actually 10, which tracks. Makes sense.

00:46:11 ◼   ► That's a long time ago.

00:46:13 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:46:15 ◼   ► You mentioned SF Symbols.

00:46:17 ◼   ► I would just like to reiterate my plea for Apple and developers

00:46:22 ◼   ► to give us access to SF Symbols everywhere.

00:46:25 ◼   ► Like if I'm setting up a reminders list,

00:46:28 ◼   ► why am I stuck using the 26 that some of the reminders thought was cool 10 years ago?

00:46:33 ◼   ► Same thing in shortcuts.

00:46:35 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:46:36 ◼   ► There are some apps, Overcast is one of them that does expose SF Symbols.

00:46:43 ◼   ► You can really customize stuff.

00:46:45 ◼   ► And yeah, it's a lot to choose from, but it's so much fun.

00:46:49 ◼   ► And I would love to have these things the same across all these apps.

00:46:53 ◼   ► Like please, every time this comes up, I beg, please give us SF Symbols in more places.

00:46:58 ◼   ► Apple's done great work on those, I think, and why not let users have at them?

00:47:05 ◼   ► Nobody ever complained that they had too many icons to choose from.

00:47:10 ◼   ► So I don't understand why reminders has to be limited to like, it's not 26,

00:47:16 ◼   ► I think it's actually 42 or something, but it's still a very small number compared to the,

00:47:21 ◼   ► how many, 1,500 SF Symbols that you have now?

00:47:26 ◼   ► So yeah, please.

00:47:28 ◼   ► Do you both prefer SF Symbols to emoji?

00:47:31 ◼   ► Like I would just want emoji.

00:47:33 ◼   ► Give us both.

00:47:35 ◼   ► Soon you will be able to make your own emoji.

00:47:38 ◼   ► Thanks to AI.

00:47:40 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:47:41 ◼   ► Oh boy.

00:47:42 ◼   ► So I prefer SF Symbols for things like reminders lists and shortcuts and stuff.

00:47:51 ◼   ► I think emoji are fun. Don't hear what I'm not saying.

00:47:55 ◼   ► But I think when I'm like building user interface for myself,

00:47:59 ◼   ► SF Symbols feels like a better choice, for me at least.

00:48:03 ◼   ► I'm a big emoji boy, obviously.

00:48:07 ◼   ► I know.

00:48:08 ◼   ► Obviously.

00:48:09 ◼   ► And it's actually over 5,000 SF Symbols.

00:48:12 ◼   ► Geez.

00:48:13 ◼   ► Wow, it keeps growing.

00:48:14 ◼   ► It went from 26 to 42 to 1200 to 5,000.

00:48:17 ◼   ► By the end of this episode, there will be 17 million SF Symbols.

00:48:21 ◼   ► I hope you enjoy putting that together, you know, when you get it in your apps.

00:48:25 ◼   ► That's a lot of SF Symbols.

00:48:26 ◼   ► Yo, dog, I heard you like symbols.

00:48:28 ◼   ► Put some symbols in your symbols times 2,000.

00:48:31 ◼   ► This episode of Connected is brought to you by Cell Trios,

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00:50:01 ◼   ► So go to kevingrant.name/apps to learn more, or click the link in the show notes.

00:50:08 ◼   ► That way they know you heard about it from this show.

00:50:11 ◼   ► That's kevingrant.name/apps, or click the link in the show notes.

00:50:16 ◼   ► Our thanks to Cell Trios for the support of the show and Relay FM.

00:50:23 ◼   ► So I followed Federico's enthusiasm and picked up a pair of the Meta Ray-Bans.

00:50:31 ◼   ► I ordered them hoping they would arrive before my vacation that I just took, but they didn't.

00:50:37 ◼   ► This was because I got prescription lenses and transition lenses, and that seemed to take a long time.

00:50:44 ◼   ► There was a thing where I sent my prescription to Ray-Ban and they said,

00:50:48 ◼   ► "Your prescription is out of date, you need it within the last two years."

00:50:53 ◼   ► And then I was able to tell them to just look at the date because I got it done 18 months ago.

00:50:57 ◼   ► So, you know, these things, they take time.

00:51:00 ◼   ► I really like the transition lenses. I've never used them before, like I've never had transition lenses.

00:51:07 ◼   ► And part of the reason that I went with these Ray-Bans in the first place is

00:51:11 ◼   ► I needed a new pair of prescription sunglasses and I wanted to get transition sunglasses.

00:51:16 ◼   ► And so I was like, "Why not combine everything together and do it all at once?"

00:51:21 ◼   ► And I wanted to get transition because I have a vision prescription

00:51:25 ◼   ► and I often do not use my sunglasses or take my sunglasses out with me when it's sunny

00:51:33 ◼   ► because I don't want to carry a glasses case, right?

00:51:36 ◼   ► It's because I don't want to be swapping from my vision glasses to my sunglasses if I go inside somewhere

00:51:42 ◼   ► because I don't want to wear my sunglasses while eating a meal or whatever.

00:51:47 ◼   ► So I wanted to try out the transitions. And I really actually like the way that it works.

00:51:52 ◼   ► Now, while the Ray-Bans with clear glasses, like clear frames, is not my personal glasses aesthetic,

00:52:01 ◼   ► it at least is getting the job done. You know what I mean?

00:52:04 ◼   ► I think that the Ray-Ban style looks significantly better as sunglasses than eyeglasses for me

00:52:12 ◼   ► because when they're eyeglasses, they just look like very chunky frames.

00:52:16 ◼   ► But it at least means it's going to do what I need from a functional level.

00:52:22 ◼   ► So I'm pretty happy with that.

00:52:24 ◼   ► So as sunglasses and the transition lenses, I like.

00:52:28 ◼   ► I also got the ones with the green tint to them, which I think just looks nice.

00:52:32 ◼   ► I'm happy with how it works.

00:52:34 ◼   ► There was a bunch of things I didn't know about transition lenses, and we were talking about this in the group chat.

00:52:38 ◼   ► Obviously, they're not actually reactive to light, they're reactive to UV, which I think is cool.

00:52:44 ◼   ► I didn't know this. Obviously, that means that there are certain decisions you might want to make.

00:52:48 ◼   ► Like, they're bad for driving because you don't get the benefits of sunglasses when you're driving

00:52:54 ◼   ► because the car windows will block a lot of the UV.

00:52:58 ◼   ► But it's an interesting way of doing it, which I kind of like.

00:53:04 ◼   ► Obviously, the camera unlocks a lot of features, but these headphones also have speakers in them.

00:53:13 ◼   ► They're pointed at your ears.

00:53:15 ◼   ► And I was surprised how nice it was to use them as headphones.

00:53:19 ◼   ► I was out walking in the street, there was no one in the street.

00:53:22 ◼   ► I was listening to a podcast on my AirPods, and I was like,

00:53:25 ◼   ► "What would it be like to listen on the Raybounds instead?"

00:53:28 ◼   ► And so I tried it, and it was great. It was really nice.

00:53:31 ◼   ► "Steven, this is like you and your one AirPod."

00:53:34 ◼   ► You know, I could hear the road.

00:53:36 ◼   ► This is better than the one AirPod. This is what I was going to say earlier.

00:53:39 ◼   ► I get sound in both ears and all of the road noise.

00:53:43 ◼   ► Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

00:53:46 ◼   ► And I would just say, I didn't mention too, I've said this before,

00:53:49 ◼   ► but this is the best-looking wearable technology that exists on the market today.

00:53:54 ◼   ► I agree.

00:53:55 ◼   ► Because it's a pair of Raybounds.

00:53:57 ◼   ► You wouldn't even know. They have slightly thicker arms on them, but that's it.

00:54:02 ◼   ► And plus the case is sick. It's such a good-looking case.

00:54:07 ◼   ► It's just like this beautiful vegan leather, I'm assuming, thing.

00:54:12 ◼   ► It just looks like a sunglasses case.

00:54:14 ◼   ► This is the key here, and I'm actually really happy that Meta partnered with Rayban,

00:54:19 ◼   ► rather than just released their own.

00:54:21 ◼   ► Where it's like, let's put our technology into an understood visual design.

00:54:28 ◼   ► That it's not Google Glass, it's not Apple Vision Pro, it's not whatever.

00:54:34 ◼   ► People know what Raybounds look like, and then had the visual kind of constraints

00:54:42 ◼   ► of this technology into a pair of Raybans, and I think they did a fantastic job.

00:54:48 ◼   ► It's very good.

00:54:49 ◼   ► It's kind of the thing with electric cars, right?

00:54:52 ◼   ► A lot of people want an EV that just looks like a Honda Accord,

00:54:57 ◼   ► and not some spaceship thing, and I think Meta has tapped into that with wearables.

00:55:02 ◼   ► Yes. And I'm sure that if they design from the ground up,

00:55:09 ◼   ► it could be better in different ways, right?

00:55:11 ◼   ► Like maybe the camera would be better, the battery life would be longer, or whatever.

00:55:16 ◼   ► I don't know, right? They obviously had constraints,

00:55:19 ◼   ► but I think that they have turned out a product that is good.

00:55:22 ◼   ► The camera is great for what it is.

00:55:26 ◼   ► You're not going to get your best photo with this camera,

00:55:31 ◼   ► and I actually think that Meta have done a pretty good job.

00:55:35 ◼   ► They have cranked the saturation on this camera.

00:55:39 ◼   ► If you follow me on Instagram, you know I love some saturation to my images.

00:55:44 ◼   ► This is even further than I would go.

00:55:46 ◼   ► They have every color is the maximum version that it could be,

00:55:51 ◼   ► but what that does is it makes the images look appealing.

00:55:55 ◼   ► And this is a thing that I think we've all learned from MKBHD's camera tests over the years,

00:56:00 ◼   ► that whatever has the most color tends to be what wins with people.

00:56:05 ◼   ► And I think that that is a clever way of doing it.

00:56:09 ◼   ► They also do some AI enhancements to images.

00:56:12 ◼   ► They tell you when they do this and you can reverse it.

00:56:14 ◼   ► So far from me, it's been in straightening images.

00:56:17 ◼   ► I think that that's pretty good.

00:56:21 ◼   ► You get photos from this that you otherwise would not get.

00:56:29 ◼   ► That's what the benefit of this camera is.

00:56:31 ◼   ► If it is an important thing, I'm going to pull out my iPhone and get the right photo.

00:56:35 ◼   ► But I was out walking the other day, and I walked past a garden,

00:56:39 ◼   ► and I liked one of the flowers in the garden.

00:56:41 ◼   ► This is not worth me taking my phone out of my pocket to take a picture of

00:56:44 ◼   ► because I wanted to show it to you and be like, "What is this? Should we get this?"

00:56:47 ◼   ► But I just reached up, clicked it, and that was it.

00:56:49 ◼   ► I was already looking at it, and I just snapped the photo.

00:56:52 ◼   ► And I know I would have not done that otherwise.

00:56:56 ◼   ► And I could have at that moment, if I wanted to, and I did try this out as a test,

00:57:00 ◼   ► I could have asked Meta as AI to tell me what the flower was,

00:57:04 ◼   ► because you can do that.

00:57:06 ◼   ► And Meta's AI stuff is fine right now.

00:57:09 ◼   ► I haven't had chances to use it on real things.

00:57:12 ◼   ► It's just been testing for me.

00:57:14 ◼   ► But I do think that this putting something on your body

00:57:18 ◼   ► and it being able to answer questions,

00:57:20 ◼   ► this kind of ubiquitous access to some kind of AI system

00:57:24 ◼   ► I think is going to be important for people all the time.

00:57:27 ◼   ► And the earlier we can put this into things,

00:57:29 ◼   ► the sooner people will understand how they might use it.

00:57:31 ◼   ► But yeah, I've been very happy with the overall package of this product.

00:57:35 ◼   ► And what I also like is, yeah, it has a battery.

00:57:37 ◼   ► I was thinking about this. I don't know how long the battery lasts yet.

00:57:40 ◼   ► Maybe you have more of a sense of this than me Federico.

00:57:42 ◼   ► I have no idea how long.

00:57:44 ◼   ► But if the battery dies, they still function as sunglasses, right?

00:57:48 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:57:49 ◼   ► That's not the worst.

00:57:51 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm happy with it.

00:57:54 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:57:55 ◼   ► So I have also some follow-up on my Meta Ray-Bands.

00:58:00 ◼   ► So at the moment I don't have them,

00:58:03 ◼   ► because I did what I told you I was going to do.

00:58:07 ◼   ► I had to send them to a company based in the UK

00:58:11 ◼   ► to apply my prescription lenses.

00:58:13 ◼   ► I tried going, and I actually got an email yesterday

00:58:17 ◼   ► from a listener of the show about this.

00:58:19 ◼   ► This person had the same problem at a Ray-Band store in Milan,

00:58:24 ◼   ► but they insisted and they were able to swap the lenses.

00:58:28 ◼   ► When I asked at a Ray-Band store here in Rome,

00:58:32 ◼   ► they declined my request.

00:58:34 ◼   ► They said, "Oh, we cannot apply lenses,

00:58:37 ◼   ► because otherwise we're going to avoid the warranty of the glasses."

00:58:40 ◼   ► Which is questionable since these are like,

00:58:44 ◼   ► you just need to snap them out and snap the new ones back in.

00:58:47 ◼   ► In fact, the company that I've been talking to based in the UK,

00:58:52 ◼   ► they offered, "Hey, do you just want us to send you the lenses

00:58:55 ◼   ► and we can send you a YouTube link to show you how you can do it?"

00:58:59 ◼   ► And I was like, "No, it's fine. I'll just send them to you. You do it."

00:59:02 ◼   ► I tend to be clumsy with these glass things,

00:59:06 ◼   ► and I don't want to break them.

00:59:08 ◼   ► So I just feel safer knowing that you're going to do it, and it's fine.

00:59:13 ◼   ► I went with prescription transition lenses.

00:59:20 ◼   ► Oh, you did?

00:59:21 ◼   ► I did. So I was talking about this with Silvia,

00:59:24 ◼   ► and we realized that the benefits of just not having to swap glasses

00:59:29 ◼   ► are more important than the slight downside of the lenses

00:59:34 ◼   ► not turning dark when I'm driving.

00:59:37 ◼   ► It's much more comfortable, I think, for me to just put on a pair of glasses

00:59:41 ◼   ► and forget about them, because they're just going to transition

00:59:44 ◼   ► to being dark outside,

00:59:47 ◼   ► than making sure that when I'm driving, the lenses also go dark.

00:59:51 ◼   ► Like, whatever. It's fine.

00:59:53 ◼   ► This decision was enforced when we spent the day together in Battersea,

00:59:58 ◼   ► because I kept watching you take your glasses off and put new glasses on.

01:00:02 ◼   ► And it was so uncomfortable, right?

01:00:04 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

01:00:06 ◼   ► So I put in a request for...

01:00:08 ◼   ► I think actually the company that I'm using, Lensology,

01:00:12 ◼   ► which are actually the same folks who provided me for lenses

01:00:15 ◼   ► for the X-real glasses a while back,

01:00:18 ◼   ► I think they're actually using the latest generation transition lenses,

01:00:22 ◼   ► and I don't think META and Ray-Ban are using the latest Gen 8 transition lenses,

01:00:28 ◼   ► but I may be mistaken.

01:00:29 ◼   ► Anyway, I'm getting those, and I hope I'll be able to get them back soon,

01:00:34 ◼   ► because I really miss them. That's the thing.

01:00:36 ◼   ► Like, I'm realizing now that whenever I'm walking my dogs,

01:00:39 ◼   ► like, it took me just ten days to get used to this idea of, like,

01:00:42 ◼   ► when I'm walking the dogs and I take these, like, 30 to 40 minute walks,

01:00:47 ◼   ► it's so convenient to being able to take pictures of the dogs,

01:00:52 ◼   ► or, like, nice flowers that I encounter,

01:00:55 ◼   ► nice plants that I encounter that I want to show Silvia later.

01:00:59 ◼   ► It's just easier to do it.

01:01:00 ◼   ► Like, both hands are occupied holding the leashes for the dogs,

01:01:04 ◼   ► and I can just... it's easier to reach out, you know, with one hand

01:01:07 ◼   ► and quickly snap a picture than it is obviously to grab my phone

01:01:12 ◼   ► and, you know, and my hand is shaking because maybe Ginger is pulling my arm,

01:01:16 ◼   ► and I gotta take a picture, and then the picture comes out blurry.

01:01:18 ◼   ► You know, it's a whole thing, especially when you're walking two dogs.

01:01:21 ◼   ► So I really miss them.

01:01:23 ◼   ► I got super used to listening to podcasts, especially,

01:01:27 ◼   ► using the built-in speakers of the glasses.

01:01:30 ◼   ► I found that, like, I discovered that if I keep the volume, like,

01:01:36 ◼   ► 50% or something, and even if people walk by, nobody cares.

01:01:40 ◼   ► Like, nobody absolutely cares.

01:01:42 ◼   ► Also because people, when they're walking around you,

01:01:45 ◼   ► they're also wearing AirPods, and they're listening to their stuff.

01:01:48 ◼   ► So nobody's paying attention to you.

01:01:50 ◼   ► That was a nice realization.

01:01:52 ◼   ► It's pretty quiet, though.

01:01:53 ◼   ► Like, it's not very loud.

01:01:56 ◼   ► And it's also not very loud, so...

01:01:58 ◼   ► And in the case that anybody figures out,

01:02:00 ◼   ► "Hey, why are your glasses making sounds?"

01:02:04 ◼   ► If they're going to ask me, I'm more than happy to explain what the product is.

01:02:08 ◼   ► So the camera was convenient, the speakers were super convenient.

01:02:14 ◼   ► I do wish that the voice control supported playback commands.

01:02:20 ◼   ► Like, for example, I tried skipping, like, I tried saying,

01:02:24 ◼   ► "Mata, skip ahead 30 seconds."

01:02:27 ◼   ► And it said, "I cannot perform that.

01:02:29 ◼   ► You need to use your phone to do that while listening to Bluetooth audio."

01:02:32 ◼   ► So that was an interesting imitation, I bet.

01:02:35 ◼   ► I don't even know why that's the case, because, like, when I'm in my car,

01:02:39 ◼   ► my car's Bluetooth unit can skip ahead.

01:02:43 ◼   ► So I don't know what's going on there.

01:02:44 ◼   ► Well, have you asked it to just skip?

01:02:46 ◼   ► I did not ask, "Just skip."

01:02:49 ◼   ► I think when you're listening to a podcast, like,

01:02:52 ◼   ► the control of, like, "Next Track" just skips ahead by 30 seconds.

01:02:56 ◼   ► Maybe I should have just said "skip."

01:02:58 ◼   ► I'll try again.

01:02:59 ◼   ► I'll try again when I get them.

01:03:00 ◼   ► You should try that.

01:03:01 ◼   ► I did something extremely cool, which is one of the many integrations

01:03:05 ◼   ► that the Raybans have, which is the WhatsApp integration.

01:03:09 ◼   ► So one day I was walking the dogs, and my mom called me on the phone,

01:03:13 ◼   ► like, a regular phone call.

01:03:14 ◼   ► And then I realized, I was like, "Mom, can we try something for a second?

01:03:17 ◼   ► Like, can you call me on WhatsApp video, because I want to show you something?"

01:03:21 ◼   ► And she was like, "Okay."

01:03:23 ◼   ► So she called me on WhatsApp video.

01:03:25 ◼   ► I was holding my phone, and so I was just using the front-facing camera of the phone.

01:03:29 ◼   ► But then when the glasses are connected, you get a new icon in WhatsApp video's UI with the glasses.

01:03:35 ◼   ► And so I was like, "Mom, I'm going to show you what I'm looking at, because I'm wearing these glasses."

01:03:41 ◼   ► She knew that I had these glasses, but she had no idea that they also had, like, a camera for video calls.

01:03:46 ◼   ► And then I put my phone in my pocket, and I kept walking.

01:03:51 ◼   ► And we started talking for, like, 10 minutes as I was walking the dogs.

01:03:54 ◼   ► And she—obviously, I couldn't see her, because my phone was in my pocket.

01:03:59 ◼   ► But she was seeing my perspective on a video call as I was walking the dogs, and it quickly became, like, initially,

01:04:06 ◼   ► she was like, "Oh, this is cool." Like, it became, like, a natural thing within seconds.

01:04:11 ◼   ► Like, she got useless, like, "Hey, what are you doing? Where are you going?"

01:04:14 ◼   ► She started commenting on, like, other dogs that were walking by.

01:04:18 ◼   ► It's like—and that was very nice, like, that she was able to see my perspective as I was using the glasses.

01:04:26 ◼   ► And lastly, you guys will be absolutely shocked to learn that on Reddit, I found a person who was 3D printing charging accessories for the Ray-Bans.

01:04:40 ◼   ► And so I got myself a really nice USB-C-powered charging stand that I can put on my nightstand

01:04:48 ◼   ► so that when I go to sleep, I can put my glasses to recharge on my nightstand without having to keep my case on the nightstand

01:04:56 ◼   ► by just a teeny-tiny charger powered by USB-C. So that's pretty cool. And yeah, I really miss them. I want them back.

01:05:06 ◼   ► Does this tempt you at all, Steven? Are you tempted by any of this conversation?

01:05:10 ◼   ► Not particularly.

01:05:13 ◼   ► Okay. You don't have to be. I wondered if it would. I didn't think it would, so I wondered if it would.

01:05:18 ◼   ► No, I don't think it does.

01:05:20 ◼   ► Yeah. I do think personally, like, I want to second Mike's sentiment here, that this—for me right now, this is like the most exciting wearable accessory that I have.

01:05:32 ◼   ► Like, because it's like a normal—like, it's a regular pair of glasses, and they're good-looking because they're Ray-Bans.

01:05:38 ◼   ► And but at the same time, they're like a tech product also, and an actually useful one at that.

01:05:44 ◼   ► So it's—yeah, it's—I don't know. I kind of want to say something personally.

01:05:49 ◼   ► I find them, like, they give me more joy than my Apple Watch when I'm walking and doing things.

01:05:58 ◼   ► Interesting.

01:05:59 ◼   ► I don't know. Yeah, yeah. I mean, obviously, I'm still wearing my Apple Watch.

01:06:02 ◼   ► And in fact, I do think the combination of, like, Apple Watch plus the glasses is a pretty great one because you can control the playback from the watch and listen through the glasses.

01:06:11 ◼   ► So Apple Watch and Ray-Ban combo is a very good one. But like, maybe it's the novelty effect. I don't know.

01:06:18 ◼   ► But these glasses, like, they make me super happy that I have them, and that's why I miss them so much.

01:06:24 ◼   ► So you've just got to wait another 15 years for Apple's AR glasses, and then you'll have the perfect combo.

01:06:31 ◼   ► You know, I would pay so much for an Apple version of this. Just partner with, I don't know, Ray-Ban, I guess, is out of the—

01:06:37 ◼   ► iPods.

01:06:39 ◼   ► iPods. That's a good name. That's a good name.

01:06:43 ◼   ► Remember when someone said they were going to have Steve Jobs special edition?

01:06:49 ◼   ► Heritage edition, you mean?

01:06:51 ◼   ► Yeah, here it is. Jon Prosser claims Apple is working on a Steve Jobs heritage edition AR glasses.

01:06:58 ◼   ► Gerwin calls rumor "complete fiction." Those were the days, man.

01:07:03 ◼   ► Those were the days. Leakers, as they called them.

01:07:06 ◼   ► Leakers.

01:07:08 ◼   ► Talking of things that we put on our face and our feelings with them, I wanted to kind of get a vibe check.

01:07:15 ◼   ► You know what I'm saying. You know what I'm saying. I want to get a vibe check from the two of you about your Vision Pro.

01:07:21 ◼   ► I will just start off by saying as a piece of news, Job Simulator and Vacation Simulator have now launched on the Vision Pro.

01:07:29 ◼   ► I tried out Job Simulator today, and what I'll say is I think that these games are the absolute gold standard for what a VR game can be.

01:07:43 ◼   ► They were very early on, and lots of people played them, and I think it informed a lot of future games.

01:07:49 ◼   ► They're really good fun, and they allow for you to understand interaction in a very quick way.

01:07:56 ◼   ► I'm happy that they've finally made its way to Vision Pro. I was hoping that they would.

01:08:00 ◼   ► I would say at this point, I have played these games too many times to be exciting to me, but the Vision Pro version works great.

01:08:06 ◼   ► And it's actually interesting because on other platforms you're using controllers to grab things, but with Vision Pro you use your hands.

01:08:15 ◼   ► It's like a positive and a negative because you're grabbing, but you're not actually touching anything when you grab.

01:08:22 ◼   ► So it's like half good, half bad. I think Job Simulator is a better game than Vacation Simulator.

01:08:31 ◼   ► Vacation Simulator is much more advanced in a lot of ways, but I think in some points to the detriment of the game, Job Simulator is just very fun.

01:08:39 ◼   ► I really recommend these to anybody who hasn't played them before, and also if you have a Vision Pro and you don't know what to demo for people, you should just put them in Job Simulator in time to have a good time.

01:08:51 ◼   ► I think all three of us have had that experience of like, "Put this on and try Job Simulator," and your mind is blown by how fun it is.

01:09:00 ◼   ► We played with it at Facebook a hundred years ago.

01:09:03 ◼   ► I've tried to remember this, I know we've had multiple experiences together. I think, Steven, we played it at a thing in Tennessee.

01:09:12 ◼   ► Oh, that's right. We went to Jackson.

01:09:14 ◼   ► It was not a Facebook.

01:09:15 ◼   ► Yeah. I don't think it was available at that point.

01:09:19 ◼   ► Yeah, you're right.

01:09:20 ◼   ► My Vision Pro check-in is a pretty quick and easy one. I haven't used it in like three weeks.

01:09:27 ◼   ► It's been sitting on a stand there, but to be fair, but to be fair though, lately, obviously, I've been very excited about the new iPad and the new monitor that I have at my desk.

01:09:43 ◼   ► So maybe it's because I've been distracted by any product and by my desk rethinking.

01:09:50 ◼   ► But yeah, the fact that I, like, again, not to go back to the previous topic, right now, I miss my meta Ray-Bans so much, and I don't miss the Vision Pro at the moment.

01:10:08 ◼   ► As the guy who cut a computer in half to better interact with the Vision Pro, this is a surprise to me.

01:10:15 ◼   ► I thought that I knew exactly how this conversation was going to go, and it's for both of you, and it's not going that way.

01:10:21 ◼   ► I'm excited for Steven to tell me he's been wearing it nonstop for six weeks. We'll find out where that goes in a minute.

01:10:27 ◼   ► But this is a big surprise to me, Federico. I did not see this coming.

01:10:32 ◼   ► I think part of the problem is also obviously the frustrations that we've mentioned before involved with, like, actually working with the Vision Pro, especially if you are a writer.

01:10:44 ◼   ► Like, there's not a lot of great text editors, and it's great that you can open as many windows as you want, but it's not so great that you have no ways, no way to manage those windows, right?

01:10:56 ◼   ► So it's a lot of power with very little instruments to hold and manage that power.

01:11:04 ◼   ► And yeah, so those frustrations plus the fact that, I don't know, I was distracted by the iPad and by this new monitor that I have, and the fact that there's still a lot of friction with, like,

01:11:22 ◼   ► okay, you know, put it on and, you know, navigating the home screens is so clunky, finding windows, like, it's still a very young OS. So I am absolutely keeping an open mind.

01:11:35 ◼   ► And I think I'm actually going to install Vision OS 2.0 right away, you know, provided that it doesn't break my Vision Pro.

01:11:44 ◼   ► Because I do think it's largely, like, a software problem, which is funny, you know, because it sort of mirrors and matches one to one the situation with the iPad Pro.

01:11:57 ◼   ► But the iPad Pro, at the very least, is a more mature platform than Vision OS.

01:12:02 ◼   ► But it's kind of ironic that it's excellent hardware, and I'm here talking about, like, the friction found in the software. Yeah.

01:12:11 ◼   ► Hmm. What about you, Mike?

01:12:15 ◼   ► Oh, I already spoke about it on upgrade, because I don't want to rehash it. I'm more interested in what you have to say. This is kind of a follow-out segment.

01:12:23 ◼   ► Oh, follow-out. Yeah, I haven't used it in a long time.

01:12:28 ◼   ► There you go.

01:12:30 ◼   ► What is going on here?

01:12:32 ◼   ► Well, it's also the headset syndrome, right? Like, this happens with so many, and it happened in my life for so many different headsets, like the MetaQuest, the PSVR, and now the Apple Vision Pro, like the X-Real Glasses.

01:12:46 ◼   ► Unless the platform is supported by a very steady flow of new apps and new things, and especially because these are new platforms and they have a lot to catch up with with other computing devices, you need to have constant updates.

01:13:08 ◼   ► And, I mean, let's face it, Apple has been far from constant with VisionOS things lately, you know? I mean, we still have those environments coming soon.

01:13:21 ◼   ► They're coming soon, man. Any day now, you know?

01:13:24 ◼   ► I do think, and I don't know if you guys have kept an eye on the VisionOS App Store, but like, after the initial wave of new apps, especially from indie developers, and especially because those indie developers are not making enough money on the VisionOS App Store, because the Vision Pro is still a US-only product, like, it's many problems sort of conflating into one thing, which is, "Hey, this headset has been on my shelf for three weeks."

01:13:50 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:13:51 ◼   ► Can I give you both some recommendations and some things to do?

01:13:55 ◼   ► What I'll say is, I think I should probably, I should answer your question, Steven, to give some contrast.

01:14:02 ◼   ► I use my Vision Pro like one to two hours a week at least.

01:14:09 ◼   ► I use it maybe every other day for at least an amount of time.

01:14:14 ◼   ► And so, well, one, if you've never tried, or you should try Job Simulator, that's a game to try.

01:14:21 ◼   ► What if, as a Marvel experience, like an interactive kind of movie thing is coming out on the 30th?

01:14:30 ◼   ► I've played it. It's fantastic. You should try that.

01:14:33 ◼   ► Like even at Federica, I'd even recommend you try it, even though you won't, you don't care about it. It will be free at first.

01:14:38 ◼   ► Just as like a, "Oh, look how interesting the interaction model is for it." Like you're casting spells with your hands.

01:14:46 ◼   ► It's pretty cool. I've seen as well, there is a game which the name of it escapes me now, but it's like a $40 game.

01:14:56 ◼   ► It's like a card game. It's on Vision Pro. It's been on Quest and stuff.

01:15:01 ◼   ► That's come out, which I have not tried yet, but I'm intrigued to try it.

01:15:06 ◼   ► And also, they finally add some new content. So you can watch the parkour thing, which is wild.

01:15:15 ◼   ► They also updated the trailer thing, which I really recommend.

01:15:19 ◼   ► So like the kind of the sizzle reel trailer that we've all seen, it's all new.

01:15:23 ◼   ► And it's got a ton of new stuff in it, which is really interesting. Of content that we have not seen.

01:15:28 ◼   ► So like the Super Bowl and the NBA All-Star game, like there's new stuff in it.

01:15:34 ◼   ► So I recommend that too. But I would say there is stuff. It's not a ton of stuff.

01:15:39 ◼   ► It's nowhere near as much as we'd hope. There's nowhere near as much as we should.

01:15:42 ◼   ► But there is stuff. I would actually say the last couple of weeks, there has been more things than maybe in the last six weeks.

01:15:51 ◼   ► But that's only one side of the coin, right? The entertainment stuff is obviously really important to this device.

01:15:57 ◼   ► My bigger frustration, because I don't spend a lot of time and entertainment on any device, is that it's just not a very useful computer to me.

01:16:06 ◼   ► Yeah, I was about to say the same thing. Like my entertainment these days is video games and I have a PC or console for that.

01:16:13 ◼   ► Like the Vision Pro, I just want to use it as a computer. Like in the afternoon, I don't want to sit down and watch Marvel stuff.

01:16:19 ◼   ► I need to get work done. And yeah, yeah, I agree with Steven. That's a good point.

01:16:23 ◼   ► It's kind of funny to me. Maybe I use it more for work because of how I use my iPad. I use my iPad like a simpleton, I think.

01:16:32 ◼   ► Even when I'm using my iPad for work, it's like one app at a time. Close the app, go to the next app.

01:16:41 ◼   ► And I'm happy with that. So I think I'm maybe a little bit more focused around using my Vision Pro for work because it's like a big fancy iPad to me. I don't know.

01:16:55 ◼   ► It's a fancy iPad that goes on your face. I mean, that was in my original review. In terms of computing, it is an iPad with a more unusual and kind of finicky user interface.

01:17:08 ◼   ► Now, to echo what Federico said, it is very young and I anticipate some nice changes and additions to it at WWDC.

01:17:20 ◼   ► But these things have to move in tandem, right? The entertainment and the productivity have to, I think, both move forward and hopefully they're getting all that lined up.

01:17:31 ◼   ► As we always say for the iPad, there's always WWDC. It's true.

01:17:39 ◼   ► I think that about does it for this week on Connected. If you want to read some of the stories we spoke about, check out the links in your podcast player.

01:17:48 ◼   ► They're also out on the web at relay.fm/connected/504. There's also a link to submit feedback or follow up.

01:17:56 ◼   ► So send us a note via the form. If that needs to be anonymous, just hit the anonymous box. Let us know cool secrets, I guess.

01:18:03 ◼   ► Somebody did write in an anonymous to say that they were involved in the testing of the tandem OLED and there was concern that there was a slight green tint for a certain period of time.

01:18:14 ◼   ► Oh, no.

01:18:15 ◼   ► Oh, wow.

01:18:16 ◼   ► Why did you have to say that, Mike?

01:18:18 ◼   ► Tandem green gate.

01:18:20 ◼   ► Yeah. Well, I left it for the end of the show for this particular reason.

01:18:24 ◼   ► Thank you for that.

01:18:25 ◼   ► Thank you for that.

01:18:26 ◼   ► If you want to become a member, you'll get ad-free longer versions of the show each and every week.

01:18:34 ◼   ► This week we spoke about two new old computers in my life and someone, I won't say who, has recorded this episode using an iPad.

01:18:46 ◼   ► It's not what you think.

01:18:48 ◼   ► No, it is.

01:18:49 ◼   ► It is exactly what you think.

01:18:50 ◼   ► It is what you think.

01:18:53 ◼   ► I said that in real life the other day and, of course, no one knew the reference.

01:18:58 ◼   ► No, I love it. I love it's becoming a little mean between us.

01:19:01 ◼   ► It is. It's really good.

01:19:03 ◼   ► I've seen it on Mastodon too from other people. It's becoming a thing.

01:19:06 ◼   ► Becoming a thing.

01:19:08 ◼   ► So, anyways, members, ad-free longer versions of the show each and every week.

01:19:13 ◼   ► You also get access to Relay's member Discord, a newsletter, some members only podcasts.

01:19:17 ◼   ► Lots of great stuff. It's just seven bucks a month.

01:19:20 ◼   ► Go sign up. It's a great time.

01:19:22 ◼   ► You can find us all online on Threads and Mastodon.

01:19:27 ◼   ► Mike can be found as imike.

01:19:30 ◼   ► Federico is vitici.

01:19:33 ◼   ► And you can find me as ismh86.

01:19:36 ◼   ► Mike, of course, is also the co-founder of Cortex brand.

01:19:41 ◼   ► Federico is the editor-in-chief of MacStories.net and I write over at 512pixels.net.

01:19:47 ◼   ► I'd like to thank our sponsors this week, Zocdoc, Tailscale, and Celltrios.

01:19:53 ◼   ► Until next time, guys. Say goodbye.

01:19:55 ◼   ► Adios,